- ISSN: 0778-8304
- E-ISSN: 2665-9484
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oa Political Mission of the ‘Clericalized Laity’
Religion and Politics in the Catholic Student Movement in the Netherlands, 1918-1940
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Trajecta, Volume 28, Issue 2, Dec 2019, p. 241 - 269
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- 01 Dec 2019
Abstract
This article addresses the political engagement of Catholic students in the Netherlands during the inter-war period. Recently there has been an increased academic interest both nationally and internationally, in juvenile and radical Catholicism in the inter-war years. In the Netherlands, the magazine De Gemeenschap and the girls’ movement De Graal are important examples of the radical Catholicism of the youth. Though the religious activism of these Catholic youth groups has been studied extensively, we still do not know much about their involvement in politics and more specifically, their interaction with the Catholic party. This article looks at how the activation of the laity affected the political engagement of Dutch Catholic students. Based on ideas about Catholic Action and the importance of a lay apostolate for the rechristianization of society, Catholic students established new groups for religious and political activism. As these groups were neither installed nor controlled by the hierarchy, they formulated alternative political interpretations of Catholicism. Thus, the youth challenged the religious legitimacy of the Catholic party, whose politicians listened to them only reluctantly.
