La "Bibliothèque de Propagande" (1903-1914) : une action maçonnique anticléricale vers le monde profane

‘Les débuts de l’Eglise libérale de Bruxelles (1877 – 1888)’, Bulletin de la Société Royale d’Histoire du Protestantisme Belge, 135 (2006), 1-38., 2006

L’Eglise libérale de Bruxelles, aussi appelée Eglise du christianisme progressif, est née à Bruxelles en novembre 1881. Le fondateur est le comte Eugène GOBLET D’ALVIELLA. C’est un des fruits les plus remarquables de son essai de protestantisation de la société à son époque et de son combat contre le cléricalisme romain.Cet article décrit le commencement, les premiers contacts avec l’église du Musée (1877), les contacts suivants avec l’église du Musée, la vie et la personnalité du premier pasteur James HOCART, le premier culte de la nouvelle paroisse, les objectifs de la nouvelle église, son opinion sur les relations relation Eglise – Etat, le long chemin vers la reconnaissance et rôle de GOBLET D’ALVIELLA dans tout cela. De Eglise libérale de Bruxelles, ook genoemd Eglise du christianisme progressif, ziet het levenslicht in Brussel in november 1881. Stichter is Graaf Eugène GOBLET D’ALVIELLA. Het is één van de meest merkwaardige vruchten van de poging om de samenleving van zijn tijd te protestantiseren en van zijn strijd tegen het roomse klerikalisme. Dit artikel beschrijft het begin, de eerste contacten met de Museumkerk, het leven en de persoonlijkheid van de eerste predikant James HOCART, de eerste kerkdienst in de nieuwe gemeente, haar objectieven, haar opvattingen over de relatie Kerk-Staat, de lange weg naar de overheidserkenning en de rol van GOBLET D’ALVIELLA in dat alles.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

2011

During the 19th century, death was a conflict between the Belgian Freemasonry and the Catholic Church. After the episcopal condemnation of 1837, Masons were denied the privilege to receive their last rites and have a religious ceremony at their funeral. As a result, they started to organize civil funerals, an attitude developed in parallel to spirituality, then in relation to the choice between agnosticism and atheism. The funerals that took place in the Masonic lodges accompanied this process. The Masonic funeral ritual simultaneously was identified as a healing ritual and a rite of passage. While the Masonic ritual was taking place during this century, the exegesis of the ritual dimension brought differing interpretations of such symbolic acts that had not registered any change. In the conflict over the death bed and funeral of the Masons, The Masonic ritual contributed to the development of anti-secular funeral culture in which the construction of an alternative was essential. Thus, the Catholic monopoly on these important aspects of everyday life would definitely be broken, both on the level of public acts, as well as the symbolic funeral.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

Felix Bovie first made a career as a landscape painter. Later on however, he completely devoted himself to the writing of poetic texts for songs he interpreted himself as a mid-19th-century singer songwriter. A scion of a wealthy family living in the Belgian capital, he frequented bourgeois associations such as the masonic lodges but he was also an adept of more bohemian, frolicsome societies who liked to mock Freemasonry as such. The song text production of Bovie, which has often been compared to the one of French liberal singer Béranger, can only be understood in the interface of all those specific spheres. There, artistic and more saucy motives went along definitely anticlerical and particular Masonic themes. Bovie had been accepted by the Amis Philanthropes lodge but eventually left for another Brussels lodge that rejected the politically militant kind of Freemasonry the former advocated. The songs Bovie wrote and performed celebrated a spiritualist and convivial Freemasonry, that surely was apolitical but nevertheless proved frankly anticlerical, if only as a reaction against the Belgian episcopal condemnation of Freemasonry of 1837.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

De la charité chrétienne à la bienfaisance en cours de laïcisation, de la philanthropie libérale à l’affirmation des exigences de solidarité, puis aux combats politiques contre l’exclusion, la philanthropie est un marqueur précieux pour suivre les inflexions, recompositions et réactions à l’œuvre dans le champ maçonnique entre la fin du XVIIe et le début du XXIe siècle, et par-delà un miroir pour les enjeux qui travaillent, fracturent et recomposent la société environnante.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right