FRERES DU MONDE AND THE VIETNAM-WAR (1965 -1973) - FROM A FIGHT IN FAVOR OF THE THIRD-WORLD TO A STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM

The study of Freres du Monde's commitment against the Vietnam War brin gs to the fore the tensions existing between the religious field and t he political one, within a group of politically involved Catholics dur ing the decade around May 1968. At the beginning of the Vietnam War, i n February 1965, this Catholic review, published by a Franciscan friar y from Bordeaux, fakes an original stand among Christian circles: it q uickly and firmly comdemns the American military intervention. Its wri ters ''testify'' in favor of the Vietnamese people and denounce the Am erican imperialism, in Marxist-Leninist terms. Through Freres du Monde 's analysises and political stands about Vietnam, we observe that a mi nority of the French Christian left wing progressively shifts towards ''leftism''. After 1968 their speech about the Vietnam War loses all i ts religious connotations to apparently become exclusively political. However it reflects a theological evolution of the Franciscan friars : they somewhat abandon the traditional idea of Mission which was initi ally theirs for a theology of Liberation - in gestation at the same pe riod in Latin America. Freres du Monde's commitment against the Vietna m War prematurely comes to an end in September 1971. Though on the bat tle fields the fights intensify, the editorial staff don't express the mselves anymore on this subject. Sapped by internal dissensions, the p ublication disappears in 1973.