Changes in Character and Function of a Polish Roman-Catholic Parish in France (1929-1980)

Abstract

The author makes an attempt to analyse the changes of religious life of the Polish Roman-Catholic immigrants in their Polish parish in Roubaix (North France). Simultaneously, he takes into account the consequences of the process of assimilation. The author points to the social function of religion in the immigrant communities; he also presents the social context of forming religious institutions and associations; finally, he characterizes changes in their religious and non-religious functions. It turns out that all the functional changes follow from higher social- -occupational status of young immigrant generations, the process of assimilation etc. All the archival source of the parish of Roubaix clearly show that the parish has undergone evolution from being a parish of community to a parish of aggregate, from monoethnic to heteroethnic. This evolution equally influenced assimilation as well as ethnic awareness at the Same time. Looser links among parishioners, weaker religiousness, higher spatial and social mobility of young generations introduced some functional changes of the parish.

Similar processes and changes are characteristic of religious and non-religious associations existing in the parish.