ABSTRACT
In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, Montreal fell into the grip of repeated outbreaks of sectarian violence pitting the city’s Catholic majority against a small but powerful Protestant minority. In the midst of this, an increasingly assertive and powerful Catholic Church began to use a lavish annual religious procession to celebrate the occasion of Fête-Dieu (known elsewhere as Corpus Christi) as part of a broader agenda to encourage the nascent urban working-class to forge a closer connection to institutional religion. The chapter examines how this procession was conceptualized by both Protestant and Catholic Montrealers in the context of sectarian conflict. While Fête-Dieu did not lead to an outbreak of collective violence during this period, it forced both Protestants and Catholics to reflect on what constituted the appropriate use of public space and the responsibility community leaders had to deter their adherents from violent confrontations.
