‘[W]ith an exploration of the miraculous and the cult of Mary, religious history intersects ‘women’s history’—or at least it should.’ Already in 1991, in an overview of scholarly work on Catholic history in the German-speaking world, Margaret Lavinia Anderson emphasized the importance of a gender perspective when studying Marian piety (Anderson 1991: 696). Since then, scholars working on religious history have repeatedly addressed this intersection. Initially, they did so by including ‘women’ in their research and in a later phase—as women’s history developed into gender history—by studying the intersection of religion and gender, and other categories of difference such as age, class, and race. This chapter summarizes some of their main findings on Catholicism in north-west Europe. In particular, the focus is on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the stereotypical gender roles became systematically connected to sexual differences and the distinction between the ‘rational man’ and ‘emotional woman’ was seen as a scientific fact.
Anderson had her finger on the pulse of scholarly work on French Catholicism and more in particular, the ‘feminization’ of religion as, for example, the work of Claude Langlois (1984) and Ralph Gibson (1989) illustrate. Originally developed to point at changes in nineteenth-century American Protestantism, in work on European Catholicism it denotes, among others, (1) a quantitative preponderance of women in the religious field; (2) a close entwining of ideals of femininity and religiosity (to be feminine is to be pious and vice versa); and (3) changes in the content and tone of religion. It is in discussions on the latter aspect that Marian piety is most frequently mentioned (Ford 2005: 3–4; Van Osselaer and Buerman 2008). In particular, scholars have emphasized the rise of Marian devotion in the so-called ‘age of Mary’, the period between the two Marian dogmas, 1854 (Immaculate Conception) and 1950 (Assumption into Heaven) (Holzem 2007: 271; Schneider 2013: 89). This period was characterized by an intensification of Marian devotions and changing imagery of the Virgin Mary who, rather than a distant queen in heaven, became an ideal type for Catholic motherhood, a sympathetic figure you could turn to. As Caroline Ford (1993: 167) mentioned, the intensified Mariolatry was typical for the change of a ‘pastorale de la peur’ to a ‘religion of love’, or as Andreas Kotulla called it, the ‘Herzstück emotionsgeladener Frömmigkeit’ (2006: 29). The upsurge of Marian devotion could be noted in the new names for the quickly expanding number of new religious orders, and new practices such as celebrating the month of Mary in May (Gibson, 1989: 255; Langlois 1991: 298). Important impulses also came from Marian apparitions whose numbers increased significantly. Between 1803 and 1917 no less than 115 apparitions were reported in Europe (Schneider 2013: 91). Contrary to apparitions in the previous centuries, these did not focus on the discovery of a miraculous image, but on messages to the faithful: Mary often emphasized the need for penance and conversion and acted as the mediator between humanity and God or Jesus (Christian 1973: 107–8; Blackbourn 1993: 18). Given the increase in apparitions and the impact some of them had beyond the regional borders, our focus here will be on the gender dynamics at the new Marian shrines.
Not everyone was enthusiastic about the new impulses. The Jesuit Father Staehlin, for instance, worried about their ‘feminizing’ impact. He noted in 1955 how the Sacred Heart feast, devotional practices like the first Fridays, the Miraculous Medal, and even the dedication of the whole of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary, were all the result of private revelations to women. Because of that, ‘Catholic piety has in several ways, an explicit feminine character … that does not necessarily appeal to men’ (cited in Zumholz 2004: 11). More particularly, he was thinking about certain prayers and songs that men did not like to pronounce standing in front of statues of saints that looked like dolls. In his association of ‘femininity’ with sentimentality, Staehlin was certainly not alone. A similar essentializing and universalizing discourse can be traced as early as the mid-nineteenth century.
In fact, such ideas on femininity and its interrelatedness with religiosity also influenced the acceptance of the new visionaries of this period. By far the majority of them were women, often young girls from a rural background. In this respect, the modern apparitions differed from those reported in the previous centuries when male visionaries were unexceptional (as were adults) (Priesching 2012: 80; Schneider 2013: 96). In his work on modern Marian apparitions, Chris Maunder analysed the numbers of the approved and partly approved apparitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For those of the nineteenth century he lists nineteen seers, among which there are seven women (six unmarried) and ten children/adolescents under eighteen (seven girls and three boys). A similar imbalance can be detected in the twentieth century: sixteen seers, among which were two unmarried women, thirteen children/adolescents (eleven girls and two boys) (Maunder 2016: 50–1). It needs to be emphasized, however, that these were the numbers for the approved apparitions, as in non-approved cases the situation could be different.
The acceptance of these young girls as ‘authentic’ visionaries by their contemporaries was closely tied up with the reigning, gender-related ideas and expectations concerning visionaries (Bitel 2009: 81). That these ideas were so prevalent had much to do with the changing nature of the apparitions. In the modern era these developed from private visions into public and serial events (Zimdars-Swartz 1991: 5). Via the often extensive news coverage the faithful were well-informed about what to expect (or not) at an apparition site. The similarities were also the result of the increasing standardization of the devotional forms and its visionaries. Lourdes and Bernadette became an important model (Blackbourn 1995: 172). Prototypes like these were of central importance in the first days after a new apparition was reported: acceptance in the visionary’s direct environment often decided upon the impact radius of the initial event (Christian 2009: 161). Those visionaries who were not deemed credible by their family members and neighbours would never reach local or even national or international fame. That is the reason why, as Monique Scheer summarized it, at certain points in time, men did not report their religious experiences. Female visionaries were a well-known phenomenon and their claims could be deemed credible by referring to previous examples. Scheer adds that the higher visibility of female visionaries might also have something to do with the alleged incredibility of women and the ease with which they could be manipulated. In order to get to the truth of the matter, the authorities needed to be informed (hence the higher number of reports) (Scheer 2013: 184).
In studying these cases we therefore have to take care not to reproduce the gender stereotypes of the nineteenth century and explain the higher number of female visionaries by referring to their ‘natural’ religiosity or receptivity towards the emotional and the transcendent (Pahud de Mortanges 2006: 205). Vice versa, however, studying these cases does tell us something about the reigning feminine stereotypes, both the positive and negative ones. The negative ones will be addressed more elaborately in the discussions on the devotees and miraculées (below). As for the positive ones: in this period pious ‘femininity’ was lauded via ideal types as the angelic mother and the innocent, pure, and humble virgin. Scholars working on the representation and images of the visionaries have shown how this last ideal type played an important role in the media that developed around the apparitions and their sites. The best studied example is Bernadette Soubirous (the fourteen-year-old visionary of the Lourdes apparitions of 1858). Already in 1861, studio photographs were made (answering the call of the public) that forever captured her as a young, poor, pious girl from a rural background. It was this combination of femininity and rurality, the idealization of the unspoiled rural religiosity of a young girl that was regarded as exemplary; Bernadette’s strong character and occasionally rather particular piety were filtered out of the public stories (and Bernadette herself entered the cloister of Nevers). What remained was a feminine ideal type, worthy of imitation and, eventually, veneration (she was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1933). Behind cloister walls Bernadette was ‘silenced’ and thus her image as pious, humble, and obedient maiden could function as prototype for many visionaries to come (Langlois 1998: 263; Harris 1999: 145, 165; Kaufman 2005: 24)
There is, however, another line of approach that has been adopted in research on the female visionaries from a gender perspective. In this approach the emphasis is not on the silent medium, but on the visionary who finds her voice through this religious experience and, as such, challenges the prevalent gender hierarchy. Some caveats have to be mentioned here however: first of all, if they wanted to be heard and not discarded as disobedient and thus inauthentic, the female visionaries needed to accept (and sometimes actively sought out) clerical supervision, ‘subjecting them to assessments that insist on orthodoxy, humility, and obedience, while selecting only a privileged few to promote and support’ (Maunder 2016: 60). Likewise, they needed the support of important laymen whose social status added importance and credibility to the messages the visionaries wanted to promulgate (Christian 1996; O’Sullivan 2009: 15, 19). Rather than disturbing the reigning gender hierarchy here, these women and girls thus seemed to confirm it. Furthermore, as Monique Scheer has emphasized, we have to be careful not to adopt the ‘romanticism of resistance’ when discussing the apparitions. Quite often the female mediums expressed ultraconservative ideas rather than rebellious, emancipatory discourses (e.g. admission to the priesthood) (Scheer 2013: 181). Finally, the extent to which the visionaries themselves could have a voice of their own and influence the creation of their public persona depended on the historical context and the roles cut out for women (Pahud de Mortanges 2006: 206).
Not all visionaries were women, however, and men reported apparitions of the Virgin as well. The impact of gender norms on the reception of these men as visionaries has primarily been studied for non-approved apparitions. In these cases their number seems to have been higher than in those approved by the Church. Still, as Chris Maunder concludes, the ‘percentage of males, even when boys are included, does not exceed 30 per cent in any category’ (Maunder 2016: 50). An exceptional case is that of the Belgian visionaries of the 1930s apparition wave when there was more or less a gender balance. Their case becomes even more exceptional when we compare it to that of the male visionaries of the Ezquioga apparitions a few years before. William Christian has pointed out how the Spanish seers functioned solely as a confirmation of apparition sites initiated by other visionaries, yet they were given more attention because of their gender (they were deemed more credible) (Christian 1996: 243–4, 250). In Belgium, the male visionaries also started new apparition sites. Their apparitions and emotionality during their public ecstasies did not trigger criticism about their masculinity (even though Catholic masculinity was much debated during these years). This acceptance had much to do with the fact that when they were not in ecstasy, these men perfectly answered the requirements for what it meant to be Catholic men: they were good housefathers, honest workers, and sound of mind (Van Osselaer 2012).
The upsurge in Marian devotion of the nineteenth century cannot be reduced to the Virgin’s appeal to women. The male clergy actively engaged in the promotion of the cult and did so also for the approved Marian apparition sites. In fact, the strict clerical organization of pilgrimage sites such as Lourdes and La Salette (and their official recognitions) fits into the Church’s strategy to enhance the relationship with the faithful by clericalizing and institutionalizing religious popular culture, including the enthusiasm for the Virgin (Gibson 1989: 145, 1993: 86, 149; Kotulla 2006: 36). Still, it was primarily women who went on pilgrimages, joined confraternities, and made use of the means for sociability that religion offered them outside their homes (Schneider 2002: 134–5; Gibson 1993: 77). Lourdes pilgrimages often counted twice as many women in comparison with men (or more: e.g. the diocesan pilgrimage of Cambrai in 1894 listed 400 men and 5,200 women (Kotulla 2006: 96, 306), and of the total of 140,000 bath immersions in 1914, the number of women was double that of men (Kotulla 2006: 108–109n282). In the eyes of contemporaries this numerical imbalance confirmed the prejudices that circulated concerning women and deemed them more susceptible to emotionally loaded devotions and more prone to believe in miracles and superstition (Kotulla 2006: 306). Still, this does not mean that lay men were absent from the apparition sites or cannot be traced in the movements. They did, however, take on different roles than their female counterparts.
The importance of gender difference in the organizational structure of pilgrimage movements is best illustrated by a closer look at the volunteers involved in Lourdes. The apparition site in the French Pyrénées initially attracted primarily French pilgrims, but quickly turned (with the help of Rome) into an international pilgrimage site (Kotulla 2008: 154). Its popularity had much to do with its status as a place of healing (the baths) and this could also be seen in the pilgrimage movements that developed around it (Kaufman 2005: 2). In these organizations, the male and female volunteers were given different roles in the care for the sick. Andreas Kotulla, who studied a German sample, has noted their similarity with their French counterparts. In both movements, there was a differentiation and collaboration between a male and a female section. The men, the brancardiers, were in charge of the transport of the sick and could be recognized via the leather strips they wore that made it easier to carry the stretchers. The female volunteers, infirmières, took care of the sick during the trip and sat at their beds. Each group was thus given a task according to their gender (e.g. women’s caring nature) and assisted in the baths of the sick pilgrims of their own sex (Kotulla 2006: 108, 303). In the initial phases of the German volunteers’ movement, women outnumbered men. This imbalance did not last long, however, and soon the movement resembled other German Catholic organizations in which men took on the leading, representative roles and women led a shadow existence in the organizational network. A similar trend can be seen in movements linked to non-approved apparitions such as those in post-Second World War Germany. Even when there was a female majority among the followers (e.g. in Heede, Fehrbach, Rodalben), men took the lead. Likewise, they were the ones who carried the travelling statue of Fatima on their shoulders whilst women were reduced to the role of bystander (O’Sullivan 2009: 27–8). In short, while other differences such as class, age, and geographical origin might not have impacted the movements’ organization that much, gender often remained an important—and structuring—category of difference.
Among the female pilgrims to Lourdes one groups stands out: the miraculées, or the women who claimed to have been miraculously cured by intercession of the Virgin Mary. When we look at them from a gender perspective, there seem to be two ways to approach their stories: (1) we can examine how they created for themselves a new Catholic feminine identity, or (2) as scholars working on the intersection of the history of science and religion have done, study the ways in which they were linked to hysteria and referred to in anti-Catholic discourses.
(1) In her book on Lourdes as a modern and commercially attractive pilgrimage site, Suzanne Kaufman described how the miraculées enjoyed their own short moment of fame and glory. After their sudden cure, their names were on the lips of many fellow-pilgrims whilst postcards and stories printed in periodicals and overviews like Dr Boissarie’s Les grandes guérisons de Lourdes (1900) kept the interest alive for a while. Many miraculés were women and actively contributed to the construction of their image via their own testimonials on their healing (e.g. those collected for the jubilee of 1897). Recasting themselves as modern martyrs, they referred to a Catholic tradition according to which pain could be redemptive and lead to God. By describing how they had been abandoned by modern medicine, yet had never lost faith, they presented themselves as the heroines in their own stories, challenging the medical authorities (Kaufman 2005: 137, 141, 147). By bearing witness and doing so in public (in processions and writing about it), however, they were clearly going beyond the confinements of their homes and thus deviating from the ideal type of Catholic femininity that was promoted in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Kaufman 2005: 139, 154). This public side of the story—the press coverage and postcards that circulated on them and the cheering crowds—makes them quite similar to modern commercialized celebrities. ‘Like her secular sisters—the female journalist, the Parisian actress, and, more generally, the New Woman—the Lourdes miraculée offered a new model for imagining a feminine public self.’ She ‘transgresses traditional models of womanhood based on modesty and self-abnegation, embracing instead an assertive and achieving feminine subject’ (Kaufman, 2005: 161) and could write herself into Christian history. As Suzanne Kaufman remarked, this was ‘no small achievement in late nineteenth-century French society, where non-elite women still enjoyed few opportunities for recognition and self-expression in the public sphere’ (Kaufman 2005: 154).
(2) There was, however, another more negative side to the miraculous cures of these women and in the analysis of this part of the story the gender-connotation has also been explicitly addressed. In particular, scholars working on the intersection of medical and religious history have noted how the illnesses of the miraculées were reduced to fits of ‘hysteria’ by some of their contemporaries. Exceptional religious phenomena such as miraculous cures, stigmata, and ecstasy were pathologized and gendered. The high number of female miraculées was regarded with suspicion and seemed to support the idea that these miraculous events were nothing more than the product of women’s imagination and feeble nature (Borutta 2001: 62; Edelman 2003: 216; Harris 2005: 287). References to this pathologized religion had a political impact as well and featured in the discussions surrounding the rise of new nation states such as Germany and Italy, and in France in which Catholicism became the defining ‘other’. Catholicism, with its clerical supervision and predisposition towards miracles and the supernatural, was no place for the male rational and independent subject. The appraisal was slightly different for women. Whereas their interaction with the male clergy, devotional practices verging on sentimentality, and the miraculous aspects were regarded with distrust, piety could still be deemed beneficial for the pious sex. Exaggeration and credulity were another matter however and exceptional religious phenomena like miraculous cures were discarded. More particularly, experts of the emerging disciplines of neurology and psychiatry reduced them to physiological phenomena and ‘secularized’ them (Goldstein 1982: 238–9; Van Osselaer 2017a: 11–12). The Lourdes Bureau of Medical Verifications (installed in 1883) responded accordingly. In order to face such criticisms they carefully kept track of medical evolutions and diagnoses, and organized thorough examinations of the cases that were deemed exceptional (well examined cases were more difficult to refute) (Szabo 2002; Harris 2005). Admitting that there were indeed many ‘hysterics’ amongst the patients who came to Lourdes, the collaborators of the bureau even developed their own definition of ‘hysteria’ (Edelman 2003: 215–17). The bodies of the miraculé(e)s, to be gazed at on postcards and at gatherings organized by the Bureau, offered visible proof of the cures and the ‘normality’ of the chosen ones (Kaufman 2005: 115–17). According to Claude Langlois, the medical debates also had an impact on the representation of the original Lourdes visionary, Bernadette Soubirous. He notes that the images used for the promotion of the modern ‘mystic’ were carefully staged and selected in order to stress her ‘normality’ (Langlois 1994: 332).
Both perspectives offer quite different views on the female miraculée and the impact of her devotion to Mary. The first approach emphasizes the modernity of the miraculously cured feminine pilgrim who ventured into the spotlights to bear witness to the power of the Virgin. In the analysis of the discussions of the second discursive field, it becomes clear that these women were regarded as the remnants of an outdated, irrational piety—victims rather than active agents.
As noted, accusations of hysteria loomed over the miraculous cures in Lourdes. Its dark shadow and links with ideas on femininity help us to understand why the case of the Belgian Pierre De Rudder could become so well-known. Pierre’s broken leg was healed on 7 April 1875 in Oostakker, near an imitation Lourdes grotto. As such, his cure featured three elements that pleaded in its favour and made it stand out. First of all, the cure took place in rural Flanders, far away from the intoxicating crowds of Lourdes. Secondly, the healing of an organic lesion (a broken leg that had refused to heal for years) could hardly be reduced to mere ‘suggestion’. Finally, Pierre was a man and thus ‘less susceptible to hysteria’ (Kaufman 2005: 184). His cure became well-known and replicas of his healed bones were put on display in Oostakker and Lourdes, providing physical proof for all who wanted to see.
In Belgium, Pierre’s cure and the subsequent increase of pilgrimages to Oostakker reinforced pre-existing debates. The Oostakker grotto developed into an ultramontane symbol and when the neogothic church nearby was dedicated, the papal colours hung next to the Belgian flag (de Smaele 2009: 262). The eyes on Rome, the antiliberal and antimodern ideas and the demonstrative pilgrimages that accompanied them, intensified the tensions already brewing between the liberals and Catholics (Deneckere 2008: 24). The conflict centred on the place of religion and the clergy in society. Religious demonstrations became political demonstrations and a means of propaganda. Their opponents saw them as a provocation and an anachronism. The cult in Oostakker set the scene for one of the most violent expressions of these tensions in 1875. Shortly after Pierre’s cure, on 17 May 1875, 20,000 members of the Ghent archconfraternity of Saint Francis went to Oostakker. On their way back they were attacked by armed anti-clericals, primarily students (one died and 553 were injured that day). On the Catholic side the poor and the rich, the workers, and the elite fought side by side. Henk de Smaele addressed this collaboration and has shown that for the ultramontane elite, Oostakker represented an authentic and ‘virile’ Catholicism of Flanders. For them, the piety of the ‘common’ people was inspiring and they willingly joined in prayer peasants whose religiosity, however emotionally loaded it might be, could not be reduced to a form of piety that was only fit for women (de Smaele 2009: 265).
As the case of the Oostakker pilgrimage shows, devotional practices could be interpreted as political actions and men’s involvement was of central importance. As work on the late nineteenth-century culture wars has shown, rituals and symbols could function as a means of identification as well as protest (Korff 1986: 139). The opponents of the Catholics responded with police actions, occasional physical violence but, most of all, with mockery. Their ridicule built on gender stereotypes. Cartoons refer to older unease such as the interaction of the clergy with the female devotees (e.g. in pilgrimages to Lourdes) and the credulity of Catholic men who were willing to believe in such apparitions (see e.g. the 1876 cartoon on the introduction of French Madonnas—via Marpingen—in Berlin, Jürgensmeier 1969: 191). Faith in miracles and apparitions was seen as an element of a ‘feminized’, irrational religiosity fit for women and children (Schneider 2013: 16). Moreover, as it was deemed rationally inexplicable and politically hard to control, there was also a threatening aspect to it (Borutta 2010: 23). The national connotation played an important role as well. In German anti-Catholic cartoons we can see an increasing unease with the nationalist turn that the French Lourdes devotion took after the defeat in the French-Prussian war of 1871 (Jürgensmeier 1969: 190).
Apparition sites such as Lourdes and Fatima incited international pilgrimages and for Catholics who lived in countries where they were the minority, this offered an opportunity to feel part of a larger Catholic community (Schneider 2013: 100). Yet, in the modern era, apparition cults were also adopted for nationalist causes (Zander 2011: 153) and Lourdes became the destination for more nationalist pilgrimages. In France, a first national pilgrimage was organized in 1872 to the Marian apparition site of La Salette. The date was no coincidence: organized only a year after the defeat in the Franco-Prussion war, the pilgrimage was a clerical initiative to use popular devotional practices for political goals. In their opinion only national penance could save France and Catholics were the true patriots (Gibson 1989: 148). The first occasion of the national pilgrimage was not a great success. This was probably due to the inaccessibility of the site and the rather difficult reputation of the two visionaries (Mélanie and Maximin) who had not earned the credibility that Bernadette had (Kaufman 2005: 25). In 1873, Lourdes became the site of destination. This redefinition of the French apparition sites as French national sacred sites caused unease in Germany (especially when Alsace-Lorraine was depicted as part of the French nation (Schneider 2013: 100). German apparition sites such as Marpingen (Saarland) were presented as an alternative to Lourdes (Korff 1986: 144) yet likewise provoked distrust and a military and police intervention by the Prussian state (Holzem 2007: 273).
In predominantly Catholic Belgium, pilgrimages to Lourdes were quite successful. Dr Boissarie (the head of the medical bureau in Lourdes) remarked that it was exceptional that in these pilgrimages the lead was taken by Catholic lay men, especially some young professors from Leuven, and not by the clergy. Moreover, they were linked to political and social questions and had—contrary to France—the support of the government and public opinion (Boissarie 1900: 490–3). In stressing the involvement of lay men, Dr Boissarie’s laudatory account echoed some of the concerns that dominated the late nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century pilgrimage culture. More particularly, it was in line with the increasing stress that was put on men’s participation in the pilgrimages. By doing so, they wanted to counter Lourdes’ image as a site of prayer dominated by women (Kotulla 2006: 96). This emphasis was in line with a more general trend in Catholicism according to which men’s involvement in religious practices and the ‘masculine’ character of Catholicism (in opposition to a ‘feminizing’ anti-Catholic discourse) needed to be stressed. Men-only initiatives developed as well. In 1899, a first national men’s pilgrimage was organized in which 40,000 Catholics participated (Kotulla 2006: 96 n238). Similar initiatives developed in other countries as well and in 1906 a men’s pilgrimage group departed from Metz (Kotulla 2006: 276). However, as I suggested elsewhere (Van Osselaer 2017b), there might also be another way of looking at these initiatives. Rather than regarding them as a mere response to the feminizing discourse, the ‘masculinity’ of the members (and ‘character’ of the pilgrimage) might also have functioned in a more binding way. Or, to phrase it differently, their gender is what men from different ranks of society shared and it could function—together with their faith—as a binding feature.
This chapter does of course only provide a glimpse of how ideas on gender influenced and were influenced by Marian piety, but by focusing on the apparition sites of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some important trends could be pointed out. We can see how Marian piety enabled the creation of new (public) gendered identities (e.g. the miraculées, visionaries), how gender differentiation and hierarchy influenced the Marian movements, and how ideas on gender were used by Catholics and their opponents in both mocking and laudatory accounts. If gender was our lens, then we might look at the apparition sites we studied as a petri dish in which some relations and reactions could be perceived. Obviously, other samples have already been collected and studied and, in the future, more will need to be collected and studied—they will further enrich our understanding.