Catholic party

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The Catholic Party ( Dutch : Katholieke Partij , French : Parti catholique ) was a Belgian Catholic conservative political party .

history

The first Catholic party in Belgium was founded in 1869 as the Fédération des Cercles catholiques et des Associations conservatrices (Federation of Catholic Circles and Association of Conservatives). Before that were the Catholics in the of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies consist Parliament no party political group in the true sense. They often alternated with the Liberal Party, founded in 1846, as the prime minister .

Under its first chairman, Charles Woeste , it won an absolute majority in parliament as a Catholic party after the first school dispute in 1884 and then remained in power until 1918.

In 1921, the party was renamed the Catholic Union ( Katholieke Unie or Union catholique ) of workers, citizens, medium-sized businesses and farmers. After Woeste's death in 1922, the party increasingly lost its importance and was renamed the Catholic Bloc ( Katholieke Blok or Bloc catholique ) after the severe defeat in the parliamentary elections in 1936 and became a French-speaking Parti catholique social and a Dutch- speaking Katholieke Vlaamse Volkspartij ( KVV) shared. The KVV sought rapprochement with the right-wing fascist Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV) in order to pool all Flemish and Catholic forces. However, this met with resistance from Flemish politicians such as Frans Van Cauwelaert and Staf De Clercq , but also from the General Christian Workers 'Association (ACW) and the farmers' union. Ultimately, the Catholic bishops prevented cooperation between KVV and VNV, but this did not necessarily rule out cooperation on the local political level.

After the end of the Second World War , the Christian People's Party was founded in 1945, which in 1972 was divided into the Dutch- speaking Christelijke Volkspartij (CVP) and the French-speaking Parti Social Chrétien (PSC).

Today's successor party to the original Catholic Party are the Christians-Democratisch en Vlaams (CD&V) and Center Démocrate Humaniste (cdh).