The author analyses changes in the views of the Slovenian Catholic camp with regard to physical education at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries or, rather, in the period of the so-called “separation of spirits” and fierce cultural struggle. One of the consequences was the establishment of the Catholic gymnastics organisation Orel, which in the span of a decade came very close to its counterpart Sokol in many aspects, including its numerical strength. The contribution describes the process from the first concrete notions about establishing their own Catholic organisation to its materialisation and growth before the First World War.