$Unique_ID{COW00349} $Pretitle{370} $Title{Belgium Chapter 2B. Language} $Subtitle{} $Author{Jenny Masur} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{percent french dutch language belgian flemish flanders brussels standard belgium} $Date{1984} $Log{Figure 7.*0034901.scf } Country: Belgium Book: Belgium, A Country Study Author: Jenny Masur Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1984 Chapter 2B. Language Demographic and geographic divisions in Belgium only partially coincide with social ones. Belgium is marked by particularistic compartmentalization, well illustrated by its complex educational system. It is therefore necessary to understand those loyalties that create the compartments-language and religion. The languages spoken in contemporary Belgium are Dutch, French, and German. Linguistic and political borders do not coincide. German is spoken in the eastern area of the country bordering West Germany, Dutch in the northern area bordering the Netherlands, and French in the western and southern area bordering France. Early Germanic invasions laid the basis for the current linguistic divide (see Roman Period, 57 B.C.-A.D. 431, ch. 1). The provinces of West-Vlaanderen, Oost-Vlaanderen, Antwerpen, Limburg, and northern Brabant became Dutch-speaking Flanders, while those of Liege, Luxembourg, Hainaut, Namur, and southern Brabant became French-speaking Wallonia. The German speakers, using Low German and Franco-Mosellan dialects, live in the eastern cantons of Eupen and Malmedy, but they account for less than 1 percent of the total population. Only in certain areas do linguistic minorities receive protection (see fig. 1). Brussels is a special case, being treated as an officially bilingual region. Technically, there are residents of Wallonia who speak any of the Romance-language dialects-not necessarily mutually intelligible-called Picard, Gaumais, and Walloon (split into central, western, and eastern dialects). There are residents of Flanders who speak any of the Germanic dialects-also not necessarily mutually intelligible-called Brabant, Limburg, and West Flemish (see fig. 7). For convenience, all the former dialects have been combined in the category of Walloon (waal; wallon) and all of the latter into Flemish (vlaams; flamande). Historical circumstance and the point of view of the writer, as well as objective criteria, have determined what constituted a "dialect" and when it became the basis for a supraregional language. Because of the history of the French nation, the development of French literature, and the role of French as an international language of prestige, Parisian French came to set the standard for Walloon speakers. In contrast, Flemish and Brabant dialects played an important role from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century in Flanders, after which the dialects in the Netherlands-influenced by immigrants from southern Flanders and Brabant-began to dominate. The Flemish speakers in Flanders were cut off from the Netherlands by politics and only decided to adopt Amsterdam Dutch as their written and spoken standard in the mid-nineteenth century. In English, some authors prefer to call the standard spoken by Flemings and residents of the Netherlands Netherlandic, reserving Dutch or Hollandic for what is spoken exclusively in the Netherlands. To complicate matters further, there are about 100,000 people of Flemish descent living across the border in France, although the schools there do not teach Dutch. A poll conducted by the French and Dutch sections of the Catholic University of Louvain (KUL/UCL) in the early 1980s investigated the secondary languages used in Belgium. Dutch was used frequently in at least one-half of the public utilities and private enterprises in Wallonia; English and German were also used to a lesser extent. In Brussels, French was most common, followed by Dutch, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic. In Flanders, French was employed in almost all private enterprises and public utilities, and English and German in about 60 percent of private enterprises and 50 percent of public utilities. The frequent use of English was partly explained by its importance in research, academic publications, and computer operations. Apparently, French-speaking university students were weaker at Dutch (75 percent admitted to serious difficulties) than Dutch-speaking students were at French (50 percent admitted serious difficulties). Only 30 percent of the enterprises located in Wallonia considered the linguistic qualifications of applicants when hiring, compared with 60 percent in Flanders. In both regions an average of 20 percent of the jobs in public services required dual language proficiency. These rates contrasted with 90 percent of private enterprises and 75 percent of the public services in Brussels. Outside Brussels students could choose which second language to study. In Wallonia some 58 percent of the students chose to learn Dutch, and 36 percent chose English; in Flanders about 91 percent opted to learn French, and 9 percent selected English. At the same time, if given the choice, the majority of 18-year-olds surveyed in Wallonia said they would like to study English; 18-year-olds in Flanders were equally divided between French and English. [See Figure 7.: Location of Speakers of Romance-Language and Flemish Dialects, 1984.] Although language plays an important part in individual, group, or communal identity in Belgium as well as in Belgian politics, it has not always done so. It was a conscious policy in the nineteenth century to make first French and then Dutch political tools, aimed at political unification and French or Dutch cultural domination. At the time of Belgian independence, for example, emphasis lay on differences of religion and politics between Belgium and the Netherlands or France and not on languages or regions within the Belgian state (see The Revolution of 1830, ch. 1). The term "Wallonia" was reputed to be coined in 1844 by the poet Joseph Grandgagnage and was applied to the French-speaking region only after 1850. "Flanders" has referred to the county of Flanders, the Low Countries, or the provinces of West-Vlaanderen and Oost-Vlaanderen. Those who came to be called Flemings had earlier been variously called Brabanters, Belgians, or "Belgian speakers of the Flemish idiom"; their language had been referred to as Low German, as well as Flemish, and was held to be distinct from Dutch by some scholars as late as 1946. Local dialects split each region into smaller units, to which the residents felt the most loyalty. The most significant cleavages that showed up in Belgian public life during the country's first century were religiosity and socioeconomic status; language did not dominate politics until the late 1950s. Like French and English in Canada, Dutch and French in Belgium have not held symmetric roles. French was the language of the elite during the Spanish, Austrian, and French regimes and of the ruling bourgeoisie for many years after independence. It was the language used by the royal courts and the upper classes and thus was essential for political or social success. French was the language of public administration, judicial proceedings, church hierarchy and, after Latin became obsolete, education. The members of the bourgeois elite in Flanders were French speaking, said to know only sufficient Flemish to speak to their servants. Walloon and Flemish dialects were used only at the municipal level of government and by the local clergy. During World War I Flemish soldiers could not understand their French officers, and in 1866 two Flemings were executed for a crime they probably did not commit because they did not understand the French trial proceedings. Three popular sayings of the time told the story of the position of the Flemish language: French in the parlor, Flemish in the kitchen. You speak the language of the man whose bread you eat. It is necessary to cease being Flemish in order to become Belgian. In the past, Flemish dialects have been associated with illiteracy or the poorly educated masses; French has been associated with success and the bourgeoisie. French speakers have been reluctant to learn or use Dutch, belittling its importance in the world and specifically in Belgian life. In the mid-nineteenth century a majority in Flanders spoke Flemish, and a majority in Wallonia spoke Picard and Walloon, leaving only a small minority of urbanites and members of the elite who spoke more than the rudiments of standard French. The upper classes and upwardly mobile individuals were attracted to French for its economic and cultural advantages until well into the twentieth century. French speakers tended to dominate in the civil service, diplomatic corps, officer corps, and corporate management; they tended to have better education, higher status, and more income than the speakers of other languages and dialects. As well as dialects, there are Belgian variations of standard French and Dutch. Almost all speakers of Dutch in one experiment could identify the nationalities of recorded speakers by their accents and speech habits. The efforts of binational commissions and language associations in the Netherlands and Belgium to coordinate Dutch spelling, grammar, lexical codification, and literary awards have been unable to prevent the variations. Flemish in Belgium was developing simultaneously with dialects in the Netherlands. Because of disagreement between the localists (those who supported the dialects) and the integrationists (those favoring standard Dutch), it was only in 1864 that Dutch was adopted as a standard by royal decree. Dutch was favored over the Flemish dialects because of the need for a standard for education and legislation. Only since the period between the two world wars has standard Dutch been used on an everyday basis. Research has shown that the younger generation, exposed to Dutch education and the mass media, has been more comfortable with the linguistic norms of the standard. Belgian primary-school teachers, as well as the public at large, prefer Belgian variants of vocabulary, pronounciation, and intonation as exemplified on Belgian radio and television. For example, the word for an alderman in Parisian French is adjoint au maire and in Hollandic Dutch, wethouder; French-speaking Belgians use the term echevin and the Dutch-speaking Belgians the term, schepen. Because of their awareness of regional differences, Belgians sometimes overcompensate for the influence of the other national language and for errors they perceive in their speech patterns (helped by advice on "proper" usage in the media). When speaking the standard, they also unwittingly insert archaisms, literary forms, and regional elements into their speech. Many Belgians switch between a variety of languages or dialects. Businessmen, oriented to foreign trade, or personnel of the international organizations based in Brussels are multilingual. Migrant workers use their native languages. Television channels from Britain, France, West Germany, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg are received as well as Belgium's own French and Dutch channels. Bilingualism becomes a controversial subject only when referring to French and Dutch-so controversial that there has been no language census since 1947. Switching between dialects and the standard language exists on a variety of levels. In a broad sense many children who speak a dialect at home are accustomed to language switching because they are not taught their dialect in school. Still, linguist Jacques Lefevre reported that 45.7 percent of the respondents to his 1975 survey of Walloons claimed to speak their local dialect "very well"; 64.5 percent understood it "very well." Only 27 percent of the respondents, however, used their dialect often with their kin or friends, and only 20 percent used it often at work. Walloon is especially common in rural areas and in informal situations. A 1971 survey of 350 Dutch speakers found that 90 percent used the regional Flemish dialect with family members and 78 percent with friends. Dialect was less common in more public and formal situations; about 70 percent used it when shopping and 57 percent when working. In situations where it could be of future benefit, the standard language was preferred; some 69 percent of the parents spoke standard Dutch with their children. As in the case of Walloon, standard speech was less common in the rural areas and urban lower class. Confirming these observations for Flanders, a 1975 survey found that 70 to 76 percent of the 1,116 respondents thought it appropriate to use dialect in communication with their friends or spouses. Social class may also be influential, as socioeconomic classes tend to have different prestige norms. Flemish dialects and standard Dutch, for example, have been linked to separate values and social identities. For members of the working class, the standard language may be associated with situations where they are at a disadvantage (in school or the army). Understanding but not speaking the standard well, they may prefer to keep a social distance from those not using a dialect. Middle-class people, however, may manipulate the standard with the aim of impressing lower class people. Dialects in Brussels vary from those using French syntax with Dutch vocabulary to those using Dutch syntax with French vocabulary. Many people are bilingual. Flemish dialects or a mix of languages are used informally, but standard French is considered more useful for technical and abstract matters. The linguistic preference of the speaker, as well as the social and the emotional context, is also crucial. Changes in educational patterns are effecting changes in language preference, and Dutch is coming to the fore. Officially, Brussels is a bilingual region, and the proper role of the two languages has posed delicate problems. Brussels began as a Flemish city; in 1846 some 67 percent of the population spoke Dutch or a Flemish dialect. By 1910, however, the number of French speakers had risen to 49 percent of the population, by 1930 to 59 percent, and by 1947 to 71 percent. In the 1960s a study conducted by the Free University of Brussels (VUB/ULB) found that French speakers constituted a majority of 80 to 85 percent. Not surprisingly, the Flemings have feared and resisted the expansion of the French-speaking population into the outskirts of the city; artificial "iron collar" political limits have been set to stop the so-called spreading oil stain (see Major Political Developments, 1980-84, ch. 4). In the past, bilingualism has referred to a one-way shift on the part of the Flemings, perhaps over more than one generation, from the monolingual use of standard Dutch or Flemish dialect to bilingual Dutch and French and then to predominantly French. The shift was seen by the Flemings as pathological but by the French speakers as a civilizing and socially redeeming process. It might come about through intermarriage, migration from Flanders to Wallonia or Brussels, or parental pressure on the children of the Flemish bourgeoisie, who historically made up about 3 percent of the population of Flanders. During the course of a language shift, the first generation adopted French for use in public, the next for use at home, and the third for study and work, maybe even marrying a French speaker. Attributing such shifts to social pressure, the younger generation of Flemings have become Flamingant, i.e., militantly conscious of their Flemish heritage. Since the controversy caused by the 1947 language census (which found 51 percent spoke Dutch, 1 percent German, 33 percent French, and 15 percent Dutch and French in Belgium), no further official counts have been made. Unofficial estimates are possible by noting the language used on driver's licenses or in telephone directory listings. In Brussels language switching has continued. A survey in the 1960s found that 68.5 percent of the children of Flemings spoke French together, only 27 percent of the total participants claimed Dutch as a mother tongue, about 13 percent continued to speak mostly Dutch, and only 18 percent expressed loyalty to the Flemish community. Because regional, linguistic, and ethnic identities do not completely overlap in Belgium, it is best to refer to the social division between Wallonia, Flanders, and Brussels as communal rather than ethnic. It would seem that French-speaking Flemings have been integrated into the French-speaking community without regard to their physical appearance, place of birth, descent, cultural traits, or so-called ethnic identity. To the French-speaking Belgians, the linguistic identity of a Belgian is a matter of self-definition, whereas to Flemings, it is a matter of collective identity and membership in a social community (through the family and a matrix of varied organizations). Because language is a matter of individual choice to French speakers, a French-speaking Bruxellois may not share an ethnic or regional identity with a French-speaking Walloon. For the Flemings, influenced by the Flemish movement, language maintenance is not only a right but also a romantic, mystical matter involving self-awareness and one's knowledge of reality (see Development of Flemish and Walloon Movements, ch. 1). Jules Destree, a Walloon Socialist and politician, reflected this attitude in a famous letter to the Belgian king in 1912: A language is a treasure amassed by a human community in the course of many ages. It comprises the memory and the illustration of a people's customs, beliefs and sufferings. In the minds of those who speak it, it awakens confused impressions dating back to the earliest days of childhood when we learned to babble our first words at our mother's knee-and even farther back, to the folk-memories that link us with our remote ancestors. There is a mysterious quality in our attachment to our mother-tongue, one which has little to do with our conscious, reasoning facilities but derives from the depths of our subconscious being. To combat the loss to their community through the one-way language shift, the Flemings have obtained the passage of laws defining language community by territoriality-those who live in Flanders should speak Dutch, those who live in Wallonia should speak French. The question of Brussels has been settled to no one's satisfaction. Although the attitudes of each community have led to conflict and controversy, they have created neither hatred between language groups nor more than minimal violence. The Walloons, Flemings, and Bruxellois have nevertheless developed some popular and often unfavorable stereotypes about one another. These have been reinforced by the popular press and the limited communication between the groups. According to an analysis of these stereotypes conducted by sociologist Jozef Nuttin (based upon survey data from the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s), the Walloons see the Flemings as obstinate, forward, touchy, and primitive. The Flemings say the Walloons act superior and are chauvinistic, pretentious, boastful, hotheaded, and attitudinizing. On the positive side, the Flemings credit the Walloons with eloquence and spontaneity. The Walloons believe themselves to be hospitable, merry, spontaneous, bon vivants, and freedom loving, although they admit to feeling superior to the Flemings and to being undisciplined, individualistic, and complaining. The Flemings also seem more positive about themselves, agreeing that they suffer from an inferiority complex, are hardworking, persevering, courageous, loutish, gregarious, attached to their native soil, idealistic, sentimental, and self-willed. They add that they are freedom loving, frank, concerned for others, and hospitable. The Walloons and Flemings agree, however, in their belief that the residents of Brussels are boastful, self-satisfied, pretentious, profiteering, and superficial. Even the people of Brussels see themselves as grumbling, bon vivants, and individualistic, although they sweeten their self-image with a belief in their own broad-mindedness and spirit of freedom. Despite their sensitivity to the balance between French and Dutch, Belgians seem little concerned that Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and North African migrants are complicating the language picture (see Demography, this ch.). The migrants come from the lowest socioeconomic levels in their own countries, just as the niche that they occupy in Belgium forces them to accept the lowest ranked job. In Brussels migrants tend to live in the most deteriorated housing and form the majority in certain schools and communes. Together, the migrants constitute an underclass and may ally for political ends, but socially and culturally the migrants divide into a series of national groups. Many workers are accompanied by their families, and their children seem caught between an identity in terms of their parent's homeland and Belgium. Migrants rarely obtain Belgian citizenship and stand out in other ways. Physically, Turks and North Africans do not look like the majority of Belgians and find it hard to escape the consequences of classification as guest workers. Muslims and members of the Greek Orthodox faith do not share the general Belgian familiarity with Catholic rites, symbols, and objects. Suffering the handicaps of alien languages and culture, children of immigrants have not done as well as Belgian children in school; some 60 percent of Turkish children did not finish primary school in the late 1970s. Although the migrants have not been successful by Belgian standards, they have conformed to the Belgian values of frugality and hard work and have earned and accrued much more than would be possible at home. Often thinking of their stay as temporary, however prolonged, they have learned neither Dutch nor French well. They have focused instead on saving and on maintaining contacts with home (by telephone, letters, vacations, remittances). Their presence has been called unobtrusive by one commentator, living and working as they do out of the sight of middle- and upper-class Belgians; nevertheless, newspaper articles from 1983 and 1984 suggested that, as in other West European countries with high migrant populations, their alleged rates of crime and employment have become issues as Belgian unemployment has risen. Religion In addition to language, religion is another source of social cleavage in Belgium. Although Catholicism is by far the dominant religion, there are other religious groups, whether recognized officially or not. There is no state church, and the Constitution allows for various religions to receive state aid. Those religions officially recognized include Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Anglicanism. Almost all of the country's approximately 9.9 million inhabitants are Catholic. Surprisingly, the second largest religious group after Catholic is Muslim (mostly Sunni). Most Muslims are migratory workers from Turkey and North Africa, in 1981 there were 179,516 from Morocco, Algeria, and Turkey alone. In 1969 the government helped build a mosque and other buildings, and in 1974 parliament recognized Islam as an official religion, helping with the salary and pensions for Sunni imams. There have been Jews in Belgium since before its independence. After a peak of about 90,000 in 1940, because of Nazi persecution there remained only 20,000 after World War II; by 1984 there were about 35,000. They were located in Brussels and Antwerp, and about 45 percent of them were practicing Jews. Like the Jews, the Protestants have been recognized since independence and in 1984 included about 100,000 people. In 1975 about 20,000 were foreigners, concentrated in Brussels, Charleroi, Antwerp, and the Borinage area. The official Protestant church is called the Protestant Church of Belgium, although there are other Protestant groups. Finally, there are about 60,000 members of Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, including families of Russian exiles (from the 1917 revolution) and Greek migrant laborers. Nonbelievers make up perhaps 20 percent of the population-including atheists, agnostics, and deists-and so are bigger than any non-Catholic religious group. In public forums the Center for Secular Action and the Union of Secular Associations speak on behalf of the (French-speaking and Dutch-speaking) nonbelievers, respectively, although most nonbelievers tend to be more individualistic than churchgoers. The Catholic church is neither united with nor separate from the government. However, in addition to the usual rights and freedoms of expression, it receives subsidies for the maintenance of the clergy and the upkeep of church buildings. In return, the church recognizes that religious marriage must be validated by civil marriage, gives up the legal right of its priests to attack the government while performing their duties, and submits to government approval for certain public activities, such as the creation of new parishes. The church was formally associated with the Catholic Bloc until 1945 and before that took openly political stands (see Consolidation of the System, ch. 1; Political Parties, ch. 4). There are eight Catholic episcopal sees in Belgium, of which only the archdiocese of Malines-Brussels (including parts of Antwerpen and Brabant provinces) is bilingual. The religious cleavage most significant in Belgium is between Catholics and nonbelievers. In this division, there are two issues to consider: first, whether Catholicism is as important a social factor as in the past and, second, to what extent nonpracticing Catholics are militant rather than apathetic about Catholicism. Catholicism's social influence in the 1980s was a matter of debate. Belgians themselves have asserted that religion is on the decline. The test of this assertion depends on whether "religion" is defined by practices, beliefs, ethical values, philosophical stances, or worldviews. Catholicism is the basis for not only dogma but also religious practices and social relations centered on the family and an array of Catholic-sponsored organizations. Although many Belgians are only nominal Catholics who see the first Holy Communion, baptism, funerals, and marriage as rites of passage rather than as religious acts, Catholic institutions have shaped Belgian worldviews, positively or negatively. The clerical-anticlerical division strongly influenced the first century of Belgian politics and was responsible for the maintenance of the private school system. American sociologist Renee Fox, who has spent many years researching Belgium, writes that Belgians are convinced that religion is declining for several reasons: because of the abandonment of religious practices; the replacement of obvious church involvement in major political issues with nonreligious conflicts; the perception of secularization as destructive, not transformative; a weakening of ideologies, thus reducing the aggressive stances for and against the church; a reduction of missionizing in Africa by the church and Freemasons; and widespread declarations that religion is declining. She contends that such views have ignored innovative religious forms, inside and outside the church, and signs of relative religiosity compared with that of other nations, such as a rise in Catholic-school enrollment, an increase in pilgrimages to Belgian shrines or to Lourdes, a high proportion taking communion and receiving the sacraments, and a low proportion obtaining divorces. Pessimists have not allowed for a new Catholicism that is more individualized, ecumenical, critical, and private. Hence they have missed less quantifiable and obtrusive forms of religiosity, such as masses celebrated outside church buildings and private study or action groups. She points to a shared Christian past and commonly encountered symbols-madonnas, church bells, religious architecture-and concern with seeking transcendental values as evidence of religiosity. The narrower view of Catholicism of the Belgian segment of a cross-European survey conducted in the 1980s found that central Catholic conceptions of life were losing their significance if measured by attendance at mass, belief in a personal God, acceptance of church ethics, and the attitudes of the young. Another survey and an associated series of articles in the largest and most influential Belgian French-language daily newspaper, the independent Le Soir, in 1984, portrayed Belgian Catholicism as not completely conventional. Rather, the Belgian archbishop, Gotfried Cardinal Danneels, characterized it as "popular," rooted in daily-not intellectual-life, and responsive to personal needs, being important in marking personal transitions and seasons of the year. He said religious attitudes were affective, as in considering the Virgin Mary as a mother and the family as a refuge. He noted, as a phenomenon of the last 10 years, the importance given to prayer. The 3,000 Catholics in the Le Soir survey-divided equally among Brussels, Flanders, and Wallonia-were defined as "practicing" because of weekly attendance at mass and were chosen from a sample of 6,000 Belgians. These respondents took communion frequently (11 percent several times weekly, 34 percent each Sunday, 29 percent several times yearly); confessed several times a year (31 percent); attended masses at Easter, Pentecost, Ascension Day, Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and All Saint's Day (about 60 percent or more); and prayed daily (44 percent). While they participated in these rites, their beliefs did not always adhere to orthodoxy. Although 83 percent accepted the divinity of Jesus, some 65 percent the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and 43 percent the infallibility of the pope, only 19 percent believed in heaven, hell, and purgatory (as opposed to 54 percent in some unclarified form of afterlife). Although 71 percent believed in the general concept of sin, only 46 percent believed in original sin. Some 56 percent believed in the possibility of present-day miracles, 67 percent in the appearances of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes (52 percent had been to the shrine), and 20 percent in possession by Satan (38 percent in Satan himself). Such findings were confirmed by a cross-European study finding belief in God was not necessarily associated with a belief in a soul, heaven, or Satan or with weekly religious practices. It was not coincidental that the last appearances of the Virgin Mary recognized by the Catholic church occurred in 1932 and 1933 at Beauraing (in the province of Namur) and Banneux (in the province of Liege), which have become pilgrimage sites. According to the Le Soirppurvey, although Belgian Catholic family life continued to be valued, it was not regulated in accordance to church teachings; it was rather a private matter. Birth control, divorce, premarital sex, and abortion were condoned. For 57 percent of the respondents a Christian ideal was a healthy and happy family life, and for 58 percent their Catholicism was a result of a family tradition. Premarital sex, though, was seen by 30 percent as an apprenticeship for marriage and by 40 percent as permissible if the couple were going to marry. Only 23 percent of those surveyed believed abortion is always a crime as opposed to a pardonable sin (23 percent) or a sometimes necessary act (33 percent). The number of children per family should be a matter of choice; 31 percent said the number should depend on family resources and 49 percent on the psychological equilibrium of the parents. About 46 percent said divorce was a private matter, and 29 percent allowed it under certain circumstances. Remarriage after divorce was approved by 44 percent and tolerated by another 36 percent if it involved the partner not responsible for the divorce. Similarly, the cross-European study found 86 percent of the Belgian respondents approved of an abortion if the mother's health was at risk, three-quarters if the child was likely to be handicapped. There was no approval for abortion if the mother was single or the pregnancy a miscalculation. Another symptom of crisis for the Belgian Catholic church was the increasing scarcity of secular and regular clergy and members of religious orders. In 1978 there were 13,635 priests, or one for every 718 inhabitants. Seminary enrollment and ordinations were declining. In 1963 there were 165 priests ordained, and in 1973 there were only 51. Similarly, in 1963 there were 202 students entering seminaries as opposed to 87 in 1978. As a result, the average age rose to about 55 years for priests in the early 1980s (less than 10 percent were under age 40). Statistics for religious orders were hard to procure. Data for 32 of the 60 female contemplative orders showed that during the 1967-77 period, 157 women entered and 88 left. Parish life suffered, as did the supply of missionaries, nurses, and teachers. Only a partial solution has been provided by the preparation of lay deacons throughout the country and in Flanders, "pastoral workers," and in Wallonia, "animators." Although the new generation of priests was reported to be better prepared and firmer in conviction than before, the question remained of priorities in the eight episcopal sees. Should attention be dedicated to the needs of a shrinking nucleus of practicing Catholics or to influencing the general public on issues such as poverty in the Third World or nuclear war? Worker priests, for example, affirmed the need to "bear witness" and aid in the struggles of the working class, traditionally little interested in Catholicism. Overall, by objective standards, there were fewer practicing Catholics than in the past. In the 1950-51 period about 50 percent of the Catholic population attended mass regularly (60 percent in Flanders, 41 percent in Wallonia, and 35 percent in Brussels). By 1978 the percentages had fallen to 29 percent of Catholics for the country as a whole, 35 percent for Flanders, 22 percent for Brussels, and 24 percent for Wallonia. The 1968-73 period showed a marked drop, particularly in Flanders. Using other measures, it can be argued that Catholicism is still strong. Religious rites of passage showed a decline, but a majority of lives were still marked by them. Baptisms were still performed for 83 percent of the babies born in 1980; only in Malines-Brussels has there been a substantial decline over time, owing perhaps to the larger number of foreign immigrants there. In 1978 Catholic marriages and funerals were still performed for over three-quarters of the population, except in Malines-Brussels, where the proportions were only slightly lower. The fluctuation in these proportions over time and between regions was open to several interpretations. The relatively high proportion of Catholic funerals may have reflected respect for the beliefs of the aged, religious uncertainty, the affiliation of institutional homes and hospitals with the church, or a move to emulate the practices of the bourgeois Catholics on the part of some members of the working class. That the proportion of baptisms had not decreased more significantly may have been because of the uncertainties of the religious future of the child or the child's need to fit in at school (see Education, this ch.). The proportion of Catholic marriages was relatively low, perhaps because of Muslim migrants defiance of hypocritical conformity, marriages between practicing Catholics and nonbelievers, continuity of secular working-class customs, or the increasing number of remarriages after divorce. Observers do not doubt, however, that the younger generation-especially those under 35 years of age-have participated less in these religious rites than their elders. It has also been suggested that there has been a decline among members of the middle class and the intelligentsia. Aggregate regional figures did not reflect variation by rural or urban location, sex, or occupation.