Jean Ousset (28 July 1914 – 20 April 1994) was a French ideologist ofNational Catholicism born inPorto,Portugal. He was an activist of theAction française monarchist movement in the 1930s, and personal secretary of its leader,Charles Maurras. Under theVichy regime duringWorld War II, Ousset became the chief of the research bureau ofJeune légion, a structure dependent of theLégion française des combattants, the veterans' association created in 1940 and headed byXavier Vallat.
Following the Liberation, Jean Ousset became one of the leaders ofCité catholique, anintegralCatholic group. The Cité catholique also includedMarcel Lefebvre, who later founded the priestlySociety of St. Pius X, free from neo-modernist andindifferentist currents. As theCagoule had done before the war, the Cité catholique had as aim to infiltrate theRepublic's elites in order to form a National Catholic state, on the model ofFrancoist Spain.[1]
Jean Ousset published in 1949Pour qu'Il règne ("That He may reign"), a title which later chosen by the Belgian section of the Society of St. Pius X as the title of its newspaper. The preface of the book was signed byMarcel Lefebvre.
Ousset also wroteLeMarxisme-Léninisme in which he developed the new concept of "subversion" and argued that Marxists could only be combatted by "a profound faith, an unlimited obedience to theHoly Father, and a thorough knowledge of the Church's doctrines.".[2] Its Spanish translation was prefaced byAntonio Caggiano, the archbishop of Buenos Aires and military chaplain, who would theorizecounter-revolutionary warfare in Argentina (theories which were implemented by the military during the so-called "Dirty War").
One of his most significant works (the only one translated into English),Action is a handbook designed as a practical implementation of the Social Teachings of the Catholic Church in alignment with the papal encyclicals that call for a re-establishment the Social Kingship of Christ. The work provides a structured approach to social involvement and response to anti-Catholic movements. The English translation ofAction was introduced by Anthony Fraser, son ofHamish Fraser the noted founder of the journalApproaches, convert to Catholicism from atheistic Communism and the producer of the English translation of this work.
