En Masse: French Canadian Students, Catholicism, and Mass Media

Abstract

This is a study of JEC/Vie Étudiante (1935–1964), the Young Catholic Student [Jeunesse Étudiante Catholique] movement’s newspaper published for French-speaking Canadian students. The article analyzes how, for three decades, the newspaper functioned as a tool for the formation of an activist Catholic community not only by means of its religious content, but also by modelling Christian community through the complex interplay of editorial policies regarding religious content, the changing profile of contributors, the demands of readers, and the physical format of the paper. The newspaper proves to be a revealing locus in which, paralleling developments in Roman Catholic ecclesiology, French Canadian youth and Catholic authorities negotiated Catholicism’s shifting place in Quebec in the decades leading up to the Quiet Revolution.