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The Parish as an Institutional Type*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Jean-C. Falardeau
Jean-C. Falardeau*
Affiliation:
Université Laval
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Extract

There is already a good amount of scientific literature on the parish in French Canada. But this literature is almost exclusively concerned with the parish as it existed historically in the rural society of Quebec. Since the parochial structure was the main organizational frame of rural life and since the parish was identified with the local rural community, these studies have inevitably tended to be “community” monographs. The concept of the “parish” itself has been indiscriminately used to mean either an ecclesiastical structure, a type of social organization, an ecological unit, or a local social group.

The main intent of this paper is to offer a sociological clarification of the institutional nature of the parish. Our leading assumption is that the parish as an institution can be adequately understood only if it is, first of all, seen as an organizational element of the larger Catholic Church. Given this, one must start by analysing the essential features of the parish as it is conceived ideally by the Church. Having elucidated its ideal type as well as its written constitution, one can then evaluate more meaningfully the modalities of its functioning in varying concrete situations—its working constitution, as it were—and draw the line between its formal organization and the patterns of informal relationships that crystallize around it. Our analysis of the parish will be restricted to its structural aspects, viz. the established roles and the reciprocal hierarchical statuses which it implies, and this, in three main directions: the relationships of the parish official functionaries with their ecclesiastical superiors, with the members of the group within which they immediately operate, and with the total society. Only through such an approach can one succeed in our secondary purpose which is to compare the changes that the traditional parochial organization of rural French Canada has been undergoing in the new context of swiftly industrialized and socially heterogeneous cities. Since the larger part of the Canadian sociological literature on religion has been concerned with the non-institutional aspects of protest or erratic religious groups, such a study may bring a contribution to our knowledge of the social organizational value of established churches while incidentally also enabling us to re-focuss our theoretical thinking concerning social institutions.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , August 1949 , pp. 353 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1949

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Halifax, June 9, 1949.

References

1 See Gérin, Léon, “L'Habitant de Saint-Justin” (Mémoires de la Société Royal du Canada, vol. IV, 1898, sec. I, p. 204)Google Scholar; Poulin, Gonzalve, o.f.m., “L'Évolution historico-juridique de l'institution paroissiale au Canada français” (in Nos Cahiers, Montréal, Studium franciscain, vol. I, 1936, pp. 144-55, 165-86, 298–315Google Scholar; vol. II, 1937, pp. 97-122, 203-17); Miner, Horace, Saint-Denis: A French-Canadian Parish (Chicago, 1937)Google Scholar; Hughes, Everett C., French Canada in Transition (Chicago, 1943).Google Scholar

2 As typical of that kind of confusion, see Lieff, Pearl Jacobs, “The Urbanization of the French-Canadian Parish,” unpublished M.A. thesis, McGill University, Montreal, 1940.Google Scholar

3 The term paroechia, derived from the Greek, was used by the ancient Romans to mean a district consisting of many provinces under the jurisdiction of a single governor. Early Christians used the term to mean a community of faithful in a given city and in its surrounding area. See, MgrBernier, Paul, De Patrimonie paroeciali (Quebec, 1938), pp. 33–4Google Scholar; Cance, Adrien, Le Code de Droit canonique (Paris 1930), vol. I, p. 405, note 1.Google Scholar

4 For the history of the origin and development of the Catholic parish, see, l'abbé André, art., “Paroisse,” in Cours alphabétique et méthodique de Droit Canon, vol. X of Encyclopédie théologique (Migne, ed. 1845), vol. II, pp. 771–2Google Scholar; Bardy, Gustave, “Sur l'Origine des Paroisses” (Masses Ouvrières, no. 21, 03, 1947, pp. 42–58 Google Scholar; no. 22, Apr., 1947, pp. 42-66); Falardeau, Jean-C., Paroisses de France et de Nouvelle-France au XVIIe siècle (Cahiers de la Faculté des Sciences sociales de Laval, Quebec, 1943, vol. II, no. 7).Google Scholar

5 Schultes, R. M., o.p., De Ecclesia Catholica (Paris, 1931), ch. II, pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

6 On the different meanings given to the term “ecclesia” by the various Protestant denominations, see Wach, Joachim, Sociology of Religion (Chicago, 1945), p. 144.Google Scholar

7 Codex Juris Canonici, typis polyglottis vaticanis, 1936, liber secundus, pars prima, De clericis; pars secunda, De religiosis.

8 Religious orders and congregations are of a great number of types and varieties. Many of them include, besides priests, lay members who enjoy a lower status and perform non-sacerdotal duties. Many orders are composed only of lay religious, which indeed is the case of the religious orders of women. We are here concerned only with religious orders of priests or with the sacerdotal element of orders which contain both priests and lay members. See Codex juris canonici, liber secundus, pars secunda, De religiosis, Can. 487-91.

9 Wach, , Sociology of Religion, pp. 173 ff.Google Scholar

10 Wintersig, Athanasius, “Pfarrei und Mysterium.” (Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft, vol. V, 1925, pp. 136–43Google Scholar), translated under the title of “Le Réalisme mystique de la paroisse,” (in La Maison-Dieu: Cahiers de pastorale liturgique, Paris, Cahier no. 8, 4e trim; 1948, p. 16).Google Scholar

11 Glorieux, Chanoine P., L'Eglise à l'oeuvre (Paris, 1937, re-ed., Montréal, 1942), p. 179.Google Scholar

12 In areas where Catholicism has not yet gathered any significant number of faithful, one does not find dioceses but so-called “quasi-dioceses” which are themselves subdivided into more or less wide “quasi-parishes,” see C.I.C., Can. 216, 3.

13 C.I.C., Can. 216, 1; Bernier, , De Patrimoni paroeciaeio, pp. 35–40.Google Scholar

14 C.I.C., Can. 198, 218, 2; Bernier, , De Patrimonio paroeciali, pp. 46–7.Google Scholar

15 C.I.C., Can. 451, 1.

16 Ibid., Can. 453.

17 Ibid., Can. 456.

18 Ibid., Can. 464, 1.

19 Ibid., Can. 462, 467, 468, 469, 1020, 1094, 1216.

20 Ibid., Can. 467.

21 Ibid., Can. 476.

22 For the distinction between the fabrique and the conseil de fabrique and the evolution of both, see Prompsault, J. H. R., art., “Fabriques,” in Dictionnaire raisonné de Droit et de Jurisprudence en matière ecclésiastique, vol. XXXVIII Google Scholar of Encyclopédie théologique (Migne, ed.), vol. II, pp. 385–6Google Scholar; Bernier, , De Patrimonii paroeciali, ch. IV, pp. 78 ff.Google Scholar; Falardeau, , Paroisses de France et de Nouvelle-France au XVIIe siècle, p. 16.Google Scholar

23 For details of the functions and duties of the boards of wardens, see C.I.C., Can. 1186, 1356, and passim; Mignault, P. B., Le Droit paroissial. Étude historique et légale de la paroisse (Montreal, 1893), passim Google Scholar; Pouliot, J. F., Le Droit paroissial de la province de Québec (Quebec, 1919), pp. 361 ff.Google Scholar; Bernier, De Palrimonio paroeciali, ch. V.

24 C.I.C., Can. 1184.

25 Bernier, , De Palrimonio paroeciali, pp. 127 ff.Google Scholar

26 Mirek, Fr., “The Social Elements of the Roman Catholic parish,” Elementy Spoleczne Parafji rzymskokatolickiej (Poznan, 1928).Google Scholar

27 Lanctôt, Gustave, L'Administration de la Nouvelle-France (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar; “Le régime municipal en Nouvelle-France” (Culture, vol. IX, no. 3, 09, 1948, pp. 255–83).Google Scholar

28 Roy, J. Edmond, Histoire de la seigneurie de Lauzon (Lévis, 1897–1904, 5 vols.), vol. II.Google Scholar

29 Poulin, “L'Évolution historico-juridique de l'institution paroissiale au Canada français.”

30 See, Mignault, Le Droit paroissial, Étude historique et légale de la paroisse; Pouliot, J. F., Traité de droit fabricien et paroissial, étude critique de législation comparée (Montréal, 1936).Google Scholar

31 Falardeau, , Paroisses de France et de Nouvelle-France au XVIIe siècle, pp. 33–8.Google Scholar

32 See Miner, Saint-Denis: A French-Canadian Parish.

33 Our comments on urban parishes are based chiefly on observations made in one city, Quebec (cf. Survey de la ville de Québec-Ouest, unpublished mimeographed report, Documents of the Center of Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, Laval University, Quebec, May, 1947 ; Survey de la paroisse de Notre-Dame de Pitié, ibid., 1948 ; Survey de la paroisse de Saint-Malo, ibid., 1949) and may be significant only for urban communities similar to it, somewhat half-way between the “small town” and the completely developed metropolitan community. Its total population in 1941 was 150, 757.

34 Cf. Hughes, Everett C., “The Ecological Aspect of Institutions” (American Sociological Review, vol. I, no. 2, 04, 1936, pp. 185–6).Google Scholar

35 Lebret, J., o.p., “Paroisses et mouvements spécialisés” (L'Union, déc., 1938, p. 54)Google Scholar; Chenu, M. D., o.p. “Paroisse et oeuvres” (Revue Dominicaine, 05, 1934).Google Scholar