Cultural Changes: Education and Religion 111

Catholic faithful at the Grotto of Lourdes.

regions in France, and most working-class districts of large European

cities, to be “missionary” areas, in this way defined like China or the

Congo. The loss of the Church’s hold on ordinary people was reflected in

the decline in the birthrate, explicable in part by increased use of birth

control. Furthermore, an increasing number of French people called upon

the clergy only at the time of baptism, marriage, and death (and thus were

sometimes referred to as “four-wheeled Catholics,” in reference to the

wagons that carried an individual to each important occasion).

Yet the decline of religious practice in Europe was neither linear, nor did it

occur everywhere. A revival of popular religious enthusiasm occurred in

some places between 1830 and 1880, particularly among the upper classes.

In Sweden the “Great Awakening” brought the revival of popular religion. In

Catholic countries, lithography and printing presses helped rekindle devo­

tion, spreading the news of religious shrines. Women were more apt to

attend church than men (although in part this resulted from the fact that

women live longer than men). The cult of the Virgin Mary also contributed

to the feminization of religion in Catholic countries, perhaps encouraging

more young women to enter convents.

The growing cult of miracles was part of a revival of popular religion,

particularly in France, Italy, and Spain. Near the French town of Lourdes

in the central Pyrenees, Bernadette, a peasant girl later canonized by the

Church, announced in 1858 that the Virgin Mary had appeared to her.