Adolf Daens

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since March 2007.

Adolf Daens (18 December 1839 – 14 June 1907) was a Belgian Flemish priest from Aalst. He created the Daensism movement from which originated in 1893 the Christene Volkspartij inspired by Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum. The Christene Volkspartij forced the radicalisation and democratisation of the Catholic party.

Adolf Daens was elected member of the Belgian parliament. He is a major figure of the Flemish movement and of the history of Belgian trade unions.

Louis Paul Boon published in 1971 the novel 'Daens' (full title: "Pieter Daens of hoe in de negentiende eeuw de arbeiders van Aalst vochten tegen armoede en onrecht") in which Adolf's brother Pieter Daens is the narrator. This book served as basis for Stijn Coninx's film Daens in 1993 (with Jan Decleir as Adolf Daens).

In 2005 he ended sixth place in the Flemish version of the election of De Grootste Belg ("The Greatest Belgian")