Author:

Keywords:

François Houtard, Sociology of Religion, Urban Planning

Abstract:

In earlier times, most settlements in Western Europe developed around the local parish church, the community’s spatial and social nucleus. The processes of industrialization, urbanization and secularization have reversed this mechanism; towards the mid-20th century, the place of the church (both as a religious institution and as a building) was no longer self-evident. The established religions devised various strategies to preserve the once-evident unity of ideology, territory and society. Many Catholic dioceses, for example, established consulting bodies for the strategic planning and financing of religious infrastructure in the suburbanizing areas. As a case in point, this paper studies the interaction between religion, urban planning and demographic change at a pivotal moment in recent Belgian history, namely the period leading to the 1958 World Fair in Brussels. In particular, it addresses the ideas developed by canon François Houtart (b. 1925), a key figure in the development of urban expertise within the Belgian Catholic milieu who has nonetheless been overlooked so far. Originally trained as a priest, Houtart obtained a master in sociology and read urbanism under Gaston Bardet in Brussels before spending a year in the USA, familiarizing himself with the Chicago School principles. In 1956, he founded the Centre de Recherches Socio-Religieuses with its principal seat in Brussels. Financed by the Belgian episcopate and inspired by similar institutions abroad, it advised on the planning of Catholic infrastructure such as new parishes, churches, hospitals and schools. As this paper will show, Houtart developed an increasingly critical attitude towards the territorial politics of the Roman Catholic Church during the post-war era in Belgium. For example, he openly contested the concept of the territorially defined parish – the fundamental cornerstone of the Catholic edifice – since the ever increasing mobility made the very notion of spatial boundaries obsolete. By focusing on the international conference ‘The Church in the City’ organized by Houtart at the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, this paper will discuss his criticism as part of a broader contestation of Catholic authority within modern society, and assess the alternatives that were put forward in order to regulate a religious presence in the newly urbanized areas.