Parochial patronage refers to several Catholic and Protestant organizations initially dedicated to the popular education of underprivileged young people. Such institutions appeared in various European countries at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries - in particular, under the name of Orel in the provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – but the term "patronage" remained closely associated with Belgium, and even more so with France, where Catholic patronages were founded in Marseille at the end of the Consulate by Abbé Jean-Joseph Allemand. Abbé Timon-David later took up the idea, and then widely developed within congregations such as the Brothers of the Christian Schools, Jean Bosco's Salesians, Frédéric Ozanam's Brothers of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Dominican Third Order in the early 20th century.
In parallel with social Catholicism, these institutions developed in parishes in France at the end of the 19th century. They led to the creation of a sports federation in 1898, a few years after Belgium. In 1903, this federation became the French Federation of Gymnastics and Sports Patronages and, in 1968, the French Federation of Sport and Culture. In 1905, with the law on the separation between Church and State, the patronages adopted the status of associations under the law of 1901. Between the two world wars and after 1945, the number of patronages grew rapidly. Since 1965, however, the pastoral decisions of the Church of France have forced them to secularize, and today's patronages are more often than not simply secular sports and cultural associations, most of which remain attached to their original references.
From precursors to a federation
Patronage of religious orders (1800-1870)
In France, patronages were founded at the beginning of the 19th century in Marseille by Father Jean-Joseph Allemand, who defined them as "places where people play and pray". By creating a space for physical activities as a complement to study circles, they appeared both within the charitable institutions with a social vocation of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul - in Paris in 1835, Rennes in 1840 with the Cadets of Brittany - and within those of teaching orders aimed at the elite, such as the Institute of Sorèze with Father Henri Lacordaire. Traditional running, stilt-walking, and ball games made up the bulk of these activities at first, but with Timon David, gymnastics, developed under the Restoration by Colonel Don Francisco Amoros, took pride of place. This trend was reinforced by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, who included it in their school activities.
This practice remained mainly intramural, and the local patronages of the various religious orders generally avoided meeting and clashing. It wasn't until 1855 that a joint magazine was published, while in Paris an association of young workers was founded by Maurice Maignen. In August 1858, some of the directors of these organizations met at a congress in Angers, where they founded the Union of Catholic Workers of France. In 1865,Maurice Maignen and counterrevolution, thought and action of a social Catholic 1871-1890, Dissertation submitted under the direction of Michèle Cointet, UFR Arts and Human Sciences Department of History University of Tours 2004 Maignen's association became the Cercle of the Young Workers, and on the eve of the 1870 war, the Society of Catholic Worker Circles was created."Dates that mark our history", on archive.wikiwix.com (accessed April 10, 2018) The motto of the International Olympic CommitteeAlain Arvin-Berod (pref.Juan Antonio Samaranch), The Children of Olympus: 1796-1896, Paris, ed. du Cerf, coll. "L'histoire à vif", March 1996, 258 p. (, online presentation) (IOC): Citius, Altius, Fortius, first uttered on March 7, 1891, was borrowed from one of these institutions, the Albert-le-Grand school in Arcueil, run by Father Henri Didon, a member of the first board of directors of the Union of French Athletic Sports Societies (USFSA).
Parochial patronage (1870-1898)
In 1871, after the defeat of 1870, Count Albert de Mun created the Circles of Catholic Workers. Dr. Paul Michaux,Doctor François Jung, " Doctor Paul Michaux, 1854-1924 [archive] ", Mémoires de l'ANM, 2000, p. 93 founder of Gymnastics and Sports Federation of French patronagesDoctor François Jung, "Doctor Paul Michaux", 1854-1924 archive ", Mémoires de l'ANM, 2000, p.96,97 FGSPF, admitted to having participated or collaborated in twenty-five gymnastic, sporting, and military festivals between 1872 and 1897, long before the creation of his federation. It was only after the elections of 1877 and 1879 and the arrival of the Republicans in power that the parish patronages took off, supported by the high clergy and placed under the authority of a vicar-director. Between 1900 and 1960, practically all parishes (except small rural ones) had a "patros" with a sports section, an essential complement to catechism classes. The patronships of the nineteenth century, mainly for apprentices and young workers, then opened up to children of all ages.
In 1888, a commission for patronages and youth works in France was created at the headquarters of the Catholic Institute of Paris (ICP). Three years later, on January 1, 1891, this commission published its bulletin Le Patronage. In addition to the charity conferences and study circles that promoted social Catholicism, physical activities took on such importance that they became a major driving force, both through their civic and school organizations, in the growth of gymnastics and the birth of sport in France.
Before 1914, the three main French federations were the FGSPF, the Union of Gymnastics Societies of France (USGF), and the USFSA After 1918, the latter disappeared in favor of specialized federations - French Soccer Federation (FFF), French Athletics Federation (FFA), French Rugby Federation(FFR), then French Basketball Federation(FFBB), French Volleyball Federation (FFVB) - but the other two remained. The anti-clericalism of the Third Republic, especially that of the USGF, led the Episcopate in 1898 to encourage the reunification of its gymnastic sections within a specific organization. These patronages were not limited to metropolitan France; they also developed in the French colonial empire and particularly in Algeria, on the initiative of Mgr Lavigerie.
Constitution of a federation (1898-1906) Two years after the renewal of the Olympic Games, which emphasized the importance of sport, the Union of Gymnastics and Military Instruction Societies of Patronages and Youth Works of France (USGIMPOJF) was created in 1898, in a generally tense context between lay people and Catholics, the same year as the revision of the Dreyfus trial. In 1901, the organization became the Catholic Gymnastics Societies Federation (FSCG) before becoming the FGSPFJean-Marie Jouaret, 1999, volume 1, p. 19. in 1903. Paul Michaux, born in Lorraine but adopted in Paris, was not the only one to take up the cause: At the end of 1902, the organization named the Elsaessicher Turnerbund (ETB) which then took the name - Avant-garde du Rhin (AGR) - finally received the recognition from the German authorities that it had been seeking for several years,AGR, Official Guide-Programme of the International Competition of Catholic Gymnasts in Strasbourg, August 6, 7 and 8, 1921, under the patronage of Mr Alexandre Millerand, President of the Republic, and Mr Marshal Foch, Strasbourg, 1921, page 15 and the Lyon region, with some thirty patronages at the turn of the century, declared its own Federation of Catholic Gymnastics Societies of the Rhône and South-East at the beginning of 1903, which joined the FGSPF in 1908.
Despite these new federating structures, many patronages continued to join both the USGF and the USFSA, which had previously welcomed them. The hostility of the public authorities and these federations towards those who responded to the Pope's invitation and took part in the gymnastics competition, in 1906, in Rome, brought them under the Catholic umbrella of the FGSPF, which began organizing its championships. This became the French Sports Federation (FSF) in 1947, then the Sports and Cultural Federation of FranceJean-Marie Jouaret, 1999, volume 1, p. 22-25 (FSCF) in 1968. Long before the introduction of the license, participation in gymnastics and music competitions organized by the federation was the most tangible sign of membership.
From patronage to association
The time of the battles (1906 - 1919)
To protect themselves from anticlerical measures, some patronages had already opted for the associative status opened up by the recent law of 1901. In Auxerre, for example, Father Deschamps anticipated the separation of Church and State by declaring his patronage to the prefecture. The movement gained momentum in the fall of 1906. To comply with the law and on the advice of Charles Simon, secretary-general of the FGSPF, many patronages changed their names: Saint-Joseph of Auxerre became the Auxerre Youth Association, Saint-Léon of Bagnolet became Alsace of Bagnolet, the patronage Saint-Honoré of Eylau became Étoile des Deux Lacs, Sister Genevieve's works for great careers became Championnet Sports, soon joined by the Association Championnet, and the patronage Saint-Denys of Argenteuil became Saint-Georges of Argenteuil. Often, as in Cholet with the parallel histories of the Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde and Jeune-France patronages, the former patronage remained to manage non-sporting activities, and the board members of the two associations were almost always the same.
The vicar-director had to live with a president whose candidacy was usually encouraged by his parish priest. The "patronages" were replaced by the "Patrons", an essential part of the origins of French sport. But their role did not stop there, they also made a major contribution to the development of music through their cliques and brass bands, theater, popular cinema, and summer camps. For a long time, these activities were managed by specific organizations, such as the Theatrical Association of Catholic Works for Popular Education (ATOCEP) and the Federation of Cinematographic Leisure and Culture (FLECC), and it was not until the 1960s that the FSCF took them over.
From 1900 to 1914, the patronages joined in the hope of regaining Alsace and Lorraine and made military training and marksmanship a priority: in 1914, when almost all of them had already adopted the status of the law of 1901, one in three holders of military aptitude certificate had prepared for it within the FGSPF. The FGSPF lost more than 24,000 members during the World War I, but its activities continued unabated. In Paris, they offered their services and unmobilized personnel to the Ministry of War, helped care for the wounded at Gare de l'Est and assisted in agricultural work. On August 4, 1919, they brought 7,000 gymnasts from all over France to Metz to welcome the AGR, the Catholic patronage association of Alsace.
The Golden Age (1919-1965)
Despite the criticism voiced in certain progressive circles of the clergy against "sports with a taste of war", the end of the First World War marked the beginning of a particularly prosperous era. Between the recent demise of the USFSA and the still nascent development of single-sport federations, their fledgling federation became the largest in France, with 1,500 of its 2,500 patronages officially recognized in 1928. Although gymnastics remained the main activity, other sports also developed, particularly basketball, which was structured in 1920 within the FFA, born from the dissolution of the USFSA at the end of the war. In 1925, in the Paris region alone, the Federation of Patronages had 110 teams, while the FFA had only 57. A patronage from Le Havre founded in 1874, Union Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, was the first club to be registered by the new FFBB when it became autonomous in 1932.