Sensitive but Sane Male Visionaries and their Emotional Display in Interwar Belgium 1 tine van osselaer

When a wave of Marian apparitions swept over Belgium in 1932-1935 many ‘visionaries’ (c. 200), among them a remarkably high number of men, claimed to encounter the divine. Focusing on these male visionaries and their emotional expressivity, this article aims not only at contributing to a better understanding of Catholic constructions of masculinity, it also accords with the increased attention for the historicity of emotions and, more specifically, for men’s emotional comportment. The male visionaries present a particularly interesting case since they had to live up to multiple expectations about their emotions. Whereas their visibility and trustworthiness as visionaries were founded on their capacity to display their emotions (in accordance with a tradition of emotional mysticism), these men also had to show ‘masculine’ rationality and coolness in order to prove that their experiences were not triggered by exaggerated piety or neurosis.

In focusing on the emotional expressivity of these men, the following paragraphs not only aim at contributing to a better understanding of Catholic constructions of masculinity, they also accord with the increased attention for the historicity of emotions and, more specifically, for men's emotional comportment.Whereas research on the (eighteenth-century) 'man of feeling' had already indicated that 'the relationship between [...] male rationalism and female emotionalism' had 'at times been more intimate and less antithetical than is generally believed' 4 , it took some time before men's emotions landed on the research agenda of historians.Nonetheless, the attention is slowly increasing and proves to be a rich field of research.Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth century, Manual Borutta and Nina Verheyen have pointed out that it is not only important to analyse the diachronic level, one also has to define in which 'social groups and areas of practice' men were expected to show and cultivate 'both sensibility and emotional control at the same time'. 5e visionary Belgians fit this profile since they seem to have been involved in a difficult balancing exercise.For all the emotional expressiveness demanded in 'modern' -that is public and serial -apparitions, they were also expected to display their ('masculine') rationality.Their non-ecstatic behaviour therefore ideally fitted the differentiation between the rational man and emotional woman that was also proliferated and supported in Catholic publications of the time.Nonetheless, even though this gender polarisation might appear allencompassing, idealising accounts on emotionally expressive men continued to be published in the 1930s whilst (metaphorical) images also blurred the low countries histories of masculinity gender boundaries (e.g. military men depicted 'as mothers'). 6The simultaneity of different emotional norms is also perceptible in the accounts of the Marian apparitions.
During the male visionaries' moments of ecstasy the point of reference was a tradition of emotional mysticism.This enabled lay men to claim a certain authority -as mediators with the heavenly world -and gave them power to speak.Therefore the article also contributes to the understanding of gender in 'the occasion, quality, and expression of religious emotion' on which much work remains to be done. 7Focusing on the visionary Belgian men, their reception and testimonies, this article intends to trace the ways and means by which these men expressed their religious feelings, the acceptability of men's emotional expressivity in the 1930s and the requirements they had to fulfil in order to be considered good Catholic 'men'.The research is based on both published and unpublished documents.The latter stem from two different types of sources: some of the documents were created for and collected by the ecclesiastical committees, whilst other documents were intended for a lay public and circulated among the visionaries and their supporters.

The Belgian series and the male visionaries
In 1932-1935 a wave of Marian apparitions swept over Belgium.As these were years of political unrest and economic depression (since 1929), the setting of the series of Belgian visions resembles other accounts of Mary's visitations. 8e various attestations and their resonance document an increasing willingness to believe in divine interventions and especially in the consolation brought by Mary when she appeared as a soothing, protecting mother or as a more militant figure. 9Still, this series of encounters with the divine was exceptional, not only because of the high number of locations (c.30) and the variety of the attestations, but also because of the number of new 'visionaries'  These men do not fit the description of the prototypical nineteenthcentury visionaries as these were predominantly women and children with a rural background. 12The seers' important role therefore complicates the assumption that the visionaries of the modern apparitions were women -or rather girl -visionaries and the 'feminisation' of religion was also perceptible in these visionary experiences. 13Moreover, the Belgian male visionaries did not figure solely as confirmation of the Divine presence at apparitional sites that had already produced child and women visionaries.On the contrary, quite a few among these men claimed to see Mary at locations that could not yet boast of Mary's visitations.In this regard, the Belgian visionaries differed from their Spanish colleagues at the Ezkioga site (1931) where men did not function as 'initiators of a vision sequence'. 14Nevertheless, like their Spanish counterparts, the Belgian seers were lay men, most of them from a workingclass background: of the 53 male visionaries included in the lists created by Louis Wilmet, a Catholic journalist and writer, and by H. Didion, the pastor of Bonneville, in 32 cases the profession is mentioned.In spite of notable exceptions such as 'ex-seminarian' (Gabriel Quatannens) or 'beggar' (Henri Maquet), by far the most of them belonged to the working-classes, making their living by manual labour, and introduced as such in the official documents and in the newspapers. 15Their background thus resembles that of their 'colleagues' in Spain who were, amongst others, farmers, foundry workers and chauffeurs.However, they did differ in one respect, for as William Christian has noted, during the Ezkioga-episode male factory workers were 'less likely to reveal visions'. 16In the Belgian cases, as we shall see, this factory background was built in as an argumentum pro in the supporting narratives.These 'privileged' men were not perceived as an oddity by the Belgian public, neither in Wallonia (that had a more virulent anticlerical tradition), nor in more rural Flanders.As most of these seers came from the lower classes of society, their profile agreed with the recurring observation, eloquently voiced low countries histories of masculinity by De Certeau for example, that 'the mystical favoured the illumination of the illiterate, the experience of women, the wisdom of fools, the silence of the child'. 17Whether (factory) workers or farmers, their background could be turned into an argument in favour of their credibility.Accordingly, Constant Van der Meer, an architect from Brussels, noted in a letter to the archbishop that (the ambulant visionary) Jules De Vuyst was a [...] simple farmer, with an uncultivated intelligence, with only rudimentary instructions and education, who speaks only a vulgar Flemish dialect; and therefore he is on the level of most of the visionaries, always chosen among the most humble and insignificant, for they are not capable of deriving from themselves or prior studies, the messages that they bring. 18though these male visionaries lacked the education and official sanction or title, they did claim a certain authority on their own account as mediators who communicated directly with the heavenly world.Furthermore, some of them such as Tilman Côme (Beauraing) and Henri Kempenaers (Onkerzele) were miraculés and could refer to their own miraculously healed body as evidence of the divine favours they received. 19These lay authority claims surpassed the borders of one apparitional site (or even country) as the visionaries (and/ or stigmatics) from one site at times confirmed the events at other locations. 20e accounts of Marian apparitions therefore not only document the networks of (changing) relationships between people and supernatural figures.As these networks were not independent of social conflicts, power relations and the attendant discrepancies in (religious) agency, they also offer an insight into claims of authority, the instrumentation of religion and the role of emotions therein.

sensitive but sane van osselaer
Two elements are of importance here.First of all, it has been suggested for the (female) visionaries and stigmatics of the nineteenth and twentieth century that in order to be heard, they still needed the support of (socially) powerful promoters. 21That also seems to have been the case in the Belgian series.Prominent lay Catholics -as e.g.Jan Boon, the editor in chief of the Catholic newspaper De Standaard -engaged in the promotion of the Belgian visionaries. 22As for clerical support, in the autumn of 1933 the Belgian ecclesiastical hierarchy forbade the clergy to organise pilgrimages to any of the apparitional sites or to publicly express their confirmation of the supernatural character of the events. 23Consequently there was no public pairing up of the clergy and the male visionaries.Behind the scenes however they actively engaged in promotional campaigns by writing letters to their bishops.However, since the clergy could not take a stand publicly, their (written) support most often stayed below the radar of the common laymen. 24 is difficult to trace the incentives of these promoters.Most often the only thing that can be concluded from the various documents is that they believed in the truth of the events, wanted to spread Mary's message that had been communicated on these occasions and in order to do so lauded the qualities of the male seers.In this respect the Belgian case does not seem to resemble the Ezkioga visions where there were special efforts (explicitly mentioned) by the various authorities to obtain the statements of male visionaries because these were considered more trustworthy. 25The Belgian documents do not hint at a similar gender imbalance in credibility that might account for the promoters' support of the causes of these male visionaries.Secondly, the prominence these visionary men were able to obtain might also be studied from the perspective of the Church's increased attention for lay religiosity in the early-twentieth century.In their examination of the high number of girl visionaries in the late nineteenth and early-twentieth century, scholars such as Marlène Albert Llorca have emphasised that from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century the criteria adopted in the evaluation of an attestation of an apparition shifted.As women's purity (and religiosity) was increasingly exalted, this valorisation resulted in an augmented willingness low countries histories of masculinity 135 to believe the attestations made by representatives of that purity, girl visionaries.Their number was higher from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards because people were more willing to believe them and they themselves more willing to attest. 26Can we adopt the same line of reasoning for the male visionaries in Belgium in the 1930s?To a certain extent the answer is affirmative: lay religiosity did experience an upgrading through movements that emphasised the apostleship of the common lay man and consequently made lay religious attestations more acceptable.This however, does not explain why this influence would have been limited to Belgium.Moreover, it has to be emphasised that the apostolic -often martial -spirituality promoted in these movements struck a different tone than the ecstatic emotionality of the visionary men.Nonetheless, the social class of the visionaries offered the opportunity to position them in the Catholic ideology of the time.These working-class men fit the ideal type of the 'pious worker' who enlisted in the lay apostolate of the Catholic Church and was willing to re-Christianise the world (see e.g. the idealisation of the ascetic worker Matt Talbot 27 ).Father Blondeel, for instance, emphasised how Maurice Van den Broecke's behaviour was in accord with Pope Pius XI's call (for lay mobilisation) as this visionary from Olsene aimed at stimulating the piety of his fellow-workers by his own words and actions (e.g. in the factory, he worked with a statue of Mary in front of him). 28This link with the ca-ideology of spiritual renewal was also mentioned by lay promoters of the apparitions.More particularly, it was also referred to in (mass-distributed) booklets published prior to the bishops' announcement (autumn 1933) that all texts had to obtain the 'imprimatur'.Doctor Maistriaux, for instance, noted in his reports on the (first) Beauraing apparitions that it should not come as a surprise that Mary had chosen Belgium as starting point for religious renewal: the country had always been at the forefront of the Catholic Action movement. 29Likewise, a promoter of Tilman Côme described him as 'a worker apostle', a credible visionary for a Church that had attempted to introduce the feast of Jesus as a worker. 30As has been concluded for the Ezkioga events, for many of the lay people who came  The importance of (men's) purity in the laudatory descriptions of the male visionaries however, did not figure prominently in the narratives.It was a point of interest only in the case of the (bachelor) Maurice Van den Broeck whose eyes and language were described as 'mirroring the immaculate purity' of the Virgin. 32In the idealisations of other bachelor visionaries as Gerard Cardoen, Jules De Vuyst and ex-seminarian Gabriel Quatannens it was not mentioned and thus apparently not of central importance for their credibility.
One might add that even though Quatannens was an ex-seminarian and -to the annoyance of the ecclesiastical hierarchy -persisted in wearing his cassock (and thus posed as a clergyman) there were no celibate clerical men among the visionaries.The Catholic prototype of male purity therefore was not represented. 33rthermore, the prejudices associated with the working-classes also inspired the storyline of the 'converted' worker.The narrative of the conversion of the impious worker -attested at other European apparitional sites toofigured as a kind of extra confirmation of the authenticity of the events.The story of the socialist, anarchist or communist worker who was unwilling to believe in divine intervention, but was brought to more pious ways after a visionary experience, was a common trope. 34The Belgian socialist newspaper Le Peuple alluded to this typology of the converted visionary when one of its journalists disclaimed the allegedly anarchist or socialist background of Tilman Côme.The accounts in the Catholic newspaper De Standaard whistled another tune: while they emphasised Côme's observance of Catholic duties before his visionary experience, Tilman's sons were depicted explicitly as 'irreligious' and a little uncomfortable with their father's attestations. 35The basic idea remained the same: by situating the visionary in an environment that was more a less hostile to claims of divine intervention, his attestation gained certain credibility.Nevertheless, this was not an exclusively male narrative and in the story of Leonie Van Dijck, a visionary from Onkerzele, this unwilling role was played by her (allegedly) socialist daughter. 36As for the fact that it was men who attested these encounters with Mary, gender norms and expectations were easily built into the narration of the events.While stories about rural child visionaries often started with them searching for berries or wood, those about the male working-class visionaries could start with 'on his way to the pub' (Omer Eneman, Etikhove) 37 or 'back from the pub' (Maurice Van den Broecke). 38These assertions would have been pernicious for the credibility of female visionaries, but they did not sound out of place in the stories about male visionaries.The latter also faced other gender-exclusive expectations.Their credibility and status seem to depend on non-religious factors as well and they were judged on their efforts to provide for their family, their behaviour on the work floor 39 or by their comportment during the war.Tilman Côme, for instance, was described by some as 'the instrument of the Germans' 40 whereas others depicted him as A good housefather, honest worker, a common but earnest Christian, a man of a sound mind and reasonable in his speech and dealings.He did not traffic with the Germans during the war and he behaved as an honest Belgian citizen. 41 sum up, the possibility of male visionaries was not under discussion.Even though none of their attestations ever gained the approval of the church, people could and were willing to believe in their testimonies. 42As we shall see, the assertions of the authenticity of the events were in part supported by the emotional expressivity of the visionaries during their encounters with Mary.
Emotions were considered an indissoluble part of the experience, including sensitive but sane van osselaer those of visionary men.Accordingly, one of the questions posed to Tilman Côme after he had seen Mary was 'Were you moved?' 43 'Were you moved'?He shows 'signs of ecstasy [...] sighs deeply and sadly, tears fall on his clothes, his eyelids tremble immensely flutter greatly'. 44In these words, an eyewitness described the visionary experience of Henri Kempenaers on 16 February 1934 at the Onkerzele site.As the commentator's presence at the site and his report indicate, the Belgian series were 'visible' to all who wanted to attend.The bystanders could read the divine presence from the bodies of the visionaries: kneeling or going into ecstasy indicated that their visionary experience had started. 45What is more, they could also catch the visionaries' emotional state by reading their body language and facial expression.Consequently the accounts on the Marian apparitions also document the emotional communities of which the male visionaries were part. 46The approving and disapproving comments registered in these accounts can help to reconstruct the emotional soundboard as they delineate the limits of men's emotional expressiveness and document the differentiation made between the acceptable behaviour of male and female visionaries.
The impression created by these descriptions is that during their encounters with the Divine -when they were considered 'besides themselves' -these men (or at least most of them) went through emotions that were considered 'exceptional' and allowed a certain exaggeration, or rather magnification.As the literal repetition of Mary's words by Tilman Côme and Henri Kempenaers made her messages audible for all, this 'enlargement' of their feelings is what made them perceptible for the onlookers. 47Moreover, not only their behaviour and verbal utterances, but also their features could reflect their emotional state.Maurice Van den Broecke, the visionary from Olsene, for instance, 'reflected an inexpressible happiness'. 48It was as if an 'angelic smile' 'transformed his features'.'His smile gave him an indescribable beauty', so a bystander remarked, 'and I am absolutely certain that, returned to his normal state, Maurice would be incapable of reproducing such an expression'. 49Likewise, Father Blondeel remarked how Maurice's face had turned so pale and its bones had become more prominent because of the 'strong emotion' he had undergone.The surprise and shock of the apparitions had made him almost 'unrecognisable'. 50This idea of the divine presence as something that could be read -through their emotional expressions -from the faces and bodies of the visionaries resulted in attempts to photograph the seers during the apparitions.On 7 July 1933 a journalist of De Standaard happily announced that in the case of Tilman Côme 'They have already succeeded twice in registering photographically his face and comportment during the moments of "Apparition"'. 51Furthermore, as the references to the 'angelic smile' and exceptional beauty suggest, visionaries were allegedly rising above their humanity -and thus masculinity -during these encounters with Mary.'Human' emotional rules thus did not necessarily apply.
The emotions most often referred to seem to have been the same for both male and female visionaries and fluctuated between happiness and sadness. 52The latter emotion, often expressed through sobbing, is particularly interesting for our study of men's emotionality (especially when we take into consideration the mocking comments on the 'anything but masculine' weeping actors that were cited at the beginning of this article).Marian apparitions often ended with tears and sadness, grief and dismay were most often mentioned when visionary men recalled their feelings during the encounter with Mary.They remembered how they had been overwhelmed by sorrow on seeing Mary weep for mankind or appear as the grieving Mother of Sorrows. 53Likewise, sadness was also one of the most dominant emotions in the accounts created by the eyewitnesses to the events. 54However, we should be wary of describing this emotional expressiveness as behaviour not befitting Catholic men.On the contrary, the weeping fits can be studied from the perspective of the perseverance of the (nineteenth-century) ultramontane tradition in which tears -not necessarily triggered by a divine intervention -figured as an expression of the soul and suited to both men and women. 55is ultramontanism, as Margaret Anderson noted in her study of the German Catholicism, was 'less concerned with "right behaviour" than with an immediate spiritual -or, if you prefer, emotional -experience; with the believer's personal connection to the divine' not only tolerated phenomena such as stigmata and visions but also 'legitimated them, [was] expected [of] them'. 56reover, the copious tears of the visionaries and the willingness to attest to them fitted what Anne Vincent-Buffault has called a Christian dolorism.This redemptory and expiatory suffering had been reintroduced at the start of the nineteenth century and whereby tears were depicted as the sole 'intimate truths' that prove the (inner) suffering.Tears figured as the expression of repentance and purification. 57Furthermore, the tearful episodes also accord with the ideal of 'vicarious suffering' (expiatory suffering for the sins of others), especially when the male visionary during his visionary experiences mumbled phrases such as '[...] to the last drop' and declared that sensitive but sane van osselaer he would be willing to sacrifice himself if that was requested of him. 58Yet again, the Belgian visionaries seem to form an exception to the rule as the expiatory suffering, the 'mystical substitution' 59 , is mostly attested by women or girls (even though, of course, Jesus had set the example). 60Their self-denial, according to Paula Kane, could easily be fitted into 'a socially constructed ideal of extreme suffering as the true expression of the feminine'. 61Still, the 'interior' stigmata that were claimed by Henri Kempenaers and his ecstatic reliving of the passion of Christ on Christmas day 1933 clearly match the profile.An eyewitness described Kempenaers' actions accordingly: He sinks to his knees, stands up, eyes closed, is tired, takes a few steps; falls again to his right side and stays with his hands folded and sighs deeply.-He stands up, hands in front, looks at the church and goes on.Kempenaers' patient and tearful suffering seems to contrast with the idealisation of the (masculine) strength and valiant action lauded in Catholic movements of that period. 63Nevertheless, it did fit a Catholic tradition in which physical suffering was an acknowledged means to work for the salvation of others.These visionaries gained a certain (spiritual) authority among their followers through this discourse of suffering and by situating the divine intervention in their bodies.Apart from the ultramontane tradition of affective religiosity, the acceptability of the male visionaries' religio-emotional sensibility thus might also have been facilitated by their social (lay) status.As indicated, most of the Belgian male mystics of the 1930s were lay workingclass men -befitting De Certeau's notion of the low profile of the mystics -and as such they inversely agree with Melissa Raphael's assertion that 'it is usually the case' that 'the higher the sacral status of the male individual, the less religious emotion is displayed'. 64In other words, the lower one stood on the scale of religious authority, the more emotional fireworks were allowed or even required.
Whereas male and female visionaries shared this enlarged emotionality, gender differentiation was not entirely absent from the accounts of their emotions.Even though the visionaries were considered 'besides themselves' during the apparitions, to some extent they were still expected to show gender-specific emotions and the corresponding behaviour during their encounters with Mary.This demand is particularly apparent in regard to the feelings of shame and respect that could be felt on these occasions.For instance, the inherent shame displayed by the girl visionaries of Lokeren during their re-embodiment of Christ's passion (in spite of their skirts they always managed to fall down decently); differed substantially from Henri Kempenaers' showing his bare chest (and wound) during his visionary experiences. 65Likewise, the 'more aggressive' attitude of male visionaries such as Jules De Vuyst -including the 'gnashing of his teeth', 'wide open jaws' and 'hands as claws' 66 when he had visions of the devil and of a 'Usurpator' -did not befit female visionaries.The Lokeren police for instance noted with disapproval the threatening comportment and utterances of the girl visionaries at the Lokeren site and considered it improper behaviour. 67ereas the supporters of female visionaries never mentioned rage in their laudatory accounts, it could be included in those on male visionaries.Vice versa, inherent shame (avoidance of immodest movements) was not referred to in the case of men.This inclusion and exclusion does not necessarily imply that the onlookers did not perceive such feelings in the visionaries.However it does indicate that in pleading in favour of the credibility of the events, they knew what should not be included.low countries histories of masculinity somewhat 'overstrained because of his nocturnal work' and he had always been 'a little original like his mother'. 78In the description of another pastor Jules De Vuyst fared even worse: He looks like someone who is not mentally sound.Someone who hallucinates, I do not know what else to call it.Childishness, silliness, foolishness and impossibilities on the one hand, amazing and earnest actions on the other hand.
One tells me that, at least judging from his comportment, he is humble and can pray beautifully. 79 these quotations might illustrate, the border between delusion and religious experience had an unstable reputation, also among the clergy.
Their emotional expressiveness, lack of control and 'strange behaviour' were what made the male visionaries susceptible to accusations of hysteria and other nervous illnesses.During the Belgian series of apparitions more than one visionary was (temporarily) called insane, men not excluded.The internment of Jules De Vuyst, for instance, was a palpable threat for his supporters and almost became reality in August 1936 when he and his friend Jacques Blancquaert were arrested by the Lokeren police.Jacques was sent to an asylum, but Jules -thanks to the intervention of his father -was released after a night in prison. 80Similarly, Tilman Côme was regularly referred to as an 'hysteric' and when Henri Kempenaers visited Beauraing and had a vision there a priest walked up to him and called him 'sick'. 81Mental illness was thus a well-known accusation and therefore it was quite often explicitly refuted by the supporters of the visionaries. 82e descriptions of these visionary male laics consequently also complicate the association of 'femininity', 'religiosity' and 'hysteria'.Hysteria sensitive but sane van osselaer and neurosis were associated with 'mysticism' especially since the end of the nineteenth century (thanks to the work of Charcot in La Salpêtrière) 83 and this pathologisation had been used by the Church's opponents to discredit religious impulses as 'a displacement of repressed or frustrated female sexuality'. 84The explanation of allegedly mystical experiences from a hallucinatory or psycho-pathological perspective was hotly debated in Catholic (medical) circles as well 85 and as the numerous allusions to the potential male 'hysterics' indicate, the 'syndrome' did not necessarily imply genderexclusivity.

Conclusion
The visibility and (part of the) trustworthiness of the Belgian male visionaries of the 1930s were founded on their capacity to display their emotions.Their emotional expressivity helped to identify them as mediators with the heavenly world and therefore empowered them to speak on religious matters.However, two caveats have to be mentioned here.First of all, in order to attract sufficient attention, they still required prominent lay promoters to add weight to their (religiously and socially) frail voice.The clergy intervened as well, albeit not as openly as they might have wanted.Secondly, emotionally expressive menespecially the weeping and wailing type -could trigger comments.Although they could hardly be called a novelty -sobbing men had been noted also in nineteenth-century ultramontane texts -they were not free from accusations of hallucination, hysteria and exaggerated piety.Still, whereas the latter allegations had often been linked to women's 'feeble minds', the 'feminisation' theme did not dominate the accounts of the Belgian wave of apparitions (not even in the socialist or liberal press).Furthermore, there was no indicationcontrary to the Ezkioga case -that male visionaries were deemed more credible than female visionaries.These men clearly met the expectations people had about visionary experiences and suited the profile of 'emotional mysticism' described by Lisa Bitel as befitting modern-day female visionaries.In her opinion, a more restrained behaviour is expected of male visionaries, including their times of ecstasy.Demonstrative weeping, falling to the knees and a special voice are characteristics that agree quite well with a 'tradition of unruly, demonstrative female mystics', whereas male visionaries 'usually just prayed low countries histories of masculinity 149 and meditated'. 86As illustrated, this is not confirmed in the Belgian case.The weeping and wailing male visionaries were not thereby depicted as out of character in the various sources.Their acceptance can probably be linked to the temporary character of their grand emotions.The Marian encounter was a moment during which they were in contact with the supernatural, rose above their humanity and hence also their masculinity and concomitant emotional rules.Nonetheless, as indicated, this detachment was transitory and, 'returned to their senses', they (ideally) still fitted the profile of the calm and rational man, in control of his emotions.
While their emotional expressivity made the male visionaries visible as religious mediators, the emphasis on their 'masculine' rationality and coolness also enhanced their credibility since it proved them to be uncontaminated by exaggerated piety or neurosis.Furthermore, only because they corresponded to an ideal type of Catholic masculinity (family provider, sensible and a good citizen) could their assertions be deemed worthy of attention.Failure in this respect also had its effect on their credibility during those episodes in which they were deemed beyond the (emotional) constrictions of their human and masculine condition.It was this ideal masculinity that their (more powerful) promoters could refer to and that made their claims to religious authority worthy of notice.
The stories of these male visionaries therefore illustrate not only how important emotions could be in the evaluation of new 'mystics' but also how On the limits to the gender-polarisation and on emotionally expressive Christian men in the nineteenth and twentieth century, see Tine Van Osselaer, The Pious Sex: Catholic Constructions of Femininity and Masculinity in Belgium, c. 1800-1940 (Leuven 2009) 259-260.Melissa Raphael, 'Gender', in: John Corrigan (ed.),The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion (Oxford 2008) 181-199, 181.See e.g. the references to the rise of fascism and Nazism in the sources of the Belgian series.Typicality of the context: David Bromley and Rachel Bobbit, 'The Organizational Development of Marian Apparitional Movements', Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 14:3 (2011) 5-41, 8-11.9 William Christian, 'Afterword: Islands in the Sea: The Public and Private Distribution of Knowledge and Religious Visions', Visual Resources 25 (2009) 153-165.On Mary's image: Monique Scheer, Rosenkranz und Kriegsvisionen.Marienerscheinungskulte im 20.Jahrhundert (Tübingen 2006) 22.

r
Group portrait of the visionaries from Onkerzele, 15 June 1934, from left to right front row: Jules de Vuyst (?), Berthonia Holtkamp, Leonie Van Dijck, second row: man with hands folded in prayer: Gabriel Quatannens, in the back: Henri Kempenaers.adg, Onkerzele.
different expectations of men and their emotions could circulate also within contemporaneous Catholic discourses.q Tine Van Osselaer (1979) is a post-doctoral researcher at K.U.Leuven.She is currently working on a research project on Marian apparitions in Belgium in the 1930s (sponsored by the Research Foundation Flanders) and has published on religious history and gender history: e.g.Tine Van Osselaer and Alexander Maurits, 'Heroic Men and Christian ideals', in: Yvonne-Maria Werner (ed.), Christian Masculinity: Men and Religion in Northern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Leuven 2011) 63-94; Tine Van Osselaer, 'Mystics of a Modern Time?: Public Mystical Experiences in Belgium in the 1930s', Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire 88:4 (2010) 1171-1188; Tine Van Osselaer, 'Christening Masculinity?: Catholic Action and Men in Interwar Belgium', Gender & History 21:2 (2009) 380-401.Email: Tine.VanOsselaer@arts.kuleuven.be.86 Lisa Bitel, 'Looking the Wrong Way: Authenticity and Proof of Religious Vision', Visual Resources 25 (2009) 69-92, 82.