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Abbé Félicité Robert de Lamennais, 1782-1854.
French Catholic clergyman and Christian socialist activist. Initially advocated the marriage of the French Liberal tradition with Catholic doctrine, emphasizing freedom of consciousness, worship, speech and the press, abolition of the death penalty and the separation of Church and State. His main vehicles, were his pamphlets (like his celebrated Paroles, 1834) and his journal, l'Avenir.
Lamennais caused quite a stir and he attracted many admirers, but it embroiled him in a protracted conflict with Royalist Conservatives and the Pope himself. After being excommunicated and breaking with the Catholic Church in 1836 (and spending a year in prison in 1841), Lamennais devoted himself to socialist-democratic causes. In his 1848 book, he analyzed the plight of workers under the industrial revolution in fiery "class struggle" language. He believed the extension of suffrage to the working classes would be the only way to achieve the legalization of trade unions, universal education, diffusion of property and thereby economic emancipation. He participated in the 1848 Revolution, but was purged in the aftermath.
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