An Essay on Religious Democracy

Charles Maurras

English translation by W. H. Marshner and Joan Longua
1982
Property of W. H. Marshner. Reproduction or distribution without his permission is prohibited.

This is a translation of a short but famous work by the great French monarchist writer, Charles Maurras, founder of the pro-monarchy movement L’Action Française (very active between 1895 and World War II). This book was written between 1905 and 1907 as a series of newspaper articles (really essays) dealing with the interesting figure of Mark Sangnier, son of a banker and prominent Catholic, but also the oratorically gifted leader of a pro-democracy youth movement called the Sillon. Continue reading “Marc Sangnier’s Dilemma”

ON THE TEXT OF THE SYLLABUS

Charles Maurras

Translated by W. H. Marshner
Originally appeared in Action française, May 15, 1906

Who is killing you?
Who is leading you?
-Rabelais

Among the various nonbelievers who joined together in the common effort of l’Action française, there were differences of opinion and tendency, to be sure. Yet their stance of seeking the public good, on the one hand, and the pains they took to avoid all preconceived ideas, on the other, have led them on (or led them back) little by little to a plain fact: here in this world (whether it be a question of things spiritual or things temporal, of the moral order or the material one) the views, interests, suggestions, and decisions of Catholicism match up point for point with the essential interests of the French nation and of the civilized world. I speak of interests understood as precisely as possible. I speak of Catholicism taken in strict definition. Continue reading “On The Text Of The Syllabus”