MODERNISM.
Out of the multiplicity of religious sects and philosophical systems with which Europe was deluged at the beginning of the present century, came the new form of Modernism, which is, as the Holy Father has said, but the synthesis of all errors. That vague endeavor to reduce Christian life and teaching to the vagaries of modern thought found its exponents in Germany, Italy,France and England. Schell in Germany sounded the note, and Fogazzaro in Milan took it up, picturing it in his novel "Il Santo." In England it found favor with the unhappy Father Tyrrell, and in France, with the Abbe Loisy and Houtin. The latter, according to present reports has become reconciled with the Church.
The watchful eye of the present Pontiff, Pope Pius X., detected the nature and aims of the new sect before it had yet time to fasten itself upon the minds of the faithful. Accordingly, on September 16, 1907, he issued to the world his famous Encyclical,Pascendi Dominici gregis, treating of the errors of Modernism.
The Encyclical was divided into four parts as follows
I. The Errors of Modernism—Agnosticism—This error declares that the human reason is merely a phenomenon, and cannot raise itself to the knowledge of God. This negation offers free access to scientific atheism, which is an opposition to what Faith teaches.
Immanence—Agnosticism is the negative side of Modernism; immanence constitutes its positive constituent. This doctrine would have it, that religion is a fact and as such demands an explanation; this is not to be sought from without, but from within. Religious immanence thus places as the basis of faith thesensus cordis, or a feeling of the heart, taking its origin from aneed of the Divinehidden in the folds of the subconscious.
Subjectivism—Modernism supposing that the religious conscience is the supreme rule in all things relating to God, declares that that conscience, attracted by the unknowable, either exalts the phenomenon, that is, transfigures it, or deforms, that is, disfigures it, according to circumstances, persons, places or time.
Symbolism—Modernism declares that man, before thinking upon his faith, creates that faith, either in anordinary and vulgar manner, or in a reflex and studied way. In this second case there come what are called the dogmas of the Church. These dogmas, Modernism says, are the instruments of the believer, the symbols of his faith.
Thus the essence of Modernism tends, from a social point of view, to subject the doctrines of the Church to the vague but dominant ideas of the moment, unknown yesterday, and forgotten tomorrow. From the point of view of the individual it would subject objective, theological and philosophic truth to the sensation of the individual and to the sentiment of the ego.
II. How these errors are employed.—The Pope then points out the principles which the Modernist theologian makes use of. For the theologian of this kind, dogma arises from the need which the believer has of elaborating his own religious thought. For him the Sacraments are only the symbols of faith, the consequences of worship, or something instituted for its nourishment. Inspiration is the need which the believer has of expressing his thought by writing or by word; in this way it approaches very nearly to poetical inspiration. It teaches, moreover, that the Church is only the product of the collective conscience, which, in virtue of vital immanence, comes down from a first believer; autocratic at first, it must now, according to Modernism bend itself to the popular forms.
To the historian, history is only the relation of phenomena, and should thus exclude God and everything divine. It declares that the apologist ought not to depend upon the Church, but should seek the aid of historical and psychological researches in the treatment of religious questions. The reformer would thus reform everything according to the above principles. It would replace positive theology by the history of dogmas,which it would write in accordance with history and science. As to worship, the Modernists while desiring to be indulgent in its regard, would nevertheless gradually diminish it. Finally, they look for the abolition of the Roman Congregations in general, and particularly of the Holy Office and of the Index.
Condemnation—The Holy Father then condemns Modernism: "But these suffice to show by how many ways the doctrine of the Modernists leads to atheism and to the destruction of all religion. Indeed, it was Protestantism which made the first step upon this path; then followed the error of the Modernists; atheism will follow next."
III. The causes, the results and the purpose of Modernism. The proximate cause are the errors of the intellect; its remote causes are curiosity and pride:non sumus sicut ceteri homines, and philosophical ignorance. The purpose of Modernism is threefold: the abolition of the scholastic method in philosophy, the abolition of tradition and of the authority of the Fathers; and the abolition of the ecclesiastical magisterium, the teaching Church.
IV.The Remedies—First. The teaching of scholastic philosophy and theology in all Seminaries and Catholic Universities, and at the same time the study of positive theology, which ought to be prosecuted in a sincerely Catholic spirit.
Second. The expulsion of all Modernists from the rectorship and professorships of Seminaries and Catholic Universities.
Third. The care which bishops as delegates of the Holy See, should take to keep from their priests and the faithful all Modernist writings. They should be exceedingly careful not to give theirimprimaturto books which are Modernist in any way.
Fourth. The institution in each diocese of a council of censors to revise carefully all Catholic publications. The formulaImprimaturof the Bishop will be preceded by theNihil obstatof the censor. The priest may not undertake, without permission of the Bishop, the direction of journals or reviews, and the Bishop will carefully examine those who write as editors or correspondents.
Fifth. The Bishops will forbid congresses of priests, except in rare occasions, when they shall be certain that there is no danger of Modernism, laicism, or presbyterianism.
Sixth. There shall be instituted in every diocese a council of vigilance, to watch over books and schools. They shall make certain as to the authenticity of the relics venerated in the churches, and see that the truth of pious traditions are not ridiculed in the newspapers; they shall maintain a surveillance over institutions of a social character and the publications pertaining thereto.
Seventh. One year after the publication of this Encyclical, the Bishops and religious superiors shall hand to the Holy See a diligent report, detailed and complete on the matters which constitute the object of the articles of this Encyclical; and thenceforth they shall do the same in their triennial report to the Holy See.
Such is in brief the resume of this famous document, whose appearance aroused the interest of the whole world. That its measures were effective is evident from the history of Modernism in the last three years. The incipient heresy is practically dead in the pale of the Church itself. Without it has invaded Protestantism, giving rise to pragmatism and all those vagaries which fill the philosophical curriculums of many universities. The Holy Father himself has gained a signal and complete victory.
And now a word as to the purport of the book which begins in the following pages. It is intended primarily to demonstrate that the struggle against the Church has ever been a struggle against the Holy See as the head and centre of all Catholicity. The repudiation of authority began with the Reformation. Then indeed it was merely an outcry against the claim of the Church to possess her authority from God. Later this error developed into a repudiation of human authority. Finally there came the repudiation of all lawfully constituted authority whether human or divine. It was the sequence of Protestantism, Rationalism and Radical Socialism.
Moreover, in the Catholic countries themselves the Church ever remained strong as long as all looked loyally to the centre of unity in the Holy See at Rome. The whole history of Jansenism, Gallicanism, Febronianism and Josephinism, is but the history of human ambition battling against the divine authority of the Sovereign Pontiff. And even then the result would have been a calming down of inordinate ambition before the claims of reason and Revelation, had not an impetus come from without. For a hundred years there has not been a revolution in the Latin lands which has not been aroused and engineered by the influence of English speaking powers. So that it may be said that if the Catholic countries were left to their own ways, they would remain not only Catholic, but up to date in every form of enlightenment and progress.
The history of Christ's Church on earth has ever been a story of storm and stress. The faithful heart of today mourns in discouragement over the evils that afflict the Church in the opening decade of the twentieth century; yet it needs but a glance at the past to convince us that the severest trials of the Spouse of Christ have happened in times long gone by. She has seen the tempest arise out of the clear sky; the clouds of persecution have hung low, at times even enveloping her in their gloomy shadows; she has seen the lightning's flash and heard the loud roar of the thunders of human wrath, while the hurricane swept over the face of the earth overturning the fondest memorials of her progress, and levelling to the dust the proudest monuments of her civilization. She has prostrated herself to the ground and with buried face has called upon the mercy of God to comfort her sorrow and heal her wounds. And when the storm has passed, she has lifted up her eyes to behold the glory of a newer day, the rainbow of hope, telling of that ancient promise: "For, behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."
The story of the past has been told too often to need repetition in this place. Our interest lies entirely with modern days, with the struggle of the Church against the spirit of anti-Christ incarnate in all the movements of error from the sixteenth century until our own times. And thus, while we are seeking the causes of that anti-Christian spirit, we cannot help regarding with interest the influence exerted by the Protestant Reformation upon the intellectual and moral life of Europe. The abandonment of the old faith led, by a natural sequence, to estrangement from Christianity itself. This is so palpable that it is surprising how the innovators could have overlooked the fact that to abuse and ruin the one meant the wounding and destruction of the other. Indeed, had not organized Catholicity existed at the time, and in its then form, there would have been no concrete Christianity to reform, but only some archaeological remnants out of which it would have been difficult to construct even an imperfect idea of the religion of Christ.
Coincident with the great revolt against the Church was the impetus given to the study of the natural sciences. This coincidence, unhappily, assumed to the unthinking the appearance of cause and effect, as if the intellectual powers of man had been stunted and repressed under the regime of ecclesiastical authority, to be freed and exercised in a time of revolt against the Church. This unfortunate conviction was gradually instilled into the minds of the masses by men brilliant of intellect, but unscrupulous in their hatred of the Church and of her teachings. The people accepted the premise and followed it out to its conclusion; that Catholicity should be regarded as an enemy, and as such should be persecuted and destroyed. They wereunable to measure the force of circumstances surrounding the new unfolding of the physical sciences, to recognize the evil character of many champions of the new order, or the glamor which the awakening of new studies cast upon minds hitherto engrossed with the sober logic of the schools. The fact, moreover, that many of the old theories with regard to natural phenomena must eventually have yielded to the processes of scientific evolution had not occurred to them. All these were forgotten or missed in the enthusiasm for the novelties of nature, and under the influence of a gaudy literature they permitted themselves to believe that the Church was responsible for the tardiness of the awakening, and hence that she should be discarded, that Christianity as a consequence should be uprooted, and that the intellect should acknowledge no other deity than the impersonal God of nature.
Moreover, the Church had ever been recognized as the supreme authority in the matter of Christian morality. To attack, therefore, her existence could mean nothing less than to open wide the floodgates of iniquity, to cast down the barriers that had hitherto restrained the evil passions, and to proclaim the reign of license and anarchy. These fatal conditions, taking their rise in the sixteenth century, grew into palpable being and gave place later to that monster of iniquity which today holds half of the world in its grasp.
JANSENISM.
The influences of the Protestant revolt were more far-reaching than the limits of any provincial or national territory, for although the Council of Trent, in 1545, had met the challenge of European discontent with a rigid investigation into every disputed point of ecclesiasticaldiscipline, nevertheless the roots of the new heresy penetrated by secret channels into those very countries which had repudiated the advances of Luther, and taken their stand upon the basis of Roman Catholic unity. It was but natural that a people nurtured upon the living bread of Apostolic doctrine as delivered to them through the ministry of the Holy See should look with distrust upon the excessive and destructive theories of the German Protestantism. They found, however, in the morbid doctrines of Calvin a certain weird and uncanny attraction, which like an hypnotic obsession led them on until they mistook empty and high-sounding formulas for the clear light of truth. It was not that they did not see much that was repugnant and absolutely untenable in Calvinism; nor would they openly espouse the outward organization which the heretic called his church; but they hoped to find a middle path as far removed from the rigid fatality of the Genevan heresiarch as it would be from what they would call, the laxity of the Roman Church. Out of the resulting confusion was born the spirit of Jansenism, which proved to be little else than the Calvinistic heresy disguised under the external forms of Catholic unity. It was a heresy all the more dangerous that its assaults were not directed in the open and from the outside, but were nurtured within the very household of the faith, where it spent its arrows of discontent upon the children of the Sanctuary kneeling in devotion under the shadow of the altar.
Midway between the strongholds of Luther and Calvin lay the country of the Netherlands, rendered important at the time through the influence of its celebrated University of Louvain. Out of its curious people came that Cornelius Jansen whose name was to acquire a questionable celebrity through his championship of thenew idea. A quondam conspirator in the interests of Philip II., he had been raised, for his services in that direction, to the See of Ypres. For twenty years he studied in his own way the great tomes of St. Augustine, reading his whole works ten times over, and his refutation of the Pelagians as many as thirty times. It was a period when theologians were much interested in grace, free will, predestination, and kindred questions. The Church had already condemned the theories of Baius in that regard, and Calvin's errors, which he claimed to have found in St. Augustine, had been refuted time and again. It was the work of Jansen to revive in a more classical form all these condemned doctrines and to seal them by an appeal to St. Augustine. To this end he finished before his death, in 1638, an immense work entitledAugustinus, which, however, was not published until 1640, two years after his death.
Its heretical character was immediately recognized. The University of Paris censured five leading propositions extracted from the work, which were in turn formally condemned by Pope Urban VIII., in 1642. The Jansenists, however, endeavored to meet the Papal condemnation with casuistic subtlety. They resorted to a distinction between the orthodox sense of the propositions and the heretical sense in which they might be read; they thus claimed that Jansen understood them only in their orthodox sense, while they agreed that the propositions were rightly condemned in a heretical sense. Hence they declared that the five propositions were either not at all contained in the work of Jansen, or at least that they were not there in the sense condemned by the Bull of Urban VIII. To these observations Pope Alexander VII. replied by the Bull of 1656, wherein he condemned such distinctions, declaring that the five propositions were taken from the work of Jansen, and that they werecondemned in the sense of that author. The Jansenists retorted by asserting that the Papal Bull was only a simple regulation of discipline, and that it could exact nothing more than a respectful silence. Practically the whole action of the new sectaries amounted to an effort to restrict the scope of Papal infallibility, in as much as they declared the Pope might rightly adjudicate in regard to dogmatic doctrines, but not in regard to dogmatic facts. Thus, he was right in condemning the five propositions, as they held, but wrong in declaring that Jansen taught them in a heretical sense. This distinction was formally condemned by Clement XI. in 1705, and the bishops and prelates of France were obliged to subscribe to a formula declaring that they condemned the propositions with heart as well as with lips, according to the mind of the Holy Father.
The novelty of the Jansenistic ideas raised up, especially in France, a coterie of supporters, brilliant of intellect, but entirely dominated by pride and egotism. Foremost of these was theAbbeSt. Cyran, who became the sponsor of the Jansenistic doctrine after the death of its inventor. A Calvinist in sentiment, however orthodox by profession, his career was hardly such as might be expected of an apostle of truth. His treasonable life had awakened the hostility of the great Richelieu long before the advent of Jansenism, and he had spent years of weary confinement in the prison of Vincennes. His character was one of duplicity as is evident from his general tone of teaching. It was he who, one day, informed St. Vincent de Paul, that he would speak the truth in one place if he thought the truth would be appreciated there, and its opposite where ever he should find the people unable to apprehend the truth. It is significant of his pride that he declared that the Holy Scriptures were clearer in his own mind thanthey were in themselves. This strange individual upon his liberation from prison, at the death of Richelieu, set himself up as a martyr and contrived to chant his woes into the ears of the courtly set that hovered about the French throne. He succeeded in casting the glamor of fashion over his Jansenistic theories. He was welcomed especially by the members of a family destined to hold the destinies of Jansenism in their grasp, the Arnaulds of Port Royal. There were two brothers of especial prominence, and two sisters, Angelique and Agnes, who had received their initiation into Jansenism in all good faith, but who became later on most bitter in their advocacy of principles which no true Catholic could hold. The Abbey of Port Royal, near Paris, thus became the very stronghold of the new sect and drew to its doors some of the brightest men of the day. Among these was that celebrated Pascal whose "Provincial Letters" exerted such an influence in stirring up a national hatred of the Jesuits. The Abbey of Port Royal, however, proved itself too great a factor in the seditious movements of the day. It was suppressed by a royal order in 1709, and its buildings demolished in the year following.
Just at the moment when the followers of Jansen seemed most ready to yield to the claims of saner thought, when the instructions of the Holy See were already bearing salutary fruit, the heresy took on a new lease of life, and opened up an avenue to greater dissension and error. In the year 1693 appeared a work entitled:Moral Reflections Upon the New Testamentby Pasquier Quesnel, an ex-priest of the Oratory of Jesus. He was a man who had already incurred suspicion and censure. The book, although conceived in a tone of lofty piety and deep meditation, was found nevertheless to be a very storehouse of Jansenistic ideas. It was receivedwith enthusiasm even by many pious souls whose mental acumen could not perceive the poisonous spirit that it harbored. Cardinal Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, was at first one of its strongest supporters until the book, after a critical examination by a Papal commission, was condemned by Pope Clement XI. in 1713. The Bull by which this condemnation was proclaimed was the celebrated "Unigenitus," a factor not alone in the religious, but in the political history of the eighteenth century.
After the appearance of the Bull, Cardinal Noailles forbade his people to read the "Moral Reflections," but at the same time he refused to receive the Papal Bull without some qualification. Other prelates proceeded to greater extremes than this, four of them having the hardihood to appeal from the Bull to a further Ecumenical Council. This attitude was a declaration of open rebellion; it was a call to many who had hitherto hidden behind the screen of prudent silence. A new religious faction was formed and rapidly grew in numbers. They termed themselves the Appellants from their appeal to a future council. To meet the disastrous effects of this growing schism Pope Clement XI. in 1718 put forth the severe Bull, "Pastoralis officii," wherein it was declared that anyone, though he be cardinal or bishop, refusing to accept the Bull "Unigenitus" should thereby cease to be a member of the Church. The contest went on ten years longer before Cardinal Noailles and the French episcopate with but few exceptions yielded entirely to the demands of the Holy See. The affair, however, though quieted to a great extent in the ranks of the clergy, was nevertheless secretly supported by a number of contumacious persons, and openly by the Parliament of Paris and other governmental bodies, who brought persecution to bear upon the issue. In 1746 de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, forbade his clergy to administerthe Sacraments to any sick person who should be unable to produce a certificate from the parish priest stating that he had been to confession. He was cited before the Parliament in 1752, and was later banished from Paris. The controversy was finally settled by Clement XIV. who permitted that the Sacraments might be given to a person whose opposition to the Bull, "Unigenitus" was not notorious.
Such are the barest outlines of the rise and progress of Jansenism during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Beneath its surface lay strong and lasting issues, the effect of which is often perceptible even in our own day. One of these was its determined opposition to the Society of Jesus. Ever loyal to the Holy See and to the sound doctrine of the Church, the Jesuits could not but be an obstacle in the path of the sectaries, who in turn strove by every means for their annihilation. Both in the circles of religious life and among the courtiers and ever restless against the restraints of morality, the Jansenists pursued their foe with relentless energy. Through Pascal and his followers the resources of polite literature were brought to bear against the defenders of the faith, until, just as Jansenism was losing its last hold upon European society, their great purpose was accomplished, and the Society of Jesus was suppressed.
Into the private life of the ordinary Catholic the principles of Jansenism injected a gloom and sadness similar to the extravagant sullenness of Puritanism or its sister, Calvinism. Rigor and haughty reserve were accompanied by a false humility which caused its votaries to shun the Sacraments, to despair of God's mercy, to abandon all hope after the commission of one sin, or on the other hand a presumption without grounds upon an election which God had denied to others lessfortunate. It threatened for a moment a total overturning of belief in the salutary life of grace and an utter misconception of the free will of man which must lead eventually to a wandering away from God and ultimate atheism.
That the spirit of Jansenism is not altogether dead our Holy Father, Pope Pius X. assures us in recommending the daily reception of Holy Communion: "The poison of Jansenism," he says "did not entirely disappear. The controversy as to the dispositions requisite for the lawful and laudable frequentation of the Holy Eucharist survived the declarations of the Holy See; so much so, indeed, that certain theologians of good repute judged that daily Communion should be allowed to the faithful only in rare cases and under many conditions." Our present Holy Father disposes of Jansenistic doctrines by opening up freely the graces of the Holy Sacrament even as far as its daily reception.
QUIETISM.
A movement which rivaled Jansenism in its peculiar fanaticism was that Quietism which owes its public notoriety to a Spanish priest, Michael Molinos, who in 1675 published a work entitled:Spiritual Guide Leading the Soul, by Means of Interior Progress, to Attain Perfect Contemplation, and to the Rich Treasure of Interior Peace. Therein was developed a religious system that was apparently in harmony with the most orthodox asceticism, but which upon examination proved to be fundamentally false and seducing towards the most rampant error. The writings of Molinos were condemned by Pope Innocent XI. and their author compelled to do severe penance for the harm they had caused. In substance Quietism taught that the interior life orspiritual perfection is reached when the soul, by union with God, holds itself in a thoroughly passive state with regard to everything else. In all things whether of this life or of the next, in questions of virtue as in questions of sin, the perfect soul wishes for nothing and fears nothing, not even hell; it is simply in a state of inactivity. Hence good works are not only unnecessary for salvation, but are even a hindrance to perfection, since the soul must act to perform them. Farther still went this theory in insinuating that when a person is attacked by even the grossest temptations he should never offer any positive resistance, such resistance being in itself action. Hence that the tempted person was never responsible for his actions, be they ever so infamous, since the criminality affects only the sensitive part of the soul, not the higher part which is united with God.
It is quite evident that a theory such as this could only lead to grave excesses not only in the matter of doctrine, but especially in that of morality. Examples were not wanting to show the practical workings of the new movement, which, however, rapidly disappeared under the watchful eye of the Holy See. It is worthy of note that a discussion over the orthodoxy of the writings of one of this class, a certain Madame Guyon, residing at the time in France, effected an estrangement between those two brilliant lights of the French Church, Bossuet and Fenelon. The latter, in his too great sympathy for one whom he believed too harshly judged, published a sort of defence of her. The defence was at once condemned by the Pope, and Fenelon out of the humility and true loyalty of his great heart submitted immediately and without reserve to the decision of the Holy See.
GALLICANISM.
LOUIS XIV.LOUIS XIV.
In a line with Jansenism as a force destructive of the influence of Catholic grace upon modern life was the movement of Gallicanism. It differed, however, from Jansenism inasmuch as the latter affected the interior life of the Church while the former touched upon her external regimen. Its genesis can be traced far backward in history, though it never attained to proportions capable of inspiring fear until the middle of the seventeenth century. A feeling of restless annoyanceat the restraints exercised by the Court of Rome upon his absolute dominion in France caused the young King Louis XIV. to regard the Holy See with something of hostility even from the beginning of his reign. In fact, were he disposed in his youth to act with fairness towards his ecclesiastical neighbor there were not wanting courtiers who instilled into his ear the notion that the Holy See was seeking his utter abasement and ought therefore to be reminded strongly of its true position. An unfortunate event in the year 1662 brought this hidden fire to a flame. At that time the Duc de Crequy was acting as ambassador of France in the Eternal City. This ambitious and testy nobleman signalized his residence in Rome by permitting and even encouraging his retainers and friends to defy the city's laws, to insult the Roman authorities and to abuse in every way possible the hospitality extended them by the Papal government. Their acts of rowdyism at length inflamed the police and the soldiery to such an extent that a body of Corsican troops in the service of the Holy Father threw off all restraint and attacked the French retainers, killing three or four of them. The ambassador abandoned Rome in an excess of fury and brought a garbled version of the affair to the ears of Louis XIV. The King in his anger retaliated by dismissing the Papal Nuncio, and demanding from the Pope the most absurd and extravagant conditions as the price of reconciliation and peace. The Holy Father, Pope Alexander VII. had been guiltless in the whole affair, he had suffered patiently the impositions of de Crequy and his lawless band, and he displayed an extreme anxiety to repair any evil committed by his own soldiery; he could not, however, yield to the exactions of the French King. Thinking to meet the warlike threats of Louis by the aid of the Catholic sovereigns, he found himself abandoned by allof them, and thus left at the mercy of the infuriated monarch. Louis XIV. had already proceeded to take possession of the Papal city of Avignon, and his armies were already on the march towards Rome for the purpose of intimidating the Holy See. The Pope perceiving that the crisis demanded immediate and radical action, agreed to many of the humiliating conditions, and thus secured an exterior appearance of peace. This was in the year 1663.
The passions of Louis XIV. were not, however, composed, and were awaiting only a favorable occasion for breaking forth into open heat. This occasion was offered in connection with a dispute concerning certain royal privileges in the ecclesiastical order, termed theRegalia. This was the right of the kings to enjoy the revenues of a vacant bishopric, and to confer, during the vacancy of a See, benefices without care of souls. The Parliament of Paris, by a sentence of 1668, had extended the regalia to all benefices which might be included in countries where the regalia had not previously obtained. King Louis XIV., by his edicts of 1673 and 1675, had confirmed that sentence, and the French clergy for fear of greater evils had approved. Two bishops, however, stood out against the edicts, and were deprived of their revenues in consequence; they were at the same time supported in their opposition by Pope Innocent XI. The Holy Father, when the question was brought before him, appealed to a decision of the Second Council of Lyons, held in 1474, which opposed the extension of the regalia. In two briefs of March and September 1677, he exhorted the French monarch to respect the rights of the vacant Sees; but when his exhortations were only disregarded, he issued two other briefs in 1678 and 1680, adding ecclesiastical menaces to his exhortations.
THE GALLICAN LIBERTIES.
It was at this juncture that Louis XIV. had recourse to his influence over the clergy in France, and perceiving that his encroachments were meeting with firmness upon the part of the Pope, he determined to effect a legal enactment whereby the powers of the Sovereign Pontiff should be made forever subservient to the will of the French king. Already in 1662 the University of the Sorbonne had signed six articles denying not only the divinely constituted primacy of the Pope, but asserting an undue independence in the powers of the king himself. To revive these articles as well as to strengthen his position in regard to the Holy See, the French Monarch convoked at Paris in 1682 an assemblage of the clergy which was attended by thirty-four archbishops and bishops, besides as many minor prelates. The members of this assemblage were invited individually by the king's order, and only such were called as were known to be in harmony with the pretensions of Louis XIV. Fenelon was not there, nor Mabillon, nor Bourdalone, nor many another brilliant light of the French Church, for the simple reason that they could not support the king in his unjust usurpations. The Convocation possessed at least one strong mind, that of Bossuet, the celebrated Bishop of Meaux, whose presence and action in such an assembly it is difficult to reconcile with his usual manly loyalty to Catholic principles. His excuse, that he hoped thereby to ward off greater evils and even schism from the Church is hardly of any value against the depressing influence of the act itself. The result of this assembly was the formal framing of the notorious Gallican Liberties which in a few words meant:
"1. That the Pope could not interfere with the temporal concerns of Princes either directly or indirectly."2. That in spiritual matters he was subject to a general council."3. That the rules and usages of the Gallican Church were inviolable."4. That the Pope's decision in points of faith was not infallible, unless attended by the consent of the Church."
"1. That the Pope could not interfere with the temporal concerns of Princes either directly or indirectly.
"2. That in spiritual matters he was subject to a general council.
"3. That the rules and usages of the Gallican Church were inviolable.
"4. That the Pope's decision in points of faith was not infallible, unless attended by the consent of the Church."
Four days after the signing of these articles the king put forth an edict imposing their observance strictly upon all the country. His commands were as follows:
"1. We forbid all our subjects, and all foreigners resident in our kingdom, secular or regular, of whatever order, to teach in their houses, colleges, or seminaries, or to write anything contrary to the doctrine herein stated."2. We order that all those hereafter to be chosen to teach theology in all the colleges of each university, whether seculars or regulars, shall subscribe to the said declaration before being permitted to act; that they shall submit to teach said doctrine, and that the syndics of the faculty of theology shall present to the local ordinaries and to our attorneys-general, copies of the said submission, signed by the secretaries of the said faculties."3. That in all the colleges and houses of the said universities, in which there are several professors, secular or regular, one of them shall be annually appointed to teach the doctrine contained in the said declaration; and in those colleges in which there is but one professor, he shall be bound to teach that in one of every three consecutive years."4. We enjoin upon the syndics of the faculties of theology annually to present, before the commencement of the lectures, to the archbishops and bishops of the cities in which they shall be, and to send to our attorneys-general, the names of the professors appointed to teachsaid doctrine; and we enjoin the said professors to present to the said prelates the writings which they will dictate to their scholars when they shall order them."5. It is our will that hereafter no bachelor shall be licensed either in theology, or in canon law, or received as doctor, until he shall have maintained that doctrine in one of his theses, and having shown proof of such support in such theses to those having power to confer the degrees."6. We exhort and enjoin all archbishops and bishops to exert their authority to cause the doctrine maintained in the said declaration to be taught within their dioceses."
"1. We forbid all our subjects, and all foreigners resident in our kingdom, secular or regular, of whatever order, to teach in their houses, colleges, or seminaries, or to write anything contrary to the doctrine herein stated.
"2. We order that all those hereafter to be chosen to teach theology in all the colleges of each university, whether seculars or regulars, shall subscribe to the said declaration before being permitted to act; that they shall submit to teach said doctrine, and that the syndics of the faculty of theology shall present to the local ordinaries and to our attorneys-general, copies of the said submission, signed by the secretaries of the said faculties.
"3. That in all the colleges and houses of the said universities, in which there are several professors, secular or regular, one of them shall be annually appointed to teach the doctrine contained in the said declaration; and in those colleges in which there is but one professor, he shall be bound to teach that in one of every three consecutive years.
"4. We enjoin upon the syndics of the faculties of theology annually to present, before the commencement of the lectures, to the archbishops and bishops of the cities in which they shall be, and to send to our attorneys-general, the names of the professors appointed to teachsaid doctrine; and we enjoin the said professors to present to the said prelates the writings which they will dictate to their scholars when they shall order them.
"5. It is our will that hereafter no bachelor shall be licensed either in theology, or in canon law, or received as doctor, until he shall have maintained that doctrine in one of his theses, and having shown proof of such support in such theses to those having power to confer the degrees.
"6. We exhort and enjoin all archbishops and bishops to exert their authority to cause the doctrine maintained in the said declaration to be taught within their dioceses."
Artaud de Montor, in hisLives of the Popeswrites in this connection: "Assuredly, if the archbishops and bishops made no resistance to the signing of the four articles; if they thought that such a notification might become useful to the Church; if they recognized that the authority of the Pope was to be thus boldly limited; if they thought it requisite to curb what Bruno called the Tiberine tyranny, they must now at length have discovered that they were subject to a perfectly insatiable authority, which would employ not even the language of the country to exhort and enjoin them to exert their authority in diffusing a doctrine more administrative than Christian, and more military than religious, with a view to substitute for the words of peace, concord, and mildness, new words of command, injunction, unbridled will, to which Catholicity was no longer accustomed. From the Attorney-General who thus lectures the bishops, to the Attorney-General who has immediately under his hand the secular power, there is, in such times, but a step. The same hand countersigned a document, and ordered the sword to leap from the scabbard."
In the meantime the Roman court was not idle. On the 11th of April, 1682, Pope Innocent XI. annulled thepropositions by a brief, and refused to grant canonical bulls to the bishops named by King Louis XIV. The hostile attitude of France continued openly for ten years, and it was only in 1693 that the King agreed that the provisions of his edict were not to be enforced. The spirit of Gallicanism, however, after being thus fostered for a decade in the schools and colleges of France was not to be eradicated by a mere permission of tolerance. A generation had grown up imbued with its false principles and ready to cast broadside through the country the seeds of a lasting hostility towards the Papal prerogatives. In fact, all through the whole course of the eighteenth century the creed of Gallicanism governed in a large measure the whole action and liturgy of the French Church. Its attitude of independence in regard to the Holy See very naturally encouraged that rising anti-Christianism which found its most potent foe in the successor of St. Peter. Even in the nineteenth century it possessed a certain life. Napoleon, in his Organic Articles, imposed it upon the seminaries of France even more strictly than did Louis XIV., at an earlier day. It has ever been the great obstacle to Catholic unity in France, the source of persecution against the Church; and if it virtually died in that country about the time of the Vatican Council, in 1870, its absence was never more noteworthy and consoling than at the present day when the whole French episcopacy stands united to a man in its loyalty and devotion to the Holy See.
VAN ESPEN.
Scarce had the battles of Jansenism and Gallicanism been ended, than a new campaign of destruction was inaugurated against the peace and unity of the Church.Born of the confusion of Jansenism, it found a sponsor in Bernard Van Espen, the Flemish canonist, it was introduced to the world by Febronius, and it reached its development under the Austrian Emperor, Joseph II.
Until the eighteenth century the student of canon law believed his task fulfilled if he had read diligently the great Code of ecclesiastical law, if he had commented upon the Decretals, and had drawn therefrom conclusions entirely in harmony with the mind of the Church. This mode of procedure seemed altogether too slow and antiquated to Van Espen, Professor in the University of Louvain, who accordingly put forth, between the years 1693 and 1728 a new work upon the laws of the Church, the method of which was startling as its purpose was revolutionary. It was styled theUniversal Ecclesiastical Law. It was no attempt to study or tabulate the old laws; it was rather an investigation, conducted in a spirit of prejudice, into the origin and authority of the laws by which the Church was governed, and an endeavor to minimize thereby the rights and prerogatives of the Roman See in favor of lesser and more recent human institutions.
The new system of Van Espen was taken up with avidity by every student who imagined he had a grievance against the Holy See. It became the order of the day to wander back piously to the primitive days of Christianity, to explore its history for evidences of modern institutions, to seek therein for the organization of the Vatican and the Roman Curia, and not finding them in days of Clement and Cletus, to raise the voice in loud protestation against the novelties introduced by the Popes. They scoured the ages of history to gather up every expression of hostility against the Temporal Power or the institution of the Cardinalate; they recorded scrupulously every complaint against the revenuesof the Holy See; they revived the epithets concerning the "superstition, the fanaticism, and the darkness" of the Middle Ages. In a word they framed a system whose watchword was the destruction of the Papal supremacy, the exaltation of episcopal pretensions, and the ultimate domination of the State in the affairs of the Church.
FEBRONIANISM.
The theories of these pseudo-canonists nowhere found greater favor than among a certain class of prelates in Germany, who besides their jurisdiction as bishops of the Roman Catholic Church enjoyed the further dignity and revenues of prince-electors in the German Empire. These combinations of politician and churchman could hardly regard with favor the pre-eminence of a Bishop in Rome who claimed however justly the rights of jurisdiction in any manner over them. They thus welcomed with open arms any daring spirit who would minimize or destroy the value of the Papal supremacy, and thus leave them in undisturbed possession of their pretended rights, carrying as these did with them a broad license to all the worldly luxuries and distractions of a political court.
The prince Bishop of Treves in Germany was one of this kind, and it is not surprising that when a canonist or theologian of the new order suddenly appeared at his court that the latter should receive all the honor and encouragement such a bishop could bestow. The court of the Bishop of Treves produced in the middle of the eighteenth century such a spirit in Johannes von Hontheim, a suffragan of the electoral diocese, and better known under his pseudonym of Febronius. In 1763 appeared in Germany some copies of a mysteriousquarto entitled:The State of the Church and of the Legitimate Power of the Roman Pontiff, bearing the name ofJustinus Febronius, and the place of publicationBouillon, though the author was in reality Johannes von Hontheim, and the place of its publication, Frankfort-on-the-Main. The book, finally increased to five volumes, was rapidly spread throughout Europe. In Venice it appeared in two editions, Latin and Italian. In France it was translated twice. In Spain the Council of Castile defrayed in part the expenses of a new translation, and that edition according to Cardinal Capara became the law for the Court and the Nation. Portugal provided both a Latin and a Portuguese text which latter was distributed gratuitously. Germany also produced both a Latin and German edition.
The book was condemned by Clement XIII., in 1764, and anathematized by the greater number of the German bishops upon its appearance, yet it made so much noise in the world, was so highly eulogized by the ignorant, and so greedily welcomed by the enemies of the Church, besides the fact that it has served to sanction so many desolating assaults upon the faith, the hierarchy and the discipline of the Catholic Church, that it is necessary to discuss it in detail, in order to undeceive many who even today hold some of the views espoused by Febronius.
And first as to the theme around which the author has woven his network of sophisms. George Goyau, in hisCatholicism, thus synopsises the whole teaching of Febronius: "Febronius recognized the Pope as the Vicar of Jesus Christ; he professes that the Church has need of a chief to direct it, and that the bonds which unite the members to the chief ought to be sacred and inviolable; he desires that the primacy be conserved in the Church with care, and that it be piously honored; andPhotius who strove to sap its foundations appears to him a fool. But this primacy is to Febronius only a simple pre-eminence; all that it imports is a right of inspection and direction over the different dioceses, similar to that which an archbishop possesses with regard to his suffragans; but it does not signify that the Pope has any jurisdiction." He holds, moreover, that "The power of the keys was conferred by Christ to the whole body of the faithful; it belongs to them allradicaliter et principaliter; the bishops exercise it under the title ofusufruct, usualiter et usufructualiter; while as to the Pope, he is superior to each bishop in particular in virtue of what Hontheim terms themajoritas; but that majoritas does not extend over the whole episcopal body in its entirety; the episcopal body is thus the real sovereign of the Church."
It was a consequence of such ideas that Febronius should utter the usual outcry against the "abuses" of the Roman Church, and recommend a general council of all Christians to the decisions of which all must bow. In all this he pretended to seek the furtherance of unity in the great Christian body.
The false doctrines of Febronius were met with denunciation and refutation from all reliable sources. Clement XIII. in 1764, Clement XIV. in 1769, and Pius VI. in 1775, raised their voices solemnly in condemnation of the book. The ablest theologians of the Church gave their services to combat its errors. Among these were especially Zaccaria, Amort, Kleiner and St. Alphonsus Liguori. It is noteworthy that the first refutation of Febronius came from the pen of a Lutheran, Frederick Bahrdt, in Leipzig.
Among the many able discussions upon the work of Hontheim that of the Abbe Bernier deserves to be reproduced in part, not only because it reflects the sentimentof the time, but especially for its keen exposure of the falsehoods and inconsistencies which abound in the work of the heretic. It is found in a letter to the Duke Louis Eugene of Wurtemburg dated 1775.
"It is astonishing how the Treatise on the Government of the Church and the Authority of the Pope, by Febronius has made so much noise in some of the states of Germany; neither in its depth nor in its form was this book ever capable of impressing men of intellect or such as pretend to the faculty of reasoning. Whatever of truth the author produces is taken from French theologians, particularly from Bossuet, in hisDefense of the Declaration of the Clergy of France of 1682; his falsehoods and errors are extracted from Protestants and Jansenists, or from those canonists who seek to humiliate the Court of Rome in her time of trouble. Various materials, which were never intended to be taken together, have been maladroitly compiled by Febronius; he has lighted torches which destroy each other; as he never takes his stand upon principles universally admitted, he is continually falling into contradictions; he denies in one place what he affirms in another; he sustains one theory at the very time that he professes to reject it; it would be sufficient to compare the titles of the sections and chapters of his work, to perceive that he either does not understand what he writes, or that he is not in accord with himself."
"It is astonishing how the Treatise on the Government of the Church and the Authority of the Pope, by Febronius has made so much noise in some of the states of Germany; neither in its depth nor in its form was this book ever capable of impressing men of intellect or such as pretend to the faculty of reasoning. Whatever of truth the author produces is taken from French theologians, particularly from Bossuet, in hisDefense of the Declaration of the Clergy of France of 1682; his falsehoods and errors are extracted from Protestants and Jansenists, or from those canonists who seek to humiliate the Court of Rome in her time of trouble. Various materials, which were never intended to be taken together, have been maladroitly compiled by Febronius; he has lighted torches which destroy each other; as he never takes his stand upon principles universally admitted, he is continually falling into contradictions; he denies in one place what he affirms in another; he sustains one theory at the very time that he professes to reject it; it would be sufficient to compare the titles of the sections and chapters of his work, to perceive that he either does not understand what he writes, or that he is not in accord with himself."
The Abbe thereupon goes on to point out the most glaring contradictions in the work, and to show that to any person not yet blinded by prejudice, the very contention of the author is destroyed by his evident lack of truthfulness.
In 1778, through the influence brought to bear upon the Archbishop Elector of Treves by the Papal nuncios, Caprara and Bellisomi, Febronius was led to reconsiderhis action, and signed a retractation of his errors in a letter sent to Pope Pius VI. Three years later, however, in 1781, he published aCommentaryon hisRetraction, which served to show the spirit of insincerity which dominated him throughout his whole career. He died in 1790.
Febronianism was not so disastrous in itself as (it proved to be) in its consequences. Its immediate result was a weakening of that loyalty which Catholic peoples owe to the centre of unity in the Holy See; but through all that, it affected, in a certain way, the very foundations of the social and political life of Europe. Although its immediate effects were almost simultaneous in their action, yet for the sake of brevity we shall notice them in order. 1. The revolt of the Elector archbishops of Germany. 2. The schism of Scipio de Ricci. 3. The final development into Josepheism.