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- Title
"An Imperialist Irishman": Bishop Michael Fallon, the Diocese of London and the Great War.
- Authors
Ciani, Adrian
- Abstract
The First World War has been deemed, by generations of historians, as a singularly significant nation-building experience in Canadian history. The war also provided Catholics the opportunity to prove their loyalty to both nation and Empire, which they did through their largely ebullient and patriotic response. Not all Canadian Catholics, however, rallied to the Imperial war call, as many francophone Catholics remained aloof or inimical to the conflict. The diocese of London, which contained large numbers of both anglophone and francophone faithful, provides an interesting case study on intra-denominational tensions underlined by the Great War. London's irrepressible Bishop, Michael Francis Fallon, remained driven throughout by his tripartite loyalties: to the British Empire, to Irish Catholics and to the Roman Catholic Faith. For Fallon, the war provided Catholics the opportunity to defend the just ideals of the British Empire, and the chance to accent Catholic patriotism in the eyes of Protestant Canada. His call to arms, however, was complicated both by French-Catholic antipathy to the war, and by the controversy surrounding French-language instruction in Ontario schools, on which Fallon took a conspicuous and contentious position. If anglophone Catholics emerged from the Great War further legitimized in English-Canada, it was at the expense of solidarity with their francophone co-religionists, accentuating a social and cultural breach that would persist for decades.
- Subjects
CANADA; WAR; RELIGION; WORLD War I; CATHOLICS; CATHOLIC Church; CANADIAN history, 1914-1945; RELIGION in British colonies; ENGLISH-speaking Canadians; FALLON, Michael Francis
- Publication
Historical Studies, 2008, Vol 74, p73
- ISSN
1193-1981
- Publication type
Article