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Article: Harvesting the "red vineyard": Catholic religious culture in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919.
- Article from:
- Historical Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 The Canadian Catholic Historical Assn. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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After only six months of service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a chaplain, Father Bernard Stephen Doyle of Toronto was clearly unimpressed with the spiritual exercises of the men in his care. "I have become more firmly convinced," he wrote to Archbishop Neil McNeil, "that war and soldier's life do not promote the welfare of religion. The ordinary man is not any more fervent out here than he was at home." (1) Doyle complained of fairweather Catholics who seemed to eager go to the sacraments before the heat of battle but who also "forgot their good resolutions afterwards." Soldiers, according to Doyle, were mired in irreligion, immorality, and blasphemy, and many ...