238 THEISLAND ACADIANS

in the parish. The club took part in Catholic rallies, public speaking contests and hockey leagues. It also organized field trips, bowling leagues, night classes, study groups on religious topics and current events, and sponsored money-making activities such as an annual lobster supper”’.

The temperance movement which had constituted such an impor- tant socio-religious trend throughout the nineteenth century faded rapidly in the early years of the twentieth century. This decline in popularity coincided with the law on prohibition passed by the pro- vincial legislature in 1900 and enforced throughout the Island in 1906*. Prohibition lasted on Prince Edward Island until 1948 without, however, eliminating alcoholism.

After lapsing for almost fifty years, a new temperance movement was started in several Acadian parishes. The Mouvement Lacordaire, a French-Canadian organization with the motto “God is first served” (TR), set about promoting abstinence. A “Lacordaire” or a “Jeanne d’Arc”, as the male and female members of the movement were called, had to promise not to consume any alcoholic beverages. The move- ment was first set up in Egmont Bay in 1951 on the initiative of Father Charles Gallant’’. Later it spread to Mont Carmel and Tignish and operated successfully on the Island for about fifteen years. During the more active period, the members in each parish district met once a month and also fairly regularly for larger gatherings in the parish hall. These meetings included speeches or lectures on various topics which often gave rise to discussions related primarily to temperance and religion. Some form of entertainment usually ended the session.

The Lacordaire movement had petered out by the end of the 1960s as attitudes changed with regard to alcoholic beverages. People preferred moderation to total abstinence. It should be noted that it was only at the beginning of the 1960s that clubs, restaurants and bars on the Island were able to obtain a licence to sell alcohol. Con- sumption of alcoholic beverages in moderation gradually became so- cially acceptable.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF VATICAN II

The twentieth century represents an era of developments in science and technology and profound cultural transformations. Urban-