Prayers, Petitions, and Protests

In 1912, the Ontario Conservative government issued the controversial Regulation 17 in an attempt to improve the quality of English-language teaching in the province, while effectively restricting French-language instruction within bilingual schools. Prayers, Petitions, and Protests explores popular reaction to the policy in the Windsor border area and the radical opposition of the Catholic hierarchy to bilingual schooling. Jack Cecillon presents a comprehensive study of divisions that were created or exacerbated within the local francophone communities, as well as the pivotal role played by the bishop of London, Michael Francis Fallon, who strongly opposed bilingual education within his diocese. Also instrumental was the Catholic Church's desperation to stave off challenges to the province's separate schools system, which was met with aggressive resistance from congregations of French-speaking Catholics. This dispute was of such grave concern to church officials that the Pope had to intervene twice to manage the conflict between the warring Irish- and French-Canadian factions. Although much of the province effectively resisted the school reforms, what emerged in Windsor was very different. Prayers, Petitions, and Protests uncovers a conflict within the church where priests and laypeople challenged the hierarchy, disobeyed orders, and stirred public resistance.