Abstract EN:

From the thirties on, the action catholique starts considering the training and the sending of lay missionaries in view of the evangelisation of the maritime world. These "new men", these "native" laymen, these sailors, these militants appointed by the action catholique, whose apostolic responsibility is recognised by the church's hierarchy, are apostles among their peers, in charge of the "conquest" of their brothers. Their objective, in particular with the help of the action catholique's organisations and a handful of priests, is to create a new maritime world, a maritime lay christianity. In 1945 starts the mission of the sea, created on the model of a missionary institute. It is almost a religious congregation, whose aim is, in turn, to recruit and train missionaries and priests for the sake of the maritime world's evangelisation. Some priests, educated in the mission de France’s seminary created in 1941, will try to become sailors while going down the steps of what can be called an "incarnation scale". The further they "go down" this scale in order to become priests and sailors, the farther they cast away from the traditional model of the Roman Catholic priest. Their "experiment", which upsets both the maritime world and the church, survives until the catholic hierarchy demands the complete stop of those working priests, who challenge the "uncompromising Catholicism" (Emile Poulat) and the traditional model of the priest. The simultaneous combination of the increasing apostolic influence of laymen trained by the action catholique and the "downwards" movement of clergymen implied by their presence within the sailors' world, blurs the traditional and admitted differences between priests and laymen that have existed for centuries. Maybe an essential clue to understand the nowadays identity crisis of the catholic priest can be found there.