With the help of and at the frontier of medicine

Pseudo-medical support of homosexual catholics in France (from the 1960s to the time of the Manif pour tous)

Abstract

This article relates the organization, within contemporary French Catholicism, of religious practices at the frontiers of medicine, psychological sciences and support correcting homosexual orientation or transidentity. Contrary to the idea that conversion therapies belong to the Protestant world of North America and that they do not concern Catholicism, it examines 3 chronological moments in particular, each associated with important players in this pastoral work: doctors Eck and Oraison in the years 1960-1970, Tony Anatrella in the years 1980-1990 and charismatic movements inspire by “Courage” since the 2000s.