An Avant-garde Theological Generation: The Nouvelle Theologie and the French Crisis of Modernity (Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs) 9780198819226, 0198819226

Table of contents :
Cover
An Avant-garde Theological Generation: The Nouvelle Théologie and the French Crisis of Modernity
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction
THE NOUVELLE THÉOLOGIE: A SHORT HISTORY
The Fourvière Jesuits
The Le Saulchoir Dominicans
THE NEED FOR A CULTURAL AND GLOBAL HISTORY
A New Periodization
1: Modern French Intellectual Generations
CULTURAL HISTORY AND GENERATIONAL THEORY
THE BIRTH OF GENERATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
TWENTIETH-CENTURY FRENCH INTELLECTUAL GENERATIONS
La Génération de l’affaire Dreyfus
La Génération d’Agathon
La Génération du Feu
La Génération de la Crise
The Nouvelle Théologie: A Theological Cohort of the Generation of 1930
2: 1893–1914: Sedimented Generations in a Divided France
THE DREYFUS GENERATION: A DIVIDED FRANCE
THE MODERNIST GENERATION: A DIVIDED CHURCH
The Classical Narrative
Loisy and Tyrrell
PHILOSOPHICAL MODERNISM: BLONDEL, LABERTHONNIÈRE, AND LE ROY
Maurice Blondel
The Manual: The Dramatic, Unified, and Concrete Character of Human Existence
The Manifesto: Against a Defensive and Absolute Thomism
The Method: The Sociohistorical Character of Existence
The Method: The Sociopolitical Character of Existence
Lucien Laberthonnière
Édouard Le Roy
An Anthropological and Ecclesiological Blueprint
3: The First Ressourcement: The Generations of 1890 and 1912
THE JESUIT GENERATION OF 1890: DE GRANDMAISON, LEBRETON, D’ALÈS, AND RECHERCHES DE SCIENCE RELIGIEUSE
Léonce de Grandmaison
Jules Lebreton
THE DOMINICAN GENERATION OF 1890: GARDEIL, SERTILLANGES, AND MANDONNET
THE JESUIT GENERATION OF 1912: VALENSIN, ROUSSELOT, HUBY, TEILHARD, MARÉCHAL, FONTOYNONT, AND CHARLES
Auguste Valensin: A Blondelian Disciple
Pierre Rousselot: A Proto-Ressourcement Jesuit
A Modern Thomistic Synthesis
Conceptualism vs Intellectualism
The Desire for God
Joseph Huby: A Disciple of Rousselot
Teilhard de Chardin: Science, Philosophy, and God
Joseph Maréchal: Kant and Aquinas
Blondel, German Idealism, and the Drive toward the Absolute
4: 1920s: The Formation of the Generation of 1930
A PREAMBLE: EARLY FORMATION AND THE WAR YEARS
The First World War
The War Generation
Dominicans during the War
A Post-War Debate
A BLONDELIAN PHILOSOPHICAL FORMATION
1919–20: A First Taste of Rousselot
1920–1: Philosophy Year I—Learning to Read Aquinas
1921–2: Philosophy Year II—Blondel and the Desire for God
1922–3: The Third Year—Individual Projects
A THEOLOGICAL FORMATION UNDER HUBY
1924–6: Theology at Ore Place and the Discovery of Hegel
1926–8: Theology at Fourvière
A GENERATIONAL DESIDERATA
De Lubac: A New Apologetics
A Dominican Awakening
5: 1930s: The Crisis of Humanism and the Generation of 1930
CRISIS AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE GENERATION OF 1930
A Complete Crisis of Civilization: The Elites Undertake an Analysis
A Generational Mission: A New Humanism
HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
PHILOSOPHY: TOWARDS THE CONCRETE
ENGAGEMENT
6: The Catholic Generation of 1930
CRISIS: A DECADENT, RATIONALISTIC, AND INDIVIDUALISTIC CHURCH
A METHODOLOGICAL BLUEPRINT: THE TÜBINGEN SCHOOL
CATHOLIC HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
The Ressourcement Foundation
Recovering the Golden Thread: The Real Spirit of the Fathers and Aquinas
History and Dogma
The History of Desire
CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY: TOWARDS THE CONCRETE
Kierkegaard: An Existential Model for a Revolutionary Programme
Beyond Hierarchy to Mystique and Solidarity: The Mystical Body of Christ
Fessard, Hegel, and Maine de Biran
De Montcheuil and Malebranche
ENGAGEMENT
Political Engagement: Maritain and True Humanism
An Ecumenical Engagement
Une artiste engagé
A Dialogue with the World
CONCLUSION: A NEW CHRISTIAN DIMENSION
7: 1940s: The Triumph of the Generation of 1930
THE WAR YEARS
La Resistance Spirituelle
A Critique of the Church: ‘A Crisis of Progress’
Engagement and the Task of Construction
THE TASK: A NEW HUMANISM
The Roots of Atheist Humanism
An Anthropological Ontology: A Blondelian Reading of Aquinas
Anthropological Epistemology: Recognizing the Desire
Exegesis and Dogma
THE TASK: A NEW ECCLESIOLOGY
Corpus Mysticum: Deconstructing a Decadent and Individual Ecclesiology
De Montcheuil’s Ecclesiology
The Necessary Move toward Universal Salvation
THE LIBERATION AND THE RISE OF THE GENERATION OF 1930
A Generational Manifesto
Dialogue Théologique: The Toulouse Objection
8: 1960s: The Global Triumph of the Generation of 1930
THE POST-WAR DIFFUSION
Two Popes and the Nouvelle Théologie
The Vatican II Reformers and the Nouvelle Théologie
The Intellectuals
The Letter to the World
A CONCILIAR METHODOLOGY: PHENOMENOLOGY, HISTORY, AND ENGAGEMENT
LA CRISE APRÈS-CONCILE
The Final Debate
A Generational Cohort Breaks Away
THE PRESSURE OF HISTORY
Bibliography
Names Index
General Index

Citation preview

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OXFORD THEOLOGY AND RELIGION MONOGRAPHS Editorial Committee D. ACHARYA M. J. EDWARDS S. R. I. FOOT H. NAJMAN

M. N. A. BOCKMUEHL P. S. FIDDES D. N. J. MACCULLOCH G. WARD

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OXFORD THEOLOGY A ND R ELIGION M ONOGRAPHS A. J. Appasamy and his Reading of Rāmānuja A Comparative Study in Divine Embodiment Brian Philip Dunn (2016)

Kierkegaard’s Theology of Encounter An Edifying and Polemical Life David Lappano (2017)

Qur’an of the Oppressed Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam Shadaab Rahemtulla (2017)

Ezra and the Second Wilderness Philip Y. Yoo (2017)

Maternal Grief in the Hebrew Bible Ekaterina E. Kozlova (2017)

The Human Condition in Hilary of Poitiers The Will and Original Sin between Origen and Augustine Isabella Image (2017)

Deuteronomy 28 and the Aramaic Curse Tradition Laura Quick (2017)

Sartre on Sin Between Being and Nothingness Kate Kirkpatrick (2017)

Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide Christian Interpretations of Herem Passages Christian Hofreiter (2018)

Jansenism and England Moral Rigorism across the Confessions Thomas Palmer (2018)

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An Avant-garde Theological Generation The Nouvelle Théologie and the French Crisis of Modernity

JON KIRWAN

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Jon Kirwan 2018 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2018 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953298 ISBN 978–0–19–881922–6 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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To Olivia, Isabel, James, John Henry, Magdalena, and Lourdes —les pèlerins de mon cœur

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Acknowledgements My first thanks go to my wonderful wife, Olivia, whose companionship and love I treasure. She made the trek—with children in tow—to Oxford, France, Switzerland, Australia, Mexico, and back to the States, to complete this manuscript, pushing me along with her encouragement and confidence the entire way. No doubt its completion would not have come about without her enthusiasm and collaboration. Also, I am deeply indebted to Frs Simon Gaine and Richard Conrad, as well as the entire Blackfriars community at Oxford. Fr Simon’s tremendous patience and diligent oversight were unceasing, from the first tranquil months of research to the final chaotic weeks writing up. In addition, I am grateful to my examiners Drs Peter Groves and Robin Ward and especially Frs John Saward and Gabriel Flynn. Also many thanks to Diarmaid Macculloch, for his persistence and support, Graham Ward, for his helpful feedback and patience, and Mark Edwards, for his timely assistance along the way. I’m also grateful for the work of Karen Raith, Jennifer Laing, and Kavya Ramu. Also, our parents Anne and William Kirwan and Ricardo and Angelita Romero (muchas gracias!) supported us in every imaginable way throughout the project, and we are supremely grateful for their solicitude. Undoubtedly, the unsung heroes of this work were Kevin Sherman and Fr Peter Irving, whose friendships were always a source of motivation. The former, with his wonderful wife Vivian, constantly oversaw the logistics of our stay in England, while the prayers of the latter were no less critical. Also, the Merings—Dave, Nancy, Don, Alice, and Marg—all offered significant and timely assistance, along with steady reassurance. The camaraderie of our dear Oxford friends—Joe and Maddy Suttie, Emma and Andy Stevens, Francisco and Marguerite Urbina, German, Paul, Angela and Pete Howard, and Thana—was, and remains, priceless, and the port and laughter that flowed at 5 Alan Bullock Close is greatly missed, to say nothing of the annual Australian Thanksgiving in Oxford and the panegyrics to Chilean excellence! My time in the Blackfriars library was shared from the first day to the last with Sr Nazik Matty, and I am grateful for her friendship and laughter. The generous funding that Doug Brown and James Coffey offered was essential, and I am grateful to Fr Bernard Gillibert, S.J. and Fr Jean François Thomas, S.J. at the Jesuit community in Saint-Germaindes-Prés for their unfailing hospitality. The evening walks along the Seine with Fr Thomas, discussing modern French Jesuit history, are priceless memories. I would be remiss without thanking Michael Black, the librarian at Blackfriars for procuring numerous works and Marie-Agnès Petit for her patient help

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Acknowledgements

correcting and improving difficult translations. I am also grateful to Frs Bede and Ambrose and Abbott Thomas of the St Louis Abbey, who graciously opened their doors to me so that I might work undistracted. I would like to express my thanks to a wonderful Fourvière Jesuit, my dear friend Fr Cornelius Buckley, S.J., as well as Fr Paul Donlan, whose advice and direction have always been both timely and perceptive. Finally, although my good friend Gene Holemon was unable to read my manuscript as he had hoped, his lovely wife Shirley was kind enough, with the permission of her children, to give Oli and me the mid-nineteenth-century watercolor of Magdalen Bridge that hung in his office. My bike rides to Blackfriars began each day on that bridge, and no doubt we will cherish that beautiful painting throughout our lives, as it reminds us of our wonderful years at Oxford, illuminated by such wonderful people.

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Foreword France is light-years ahead of other countries. Hence the ambivalence of the Holy See in its regard; if the Holy See slams on the brakes, this is not because France is in error, but because France is way ahead. But we know that it is opening the way of the Lord, and that the rest of Christendom will follow where France has gone. —Jacques Maritain, 19481 A historical study reveals, on the contrary, just how much theology is related to the epoch and intellectual milieu in which it developed, showing what in fact is contingent in it: the relativity of concepts, the evolution of problems, the temporary obscuring of certain important truths. —Henri Bouillard, 19442

1 Quoted in Peter Hebblethwaite, Paul VI: First Modern Pope (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 216–17. 2 Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Aubier, 1944), 211.

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Table of Contents Abbreviations

Introduction

xiii 1

1. Modern French Intellectual Generations

22

2. 1893–1914: Sedimented Generations in a Divided France

42

3. The First Ressourcement: The Generations of 1890 and 1912

69

4. 1920s: The Formation of the Generation of 1930

96

5. 1930s: The Crisis of Humanism and the Generation of 1930

135

6. The Catholic Generation of 1930

156

7. 1940s: The Triumph of the Generation of 1930

204

8. 1960s: The Global Triumph of the Generation of 1930

252

Bibliography Names Index General Index

281 303 307

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Abbreviations AAS AJV ASS CAÉCHL CCIF HLOC JOC MBOC MPF MRP PCF SFIO RSR VI

Acta Apostolicae Sedis Les Archives Jésuites de Vanves Acta Santae Sedis Centre d’Archives et d’Études des Cardinal Henri de Lubac Centre Catholique des Intellectuels Français Henri de Lubac: Œuvres complètes, 50 vols (Paris: Cerf, 1988–) Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne Maurice Blondel: Œuvres complètes, 2 vols (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995–1997) Mouvement populaire des familles Mouvement République Populaire Parti communiste français Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière Recherches de science religieuse La Vie intellectuelle

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Introduction ‘The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the falling of dusk’, wrote Hegel in 1820.1 That is to say, wisdom and understanding come only when a thing has finally run its course. Although insight comes late, too late in fact to save the thing, history nonetheless reminds us that the thing can, in the end, be known, and it is in this knowing that meaning is found. The task of the philosopher, indeed as ‘a child of his time’, is precisely this knowing.2 Just as true philosophy emerges only when time itself is apprehended, any philosophy that attempts to transcend the present world and stand outside of time is an absurdity, and for Hegel more easily will a philosopher ‘jump over Rhodes’ than leap out of their own time.3 During the evening of his own life, soon after he wrote the above words, the German philosopher, divining the ‘signs of the times’, claimed to have had just such an understanding of his own era.4 He had witnessed the breathtaking transformation wrought by the industrial, political, philosophical, and historical revolutions of the late eighteenth century and belonged—with Hölderlin, Schelling, Friedrich Schlegel, and Schleiermacher—to one of the most influential intellectual generations of the modern world, which had wrestled with the most profound questions of modernity itself. Their legacy of Romanticism and Idealism was shaped amidst the tension of the Aufklärung. Incredible crisis, dissolution, upheaval, and fragmentation were tempered by an indomitable hope in a humanity awakened to the power of subjectivity and freedom. To overcome the perceived rationalism and dualism of their age, they turned to the Greeks to recover the ‘unity of life’—Einheit des Lebens—by effecting a grand synthesis of history, philosophy, theology, and culture. A century after Hegel saw Napoleon usher in the ‘end of history’ with his victorious ride into Jena, a generation of French intellectuals was born who would face many of the same questions and leave an equally enduring mark on their own epoch. They came of age in a France bitterly divided over the 1 2 4

G. W. F. Hegel, Outlines of the Philosophy of Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 16. 3 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 15. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 15. Cyril O’Regan, The Heterdox Hegel (Albany, SUNY Press, 1994), 300.

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ongoing problem of modernity and the lingering wounds of the French Revolution. They experienced the horrors of the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War within an astonishingly compressed period, finally coming to a position of international prominence in the 1940s. Labelled by historians la génération de crise, they turned to Hegel and other German thinkers to likewise engage history, read the ‘signs of the times’, and understand their own era and task, which they were convinced was to facilitate and proclaim a radical break with the past and build a bold future. Like Hegel’s generation, they perceived a modern world fatally threatened by a malignant dualistic rationalism rooted in abstraction, fragmentation, and individualism and similarly sought a great synthesis of thought and life on which nothing less than a ‘new man’ could be erected. This monograph seeks to examine an important cohort of this French generation, all Catholic philosophers and theologians, who sought to provide answers to the unspeakable sense of crisis and cultural dissolution with which their generation wrestled. Their solutions included a rejection of Neoscholasticism and a turn toward ancient Greek writers, the early nineteenth-century Catholic Tübingen thinkers, who had themselves taken up a dialogue with Hegel and the Idealists, and finally the proto-existentialist Maurice Blondel, who by ‘continuing the work of Tübingen’ sought to build a synthesis of phenomenology, history, and social engagement. Called the nouvelle théologie by their Neoscholastic detractors, they insisted that Catholic philosophers and theologians must go beyond static forms of thought and rise up to understand the esprit of their age through a deep historical, religious, anthropological, and socio-phenomenological analysis. Echoing Hegel’s own thought, theology, they argued, can only be real if it is, in fact, contemporary, or in their case, attentive to the concrete. Astonishingly, in the heady post-war era after the liberation of Paris, when jazz music, café existentialism, Marxism and talk of revolution filled the Left Bank and captured the world’s attention, the nouvelle théologie suddenly awoke to find that it occupied a prominent place on the cultural and intellectual stage of France. While much of the hierarchy and conservative establishment of French Catholicism had been discredited because of its support for Vichy, the nouvelle théologie had won acclaim for its part in the resistance. The nouveaux théologiens stepped into the cultural and intellectual vacuum of post-war France, and people turned to them for answers to the crisis. They sought to build bridges with the secular French intellectual scene, characterized by figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus. In fact, from 1940–2, Jean Daniélou lived at 42 Rue de Grenelle, the Jesuit residence in Saint Germain-des-Près, only blocks from Café de Flore, where Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir did much of their writing. While Daniélou wrote his doctoral thesis on Gregory of Nyssa, Sartre worked on his magnum opus, Being and Nothingness. Important

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to both was the concept of desire, a problem that occupied many French thinkers throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1946, Daniélou’s friend and Jesuit confrère Henri de Lubac confronted the problem of desire in Aquinas precisely to make contact with contemporary thought. Still debated, Surnaturel was one of the most controversial and influential Catholic books of the last century. That same year Daniélou wrote a controversial article, a kind of paean to the French intellectuals en vogue at the time. Still considered the definitive manifesto of the movement, Daniélou insisted that Catholic theology conform itself to rubrics of contemporary French thought, that is, phenomenology, history, and engagement. The controversy surrounding the nouveaux théologiens was intense, and recriminations flew back and forth. Neoscholastics accused them of ‘reinventing the Church Fathers to the music of Hegel’ and asked rhetorically: La nouvelle théologie, où va-t-elle?5 Their answer was clear: in a project surely leading back to the historicism and rationalism of Modernism. The Neoscholastics wondered why they would rush to embrace the transience and emptiness of existentialism. The nouvelle théologie countered that Neoscholasticism was strangling authentic Christian thought and had itself caused the rationalistic dualism at the heart of the crisis between the Church and the modern world. The tension between the two camps stretched on through the tumultuous years of the Second Vatican Council, and the recent renewal of interest in the debate is a reminder that the most controversial Catholic theological debate of the modern era was in fact never settled. Twice, the debate was artificially truncated, first officially by Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis, which restricted the nouveaux théologiens, and again a dozen years later when Neoscholasticism was rejected during the zeitgeist of the 1960s. Although histories of the movement have been written, some remain uneven and one-sided, offering triumphant or tragic accounts replete with heroes and villains who are alternately cheered and booed. Focusing mainly on ecclesiastical politics, some of the most vital aspects of the movement have been overlooked, namely, its French, interwar, and cultural character. Given the close historical proximity to the subject matter and the deep divisions that lingered from the quarrel, these historiographical shortcomings are to be expected, and much of this research has nonetheless been of great import. An era of such tremendous complexity as that of midtwentieth-century France surely demands sufficient time and space in its telling. Sartre, writing just after the war, had a clear sense of just how difficult his period’s history would be to write, claiming it would take a century to see the historical field clearly: ‘In one hundred years we will determine the . . . currents of this après-guerre; in one hundred years we will be

5

Henri Donneaud, ‘Une vie au service de la théologie’, Revue thomiste 91 (1992): 25.

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able to give an appropriate account.’6 Now that we stand little more than a decade from the centenary of the emergence of the nouvelle théologie, it seems the Hegelian dusk is falling upon us and may indeed allow for the clarity and insight necessary to more fully understand twentieth-century French Catholic thought.

THE N O U V EL L E T H É O L O G I E : A S HORT HI S TORY The aim of this project is to establish a clearer understanding of the theological project of the nouvelle théologie by situating it more firmly in its historical context than have previous studies, tracing its roots to the crisis in French society that came to a head between the world wars, and relying on unpublished letters and documents from the Jesuits archives in Paris (Vanves) and Dominican archives in Paris (Le Saulchoir). The nouvelle théologie was mainly comprised of Jesuits based at the Fourvière theologate in Lyon, France, and Dominicans at Le Saulchoir, first located in Tournai, Belgium and then Paris. They sought a greater theological appropriation of modern categories of history, concrete philosophy, and political engagement. Drawing on the philosophy of Maurice Blondel (1861–1949), they embarked on a method called ressourcement which attempted to ‘return to the sources’ and recover various Neoplatonic Patristic writings which offered a countertheology to the Neoscholasticism dominant at the time. Led by Jesuits Henri de Lubac (1896–1991), Jean Daniélou (1905–74), Henri Bouillard (1908–81), Gaston Fessard (1897–1978), Yves de Montcheuil (1900–44), and Dominicans Marie-Dominique Chenu (1895–1990),7 Yves Congar (1904–95),8 Louis Charlier (1898–1981), Henri-Marie Féret (1904–92), and René Draguet (1896–1980). They published a host of important books and articles in addition to making available in translation a number of Patristic writings. Although initially censured and disciplined, their thought triumphed in the sessions of the Second Vatican Council and is universally seen as having great theological import. First termed the ‘nouvelle théologie’ in a critical article published in L’Osservatore Romano in 1942, the name gained widespread currency after a 6 Jean-Paul Sartre, Situations II: Qu’est-ce que la littérature? (Paris: Gallimard, 1948), 40. Sartre refers here to the history of the novel, which he sees as bearing a central role in shaping culture and intellectual identity. 7 For more on Chenu, see Christophe Potworoski, Contemplation and Incarnation: The Theology of Marie-Dominique Chenu (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002). 8 For more on Congar, see Gabriel Flynn, ed., Yves Congar: Theologian of the Church (Louvain: Peeters, 2005); Gabriel Flynn, Yves Congar’s Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).

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controversial piece published in 1946 by the Neoscholastic Dominican Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange entitled ‘La nouvelle théologie où va-t-elle?’9 Although the secondary literature seems to have settled on the legitimacy of the term, it remains somewhat elusive, not in the least because some of the major figures with which it was associated denied the existence of such a movement. It denotes, however, a movement composed primarily of Jesuits and Dominicans that flourished from the mid-1930s until its official condemnation by Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis in 1950.10 Although there remains some debate surrounding the inclusion of certain peripheral theologians in the nouvelle théologie, the core group seems settled: de Lubac, Daniélou, Chenu, and Congar. Despite the great personal and intellectual diversity of these four great thinkers, certain broad parallels, aims, and endeavours clearly mark the bounds of a ‘movement’. Jürgen Mettepenningen has provided a helpful analysis that includes four central characteristics. The nouvelle théologie was first, fundamentally, a French enterprise; second, eager to appropriate the historical method; thirdly, strongly favouring positive theology; and finally, hostile to Neoscholasticism.11 This last point is central, because it was Neoscholasticism that opposed their particular embrace of history and positive theology. They sought to foment a revolt from its speculative strictures and implement a ressourcement methodology which would facilitate a retrieval of medieval sources as well as various Church Fathers more readily compatible with certain modern philosophical, theological, and political concerns. Far from being an ancillary problem, this was ‘the central issue confronting modern Catholic theology in the twentieth century: the relation between the historical character of human existence and human knowledge and the supposedly absolute, unchanging truth claims of Christian revelation’.12 The importance of the theological inheritance of the nouvelle théologie is evident in the four significant theological schools that today draw inspiration from its work: first, those gathered around the Catholic journal Communio; second, the more liberal-minded coalition of Transcendental Thomists and more progressive theologians gathered around the journal Concilium; third, Pietro Parente, ‘Nuove tendenze teologiche’, L’Osservatore Romano (9–10 February 1942), 1; Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, ‘La nouvelle théologie où va-t-elle?’, Angelicum 23 (1946): 126–45. For the history of the naming of the movement, see Jürgen Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie—New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 5. 10 Pius XII, Humani Generis, Encyclical letter concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine Catholic doctrine (12 August 1950), Vatican Web site, http://w2.vatican.va/con tent/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html. 11 Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie, 7–13. 12 Thomas Joseph White, ‘The Precarity of Wisdom: Modern Dominican Theology, Perspectivalism, and the Tasks of Reconstruction’, in Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Romanus Cessario, eds Reinhard Hütter and Matthew Levering (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 93. 9

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the largely Anglican movement of Radical Orthodoxy; and last, certain evangelicals who find in the nouvelle théologie a deeper sense of tradition.13 A resurgent interest in the nouvelle théologie is strongly attested by a number of recent publications.14 Also, recently several books have been published that re-engage the nature-grace controversy triggered by de Lubac’s Surnaturel.15 Étienne Fouilloux stands as one of the few trained historians to work extensively on the French controversies surrounding the nouvelle théologie. He is well published and widely considered the most competent authority on the subject, having written widely on the period from the Modernist controversy to the Second Vatican Council.16 Despite the breadth of Fouilloux’s work, he has not undertaken a major work devoted exclusively to the nouvelle théologie.

The Fourvière Jesuits The title ‘Fourvière’ is taken from the name of the former Jesuit theologate in Lyon that stood atop the Fourvière hill overlooking the city and situated next to the famous basilica of the same name. The term ‘Fourvière Jesuit’ is given to a small group of close-knit French Jesuits of the same generation, all born between 1895 and 1908, who received their theological training there and shared a similar esprit and élan which sought to provoke a certain rapprochement 13 John Milbank, ‘The New Divide: Romantic Versus Classic Orthodoxy’, Modern Theology 26/1 (2010): 26–38. 14 Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray, eds, Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Hans Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 15 Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters, 2nd ed. (Ave Maria FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2010). Through an exhaustive analysis of Aquinas and his commentators, Feingold makes an argument that de Lubac mishandled the texts of Aquinas, who in speaking of a natural desire to see the vision of God, is referring to the elicited act of inclination toward the essential goodness of knowing the first cause, rather than an innate desire for a supernatural end. For the impact of Feingold’s book on the debate and its function as a ‘serious scholarly provocation’, see the symposium in Nova et Vetera 5/1 (2007); Guy Mansini, ‘The Abiding Theological Significance of Henri de Lubac’s Surnatuel’, The Thomist 73/4 (2009): 593–619; Harm Goris, ‘Steering Clear of Charybdis: some Directions for Avoiding “Graces Extrinsicism” in Aquinas’, Nova et Vetera 5/1 (2007): 67–79. 16 Étienne Fouilloux, (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2006); Étienne Fouilloux, ‘Dialogue théologique?’ in Saint Thomas au XXe siècle: Coloque de centenaire de la ‘Revue thomiste’ (1893–1992), Toulouse, 25–28 mars 1993, ed. Serge Bonino (Paris: Saint Paul, 1995), 153–95; also for Jean-Claude Petit’s helpful study of Dialogue théologique, which attempts more of a textual analysis of the various articles that were exchanged, see ‘La compréhension de la théologie dans la théologie française au XXe siècle: Pour une théologie qui réponde à nos necessities : la nouvelle théologie’, Laval Theologique et Philosophique 48 (1992): 415–31; for Aidan Nichols’ English version of the events surrounding this period in an account that draws heavily on the work of Fouilloux, see ‘Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie’, The Thomist 64 (2000): 1–19.

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between the Church and the modern world. In fact, after their ordinations, most of the Fourvière Jesuits did not actually live there. While de Lubac and Bouillard remained in Lyon until 1950, Fessard, de Montcheuil, and Daniélou all resided in the Jesuit house of Études in Paris. Their friendships, however, remained close, and their ministries were punctuated by frequent interaction and correspondence. The theologate, as Daniélou recounted, was established to be a point of contact between the Church and the modern world: ‘The school of the Fourvière was founded after the war of 1914 from a realization of a certain number of young theologians who understood the necessity of contact with the great currents of contemporary thought. At the beginning of the century, there was, in the face of modernism, a Thomist renewal from which arose great works from the likes of Jacques Maritain, and the Jesuits Pierre Rousselot and Joseph Maréchal. This, however, remained foreign to a culture that was evolving. Thus, some young Jesuits preoccupied themselves with the task of engaging in a dialogue with contemporary thought.’17 The Fourvière Jesuits, in addition to the most prominent names given above, include others who played important but largely forgotten roles. These include René d’Ouince, Pierre Chaillet, Robert Hamel, Alfred de Soras, Jean Zupan, and Charles Nicolet. These figures constitute only a single generation of a multigenerational network of French Jesuits who were intensely unified by the common goal of reforming the Church and bringing it into closer contact with the world. As we shall see, these Fourvière Jesuits were unified by the period of their birth and the crises that shaped them, but their relationships certainly varied in both intensity and character. These not only developed at different times and settings but also waxed and waned as circumstances brought them together and moved them apart. Some were developed during the intense years of formation, while others came later. The relationship between de Lubac and Fessard was the longest. They met during the first months of formation and remained extremely close until the latter’s death. Robert Hamel, also there from the beginning of formation, quickly drops out of the narrative as he had little or no influence in French intellectual circles. De Lubac’s relationships with de Soras, Zupan, and Nicolet appear in their early letters, but they too had no significant role in the major events that would surround Fourvière thought. In fact, the latter two only emerge clearly on account of de Lubac’s late work, Three Jesuits Speak.18 De Montcheuil was only a few years behind de Lubac in

17

Jean Daniélou, Et qui est mon prochain?: Memoires (Paris: Stock, 1974), 86. Henri de Lubac, Trois jésuites nous parlent (Paris: Lethielleux, 1980); Three Jesuits Speak: Yves De Montcheuil 1899–1944, Charles Nicolet 1897–1961, Jean Zupan 1899–1968, trans. K. D. Whitehead (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1987). 18

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formation and remained close to him until his death in the war in 1944. He is intellectually the closest to de Lubac, and their work in many ways developed in harmony. As the youngest members of this generation, Daniélou and Bouillard entered the Jesuits roughly ten years after the first wave: Daniélou in 1929 and Bouillard in 1932. Thus de Lubac and the older Jesuits initially were mentors to them during their student years at Fourvière, but as they were ordained and became productive academics in their own right, they became colleagues and close friends. De Lubac was undoubtedly the vital and intellectual centre of this group, and he was certainly a mentor to many younger Jesuits after his return to Fourvière in 1934, despite the fact that his teaching was at the Institut catholique of Lyon. De Lubac was born in 1896, and after attending a Jesuit secondary school, he entered the novitiate in 1913.19 He was called into the infantry during the First World War and was wounded twice, sustaining a serious head injury at Eparges in 1917. After returning to the Jesuits at the end of 1919, he completed his philosophy at St. Helier, on the island of Jersey, UK (1920–3), and theology at Ore Place, Hastings in England (1924–6) and Fourvière, Lyon, France (1926–8). Two years after ordination in 1927, he took up a teaching position at the Institut catholique of Lyon, and in 1934, he moved ‘up the hill’ to the Fourvière theologate where he remained until 1950. During the war, he took an active part in the ‘Résistance spirituelle’, narrowly avoiding capture by the Gestapo. Theological controversy followed the Second World War for de Lubac, and in 1950 he was sent to the Jesuit house in Paris on the Rue de Sèvres, forbidden to teach. Pope John XXIII called him to serve on Vatican II’s preparatory commission, and he exercised a great influence at the council. He remained active into his nineties and died in 1991. Born in 1897, Gaston Fessard too entered the novitiate in 1913 and was called to military service in 1915.20 He saw heavy action on the Front and returned to the Jesuits in 1919 where he almost immediately became close friends with de Lubac. His philosophy study at Jersey (1920–3) was followed by residency at the Jesuit house of Action populaire where he was encouraged in his work by its head, the Jesuit Gustave Desbuquois. Travelling to Germany in 1926 for language study, he discovered Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit on

19

For de Lubac’s biography, see the yet to be completed four-volume series by Georges Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, vols I, II, and IV (Paris: Cerf, 2007–2013); Jean Wagner, Henri de Lubac (Paris: Cerf, 2001); Jean Wagner, La théologie fondamentale selon Henri de Lubac (Paris: Cerf, 1997); for a shorter treatment, see Rudolph Voderholzer, Meet Henri de Lubac; and de Lubac’s own memoirs, Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits (Namur: Culture et vérité, 1989), in HLOC, vol. 33 (Paris: Cerf, 2006); At the Service of the Church: Henri de Lubac Reflects on the Circumstances that Occasioned his Writings, trans. Anne Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1996). 20 Michel Sales, Gaston Fessard, 1897–1978: genèse d’une pensée; suivi d’un résumé du ‘Mystère de la société’ par Gaston Fessard (Bruxelles, Culture et vérité, 1997).

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the tables of an outdoor bookseller, and it had a profound influence on him. Fessard studied theology at Fourvière (1926–30) and was ordained in 1928. After teaching at a Jesuit secondary school in Poitiers, he resided at the Jesuit house of Études in Paris until 1963. During the war he lived shortly at Fourvière where he contributed to the Résistance spirituelle by assisting in the development of Témoignage chrétien, a clandestine intellectual journal of the resistance. In 1963, he was sent to live in the Jesuit house at Chantilly, continuing his research there until his death in 1978. René d’Ouince was born in 1896 and entered the Society of Jesus in 1913. He was also soon mobilized for military service and returned to the Jesuits in 1919.21 After studies at Jersey, Ore Place, and Fourvière, he was ordained and worked at a Jesuit secondary school in Paris, Saint Louis de Gonzague (1930–4). In 1935, he became the director of Études and remained there until 1952. Although his written contributions during that period were minimal, he was tasked during those difficult years with charting the course of Études, selecting authors, and editing their contributions. During the war he was supportive of Témoignage chrétien. D’Ouince was a good friend and supporter of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit palaeontologist, and wrote several books on his thought. He died in 1973. Born in 1897, Robert Hamel was orphaned at a young age and sent by his aunt to the Jesuit secondary school at Jersey. After serving in the war, he entered the Jesuits in 1919. He completed his philosophy studies at Jersey and theology at Fourvière. In 1936, he was assigned as an aumônier in Angers and continued in this capacity in various places for a number of years. He died in 1974. Born in 1900, Yves de Montcheuil entered the Jesuits in 1917 after abandoning his plans to enter the École Navale following the loss of his brother at Verdun.22 After obligatory military service, he began his philosophy studies at Jersey in 1922, two years behind the older Jesuits who welcomed him into their group and mentored him. Leaving Jersey, he completed a philosophy degree at the Sorbonne (1924–6) where he was immersed in modern thought. After teaching in Jesuit secondary schools, de Montcheuil began his theology at the Fourvière (1929–32), was ordained (1932), and took up doctoral studies in Rome (1934–5), completing his thesis on Malebranche. He was sent to Paris and taught theology at the Institut catholique (1935–44). During the war he received permission to travel to Lyon to minister to members of the resistance and in 1944 was caught by the Gestapo in the Vercors, near Grenoble, and shot. Many of his works were published soon after his death. 21 Henri de Gensac, ‘René d’Ouince’, in Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine, 1. Les Jesuites, ed. Paul Duclos (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985), 205. 22 Bernard Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil (1900–1944) Précurseur en théologie (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2006).

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Pierre Chaillet was born in 1900 and entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1923 after four years at the seminary at Besançon.23 After his formation, he taught at Fourvière (1932–42) and was the driving force behind the Résistance spirituelle and its primary clandestine anti-Nazi organ, the intellectual journal Cahier du Témoignage chrétien. Launched in 1941, it had a distribution of 500,000 at its peak. Following on this success, he began the more popular newspaper Courriers, whose distribution climbed as high as 1,500,000. These publications required an elaborate and secretive network to facilitate their writing, printing, and distribution. In 1944, he took a post in the post-war provisional government consolidating social services. Towards the end of his life, he lived in Grenoble and died there in 1972. Alfred de Soras was born in 1898 and entered the Jesuits before the First World War. He was mobilized and served in the military, rejoining the novitiate after his discharge. He studied philosophy and theology at Jersey and Fourvière and served as an aumônier during the 1930s. He was involved in a serious car accident during these years and suffered a long recovery. He later worked with Action catholique, preached, and gave retreats. In 1947, he led a retreat in Paris for Archbishop Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII. He made extensive journeys to Asia and Africa and died in 1966. Charles Nicolet was born in 1897 and entered the Jesuits in 1914, but was also soon mobilized during the war, returning to the novitiate in 1919.24 He completed his philosophy at Jersey and his theology at Ore Place and Fourvière (1924–8). Although he was a philosopher, strongly influenced by Blondel, his perfectionism did not permit him to publish significantly. He taught at the Jesuit school in Marseilles and was the provincial bursar. He died in 1961. Born in Slovenia in 1899, on account of the First World War, Jean Zupan completed his novitiate in Rome (1917–9) and was sent to France for studies.25 He completed his philosophy at Jersey (1921–3) and theology at Ore Place and Fourvière. Ordained in 1927, he lived in Austria briefly (1929–30) and then returned to Lyon where he spent significant time assisting the poor. In 1934, he was sent to Bulgaria to found a Jesuit minor seminary on the recommendation of Apostolic Visitor, Bishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. Staying there throughout the war voluntarily to comfort the faithful, he left in 1950 when the house was finally closed. The remainder of his life was spent in Nice where he was a superior, remaining engaged in numerous apostolic activities until his death in 1968. Jean Daniélou was born in 1905 and read literature at the Sorbonne during the 1920s, getting to know many of the intellectuals, such as Mounier and Sartre, who would later figure prominently in French society. He entered the 23 24 25

Henri de Lubac, ‘Pierre Chaillet’, Compagnie (June 1972): 113–15. De Lubac, Trois jésuites, 56–135; Three Jesuits, 63–151. De Lubac, Trois jésuites, 135–74; Three Jesuits, 151–95.

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Jesuits in 1929, studying theology at Fourvière, where he was mentored by de Lubac and ordained in 1938. During the war, he undertook doctoral studies, finishing in 1942, and was involved in the launching of the Patristic series Sources chrétiennes. In 1944, Daniélou replaced the older Jesuit Jules Lebreton in the chair of Origines chrétiennes at the Institut catholique, where he became dean of the theology faculty (1961–9). During that time, he wrote a number of important books and articles on Patristics and the early Church. In 1962, he was named an expert at Vatican II where he made important contributions. He continued to work until his death in 1974. Henri Bouillard was born in 1908 and entered the Jesuits in 1932 after spending five years at the Séminaire Saint-Sulpice and two additional years obtaining a literature degree.26 After two years of theology at Fourvière, where he developed close relationships with Hans Urs von Balthasar and de Lubac, he was ordained in 1936 and taught theology at the Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth. He undertook doctoral studies in Rome (1938–9) and began teaching at the Institut catholique of Lyon in 1941. He was removed, however, in 1950 with de Lubac during the controversy which culminated in the encyclical Humani Generis. In Paris, he undertook a second doctorate at the Sorbonne, writing on Karl Barth, which he defended in 1958 in the presence of Barth himself. In 1965, he became a professor of fundamental theology at the Institut catholique of Paris and established, with Daniélou, the Institut de Science et Théologie des Religions. He retired in 1978 and died three years later.27

The Le Saulchoir Dominicans Dominican presence in France had been unstable in the years after the French Revolution, and in 1880 they were expelled from the country and lived in exile along with other religious orders. The following year the Dominican Regent of Studies, Réginald Baudoin, made the important decision to base academic formation on original texts themselves rather than on the manuals prevalent at the time.28 After a brief return to France in 1895, the Dominicans were again forced to leave, and this time their house of studies, or studium, was established just over the Belgian border near Tournai in a Cistercian abbey named 26 Auguste Demoment, ‘Henri Bouillard’, Nouvelles Institut Catholiquen de Paris (December 1981), 225–32. 27 Although not treated in depth here on account of his Swiss nationality, Hans Urs von Balthsar is sometimes included in the nouvelle théologie. Born in 1905, Balthasar was a Swiss Jesuit who was sent to Fourvière for studies from 1932 to 1936. There, under de Lubac’s influence, he developed a great love for the Church Fathers which would mark his later work. He left the Jesuits in 1950 and achieved significant notoriety for his theological achievement. 28 Thomas O’Meara and Paul Philibert, Scanning the Signs of the Times: French Dominicans in the Twentieth Century (Adelaide: ATS Theology), xvi.

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Le Saulchoir, or ‘grove of willows’.29 Led by Ambroise Gardeil (1859–1931) from 1894 to 1911, critical scholarship and historical research began to flourish as he insisted that the course of studies should achieve standards on par with the universities of the day. He contended that students should learn the scientific disciplines necessary for authentic theological study. Out of this intellectual spirit arose the scholarly journal the Revue de science philosophiques et théologiques in 1907. This journal built on the historical mindset already present in the work of French Dominicans such as Marie-Joseph Lagrange at the École Biblique in Jerusalem and the journal he established in 1892, Revue Biblique. Teaching was suspended during the First World War, but during the 1920s there was an influx of young men, many having entered the Dominicans after returning from the war. Throughout the decade, the historical mindset of the school continued to develop under the leadership of Antoine Lemmonyer. A medieval institute was established that emphasized the necessity of reading Aquinas historically; the Bulletin thomiste was established to support this approach, and theology and philosophy became more and more attentive to modern Kantian currents.30 Moreover, Le Saulchoir was also deeply engaged in Social or Left Catholicism. The priests at Le Saulchoir worked as chaplains for the Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne (JOC) and a branch of Action catholique, of which we shall speak later, met there in 1925. Finally, it was during this decade that the men who made Le Saulchoir famous came together: Chenu, Congar, Henri-Marie Féret (1904–92), Jean-Augustin Maydieu (1900–55), Marie-Alain Couturier (1897–1954), Raymond Régamey (1900–96), Pierre Boisselot (1899–1964), and Dominique Dubarle (1907–87). In 1932, the appointment of Chenu as Regent vigorously strengthened and confirmed the historical and contemporary orientation of Le Saulchoir, and four years later his address on the feast of Aquinas, published pro manuscripta in 1937 as Une École de théologie: le Saulchoir, argued against the speculative approach of Neoscholasticism and insisted the path on which Le Saulchoir had embarked was truly capable of meeting the needs of modernity.31 In 1939, the studium returned to France, moving just south of Paris to Etoilles. During this period, Rome began investigating Chenu’s Une École, and in 1942 along with others, he was removed as Regent and forbidden to teach. Une École was placed on the Index, and a more conservative Dominican was sent to bring the studium back in line, although he was met with stiff resistance.

29 For more on the history of Le Saulchoir, see Michael Quisinsky, ‘Congar avec Chenu et Féret au Saulchoir des années 1930’, Revue de l’institut catholique de Paris 98 (2006), 3–37, and Jean-Pierre Jossua, ‘Le Saulchoir: une formation théologique replacée dans son histoire’, Cristianesimo nella storia 14 (1993), 99–124. 30 O’Meara and Philibert, Signs of the Times, xvii. 31 Marie-Dominique Chenu, Une École de théologie: le Saulchoir (Paris: Cerf, 1985).

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The studium returned to a more progressive position in the mid-1950s, and in 1971 it was moved to Paris to its present location in the 13th arrondissement. Marie-Dominique Chenu was born in 1895 in Soisy-sur-Seine, entered the Dominicans in 1913, and began his studies at Le Saulchoir. During World War I, he was sent to the Angelicum in Rome and studied under GarrigouLagrange, who asked him to remain as his assistant after the war. Chenu, however, was not favourable to the speculative Aristotelianism of Neothomism, and he returned to Belgium. In 1920, he was appointed Professor of the History of Dogma, and throughout the decade he became recognized as an authority on medieval thought on account of his historical and contextual reading of Aquinas. After the controversy surrounding Une École during his regency in 1938, he was forced to sign ten propositions that affirmed, among other things, the ahistorical and immutable character of dogma. Chenu was very active in Social Catholicism and became involved with the worker–priest movement of the 1940s. He was exiled from Paris in the years after Humani Generis and returned only in 1962. He attended Vatican II as a peritus and continued to work until his death in 1990. Yves Congar was born in 1904 on the Belgian border in Sedan, a town occupied by German soldiers during World War I, and this event had a dramatic effect on his teenage years. In 1921, he began three years of philosophical studies at the Institut catholique, where he met such figures as Jacques Maritain and Garrigou-Lagrange, and after a period of discernment, he entered the Dominican novitiate in 1925. He studied theology at Le Saulchoir from 1926 to 1931 and was ordained in 1930. Congar was a professor at Le Saulchoir from 1931 to 1939, and in an attempt to address certain perceived ecclesiological deficiencies and provide deeper historical openings in theology, he founded the Unam Sanctum series in 1937. At the start of the Second World War, he began serving in the French army as a chaplain, was captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner of war from 1940 to 1945. Congar returned to France after the war, and although he remained under Roman suspicion, he continued writing throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. Called to the Vatican II preparatory commission by Pope John XXIII, Congar played a decisive role, and continued to work during the post-Conciliar years until his death in 1994. Marie-Alain Couturier was born in Montbrison in 1897 and had strong artistic interests as a child.32 He served in the First World War and was wounded in 1917. Following his discharge from the military, he began studying art at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere and worked with the influential symbolist Maurice Denis on various frescoes and stained glass projects. He spent time in Jacques Maritain’s circle and met Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, and Le Corbusier. He entered the Dominicans in

32

For an English biography of Couturier, see O’Meara and Philibert, Signs of the Times, 123–37.

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1925 and began studies at Le Saulchoir the following year. Working with Raymond Régamey, he began editing the influential review l’Art sacré. He was very critical of the ecclesiastical art and architecture of the period, and attempted to open the Church to certain trends of modern art. In fact, for Couturier, ‘the rebirth of Christian art’ itself depended on this rapprochement. He spent time during the Second World War in North America and was later responsible for initiating the controversial church architecture projects designed by Le Corbusier. He died prematurely in 1954. Raymond Régamey was born in Alsace in 1900 and raised as a Lutheran. Initially taken with Bergsonian philosophy during his studies, he was called to military service during the First World War, and following his release studied at various places, including the Sorbonne, where he studied art history. After converting to Catholicism he entered the Dominicans in 1928 and flourished at the Saulchoir during Chenu’s regency. Throughout the 1930s he worked closely with Couturtier at the journal l’Art sacré to promote modern art in Catholicism. Régamey participated in the resistance during the Second World War and was held in captivity for a short time. After the war he resumed his fervent efforts to reform sacred art. He died in 1996. Henri-Marie Féret was born in Vannes, on the Breton coast, in 1904. He joined the Dominicans in 1921, studied theology at Le Saulchoir and was ordained in 1928. Closely associated with Congar and Chenu, he was deeply involved in the theological debates and was exiled with Chenu and Congar in the 1950s. He died in 1992. One of the most influential but least known of the Le Saulchoir Dominicans is Pierre Boisselot.33 Born outside of Paris in Bois-Colombes in 1899, he was a lawyer and political activist before entering the Dominicans during the Action française crisis. He made his solemn profession at Le Saulchoir in 1930 and was ordained the following year. Boisselot was involved with some of the most influential Social Catholic publications in France. He founded La Vie intellectuelle as well as the more radical Sept, in addition to directing the Dominican publishing house Cerf. Boisselot was among those caught up in the Dominican ‘purge’ of 1954, and he died a decade later. Jean-Augustin Maydieu was born in Bordeaux in 1900 and joined the Dominicans in 1926, studying theology at Le Saulchoir before ordination in 1930. Maydieu was an editor of La Vie intellectuelle, finally becoming the director before his death in 1955. He was drafted into the army during World War II and was captured by the Nazis. He was committed to Social Catholicism, ecumenism and political engagement.34 33 Although bibliographical material on Boisselot is scarce at present, a much-needed publication from Fouillioux is forthcoming. 34 David Gaillardon et al., ‘Jean-Augustin Maydieu: Actes des colloques’, Mémoire Dominicaine 2 (Cerf, Paris,1996).

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THE NEED FOR A CULTURAL AND GLOBAL HISTORY The surge of recent interest in the mid-twentieth-century theological controversies in France has yielded some excellent scholarly work that has begun to better crystalize the historical narrative, as well as provide theological insights that might assist in the appropriation of the thought of the nouvelle théologie and guide future theology that is indebted to its legacy. However, two deficiencies come to the fore: first, none specifically treats the relationship between the nouvelle théologie and wider French interwar culture; and second, the Modernist roots of the nouvelle théologie have not been established clearly. Therefore, there is a need for a global and genealogical historical examination that approaches the movement with a deeper interdisciplinary sensitivity to the larger French political, intellectual, religious, and cultural landscape. The secondary literature seems to neglect the reality that the nouvelle théologie movement was very much shaped by a particular French mise-en-scéne, a world in political and economic crisis, searching for answers in a number of other intellectual currents such as Marxism, fascism, and existentialism, and responding to much of the turmoil that first boiled over during the finde-siècle period as well as the First World War.35 This wider historical examination will ultimately provide a deeper, more contextual understanding of the nouveaux théologiens and their theological legacy. Certainly, the historical theologian cannot be faulted for emphasizing theology or ecclesiastical history over the literary, political, and philosophical, but nonetheless, historical theology that attempts to treat adequately the complexities of the French interwar period must utilize a historical approach that ‘glances sideways’ at other disciplines. ‘Global history’ avoids isolating a ‘golden thread’ of theological development from the rich tapestry from which it emerged. Historians call this the ‘tunnel fallacy’, that is, treating history as if it has many separate tunnels that must be explored in isolation. J. H. Hexter and David Hackett Fischer describe the effects of this fallacy that effectively splits the past into a series of tunnels, each continuous from the remote past to the present, but practically self-contained at every point and sealed off from contact with or contamination by anything that was going on in any of the other tunnels. At their entrances these tunnels bore signs saying diplomatic history, political history, institutional history, ecclesiastical history, intellectual history, military history, economic history, legal history, administrative history, art history, colonial history, social history, agricultural history, and so on, and so on.36

35 David Curtis, The French Popular Front and the Catholic Discovery of Marx (Hull: The University of Hull Press, 1997), 1. 36 David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), 142.

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Each of these [tunnels] of the past is not merely incomplete but seriously inaccurate, which is what happens when a complex problem is taken apart and its components are extruded into long, thin, ribbons of change. Unpleasant things are apt to happen when one grimy historical tunneler bumps into another, somewhere in the dark, and disputes the right of way with pick and shovel . . . The tunnelers (few of whom, in this instance, are academic historians) meet in the dark and fight it out, and everybody loses.37

A global history that avoids the tunnel fallacy is essential for a treatment of the nouvelle théologie for four reasons. First, the Catholic Church was still a very powerful force in French life and politics. Catholic writers and intellectuals were taken seriously as prominent voices in various cultural debates. Second, French culture, especially in the first half of the century, was rooted in an avant-garde literary and philosophical discourse, which also informed theological discussions.38 The French intellectual community at the time was relatively small. Many figures from different disciplines, including some nouveaux théologiens, not only knew each other but were also intimately engaged in the major public exchanges in the network of French journals around which intellectual discourse gravitated. Daniélou and Fessard, for example, mixed regularly with the Parisian savants.39 Third, the period between the wars was very much the beginning of a rich intellectual period, un moment, as French philosophers are wont to say, that saw major contributions to twentiethcentury culture and thought in a wide range of disciplines.40 Gertrude Stein famously remarked that the twentieth century happened in Paris during the 1920s, and this was the decade of intellectual formation of ressourcement thinkers. Numerous cultural, political, and intellectual currents permeated every facet of French society; and it was the theologians of the nouvelle théologie who not only called for a dialogue with the larger culture but were themselves well informed of the major contemporary intellectual developments of their day and were, I shall argue, themselves profoundly shaped by the latest developments in philosophy, politics, and literature. Fourth, as virtually every book on the period is quick to point out, there was a sense of absolute crisis, and this atmosphere seemingly drew the entire French intellectual world together into an engagement. Artists, writers, politicians, philosophers, and theologians were almost universally involved in a search for solutions during these tumultuous events. 37

Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 143. Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 5; Niilo Kauppi, French Intellectual Nobility (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1996). 39 Bruce Holsinger, The Premodern Condition: Medievalism and the Making of Theory (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 32; Anthony Beevor and Artemis Cooper, Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949 (New York: Penguin, 1994), 60. 40 Alain Badiou, ‘The French Adventure’, The New Left Review 35 (2005): 67–77. 38

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An interdisciplinary study of the nouvelle théologie will result in a deeper understanding of the essential nature of the movement and its origins and development and assist researchers in evaluating it and differentiating what is of lasting and transcendent value from those things embedded in the bygone era of the interwar crisis, less able to inform later theological discussion. A history of the nouvelle théologie that is interdisciplinary will rectify these deficiencies and provide a substantial contribution to the secondary literature. For this task, a sophisticated methodology will need to be developed which can provide a more rigorous analytical structure by which to analyse the nouveaux théologiens. The construction of a historical narrative of the ressourcement movement that is attentive to the full range of cultural forces from which it emerged necessarily requires a methodology that will supply the ‘tools and techniques’ to enable a cultural penetration beyond the tight sequence of ecclesiastical or theological events and developments. The historical theologian—whether searching for a relevant historical narrative or theological truth—must be aware of the fact that theology does not develop in isolation from the broader culture, and in fact a certain historical sensitivity to interdisciplinary concerns will bear much fruit. Historical theology that provides a deeper and richer sense of context will ultimately provide a clearer historical as well as theological picture. For this I shall utilize two compatible methodological approaches, cultural history, also called mentalités, and generational theory. These will offer an interpretive historiographical model that will allow for a dynamic historical reading with greater depth and intercultural sensitivity. Despite the fact that the ressourcement theologians repeatedly denied that they were part of a movement, most scholars today agree that there was, in fact, a nouvelle théologie, dismissing their own protestations as necessary precautions indicative of the restrictive mood of the times. I would agree on a historiographical level that the term nouvelle théologie is useful: they were undoubtedly involved in something, and Mettepenningen’s criteria effectively erect the firm boundaries that are sometimes necessary for historical study and classification. However, I would propose that their denials are less indicative of their attempts to conceal a movement as they are evidence of the existence of a much broader and more complex cultural, intellectual, and political French interwar milieu, moved along by an extensive web of social networks, thinkers, philosophical systems, books, and journals, of which they were merely one (admittedly large) part. Thus, I am suggesting that the ‘new theology’ was only a dependent piece of a much larger political, cultural, intellectual, economic, and generational puzzle. This approach will show that the nouvelle théologie is a more historically intricate movement than has been noted. The notorious complexities of the interwar period remain resistant to simplistic causal explanation, reductive analysis, and facile descriptions which spring from superficial treatments that

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isolate various figures and movements from their larger context. Two world wars and a global depression set the tone for a thirty-year period marked by an intellectual, cultural, political, and religious upheaval that seemed to spare no aspect of country or society. In addition, the turmoil of the entredeux-guerres found deep roots in many of the dilemmas that were raised in the late nineteenth century. Only by turning our attention to these realities can we begin to understand the phenomenon of the nouvelle théologie at its deepest point. Moreover, a generational method attentive to collective aspects of the nouvelle théologie will account for an important but often forgotten reality: although de Lubac, Daniélou, Congar, and Chenu were the most prominent members, their thinking was closely linked, and even dependent on, closeknit groups of friends that surrounded them. For example, Jesuit Jacques Guillet, an intimate of the Fourvière Jesuits, underscored how important de Lubac’s ‘groupe affinitaire’, or peer group, was to his work: ‘The great name of this generation will be without a doubt that of Henri de Lubac, and this name owes as much to his person as to his work, to the vigour of his judgement as to the warmth of his friendship. But Henri de Lubac is inseparable from his immediate contemporaries, René d’Ouince, and Gaston Fessard, Alfred de Soras and Charles Nicolet, all anciens combattants, without forgetting Yves de Montcheuil.’41

A New Periodization This methodology will thus require a revised periodization of the nouvelle théologie, one more attentive to the broader cultural, political, and intellectual milieu, and I contend that current histories, primarily situated around certain important works or various ecclesiastical controversies, are at best facile and limiting and more often misleading. Mettepenningen, for example, roots his narrative in a four-phase history—a first Dominican phase (1935–42), a second Jesuit phase (1942 to 1950), a third international phase (1950–62), and finally, a Vatican II phase (1962–5).42 While no doubt this clean-cut timeline has a simplistic appeal and might be helpful in some regard (for example, no one would argue that 1950, the year of Humani Generis, is not an important milestone), but nonetheless, a close examination of the literature renders this periodization untenable in certain aspects.

41 Jacques Guillet, ‘Courants théologiques dans la Compagne de Jésus en France (1930-1939)’, in Spiritualité, théologie et Résistance. Yves de Montcheuil, théologien du maquis au Vercors (Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 1987), 39. 42 Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie, 117–36.

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For example, Fourvière Jesuits like de Lubac and Fessard were doing important and influential work throughout the 1930s, during the ‘Dominican phase’, well before their own phase.43 And although Mettepenningen argues that the nouvelle théologie essentially begins with Congar’s 1935 article in Sept, this seems arbitrary, as he gives no evidence why this article was more important than others. For example, Congar wrote two articles on Kierkegaard in 1933 and 1934, in which the latter, as we shall see, clearly offers Kierkegaardian thought as a battering ram against Neoscholasticism. Certainly the controversy gains momentum as the decade of the 1930s unfolds, but I would contend that it was more gradual. For example, in 1932 the Dominicans at the Juivsy house had begun a vital embrace of phenomenology and Chenu had joined the contentious debate over the possibility of Christian philosophy (1930–6). By 1934, the Left-Catholic publishing machinery that would support in so many ways not only the nouvelle théologie but also the larger project of socially oriented Catholicism had been established: Cerf (1929), La Vie intellectuelle (1928), and Sept (1934). Regarding the end of Mettepenningen’s Dominican phase in 1942, indeed Chenu, forbidden to teach and shipped out of Le Saulchoir, had gotten into trouble, and Congar, a Nazi prisoner in far-away Saxony, was certainly out of the picture, but the Left Catholic intellectual machinery of the Dominicans continued to roll on steadily. Throughout the 1940s, to give only several examples, Chenu’s highly charged Left Catholic writing and speaking was extensive, especially after 1942; Congar resumed work after the war and was enormously influential; Féret was involved in the biblical debates of the decade; the Dominican inspired and led worker–priest movement, which had strong theological support, was attracting widespread attention; and Couturier’s theological work to promote modern ecclesiastical architecture was building significant steam.44 Simply put, there is no real evidence of a Dominican cessation in 1942 significant enough to merit an approximate end to their phase of productivity and influence. Even as tantalizing as Humani Generis (1950) is, it merely offers a partial bookend, especially given that some of the leading Dominicans were not fully silenced until 1954. Although forbidden to teach and no doubt watched carefully by Rome, the reality is that all four of the central nouveaux théologiens wrote extensively during the 1950s, and for example, de Lubac and Congar did some of their most important ecclesiological work during this period. De Lubac wrote the enormously influential Splendour of the Church,

43 Important parts of de Lubac’s controversial Surnaturel and Catholicisme were published as articles in the 1930s, and moreover, Fessard’s reputation was steadily growing throughout the 1930s, and he wrote various pieces that we shall discuss later. 44 Couturier had even been written up in Time Magazine in 1949, and one of Congar’s most influential books, True and False Reform in the Church, was published in 1950.

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the first two volumes of his medieval exegesis series, and three volumes on Buddhism; while Congar wrote Toward a Theology of the Laity as well as important articles on the Holy Spirit. Regarding Mettepenningen’s ‘international phase’, the export of ressourcement and French Left Catholicism had begun well before 1950. For example, some of the most influential cardinals at Vatican II, as we shall see, including Montini, Roncalli, Liénart, König, Léger, Suenens and others, had been deeply influenced by French thought between 1920 and 1950. The same can be said for important theologians such as Edward Schillebeeckx, who had his ‘conversion’ at the feet of Chenu in the 1940s. Finally, beyond the above mentioned problems of a periodization based almost exclusively on the ecclesiastical ‘big bangs’ of the ressourcement, the four-phase model essentially leaves the nouveaux théologiens suspended far above the milieu that shaped them, failing to provide an account for the larger intellectual currents—both Catholic and secular. Thus, the Modernist crisis; the First World War; the condemnation of Action française; the Great Depression; the debates over Christian philosophy and personalism (the nouvelle théologie can hardly be separated from either of these crucially formative exchanges), can function only as historical appendages to an ecclesiastically top-heavy account. Case in point is the link between the Modernist crisis and the nouvelle théologie, which still has not been satisfactorily explained. As we shall see, the ressourcement thinkers read many of the Modernists extensively, corresponded with them, in some cases even knew them, and no doubt at times, as indicated by their own words, were inspired by them. That they saw themselves in certain respects as carrying the torch for important aspects of the Modernist project is indicated by Congar’s reaction in 1931 to his reading of the three volumes of Alfred Loisy’s recently released memoirs: ‘From that time on the conviction took form in me, with a very definite critical reaction, that our generation’s mission was to bring to effect, within the Church, that which was true in the queries and the problems posed by Modernism’.45 As we shall see, Daniélou was in full agreement that the Modernists were indeed asking the right questions. 45 Yves Congar, Journal of a Theologian (Adelaide: ATF, 2005), 24. Thus, Boersma’s quick dismissal of any connection between the movements and his insistence that although ‘there is overlap’ between the two movements their agendas were ‘fundamentally different’ seems simplistic and difficult to sustain (Nouvelle Théologie, 17–21). Gerard Loughlin argues that George Tyrrell’s project was much closer to that of the nouveaux théologiens than Boersma admits, and in fact Garrigou-Lagrange’s assessment was correct that the nouvelle théologie was ‘going back to Modernism’ (‘Nouvelle Théologie: A Return to Modernism?’, in Ressourcement, 36–51). Mettepenningen takes a more nuanced position, claiming that the nouvelle théologie did not ‘repeat’ the Modernist crisis but ‘developed its core ideas’ in ‘Truth as Issue in a Second Modernist Crisis?’ in Theology and the Quest for Truth, eds. M. Lamberigts, et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 141.

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A cultural and generational approach, however, would correlate the ressourcement thinkers not only to earlier influential generations but also to the great events that shaped their own milieu and generation, thus likely offering a more satisfying history than that which dwells on ecclesiastical squabbles limited in their ability to function as interpretive keys.46 Thus, this monograph hopes to address these historical shortcomings in the literature of the nouvelle théologie. Chapter 1 will explore the phenomenon of generational consciousness, the development of generational theory, and its application to modern French intellectuals. Chapters 2 and 3 will begin to apply generational theory to the nouveau théologiens, examining the previous intellectual generations who influenced their development. Chapter 4 will primarily examine the young student years of the Jesuits during the 1920s and the development of their generational identity, paying attention to the friendships, institutions, networks, intellectual systems, and mentors that shaped them. Chapter 5 discusses the grave crisis in French culture in the 1930s, the emergence of the ‘generation of 1930’, to which the nouvelle théologie belonged, and their revolutionary proposal to completely remake the sociopolitical culture of France. Chapter 6 examines the Catholic generation of 1930, characterized by the rise of Left Catholicism and the nouveaux théologiens. Chapter 7’s analysis of the ressourcement theologians during the 1940s examines the resistance activities of the Jesuits and their rise to prominence in French post-war culture. In this way, I shall approach a clearer understanding of the nouvelle théologie and their complex relationship to wider French culture during the interwar crisis. Finally, Chapter 8 will examine the influence and work of the nouveaux théologiens after Humani Generis and into the tumultuous Conciliar and post-Conciliar eras of the 1960s and 1970s.

46 Joseph Komonchak, in several short articles, examines the relationship between the Fourvière Jesuits and the wider French culture in a very limited investigation into de Lubac’s charge that Neoscholastic anthropology was responsible for the rise of secularism and Action française. He attempts to show how de Lubac’s early work was an antidote to the bifurcation between the secular and the sacred in ‘Returning from Exile: Catholic Theology in the 1930s’, in The Twentieth Century: A Theological Overview, ed. Gregory Baum (New York NY: Maryknoll, 1999), 35–49; and ‘Theology and Culture at Mid-Century: The Example of Henri De Lubac’, Theological Studies 51 (1990): 579–602.

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1 Modern French Intellectual Generations CULTURAL HISTO RY AND GENERATIONAL THEORY It has been said that the past is a foreign country, and this is especially true when unravelling the labyrinthine complexities of modern French intellectual and cultural history. Thus, my suggestion that the nouvelle théologie best be understood through broader historical methodologies necessitates that the subject be approached with a certain historical patience. As I mentioned earlier, hastily characterizing the movement according to the various quarrels in which the ressourcement thinkers were embroiled will do little to expose the central dynamisms that drove the movement. Instead a persistent and deliberate cultural and generational unfolding is necessary that is attentive to both the previous figures and events that shaped the nouvelle théologie as well as the mentalité of a divided France in crisis. Cultural history uses holistic means to apprehend ‘collective modes of thought’, offering descriptive analysis that characterizes certain essential cultural interrelations.1 In cultural history, the historian ‘gets to parts of the past that other historians cannot reach. The emphasis on whole “cultures” offers a remedy for the current fragmentation of the discipline into specialists on the history of population, diplomacy, women, ideas, business, warfare, and so on.’2 We examined this tendency, called the tunnel fallacy, in the Introduction (p. 15–16). A number of cultural studies have utilized generational theory as a historical and sociological tool rooted in the idea of generational consciousness. It shows how particular generations and their identities are formed in response to moments of crisis.3 French historians have long defined generationally groups of youth who have marked their identity and cultural and political contributions over and against those of their predecessors. As we 1

Anna Green, Cultural History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 6. Peter Burke, What is Cultural History? (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2008), 1–2. 3 Venita Datta, Birth of a National Icon: The Literary Avant-Garde and the Origins of the Intellectual in France (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1999), 41. 2

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shall see, the generations of 1890, 1912, and 1930 have all played a prominent role in the shaping of modern French intellectual life.4 The use of generational theory makes accessible important insights into the internal dynamism that seems to drive the atmosphere of perpetual fermentation and continual ‘self re-creation and transformation’ that has been peculiar to avant-garde French intellectual life for more than a century and played a significant role in encouraging the growth of the nouvelle théologie. Generational theory was developed by sociologists and philosophers in the tumultuous years following the First World War in an attempt to understand the growing large-scale trend of European youth who increasingly identified themselves not only in terms of their coevals but also in relationship to the monumental events that had shaped their identity.5 Robert Wohl’s groundbreaking book The Generation of 1914 explores not only the generational identity of those who fought in the First World War but also the concurrent development of generational theory and its historical link with the rise of ‘generational consciousness’.6 The link between the crisis of World War I and the development of generational theory is hardly coincidental, and generational theorists understand the concept of crisis as central to the formation of generational identity. In an influential study of generational theory, June Edmunds and Bryan Turner write: A generation can be defined in terms of a collective response to a traumatic event or catastrophe that unites a particular cohort of individuals into a self-conscious age stratum. The traumatic event uniquely cuts off a generation from its past and separates it from the future. The event becomes the basis of a collective ideology . . . A generation is constituted by a traumatic event, the emergence of intellectuals who give expression to this traumatic experience, and the growth of a privileged interval that separates successive generations.7

The various crises that shaped the French generation born between 1895 and 1910, which contained the members of the nouvelle théologie, were compressed into the span of a quarter of a century in a way that seems almost unimaginable today: the angst, decadence and political turmoil of the fin-de-siècle era; the First World War; the Great Depression; the rise of Communism and fascism; 4

Datta, National Icon, 41. For an extensive overview of the use of generations in historical study, see Alan Spitzer, ‘The Historical Problem of Generations’, The American Historical Review 73.5 (1973): 1353; for an excellent summary of the literature, see Datta, National Icon, 231; and Jean-François Sirinelli, ‘La hasard ou la nécessité? un histoire en chantier: l'histoire des intellectuels’, Vingtieme Siecle 9 (1986): 97–8; and Générations intellectuelles: effets d’âge et phénomènes de génération dans le milieu intellectuel français (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1987). 6 Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980). 7 June Edmunds and Bryon S. Turner, introduction in Generational Consciousness, Narrative, and Politics, eds June Edmunds and Byron S. Turner (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002), 7. 5

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the Spanish Civil War; and the Second World War.8 The sense of crisis was so deep and interminable that Charles de Gaulle took to calling the entire period ‘la guerre de trente ans’.9 Paul Valéry noted this phenomenon of crisis early on as he surveyed the devastation of the post-World War I landscape that was filled with a sense of la mélancholie et la crise: An extraordinary shudder ran through the marrow of Europe. She felt in every nucleus of her mind that she was no longer the same, that she was no longer herself, that she was about to lose consciousness . . . No one can say what will be dead or alive tomorrow, in literature, philosophy, aesthetics; no one yet knows what ideas and modes of expression will be inscribed on the casualty list, what novelties will be proclaimed.10

Generational theory does not only identify generations who were formed in response to a crisis; it also identifies generations who perceived themselves as such. It is not simply that historians perceive them as a generation; those are the terms in which they identified themselves. This generational identity has permeated the way modern people think about themselves and their communities in relationship to the events and crises that shape their formative years. As we shall see, this generational identity profoundly marked French culture in the first half of the century, and the nouveaux théologiens likewise saw themselves in generational terms. The concept of generation first became a formalized sociological tool with Hungarian sociologist Karl Mannheim’s landmark essay ‘The Problem of Generations’, published in 1928.11 Mannheim is still considered as having developed the first serious systematic treatment of the method of generational identification. Writing amid the political turmoil that followed World War I, he attempted to find a sociological means beyond class that might explain not only a certain period’s zeitgeist but also the more rapid large-scale changes that epitomized modern life. Mannheim defined a generation as a ‘social phenomenon’ that ‘represents nothing more than a particular kind of identity of location, embracing related “age groups” embedded in a historical-social process’.12 Generations in this sense are ‘people of roughly the same age whose shared experiences significantly distinguish them from contemporaries in other age groups’.13 Generational As we shall see, I am using Ortega’s fifteen-year window to characterize generational identity. Thus, instead of 1900–10 (as in Sirinelli, and Kleinberg), I shall use 1895–1910 for generational inclusion. 9 Christopher Flood, ‘Pétain and de Gaulle: Making the Meaning of the Occupation’, in France at War in the Twentieth Century: Propaganda, Myth and Metaphor, eds Valerie Holman and Debra Kelly (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000), 105. 10 Paul Valéry, ‘The Spiritual Crisis’, Athenaeum 4641 (1919): 182. 11 Karl Mannheim, ‘The Problem of Generations’, in his Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge 1959), 276–322. 12 13 Mannheim, Essays, 292. Spitzer, ‘The Historical Problem’, 1354. 8

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theory holds that common attitudes, assumptions, fears, aspirations, and memories are often shared by people of a similar age, and the isolation of a particular generation as a distinct entity over and against preceding and succeeding generations in the context of the major events of their time can yield great insights into a given historical milieu, as well as the cultural and intellectual bond shared by communities of people. Generation essentially becomes a ‘device by which people conceptualize society and seek to transform it’.14 Generational analysis relies on three fundamental concepts: ‘location’, ‘unit’, and ‘actuality’. ‘Location’ refers to a common period of birth that unites members of a generation. ‘Units’ are subgroups or smaller divisions within the generation that share ‘customs, collective usages, traditions, and beliefs that define the real social existence of each individual.’15 Often units are mutually antagonistic and are united by common experiences rather than by their responses to those experiences. ‘Actuality’ explains the acquisition of generational consciousness and identity, which results from the exposure of youth to a new set of problems posed by the trauma and conflict of a changing world. Unable to integrate these circumstances into their worldview with the social scripts they have inherited, they forge a collective identity by searching for new answers to existing social problems. In doing this, they not only differentiate themselves from older generations but also become conscious of their own historical agency. As a generation coheres and constructs a generational identity through shared responses to social problems, it moves from passivity to actuality. This distinction between ‘generation as location’ and ‘generation as actuality’ is a crucial one, and Mannheim calls this common experience that unites and actualizes a generation a ‘stratification of experience’: Mannheim characterizes this location [of a generation] as an unconscious and inactive one, as opposed to a ‘generation as actuality’, whereby members have a ‘concrete bond’ through their exposure to and participation in the ‘social and intellectual symptoms of a process of dynamic destabilization’ such as in a time of war. Mannheim expresses the difference between basic ‘generational location’ and ‘generation as actuality’ as that of potentially being capable of ‘being sucked into the vortex of social change’ and in actually participating in the ‘characteristic social and intellectual currents of their society and period’.16

This reciprocal dimension of activity and passivity implies that a given generation is continually acting in a dynamic relationship with its surrounding milieu: a generation both shapes the larger culture and is shaped by it as events unfold and present various social challenges that must be engaged. This is a central point for this study, as I will argue that the nouvelle théologie was very

15 Wohl, Generation of 1914, 5. Spitzer, ‘The Historical Problem’, 1357. Jane Pilcher, ‘Mannheim’s Sociology of Generations: An Undervalued Legacy’, British Journal of Sociology 45/3 (1994): 490. 14 16

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much embedded in this generational and cultural dimension of activity and passivity. Certainly, they rose up against the theological tendencies of their time they perceived to be restrictive out of an evangelical zeal to speak the language of their contemporaries, but they were also very much formed by the culture that they sought to form. Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset also developed a generational theory in the tumultuous years of the twenties and early thirties. Spanish decline and unrest, which had been almost irrepressible since the beginning of the nineteenth century, culminated with the ‘disaster of ’98’ that saw the humiliating loss of almost all Spain’s colonies. Fortunes did not improve in the first decades of the twentieth century, as the country remained politically and financially disoriented and in disarray, and Ortega recognized that the First World War had ushered in a new era that sought ‘expression in Fascism, Communism, Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism’.17 In the late twenties, Ortega wrote: ‘We do not know what is happening to us: the man of today is beginning to be disoriented with himself, dépaysé, he is outside of his country, thrown into a new circumstance that is like a terra incognito.’18 The moments of crisis which produce this disorientation were the product of the ‘system of convictions’ and values of a previous generation that disintegrated under the weight of a changing world. Finding themselves in a new world with no map with which to read and structure the reality, humans are essentially lost, with ‘no world’.19 Ortega writes that people do not know what new thing to think—one only knows, or thinks he knows, that the traditional norms and ideas are false and inadmissible. One feels a profound disdain for everything, or almost everything, which was believed yesterday; but the truth is that there are no more positive beliefs with which to replace the traditional ones. Since that system of convictions, that world, was the map which permitted man to move within his environment with a certain security, and since he now lacks such a map, he again feels himself lost, at loose ends, without orientation.20

For Ortega, each generation is thrust into the unknown and is forced to confront the legacy of previous generations in the face of the paradox that impels them to sometimes build on the work of their predecessors and other times overthrow it. Both of these actions, though, speak of the indissoluble intergenerational link that binds the past and present. Ortega writes: In principle, therefore, it does not matter whether one generation applauds the previous generation or hisses it—in either event, it carries the previous generation within itself . . . We might present the generations not horizontally but vertically, 17 19 20

18 Wohl, The Generation of 1914, 156. Wohl, The Generation of 1914, 153. José Ortega y Gasset, Man and Crisis (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959), 86. Ortega y Gasset, Man and Crisis, 86.

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one on top of the other, like acrobats in the circus making a human tower. Rising one on the shoulders of another, he who is on top enjoys the sensation of dominating the rest; but he should also note that at the same time he is the prisoner of the others . . . Beneath the confusion which exists between the historical and the genealogical generations—those sons, fathers, grandfathers—there beats a sure recognition that the concept which expresses history’s effective articulation is that of the generation, and by the same token it is the generation which provides the fundamental method for historic investigation.21

Each generation must interpret the past and present according to their own interests and exigencies and develop a system of convictions and beliefs that Ortega terms ‘vital sensitivity’. Vital sensitivities continually shift as generations age and pass into obscurity. It is, however, when shifting sensitivities leave people alienated and ‘without conviction’ that crises emerge. Men in crisis had no clear destiny. Everything they did, felt, thought, and said lacked conviction and was therefore false. They lived in lamentable disorientation, for they had no vital horizon by which to orient their acts . . . They were subject to enthusiasms and extremisms . . . For their only hope was to divest themselves of what was old and false, so that they could go on to what was new and true.22

French theorists speak on the one hand of ‘innate’ influences, or ‘genetic baggage’, which develop as ‘cultural memory’23 through ‘sedimented generations’ in a longue durée, and on the other hand of ‘acquired’ influences, or crises.24 This insight, that the effect of past events, which were crucial to the shaping of earlier generations, remains in the collective memory of later generations as a formative influence, is important to this study. Thus, drawing on the work of Jean-François Sirinelli and others, the phenomenon in which past crises, the élan of previous generations, and certain influential intellectual and cultural currents are transmitted genetically from one generation to the next might be called ‘sedimentation theory’. As we shall see, sedimentation theory will be an important methodological tool in our study of the Fourvière Jesuits. A generational study examines the ‘structures of sociability’ and develops an ‘archaeology of social networks’ which searches for ‘solidarities of age, social origins and study’. These networks might include, for example, institutions,

21

22 Ortega y Gasset, Man and Crisis, 54. Wohl, The Generation of 1914, 153. In this sense, I am using the notion of ‘common memory’ as essentially interchangeable with ‘common experience’. For the link between common memory, trauma, and generation, see Wulf Kansteiner, ‘Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies’, History and Theory 41 (May 2002): 179–97. Kansteiner insists that cultural memory is fundamentally social. 24 Jean-François Sirinelli, Générations intellectuelles: effets d’âge et phénomènes de génération dans le milieu intellectuel français (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1987), 11. 23

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journals, political movements, relationships, and affiliations. The first task of this ‘archaeology’ is to ‘reassemble those young student years where friendships are forged easily and influences exert themselves on soft ground. In particular, this retrospective approach, this rise toward the sources of the intellectual and political awakening, allows also for a marking out on a carte de l’esprit the intersections where mentors stood, as well as other éveilleurs [“intellectuals awakeners”] whose influence is less known but nonetheless remains profound’.25 We might note that there seems to exist here an intersection between the notions of structures of sociability and sedimentation theory, as certain aspects of the structures themselves, such as institutions and journals, depend on the presence and work of older generations, and éveilleurs are in fact influential older mentors. Therefore, we might conclude that sedimentation theory includes an awareness, at least peripheral, of the structures of sociability, and vice versa.

THE BIRTH OF GENERATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS The development of generational thinking is ultimately rooted in the upheavals at the end of the eighteenth century. In broad outline, the French Revolution, the industrial revolution, and Kant’s Copernican revolution heralded a definitive break with the past and the coming of a new era. The French Revolution, and in particular its aftermath showed how liberation from the past could be achieved—through political rebellion. At the same time the French events of 1789-1871 taught a powerful lesson in the discontinuity of historical development; four revolutions and restorations went by in dizzy succession, suggesting that every era had its distinctive and authentic quality that walled it off from what had come before and what would come later. Both these ideas—the rooting out of the past for the sake of the future and the discontinuous nature of human existence—encouraged the equation of youth and cultural renewal.26

Alan Spitzer has chronicled the formative impact the French Revolution had on the development of the ‘youth culture’ in France that was rife among those born in the decade following the Revolution.27 Spitzer’s integration of generational theory with an interdisciplinary approach attempts to uncover the ‘shared assumptions’ and ‘common temper of mind’ of this generation.

25 Jean-François Sirinelli, Génération intellectuelle: khâgneux et normaliens dans l’entre deux guerres (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 12. 26 Wohl, Generation of 1914, 204. 27 Alan Spitzer, The French Generation of 1820 (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).

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Spitzer argues that the generation born between 1792 and 1803, the decade after the Revolution, gained an identity and collective self-perception by coming of age during a series of complex historical traumas. The jeunesse françoise reacted in a high-minded way against the perceived hypocrisy of the generation of their parents who, after fighting for the Revolution, shifted their allegiance to Napoleon, then to Louis XVIII, back to Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and finally, to the Restoration after Waterloo. The generation of 1820, formed in the competitive and repressive schools of the Restoration, constructed a complex series of social networks, including schools, journals, masonic lodges, and cenacles, through which to channel their creative energies and manifest their perceived generational identity. Oxford historian Robert Gildea has also recognized the importance of generational analysis in his study of the Revolution and its aftermath, Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799–1914.28 Gildea describes five French generations—1760, 1800, 1830, 1860, and 1890. Each, he argues, responded to and was defined by the almost interminable series of revolutions and upheavals in nineteenth-century France. It is important to emphasize the significance of the seemingly relentless political and cultural turmoil for the development of generational consciousness. Gildea writes: Generations were not so much biological, born at the same time, as historical, shaped by the same events. These events might be the revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1871. They might be the Hundred Days of 1815, when Napoleon returned briefly from exile to power until his overthrow at Waterloo, or defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, or the challenge to French power of British aggression in 1898 or German aggression in 1905 or 1911. These events gave shape to successive generations that differed because of the different events they experienced in their formative years, or later in life. The birth dates of a generation would gravitate around a key year, although individuals defined by the same event might actually be born ten years before or after, so long as they reacted in the same way, most as peers, others as masters or disciples.29

The rise of generational consciousness was not restricted to France, and signs of its development are evident among the German Romantics as well. Goethe asserted that ‘anybody born only a decade earlier or later might have become a completely different person as far as his own education and sphere of action are concerned’, while in 1812, Friedrich Schlegel distinguished various eighteenth-century literary generations—for instance, those of Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller.30 Two decades later, Ranke described historical generations as ‘rows of shining figures who themselves are closely related and in 28 Robert Gildea, Children of the Revolution: France, 1799–1914 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 29 Gildea, Children of the Revolution, 3. 30 Michael Corsten, ‘The Time of Generations’, The Time Society 8/249 (1999): 274.

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whose antithesis the development of the world continues to progress’.31 In the later decades of the nineteenth century, Comte, Marx, Engels and Durkheim all considered generation in relationship to progress, biology, class or social structures.32 Moreover, concepts of space and time had, on the one hand, been greatly expanded by scientific discoveries such as Darwin’s theory of evolution, which accelerated a general sense of ‘kinship, relatedness and descent’, and, on the other, were compressed by the synchronization of clocks, the development of a modern postal service and the advent of trains and steamers.33 The nineteenth century saw the urbanization of youth, and associations of artists, writers, and intellectuals began to identify themselves generationally. Mass movements were born that recognized the political and social power of youth and took on generational identity.34 By the last decade of the century, this movement toward generational identification developed more fully, and specific intellectual generations emerged more distinctly, one after another, vying for the lead role in the cultural drama that was unfolding. In modern French historiography, it is at this point in the fin-de-siècle milieu that the first ‘intellectual generation’ emerges. The Dreyfus generation was the first group of left-wing public intellectuals in France who identified themselves generationally. Moreover, the period saw the modern birth of extreme left and right political movements in France, as well as a widening of the gap between the sacred and the secular. This divided France, presided over by an intellectual class of elites, would exercise influence on the nouveau théologiens through the cultural memory of this generation. To conclude, generational consciousness was born in many ways as a product of Kantian criticism, the French Revolution, and Darwinian thought, which all gave a character of change and impermanence to modern life. Moreover, the political upheavals in France upended the sense of stability, and urban youth began identifying themselves collectively.

TWEN TIETH-CENTURY F RENCH I NTELLECTUAL GENERATIONS French generational theorist Michel Winock has made significant contributions to the study of modern French history by using the concept of generation to understand better the formation and development of French intellectuals in the twentieth century and their generational consciousness.35 He has proposed Corsten, ‘Time of Generations’, 274. Edmunds and Turner, Generational Consciousness, 4. 33 34 Burnett, Generations, 28. Burnett, Generations, 28. 35 For some of Michel Winock’s contributions to the generational approach to modern French intellectual history, see L’Effet de generation: Une brève histoire des intellectuels français 31 32

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the existence of eight intellectual generations from the beginning of the century to the 1970s. The first four correspond to the wider period treated in this monograph, and I shall use them as a guide in the following survey of the emerging sense of generational consciousness. This survey will provide a useful historical overview of certain aspects of the period that shaped the members of the nouvelle théologie. It will chart the rise of generational consciousness in French intellectual circles, as this consciousness became more than just a vague awareness of certain intergenerational differences, but rather an effective ideological tool used by certain intellectual activists (sometimes called ‘generationalists’ by theorists) to harness the sentiments of the young and coalesce certain youth movements around antagonism toward the preceding generation. Moreover, it will also provide an opportunity to examine a number of historical works that have successfully employed generational theory as an interpretive mechanism within the context of the historical narrative they propose to study. To prevent confusion, we should state that, although there is broad agreement concerning the existence of these particular generations, they are named in different ways. For example, a generation can be identified according to their years of birth, such as the ‘generation of 1890’, which could cover those born between roughly 1880 and 1895. Alternatively, the same generation can be identified according to the years in which intellectual maturity was reached or in which those particular events that shaped the generation took place. Again, generations can be identified not by numerical years, but rather by titles, such as the ‘generation of crisis’. These four generations—the ‘generation of Dreyfus’, the ‘generation of Agathon’, the ‘generation of fire’, and the ‘generation of crisis’—were closely related by both age and circumstance and shared an extraordinary period of French history which saw centuries of bloodshed and political unrest compressed into several decades. These brief generational portraits will illustrate the growing sense of crisis and social dislocation that would ultimately reach their apogee with the ‘generation of crisis’ which came of age in the early 1930s. Each provided an important genetic element to the cultural blueprint that would shape the nouvelle théologie.

La Génération de l’affaire Dreyfus The generation of the Dreyfus Affair came of age and into the public spotlight in the fin-de-siècle era of the French Third Republic, an era commonly associated with the birth of the avant-garde intellectual movement that

(Paris: Thierry Marchaisse, 2011); Le Siècle des intellectuels (Paris: Seuil, 1999); and ‘Les Générations intellectuelles’, Vingtième Siècle 22 (1989): 17–38.

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would dominate French culture throughout the twentieth century. The origins of the avant-garde are often traced to the controversy surrounding the Dreyfus Affair in the waning years of the nineteenth century, which saw a Jewish officer in the French military, Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935), falsely accused of treason. The affair bitterly divided the country and left its residue in the consciousness of the French people for decades. The development of generational consciousness amongst the avant-garde French elites has been examined in Venita Datta’s Birth of a National Icon: The Literary Avant-Garde and the Origins of the Intellectual in France. Datta singles out the ‘generation of 1890’ (named according to their coming of age) as the first generation of French intellectuals to gain a collective self-realization and understand their role in terms of ‘vocation’.36 Datta writes: The generation of 1890 was the first official ‘intellectual’ generation, the first generation of intellectuals to view itself as a sociological group with a role to play in French society. Its history is inextricably linked to the cultural and political history of the period. A generational portrait of the young men of 1890, who were highly self-conscious of their historical role at a pivotal time in French history, sheds light on the working of the intellectual milieu and its relationship to the world of politics . . . [and] the emergence of the intellectual as a figure in the age of mass democracy.37

As a means of exploring the social connections that bound the generation of 1890 together, Datta examines the role that emergent avant-garde journals played in the formation and popularization of the identity of the intellectual elites, and she charts the correspondence between the birth of this first ‘intellectual generation’ and the struggle to realize a national identity in the modern world.38 She writes: Marked by great change, the fin de siècle was a time of cultural crisis. The works of writers and artists of this period reflect the contemporary fear of the manifestations of modernity, which included the emergences of mass democracy, the growth of cities, the rise of the working class, and the entry into public life of Jews and women. France in particular was haunted by the loss of national honor, in light of both defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the precipitous decline of the national birth-rate.39

In 1891, Jules Huret began his influential Enquête sur l’évolution littéraire, which comprised interviews with sixty-four prominent writers, such as Émile Zola (1840–1902) and Maurice Barrès (1862–1923), in order to determine the state of French literature. What emerged was a complex of social connections and controversies around movements such as positivism, symbolism, naturalism, and anarchism, which constituted a ‘Republic of letters’ in which the 36 38

Datta, National Icon, 9. Datta, National Icon, 63.

37 39

Datta, National Icon, 40. Datta, National Icon, 63.

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writers ‘clearly felt a sense of belonging to a sociological group’.40 Huret’s piece introduced the writers of this generation of 1890 to the public as well as to their intellectual elders.41 For this generation, its identity had become synonymous with generational rebellion, where ‘youth’ conceived their place in the world collectively in terms of a struggle against the older generation.42 To struggle against the older generation, therefore, became the duty of all men who identified themselves with the cause of the future. The cultural and political history of the nineteenth century shows a steady escalation in the rhetorical violence and determination with which this struggle was waged. The writers of the Sturm und Drang, the French Romantics of 1930, young Italy, young Germany, the Russian revolutionary youth described by Turgenev and Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche and his followers had prepared and prefigured the system of discourse with which the generation of 1914 would discover and describe itself. Hence in 1900 there was a ready-made language of political and cultural combat that predisposed European intellectuals to think in generational terms. The young generation had become a tradition.43

Much of the antagonism between the generation of 1890 and its forebears was fuelled by Barrès, nicknamed the ‘Prince of Youth’, who was the most important generationalist of his day.44 Barrès’s most famous novel, Les Desracinés, depicts the lives of seven provincial youths. Detached from a strong sense of traditional morality by a Kantian schoolteacher, the story chronicles their move to Paris and subsequent attempt to navigate the complexities of modern life. Wohl, describing the story as a ‘generation portrait’, writes: Intuiting and brilliantly exploiting the ambiguities inherent in the pronoun we, [Barrès] had denounced the generation of his elders, spoken to and for youth, stated as an indisputable law that no one could really be understood by the previous generation, and depicted his generation as sacrificed, sterile and lost, adding that it had a special and unique mission to fulfil. He had also rediscovered the importance of nation, come to a new appreciation of the role of faith and traditional hierarchies, and denounced the materialistic and corrupt mores of the parliamentary Republic.45

At the heart of this generational consciousness is a sense of ‘discontinuity and disassociation from the past’, which leads to an apprehension for the young generation that only two plausible alternatives exist: either to hurry forward to a new world or seek to return to the old. In either case, the young men of today—that is, the young generation—are lost by definition. Their mission can only be to prepare the way and to build for their successors. Hence 40 42 44

Datta, National Icon, 46. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 205. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 39.

41

Datta, National Icon, 17. 43 Wohl, Generation of 1914, 205. 45 Wohl, Generation of 1914, 39.

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the spokesmen for the present generation, once they begin to think of themselves as belonging to a generation, will represent themselves and their coevals as unique, lost, sacrificed, and charged by history with a separate task.46

Charles Péguy (1873–1914), a French poet, essayist and Catholic convert, exemplified this mentality and viewed his generation as a ‘sacrificed generation’ that would atone for the mediocrity of the previous generation with a blood offering. His generation, he wrote, was burdened with a great redemptive mission: ‘We are the last. Almost beyond the last. Immediately after us begins another age, a quite different world, the world of those who no longer believe in anything; those for whom this is a source of pride and glory.’47 Péguy was convinced that his generation would be forced to atone for the weakness and decadence of its predecessors. We are, he wrote, a ‘generation that was sacrificed. We are not only beaten men, a beaten generation . . . But our defeat is the worst of all, an obscure defeat, and we shall not even be despised: we shall be unknown . . . We shall never be great; we shall never be known.’48 Péguy’s harsh criticism of French decadence, however, belied his belief that the greatness of French culture could not be extinguished forever and would, in fact, be reignited in the mysticism of future generations: ‘The following generation, the generation coming after that which comes immediately after us, and which will soon be the generation of our children, will at last be a generation of mystics.’49 For Winock, Péguy embodied this generation of the Dreyfus Affair more than any other. Péguy, a socialist, nationalist, and ardent dreyfusard, was profoundly aware of the generational identity he shared with his peers.50 Other members of this generation, born roughly between 1860 and 1870, were Julien Benda (1867–1956), André Gide (1869–1951), Marcel Proust (1871–1922), and Léon Blum (1872–1950). This generation is considered by French historians to be the first ‘intellectual generation’.

La Génération d’Agathon The generation of Agathon, also called the generation of 1912, was born roughly between 1875 and 1885 and made its impact in the years before the First World War. It was characterized by a number of works that attempted to

46

Wohl, Generation of 1914, 39. Charles Péguy, Charles Péguy: Basic Verities, Prose and Poetry, trans. Ann and Julian Green (New York NY: Pantheon Books, 1943), 103. 48 Péguy is quoted in Ronald Thomas Sussex, The Sacrificed Generation: Studies of Charles Péguy, Ernest Psichari and Alain-Fournier (Townsville: James Cook University of North Queensland, 1980), 28. 49 50 Péguy, Basic Verities, 105. Winock, ‘Les Générations intellectuelles’, 20. 47

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mobilize youth by inciting in them a sense of generational mission. ‘Agathon’ was the pseudonym of two young intellectuals, Henri Massis (1886–1970) and Alfred de Tarde (1880–1925). Wohl writes that by the time of Agathon ‘generational portraiture and polemic had reached the status of literary genre; and that like all literary genres, the generational manifesto had its rules, its structures, its themes’.51 The year 1913 saw the release of three generational manifestos: A quoi rêvent les jeunes gens by Émile Henriot, Aux écoutes de la France qui vient by Gaston Rioux, and the most influential, an enquête published by Massis and de Tarde, who had been heavily influenced by Barrès’s call to youth. They authored a series of anonymous articles in the Parisian journal L’Opinion under the pseudonym ‘Agathon’, entitled Les Jeunes gens d’aujourd’hui. ‘Agathon’ sought to appeal to the ‘young men of today’ by excoriating the decadence of their predecessors in the ‘generation of 1885’ (referred to above as the ‘generation of 1890’). The generation of 1885 had been ‘pessimistic, self-doubting, morally flabby, overly intellectual and introspective, relativistic, incapable of energetic action, lacking faith, obsessed with decadence, and ready to accept the defeat and eclipse of their country’.52 In contrast, they wrote that the ‘man of today’ was energetic, ready for action, and intensely nationalistic. He was spiritual, inclined to the outdoors, sought after absolutes, and often had anti-republican sympathies.53 This was the first intellectual generation to define itself over against the previous generation in a systematic way that was central to their critique of society. The revival of religious and metaphysical questions for this generation influenced the work of a number of important Catholic writers, philosophers, and intellectuals, such as Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), Ernest Psichari (1883–1914), Georges Bernanos (1888–1948), and Gabriel Marcel (1888–1973). Philippe Chenaux has examined these thinkers, all of whom were converts except Bernanos, who played a vital role in the development of Catholic life in the interwar period. His Entre Maurras et Maritain: Une génération intellectuelle catholique (1920-1930) tells the story of the alliance between Maritain and the Catholic intellectual convertis and their allegiance to the Leonine Thomistic revival and the anti-democratic nationalist movement founded by Charles Maurras, Action française.54 This generation of intellectuals was caught between the Maurras—Maritain split that occurred when the latter renounced the group after the official condemnation of Action française in 1926 by Pope Pius XI. Maritain condemned the Maurrassian doctrine, which had given primacy to the political realm over the spiritual, in his book Primauté du spiritual. This ecclesial crisis, which will 51

52 Wohl, Generation of 1914, 39. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 8. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 9. 54 Philippe Chenaux, Entre Maurras et Maritain. Une génération intellectuelle catholique (1920–1930) (Paris: Cerf, 1999). 53

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be so influential on the generation of the nouvelle théologie, was so severe that Chenaux describes it as ‘something like a new Dreyfus Affaire’.55

La Génération du Feu With the generational ground prepared by intellectuals of the Dreyfus and Agathon eras, the First World War marked the beginning of a more widespread generational consciousness in the generation of fire, also called the ‘tragic generation’, the ‘lost generation’, the ‘War generation’, and ‘the génération sacrifiée’.56 This was the generation in which generational consciousness and identity were ‘democratized’. For the first time the working class experienced generational consciousness in a profound way, together with the intellectual elites. The youth of 1914–18 were the first ‘people’s generation’.57 The Great War led to a widespread application of the concept [of generation] to the working class as well as upper class off-spring, albeit within the confines of paradigms of nationhood, and to a model of generations was a mass, national and historically significant cohorts firmly rooted in the social world. Finally, ordinary people could lay claim to a generation as their own.58

The War holds a prominent place not only for the development of generational consciousness but also for our purposes, as it significantly influenced the generation of the nouvelle théologie. De Lubac himself, along with many other Fourvière Jesuits, fought in the war, along with Teilhard de Chardin, Étienne Gilson, Rousselot, and Péguy. Other nouveaux théologiens, although not actively involved, came of age during the war and its aftermath. Given the wide range of ages of men who served in the War, Wohl recognizes the difficulty of assigning them a single generational identity. Instead, he finds three waves that were shaped by it: those who went to war having already come of age intellectually, those who came of age in the trenches at seventeen or eighteen, and those who were too young to have fought but were nonetheless shaped by it. This distinction is important, because the young soldiers who went to war at seventeen had little in common with those who were sometimes their seniors by twenty years. De Lubac went to war at seventeen, while Péguy was already forty-one; undoubtedly, de Lubac was closer culturally and intellectually to the generation that was formed by the war but remained too young to fight.59

Philippe Chenaux, ‘Humanisme intégral’ (1936) de Jacques Maritain (Paris: Cerf, 2006), 23. 57 Burnett, Generations, 59. Burnett, Generations, 59. 58 Burnett, Generations, 59. 59 For references on the French postwar works that attempted to resolve the difficulties of positing a single war generation, see Wohl, Generation of 1914, 244, n 34; Jon Savage offers a 55 56

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Winock recognizes the wider implications for generational theory: important events are never the sole concern of a single generation. There is a multigenerational dimension to most events. However, that does not mean that all individuals or generations are touched in the same way by events experienced in common. Winock writes that the young are hit with the full force of a crisis during the ‘période de réceptivité’ that characterizes the awakening of their political consciousness. It is at this moment that a new generation is constituted.60 The struggle to win the generational identity of the youth that began with Barrès and Agathon increased only during the last years of the war and the post-war period. Massis, eulogizing Péguy and the writer Ernest Psichari, who had also perished in the war, authored Le Sacrifice, 1914–1916 in 1917.61 He wrote: ‘There are few generations who entered into life with such a feeling of renunciation, of humility. [This generation] knew well in advance why it was born, and this is the meaning of the words that were said by one of our men: “We are a sacrificed generation.”’62

La Génération de la Crise Called ‘la grande génération du siècle’, this generation has been much studied, and from this research has emerged the idea of ‘l’esprit des années 30’.63 The members of this generation, which fought in the First World War as young men in their later teens or came of age during its devastation, emerged into prominence in the decade of the 1930s. It is known as the ‘generation of 1905’, because its cohort was born roughly between 1895 and 1905, the ‘generation of 1930’, the ‘generation of 1933’, and the ‘generation of crisis’, according to the years of this or that interwar crisis which they lived through. It is the generation of the nouvelle théologie. This generation experienced an almost interminable series of crises from adolescence onwards: the First World War, the Great Depression, the rise of Communism and fascism, and the Second World War. They had a sense that France, and even Western Civilization, had spent itself and remained in a

more detailed analysis of this inter-generational war-time dynamic in Teenage: The Creation of Youth (London: Pimlico, 2007), 185. 60 Winock, ‘Les Générations Intellectuelles’, 18. 61 62 Henri Massis, Le Sacrifice, 1914–16 (Paris: Plon). Massis, Le Sacrifice, 7. 63 Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle, Les Non-conformistes des années 30 : Une Tentative de renouvellement de la pensée politique française (Paris: Seuil, 1969); Jean Touchard, ‘L'Esprit des années 1930: Une Tentative de renouvellement de la pensée politique française’, in Tendances politiques de la vie française depuis 1789 (Paris: Hachette, 1960), 89–118; Pierre Andreu, Révoltes de l’esprit. Les revues des années 30 (Paris: Kimé, 1991); Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).

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perpetual state of upheaval, and nothing short of revolution would satisfy the need for an ‘ordre nouveau’. The great historian Henri Marrou (1904–77), also a member of this generation, summed up this deep sentiment of helplessness in 1932 in the opening words of his book Crise de la culture: I write this book at twenty-eight years of age. I am the eldest of nearly all my companions. I was fifteen years old on the day of the armistice. We are the generation de l’après-guerre . . . We have grown up during the 1920s, and this troubled Europe has not yet felt peace. We live in an atmosphere of Apocalypse; we see on all sides cracks that seem to announce the end of the world. We wait for catastrophe: the revolution or the end of the world. No one knows exactly which.64

What united this generation, according to Winock, was the notion of ‘révolution’, and ‘they used [this notion] to signify their esprit de révolte against a society they judged to be indefensible’.65 The Catholic intellectual Jean de Fabrégues (1906–83) wrote: ‘In fact the revolution has begun. Les équipes de remplacement have prepared themselves. Henceforth, therefore, it will be for us to push men to rise up against an inhuman false order, against a veritable disorder.’66 According to Ulrich Herbert, the men of this generation had belonged to a generation that had grown up during the First World War, but had had their politically formative experiences in the chaotic years immediately following the war. These experiences proved to be so impressive that they produced, particularly in the male middle class youth, the widely disbursed self-consciousness of an age group that distinguished itself sharply from other generations. The individual lives were connected by a collective acknowledgement, which drew together their experiences into the categories and value patterns of their ‘political generation.’67

Intellectual historians discuss this generation’s emergence in the decade of the 1930s in terms of three broad political movements: right, left and centre. The extreme right included such proponents of nationalism as Robert Brasillach (1909–45), while Communists on the far left included Jean-Paul Sartre (1904–80), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–61), Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86), Paul Nizan (1905–40), Alexandre Kojève (1902–68), and André Malraux (1901–76). A third way, which attempted to navigate between these two poles, was led by a group that has been called les non-conformistes since 64 Henri Marrou, Crise de notre temps et réflexion chrétienne: de 1930 à 1975 (Paris: Éditions Beauchesne, 1978), 33. 65 Winock, ‘Les Générations intellectuelles’, 26. 66 Jean de Fabrègues, ‘Nos adversaires et nos voisins’, La Revue du siècle 10 (1934). 67 Ulrich Herbert, Best: Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltangschauung, und Vernunft, 1903–1989 (Bonn: Dietz, 1996), 522, quoted in Michael Wildt, ‘Generational Experience and Genocide’, in Biography: Between Structure and Agency, eds Volker Berghahn and Simone Lässig (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008), 148.

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the groundbreaking work of the same name by Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle. The non-conformistes, whom I shall examine later, were a group of intellectuals gathered around the Catholic philosopher Emmanuel Mounier (1905–50) and the journal Esprit. Others members of this group included Henri Daniel-Rops (1901–65), Georges Izard (1903–73) and Marrou. Beyond these political categories were situated other intellectuals such as Raymond Aron (1905–83), Jean Hyppolite (1907–68), Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95), Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009), Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003), Jacques Lacan (1901–81), Albert Camus (1913–60), Jean Grenier (1898–1971), Georges Bataille (1897–1962), André Breton (1896–1966) and Louis Aragon (1897–1982). Numerous attempts were made by intellectuals to continue the work of Agathon by uniting youth sentiment around a generational and political cause. Jean Luchaire (1901–46), a journalist and politician, founded the weekly Notre Temps: la revue des nouvelles generations in 1927 in order to unite this generation around a common identity. Devoting space to a series called ‘querelle des generations et crise des démocraties’, Luchaire wrote: A generation is an assembly of humans marked by a great event or a series of great events. Or, with a few rare exceptions, it is a spirit fundamentally marked by a single influential event—to the exclusion of all others. That is to say, the defining event occurred at a time when the spirit was still unscathed by earlier essential pristine impressions.68

Like Agathon before him, his generation’s identity, he insisted, was rooted in antagonism toward the older generations that had come of age before the First World War. The War had imprinted upon the generation of 1930 a great sense of their own generational identity. The French writer Benjamin Crémieux had noted as early as 1926: ‘As a consequence of the war, the notion of generation has taken on a sudden lively significance and seems to have a certain new resonance’.69 Luchaire argued that an unbridgeable gap existed between ‘those who lived before [the War], impregnated by a past heavy with traditions and diverse mysticisms, and those who, coming afterwards, cannot permit themselves to be guided by the intellectual values, ideals and politics accepted before the First World War’.70 His generation, he wrote, ‘was born to collective life on the same day. This day was 2 August 1914’.71 Notre Temps dedicated itself to calling the younger generation ‘to preserve themselves from compromising and divisive alliances with their elders’.72 French historian Jean Touchard, in his landmark study of the ‘spirit of the 1930s’, underscored this picture, writing that ‘in 1930, a ditch separated those 68 69 70 71 72

Sirinelli, Générations intellectuelles: effets, 9. Benjamin Crémieux is quoted in Loubet del Bayle, Les Non-conformistes, 31. Luchaire is quoted in Wohl, The Generation of 1914, 34, 247. Jean Luchaire, Une Generation réaliste (Paris: Librairie Valois, 1929), 8. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 34.

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who fought in the war and those who did not, and those who fought it adopted a mentalité de ancient combatant’.73 The new generation felt deeply that the older generation, Winock’s ‘génération du feu’, which fought in the First World War, had sold them out, acquiesced to a stale nationalism and patriotism after the war, and perpetuated materialistic attitudes that fundamentally uprooted the human esprit. Henri Lefebvre wrote: The veterans demanded for themselves the places, the honours, the rewards, the glory, the women, all while throwing in the balance, with their titres de souffrance, the most narrow patriotisms and the most ridiculous conformism. Our shame for the veterans knew no bounds . . . Never, possibly, had been a generational conflict been so acute, also mingled with other conflicts in other domains.74

The Nouvelle Théologie: A Theological Cohort of the Generation of 1930 The nouveaux théologiens were very much a part of the generation of 1930, and all were born roughly between 1895 and 1905 and follow the same trajectory as most other prominent intellectuals of their generation: formation (1920s), intellectual emergence (1930s), and cultural prominence (1940s). Having established generational location, I suggest there are reasons to think the nouveaux théologiens may be viewed as a particular generational unit. The nouveaux théologiens shared a particular common heritage, Catholic priesthood and theology, but more specifically, the history, intellectual culture, and social networks of their respective religious orders and the theologates where they received their formation, the Jesuits at Fourvière in Lyon and the Dominicans at Le Saulchoir in Belgium. Beyond the common life they shared at their theologates, they shared a certain attitude towards the Church in regards to its relationship with the modern world. Finally, I suggest it is likely that this theological generation of 1930 would have been ‘actualized’ by the same series of crises and catastrophes that formed the larger generation of crisis. They too came of age during the First World War and were profoundly aware of their own generational identity, marked as it was by a sense of total crisis. Like the wider French intellectual world of the 1930s, they too would have been taken up with this sense of crisis. A generational portrait in the later chapters of this work will show that the thinkers of the nouvelle théologie were in fact deeply stamped by these cultural influences and post-war sentiments. In summary, the generation of 1930 has been a special object of generational study, and in Sirinelli’s treatment of the generation at the École normale, he

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Touchard, ‘L’Esprit’, 97–8. Henri Lefebvre, La Somme et le reste (Paris: Nef de Paris, 1959), 374–5.

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provides a methodology attentive to biography, structures of sociability, and generational theory. Moreover, we have suggested that the nouveaux théologiens are very much a part of the generation of 1930, and in fact the Fourvière Jesuits and Le Saulchoir Dominicans constitute a particular unit of the generation, and are thus suitable for generational study.

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2 1893–1914 Sedimented Generations in a Divided France

THE DREYFUS GENERATION: A DIVIDED FRANCE The period from 1890 to 1914, called ‘the childhood of our era’, saw sweeping social, political, and religious changes in France that were underscored by Péguy’s declaration in 1913 that ‘the world has changed less since Jesus Christ than it has in the last thirty years’.1 Despite rapid economic, industrial, and technological transformation, the period is usually characterized as fraught with pessimism, angst, and a sense of décadence.2 The 1889 centennial of the French Revolution marked an era of intense discord. The Revolution was succeeded by the Napoleonic Empire, revolutions in 1830 and 1848, several periods of monarchical restoration, the Franco-Prussian War, and the brutal violence surrounding the Paris Commune. Established in 1870, the Third Republic had survived but had also deeply divided French sentiment, perpetuating the notion of ‘Les deux France’. On the left stood supporters of the Republic who championed progress, reason, and the principles of the Enlightenment and the Revolution. The right, dominated by those loyal to the Church, the military, and the monarchy, remained distrustful of any notion of progress.3 Louis-Napoleon had once aptly remarked, ‘We make revolutions in France, not reforms.’4

1 Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant Garde in France, 1885 to World War I (New York NY: Vintage Books, 1968), 3; Charles Péguy, quoted in Shattuck, The Banquet Years, 1. 2 For some of the best recent general histories of modern France, see Charles Sowerwine, France Since 1870: Culture, Society and the Making of the Republic (New York NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); and Maurice Agulhon, The French Republic: 1879–1992, trans. Antonia Nevill (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993). 3 Maurice Larkin, Religion, Politics and Preferment: La Belle Époque and its Legacy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 3. 4 Alistair Horne, The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune of 1870–71 (London: The Reprint Society, 1967), 24.

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In 1894, these divisions were inflamed when a Jewish officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was wrongly convicted of treason. Émile Zola, in his famous manifesto, ‘J’Accuse!’, condemned the conviction, portraying it as part of the great humanist struggle ushered in by the Revolution and rooted in the ‘rights of man’: ‘I am not fighting for a rich bourgeois, but for liberty, and for the free development of our great and noble France against a conspiracy of mighty foes—militarism and the Catholic Church allied to the remnants of the old feudal aristocracy. My fight is a continuation in the direct line of the French Revolution.’5 The anti-Dreyfusards—composed of Catholics, monarchists, and supporters of the military—were incensed by Zola’s article and his encroachment on the values of traditional France: ‘Mobs paraded through the streets, manifesting. Zola was burnt in effigy and hurled into the Seine. The Libre Parole called fearlessly for the sacking of his house, for his assassination. The rest of the press demanded variously his trial, incarceration, or execution. He had “insulted the army”—so he had—the government, the whole nation.’6 To conclude, there were four primary effects of the crisis that will feature in the cultural memory that the nouvelle théologie inherits. First, the modern legacy of French extremism was born, as exemplified by Charles Maurras’s 1899 founding of the right-wing group Action française. He proclaimed, ‘for the continuance and progress of a threatened civilization, all hopes float on the ship of a Counter-Revolution’.7 Second, the divide between the secular and the sacred was deepened in the 1905 anticlerical backlash that established an official programme of secularism, or laïcité, declaring all religious buildings the property of the State and terminating state funding for religious groups. Third, the identity of the national community of France itself became a major point of contention among intellectuals, as different factions articulated vastly different communitarian visions. Finally, the phenomenon was born whereby powerful French intellectual classes, largely left-wing and generational, exercised an enormous influence on the national discourse.8 Piers Paul Reed writes that Zola’s manifesto was ‘the first mobilisation in modern times of scholars, writers and artists as a force shaping public opinion . . . Lucien Herr, the librarian at the École normale supérieure, circulated the petition among the scientists and scholars at their institutions. The net was extended by younger writers such as Marcel Proust who went around Paris 5 James D. Young, Socialism Since 1889: A Biographical History (Totowa NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1988), 109. 6 Matthew Josephson, Zola and His Times (New York NY: Macaulay Co., 1928), 445. 7 Neil Foxlee, Albert Camus’s ‘The New Mediterranean Culture’: A Text and Its Contents (New York NY: Peter Lang, 2010), 150; Bryon Criddle, Socialists and European Integration: A Study of the French Socialist Party (London: Routledge, 1969), 10. 8 M. B. DeBevoise, Lawrence Kritzman, and Brian Reilly, The Columbia History of TwentiethCentury French Thought (New York NY: Columbia University Press, 2006), 364–5.

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collecting signatures. “I was the first Dreyfusard,” Proust would later claim, “for it was I who went to ask Anatole France for his signature.”’9

THE MODERNIST GENERATION: A DIVIDED CHURCH A second unit of the generation of 1890 was that of the Catholic Modernists, a small group of theologians and philosophers who aligned their cause broadly with that of the Dreyfus intellectuals as they sought to open the Church to modernity. Composed primarily of five figures, Alfred Loisy (1857–1940), George Tyrrell (1861–1909), Maurice Blondel (1861–1949), Lucien Laberthonnière (1860–1932), and Édouard Le Roy (1870–1954),10 Bouillard wrote that this generation was one of the richest in the history of French culture: ‘It is approximately the generation of Barrès, Gide, Proust, Péguy, and Claudel, of Matisse and Rouault, of Ravel and Debussy, of Bergson and Brunschvicg.’11 Maurice Blondel described the intellectual backdrop of this generation as a milieu in which one vacillated from dilettantism to scientism, where Russian neo-christianism clashed with the rigorous virtuosity of radical German idealism; where in art and literature, as in philosophy not to say in religious pedagogy itself, the notional, the formal, even the unreal seemed to triumph; where the very efforts that one made to reopen the sources of a profound life and of a fresh art ended only in symbolism, without succeeding in rehabilitating the concrete, the direct, the singular, the incarnate, the living letter which takes the whole human composite, a sacramental practice which introduces into our veins a spirit more spiritual than our spirit, a popular common sense and Catholic realism.12

Lasting from 1893 to 1914, the movement gathered steam in 1904 and was finally condemned three years later by Pius X’s encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis in 1907.13 The conversation about Modernism and its methods continued until the discussion was halted by the First World War. 9 Piers Paul Read, ‘Dreyfus and the Birth of Intellectual Protest’, Standpoint, January/ February 2012, http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/4256/full. 10 I do not mean to ignore other influential Modernists, such as Ernesto Buonaiuti, Freidrich von Hügel, and Henri Bremond, but rather to discuss the central figures in France whose work is representative of the movement as a whole. 11 Henri Bouillard, ‘The Thought of Maurice Blondel: A Synoptic View’, International Philosophical Quarterly 3/3 (1963): 392. 12 Frédéric Lefèvre, L’Itinéraire philosophique de Maurice Blondel (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1966), quoted in Phyllis Kaminski, ‘Seeking Transcendence in the Modern World’, in Catholicism Contending with Modernity, ed. Darrell Jodock (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 119. 13 Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Encyclical letter on the Doctrine of the Modernists (8 September 1907), AAS xl (1907), 593–650; Vatican Web site, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ pius_x/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis_en.html.

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The Modernists were responding to the widespread use of the historical method and Kantian philosophy. The historical method, which had been central to nineteenth-century Protestant theology, provided a supposedly scientific methodology to examine the Bible historically as literature, abandoning preconceived notions, inherited traditions, unscientific superstition, and supposedly infallible dogmatic statements. Kantian philosophy was perceived as claiming that categorical knowledge is unable to meet the empirical demands of Wissenschaft, and metaphysics is left to explore the existence of subjective a priori categories which merely organize disparate, chaotic sense data. Purporting to have disproved both the ontological and cosmological proofs, Kant claimed that immutable speculative knowledge of God is impossible, and religious knowledge is relegated to the practical. The doctrine of immanence emerged from this, which holds that the search for religious truth cannot commence in things exterior to the mind, such as the natural world or objectively revealed trans-historical dogmas, rather only from within the field of subjectivity. Against this background, Modernists claimed that despite certain problematic conclusions, Kant’s fundamental critique was an advance which could be useful in the development of modern apologetics. The epistemological realism and posteriori reflection of Scholasticism turned God into an object and was unable to meet the demands of modern thought and religious experience. Neoscholastics claimed, however, that beyond merely an immanent apologetic starting point, the Kantian unseating of objective truth claims and real categorical knowledge severely destabilized the notion of dogma itself, which was further destabilized by the application of the historical method. Certain traditional dogmatic statements, they held, were problematic too because they required a ‘conversion to Aristotle’ as well as Christianity. Finally, as we shall see, certain Modernists were drawn, at various points, into the national political crisis we examined in the previous section and attempted to articulate various communitarian visions for how the Church should relate to the world and overcome the profound divide between the secular and the sacred.

The Classical Narrative Beneath these specific historicist and philosophical appropriations lay a more fundamental disagreement over the question of modernity itself. Rather than condemn modern thought in its entirety, the Modernists shifted the blame for the very problem of modernity on to the Church itself. To contextualize this move, we shall first review the traditional declension narrative by which the Church had understood the fundamental problem of the modern era as

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modernity itself. We shall call this the ‘classical narrative’. John Milbank calls this position ‘classical orthodoxy’ and writes that its defenders trace secularity simply to a poor use of reason and regard the scholastic legacy, mainly in its ‘Thomistic’ form, as sustaining a true use of reason to this very day. The poor use of reason in Ockham, Descartes, Hume and Kant led eventually to scepticism, nihilism and the exaltation of subjective emotion. For religion and theology, therefore, to try to rebuild itself upon this ground is the most dreadful error imaginable. Instead, we must return to the tradition of the manuals and insist that uninflected human reason can prove the existence of the creator God; that reason can demonstrate the likelihood of God giving a revelation; that reason can likewise argue on the basis of ‘evidences’ for the plausibility of the revelation as claimed by scripture and the Church. This rationalist emphasis will alone convincingly oppose secular hegemony.14

The origin of this metanarrative is difficult to date, as it seems to have emerged naturally, and was held to be true by many on both sides of the struggle between the Church and progressive intellectuals. The essential metanarrative is the same; it is the valuation that differs. Luther, Descartes, and Kant are alternately portrayed as both heroes and villains. For the secular position, Luther’s status throughout the Aufklärung as the ‘bringer of freedom’ and ‘liberator of conscience’ was manifested in G. E. Lessing’s famous appeal in 1778 to the ‘spirit’ of Luther over and against his actual ‘writings’: ‘Luther’s spirit absolutely requires that no man be prevented from advancing in the knowledge of truth according to his own judgment.’15 Writing fifty years later, Heinrich Heine argued that the Reformation was the origin of modern thought. Tracing a line from Luther through the rationalists to Lessing and Kant he wrote: ‘I say that Lessing continued the work of Luther. After Luther had emancipated us from the power of tradition and set up the Bible as the only source of Christianity, there arose a frigid literalism, and the letter of the Bible became as great a tyranny as tradition had formerly been. From this tyranny Lessing was our great liberator.’16 The apex for Heine occurs, however, with Kant, who brings about an intellectual revolution that parallels the political revolution in France.17

14 John Milbank, ‘The New Divide: Romantic Versus Classic Orthodoxy’, Modern Theology 26/1 (2010): 28–9. Interestingly, Luther, who usually figures prominently in the ‘classical metanarrative’, is excluded from Milbank’s genealogy. 15 G. E. Lessing, Lessing’s Theological Writing (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1956), 2. 16 Heinrich Heine, Religion and Philosophy in Germany: A Fragment (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959), 101. 17 Heine, Religion, 102. What is also striking is that often versions of this ‘classical metanarrative’ find a correlation between the Reformation and Rousseau or the French Revolution. Two examples, both written in the 1920s, are Preserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation (New York: H. Holt and Co., 1920); and Jacques Maritain, Trois réformateurs: Luther–Descartes–Rousseau (Paris: Plon, 1925); Three Reformers (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1928).

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For the papacy in the second half of the nineteenth century, this line of development was far from emancipatory. Seeking to restore the ‘true use of reason’ and eradicate Kantian and Romantic thought from its intellectual life, the Church’s response began to emerge with Pius IX’s encyclical Qui Pluribus in 1846 and the significant interventions that followed between 1855 and 1866 and tried to a halt various incursions of Cartesian, post-Kantian and Romantic philosophy in the Church.18 In 1870 the First Vatican Council issued a strident reassertion that knowledge of God is attainable through natural means apart from revelation, and throughout the pontificates of Leo XIII and Pius X, there was continual intensification of the condemnation of modern thought. It is, however, with the Leonine encyclical Aeterni Patris and the restoration of Thomism that the response to the ‘classical metanarrative’ began to be fully articulated. The realist epistemology that Scholastic philosophy provided sought to be a ‘bulwark of faith and a strong defence of religion’ and the most fitting response to a Neo-Kantianism.19 In linking the crisis that gripped the nineteenth century with the Reformation, Leo XIII wrote: But that harmful and deplorable passion for innovation, which was aroused in the sixteenth century, threw first of all into confusion the Christian religion, and next, by natural sequence, invaded the precincts of philosophy, whence it spread amongst all classes of society. From this source, as from a fountain-head, burst forth all those later tenets of unbridled license which, in the midst of the terrible upheavals of the last century, were wildly conceived and boldly proclaimed as the principles and foundation of that new conception of law which was not merely previously unknown, but was at variance on many points with not only the Christian, but even the natural law.20

One year earlier Leo had invoked Augustine’s De Civitate Dei to illustrate the cultural and intellectual crisis: The race of man, after its miserable fall from God . . . separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other of those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth. The one is the kingdom of God on earth, namely, the true Church of Jesus Christ; and . . . the other is the kingdom of Satan . . . This twofold kingdom St. Augustine keenly

18 For a detailed account of this, see, Gerald McCool, Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism: The Search for a Unitary Method (New York NY: Fordham University Press, 1989), 129–44. 19 Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, Encyclical letter on the restoration of Christian philosophy (4 August 1897), ASS 12 (1879), §2; Vatican Web Site, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_ xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris_en.html. 20 Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, Encyclical letter on the Christian constitution of the states (1 November 1885), ASS 18 (1885), §23; Vatican Web site, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01111885_immortale-dei_en.html. For further writings of Leo XIII on the causes of secularism, see Diuturnum Illud, Encyclical letter on the origin of civil power (29 June 1881), ASS 14 (1881), §23; Vatican Web site, http://www.vatican. va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_29061881_diuturnum_en.html.

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discerned and described after the manner of two cities . . . at every period of time each has been in conflict with the other, with a variety and multiplicity of weapons and of warfare, although not always with equal ardor and assault.21

The ‘classical metanarrative’ was not hastily constructed in an atmosphere of historical self-scrutiny and ideology. Rather, it was simply an accepted and common historical interpretation of the time that was generally recognized by many different thinkers in the modern period. In conclusion, the Modernists sought to open Catholic theology to three fundamental categories: historicity, subjectivity, and political engagement. Moreover, included in their historical turn was a new metanarrative that placed the blame for modernity on the Church. I shall now illustrate how these three categories manifest themselves in the work of the primary Modernists. First, I shall examine Loisy and Tyrrell, who are often mentioned together as the primary figures in the movement. Then, I shall examine Blondel, Laberthonnière, and Le Roy, whose philosophical work and personal lives often intersected.

Loisy and Tyrrell A brilliant biblical scholar, Loisy is considered the father of Catholic Modernism.22 He became fascinated by liberal biblical criticism, and in 1883 his doctoral thesis was rejected after implying that the character of Scripture was ‘proportioned to the time and the environment’ of its writing.23 He questioned the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and proposed a more fluid mode of composition of the biblical books. In 1885, he was dismissed from his post at the Institut catholique, eventually ceasing to believe in ‘the soul, free will, a future life or a personal God’.24 Loisy radicalized John Henry Newman’s notion of the ‘Christian idea’ as a means of bridging the gap between revelation and the formation of dogmatic truth, and serious controversy began for him after the publication of the ‘Firmin articles’ between 1898 and 1900 and L’Évangile et l’Église in 1902.25 These were a supposed corrective 21 Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, Encyclical letter on freemasonry (20 April 1884), ASS 16 (1884), §1–2; Vatican Web site, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/ documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18840420_humanum-genus_en.html. 22 For an introduction to Loisy’s thought, see Aidan Nichols, From Newman to Congar: The Idea of Doctrinal Development from the Victorians to the Second Vatican Council (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990), 72. 23 Jon Ratté, Three Modernists (London: The Catholic Book Club, 1972), 57. 24 Nichols, Newman to Congar, 78–9. 25 Alfred Loisy, Prelude to the Modernist Crisis: The ‘Firmin’ Articles of Alfred Loisy, trans. C. J. T. Talar (New York NY: Oxford University Press, 2010); Alfred Loisy, L’Évangile et l’Église (Paris: Picard, 1902); The Gospel and the Church, trans. Christopher Home (Philadelphia PA: Fortress Press, 1976).

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to the work of liberal Protestant Adolph von Harnack, who desired to continue the Reformation by freeing Christianity from the notion of dogma, which he argued was a later Hellenistic notion foreign to the Gospel. In these works, Loisy proposed that dogmatic formulae are neither immutable nor even ‘adequate and absolutely perfect expressions of supernatural realities’.26 Although he agreed that conceptual knowledge is necessary for dogmatic transmission, concepts remain no more than religious symbols constructed by the community as a response to their spiritual experience, and dogmatic formulae are expressions of the community’s desire to harmonize this experience with science. Unlike Newman, who held that dogmatic assertions were latently contained in the Gospels, Loisy denied Christ’s divinity as a historical fact of revelation.27 Neither, he declared, did Christ found the Church and its hierarchy, which was merely the community’s reaction to the life of Christ, nor was he even conscious of ‘Christianity’, which has no stable inner essence open to individual seekers, as Harnack held.28 Rather, it was external, living, historical, and collective. It was constantly developing and manifesting itself in different historical and cultural expressions. In 1903, five of Loisy’s works were put on the Index, and four years later many of Loisy’s theses were condemned, and he was excommunicated the following year. In his later years, he advocated for a vague ‘church of humanity’, believing the historical Jesus was inaccessible. The Irish Jesuit George Tyrrell was born in Dublin in 1861 as an Anglican and converted to Catholicism as a teenager, entering the Society of Jesus in 1879. He became a philosophy professor and staunch Thomist. However, under the influence of Baron Friedrich von Hügel, an English Catholic aristocrat and Modernist who introduced him to the historical–critical method of Harnack and Loisy, he moved away from Scholasticism.29 Newman’s Essays, as interpreted by Loisy, pushed him to engage the question of dogma, and under the influence of Blondel and Bergson, his move from abstract philosophy to the concrete and experiential found expression in the notion of lex orandi and lex credendi, in which theology becomes merely a handmaid to spirituality, which conforms to the demands of spiritual experience and its manifestations in popular devotion.30 In this formulation, the deposit of faith is retained but reduced to being ‘a prayerful experience of the heart rather than a communication of beliefs to the mind’.31 Faith is central here, because it is the faculty that orients us to ‘a world beyond the grasp of clear consciousness’.32 26

Nichols, Newman to Congar, 89. Francisco Turvasi, The Condemnation of Alfred Loisy and the Historical Method (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1979), 191. 28 29 Ratté, Three Modernists, 113. Nichols, Newman to Congar, 115. 30 31 Ratté, Three Modernists, 146. Nichols, Newman to Congar, 118. 32 Avery Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped for: A Theology of Christian Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 101. 27

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Tyrrell’s final and most radical phase came with the publication of Through Scylla and Charybdis in 1907, where he abandoned both Scholastic and Newmanian conceptions of the development of doctrine. For Scholasticism the apostolic deposit of faith was a kind of primitive theological system from which the truths of revelation can be deduced later and confirmed authoritatively by the Church, relegating the theological understanding of the early Christians to a place of ‘relative darkness and chaos’ and placing our own knowledge of revelation far above the Fathers and early believers.33 The Newmanian approach relativizes incomplete early dogmas and creeds, which are framed in inadequate categories and experiences, needing later reformulation, in a way inconceivable to the Fathers, who saw them as immutable.34 Rejecting both of these approaches, Tyrrell argued that revelation rested on a concrete religious experience of the ‘Kingdom of God’, rather than on propositions. The language that articulated this experience might assist in its apprehension but in no way could closely represent immutable concepts. Dogma served merely as a necessary time-bound attempt to preserve the original religious experience to which revelation pointed. For Tyrrell, Thomism was destructive in its insistence on absolutes, and in his book Medievalism. A Reply to Cardinal Mercier, he provided an early important ecclesiological counter-narrative to the Roman narrative of modernity, arguing that the social dimension of the Church, fundamentally a sacrament and a mystery, has a living and vital centre grounded on a universal spiritual experience. Moreover, this progressive ecclesiology demands a historicist mindset that can determine the essentials in a particular age or thinker, such as in Aquinas or Ignatius Loyola, in whom he found an indispensable ‘spirit’ of creativity, synthesis, adaptability, and openness.35 Medievalism is an absolute, Modernism a relative term. The former will always stand for the same ideas and institutions; the meaning of the latter slides on with the times. If we must have a sect-name, we might have a worse one that stands for life and movement as against stagnation and death; for the Catholicism that is of every age as against the sectarianism that is of one . . . To believe in the living historical Catholic community means to believe that by its corporate life and 33 George Tyrrell, Through Scylla and Charybdis: or the Old Theology and the New (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907), 8–9; Nichols, Newman to Congar, 131. 34 For an analysis of Tyrrell’s critique of these two approaches, see Ratté, Three Modernists, 221–2. It should be noted that the ‘Newmanian’ approach of which we speak refers to the development of doctrine as expounded in his University Sermons, which rests on the church’s experiential ‘vision’ of revelation rather than its ‘memory’. The notion of development in Newman’s essay follows the line of the contemporary scholastic apologists in holding that the deposit of faith was a static core ‘around which “additional” propositions ever group themselves into a doctrinal system’, see Ratté, Three Modernists, 222. 35 Nicholas Sagovsky, Between Two Worlds: George Tyrell’s Relationship to the Thought of Matthew Arnold (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 13; Patrick Allitt, Catholic Converts: British and American Intellectuals Turn to Rome (Ithaca NY: Cornell University, 1997), 120.

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labour it lies in slowly realizing the ideas and ends in whose service it was founded . . . One’s beliefs in the Church as the organ of religion is to some extent one’s belief in the laws of collective psychology, which are the laws of nature, which are the laws of God.36

In his last years, Tyrell held all religious expression to be temporal and relevant only insofar as it can express an ultimate and universal religious experience. In 1906, he was expelled from the Jesuits, prohibited from the sacraments, and later excommunicated, dying three years later in 1909, deprived of a Catholic burial. Some have seen in Tyrrell a proto-nouvelle théologien, but his programme, I would argue, went much further. In conclusion, Loisy and Tyrrell sought to bring the Church into an historical and philosophical engagement with Modernity and expose the weaknesses of its Scholastic apology. They analysed the Bible, reformulated the notion of dogma, sought to find a larger theological role for spiritual experience, and created a counter-narrative that claimed the Church was in fact at fault in its struggle with Modernity. The nouveaux théologiens would pick up these criticisms and re-articulate them, arguing that the Modernist’s methods and questions were not problematic, only certain of their conclusions.

PHILOSOPHICAL MODERNISM: BLONDEL, LABERTHONNIÈRE, AND L E ROY This section will examine the remaining three Modernists in this study: Blondel and Le Roy, both philosophers, and Lucien Laberthonnière a theologian, all contemporaries of Loisy and Tyrrell, major French intellectuals, and deeply involved in the religious crisis. In terms of twentieth-century French Catholic thought, Blondel’s influence cannot be overestimated, and it stands at the very centre of this monograph, and Le Roy and Laberthonnière both play supporting roles in this narrative. Le Roy and Blondel both grappled with the problem of immanence, and Laberthonnière is included in this section on account of this close personal and intellectual relationship to Blondel.

Maurice Blondel Born in 1861, Blondel began his studies at the École normale supérieure where he hoped to construct a philosophical apology for the Catholic faith in the 36 George Tyrrell, A Reply to Cardinal Mercier (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909), 183–4, 144–6, quoted in Marvin O’Connell, Critics on Trial (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 373.

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language and thought of his contemporaries, uniting science and faith, and forging a middle path between intellectualism and fideism, while maintaining orthodoxy. This union would allow for ‘a perspective at once absolutely natural and absolutely in conformity with the supernatural order, so that, without minimizing the validity of nature and reason themselves, one might also be brought to see the necessity of the supernatural order within the natural’.37 The crux at which these two realities would be joined, he determined, was the concept of action. By marrying thought with action, Blondel argued he could avoid inherent weaknesses in both Aristotle and Kant: ‘Between Aristotelianism, which depreciates and subordinates practice to thought, and Kantianism, which separates them and exalts the practical order to the detriment of the other, there is something to define, and it is in a very concrete manner through the analysis of action, that I propose to define it.’38 The first phase of his career (1893–1914) was guided by four works, each contributing an important aspect to his integrated, organic, and totalizing system. First, his 1893 thesis L’Action, was an existentialist phenomenology arguing that humans are fundamentally oriented toward the supernatural; second, his Lettre sur l’apologétique defended his method and strongly denounced Neoscholasticism; third, Histoire et dogme offered a kind of philosophy of history rooted in a conception of tradition which showed how his anthropology might carry the historical and dogmatic weight of Catholic thought; and finally, his Testis series provided a socio-political application of his philosophy.39 Far from being disparate and unrelated, we can very much see in these four works a kind of global and integrated system. We might say that L’Action is the Manual, Lettre is the Manifesto, and the Method in its historical and social dimensions is constituted by Histoire et dogme and Testis.

37 Oliva Blanchette, Maurice Blondel: A Philosophical Life (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 8. 38 Alexander Dru, introduction to Maurice Blondel, The Letter on Apologetics & History and Dogma, trans. Alexander Dru and Illtyd Trethowan (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994), 47. 39 Maurice Blondel, L’Action: Essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique étonnant (Paris: Alcan, 1893); Action (1893): Essay on a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice, trans. Oliva Blanchette (South Bend IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 2004); Maurice Blondel, Lettre sur les exigences de la pensée contemporaine en matière d’apologétique et sur la méthode de la philosophie dans l’étude du problème religieux (Saint-Dizier: Thévenot, 1896); Maurice Blondel, Histoire et Dogme (La Chapelle: Montligeon, 1904); the latter two works are published together in English as Letter, trans. Dru and Trethowan, and all three are found in Maurice Blondel: Œuvres complètes, vol. 1 & 2 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995–1997) (MBOC hereafter); a facsimile reprint of the Testis series with an excellent introduction by Michael Sutton appears under the title Une Alliance contre nature: Catholicisme et intégrisme (Brussels: Editions Lessius, 2000); for an excellent history of the affair surrounding the series, see Peter Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, Social Catholicism, & Action Française: The Clash over the Church’s Role in Society during the Modernist Crisis (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2009).

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We shall now examine in more detail these four aspects that will be critical to our study of the nouvelle théologie, and especially the Fourvière Jesuits.

The Manual: The Dramatic, Unified, and Concrete Character of Human Existence Blondel’s thesis, completed in 1893, was entitled simply L’Action and attempted to show with an immanent methodology that the necessary and ultimate end of human existence is in a philosophy of the supernatural, which is imposed upon us.40 In fact, any analysis of human destiny must end with the supernatural.41 Unable to find satisfaction in the natural world, the human will is impelled outward from itself toward a transcendent end, and ‘if it is actualized in human action through a gratuitous initiative on the part of God, [it] necessarily entails a revelation, a mediation and a religious practice on the part of man’.42 By exploring the dramatic, unified, free, and concrete character of human existence, Blondel provided, with Henri Bergson, an anticipation of existentialism.43 He has been called a ‘proto-existentialist’, the ‘first existentialist’, and ‘a principal precursor of twentieth-century phenomenology’; John Macquarie noted that Blondel’s philosophy ‘certainly prepared the way for a personalistic kind of existentialism’, and James Somerville conceded that ‘although the term is greatly abused, we must agree that Blondel was an “existentialist”’.44 Blondel’s ‘philosophy of insufficiency’ attempts to systematize with scientific post-Kantian rigor Augustine’s cor inquietum, forcing the question of human destiny and demanding a choice, either for or against transcendence.45 The human person, oriented toward the supernatural, finds existential fulfilment only by recognizing and accepting that they are oriented by a fundamental desire for the supernatural which manifests itself in every thought and action. Blondel hoped to reassert the question of life’s meaning with an irrepressible force that would impel the individual to engage the problem of human destiny.

40 Oliva Blanchette, ‘Blondel’s Original Philosophy of the Supernatural’, Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 49/3 (1993): 414. 41 Blanchette, ‘Blondel’s Original Philosophy’, 427. 42 Blanchette, ‘Blondel’s Original Philosophy’, 414. 43 Albert Cartier, Existence et vérité; philosophie blondélienne de l’action et problématique existentielle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1955), 41; Adam English, The Possibility of Christian Philosophy: Maurice Blondel at the Intersection of Theology and Philosophy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 24. 44 John Macquarie, Existentialism (Philadelphia PA: Westminster Press, 1972), 39; Macquarrie also quotes James Somerville in Total Commitment: Blondel’s L’Action (Washington, D.C.: Corpus Books, 1968), 26. 45 Alexander Dru, introduction to Letter, 83.

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Blondel began L’Action with this dramatic line of questioning designed to arouse an intellectual milieu which had forgotten its destiny: Yes or no, does human life make sense, and does man have a destiny? I act, but without even knowing what action is, without having wished to live, without knowing either who I am or what I am. This appearance of being which flutters about within me, these light and evanescent actions of a shadow, bear in them, I am told, an eternally weighty responsibility, and that, even at the price of blood, I cannot buy nothingness because for me it is no longer. Supposedly, then, I am condemned to life, condemned to death, condemned to eternity! Why and by what right, if I did not know it and did not will it?46 To take stock of the immediate evidence, action, in my life, is a fact, the most general and the most constant of all, the expression within me of a universal determinism; it is produced even without me. It is a fact, it is a necessity, which no man denies since such a denial would require a supreme effort, which no man avoids since suicide is still an act; acting is produced even in spite of me.47

Blondelian thought emerged within a fin-de-siècle milieu whose three main currents—positivism, idealism, and spiritualism—established certain philosophical presuppositions that would open the French field to phenomenological and existentialist concerns.48 These assumptions were first, attention to a rigorous scientific methodology; second, the importance of a priori concepts; and third, the importance of lived experience.49 Moreover, he was writing during an age saturated with ‘dilettantism’, a frivolous intellectual mindset that sought endlessly to explore a random variety of human experiences and activities with no concern for finding a unified or even consistent pattern in the variety. Such thinkers as Renan, Taine, and Baudelaire refused from the outset to even entertain the question of human destiny.50 Blondel’s proto-existentialism depends on a certain embrace of Kant’s Copernican Revolution, and he conceded the necessity of Kant’s critical move that ultimately reduced metaphysics to synthetic a priori conditions.51 Going even further, Blondel seems to have aligned with a Fichtean dismissal and subjectivizing of Kant’s ‘thing in itself ’, the noumenal. This allowed for a more radical approach to subjectivity with the effect of subordinating ‘the idea to the real and reality to action’.52 Several studies have examined the similarity 46

47 Blondel, L’Action, vii; Action, 3. Blondel, L’Action, ix; Action, 4. For a deeper treatment of these three strains, see Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 8–25. 49 Christian Dupont, ‘Receptions of Phenomenology in French Philosophy and Religious Thought, 1889-1939’ (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 1997), 47. Bergson is treated by Dupont as also prefiguring French phenomenology in various ways, 48–80. 50 Gutting, French Philosophy, 90. 51 John McNeil, The Blondelian Synthesis (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), 58. 52 Jacques Haver, ‘French Philosophical Tradition Between the Wars’, in Philosophical Thought in France and the United States, ed. Marvin Farber (Buffalo NY: University of Buffalo Publications in Philosophy, 1950), 8. 48

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between the key issues in Blondel’s thought and those of existentialism— freedom, subjectivity, commitment and truth—and have attempted to argue that Blondelianism successfully fulfils the transcendent aspirations of existentialism.53 Although in his early years Blondel was not exposed to the work of Husserl—the father of phenomenology whose reception in France after the First World War was foundational for future trends in existentialism and in particular for the work of Jean-Paul Sartre—Henri Duméry has noted several similarities in their work.54 After vigorously asserting that the question of human destiny must guide concrete existence, Blondel had to ensure his followers remain focused on the narrow, rugged, and sometimes obscure phenomenological path he insists will alone bring them to the high alpine vistas of transcendence and a certain anthropological fulfilment. The Blondelian method is essentially all-or-nothing and must be accepted in extenso. Any deviation from the map he provides necessarily leads to a journey that is regressive and futile, unable to fulfil the deepest human aspirations, and he spends much time analysing the various diversions and obstacles that threaten to mislead those seeking potentia: ‘the power or capacity for self-actualization, reproduction, growth, survival, success’.55 The phenomenological centre and trailhead of this journey is the concept of action, a category distinct from that of act. Action comprises making, doing and contemplating as well as all forms of thought: ‘there is nothing in the properly subjective life which is not act; that which is properly subjective is not only what is conscious and known from within . . . it is what causes the fact of consciousness to be’.56 For Blondel, action comprises ‘the total order of things’ and includes action as well as thought, reflection, and contemplation in which even having the idea of action involves action. In sum, Blondel’s use of action is commensurate with the modern philosophical use of ‘existence’.57 Blondelian phenomenology then unfolds with what he calls a regressive and reflexive ‘method of immanence’ which follows a dialectical movement of two wills pushing outward through various stages in search of fulfilment, commencing with the senses and then out into the world. Blondel detected an 53 Cartier, Existence et vérité; and on John McNeil’s website dedicated to Blondel, he provides a helpful paper, ‘Necessary Structures of Freedom’, which is a summary of his doctoral thesis given at a meeting of the Jesuit Philosophical Association, http://www.mauriceblondel.com/ necess2.pdf. 54 Henry Duméry, ‘Maurice Blondel’, in Les Philosophes célèbres, ed. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Paris: Éditions d’Art, 1956), 300–1, quoted in Dupont, ‘Receptions of Phenomenology’, 97. 55 English, The Possibility, 93. 56 Quoted in Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Maine de Biran to Sartre, vol. 9 (Kent: Search Press, 1975), 228. 57 Jean Lacroix, Maurice Blondel : Sa vie, son œuvre, avec un exposé de sa philosophie (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1963), 7, 9–11; Maurice Blondel: An Introduction to the Man and his Philosophy, trans. John C. Guinness (New York NY: Sheed and Ward, 1968), 18, 21–2.

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‘inadequation’ between the object we think we are willing and what we really do will on a deeper level.58 The distinction arises from the dialectical conflict between the two wills, the ‘willing will’ (la volonté voulante) and the ‘willed will’ (la volonté voulue). The latter, the willed will, tends toward immanent and distinct finite objects with which it is never satisfied, and the former, the willing will, is characterized by an unsatiated aspiration or movement toward transcendence and the infinite. Conflict arises as the willed will searches for fulfilment and existential satisfaction in temporal objects but is inevitably left unfulfilled, frustrating the movement towards the supernatural of the willing will. Simply put, the willed will we control and direct accordingly, while the willing will always tends toward the infinite. At the heart of this conflict is a choice, or fundamental option, either to affirm the reality of the supernatural, to which the will tends as its final end, or reject it in a futilely circuitous attempt to satisfy itself with finite reality. Blondel writes: [Life’s principal concern] is wholly involved in this necessary conflict that arises at the heart of the human will and imposes on it the obligation of making a practical option between the terms of an inevitable alternative, an alternative such that man either tries to remain his own master, staying entirely within himself, or delivers himself over to the divine order, more or less obscurely revealed to his consciousness.59

Blondel does not propose to find that the supernatural exists in the human subject, only to lead them to it through his method of insufficiency, eliciting simply a consciousness of the need: ‘It is in our very action that our need for the supernatural is discovered.’60 He writes that ‘nothing is Christian and Catholic unless it is supernatural, not only transcendent in the simple metaphysical sense of the word . . . but strictly supernatural, that is to say, beyond the power of man to discover for himself and yet imposed on his thought and will’.61 Beginning with the senses, Blondel follows the path of the will as it moves further from its immanent point of departure through various stages. First, the will seeks fulfilment in the sensual but ultimately the fragmentary experience of the sense world followed by a quest for a more complete scientific understanding. Scientific truth, however, is unable to fully satisfy, and a deeper subjectivity is sought, which brings the will to the threshold of consciousness. This subjectivity presupposes a freedom that can wrestle with determinacy and act in the world, soon realizing it exists within a web of interactions with others: ‘Man is not sufficient unto himself; he has to act for others, with others, 58 Henri Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme (Paris: Seuil, 1961), 19; Henri Bouillard, Blondel and Christianity, trans. James Somerville (Washington, D.C.: Corpus Books, 1970), 7. 59 Blondel, L’Action, xx–xxi; Action, 11–12. 60 Maurice Blondel, in a letter to Revue métaphysique et de moral (1894), quoted in Bouillard, Blondel et le Christianisme, 80; Blondel and Christianity, 57. 61 Robert St. Hilaire, ‘Desire Divided: Nature and Grace in the Neo-Thomism of Pierre Rousselot’ (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2008), 97.

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through others.’62 Although this reflection inspires the will to project itself further, seeking metaphysical and moral absolutes, the will is still left grasping for something beyond itself, tempted on the one hand to a ‘superstition’ that seeks to ‘absolutize the world’ and find ultimate meaning in objects, experiences, and superstitious practice, and on the other a mode that recognizes the will’s orientation toward the infinite. Faced with this dilemma, the human person remains essentially at an impasse, unable to turn back, yet continuing to futilely direct their will toward finite objects, incapable of attaining what is desired: ‘At the moment one declares the insufficiency of the phenomenon, one becomes attached to it as to the only solid and real being; one persists in being content with what thought and desire recognized to be vain, disappointing, and null; one places one’s all where one otherwise admits there is nothing.’63 It is at this point for Blondel, the person becomes open to the possibility of revelation and the divine gift.

The Manifesto: Against a Defensive and Absolute Thomism Blondel’s phenomenological method was not a benign attempt to create a ‘competing orthodoxy’ more open to the concerns of modernity and able to function as a humanistic and existential complement to Neoscholasticism. Rather, Blondel repudiated Neoscholasticism, claiming it was, in fact, subverting authentic Catholic thought and doing great theological, spiritual, and even political harm. Not only was it ineffective against the challenges of modernity, it was itself the cause of the secular problem. This all-out frontal assault on Neoscholasticism immediately incited a fierce debate. Neoscholastics in turn accused Blondel of Kantian immanentism, charging that his method of immanence was an epistemological fiction, or even a mere psychological account of spiritual experience, or even worse, mere natural desire. To defend himself and reassert the philosophical nature of his project, he published a series of articles in 1896 entitled ‘Lettre sur les exigences de la pensée contemporaine en matière d’Apologetique’. They contained not only an apology for his approach but a harsh attack on Thomism. He argued that his method was not a ‘doctrine of immanence’, which merely begins and ends with subjective reality, but rather a ‘method of immanence’, seeking to prove that an immanent and phenomenological examination of human action and aspiration ultimately might lead to transcendence. He defines this method as trying to equate, in our own consciousness, what we appear to think and to will and to do with what we do and will in actual fact—so that behind factitious negations and ends which are not genuinely willed may be discovered our innermost affirmations and the implacable needs which they imply.64

62 64

Blondel, L’Action, 198; Action, 192. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 128; Letter, 157.

63

Blondel, L’Action, 35; Action, 47.

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Blondel’s criticism of Neoscholasticism will be repeated and developed continually throughout the twentieth century, and without exaggeration, we might say that he wrote the very manual of anti-Neoscholasticism, providing explicit instructions on how it might be intellectually discredited and dismantled. As we shall see, his disciples, especially the Fourvière Jesuits, followed his instructions with remarkable results. We shall here briefly overview three central criticisms. First, the Church’s defensive posture toward modernity was gravely deficient. Blondel passionately wanted to evangelize the modern world in its own intellectual language, and he felt that Thomism was powerless to speak to modernity, borne of bygone controversies and anachronistic philosophical categories. He maintained a fundamentally more positive outlook on the modern project and its ability to be of service to Christianity: we ‘must not be so ready to see nothing but deviations’, ‘perverted minds’, or ‘jaundiced outlooks’ when we should be considering the great transformations of human perspectives down the ages.65 The Church, Blondel advised, must not take such a rigid and exclusive approach that it cuts itself off from what is good in modern thought, insisting that there were two ways of looking at the history of philosophy: Either we remain outside the main stream which sweeps through the world of thought and radically exclude everything which is opposed to the system which we have adopted . . . and that is to cut ourselves off from the only sort of life which is really fruitful. Or else we try to perceive that stirring of parturition with which humanity is always in labour, we set ourselves to profit by this vast effort, to enlighten it, to bring it to fruition, to kindle the smoking flax, to be less ready to suppose that there is nothing of value for ourselves even in those doctrines which seem most opposed to our own, to go to others that they may come to us—and that is to find the source of intellectual fruitfulness.66

Second, Blondel argued that Neoscholasticism’s epistemological commitments and its conception of truth were erroneous. Although Kant’s fundamental conclusions were problematic, his critical starting point was a positive development, and he disagreed in the strongest terms with the starting point of Neoscholasticism, that of moderate epistemological realism. The notion that things-in-themselves can be known, and categories of causation and substance have metaphysical weight beyond the epistemological structure of the mind is deeply problematic to the modern philosophical project, and these robust metaphysical propositions leave the Church’s philosophy essentially ‘stuck’ within a medieval context, unable to speak to the philosophical needs of modernity. Blondel wrote:

65

Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 119; Letter, 147.

66

Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 120; Letter, 147.

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Since the Thomist starts from principles which, for the most part, are disputed in our time; since he does not offer the means of restoring them by his method; since he presupposes a host of assertions which are just those which are nowadays called into question; since he cannot provide in his system, for the new requirements of minds which must be approached on their own ground, one must not treat this triumphant exposition as the last word.67

Moreover, Blondel claimed that reality is unable to be grasped by abstract conceptual knowledge that is incapable of functioning as a vehicle for religious truth. As I mentioned above, one of the stages where the will can be diverted from its transcendent path in the method of immanence is in the desire to create moral and metaphysical absolutes. The willed will effectively transposes its desire for the Absolute to a concrete particular or concept in the quest for objective knowledge divorced from action and life. This creates a ‘superstitious’ illusion that frustrates the dynamism of the willing will. Thus, we can see how provocative and threatening this doctrine was to Neoscholastic thought, which predicated natural philosophical knowledge as well as dogma on the existence of truth dependent on conceptual knowledge that is immutable. Blondel did not completely reject the notion that conceptual knowledge had a real value, like Bergson and Le Roy, as we shall see, but rather he took a moderate position insisting that the real could be grasped through conceptual knowledge but only when it worked in conjunction with action and the will: hence, Blondel’s famous and controversial definition of truth as the correspondence between mind and life rather than reality. Third and last, Blondel constructed a short historical narrative in which he claimed that Baroque Scholasticism had itself been the cause of secularization and atheism.68 This was a radical reversal of the Church’s accepted narrative which had placed the blame squarely at the feet of Luther, Descartes, and Kant. As we shall also see, the effect of this criticism was tremendous and became a repeated theme in the work of the nouveaux théologiens, culminating in one of the important theses of Surnaturel itself. Blondel claimed that in Aristotelian Scholasticism a dualism emerged between nature and grace which juxtaposed the two orders, allowing no communication between them: ‘As a result, when reason, left sole mistress of the knowable world, claimed to find immanent in herself all the truths needed for the life of man, the world of faith found itself totally excluded; juxtaposition led to opposition and incompatibility.’69 Blondel claimed that this dualism incited a ‘violent reaction’ among the Protestants who ‘rejected

67 68 69

Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 119; Letter, 146. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 120–1; Letter, 147–8. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 121; Letter, 148.

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any idea of a rational preparation for faith and began by pulling down the whole edifice of reason and liberty’.70 The immense controversy that was incited by Blondel’s philosophy between 1896 and 1907 caused him much anxiety. With the exception of his 1907 Lettre that attempted to explain his methodology and Histoire et dogme in 1904 that sought to serve as a rejoinder to Loisy’s L’Évangile et l’Église, he rarely engaged the polemics surrounding the immanence-transcendence debate. His last public intervention during the Modernist period was one that was political. Although Blondel was not named and explicitly condemned in Pascendi, his philosophy, called ‘moderate Modernism’, was deemed imprudent by Pius X and given mention: There are also subjective ones at the disposal of the Modernists, and for those they return to their doctrine of immanence. They endeavour, in fact, to persuade their non-believer that down in the very deeps of his nature and his life lie the need and the desire for religion, and this not a religion of any kind, but the specific religion known as Catholicism, which, they say, is absolutely postulated by the perfect development of life. And here we cannot but deplore once more, and grievously, that there are Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is in human nature a true and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order—and not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural order, such as has at all times been emphasized by Catholic apologists. Truth to tell it is only the moderate Modernists who make this appeal to an exigency for the Catholic religion.71

The Method: The Sociohistorical Character of Existence Blondel’s anthropology necessarily led him into another confrontation with Neoscholasticism over the problem of dogma and its development. Neoscholastic propositionalism refused to subject dogma to historical critique, attempting to keep a firm link between current dogmatic formulation and original apostolic teaching and arguing that later developments were deducible from previous statements and formulae. Blondel sought to develop a middle position between this purported ahistoricism and Modernist symbolism, which would attempt to preserve the deposit of the faith while taking seriously the historical and contextual reality of life. To mediate between these two poles Blondel developed a notion of tradition that will do much more than merely provide an account of the development of doctrine, but also a historical and social philosophy and methodology with certain important but undeveloped ecclesiological implications.

70

Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 120–1; Letter, 147–8.

71

Pius X, Pascendi, §37.

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Blondel’s notion of tradition provides a living and synthetic mediation. Tradition is not simply a record of apostolic teachings transmitted orally and written later down. Rather, ‘it preserves not so much the intellectual aspect of the past as its living reality’.72 Beyond a mere dependence on texts, ‘it relies primarily on something else, on an experience always in act which enables it to remain in some respects master of the texts instead of being strictly subservient to them’.73 Thus, for Blondel, tradition is essentially paradoxical in its trans-historical nature. Tradition fundamentally responds in concrete moments of crisis to the needs of the present and ‘instructs and initiates’, always able ‘to teach something new because it transforms what is implicit and “enjoyed” into something explicit and known’: ‘Whenever the testimony of Tradition has to be invoked to resolve one of the crises of growth in the spiritual life of Christians, it presents the conscious mind with elements previously held back in the depths of faith and practiced, rather than expressed, systematized or reflected upon.’74 These developments, however, are rooted in a ‘power of conservation and preservation’ whose discoveries are in fact recoveries, for tradition is ‘turned lovingly toward the past where its treasure lies’.75 This historical turn, however, is always oriented toward future development, because ‘it moves toward the future, where it conquers and illuminates . . . However paradoxical it may sound, one can therefore maintain that Tradition anticipates and illuminates the future and is disposed to do so by the effort which it makes to remain faithful to the past.’76 This notion of development, however, also implies a certain pruning of her branches: ‘she can dispense with scaffoldings which were provisionally required to shelter the growth of her work or useful for her spiritual edification but which may have to be cleared away’.77 Simply put, ‘with the help of the past [the Church] liberates the future from the unconscious limitations and illusions of the present’.78 Blondel’s notion of tradition has profound ecclesiological implications; the Church is essentially self-justifying, carrying her own inner proofs within her. Furthermore, the dogma that grounds her belief emerged from historical facts largely by ‘the mediation of collective life, and the slow progressive labour of the Christian tradition’.79 Thus, as her dogma is worked out ‘in the matrix of a believing society’, the Church ‘adapts herself to the diverse forms of intellectual culture; she borrows the language she needs from philosophical systems so as to confer upon her doctrines the degree of precision required by a given state of civilization’.80

72 74 76 78 80

Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 434; Letter, 267. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 434; Letter, 267. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 434; Letter, 268. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 447; Letter, 282. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 438; Letter, 271.

73 75 77 79

Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 434; Letter, 267. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 434; Letter, 267. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 446; Letter, 281. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 435; Letter, 269.

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Blondel concluded by stressing the social character of dogma, which is in fact ‘the authentic recognition of collective anticipations and collective certifications’.81 Thus Blondel’s account of dogma and tradition, not surprisingly, depends on his philosophy of action, which proposes a method that has ‘feeling for those elements contained in the moral and religious life’ that constitute the most profound realities.82 It is Christian practice itself that nurtures our knowledge of God and carries the seeds that will be watered by theological action. Blondel adds that the Church ‘has an age-old experience’ of this science of action, but he adds in a prophetic tone: ‘the theology of it has not been worked out’.83

The Method: The Sociopolitical Character of Existence As we saw above, Blondel’s method of immanence brings one to an awareness of the social networks on which he or she depends, and it bears repeating Blondel’s formulation of this notion: ‘Man is not sufficient unto himself; he has to act for others, with others, through others.’84 Thus, the inevitable expansion of his philosophy into the realm of social action would have a decisive role in the emergence of the first wave of Social Catholicism in France. Also called Left Catholicism, this movement’s centres were Le Sillon, founded by a former student, Marc Sagnier, and Semaines sociales (Social Weeks), founded in 1904 by his friend Henri Lorin. Semaines was a controversial Catholic social movement that met annually to promote Catholic social teaching, Christian democracy, and certain principles of the Enlightenment and Revolution in direct opposition to the staunchly pro-monarchy position held by the majority of practicing Catholics as well as much of the hierarchy at the time. Labelled by its critics as ‘Social Modernism’, its alleged errors included ‘the rejection of all social inequalities, acceptance of the tyranny of the union movement, the collusion with socialism and collectivism, [and] the ignorance of certain fundamental principles of the natural law’.85 Moreover, the movement was criticized for its lack of support for the family and private property, instead championing ‘the equality and dignity of persons’ and ‘fraternal equivalence’.86 At the heart of this controversy were two fundamentally different ways to approach the question of modernity and the reChristianization of France.87 The first approach of Left Catholicism sought to collaborate with non-Catholic and even anti-Catholic forces that sought common goals such as the improvement of workers’ rights through democratic structures. The desire of the working class for economic prosperity was 81 83 85 87

82 Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 452; Letter, 287. Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 438; Letter, 272. 84 Blondel, MBOC, vol. 2, 453; Letter, 287. Blondel, L’Action, 192; Action, 198. 86 Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, 18. Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, 24. Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, 42.

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‘an unacknowledged yearning for the Kingdom of God’ itself, a theory that leaves little doubt as to just how influential Blondelian philosophy was on the movement.88 The second approach, in contrast, was an anti-Republican position of ‘restorationism’ that refused to collaborate with its enemies and envisioned a hierarchical civilization grounded in natural law. In 1909, after several attacks, at the request of Lorin, Blondel began a series of articles in Annales, signed anonymously ‘Testis’, to respond to criticism of the Semaines. Social reality, he said, is not merely based on intellectual concepts and hierarchy, but action is what binds social reality into an integrative whole in which the natural ‘supposes and presupposes’ the supernatural. For Action française, the natural-supernatural relationship, which Blondel labelled ‘monophorism’, is one of superimposition.89 He wrote that ‘one cannot think or act anywhere as if we do not all have a supernatural destiny. Because, since it concerns the human being such as he is, in concreto, in his living and total reality, not in a hypothetical state of nature, nothing is truly complete, even in the natural order.’90 One of Blondel’s opponents on the question of Action française was a young Jesuit, Pedro Descoqs, who would be a philosophy teacher and nemesis of the Fourvière Jesuits.

Lucien Laberthonnière Blondel’s close friend Laberthonnière sought to theologize his method of immanence, and although he is seldom remembered, his influence was significant. Having had no attraction to Neoscholasticism early in his life, he was convinced that we ‘are engaged in a drama with our whole selves, our entire being’.91 He sought out modes of thought that eschewed rigid nature–grace dichotomies, remaining open instead to the experiential dimension of faith: ‘From my earliest youth I experienced the most lively disquiet within myself. And before long I felt the need of giving the religious problem a philosophical expression, that is to say, of not separating religion from philosophy, as, since the Middle Ages, there was a tendency, indeed a compulsion, to do. Pascal and Maine de Biran confirmed me in this way of seeing things; and thus I linked up the Augustinian tradition.’92

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89 Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, 42. Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, 73. Maurice Blondel, Catholicisme et Monophorisme (Paris: Bloud et Cie, 1910), 32; quoted in Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, 74. 91 Lucien Laberthonnière, ‘L’Apologétique et la méthode de Pascal’, in Réalisme chrétien (Paris: Seuil, 1966), 195. 92 Enrico Castelli, Laberthonnière, trans. Louis Canet (Paris: Vrin, 1931), quoted in Gabriel Daly, Transcendence and Immanence: A Study of Catholic Modernism and Integralism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 92. 90

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With this testimony, it is no surprise that Laberthonnière took so strongly to the philosophy of L’Action, which he had read in 1894. He wrote to Blondel soon after, expressing his gratitude: ‘For my part, I don’t even dare tell you all the values I see in your book, lest I appear given to exaggeration.’93 To another friend of Blondel’s he later recalled: ‘I shall never forget the emotion that I felt, in my worried solitude, after reading the first pages of L’Action. I found there finally a living echo of all that stirred within me.’94 Laberthonnière, however, attempted to approach the problem of the supernatural ‘from above’ assuming the truths of Catholic dogma, rather than ‘from below’, in the purely philosophical way that Blondel did.95 His Blondelian instincts surfaced quickly in an 1897 article entitled ‘Le problème religieux’ in which he argued that the natural and the supernatural cannot be separated, examining theologically how the human person can be in contact with God, who penetrates the natural order.96 Moreover, Laberthonnière took up Blondel’s line of criticism towards Scholasticism in a book that would later be placed on the index, Le Réalisme chrétien et l’idéalisme grec, discarding the ‘abstract, speculative, and dualistic’ classical metaphysics of Aristotle which bifurcates the intellect and the will and avoids concrete Christian experience.97 In a 1901 article entitled ‘L’Apologétique et la method de Pascal’, he argued that the task of apologetics is concerned not only with the problem of the re-evangelization of unbelievers but also the continual strengthening of those already in the Church. How do we do this, he asks, ‘Voilà la question’. One may either construct an apology where Christianity is essentially foreign to the human person, imposing itself on us in the same way ‘we take notice of a fact which is present in time and space’, or we can recognize that ‘it is our need and duty as men to learn to live as men, to learn above all what we are and what we must do, preoccupying ourselves with the essential task of finding an explanation for our life and determining an ideal which must direct us.98 In these conditions, under the impulse of this need and duty, we can go to encounter Christianity to search for the answers for which we desire.’99 For Laberthonnière, the first apology conceives of the ‘the supernatural as being added to nature without penetrating or changing it, always remaining beyond 93 Lucien Laberthonnière, quoted in Roger Haight, ‘The Unfolding of Modernism in France: Blondel, Laberthonnière, and Le Roy’, Theological Studies 33 (1974): 640. 94 Laberthonnière, in a letter to Archambault, quoted in Marie-Thérese Perrin, La Jeunesse de Laberthonnière: Printemps d’une mission prophétique (Paris: Beauchesne, 1980), 100. 95 Daly, Transcendence and Immanence, 94. 96 Lucien Laberthonnière, ‘Le Problème religieux à propos de la question apologétique’, Annales de philosophie chrétienne 133 (1896–1897): 497–511, published later in the collection Essais de philosophie religieuse (Paris: Lethielleux, 1903). 97 James Livingston, Modern Christian Thought: The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century (Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press, 2006), 364; Lucien Laberthonnière, Le Réalisme chrétien et l’idéalisme grec (Paris: Lethielleux Libraire-Éditeur, 1904). 98 99 Laberthonnière, ‘L’Apologétique’, 171. Laberthonnière, ‘L’Apologétique’, 171.

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and outside of it’, thus erecting two separate and competing orders of truth.100 Far from attempting to superimpose historical data onto metaphysical abstraction, Pascal insisted that it is about ‘essentially and primarily finding a meaning to our existence, explaining what we are in our living reality, so foreign and complex, and giving an account of what we must do here below. If there are some things to reconcile, these are the oppositions that we find in ourselves, in our humanity . . . The problem is not, therefore, abstract and theoretical, it is concrete and practical. It poses itself in us through the sole fact that we exist and that we are capable of thinking and willing.’101 Because there is for Laberthonnière ‘no natural solution to the problem of human destiny’, the natural and the supernatural orders must be reconciled.102 This reconciliation is necessary, because ‘when the two orders are considered objectively and abstractly, they are essentially heterogeneous, otherwise there would not be two. Consequently, one cannot link one to the other, one can only juxtapose them as if the supernatural was only superfluous’.103 Instead however, Laberthonnière held that all are called to live supernaturally, with God acting on the heart of each man, penetrating him with his charity. The action itself [of our will], which fundamentally constitutes our life, is actually informed supernaturally by God . . . Thus in all human life, whether we like it or not, under diverse and opposed attitudes, is there not always the desire to possess God, the desire to be God? But this desire is not natural. Man cannot have him by himself, because one cannot possess God as one possesses a thing. It is necessary that God gives himself. And if man desires to possess God and to be God, it is that God has already given himself to him. This is how nature even finds itself and finds in itself the demand for the supernatural. These demands do not belong to nature qua nature, but they belong to nature as already penetrated and invaded by grace. If it is neither legitimate nor possible to hold to a separated philosophy, it is because there is no separated nature.104

Given his apologetic approach, it is no surprise that thirty years later de Lubac solicited advice from Laberthonnière on his first article, ‘Apologétique et la théologie’, as well as what would become the first chapters of Surnaturel.105

101 Laberthonnière, ‘L’Apologétique’, 174. Laberthonnière, ‘L’Apologétique’, 178. Laberthonnière, ‘L’Apologétique’, 182. 103 Laberthonnière, ‘Le Problème religieux’, 50. 104 Laberthonnière, ‘Le Problème religieux’, 151. 105 Henri De Lubac, Mémoire sur mes vingt, in HLOC, vol. 5 (Paris: Cerf, 2006), 13; Henri De Lubac, At the Service of the Church: Henri de Lubac Reflects on the Circumstances that Occasioned his Writings, trans Anne Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), 16; de Lubac’s article ‘Apologétique et théologie’ is reprinted in Théologies d’occasion (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1984); ‘Apologetics and Theology’, in Theological Fragments, trans. R. H. Balinsky (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1989). 100 102

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In 1905, Laberthonnière became the editor of Annales de philosophie chrétienne after Blondel purchased the journal to be the mouthpiece of his thought. In the first issue, he contributed an article that criticized any attempt to separate philosophy from theology: ‘if there are two orders, the natural and the supernatural, which are distinct, they [nevertheless] interpenetrate each other and do not constitute two realities in life’.106 He was convinced that Christian revelation could not simply be superimposed over self-sufficient philosophical truths; rather, Christianity was itself a true philosophy. The natural and the supernatural were in fact ‘two opposed manners of being and acting, of which one corresponds to what we are, to what we think and to what we do in virtue of our innate egocentrism, while the other corresponds to what we have the obligation of being, of thinking, and of doing through willed generosity’.107 Laberthonnière pushed Annales to offer a more theological interpretation of the method of immanence, putting himself under the spotlight and relieving Blondel of a certain amount of Roman scrutiny. Despite this, he refused to temper his critique of Neoscholasticism, and in 1906, two of his most important books were condemned: Réalisme chrétien et l’idéalisme grec and Essais de philosophie religeuse. In 1913, Annales was put on the index, condemned, and forced to cease publication. Laberthonnière, although obedient, remained bitter for the remainder of his life, and only after his death in 1932 could much of his writing be published.

Édouard Le Roy Le Roy began his studies at the École normale supérieure in 1892. A mathematician by training, he took a strong interest in philosophy and metaphysics. Although closely tied to Blondel and Laberthonnière, he was a Bergsonian and diverged sharply from them over the issue of dogma, rejecting the possibility of knowing abstract, timeless, and immutable truths. Instead he grounded dogma in instinct and experience, which provided the faithful with practical guidance. Le Roy’s views first surfaced in their mature form in his 1905 article ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un dogme?’ which generated a firestorm of controversy.108 In 1907, he published Dogme et critique, attempting to respond to his opponents’ objections, but that same year it was condemned and put on the index by the Roman authorities under Pius X.

106 Laberthonnière, in Annales philosophie chrétienne 1 (1905–1906): 23, quoted in Daly, Transcendence, 93. 107 Laberthonnière, quoted in Copleston, History of Philosophy, 243. 108 Le Roy’s article ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un dogme?’ was reprinted in Dogme et critique (Paris: Bloud et Cie, 1907).

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Le Roy began his treatment not of particular dogmas but of the concept of dogma in general, which he argued is unacceptable in its Neoscholastic form. First, modernity demands empirical and verifiable claims, and the false ‘intellectualist’ conception of dogmatic formulas cannot be proven. Second, dogmatic truths impose an ‘alien limit’, justifying themselves through the supposed authoritative testimony of the one who in fact revealed the dogma.109 This is irreconcilable with the principle of immanence, which ‘is never for us a purely external given similar to I don’t know what brute matter; such a given, in fact, would remain absolutely inassimilable; it would be as nothing for us, for how would we grasp it? Experience itself is not at all an acquisition of “things” which would be for us at first totally strange.’110 Third, dogmas are formulated in the language and categories of historical philosophical systems lacking contemporary relevance. If dogmas clothed in this thinking were immutable, a conversion to Christianity would entail a conversion to a specific philosophical system.111 Guy Mansini writes that for Le Roy, dogma gives us no direct, properly representative concept of supernatural reality: such concepts are not possible. It assures us merely that our religious conduct is justified, that supernatural reality is such as to make such conduct reasonable. It gives us such knowledge only within religious experience. Dogma does so, and can do only so, because it is nothing more than the echo of the Object of that experience within the experience, interior to it, and therefore can be expressed alone in terms of that experience. So doing, it satisfies the principle of immanence.112

An Anthropological and Ecclesiological Blueprint In conclusion, Blondel’s thought was guided by four essential works, which we can organize around the three categories we identified as central to Modernism—history, subjectivity, and social engagement. First, he constructed a phenomenological approach that sought to link more closely the realms of nature and grace, provided a stinging critique of Neoscholastic epistemology, and eschewed all attempts to articulate Catholic dogma in abstract and supposedly immutable terms (subjectivity). Second, he engaged history, providing not only a method for analysing Catholic tradition but also a brief but meaningful metanarrative that attempted to explain the problem of modernity (historicity). Third, his work had a social dimension, which endeavoured to overcome the divide in France between the sacred and 109 Guy Mansini, What is Dogma? The Meaning and Truth of Dogma in Édouard Le Roy and his Opponents (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1985), 11. 110 Le Roy, Dogme et critique, 9, quoted in Mansini, What is Dogma?, 12. 111 112 Mansini, What is Dogma?, 16. Mansini, What is Dogma?, 25.

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secular, contending in fact that the divide was caused by Neoscholastic rationalism which opposed the orders of nature and grace (communitarian). We shall see how the primary concerns of these Modernists became the primary concerns of the nouveaux théologiens, who will use their thought— and example—especially that of Blondel, to attempt to answer the questions their own generation posed during the interwar crisis of the 1930s and work out the theological implications of his thought. By constructing a less intellectualist anthropology and ecclesiology, the exclusive link between dogma and the Magisterium, so heavily reliant on trans-historical and trans-cultural propositions, is severed by Blondelian thought and instead re-envisioned socially within the ‘broad collective life’ of the Church, the ‘believing society’. Thus a primarily hierarchical notion of the Church is replaced by one that is primarily sacramental and mysterious. This wider ecclesiology depends on an anthropology oriented toward certain existential, spiritual, and communitarian strivings, and it is here that Christian practice becomes foundational for theological development. Moreover, in his conception of organic theological and dogmatic growth, Blondel provides the blueprint for ressourcement, in which ecclesiology takes on a radically historical dimension. The Church, by surveying certain perceived future needs, turns toward the past to reorient itself so as to clear away various limitations of the present. For Blondel, the only possibility of reconciling history and dogma is in a notion of Tradition grounded on his philosophy of action, but this he declared had not been worked out theologically. And, indeed, it is this project— essentially, finding Blondel in the theological tradition—that will virtually consume the work of the Fourvière Jesuits. De Lubac’s historical studies will attempt to show that Blondelian ecclesiology and anthropology, rooted as they are in phenomenology, history, and social engagement, animate the authentic tradition, as seen in the Fathers and medieval thinkers. This authentic thought, though, had been obstructed by Neoscholaticism, an inauthentic tradition, and thus its branches were in need of a ressourcement pruning. Even among the Dominicans this thought will be important, for example Blondel’s notion of tradition will occupy a prominent place in Congar’s book The Meaning of Tradition, which was written during Vatican II in an attempt to influence the document on Revelation.

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3 The First Ressourcement The Generations of 1890 and 1912

The nouveaux théologiens were themselves mentored by older, influential French Jesuit and Dominican intellectuals from the generations of 1890 and 1912. From these éveilleurs sprung the headwaters that would converge at Fourvière and Le Saulchoir and become the powerful stream of ressourcement which emerged forcefully during the 1930s and 1940s. The Jesuits Léonce de Grandmaison (1868–1927), Jules Lebreton (1873–1956), and Adhémar d’Alès (1861–1938) and the Dominicans Ambroise Gardeil (1859–1931), Pierre Mandonnet (1858–1936), and Antonin Sertillanges (1863–1948) belonged, with the Modernists and Dreyfus intellectuals, to the generation of 1890. Their response to Modernism sought to straddle the difficult line between modern scientific methodology and orthodoxy. A second group of Jesuits, comprising members of the generation of 1912, included Auguste Valensin (1879–1953), Pierre Rousselot (1878–1915), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), Joseph Huby (1878–1948), Joseph Maréchal (1878–1944), Victor Fontoynont (1880–1958), and Pierre Charles (1883–1954). They were an intellectual bridge between the generation of 1890 and the nouveaux théologiens of the generation of 1930, in many cases directly mentoring them, and they exposed them to the historical method, positive theology, phenomenology, and a deep antagonism towards Neoscholasticism.

THE J ESUIT GENERATION OF 1 890: DE GRANDMAISON, LEBRETON, D’ALÈS, AND RECHERCHES DE SCIENCE R ELIGIEUSE

Léonce de Grandmaison Ordained in 1898, de Grandmaison gave a certain ‘élan’ to the whole movement of twentieth-century French Jesuit thought.1 Although he was an 1 Jacques Guillet, ‘Courants théologiques dans la Compagnie Jésus en France (1930–1939)’, in Spiritualité, théologie et résistance: Yves de Montcheuil, théologien au maquis du Vercors (Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 1987), 36.

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authoritative figure during the Modernist crisis, contributing writings on the development of dogma, the act of faith, and Christology, he largely refused to involve himself in the polemics. He carried on an amicable exchange from 1905 to 1906 with Le Roy over the question of dogma, and Loisy claimed that he was the only opposition thinker he would have discussions with on account of his conciliatory attitude.2 De Grandmaison held that despite certain excesses, many of the Modernist questions were necessary, and there was a need for a reform in the way theology was taught.3 Henri Rondet, the prefect of studies at the Lyonnaise theologate, began the avant-propos of his 1946 book Gratia Christi: Essai d’histoire du dogme et de théologie dogmatique by invoking his legacy: When he was still a student in theology (1895-1899), Fr Léonce de Grandmaison wished that at the beginning of every lecture the professor would provide a historical examination to situate the doctrine of the Scriptures and the Fathers, the errors and their condemnation by the magisterium, thus putting the sometimes pervasive speculations of theologians in their true place. He never intended to minimise the role of reflection and speculative research in dogmatic theology. He sought only to reconcile ‘positive theologians and scholastic theologians’ by orienting them towards the problems of method.4

De Grandmaison laid out the broad lines of this reform in two articles in the Jesuit journal, Études, in 1898 where he proposed the incorporation of dogmatic theology within historical theology, and the following year he taught at the newly opened Fourvière theologate, which was moved two years later due to the laïcité restrictions to Canterbury, and then to Hastings, where he taught from 1901 to 1908. In 1902, his reservations about propositional, ahistorical apologetic theology became more pronounced during his course in fundamental theology, and he wrote: It is an undeniable fact that today the study of positive theology arouses much interest and generates a lot of writings; there would not be anything abnormal or disquieting about this, if this interest were not always quite exclusive and insufficiently prepared. Unfortunately, it is also certain that in many minds contempt for Scholastic theology goes along with the respect for positive theology and that a deep ignorance of dogmatic positions forms an alliance with a very rich historical science. Some among those who work the most actively even seem to mainly look in the documents of the past for objections to traditional theses.5 2 Bernard Sesboüé, ‘Ignatian Spirituality and Theology’, Review of Ignatian Spirituality 115 (2007): 31. 3 Guillet, ‘Courants théologiques’, 36. 4 Henri Rondet, Gratia Christi: Essai d’histoire du dogme et de théologie dogmatique (Paris: Beauchesne, 1948), 13. 5 Léonce de Grandmaison, from the preamble of a 1903 project proposal submitted to his superiors, quoted in Joseph Lecler, ‘Le Cinquantenaire des Recherches’, in Recherches de science religieuse, 1910–2010: Théologies et vérité au defi de l’histoire (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 123;

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De Grandmaison sought to give a ‘reliable orientation to this already powerful but insufficiently guided movement’ by founding a journal of historical and positive theology that would remain more attentive to the demands of orthodoxy than Loisy’s suspect Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuse.6 Whereas Études was primarily a more popular review of culture, this periodical would aim for the highest standards of scientific rigour, and other theologians such as Lebreton and d’Alès immediately saw its value. Jesuit Jean Bainvel of the Institut catholique articulated the programme of the new journal at a meeting at Canterbury in 1904: The journal we are planning to found would be devoted exclusively to the history of theology . . . We could study the theology of the Old Testament, or that of Saint Paul, of Saint John . . . We would also deal with the theology of the Church Fathers, taken individually or by schools; the doctors of the Middle Ages, the great scholastics of various times and among the authors of the Company of Jesus, even more recent theologians could be the object of studies; also authors of heresies and the main heterodox authors; we would study non-Christian religions and philosophies, at least insofar as they have had an influence on Christian thinking and on theology.7

The idea of the review was met with considerable approval, but the Jesuit General thought that given the ongoing Modernist crisis, plans should be delayed. They had decided that in the interest of scientific integrity, the journal should be open to outside contributions, and the General felt that under current conditions unimpeachable orthodoxy would be too difficult to maintain, writing that de Grandmaison should ‘postpone, not give up on it and postpone it until the day when we have trained contributors competent enough to undertake it. Meanwhile, let us prepare these contributors by training talented subjects in the science concerned . . . .’8 Thus the project lay dormant for four years until 1907. While Loisy’s journal was forced to close, an important Dominican journal, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, had begun publication.9 The following year, the new Jesuit journal, to be called Recherches de science religieuse, was given approval, and de Grandmaison was

‘The Fiftieth Anniversary of Recherches’, in Recherches de science religeuse, 1910–2010: Theologies and Truth, the Challenges of History, trans. Cozette Griffin-Kremer and Robert Kremer, ed. Christoph Theolbald (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 125. 6 Lecler, ‘Le Cinquantenaire’, 123; ‘The Fiftieth Anniversary’, 125. 7 From a report given on 7 April 1904 at the Canterbury novitiate by Fr Jean-Vincent Bainvel, one of the initiators of the Recherches project, to a number of provincial leaders attending Lebreton’s philosophy defense, quoted in Lecler, ‘Le Cinquantenaire’, 125; ‘The Fiftieth Anniversary’, 127. 8 From a letter of the Superior General, Luis Martin, to the Provincial of Paris on 26 August 1904, quoted in Lecler, ‘Le Cinquantenaire’, 128; ‘The Fiftieth Anniversary’, 130. 9 Lecler, ‘Le Cinquantenaire’, 129; ‘The Fiftieth Anniversary’, 131.

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given control of it as well as Études, to which it was to be closely attached. The first issues emerged in 1910, and as expected the following years brought numerous Early Church, Patristic, medieval, and modern studies.

Jules Lebreton Lebreton, who had been at Canterbury with de Grandmaison, was closely involved with Recherches and went to Paris in 1905 to occupy the newly established chair of Christian origins at the Institut catholique. Joined there several years later by de Grandmaison, their alliance was manifest especially in their forays into the Modernist crisis.10 Lebreton was involved in several important Modernist exchanges and was even personally thanked for his services by Pius X, and in 1910, he established himself as a first rank historical theologian with his Origines du dogme de la Trinité.11 When de Grandmaison died unexpectedly in 1927, he assumed control of Recherches, remaining its director until 1946. Lebreton’s moderate attitude made him suspect, and at the time of his death in 1953, Recherches was even forbidden to publish a tribute to his life and work.12 Like de Grandmaison, Lebreton was extremely influential in his attempt to cut a middle road between Modernism and integrism. Although staunchly anti-Modernist, he was unhappy with anti-Modernist excesses, criticizing a speculative approach that refused to engage categories of history and experience. De Lubac later wrote that Father Lebreton noted with frankness that the theologians of our century do not always bring solutions that sufficiently illuminate ‘the problems posed on so many sides and with so much anxiety on dogma, revelation, faith and, in a word, on the origin and value of religious knowledge’. He regretted to find their response generally so summary, so schematic, so poor in experience; he did not hide his suffering at seeing them apparently so little preoccupied ‘with unravelling the difficulties such as they appear to so many souls, who are caught up in them and bruised by them’.13

De Grandmainson, Lebreton, and d’Alès provided an intellectual reformminded blueprint for Jesuit thought that sought to construct theology that 10

See Jules Lebreton, Le Père Léonce de Grandmaison (Paris: Beauchesne, 1932). Paul Duclos, ed., Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine, vol. 1, Les Jesuites (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985), 173–4. 12 Henri De Lubac, ‘La doctrine du Père Lebreton sur la Révelation et la dogme d’après ses écrits antimodernistes’, in Theologie dans l’histoire, vol. 2 (Paris: Desclée et Brouwer, 1990), 109; ‘The Doctrine of Father Lebreton on Revelation and Dogma according to His Anti-Modernist Writings’, in Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), 318. 13 De Lubac, ‘La doctrine du Père Lebreton’, 112; ‘The Doctrine of Father Lebreton’, 321. 11

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was both orthodox and attentive to modern science. Avoiding the sharp polemics of the anti-Modernists, these Jesuits charted a course that tried to open Scholastic thought to positive theology, religious experience, and history. De Lubac wrote much later that he ‘had always been taught in the Society to consider [de Grandmaison and Lebreton] as the best of masters’.14

T H E DO M I N I C A N G E N ER A T I O N O F 18 9 0 : G A R D E I L , SERTILLANGES, AND MANDONNET Several Dominican members of the generation of 1890 founded a journal in 1893, the Revue Thomiste, that sought both to support the thomistic renewal called forth by Aeterni Patris fourteen years earlier, and to engage the questions of modernity in a spirit of dialogue, not condemnation. Three of the central figures, Ambroise Gardeil (b. 1859), Pierre Mandonnet (b. 1858), Antonin Sertillanges (b. 1863), hoped the review would make the thought of Aquinas present in a direct but living way, that is ‘intelligently progressive’.15 Moreover, from the beginning the review distanced itself from ‘some of [Aquinas’] commentators, in a move clearly designed to create distance between certain Neoscholastic interpretations of Aquinas perceived as too rigid. In the “Notre programme” section of the first issue, Dominican Marie Thomas Coconnier wrote: ‘The primary object of our research and exposition will be the doctrine of St. Thomas himself, studied in its integrity, in all of his works, and not that found disfigured and sometimes disguised in some of his commentators.’16 With this dynamic and scientific approach to Aquinas the founders of the Revue thomiste sought to build a dialogue with Modernist thinkers and eschew anti-Modernist recriminations. Sertillanges wrote to the director in 1894: ‘Fr, I believe we must be extremely helpful for the poor people we sometimes work to rebut. We must tell them the truth and the whole truth but with an outstretched hand and not a clenched fist.’17 For the first decade after its establishment, the founding spirit of the review remained unaltered, and many important scholarly articles were published. Mandonnet wrote his first influential articles on medieval thought; Gardeil and Schwalm offered charitable critiques of modern idealistic and empirical philosophy; and Sertillanges offered several aesthetic articles designed to give De Lubac, ‘La doctrine du Père Lebreton’, 109; ‘The Doctrine of Father Lebreton’, 318. Ambroise Gardeil, an unreferenced quote in Henri Donneaud, ‘Les Cinquante premières années de la «Revue thomiste»’, in Revue thomiste 93 (1993): 7. 16 Marie-Thomas Coconnier, ‘Notre programme’, Revue thomiste 1 (1893): 1, quoted in Donneaud, ‘Les Cinquante premières’, 7. 17 Sertillanges, in a letter to Coconnier, 19 October 1895, quoted in Donneaud, ‘Les Cinquante premières’, 8. 14 15

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the journal a more cultured and Parisian tone.18 Moreover, there were engagements with the physical sciences and experimental psychology, as well as a range of theological issues. The intellectual work of Gardeil, however, was dominant in the review, and in 1903, he wrote three articles that addressed the question of theological methodology. In the first article, La Reforme de la théologie catholique: idée d’une méthode régressive, Gardeil observed in the introduction that the ‘progress of historical sciences has taken as the order of the day the «Réforme de la Théologie»’.19 The Modernist asks why ‘this sacred science, grounded on a revelation whose own fundamentals are conserved in its very documents, does not attempt to enrich its positive foundations with a truly documentary and critical value?’20 Gardeil sought to develop a method which ‘will leave the field free for purely scientific investigation, and allow the Catholic theologians to assimilate their results’ but ‘without losing sight of the true nature’ of theology.21 This ‘regressive method’ finds its primary inspiration in the work of Aquinas and begins with dogma, which is the intermediary between revelation and theology, and keeps central the notion of tradition rather than merely the historical method. For Gardeil ‘tradition alone, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as no Catholic would doubt, has built the core of Catholic theology’.22 The early Church was not taken up with historical–critical discussions, but rather there was a spontaneous affirmation of the faith living in the heart of the Church, and recognition of authority. The early Fathers constituted a chain of witnesses that lessened over the years but the testimony was strengthened by councils and bishops, led by the pope and patriarchs who had an authority that was recognized by all: ‘We can identify the faith of the Church less by critical discussions on written documents than by the spontaneous affirmation of living faith in the heart of the Church.’23 With tradition as his methodological cornerstone, then, Gardeil employs historical research to understand more clearly the tradition and guide theological research. In particular he employs historical analysis in an attempt to protect medieval scholasticism from Modernist critiques, such as Tyrrell’s, that argued it represented not only a rupture from the spirit of the early Church but also was ignorant of, or worse, even unconcerned with the historical-critical method. In analysing the ‘diverse phases in the history of dogma’, Gardeil argues that there ‘is only an imperceptible change between St. John Damascene and St. Peter Lombard’, and in the Middle Ages ‘definitive Donneaud, ‘Les Cinquante premières’, 7–8. Ambroise Gardeil, ‘La Reforme de la théologie catholique: idée d’une méthode régressive’, in Revue thomiste 11 (1903): 5–19, here, 5. 20 21 Gardeil, ‘idée d’une méthode’, 5. Gardeil, ‘idée d’une méthode’, 5. 22 Ambroise Gardeil, ‘La Reforme de la théologie catholique: la documentation de Saint Thomas’, in Revue thomiste 11 (1903): 197–215, 7. 23 Gardeil, ‘La Reforme’, 7. 18 19

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acquisitions are secured’: for Peter Lombard, ‘it became possible, as well as necessary, to draw up an inventory of the theological achievements of the first millennium, and Lombard conceived this project as both documentary and dialectical. In this last aspect the Sentences hardly surpass the manner of the Fathers and Doctors from whom they are borrowed.’24 It is Aquinas, Gardeil argues, who brings a critical methodology to Lombard’s project and imbues his synthesis with coherency and sophistication: ‘But the great innovation of St. Thomas that gives his work such a definitive theological character is having put forth a synthesis of the divine concept that is thus used as a perpetual regulator to determine the exact magnitude of dogmas, theological conclusions, and the relationships that connect them.’25 However, the ‘decisive criterion that guided Aquinas, as well as the earlier Doctors, in his interpretations and uses of documents is the testimony of Tradition, the agreement of rational truths acquired by theology and, the deposit of revelation itself, and, above all, the pronouncements of the official teaching of the Apostolic and Roman Church’.26 Gardeil’s criticism of Modernism was strident, and he charged that because it does not have a firm ecclesiastical foundation in tradition, it ‘is indeed a battleground where few survivors return. It is too often a real shipwreck, where documents which float like debris are unable to be returned to the ship.’27 He continued that although ‘history can give us sketches of the way things were and provide useful hypotheses, it can never ‘resurrect le Réel total’.28 To contrast the historical approach of his regressive method against that of the Modernists, he employs an analogy of river exploration: It might be helpful to compare the recent adventures of two geographers responsible for correcting the hydrography of a well-known river [ . . . ] The first went to the mouth of the river, where it spread out in all its power, and he travelled methodically up each of the tributaries one by one. Meanwhile, he pointed out the exact position of the springs and ridgelines, measured the flow, and carefully noted the orientation of the streams. He returned on time, and his work has corrected previous maps on more than one point. It was a success. The second explorer set up camp straightaway at the watershed, and no one can describe the misfortunes that awaited him. Sometimes he followed a promising stream only to find himself interminably lost in the sand or in various caves, and other times he found himself in the middle of a nearby basin surrounded by the inconsistent flow of his river. He went this way and that, sometimes retracing his steps, across trails and dead-end paths, and his explorations were filled with endless hopes and disappointments. Finally, the time he had judged necessary to complete his mission had long since passed, and still he had not yet returned.

24 26 28

Gardeil, ‘La Reforme’, 8. Gardeil, ‘La Reforme’, 11. Gardeil, ‘La Reforme’, 17.

25 27

Gardeil, ‘La Reforme’, 9–10. Gardeil, ‘La Reforme’, 197.

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They feared he would be found at the bottom of some great cliff. The rumour even spread that a message in a bottle, thrown into his beloved Congo to pass his discoveries on to history, came to land, in the flood of last September, in the wheat field of a peasant from Cairo.29

THE J ESUIT G EN ERATION O F 1912: VALENSIN, ROUSSELOT, HUBY, TEILHA RD, M ARÉC HAL, FONTOYNONT, AND CHARLES As we shall see, healing the divide in France between the secular and sacred, between nature and grace, occupied the Fourvière Jesuits’ thought, and their immediate mentors, the Jesuit generation of 1912, were acutely aware of this painful fact, because their formation was undertaken almost in its entirety in exile, a socio-political backdrop to their formation that undoubtedly influenced their intellectual development.30 René D’Ouince remarked that the situation of Jesuit formation for Teilhard’s generation was a constant reminder of the divide between the Church and state: ‘deprived of all apostolic activity, these young exiles were forced to spend their free-time meditating on the history of their misfortune, and this examination of conscience regularly led them to find their elders guilty’.31 In fact, for them, the divide between the Church and French state, and the anti-clerical politics that had been the result, were ‘a tragic misunderstanding. However, the accident was not irreparable. What one generation had lost another could fix.’32 [Thus,] between 1901 and 1914 this analysis of the state of affairs was undertaken by a whole generation of young religious who had been kept outside the borders of their country by hostile legislation. Naturally from one house to another the explanations differed, even more so the solutions that were determined, because a Jesuit scholasticate in exile is exactly the opposite of a sheepfold very close: books, news, and the air de siècle all penetrated it and were a source of intellectual ferment. It was an avant-garde milieu with its fads and fashions, errors and accurate premonitions. Outside of their official studies, the students of this époque pursued personal work—social questions, the history of religions, Gardeil, ‘La Reforme’, 19. We shall not discuss Victor Fontoynont and Pierre Charles in depth, though both were known and respected by the Fourvière Jesuits and were especially close with Teilhard. Fontoynont entered the Jesuits in the Aix-en-Provence province in 1899, became close with the Jesuits discussed here during theology at Hastings, was a Greek scholar at Fourvière during the 1930s as well as a professor of de Lubac. Charles was a Belgian Jesuit who entered the Society also in 1899, became a noted theologian and missiologist at Louvain. 31 René d’Ouince, Un Prophète en procès: Teilhard de Chardin dans l’Église de son temps, vol. 1 (Paris: Aubier, 1970), 52. 32 D’Ouince, Prophète, 52. 29 30

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contemporary philosophy—all in the hope of renewing the fractured dialogue between the Church and the state.33

Indeed, as d’Ouince recounts, the atmosphere of formation in exile was doubly charged by the Modernist crisis, which, although certainly muted in the scholasticate, nevertheless entered and affected both the students and masters, albeit in different ways. In fact in 1907, four professors [including de Grandmaison] had taken part in the controversy surrounding Lamentabili. Despite the fact that many elders had thought the crisis had passed, the students—at least the most lucid among them—were not reassured so easily and uncomprehendingly suspected the importance of the exchange: to them the conscience of modern man in the West had enlarged and was more demanding, and they did not find a response to these demands in the message of the Church . . . The task of their generation was to make decipherable again the good news of Jesus Christ.34

Auguste Valensin: A Blondelian Disciple Although largely forgotten, Valensin’s crucial importance lies in his mediation of Blondelian thought to two generations of Jesuits, acting as a ‘prophète de Blondel’.35 A member of the generation of Rousselot, Huby, Teilhard, and Maréchal, after the First World War, he became a mentor and trusted philosophical guide to young scholastics in de Lubac’s generation, introducing them to Blondel, Rousselot, and a number of other modern thinkers. Valensin earned his philosophy license under Blondel’s direction at Aix-enProvence from 1897 to 1899. During that period the two forged a lifelong friendship that would inspire a rich correspondence which de Lubac would later edit.36 In fact, it was Blondel’s influence that encouraged Valensin to enter the Jesuits: ‘I read and reread L’Action when I was sixteen, and it revealed to me the dramatic character of existence. When I was nineteen, it was this book that intimated to me the order on which to decide.’37 Valensin entered the Jesuits in 1899 with Teilhard, and the two friends began the two-year novitiate together. In September 1903, after two years of philosophy, Valensin recorded his philosophical inclinations in his journal: ‘I shall open my mainsail to philosophy! I have found what I had lost!’38 His eclecticism and 33

34 D’Ouince, Prophète, 52. D’Ouince, Prophète, 53–4. Michael Sutton, ‘Des opposants à l’Action française : Maurice Blondel, son influence, et le repositionnement de Jacques Maritain’, in L’Action française: culture, société, politique, eds. Michel Leymarie and Jacques Prévotat (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaire Septentrion, 2008), 352. 36 Maurice Blondel et Auguste Valensin, Correspondence, 3 vols (Paris, Aubier, 1957–1965). 37 Antonio Russo, Henri de Lubac: Biographie (Paris: Brepols, 1997), 199. 38 Auguste Valensin, Auguste Valensin, Textes et documents inédi (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1961), 33. 35

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historical approach were evident in his interests: ‘I have great intellectual projects: to study Aristotle thoroughly in the morning, in the evening Maine de Biran, then to move to Saint Thomas and thus follow the whole stream— the whole history.’39 By 1905, Valensin’s Jesuit provincial had both approved his plan to write his thesis on Kant and the ‘esprit kantiste’, indicating he would work as a professional philosopher after his completion of his theology training.40 Already sensing tension between his philosophical interests and those of the Society, one Jesuit had jokingly labelled him an ‘intellectual’, and he wrote about the danger this connotation had: ‘[h]ow important it is not to be seen as a Kantian! And given the nature of certain spirits, how easily one is accused of Kantianism!’41 As the Modernist crisis reached its boiling point, the suspicious climate coloured his interactions: ‘I never discuss with un ignorant, someone who does not know the issue in question . . . Avoid difficulty by assenting to general, vague propositions to which great importance is attached. Because agreement thus is a vague agreement that leads to nothing and makes no more sense than the question. For example: are you for or against Loisy? = A simplistic question. It is necessary to respond: against. That alone is true.’42 Valensin went to Ore Place Hastings in 1906 to complete his theology. For the first year, his primary professor was de Grandmaison, who was teaching apologetics. His diary provides a glimpse of his intellectual development during the Modernist crisis, struggling simultaneously to attempt a certain embrace of both orthodoxy and modern scientific thought.43 At the high point of the Modernist crisis, he met and interviewed both Le Roy and Laberthonnière and journeyed to the Belgian scholasticate to meet two Jesuits, Pierre Scheuer and Joseph Maréchal, attempting a synthesis of both Kant and Aquinas. Although Scheuer had read Valensin’s work on Kant and was very complimentary, Valensin left the meeting worried that Scheuer’s project was ‘not a progress or enlargement of ideas, but an excess and wantonness where Hegel, Kant, Blondel, and Saint Thomas were all mixed together . . . This is astounding!’44 Soon Valesin was directly embroiled in the controversy, as his former Greek professor, d’Alès, director of the prestigious Dictionnaire Apologetique de la Foi catholique, asked him to author an article on the method of immanence.45 Treating the task very delicately, as Blondel’s name had been surrounded by controversy for over fifteen years, he carefully drafted the text under the guidance of his former teacher. Written in tandem with his brother, Albert

39

40 Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 34. Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 38. 42 Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 38–9. Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 44. 43 44 Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 56. Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 63. 45 Auguste Valensin, ‘Immanence (Méthode d’)’, in Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique, sous la direction de A. d’Alès, vol. 2 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1911), 579–93. 41

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Valensin, also a Jesuit philosopher, their contributions comprise two parts, the doctrine of immanence, which they charged was incompatible with Catholicism, and the method of immanence, which they defended. The article soon located the crux of Blondelian thought in the attempt to reconcile immanence and transcendence, thus establishing a new apologetic more suited to modern methods. Blondel’s phenomenology purported to show the inherent insufficiency of the acting subject toward the natural world. Valensin claimed that if this ‘besoin du surnaturel’ can be established without infringing on orthodoxy: ‘1) the conflict of ideas, the doctrinal antinomy which opposes these two notions, of immanence and the supernatural, would not exist. The theologian would be able to accept the notion of immanence. 2) And once they discovered the existence of this need, the philosopher could embrace the supernatural.’46 Valensin attempted to support his pretensions of orthodoxy—in a move that cannot help but foreshadow de Lubac’s approach—by appealing to the Fathers of the Church and especially St Augustine, who ‘occasionally insisted on the inconsistent nature of any satisfaction in the natural order’.47 Moreover, we see the influence of Blondel’s method of history, which insisted the method of immanence was in fact most ancient and unitive of the tradition. Beyond the Fathers, however, Valensin claimed this position was held by a number of ‘mystics, preachers, and even philosophers such as Bossuet, Fénelon and Malebranche’, citing even the father of French existentialism: ‘Pascal showed in his research a “divertissement” which was the effect of a profound and sickly disposition which essentially betrays a soul en quête.’48 The second part of the article, written by Albert Valensin, had its ‘point of departure in the reflection of man as we really encounter him in the actual world’.49 This concrete examination reveals the ‘need’, ‘aspiration’, and ‘desire’ of the human spirit for God and the supernatural. This desire is in fact stimulated by the method of immanence, and the apologist pushes people to realize that when the man who searches for the religion that alone carries within itself the signs of the divine truth on earth has, with the desire of seeing, asked where it is, this will be the task of the apologist to intellectually fix his conscience, which has been already awakened, on the obligation to believe (at least hypothetically) in Revelation . . . And the apologist will have to show how the distant word of Jesus Christ and that of the contemporary Church require, to be understood as it should, that the desire which calls, the light which discerns, and the love which embraces, proceed from within. He will arouse in the man who searches for

47 Valensin, ‘Immanence’, 597–612. Valensin, ‘Immanence’, 590. Valensin, ‘Immanence’, 590. 49 Albert Valensin, ‘Immanence (Méthode d)’: Examen’, in Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique, sous la direction de A. d’Alès, II. Paris: Beauchesne, 1911, 593–612, here, 600. 46 48

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religious truth a sharper awareness of its total subordination to God, a feeling more keen for the need for God. He will try to give him an intuition more profound of the guarantees of revelation that comes from God.50

The dictionary articles incited an immediate controversy, and the pieces caused a fellow Jesuit, Joseph de Tonquédec, to release an in-depth critique of the Blondelian thought presented in the Dictionnaire, the 1913 book Immanence.51 The work signalled the beginning of the anti-Blondelian crusade de Tonquédec would wage for several decades. For de Tonquédec, the method of immanence was a fundamental acquiescence to Kantian subjectivity: ‘Immanentism is a system that denies or neglects all transcendent reality and encloses the subject in himself.’52 Hoping to find within the subject an entry point to transcendence was totally chimerical for de Tonquédec. In 1912, Valensin met Laberthonnière, giving him the manuscript for his dictionary article, and throughout the following year, the ‘Affaire d’immanence’ gathered steam.53 Valensin wrote to Blondel indicating that he had read de Tonquédec’s book, and he ‘was nauseous’.54 In 1914, he wrote to Blondel that a Dominican, ‘a theologian of reputation’, had referred the article to the Index.55 It seems likely that Ambroise Gardeil had denounced him. Gardeil had written to the Holy Office in June 1913: ‘the works of Blondel, a layman, have no authority for the faithful or for theologians—but the Dictionary which contains an article (by Auguste and Albert Valensin) on the method of immanence does have authority in France and is used in seminaries’.56 Soon after, Valensin was abruptly forced to leave his teaching duties in Jersey and return to France to make corrections. The discussion vanished suddenly with the outbreak of the First World War, and Valensin was sent to the Jesuit novitiate at St Leonards-on-Sea near the theologate at Ore Place, where he would have his first contact with the young Fourvière Jesuits who were there for their novitiate. Despite the relief brought about by the war, Valensin was now a marked man, and his provincial warned him that the Jesuit General was considering delaying his ordination on account of his ‘philosophical tendencies’.57 An examination of this episode provides a useful portrait of one of the primary influences on the Fourvière Jesuits and gives a vital glimpse into the great Albert Valensin, ‘Immanence (Méthode d)’, 610–11. Joseph de Tonquédec, Immanence: Essai critique sur la doctrine de M. Maurice Blondel (Paris: Beauchesne, 1913). 52 Tonquédec, Immanence, 8. 53 Paul Beillevert, Laberthonnière: l’Homme et l’oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 28. 54 55 Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 87. Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 86. 56 Gianfranco Coffele, Apologetico e Teologia Fondamentale (Rome: Edizioni Studium, 2004), 215, quoted in John Sullivan, ‘Forty Years Under the Cosh: Blondel and Garrigou-Lagrange’, New Blackfriars 93 (2011): 63. 57 Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 134. 50 51

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divide Blondelian philosophy had caused within the Society of Jesus, as well as among the wider French clergy. In an early letter, Garrigou-Lagrange told Gardeil that Blondel’s followers ‘represent a considerable part of the young clergy and that they have the same hatred for us that we have for them’.58 We shall see in the Chapter 4 (p. 109) that in the decade of the 1920s, Valensin’s troubles over his Blondelian sympathies were only beginning. In summary, Valensin was very much a Blondelian apostle who acted as a kind of generational bridge, uniting his own generation (1912) with those of Blondel (1890) and de Lubac (1930), thus allowing for a broad transmission of Blondelian ideas. Moreover, he modelled an eclectic historical approach to philosophy, which sought to survey ‘the whole stream’ of thought, searching not for a final articulation, but rather for what was essential in each age. This allowed him to argue that Blondel’s method was present in the Fathers and throughout the tradition. Finally, he established many contacts with likeminded Catholic thinkers and philosophers, such as the Louvain Jesuits.

Pierre Rousselot: A Proto-Ressourcement Jesuit A close friend and intellectual companion of Valensin, Teilhard, and Huby, Rousselot was one of the most influential French Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century, and like his generational confrères he was shaped by the Jesuits of the generation of 1890: de Grandmaison, Lebreton, and d’Alès.59 Although he died prematurely in the First World War, in only seven years he produced a body of work that not only shaped the nouvelle théologie in important respects but also served as the foundation, along with the work of Maréchal, for the school of Transcendental Thomism broadly popularized by Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan. Rousselot spent a year with Valensin, Teilhard, and Huby at the Jesuit theologate Ore Place at Hastings from 1908 to 1909, where he forged lifelong bonds with them.60 He had first read L’Action by 1904 and his time with these Jesuits provided fertile ground for the assimilation of Blondelian thought. His later works mentioned Blondel explicitly many times, and in his last years the two philosophers corresponded directly after an introduction by Valensin. Ambroise Gardeil, ‘Lettres de Jeuness au P. Ambroise Gardeil (1903-1909)’, presented by F. van Gunten, Angelicum 42 (1965): 166, quoted in Michael Kerlin, ‘Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange: Defending the Faith from “Pascendi dominici gregis” to “Humani Generis” ’, U.S. Catholic Historian 25/1 (2007): 102. 59 For short biographies of Rousselot, see the preface by Léonce de Grandmaison, in L’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas, 2nd ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1924), v–lx; Élie Marty, Le Témoignage de Pierre Rousselot, S.J. (1878–1915), 2nd ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1940); Jules Lebreton, ‘Pierre Rousselot’, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, 14 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané), 1939: 134–8. 60 David Grumett, Teilhard de Chardin: Theology, Humanity, and Cosmos (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 47. 58

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Born in Nantes in 1879 to a large Breton family, Rousselot joined the Jesuits at sixteen, beginning his novitiate at Canterbury in 1895. He excelled in the study of ancient and modern languages, entered the Jersey scholasticate in 1900, and became close friends with the Jesuits of 1890, who judged him to be brilliant.61 Ordained in 1908, he received his doctorate from the Sorbonne the same year after successfully defending his main thesis, L’Intellectualisme de St. Thomas, and his minor thesis, Pour l’histoire du problème de l’amour au Moyen Age.62 Completing his theology in 1909, he joined the Institut catholique of Paris where he taught a course on the act of faith, which was published as ‘Les Yeux de la foi’ in the first volume of Recherches, for which he had become the secretary.63 Moreover, he collaborated with Huby on a study of the history of religions and advanced a theory on the development of dogma, which he had first presented as a paper in 1909 during his last year at Hastings, and de Lubac tells us that ‘without a doubt among his listeners were Auguste Valensin, Joseph Huby, Pierre Charles, and possibly Teilhard de Chardin’.64 He remained at the Institut catholique until his entrance into the army in 1914, and he was killed at Eparges on 25 April 1915 after distinguishing himself in battle.

A Modern Thomistic Synthesis Rousselot constitutes a key bridge between Blondel and Fourvière, providing a certain proto-ressourcement blueprint for a synthetic Jesuit methodology open to history, modern philosophy, Neoplatonism, and Thomism. This method anticipated Surnaturel by offering a Blondelian reading of Aquinas, which used historical criticism to locate certain fundamental principles or ‘architectonic theses’ around which Aquinas’ work revolved.65 Rousselot was a Thomist who argued that certain later additions of Baroque Scholasticism obscured Aquinas’ essential thought, which was much more compatible with varieties of Kantian thought than Neoscholasticism. Beyond this criticism of 61

Marty, Le Témoignage, 34–61. Pierre Rousselot, L’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas, 3rd ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1936); Intelligence: Sense of Being, Faculty of God, trans. Andrew Tallon (Milwaukee WI: Marquette University Press, 1999); Pierre Rousselot, Pour l’histoire du problème de l’amour au moyen âge (Münster: Aschendorffsche Buchhandlung, 1908); The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages: A Historical Contribution, trans. Alan Vincelette (Milwaukee WI: Marquette University Press, 2001). 63 Pierre Rousselot, ‘Les Yeux de la foi’, Recherches de science religieuse 1 (1910): 241–50, 444–75; The Eyes of Faith, trans. Joseph Donceel (New York NY: Fordham University Press, 1990). 64 Pierre Rousselot, ‘La religion chrétienne’, in Christus: Manuel d’histoire des religions, ed. Joseph Huby (Paris, 1912); Henri de Lubac, from the avant-propos to ‘Petite théorie du development du dogme’, by Pierre Rousselot, Recherches de science religieuse 53 (1965): 355–90. 65 Gerald McCool, From Unity to Pluralism: the Internal Evolution of Thomism (New York NY: Fordham University Press, 1992), 47–8. 62

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Late Scholasticism, Rousselot never bound himself to Aquinas alone, insisting rather that ultimate respect for a text implies sometimes correcting, perfecting, or modifying it.66 Thomas Sheehan lists the central themes that guided Rousselot’s work as the pre-eminence of act in cognition and metaphysics, a strong critique of conceptual knowledge, representational knowledge as providing an implicit affirmation of God and the soul, and ‘interior’ proofs for the existence of God that complement the ‘exterior’ proofs.67 Rousselot’s intellectual orientation, like that of Blondel, de Grandmaison, and Lebreton, which sought to develop an orthodoxy in dialogue with modernity, is captured by a 1907 letter to his father, in which he articulated his desire to bridge the ‘deux mentalités’, orthodoxy and Modernism: ‘More and more, I realize that in our day there is enormous work to be done in religious philosophy. All these errors have been clearly shown by the encyclical [Pascendi Dominici Gregis], and my life will certainly be useful if it is entirely devoted to throwing light on these problems. I am struck by how profoundly ignorant many Modernists are of traditional Catholic philosophy. However, orthodox thinkers are unable to answer all the Modernist objections, because they misunderstand the importance of these objections and their consequences. Those, I believe, who are versed in both mentalités can render a great service to the Church.’68 This eclectic method was underscored by de Grandmaison in 1924: ‘The programme [Rousselot] traced was his own. It was not necessary that his love for the philosophy of the thirteenth century closed his eyes to errors and distortions that have occurred since. On the contrary, he passionately read modern and contemporary philosophy, hoping to expand upon certain partial truths and points of view he found there.’69 Rousselot wanted to rescue Thomism from the negative critique with which modern philosophers such as Blondel and Henri Bergson had dismissed it.70 Their thought had a deep impact on him and influenced central themes of his work.71 Blondel’s philosophy is of particular importance, and for Rousselot, ‘Thomas’ metaphysical approach to “intelligence” [intellectus] anticipates Blondel’s teaching on the openness or receptivity of human existence to a saving God and eternal life.’72 Moreover, he also looked to Neoplatonism as well 66 Thomas Sheehan, Karl Rahner: The Philosophical Foundations (Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 1987), 58. 67 68 Sheehan, Karl Rahner, 60. De Grandmaison, Intellectualisme, 2nd ed., xiv. 69 De Grandmaison, Intellectualisme, 2nd ed., 14. 70 Bergson, like Blondel, reacted against the deterministic philosophy that permeated his era, attempting to resuscitate the notion of free will by developing the notion that humans grasp an intuition of the creative evolving life force of reality, the élan vital, when, reflectively, the spirit ‘bends back’ upon itself to grasp the movement of life. This dynamism is processed as static fragments that allow for discursive and logical interactions with the world. 71 McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 47. 72 Robert St. Hilaire, ‘Desire Divided: Nature and Grace in the Neo-Thomism of Pierre Rousselot’. PhD diss. (Harvard University, 2008), iii–iv.

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as Pascal, Newman, and Augustine for solutions to contemporary problems.73 The religious sentiment present in Laberthonnière’s writings, likewise, struck him, and he and Rousselot began an amiable relationship that eventually soured, as later did the one between Laberthonnière and Blondel.74 Rousselot sought to help this ‘vigorous spirit’ move to surer philosophical ground. He realized, however, after one particular conversation, ‘their philosophical principles were absolutely opposed’ due to Laberthonnière’s strident anti-Thomistic and antiRoman sentiment.75

Conceptualism vs Intellectualism Two aspects of Rousselot’s thought, which we shall now examine, will be particularly influential on the Fourvière Jesuits: epistemology and the desire for God. Rousselot’s major doctoral thesis, published as Intellectualisme de St. Thomas, became ‘a rallying cry of the new school of thought’ that would include Maréchal and the Fourvière Jesuits. Rousselot’s notion of intellectualism sought to affect ‘a more profound rediscovery of the mind’ and recover the seminal idea of intellectualism, a doctrine supposedly buried by Neoscholastic rationalism.76 This doctrine necessitated a certain diminishment of epistemological realism grounded on the abstraction of conceptual knowledge by the discursive reason, central to Neoscholasticism. Evidence of the convergence of Rousselot’s metaphysical moves with those of Blondel emerged in a letter written by the former: ‘The Thomistic notion of possessing intellection (from which have flowed almost all of my philosophical ideas) has led me to a position quite close to yours or which coincides with them.’77 Certain similarities are present in the first pages of Intellectualisme.78 Like Blondel, he attempted to overcome the Neoscholastic dualism between 73 Edward Brueggeman, ‘A Modern School of Thought on the Supernatural’, Theological Studies 6, February (1945): 21. 74 For more on the relationship between Rousselot and Laberthonnière, see John McDermott’s lengthy note in Love and Understanding (Rome: Gregoriana, 1983), 112–113, n. 7. 75 Marty, Le Témoignage, 258–9. 76 Brueggeman, ‘A Modern School’, 16, 21. 77 Frederick Scott, ‘Maurice Blondel and Pierre Rousselot’, The New Scholasticism 36/3 (1962): 330; Scott’s treatment explores the relationship between Rousselot and Blondel on the relation of knowledge to being and contains extensive excerpts from Rousselot’s notes on Blondel as well as their written exchanges; for the influence of Blondel on Roussleot, see Georges Van Riet, Thomistic Epistemology: Studies concerning the Problem of Cognition in the Contemporary Thomistic School, trans. Gabriel Franks, vol. 1 (St. Louis MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1963), 282–3; and the extensive list that Hilaire provides in ‘Desire Divided’, 77, n 2. 78 Late in his career, Rousselot came to the conclusion that his critique of conceptual knowledge was excessive, and he indicated his intention to formally amend his position when time allowed, writing to Blondel: ‘Also, I willingly grant you that I have exaggerated in my book on St. Thomas the irrealism of conceptual knowledge . . . about the spontaneous concept I was deceived. For the present other works appear more pressing than a re-edition of this thesis’; Scott, ‘Maurice Blondel and Pierre Rousselot’, 350–1.

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the will and the intellect, arguing instead for a certain interpenetration. For him, intellection, which is the perfect form of possession, is also the perfect form of action. Indeed, Rousselot stated that ‘Thomas considers [intellection] the vital action par excellence, and sees in it the deepest and most intense activity of intelligent beings.’79 He claimed a ‘little reflection suffices to get beyond the popular opposition between thought and action, but it is another thing to see that in itself thought is the most effective and powerful form of action’.80 Intellection is essentially a paradoxical faculty of ‘immanence and exteriorization’ that unites ‘subjective intensity and objective extension’.81 Essentially grounded in immanence, intellection increases in intensity as the life of intensity deepens.82 This exteriorization of the intellect involves a movement ‘from one being to another’ to ‘possess, to grasp, [and] to hold’ the ‘other’ in a ‘unity of being’.83 The intellect for Rousselot is ‘the faculty of the real’ because ‘it is the faculty of the divine’.84 Moreover, ‘the intuitive vision is postulated by the nature of intellect. It would seem that we are so constituted that peace will never be ours except in the possession of God’.85 Intellection, he further adds, is ‘a doctrine that places everything of worth, all of life’s intensity, and the very essence of the good, identical with being, in the act of intelligence: everything else can be good only by participation in it’.86 To understand the importance of intellectual knowledge and its supremacy over conceptual knowledge, Rousselot employs Aquinas’s study of angelic intelligence to illustrate that authentic knowing transcends the material and knows the ideal or spiritual world purely, thus enabling a certain unity between the knower and the known. He compared this perfect knowledge with human knowledge, which remains limited and hindered by its reliance on the material world: ‘Matter is the being where the one is absolutely impenetrable to the other, and spirit is what can become wholly other while remaining one. Pure intuitive beings, each according to its own nature, possess from the outset this totalizing unity; we humans tend toward it by multiplying laborious acts: their natural end is to actualize through them the power of the spirit, to arrive at the maximum of consciousness.’87 Human cognition remains inferior to the pure intellection of the angels, however, due to its reliance on the faculty of reason to construct conceptual intelligibility of the material world. It ‘strives 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 7; Intelligence, 16. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 11; Intelligence, 19. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 7; Intelligence, 16. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 5; Intelligence, 14. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 11; Intelligence, 19. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, v; Intelligence, 2. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 88–95; Intelligence, 77–81. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, iii; Intelligence, 1. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 45; Intelligence, 45.

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to imitate or simulate the intellectual grasp of being and substitutes for it composite representations (the concept, science, system, and symbol)’.88 This joining together of the intelligence of the knower and the idea or concept of the known leads Rousselot to insist that Thomas’ intellection is grounded in Neoplatonic idealism rather than Aristotelian metaphysics. This was a major concession to the criticism of the day that charged Neoscholasticism with a rationalism which allowed discursive reason a free hand to know being extensively. Gerald McCool, in describing how ultimately Kantian insights are imported into Rousselot’s metaphysics, writes: Unlike the species of the angelic intellect, human concepts are not intuitions of the intelligible forms that structure beings. They are constructs of the active intellect dependent upon the data of the imagination for their content. The intelligible singularity that distinguishes one individual from another within the unity of their species eludes the abstract concept. Their universality, the ground of human scientific knowledge, is the mark of their imperfect penetration of the real.89

The Desire for God Rousselot’s work on the desire for God is especially important. We saw in Chapter 2 (p. 63–6) that Blondel and Laberthonnière contributed substantially to bringing the issue to the fore of Catholic thought. Rousselot advanced their argument by attempting to root it within the Thomist tradition. Robert St. Hilaire sees the possible influence of Blondel in Rousselot’s thought as he transposed the Blondelian movement of the will to intellection, as certain similarities can be seen in the opening of the intellect to the beatific vision in its appetitive drive to apprehend all of material reality and in his notion of the desire to see God.90 First, as we discussed earlier, for Rousselot, human knowing is significantly diminished by its reliance on conceptual knowledge, and its inability to grasp singulars apart from abstractions creates a kind of ‘unreality’ to conceptual knowledge.91 Despite this deficiency, and contra Aquinas, Rousselot argued that human reason [ratio] does not stop pressing forward toward its desire to grasp particular material objects which are available to the senses alone.92 He wrote: ‘Is it possible that these poor abstract ideas, which deceive the hunger of our intelligence, could fulfil our essential longing and be the final goal of our aspirations? Do not the lower faculties, so immediately in touch with reality, suggest a mode of possession infinitely

88 89 91 92

Scott, ‘Maurice Blondel and Pierre Rousselot’, 331. 90 McCool, From Unity to Pluralism, 53. St. Hilaire, ‘Desire Divided’, 100–1. Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 95; Intelligence, 81–2. St. Hilaire, ‘Desire Divided’, 102.

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superior to its own?’93 Hilaire writes that for Rousselot this intellectual dynamism toward the beatific vision manifests itself in every act of intelligence here on earth. For every apprehension of individual material being, ratio experiences a frustration with not knowing what the senses grasp. As a consequence, it is intrinsically spurred on toward a perfection of knowledge that it can only achieve in heaven. The parallels with Blondel’s analysis of human action are obvious. For Blondel, every action presupposes an openness to the supernatural. Similarly, for Rousselot, every intellectual action presupposes the possibility of the beatific vision. Moreover, for both Blondel and Rousselot, the final goal—whether we define this as the philosophical possibility of God or the promise to see God in heaven—is fundamentally unattainable by the human being’s own natural powers.94

At this point it should be evident that Rousselot’s softening of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural upholds, as with Blondel and Laberthonnière, the notion that ‘religion and philosophy copenetrate each other so intimately’.95 Furthermore, after thoroughly examining the writings of Aquinas, Rousselot argued that ‘it is in the nature of intelligence as such that Thomas finds a certain attraction, a certain appetite for God, for the vision of the divine as such’.96 Despite this emphasis on an appetitive intellectual drive to the beatific vision, Rousselot still argued for ‘“judgments of the absolute order” about things in themselves and defended quidditative definitions, the absolute certitude of reason’s first principles naturally known and self evident, and the irreformable truth of dogmas’.97 Thus, he essentially attempted to develop a middle way between Cajetan’s notion of a proportionate natural end, and de Lubac’s later theory that human nature is essentially ordered and directed totally by a desire for the beatific vision. Rousselot claimed that Aquinas thought possible ‘a kind of aesthetic beatitude in the purely natural order’, that would not deplete our intellectual capacity; he wrote that we ‘can ponder the value of human speculation in both orders, the possible order of “pure nature” and the actual order of grace which prepares us for the vision of God’.98 Far from being a benign historical work, Rousselot’s minor thesis, Pour l’histoire du problème de l’amour is closely related to l’Intellectualisme and draws out further implications concerning the natural–supernatural relationship, 93 Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 95; Intelligence, 146, quoted in St. Hilaire, ‘Desire Divided’, 103–4. 94 St. Hilaire, ‘Desire Divided’, 106. 95 Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 226; Intelligence, 181. 96 Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 184; Intelligence, 149. 97 John McDermott, ‘Sheehan, Rousselot, and Theological Method’, Gregorianum 87/4 (1987): 707. 98 Rousselot, Intellectualisme, 173; Intelligence, 140, quoted in St. Hilaire, ‘Desire Divided’, 220 n. 73.

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as well as the desire for God. Resurrecting a twelfth- and thirteenth-century debate on love, Rousselot returned to the question of how love of self, the desire to achieve a natural happiness and fulfilment, can be reconciled with love of God, or, ‘how the appetite of a being can tend toward that which is not its own good’.99 This ‘Greco-Thomist’ view was challenged by an ‘ecstatic’ position that held that selfish concerns were fundamentally incompatible with love of God, and therefore, self-abnegation was necessary for the pure love of God. The Greco-Thomist view, which Rousselot defended against the dualism of the ecstatic view, holds that ‘between the love of God and the love of self a fundamental identity’ exists.100 This identity manifests itself in ‘one identical appetite, the deepest and the most natural of all, or better yet, the sole natural appetite’.101 Rousselot furnished three arguments from Aquinas in support of the Greco-Thomist view of love. First, the theory of the whole and the parts claims that we are naturally disposed to love God more than ourselves as our own greatest good is in the good of the whole. The principle of unity that undergirds this makes clear that by tending toward the greater good on which one depends one acts in one’s own self-interest, thereby strengthening the participatory relationship.102 The second argument, which asserts the notion of a universal appetite or desire all things have for God, is closely related to this and in fact expands upon it. Finally, Rousselot utilizes the theory of the coincidence of spiritual goods with the good in itself. Since our ultimate end is in God, certain sacrifices of the sensual order further the tendency also toward our own immediate good. Rousselot does not stop, however, with an analysis of various Thomistic texts, and he offers a historical survey to show that Aquinas was operating within the Greek and Patristic tradition. On the question of desire for God, for example, Rousselot cites Pseudo-Dionysius, Augustine, and Plotinus as authorities.103 In developing his doctrine of faith in ‘Les Yeux de la foi’, Rousselot again utilized the Neoplatonic concepts of ‘sympathetic or connatural knowledge’ or knowledge ‘per modum naturae’ which grounds the intellectual movement toward ultimate good. This intellectual movement is tightly joined to rational judgments of credibility, preceding and mutually informing each other in ‘a reciprocal causality’. He wrote that love arouses the faculty of knowing, and by the same stroke knowledge justifies that love. Without any preceding ‘judgment of credibility,’ the soul instantaneously believes and can exclaim ‘My Lord and my God!’ Free election and certain knowledge are wedded in this lightning flash, but each preserves its identity. Election is oriented to the divine Good, to the new way and life that are chosen,

99 100 101 102 103

Rousselot, Pour l’histoire, 1; The Problem of Love, 76. Rousselot, Pour l’histoire, 3; The Problem of Love, 78. Rousselot, Pour l’histoire, 3; The Problem of Love, 78. Rousselot, Pour l’histoire, 12; The Problem of Love, 90. Rousselot, Pour l’histoire, 32–6; The Problem of Love, 117–27.

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not directly to the knowledge as such. And the intelligence, despite the ardent atmosphere of love that may bathe it, can perceive in all security the eminently reasonable and lawful character of the decision it makes.104

In conclusion, like Valensin, Rousselot had an eclectic style which was influenced by Blondel and sought to put Catholic orthodoxy in dialogue with modernity. Moreover, Rousselot’s attempt to supposedly rescue Thomism from certain modern criticisms drew insights from both ancient and modern sources. He endeavoured to overcome any dualism between the will and the intellect, which was the faculty of the divine, and he stressed the intellect’s desire for the beatific vision, which he argued was central to the ‘GrecoThomist’ tradition.

Joseph Huby: A Disciple of Rousselot Born in 1878, Huby entered the Jesuits in 1897 and began studying theology under de Grandmaison and Lebreton at Hastings in 1907 with Valensin, Teilhard, and Rousselot. Huby was the ardent disciple of Rousselot and after ordination taught theology at Hastings from 1913 to 1920. During this period, he was involved with Recherches from its founding. In 1918, in an article heavily inspired by Rousselot on the discernment of miracles, a subject central to the controversy over faith during the Modernist period, he wrote: ‘It is because the arguments for our faith are stronger than all the arguments of a purely natural science, that we need, in order to receive and hold them, a faculty that is stronger than a purely natural faculty, an intelligence illuminated by the Holy Spirit.’105 The following year he wrote an article, also published in Recherches, based on notes left by Rousselot, ‘Foi et contemplation d’après Saint Thomas’.106 Huby became a contributor to Recherches for thirty-seven years, and his final contribution after the Second World War shortly before his death took up once again the question of faith in Rousselot.107 Like Valensin with Blondel, Huby’s allegiance to the thought of Rousselot caused him significant problems with his Jesuit superiors. To conclude, by acting as a great promoter and disciple of Rousselot, Huby in some respects modelled Valensin’s Blondelian apostleship. In fact, the Fourvière Jesuits ended up directly under Huby’s supervision during their theology studies. He mentored them, supported their work, and encouraged Pierre Rousselot, ‘Les Yeux’, 450–1; Eyes of Faith, 50. Huby is quoted in Lecler, ‘Le Cinquantenaire’, 134; ‘The Fiftieth Anniversary’, 136. 106 Joseph Huby, ‘Foi et contemplation d’après saint Thomas’, Recherches de sciences religieuse 10 (1919): 137–61. 107 Joseph Huby, ‘Autour du problème de l’acte de foi’, Recherches de science religieuse 34 (1947): 462–84. 104 105

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their interest in the question of the desire for God and other important themes with which Rousselot had occupied himself.

Teilhard de Chardin: Science, Philosophy, and God Teilhard de Chardin, the famous palaeontologist and spiritual writer, entered the Jesuits with Valensin, and they studied philosophy together at Hastings with Rousselot and Huby. Ordained in 1911, Teilhard finished his theological studies at Ore Place, Hastings, in 1912, and was drafted two years later. Highly decorated for his bravery, he served as a stretcher-bearer during some of the most intense fighting on the Western Front at Champagne, Verdun, and the second Battle of the Marne. After the war he resumed his studies in palaeontology and received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1921. Attempting to unite modern science with Christianity in a ‘mystical science’, he soon fell under a cloud of controversy after several essays on original sin in the context of evolution caused alarm amongst Roman authorities. He was forbidden to teach in France and spent the next thirty years under suspicion. His writings, however, were mimeographed, circulated clandestinely, and had significant influence. After his death in 1955, they were entrusted to a layman who organized their publication, and de Lubac was called upon in 1961 by his superiors to introduce and interpret his work in a positive light. During the Conciliar years, de Lubac wrote three books on his thought and edited several volumes of letters which seemed to achieve their desired effect of having an impact on certain aspects of Conciliar theology. Although Teilhard was not a theologian per se, and his influence on the Fourvière Jesuits remains more peripheral than that of the others described in this chapter, he is nonetheless included here on account of his close relationships with them as well their thematic and methodological intersections. Beginning with an affirmation of evolutionary biology, Teilhard proposed a divinized cosmos evolving according to the principle of ‘orthogenesis’, that is, linear and teleological evolution. This movement inseparably unifies the biological and anthropological (consciousness) development that is manifested in increasing levels of complexity toward a point of evolutionary fulfilment that Teilhard calls the Omega Point, which as the ‘centre of centres’, draws all human activity to completion and fulfilment. Hoping to establish a ‘mysticism of the West’ as a rival to both the insufficient mysticism of the East and Western atheism, Teilhard saw the Incarnation as a certain fulfilment and blessing of the material world: ‘by virtue of the Creation, and still more, of the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see’.108 108

Teilhard de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin (Paris: Seuil, 1957), 56; The Divine Milieu (London: Collins, 1960), 38.

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The Incarnation stands at the centre of the cosmological ascent of the world from ‘matter to life to personal spirit’.109 There is evidence that Teilhard had read Blondel at Valensin’s request as early as 1900, and they established a relationship through Valensin soon after the First World War, resulting in an important exchange of letters.110 Regarding this influence, Teilhard wrote: ‘With Blondel I had been in touch (through Auguste Valensin) for about a year (soon after World War I, around 1920). Certain features of his thought had certainly had their effect on me: the value of action (which became for me a quasi-experimental energetics of the biological forces of evolution).’111 He later wrote regarding Blondel’s notions that ‘they struck a note of perfect resonance with my own most vital thoughts’.112 There is no doubt that Blondel had an important influence on various aspects of Teilhard’s thought and, as de Lubac says, his influence remains clearly ‘recognizable’.113 Aspects of Blondel’s conception of action provided Teilhard with a cosmological broadening.114 For Teilhard the human person has a duty to collaborate with the forward movement of evolution, and structure his or her action towards the building of the world: ‘If evolution . . . is to continue to progress in a hominized setting, Man, by physical necessity, must believe, as forcefully as possible, in the absolute value of the movement which is his duty to forward . . . In the case of true action (by which I mean action into which one puts something of one’s own life), I cannot undertake it unless I have the underlying intention of making “a work of abiding value” . . . A sort of joy of essential instinct makes me in some way feel that the only joy worth experiencing is to collaborate, as one individual atom, in the definitive construction of a World.’115 Although Teilhard preoccupied himself with material science, one of his central concerns, the fundamental orientation of nature toward the supernatural,

109 Hans urs von Balthsar, The Theology of Henri de Lubac: An Overview (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1991), 84. 110 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Maurice Blondel, Blondel—Teilhard Correspondance, in HLOC, vol. 26; Teilhard—Blondel Correspondence, with notes and commentary by Henri de Lubac, trans. William Whitman (New York NY, Herder & Herder, 1967). 111 Claude Cuénot, Teilhard de Chardin: Les grandes étapes de son evolution (Paris: Plon, 1958), 55–6; Teilhard De Chardin: A Biographical Study, trans. Vincent Colimore (London: Burns & Oates, 1965), 39. 112 Teilhard de Chardin, letter to Auguste Valensin, 29 December 1919, quoted in HLOC, vol. 26; Teilhard-Blondel: Correspondence, 46. 113 Henri de Lubac, La Pensée religieuse du père Teilhard de Chardin, HLOC, vol. 23, 256, n 2; The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin, trans. René Hague (London: Collins, 1967), 344, n 27; for the influence of Blondel on his notion of action, also see Philippe Bergeron, L’Action Humaine dans l’oeuvre de Teilhard de Chardin (Montreal: Fides, 1969), 88–99, 302–7. 114 Grumett, Teilhard de Chardin, 60–2. 115 De Lubac, La Pensée, 255; The Religion of Teilhard, 177.

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clearly serves as an anticipation of de Lubac’s Surnaturel thesis.116 Aidan Nichols writes that Teilhard’s work anticipates ‘de Lubac’s discovery in Surnaturel that the world—which must include, therefore, its “ascending” material aspect—has only one ultimate [supernatural] goal’.117 Balthasar saw the problem of ‘natural desire’ as being radicalized by Teilhard: ‘the entire universe from its lowest level as pure matter is nothing else but this [natural desire]’.118 In Teilhard’s ‘Hymn to the Eternal Feminine’ de Lubac found a central issue in ‘nature as essentially a longing and transcendence by virtue of the ordination to a transcendent, uniquely fulfilling principal’.119 To sum up, Teilhard also had an eclectic approach, and was animated by many of the same influences, such as that of Blondel, as the other Jesuits in the generation of 1912. Moreover, like them he was eager to repair the rupture between faith and science, although for his part, he was interested in material science. Thus, he sought to construct a cosmology that was attentive to both the supernatural as well as evolutionary biology. He remained in contact with various Fourvière Jesuits from the early 1920s until his death in the 1950s. With them, his work found immense popularity in the years after the Second World War.

Joseph Maréchal: Kant and Aquinas Born in Belgium only six months before Rousselot, Maréchal also joined the Jesuits at age sixteen. He was interested in experimental psychology and biology and was sent to study at Louvain, receiving his doctorate in 1905 in the natural sciences. Assigned to teach biology to younger Jesuits, in 1910 he took a philosophy position at the Jesuit college in Louvain. At the beginning of the war, he was sent to England, where he taught philosophy and began what would be his most important and controversial work, the five-volume Le Point de départ de la métaphysique: Leçons sur le développement historique et théorique du problème de la connaissance.120 In 1919, after the war, he returned to Belgium and began teaching experimental psychology, writing a number of articles on religious psychology, and 116 For more on the link between de Lubac and Teilhard, see David Grumett, ‘Eucharist, Matter, and the Supernatural: Why de Lubac Needs Teilhard’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 10/2 (2008): 165–78. 117 Aidan Nichols, No Bloodless Myth: A Guide through Balthasar’s Dramatics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd, 2000), 204. 118 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Henri de Lubac: An Overview (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 88 119 Balthasar, The Theology of Henri de Lubac, 88. 120 Joseph Maréchal, Le Point de départ de la métaphysique: Leçons sur le développement historique et théorique du problème de la connaisance, 5 vols (Cahiers I–V), 3rd ed. (Paris: Éditions Desclée de Brouwer, 1944–1949).

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between 1922 and 1923 he published the first three volumes of Le Point, called Cahiers, which contained his lecture notes on the history of philosophy. After the release of the third volume dealing with Kant, he was suspected of strong Kantian sympathies and was forced to defend himself, delaying Cahier IV on German Idealism. He released Cahier V in 1926, a work that attempted to bring Scholasticism and critical philosophy into dialogue, and he applied a stricter Kantian reading to Aquinas than Rousselot.121 He retired from teaching in 1935 and continued to work until his death in 1944. Cahier IV was only published posthumously.

Blondel, German Idealism, and the Drive toward the Absolute Although Maréchal always professed devotion to Aquinas, his interest in modern philosophy emerged early, and in 1899, he received permission from his superiors to read Kant and soon found Kant’s critical approach to be of tremendous value.122 Three years later he began studying the works of Bergson, William James, and Blondel.123 His attempt to import Kantian language and concepts into a traditional Thomistic epistemology was influenced by German Idealism, especially the thought of Fichte and his subordination of discursive reason to the intellect, and given the active and predominate role Maréchal assigns to the intellect over discursive reason, many have found an essential synergy between the projects of Maréchal and Rousselot.124 However, unlike Rousselot, his epistemology was based not on intuition but on an a priori intellectual dynamism in which every act of judgement extends beyond the formal objects of the intellect, leaving it only partially unsatisfied.125 For Maréchal, a phenomenological examination testifies to an intellectual drive for the infinite.126 Maréchal was greatly influenced by Blondel, with whom he had been in contact since the early 1900s, and Rousselot. After he read L’Action he wrote to Blondel: I am happy that a popular little philosophical work offers me the opportunity of presenting my respects to you, M. Blondel, as a token of admiration which, though obscure, is considered and very sincere. With several of my colleagues, all of them eager to understand before judging, I read and re-read Action: we were won over by the vigour and fullness of a thought which knows how to return to 121 Christian Dupont, ‘Receptions of Phenomenology in French Philosophy and Religious Thought, 1889–1939’. PhD diss. (University of Notre Dame, 1997), 364. 122 Ronald McCamy, Out of a Kantian Chrysalis: A Maritainian Critique of Fr. Maréchal (New York NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 1998), 109. 123 Dupont, ‘Receptions of Phenomenology’, 368. 124 125 McCamy, Out of a Kantian Chysalis, 22. Maréchal, Cahier V, 378. 126 Maréchal, Cahier V, 380.

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the great metaphysical tradition without ignoring any of the exigencies of the critique of knowledge . . . Convinced Thomists and devoted sons of the Church, we beg you to believe in our profound and respectful sympathy not only for you as a man as well as a philosopher.127

Maréchal’s idea of the dynamic intellect begins to expose the debt he owed to Blondel.128 A certain ‘correlative unity’, or reciprocal relationship, exists between the intellect and the will, which are interdependent in the process of intellectual apprehension, and marked by an a priori desire for being: ‘Therefore, our intellectual nature, before any intellectual act, must have in itself, that is to say, in the correlative unity of our two great faculties, considered according to their first respective acts, an a priori condition, at the same time formal and dynamic, namely, the capacity and desire, both unlimited, de l’être.’129 Thus, for Maréchal, the human mind drives toward the absolute, and although this desire for God is absolute and unconditional, its fulfilment remains only possible, as the intuition of absolute Being is in no way owed by God.130 In conclusion, Maréchal’s philosophical work was primarily focused on finding points of contact between Aquinas and Kant. Moreover, like Rousselot, he imported certain Blondelian insights into his thought, such as the dynamism that exists between the intellect and the will. For Maréchal, every act of judgement compels the intellect towards its final end, the Necessary Being of God. The Fourvière Jesuits befriended Maréchal during their years of formation in the 1920s, and his thought was central to their epistemological development. The Jesuit and Dominican generations of 1890 and 1912 were the decisive and immediate influences on the nouveaux théologiens, and with these two generations we begin to see a development that will continue at Fourvière and Le Saulchoir. The de Grandmaison generation (1890), preferring dialogue to polemics, attempted to engage modernity with positive theology that put Scholasticism in contact with history and modern thought. The journal Recherches became a point of contact between Catholic theology and history. The generation of 1912, however, deeply wanted to heal the divide between the sacred and the secular in French society, and they applied positive theology to Blondelian, Kantian, and Neoplatonic thought. Valensin diligently championed Blondelian thought to those around him and advocated an historical approach to philosophy that discerned what was important in each age, largely

127 Phyllis Kaminski, ‘Seeking Transcendence in the Modern World’. In Catholicism Contending with Modernity, ed. Darrell Jodock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 134. 128 For a fuller treatment of the Blondelian influence of Maréchal’s outline of the relationship between the intellect and the will, see Van Riet, Thomistic Epistemology, 270. 129 130 Maréchal, Cahier V, 404. Maréchal, Cahier V, 422.

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along Blondelian lines. Finally, while Huby was a great disciple of Rousselot, Teilhard, and Maréchal each sought their own rapprochement between Catholic thought and material science and Kantian criticism, respectively. We shall see in Chapter 4 (p. 96) how the generational thought of these éveilleurs provided the sedimentation on which the Fourvière Jesuits would erect their own programme during their years of formation in the 1920s.

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4 1920s The Formation of the Generation of 1930

There is no doubt that the First World War was the definitive event that actualized the generation of 1930, giving them a prophetic clarity and absolute certainty that they stood at the end of an age and were tasked with a great mission of reconstruction.The post-war French Church of the 1920s was shot with complex and sometimes contradictory impulses of fear, optimism, and opportunity. The Church had indeed rallied to the nationalist cause, and by sending her sons to defend French soil, the anticlerical bureaucrats of the Third Republic were forced to allow for greater official integration of the Church in French society. Despite this opening certain anxieties regarding the Modernist crisis returned soon after the war. In a debate that would last for over forty years, Catholic intellectuals contested whether the Modernist threat was indeed over, or merely hiding beneath the surface of ecclesiastical life and thought, waiting for a more opportune time to re-emerge. While moderates such as de Grandmaison argued for a détente, conservative forces, such as the French daily the Nouvelliste were unwavering in their affirmation that Modernism still remained an immanent danger. The theological and philosophical implications of this debate spilled out most strongly in the political sphere. Although Leo XIII’s ralliement had not moved the French Catholic masses in 1891 closer to the Third Republic, there were many more voices after the war that called for a more cooperative and affirming attitude toward secular liberalism, and especially forms of democracy, socialism, and even Marxism. Furthermore, in 1926, the French Church was upended by Pope Pius XI’s condemnation of Action française, forbidding Catholics, under pain of excommunication from membership in the antirepublican party. This was a disastrous blow to conservative French Catholics, of which there were many. Prominent Catholics protested. The influential Cardinal Louis Billot returned his red hat to the pope, and Henri Le Floch, the head of the French seminary in Rome, then a veritable citadel of anti-Modernism, was forced to resign. Compounding the problem for conservatives was the fact that Pius had enlisted the most prominent French Catholic intellectual and supporter of Action française, Jacques Maritain, to defend his decision publicly.

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Pius had altered the landscape of French Catholicism permanently, forcing conservative French intellectuals to set out independently. Maritain’s stunning about-face resulted several years later in the equally influential and controversial book, Humanisme intégral, which would be the political manifesto for the Catholic intellectuals of the generation 1930 by arguing that not only was modern political liberalism acceptable to Catholics but in fact was a positive development and provided a necessary point of engagement in a pluralistic society. Adding insult to injury, he did this on Thomistic grounds. Thus, the decade of the 1920s saw the simultaneous descent of conservative Catholicism— which would be near-complete only after the Second World War—and the ascent of Social, or Left Catholicism, as it has been called. This is the backdrop to the formation of the nouveaux théologiens, which will occupy us in this chapter. Although the formation of the Le Saulchoir Dominicans will emerge at certain points in the narrative, theirs was fairly irenic, taken up primarily with studies of classical Thomism. Thus the primary focus will be the Fourvière Jesuits, whose lengthy formation was characterized by ‘a conflict that marked them indelibly’.1 It was during these years that the Jesuits were exposed to the philosophical and theological influences that would define their future intellectual positions. Thus, I shall apply generational theory to the Fourvière Jesuits, and, with the assistance of unpublished archival correspondence and documentation, I shall undertake an ‘archaeology’ of the social networks and institutions of their ‘young student years where friendships are forged easily and influences exert themselves on soft ground’.2 As a preamble, however, I shall discuss their entrance into the Jesuits in 1913, an experience which exposed them straight away to the ideological tensions in the waning years of the Modernist crisis, as well as analyse the effects of the war on not only the Jesuits but also on the larger generation of 1930. This study will expose the intellectual roots of the Fourvière Jesuits more deeply and help us in Chapter 6 (p. 156) to understand better how these roots will direct their responses as emerging intellectuals to the 1930s’ crises.

A P REAMBLE: EARLY F ORMATION A N D TH E W A R YE A R S De Lubac, Fessard, d’Ouince, de Soros, and Nicolet all entered the Jesuits in 1913, were exposed immediately to the sharp polemics of the Modernist crisis, and left to fight in the war in 1915. De Lubac was raised in an intensely Catholic environment in Lyon during the politically and religiously 1 Étienne Fouilloux, Chenu, Marie-Dominique, website of the French Dominicans, accessed on 28 September 2017, http://dominicains.revues.org/85. 2 Jean-François Sirinelli, Génération intellectuelle: khâgneux et normaliens dans l’entre deux guerres (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 12.

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contentious period we described in Chapter 2 (p. 62) characterized by Catholic integrism, Le Sillon, Action française, and restorationism.3 In 1912, after completing his baccalauréat, he was deeply influenced by a book by de Grandmaison, Huby, and Rousselot, Christus: manuel d’histoire des religions. Entering the Jesuits the following year, he began his novitiate at St Leonards-on-Sea, and he later described two formative events that foreshadowed the direction his formation would take in the years after the war: ‘two memories of the novitiate that cut through the daily grind come back to me. It was at SaintLeonards that I saw Auguste Valensin for the first time, who was at the novitiate for his “troisième an”.’4 De Lubac recalled that Valensin gave two conferences, ‘one on the young Catholic Normaliens in Paris that enthralled me’.5 We can only wish that notes from this conference were in our possession as they might recount de Lubac’s first exposure to the Blondelian thought that would direct his future work. Recounting the second happening, de Lubac wrote that ‘in January 1914, Father Master read in the refectory—which was something extraordinary, because we were kept far away from news, even religious, and we never, of course, could see a newspaper—an article published by Études, “Critiques negatives et tâches nécessaires.” This article made an enormous impression on me, and I was confused over many things.’6 Written by de Grandmaison and Benoît Émonet, the aumônier of students, the controversial article’s denunciation of anti-Modernist excesses raised the ire of Roman authorities and was a kind of ‘anti-integrist manifesto’.7 The article states: ‘What is extraordinary and totally confused is the extent of the denunciation. There remains no other way of living in communion with Rome than to follow and put oneself at the mercy of the ringleaders of this campaign.’8 This seems to be the first moment when de Lubac was awakened to the controversy surrounding the Church’s strident programme of anti-Modernism, and here we see the influence of the de Grandmaison generation’s preference for dialogue over polemics first sedimented in de Lubac’s generation. Guillet wrote: ‘This article, which had an immediate impact, expressed the malaise and the scandal, not only of intellectual workers but those apostles engaged in the 3

For a description of these early years, see Henri de Lubac, Mémoire sur mes vingt premières années, in HLOC, vol. 23 (Paris: Cerf, 2006). 4 De Lubac, Mémoire sur mes vingt, 418; in the Jesuit formation a third year of novitiate is undertaken after the completion of one’s philosophy and theology; also, see Auguste Valensin, Auguste Valensin, Textes et documents inédit (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1961), 102, n 104. 5 Two conferences were given on 13 and 20 March 1915, respectively titled, ‘Le Mouvement religieux en France dans les Universités’, and ‘Le Mouvement religieux à l’École normale et Pierre Poyer’. 6 Léonce de Grandmaison et al., ‘Critiques négatives et tâches nécessaires’, Études 138 (1914): 5–25; for on overview of this article and its importance, see Georges Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. I (Paris: Cerf, 2007–2013), 280–8. 7 De Lubac, Mémoire sur mes vingt, 418. 8 De Grandmaison et al., ‘Critiques négatives’, 6.

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social work of Action populaire or in the formation of the young in Action catholique de la jeunesse française.’9 De Lubac wrote to his mother less than a week after first hearing the article: ‘We were just read an article in the refectory from the 5 January edition of Études. All the editors signed it. If Father can get a copy (maybe from Fr Costa), it will surely interest him very much. There are several notable critiques of “Nouvelliste” that all hit the mark.’10 Finally, we might add a third event, his first encounter with Joseph Huby. De Lubac vividly recounted in a letter to his parents the impact of a ceremony where Huby came from the theologate several miles away at Ore Place for his solemn vows.11

The First World War France suffered the highest casualties among the allied countries, and among those who served, 77 percent were killed, wounded, or captured.12 Five million of the eight million who were mobilized were killed or wounded, and in all, almost 1.5 million were either killed at the front or died from war-related causes, with another half-million civilian deaths.13 The mutilés—those who returned home disfigured, maimed, mutilated or gassed—numbered 1.1 million.14 Beyond these staggering statistics, however, the real cost of the war cannot be known. The economy was left in ruins, seven million acres of farmland in northern France had been devastated, and 250,000 buildings were totally destroyed, with equally that many sustaining serious damage.15 The upheaval was immense. Moreover, the socio-cultural rupture that resulted was simply catastrophic, and there was a sense that everything that had been stable before the war had been suddenly uprooted and was unusable for the programme of post-war cultural and intellectual reconstruction. As we discussed earlier, the younger generation returned from the trenches and viewed their elders as an institutional rear-guard militia, intent on safeguarding an archaic system of values incoherent to modernity. Valéry’s elegy to the post-war crisis famously lamented one of the foremost casualties of the war, the almost irrepressible 9 Jacques Guillet, La Théologie catholique en France de 1914 à 1960 (Paris: Mediasèvres, 1988), 3. 10 De Lubac, letter to his mother on 11 January from St. Leonards, cited in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. I, 280–1. Nouvelliste was an anti-Modernist publication noted for its strong and sometimes excessive denunciations. 11 De Lubac, Mémoire sur mes vingt, 418, 454, n 102. 12 John Horne, A Companion to World War 1 (Chichester: Blackwells, 2012), 251. 13 Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times: From the Enlightenment to the Present (New York NY: W. W. Norton, 1995), 306. 14 Eugen Weber, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 11. 15 Bernard Cook, ‘The Home Front’, in The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopaedia, ed. Spencer Tucker (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), 264.

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optimism in modernity that so deeply marked the nineteenth century: ‘We later civilizations . . . We too know that we are mortal.’16 For Valéry, the unthinkable—the very death of European civilization—seemed to be at hand: We had long heard tell of whole worlds that had vanished, of empires sunk without a trace, gone down with all their men and all their machines into the unexplorable depths of the centuries . . . And we see now that the abyss of history is deep enough to hold us all. We are aware that a civilization has the same fragility as a life . . . The military crisis may be over. The economic crisis is still with us in all its force. But the intellectual crisis, being more subtle and by its nature, assuming the most deceptive appearances (since it takes its place in the very realm of dissimulation) . . . this crisis will hardly allow us to grasp its true extent, its phase.17

The War Generation Literature and art were also shaken by the war, and the younger generation of artists reacted more violently; many underwent a psychic upheaval. They felt betrayed by the culture they had inherited. From the nightmare world of the trenches, the values and culture of which the nineteenth century had been so proud appeared senseless and meaningless. Even the early works of modernism . . . seemed childish compared to the destruction the war had wrought.18 For [the younger generation] the war signified that the culture had been phoney and was probably to blame for the war. In any case, it was dead. The war completed the triumph of modernism, and indeed the term came into use in the 1920s.19

Out of this milieu, completely uprooted by the war and disillusioned with progressive pre-war notions, Dadaism emerged and sought to protest against established pre-war rationalism, conveying ‘a feeling of chaos, fragmentation, assault on the senses, absurdity, frustration of ordinary norms, pastiche, spontaneity, and posed robotic mechanism’.20 The generation of 1930 sought to ‘return to the living subject and its formative activity’, the ‘ground’ of all

16 Paul Valéry, ‘La Crise de l’esprit’, in Oeuvres de Paul Valéry (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1957), 988; ‘The Crisis of the Mind’, in The Collected Works of Paul Valéry: History and Politics, vol. 10, trans. D. Folliot and J. Mathews (New York NY: Pantheon Books, 1962), 23. 17 Valéry, ‘La Crise’, 988; ‘Crisis of the Mind’, 23. 18 Sowerwine is using modernism in the more general sense, referring to the sweeping cultural, literary, artistic, and philosophical changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 19 Charles Sowerwine, France since 1870: Culture, Society and the Making of the Republic (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 155. 20 Robert Wicks, Modern French Philosophy: From Existentialism to Postmodernism (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003), 10.

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‘forms of culture, philosophy, and science’.21 One writer described the postwar era thus: The meat grinders of Ypres, Tannenberg, the hellish barrages of Verdun and the Isonzo shattered all illusions. A species of men arose from that ghostly landscape of bomb craters and trenches whose bestiality was unconstrained. A free field was given to the Hitlers and Stalins to come . . . [T]his meant a fall into chaos, into impotence and deprivation, hopelessness and squalor. What today is designated by the collective noun bourgeoisie lived with an imperturbable faith in . . . ‘property and learning’. All the trust in life that these two pillars had supported collapsed together with them. The resulting changes in reality were so sudden, unpredicted and incomprehensible that at first they seemed more like a monstrous nightmare. The desire to wake from the bad dream gave rise to the utopia of the 1920s, one of the worst by-products of which was to be the Third Reich. But most people remained stunned and paralyzed: sleepwalkers in an alien present.22

This generational wedge was manifest strongly in philosophy. Although existentialism is most often associated with the Second World War, various intellectuals have seen the First World War as playing a decisive role in overcoming the still dominant Neo-Kantianism.23 They turned away from the notion of an ‘objective’ and ‘exact’ philosophy, discarded blind optimism in scientific enquiry, and instead sought a ‘resurrection of metaphysics’ rooted in a ‘hunger for reality’, ‘unabridged reality’, that promised ‘a direct encounter with “the things themselves.”’24 The horizon of this renewal was regulated by an anthropology that ‘bore the earmarks of that decisive encounter with historicism which in the period following World War I was considered of momentous importance’.25 This historicism fundamentally views the essence of the human person ‘as subject to a historically conditioned unfolding and change, from this results finally the conviction of the relativity of all forms of civilization within the frame of reference of the historically evolving human nature and essence’.26 Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) claimed that ‘the general awareness of the time was transformed only by the terrible shock that the slaughters of World War I brought’, and ‘with one blow the dominant philosophy that had grown up in the second half of the nineteenth century in renewal of Kant’s

21

Ludwig Landgrebe, Major Problems in Contemporary European Philosophy (New York: F. Ungar Publishing Co., 1966), 9. 22 Paul Valéry, quoted in Robin Darling Young, ‘A Soldier of the Great War: Henri de Lubac and the Patristic Sources for a Premodern Theology’, in After Vatican II: Trajectories and Hermeneutics, ed. James Heft (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2012), 151. 23 Dermot Moran, introduction to The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophy, ed. Dermot Moran (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), 29; Stephen Michelman, The A to Z of Existentialism (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2008), 2. 24 25 Landgrebe, Major Problems, 7–9. Landgrebe, Major Problems, 11. 26 Landgrebe, Major Problems, 10.

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critical idealism was rendered untenable’.27 This blow provided an ‘opportunity for students hungry for meaning and relevance to explore the new more “concrete” philosophies, such as phenomenology (Husserl), Lebensphilosophie (Simmel, Dilthey), existentialism (Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), and mysticism’.28 It was these latter two thinkers that Gadamer saw as providing the vocabulary for the post-war philosophical revolution. The forces that carried out the critique of this dominant Neo-Kantianism philosophy had two powerful precursors: Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of Platonism and Christianity, and Søren Kierkegaard’s brilliant attack on the Reflexionphilosophie of speculative idealism. The two philosophical catchwords confronted the neo-Kantian preoccupation with methodology. One was the irrationality of life, and of historical life in particular . . . The other catchword was Existenz . . . Just as Kierkegaard had criticized Hegel as the philosopher of reflection who had forgotten existence, so now the complacent system-building of neo-Kantian methodologism, which had placed philosophy entirely in the service of establishing scientific cognition, came under a critical attack.29

For Gadamer, the post-war emergence of Heiddeger’s thought ‘effectively communicated to a wide public something of the new spirit that had engulfed philosophy as a result of the convulsions of World War I’.30 Gabriel Marcel, the French existentialist who converted to Catholicism in 1929, in fact argued after the Second World War that Heidegger’s notion of ‘being unto death’ was rooted in the experience of death felt so prevalently by the youth during the First World War.31 Heidegger’s work left readers seized by the vehemence of its passionate protest against the secured cultural world of the older generation and the levelling of all individual forms of life by industrial society, with its ever stronger uniformities and its techniques of communication and public relations that manipulated everything. Heiddeger contrasted the concept of the authenticity of Dasein, which is aware of its finitude and resolutely accepts it, with the “They,” “idle chatter” and “curiosity,” as fallen and inauthentic forms of Dasein.32

The deaths soon after the war of two of the leading liberal Protestant theologians who had dominated the theology of the pre-war period, Adolph von Harnack and Ernst Troeltsch, likewise, signalled the end of a theological age. Paul Tillich wrote: When Harnack spoke in 1923, three years before his own death, at Troeltsch’s funeral, the first earthquake of the world to which both men had belonged had 27 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David Linge (Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1976), 213. 28 29 Moran, Routledge Companion, 29. Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, 214. 30 Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, 214. 31 Gabriel Marcel, ‘Un débat sur le philosophie de l’existence’, Dieu Vivant 2 (1946), 121–6. 32 Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, 214–15.

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already happened. They died in an atmosphere strange to that in which they had lived for most of their lives. And it seems that in Europe neo-Protestantism died with them. It had received its first death blow in the hell of the trenches of the First World War and in the following social and political catastrophes.33

Moreover, the effect that the First World War had on the thinking of the French Jesuits cannot be overestimated. Valéry’s ominous foretelling was echoed by de Lubac fifty years later, as he surveyed the post-conciliar world, writing that the spiritual crisis, ‘such that the Church is rarely shaken by . . . is the fatal aftershock of the crise de civilization, initiated by the war of 1914, which has been accelerated by the rapid progress and profound upheavals of every order’.34 D’Ouince wrote that ‘[a]t Jersey and Hastings, Fr Teilhard and his friends had not expected the war to give their programme an entirely different scope. In their eyes, the political and social battles, of which they were the victims, constituted only the symptoms of a battle much more grave in the domain of the spirit’.35 Of the 841 Jesuits who were called into service, 164 were killed.36 De Lubac himself was injured twice, once in the arm at Eparges, where Rousselot had been killed, and a second time more seriously at Verdun. As we mentioned before, a wide political and social ditch existed before 1914 between Catholic and secular France, as both sides remained suspicious of one another. The war, however, suddenly brought these groups face to face, exposing them to concrete humanity rather than various ideological abstractions. Jesuit historian John Padberg recalls a conversation with Fessard, who stressed the importance of the war in the breaking down of these walls: Yes, Father [Padberg], that experience of being in the army was revelatory for many of us young French Jesuits. While in exile out of France and cut off from ordinary French life during our studies, we gained the impression, fostered sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly or even unconsciously, that it was Catholics pre-eminently and perhaps alone and perhaps especially religious such as we were who knew what it really meant to be fully people of integrity. Then we got into the trenches during the war, served with men of all points of view, from the ardent, practicing Catholic to the indifferent Catholic, to a man indifferent to any religion, to someone quite incredulous about religion, to another one quite hostile to the Catholic faith and to Catholics as such. And we found within that whole range, including those who were ardently non-Catholic,

33 Paul Tillich, ‘The Present Theological Situation in Light of the Continental European Development’, Theology Today 6/3 (1949): 301. 34 Henri de Lubac, La Prière du Père Teilhard de Chardin, in HLOC, vol. 24 (Paris: Cerf, 2007), 379, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 37. 35 René D’Ouince, Un Prophète en procès: Teilhard de Chardin dans l’Église de son temps, t. I (Paris: Aubier, 1970), 53. 36 Étienne Fouilloux, ‘Épilogues. Les jésuites de France, du XIXe au XXe siècle’, in Les jésuites à Lyon: XVIe–XXe siècle, eds. É. Fouilloux and B. Hours (Lyon: École normale supérieure, 2005), 261.

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that there were men of courage, of loyalty, of generosity, of intelligence, of integrity. That experience opened our eyes. And when the war ended, there were among us Jesuits those who resolved that we would never again allow ourselves to be cut off from the real world in which we lived, which we were called to understand and to interact with. How could we be witnesses to the gospel to the men of our times if we did not know those times and those men? That, among other reasons, is why some of us have tried to help change the Society in these many years.37

Many Jesuits returned from the fighting to enter insular religious houses of formation virtually unchanged from the nineteenth century, fixed in a mode of living and ideology untenable and incoherent to the youth. A sudden generational divide emerged between the scholastics and their professors and superiors. Hamel wrote to de Lubac in 1923: ‘If the war had not brought the intellectual and social openings that it did, would we be any broader than our professors, and would we have understood the value of personal work, historicity, and honour for our masters?’38 Georges Chantraine has noted that those Jesuits who had begun their studies after returning from the war were ‘older, more mature, and capable of comparing the teaching they received with their own thoughtful experience during the war’.39 Thus we can include the wartime military in the structures of sociability that shaped them. The army was a secular institution that essentially forced them into the closest of quarters with an ideologically, religiously, and, as we saw in Chapter 1 (p. 36–7), generationally diverse group of men under the most extreme of circumstances, with whom they ate, slept, talked, and faced death on a daily basis. Moreover, the dramatic contrast of the wartime trench, which provided shelter and close fraternal contact for Catholics and non-Catholics alike, against the stark monolithic exile of their conservative Jesuit formation in England, would certainly not have been negligible and no doubt would have inspired them all the more to heal the divide in France between the sacred and secular. As d’Ouince remarked, for Teilhard’s generation their English formation would have been a constant reminder of the ditch that existed in French society between the Church and society. To underscore how important this impulse was in the whole project of Catholic reform in France, it might be worthwhile to recall that Blondel was animated by a similar desire during his years at the École normale, as Catholics, nicknamed les talas, were continually singled out and reminded of the gulf that existed between them and their fellow students.40 The image of the trench, in which the Fourvière Jesuits were 37

John Padberg, e-mail message to author, 13 September 2013. Hamel, letter to de Lubac, 21 December 1923, AJV. 39 Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 134. 40 Blondel recalls on his first day at the École being asked: ‘how can a boy who seems intelligent still call himself tala?’, Oliva Blanchette, Maurice Blondel: A Philosophical Life (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 4. 38

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crowded with men whom they disagreed with but nonetheless depended on for survival, seems itself to be a profound inversion of the images which Blondel and Teilhard’s generation were presented with. Furthermore, this post-war embrace of existentialism by the younger generation of intellectuals helps to explain why the Fourvière Jesuits were so drawn to the concrete, dramatic phenomenology of Blondelian thought. Jesuit Michel Sales writes of Fessard: This test [of war in the trenches] when he was still almost a child marked him deeply and gave him the style of sensibility that was his all in act, devoid of all sentimentality. At more than seventy years old, he would evoke the decisive experience that marked his entire existence: being face to face with the daily unconscionable reality of death. In addition to this experience and the overcrowding in the trenches with the millions of soldiers of his generation, he would soon after find in the philosophy of Maurice Blondel an inspiration and a philosophical method able to articulate the science pratique which he had lived.41

In fact, older Jesuits such as Teilhard and Rousselot went to war already steeped in existential philosophy and saw the war through its lens. In a letter to his cousin, Teilhard spoke of having a ‘nostalgia for the front’.42 Rooted in a razor sharp phenomenal awareness with action as a fundamental principle, Blondel’s surge of the will or Bergson’s élan vital explains the collective or social dimension of the war, which serves as a kind of unifying ground: There is such a feeling, without any doubt at all . . . The front cannot but attract us, because it is, in one way, the extreme boundary between what one is already aware of, and what is still in process of formation. Not only does one see things that you experience nowhere else, but also one sees emerge from within one an underlying stream of clarity, energy, and freedom that is to be found hardly anywhere in the ordinary life—and the new form that the soul then takes on is that of the individual living the quasi-collective life of men, fulfilling a function far higher than that of the individual, and becoming fully conscious of this new state.43

In conclusion, many of the Fourvière Jesuits entered religious life during the Modernist crisis and, through the influence of older Jesuit generations, became wary of the anti-Modernist crusade. Furthermore, the war caused tremendous

41 Michel Sales, Gaston Fessard, 1897–1978: genèse d’une pensée; suivi d’un résumé du ‘Mystère de la société’ par Gaston Fessard (Bruxelles, Culture et vérité, 1997), 10. 42 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, letter to his cousin, Marguerite, 25 September 1917, in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Genèse d’une pensée: Lettres 1914–1919 (Paris: Grasset, 1961), 265–7; The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier Priest—1914–1919, trans. René Hague (Orlando FL: Harcourt, 1978), 204–6; also, see Teilhard’s essay ‘La Nostalgie du front’, in Écrits du temps de la guerre (Paris: Grasset, 1965), 199–215. 43 Teilhard de Chardin, Genèse, 266–7; The Making of a Mind, 205.

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intellectual and social upheavals in France, and the combat experience of the Fourvière Jesuits left them wanting to open Catholic thought to modernity and Blondelian philosophy. In these two events, their exposure in the novitiate to older generations of Jesuits and their war experiences, we see the presence of the innate and acquired influences we discussed earlier, innate being the genetic baggage handed off, so to say, by older generations and éveilleurs and acquired referring to the formative effect of an external crisis.

Dominicans during the War Although some Dominicans fought in the First World War and had experiences similar to those of the Jesuits, I will mention only in passing the whereabouts of Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar during the war years. Like de Lubac, Chenu entered the novitiate at Le Saulchoir in 1913, and likewise developed an early aversion to Neoscholasticism. Exempted from military service due to poor health, he was sent to Rome for studies after Le Saulchoir closed following the outbreak of hostilities. A year after ordination in 1919 he completed his doctoral thesis on contemplation in Aquinas under Garrigou-Lagrange. He then famously rejected Garrigou’s offer to teach at the Angelicum under his mentorship in favour of returning to his beloved Le Saulchoir, where he became professor of the history of Christian doctrine. Although Congar was too young for conscription, the First World War proved to be decisive for him, as his hometown, Sedan, was captured by the Germans. The local Catholic church was destroyed by a bomb, and his father was taken prisoner. In a sentiment that would foreshadow his later enthusiasm for ecumenism, he was greatly moved by the generosity of the local Protestant pastor who allowed local Catholics to worship in their chapel throughout the war. Furthermore, it was during the wartime years that young Yves first felt a call to the priesthood as he yearned to preach the Gospel to a civilization in such need of hope.

A Post-War Debate For French Catholics, the 1920s were shaped in important ways by the memory of the Modernist crisis. With the exception of George Tyrrell, the Modernists were still alive and in some cases were still intellectually active. Moreover, they were seen by some in the Church as martyrs. Soon after the war ended, questions regarding the danger of a Modernist resurgence emerged. This question was closely related to the larger question of the value of Modernism, which had been heatedly discussed, as we saw earlier.

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Simply put: were the Modernists asking legitimate theological and philosophical questions, or rather, were they wholesale to be condemned as rebellious rationalists, hopelessly imbued with the spirit of Kant and Hegel? In 1922, de Grandmaison argued forcefully that in fact the Modernist threat was over and a recurrence unlikely. He argued that the errors and equivocations of the Modernists were now too well known: The fundamental notions of truth, revelation, dogma, and the development of doctrine have been discussed and deepened. It would be difficult to imagine that these considerable efforts were in vain, especially since the Magisterium of the Church has taken care not only to recall but to clarify the limits of the data of revelation and theology. By means of condemned propositions, synthetic description, affirmations to be subscribed to and professed, the Modernist error has been condemned in all its aspects and discovered and denounced in all its guises.44

De Grandmaison further argued that young priests and researchers were largely immune from Modernism thanks to the development of positive theology and a more sophisticated understanding of Scholasticism, but he warned against conservative reactionaries who ‘denounced the imaginary dangers of criticism and history’.45 For de Grandmaison, however, it was the timely and aggressive action of Pius X that put a decisive end to the crisis. However, de Grandmaison’s Jesuit confrère, Cardinal Louis Billot, surveyed the ecclesiastical field with strikingly different observations when Pius XI questioned him regarding the possibility of calling an ecumenical council to complete the work of Vatican I. Billot argued that the age of ecumenical councils was over. They were, he said, expensive and difficult to convene, but he added, here is the most serious reason, the one which would seem to me absolutely to militate for a negative reply. Resuming the Council is desired by the worst enemies of the Church, the modernists, who are already getting ready—as quite certain indications reveal—to profit from the estates general of the Church in order to make revolution, a new ’89, the object of their dreams and hopes. They will not succeed, of course, but we would see again those very sad days of the end of the pontificate of Leo XIII and of the beginning of that of Pius X; we would see things even worse, and it would annihilate the happy fruits of the Encyclical Pascendi which silenced them all.46

44 Léonce de Grandmaison, ‘Une Nouvelle crise moderniste et-elle possible?’ Etudes (1923), 648. 45 De Grandmaison, ‘Une Nouvelle’, 656. 46 Joseph Komonchak, ‘Popes Pius XI and Pius XII and the Idea of an Ecumenical Council’, https://jakomonchak.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/pius-xi-pius-xii-on-a-council.pdf (accessed 23 May 2017). Komonchak is quoting from Giovanni Caprile’s Il Concilio Vaticano II, V, Rome: Ed. ‘La Civiltà Cattolica,’ 1969, pp. 681–701.

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A BLONDELIAN P HILOSOPHICAL FORMATION

1919–20: A First Taste of Rousselot The Fourvière Jesuits who had served in the war were discharged, and reentered the Society in 1919, and de Montcheuil, who was several years too young to fight, entered in 1917. For three months after his re-entry (25 September to 9 December), de Lubac lived in Lyon (Sainte-Fois-lèsLyon), where he had access to a number of Rousselot’s works and unpublished papers, entrusted to Valensin during the war and since deposited there. There were letters to figures such as Blondel and Laberthonnière, as well as papers and notes that would surely have been for de Lubac a kind of sudden immersion into the issues of Modernism. Moreover, articles in the collection such as ‘l’Esprit de saint Thomas’, ‘Métaphysique thomiste et critique de la connaissance’, and ‘Idéalisme et thomisme’, then unpublished, would have unveiled a way of reading Aquinas far removed from the official textbooks.47 Several months later de Lubac was sent to Saint Mary’s College in Canterbury (December 1919-September 1920) for a year of Greek, Latin, and French study, and there he first read l’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas. Also during these first months, he met and quickly became close friends with Fessard. These novices entered into a Jesuit environment already polemically charged, and the contentious situation they had experienced in the novitiate before the war was now intensified. By 1920, Rousselot’s theories had become increasingly popular in the order, and the General of the Jesuits, Wlodomir Ledochowski, convened an international committee of theologians to study them. On 15 July, it was forbidden to teach or defend Rousselot’s positions in the Society, and the condemnation contained appendices on Rousselot’s principal theses and publications.48 Throughout that summer an attempt was made to eradicate his influence from the Jesuit scholasticates, as Ledochowski ordered visits to the French province by the Jesuit Auguste Bulot. In his memoirs, de Lubac recalls that upon Bulot’s arrival at Louvain he was picked up at the train station by Pierre Charles, who asked what he thought of ‘Les Yeux de foi’. Bulot replied: ‘I’m coming here precisely to put them out.’49 47 For a list of the Rousselot’s papers that de Lubac would have seen, see Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 761–3. 48 For an introduction and translation of the first appendix which includes sections on the perception of motives of credibility, the act of faith, and the relationship between the light of faith and good will; see Avery Dulles, introduction to ‘Principal Theses of the Position of Pierre Rousselot’, in Eyes of Faith, by Pierre Rousselot (New York NY: Fordham University Press, 1990), 113–17. 49 Henri De Lubac, At the Service of the Church: Henri de Lubac Reflects on the Circumstances that Occasioned his Writings, trans. Anne Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), 21, n 11; Henri De Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits (Namur: Culture et vérité, 1989), in HLOC, vol. 33. 18, n. 12.

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Neither Huby nor Valensin escaped the purge. The former, forbidden to teach fundamental theology, was confined to biblical exegesis, and the latter was removed from the Jersey scholasticate.50 As we saw in Chapter 3 (p. 80), Valensin’s superiors had long been wary of him, and quite telling is the note he received from a superior not long before his dismissal: ‘I can assure you that no one here thinks you align yourself with Louvain.51 The only serious reproach they have heard, from a doctrinal point of view, is that you have driven away certain students from the teaching of the professors by encouraging them instead to read Sertillanges and Rousselot.52 Although neither one of them is heterodox, their works seem to me a little dangerous.’53 Before he left Jersey, however, in an event that may well have been the post-war resuscitation of the debate concerning the desire for God, Valensin gave a conference on Blondel in which he stressed the ‘besoin du Surnaturel’. All this was ‘in the air’ at Jersey as de Lubac and the others arrived there at the end of the summer to begin their philosophy studies.

1920–1: Philosophy Year I—Learning to Read Aquinas Three years of philosophy were begun at Jersey (September 1920 to September 1923), and these first years in many ways laid the foundation for many of the important intellectual projects that would occupy the Fourvière Jesuits. They were immersed in the writings of Blondel and Rousselot, and de Lubac’s first studies on the question of the desire for God unfolded. Their correspondence reveals an intellectual development almost staggering in its breadth, and during this period Fessard and de Lubac read Augustine, Pascal, Plotinus, Blondel, Rousselot, Maréchal, Bergson, Hamelin, Lachelier, de Biran, Boutroux, Leibniz, and Malebranche, as well as secondary literature on Fichte and Schelling. We might wonder whether this breadth was in part stimulated by the memory of Valensin’s history of philosophy courses, which spanned ‘the entire history of philosophy from the ancient Greeks to contemporary

50 Dulles, ‘Principal Theses’, 113; Peter Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, Social Catholicism, & Action Française: The Clash over the Church’s Role in Society during the Modernist Crisis (Washington, DC: CUA, 2009), 91. 51 As we saw earlier, some Belgian Jesuits at Louvain, including Maréchal and Sheuer, were under suspicion in Rome for their supposed enthusiasm for constructing a Kantian and Thomistic synthesis. 52 Antonin Sertillanges (1863–1948) was a French Dominican who founded the Revue thomiste in 1893 and fell under suspicion during the Modernist crisis for his work on dogma. For a summary of his thought on this question, see Guy Mansini, What is Dogma? The Meaning and Truth of Dogma in Edouard Le Roy and his Opponents (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1985), 48–52. 53 Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 139.

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authors such as Lachelier and Hamelin and, of course, Blondel’.54 Moreover, they remained current on various theological controversies, recommending or critiquing such figures as Gilson, Maritain, Gardeil, and de Tonquédec. Likewise, many of their early outlines and essays are indicative of future trajectories, and they wrote on such topics as the desire for God, knowledge of God, conceptual knowledge, freedom, and apologetics.55 With Valensin gone, the philosophy instruction was handled by two avowed Suarezians, Gabriel Picard and Pedro Descoqs, who we saw earlier opposed Blondel during the Semaines sociales controversy. Letters from this period indicate that these two professors, especially Descoqs, were a continual brake on their desire to pursue modern thought, and according to the students, ‘there was a watertight bulkhead between the professors and us (with the exception of P. Valensin) . . . When we go to see them, they are on the defensive and reserved, as in the face of an attacking enemy which they must fight off; few have the attitude of teachers concerned for their students.’56 Also, during his first year at Jersey, de Lubac and Fessard continued their introduction to Aquinas, which had begun with Rousselot, through Gilson’s controversial Introduction au système de S. Thomas d’Aquin, whose provocative first edition had been published two years earlier.57 De Lubac wrote much later to Sales: In our first year of philosophy at Jersey, Gaston Fessard and I clicked right away, and as our only professor, Fr Camille Bonnet . . . was totally empty of clarity, nobody encouraged us to study Saint Thomas. Thus, it was necessary to figure out how to make our first intellectual steps ourselves . . . It is thanks to Gilson that I took a certain overall view of Saint Thomas. His Philosophie de saint Thomas was kept was in a locked cabinet of ‘modern philosophy’ books in a common room which was opened during holidays.58

Gilson was a controversial first guide into the thought of Aquinas, as he argued that for Aquinas philosophy and theology are inseparable. Gilson was also accused of undermining the alleged Aristotelian ‘scholastic synthesis’.59 In regard to the second point, Gilson followed in 1924 with Le Philosophie de

54

Valesin, Auguste Valensin, 121. For de Lubac’s extensive notes and philosophical investigations on these topics during his first years of philosophy, see Henri de Lubac, Jersey: Dissertations et Gribouillis, Notes de Philosophie, Les archives jésuites de Vanves (AJV hereafter). 56 Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 121–32, 305–19; a Jesuit is quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 121. 57 Étienne Gilson, Introduction au système de S. Thomas d’Aquin (Strasbourg: Vix, 1922). 58 De Lubac, letter to Michel Sales, quoted in Chantraine, t. II, 137. 59 John Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1984), 6. 55

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saint Bonaventure, which attempted to show that Bonaventure differed significantly from Aquinas in key areas.60 Likewise, during these early years, de Lubac had read Rousselot extensively, transcribed his unpublished papers, and shared them with the other Jesuits. Besides l’Intellectualisme de saint Thomas, which I mentioned above, he had read: Pour l’histoire de l’amour au Moyen-Age, ‘Les Yeux de la foi’, ‘Métaphysique thomiste et critique de la connaisssance’, ‘Remarques sur l’histoire de la foi naturelle’, and ‘Idéalisme et thomisme’.61 Recognizing this influence, Balthasar wrote much later that Rousselot gave de Lubac the ‘courage to read out of the texts of Thomas Aquinas what he saw in them with evidence: “the paradox of the spiritual creature that is ordained beyond itself by the innermost reality of its nature to a goal that is unreachable for it and that can only be given by a gift of grace.” ’62 De Lubac’s approach to Aquinas is illuminated in a long letter to de Montcheuil during the period, where he discussed how Rousselot had pushed him to overcome certain problems in Aquinas. Because if it is true that Thomism’s theory of the agent intellect, the phantasm, and the essence of things is now untenable, as you claim, and also that they constitute the most apparent part of the doctrine of Aquinas, then, on the other hand, it seems to me also true that we find explicitly in St Thomas certain principles even more fundamental. When these are drawn out, they overshadow the famous ‘material essences’, thus permitting a disciple of St Thomas to sacrifice them without being unfaithful to the master. Rousselot remarked in his thesis that if St Thomas held to the essences, it was because he was preoccupied with higher things. He does not take the trouble to verify the copper treasure that the world of his time thought was gold . . . More and more I find in St. Thomas texts that open me to other perspectives.63

1921–2: Philosophy Year II—Blondel and the Desire for God After breathing in for a year the air of Blondel and Rousselot left by Valensin, it is not surprising that the question of the desire for God emerged in the Jesuits’ thought. As we saw earlier, the desire for God was important in both l’Intellectualisme and Pour l’histoire, in which Rousselot even offered a short history of the centrality of the concept in the Western tradition, mentioning especially Plotinus and Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena, Bernard, William of St Thierry, Hugh of St Victor, and most importantly, Aquinas.

60

61 Wippel, Metaphysical Themes, 6. Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 214. Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Henri de Lubac: An Overview (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 13. 63 De Lubac, letter to Yves de Montcheuil, dated Thursday, Autumn 1924, AJV. 62

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In fact, Rousselot noted that although Aquinas ‘had not read the classical exposition on the appetite of all things for God that Plotinus gave in his Third Ennead . . . he would have found there some ideas that he had made his own’.64 In fact, Rousselot’s historical survey of Catholic tradition, knowingly or not, offers a dramatic reinforcement of Blondel’s claim in Histoire et Dogme that ‘the age old experience’ of the desire for God runs through Catholic tradition. Thus, it seems to be a clear mark of Rousselot’s early influence on de Lubac’s interest in the question of natural desire that he began studying Plotinus and Augustine in regard to the desire for God. A small scrap of notepaper seems to indicate the very first steps de Lubac took in his project which would culminate in the Surnaturel controversy twenty-five years later. Given the heading ‘Le désir de Dieu: Plotin’, it offers only a few general scribbles, such as ‘The One does not desire, by nature it is “full.” All other beings desire: they are tasked by nature.’65 Elsewhere in notes on ‘Amour et connaissance’ he writes: ‘If the mind is constantly becoming, it desires itself, and, by desiring itself, desires God who alone can realize it.’66 He continues: ‘The supernatural extends nature, raises it, [and] transforms it . . . The mystery is in this continuity, which is at the same time a transformation in this survival [survivance] of divinized nature . . . The supernatural realizes nature and transforms it.’67 These scraps take on more significance, however, when we examine a letter to his parents written at the end of 1921, where he discussed a presentation on the desire for God in the philosophy of Plotinus and St Augustine which he was to give to a small study group: ‘I shall discuss a point of the philosophy of Plotinus. Plotinus is not very accessible, because he is an obscure author, written in a difficult Greek. The Latin translations are bad enough and French studies on him are insufficient. However, he has great importance concerning certain ideas very common in current philosophy.’68 Almost three weeks later after presenting on Plotinus, he indicated that the topic was too broad and Augustine would be carried into January.69 De Lubac’s talk began by examining two aspects of Plotinus’ thought, the Platonic concepts of descent and ascent, which hang together on the notion of the desire for God: ‘This desire is a desire for being; it is a desire for stability; 64 Pierre Rousselot, Pour l’histoire du problème de l’amour au moyen âge (Münster: Aschendorffsche Buchhandlung, 1908), 32; The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages: A Historical Contribution, trans. Alan Vincelette (Milwaukee WI: Marquette University Press, 2001), 117. 65 66 De Lubac, Jersey: Dissertations, AJV. De Lubac, Jersey: Dissertations, AJV. 67 De Lubac, Jersey: Dissertations, AJV. 68 De Lubac, letter to his father, 1 December 1921, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 163. 69 De Lubac, letter to his father, 1 December 1921, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac t. II, 163.

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it is a desire for unity.’70 Rousselot’s influence is evident as de Lubac argues for the centrality of the desire for God in Aquinas as well as the entirety of the tradition: ‘Thus, in his fundamental idea, Plotinus agrees with St Thomas, as well as all the Christian doctors, by showing that beings are suspended from the first Principle, which is Him for whom they search exclusively in all their activities, conscious or unconscious. In the end, we are all, in our deepest centres, “cris vers Dieu”, in all that we have as being or desire of being [tout ce que nous avons d'être ou de désir d'être].’71 De Lubac cited an article by Rousselot which finds inspiration in the notion of the desire for God, and wrote that ‘the influence of Plotinus crosses a long chain of thinkers and mystics such as Dionysius the Areopagite and Eriugena’, whose ‘immediate master’ was ‘the famous Meister Eckhart’.72 It is Augustine, however, who remedies the problem of reminiscences in Plotinus. De Lubac declares that when Augustine discovered Plotinus through the writings of Victorinus, there ‘was in his soul an illumination. He found there, pulsing on each page, this desire for God which since his adolescence had left him without rest.’73 De Lubac then discusses two readings of Augustine. The first is the intellectualist reading of the Ontologists and Cartesians, ‘who contemplate eternal truths under that action of divine illumination’, proposing instead a mental dynamism, and the second is the voluntarist position of certain Protestants who insist on a diminishment of the will. Traces of Rousselot emerge again as de Lubac attempts to solve this antinomy by arguing that there exists in Augustine’s thought a ‘mental dynamism’, in which ‘all intellection is eminently active’, and in fact, ‘perfect intellection is perfect act’.74 Fundamental to this dynamism is the desire, which drives the intellect but is nonetheless intrinsic to it. De Lubac continued his study by quoting Rousselot, and we find between the handwritten pages of the talk a scrap of paper with a short transcription of a letter from Rousselot to Laberthonnière, which we might presume he copied during his first exposure to Rousselot’s papers right after the war. Moreover, de Lubac’s justification of the questionable presence of this mental dynamism in the thought of Aquinas, which seems to threaten this claim that this dynamism is in fact a unifying concept in Catholic tradition, is a move that Rousselot also made: ‘If we find less explicitly this mental dynamism in St Thomas and the other great doctors of the Middle Ages, it is not that there is nothing in their principles that oppose it . . . but that their preoccupations 70 De Lubac, ‘Le désir de Dieu, dans Plotin et St Augustin’, talks given at Jersey in December and January 1921, Centre d’Archives et d’Études des Cardinal Henri de Lubac (CAÉCHL hereafter), 8. 71 De Lubac, ‘Le désir de Dieu’, CAÉCHL, 11. 72 De Lubac, ‘Le désir de Dieu’, CAÉCHL, 17. 73 De Lubac, ‘Le désir de Dieu’, CAÉCHL, 19. 74 De Lubac, ‘Le désir de Dieu’, CAÉCHL, 22.

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were not the same.’75 Finally, for de Lubac, Augustine ‘so clearly understood the necessity of grace and at the same time analysed his intimate cooperation with the forces de l’esprit’, and ‘his entire oeuvre is at the same time so profoundly supernatural and so marvellously psychological’.76 For Augstine, ‘Desire’ was key, and he ‘understood the monstrosity of all philosophy that itself purports to be sufficient’.77 It was also during the second year that Blondelian philosophy took a strong hold on de Lubac and Fessard, as Valensin had left a strong ‘Blondelian imprint’ behind.78 Apparently by this point, de Lubac already knew Valensin to some degree and gave evidence of having read him, in fact his notes during this period indicate that he had read his article ‘Immanence’ in the Dictionnaire.79 He wrote to his father: ‘I know Valensin a little. He had been a philosophy professor here for a fairly long time, but his health permitted him to teach only a few classes each year. I also know his older brother who has been a professor at the Faculté catholique (Lyon).’80 Chantraine notes that during this time, de Lubac also summarized the long Blondelian conference that Valensin had given at Jersey in 1920 and transcribed an article of his, ‘D'une logique de l’action’.81 De Lubac later wrote: ‘During the years of my philosophy (1920-1923) on Jersey, I had read with enthusiasm Maurice Blondel’s Action, Lettre (on apologetics) and various other studies. Through a praiseworthy exception, some of our masters at that time, who were quite strict in what they excluded from our reading, allowed us, though without encouraging us, to study the thought of the philosopher from Aix. Father Robert Hamel and I read him together.’82 Hamel wrote to de Lubac that before reading Blondel, he ‘could not understand philosophy. The best theory will be the one that casts most exactly real life and gives reasons for its development . . . I'm pressing on with the reading of L’Action, and I think more and more that this is a true masterpiece, especially when one thinks of the difficulty, proven by experience, of making a serious analysis of a state of the soul and treating with scientific precision the logic of feelings.’83 Writing to

De Lubac, ‘Le désir de Dieu’, CAÉCHL, 25. De Lubac, ‘Le désir de Dieu’, CAÉCHL, 34. 77 De Lubac, ‘Le désir de Dieu’, CAÉCHL, 35. 78 Bernard Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil (1900–1944) Précurseur en théologie (Paris: Cerf, 2006), 141. 79 For the small, unmarked scrap of notepaper containing a quotation from Valensin’s article, see De Lubac, Jersey: Dissertations, AJV. 80 De Lubac, letter to his father, 1 December 1921, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 161. De Lubac had no idea why Valensin left Jersey, only finding out much later after going through his old notes and letters. 81 Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 162, n 2; Auguste Valensin, ‘D’une logique de l’action’, Revue de philosophie 1 (1913). 82 De Lubac, Mémoire, 15; At the Service, 19. 83 Hamel, letter to de Lubac, 12 August 1922, AJV. 75 76

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his brother Paul near the end of his second year, de Lubac exclaimed that coursework took up only part of his time, and ‘the rest is spent studying Maurice Blondel and some of the innumerable works that have emerged from his thought over the last thirty years. Although it is extremely interesting, it is difficult, because at each step the problems of pure philosophy are themselves complicated because of theological questions which one is obliged to keep an eye on to some degree.’84 In many ways Blondelian philosophy was what united de Lubac and his friends, providing, as we have seen, a total system and counter-philosophy, a modern alternative to Neoscholasticism. Bouillard, the youngest member of the Fourvière generation, described the influence of Blondel during his student years, when he obtained a mimeographed copy of L’Action, a book which could not be found in bookstores at that time. This book was suspect, and without a competent guide, it was difficult. But deeply disappointed with the scholastic philosophy and apologetics taught in the seminaries in those days, we were searching there for an initiation into modern thought and, even more, the means, which we had not found elsewhere, to understand and to justify our faith . . . I have often discussed with my students L’Action de 1893 and Lettre de 1896 sur l’Apologétiques, and while drawing on other sources, by and large my lessons were inspired largely by Blondelian thought. Others had long been on this path and more still went there in their turn. Therefore, I must testify not only to what I learned from Blondel but also to the influence he had on numerous theologians as well as throughout the whole ensemble of theology.85

Recognizing Blondel’s influence on the French Jesuits, Bouillard noted: ‘These theologians and others too numerous to mention here did not restrict themselves to explaining Blondel’s thought but took inspiration from it and made it bear fruit in their own work. Through them it penetrated the fields of apologetics and theology.’86 A letter from Hamel to de Lubac after the close of their second year gives an insight into how they even interpreted their hardships through the Blondelian lens: The past is joined with the present, and I want with Our Lord and Fr Picard, that you should never close yourself, or at least that you open yourself to receive impressions of peace and joy. ‘A lost year’, you should not take this refrain; it is false. You have suffered and despite your prejudices you have very much indeed

84 De Lubac, letter to his brother Paul, 23 June 1922, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II. 85 Henri Bouillard, ‘Ce que la théologie doit à la pensée de Maurice Blondel’, in Journées d’inauguration, 30–31 Mars 1973: Textes des interventions (Louvain: Éditions de l’Institut supérieur de Philosophie, 1973), text of speech, 41. 86 Henri Bouillard, ‘Ce que la théologie’, 40.

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suffered. This suffering has not been a punishment but a reward. It has resulted in my full and correct understanding of la vie surnaturelle, which I probably would never have had without it.87

1922–3: The Third Year—Individual Projects At the beginning of their third year of philosophy, the Jesuits were clearly more confident in developing their own projects, and the well-known ‘Esquisse’ of de Lubac and Fessard, often referred to in their letters, emerged. Numbering forty-seven pages of single-spaced type, it begins by stating: ‘We know something. Everyone agrees on this fact . . . But what is the value and extent of this knowing?’88 It then briefly sketches three positions: first, that of scientific Kantianism that denies knowledge of the noumena; second, the pragmatist position of Bergson and Le Roy, which subordinates scientific knowing to an intuitional apprehension of the absolute; and finally, a middle position, that of the authors, which attempts to grasp firmly both the objective value of scientific knowing and an apprehension of the absolute. Blondelian influence is evident from the beginning, and the Esquisse ends with a lengthy religious turn taken expressly from Blondel. After providing in a single paragraph a global history of the problem of knowing in Western philosophy culminating in Kant and the critical problems he posed, Fessard and de Lubac insisted that this problem of knowing ‘is a new problem, unknown since the ancients, and it questions even metaphysics itself. Thus epistemology must be the necessary vestibule of philosophy. It is here where we shall stop the instigators of disorder who have launched bombs into the venerable basilica.’89 Moreover, there is a denunciation of Scholasticism, which they claim remains fixed in pre-modern categories. It is, however, the great movement of philosophy in its totality that reveals life and truth. This global, historicizing view of philosophy championed by Valensin bears the clear marks of Blondel’s method of history. If one considers the historical development of philosophy as a continual evolution, can we not give to the critical problem a more important place? If in each epoch, there is a central point from where one envisages everything, can we not consider this problem as that of the point of view of today? Instead of formulating a preliminary thesis which is like a stamp affixed to the package of traditional theses, why not deliberately envisage all the theses according to this new problem?

87

Hamel, letter to de Lubac, Auguste 1922, AJV. Henri de Lubac and Gaston Fessard, Esquisse II (1922–1923). Les archives jésuites de Vanves, AJV, 1. 89 De Lubac and Fessard, Esquisse, AJV, 2. 88

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Instead of regarding 'the moderns' as looking for trouble with those who preceded them, why not try to rethink with our minds of today the Eternal Philosophy?90

Following this introduction, the Esquisse proceeds for more than thirty pages, attempting to establish an epistemology attentive to both science and transcendence, covering such topics as intuition, reflexive analysis, judgement, conceptual knowledge, and the relationship between the subject and object in knowing, all culminating in a Blondelian attempt to find in fundamental acts of the will and intellect an Absolute or Infinite Good, which is underlain by a desire for God.91 Also during this last year of philosophy Fessard completed his thesis on the nineteenth-century French philosopher Maine de Biran, entitled La Méthode de réflexion chez Maine de Biran.92 Fessard’s choice is telling, given that de Biran exercised a significant influence on Blondel’s thought, and Valensin and Laberthonnière had devoted a good deal of time to study of his thought as well.93 Much of the significant correspondence between de Lubac and Fessard during this period is taken up with a discussion of the de Biran thesis. Their exchanges are analytic as well as strategic, and both knew the thesis would be controversial as they sought to cloak certain provocative aspects. For example, Fessard commended de Lubac on an excellent suggestion, a ‘ruse de guerre,’ that would soften some provocative conclusion: ‘You are Machiavellian!’94 Despite the manoeuvring, however, the thesis was roundly rejected by all three of its examiners who accused Fessard of using de Biran to propagate his own theories. As the thesis was revised and published in the 1930s, we shall examine it in Chapter 6 (p. 186). A year after the Esquisse, de Lubac summarized his guiding methodology as he offered de Montcheuil certain preconditions for authentic philosophy, which must be grounded on the question of human destiny. The ‘acte religieux’ is undertaken when there is a certain realization that what is desired cannot be attained. We must become aware of the great mystery of existence, and more profoundly, the great mystery of human liberty! Philosophy, therefore, doesn’t resolve anything, rather, it finds something, and through this thing that is found, it explains everything. The one who gains a perfect awareness of the mystery of his liberty, is the one who will explain the world. We should not complain that philosophy is disappointing, that it will be disappointing, that it is not like it seems: because the more one becomes aware of the mystery, the more one has the impression of darkness, and this is good. We don’t want to risk priding ourselves on this, rather, in the act 90

91 De Lubac and Fessard, Esquisse, AJV, 3. De Lubac and Fessard, Esquisse, AJV, 39. Fessard’s thesis, which is available in the AJV, was finally published in 1938 as La Méthode de réflexion chez Maine de Biran (Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1938). 93 Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 34. 94 Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 22 March 1924, AJV. 92

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of confidence in God, in the act of abandonment, which springs up spontaneously. Is this not love, the pure love of God of which we are capable as creatures? The supernatural order will only deepen the mystery with the new lights it brings to us, and it will in fact be the source of a great love.95

De Lubac is very clear as to what form this ‘ferment of thought’ will take. First, ‘philosophy must not constitute an opposition to the sciences. [Yves], you are right that the chapter in Blondel on this subject is very beautiful and very true.’96 Second, a true philosophy indeed contains ‘the germ of different developments, and this is why an “objective” history of philosophy is impossible, unless it is absolutely superficial. This is why the True philosophy can profit from everything, even from the most unbelieving thinkers.’97 Third, philosophy must ‘return to the method of the ancients’ to restore the proper relationship between nature and the spirit and avoid the dualism of modern thought. From February to April 1923, de Lubac was sent to the south of France in the hope that serious headaches from his war injury would subside, and he greatly desired to meet Blondel himself while he was there.98 Fessard and Hamel both enthusiastically enquired as to when the meeting would take place, and the former wrote: ‘I hope your next letter will finally be the “l’entretien avec M. Blondel” for which we have been waiting for so long.’99 Hamel also enquired about the impending visit: ‘Have [Blondel] respond to your questions with precision. Then communicate the results of your inquiry and share with us all the riches which we will purify by putting them under Thomistic rubrics. Indeed Valensin does it, why don't we? . . . Wait until I have a bit more intellectual development before giving me the meat of the ancients to chew on; permit me now to drink the milk of the moderns . . . We must put L’Action into practice; this is the best way of making it shine. If you see M. Blondel, thank him for all he has done for us, and tell him that we pray for him.’100 Hamel’s intent to filter Blondel through Aquinas is certainly telling as to how their interpretation of Aquinas will develop, and it is indicative of Rousselot’s influence. De Lubac finally met with Blondel on 16 March, recounting in a lengthy letter to Fessard the wide-ranging conversation, in which they discussed Valensin, de Biran, and prominent Neoscholastics such as Garrigou, Maritain, and Marie-Benoît Schwalm.101 95

De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, 13 February 1924, AJV. De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, 13 February 1924, AJV. 97 De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, 13 February 1924, AJV. 98 De Lubac, Mémoire, 15; At the Service, 19. 99 Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 18 March 1923, AJV. 100 Hamel, letter to de Lubac, 22 March 1923, AJV. 101 Much of the letter is found in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 202–5. For more on the Dominican Marie-Benoît Schwalm (1860–1908), who was the first of the Neoscholastics to attack Blondel’s L’Action in an 1896 article in the Revue thomiste, see Bernardi, Maurice Blondel, 53–5. 96

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Finally, Maréchal had a significant influence on the Fourvière Jesuits during these years, and the controversy over his writings unfolded mainly during their final year of philosophy in 1923, as they shared news on the latest regarding his work, Roman suspicion, and the stance Maritain had taken on the question of knowing. On his way back to Jersey in April, de Lubac purchased in Paris a volume of Maréchal’s Cahiers, which he gave to Descoqs to read upon his return. He wrote that Maréchal had been denounced with ‘almost angry vivacity by Father Pedro Descoqs in the days following the publication of the first Cahier, which I had brought from Paris and which Father Descoqs had spent the night reading and assailing’.102 After Fessard informed de Lubac that Maréchal’s work had ‘been requested by Rome’, de Lubac responded: ‘I am furious about Maréchal. They will force him to ruin his book, and in any case, to lose considerable time. It is always the same story.’103 The following year, de Montcheuil travelled to Louvain and spoke at length with Maréchal, showing him some of Rousselot’s unpublished writings.104 Maréchal gave them an acute sensitivity to Kant, and de Lubac wrote that for Maréchal, ‘Kant is a reformer, a liberator from Cartesian dualism.’105 In a letter to de Montcheuil, de Lubac attempted to clarify differences between Rousselot and Maréchal: The language of Rousselot is more personal, while Maréchal writes as a professor, who has the same mentality as Kant. Rousselot starts from the pragmatism of Bergson and Blondel and tries to push them in a transcendental direction to thus meet up with a form of Kantian thought, while Maréchal, a good Belgian professor, has first studied Kant at length to escape his agnostic conclusions and renew Thomism with the help of Blondel.106

Less than a year later, however, in October 1923, Fessard and de Lubac drafted an Esquisse II: Nature et Surnaturel.107 In this short sketch, many of the issues that would emerge as central to the debate two decades later are already present. At a length of thirteen pages, the first two pertain to the desire for God, and the remaining pages take up revelation and dogma. First, they provide the theological data which will guide their analysis: the supernatural is, on the part of God, gratuitous, and on the part of man, obligatory. In fact, the supernatural is offered to man under the form of historical revelation fulfilled by the Incarnation.108 Then, two primary problems are identified. First, if the supernatural is gratuitous, that is, exceeding the possibility of 102

De Lubac, Mémoire, 17, n 11; At the Service, 21, n 10. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 22 November 1923; and De Lubac, letter to Fessard, dated ‘end of November 1923’, AJV. 104 Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 600. 105 De Lubac, letter to Yves de Montcheuil, 13 February 1924, AJV. 106 De Lubac, letter to Yves de Montcheuil, dated only Autumn (Thursday) 1924, AJV. 107 108 De Lubac and Fessard, Esquisse II, AJV. De Lubac, Esquisse II, AJV, 1. 103

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human nature, how can it be obligatory, that is to say, necessarily sought by man as his sole possible end? Second, how can the supernatural be recognized both as supernatural and as the sole possible end of man? Following a brief treatment of nature as a category, the Esquisse II insists that ‘if, in his turn, God is conceived as an object, human nature cannot define itself through its relationship to divine nature’.109 After postulating that ‘a nature only attains its end and is satisfied when it has reached a higher level’, Fessard and de Lubac declared that ‘the natural end of man, therefore, is the indefinite progression towards the possession of God’.110 They claimed that at least several ancient philosophers believed that ‘the end of man was the possession of God’, and if the moral life is not restrained by a sole natural end, then neither should be the intellectual life. The truth of the most formal principles remains therefore a progressive approximation, but cannot reach the absolute. Why does the subject, while he should recognize his radical impotence, possess a radical confidence in this ‘limit’, which represents for him the possession of Being? Maybe because he observes in nature a perpetual ‘limit’, and because his intellectual and moral life operates in him already, each of his acts are as the anticipated attaining of this Being, containing a perpetual act of confidence in the elevation which must come from God.111

Several months after the Esquisse II was written, Fessard announced the arrival of the first of several important interventions in the surnaturel debate by the Jesuit Guy de Broglie, which would signal its post-war re-commencement. The debate would be ongoing for the next two decades and culminate in the controversy around Surnaturel. De Lubac later described de Broglie’s contributions as a ‘form of passage from the theses in our manuals to the rediscovery of traditional thought’.112 Fessard had been cultivating a relationship with de Broglie in the months prior to this and recounted to de Lubac: ‘The good Father [de Broglie] found me a little audacious and warned me not to present these views to anyone.’113 De Broglie, however had been a friend of Valensin, a disciple of Rousselot, and an admirer of Blondel. Soon after he had finished Blondel’s Action, he had declared to Valensin that ‘the book is “solid gold.”’114 On a personal level, there was a character of great depth and warmth that marked the early years of these friendships, and d’Ouince wrote later that de Montcheuil ‘found in his second and third year [of philosophy] some sensible peers, older than him, who had fought the war of 1914. They were easy-going, self-motivated thinkers who thrived on intellectual collaboration and exchange. Very quickly the newcomer felt attached to this close little 109 111 113 114

110 De Lubac, Esquisse II, AJV, 2. De Lubac, Esquisse II, AJV, 2. 112 De Lubac, Esquisse II, AJV, 2. De Lubac, Mémoire, 33; At the Service, 35. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 22 November 1923, AJV. Valensin, Auguste Valensin, 121.

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group of “penseurs”, as we call them with humour: Frs Fessard, Hamel, de Lubac, de Soras . . . Time never loosened the bonds of these friendships.’115 Clearly, what united them was their approach to the modern world, which differed radically from that of the Neoscholastics. Fortunately, we can reconstruct these friendships through their fairly rich correspondences during the Jersey years, prompted by their various comings and goings.116 These exchanges mark the deep divide between themselves and the Neoscholastics, to whom they were adamantly opposed and for whom they had no intellectual respect. Their friendships were not merely ideological alliances, however, and their exchanges were laced with encouragement, correction, advice, and expressions of fraternal devotion. De Lubac wrote to de Montcheuil: ‘It is good to feel in full communion in thought and desire with friends such as you! I should add that this is indeed something rare. It requires a comprehensive understanding of ideas and never devolves into merely a mutual admiration society of mutual incomprehension.’117 In conclusion, the first years of formation for the Fourvière Jesuits were pivotal, and although the philosophical formation of the Jesuits was exceptionally broad and historical, their thought developed along Blondelian and Rousselotian lines. Their early exposure to these thinkers guided their future projects, especially de Lubac’s interpretation of Aquinas and his interest in the question of the desire for God. Moreover, a generational divide emerged more deeply in the Society after the war, leaving the Fourvière Jesuits totally opposed to Neoscholasticism and its Aristotelian moorings. Instead, they wanted to undertake a construction of Catholic thought that was attentive to both orthodoxy and modernity.

A THEOLOGICAL FORMATION UNDER HUBY

1924–6: Theology at Ore Place and the Discovery of Hegel By 1924, when the Jesuits were preparing to begin their theology studies, it was clear that the 1920 sanctions against Rousselot’s thought had done little good. The General himself by this time was well aware that ‘many of the young 115 René d’Ouince, ‘Les enfances religieuses du Père de Montcheuil’, in Jesuites de l’Assistance de France 4 (1958): 11, quoted in Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil, 22. 116 The extant correspondence between de Lubac, Fessard, Hamel, and, to a lesser extent, de Montcheuil is significant, and typed copies are held at the Jesuit archives in both France and Belgium, but unfortunately, it appears that d’Ouince did not save most of de Lubac’s letters from this period. 117 De Lubac, letter to Yves de Montcheuil, 1 January 1925, cited in Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil, 79.

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Jesuits were wrapped up in the thought of Rousselot [and] Maréchal’.118 There were rumours of impending measures coming from Rome designed to put an end to the movement, and Fessard detailed these intrigues to de Lubac: I just came from visiting Fr. Bourgeois, who came from Rome and spoke to me in veiled words of all the Roman intrigue . . . He told me that it is possible that the Dictionnarie of Alès and Fr Lebreton might be put on the Index. This stupidity knows no bounds! He also recounted to me a conversation with the General: it seems that in philosophy they want to guard the Society’s [de la Compagnie] tradition of eclecticism [Suarezianism] . . . This mentality despises or ignores every system with sharp edges.119

In September 1924, de Lubac, along with Fessard and others, began this theology training at Ore Place, and several months before his entrance Fessard wrote to de Lubac that de Broglie had given a talk on the desire for God: It seems that one or two months ago, there was a meeting of the professors at the Institut Catholique [Paris]. Last time was Fr De Broglie’s turn, and he gave a short talk on the desire for Beatitude. Everyone was thrilled, delighted, and very happy. However, Maritain was not there, having, it seems, refused to come because he could not agree! He can always write articles in the Nouvelles Religieuses in praise of the sect [Neoscholasticism]. On that he will surely agree.120

Two months later, Fessard announced enthusiastically that ‘an article by Guy de Broglie on the natural desire for the supernatural will be in the next issue of Recherches. Very good it seems.’121 It hardly seems surprising that de Grandmaison’s Recherches would be so instrumental in reigniting the debate over the desire for God after the war, given the journal’s reform-minded method of positive theology. It would publish some of the most important articles on the subject throughout the next twenty-five years. Taking Rousselot’s position, de Broglie argued that the intellect does in fact tend towards the vision of God. Seeking to defend the absolute gratuitousness of the supernatural, he held that human nature neither demands the vision of God nor has a right to it. Furthermore, the intellect cannot be understood fully apart from the supernatural order: If we are to construct a satisfactory theory of the relationship between nature and grace, it is necessary to invert the perspective in which the moderns place them. They speak as if nature as such is first in the order of intelligible objects. . . . They seem to believe that divine wisdom presents to God first pure natures, and then

118 119 120 121

Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 12 June 1924, AJV. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 8 April 1924, AJV. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 17 March 1924, AJV. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 27 May 1924, AJV.

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secondly, invents means to use them for everything else than for their proper end thanks to the addition of an ingenious superstructure.122

De Lubac arrived at Ore Place soon after and mentioned it in a letter to de Montcheuil, exposing how central Blondel and Rousselot were to his thinking by this point: Since my arrival here [at Ore Place], the question of the supernatural has been central to my reflections . . . Surely, you have you read the article by Kiki [a nickname for de Broglie]? I like the basic concept, which is from Rousselot, and several different points strike me. And in any case indeed some aspects of the problem are neglected. It is, however, a beginning. I reread Blondel’s Lettre, which Fr Huby loaned me (he is very charming!), and now I understand better certain points which had remained obscure. All this agrees fully, although it is in another language, with the theories of Rousselot on knowing, faith and the development of dogma. Along these lines, the whole question of Les Yeux de la foi is also raised: if one thing is clear, it is that no other presents itself . . . It is necessary to incorporate a Blondelian element more abundantly.123

As the controversy over the de Broglie article increased, de Lubac wrote to de Montcheuil again: ‘I regret that [Kiki] is alone now to defend Rousselot’s position. There is of course Huby, but he is completely absorbed with scripture, and his hands are tied.’124 By the end of January, however, after a more careful reading, de Lubac had become more critical of de Broglie’s piece: ‘Recently, I had been reviewing the notes I took on the article by Kiki, and I am decidedly growing more and more severe. It is Rousselot diminished, deformed, dethroned of almost all philosophy.’125At this same time Fessard indicated that the de Broglie piece had freed him to dispute more openly the question of pure nature: ‘You have been taken with this subject [Aquinas on the desire for God], but on the contrary I am just coming to this debate, unaware of this question, at least as it was addressed by Kiki. Thus I shall leave the field free for you to break Thomist lances.’126 Fessard, however also defended the article against certain criticisms of de Lubac: ‘This is not a complete theory, it is an exegesis of St Thomas. That is why he holds both ends of the chain . . . I would be more indulgent than you, and I compare it to what I was saying in the Esquisse II [on nature and the supernatural]: a nature can be assimilated to a superior nature only by the initiative of this superior nature.’127 122 Guy De Broglie, ‘De la place du surnaturel dans la philosophie de saint Thomas’. Recherche de science religieuse 14 (1924): 240. 123 De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, dated Autumn 1924, AJV. 124 De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, dated December 1924, AJV. 125 De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, 26 January 1925, AJV. 126 Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 19 March 1925, AJV. 127 Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 22 July 1924, AJV.

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Moreover, as de Lubac began his philosophy training in the shadow of the Rousselot affair at Jersey, he began his theology at Ore Place under the tutelage of Rousselot’s friend and most ardent disciple, Huby, under whose encouragement his Surnaturel thesis began to reach a more mature form. Soon after he arrived at Ore Place, he had his first conversation with Huby which illustrates how important this older generation was in his formation. He indicates that Huby was in fact also, along with Valensin, teaching Blondel in class: I went to see Joseph Huby, and he received me kindly. We spoke a little of Blondel and Rousselot; these are the two masters of Huby. Blondel, which he read during his second year of philosophy, opened him to philosophy after the disappointing teaching he received. Then, Rousselot, his colleague as professor of the Juvenat at Canterbury, finished the job. He loaned me his two courses, ‘de Vera religione’ and ‘de Fide’ that he taught before he was confined to Sacred Scripture, along with his most developed notes, which he used for his classes on ‘de Vera religione’. To show you that he does not lack a certain boldness, I shall cite this phrase on the scholastic apologists: ‘Despite the fact that they have such little concern for reaching our contemporaries, they do not hesitate from pouring a little new wine into old wine skins.’ The new wine, this is the doctrine of Blondel, which is expressed in a way that is very intelligent, albeit necessarily in a rather elementary manner (as for a class), in pages on the ‘method of immanence’. The articles by B. de Sailly are also highlighted. In short, I was in familiar territory. He loaned me also the summary of de Grandmaison [ . . . ] and the ‘Lettre d’apologétique’, of which he possesses an exemplary typed copy. I liked it more than during the second reading I made toward the end of Jersey. I understood certain things in Blondel which up until now had escaped me. I had Ch. Nicolet read it, and we also talk together of Rousselot’s ideas, and the ‘yeux de la fois’ are developing in him so much that soon I predict he will need glasses.128

What became of seminal importance in these first two years of theology at Ore Place was the informal study group of around twenty students called ‘La Pensée’. It gathered around Huby, meeting on Saturday mornings and often reading Blondel and Rousselot. In the spring of 1925 the group took up the question of the supernatural, and by this time de Lubac had conceived of the main lines of his Surnaturel thesis, which he had developed at the behest of Huby, who had asked him to undertake a study of the surnaturel problem in Aquinas.129 This inquiry resulted in certain sections of what would become Surnaturel, and de Lubac was beginning to articulate more fully his belief that the notion of pure nature was a later invention of the Scholastics.130 In July of that year, after reading one of de Lubac’s papers on the supernatural, Fessard 128

Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 537. Olivier de Berranger, ‘Lubac, Henri Sonier de’, in Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, vol. 1, ed. Jean-Yves Lacoste (New York NY: Routledge, 2005), 955. 130 Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 555. 129

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wrote to de Lubac: ‘I am in full accord with you on the substance, which is, if I’m not wrong, that natural desire is the method to follow for studying the relationship between nature and the supernatural.’131 De Lubac responded: I have begun to believe little by little, without having written anything or even thinking deeply about it, that ‘pure nature’ is not only a derived concept but . . . is a theological invention of these last centuries. It is necessary to be prudent on this point, because this relatively new theological doctrine seems to have received its first consecration by the Magisterium in the Vatican Council. 132

During the years of 1925 and 1926, Fessard’s thought was also maturing and would take its definitive turn toward German idealism. He had read Fichte and Schelling in translation, and in the summer of 1926 travelled to Munich for language training. While browsing through the tables of an outdoor bookseller, he stumbled upon Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and immediately perceived its importance despite the fact that it was almost totally unknown in France.133 He set about translating its introduction as well as other important parts, but his superior would not allow him to publish them.134 As we shall see later, Hegel became one of the most important intellectual influences in the 1930s.

1926–8: Theology at Fourvière These years also constitute a dramatic point of generational contact and development for the Fourvière Jesuits. By 1926, tensions had sufficiently eased between the French Church and state, and the theologate was moved to Lyon. Thus, de Lubac, Hamel, and d’Ouince resumed their theological training at the Fourvière theologate in Lyon, while Fessard, who had been in Paris from 1923 to 1926 pursuing studies in law, joined them there, and de Montcheuil, who was several years behind, went to Lyon in 1929. Now they were all together, under the benevolent oversight of Rousselot’s foremost disciple, Huby. Moreover, Valensin lived only down the hill, and de Lubac, Fessard, and Hamel quickly learned the way to his residence. The atmosphere in the house was dramatically different from that at Jersey, and the students were freer to explore their own theological projects. Located centrally in Lyon, one of the centres of Left Catholicism, the Jesuits were suddenly exposed to an active environment of conferences, apostolic activities, and various intellectual engagements. It was a time of intense friendship, as the Jesuits were finally reunited in an environment where certain superiors helped them develop their

131

132 Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 554. Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 554. Sales, Gaston Fessard, 20. 134 Michel Sales, editor’s preface to Hegel le Christianisme et l’histoire, by Gaston Fessard, ed. Michel Sales (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1990), 9. 133

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thought, and de Lubac wrote to de Montcheuil during their first months together: ‘Here, we are all now a band of friends, which makes the atmosphere of the house good to breathe and adds a good flavour to the work.’135 De Lubac quickly emerged as one of the most important intellectuals in the house, and the atmosphere was charged with Blondelian thought and debate over the question of the desire for God.136 Most of these intellectual exchanges took place within ‘La Pensée’, still moderated by Huby, of which de Lubac was elected president during the 1927–8 academic year.137 Also during this time, de Lubac moved from philosophical to historical studies: ‘My biggest preoccupation during my years of theology had been precisely (following Frs Delaye and Huby) the study of the Tradition according to the most comprehensive method, not losing any of its authentic riches.’138 In a 1926 letter to de Montcheuil, de Lubac describes the move he was making from philosophy to history: ‘I have taken a liking to the historical aspect of problems and the study (summary) of the Tradition. This is less fatiguing than metaphysics, which retains its loyal knight, in the person of G. Fessard.’139 Moreover, this group provided the context for de Lubac’s continued work on the question of the supernatural: ‘Father Huby, following the line of reflection inaugurated for us by Rousselot, had warmly urged me to verify whether the doctrine of Saint Thomas on this important point was indeed what was claimed by the Thomist school around the sixteenth century, codified in the seventeenth and asserted with greater emphasis than ever in the twentieth.’140 Xavier Tilliette claims that the group ‘did not hide their intention to compensate for the deficiencies of their professors with their own personal projects. They aimed at nothing less than a renewal of theology from theses suspected of Modernism, of Blondelianism! Blondel was already a clandestine guest in the library. This active cenacle, studious, observant, but a bit on the margins, aroused the authorities, who saw fit to crack down on it, however clumsily.’141 Thus, the leading thinkers of the group gained a reputation in the Society and were viewed with suspicion, and one of the members of the group, Marcel Méry, was even dismissed from the Jesuits. Moreover, some historians see the 135 De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, dated early January 1927, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 655. 136 Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 621. 137 See de Lubac’s letter to Sales detailing the group’s meetings in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 677. 138 De Lubac, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 374. 139 De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, dated only 1926–1927, AJV. 140 De Lubac, Mémoire, 33; At the Service, 35; for a brief presentation of one such presentation on the supernatural during this time, see Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 685. 141 Xavier Tilliette, ‘Le Père de Lubac et le débat de la philosophie chrétienne’, Les Études philosophiques 2 (April–June 1995): 194.

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condemnation of Humani Generis as the dramatic conclusion to the distrust that had shrouded the Fourvière Jesuits since these days in the late 1920s. Fouilloux writes that we ‘can see also in the purges that hit Fourvière in 1950 a final recoil of the affaire de “La Pensée” twenty years earlier.’142 None of the central members of the group was ever allowed to teach other Jesuits: de Lubac was forbidden to undertake doctoral studies, Fessard was sent to teach in a high school, and the group was split up. Ordinations came sporadically: de Lubac in 1927, Hamel and Fessard in 1929, and de Montcheuil in 1932. Our examination of these years of intellectual formation has included three of the four aspects of Blondelian thought which we identified in Chapter 2 (p. 52): first, the method of immanence which recognizes that the human person is oriented toward the supernatural; second, the harsh critique of Neoscholasticism; and finally, the historical search to find the ‘authentic riches’ within the ‘tradition’. We shall conclude this intellectual history by examining the influence of the fourth aspect, that of Social or Left Catholicism. A lengthy letter from de Lubac to Hamel in the summer of 1928, during a Semaines sociales conference, gives a glimpse into its influence on the Fourvière Jesuits. Writing with enthusiasm, de Lubac first described a leading Left Catholic, the Blondelian Abbé Cardijn, who founded one of its most important organizations, the Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne (JOC), which we shall discuss in Chapter 5 (p. 157): ‘[Cardijn] for more than two hours spoke of the Belgian JOC with a vigour, a flame, a depth of the supernatural, a realism, a formulaic accuracy, which delighted me. In front of such men and such institutions, one has the direct comforting sensation that our religion is again wonderfully alive, that Christ is always living in others. I felt in a strong way how the deficiencies in the realms of practical action and real life in the Christian formation of today correspond to the speculative framework in our teaching.’143 Further, de Lubac quoted a young philosopher, Jean Guitton, whose speech, which cited both Augustine and Blondel, was ‘a sort of execution of integrism’.144 Finally, he mentions listening to the talk of a young Jesuit aspirant, Jean Daniélou. To conclude, the years of theology were a time of intense intellectual development and maturity. De Lubac, in particular, constructed the broad lines of his Surnaturel thesis during this period, as he transposed his Blondelian metaphysics on to Aquinas. Finally, during this time, the Fourvière Jesuits developed fully as a generational unit along Blondelian, historicist, and Left Catholic lines.

142 Étienne Fouilloux, Yves de Montcheuil. Philosophe et théologien jésuite (1900–1944, (Paris: Média Sèvres, 1995), 279–80. 143 De Lubac, letter to Hamel, 26 July 1928, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 644–6. 144 De Lubac, letter to Hamel, 26 July 1928, quoted in Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 645.

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A GENERATIONAL DESIDERATA Throughout these years of formation the nouveaux théologiens began to develop generationally, identifying themselves over and against the Neoscholastic establishment, which they often criticized. They assigned for themselves a great task of participating in a marvellous renewal of Catholic thought, bringing it to a place of prominence and respect in the modern world by a certain embrace of the ‘concrete’ and ‘real’. The generational divide in the French Jesuits after the war is illustrated by an exchange between Fessard and Lebreton, in which the latter, in a closeddoor meeting spoke of the ‘mentalité of the young’, declaring: ‘yes, there has been a sudden emergence of a new state of mind. Before the war there were at most only traces, but now it has blossomed. In the face of this, the professors are baffled’; Fessard mused: ‘I do not think he believes we are Bolsheviks, and he sincerely does not want to crush us, but I doubt that he truly understands what separates us from the preceding generation.’145 In another instance, Fessard laughingly recounted to de Lubac a sermon by a fellow scholastic directed against the Blondelian apology grounded in the ‘reasons of the heart’: There was a sermon by Riquet on the ‘apostolate of the heart’, and he understood this as meaning that to convert the unbelievers it is necessary to take people as they are. Thus, its adherents hold that using the arguments of the heart is excellent, because they are indeed successful! You know the link here with my dissertation [on Maine de Biran]! I felt a little like a new Louis XIV hearing the words of Bossuet: ‘You are the man!’146 Hamel was sitting near me, and we had a good laugh when we heard the speaker talk of people who had ‘the pretention of turning the world around their brain . . . it is a sickness of introspection . . . ’ The turn to the self has only one name: pride and egoism. It is necessary to submit to the object. I wish you were there. I thought I was already listening to Gardeil or Garrigou argue against an Esquisse that is to come! Naturally he resorted to the Kantian nonsense . . . Maritain a bit. At least we had a good laugh!147

Their disdain for Neoscholasticism permeated their formation, and de Lubac declared that the quarrel between Blondel and the ‘indignant’ de Tonquédec was nothing short of ‘ridiculous’.148 Fessard continued:

145

Gaston Fessard, letter to Henri de Lubac, 17 January 1925. Fessard apparently confuses Bossuet with Bourdaloue, who famously condemned a French king for adultery with the words of the prophet Nathan. 147 Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 25 February 1923, AJV; the orator was the Jesuit Michel Riquet (1898–1993). He entered the Jesuits having studied with Maritain at the seminary at Versailles, and later in the 1920s, after his ordination, he participated in the celebrated meetings at the house of Maritain at Meudon relating to the founding of the journal Esprit. For his biography, see Paul Duclos, ed., Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine, vol. 1, Les Jesuites (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985), 280. 148 De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, 13 February 1924, AJV. 146

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It is true; I have finished Immanence by de Tonquédec. This book is quite a monument! It is surely a reminder that one sees only what they want to see . . . This book is the result of a philosophical formation that excludes the history of philosophy . . . .If you have a copy on hand, read it with our Esquisse on the supernatural in mind . . . What poverty! . . . At least in two hundred years, they will certainly not be reading Immanence, but they might be commenting on Action!149

And again Fessard suggested that de Lubac read parts of Garrigou’s Sens commun, ‘if you want to amuse yourself ’.150 Moreover, after hearing a talk given by the conservative intellectual Henri Massis, Fessard recounted to de Lubac: I was reminded of the sermon by Riquet, where it was all about the ‘descent toward the self ’ around which turns all of modern philosophy since Descartes, the father of the moi individualiste . . . Our generation, the generation of relativism, distinguishes itself by a ‘metaphysical fear of the object,’ or at least indifference with regard to it! The generation of objectivity is hilarious!

More than just detesting Neoscholasticism, it seems that they defined themselves in terms of their struggle against it, envisioning themselves as the bearers of the great task of restoring Catholic thought. De Lubac wrote to de Montcheuil that Neoscholasticism is the philosophy that is in total control, and things are grave. Yet there will come a time when we shall do our best, so that it might not be said that Catholicism is the resignation of thought. Truly this is marvellously exciting, the most powerful ferment of thought of which we can possibly dream. Quite frankly, we must greatly desire the coming of a few bold and humble traditional spirits. The Church needs saints, this is true, but the two needs are not opposed to each other.151

Fessard echoed these ambitious aspirations: ‘I dream, in a way that is still vague, of great and serious enterprises. It is absolutely necessary to try with all our might to help Catholic thought become relevant again, to regain an authentic dominance without brainwashing and insincere methods and realize the alliance of competent theology and profound religious sentiment.’152 The Fourvière Jesuits were convinced that converting the elites of France was essential: ‘We do not doubt that France is to be converted from high to low, from the intellectuals to the people.’153 This is an emphasis that runs through Blondel’s earliest work and emerges very strongly in the spirit of Fourvière. In a more sombre tone, Fessard bemoaned to de Lubac that they needed to do some ‘serious reflection, without bitterness. How can we hope to lift Catholic 149 150 151 152 153

Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 10 March 1923, AJV. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 2 June 1923, AJV. De Lubac, letter to de Montcheuil, 13 February 1924, AJV. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 10 March 1924, AJV. Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 526.

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thought if they insist on digging a deeper trench between what they call “Scholastic philosophy” and “modern thought”, against which they maintain a stubborn bias. How can a humble traveller, such as you or me, ever say a word if we cannot search for refuge in the Thomist house?’154 They whimsically declared that they were ‘revolutionaries’, and they detected a deep divide between their generation and that of their elders.155 Fessard declared: Comparing the desiderata of [the older] generation with ours, it seems to me they are satisfied with simple material restatements: did the Council intend to define such and such point? Has this or that Father spoken in such a way? One must absolutely understand a theological concept in only this one single way . . . etc . . . Whereas, if I am not mistaken, we would rather go to the foundation and substance of the question by incorporating new philosophies. It is encouraging to note the presence of this disposition especially among those who may be called to power.156

De Lubac’s letters from the time paint a sombre picture, and there were periods of discouragement and discontent with the state of theology. His continued reading of Blondel’s Lettre, with its harsh condemnations of Neoscholasticism, seemed only to fuel this angst, and he wrote to Robert Hamel: Our formation closes our eyes, at least a great number of us; the other day I was rereading Blondel’s ‘Lettre’, and I was pained to see how for thirty years, there has been from this point of view such little change. There is a need for intense intellectual work among Catholics, but which avoids the Modernist fever. There is a need for informed and sure guides, capable of providing comprehensive leadership. Is it not in the heavens above that such men should be found? Such an immense task! I want to be ambitious, as you say sometimes. In any event, I am too weak to do something serious. I want to put myself at the service of a collective enterprise, to assist, encourage good will, stimulate research, collaborate, defend . . . But there are so few who are preparing themselves! Well, we shall do what we can. As far as the detail of my ideas, they are at the moment en pleine danse. Therefore, taking into account the complexity of the problems, it is difficult to arrive at a complete thought! I’m confused, but the direction, the method, the inner stream, they all remain.157

De Lubac: A New Apologetics In 1929, exactly ten years following de Lubac’s post-war re-entry into the Jesuits in Lyon, in which he spent his first months with Rousselot’s papers, he 154 155 156 157

Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 10 May 1924, AJV. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 27 May 1924, AJV. Fessard, letter to de Lubac, 27 May 1924, AJV. Chantraine, Henri de Lubac, t. II, 540.

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began his teaching career at the Institut catholique in Lyon, and his first lecture now reads as a manifesto, signalling de Lubac’s entrance into public intellectual life. Xavier Tilliette remarks that de Lubac ‘seized the moment of his inaugural lecture in 1929 to manifest his allegiance and gratitude to Blondel’.158 His preparation for the talk included re-reading Blondel’s Lettre, as well as travelling to Louvain to meet with Maréchal and other Jesuits there.159 Published as ‘Apologetics and Theology’, it comes almost exactly three decades after Laberthonnière’s similar essay on apologetics which we examined earlier. Moreover, this period also represents the beginning of a rich correspondence between de Lubac and Blondel that amounts to almost one hundred and fifty letters written between March 1930 and December 1948.160 In his first letter, he told him that ‘L’Action, la Lettre sur l’apologétique, Histoire et Dogme . . . have been profoundly beneficial, a primary influence on the orientation of my thought.’161 We can read in this essay all the years of frustration and anxiety during his formation, and he seems unleashed, able to finally strike back at the ‘closed’ Neoscholastic system he so deplored. Moreover, it serves as a bridge between the 1920s and 1930s, connecting the years of formation and the first years of productivity. He began the essay with a bold generational assessment that closely reflected Fessard’s private thoughts we examined earlier: ‘It is characteristic of the present generation to be less curious about demonstrations of Christian truth than about its explanations.’162 After rhetorically asking if the current approach to theology is simply ‘a way of closing oneself in the ivory tower’ of speculation, he proclaimed that the apologetics of his day was ‘small-minded, purely defensive, too opportunistic or completely superficial—not from temporary necessity, but from principle—and thus, its value is meagre. A doctrine inspires little trust when it is reduced to defending itself . . . If, believing that they can be more effective, its defenders become more opportunistic then things go from bad to worse. By forcing itself to stack, one on top of the other, syncretistic systems that collapse as soon as they are built, to say nothing of the undignified job—sometimes slightly dishonest—to which necessity leads it, it exhausts itself in counterattacks that generally do not effect an objection before it has been replaced by another one.’163 In a criticism of dogmatic propositionalism and pure nature, which de Lubac will pick up and expand 159 Tilliette, ‘Le Père de Lubac’, 194. De Lubac, Mémoire, 17; At the Service, 21. For reproductions of many of the most important letters between the two, see Antonio Russo, Henri de Lubac: Teologia e Dogme Nella Storia: L’influsso de Blondel (Rome: Studium, 1990), 23. 161 De Lubac, letter to Blondel, 5 March 1930, quoted in Russo, Teologia, 153. 162 De Lubac, Henri. ‘Apologétique et théologie’. Reprinted in Théologies d’occasion. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1984; Henri de Lubac, ‘Apologetics and Theology’, in Theological Fragments, trans. R. H. Balinsky (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1989), 91. 163 De Lubac, ‘Apologétique’, 99; ‘Apologetics’, 92. 158 160

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several years later in Catholicisme, he excoriated ‘small-minded’ theology that treats dogma as a ‘superstructure’ that is superficial and ‘cut off from all human roots’.164 This ‘separated theology’ had severed the ‘intimate links’ between theology and philosophy, nature and grace. After a decade of study, de Lubac was ready to construct, as Blondel had hoped, a narrative of the Catholic tradition centred around the Blondelian philosophy of action, which he argued Neoscholasticism had disfigured: ‘Small-minded theology that is not even traditional, separated theology, tagging behind a separated philosophy—it is not more the theology of the Fathers than it is that of St. Thomas, and the worthless apologetics that it shaped in its image is no closer to the apologetics whose model has been given to us across the centuries: Speeches and Letters of St. Paul, Justin’s Apologia, St. Augustine’s De vera religione, St. Thomas’ Contra gentes, Savanarola’s Triumphus Crucis, and Pascal’s Pensées.’165 De Lubac’s apologetic, rooted in history, spiritual experience, and culture, is again reminiscent of the Blondelian path he will take in Catholicism, and must continually ‘study human nature in general in order to discern the call of grace’, listening ‘constantly to the succeeding generations and to their aspirations so as to be able to respond to them, to understand and assimilate their thoughts’.166 Theology must itself change and evolve as no single man or generation ‘is capable of equally encompassing all of its aspects’; theology is constant, however, in its attempt to provide ‘the explanation of the unique divine response freely given to human aspiration, a response that, in its various aspects, also remains the same in its essence’.167 Thus de Lubac proposed a kind of unification of theology and apologetics, using the method of immanence to expose the most profound anthropological truths to subjective and dogmatic reflection: ‘the element that one can call “subjective,” “individual,” “natural.” And, if one is careful to explain the nature of human aspirations—what there is in them that comes from the divine source and, hence, what there is in them that is of supernatural and urgent character—then it does not seem erroneous or even imprudent to state that Catholicism is the true religion because it alone brings the adequate response to the aspirations of humanity, and, thus, its supreme guarantee is its own perfection.’168 In this section, we saw that by the end of the decade of the 1920s, the Fourvière Jesuits had developed a strong generational identity. They aligned themselves against most of their elders and institutional Neoscholasticism.

164 165 166 167 168

De Lubac, ‘Apologétique’, 101–2; ‘Apologetics’, 94–5. De Lubac, ‘Apologétique’, 102; ‘Apologetics’, 95. De Lubac, ‘Apologétique’, 103; ‘Apologetics’, 96–7. De Lubac, ‘Apologétique’, 103; ‘Apologetics’, 97. De Lubac, ‘Apologétique’, 109; ‘Apologetics’, 101.

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Moreover, they had ascribed to themselves an ambitious mission to revitalize Catholic thought, bringing it into contact with modern intellectual currents. The apology they envisioned was open to history and inner experience.

A Dominican Awakening Despite the fact that Dominican formation during the 1920s was altogether more tranquil, a generational awakening did indeed arrive at the end of the decade, in which the financial crisis was to inaugurate two decades of turmoil. For Chenu this event moved him from the more conservative historical approach of Gardeil, whose book Le Donné révélé was ‘the Saulchoir’s breviary’, toward a theological methodology far more socially and historically engaged, eschewing a theology grounded primarily on speculative thought and logical deduction.169 He later recalled that ‘it was at that moment [of the Great Depression] that I began to take into account the importance of the economy, to understand that the phenomenon of production determined the great movements of humanity, the great evolutions of culture.’170 During that same period, Congar came to undergo an equally radical ecclesiological shift guided by his ecumenical aspirations: ‘O my God, who has shown me since 1929-1930 that if the Church were to change her face, if she were to simply show her TRUE face, if she were quite simply the Church, everything would be possible on the road to unity: raise up effective workers, pure and courageous, for this work which you have undertaken and which I beg you not to abandon!’171 Moreover, during that same period, Congar read all three volumes of Loisy’s memoires and discerned the great task of his generation: ‘From that time on the conviction took form in me, with a very definite critical reaction, that our generation’s mission was to bring to effect, within the Church, that which was true in the queries and the problems posed by the Modernists.’172 The social structures, friendships, mentors and éveilleurs, and intellectual influences converged for the nouveaux théologiens during the 1920s, giving them a strong generational identity and mission. Their wartime experiences and the influence of older generations of Jesuits and Dominicans had left them with a deep and immediate aversion to anti-Modernism and a desire to dialogue with the modern world and embrace concrete philosophy, social 169 Elizabeth Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit (New York NY: Oxford University Press, 2004), 27. 170 Marie-Dominique Chenu, Un théologien en liberté: Jacques Duquesne interroge le Père Chenu (Paris: Éditions du Centurion, 1975), 66. 171 Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, trans. Mary John Ronayne et al. (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 204. 172 Congar, Journal of a Theologian (Hindmarsh, SA: ATF Press, 2015), 35.

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engagement, and historical study. In all of this, the thought of Blondel and Rousselot was seminal for the Jesuits, with the former providing a phenomenology and method of history and the latter outlining an eclectic way of reading Aquinas. Their strong interest in the question of the desire for God sprang directly from their reading of these figures, and their desire to reunite the orders of nature and grace no doubt found its origin, at least partially, in their desire to heal the fractured French society they encountered in the trenches, and their harsh critique of Neoscholasticism and bold programme of renewal was guided by the rubrics of modernity and sought to bring a kind of rapprochement between the secular and the sacred. For the generation of 1930, the stock market crash not only symbolically marked the end of their formal intellectual training and the beginning of their productive careers but also signalled to them that indeed their instincts were correct and their time had come. The old order was crashing down on the cracked foundations of its own rationalistic decadence and it was in fact the task of their generation to set the terms of the debate and rebuild society, and in the case of the nouveaux théologiens, the Catholic Church.

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5 1930s The Crisis of Humanism and the Generation of 1930

The post-war decade of the 1920s, known in France as ‘les années d’illusion’ or ‘les années folles’, brought with it an era of optimism and prosperity that came to an abrupt end in the years following the 1929 New York stock market crash. One historian described the period as ‘a last Indian summer before the blizzard of the world economic crisis struck in 1931. Nobody foresaw that Europe, politically and economically, lived on borrowed time.’1 Although the catastrophic effects would not reach France until the end of 1931, it signalled to the French that they were on the cusp of a new era that would be branded by many historians as ‘la crise des années 30’. Loubet del Bayle has noted that ‘the years of 1930-1932 were those of a cruel réveil, which dissipated the dreams of peace and prosperity that had been cultivated since 1918. It is the moment when France began to count the costs of the exhausting struggle that it had endured for four years. France left the war hard hit, both materially and morally.’2 The effects of the depression were vast and unimaginable: By its amplitude and its duration it is without precedent in the contemporary world . . . The shaking was so grave and so prolonged that the basis of the economic and social order appeared threatened. Individualism, free enterprise, the setting of prices by competition—the foundations of the capitalist system— were in rout. It was not thus only an economic and social crisis, and even a moral crisis; it was a crisis of the collective mind. The Annus terribilis, which Arnold Toynbee evoked at the beginning of 1932, was not 1914 or 1917, it was 1931.3

1 Hajo Hoburn, The Political Collapse of Europe (New York: Knopf, 1951), 134–7, quoted in Joseph Amato, Maritain and Mounier: A French Catholic Understanding of the Modern World, Tuscaloosa AL: University of Alabama Press, 1975, 110. 2 Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle, Les Non-conformistes des années 30: Une Tentative de renouvellement de la pensée politique française (Paris: Seuil, 1969), 24. 3 Pierre Renouvin, Histoire des rélations internationales, t. 8, La Crise du XXe siècle, de 1929 à 1945 (Paris: Hachette, 1958), 15–16, quoted in Amato, Maritain and Mounier, 111.

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From the crisis emerged an atmosphere of sharp political extremism punctuated by violent protest. Under the direct orders of Moscow, the French Communist Party (PCF) abandoned its ‘wrecking policy’ of no compromise with other parties on the left, forming instead a single proletarian front.4 In June 1936, Maurice Thorez, the head of the PCF, proposed a grand tournant, whereby the ‘class-against-class’ position that had marked Communist policy would be dropped and instead the PCF would propose a broad anti-Fascist coalition of the middle class.5 A pact of solidarity between the parties was signed and the coalition became known as the ‘Front populaire’. Despite their sweeping reforms, the effects of the depression lingered on unabated, the Popular Front lost crucial support, and the coalition began to splinter. While France was mired in extremist politics, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland (1936), seized Austria (1937), and invaded Prague and Poland (1939). The period from September 1939 to May 1940 is described by historians as the ‘phoney war’, as an ‘illusion of normalcy’ pervaded French society. France remained in denial about the possibility of a large-scale war with Germany and was unable to erect any sense of national unity as they had done before the First World War.6 When the Germans did attack in May of 1940, the French were no match and were easily defeated. Their weapons were inferior and their numbers were often woefully inadequate. Encountering only mild resistance, the Germans broke through on 14 May 1940, the French government fled Paris along with two million French citizens, and Marshal Pétain, the World War I hero of the Verdun, obtained an armistice on 22 June. Thus ended the tumult of les années trente and the Third Republic as well. Although it was only seventy years old, it had been marked by almost unmitigated turmoil and controversy, and as Albert Camus wrote, when it fell, ‘a world ended’. According to Tony Judt, it ‘died unloved. Few sought to seriously defend it in July 1940, and it passed away unmourned.’7 During the 1930s, a new generation of young intellectuals rose up to offer a sustained philosophical and economic critique of the very foundations of the Third Republic itself. I shall now examine in more detail the specific manner in which this sense of crisis was manifested and the criticism of French society which was almost universally held among the savants of the decade.

4 James McMillan, Dreyfus to De Gaulle: Politics in France, 1898–1969 (London: Edward Arnold, 1985), 105. 5 David Curtis, The French Popular Front and the Catholic Discovery of Marx (Hull: The University of Hull Press, 1997), 1. 6 McMillan, Dreyfus to De Gaulle, 121. 7 Tony Judt, ‘ “We Have Discovered History”: Defeat, Resistance and the Intellectuals in France’, The Journal of Modern History 64 (1992): 147.

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C RI S I S A N D TH E E M E R G E N C E OF THE GENERATION OF 1930 It was during this time of political upheaval that the generation of 1930 emerged and began their call for a new order, a revolution. Their identity was shaped by the trauma of the First World War and the Great Depression, as well as by the sedimented generations whose cultural memory remained strong. That they were public intellectuals in a climate of political extremism is indicated by the ongoing influence of the generation of 1890 and the thought of Charles Péguy.8 There was for them in Péguy’s work, Emmanuel Mounier later wrote, ‘a politics, a style of life, a renewal of their consciousness of France . . . It was at that moment in the late 1920s and early 1930s when the influence of Péguy began to win over French youth. All those who were unified by a sudden revolutionary awareness of the need to save human values amidst the twentieth century revolution came to group themselves more or less on the points of unity set by the author of Notre Jeunesse.’9 Moreover, their harsh, unsparing criticism of their elders was a mark of the generation of Agathon. The generation of 1930 seemed more formidable, however. Their criticism was harsher, and their sense of historical mission more defined. The War, as we discussed, had greatly expanded the sense of generational identity across class lines, and the crises they had faced were certainly much more severe than those of previous generations. The young intellectuals of this generation argued that a profound crisis of civilization existed. Daniel-Rops underscored this in his 1932 book entitled Les Années tournantes, writing: ‘It is impossible to doubt, I think, that were are living in les années tournantes.’10 Loubet has noted that 1930 was situated with almost equal distance between the armistice of First World War and the first actions of the Second World War and, in fact, represents a turning between two epochs of history in the West.11 The war had badly shaken the confidence many had in the nineteenth-century promises of progress, reason, and science, which they were convinced were fundamental social goods integral to the engine of modernity. Instead, however, that ‘science which was to unite and heal had brought the same great indifference to serve the

8 Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956 (New York NY: New York University Press, 2011), 18; for Péguy’s influence on the intellectuals of the 1930s, see Michel Raimond, ‘Péguy et la critique du monde moderne dans les années trente’, Cahiers de l’Association internationale des études francaises 49 (1997): 355–69. 9 Emmanuel Mounier, ‘Péguy ressuscité’, Bulletin des amis d’E. Mounier 12 (June 1958): 5–6, quoted in Amato, Maritain and Mounier, 99. 10 Henri Daniel-Rops, Les Années tournantes (Paris: Éditions du Siècle, 1932). 11 Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 13.

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forces of destruction . . . thus all the scaffolding of the spirit—reason, logic, intelligence—appeared as a mass of blind forces.’12 The criticism of the generation of 1930 toward the established order was marked by a contempt for the decadence of its elites, and the words ‘disgust’, ‘revolt’, ‘rejection’, and ‘rupture’ were commonly used.13 Jean de Fabrègues wrote in the Revue du siècle in 1934: ‘This generation is entirely arrayed against the obtuse egoism of the bourgeois-liberal, against economic and spiritual materialism, and against the impotence of a politics without spirit and without soul.’14 To this generation, the 1920s seemed passé: [An] era came to an end: the dazzling postwar era where literature flourished. Gide, Montherlant, Proust, Cocteau, surrealism, this fireworks display fell back upon itself. It had expressed its epoch with a marvellous burst but had not brought to man the light of a new destiny. The disappointment, orchestrated by the distant cracks of Wall Street, left these guides with no stars and caused their successors to reflect on the destiny of a civilization that seems still capable of brilliance, but at the price of a certain profound decline. The generation of 1920 had been a generation of young gods, d’enfants terribles, sparkling poets. The generation of 1930 was to be a serious generation of youth, grave, engaged with problems, worried for the future . . . giving itself more intimately to spiritual, philosophical and political investigations.15

The young intellectuals shared a similar analysis of what they held to be the insoluble problems of the existing order and the role they sought to play in the establishment of a new order. Working closely together to establish a tight network of relationships, they ‘found themselves around the same reviews, speaking the same language, using the same vocabulary; they all dreamed of going beyond the traditional confrontations, of rejuvenating, of renewing politics in France; they all declared that they were animated by the same revolutionary will’.16 Though sometimes differing in their political commitments, they organized themselves around important journals: L’Ordre nouveau, Esprit, Les Cahiers, Réaction, la Revue française, La Revue du siècle, and Combat. They wrote books such as Décadence de la nation française (1931), Le cancer américain (1931), and La Révolution nécessaire (1933), whose stinging indictment was

12

Jean-Richard Bloch, Destin du siècle (Paris: Éditions Rieder, 1931), 199, quoted in Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 24. 13 Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 199. 14 Jean de Fabrègues, ‘Esprit et la condition humaine’, La Revue du Siècle 10 (February 1934): 3, quoted in Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 199. 15 Emmanuel Mounier, ‘Quelques réflexions sur le personnalisme en France’, Synthèthes 4 (1947): 25–6. 16 Jean Touchard, ‘L'Esprit des années 1930: Une Tentative de renouvellement de la pensée politique française’, in Tendances politiques de la vie française depuis 1789 (Paris: Hachette, 1960), 89.

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influential in articulating the sense of crisis.17 Esprit was the most influential journal of this generation, popularizing the philosophy of personalism and attempting an important Catholic–Marxist engagement. Called by historians the non-conformistes, these young intellectuals significantly influenced the atmosphere of avant-garde thinkers in the 1930s. Their criticism of society was permeated by the exaggerated sense of historical mission so characteristic of generational identity and was carried forward by an almost utopian political, cultural, and religious vision. They dreamed of nothing less than a complete re-making of France, reversing centuries of decay and illusion, and they sought to develop anthropologies and sociopolitical visions that would inaugurate a new age. One scholar writes: Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the non-conformistes, who gathered around a number of small, elite reviews, was the depth of their pessimism. Their writings were pervaded by an all-consuming vision of decadence, a vision that extended beyond their nation to encompass Western civilization itself. Yet, in the end, this seemingly dark vision of the non-conformistes was not a recipe for despair; it offered, as a kind of counterpoint, the alluring prospect of total regeneration. Further, displaying an inflated sense of intellectual entitlement, exceptional even among interwar French littérateurs, the non-conformistes proclaimed that it would be the ‘mission’ of their generation—for whom they served, of course, as an advance guard—to undertake the task of national and civilizational regeneration.18

A Complete Crisis of Civilization: The Elites Undertake an Analysis The criticism that the generation of 1930 directed toward the international and domestic instability, economic and social disorder, and intellectual and spiritual decadence was total, and they deemed the crisis to be fatal. Their criticism was general and somewhat opaque, following philosophical lines, and the tone of their analysis was urgent, even shrill at times. The very saving of the French national soul demanded immediate action: ‘It appears to us that to remedy the disastrous effects of this [decadence] there still remains one chance, but only one chance.’19 The ‘role of our generation is to truly resolve,

17 Robert Aron and Arnaud Dandieu, Décadence de la nation française (Paris: Rieder, 1931); Robert Aron and Arnaud Dandieu, Le cancer américain (Paris: Rieder, 1931); and Robert Aron and Arnaud Dandieu, La Révolution nécessaire (Paris: Grasset, 1933). 18 Paul Mazgaj, ‘Engagement and the French Nationalist right: The Case of the Jeune Droite’, European History Quarterly 32 (2002): 207. 19 Robert Aron and Arnaud Dandieu, La Décadence de la nation française (Paris: Rieder, 1931, 11.

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other than by cries of helplessness or routine, la question Française’.20 French society was in fact a façade covered with ‘too many traditions and relics of a dead past [that] mask the réalité Française’.21 The status quo constituted ‘for France the greatest danger’: ‘it is in effect a country which can neither live by routine or habit, [and] cannot progress to its ancient stature’.22 On an international level, their disillusionment with the preceding generation was tied to its handling of post-war complexities with outmoded nineteenth-century ideas, an overly juridical notion of reparation and wrongs, and generally fuzzy ideas about new and closer economic relationships.23 The Treaty of Versailles, they maintained, was fundamentally hypocritical, merely contributing to the hyper-nationalism that had in fact caused the war, and the League of Nations, with its legacy of a ‘fausse paix’, had simply applied all the weaknesses of democratic and parliamentary systems to international politics, putting vote-counting ahead of real conflict resolution and national security beneath financial interest.24 Their domestic criticism was equally unsparing, and the parliamentary system of the Third Republic, which had become a ‘synonym for lying, cowardice, mediocrity, compromise and baseness’, had lost touch with reality and degenerated into an abstract ‘out-dated formalism’, unable to act directly in the lives of the people and meet real, concrete, existential needs.25 Opposing both excessive individualism and centralization, which only constrict and suppress the human person and the institutions that allow him or her to thrive, they instead proposed a ‘third way’, ‘ni droite, ni gauche’.26 Also, the non-conformistes opposed capitalism, which disregarded the common good, and they argued that an unbridled free market inevitably resulted in social and spiritual disorder. Mounier wrote that ‘history will designate without a doubt anti-capitalism as the common most privileged ground of the années 1930’.27 Thrown about by the whims of speculative profit, consumption and production were walled within an economic ‘closed world’ that gravitated totally around returns; the results were ‘fordisme’, a de-humanizing assembly-line environment which exalted a system of standardization and mechanization presided over by high paid executives whose end was unlimited profit.28 Capitalism’s endemic and excessive reliance on credit and private property only encouraged a culture based on servitude and individuality. 20

21 Aron and Dandieu, La Décadence, 27. Aron and Dandieu, La Décadence, 27. 23 Aron and Dandieu, La Décadence, 10. Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 202. 24 Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 203–4. 25 Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 216–17. 26 John Hellman, The Communitarian Third Way: Alexandre Marc and Ordre Nouveau 1930–2000 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 68–9. 27 Emmanuel Mounier, Manifeste au service du personnalisme (Paris: Montaigne, 1936), 145; A Personalist Manifesto, trans. by the monks of St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1938), 169; this quote is my translation from the French. 28 Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 240. 22

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Moreover, they railed against the rationalism and idealism of the ‘pensée bourgeoise’ that had infected many prominent writers and intellectuals who had abandoned concrete reality and caused a ‘désordre intellectual et spirituel’.29 The obsession in the 1920s with ‘psychologism’, introspection, and literary abstraction was indicative of this.30 Aron and Dandieu wrote in Décadence de la nation française: ‘the bourgeois have a taste for sterile and abstract ideas which enclose them within a formal framework that prevents the reality of things and feelings from entering’.31 They added that in the ‘flight from le concret, there lies the true betrayal of the intellectuals, whose idealistic cowardice threatens France and the world’.32 Not surprisingly, their denunciation of the spiritual disorder also brought with it a sharp reproach of the Church, as they claimed that bourgeois materialism and superficiality had diminished the Catholic culture of their day. The French hierarchy were themselves the keepers of a decadent bourgeois spirituality which ignored the true demands of the Christian life. Jean de Fabrègues wrote: ‘They think they are pillars of order, but they have never seen Christians, and there is such little place for Christ in their lives . . . What do they want? They have their places of honour in the Church . . . but they don’t know where they are going. They have lost the sense of good and evil. There are only for them the old conventions.’33 They followed the path marked by Péguy and demanded a revolutionary Catholicism open to a radical critique of the existing order, the struggle of the working class, and the spiritual needs of modernity. Beyond these individual aspects of decadence, they were convinced that the ‘crisis was much more general and much more profound; it was a total crisis of civilization’.34 Loubet del Bayle writes: It is in the perspective of a global crisis that [this generation] placed itself . . . They had in effect the feeling of being engaged in a grand adventure, and they deplored the fact that the true dimension of the situation was lost on many. ‘We were born to life, from infancy or adolescence, in the Lie and the Death,’ declared Mounier, ‘We have not since departed from the great magnitude. Millions of miseries have succeeded millions of deaths and millions of lies. People rise from the shadow of several centuries. Civilizations collapse, while others rise, and barbarities appear. We were not born in one of those periods where men slide on a tradition that offers assurances.’35

29

Emmanuel Berl, Mort de la pensée bourgeoise (Paris: Grasset, 1929). Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 254. 31 Aron and Dandieu, La Décadence, 63–4. 32 Aron and Dandieu, La Décadence, quoted in Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 259. 33 Jean de Fabrègues, Réaction 3, July (1930), quoted in Loubet del Bayle, Les Nonconformistes, 263. 34 Loubet del Bayle, Non-conformistes, 269. 35 Loubet del Bayle quotes Mounier’s letter to P. Archambault in l’Aube 27 February (1934), in Non-conformistes, 270. 30

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A Generational Mission: A New Humanism Captivated by a great sense of historical mission, the intellectuals of this generation were convinced that France, and Western Civilization for that matter, would be saved only if their particular programme was followed exclusively. Aron and Dandieu wrote: ‘Up until now our present position has been adopted today by a part of the French youth that is ceaselessly growing: our position is revolutionary by its observation of the désordre établi and the shame of a civilization that grows more and more inhuman and abstract, but our revolutionary position cannot join other contemporary revolutions or pseudo-revolutions.’36 This revolution that they hoped to carry out was nothing less than the total remaking of civilization. One historian writes that the ‘mission of their generation—for whom they served, of course, as an advance guard—was to undertake the task of national and civilizational regeneration’.37 Mounier’s programmatic article in the first issue of Esprit, ‘Refaire la Renaissance’, provides a broad glimpse of not only the personalist project but the common mind among avant-garde elites that sought to completely re-make civilization. First, he sought a ‘rehabilitation of the material world’ in which matter was ‘reinterpreted’ within a spiritual framework over and against the crass individualism that encouraged avarice and disorder; and second, he envisioned shaping a new order by a ‘rehabilitation of community’ in which a new humanism corrected four centuries of error that had developed around the individualistic excesses of the Renaissance and the collective excesses of the nineteenth century.38 This rehabilitation would be nothing less than the construction of a ‘new Christendom’ in which Christian values would reign over a diverse secular world. It remains essential to work with all our hearts towards this realization of a new Christendom no longer according to the medieval idea of a Holy Empire but according to the new and much less unitary ideal where the spiritual and moral action of the Church presides over a temporal order composed of a multitude of culturally and politically heterogeneous people whose religious diversities themselves are not near disappearing.39

The creation of this new society rested almost entirely on the development of a new anthropology, and one might argue that humanism was the dominant philosophical fixation of the age. The generation of 1930 was deeply dissatisfied

37 Aron and Dandieu, La Révolution, 269. Mazgaj, ‘Engagement’, 207. Gérard Lurol, Emmanuel Mounier: Le Lieu de la Personne, t. II (Paris: Harmatton, 2000), 192–3. 39 Jacques Maritain, Religion et culture (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1930), 46–7, quoted in Amato, Maritain and Mounier, 108. 36 38

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with the progressive optimism of the Enlightenment anthropology that saw human nature as universal, rational and immutable, and eschewing the ‘homme malade’ of abstraction and bourgeois culture, they sought to build the ‘new man’ grounded on concrete humanism and lived experience. Aron and Dandieu insisted that ‘we must return to man, but at the same time understand the difficulty and complexity of this return’, which must go beyond the individualism and materialism that ultimately effects an enslavement that alienates the human person from his or her labour.40 Every major ideology of the period attempted to re-cast itself in humanistic terms: Marxism, fascism, and republicanism, as well as various streams of Catholic thought, namely Thomism and personalism. Even a humanist approach to French colonialism was attempted.41 Marxist humanism was born during the 1930s, when Marx’s early writings were discovered and made widely known through Auguste Cornu’s Karl Marx: l’homme et l’oeuvre; de l’hégélianisme au materialism historique (18181845).42 Inspired by Feuerbach’s attempt in The Essence of Christianity to pull the Hegelian dialectic ‘down from the heavens’ and appropriate its philosophical idealism for materialistic causes, Marx’s early work stressed subjectivity and argued that alienation is a product of human estrangement from labour. In his 1937 autobiography, Les Fils du peuple, Thorez signalled that the shift toward humanism, which would come to an abrupt end only several years later, was part of the official PCF programme: Communism is the struggle for a free and happy man. Far from wanting to destroy human grandeur, communism is bound to life and wants to establish humanity on foundations that are real and true. Communism wants to create the conditions necessary to enable the flourishing of every human faculty, le communisme est un veritable humanisme.43

The near-obsession with humanism might be profoundly illustrated by examining a single issue from Esprit, published in October 1935. Dedicated almost exclusively to the question of humanism, it contained many of the intellectually dominant themes of the decade: crisis, social regeneration, historical consciousness, concrete philosophy, and political engagement. The issue began with an editorial, entitled Notre humanisme, which acknowledged the grave crisis and named the problem: ‘We agree on the enemy, and the first battles have begun in the war on capitalism, the bourgeois spirit, 40

Aron and Dandieu, La Révolution, 6. Nicola Cooper, ‘Colonial Humanism in the 1930s: The Case of Andrée Viollis’, French Cultural Studies 17/2 (2006): 189–205. 42 Auguste Cornu, Karl Marx: l’homme et l’oeuvre; de l’hégélianisme au materialism historique (1818–1845) (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1934); for these early writings, see Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology: Including Theses on Feuerbach and Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy (Amherst NY: Prometheus Books, 1998); and Karl Marx, Early Writings (London: Penguin, 1992). 43 Maurice Thorez, Le Fils du peuple, Oeuvres, t. 14 (Paris: Éditions Sociales, 1937), 168. 41

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proletarianism, imperialism . . . and the division of productive forces.’44 After refusing in no uncertain terms the ‘disordered establishment’, the writers spelled out their humanistic antidote: ‘Our motives are first moral and spiritual, and it is in the name of the dignity and essential aspirations of the person that we reject the current order and work to establish another.’45 Their humanistic personalism, which grounds ultimate human identity in its spiritual desire for transcendence, is contrasted with that of Communism and fascism, ‘both of which have tried [humanistic] resurrections’ and whose formulations are embedded respectively in labour and production or a certain exalted nationalist mythology.46 Paul Ricoeur’s remarked that Mounier’s ‘great strength is in having, in 1932, linked his way of philosophizing to the awareness of a crisis in civilization and in having dared to envisage, over and above all academic philosophy, a new civilization in its totality’.47 This underscores an important point: this plan of social regeneration was fundamentally an intellectual project. These intellectuals sought to create various ‘philosophies of action’ around which this new humanism might be constructed. The three interrelated and dependent characteristics of this philosophy were history, concrete philosophy, and engagement. In this section, we saw that during the crisis years of the 1930s an intellectual generation emerged which condemned French society in no uncertain terms as hopelessly decadent. They set out for themselves a revolutionary generational mission, which alone could save France from the materialism, rationalism, and individualism that was destroying it. This project was nothing short of a ground-up construction of a new humanism and a new society built on the three pillars of history (Historical Consciousness, p. 144), concrete existential philosophy (Philosophy: Towards the Concrete, p. 162), and engagement (Engagement, p. 167). We shall now examine each of these pillars.

HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS Before we examine the historical thinking of the generation of 1930, we shall briefly establish the link between crisis itself and historical consciousness. This connection is well established, and the analysis of the generation of 1930 was saturated with historical thinking. Invariably stimulated by collective trauma,

Emmanuel Mounier et al., ‘Notre humanisme (Déclaration collective)’, Esprit 3/37 (1935): 1. Mounier, ‘Notre humanisme’, 2. 46 Mounier, ‘Notre humanisme’, 8; for a later example of Marxist humanism, see Jean Lacroix, ‘l’Homme marxiste’, La Vie intellectuelle (August 1947): 26–59. 47 Paul Ricoeur, Histoire et vérité (Paris: Seuil, 1955), 105; History and Truth, translated by Charles Kelbley (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press, 1965), 134. 44 45

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certain social, political, or philosophical narratives were developed to cope with the crisis and provide explanatory analyses.48 Others even argue that ‘crisis constitutes historical consciousness’, and in fact, ‘there is no historical consciousness without crisis’.49 Recognizing the danger of this tendency, Hans-Georg Gadamer wrote: Things that change force themselves on our attention far more than those that remain the same. That is a general law of our intellectual life. Hence the perspectives that result from our experience of historical change are always in danger of being exaggerated because they forget what persists unseen. In modern life, our historical consciousness is constantly overstimulated.50

This historical ‘overstimulation’, I suggest, exacerbated by the crise l’entreguerres, shaped not only the historical retrieval of the generation of 1930 but also its assessment of its own contemporary culture, and its intellectual needs. Valéry, writing with a more impassioned cry in 1931, underscored the intertwining and danger of history and crisis: History is the most dangerous product which the chemistry of the mind has concocted. Its properties are well known. It produces dreams and drunkenness. It fills people with false memories, exaggerates their reactions, exacerbates old grievances, torments them in their repose, and encourages either a delusion of grandeur or a delirium of persecution. It makes whole nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable and vainglorious.51

Nikolai Berdyaev—philosopher, refugee of the Russian revolution, and nonconformiste—had presciently noted that ‘catastrophic moments in world history’ invariably incite a sudden embracing of historical speculation. Berdyaev was utterly clear: his contemporary world was in fact gripped by ‘immense crisis’, a ‘fateful and menacing schism and destruction’, and ‘[v]olcanic sources have opened in the historical substrata. Everything is tottering, and we have the impression of a particularly intense and acute movement of historical forces.’52 Fessard went even further, arguing that crisis is necessary for history: ‘Avoir une histoire’, isn’t this—for both the community as well as the individual— to be engaged in a drama which questions the totality of one’s existence? The sum Some scholars have seen evidence of this link as early as the fifth century in Augustine’s City of God, a historical defence of Christianity in the context of the decline of Rome by the Germanic invasions; for example, see Ernest Fortin, ‘Augustine’s City of God and the Modern Historical Consciousness’, The Review of Politics 41/3 (1979): 323–43. 49 Jörn Rüsen, ‘Holocaust, Memory and Identity Building: Metahistorical Considerations in the Case of (West) Germany’, in Disturbing Remains: Memory, History and Crisis in the Twentieth Century, eds. Michael Roth and Charles Salas (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2001), 253. 50 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (London: Continuum, 2004), xxii. 51 Paul Valéry, Regards sur le monde actuel (Paris: Delamain et Boutelleau, 1931), 43. 52 Nikolaĭ Berdyaev, The Meaning of History (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1936), 2; for Joseph Ratzinger’s observation of this phenomenon in his 1953 doctoral thesis, see The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure (Chicago IL: Franciscan Herald Press), 1971. 48

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to prove his value and to save himself by overcoming the perils that menace him? . . . It follows that the happiness of those people who lack a history [who have never lived through crisis] can hardly be called happiness [d’une qualité bien relevée]; strictly speaking, it is hardly a ‘human’ kind of happiness. Indeed, since the dignity of man, both individual and collective, consists in the revelation of the value which permits him to make his destiny and overcome fate, the happiness that eliminates this revelation, and history itself, one must confess, is similar in every respect to that of an animal, and animals do not have histories!53

Competing narratives are often constructed during times of crisis, which offer sometimes radically divergent interpretations of a complex and contentious environment: ‘at times of crisis the importance and the difficulty of figuring out what to believe become all the more obvious. Which is the right narrative? Which is likely to lead to the best outcome? . . . The choice of narrative can be a fatal one.’54 The construction of narrative is a necessary part of developing a ‘framework’, around which experiences can be structured, and ‘it seems impossible for a historian or sociologist to have access to a crisis in which narrative plays no part. Moreover, narratives differ depending on how one is situated in relationship to the event.’55 The revolution of the generation of 1930 relied on an avant-garde task of historical reclamation and synthesis, which Mounier remarked was the inspiration of Péguy, because ‘he alone among our contemporary masters pushed so far a radical synthesis of all French traditions; the Christian tradition, the socialist and revolutionary tradition, the Republican and Revolutionary tradition. Beyond this, Péguy, first socialist and humanist, then socialist and Christian, put us at the threshold of that great revolution which is advancing across the world: ‘The Revolution will be moral or not at all.’56 Each ideology that vied for supremacy against competitors cast itself as a true humanism, and each was mutually exclusive of the others, claiming to have formulated an authentic anthropology over and against others; and each had its own historical narrative on which it relied for justification to bolster its utopian vision.57 These metanarratives were fixated on diagnosing society’s ills and locating the historical point at which civilization began its deterioration.58 Gaston Fessard, ‘Du sens de l’histoire’, Cité Nouvelle: 345–6. Roth and Salas, Disturbing Remains, 4. Roth and Salas, Disturbing Remains, 5. 56 Mounier, ‘Péguy ressuscité’, 5, quoted in Amato, Maritain and Mounier, 99. 57 Metanarratives began to flourish in the late eighteenth century with the birth of historical consciousness, and they reached the apex of their development in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; see Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in NineteenthCentury Europe (Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975). 58 The use of metanarrative has been at the heart of political struggle since the French Revolution and was central to the interwar cultural and intellectual struggle. Marxism, fascism and republicanism all relied on the metanarrative as an effective and popular principle of selfjustification. For the Marxist reliance on a metanarrative that finds a ‘redemptive process leading 53 54 55

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Mounier also, as was prevalent at this time, attempted to uncover the historical roots of the ‘disordered establishment’: Historically the crisis that presses upon us is more than a simple political crisis or even a profound economic crisis. We are witnessing the cave-in of a whole area of civilization, one, namely, that was born towards the end of the Middle Ages, was consolidated and at the same time threatened by the industrial age, is capitalistic in its structure, liberal in its ideology, and bourgeois in its ethics. We are taking part in the birth of a new civilization whose characteristics and beliefs are still confused, mixed with decadent forms or the convulsive products of the civilization that is disappearing. Any program of action that does not attain the dimensions of this historical fact is nothing but servile and empty work. Five centuries of history are in the balance; five centuries of history are undoubtedly beginning to crystalize.59

Politics also became saturated with historical consciousness, as competing historical narratives attempted to justify their ideologies by arguing for a ‘true France’. Communists and fascists both tried to offer historical constructions that tied them to the authentic France. Rival factions campaigned to win universal acceptance of their interpretation of the past and to suppress interpretations which were likely to deprive them of legitimacy. ‘Français, vous avez la mémoire courte,’ Marshal Pétain told the nation in 1941. But this was usually a studied forgetfulness . . . [T]he same event or figure was often the subject of different constructions by different communities, each trying to privilege its own interpretations of others. Thus whether the French Revolution was triumph or tragedy was the object of furious debate between rival political communities, while Napoleon, Joan of Arc and Proudhon were the victims of tugs-of-war between rival political communities, each seeking to legitimate its cause by making its own presentation of these figures prevail.60

The leaders of the Popular Front led by the PCF immediately attempted to tie the spirit of the movement to the Revolution of 1792, thereby supplanting any supposed allegiance with Moscow or class-on-class struggle with a nationalistic devotion to France. In a speech in August of 1936, Thorez said: We can say that the Popular Front (and we Communists, are part of it for good reason), is in this sense a truly French Front, a Front of the people of France, heirs

through class struggle and revolutions to socialism and a communist world order’, see Perez Zagorin, ‘History, the Referent, and Narrative: Reflections on Postmodernism Now’, History and Theory 38.1 (1999): 6; for nationalist and fascist use of metanarrative in twentieth century France, see Stefan Berger, Mark Donovan, and Kevin Passmore, Writing National Histories Western Europe since 1800 (New York NY: Routledge, 2002); and Herman Lebovics, True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity, 1900–1945 (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1992). 59 Mounier, A Personalist Manifesto, 7–8. 60 Robert Gildea, The Past in French History (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 11.

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and sons of the Great Revolution, against the pacts of foreign agents, against a modern version of the Treaty of Coblentz. A French front in the heroic tradition of our people’s struggle and liberty, with the strains of the ‘Marseillaise’ of 1792 mixed in with those of our ‘International’, under the flag of Valmy and the red flag of the Commune, a Front against anti-French traitors.61

In philosophy, the rediscovery of Hegel, as we shall see later in the chapter, marked one of the pivotal intellectual turns of the decade and helped bring history to the forefront of French intellectual thinking. The philosophy of history became a ‘foundation for understanding the modern world and for providing insight into how that world might be changed for the better’.62 The appropriation of Hegel became a means for ‘confronting the historical, for thinking about the connection between history and knowing’.63 In conclusion, having discussed the link between crisis and historical thinking, we can state that the generation of 1930 was saturated with historical thinking, and their various humanistic constructions of the age were grounded in justificatory metanarratives that traced their thought to a golden age. Moreover, they sought to undermine their competitors historically, by locating the precise point of divergence from a more authentic tradition.

PHILOSOPHY: TOWARDS THE CONCRETE It has been said that French philosophy in the 1930s was dominated by the ‘generation of the three H’s’: Hegel, Heidegger, and Husserl.64 The influence of these three thinkers—and especially Hegel—signalled a sea change in the intellectual atmosphere of the period: ‘There is no clearer sign of the changes in mentality—the revolt against neo-Kantianism, the decline of Bergsonianism— than the triumphal return of Hegel. Banished by the neo-Kantians, he curiously and suddenly, became a vanguard writer, quoted with respect in leading circles.’65 In fact, Hegelianism was a ‘vehicle for confronting the historical’ which also allowed for an integration of other intellectual currents such as Marxism, phenomenology, existentialism, surrealism.66 Moreover, the ‘return to Marx’ was in no small part linked to and dependent on a concurrent ‘return to Hegel’, for whom the generation of crisis found a philosophical ground on 61 Maurice Thorez, speech 6 August 1936, quoted in Sunil Khilnani, Arguing Revolution: The Influential Left in Postwar France (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 25. 62 Michael Roth, Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth-Century France (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), ix. 63 Roth, Knowing, ix, 2. 64 Vincent Descombes, Modern French Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 3. 65 66 Descombes, Modern French Philosophy, 9. Roth, Knowing, 2.

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which to unite the three dominant tendencies through which they hoped to create a new man and new society: history, concrete philosophy, and engagement.67 The Hegelian renaissance was driven by four different philosophers who had very different readings of Hegel that often reflected their own religious and political convictions: Jean Wahl (1888–1974), Alexandre Koyré (1892–1964), Alexandre Kojève (1902–68), and Jean Hyppolite (1907–68), figures some of the Fourvière Jesuits knew well and with whom they had significant intellectual exchange.68 At the beginning of the decade there was an almost total absence of any interest in Hegelian studies in France, yet by 1946 Merleau-Ponty wrote in the preface to Les Temps modernes: ‘all the great philosophical ideas of the past century—the philosophies of Marx and Nietzsche, phenomenology, German existentialism, and psychoanalysis—had their beginnings in Hegel’.69 The French Hegel, influenced significantly by the developing sense of crisis and the desire to ‘turn towards the concrete’, was not the German system builder himself, but rather, for the French elites, Hegel was a ‘budding existentialist’ able to give a synthetic account of desire, history, concrete experience, and action. Judith Butler provides an insight into the empowerment that Hegel provided during the crisis years of the 1930s: The Phenomenology’s vision of an active and creating subjectivity, a journeying subject empowered by the work of negation, served as a source of hope during these years of political and personal crisis. Hegel provided a way to discern reason in the negative, that is, to derive the transformative potential from every experience of defeat. The destruction of institutions and ways of life, the mass annihilation and sacrifice of human life, revealed the contingency of existence in brutal and indisputable terms. Hence, the turn to Hegel can be seen as an effort to excise ambiguity from the experience of negation.70

The French retrieval was begun in 1930 by Wahl’s influential book Le malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel, and its move towards the ‘real’ was pivotal for the young philosophers of this generation.71 Sartre wrote later of Wahl’s influence: What interested us, however, was ‘real men’ with their work and their pain . . . A book that was very popular among us during this period was Jean Wahl’s Vers le concret. Yet we were disappointed with this ‘towards’: it is the concret total from 67

Curtis, The French Popular Front, 63. For example, Fessard was introduced to Wahl by Valensin, and for his friendship with Kojève, see Hugh Gillis, ‘Kojève-Fessard Documents’, Interpretation 19/2 (1991–1992): 185–200. Daniélou knew Hyppolite and attended certain Parisian intellectual gatherings with him. 69 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sens et non-sens (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 79; Sense and Non-Sense (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 63. 70 Judith Butler, Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-century France (New York NY: Columbia University Press, 2012), 62. 71 Michael Kelly, Hegel in France (Birmingham AL: University of Birmingham, 1992), 35. 68

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which we wanted to depart, it is to concret absolu that we wanted to arrive. But the work pleased us, because it embarrassed idealism by discovering paradoxes, ambiguities and conflicts that could not be resolved in the universe.72

Wahl’s primary theme was the ‘unhappy consciousness’ or the interior lack that consciousness attempts to overcome, which derives from the essential driving force of human history, the ‘alienation’ experienced between the human person, the ‘unchangeable’, and the quest to overcome that separation in a fulfilled or unified existence. This ultimate unification, however, is never achieved, as each resolution brings only further separation, discord, and strife. The abstraction of Hegel’s dialectic—thesis, antithesis and synthesis— is romanticized by Wahl, brought into contact with the concrete world of experience, and grounded in this sense of alienation, despair and hope, which achieves a certain synthesis in the form of wisdom. This essentially religious reading of Hegel holds that ‘the motif of division, sin and torment . . . little by little is transformed into that of reconciliation and beatitude’.73 For Wahl, this movement toward spiritual reconciliation is manifested in the unfolding of history, which is in fact a narrative of spiritual development in which the unhappy consciousness finds its unity only through this continual struggle and the movement of history that is directed towards reconciliation.74 The most influential Hegelian philosopher of the decade, though, was Russian émigré and Marxist philosopher, Kojève, whose lectures (1933–9) gained significant notoriety and were well attended by a number of young intellectuals who would assume positions of cultural dominance after the Second World War: Bataille, Lacan, Queneau, Aron, Merleau-Ponty, Weil, Breton, Levinas, de Beauvoir, and Fessard.75 Kojève primarily undertook what has been called a ‘ménage à trois’ integration of Hegel with Marx and Heidegger, but the broad range of influences that he attempted to synthesize is remarkable.76 Those attending the seminar represented a mélange of intellectuals who came looking for answers to the concerns of a changing France and the questions presented by the events of World War I. Kojève brought to the table a new way of doing philosophy . . . He presented a reading of Hegel that drew from Einstein’s physics, Bergson’s intuitionism, Husserl’s phenomenology, Heidegger’s ontology, and Marx’s politics. For the young French intellectuals, everything Kojève gave them seemed new.77

72 Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique de la raison dialectique, précédé de Question de méthode, t. I (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), 23–4. 73 Jean Wahl, Le Malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel (Paris: Rieder, 1929), 29. 74 Roth, Knowing, 4. 75 Ethan Kleinberg, Generation Existential (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 66. 76 Aimé Patri, ‘Dialectique de maître et de l’esclave’, Le Contrat social 5/4 (1961): 234. 77 Kleinberg, Generation, 67.

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Hegel allowed Kojève to construct an anthropology deeply influenced by the fundamental concepts of ‘Self-Consciousness’, ‘Desire’, and ‘Action’. Moreover, he was deeply influenced by the recently discovered Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, which are included among Marx’s older, more humanistic, writings which provided a richer sense of action and history.78 Marx’s ‘inverted’ reading of Hegel provided Kojève with a materialist notion of history, emphasizing labour and production in the human re-ordering of the world on which human fulfilment depends. The path to this human fulfilment begins when the human subject turns away from contemplation, which reveals nothing more than the object that is contemplated, and is ‘brought back to himself ’ by Desire, for example, the ‘desire to eat’.79 It is through these very basic animal desires that ‘man is formed and revealed to himself ’, as well as to others.80 The ‘very being of man, the self-consciousness of being, therefore implies and presupposes Desire’.81 This animal desire, then, is satisfied only through action and a certain ‘negation’ or ‘destruction’ of the object which is sought after, such as food if the desire is hunger.82 Self-Consciousness can only be attained by going beyond what is natural, and since Desire itself is the only thing that goes beyond a given reality by directing itself towards another Desire in a ‘negatingnegativity’, the ‘I’ emerges.83 This ‘I’ will be action itself as it feeds on Desire, which is realized solely through action. Far from being static, it will be a ‘becoming’ that exists in time rather than space. The ‘I’ that emerges from this process is ‘individual’, ‘historical’, and ‘free’.84 Authentic humanity comes into being only when the animal nature is overcome by human desire. Kojève wrote: ‘man’s humanity “comes to light” only if he risks his (animal) life for the sake of human Desire.’85 The human person desires ultimately that the value he or she represents be the value that the other person desires. This is the product of desiring a Desire, which has its end only in achieving a certain ‘recognition’ by the other. Kojève considered Heidegger to be the ‘heir to the anthropocentric philosophy of the Phenomenology’, and he attempted to impose certain Heideggerian elements onto Hegelian concepts, which, he maintained, have a corresponding value.86 The situation into which the human person finds himself or herself thrown is one marked by an ontic desire for recognition. In the master–slave

78

Butler, Subjects, 64. André Kojève, Introduction à la lecture de Hegel (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), 11; Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1969), 3. 80 Kojève, Introduction à la lecture, 11; Introduction, 4. 81 Kojève, Introduction à la lecture, 11; Introduction, 4. 82 Kojève, Introduction à la lecture, 11–12; Introduction, 4. 83 Kojève, Introduction à la lecture, 12–13; Introduction, 5. 84 Kojève, Introduction à la lecture, 13; Introduction, 5. 85 86 Kojève, Introduction à la lecture, 14; Introduction, 7. Roth, Knowing, 90. 79

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dialectic that ensues, the slave begins to transform and overcome nature through a ‘coping mechanism’ that facilitates a certain acceptance of one’s situation, which he will not overcome until his or her Angst or fear of death is transcended. Moreover, Kojève’s Hegelian vision is one that offers a secular reading that de-theologizes the absolute, culminating in a ‘fight to the death for pure prestige’, where one Desire confronts another and endangers itself ‘in order to be “recognized” by the other, to impose itself on the other as the ultimate value; accordingly, their meeting can be only a fight to the death’.87 This struggle produces two fundamentally different forms of anthropogenic behaviour, one dominant (the master) and one submissive (the slave), representing those who have overcome their animal desires and those who have not. The slave fears, gives in to, refuses to sacrifice for recognition, and fundamentally relinquishes his or her desire for recognition. Having subjugated the slave, the master is not satisfied and seeks to be further desired by others. Within this struggle, Kojève found that history is nothing more than a dialectical process between the master and slave. The master, having his material needs met, becomes materially satiated, but the slave, by working to provide for the master, continues to supress his own desires until he overcomes his fear of death and revolts against his oppressor. Kojève traced the evolution of the human being through history to its ultimate goal of SelfConsciousness. This dialectical struggle, which becomes the slaughter bench of history, develops as it moves through pagan, Christian, and bourgeois states. Only with the coming of the French Revolution, and its herald Napoleon, was freedom articulated philosophically and self-consciousness attained through the overcoming of God, and thus was the fear of death overcome. Kojève wrote that it is ‘Hegel, the author of the Phenomenology, who is somehow Napoleon’s Self-Consciousness. And since the perfect Man, the Man fully “satisfied” by what he is, can only be a fully self-conscious Man who knows what he is, it is Napoleon’s existence as revealed to all men in and by the Phenomenology that is the realized ideal of human existence.’88 In conclusion, the generation of 1930 was convinced that abstraction and rationalism were intellectually meaningless to modernity. Instead, philosophy needed to embrace history, phenomenology and existentialism, and political and ideological engagement. An existentialist reading of Hegel’s thought, rooted in action and history, served to explain and justify the sense of crisis and decadence. In this philosophy of history, the concept of desire becomes a central driving force in the progress of human consciousness, which emerges as the master–slave dialectic unfolds. Moreover, these humanistic categories allowed for a totalizing anthropological and political narrative to be constructed, in 87 88

Kojève, Introduction à la lecture, 14; Introduction, 7. Kojève, Introduction à la lecture, 153–7; Introduction, 69–70.

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which there is a mutual dependence on individual and social flourishing within a materialist framework.

ENGAGEMENT For the avant-garde thinkers of the generation of 1930, to be an intellectual was to be engagé, that is, morally committed to an ideology, cause, or political programme. Engagement was an attitude that undergirded their intellectual sense and permeated their generational mission, and to be un-engaged was to exemplify all the intellectual bourgeois characteristics that they detested: abstraction, individualism, and decadence. This sense of engagement was not something extraneous to their historical and philosophical approaches, which we have just examined, but rather, the three aspects form one dynamism, each interpenetrating the other: existence itself was concrete, historical, and political. Historical thinking sought to undermine one’s adversaries and justify certain political convictions and intellectual commitments. Moreover, concrete philosophy, such as that in Kojève’s thought, sought to locate the historical process by which the oppressed would be freed and political equilibrium established. The necessity of engagement for the intellectuals of this period was first articulated in 1932 by Paul Nizan (1905–40), a brilliant normalien philosopher, convinced Communist, and close friend of Sartre and de Beauvoir, in The Watchdogs: Philosophers of the Established Order.89 Nizan, like the nonconformistes, recognized that a grave situation was at hand: ‘At the present time the world is in the grip of what is generally known as a crisis. It is like one of those horrendous epidemics that swept across the face of the earth during the Middle Ages, striking fear into the hearts of men.’90 Thus, the Watchdogs is a kind of philosophical manifesto against one of the causes of the crisis, bourgeois rationalism, which included for Nizan both the Neoscholasticism of such figures as Maritain as well as the Neo-Kantianism of Brunschivcg, who divorced thought from life: ‘Bourgeois civilization is not sick because it has enemies; rather, enemies have risen up in protest against the sickness of this civilization.’91 Men who ‘have the power to destroy the old ideas’ are ‘now demanding a new philosophy, a useful philosophy’, because to ‘expose philosophical illusions which . . . prevent French youth from seeing 89 Paul Nizan, Les Chiens de garde (Paris: F. Maspero, 1968); The Watchdogs: Philosophers of the Established Order, trans. Paul Fittingoff (New York NY: Monthly Review, 1960). 90 Nizan, Les Chiens, 103; Watchdogs, 115; for more on Nizan, see Jean-Jacques Brochier, ed., Paul Nizan, intellectual communiste: 1926–1940 (Paris: La Découverte, 2001). 91 Nizan, Les Chiens, 108; Watchdogs, 121.

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their true situation is a necessary and urgent task’.92 Nizan argued that rationalistic philosophy was powerless to improve the daily lives of people: People are already realizing that they have already waited too long for the scholars to intervene on their behalf. They are amazed that the scholars are, for all practical purposes, impotent; that they cannot provide them with the means of overcoming the incredible hardships that plague them from the cradle to the grave. Nothing is happening. The chains around their necks are tighter than ever before. How vast is the gulf between what the scholars have promised and what they can actually accomplish.93

Bourgeois thought prevents reason ‘from serving men in a concrete fashion, from performing certain basic functions in their lives, from protecting them and effectively illuminating their existence’.94 Instead it offers ‘a purely spiritual form of salvation, but the blows which rain down on men’s heads are not spiritual at all’.95 Philosophy must be grounded on ‘reality’, make contact with life, and be ‘concerned above all with human actions and their practical consequences’.96 Thus, the philosopher of tomorrow must seek to be of service to other men—and not to play the apostle. In the years ahead, the philosopher will finally be put in his place. The trivial needs and wants of human beings will become his own, and he will have no alternative but to serve as the ‘technician’ of their demands. His sole function will be to give expression to the unconscious urges and vague revolutionary impulses now stirring in men’s brains. His sole mission will be to denounce all the conditions which prevent men from being human, to describe and explain these conditions so thoroughly that all those who do not yet understand why they are living as they do will become fully conscious of the realities of their situation.

Philosophy for Nizan was not univocal, but rather should be concerned with ‘men’ in their contextualized and concrete existence, and the history of philosophy is not the story of ‘privileged characters, freed from the exigencies of fleeting time and the chains of geographical fixity, [who] patiently exchange rigorously ordered pronouncements on themes as timeless as these individuals themselves’.97 Philosophers have never been ‘pure spirits or native inhabitants of celestial regions’, but rather real contextualized humans whose intellectual systems must be seen within the milieu of their creation and brought into the ‘tumult and turbulence of earthly life’; ‘purity is imaginary. Every philosopher, though he may consider he does not, participates in the impure reality of his age.’98

92 94 95 96 98

Nizan, Les Chiens, 116; Watchdogs, 130. Nizan, Les Chiens, 120; Watchdogs, 135. Nizan, Les Chiens, 120–1; Watchdogs, 135. Nizan, Les Chiens, 124; Watchdogs, 139. Nizan, Les Chiens, 107; Watchdogs, 119.

93

Nizan, Les Chiens, 118; Watchdogs, 133.

97

Nizan, Les Chiens, 105; Watchdogs, 117.

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In summary, for the generation of 1930, concrete, historical thinking was necessarily engaged ideologically and politically, and un-engaged philosophy was merely bourgeois decadence. They levelled a harsh critique against French society, which they charged with being rationalistic and individualistic, and they insisted that thought make contact with life and be attentive to the real needs of the ‘men of today’ and their deepest cares and concerns. Moreover, they sought to construct a new order, the the development of a ‘new man’, and ‘new society’.

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6 The Catholic Generation of 1930 French Catholic intellectuals in the 1930s were driven largely by the same intellectual and political tendencies that moved the savants in the wider culture, and this period saw the sudden rise of Left Catholicism. Thus, two competing visions of the Church’s role in French society emerged and vied for influence which Fouilloux has termed ‘catholiques de mouvement’ and ‘catholiques de position’.1 While the former sought to articulate the faith in concrete, engaged, and historical terms, the latter viewed the faith as timeless and absolute in certain respects. As we saw earlier, progressive Catholics in France had existed since the turn of the century on a very limited scale in such movements as the Semaines sociales and Mark Sagnier’s Le Sillon (The Furrow), a Left Catholic political movement designed to foster certain republican and socialist ideals. This new surge had a dramatic effect on the life of the French church as well as on wider French society during the 1930s, the Second World War, and into the post-war period of the late 1940s. This decade is still one that is revered by liberal Catholics as a ‘watershed’ moment, a ‘petite Pentecôte’, and a golden age, where Catholics abandoned solely defensive positions, opting for dialogue, affirmation, appropriation, engagement, and collaboration instead of recrimination and condemnation.2 In fact, the year 1930 marks the beginning of ‘un second ralliement’, that is, an attempt to reconcile the French church with the government and modern society.3 While the first ralliement, declared by Pope Leo XIII in 1890, was largely unsuccessful, the third definitive victory for ralliement would unfold in the years after the Second World War. This middle attempt at a rapprochement

1 Étienne Fouilloux, ‘Courants de pensée, piété, apostolate’, in Histoire du Christianisme, Tome 12: Guerres mondiales et totalitarismes (1914–1958), ed. Jean-Marie Mayeur (Paris: DescléeFayard, 1990), 223; René Rémond, Les Catholiques dans la France des années 30 (Paris: Cana, 1979), 14–16. 2 Philip Nord, ‘Catholic Culture in Interwar France’, French Politics, Culture and Society 21/3 (2003): 1; also see David Curtis, The French Popular Front and the Catholic Discovery of Marx (Hull: The University of Hull Press, 1997), 133. 3 Rémond, Les Catholiques, 14.

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was initiated by the policies of Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI, and the 1926 condemnation of Action française, a French right-wing political movement, was also central, forcing right-wing Catholic intellectuals to abandon largely their defensive posture. Out of this complex milieu emerged a network of important journals, lay movements, initiatives, and priests, theologians, and bishops who were sympathetic to the cause of a more socially engaged Catholicism, more open to modernity and secularism and more sympathetic to the plight of the working class. The nouveaux théologiens were undoubtedly the tip of the intellectual spear of this movement. This approach sought to offer a revitalized Christian humanism attentive to the needs of a new ‘spiritual communion’ and able to combat individualism and materialism. Many youth organizations were born under the umbrella of the Action catholique movement, the best known being Jeunesse ouvière chrétienne (JOC), begun in 1926 by a French priest, Georges Guérin, who had been influenced before the war by Le Sillon. After ministering in the working class Parisian neighbourhood of Cligny, Guérin became attentive to the spiritual and material needs of Catholic workers. During the 1920s, the rapid industrial expansion in the Parisian suburbs allowed for the sudden spread of Communist influence, and Catholic practice in some of these neighbourhoods became almost non-existent.4 Thus, a new evangelization of the working class was called for, and beyond the JOC, a whole network of other organizations was formed that carried these hopes: the Jeunesse agricole chrétienne, the Jeunesse étudiante chrétienne, and the Ligue ouvrière chrétienne.5 Also, several important newspapers and journals emerged and flourished after the condemnation of Action française. L’Aube was a widely read daily newspaper that championed Christian democracy, while three intellectual journals—Esprit, which we have already discussed, La Vie intellectuelle, and Sept—provided vehicles for progressive Catholic intellectual reflection. All three were heavily influenced by Maritain, and the latter two were both Dominican publications. Founded by the Dominican Marie-Vincent Bernadot at the express wishes of Pius XI, La Vie intellectuelle was run by former disciples of Le Sillon and Marc Sagnier. They sought to integrate the nonconformiste desire to construct a ‘new Christianity’ with Maritainian Thomism and elements of personalism.6 The journal took an important role in the question of Catholic–Communist dialogue as well as the movement to examine 4 Gerd-Rainer Horn, Western European Liberation Theologie: The First Wave (1924–1959) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 24. 5 See Adrien Dansette, Destin du catholicisme français (1926–1956) (Paris: Flammarion, 1957) for a table of the principle movements within Action catholique, 86–7. 6 Jean-Claude Delbreil, La revue ‘La Vie intellectuelle’: Marc Sangnier, le thomisme et le personnalisme (Paris: Cerf, 2008), 27.

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the Church’s own responsibility for some of the problems of Modernity.7 Sept was a radical product of the Juvisy Dominicans. The priests there, despite their traditional tonsure and flowing white robes, were experimental communities, operating from a modern convent structure in the middle of a ‘Red Belt’ (Communist leaning) Parisian working-class neighbourhood, a bit like Daniel in the lion’s den. These Spartan elite priests, who ‘prayed seven times a day’ and were all the more ‘loved for that,’ were visited by social workers and professors, pastors, chaplains of Catholic Action groups, film producers, and trade unionists . . . [They were] a spiritualist, communitarian alternative to Marxism in tough ‘pagan,’ Stalinist territory.8

The non-conformiste Marc Alexandre had an important part in the running of Sept, which was administered by several Dominicans, including Chenu, Congar, and Sertillanges, and contributors included a ‘who’s who’ of French intellectuals such as Maritain, Gilson, and Daniel-Rops. Sept attempted a progressive ‘cutting edge’ approach, that sought to guide Action catholique.9 In 1937, however, authorities forced its closure due to conservative pressure, and the publication was reintroduced as Temps présent under different leadership, although Chenu still maintained an active role. Finally, under the umbrella of Jesuit influence was Francisque Gay, a Blondelian who had been strongly influenced by Le Sillon. Gay had created the avant-garde intellectual journal La Vie catholique and a popular daily newspaper championing social democracy, l’Aube, mentioned above. One of the most important of these journals that allowed the Fourvière Jesuits to exercise such significant influence was Recherches de science religieuse. The renewal that de Grandmaison sought to bring about through an emphasis on historical and positive theology in this journal was pivotal, as it provided an institutional outlet for the proliferation of historical studies, which were necessary to develop more fully Blondel’s notion of tradition and Rousselot’s historical reappraisal of Aquinas, two projects at the centre of Fourvière thought. Recherches certainly marked the character of French Jesuit intellectual life and was a kind of generational and programmatic link, tying together three generations of Jesuits with a common method and outlook. The sudden death of de Grandmaison left the leadership in the hands of Lebreton, and as the Fourvière Jesuits finished their formation and were ordained, Lebreton began to prepare the young Jesuits for leadership positions: ‘We may note, from 1931 on, the discreet appearance of a young team: H. de Lubac (1931) . . . Y. de Moncheuil (1933), G. Fessard 7 Etienne Fouilloux, Une Église en quête de liberté: La pensée catholique française entre modernisme et Vatican II, 1914–1962 (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2006), 84. 8 John Hellman, The Communitarian Third Way: Alexandre Marc and Ordre Nouveau 1930–2000 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 112. 9 For an overview, see Hellman, The Communitarian, 112–17.

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(1934), . . . H. Rondet, C. de Mondésert (1936), J. Daniélou (1940). Thus, under the far-sighted guidance of F. Lebreton, the younger generation was gradually to take over responsibilities.’10

CRISIS: A DECA DENT, RATIONALISTIC, AND INDIV IDUALISTIC CHURCH The avant-garde criticism we examined above that was directed against French society and institutions was repeated, almost verbatim in many cases, by French Catholic intellectuals against the Church, which was accused of being unengaged, ahistorical, and cut off from life. John Hellman writes that Mounier now flatly denounced old-fashioned Christianity and Christians. Christianity, he wrote, was ‘conservative, defensive, sulky, afraid of the future.’ Whether it ‘collapses in a struggle or sinks slowly in a coma of self-complacency’ it was doomed. ‘Christians,’ he castigated in even stronger terms in a rhapsodic style worthy of his new master: ‘These crooked beings who go forward in life only sidelong with downcast eyes, these ungainly souls, these weighers-up of virtues, these dominical victims, these pious cowards, these lymphatic heroes, these colourless virgins, these vessels of ennui, these bags of syllogisms, these shadows of shadows . . . ’ Mounier was nauseated by that ‘dreary and somewhat stupid sadness that one too often sees on the faces of those entering and leaving churches and chapels.’ After describing various foibles of French Christianity, more and more ‘a religion of women, old men and small tradesmen,’ he described the contemporary Christian ‘type’: ‘The timorous believer . . . vaguely aware of the divorce between the Church and life, does not dare to cast himself either into the deep water of the Church . . . or into the flowing currents of life.’11

In more muted tone, Congar’s 1935 article, ‘Une conclusion théologique à l’enquête sur les raisons actuelles de l’incroyance’, was a contribution to a larger series in La Vie intellectuelle examining the reasons for modern unbelief, and it continued this line of criticism.12 He argued that it was the Church that must examine itself and take responsibility for much of the modern discord 10 Joseph Lecler, ‘Le Cinquantenaire des Recherches’, in Recherches de science religieuse, 1910–2010: Théologies et vérité au defi de l’histoire (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 138; Joseph Lecler, ‘The Fiftieth Anniversary of Recherches’, in Recherches de science religieuse, 1910–2010: Theologies and Truth, the Challenges of History, edited by Christoph Theolbald, trans. Cozette GriffinKremer and Robert Kremer (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 140. 11 John Hellman, Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Left: 1930–1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 191. 12 Yves Congar, ‘Une conclusion théologique à l’ enquête sur les raisons actuelles de l’incroyance’, La Vie intellectuelle 37 (1935): 214–49; ‘The Reasons for the Unbelief of our Time: A Theological Conclusion’, Part I, Integration (August 1938), 13–21 and Part II, Integration (December 1938), 10–26.

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that existed between the sacred and secular. In fact, secularism and unbelief were the result of an overly defensive posture assumed by the Church during the post-Reformation era. Congar’s criticism followed almost the identical lines of that made by other members of the generation of 1930 against larger French society. The Church, he held, was saturated with individualism, bourgeois rationalism, and decadence, which had resulted in a rupture between faith and life. This rupture, he claimed, ‘does violence to the faith and constitutes for it a deadly poison, the worst killer.’13 The Church was fixated on a private, sentimental spirituality, removed from the most important aspects of life. Essentially divorced from the ‘toute la vie’, it had become merely ‘a particular thing’, not permeating all of concrete existence.14 Congar called for a ‘total’ Christianity, ‘réel’ and ‘concret’, to ‘invade and transform’ every aspect of life, because a humanistic foundation was a necessary condition for modern belief: ‘to be humanly accessible and effectively proposed, the faith must appear totally linked to la vie, the valeurs de vie.’15 After envisioning an ideal Christian culture that would nourish a more engaged and authentic faith, Congar undertook an historical study of the beginnings of the ‘laïcization progressive de l’état de chrétienté’ which had begun in the early years of the fourteenth century with the rise of bourgeois leadership and the gradual secularization of politics, education, family life, and charity: ‘Thus, little by little, all human movements and realities began functioning outside of the Church, even evading the faith. The curés were relegated to the sacristies, and religion was declared a private affair’; the Church became essentially ‘distended and opposed in her very nature’.16 The relegation of the Church to the private sphere left a ‘mystical humanism’, characterized by rationalism, immanentism, and the spirit of progress, to flourish in the public and intellectual realms. This optimistic anthropocentric cosmology resulted in both a ‘mystique de science’, which engendered mechanistic, technocratic values, and a ‘mystique de humanité’, which sought to preserve humanity’s primacy in the universe. The two tendencies were complementary and prevented the Church from infusing authentic spiritual values into the culture. The influence of this atheistic humanism spread and eventually permeated almost every facet of French culture: secular schools, literature, journals, and political movements on both the left and right. Against this ‘triple attack’ of secularism, the Reformation, and rationalism, the Church had drawn tightly within itself and had ceased to confront the world productively in an attempt to meet its spiritual needs.17 Instead she was like a ‘mother who has lost her children in an accident . . . and therefore, her voice bristles with defensive warnings that prevent the survivors from playing 13 15 17

Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 216. Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 220, 223. Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 239.

14

Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 224. 16 Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 227.

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freely’.18 The faith became ‘disincarnated’ and ‘divorced from the concrete’, and by ‘collapsing in on itself, separated from life, religion has not provided to souls a milieu of totale vie where the faith finds adequate expression, the vibration of all its harmonics, and, so to say, its full human visibility’.19 Congar cast the Church as exhibiting a certain decadence, without ‘warmth and without joy’, and the ‘lifeless interiority’ of this decadence was so widespread that it permeated spirituality, preaching, teaching, education, catechism, sacred art, and liturgy.20 Utilizing the principle of incarnation, Congar argued that the Church was ‘isolated from the movement of history’ and needed to forcefully open itself to the modern world: ‘the Church, enclosed within itself and concentrating on itself, constituted a conservative world apart where it acted to guard itself, and . . . it exploited the treasures of dogma almost exclusively in “scholastic” abstractions. Thenceforth, an immense segment of human activity, a great expansion of humanity, of human flesh—modern life with its science, its miseries, its grandeurs—has not had the Incarnation of the Word; the Church has not given her soul to this body which would hear and would have to receive, as all human value, communication from the Spirit of Christ to become thus his Body and give glory to God.’21 Congar insisted that this deep engagement with the world would not compromise the Church’s essential transcendent orientation: ‘Certainly the supernatural remains transcendent, and it must not be humanized in the sense that one would identify the Kingdom of God or the Mystical Body with the visible realizations of Christianity.’22 The faith must invade all of humanity and very much inspire it, and Congar concluded by imploring the Church to overcome the rupture between faith and life, allowing faith ‘to penetrate us, move us to the absolute Good, and engage and expand within all the activities of the believer’.23

A METHODOLOGICAL BLUEPRINT: THE TÜBINGEN SCHOOL With the ecclesiastical and cultural crisis determined, the renewal that the nouveaux théologiens hoped for depended on overthrowing Neoscholasticism, and they worked together to do this. Congar wrote: One day, chatting at the entrance of the old Saulchoir, [Chenu and I] found ourselves in profound accord—at once intellectual, vital and apostolic—on the

18 20 22

Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 239. Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 244. Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 241.

19 21 23

Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 243. Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 241. Congar, ‘Une conclusion’, 249.

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idea of undertaking a ‘liquidation of baroque theology’. This was a moment of intense and total spiritual union. We elaborated a plan and distributed the tasks among ourselves. I still have the dossier that was begun then . . . It was not a question of producing something negative: the rejections were only the reverse aspects that were more positive . . . . What would a little later be called ‘ressourcement’ was then at the heart of our efforts.24

Congar goes on the recount the success of their plan: [Chenu and I] came to a deep agreement, both on this mission [of bringing to fruition in the Church what was good in Modernism’s appeals and concerns] and on the necessity of ‘liquidating’ Baroque theology.’ . . . We began a dossier on this theme . . . Some months ago, at the beginning of [19]46, I said to Father Chenu that our dossier had become pointless since the ‘Baroque theology’ was being liquidated every day and the Jesuits were among its most ferocious liquidators . . . 25

This liquidation, however, depended on the articulation of a new theological method to guide their various projects, and for this they turned to the nineteenth-century Catholic Tübingen school for inspiration. The French reception of Tübingen had begun toward the end of the nineteenth century, and in fact the same month that de Lubac re-entered the Jesuits after the First World War, de Grandmaison published a review in Recherches defending the Tübingen theologians from the charge that their thought in fact led to the Modernist crisis.26 Although the influence of Tübingen initially was rather small, in the 1930s it became significant, and it provided a methodological blueprint for the anthropological and ecclesiological ressourcement of the nouvelle théologie that they conceived along Patristic and Blondelian lines. Congar wrote: ‘Möhler does not use the Fathers in order to prove conclusions; he seeks to live and, by communion with their spirit, to find as perfect as possible a communion with their thought and with their life.’27 Chenu wrote later that in the ‘nineteenth century, Möhler and his school at Tübingen had introduced a principle of renewal in theology with a conception of the faith that integrated the historical, psychological, and pastoral dimensions. Fr. Congar and I rediscovered it’.28 24 Janette Gray, ‘Marie-Dominique Chenu and Le Saulchoir: A Stream of Catholic Renewal,’ in Gabriel Flynn and Paul Murray, eds, Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in TwentiethCentury Catholic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 209. 25 Christopher Ruddy, ‘Ressourcement and the Enduring Legacy of Post-Tridentine theology,’ in Ressourcement, 185. 26 De Grandmaison, in ‘Jean-Adam Mœhler, L’École catholique de Tubingue et les origines du modernisme’, RSR 9 (1919), 387–401, was responding to Edmond Vermeil, Jean-Adam Möhler et l’école catholique de Tubingue, 1815–1840 (Paris, 1913). 27 Gabriel Flynn, ‘Ressourcement, Ecumenism and Pneumatology’, in Ressourcement, 225; Yves Congar, ‘L’Esprit des Pères d’après Mohler’, Supplément à la ‘Vie Spirituelle’ 55 (1983): 1–25. 28 Marie-Dominique, Chenu, Un théologien en liberté: Jacques Duquesne interrogee le Père Chenu (Paris: Éditions du Centurion, 1975), 55.

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Led by theologians Johann Sebastian Drey (1777–1853) and Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838), the school was influenced by Kant and Romantic thinkers such as Schleiermacher, Fichte, and Schelling, who sought to utilize a theological methodology rooted in history and spiritual experience. Tübingen’s developments in ecclesiology, Christology, methodology, biblical hermeneutics, and anthropology followed lines similar to those later traced by the nouveaux théologiens, and specifically those of the Fourvière Jesuits. The importance of the theology of Tübingen to that of Fourvière is attested to in de Lubac’s Catholicism, which in many ways serves as model for Fourvière ecclesiology. After bemoaning the individualism and rationalism of his theological milieu, de Lubac had declared that although the task is daunting, the preparation has been going forward for some time. An endeavour like that of the Catholic school of theology at Tübingen, begun upward of a century ago . . . still shows that the sap is strongly rising. In 1819 in the prospectus of its official organ, the Theologische Quartalschrift, could be read an attempted definition of the Spirit and Essence of Catholicism: ‘The central fact is the revelation of the plan realized by God in humanity: this plan is an organic whole with a progressive development in history.’ Drey, Möhler, and their disciples commented on this definition in magnificent fashion.29

The Tübingen thinkers held that there had been a continual decline since the Middle Ages, and they sought to recover a mystical spirituality. Their Patristic retrieval represents the first modern Catholic attempt to present dogma historically. The establishment of the journal Theologische Quartalschrift in 1819 represents their essential programme of putting theology and tradition in dialogue with Modernity. For the theologians of Tübingen, revelation is the essential light that illuminates the deepest needs of the human person and functions as a kind of ‘education of the human race’.30 Revelation, however, is not limited to Scripture: ‘But if there exists a living objective reality which is generally recognized as the continuance of the originating event and therefore as its most authentic tradition, the historical witness is found in and through it. This is the reality of the Church.’31 Published in 1825, Möhler’s first book was entitled Unity in the Church or the Principle of Catholicism: Presented in the Spirit of the Church Fathers of the

29

De Lubac, Catholicisme, 277–8; Catholicism, 320–1. John Thiel, ‘The Universal in the Particular: Johann Sebastian Drey on the Hermeneutics of Tradition’, in The Legacy of the Tübingen School: The Relevance of Nineteenth Century Theology for the Twenty-first Century, eds. Dietrich Donald and Michael Himes (New York NY: Crossroad, 1997), 57. 31 Johann Sebastian von Drey, quoted in James Livingston, Modern Christian Thought: The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century (Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press, 2006), 190. 30

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First Three Centuries.32 As the subtitle indicates, the work was inspired by Möhler’s study of certain Fathers: ‘A careful study of the Fathers has stirred up much in me. While undertaking it I discovered for the first time a living, fresh, full Christianity, and Christ desires that I do not leave fruitless that which he gave life to and awakened for his full defence.’33 The bipartite will serve as a model for the nouveaux théologiens, as the first examines the inner life of the Church and the second looks at its external relations. Möhler began his study by arguing that the Holy Spirit’s presence in the Church is the ground of unity; it is ‘the Spirit of God whose action in the Church continues in an uninterrupted manner’.34 However, contrary to the ecclesiology of Bellarmine’s ‘perfect society’ that primarily emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit vis-à-vis the Church’s hierarchy’, Möhler argued that the principle of unity was the Church’s ‘soul’, that is, the interior lives of Christians, because ‘the Spirit fills her, the Church, the totality of believers that the Spirit forms, is the unconquerable treasure of the new life principle, ever renewing and rejuvenating herself, the uncreated source of nourishment for all’.35 Thus, Möhler’s point of departure in the Unity of the Church is the community’s inner spiritual life: ‘Doctrine, liturgy, polity—all the forms of the external Church—are expressions of the spiritual needs and convictions of the Christian community.’36 In addition, Möhler insisted that there is an incarnational quality to the Church: no one can know Christ except through the Church. The Church is in fact the Incarnation of Christ: ‘Thus, the visible Church, from the point of view here taken, is the Son of God himself, everlastingly manifesting himself among men in a human form, perpetually renovated and eternally young—the permanent incarnation of the same, as in Holy Writ, even the faithful are called the body of Christ.’37 One of the most striking similarities between the ecclesiology of the Fourvière Jesuits and the Tübingen theologians is the intimate link between their respective anthropologies and ecclesiologies. Möhler wrote: A human being is set in a great whole to act and to view himself or herself as a member in it. One must acknowledge this and dare neither oppose oneself to the whole nor set oneself above it. This is what the schools call oneness with the

32 Johann Möhler, Unity in the Church or the Principle of Catholicism: Presented in the Spirit of the Church Fathers of the First Three Centuries, trans. Peter Erb (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1996). 33 Peter Erb, introduction to Unity in the Church, 1. 34 Johann Adam Möhler, quoted in Peter Riga, ‘The Ecclesiology of Johann Adam Möhler’, Theological Studies 22 (1961), 573. 35 Michael Himes, ‘The Development of Ecclesiology: Modernity to the Twentieth Century’, in The Gift of the Church: A Textbook Ecclesiology, ed. Peter Phan (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 56. 36 Livingston, Modern Christian Thought, 193. 37 Johann Möhler, Symbolism (New York NY: Crossroad, 1997), 259.

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universal whole, the harmony of universal and individual lives. This oneness with the universal whole is at the same time true existence in God, the source of true knowledge of God, of the creator of the universal whole, because the universal whole as such is grounded in God and is his total revelation. Thus, just as each individual in the whole is grounded in God, God can be known by the individual only in the whole.38

In addition, briefly mentioned, Tübingen anthropology is strikingly reminiscent of certain elements of de Lubac’s religious epistemology, which we shall examine later, and cannot help but be reminiscent in some ways of the thought of Rousselot and Maréchal. Möhler wrote: ‘The idea of God is a fact of consciousness, and what could be more evident to us than such a fact? . . . If the idea of God is based in an impulse of our spiritual nature, of our deepest being, if I grasp myself in this impulse and give it the form of representation, how can this not reflect an existent? How can it not be knowledge?’39 A first important contact between the nouveaux théologiens and Tübingen occurred in 1928 when Chenu gave Möhler’s Unity of the Church to Congar.40 From that point, Möhler would be an important guide for Congar’s ecclesiological development. The first Fourvière contact with Tübingen, it seems, came through Chaillet’s various trips through Germany during the early 1930s. In 1936–7, Chaillet was in Rome to write his thesis on the ecclesiology of the Catholic school of Tübingen, but he was unfortunately unable to finish the work.41 Nonetheless, he heartily encouraged the French translation of Unity of the Church, which was published as the second volume of Congar’s Unam Sanctum series. He did publish, however, a collection of essays on Möhler by French and German scholars to which he contributed the introduction.42 Chaillet was convinced that the internal, organic unity with which the Tübingen theologians conceived doctrine, tradition, ecclesiology, and Scripture would meet the spiritual demands of modernity. In a 1937 article in Esprit on Christian humanism, he wrote: ‘the return to the live forces of revelation [by Tübingen thinkers] has raised up, little by little, a more mystical, a more organic, and a more dynamic conception of the Church. With a very sure sense of unity, by working to spread a theology that answered to the new demands of souls, these theologians had the humble assurance of answering to 38

Johann Möhler, Unity in the Church, 153. Johann Möhler, from Theologische Quartalschrift (1827): 503; quoted in Hervé Savon, Johann Adam Möhler (Paris: Fleurus, 1965), 35; Johann Adam Möhler, trans. Charles McGrath (Glen Rock NJ: Paulist Press, 1966), 29. 40 Elizabeth Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit (New York NY: Oxford University Press, 2004), 41. 41 Henri De Lubac, Christian Resistance to Anti-Semitism: Memories from 1940–1944, trans. Anne Englund (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1990), 37. 42 Pierrre Chaillet, L’Eglise est une: Hommage à Möhler (Paris: Bloud and Gay, 1939). 39

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the call of the Spirit.’43 As the Fourvière theologians discovered Tübingen through Congar and Chaillet, it became clear that Möhler and Drey presented exemplary models of proto-ressourcement methods. Chaillet wrote: ‘All Drey’s studies on the Church, its organic unity, its living tradition, its progressive development, and its communal life vivified by the Holy Spirit, were the fruit of his careful reading of the Bible and the Fathers, and of his truly spiritual study of history.’44 In fact, it is not surprising that the work of Blondel and Laberthonnière has been seen by some as ‘continuing the work’ of Tübingen.45

CA THOLIC HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS As we have seen, the intellectuals of the generation of 1930 were saturated in a historical mindset that coloured almost every aspect of their thought, and the uses that the nouvelle théologie makes of history closely resemble that of the wider culture. In this section, after first examining the methodology of ressourcement itself, we shall examine three closely related uses that the nouveaux théologiens thinkers made of history. First, like their counterparts in the wider generation of 1930, they used history to identify the true spirit of a given age, usually locating a golden thread of authentic tradition, as well its origin and moment of decline. Second, by stressing the historical character of existence, they picked up the Modernist concerns about dogma and its historical conditioning. Finally, they undertook various historical studies that claimed to retrieve the authentic thought of a figure or era on a particular topic, for example the desire for God or the meaning of the Body of Christ.

The Ressourcement Foundation The ressourcement attempt to recover a ‘more authentic tradition’ was not merely an academic exercise in resuscitating a ‘dead past’: de Lubac wrote that we ‘should gain nothing at all by breaking with an unhealthy individualism if in its place we dreamed of an impossible return to the past, for that is either an illusion which breeds schisms or a childish fancy which dulls the mind’.46 Rather, it was an attempt at a radical appropriation of historical thought so as to meet modern needs—especially those of building a new and audacious Riga, ‘The Ecclesiology’, 573. Pierre Chaillet, quoted in Riga, ‘The Ecclesiology’, 569. 45 Illtyd Trethowan, introduction to Maurice Blondel, The Letter on Apologetics & History and Dogma, trans. Alexander Dru and Illtyd Trethowan (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1994), 48. 46 De Lubac, Catholicisme, 279; Catholicism, 322. 43 44

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Christian humanism which might transform society: ‘Just to imitate primitive Christianity or the Middle Ages will not be enough. We can revive the Fathers’ all-embracing humanism and recover the spirit of their mystical exegesis only by an assimilation that is at the same time a transformation. For although the Church rests on eternal foundations, it is in a continual state of rebuilding, and since the Fathers’ time it has undergone many changes in style.’47 An authentic ‘return to the sources of antiquity will be the very opposite of an escape into a dead past’ and will require a certain qualified embrace of modern thinking. Thus, ressourcement is antithetical to ‘the notion that the modern age [had] experienced outside the Church only error and decadence’.48 He continued: ‘That is an illusion, a temptation to which we have yielded only too often. The epoch of a “separated” philosophy was providential, like all others, and the fruits of the immense effort of thought which was undertaken in its name, and is still being undertaken, ought not, through our fault, to be left outside of Catholicism.’49 From this age came many advancements, and de Lubac maintained ‘how disastrous it would be if we were to forego the great heritage which comes to us from the centuries of analysis and scientific research as well as from definitive results, the clarifications, which emerge from the controversies’.50 Finally, appearing to pre-empt charges of employing a method of subjectivist historicism, de Lubac wrote that we ‘should not condemn self-examination or spiritual experience as if they derived from a merely individualist psychology or narcissist introspection, any more than by an analogous method of interpretation, we shall confuse transcendental speculation with an abstract discarnate idealism.’51 Thus, the ressourcement approach begins with a certain ecclesiastical, social, and political analysis of the ‘needs of today’. Once a thorough study of the present milieu is ascertained, there seems to be a process of circularity whereby the present is used to judge the past and the past is used to judge the present—all with the intention of shaping a future theology better suited to their analysis of the present. An attempt is made to look into the past in a search for historical forms that might answer present shortcomings, and when historical currents are apprehended, there is no attempt at antiquarian retrieval; they are configured to align with perceived current needs in a theology that is at once novel yet claims to stand on tradition. Thus, we have a kind of ‘transhistorical triptych’ that flits between the past, present and future. One theologian asked: ‘What else does the work of a de Lubac or a Congar, which paved the way for an aggiornamento of Catholic theology, consist of but

47 48 49 50 51

De Lubac, Catholicisme, 278; Catholicism, 321–2. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 279–80; Catholicism, 323. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 280; Catholicism, 323. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 279; Catholicism, 322. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 279; Catholicism, 323.

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comparing present theological experience with what the Fathers said—and producing something as novel as it is traditional in the process?’52 For the Jesuit historian John O’Malley, ressourcement, although sometimes embracing theological development, is predicated necessarily on a fundamental break with contemporary thought in favour of a theological path forward rooted in the historical reconstruction of a former period. Seeing that the programme is much more complex than appears at face value, and the fact that despite its conservative outer garments it has a potential to be extremely radical, O’Malley sums this method up: ‘we are no longer going to move along path X, we are going back to the fork in the road and will now take, instead, path Y, a better path’.53 However, the leaving of ‘path X’ for ‘path Y’ is not an altogether simple task, especially since ‘path X’ in this case was an official course initiated by papal decree, ratified by a series of successive papal initiatives, and embodied in the very structure of the Church’s intellectual formation and theological positioning. For ressourcement to backtrack along ‘path X’ to the fork where ‘path Y’ diverges necessarily requires the construction of an elaborate system of metanarratives that demonstrate why ‘path X’ leads in the wrong direction and why ‘path Y’, which will serve as an effective corrective to that erroneous route, was in fact the correct path all along.

Recovering the Golden Thread: The Real Spirit of the Fathers and Aquinas Catholic intellectuals, like their secular counterparts, also used history as a way of justifying their claims of decadence and rupture. Likewise, they sought to construct sweeping metanarratives that would not only locate a precise point of decline but also a certain golden age whose spirit must be reclaimed in modern clothing. In this section we shall examine how they sought to recover the authentic spirit of Patristic as well as medieval thought. For example, in a move that Chenu will make in arguing that the Aristotelian appropriation of Aquinas was more practical and evangelical than ideological, de Lubac wrote that the philosophical speculation of the Fathers ‘was conditioned less by considerations of philosophy than by a keen realization of the needs of Christianity’. Stoicism and Platonism allowed the Fathers to ‘make the most’ of the Biblical metaphor of the Body of Christ and appropriate a ‘horizontal view’ of redemption, which made human unity ‘fuller than before’.54

Eric Sharpe, ‘A Runaway World Revisited’, New Blackfriars 50/587 (1968): 375. John O’Malley, What happened at Vatican II (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 2008), 42, 301. 54 De Lubac, Catholicisme, 17–20; Catholicism, 40–3. 52 53

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The same year that Congar’s ‘Une conclusion’ was published he travelled to Fourvière and encouraged de Lubac to publish various talks and articles. Some were written for Chronique sociale, the journal of Semaines sociales, to whose directors in Lyon he had been introduced by Albert Valensin, and others for the Union missionnaire du clergé. The volume was published in Congar’s new ecclesiology series Unam Sanctam in 1938.55 Called ‘programmatic’ by Balthasar and undoubtedly one of the most influential Catholic books of the twentieth century, it would be published as Catholicisme. Les aspects sociaux du dogme. It would certainly be difficult to find a work that offers a richer portrait of the mentalité of Left Catholic thinking during the crisis years of the 1930s. All the central features of ressourcement and the avant-garde thought of the decade are readily apparent: crisis, diagnosis, and regeneration and historicism, concrete philosophy, and engagement. Responding to the ‘mood of the times’ and made up of ‘bits and pieces’, Catholicism offers a dizzying number of short quotations from the Early Church Fathers, culled from years of reading through the Latin and Greek volumes of Migne’s Patrologia, that show the Patristic revival of de Grandmaison and Recherches de science religieuse to be in full bloom. De Lubac attempted to show that Blondel’s philosophical instincts are in reality the most traditional and authentic elements of Catholic tradition, and Catholicism might be summarized as an extended argument to support the claim that the Church Fathers would have indeed been ardent supporters of the Semaines sociales and its celebrated Blondelian Left Catholic expression, ‘Nous sommes sociaux parce que nous sommes catholiques.’56 In fact the four main aspects of Blondel’s work that we examined earlier (method of immanence, notion of tradition, social programme, and anti-Neoscholasticism) are very much the guiding features of this work. The contentious and conflicted philosophical needs of the French intelligentsia clamoured for an authentic humanism and sense of community that would overcome the intellectual sickness of the age, the endemic individualism that Congar had described as the root of the modern crisis. De Lubac asserted that ‘a strong, sometimes a very strong, admixture of individualism’ had crept into the Church and manifested itself in an over-emphasis on personal salvation rather than temporal solidarity.57 In its overly defensive posture,

55 Henri De Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits (Namur: Culture et vérité, 1989), in HLOC, vol. 33, 25–6; Henri De Lubac, At the Service of the Church: Henri de Lubac Reflects on the Circumstances that Occasioned his Writings, trans. Anne Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), 27–8. 56 Jean-Hugues Soret, Philosophies de l’Action catholique: Blondel et Maritain (Paris: Cerf, 2007), 153. 57 De Lubac, Catholicisme: Les Aspects sociaux du dogme (Paris: Cerf, 1947), in HLOC, vol. 7, 265; Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1988), 307.

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inflexibility and juridicism arose, and the faithful ‘learned [their] catechism too much against Luther, against Baius, or even against Loisy’.58 To underscore the serious effects of this, de Lubac quoted from a well-known speech given at a recent Semaines sociales. Our theology must be saved from the individualism with which for the sake of clarity and the needs of controversy we seem to have allowed it to be associated since the sixteenth century. Our treatises on Grace and the Sacraments, on the Eucharist, even on the Church are fashioned so as to give the impression that God the Redeemer is never faced with anything but an untold number of individuals, every one of them regulating on his own account the measure of his personal relationship with God.59

De Lubac was clear that renewal involved a rejection of Neoscholasticism, for which ‘many are already growing impatient’, and one of the insidious roots of this thought was the ‘separated theology’ that caused many to ‘see salvation only in a complete severance between the natural and the supernatural’.60 ‘Organic links’ between the two orders were cut, and the supernatural became a mere copy of the natural world, with the latter soon having no use for the former.61 For de Lubac, the fruits of this separation were seen in the destructive Hegelian humanism that was so en vogue, and he wrote: ‘At the present day we are submerged in time. The enormous success of the philosophies of “becoming” as well as the distressing results which have lately imperilled their authority have had in this respect the same effect. Empty dreams and fears, exacerbated by the violence of their contrast, hope in the future and anxiety for the morrow, have laid hold of our consciousness.’62 Moreover, this had given way to extreme political solutions: Visions of concord among men and of indefinite progress, or tragic realization of the chaos in which we flounder, weighed down by the intolerable burden of the day, our terror of approaching catastrophes or our straining toward an unknown future from which every advantage is expected, all hide the present reality from our eyes, and in an age when man, as a reward for his immense effort, has at last achieved a degree of repose, he is no longer able to achieve that fundamental repose that would save him from himself and at the same time enable him to find himself.63

With the present situation ascertained, de Lubac declared the beginning of a ‘great common task’. the retrieval of a new apologetic method.64 For him, this 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

De Lubac, Catholicisme, 268; Catholicism, 310. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 277; Catholicism, 320. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 280, 271; Catholicism, 324, 313. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 271; Catholicism, 313. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 312; Catholicism, 357. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 312; Catholicism, 357. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 280; Catholicism, 324.

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task was ‘in many respects far more delicate than that required in the Patristic age, in Aquinas’ time, or even in the “humanist” epoch.65 It demanded a comprehensive combination of opposing qualities, each of them brought to a high degree of excellence, one buttressed, so to say, on another, and braced with the greatest tension.’66 De Lubac remained vague on the task, but with the existentialist language of the age, declared, nonetheless, that even in these times of intoxication mingled with anxiety, amidst the most pressing necessities, it is the role of the Christian, a man among his brother men, buoyed up by the same aspirations and cast down by the same anxieties, to raise his voice and remind those who forget it of their own nobility; man is only himself, he only exists for himself here and now if he can discover within himself, in silence, some untouched region, some mysterious background which . . . is not encroached upon by the cares of the present.67

De Lubac declared that the ‘hoped for cure has already begun’, ‘theologians have set to work’, and ‘on every side, moreover, in our divided world there are appearing desires for unity’.68 Moreover, he pointed to signs of renewal, ‘so many little streams, which promise well for the mighty river that our century needs’.69 He declared that ‘the task may appear heavy. But the preparation has been going forward for some time . . . For what gives ground for the greatest confidence is that this is no mere surface agitation, that the theologians themselves, the interpreters of the living tradition, are urged forward by a revival which is reflected primarily in events because it springs from the very depths of Catholic conscience.’70 The centrality of ‘events’, or rather, we might say, ‘action’, highlights how central Blondelian thought is to de Lubac’s conception of the ‘great common task’, which certainly is theological, philosophical, social, and missiological. De Lubac insisted that this new method of apologetics is in fact the most ancient: faced with these ‘contrasting but complementary difficulties we can see taking shape not, indeed, a new apologetics but a renewal of the most traditional form of apologetics—and should not apologetics, just like any other discipline, enjoy constant renewals if it is to remain alive?’71 The approach is grounded in the reality that ‘the desire [for the vision of God] is at the very root of every soul’.72 Dogma, for this new apologetics, is paradoxical and grounded in reflexive justification. Far from fleeing this contradiction, the

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

De Lubac, Catholicisme, 280; Catholicism, 323. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 280; Catholicism, 323. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 313; Catholicism, 357–8. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 276-7, 307; Catholicism, 319-20, 351. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 278; Catholicism, 321. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 277; Catholicism, 320. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 308; Catholicism, 352. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 284; Catholicism, 327.

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mind is stimulated: ‘despite its natural laziness it is almost obliged to delve beneath these superficial contradictions and to penetrate into those deeper regions where what was hitherto a stumbling-block becomes darkness visible’.73 ‘Humanity should have a meeting-place in which, in every generation, it can be gathered together, a centre to which it can converge, an Eternal to make it complete, an Absolute which, in the strongest and most real sense of the word, will make it exist.’74 De Lubac put tremendous hope in Blondel’s method of immanence, not only to show humanity its inner need for God but also its inner need for human unity, which for humans are inseparable. This is the only antidote to a social humanism, ‘which is the present phase of man’s hopeless endeavour to save himself ’.75 The unity of this human family as a whole is the subject, we have said, of some of the deepest yearnings of our age. It longs to organize it, to bring it to complete awareness of itself, to humanize it by making it fully one. The Catholic cannot adopt this program as it stands, nor can he simply reject it as a disastrous illusion. But just as he can use man’s aspirations to go beyond himself and ‘play the God’ to persuade him to accept that death to self which is the indispensable condition of entering on Life, so can he use the no less profound, no less natural desire for human unity—often stifled, often perverted as it is—to lead men of Good will to the threshold of Catholicism, which alone can effect this unity in its highest sense.76

Seen in this light, we can understand why ‘adaptation’ is required in the mission of the Church to show that only within Christianity do things attain their final end. This adaptation is not one merely of outward forms, however; it is nothing short of an ‘inner transformation’ which seeks to study deeply the ‘customs, morals, and beliefs’ of those to be converted, avoid useless controversy, and provide ‘toothing stones’ to assist in the cultivation of truth.77 De Lubac insisted that this ‘is a method of immanence, the most traditional of all, and its application is not confined to discussion and books. When it is genuine, loving, and straightforward—a single word or gesture can bring it to light. An unobtrusive work of art can epitomize much patient negotiation.’78 The ambition of the Church is ‘to gather the whole family together’, while embracing ‘certain outstanding varieties of religious experience’.79 This Church seeks to deepen and ‘purify, and give fresh life to [her members]. This method, however, must avoid rigidity: ‘The story of a few Dominicans kidnapping Aristotle’ is not rare in the Church, where too often she has been unable to

73 74 75 76 77 78 79

De Lubac, Catholicisme, 284; Catholicism, 327. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 310; Catholicism, 354. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 311; Catholicism, 355. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 309; Catholicism, 353. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 248; Catholicism, 290. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 251; Catholicism, 292. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 252–3; Catholicism, 294.

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adapt to the needs of humanity; ‘she does not share the illusion of some of her children for whom there now remains no more to do [since the harmonies of Greece and Rome]; since the miracle of the past must continue, she believes in fresh providential harmonies for her further expansion’.80 Nothing ‘authentically human, whatever its origin, can be alien’ to the Church, in which ‘man’s desires and God’s have their meeting-place’, and all ‘men are one in community of their divine origin and destiny’; the Church ‘wishes to satisfy and more than satisfy the yearnings of each soul of every age’.81 This reality that is central to de Lubac in Catholicism, that Catholic thought must be fundamentally open to the movement of history has significant implications for theology, and especially the notion of dogma, which we shall discuss later. De Lubac condemns an ‘impossible return to the past’, and like Blondel, he grounds the present singular unity of Christian dogma in a living and dynamic presence clothed in contingent historical data and rooted in religious experience and action. In a passage clearly inspired by Blondel’s insistence that truth is the mind’s correspondence with life, and not reality, as the Neoscholastics insisted, he wrote that we must recognize ‘the great diversity of the theories which have been professed in the course of Christian history on those innumerable subjects where religious truth comes in contact with our human preoccupations’ and are very dependent ‘on social, intellectual or cultural conditions in a state of constant development’.82 Besides simply finding in the Fathers a broad method of apologetics, Catholicism also offers specific ecclesiological remedies for the problem of unity, the doctrines of the Mystical Body and Imago Dei, which de Lubac used to contrast Catholic humanism over and against the other competing humanisms of the decade. These doctrines support the notion that Catholicism is the true community that alone can provide a humanism able to fulfil the deepest aspirations of mankind. The Mystical Body of Christ has ‘a supernatural unity which supposes a previous natural unity, the unity of the human race’.83 De Lubac declared that the Fathers ‘kept constantly before them this Body of Christ, and in dealing with the creation were not content only to mention the formation of individuals, the first man and the first woman, but delighted to contemplate God creating humanity as a whole’.84 Moreover, he made the bold historical assertion that the ‘whole Latin Middle Ages were nourished on this teaching’.85 Coupled with the Mystical Body was the notion that all humans were created in the image of God, a doctrine that was the ‘inspiration

80 81 82 83 84 85

De Lubac, Catholicisme, 253; Catholicism, 295. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 254–6; Catholicism, 297–9. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 279; Catholicism, 322. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 3; Catholicism, 25. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 3; Catholicism, 25. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 66; Catholicism, 93.

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of a whole tradition’.86 Thus, de Lubac implored that we should ‘abide by the outlook of the Fathers’, whose view of the redemption was that it was a ‘recovery of a lost unity—the recovery of a supernatural unity of man with God, but equally of the unity of men among themselves’.87 The world, he insisted, must be shown that outside ‘Christianity nothing attains its end, that only end, toward which, unknowingly, all human desires, all human endeavours, are in movement: the embrace of God in Christ. The most admirable, the most vigorous of these endeavours needs—absolutely—to be impregnated with Christianity if it is to bear eternal fruit . . . Outside of Christianity, again, humanity tries to collect its members together into unity.’88 Besides recovering the Church Fathers, the nouveaux théologiens also claimed to have recovered the authentic spirit of Aquinas. Two examples of this is are the lectures given on Aquinas’ feast day by Chenu and de Montcheuil. The first lecture was given by Chenu at Le Saulchoir only seven months after Congar’s provocative article, in which he drew out Congar’s criticisms and composed his own historical narrative on the meaning and development of Thomism. Published in 1937 as Une École de théologie: Le Saulchoir, it caused a storm of controversy and Chenu was reprimanded and forced to resign as the rector of Le Saulchoir.89 In a totalizing historical narrative stretching from the origins of the order in the thirteenth century to his own day, he sought both to recover the true ‘esprit’ of the Dominican charism as well as show that Neoscholasticism was a historical aberration. Chenu’s description of the Church in the Middle Ages bears remarkable similarities to the Left Catholicism in France during the 1930s. For Chenu, ‘revelatory of the [Dominican] destiny’ was the establishment of the original convents in centres of newly flourishing university towns, as well as Dominic’s decision to have his friars follow regularly the course of studies at the universities to be integrated among the teachers.90 In a thinly veiled allusion to the ecclesiastical mindset of his own day, Chenu recounted the story of a medieval abbot, fearful of the intellectual seduction and curiosity of the urban universities, who encouraged his monks to avoid them and stay in the monastery. This conservative and cautionary attitude is juxtaposed with the liberality of Dominic, who straightaway sent his priests into the heart of Paris.91 Chenu saw in this medieval milieu, marked by profound economic and social development and rapid modernization, a world and a Church remarkably like his own. The ‘nouveauté de régime’ of the Dominican spirit was a necessary liberal ferment to a closed monastic culture that carried the

86 87 88 89 90

De Lubac, Catholicisme, 8; Catholicism, 30. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 13; Catholicism, 35. De Lubac, Catholicisme, 186; Catholicism, 224. Marie-Dominique Chenu, Une École de théologie: le Saulchoir (Paris: Cerf, 1985). 91 Chenu, Une École, 95. Chenu, Une École, 103.

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‘weight of an institutional conservatism that had lost contact with the temps nouveau’.92 Beyond the out-dated framework of the land system, an intense economic renewal was undertaken by the development of urban areas, where an elite class sought to conquer—softly or with violence—their work, the richness, their liberty, and their culture. At the heart of this urban power, and near the cathedral that it symbolized, episcopal schools developed, peopled by new generations whose turbulente curiosité could no longer be limited by monastic discipline. The geographical shift alone provides evidence of this spiritual transfer, or the social and political emancipation of the [urban governments that had been freed from the power of the feudal lords] highlights this impact. On the intellectual level, universities were eager to achieve the same independence as the guilds and constructed a similar system founded on an autonomous internal government, animated by the same spirit of enterprise and progress. Aristotle arrived at this point in the milieu, ready to receive its nouveautés. The intellectual emancipation would attach itself to the social emancipation.93

Chenu hardly disguised his attempt to use this medieval era of ‘sensational innovation’ to justify the hopes of the Left Catholics of his day: ‘We are not ready to welcome new truths’, he wrote, ‘if socially and institutionally we are closed in on ourselves’.94 Moreover, he upheld Aquinas himself as a model for standing against oppressive conservatism: ‘When the great feudal lord Thomas Aquinas renounced his paternal inheritance together with the Abbey of Monte Casino, he broke the solidarity with an outdated and crumbling system and at the same time guaranteed the liberty of his vocation, the institutional liberty of his brothers, and the liberty of his future institutional work.’95 Moreover, Aquinas realized with ‘audacity’ and ‘lucidity’ the spiritual dangers that a faith ‘closed to the world’ represented to the life of the Church.96 Instead, he sought to break through the restrictive edited editions of philosophy that were mandated in favour of an ‘incarnation of the Christian faith’ within Greek and Arab thought.97 At the Convent of Saint Jacques in Paris, Thomas (1225–74) and St. Albert the Great (1200–80) were able to break through this resistance— which Albert denounced so vehemently—and bring about an ‘intellectual revolution’. This golden age, which liberally sought contact with the world and the sources of the faith, was suddenly threatened by the emergence in the seventeenth century of a ‘decadent’ and ‘disillusioned’ scholasticism, ‘hardly evangelistic’, that ultimately prevailed in the nineteenth century, despite the efforts of some in the order who fought against it. The centralization of the Church, the officialized theology of Aquinas, and the situation of laicization all contributed to a certain isolation of the theology faculties from the universities that developed within the 92 95

Chenu, Une École, 95. Chenu, Une École, 96.

93 96

Chenu, Une École, 96. Chenu, Une École, 98.

94 97

Chenu, Une École, 96. Chenu, Une École, 104.

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modern world. For Chenu, this separation between theologians and the universities, which fostered important ‘intimate exchanges between teachers and students’, was a great loss for theology. He concluded his narrative with an urgent call for the barrier to be overcome between Dominican houses and secular universities, a divide, he argued, that was contrary to the very nature of the Order, which demanded unswerving inclusion in the currents of Modernity.98 De Montcheuil made a similar move, suggesting that the text of Aquinas is subordinate to what he discerned to be the spirit and centre of Aquinas in a St Thomas’s day lecture he gave at Fourvière in 1932, four years earlier than Chenu’s address. He began by stating he would not offer an intellectual panegyric to Aquinas but instead search in his life for something to imitate.99 This was the embrace Aquinas made of the pagan philosophy of Aristotle. Despite serious opposition from theologians as well as certain members of the Church hierarchy, Aquinas studied Aristotle deeply. De Montcheuil declared that Aquinas ‘neither accepted nor rejected the pagan philosopher outright. Likewise, he did not attempt to sanitize the philosopher. Rather, he was enriched by all that was good in him in order to develop a Christian philosophy.’100 De Montcheuil’s appeal to the ‘Christian philosophy’ of Aquinas is not surprising, as the debate on the possibility of Christian philosophy had already begun. Moreover, de Montcheuil’s listeners would surely have detected a faint but unmistakable apology for the Blondelian method of immanence in his insistence that even a study of Plato’s reminiscences can cause an unbeliever to turn inward and ‘realize what lies dormant within them’.101 Later, Fessard would also appeal to these principles to which Aquinas adhered as necessary to offer a rejoinder to the problems posed by modern philosophy.

History and Dogma The second application of history by the nouveaux théologiens was to the notion of dogma itself. As we saw earlier, this was a central preoccupation for the Modernists and thus it was not surprising that the question would surface again during the 1930s in the work of Chenu. Moreover, the ecclesiological metanarratives we examined above depend on a notion of dogma more open to history, experience, and engagement. The controversy was intense and led

98

Chenu, Une École, 113. Bernard Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil (1900–1944) Précurseur en théologie (Paris: Cerf, 2006), 32. 100 Yves de Montcheuil, quoted in Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil, 32. 101 Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil, 33. 99

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to the visitation of Le Saulchoir and the condemnation of Chenu in 1942. The question of dogma, however, was far from settled and was taken up again in the mid-1940s by the Fourvière Jesuits. The problem of dogma is closely related to that of faith and anthropology as well and theology itself, and both Chenu and Congar indicated that they had definitively moved away from the understanding of theology as a science of speculative deduction around the year 1930, although it should be mentioned that the broad outlines of Chenu’s thought, and especially the decisive influence of Rousselot, are present in his 1920 doctoral thesis on contemplation in Aquinas.102 In his 1932 article, pointedly titled Les Yeux de la foi, Rousselot’s influence can be seen as Chenu makes a distinction between the dogmatic and juridical aspects of faith on the one hand and the non-conceptual and mystical drive to understand the object of faith, God himself, on the other: ‘Far from resting complacent in the social [and dogmatic] servitude of his faith, far from being content in a narrow security, the believer is allured by the mysterious object of that same faith, and within the limits of his power he strives for an understanding of the mystery of divine life.’103 Throughout the 1930s, a development and radicalization of Rousselot’s thesis can be seen when Chenu makes a distinction between the realism and formalism of faith. The former highlights the fact that faith is fundamentally a contemplative ‘perception’ or ‘look’: ‘Faith is not a conclusion; it is not a composition of ideas and concepts which permits us to grasp reality. Neither is it a proof; nor is it an explanation of the world, an argument from causality, an apologetic of creation. It is a look, a view. It is a dialogue between my soul and God concerning God himself . . . I see myself and my own mysterious destiny, within the framework of the mysterious destiny of the world in the presence of the triune God.’104 The formalism of faith, however, is the ‘apparatus’ of conceptual dogmatic formulae to which the intellect assents. The radicalization of Rousselot’s thesis can be seen in the relationship that Chenu conceives between these two dimensions. Although Roussleot makes dogma dependant in a certain sense on the intellectual drive toward God, he still holds it in a fundamentally positive light. Boersma writes that Rousselot made ‘some remarkably strong statements in defence of conceptual human 102 See Christophe Potworowski, Contemplation and Incarnation: The Theology of MarieDominique Chenu (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 4–15; Marie-Dominique Chenu, ‘Position de la théologie’, RSPT 24 (1935): 232–57; and the English translation, ‘What is Theology?’, in Faith and Theology, trans. Denis Hickey (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 15–36. 103 Chenu, ‘Les Yeux de la foi’, quoted from the English translation, ‘The Eyes of Faith’, in Faith and Theology, 9. 104 Marie Dominique Chenu, ‘L’Unité de la foi: Réalimse et formalisme’, La Vie spirituelle (July–August 1937); I am quoting from the English translation ‘The Unity of Faith’, in MarieDominique Chenu, Faith and Theology, trans. Denis Hickey (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 2.

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knowledge, expressing, for example, his “love of dogma”: “Take away dogma and you take away God; to touch dogma is to touch God; to sin against dogma is to sin against God”’.105 This is contrasted against the significantly diminished status that Chenu accords to dogma. Dogmatic concepts are no more than an unfortunate necessity whose ‘poverty’ burdens us ‘by the weight of their content’: ‘The apparatus of concepts may indeed be wearisome; it is, nevertheless, something we must endure.’106 Rather, the psychological manifestation of this mystical drive is desire, for which God himself is the end. Chenu writes that the grace of faith takes root at the deepest level of our appetite for happiness. It is this impatient will or appetite that explains faith’s dynamic hunger for complete vision, because, in the last analysis, this knowledge exists in the obscurity of hope and is only provisional and radically imperfect. Nor does the immense dignity of the object take away this imperfection in the way of knowing it; the knowledge remains defective in the sense that the object does not become obvious, and so a leap of the will is required.107

For Chenu, conceptual propositions indeed have a ‘radical fragility’ and are even further destabilized by the complex, and sometimes ambiguous, ressourcement relationship between history and engagement. In fact the theologian’s fundamental task is not rooted strictly in history but in maintaining a ‘solidarity with the times’: It is precisely the dramatic effort of the theologian to hold within the radical fragility of the propositions, in which he incarnates the realistic perception of the mysterious reality of God, a dialectic in which in faith his power triumphs over his weakness. ‘Without new birth, there is no theology’. Theology, at this point, is no more than the faith that shows solidarity with the times. It is not rooted in history.

However, for Chenu a paradox emerges given that the Word of God is given in human language and is thus radically historical and contextual: The dogmatic formula is not a legal statement external to the revelation it presents. Rather, it is the conceptual incarnation of the word of God, which speaks humanely and clothes the human mind. The word is produced according to the demands of psychology and the slow and heavy complexity of notions and judgments that are bound by time and space and engaged in a history, as the philosophers say.108

Far from running from the challenges of history, the theologian must embrace them and realise that historical criticism is central to the task. Chenu declared 105 Hans Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 69. 106 107 Chenu, ‘The Unity of Faith’, 5–6. Chenu, ‘What is Theology?’, 16. 108 Chenu, Une École, 136.

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that in fact theologians who run from history and rely on static concepts only do so because they have lost a sense of the transcendence of the Word of God. Chenu recognized the relativism endemic to an approach so open to historical contingencies and psychological complexities, but he argued that this relativism can be approached with a ‘cool head’. While the Modernists made history absolute, his approach absolutizes faith. Nonetheless, he remains ambiguous at points as to where history ends and faith begins, and it remains unclear how dogmatic propositions can maintain any claims to immutability. This section has identified three closely connected uses the nouveaux théologiens made of history, and Chenu’s Une École is exceptional, in that it contains all three. First, he attempts to construct a metanarrative that uncovers both golden threads of tradition (the true mentality of the Fathers and Aquinas) and a rupture (Baroque rationalism). Second, he attempts a recovery of an ‘authentic’ doctrine on which his metanarrative depends (for example, Aquinas on faith), and third, he argues that dogma itself, and the conceptual propositions on which it depends, is historically bound. The question of dogma was taken up by two other Belgian Dominicans from the generation of 1930, René Draguet and Louis Charlier, and all three were condemned for their positions in 1942.109

The History of Desire Finally, to illustrate the third use the nouveaux théologiens made of history— the recovery of an authentic doctrine which had been lost through the centuries to (usually) rationalistic misinterpretations—I’ll examine the development of de Lubac’s attempted retrieval of Aquinas’ thought regarding the natural desire for God in human beings. As I mentioned earlier, the philosophical question of desire was important during the 1930s, and while Kojève argued that a desire for recognition is the driving force of history, the Jesuits sought to show that the Blondelian notion of desire for the supernatural and its dogmatic expression in history is in fact what must be identified and recovered. Thus, certain similarities exist between the French Hegelians and the French Jesuits, as they both must identify what is the essential dynamic spirit in each age in relationship to their conception of desire. Thus in attempting to establish a Blondelian reading of tradition, it was vital that Aquinas be shown to be in conformity with the Fathers on the question of the desire for God, and as we saw in Chapter 4 (p. 108), even in his first year of philosophy, de Lubac was upholding Rousselot’s point on this. Thus, although it is an historical work, its intentions were very much to See Jürgen Mettepenningen, ‘L'Essai de Louis Charlier (1938): une contribution à la Nouvelle Théologie’, Revue théologique de Louvain 32 (2008): 211–38. 109

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bring Aquinas in line with contemporary thought, and in fact, the Blondelian anthropology of Surnaturel is the hinge on which the entirety of de Lubac’s humanistic construction turns.110 During the 1930s, de Lubac began publishing three articles that would be the opening sections of what would become Surnaturel: ‘Deux Augustiniens fourvoyés: Baius et Jansenius’, in Recherches des science religieuse (1931); ‘Remarques sur l’histoire du mot “Surnaturel”’ , in Nouvelle revue théologique (1934); and ‘Esprit et liberté’, in Bulletin de literature ecclésiastique (1939).111 In 1932, de Lubac wrote to Blondel, sending him a sketch of what would become Surnaturel: ‘You see, Monsieur, how I let myself speak to you with all the freedom of a disciple. It is in fact the study of your work that made me begin, some eleven years ago, to reflect on these problems, and I believe that I have remained faithful to its inspiration.’112 De Lubac also indicated his gratitude to Laberthonnière in the beginning of 1932: ‘Having read your work almost entirely, I believe, over the last ten years, I have found in your work light and comfort, and I search for the means of expressing to you my gratitude.’113 Moreover, the attempt to unify Aquinas and Blondel was finally publicly proposed by Maréchal in 1933 in a response to Blondel during the debate on the possibility of Christian philosophy. He proposed that Blondel and Aquinas might be united through the concept of ‘natural desire’. And we know that de Lubac was aware of this remark, because in 1936 he penned an article summarizing the debate.114 The thought of Blondel appeared even here to be right in line, not only with Augustinian thought, but also with the thought of St. Thomas . . . Blondel cannot in any way share the concerns of St. Thomas . . . but it is all the more significant to see that within a completely different context of problems and concepts, medieval philosophy, and particularly Thomism, held out a doctrine identical to much of twentieth-century thought: the doctrine of a natural desire to see God.115

Thus, this project, undertaken by Valesin, Rousselot, and the Jesuits at Louvain before the war, had been picked up and developed by de Lubac under the watchful eye of Huby and had now come to fruition. 110 De Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion, 33–4; At the Service, 36; Surnaturel: études historiques (Paris:Aubier, 1946). 111 De Lubac indicated that the first three chapters of Surnaturel, on Baius and Jansen, were written much earlier than their publication date of 1931; for the background of the release of Surnaturel, see Mémoire sur l’occasion, 33–6; At the Service, 34–8. 112 De Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion, 189; At the Service, 185. 113 Fouilloux, Une Église, 157 n. 24. 114 Henri de Lubac, ‘Sur la philosophie chrétienne’, Nouvelle revue théologique 63/3 (1936): 125–53; Reprinted in Recherches dans la foi (Paris: Beauchesne, 1979); ‘On Christian Philosophy’, trans. Sharon Mollerus and Susan Clements, Communio 19 (Fall, 1992): 478–506. 115 De Lubac, Recherches dans la foi, 131–2; ‘On Christian Philosophy’, 483.

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This section has examined uses that the nouveaux théologiens made of history, and as should be clear, all of these uses are interrelated and interdependent. The ecclesiological metanarrative that de Lubac and Chenu constructed is dependent on an anthropology and notion of dogma that are fundamentally historical, experiential and social engaged. In this Mystical Body that is fundamentally living and social and attentive to the age in which it is incarnated, it is the ressourcement task of the theologian to discern the living shoots of authentic Christian development from the dead overgrowth in need clearing.

CA THOLIC PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY: TOWARDS THE CONCRETE During the early years of the 1930s, the vigorous French philosophical currents driven by the thought of Husserl, Heidegger, and Hegel (along with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche) had a dramatic influence on the intellectual life of French Left Catholics, and two closely related philosophical debates also emerged around the year of 1930, the debate over the possibility of Christian philosophy and the debate over the nature of the human person. Both of these exchanges were proximate to an embrace of aspects of phenomenology, or at least an attempted reconciliation of certain aspects of it with Thomism. The Dominicans were at the forefront of this embrace, and Herbert Spiegelberg writes: One of the most important events for the introduction of phenomenology into the French-speaking world was the study session of the Société Thomiste on Thomism and German contemporary phenomenology at [the Dominican house at] Juvisy in September 1932. Jacques Maritain and Msgr. Noël presided. Father Daniel Feuling of the University of Salzburg gave an informed report on Husserl and Heidegger, and Father René Kremer of the University of Louvain compared the Thomist with the phenomenological position. In the momentous discussion not only Msgr. Noël and Étienne Gilson but also old phenomenologists like Alexandre Koyré and Edith Stein took a leading part, trying to play down the idealist character of phenomenology and to stress the differences between Husserl and Heidegger. The spirit of the discussion suggested the possibility of an assimilation of the phenomenological approach by Catholic philosophers without commitment to Husserl’s or Heidegger’s conclusions.116

That same year Jean Wahl wrote a very influential article that helped to launch the movement of French existentialism and establish Kierkegaard as a significant

116

Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement, volume 2 (The Hague: SpringerScience+Business Media, 1971), 404.

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force for not only the generation of 1930 but also for nouveaux théologiens such as Congar and de Lubac.117 For Wahl, Heidegger’s project is a continuation and secularization of Kierkegaardian thought and is concerned ‘to link together two of the most profound tendencies of contemporary thought— existential subjectivism and objective realism—and to do so without dulling their features but, rather, by accentuating them to the extreme’.118

Kierkegaard: An Existential Model for a Revolutionary Programme In 1934, under the inspiration of Wahl, Congar wrote an article on the importance of Kierkegaard, who provided a stream of philosophical and theological existentialism as well as a model of rebellion that answered certain vital generational needs, such as the notions of ‘paradox’, which eschews dialectic and rationalism and seeks to suspend and keep oppositions in tension through a thirst for mystery and transcendence, and engagement with concrete ‘real life’. Catholic thinkers saw in his work not only a mode of thought by which they might reach the wider generation but also an antirationalist manifesto that demanded a sense of paradox, mystery, and transcendence that could act as a foil against the perceived excesses of Neoscholastic rationalism and its supposed decadent, individualistic, and dehumanizing tendencies that were closed to history, spiritual experience and engagement, and therefore, to life itself. Spouting the generational rhetoric that animated so many young intellectuals of the era, Congar proclaimed the arrival of a ‘Kierkegaardian Renaissance’ that would influence ‘the vital currents of modern thought’ and propel ‘groups of eager young people to proclaim an attitude of rupture with respect to the bourgeois spirit and the materialism of life’.119 He discerned the fundamental generational needs of the era and claimed that Kierkegaard’s thought would supply them. The needs of our generation are twofold and point to the values provided very effectively by Kiekegaard, sincerity and a desire for the concrete. On the one hand, we are weary of systems where everything is clear and rational, and on the other, and sometimes with more violence than reflection, there is a refusal des conformismes, a refusal to accept convenient attitudes and established and

117 Jean Wahl, ‘Heidegger et Kierkegaard: Recherche des éleménts originaux de la philosophie de Heidegger’, in Jean Wahl: Transcendence and the Concrete, edited by Alan Schrift and Alexander Moore (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017), 107–32. 118 Wahl, ‘Heidegger and Kierkegaard’, 109. 119 Yves Congar, ‘Actualité de Kierkegaard', La Vie Intellectuelle 25 (1934), 10, 20.

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predictable situations. At the same time, a kind of mystique of sincerity, which could be said to have originated with Kierkegaard, is formed for the benefit of revolutionary programs (or again, of a ‘surréaliste’ abandonment to automatic writing). Now properly speaking, we are sympathetic to these tendencies of our generation, that is to say, we feel them, and we also let ourselves be inspired by them . . . Moreover, they are surprisingly permeable to a youthful, altogether, open Catholicism, as fresh as the one which, nineteen centuries ago, inebriated the apostles in that first year of the Redemption when Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit and Saul persecuted The Church of God.120

Abstract and speculative thought, for Congar and his generation, was ‘dead’, and Kierkegaard stood over and against this decadence by offering a real ‘encounter’, ‘adhésion’, and total engagement, which are the values that stand against a ‘false objectivity’ that seeks only to stifle the ‘living attitude’, in which the primacy of the subject emerges: Intelligence, according to Kierkegaard, is not made for quibbling about subtleties, constructing representations of things, or even an image of the world, but for a decisive adhésion, a total engagement: it is in this kind of approach that it encounters, or rather realizes, a truth exterior to man.121

For Congar, Kierkegaard encourages us to ‘eschew systems and definite answers’ and instead pushes us ‘to embrace the risks of faith and “the great options” on which our life turns’.122 We turn away from systems that explain everything and drown the singular within the general. We want to restore to life incommunicable and inexplicable values, values of novelty, heterogeneity and difference. Hence philosophies based on sensibility and intuition and even a psychoanalytic interpretation of the human mystery; hence this denunciation of the irrational at the beginning and end of scientific research itself; hence this taste for the concrete and aesthetic analysis of incommunicable things and moments that are irretrievable; hence this restoration of personalist values that stand against materialistic and evolutionary systems; finally, hence a rediscovery of the tragic and vital engagement implied in the work of philosophical and religious thought, burning like the flame of desire in the gaze of un homme vivant.123

Echoing the cultural obsession with humanism and personalism, Congar charged that ‘systems’ obscure the human and individual dimensions of existence. Whereas abstract speculation obscures the person, Kierkegaard returns ‘the primacy of the individual, the human and personal’ to the centre, and thus an ‘existential question’ emerges and ‘existentialism’ is borne as

120 122

Congar, ‘Kierkegaard’, 31–2. Congar, ‘Kierkegaard’, 19.

Congar, ‘Kierkegaard’, 18. Congar, ‘Kierkegaard’, 20.

121 123

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‘impersonal speculation is trumped by a reflection that turns toward the subject, striving to realize, within temporal existence, the true moi eternal as it appears with regard to God’.124

Beyond Hierarchy to Mystique and Solidarity: The Mystical Body of Christ Left Catholic theologians of the 1930s sought a ‘concrete psychology of grace and faith’ that was both mystical and real, and theological idioms became necessary that would express adequately the obsession of the age for socialization and the political philosophy that this socialization required. This mentality is profoundly articulated by the Catholic intellectual Marcel Légaut: There is a growing community spirit in humanity: When the history of our time comes to be written there will, perhaps, be little emphasis on the socialization which is taking place today; the importance of the phenomenon will be missed for socialization will be taken for granted. But great credit will be given to our era for having put the social question on its true basis, that of the human community. When social justice came to be recognized as a virtue a really progressive step was taken; yet this recognition is still imperfect and precarious, for it is based on a morality which governs the relations between individuals . . . But now the human community has discovered a new field for exploration, which as yet it has scarcely entered . . . This late awakening of humanity reopens all the moral questions which men have ever considered, and it seems to be correcting and improving all social attitudes.125

The doctrine of the ‘Mystical Body of Christ’ became precisely the theological motif that could express and structure these interwar social realties and carry the generational demands of history, experience, and engagement. The Patristic studies of the Belgian Jesuit Émile Mersch were behind the renewed emphasis on the doctrine, which some felt had been eclipsed by a largely hierarchical ecclesiology. The Le Saulchoir Dominicans, and especially the journal La Vie intellectuelle, played a significant role in the popularization of the Mystical Body and its application to the social and practical sphere. As early as 1932, Congar argued that the Mystical Body provided a ‘communitarian spirituality’ that was an antidote against individualism, and Mounier wrote to a friend: ‘We are heading, I think, towards a second Renaissance, which must be preceded by a liquidation of the individual and the restoration of the person . . . It is necessary to purify the revelation of collectivism and not blindly oppose it. The theory of the Mystical Body is there to Congar, ‘Kierkegaard’, 19. Marcel Légaut, La Communauté humaine (Paris: Aubier, 1938), 173, is quoted in M. D. Chenu, Faith and Theology, trans. Denis Hickey (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 196. 124 125

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support us.’126 De Lubac’s Catholicism was also enormously important as it gave a kind of Patristic imprimatur to the 1930s notion of the Mystical Body, heavily influenced by a Blondelian ecclesiology, that was, as we saw earlier, rooted in concrete experience, history, and engagement. Scholars have seen three dimensions in its development: first, its Christological, and specifically incarnational emphasis; second, its ‘inner and outer’ reality explained in terms of sacramentality; and finally, its social or unitive dimension.127 These dimensions allowed Left Catholics to make a kind of ressourcement theological critique of the economic situation as well as develop appraisals of the theological dimensions of the working class in addition to theologies of work and the laity.128 This current is well illustrated in a 1939 article by Chenu, ‘Classes and the Mystical Body’.129 First, Chenu argued that theologians should not merely be confined to deductions and instead should consider the concrete life of the Church, and neither ‘abandon anything of our Christian experience’ nor ‘dilute in any way our mystical aspiration’.130 Chenu’s ecclesiological starting point was incarnational in that it called for an embrace of all material realities, including social and economic aspirations rooted in the dream of a universal brotherhood. In fact, for Chenu, the origin and rise of social and economic classes has its ‘soul’ in a certain ‘humanitarian mystique’ that was a repudiation of the narrow individualism of disincarnated bourgeois Christianity: ‘the communal growth of humanity becomes the subject of the communal growth of the grace of God in Christ’.131 The Dominicans of Le Saulchoir were convinced that their reading of history, or ‘the signs of the times’, pointed to the fact that humanity was on the verge of a great rebirth. Boisselot wrote a book in 1939 entitled Nous, les premiers chrétiens, and this concept permeates Chenu’s ecclesiology:132 If, as seems to be the case, the massive socialization of all human resources and their triumphant (or catastrophic!) exploitation indicates a new era of human history, then we must also say that a second stage in the christianisation of the world begins as soon as Christians understand that grace is communal, that the many solidarities, as such, participate in grace, and that the divine life is given to

126 Both quotes are found in John Hellman, Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Left: 1930–1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 49. 127 J. Eileen Scully, ‘Theology of the Mystical Body in French Theology 1930-1950: A Review and Assessment’, Irish Theological Quarterly 58 (March 1992): 58–9. 128 Edward Brueggeman, ‘A Modern School of Thought on the Supernatural’, Theological Studies 6, February (1945): 3–34, here, 17. 129 Marie Dominique Chenu, ‘Classes and the Mystical Body’, in Faith and Theology, 185–201. 130 Chenu, ‘Classes and the Mystical Body’, 187. 131 Chenu, ‘Classes and the Mystical Body’, 186–7. 132 Pierre Boisselot, Nous, le premiers chrétiens (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1939).

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us in a social body of which Christ is the head. This is the human condition of divine love, and the real nature of our human brotherhood.133

For Chenu, as with de Lubac in Catholicism, this historical shift pointed to the need for a radically different apostolate that was fundamentally social and engaged, rather than being centred merely on individualistic notions of personal salvation and holiness: [The] young Christianity which is developing today provides the foundation for such optimism and is the guarantor of such promises. This Christianity inspires each class, and particularly the working class, with the conviction of the religious value of work; it insists that the grace of God is operative in social behaviour and in the sweat of labour; it refuses to escape the earthly conditions of life but rather finds in them the source of its fervour and the field of its conquest. This happy change in the methods of the apostolate testifies to the creative inspiration and the spirit of invention which were lacking in those generations of Christians who feared the social development of humanity.134

The soul of this new apostolate, which would come to a highpoint during the 1940s with the rise of the Dominican-led worker–priest movement, was in fact the mystique of the Mystical Body of Christ, which coincides, for Chenu, with political aspirations of the Left rooted in class consciousness. Those Christian workers who find the grace of God in the solidarity of their class have awakened a fresh devotion to the doctrine so long neglected by the theologians, that of the mystical body of Christ . . . The convergence of the tendency to class solidarity and the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ is a perfect example of the just balance of the Christian plan. The divine brotherhood is not something confined to extraordinary mystical cases but is made incarnate from day to day in the most human, most earthly solidarities. The experiment of the first Christians did not fail. It continues today, renewed in the developing (and painful) social growth of humanity. We are the first Christians of this new age, and so we too experience the organic power, the daring joy—and pain—of fraternal love.135

Fessard, Hegel, and Maine de Biran We saw above that the Fourvière Jesuits were convinced that Blondelian thought would offer a modern philosophical apology able to reach the French elites and their attempt to understand concrete experience, action, desire, and engagement. Thus their philosophical projects largely follow Blondelian lines.

133 134 135

Chenu, ‘Classes and the Mystical Body’, 199. Chenu, ‘Classes and the Mystical Body’, 199. Chenu, ‘Classes and the Mystical Body’, 199–200.

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In some cases they could not make direct studies of Blondel, so they attempted to find traces of his thought in other thinkers such as Hegel, Malebranche, and Maine de Biran. As we discussed earlier, one of the defining points in Fessard’s intellectual development was his discovery of Hegel on a trip to Germany in the mid1920s. His superiors denied his request to translate and publish the preface and introduction to the Phenomenology.136 After his discovery of Hegel, he immediately saw parallels between Blondel’s L’Action and the Phenomenology. He returned to Fourvière eager to share this insight with Valensin, with whom he had grown close. Fessard recounted the story: [Valensin] cried out, ‘My poor friend, they have nothing in common! Hegel is all being, non-being, becoming, and so on, which are mere logical abstractions! Blondel, on the other hand, is concrete, real life!’ Like a modest disciple, I protested somewhat, but of course without making a dent in the master’s convictions. Well shortly after the publication of Wahl’s book, when I happened to return to see him, he welcomed me with uplifted hands and numerous exclamations, ‘You are a wonderful, astonishing, extraordinary fellow! Jean Wahl says the same thing about Hegel as you do!’ And he immediately quoted the beginning of Wahl’s preface: ‘Hegel’s philosophy cannot be reduced to a few simple formulas. Or rather, these formulas cover up something which is not of a purely logical origin . . . At the beginning of this doctrine . . . there is a kind of mystical intuition and affective warmth . . . Before being a philosopher, he was a theologian.’ Because of this enthusiasm Valensin soon put me in touch with Jean Wahl, who at that time was a professor at the University of Lyon.137

After ordination, Fessard left Lyon under suspicion, sent to teach in a high school for three years in Poitiers. During those years, he continued an intensive study of Hegel, and in 1931 wrote a manuscript reinterpreting the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius from a Hegelian standpoint, of which typed copies would circulate among young Jesuits for two decades until its publication in 1955.138 This synthesis sought to unite human history and the infinite, as well as human liberty with divine liberty. In 1934, he was sent to Paris, where he took a position as an editor at Études. Fessard’s return to Paris coincided with Kojève’s Hegel lectures, which he attended, even delivering remarks at their conclusion in 1939. Fessard remained involved in the crises

136 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977). 137 Édouard Pousset, La vie dans la foi et la liberté: Essai sur les Exercices Spirituels de St Ignace de Loyola (Paris: C.E.R.P., 1972), 7; Life in Faith and Freedom: An Essay Presenting Gaston Fessard’s Analysis of the Dialectic of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. E. L. Dona (St. Louis MO, Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980), xxi–xxii. 138 Gaston Fessard, La dialectique ignatienne des Exercices spirituels (Paris: Centre Sèvres, 1988).

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that shaped the 1930s, publishing books on the dialogue with Communism, La main tendue, as well a larger work on political theology, Pax nostra. Moreover, he finally published his thesis on de Biran in 1938 with very few changes, and he saw parallels between Hegel’s Phenomenology, Biranian anthropology, and L’Action of Blondel: ‘I believe we can compare the Phenomenology of Spirit of Hegel to the Anthopologie [of Maine de Biran] which has laid the foundation. It is at least from this oeuvre that we want to assimilate the seminal work which, by its contents no less than its inspiration, seems to have developed most faithfully, in the line of French philosophy, the seeds sewn by Maine de Biran: L’Action of Maurice Blondel.’139 The dialectical structure of this essay has unmistakable Blondelian overtones.140 The ‘acte moral’ stimulates a realization of an ultimate ‘Désir de Être’, which stimulates the ‘volonté voulante’ to construct a certain objectification of God. Furthermore, Fessard saw in de Biran, whom he called ‘our Kant’, a useful phenomenology which held that all knowledge was experiential and conditioned by an inner life. His phenomenological method is essentially reflexive: ‘the psychological study of the self constitutes the basis for reflection in the ethical and religious spheres’.141 Within the self, there is a certain selfmanifestation of the absolute. Thus, for de Biran, philosophy and theology are intertwined as ‘the spirit of man, which cannot know or conceive of anything except under certain relations, always aspires to the absolute and the unconditional’.142 Central to this reflexive approach is action and the will, and for de Biran acting and knowing happen simultaneously.

De Montcheuil and Malebranche De Montcheuil arrived at Fourvière in 1928, and although, de Lubac had moved ‘down the hill’, the other young Jesuits to whom he had grown close were still there. It was during these years in Lyon that he was able to develop his relationship with Valensin, only strengthening his Blondelian instincts. During these years the question of the desire for God was still strong, and in March 1930, he developed an eight-page essay on the question.143 He wrote to Blondel in 1931: ‘Fr Valensin has to write to you, as he has asked me to assist in the preparation of extracts of your writing to be published in a collection by 139

183.

Gaston Fessard, La Méthode de réflexion chez Maine de Biran (Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1938),

140 Michel Sales, Gaston Fessard, 1897–1978: genèse d’une pensée; suivi d’un résumé du ‘Mystère de la société’ par Gaston Fessard (Bruxelles: Culture et vérité, 1997), 21. 141 Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Maine de Biran to Sartre, vol. 9 (Kent: Search Press, 1975), 35. 142 Copleston, History of Philosophy, vol. 9, 29. 143 This essay has been reprinted in Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil, 350–9.

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Abbé Baudin. Indeed, I willingly accepted, and I hope we can begin quickly.’144 This volume of excerpts from L’Action marked a certain milestone in the resurgence of Blondelian thought that had been initiated by Henri Lefebvre in 1928. Valensin had sought such a project, but had been prevented from doing so. The book was released in 1934, and although the Jesuit General, Wlodimir Ledochowski, was unable to stop the publication he did forbid a second printing.145 The following year, however, Valensin was assigned to Nice.146 Moreover, he published an article in 1931 on Blondel’s minor thesis that had accompanied L’Action. It treated the Vinculum Substantiale of Leibniz and the Christological basis for the spiritual unity of humanity. In the same letter cited above, he expressed his gratitude for Blondel’s influence on his thinking: ‘Since I have the opportunity, I do not want to miss the chance to thank you. Your books, and particularly L’Action, have not been for me objects for speculative study. It has helped give me a correct understanding of the issue of “Christian philosophy” and its demands, even in the realm of practical life, and I can even say that they have a significant influence on the conception I am developing little by little of the interior life.’147 De Montcheuil was ordained in August of that year and completed his theological formation at Fourvière the following year in 1933. After a year in Paray-le-Monial, he went to Rome to complete a doctorate in theology under Charles Boyer, choosing to write on the French philosopher Nicholas Malebranche (1638–1715) in a thesis entitled L’Intervention de Malebranche dans la querelle du pur amour.148 Not only is it telling that de Montcheuil sought to examine a philosopher who sought a certain synthesis between Augustine and Descartes, but his topic, the dispute over disinterested love, is certainly evocative of Rousselot’s thesis two decades earlier. Bernard Sesboüé offers three reasons for de Montcheuil’s choice of topic: first, the link between philosophy and theology; second, theological anthropology in Augustine and Aquinas; and finally, the spiritual problem of love. According to de Montcheuil, Malebranche, in a debate with the mathematician and theologian Bernard Lamy (1640–1715), argued against Quietism, insisting that love devoid of a desire for happiness is ‘an attitude not only condemned but also quite impossible to take because it contradicts the nature of our will and the laws on which God founded it’.149 De Montcheuil stated

144

Yves de Montcheuil, letter to Maurice Blonel, quoted in Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil, 29. Antonio Russo, ‘Yves de Montcheuil et Maurice Blondel’, in Blondel entre ‘L’Action’ et la ‘Trilogie’: Actes du colloque international sur les écrits intermédiaires de Maurice Blondel (Brussels: Lessius, 2003), 137. 146 Étienne Fouilloux, ‘A New “Lyon School” (1919-1939)’, in Flynn, Ressourcement, 93. 147 De Montcheuil, letter to Blondel, 25 February 1931, quoted in Fouilloux, Yves de Montcheuil, 19. 148 Yves de Montcheuil, Malebranche et le quiétisme (Paris: Aubier, 1946). 149 De Montcheuil, Malebranche, 107. 145

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that Malebranche insists this desire is not due to the Fall and human weakness, but it is rooted in human nature itself: ‘it constitutes the normal state of man’.150 Sesboüé remarks that undoubtedly de Montcheuil was alluding to Blondel: ‘as Malebranche also made an appeal to Scripture and the consensus of the Fathers, de Montcheuil remarked that the Scripture passages invoked on the desire for God and reward are necessary if one takes Malebranche’s position on man, the nature of the will, and grace.151 Thus the anthropology of Malebranche is directed by a possession of liberty, the will’s desire for happiness, and the necessity of grace to fulfil its aspiration. Malebranche spent a significant amount of time defending his thesis against the charge that a love of God rooted in a love of self and pleasure is fundamentally selfish. The human desire for happiness pertains not only to God but also to the temporal order. De Montcheuil, however, found a conflict at times between a desire for order and the pursuit of happiness which he resolved by preferencing order over happiness: ‘The glory of God is nothing other than the realization of order, Montcheuil asserted, and its pursuit demands that the soul desires salvation above all else.’152 De Montcheuil sought to demonstrate that Malebranche did not subordinate theology to philosophy: ‘There is not for Malebranche first a philosophy, then a theology, any more than first a nature, then a supernature, which flows into the framework of nature. Rather, there is one plan, unique and divine, which wants them both harmonized, one to the other.’153

ENGAGEMENT Echoing Nizan’s call for philosophy to be in contact with life, Left Catholics called for theology to be engaged. To highlight this mentality, we shall examine four Catholic attempts at engagement, one ecumenical, two political, and one artistic. The rise of progressive Catholicism corresponds with the rise of French Communism, and the question of how to respond to this movement was central to the ongoing discussion about the modern world. In a radio address on the evening of 17 April 1936, Maurice Thorez, who had always condemned Christianity in no uncertain terms, attempted to broaden the appeal of the PCF by extending to Catholics an offer collaboration, le main tendue [the outstretched hand]: ‘[w]e stretch out our hand to you, Catholic, worker, employee, 150

151 De Montcheuil, Malebranche, 108. Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil, 118. David Grumett, ‘Yves de Montcheuil: Action, Justice, and the Kingdom in Spiritual Resistance to Nazism’, Theological Studies 68 (2007): 622. 153 Yves de Montcheuil, quoted in Sesboüé, Yves de Montcheuil, 130. 152

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tradesman, peasant; we who are laïc stretch out our hand to you because you are our brother, and you, like us, are burdened by the same cares . . . ’154 There was no question right away of a wholesale embrace of Communist ideals by Catholic progressives; rather, it was a question of attitude and response. There was initially a considerable sense that the overture was simply a political ruse, and in fact it seems now that Thorez had been ordered against his will by Moscow to make the overture, but nonetheless, many Catholic workers and intellectuals felt that an important question had been broached. François Mauriac wrote that the question was ‘most serious—maybe the most serious of all those which today demand our attention’.155 Mauriac further elaborated on the dilemma at hand: ‘Do we have the right to collaborate— albeit only in terms of social work—with the regime of an adversary for whom it is necessary to destroy in man the image of God and rebuild man in his or his own image?’156

Political Engagement: Maritain and True Humanism Another example of engagement is Maritain’s epoch-making book Humanisme intégral (1936), which was one of the most important catalysts for the growth of liberal Catholicism, in many ways defining the era and providing a definitive opening for a Catholic embrace of the Left.157 Gerd-Rainer Horn writes that this work was ‘the most famous product of—and inspiration for—the wave of innovations [of the period] . . . No other author came even close to assuming Jacques Maritain’s status as an éminence grise or spiritus rector of left Catholic experiments in the late 1930s, the crucial 1940s—and beyond.’158 In his fulllength study, Philippe Chenaux calls Humanisme intégral ‘the veritable “little red book” of an entire generation of Catholics.’159 Humanisme intégrale was incredibly controversial because Maritain offered a strongly optimistic and positive assessment of Modernity. Although it had explicitly rejected the Bible, he nonetheless saw the deep embrace of human rights, justice, and solidarity as a fundamental, albeit implicit, embrace of the Gospel. Shockingly, he claimed that tremendous social progress was indeed 154 Maurice Thorez, a radio address given on 17 April, 1936, quoted in Francis Murphy, Communists and Catholics in France, 1936–1939: The Politics of the Outstretched Hand (Gainesville FL: University of Florida Press, 1989), 16. 155 François Mauriac, Le Communisme et Les Chrétiens (Paris: Plon, 1937), 1. 156 Mauriac, Le Communisme, 3. 157 Jacques Maritain, Humanisme intégral (Paris: Aubier, 1936); True Humanism, trans. M. R. Adamson (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1938); for a critique of Maritain’s political philosophy, see Thaddeus Kozinsky, The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: An Why Philosophers Can’t Solve it (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2012). 158 Horn, Western European Liberation, 89. 159 Philippe, Chenaux, ‘Humanisme intégrale’ (1936) de Jacques Maritain (Paris: Cerf, 2006), 7.

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possible because nineteenth-century civilization had preserved the fundamentals of a Christian society: And it remained, for all that, Christian in the actual principles to which it owed its existence, even though it misjudged them abundantly—in the sacred roots to which still clung its idea of man and human progress, of law and the value of the spirit—in the religious liberty which it willy-nilly preserved, however opposed it may have been at certain moments and in certain countries—and even in the very trust in reason and in man’s greatness which its free-thinkers fashioned into a weapon against Christianity—and in the secularized Christian feeling which despite erroneous ideologies inspired its political and social achievements and expectations.160

This move allowed Maritain a certain baptism of some of the values of the French Revolution, especially religious liberty. Moreover, Maritain claimed to find a metaphysical grounding for a doctrine of human rights in Aquinas, and he asserted that secular democracy could not only be tolerated, but it in fact constituted a real historical advance. After a historical analysis of the birth and development of the ‘dialectic of anthropocentric humanism’, Maritain boldly laid out his humanistic plans for a ‘new Christendom’, largely communitarian and democratic but grounded on Christian principles, which recognize the inherent spiritual ends of the human person rooted in freedom and autonomy. Ultimately, this humanism was an antidote to the ‘tragedy’ of modern humanism, which had closed off humanity to the divine. Despite insisting that the spirituality of the person be at the base of this anthropological vision, Maritain essentially made distinctions between the religious and the profane, which included political and economic affairs. A network of Catholic activities would gain for the Church a certain civic respect, the ‘first beginnings’ of this ‘virtual Christendom’.161 The future of this Christendom of which Maritain dreamed was every bit as grand as that envisioned by the young intellectuals who looked to him for guidance: For this new epoch . . . there is but one way of progress for the history of the world, that is for, a Christian order, howsoever it may be otherwise: that the creature should be truly respected in his connection with God because he is totally dependent on Him; humanism indeed, but a theocentric humanism, rooted in what is radical in man: integral humanism, the humanism of the Incarnation.162

The nouveaux théologiens applauded Maritain’s ‘secular’ Christendom enthusiastically and, as Chenu wrote, he attempted to go beyond ‘the unitary metaphysics of the Middle Ages’ to ‘an order characterized by a pluralism in 160 Jacques Maritain, Christianity and Democracy and The Rights of Man and Natural Law, trans. by Doris Anson (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 12–13. 161 Maritain, Humanisme intégral, 320; True Humanism, 297. 162 Maritain, Humanisme intégral, 81–2; True Humanism, 65.

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the economic, social, political and even religious sphere, inasmuch as, by a normal process of differentiation, the autonomy of the temporal order comes into its own’.163 Left Catholics rejected harsh denunciations, favouring, rather, a ‘positive anti-Communism’.164 Maritain and Mounier did much to create a kind of culture of affirmation surrounding Marxism, that is, to encourage what was authentic and noble in its aspirations: ‘Catholic intellectuals such as Maritain saw it as their task to bend the announced anti-capitalistic revolution of the Front Populaire into a revolution which would be in line with Catholic social teachings, such as were to be found in Rerum novarum and Quadragesimo anno. Maritain posed very clearly that a liquidation of the capitalistic system is necessary in order to make possible an adequate temporal order.’165 Likewise, it is not surprising that conservative Catholics were scandalized by the appearance of Humanisme intégrale, as half of it was devoted to an analysis of Marxism and Communism—often written in a glowing and sympathetic tone. Maritain lays immediate blame for the rise of Communism on the failure of Christians to achieve a certain ‘socio-temporal realization of the Gospel’.166 He lauded Marx’s ‘profound intuition’ and anthropological insight, which was for him a ‘great lightning-flash of truth’: capitalism and ‘wage-slavery’ produces ‘heteronomy and loss of freedom’, dehumanizing the ‘possessing class and the proletariat alike’.167 Maritain recognized the profound spiritual implications of Marxism: material conditions can bear greatly on spiritual well-being.168 Mounier travelled even further by offering an analysis of the beneficial contributions of Marxist thought: first, it allows for a certain recognition of the historical role of the proletariat; second, it finds and explores concealed interests and motivations within bourgeois capitalism; third, it has undertaken a plan of liberation to justify the needs of the oppressed; and finally, it rightly seeks to understand the alienation of modern men and women from their work and life.169 Both thinkers agreed that bourgeois ideology was at the 163 Marie-Dominique Chenu, review of Humanisme intégral, by Jacques Maritain, Bulletin thomiste 15 (April-June 1938), 362, quoted in Gerd-Rainer Horn, ‘Western Liberation Theology in Western Europe in the 1940s’, in Left Catholicism 1943–1955: Catholics and Society in Western Europe at the Point of Liberation, eds. Gerd-Rainer Horn and Emmanuel Gerard (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001), 27. 164 David Curtis, ‘True and False Modernity: Catholicism and Communist Marxism in 1930s France’, in Catholicism, Politics, and Society in Twentieth-Century France, edited by Kay Chadwick (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 74. 165 Hendrik Optebeeck, ‘Respect and Democracy: The Legacy of Jacques Maritain’s Humanisme intégral’, in Respect and Economic Democracy, edited by Luk Bouckaert and Pasquale Arena (Antwerp: Garant, 2010), 61. 166 Maritain, Humanisme intégral, 51; True Humanism, 35. 167 Maritain, Humanisme intégral, 55; True Humanism, 39. 168 Maritain, Humanisme intégral, 58–9; True Humanism, 42. 169 Emmanuel Mounier, Manifeste au service du personnalisme (Paris: Montaigne, 1936), 31–2; Emmanuel Mounier, A Personalist Manifesto, trans. the monks of St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1938), 17–18.

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root of the cultural crisis, and Mounier wrote: ‘on the altar of this sad world, there is but one god, smiling and hideous; the Bourgeois. He has lost the true sense of being, he moves only amongst things, and things that are practical and have been denuded of their mystery. He is a man without love, a Christian without conscience, an unbeliever without passion.’170

An Ecumenical Engagement One of the most influential engagements called for by the Catholic generation of 1930 was a dialogue with Protestants, and the first volume of the Unam Sanctam series, Congar’s own Chrétiens désunis, called for just that.171 Rooted in the incarnational ecclesiology of Tübingen (the second Unam Sanctam volume was in fact a translation of Möhler’s Die Einheit der Kirche), it built on de Lubac’s project in Catholicisme. Whereas de Lubac offered a Blondelian reading of the Fathers that sought to subordinate Bellarmine’s hierarchical primacy to a broader notion of the Mystical Body, Congar argued that in fact Aquinas’ own ecclesiology was in line with this.172 However, Congar’s historical analysis of the Reformation is along the lines of Blondel in Histoire et dogme as he places much of the cause of the Protestant break on the Catholic Church and the Scholasticistic dualism of the age that caused a ‘severance between the real life of the Church and the needs of souls on the one hand, and the monastic and university theology on the other’, and he saw in the Protestant impulse a kind of proto-ressourcement, an authentic religious movement that sought to ‘revive religion by a return to the sources’.173 For many souls ‘the contemporary expression of Christianity was burdensome’, and they craved to ‘get back behind all human accretions to the pure sources of religions’.174 The reformers had ‘genuine desires for a simpler, less formal and over-elaborate spirituality, in contact with living sources’, and they thought that they had found the sources of religion elsewhere. At first it was a question of rediscovering, behind all concepts, the inviolable mystery; beyond edifying literature, living Gospel springing straight from its source; beyond devotional practices (such as indulgences), too often distorted by competition 170

Mounier, Manifeste, 31–2; A Personalist Manifesto, 17–18. Yves Congar, Chrétiens désunis (Paris: Cerf, 1937); Divided Christendom (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1939), 17; Johann Adam Möhler, L'Unité dans l'Église ou le principe du catholicisme d'après l'esprit des Pères des trois premiers siècles de l'Église, trans. by André de Lilienfeld, Unam Sanctum, 2 (Paris: Cerf, 1938). 172 For more on Congar’s Thomistic ecclesiology, see ‘Doctrina chez Saint Thomas’, and ‘Vision de l’Eglise chez Thomas d’Aquin’, in Yves Congar, Thomas d’Aquin: Sa vision de théologie et l’église (London: Variorum Reprints, 1983). 173 174 Congar, Divided Christendom, 19. Congar, Divided Christendom, 20. 171

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and spiritual peddling, a simple unadorned religion, till leaving behind prelates and priests of every sort and kind, the soul came face to face with God.175

For Congar, Protestants have certain values that they think are lost in Catholicism: liberty, interior faith, mystery, and evangelical simplicity, and the Church must be open to the ‘genuine spiritual impetus’ and ‘powerful religious sentiment’ of Protestantism, for it is indeed the inspiration of Lutheranism, an ‘authentic Christianity and unassailable Catholicism’.176 In the face of these legitimate aspirations, the Church became defensive and its ecclesiology developed in a one-sided and anti-Protestant manner: ‘We find on the whole a hardening and concentration in the expression of Catholic doctrines directly opposed to Protestant positions, and silence and reserve regarding those elements of the faith most nearly adaptable to the demands or protestations of the reformers. Some doctrines, indeed, such as that of the universal priesthood or of the Mystical Body, have suffered neglect.’177 Thus for Congar, the path towards unity includes embracing what is positive in the Reformation and eschewing the doctrinaire and legalistic attitudes pervasive in the Church. The embrace of an ecclesiology of mystery and incarnation is much broader than ‘merely’ a hierarchical notion of the Church as a visible society, and it is rooted in the reality that the institution exists to serve the Mystical Body, which is the ‘family’, ‘community’, ‘people’ of God and ‘sacramental communication of the Father to many’.178 Moreover, Congar’s notion of Catholicism as diversity is central to his inclusion of Protestantism in the Church: ‘Catholicism simplifies human diversity, assimilating differences in order to incorporate them, and obviating too excessive particularism. The Church indeed integrates varying mentalities, different states of life and religious experience, but in the interests of a higher unity which in the end is supreme.’179

Une artiste engagé Given that for the nouvelle théologie authentic tradition, and the principle of ressourcement that binds it together, must be incarnated in the concrete reality of religious life, an examination of two artists, both Le Saulchoir Dominicans, who sought to engage the modern world, might illustrate how pervasive and influential these tendencies were. Marie-Alain Couturier and Raymond Régamey were significant figures in the movement to incorporate certain modern artistic forms in the Church. As with the nouveaux théologiens,

175 177 179

Congar, Divided Christendom, 20, 22. Congar, Divided Christendom, 30. Congar, Divided Christendom, 111.

176 178

Congar, Divided Christendom, 40–1. Congar, Divided Christendom, 50, 68, 71.

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their profound historical sense that intensely sought to read the signs of the times was coupled with a great hope for the present age and a desire to incarnate authentic spiritual values within the modern artistic grammar. They were great critics of the religious art of their day, and accused it of being decadent, individualistic and cut off from life. For them an art that is not contemporary is not art. Couturier, the most influential of the two, was seriously injured in the First World War and entered the novitiate with Congar, and they both studied at Le Saulchoir during its golden years when figures such as Chenu, Lemoyner, and Gardeil guided the faculty. Couturier and Régamey founded the influential journal L’Art Sacre in 1935 and advocated for an intense engagement with modern art and culture. Couturier was a friend of the famous modern architect Le Corbusier, whom he fervently hoped might design Catholic churches at some point. Couturier accused the sacred art of his era of décadence, writing in 1937: ‘the principle causes of the décadence of sacred art do not lie in the artistic order but rather in the religious. This décadence is linked to the fall of the Christian spirit in the West. Indeed, art is always linked to a certain state of civilization and Christian art is not possible when there is no Christian civilization.’180 He severely chastized the ‘mediocre’ religious art and architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as being obsolete and irrelevant: ‘There is indeed a certain love of the past, but again, it is rather the love of an archaeologist, guardian of relics and museums. No love of life, of its risques and libertés. No sense de la vie . . . ’181 Simultaneously, he lauded modern secular art, writing that it is significant indeed that the moment of the most shameful abasement of religious art precisely coincides with one of the most fecund eras of renewal ever known in the history of art.182 This love of the past, Couturier charged, had fundamentally cut the Church off from the modern world, and he wrote: this is ‘certainly one of the tragedies of the Catholicism of our day; it is largely ignorant and unconcerned with problems not specifically religious, and thus also with the anguish, dreams and occupations of all those who are not Christian’.183 Moreover, like the nouveaux théologiens, he mourned the artistic separation between the Church and the world, noting that this separation has gone on for centuries and in fact, he wrote, today the ‘the great currents of living art have become entirely foreign to the life of the Church’, which implies the difficult reality that the current art of the Church is no longer a living art and thus does not have the essential requirements of a living art, and in fact, it is the task of 180 Marie-Alain Couturier, ‘Sur Picasso et les conditions actuelles de l’art chrétien’, in Art et liberté (Paris: Cerf, 1957), 43. 181 182 Couturier, ‘Sur Picasso’, 46. Couturier, ‘Sur Picasso’, 43. 183 Marie-Alain Couturier, ‘Picasso et les catholiques’, in Art et liberté (Paris: Cerf, 1957), 51.

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the Church is to recognize in every epoch the ‘the living art of the time’ and cling to this ‘common and indivisible life’ so that she can ‘transform for her own ends’.184 In this notion of a living art, one sees the Blondelian impulse emerge strongly. Couturier insisted that artistic forms and styles could not stand timelessly out of the currents of thought, culture, and life. To do so would only make them irrelevant and anachronistic—a kind of artistic blasphemy. Art, he wrote is ‘much too spontaneous, much too organically united to the life of an age and a people, so that true art, especially if it has certain conditions of collectivité, could never bloom and flourish by isolating itself from this life’.185 For however diverse it may be, all the art of an age is like a great living body: everything that isolates itself, everything that is subtracted from the unity of life, as a sick member, weakens, dries up, and eventually decomposes. At every epoch there is "l’art vivant de ce temps-là", and it is from this common and indivisible life that the Christian faith must seize and that it must for its own ends transform.186

This embrace of life requires a fundamental openness, and in fact Couturier argues that there is a law essential to Catholic thought that demands that this thought be known, felt by vocation, engagée, and interested in every human thought and problem. Indeed a Catholic culture, a Catholic thought that no longer feels this, is no longer in the fullness of its vocation, nor of its life. Catholic thought, precisely because it is Catholic, cannot be closed off to certain streams of thought. For it is precisely in its mission to live in symbiosis, in communion with all the life of the world.187

The existentialism of the 1930s was deeply concerned with ‘ordinary objects’— Sartre himself famously ‘turned pale with emotion’ over the possibility of philosophizing over apricot cocktails—and Couturier was convinced that L’Art sacre needed to return to these ‘humble’ ordinary things if art were once again to rejoin the flux of ‘vital unity’, of ‘la vie’: ‘Already we see architects, painters, and sculptors return to the concern of humble things very well done, and in them the concern for the true human values which they can bear.’ Couturier and Régamey were ideal representatives of the generation of 1930. They were taken up with a sense of crisis, were strongly motivated by phenomenological and historical tendencies, and were convinced that the ecclesiastical renewal depended in no small part on their programme. Like the nouveaux théologiens, they thirsted for contact with Modernity: ‘Let us say that what responds in us to these calls [of Modernity], far more than religious sentiment, is the anxious and passionate sensibility of our time; but let’s insist that the instinctive and territorial

184 186

Couturier, ‘Sur Picasso’, 45. Couturier, ‘Sur Picasso’, 45.

185 187

Couturier, ‘Sur Picasso’, 43. Couturier, ‘Sur Picasso’, 55.

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demand of certain libertés de l’esprit is also within our hearts, and this demand is just and necessary, even at the cost of some désordre.’188

A Dialogue with the World As is by now apparent, for the Fourvière Jesuits intellectual life had to be engaged, and as we saw earlier, de Lubac’s attempt to connect Catholic dogma with ‘life’ seems certainly influenced by Blondel’s hope that the social implications of dogma would be explicated, and de Lubac sought to show how these horizontal concerns for humanism and social unity permeated all of Catholic dogma.189 He treated aspects such as ecclesiology, salvation, the sacraments, and revelation, and sought to establish the unity and authority of the Fathers. Beyond these dogmatic concerns, the Jesuits were at the forefront of a Catholic engagement with Communism. Before we examine specific attempts at dialogue by the Fourvière thinkers, we should briefly mention an important Jesuit organization, Action populaire, which was at the centre of the ‘third way’ politics that sought a reappraisal of communist aspirations. Founded in 1904 by two Jesuits, Henri-Joseph Leroy and Gustave Desbuquois, the journal was preoccupied—in the spirit of Rerum novarum—with the social and economic conditions in France. For French historian René Remond, the formation of this organization was a first significant step toward the left for French Jesuits: At what moment did the Society of Jesus, after having incarnated the most intransigent tradition, begin to turn in France toward a more conciliatory attitude? Here also social preoccupations have been determinant, and in this important change for the history of the Church in France, the role played by the Action populaire and its director, Father Desbuquois, cannot have been negligible.190

Certainly, the debate over a proper response was intense within the Jesuit order and played out strongly in the publication of Action populaire. Attempting to ascertain the position of Catholics toward the Communist surge, they devoted twelve articles from 1936 to 1937 to a series called ‘Enquête sur le

188 Marie-Alain Couturier, ‘Gréco, la mystique et les commentateurs’, in Art et liberté (Paris: Cerf, 1957), 42. 189 Maurice Blondel, Histoire et Dogme (La Chapelle: Montligeon), 1904, 452–3; The Letter on Apologetics & History and Dogma, trans. Alexander Dru and Illtyd Trethowan (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing), 1994, 287. 190 René Rémond, La Droite en France (Paris: Aubier, 1982), 241–2, quoted in John Padberg ‘Above and Beyond Party: The Dilemma of Dossiers de l’Action Populaire in the 1930s’, in In the Presence of the Past: Essays in Honor of Frank Manuel, edited by Richard Bienvenu and Mordechai Feingold (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991), 269.

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Communisme en France’. The articles sought to analyse the responses from a questionnaire on Communism to ten thousand readers.191 Communists had never been far from the mind of Action populaire. ‘From 1930–1931, articles are so numerous and so varied that it is impossible to do even an overview . . . Each of the fathers of the house has dealt with Communism in multiple conferences, courses, social weeks, study circles and before the most varied audiences.’ Already in the 1920s the then General superior of the Jesuits Wlodimir Ledochowski, thought that Action populaire was not doing enough to denounce the danger of bolshevism, its radicals and its propaganda. In 1936 at a meeting of Ledochowski and Desbuquois in Rome, the two disagreed, with Desbuquois arguing against a simple denunciation and Ledochowski, striking his hand on the table for emphasis, declaring ‘Any dialogue with such men is impossible.’192

The rise of Marxism also occupied a prominent place in de Lubac’s Catholicism. He approvingly quotes Maritain’s claim in Humanisme intégrale that Marxism was in fact attempting to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of humanity which had been suffocated by the climate of individualism. During the same period, de Lubac addressed the question of Communism more directly in a 1937 Jesuit response to the Antireligious Manual which had been published by the Central Council of the Union of Militant Godless of the U.S.S.R.193 Covering such areas as evolution, the existence of God and Christianity, capitalism, progress, and dialectical materialism, the work attempted a topical rebuttal in which de Lubac authored the section on the origin of God. Aiming to undermine Communist assertions about the origins and development of religion among primitive humans, de Lubac argued that far from examining ‘only the fact’, as Leninists claim, they began with their own a priori presuppositions and assumptions which avoided the reality that the religious development in early human is an ‘insoluble problem’, ‘shrouded in impenetrable darkness’.194 By further trying to refute the claim that monotheistic development was a product of economic life and oppression, the influences of Blondel and Rousselot are made plain. Authentic monotheism, he writes, is grounded in ‘deep philosophical speculation’ and remains a ‘principle of liberation’. Although the idea of God is always ready ‘to be awakened’ in the intellect, 191 Paul Droulers, Politique sociale et christianisme: Le Père Desbuquois et l’Action Populaire, vol. 1 (Paris: Éditions ouvriès, 1969), 193, n 246. 192 Padberg, ‘Above and Beyond Party’, 279. 193 Ivan Kologriwof, ed., Essai d’une somme catholique contre le Sans-Dieu (Paris: Éditions Spes, 1936); God and Man in the Universe, trans. Aloysius Ambruzzi (London: Coldwell, 1937). 194 Henri de Lubac, ‘L’origine de la religion’, in Ivan Kologriwof, ed., Essai d’une somme catholique contre le Sans-Dieu (Paris: Éditions Spes, 1936), 234; ‘The Origin of Religion’, in Ivan Kologriwof, ed., God and Man in the Universe., trans. Aloysius Ambruzzi (London: Coldwell, 1937), 251.

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poor intellectual conditions and an ‘original moral deviation’ constantly threaten to stifle it. In a clear criticism of Neoscholasticism, de Lubac claimed that this deviation was in fact responsible for our need to ‘borrow elements’ of nature to construct ideas of God, developing analogies which harden into lifeless abstractions or facile anthropomorphisms.195 These ideas of God, which have been ‘enslaved and made subservient to profane ends’ need to undergo a purification to which atheism contributes. The atheist, for his or her part, must recognize the deeply religious character of the soul, ‘which always ends in adoring in one form or another, for adoration is the most deeply seated craving of the soul and its essential duty as well. God is the pole that irresistibly attracts man, and even those that imagine they deny Him, bear witness in spite of their own self, to His existence, because as the great Origen said: “they merely refer their indestructible notion of God to something else rather than to God himself.”’196 In 1936, during the rise of the Popular Front, Fessard published Pax Nostra, which attempted to weigh in on the personalism debate as well as assess the political crisis. Fessard, in a move that would echo de Lubac’s famous line in Catholicism, examined how Christ ‘reveals to humanity the concept of person’, which is ‘itself the principle, the end and the means of the genesis or personal becoming of every human being’.197 Each person is unique and equal to all others; however, each is also endowed with a ‘common prerogative’,198 [Christian revelation] has expanded to the utmost horizons of the human community into which every ‘I’ is born, and at the same time it has consolidated to the maximum the existence of this I, a tiny element of this community. Revelation of universal brotherhood in Christ, such are the two poles (which it is impossible to dissociate). The term ‘person’ is perfectly suited to signify the twofold property that we thus hold of our supernatural destiny: on the one hand, it serves to mark for us that each of us acquires, by reason of this destiny, a value incommensurate with all the rest of nature, to such a degree that it becomes for all the object of sovereign respect; and, on the other hand, in this absolute value communicated by Christ, our freedom finds the sole end worthy of it: to achieve among us a perfect community.199

For Fessard, history had to be understood through ‘the dialectic of the pagan and Jew’, which was central to his work of explaining the religious roots of totalitarian regimes and is evocative of the Hegelian influences that

De Lubac, ‘L’origine’, 265; ‘The Origin’, 284. 197 De Lubac, ‘L’origine’, 265; ‘The Origin’, 284. Sales, Gaston Fessard, 38. 198 Gaston Fessard, Pax nostra (Paris: Cerf, 1936), 45. 199 Fessard, Pax Nostra, 39–40, quoted by Henri de Lubac in Explication chrétienne de notre temps, in HLOC, vol. 34, 142; ‘Christian Explanation of our Times’, in Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press), 451–2. 195 196

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helped to shape the 1930s. These categories of pagan and Jew were also fundamentally existential. The Jew is the man who hides behind his law and, attached to his particularity, is rejected because of his incredulity. The pagan on the other hand clings to the universal and is condemned because he tries to absolutize the sensible. It is with this dialectic that fessard attempted to understand the rise of Communism (the Jew) and fascism (the pagan). To this thesis and antithesis, Christ is the synthesis. The pagan must turn away from nature and idols, and the Jew from sterile pharisaism, and the end of history is ultimately dependent on the unification of these two groups in the Church. We can readily see the Blondelian influence on Fessard, and these categories that he constructed bear more than a little resemblance to Blondel’s method of immanence, which denounced both the scepticism of the dilettante and the absolutizing of Neoscholastic epistemology. The following year in 1937, Fessard published the most sophisticated analysis of Communism in his book La Main tendue: Le Dialogue catholiquecommuniste est-il possible?, arguing that it was not an authentic humanism.200 Moreover, authentic dialogue remained impossible as long as a dogmatic atheism remained central to Communism. Fessard quoted extensively from Marx’s 1844 manuscript to claim that the Communist Party’s atheism emerged from Lenin’s misreading of Marx. Lenin, it seemed, relied too heavily on Hegel’s Logic, apparently unaware of Marx’s 1844 writings which he admitted were dependent on Hegel’s Phenomenology.201 This path left Communism essentially bound to a contradiction that rendered it fundamentally anti-humanist: a utopian notion of progress with no end.202 Fessard reasoned that this impasse was overcome by a turn to the early text of 1844, which contained an Hegelian notion of an end to history, thus allowing an authentic engagement with Catholicism and a simultaneous embrace of its own deepest humanistic aspirations.203 David Curtis writes that the Communist would be forced to admit that ‘the “End” has sense only if Marx’s “real humanism” is “secrètement, mais réelement ouvert sur “Infini,” on the transcendent, and thus this opening in turn acquires its full sense only if Marx’s affirmation of “l’Humanité-Dieu” (that is to say of humanity “passant réelement à la limite d’elle-même”) is recognized as that of the Mystical Body of Christ, of which Marx may be seen as “un theoreticien inconscient et un constructeur involontaire.”’204

200 John Hellman, ‘French “Left-Catholics” and Communism in the 1930s’, Church History 45/4 (December, 1976): 522; Gaston Fessard, La Main tendue?: Le Dialogue catholiquecommuniste est-il possible? (Paris: Grasset, 1937). 201 Hellman, ‘French “Left-Catholics” ’, 522. 202 Curtis, The French Popular Front, 159. 203 Hellman, ‘French “Left-Catholics” ’, 523. 204 Curtis, The French Popular Front, 160.

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CONCLUSION: A NEW CHRISTIAN DIMENSION We conclude this section on the generational mentality of the 1930s by examining a 1937 article in La Vie intellectuelle written by Chenu and dedicated to the chaplains of the JOC called ‘Dimension nouvelle de la Chrétienté’.205 This piece serves as a superb illustration of the interrelated dynamism—composed of crisis, historical critique, philosophical programme, engagement, and finally, a vision of progress—central to the intellectual projects of this generation. Chenu began with a radically negative critique of the contemporary Church, writing that it seemed ‘at the point of death’, fixed in its defensive positions, content to merely ‘conserve its heritage’.206 It was ‘not current, always behind the times, with no imagination in the face of the future, with no effective hold on the institutions and evolutions of the day’.207 Unable to appropriate for itself modern words such as ‘progress’ or ‘liberty’, which even had anti-Christian connotations, it rejected this ‘nouveauté permanente’, the source of ‘inexhaustible resources’, and was simply left behind in the flow of history.208 The catalyst for a Chrétienté nouvelle, however, was a radical engagement with the world rooted in the concrete and real. For Chenu, the fact of the Incarnation is a reality that binds humanity together into a unity, even with all its modern social complexity. The ‘law of the Incarnation’ is that Christ divinized everything properly human by taking the highest as well as lowest things of human nature into himself: family, society, and political life. This new Christianity, of which the working class would be touchstone, would be realized only through a nouvel apostolat, such as that being attempted by Action catholique, with its dual apostolic themes of an apostolate ‘du milieu par le milieu’ and a ‘conquête de la masse’.209 The former method of evangelization relied on an organization of ‘mouvements specialises’, which were the appropriate means to incarnate divine life within the milieu of workers, farmers, seamen, students, employers, and financiers, without levelling out, under the guise of being sanctified, the proper values of these bodies or work, of these states of life, where each continually draws the resources of his work.210 The latter approach, the ‘conquest of the masses’, underscores the scope of this project to re-Christianize the working class. In fact, Chenu points out, these two methods are related, as smaller specialized movements are oriented towards penetrating the new ‘phenomenon of the masses’.211 Chenu closed with a rousing affirmation of the legitimate aspirations of the working class, which had been activated by Marxist ideology: ‘The awareness 205 Chenu, ‘Dimension nouvelle de La Chrétienté’, in La Parole de Dieu, t. II (Paris: Cerf, 1964), 87. 206 207 Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 88. Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 88. 208 209 Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 88. Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 96. 210 211 Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 97–8. Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 98.

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of the dignity and the solidarity of the workers, the awareness of human dignity offended and humiliated, the awareness of a historic mission, these are the chief historical gains of our time. Marxism has activated—and deformed— this awareness; it called this the rise of the proletariat to the consciousness of class, and from this it elaborated its theory of class warfare.’212 To underscore this, Chenu quoted from Humanisme intégral: ‘However, freed from these errors, this awareness appears as considerable historical progress.’213 For Chenu, this contact with life opened a stunning vista of possibilities. He recounted some words of Sertillanges, who had been asked if ‘faced with the speed and accelerated entangling of human events and the network of political and economic competition that is now enclosing the entire globe’, we are not approaching ‘the “fin du monde” [end of the world], a tragic and grandiose completion of Christianity, two thousand years after Christ silently inaugurated the terrestrial kingdom of God’. Chenu recounted the reply: Fr Sertillanges responded all in one break . . . ‘Mais non! We are again at the beginning of the human history of the world. We are again in the prime youth of Christianity. Will not Christians in thousands of years consider our times as one of the first stages of the Church, endowed with a freshness and vitality from its apostolic youth, of this creative élan which comes from Jerusalem and Rome only to carry it through concentric circles to the ends of the earth?’214

To conclude, Catholics of the generation of 1930 were in many ways swept along by the same project as the other members of their generation, and a broad movement of Left Catholics turned the grammar of crisis against the hierarchical Church, arguing, to apply Nizan’s quip about French society to the ecclesiastical context, the Church was not sick because she had enemies, she had enemies because she was sick.215 Moreover, these social Catholics envisioned a vast programme of ecclesiastical regeneration along the similar lines and rooted in history, concrete philosophy, and engagement. They constructed historical narratives to justify their claims against the Church, developed philosophies able to respond to the concrete needs of the age, and built a network of progressive activities to engage and dialogue with modernity.

213 Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 104–5. Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 105. Chenu, ‘Dimension’, 87. 215 Paul Nizan, Les Chiens de garde (Paris: F. Maspero, 1968), 108; Paul Nizan, The Watchdogs: Philosophers of the Established Order, trans. Paul Fittingoff (New York NY: Monthly Review, 1960),121. 212 214

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7 1940s The Triumph of the Generation of 1930

The post-war years of the 1940s saw the equally spectacular and unpredictable rise of French Left Catholicism. Among the casualties of the Second World War were both the Third Republic and the credibility of the fairly conservative Catholic hierarchy. The French Left appeared not only prophetic, in that they had indeed predicted the collapse of both entities, but also heroic. They had not only written about action and engagement but had lived it out in their support for the resistance. Thus, in 1945 the Communists, existentialists, and Left Catholics of the generation of 1930 emerged from the war with tremendous influence in French culture, and they continued the analysis they had begun during the 1930s of the social, political, and ecclesiastical crisis, still ascribing to themselves a great task of regeneration. They had come of age and found that their voices—and reputations—resonated throughout France and across Western Europe and America. However, as their influence grew and important intellectual works and apostolates multiplied, the Roman curia became more desperate to quell the ‘problème français’. Nonetheless, the nouveaux théologiens continued their project to develop a new anthropology and ecclesiology according to the intellectual categories championed by the generation of 1930: historicity, existentialism, and engagement.

T H E WA R Y E A R S On 14 June 1940, German troops entered Paris, marching past the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Elysées to the Place de la Concorde, bringing an end to the Third Republic, which had been shrouded in perpetual acrimony and division since 1870. One week later an armistice was signed, dividing France into two zones. Paris and the northern zone remained occupied, while south of the demarcation line remained ‘free’, under the jurisdiction of a new

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government whose capital was in the town of Vichy. One month after the fall of Paris, Marshal Pétain, a celebrated general from the First World War and national hero, was elected by the National Assembly as Chief of State. He sought to implement a Révolution nationale under the motto of ‘Travail, Famille, Patrie’, a direct repudiation of the ideals of the French Revolution, ‘Liberté, Égalite, Fraternité’. Throughout the course of the war, the ‘free zone’ in the south became the centre of resistance activity against the Germans. The resistance primarily comprised Communists, Left Catholics, various Republicans, and members of the French army. Increasingly however, as the war progressed, the Vichy government collaborated with the Nazis, eventually providing active support for the German SS in its effort to stamp out resistance fighters, known as ‘maquis’. Thus, in this complex milieu, Frenchmen were essentially forced into positions of ‘collaboration’ or ‘resistance’, and the intellectuals of the generation of 1930 put their literary talents at the service of both sides. Many of them made up what has come to be known as the Résistance intellectuelle, which included Catholics such as François Mauriac and existentialists like Camus, whose resistance publication Combat was widely circulated.1 As a unit of the generation of 1930, the Fourvière Jesuits also were significantly engaged in the resistance, and their influential efforts came to be known as the Résistance spirituelle, which we shall now briefly outline. Thus, as Sartre and Camus produced works such as The Plague and The Flies that both advanced their existentialist philosophies and contributed to the resistance, the Fourvière Jesuits continued to develop themes that had interested them in the previous decade.2 Moreover, we cannot but see the effects of generational sedimentation emerge, as the writers of the generation of 1930, by taking up their pens against anti-Semitism in the Resistance intellectuelle, remind us of those dreyfusard writers in the generation of 1890 such as Pèguy and Zola, who ascribed for themselves a similar mission.

La Resistance Spirituelle Soon after the defeat of France in 1940, Fessard, coming from the Jesuit house of Études in Paris, joined Chaillet, who was returning from ministry in Hungary, at Fourvière where de Lubac was living. Their concern about the anti-Semitism of the Vichy Regime was encouraged by certain older Jesuits and mentors who had long been alarmed by these tendencies in Europe.3 1 For the Résistance intellectuelle, see James Wilkinson, The Intellectual Resistance in Europe (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 25–109. 2 Albert Camus, The Plague (New York: Vintage Books, 1991). 3 Henri de Lubac, Résistance chrétienne au nazisme (Paris: Fayard, 1988), in HLOC, vol. 34, 2006; Christian Resistance to Anti-Semitism: Memories from 1940–1944, trans. Anne Englund (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1990), 25.

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Both Chaillet and Fessard understood the phenomenon of Nazism well, as Chaillet had made a detailed examination of it during his studies in Germany, and Fessard and de Montcheuil had attended one of the first Nazi congresses in Nuremberg in the early 1930s.4 In 1941, Chaillet began formulating a plan for a clandestine journal which would offer theological and spiritual resistance against Nazi ideology and the Vichy Regime, the latter having made itself an accomplice of the former. Called Cahiers du Témoignage Chrétien, the journal in various degrees would involve other members of the Fourvière Jesuits, such as Daniélou, de Montcheuil, and Hamel, and alert people to the spiritual and moral dangers of racism, the myth of Aryan supremacy, and the violence against the peoples that Nazi ideology supposed to be inferior.5 Beyond this negative critique, Témoignage’s writings sought to construct a Christian humanism by elucidating the infinite dignity of all persons, who are likewise infinitely loved by God.6 Between November 1941 and July 1944, a total of fifteen issues were published, and at its peak, around 50,000 copies were printed and distributed in a clandestine network throughout France. Each issue was devoted to a single theme and often had several authors, written not only by Jesuits but also by a ‘petite phalange d’intellectuels laïcs’, comprising both Catholic and Protestants.7 Fessard wrote the first issue entitled France, prends garde de perdre ton âme, and others followed, treating such subjects as anti-Semitism, deportation, collaboration, and human rights. The journal disclosed that Vichy was intending to turn foreign-born Jews over to the Nazis and first broke the news that Germany was killing hundreds of thousands in Polish gas chambers.8 Pétain and his regime had enjoyed enormous support at the beginning of the war, and Témoignage played a significant role in its demystification. Moreover, Témoignage also served as an important bridge between the dynamic theological developments of the 1930s and the controversial years after the war when the Fourvière Jesuits would rise to positions of intellectual prominence. Noting this continuity with the 1930s, François and Renée Bédarida write: Nourished by theology—speculative and moral—, ecclesiology, Christology, Patristics, and exegesis, the culture of Témoignage chrétien was undoubtedly rooted in the intellectual heritage of the 1930s. We find in it the influence of Péguy, Blondel, Mounier, Mauriac, Bernanos, and more than any other, Maritain— the Maritain of Humanisme intégral, his masterwork of 1936, which, contrary to

4

De Lubac, Résistance chrétienne, 513–15; Christian Resistance, 36–8. François Bédarida and Renée Bédarida, eds., introduction to La Résistance spirituelle, 1941–1944: Les Cahiers clandestins du Témoignage chrétien (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001), 10. 6 7 Bédarida, La Résistance, 22. Bédarida, La Résistance, 28. 8 Michael Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust: 1930–1965 (Bloomington IN, Indiana University Press, 2000), 128. 5

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totalitarianism’s reliance on the State to build a ‘nouveau homme’, defended the vision of a new humanism respectful of persons, social bodies, and all nations, while recognizing the legitimacy of a proper space for the temporal and its autonomy.9

The Bédaridas identify four central theological aspects of Temoignage that established theological continuity with the preceding decade. First, a theology of the Incarnation sought to provide a spiritual meaning to the temporal world and demonstrate the profound solidarity of God with the human race, avoiding theological abstraction and providing a path for concrete spiritual reflection. Second, a return to Patristic sources made possible a dynamic engagement with the world. This move allowed for ecclesiological reflections rooted in the Mystical Body of Christ which gave an account of the mystery of Christian and human solidarity, beyond mere individual, juridical or hierarchical understandings. Third, apostolic and strongly rooted in the Action catholique movement that had emerged in the interwar era, the journal sought to be politically engaged and attentive to the re-Christianization of France. Finally, recent Scriptural studies had brought to light the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and the continuity between the Old and New Testaments, and a certain unity between the two religions had been re-established, which strengthened the need to combat anti-Semitism. These four aspects of the Résistance offer a strong reminder that the methodological prerequisites of the 1930s, history, concrete philosophy, and engagement, were still central to the Jesuits during the war years. Témoignage also continued the Fourvière project of developing a Christian humanism, and Bernard Comte lists five broader humanistic aspects of the résistance spirituelle.10 First, truth (la vérité) was promoted against the propaganda of the official press of the Vichy regime. Second, justice (la justice) was held up as an ideal that would safeguard the rights of all and protect the weakest. Third, the Jesuits upheld the primacy of conscience (primat de la conscience) as a means of combatting the ‘hitlerian’ perversion of conscience and ‘denaturing of Christian values’.11 Fourth, the traditional values of France (la patrie) were upheld: liberty, political pluralism and esteem for the dignity of the person. Finally, the journal sought to espouse a humanism that transcended politics.12 9 François Bébarida and Renée Bédarida, Témoignage Chrétien, 1941–1944: Les Armes de l’esprit (Paris: Ouvrières, 1977), 23. 10 Bernard Comte, L’Honneur et la conscience (Paris: l’Atelier, 2008), 231–50. 11 Comte, L’Honneur, 237. 12 Étienne Fouilloux, in Les Chrétiens français entre crise et liberation: 1937–1947 (Paris: Seuil, 1997), begins with the larger political context of the mid-1930s and paints the Vatican as essentially trapped between Hitler and Stalin, with a fading Pope Pius XI unable to manage the situation. After the commencement of hostilities and the fall of France, Catholics were effectively caught between resistance and collaboration.

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In addition, there were two other important wartime projects that bore significant fruit, attracted much attention, and helped develop the vision that was expressed in the pages of Témoignage, the collections Sources chrétiennes, which published certain Patristic texts, and Théologie, a series of positive theology works. Sources chrétiennes offered French translations of Patristic works which had fallen into obscurity or were generally unknown and which were thought to be more open to humanistic concerns.13 Originally conceived by Victor Fontoynont during the 1930s, the project sought to offer translations and republications of texts by the Greek Fathers, which, Fontoynont had hoped, might stimulate a fruitful ecumenical exchange.14 Fontoynont had gone to Fourvière in 1932 where he was the prefect of studies as well as professor of Biblical Greek and fundamental theology, and in 1937, he enlisted the help of Chaillet and, with the encouragement of Rondet and Lebreton, sought to realize the series. Approval, however, was not given by the Jesuit General, and the plan was shelved for several years until de Lubac, Daniélou, and another Jesuit, Claude Mondésert, were able to make a more successful attempt.15 The Jesuits enlisted experts to provide unabridged translations of various texts of the Greek and Latin Fathers with historical introductions, and despite the great success of the series, which had published over 400 volumes by the turn of the century, it generated controversy, as we shall see, as some accused it of using the Neoplatonic writers to stimulate a kind of countertheology. The first volumes included works from Gregory of Nyssa, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Maximus the Confessor. Undoubtedly, this project can be seen as an outgrowth of de Grandmaison’s Recherches, the premier French theology journal, which had been attempting a certain historical engagement for three decades. Théologie sought to encourage works of positive theology rooted in the Biblical, Patristic, and liturgical ressourcement. The first three publications were all released in 1944: Bouillard’s controversial Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas d’Aquin, Daniélou’s Platonisme et théologie mystique: doctrine spirituelle de saint Grégoire de Nysse, and de Lubac’s Corpus Mysticum.

A Critique of the Church: ‘A Crisis of Progress’ During this period, de Lubac continued the project that occupied much of his work, identifying the anthropological and ecclesiological causes of the current crisis. Moreover, the criticism of the generation of 1930, which claimed that it was indeed the final apocalyptic end of a failed civilization, seemed justified by 13 14 15

Étienne Fouilloux, La Collection «Sources chrétiennes» (Paris: Cerf, 2005). Rudolph Voderholzer, Meet Henri de Lubac (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 2008), 50. Fouilloux, La Collection, 79–113.

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the war. For de Lubac the ‘crisis of civilization’ was not merely external, rather it was from within: ‘the whole edifice of European civilization seems to be collapsing. The fundamental values by which, across various regimes and with various success, numerous generations have lived seem today to be vanishing, leaving us a kind of chaos.’16 De Lubac gave two talks early in the war which were published in 1942 as ‘Causes internes de l’atténuation et de la disparition du sens du sacré’ and ‘Explication chrétienne de notre temps’.17 These articles both find an earlier expression in his Catholicism, and de Lubac wrote all this with an eye towards a new ‘Catholic renaissance’. As always with de Lubac, the link between social crisis, historical analysis, and a certain futurism is the philosophy of Blondel. The crisis was born from a rejection of, or at least a distancing from, the Blondelian impulse which de Lubac argued was at the heart of authentic Catholic tradition: the ‘problem of destiny’ so central to the ‘religious problem’.18 The anthropological crisis was rooted in a loss of the ‘sense of the Sacred’, and the concept of pure nature was predominantly to blame, as it is the doctrine against which ‘all Tradition rises up’.19 This doctrine emerged in the sixteenth century as a reaction against Baianism, and it bifurcates the realms of nature and obscurs the reality that nature ‘was made for the supernatural, and, without having any right over it, nature is not explained without it. As a result, the whole natural order, not only in man but in the destiny of man, is already penetrated by something supernatural that shapes and attracts it.’20 This separation caused the supernatural to be ‘relegated to some distant corner where it could only remain sterile. They exiled it to a separate province, which they willingly abandoned to us, leaving it to die little by little under our care.’21 We shall return to this issue more fully when we arrive at the Surnaturel controversy later in the chapter. De Lubac’s ecclesiological criticism was that the Church was conservative and withdrawn, and the result was the individualism and abstraction against which the generation of 1930 continually railed. As the modern world began to adopt progressive political and social ideas, the Church remained in a defensive posture, unwilling or unable to engage modern science, producing

16 Henri De Lubac, Explication chrétienne de notre temps, in HLOC, vol. 34, 128; Henri de Lubac, ‘Christian Explanation of our Times’, in Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press), 451–2, here, 441. 17 Henri de Lubac, Causes internes de l’atténuation et la disparition du sens du sacré, in HLOC, vol. 31, 315–43; ‘Internal Causes of the Weakening and Disappearance of the Sense of the Sacred’, in Theology and History (San Francisco CA, Ignatius Press, 1996), 223–40; Explication chrétienne, 127–48; Christian Explanation, 440–56. 18 De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 127; ‘Christian Explanation’, 440. 19 De Lubac, ‘Causes internes’, 326; ‘Internal Causes’, 230. 20 De Lubac, ‘Causes internes’, 327–8; ‘Internal Causes’, 231. 21 De Lubac, ‘Causes internes,’ 329; ‘Internal Causes’, 232.

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instead only ‘confused, incomplete theories, which fail to satisfy the mind’.22 ‘Thorny problems’ regarding difficult issues such as the development of dogma, the supernatural, and Biblical criticism, have all been met with silence. De Lubac argued that an important area such as ecclesiology was almost totally presented defensively, mired in a hierarchical and juridical presentation, which remained essentially closed to positive theology. Likewise, the theology of the Eucharist was almost totally taken up with the ‘real presence’, ignoring important unitive and social dimensions.23 The Church’s theology refused to confront the mysteries of the faith with ‘the most rigorous methods’, declining to ask such questions as ‘what is the real presence?’, or ‘what is the Man-God?’, or again ‘what is the Church?’ The withdrawal of the Church allowed for the sense of a living God to be obscured by abstractions and phenomena. Thus, the ‘consequence is not only a social imbalance. The world appears “broken.” There is at the innermost part of the consciousness a metaphysical despair. It was of this hunger and this thirst that the prophet Amos once spoke: absolute hunger and thirst, because they are a futile hunger and thirst for the Absolute. Hunger and thirst that, in many cases, do not even know themselves to be such but that leave on the deepest palate a taste of death.’24 When this hunger for the Absolute, however, remains unsatisfied, ‘something like a great call for air is produced in this inner void’, which opens the person to an ‘invasion of positive forces’ that instil a deep rationalism.25 This rationalism, spawned by an abuse of critical philosophy, ‘has expelled mystery: myth takes its place’.26 For de Lubac, this rationalistic approach had created a kind of ‘secular God’: ‘What dryness, so unattractive and poorly conformed to the secret expectation of man’, devoid of human experience and unable to ‘communicate the feeling of divine mystery!’27 This is a criticism he will take up in his examination of atheist humanism, which we shall survey below.

Engagement and the Task of Construction The war also represented for the intellectuals of the generation of 1930 a definitive and radical break from the past and the decadent institutions which had in fact been the cause of the crises. Thus, the great task which they had De Lubac, ‘Causes internes’, 321; ‘Internal Causes’, 226. De Lubac, ‘Causes internes’, 325; ‘Internal Causes’, 229. 24 De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 130–1; ‘Christian Explanation’, 443. 25 De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 131; ‘Christian Explanation’, 443. 26 De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 132; ‘Christian Explanation’, 444. We should remember here Blondel’s charge that rationalism that seeks metaphysical and moral absolutes ends in a kind of suspicion or myth. 27 De Lubac, ‘Causes internes’, 334; ‘Internal Causes’, 235. 22 23

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assigned for themselves in the previous decade seemed at last attainable, and the idea of progress through decomposition, which found its popular expression in the Hegelian retrieval of the 1930s, seemed even more imperative. De Lubac stated boldly that ‘the process of decomposition is full of seeds of progress’.28 He further quoted a recent work by Teilhard de Chardin that attempted to contextualize the analysis of crisis that permeated the decade: The collapses of the past are recalled; the physical and moral signs of decadence are enumerated. Intellectual myopia in all that. Let us put these events back into the total phenomenon. Their irregularities become insignificant in the majesty and sureness of the overall movement. Life has gone around or reversed all the obstacles that it has encountered for millions of years . . . What is happening today that is so critical in the West must be a crisis of progress. Despite all contrary evidence, we can and we must believe it: we are advancing.29

De Lubac insisted that a remedy for this ‘crisis of growth and progress’ did not lie in ‘dreams of reaction or restoration’, but in a return to the past.30 Far from trying to resuscitate an extinct or bygone era, this return, rather, attempted to penetrate and recover Christian tradition and ‘go back, beyond the errors and dislocation’ of recent centuries to a ‘Christian past whose lessons remain vivid’.31 This would constitute nothing less than an ‘effort to rediscover the spiritual sources of our civilization’ and the ‘ever-open truth’ whose unearthing will allow for the building of tomorrow’s Church.32 This ‘work of construction’, the undertaking of a ‘human revolution’, had to be animated by a ‘new spirit’, and in a move that can only remind us of the generational manifestos so common since 1890, de Lubac dreamt of ‘a generation of young Frenchmen who took Christianity seriously’: ‘I saw these young Frenchmen, reflecting on the profound causes of our present misery, determined to bring true remedies to it . . . They were not organized into a party, most were even little occupied with politics, but all were . . . ever concerned about human relations with men, very alert to the spiritual dangers that threaten us today.’33 Although some were believers and others were not, all ‘were really Christians’ and recognized by the Church as her own. And, carrying my gaze ten years, twenty years, thirty years forward, I perceived each of their activities, although without a concerted plan, rejoin the activities of others in a more and more closely woven fabric: I saw each of their initiatives, just as each of their examples, reunite with those of others in order to give rise to even more. So a vast and irresistible movement would arise from which 28 29 30 31 32 33

De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 133; ‘Christian Explanation’, 444. De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 133–4; ‘Christian Explanation’, 445. De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 134–5; ‘Christian Explanation’, 446. De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 135; ‘Christian Explanation’, 446. De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 135; ‘Christian Explanation’, 446. De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 147; ‘Christian Explanation’, 455.

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the country would come out and be reconciled, enlarged, returned to its destinies, not for undertakings of brutal conquest or disorder, but in order to add new, more beautiful and more fruitful episodes than all the preceding to the Gesta Dei per Francos.

In conclusion, the Résistance spirituelle of the Fourvière Jesuits not only gave them great moral standing in the post-war years when Communists, existentialists, and Left Catholics developed competing humanisms but also allowed them to further develop their programme which drew on Patristic ressourcement, the Mystical Body, the notion of incarnation, and Blondelian philosophy. Moreover, they continued their sociological critique of the Church, charging that it was individualistic, juridical, conservative, and withdrawn, and the notion of pure nature played no small part in the chasm between the secular and the sacred that existed in French society. However, for de Lubac the decomposition of the Church and society bore with it great signs of hope for renewal, and the great task of regeneration depended on a re-engagement with a past that was more vital and open to the supernatural. This anthropological and ecclesiological vision would be the fruit of a methodological synthesis of a modern philosophy of action, cultural analysis, historical retrieval, and contact with the world.

THE TASK: A NEW HUMANISM This Catholic renaissance depended almost entirely on new formulations of ‘person’ and ‘community’, a project with which the intellectuals of the generation of 1930s had been fixated. Communists attempted to frame their political project in humanitarian terms, and Marxist intellectuals such as Kojève developed sophisticated claims that anthropological and political fulfilment develop simultaneously through historical dialectic. Moreover, the political Right articulated the project of Vichy as nothing less than the building of a ‘new man’ and a ‘new society’. Likewise, the Fourvière Jesuits transposed this philosophical and political project onto theological terrain as anthropology and ecclesiology. For them, authentic notions of person and community, which are revealed to us by the method of immanence and the ecclesiological community, the Church, in a double movement of interiorization and universalization, are essentially interdependent and alone can solve the problem of destiny with which de Lubac began. The next two sections will examine the Fourvière Jesuits attempt during the war years to offer their own humanistic solutions to these questions that would heal the divide between the secular and sacred which had preoccupied them deeply since their time in the trenches of the First World War. Along

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Blondelian lines, they sought to convince the elites that although some of their aims were noble, they were fundamentally doomed to fail, as they did not recognize the supernatural orientation of these aspirations.

The Roots of Atheist Humanism De Lubac’s development of a new anthropology, as we have seen in so many other places in this work, will hinge on a historical critique designed to probe the roots of the anthropological problem. Thus in 1941 and 1943, he published in Cité nouvelle two articles identifying the sources of atheistic humanism in nineteenth-century philosophy. With the addition of a third piece, these articles were published together in 1945 as Le Drame de humanisme athée and offer a striking example of de Lubac’s deep immersion in the generational struggle of the 1930s to create a new humanism. The book is arranged around authors and themes that were seminal for the generation of 1930: the influence of Feuerbach and Hegel on the humanism of the young Marx, Nietzsche and his Übermensch, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky, and the footnotes give a sense of de Lubac’s profound engagement with the literature of the period.34 We shall examine briefly de Lubac’s use of the latter three of these existentialists, whom he enthusiastically enlists to continue the generation of 1930’s reproach of rationalism, individualism, and abstraction. For de Lubac, all three thinkers formed a common front against this decadence, but while Nietzsche sought to exalt humanity through the death of God, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky realized that humanity’s grandeur depended on its recognition of its final end, God himself. De Lubac’s analysis simultaneously offers an explanation of the causes of atheist humanism, which is a ‘tragic mistake’, and a stinging criticism of Neoscholasticism, whose failures can only be remedied by the intuitions of Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, which for de Lubac have Blondelian implications. With characteristic drama, de Lubac claimed that ‘if we look down the course of the ages to the dawn of modern times’ we discover that humanity began to see God as an enemy and the Church’s anthropology as merely a burden. Nietzsche claimed that humanity’s grandeur depends on God’s death, and this death was achieved with the tools available at the time: ‘resources of dialectic, of genetic analysis, of psychology, of the history of ideas, of the study 34 De Lubac cites existentialists (Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Marcel, Karl Jaspers, and Camus), non-conformistes (Dandieu, Aron, Berdaev, Moré, and Mounier), French philosophers (Wahl, Hyppolite, Lacroix, Bergson, Brunschvigc, Riceour, Teilhard, Pascal, de Brian, Émile Brehier, and Fessard), French authors (Bernanos, Claudel, Péguy, Gide, Malraux, Bloy and Barrès), and Catholic theologians (de Montcheuil, Rondet, Rahner, Louis Bouyer, Jean Mouroux, Loisy, Laberthonnière, and Congar) among others.

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of religion. A vast accumulation of work, most of it distorted by a mass of prejudices, supplied them with a whole arsenal.’35 Soon, however, spiritual and temporal alienation became interdependent, and the human person became a merely ‘socio-historical’ being, an abstraction cut off from authentic social relations: ‘There is nothing to prevent his being used as a tool either for the preparation of some future society or for ensuring, here and now, the dominance of one privileged group.’36 This end, however, was inevitable: ‘Atheist humanism was bound to end in bankruptcy. Man is himself only because his face is illuminated by a divine ray . . . If the fire disappears, the reflected gleam immediately dies out.’37 The Jesuit, however, found a sympathetic figure in Nietzsche, who also struggled against a ‘shallow and impoverished’ intellectualism and feeble rationalism which merely divorced thought from life. Blondel is again in the shadows of this analysis, as de Lubac claimed that in the last half-century, much had been done to bring back a sense of ‘mystery’, for which ‘abstract principles are no substitute’.38 This mystery, which will ‘shatter individuality’, is ‘like a peace descending from heaven’ through which man ‘discovers the secret of his own nobility’ and feels ‘the need to go back to the deep springs, to investigate them with other instruments than clear ideas alone, to re-establish a life-giving and fruitful contact with the fostering soil . . . We will no longer tolerate a divorce between knowledge and life.’39 Although Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were both ‘enemies of system and abstraction’, it is the latter who ‘restores faith to its towering height and brings man back into genuine contact with God’ by showing that ‘belief is not speculative; the real individual is face to face with a real God.’40 Quoting Kierkegaard enthusiastically, de Lubac yet again criticized the religious rationalism against which he struggled: ‘The speculative man is perhaps farther from Christianity than anyone, and it is conceivably much better to be shocked by Christianity—thus after all, still bearing some relation to it—rather than to be a speculative man who “understands” it.’41 Dostoevsky’s ‘instinctive disdain for the absolute, unassailable proofs of a “reason” impervious to the things of the spirit’ bolsters de Lubac’s case against Neoscholastic rationalism: ‘the poor women of the people will triumph over the learned, because they express more simply but more completely . . . the

35 De Lubac, Le drame de l’humanisme athée (Paris: Spes, 1945), in HLOC, vol. 2, 57; The Drama of Atheist Humanism (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1995), 60. 36 De Lubac, Le drame, 63; The Drama, 66. 37 De Lubac, Le drame, 64; The Drama, 67. 38 De Lubac, Le drame, 85; The Drama, 85. 39 De Lubac, Le drame, 85, 91–2; The Drama, 85, 91. 40 De Lubac, Le drame, 96, 102, 105; The Drama, 95, 100, 103. 41 Søren Kierkegaard, quoted in de Lubac, Le drame, 106–7; The Drama, 105.

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incoercible aspiration of the soul in God’s image’.42 For Dostoevsky, ‘to kill God in man is to kill man himself ’, who is ‘tormented by a need for universal union’.43 With language reminiscent of non-conformiste polemic of French society, de Lubac contrasted this existential ideal with the ‘tragedy’ he saw permeating Catholicism: ‘the Christianity of today, your Christianity, is the enemy of Life, because it is itself no longer alive’; it is ‘humdrum, listless, sclerotic’, ‘lapsing into formalism and routine’, it is a ‘religion of ceremonies and observances, of ornaments and trivial solaces, with no depth or seriousness, no real hold upon human activities—sometimes with no sincerity either’.44

An Anthropological Ontology: A Blondelian Reading of Aquinas The backbone of de Lubac’s anthropological project was guided by the work that began in 1921 and sought to show that the doctrine that the human person has a natural desire for the beatific vision is in fact rooted in Catholic tradition. Finally published in 1946 as a complete monograph, Surnaturel was a bold historical analysis that alleged that ‘modern theology had parted company with ancient theology’.45 Neoscholasticism—and the doctrine of pure nature on which it depended—had corrupted the authentic interpretation of Aquinas and had forced a reading on it that was erroneous. The result was an artificial separation of the natural from the supernatural in a way completely unknown to the great theological tradition of the Church. De Lubac’s thesis held that a state of pure nature is inconceivable given the absolute nature of our desire for the beatific vision, and moreover, this immediate orientation toward the divine, although absolute and infrustrable, remains willed by God freely and gratuitously.46 The inefficacious nature of the desire—which simply implies that the spirit is incapable of producing the effect toward which it tends, namely, the beatific vision— supposedly guarded the gratuitousness of grace, and the absolute, infrustrable, or constitutive character of the human drive toward the vision of God was incompatible with the natural end on which the concept of pure nature depended.47 42

De Lubac, Le drame, 316, 361; The Drama, 302, 346. De Lubac, Le drame, 342, 344; The Drama, 327, 329. De Lubac, Le drame, 129; The Drama, 124–5. 45 De Lubac, Surnaturel (Paris: Aubier, 1946), in HLOC, vol. 11, 123; in 1965, de Lubac republished Part I of Surnaturel as Augustinisme et théologie modern (Paris: Aubier, 1965), in HLOC, vol. 13; Augustinianism and Modern Theology, trans. Lancelot Sheppard (New York NY: Crossroad, 2000), and Le mystère du surnaturel (Paris: Aubier, 1965), in HLOC, vol. 12; The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York NY: Crossroad, 1998), which sought to develop certain aspects of Surnaturel, such as the paradoxical nature of the natural desire for the beatific vision, human freedom, and the gratuitous character of the supernatural. 46 Philip Donnelly, ‘Discussions on the Supernatural Order’, Theological Studies 9 (1948), 242. 47 De Lubac, Surnaturel, 484. 43 44

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The magnitude of the controversy was further fuelled by the grievous harm de Lubac claimed had been inflicted by the doctrine of pure nature, which accorded for human nature its own finite proportional ends apart from the beatific vision. The adverse effects of the doctrine, he claimed, were much more pernicious than the mere propagation of an overly rationalistic philosophy unable to speak to Modernity. It was all that, he contended, but it had been much more disastrous. It teaches the complete sufficiency of human nature left to itself; man becomes absolute, completely enclosed and confined to a natural order; he confronts God with rights and demands; the supernatural is reduced to something extrinsic, a superficial accretion, an unwarranted, and therefore unwanted, intrusion into temporal life in all its self-sufficient spheres.48

De Lubac argued that it had been one of the causes of secularism itself, contributing to the very ‘loss of the feeling of the sacred’ in Modernity.49 Moreover, it was a historical fraud, unfaithful to Aquinas and the ‘unanimous Tradition’ of the Fathers and Doctors for ‘fifteen centuries’. Surnaturel not only attempted to provide a definitive critique of the concept of pure nature and its allegedly disastrous bifurcation of nature and grace, but it also sought to recover the authentic teaching on the natural desire to see God. In part, de Lubac blamed the problem of pure nature on Aquinas’s baptizing of the Aristotelian notion of ‘nature’, which excludes the Patristic distinction between nature and spirit and opened the way for the diminishing of the Patristic imago Dei under the philosophical category of nature, which seemed to reduce human nature to the purely natural.50 Holding that this nature was foreign to the Fathers as well as the Schoolmen, who would never have conceived of the human person as having been created with finite proportionate ends, de Lubac held that the Patristic anthropology was one in which human nature was imprinted with the image of God and constituted by an innate desire for the beatific vision. Its intelligibility emerged only in respect to its divinization, which was its final end. A nature–grace dualism would have been unthinkable, and instead, only the order of grace, to which all creation was ordered, would have been intelligible: My finality which is expressed by this desire is inscribed upon my very being as it has been put into this universe by God . . . As soon as I exist, in fact, all indetermination vanishes . . . [and] no other finality now seems possible for me than that which is now really inscribed in the depths of my nature, there is only one end, and therefore I bear within me, consciously or otherwise, a ‘natural desire’ for it . . . 51

48 Philip Donnelly, ‘The Surnaturel of P. De Lubac, S.J.’, Proceedings from the Catholic Theological Society of America 3 (1948), 115. 49 De Lubac, ‘Causes internes’, 326; ‘Internal Causes’, 230. 50 51 De Lubac, Surnaturel, 113–18. De Lubac, Le mystère, 81; The Mystery, 54–5.

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If pure nature had been the cause of the problem, then Surnaturel sought to be the remedy, putting theology back in contact with modern intellectual currents. De Lubac recounts what was essential to Surnaturel: The work thus constituted a sort of attempt to re-establish contact between Catholic theology and contemporary thought, or at least to eliminate one basic obstacle to that contact—not with a view to any ‘adaptation’ whatsoever to that thought, but rather with a view to engaging in dialogue with it—which, as always when it is a question of serious ideas, could only be a confrontation, a combat.52

De Lubac claimed this unanimous tradition upheld the creation of the human person in God’s own image. This actuality, de Lubac wrote, is what grounds the authentic teaching of Aquinas, uncorrupted by later accretions: ‘for St. Thomas, there is a human nature as such, because it is spiritual, a desire, a natural appetite, a sign of an ontological ordination, which could not remain ever unsatisfied without the work of the Creator having failed and which could be satisfied in no way but through the very vision of God, face to face’.53 Although there is heterogeneity between the orders of nature and grace, de Lubac remained convinced that nature’s orientation toward the supernatural is manifested in ‘an intimate relationship between them, an ordination, a finality’. He continued by explaining that nature ‘was made for the supernatural’ and cannot be explained without it, and ‘the whole natural order, not only in man but in the destiny of man, is already penetrated by something supernatural that shapes and attracts it’.54 Beyond the complex issues surrounding the interpretation of Aquinas on natural desire, however, de Lubac attempted to undermine late Scholasticism with the charge that the roots of its textual missteps lay in the rationalistic atmosphere that permeated the Baroque era and caused an overreaction against Baianism and a confusion of the orders of nature and grace. He wrote that The distortions which we have just witnessed were even more likely since the system that they prepared found itself already molded in the tendencies of the epoch . . . Pure nature was not an invention or a product of any of the old schools, nor was it included in any of the principles among them. It became common among those who comprised late scholasticism. Given the general conceptions which formed in some way the intellectual atmosphere breathed thus indistinctly by theologians of every party, it had become impossible to oppose Baius without falling into his error.55 52 Henri De Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits, in HLOC, vol. 33, 34–5; Henri de Lubac, At the Service of the Church: Henri de Lubac Reflects on the Circumstances that Occasioned his Writings, trans. Anne Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), 36–7. 53 De Lubac, ‘Causes internes’, 326; ‘Internal Causes’, 230. 54 De Lubac, ‘Causes internes’, 327–8; ‘Internal Causes’, 231. 55 De Lubac, Surnaturel, 150.

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This accusation—that the late scholastics were unduly influenced by an excessively juridical and rationalistic atmosphere—played no small part in de Lubac’s thesis and functioned as the contextual historicizing backdrop against which Aquinas could be interpreted. Additionally, it allowed for a certain dismissal of much of the commentatorial tradition as unable to read Aquinas with the objectivity that was needed. De Lubac charged that they misread Aquinas as well as the Fathers on the issue of natural desire. One cannot overstate the tremendous implications of de Lubac’s thesis, whose ‘attack’ on accepted theological assumptions hit ‘like a bombshell’.56 Not only had Catholic theologians been seriously misguided for centuries, the officialized Aquinas that had been propagated by Rome after Aeterni patris had constructed an erroneous and deficient apologetic method. Illtyd Trethowan wrote of Surnaturel: There is no space to show how revolutionary these conclusions are. All that can be done is to suggest that theologians will need to make a most earnest study of this book. If P. de Lubac is right to say that modern theologians have largely departed from the teaching of the Fathers and of St Augustine on this great question, that they have misunderstood the commentators, that they have failed to appreciate the true significance of Ruysbroeck’s teaching because they have lost the ‘spiritual eye’, then they must set to work to put their house in order.57

However, de Lubac’s thesis was immediately and fiercely contested on a textual as well as historical level. He had insisted that the development of his thesis was strictly guided by the historical and textual facts. Reminiscing about the Surnaturel project many years later, he asserted that he had been ‘objective and precise’ in his historical analysis, careful ‘not to introduce personal assumptions’ into his methodology.58 Yet soon after the release of Surnaturel, several well-known Jesuit theologians objected vigorously to de Lubac’s thesis. Philip Donnelly charged that although de Lubac ‘offered no documentation to establish the prevalence of this intellectual decadence’ he nonetheless made ‘apodictic assertions’ about it. Furthermore, it was de Lubac himself who was motivated by a personal agenda. Donnelly wrote with some irony: Setting for himself explicitly the modest limit of a mere attempt at outlining the history of the supernatural order . . . it is evident, nevertheless, from the outset that P. De Lubac’s historical studies are controlled and directed implicitly by a historical thesis which he considers final, and of a consistency which must eventually win the adherence of all theologians.59 56

Louis Dupre, introduction to de Lubac, Augustinianism, ix. Illtyd Trethowan, quoted in Jürgen Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie—New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 100. 58 Henri de Lubac, Entretien autour de Vatican II: Souvenirs et réflexions (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 30. 59 Donnelly, ‘The Surnaturel’, 110. 57

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Moreover, de Lubac’s Jesuit interlocutors argued that the Patristic sources did support a primitive notion of pure nature. Furthermore, they admitted that textual difficulties existed but insisted that for Aquinas the natural desire to see God referred to a natural proportionate end rather than the beatific vision. Countering de Lubac’s attempt to historicize the late scholastics, one Jesuit countered by historicizing the intellectual atmosphere of Aquinas to provide reasons for why he did not need to explicitly elucidate the reality of pure nature.

Anthropological Epistemology: Recognizing the Desire In broad lines, one of the primary purposes of Surnaturel was to clear away the abstract, conceptual Neoscholastic approach so fatal to Blondel’s method of immanence, which requires a concrete and existential approach to the supernatural. One year before the publication of Surnaturel, de Lubac released a short treatise on epistemology titled De la connaissance de Dieu. This work, so reminiscent of the first years of his formation, when he and Fessard studied intensely the thought of Blondel, Rousselot, and Maréchal on the question of knowing God, is an enthusiastic apology for the method of immanence. For de Lubac, the method of immanence demands that we wean ourselves off a superstitious reliance on supposedly absolute metaphysical knowledge and undergo a kind of intellectual purification whereby we begin to reflect on ourselves in a ‘real’ and ‘concrete’ science.60 Knowledge of God is not a ‘human acquisition’ but an ‘imprint’ or ‘seal’ upon us that is discovered not by discarding reason but instead ‘digging down to its foundation.’61 It is recognized only after a certain ‘awakening’ to the ‘true vocation’ of the human person.62 There is at first ‘an encounter, a contact, a certain apperception, or whatever term according to the case be applied to it—an illumination of the intellect, vision, hearing, faith’.63 This encounter precedes knowledge that is conceptual and sensory, for every intellectual or volitional act ‘rests secretly upon God’.64 Thus, there exists a certain convergence between the task of the mystic and the philosopher, when the latter becomes aware of the nature and high vocation of the human spirit. For the mystic, the approach to God is more passive and experiential, while for the philosopher it is active and rational. 60 De la connaissance de Dieu (Paris: Éditions du témoignage chrétien, 1945) was expanded as Sur les chemins de Dieu (Paris: Aubier, 1956), HLOC, vol. 1, 83 and published in English as The Discovery of God, trans. Alexander Dru (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 67. 61 Henri de Lubac, Sur les chemins, 13; The Discovery, 7. 62 De Lubac, De la connaissance de Dieu (Paris: Témoignage chrétien, 1946), 24. 63 De Lubac, Sur les chemins, 41; The Discovery, 32. 64 De Lubac, Sur les chemins, 45; The Discovery, 36.

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Nonetheless, there is a common dialectic that is engaged. A philosopher, at least, one ‘who is worthy of his name’, will instinctively move beyond the limits of his field, and perceiving ‘his own inadequacy’, he seeks to push ‘back the frontiers of thought’ and ‘explore the ways by which the intelligence moves to the point at which he discovered the spiritual appetite within’.65 This discovery depends on recognizing the close relationship between the intellect and the will, which are not mutually exclusive and cannot work against each other. Thus, in this unitive approach to God, the mind’s relation to the Absolute, which ‘carries us to God’, is constant and there is knowledge of a certain ‘basic experience—the presence of non-conceptual being to consciousness which is common to the philosopher and to all men’.66 It is this dynamism of the mind, drawn to the Absolute, that provides stability for traditional metaphysical arguments which nonetheless ‘leave the door open to an element of doubt’.67 A proof based on conceptual knowledge depends on this dynamism, which ‘elaborates the proof ’ and ‘implies finality’.68 Despite the high calling of this philosophical approach, the modern world refuses to embark on this purification and, unable to recognize its fundamental desire for God, instead looks to fulfil this yearning in a multitude of frivolous ways: The most distressing diagnosis that can be made of the present age, and the most alarming, is that to all appearances at least it has lost the taste for God. Man prefers himself to God. And so he deflects the movement which leads to God, or since he is unable to alter his direction, he persists in interpreting it falsely. He imagines he has liquidated the proofs. He turns away from that which convinces him. If the taste returned, we may be sure that the proofs would soon be restored in everybody’s eyes, and would seem—what they really are if one considers the kernel of them—clearer than day.69

Exegesis and Dogma The anthropology of the Fourvière Jesuits, grounded as it was in history, subjectivity, and an innate desire for the Beatific Vision, necessitated a rejection of the Neoscholastic notion of scriptural exegesis and dogma, charged to be too conceptual, abstract, and rational. For Neoscholasticism, the literal sense of Scripture is fundamental, and one of the primary tasks of exegesis and theology is to draw out the dogmatic implications of the text. Clear 65 66 67 68 69

De Lubac, Sur les chemins, 175; The Discovery, 153. De Lubac, Sur les chemins, 46, 71; The Discovery, 37, 57. De Lubac, Sur les chemins, 53; The Discovery, 42. De Lubac, Sur les chemins, 71; The Discovery, 57. De Lubac, Sur les chemins, 105; The Discovery, 83.

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dogmatic statements, then, once authoritatively taught by the Magisterium, are immutable, impervious to culture and history. This approach, for the ressourcement thinkers, was pejoratively called ‘Denzinger theology’, after the nineteenth-century handbook developed by Heinrich Denzinger containing a large collection of magisterial decrees and propositions. For the nouveaux théologiens, as we have seen, the anthropological implications of this approach, which they considered to be ‘intellectualist’ and ‘rational’, were unacceptable, and thus exegesis and dogma had to be radically rethought along Blondelian lines. Both de Lubac and Bouillard made such attempts. De Lubac’s notion of exegesis began with an examination of the thought of Origen, whose retrieval had been undertaken already in France in such journals as Recherches for a few decades. In 1932 and 1933, Karl Rahner wrote influential articles in French on Origen’s notion of the four senses of Scripture (the literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical), and de Lubac continued this examination in his book History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen.70 The first part of the book is spent defending the Alexandrian thinker, arguing he was indeed a man of the Church whose appreciation for the literal sense of Scripture was not eclipsed by his allegorizing. For Origen the Scriptures are not merely literal and dogmatic, but rather they are shrouded in a mystery and transcendence that ‘surpasses human logic’.71 De Lubac criticizes those who superficially see nothing beyond the literal meaning, refusing to see hidden the ‘wise teachings worthy of the Logos’, thinking instead ‘that the truth revealed to them is supplied entirely by the words of the text’.72 Ultimate truth in the Scriptures is not ultimately propositional but rather is contained in the entire text and is Christ himself. The task he asserts is to move from history to spirit by grasping what transcends history: In its turn, then in order to be understood as it must be, in its newness, which is to say, in its spirit, in order to merit its name as New Testament, the content of this second Scripture must give way to a perpetual movement of transcendence. The spirit is discovered only through anagogy (the uninterrupted anagogical ascent to spiritual realities). We must consequently always ascend above the history.73

Ultimately, this movement from history to spirit involves a ‘conversion’ and ‘twofold inspiration’: ‘The Spirit who inspired it at the time of its writing is also the one who now makes it understood. Or rather, there is as if a twofold inspiration; the first, for its human authors; the second, analogous one, for its

70 Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 402. 71 72 De Lubac, History and Spirit, 115. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 224, 236. 73 De Lubac, History and Spirit, 323.

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readers and interpreters.’74 Moreover, the ‘veil will not be removed from our eyes as long as we are not turned toward the Lord’.75 In a Blondelian move, de Lubac encourages readers to penetrate beyond the text to the spiritual Gospel, because it is here that there is a co-naturality between the soul and Scripture, and it is the latter that explains the former to itself:76 But is it not natural and legitimate that I find within myself, under the action of the Word, the meaning of that Word that explains me to myself? . . . What I draw from myself with respect to the Bible, provided that it is really, in fact, from the depths of myself, I draw from the Bible also; since Scripture and the soul have the same structure, or rather the same ‘inspiration’ . . . To the degree that I penetrate its meaning, Scripture makes me penetrate the innermost depths of my being.77

For de Lubac, Scripture provides not only a spiritual and existential key but also a cosmic one: ‘Everything in Scripture, down to the least letter, carries the stamp of divine Wisdom, because everything in the universe carries this stamp: everything, down to the things apparently most humble or vile.’78 Moreover, the Logos is really present in the world through the Scriptures, even in a ‘truer’ way than in the Eucharist. In fact, Christ existed in the world before the incarnation on account of this presence: ‘Through Scripture the word of God itself, which is to say his Logos, is present in the world, because the function of Scripture is to reveal this Logos by expressing his proper and incommunicable character as subsistent Word.’79 This scriptural ‘real presence’ allows de Lubac to pick up on the ecclesiological work he began in Corpus Mysticum, which we shall examine in the next section, wherein he sought to diminish both the perceived Neoscholastic fixation on an overly hierarchical Church as well as an excessively conceptualized and individualized attachment to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. By employing notions of paradox and mystery, de Lubac draws the Church, the Scriptures, and the Eucharist together tightly in a reciprocal and dependent spiritual relationship that transcends mere concepts. On this relationship, de Lubac approvingly cites Origen, who is ‘focused above all on the function that both Scripture and the Body of Christ fulfill in the economy of our salvation’.80 De Lubac’s insertion of the Church into this relationship allows him to highlight not only the mystical but also social reality of Catholicism. Drawing on the themes that saturated the era, as we have seen, de Lubac highlighted 74

75 De Lubac, History and Spirit, 361. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 362. For the influence of Blondel on de Lubac’s history of exegesis, see Kevin Hughes, ‘The “Fourfold Sense”: De Lubac, Blondel, and Contemporary Theology’, Heythrop Journal 42/4 (2001): 451–62. 77 78 De Lubac, History and Spirit, 402. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 403. 79 80 De Lubac, History and Spirit, 416. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 417. 76

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the concept of the Mystical Body, common salvation, and solidarity. Origen, de Lubac says, wishes to establish an organic relation between these three ‘bodies’ of Christ that can be called his individual body, his social body, and his intelligible body. In this doctrine, Scripture plays a privileged role, because it is itself Logos, the intelligible body and also ‘scriptural body’. The Word of God that is Scripture is the efficacious symbol of the presence in the world of the Word who is God.81

De Lubac asserts that in this sacramental ‘trilogy’ the Eucharist is the most ‘humble’ since the ‘distinctive feature of the sacrament is to pass away’, leaving one to contemplate the Church and the Scriptures in their ‘“perfect” reality’.82 Finally, it is the Word, the Logos, that prevails, ‘but this Word is beyond human words and rituals: eloquent Word, beyond which there is nothing but the One who utters it in the unity of one and the same substance, just beyond the kingdom of the Son there is nothing but the kingdom of the Father’.83 The Word, however, so transcendent and unifying, always emerges in concrete historical reality: ‘in making himself the food of men [the Word] adapts himself to their age, to their strength, to their spiritual health, which makes him assume all forms and take on, like mana, all flavor’.84 This reality, that dogma, although immutable, is historically and socially conditioned, was also taken up during the 1940s by de Lubac’s student, Henri Bouillard. In his doctoral thesis, Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas d’Aquin, Bouillard undertook a study of Aquinas’ doctrine of justification and found significant development between his Commentary on the Sentences and the Summa Theologiae.85 Bouillard attempted to capture the animating spirit that shaped Aquinas’ work and prove that indeed the Dominican’s views changed markedly as the theological context in the Middle Ages shifted. Bouillard’s historical study complemented those made by de Lubac and Chenu by ‘discerning’ that Aquinas’ adoption of Aristotle was rooted merely in his ‘enthusiasm’ and desire to respond to ‘the needs of his time’. Although Aquinas’ use of Aristotle created an opposition between elements of his thought and the Fathers, nonetheless Bouillard argued that the essential core of his theology was in line with the tradition. Bouillard argued that contrary to what Neoscholasticism held theological notions do not stand outside of time, and rather, they are contingent and timebound, subject to historical development and refinement: ‘It is the inevitable defect of the textbooks that theology is seen as a ready-made science of immutable notions, timeless problems, and definitive arguments, like a science

81 83 85

82 De Lubac, History and Spirit, 422. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 425. 84 De Lubac, History and Spirit, 426. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 160. Henri Bouillard, Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Aubier, 1944).

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given all at once, that one discovers simply by turning the pages of a book.’86 Although language and categories of thought change, it is the theologian’s task to discern the stable unchanging thought that persists through time. Thus, the theologian must likewise be an able historian: ‘A historical study reveals, on the contrary, how much theology is related to the times, to the becoming of l’esprit humain. It shows what is contingent in it: the relativity of notions, the evolution of problems, the temporary obscuring of certain important truths.’87 We can readily see that Bouillard took on precisely the dogmatic issue that so vexed Modernists such as Tyrell, Le Roy, and Loisy. But while they were never able to bridge the chasm between immutable truth and historically conditioned concepts, Bouillard claimed to have done just that. History, he claimed, ‘makes us see the permanence of divine truth, while at the same time it reveals to us what is contingent in the notions and the systems in which we receive it’.88 Christian truth, he continued, never comes in a ‘pure state’, but rather, it is always ‘embedded’ in ‘contingent notions and schemes which determine its rational structure’.89 Bouillard insisted, however, that nonetheless absolutes can be seized, but never in an absolute representation, only in an absolute affirmation. The latter, however, can only be apprehended through competent historical theology. He believed that with this move he could avoid equivocation and could firmly hold to propositions held authoritatively by the Church but nonetheless also cut loose theology from the strictures of Aristotelian metaphysics, as Le Roy and Laberthonnière insisted was necessary. Historical theology, he asserted, helps us to discover the origin of theological notions, which, once discovered and isolated in their pure historical development, can be reframed in contemporary language. However, he admitted that ‘unfortunately, it is not always easy to untangle without error the absolute truth’ present in the tradition.90 Bouillard’s thesis was another important attempt in the Fourvière project to apply Blondel’s notion of tradition to Aquinas, and it may be helpful to remember how this notion is in fact at the heart of ressourcement, as we have so often seen throughout the course of this study. Blondel wrote that tradition ‘discovers and formulates truths on which the past lived, though unable as yet to evaluate or define them explicitly, that it enriches our intellectual patrimony by putting the total deposit little by little into currency and making it bear fruit . . . Turned lovingly towards the past where its treasure lies, it moves towards the future, where it conquers and illuminates.’91 For Blondel, theology cannot be separated from history and the continual task

86

87 Bouillard, Conversion, 211. Bouillard, Conversion, 211. 89 Bouillard, Conversion, 219. Bouillard, Conversion, 220. 90 Bouillard, Conversion, 224. 91 Maurice Blondel, The Letter on Apologetics & History and Dogma, trans. Alexander Dru and Illtyd Trethowan (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1994), 267. 88

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of updating, which involves simultaneously building and tearing down, so as to meet the demands of one’s contemporary world. Thus, Bouillard famously—and controversially—stated that ‘a theology that is not current is a false theology.’92 In conclusion, de Lubac’s anthropological construction relies on historical works that on the one hand seek to locate the point of decline for important theological aspects of Catholic thought and on the other to retrieve a golden thread of authentic Catholic tradition. His analysis of nineteenth-century existentialism sought to both identify the flawed point of origin of atheist humanism and at the same time show that the theistic existentialism of the period recognized the orientation of the human person toward the divine. In Surnaturel, de Lubac found the denigration of modern Catholic thought rooted in the development of pure nature in the sixteenth century, which eclipsed the Patristic notion of Imago Dei. Finally, de Lubac drew on Blondel’s method of immanence to articulate an epistemology in which the intellect is fundamentally oriented towards the absolute. Moreover, de Lubac and Bouillard both addressed the question of dogma, de Lubac by providing a scriptural exegesis broader than one merely rooted in dogmatic literalism, and Bouillard attempting to show that dogmatic formulations are never clothed in immutable propositions, but are indeed historically and culturally embedded.

THE TASK: A N EW ECCLESIOLOGY As we stated above, the anthropology and ecclesiology of the nouveaux théologiens were interdependent, and for them the Church is ‘that which calls all men to unite in a single spiritual whole’. Moreover, it is the Church that calls the human person to his or her fundamental orientation, a transcendence ‘surpassing all the limitations of earthly ends’.93 It is here that we see an interdependence between Blondelian philosophy and the doctrine of the Mystical Body: But, for the person to find his complete blossoming, for him to achieve full interiority, full possession of himself, he must be taken up into a more immense and profound community, into a community of a different nature: not simply earthly, like those of family and homeland, but a community of an eternal essence, like the person himself. Such is the Church, that Church which the Apostle Paul called the ‘Body of Christ’ and which we also commonly designate as being the ‘Mystical Body of Christ.’ . . . In her final reality, the Church is according to our faith, nothing but the community of persons, the society of men gathered 92 93

Bouillard, Conversion, 219. De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 140; ‘Christian Explanation’, 450.

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together in Christ for all eternity. She is the environment within which each human person must become himself, be enlarged, so to speak, to the dimensions of the world and deepened to the dimensions of God; and the good of this community, or universal common good, coincides in the final analysis, in a perfect way with the personal good of each.94

Corpus Mysticum: Deconstructing a Decadent and Individual Ecclesiology De Lubac’s influential early work on ecclesiology, Corpus Mysticum, attempts to locate the point of decline in ecclesiology, which led to the onset of a certain individualist fixation and devotion to the notion of the ‘real presence’, whose sense misrepresented the traditional understanding of the Eucharist which stressed an inner link between the presence of Christ and the unity of the Church.95 De Lubac began by outlining the early Pauline and Patristic sense of the phrase ‘Body of Christ’ that had a threefold unitive meaning: first, the historical body born from Mary; second, the sacramental body; and finally, the ecclesial body. This understanding, de Lubac argued, maintained an authentic unity between the Eucharist and the Church which he famously expressed by saying ‘the Eucharist makes the Church’.96 He continued: ‘the bread of the sacrament led them directly to the unity of the body. In their eyes the Eucharist was essentially, as it was already for St. Paul and for the Fathers, the mystery of unity and the sacrament of conjunction, alliance, and unification, given to us “to unite our race.”’97 De Lubac writes that because of this understanding, ‘little by little, the “whole Christ” comes into being, who is always in our minds as the ultimate end of the mystery. So much so that, in this perspective of totality and of unity, there is virtually no need to search for formulations or expressions to distinguish one “body” from another.’98 That the word ‘Mystical’ had qualified ‘Body’ to describe the Eucharistic species was a matter of no small importance as the word ‘mystical’ at that time did not signify a kind ecstatic spiritual experience, as we would conceive it now, but was ‘more of an action than a thing’, implying that rather than being cut off from the liturgy and the community, it effected a deep ecclesial unity.99 Thus, de Lubac undertook a very subtle analysis of certain linguistic shifts that occurred in the relationship between the Church and the Eucharist. De Lubac, ‘Explication chrétienne’, 141; ‘Christian Explanation’, 450–1. Henri de Lubac, Corpus mysticum: L’Eucharistie et l’Église au Moyen Âge (Paris: Aubier, 1944), in HLOC, vol. 15; Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages, trans. Gemma Simmonds (London: SMC Press, 2006). 96 97 De Lubac, Corpus Mysticum, 103. De Lubac, Corpus Mysticum, 17. 98 99 De Lubac, Corpus Mysticum, 23. De Lubac, Corpus Mysticum, 49. 94 95

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A decisive shift happened during the controversies surrounding the ‘real presence’ in the ninth century, between Ratramnus and Paschasius Radbertus, and the eleventh century, between Berengar and Lanfranc. In order to defend the doctrine of the real presence, there was an overreaction that caused a shift in terminology, and the terms True Body (Corpus Verum) and Mystical Body were inverted. The term True Body, which had signified the Church, came to mean the Eucharist, and the Mystical Body came to signify the Church, causing a certain opposition to develop. What was once a unity now became a dichotomy, which exaggerated the juridical and hierarchical aspects of the Church. This dichotomy, once it had begun to dissolve the social edifice of Christendom, finally played a role in the breaking up of the Church itself. An exaggeration had been made to assimilate the ‘mystical body’ with the ‘visible body,’ chiefly to the benefit of the most exterior element of the Church in its most contingent forms—that is the power claimed by the papacy over temporal matters. This lack of prudence would exact a heavy price. Beyond any of these abuses, the objections of the likes of Wycliffe, Jan Huss, Luther or Calvin would assail Catholicism itself, and the inverted excesses of their ‘spiritualist’ reaction would lead to the total dissociation of the mystical body of Christ from the visible body the Church. In its own turn, and in spite of more than one notable exception, Catholic theology itself would not avoid experiencing the repercussions of such a dissociation.100

De Montcheuil’s Ecclesiology Whereas de Lubac provided an important declension narrative, de Montcheuil offered positive ecclesiological constructions that are fundamentally Christological, though bearing the stamp of Blondel, Le Saulchoir, and Tübingen. For de Montcheuil, it is Christ who is at the centre of all religious knowing and it is through the Word Incarnate that we know the Trinity; he reveals our destiny and final end, and as Redeemer, he illuminates both our degradation and our forgiveness: ‘Without his light, abstract reasons are powerless apprendre le péché; experience alone does not suffice. It is by seeing the redeemer that we know Him, as well as our misery and grandeur.’101 Moreover, Christ is the centre of history, which is revealed most fully in the New Testament. The Acts of the Apostles offers a reminder that it is necessary ‘to prepare minds for the révélation complète’ by pointing to Christ as the one we are expecting.102 In the Gospels, Christ ‘spiritualizes the idea of the

100 101 102

De Lubac, Corpus Mysticum, 116–17. Yves de Montcheuil, Leçons sur Christ (Paris: Epi, 1949), 14. De Montcheuil, Leçons, 16.

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Kingdom of God’ and exemplifies in a deep way the orientation of the human person towards God.103 It is Paul who provides a profound ecclesiological sense in the notion that true human unity is found in the Body of Christ: ‘Thus we see how Christ is at the centre of history, not only because he comes to inaugurate a definitive work but also because in the duration of the world, it is his body which is being built. This is the solid reality of history.’104 For de Montcheuil, this historio-centric emphasis was central to the Pauline Christology of the Fathers, and it is one that must be reclaimed. The incarnational aspect of de Montcheuil’s ecclesiology reveals itself in his insistence that the Body of Christ is built through our apostolate, through our ‘effort humain tout entire’: ‘because this effort, on any terrain on which it unfolds, has the final goal of a world in which all relationships are established in Christ and all institutions are penetrated by the Spirit of Christ’.105 Furthermore, the Incarnation is the key to de Montcheuil’s Christology and is interpreted in terms of the fundamental rapport it brings to human beings. The Christ is man: but the believer does not see in him only a man amongst men. He is the Chef de l’Humanité. The desire, which grows at the bottom of every human heart of being united to its like kind to constitute a society founded on love, is derived from the influence of Christ. The triumph of this generous disposition over egoism that looks to make others an instrument of rejoicing is the work of the grace of Christ, creating in us the free will to do Good. The achievement of this unification is the perfect assimilation to Christ, the participation in his life. There is no real love outside that which the Christ gives by being united to him. The impulse that departs from him, returns to him, because he is the one through which men are in communion. If it is not in them to conceive of a union to give themselves one to another through love, then it is Christ who gives this desire, who pursues the realization for us, and achieves it by divinizing us. We can say that the only way to have humanity is through Christ, because for man there is no other alternative.106

For de Montcheuil, the path to Christ rests on the method of immanence, and as long as the phenomenological interior turn is avoided the necessity of Christ will not be understood: We have a need to be united to God through an action that comes from God. It is this that we must first understand. To understand this, we must only realize the distance created between God and us by the central aspects of our condition, that of creature and sinner. Because we have not understood this, Christ appears irrelevant. Much indifference, both theoretical and practical, is explained by the fact that we do not really to unite ourselves to God, or we do not have the profound

103 105 106

104 De Montcheuil, Leçons, 17. De Montcheuil, Leçons, 20. De Montcheuil, Leçons, 23. Yves de Montcheuil, Mélanges théologiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946), 285.

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sentiment that an immense abyss remains to be crossed. Fr de Grandmaison has admirably described this abyss in his work on Jesus Christ. In order to fill it, God inclines himself toward us in Jesus Christ.107

De Montcheuil attempted to broaden the understanding of the Church beyond merely that of a ‘visible’ ‘sociological fact’. Rather, the Church has a ‘spiritual and supernatural reality’ because she is a ‘mother’ who ‘brings us to new life’, all the while ‘keeping us at her breast’.108 Moreover, she is a ‘temple’ made of living stones, the ‘spouse’ of Christ, the ‘new Israel’, and the ‘Kingdom of God’. These characterizations present to us certain important opportunities for an exploration rooted in an understanding that the Church is fundamentally a mystery whose interior life is intimately related to her exterior life. With this conception in mind, we begin to see an explicit link between the inner Christological life of the individual and interior dimension of the Church: ‘if the Church is the mother of Christians, if one can only become a Christian by participating in the Church, the interior life of the Christian then is a participation in the life of the Church’.109 For de Montcheuil, there are four aspects to this inner life of the Church. First, the Church is personal. The Church does not wish to stifle individual expression and thought in a ‘collective élan’, subsuming all individuality in collective exterior expression.110 Rather, our relationship to the Church, which emerges most deeply in our prayer life, is an active and living reality, which expresses the ‘temperament, psychology, [and] character’ of each of her members.111 Second, the inner life of the Church is one of communion. Manifesting itself in the common life of prayer and sacrifice to Christ made by believers and in the mutual help they offer one another, this aspect is richly illustrated by the notion of the Body of Christ, which we explored earlier. Third, the inner life of the Church is divinizing. We are given the assistance to participate in the life of God, a life rooted in faith, hope, and love. Finally, the inner life of the Church is essentially Trinitarian, a fact which only underscores the unitive or communal dimension. The Church ‘comes from the Father, from which all things proceed; he gives it to us through his Son, Jesus Christ, who, as St. Paul says, is the head of the Body; but Christ in his turn communicates with us through his Spirit’.112 Having examined the foundations of ressourcement ecclesiology, both the positive construction as well as the declension narrative, we shall conclude this section by briefly examining two important aspects that flow from it, a theology of temporal action as well as one of the missions. For de Montcheuil, the mystery of communion that is at the heart of the inner life of the Church 107 108 109 111

De Montcheuil, Leçons, 100. Yves de Montcheuil, Aspects de l’Église (Paris: Seuil, 1962), 23. 110 De Montcheuil, Aspects, 51. De Montcheuil, Aspects, 52. 112 De Montcheuil, Aspects, 53. De Montcheuil, Aspects, 58.

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must be reflected in the temporal domain, as charity must spill outside the confines of Christianity. Moreover, the natural, which is oriented towards the supernatural, by itself remains incomplete. Thus, the Church must work to order the temporal towards the supernatural in such a way that it helps, not hinders, the human person in realizing his or her orientation towards the supernatural: ‘Our realizations in this world must therefore be in some way, if we are faithful to the action of grace, the outline of what will be the heavenly city. Because the intimate tendencies [toward the supernatural] are only real in the measure that they can be translated into acts.’113 Consequently, the temporal cannot be abandoned for the ‘pseudo-mysticism’ that looks only to an eternal reward; rather, the great value of the temporal order must be recognized and imprinted by the Church, which reminds all people of the final end to which they are oriented. De Montcheuil argued that the spiritual penetration into the temporal acts as an ‘enveloping influence’, provoking many transformations.114 Given this theology of engagement, it is not difficult to understand the deep hope that the Fourvière Jesuits placed in movements such as Action catholique, which represented ‘an immense gain’ for the Church. In fact, they were the very spirit of the Church.115 The dynamism of communion, which characterizes the Church’s inner life, demands a certain robust temporal engagement with secular society which also governs the fact that she is essentially missionary in her nature: ‘she is therefore not only missionary in some of her members, charged with a specialized function. She is so in all her members, which are jointly responsible for a common growth.’116 This communal aspect of the Church is intimately related to the Church’s Trinitarian centre: the Father sent the Son, who in turn commissioned the apostles, who were finally guided by the Holy Spirit, who was sent to them. For de Montcheuil, the same drive that calls her to transform secular society also calls her to missionary activity: ‘The Church has within her the power to assimilate and transform the whole of humanity, even in its deepest fibres, and this power, it wants and it must expand it entirely.’117

The Necessary Move toward Universal Salvation This desire to ‘transform’ other cultures with the message of Christ represents a significant shift away from the traditional theology of the missions, which 113

114 De Montcheuil, Aspects, 165–6. De Montcheuil, Aspects, 166. De Lubac, ‘Action Catholique’, in Théologie dans l’histoire, vol. 2 (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1990), in HLOC, 278; ‘Catholic Action’, in Theology in History, 241. 116 De Lubac, ‘Le fondement théologique des missions’, in Théologie dans l’histoire, vol. 2 (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1990), in HLOC, vol. 34, 36; ‘The Theological Foundation of the Missions’, in Theology in History, 370. 117 De Montcheuil, Aspects, 173. 115

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was oriented toward saving the souls of pagans. To illustrate this, de Lubac borrowed a phrase from the prominent Left Catholic Canon Glorieux: ‘for the infidel in general, the missions are not so much a matter of life and death as of the fullness of life’.118 De Lubac argued that he was not doing away with the concept of salvation, but rather he was shifting its meaning from the negative understanding, which seeks to save souls from hell, to the positive one, which would expand the visible presence of the Church so as to enrich unbelievers with the Christian faith.119 De Lubac has no desire to quibble about the meaning of ‘salvation’ and ‘conversion’: Let us not introduce into our inquiry vain disputes of an overly finicky Scholasticism. It is perfectly just to say in general that the missions tend to procure the conversion and, in the final result, the salvation of souls . . . The formula, then, can be retained: but on one condition, we will specify, that this ‘salvation’ be conceived, as we said above, in a positive way (let us say, then: salvation and sanctification) . . . on the condition that this “salvation of the soul” be considered, not in an individualist way, but in its relation to a collective salvation.120

The move toward the notion of corporate salvation is necessary for the Fourvière Jesuits, and French Left Catholics in general, given that the idea of a populated hell seemed to have been an embarrassment that might only frustrate their hopes of making contact with contemporary thinkers, with whom they hoped to dialogue. Moreover, the real possibility of hell presents philosophical problems as it puts in jeopardy their formulation of Christian humanism, which depends for an entry point on the method of immanence. This method demands a certain total phenomenological and existential reflection and awareness. The notion of judgement and hell is a radical distraction from that: it encourages individualism, abstraction, fear, and a certain platonic contempt for the world—all the things they detested and which fundamentally undermine the very method on which they depend. It seems that Blondelian reflection in some way demands that the doctrine be cut loose—or at least radically tempered—because otherwise it diminishes existential mindfulness of the deepest need for God to which every thought and action is directed and the social solidarity and political solidarity on which it is supported. The necessary soteriological move from individual to corporate salvation is attested even in the first pages of Catholicism, where de Lubac described the De Lubac, Le fondement théologique, 52; ‘The Theological Foundation’, 384. Pierre Charles, who de Lubac quotes in his essay ‘Theological Foundations’, was a Belgian Jesuit at Louvain close to both Maréchal and Sheuer, and his influential missiology in Études missiologiques (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1956) shifted missiological emphasis from individual salvation to a more socio-cultural understanding which emphasized the centrality of an indigenous clergy and hierarchy. 120 De Lubac, Le fondement théologique, 58–9; ‘The Theological Foundation’, 389–90. 118 119

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problem against which the rest of the book serves as an antidote: a spirituality rooted in personal salvation.121 De Lubac claimed this tendency, manifesting itself in various ‘failings’ such as ‘selfish piety, the narrow religious outlook, the neglect of ordinary duties in the multiplication of “devotions”, the swamping of the spiritual life by the detestable “I”, the failure to realize that prayer is essentially the prayer of all for all’, is responsible for a great misunderstanding, and not surprisingly, he quotes a Left Catholic writer from the Semaines sociales, who declared that ‘the Gospel is obsessed with the idea of the unity of human society’.122 Although de Lubac framed his move as necessary to rectify these deformities, he is vague and one wonders if, on an apologetic level at least, it is the doctrine of a populated hell itself which is the problem, because these ‘failings’ could have been blamed in some respects on the founder of the Jesuits himself, Ignatius of Loyola, who included in the Spiritual Exercises a detailed meditation of one’s particular judgment and the torments of hell. Daniélou, in his work Le Mystère du salut des nations, followed a similar line, claiming that ‘most theologians’ believe that salvation does not absolutely depend on membership in the visible Church,123 and in Essai sur le mystère de l’histoire, he wrote: ‘Too often we conceive of [hope] in an overly individualistic manner only in terms of our personal salvation. But hope relates to the great actions of God concerning his entire creation. It is the expectation of the Second Coming, the Return of the Lord, which will bring history to its fulfillment. It thus relates to the destiny of the whole of humanity. It is the salvation of the world on which we wait . . . In reality hope bears on the salvation of all men—and it is only in the measure that I am included in them that it bears on me.’124 De Montcheuil argued that even those who explicitly reject the Gospel might not be culpable and claimed that in fact ‘the only way of escaping damnation’ is to renounce the individualistic, or egotistical, conception of salvation.125 Moreover, Fessard, in ‘Enfer éternel ou salut iniversel?’, used his dialectic to justify his hope that all will be saved in the end.126 Balthasar summed up the great importance that the doctrine of universal salvation—or at least the strong hope for it—held for not only French Left Catholic intellectuals but also the Fourvière project. Regarding this hope, he writes: ‘I discover myself in the best of company here. Present are (as I showed earlier) . . . Henri Cardinal de Lubac; my old teacher Rondet; my friend Fessard; His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris; the great Blondel; the

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122 De Lubac, Catholicism, 13–18. De Lubac, Catholicism, 15–16. Jean Daniélou, Le Mystère du salut des nations (Paris: Seuil, 1946), 137–8. 124 Jean Daniélou, Essai sur le mystère de l’histoire (Paris: Seuil, 1953), 340. 125 De Montcheuil, Aspects, 125–6, 132. 126 Gaston Fessard, ‘Enfer éternel ou salut universel?’ in Le Mythe de la peine, Colloque Castelli (Paris: Aubier, 1967), 254. 123

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former socialist Péguy, who wants to be a Catholic only if he may have hope for all; Claudel in his famous Cantique de la Palmyre (Prose, Pleiade, pp. 703f); Gabriel Marcel; the tempestuous Leon Bloy . . . ’.127 In summary, ressourcement ecclesiology engaged in a retrieval of Patristic and medieval sources that supported their Blondelian anthropology. De Lubac, once again, sought to show conclusively where modern ecclesiology, fundamentally individualistic, hierarchical, and juridical, had gone wrong. To rebuild an authentic ecclesiology, theologians needed to unite once again the Eucharist and the community, getting away from a fixation on the real presence. Finally, the Jesuits continued to exploit various insights from the notion of the Mystical Body, emphasizing the inner life of the Church and its connection to the inner life of Christians. Moreover, the Church had to be fundamentally engaged and incarnated in the affairs of the world, trying to further the temporal salvation of humanity.

THE L IBE RATI ON AND THE RIS E OF THE GENERATION OF 1930 The liberation of France on 25 August 1944 brought an end to the war and a beginning to the Fourth Republic. Although French elections and the constitution of the Fourth Republic did not come until several months after the German surrender in May 1945, the intellectual lines that would shape post-war France were already laid by the three parties that emerged from the war as victors: Communists, existentialists, and Left Catholics. In national elections four months after the surrender of Germany, the Communist Party (PCF), the French Socialist Party (SFIO), and the Catholic Social Democrats (MRP) had a virtual electoral tie. A ‘cultural power vacuum’ had been created by the fall of the Republic. The political and Catholic Right had been discredited, by a real or perceived support of the Vichy regime, as well as the older generation, for its association with the failed Third Republic.128 The left-wing intellectuals, philosophers, writers, and theologians of the generation of 1930, whose intellectual projects had matured during the previous decade, found themselves heroically legitimized by their opposition to Vichy and participation in the Resistance, and

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Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope (San Francisco CA, Ignatius, 1988), 168. Patrick Baert, ‘The Sudden Rise of French Existentialism: A Case-Study in the Sociology of Intellectual Life’, Theory and Society 40 (2011): 631. 128

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they stepped into a virtually uncontested void in full intellectual ferment. Tony Judt explains this complexity: Superficially, Resistance-era intellectuals were divided in many ways. On the one hand there were the Catholics, themselves split along political lines and also by generation (the intellectual and cultural gulf separating Francois Mauriac from the Esprit circle, e.g., was quite unbridgeable); then there were the unattached intellectuals soon to be associated with Sartre and Les temps modernes. Beyond these there were the "politicals"—Socialists, Communists, and Gaullists, and beyond them an important if disparate group of intellectuals whose distinctive identity was formed in the Resistance itself, men like Claude Bourdet or Albert Camus.129

This atmosphere is captured by a conversation between the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Suhard, and a young activist priest on the day after the liberation when the Cardinal himself, because of his Pétainist sympathies, was prevented from joining De Gaulle’s Te Deum in Notre Dame Cathedral: I would like you to explain to me what the Liberation means for the suburban working class. I entirely share their joy at the Germans leaving. But apart from that? Marshal Pétain is a prisoner. There is no longer any government in France. General de Gaulle arrives and forms a new government. His government replaces the old one. —But Eminence, oh, no! It is not a change in government which has just happened: it is really something quite different! It is the Liberation of France, it is a revolution! It is not only the Germans who are going, it is those who desired their victory. And for the common people, it is hope which is arriving with General de Gaulle, hope for more justice and dignity. For France, it is a new beginning. —Yes, it is different: I have failed to understand that. If this is a revolution, many things will change. But for us . . . should we not pursue the same tasks? One must preach the Gospel, even to a revolution.130

The revolutionary non-conformiste 1930s rhetoric that articulated total social and political regeneration now became predominant. As Michael Kelly explains, the project of post-war reconstruction employed a highly coded language around words such as ‘revolution’, ‘crisis’, ‘rebirth’, ‘renewal’, and ‘restoration’.131 Mounier wrote at the end of 1944: ‘Whether it is called a revolution or a crisis of development, a vast and radical transformation is at

129 Tony Judt, ‘ “We Have Discovered History”: Defeat, Resistance and the Intellectuals in France’, The Journal of Modern History 64 (1992): 163. 130 Jean Vinatier, Le Cardinal Suhard (Paris: Le Centurion, 1983), 204–5, quoted in Emmanuel Godin and Christopher Flood, ‘French Catholic Intellectuals and the Nation in Post-War France’, South Central Review 17/4 (2000): 47. 131 Michael Kelly, The Cultural and Intellectual Rebuilding of France after the Second World War: 1944–1947 (New York NY: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004), 33–58.

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work in the world. We announced it in France when no one believed it.’132 Judt explained that the term revolution was used in three distinct ways.133 First, revolution was the ‘natural and necessary outcome . . . of the hopes and allegiances of the wartime years’.134 Although Mounier had been calling for Revolution since the early 1930s, ‘the difference in 1945 was that the cumulative experience of the defeat, Vichy, the horrors of occupation and deportation, the sacrifices of the Resistance, and the revelation of France’s decline made it seem realistic to believe in a coming moment of catastrophic and total change, in a way that had not been the case before 1940’.135 Second, revolution meant the building of a new order and an end to the perceived disorder of the capitalistic bourgeois spirit that permeated the Third Republic. Finally, revolution was used in a Sartrian sense that saw it as a ‘moral imperative’ and an ‘a priori existential requirement’: ‘action (of a revolutionary nature) is what sustains the authenticity of the individual’.136 The intellectual air in Paris was heady, and the generation of 1930 found a younger generation of enthusiastic followers. Simone de Beauvoir later wrote that to be ‘twenty or twenty-five in 1944 seemed a great stroke of luck: all roads opened up. Journalists, writers, budding film-makers discussed, planned, made decisions with passion, as if their future depended only on themselves . . . I was old. I was thirty-six.’137 Anthony Beevor describes the ‘hunger for the new that permeated the atmosphere’: the students seemed to live off nervous energy and ideas. The greatest hunger was for reading material, yet there was so little time and so much to read—Aragon, Camus, Sartre, and Beauvoir, as well as Apollinaire, Lautrémont, Gide . . . Everything formerly banned must be seen—whether the plays of Garcia Lorca or the films of Bunuel. Philosophy student or not, you needed to be able to discuss Hegel’s master-slave paradigm, the collected works of Karl Marx, and existentialism’s less than apostolic succession from Soren Kierkegaard and the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, via Martin Heiddeger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.138

Amidst this call for radical change, Communists, Left Catholics, and existentialists all promoted a version of humanism which they claimed would be the groundwork of this new order, and humanism became something of an ‘umbrella term’ around which the Left could fuse.139 This struggle of competing humanisms that had originated during the 1930s now dominated French 132

Kelly, The Cultural and Intellectual Rebuilding of France, 46. Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956 (New York NY: New York University Press, 201), 39. 134 135 Judt, Past Imperfect, 39. Judt, Past Imperfect, 39. 136 Judt, Past Imperfect, 40. 137 Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper, Paris after the Liberation: 1944–1949 (London: Penguin, 1994), 170. 138 139 Beevor and Cooper, Paris, 170–2. Baert, ‘The Sudden Rise’, 634. 133

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discourse to such an extent that one intellectual observed that nowadays, ‘everybody is a humanist . . . If Marxists can claim to be humanists, then followers of the various religions—Christians, Hindus, and many others— can also claim to be humanists, as do the existentialists in turn.’140 The celebrated author André Malraux addressed an influential international audience at a UNESCO sponsored forum, arguing from the podium of the main amphitheatre at the Sorbonne that the most profound casualty of the Second World War was the ‘concept of man itself ’.141 It was the task of the post-war era to offer an anthropological reconstruction. A 1945 article in Esprit gives a sense of how dominant existentialism was in post-war France, claiming that everything ‘that matters today in the created order is inspired by a tragic humanism. Liberalism and Marxism have already been exceeded. A generation baptized in Kierkegaardian fonts, with Kafka for a godfather and Nietzsche for a grandfather, find themselves today facing tâches positives. We can speak reasonably enough of a political existentialism and maybe show that, from the Mythe de Sisyphe to those gathered around Combat, the link is neither paradoxical nor romantic.’142 Iris Murdoch wrote that Sartre’s post-war ‘presence in the city was that of a pop star’, and the Left Bank existentialist coffee shops in Saint-Germain-des-Prés became the cultural centre of the West: ‘Saint-Germain-des-Prés was unlike anywhere else in the post-war Europe . . . In Paris, the Liberation had given the intelligentsia a powerful symbol of hope, even though the country was bankrupt. Rather as the Grandmaison doctrine in 1914 had represented the passionate belief that French élan would triumph over German artillery,143 for intellectuals after the Liberation it was an article of faith that ideas would triumph over “filthy money.”’144 On 29 October, the existentialist movement is said to have become a sensation, as it was on that night Sartre gave his infamous lecture at the Club Maintenant, which was published as Existentialisme est un humanisme?145 Although Sartre’s Being and Nothingness had been released two

140 Pierre Neville, discussion in Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Existentialisme est un humanisme (Paris: Nagel, 1946), 118–19; Existentialism is a Humanism, trans. C. Macomber (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007), 62–3; quoted in Edward Baring, ‘Humanist Pretensions: Catholics, Communists, and Sartre’s Struggle for Existentialism in Postwar France’, Modern Intellectual History 7/3 (2010): 581. 141 Charles Blend, André Malraux: Tragic Humanist (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1963), 12. 142 Roger Secrétain, ‘Echec de la résistance’, Esprit (June 1945), 13. 143 Not to be confused with the Jesuit de Grandmaison, Louis de Grandmaison articulated a military doctrine before the First World War that championed battlefield aggressiveness and all-out offensives as the key to victory. 144 Beevor and Cooper, Paris, 185; Iris Murdoch is quoted in the preface to Being and Nothingness, by Jean-Paul Sartre, trans. Hazel Barnes (Abingdon: Routledge, 2003), ix. 145 Baert, ‘The Sudden Rise’, 634.

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years earlier, it was just now gaining notoriety. His successful plays Les mouches and Huis clos were first performed respectively in 1943 and 1944, and the first volume of Les Chemins de la liberté was published in 1945. Moreover, de Beauvoir had begun to enjoy critical success with her novel L’Invitée (1943) and Le Sang des autre (1945), and Camus for his part had emerged as an influential writer with L’Étranger (1942) and Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942). Only three weeks before the election, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, and Aron had launched the journal Les Temps modernes, which would become the main voice of the existentialist movement and the most influential post-war journal, and Camus’s Communist-friendly newspaper of the resistance, Combat, had a circulation of almost 200,000 per day.146 In many ways, existentialism was successful in the post-war years due to Sartre’s timing, and Baert argues that its rise was in part because of the movement’s ability to ‘articulate and come to terms with’ the trauma of the era.147 First, Sartre sought to explain the complexities that surrounded the period of occupation, claiming that the French were unified in their resistance, even if it was only mental at times. Second, he provided a vocabulary with which to deal with the trauma: existence, freedom, responsibility, and bad faith. Finally, Sartre’s support of the épuration, that is, the trials and executions of those writers who collaborated with Vichy, indicated the high esteem in which he held writers and the moral importance he attributed to them. Not only had collaborationist writers done great harm with their pens but resistance writers, and he controversially counted himself amongst this group, had heroically done good. In the first issue of Les Temps modernes, Merleau-Ponty contributed an article, ‘La Guerre a eu lieu’, which served as a ‘founding manifesto for the first generation of post-war intellectuals’ as it blamed the atrocities of the war, in effect, on the decadent rationalism of the older generation.148 He levelled a harsh critique at the pre-war intellectual milieu, where ‘generations of socialist professors’ ignored the fact of existence and the ‘elements of history’.149 These Cartesians lived in an abstract ‘world of thought’ where societal reality was decontextualized and obscured by cultural myths and a perceived ‘sum of consciousness’, which was unduly optimistic.150 The anti-Semitism of the war had shown that historical myths only served to hide concrete reality, and an ‘anti-Semite could not stand to see Jews tortured if he really saw them, if he perceived that suffering and agony in a real life—but this is just the point: 147 Baert, ‘The Sudden Rise’, 633. Baert, ‘The Sudden Rise’, 636. Sunil Khilnani, Arguing Revolution: The Influential Left in Postwar France (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 35. 149 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ‘La guerre a au lieu’, in Sens et non-sens (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 169; ‘The War has Taken Place’, in The Merleau Ponty Reader, eds. Ted Toadvine and Leonard Lawlor (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 41. 150 Merleau-Ponty, ‘La guerre’, 169; ‘The War’, 41. 146 148

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he does not see Jews suffering; he is blinded by the myth of the Jews. He tortures and murders the Jews through these concrete beings; he struggles with dream figures, and his blows strike living faces. Anti-Semitic passion is not triggered by, nor does it aim at, individuals.’151 Consciousnesses ‘have the strange power to alienate each other and to withdraw from themselves’ and ignore individuals.152 For Merleau-Ponty, the occupation dissuaded intellectuals from clinging to a ‘pure morality’ of universal prohibition or injunctions. Rather, they learned ‘a kind of vulgar immoralism, which is healthy’.153 Everyone had been compromised and contextualized to one degree or another. In the midst of this, freedom must be sought through real contact with the world, and the Resistance offered a glimpse of this: a participation in historical action that remained personal and intimate. This turn towards ‘the real’ found value as ‘another way of designating human relationships’, and he argued that in ‘man’s co-existence with man, of which these years have made us aware, morals, doctrines, thoughts and customs, laws, works and words all express each other; everything signifies everything. And outside of this unique fulguration of existence there is nothing’.154 Likewise, Left Catholicism emerged from the liberation victorious and had an influential place in the post-war milieu that sought to rebuild France. The sense that a break had occurred permeated even conservative clergy. On Easter 1947, Cardinal Suhard released a pastoral letter entitled Essor ou déclin de l’Eglise?, in which he proclaimed that the Church could neither cling to the past nor acquiesce to Modernity.155 Rather, ‘tradition et progrès, transcendance et incarnation’ had to be affirmed.156 In 1945, the Centre Catholique des Intellectuels Français (CCIF) was formed to help intellectuals organize and confront Modernity, and the Abbé Berrar, who had taken part in its development, remarked: ‘We were aware of living in a heroic time, in the sense that Péguy understands it, a historic moment when time is more compact and dense, when the world takes a leap forward.’157 The Mouvement République Populaire (MRP), the political party of Christian Democrats, agreed on the necessity of this break, and in the elections of 1945 and 1946, they split the vote with socialists and Communists. Their progressive ideology was present in their first manifesto which plainly stated:

Merleau-Ponty, ‘La guerre’, 173–4; ‘The War’, 44–5. Merleau-Ponty, ‘La guerre’, 175; ‘The War’, 46. 153 Merleau-Ponty, ‘La guerre’, 178–9; ‘The War’, 48. 154 Merleau-Ponty, ‘La guerre’, 184–5; ‘The War’, 53. 155 Colin Nettlebeck, ‘The Eldest Daughter and the Trente Glorieuses: Catholicism and National Identity in Postwar France’, Modern and Contemporary France 6/4 (1998): 451; see also Adrien Dansette on this pastoral letter in Destin du catholicisme français (1926–1956) (Paris: Flammarion, 1957), 135. 156 Nettlebeck, ‘The Eldest Daughter’, 451. 157 Godin, ‘French Catholic Intellectuals’, 46. 151 152

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‘we want a revolution . . . This revolution requires on a social level a collective and complete organization of the material security of each and every zone, a new reorganization of private property in order to avoid any further enslavement of human beings to capital.’158 In addition to political clout, progressive Catholic intellectuals like Mounier and his journal Esprit placed the philosophy of personalism at the centre of intellectual life, and in 1944 Sartre exclaimed to the non-conformiste Denis de Rougement that ‘you Personalists are the victors; in France now everyone is a Personalist’.159 In Sartre’s famous lecture on existentialism and humanism, he sought to contextualize his own position by opposing it to certain Christian varieties of existentialism propounded by Marcel and Jaspers, and in April 1946, Mounier published an article in Esprit entitled ‘Existentialismes’, which sought to provide a global account—and history—of existentialism and its specifically Christian roots. An image of a tree illustrated this, beginning with Augustine and running through Pascal and Kierkegaard, and finally dividing into a number a separate limbs and branches.160 The interest in Christian existentialism was in many ways the result of this break from the past we have been sketching. In the interwar years, thinkers had been more bound to Aquinas, forced to search for novelties in the tradition as a justification for their study. However, after the liberation, thinkers were able to move more freely out from the shadow of Scholasticism. Horn writes: The theology of Christ-the-King and the mystical body of Christ were quickly superseded by new theologies that were no longer couched in the terminology of the past. The reorientation towards a radiant future rather than the glorious past opened up the critical faculties of Catholic scholars to present-day problems in a way that had been unthinkable prior to the Second World War . . . The theological terrain having been carefully prepared by a judicious return to the sources in the inter-war years, the cataclysm of war, counter-revolution, resistance, and liberation opened up the floodgates of unencumbered new theological elaborations.161

Horn continues to explain this dynamic movement by quoting Roger Aubert: ‘a theology of the body, a theology of work, a theology of progress, a theology of politics, a theology of terrestrial realities, etc.; these themes and countless analogous topics were more and more readily tackled in a sometimes rather

158 Gerd-Rainer Horn, ‘Left Catholicism in Europe in the 1940s ’, in Left Catholicism 1943–1955: Catholics and Society in Western Europe at the Point of Liberation, ed. Gerd Rainer-Horn and Emmanuel Gerard (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001), 19. 159 Andrew Dudley and Steven Unger, Popular Front Paris and the Poetics of Culture (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 2005), 140. 160 Emmanuel Mounier, ‘Introduction to existentialismes’, Esprit (April 1946). 161 Gerd-Rainer Horn, Western European Liberation Theologie: The First Wave (1924–1959) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 81.

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diffuse mixture of theology, philosophy, sociology, or literary studies, but sometimes also in thoughtful and solid pieces of work’.162 Beyond intellectual labour, the apostolic work that would characterize aspects of the post-war milieu began during the occupation. In 1941, Cardinal Suhard established the Mission de France to train priests to re-evangelize the working class. Studying factory and agricultural work, the programme gave birth to the worker–priest movement where priests were sent into factories in areas where the practice of Catholicism had almost completely disappeared. The project gained enormous international attention and was equally controversial. It was fundamentally an endeavour masterminded and supported by the Dominicans from the generation of 1930, and Chenu was its most significant theological advocate. Involving itself in trade unions and issues involving workers’ rights, at its peak it had one hundred priests doing factory work. The movement had been given a great impetus by the 1943 book, La France, pays de mission?, where two priest chaplains of the JOC, Henri Godin and Yvan Daniel, provided statistical analysis of the rapid de-Christianization of the French working class.163 They argued that direct evangelistic efforts were needed in industrial areas. The youth who had been engaged in Action catholique during the 1930s were now well into adulthood and began to take a more active role in leadership. One example is the Mouvement Populaire des Familles (MPF), a left-leaning organization involved in numerous activities such as food distribution, job training, and advocacy for women and the homeless. Although they were the largest and most influential post-war organization of Action catholique, with a membership of 100,000, they were radicalized and eventually fell out of favour with the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The favourable post-war milieu also allowed for the Dominican artists Régamey and Couturier, whom we examined earlier, to make bolder overtures to bring their conception of modern Catholic art into the mainstream. Their dream was a certain architectural ressourcement driven by the theological work of the nouveaux théologiens. They continued arguing that the sacred architecture of their day was decadent and dying, closed to history and life. They wanted to incarnate the spiritual experience of their era in stone, return to the ‘pure and true’, and embrace the ‘new youthfulness of the Church’.164 Moreover, they sought to build churches that would allow for the ‘pure origins’ of Christian liturgy to be reclaimed.165 Régamey and Couturier were involved in the first modern French church, Notre Dame de Toute-Grâce, 162

Horn, Western European, 81. Henri Godin and Daniel Yvan, La France, pays de mission (Paris: Union Générale, 1943). 164 Régamey is quoted in Richard Stockton Dunlap, ‘Reassessing Ronchamp: the historical context, architectural discourse and design development of Le Corbusier's Chapel Notre Dame-du-Haut’ (PhD diss.: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2014), 14. 165 Quoted in Dunlap, ‘Reassessing Ronchamp’, 14. 163

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built in Assy in 1946. The church in Assy, at Couturier’s encouragement, was decorated by well-known avant-garde artists, including atheists, Jews, and Communists. Especially controversial was Richier’s crucifix, said to resemble a lifeless bomb victim: ‘Leger’s magnificent mosaic portals were dubbed a blasphemy; Richier’s Crucifix caused a riot. The so-called Angers tract was issued by the right-wing Integrists entitled “God shall not be mocked”. It juxtaposed Richier’s work with the typical head of Christ captioned “The Face of Christ? No!” “A scandal for Christian piety”. The work was finally removed by the Bishop of Annecy. The Vatican launched an explicit attack in 1951.’166 Couturier and Régamey defended the piece and argued that it needed to be properly understood. More controversy followed when Couturier’s dream from the 1930s of enlisting Le Corbusier to design ecclesiastical buildings came to fruition. Working with Couturier, he designed Notre Dame du Haut de Ronchamp and the Dominican convent La Tourette. Both were made of reinforced cement, the former with white walls, irregular windows, and a sweeping black roof, and the latter was a huge structure with a flat roof and vertical windows that dominated the landscape. During the furore over the buildings, Couturier was defiant and wrote: In the future, it will be recalled that the renewal of Christian art took place on 20 January 1951, when a Diocesan Committee for Sacred Art, presided by the Archbishop and his Auxiliary, reviewed and unanimously approved seventeen sketches by Fernand Léger, the layout of a large mosaic by Bazaine, and Le Corbusier’s plans for a church at Ronchamp. When such projects, representing what is purest and strongest in the living arts, can be accepted by high ecclesiastical authority, we can be sure that something has changed in the Church of France.167

This triumph of Left Catholicism might be illustrated by an examination of the Semaines sociales conference of 1947, which was held in Paris at the Institute catholique. The Tablet, which reported on the event, could not help but see that the choice of venue had ‘special significance’ since the topic of the conference was Le Catholicisme sociale face aux grands courants contemporains.168 Beyond even its location in central Paris, the turnout indicated the prominence which Left Catholicism had gained in the post-war years: ‘Six thousand persons—among them prelates, cabinet ministers, politicians, university professors, priests, friars, nuns of diverse orders, youthful seminarists, lay men and women from all walks of life and from almost every nation filled 166 Sarah Wilson, ‘Germaine Richier’, in A Concise Dictionary of Women Artists, ed. Delia Gaze (New York: Routledge, 2001), 559. 167 Quoted in Dunlap, ‘Reassessing Ronchamp’, 28. 168 Bernard Morgan, ‘The Semaine Sociale’, The Tablet, 16 August 1947, http://archive. thetablet.co.uk/article/16th-august-1947/9/the-semaine-sociale (accessed 15 June 2014).

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the lecture halls and precincts.’169 The list of speakers comprised the most prominent progressive Catholic thinkers in France. Besides Blondel and de Lubac, lectures were given by Chenu; philosopher Jean Lacroix, co-founder of Esprit and principal philosophical reviewer for Le Monde; Paul Archambault, President of the Confederation Generale des Famillies; Joseph Folliet, Professor of Sociology at Lyons University; Fr Bigo, S.J., of Action Populaire; BeuveMery, Editor of Le Monde; and Georges Hourdin, Director of Vie Catholique Illustrie. For Blondel, whose paper was read by his son Charles on account of his poor health, this conference would have seemed like nothing short of the great triumph of Social Catholicism for whose cause he had been struggling for decades. Only adding to this victory was the fact that his most prominent disciple, de Lubac, who was theologizing his work and attempting to root it in Catholic tradition, was also presenting at the conference. Thus, it would hardly seem coincidental that Blondel in fact began his paper by recalling that decisive moment thirty-eight years earlier at the 1909 Semaines sociales in Bordeaux when the president Henri Lorin publicly called on him to offer a philosophical defence of Social Catholicism. As we saw earlier, the result was the controversial Testis series. The Tablet concluded its analysis by observing that there were differences in approach among the various speakers, but ‘all, however, agreed that the present hour was the moment for a grand Christian renaissance’.170 It is here that we shall examine briefly de Lubac’s contribution to the conference, the paper given entitled, ‘The Search for a New Man.’171 The title of his paper is again indicative of the strong emphasis the generation of 1930 had on a building a new humanism. De Lubac saw his time as a moment of ‘awakening and transformation’ rooted in the notion that ‘a kind of new man is being constituted, transforming at one stroke the idea that man has had more or less up to now of himself, of his history, of his destiny. In idea, therefore, as well as in fact, it is something like an extraordinary “shedding of skins.”’172 This turn toward a new man, insisted de Lubac, must be attentive to the dual characteristics of ‘historicity and interiority’.173 Thus he called for an ‘inner revolution’ on which any ‘outward revolution’ depended. It was an interior upheaval that first recognized ‘that the current ills of man cannot be reduced to some poor organization of the city’. Quoting a fellow Jesuit of the 170 Morgan, ‘The Semaine Sociale’. Morgan, ‘The Semaine Sociale’. Henri De Lubac, ‘La recherché d’un homme nouveaux’, in Affrontements mystiques (Paris: Éditions du témoignage chrétien, 1949), in HLOC, vol. 4, 241–305; ‘The Search for a New Man’, in Henri De Lubac, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, trans. Edith Riley (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1995), 399–468. 172 De Lubac, ‘La recherché’, 246; ‘The Search’, 402. 173 De Lubac, ‘La recherché’, 270; ‘The Search’, 429. 169 171

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same generation, he observed: ‘The ills of man are infinitely more profound, more mysterious, his situation infinitely more tragic.’174 However, these temporal issues can be ‘resolved in light of our total destiny’, and Christianity, beyond individual dogma, ‘is lived only on condition of being, as they say today, fully incarnated’.175 This incarnation rests on the virtue of hope in temporal progress: ‘The authentic reign of the “supernatural” is never established on a depreciation of the “natural.” On the contrary, “the greater the capacity of the vase, the more it cries out for fullness.” It is the same for Humanity, taken as a whole, as for each individual. Let it develop thus indefinitely in its order, let it cross more and more elevated thresholds.’176 This transformation is not a question of ‘passing over into a new degree in the same order’, for the supernatural is not a higher, more beautiful or more fruitful nature. It is not, as is sometimes said today through a poor neologism, an overnature. It is the irruption of a wholly different principle . . . A ‘new creation,’ the creation of a ‘new heart.’ Literally, ‘new birth’—whose first benefit for the Christian will be the revival of a new childhood. Nature evolves and advances all through time: through the supernatural, we pass endlessly from time to eternity. The first builds the earthly city: the second introduces us to the kingdom of God . . . The bonds are real and close between nature and the supernatural, since it is the first that weaves, so to speak, the body of the second. The Christian does not need to raise his gaze higher; it is not all in renouncing all better organization of temporal life that he can open himself to divine life.177

This post-war milieu saw the dramatic rise of Communism, existentialism, and Left Catholicism. The intellectuals of the generation of 1930 now had an uncontested platform from which they could dispense their programmes which had been formulated during the 1930s. The dramatic collapse of the Third Republic and discrediting of the Catholic right only validated their pessimistic diagnoses and dire predictions from the previous decade. In fact, the war had offered proof of the danger and decadence of abstract, individualistic rationalism. Moreover, Left Catholicism capitalized on its post-war prominence by aligning itself broadly with progressive issues so as to make contact with life.

A Generational Manifesto Daniélou’s oft-cited 1946 ‘manifesto’, ‘Les Orientations des présentes pensée religieuse’, is frequently seen as the definitive programmatic statement of 174 175 176 177

De Lubac, ‘La recherché’, 291–2; ‘The Search’, 453. De Lubac, ‘La recherché’, 300; ‘The Search’, 462–3. De Lubac, ‘La recherché’, 302; ‘The Search’, 465. De Lubac, ‘La recherché’, 303–4; ‘The Search’, 466–7.

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nouvelle théologie methodology.178 Echoing the criticism of Left Catholics during the 1930s, Daniélou decried the ‘rupture’ between theology and life, a breach first felt by the generation of Modernists. Although their answers were problematic, they had asked the right questions and were responding to two deficiencies in Scholastic theology: ‘on the one hand, the loss of the sense of transcendence by a rationalized theology that treated God as an object of the mind; on the other hand, the mummification of a thought that remained fixed in its scholastic forms and had lost contact with the movement of philosophy and science’.179 Daniélou quoted de Montcheuil to articulate a key distinction between the Neoscholastics, for whom modern thought was a profound rebellion against truth, and Blondel and the Fourvière Jesuits, who were convinced that the aspirations of modern thought were in many ways noble but misguided searches for transcendence: ‘Modernism will not be liquidated while we do not satisfy in the theological method the exigencies from which Modernism was born.’180 However, Daniélou added that this rationalism divorced from action and contact with life had run its course, and the need for the engagement of which the Marxists and existentialists spoke was also felt keenly by Christians of the day. For Daniélou, modern souls demanded that theology be grounded in history, contemporary philosophy, and engagement, and these three categories structured the remainder of his essay. Daniélou declared that the historical method had found a central place in French intellectual life on account of the turn to Hegel and Marx and must be attentive to three aspects of theology: Scripture, Patristics, and the liturgy. The fruit of this historical approach, Daniélou claimed, are in works such as de Lubac’s Catholicism and those that draw on notions of the Mystical Body and corporate salvation, ideas which have both been beneficial for Action catholique. The embrace of modern philosophy, for Daniélou, included embracing insights of Marxism and existentialism. The Marxist use of the Hegelian dialectic ‘represents an expansion of our vision of the external world’, which corresponds to the ‘discovery of the immensities of space and time in which the destiny of the individual and that of the human species appear only as minimal episodes’ and engender ‘faith in a general sense of progress in which the grandeur of man is found in his capacity to submit himself, with disinterest for his proper destiny’.181 Existentialism, on the other hand, opens up the abyss of the human person. Daniélou lists three of the figures who were central thinkers for the generation of 1930, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, and Kierkegaard, followed by a Who’s Who of contemporary existentialists, Marcel, Jaspers, 178 For example, see Hans Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1; Brian Daley, ‘The Nouvelle Théologie and the Patristic Revival’ in International Journal of Systematic Theology 7/4 (October 2005): 362–82. 179 Jean Daniélou, ‘Les Orientations des présentes pensée religieuse’, Études 79 (1946): 5–21, here, 6. 180 181 Daniélou, ‘Les Orientations’, 7. Daniélou, ‘Les Orientations’, 13.

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Scheler, de Beauvoir, Camus, and Sartre. Finally, the third part of the article amounts to a full-fledged apology for Action catholique, and Daniélou began by quoting the early Marx in a passage often cited during the 1930s: ‘philosophy has until now only interpreted the world, now it is about transforming it’.182 Theology must ‘give value to all human realities’ and ‘situate them in a total Christian vision’.183 Written at the highpoint of Parisian existentialist euphoria, the article reflects the mood of the times. Daniélou, during his years at the Sorbonne in the 1920s had known most of the principal figures who would lead the existentialist movement. Furthermore, during the early 1940s, while he was writing his doctoral thesis on Gregory of Nyssa, he lived at the Jesuit house in St. Germain-des-Prés, only three blocks from the existentialist coffee houses where Sartre, at the café Flore, was finishing L’Être et le Néant and Simone de Beauvoir was working on Le Sang des autres. Thus, I suggest that if we examine this article in conjunction with two others of the period, one also by Daniélou and another by Koyrè, we can offer a fuller history of this piece, more deeply rooted in the cultural atmosphere of Left Bank Paris. Furthermore, I shall propose that a richer historical study of this article is in fact necessary, as the programme for which Daniélou advocates is itself predicated on his reading ‘the signs of the times’, as they were manifest in post-war Paris to his ‘men of today’.184 In 1946, the Hegelian philosopher Koyré observed that ‘the familiar landscape [of French philosophy] has been completely upturned by the upsurge of existentialism and the revival of Catholic philosophy (Fessard, de Lubac, Blondel, Nedoncelle, G. Marcel).185 Under this double impact everything— even the “climate” of philosophy—has changed. Philosophy has become a socially mighty phenomenon.’186 Moreover, referring to the influence of existentialism within institutional Catholicism, Koyré remarked that the ‘flood’ or ‘landslide’ of existentialism had ‘infiltrate[ed] into enemy camps’, and Catholics, ‘instead of holding against the error of existentialism the truth of Thomism, become themselves infected by the new way of thinking and either try to oppose to the atheist existentialism of Heidegger and Sartre, as Gabriel Marcel, a Christian existentialist—that of Pascal and St. Augustine— or even, as Professor Gilson, in the latest edition of his well-known book on

183 Daniélou, ‘Les Orientations’, 17. Daniélou, ‘Les Orientations’, 20. For a similar post-war attempt to understand the existentialist phenomenon, see Jean Wahl, ‘Existentialism: A Preface’, New Republic (October 1946), 442–4. 185 Maurice Nedoncelle (1905–1976) was a member of the generation of 1930 and a French personalist. 186 Alexandre Koyré, ‘Present Trends of French Philosophical Thought’, Journal of the History of Ideas 59/3 (1998): 532. 182 184

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St. Thomas, tries to explain to us that the Doctor Angelicus was already an existentialist in the best and truest sense of the word.’187 Koyré attempted to explain the reasons why even non-philosophers were fascinated with existentialism: first, because of the younger generation’s deep dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy and their preference for praxis over a theoretical approach; second, on account of the ability of the leading existentialists to distil their philosophical ideas into literary works; third, because of the ‘black pessimism’, ‘absurdity’, and ‘utterly disillusioned and uncompromising nihilism’ that resonated with the mood of the times and offered a kind of ‘auto-interpretation of modern man’; and finally, as a result of existentialism’s willingness to deal with the essential philosophical question: ‘What is man?’188 Daniélou, in a less cerebral account of French post-war thought, offered an article written at the end of 1945, ‘La Vie intellectuelle en France: Communisme, Existentialisme, Christianisme’.189 He wrote that after four years of repression ‘the vital forces of French thought have begun to take shape, and they are aware of the presumptuous enterprise but convinced also of its importance. Because we are now commencing with the dialogue that will echo through the decades [remplir les décades], and Nouvelle France depends on a loyal and fraternal exchange rather than a duel to the death.’190 After giving an overview of all the tendencies within these three groups, Daniélou asked rhetorically if one should be optimistic about this intellectual milieu, responding in the affirmative: ‘Surely the time has come to begin using the considerable scientific riches, the phenomenological descriptions, and the historical events that the last forty years have brought, which exists now only in fragments, to construct a new vision of the world, as did Proclus, Thomas Aquinas, or Hegel.’191 For Daniélou, this vision of the world depended on ‘a theology and an anthropology driven by Scripture and the Fathers of the Church and framed in the categories of the contemporary world: historicité, subjectivité, and communauté’.192 These three aspects are in fact the generational features that we have explored throughout this study. Thus we might consider ‘Les Orientations’ as an extension of this article, as it in fact elucidates how theology might better exploit these three categories around which the thinking of the generation of 1930 revolved. However, I suggest that for our purposes it does more than this and stands as a point of convergence for the lines I have been carrying forward in this work: generational identity, the harsh critique of the ‘old order’, a bold promise of

188 Koyré, ‘Present Trends’, 533. Koyré, ‘Present Trends’, 534–5. Jean Daniélou, ‘La Vie intellectuelle en France: Communisme, Existentialisme, Christianisme’, Études (September 1945): 241–54. 190 191 Daniélou, ‘La Vie intellectuelle’, 241. Daniélou, ‘La Vie intellectuelle’, 253. 192 Daniélou, ‘La Vie intellectuelle’, 254. 187 189

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total regeneration, the Modernist concerns to embrace history and religious experience, the currents of modern philosophy we explored earlier, and finally, social engagement and the concerns of Left Catholics. The revolutionary jargon of the 1930s permeated the article. Daniélou insisted that ‘men must be awakened’, men who have ‘an acute sense of the needs of their times’.193 ‘The future is full of promise’, he declared, because a ‘great call of spirits and souls’ had arisen that demanded ‘a living Christian thought’.194 This living Christian thought was one that left speculative thought behind and embraced existential reality. In keeping with the rhetoric of the post-war elites, Daniélou claimed that ‘the great lines of the task’ of renewing Christian thought had been drawn, ‘the time is decisive for the construction’: ‘previous generations have accumulated materials; now it is about building’.195 The nouveaux théologiens frequently spoke about being attentive to ‘the needs of our times’, and clearly Daniélou intuited that importing the language and thought of Left Bank existentialists was one of those needs, indicating several years earlier in a letter to de Lubac that he was deeply immersed in phenomenology and existentialism, reading Heidegger, Sartre, Camus and Bataille; in addition, he was known to accompany from time to time the intellectual elites of Paris in their evening discussions. Also, the language of the article is permeated throughout with the idea that reality had placed them at the conjuncture of great forces that required heroic action; they were the ‘men of today’.196 It referred with authoritative language to the ‘modern soul’ and the ‘demands of souls’ who must enter this ‘decisive time’ to begin as the ‘great lines of the task’ have been laid out.197 This was all very typical language of the time for intellectuals, and much of the language used to describe the ‘needs of our time’ is particularly existentialist: theology must now respond to ‘experience’, consider new dimensions of ‘space and time’, have a ‘concrete attitude to face existence’, respond to these ‘aspirations’, and ‘engage the whole man’. Existentialism ‘opens up the abyss’, and is more sensitive to ‘the absurdity of the world’.198 It embraces the ‘tragic sentiment of transcendence’, explores ‘history, subjectivity and coexistence’, affirms human ‘freedom’, and transforms the ‘conditions of life’.199 ‘Subjects’ must take priority over ‘essences’, the ‘world of people, the universels concrets transcend all essences and are distinguished only by existence’, and theology must be open to the ‘absurdity of the world’ and have an ‘irreducibility’ based on ‘descriptions’. It must have ‘contact with life’ and give value to ‘reality’.200

193 195 197 199

Daniélou, ‘Orientations’, 21. Daniélou, ‘Orientations’, 21. Daniélou, ‘Orientations’, 19, 21. Daniélou, ‘Orientations’, 14.

194 196 200

Daniélou, ‘Orientations’, 5. Daniélou, ‘Orientations’, 8. 198 Daniélou, ‘Orientations’, 13–14. Daniélou, ‘Orientations’, 14.

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Dialogue Théologique: The Toulouse Objection When Daniélou’s manifesto was published during the post-war euphoria, Left Catholic influence was reaching its zenith in French religious and intellectual circles. However, the article triggered a fierce controversy as the Toulouse Dominicans, led by Michel Labourdette, the editor of the Revue thomiste, Raymond Bruckberger, and M.-J. Nicolas began to question their approach. Labourdette responded quickly with an article in the Revue thomiste that expressed reservations that Daniélou was engaging in a cavalier and superficial encounter with Marxism and existentialism.201 Moreover, he proposed that a ‘hidden agenda’ was behind the collections Sources chrétiennes and Théologie, and it seems that Labourdette suspected that Daniélou’s article was the interpretive key to the two projects, which sought to undermine Neoscholasticism.202 Labourdette worried that the animating spirit behind the collections was a ‘pseudo-philosophy’ fated to end in relativism on account of its insistence that intellectual systems be judged not according to objective standards of truth but rather by the subjective intentions and experiences of their authors, who were conditioned by certain historical contexts.203 Moreover, he criticized the intellectual tendency to view conceptual realities as symbolic of an interior life, which had been articulated four years earlier in Balthasar’s book on Gregory of Nyssa, in which he implored the theologian, who is ‘devoted to a study of the past’, to ‘rise up’ and discern the inner spirit of his or her own epoch.204 Labourdette in fact quoted Balthasar who had given the decisive and most eloquent definition of the method of ressourcement: The situation of the theologian in today’s world is strangely paradoxical. In terms of vocation he is devoted to a study of the past, where God has manifested himself. Even beyond this study of the past, though, he is a man devoted to the contemplation of the eternal. By the very fact of his existence, he is immersed in a world that is teetering on its foundations and seems ready to collapse . . . If he has taken any trouble to look around him and to rise high enough above the fray to seek to understand what is happening, he cannot but think that he belongs to an ‘epoch’ . . . where the established order, to all outward appearances still solid, is in reality sapped from within. Undoubtedly there remains for him the contemplation of the ‘eternal verities’. He knows well enough that they, at least, do ‘resist’ the tumultuous storms of our times . . . [but] must be incarnated in temporal forms?205

Michel Labourdette, ‘La Théologie et ses sources’, Revue thomiste 46 (1946): 353–71. Aidan Nichols, No Bloodless Myth: A Guide through Balthasar’s Dramatics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd, 2000), 4. 203 Michel Labourdette, et al., Dialogue théologique: Pièces du débat (Toulouse: Saint-Maxim: Revue Thomiste, 1947), 38–43. 204 Labourdette, Dialogue théologique, 55. 205 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Presence and Thought: Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa (San Francisco CA: Ignatius Press, 1995), 9. 201 202

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Balthasar elaborated on this return to the past: it was a retrieval oriented towards creative construction: This [historical] return will be beneficial, but only on one condition: that [the theologian] understand well that history, far from dispensing us from creative effort, imposes it on us . . . A Greek temple, a Romanesque church, a Gothic cathedral all merit our admiration . . . but to reproduce them now in our present day would constitute an anachronism.206

Bruckberger claimed that Balthasar was wrongly subjecting concepts to historical categories and analysis, and he pushed the argument from perceived, misapplied charges of anachronism back to the questions of ‘valeur scientifique’ and supra-historical ‘loi’ that remain at the heart of scholastic method: We do not reconstruct cathedrals, and we do not despise them either. With St Thomas it is not only a style of theology that is a question, it is the scientific value of his work. There are Greek temples as well as Romanesque and Gothic churches. The Palace of Versailles and Baroque monuments are diverse expressions of identical and invariable laws that constitute the universal code of architecture; the elementary law of gravity and resistance a native applies instinctually by building his hut and Mansart observed in drawing the palace of the king [Versailles]. Without the application of these laws there would never be either a hut or a chateau. The same is true for St Thomas; his value is not in having constructed a magnificent theological edifice of admirable style that is now outdated, it is having gone further than any other in theological knowledge, in scientific systematization, to the point of having written the manual par excellence for the theologian. It will always be relevant for the pure and simple study of becoming an architect of theology.207

Soon after, the Jesuits responded to Labourdette in an anonymous article in Recherches.208 Nichols, however, notes that their response constituted a rebuttal but not a refutation of the original charges of historical and theological relativism.209 Moreover, Nichols writes that the Jesuits ‘ridiculed the Dominicans as intellectually second rate. Surely, wrote de Lubac, their time would be better spent in choir.’210 While the Toulouse Dominicans were embroiled with the Fourvière Jesuits, Garrigou-Lagrange had responded to Bouillard’s thesis, which we examined above.211 He famously declared that 206

Balthasar, Presence, 10. Marie-Michel Labourdette et al., Dialogue théologique: Pièces du débat (Toulouse: SaintMaxim: Revue Thomiste, 1947), 11. 208 The Jesuits responded anonymously in ‘La théologie et ses sources: Réponse’, Recherches de science religieuse 33 (1946): 385–401. 209 210 Nichols, ‘Nouvelle Théologie’, 15. Nichols, ‘Nouvelle Théologie’, 15. 211 The relevant contributions to this debate are Réginal Garrigou-Lagrange, ‘Vérité et immutabilité du dogme’, Angelicum 24 (1947): 124–39; ‘Les Notions consacré par les conciles’, Angelicum 25 (1948): 217–30; ‘Nécessité de revenir à la definition traditionelle de la vérité’, Angelicum 25 (1948): 217–30; Bruno de Solages, ‘Pour l’honneur de la théologie: Les contre-sens 207

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his thought was going back to Modernism. The two engaged in a fierce exchange throughout 1947 and 1948, and as the controversy grew, the Jesuit General forbade the Fourvière theologians from further exchanges. In 1950, after the release of Humani Generis, de Lubac and Bouillard were transferred from Fourvière, had many of their works removed from Jesuit libraries, and they were restricted in their publishing. Thus, the dismissive tone of the Jesuit response and their refusal to discuss the charge of historical relativism any further left the matter essentially unsettled. We might suggest that this generational study offers certain insights into why this Jesuit cohort that championed engagement and dialogue was so reluctant and impatient with the Dominican concerns. As we saw earlier, even during their years of formation, the Fourvière Jesuits considered themselves serious intellectuals and, as is obvious from their correspondence, they had no regard for Neoscholasticism, which for them was intellectually bankrupt and destructive. The engagement they desired was with the thinkers of their generation who shared their same avant-garde concerns. The Toulouse Dominicans were in fact intellectual representatives of the decadent rationalism the Fourvière Jesuits despised, and therefore they merited little significant attention. That these questions, which had been broached during the brief ToulouseFourvière exchange, would not be settled during that tumultuous period is intimated in an article written by Merleau-Ponty in the first issue of Les Temps modernes. Merleau–Ponty, himself an ex-Catholic who had been influenced by Blondel, knew well these intra-Catholic debates, and in the article, titled the ‘The Battle over Existentialism’, he attempted to respond to Catholic and Marxist objections to existentialism, and he acknowledged the ongoing Catholic struggle: Perhaps they are right in the end, when all is said and done. Perhaps the only way to sustain Christianity as theology is on the basis of Thomism, perhaps the Pascalian concept of being as a blind thing and of spirit as volubility leaves only room for mystical action with no dogmatic content and for a faith which, like Kierkegaard’s, is not faith in any being. Perhaps in the end the religion of God-made-man arrives by an unavoidable dialectic at an anthropology and not a theology.212

du R.P. Garrigou-Lagrange’, Bulletin de literature ecclésiastique 48 (1947): 64–84; Henri Bouillard, ‘Notions conciliaires et analogie de la vérité, Recherches de science de religieuse 35 (1948): 251–71; for an over view of the debate on truth, see Agnès Desmazières, ‘La “nouvelle théologie”, premise d’une théologie herméneutique? La controverse sur l’analogie de la vérité (1946–1949)’, Revue thomiste 104 (2004): 241–72. 212 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ‘Le querelle de l’existentialisme’, in Sens et non-sens, 93–4; ‘The Battle over Existentialism’, in Sense and Non-sense, 76.

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The fundamental question Merleau-Ponty had recognized—does Christianity need a certain Scholastic foundation?—remained unsettled, and Labourdette and the Toulouse Dominicans had hoped the Magisterium would not settle the issue as they knew it could only be concluded after a robust intellectual exchange. Thus this air of uncertainty that lacked closure and resolution persisted through the 1950s until the contentious debate exploded again during the Conciliar years of the 1960s.

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T H E P O S T - W A R DI F F U S I O N The triumphant final chapter of the nouveaux théologiens is well known. They re-emerged dramatically at the Second Vatican Council, exercised enormous influence on the documents and proceedings and won an international acclaim that accorded a certain global and conciliar imprimatur to 1930s French Social Catholicism.1 As Louis Bouyer and others noted, the local problems faced by French intellectuals became the global problems faced at Vatican II.2 However, before we discuss the triumphant decade of the 1960s, the dramatic international diffusion of French thought should be recounted. While Humani Generis attempted to rein in the nouvelle théologie controversy, the larger phenomenon of French Left Catholicism, increasingly radicalized in the après-guerre, continued largely unchecked. Cardinal Suhard’s trilogy of pastoral letters, along with his support of the Paris Mission, had offered a strong approval of the movement, and the sacrificiées of the condemned nouvelle théologie were marked by a heroic quality, crowned as they were with the wreaths of intellectual martyrdom formerly worn by Laberthonnière, Blondel, Bremond, Teilhard, and Valensin. The Fourvière Jesuits and Saulchoir Dominicans became symbols of the larger struggle against the Curia, perceived to be too conservative, authoritarian, and out of touch with the needs of Modernity. Thus, in the decade after Humani Generis, the influence of French progressive Catholicism continued to spread throughout Europe and North and South America along two partially distinct lines, one intellectual, the other ecclesiastical.3 1 The author is currently writing a book that focuses exclusively on the influence of the nouvelle théologie on Vatican II. 2 John Kobler, Vatican II and Phenomenology (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers: 1985), 5. 3 For example, the nouvelle théologie had a great influence on the American monk Thomas Merton, who corresponded closely with von Balthasar and Daniélou.

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Two Popes and the Nouvelle Théologie The fortunes of Left Catholics in France made a stunning turnaround in October of 1958. Pope Pius XII died, and with him the entire Humani Generis era. In his place were elected successively two Italian bishops who were both great admirers of French thought and significantly influenced by Social Catholicism, Angelo Roncalli and Giovanni Battista Montini. Roncalli was the Nuncio to France and then Archbishop of Venice, and Giovanni Battista Montini worked closely with Pius XII as the pro-secretary for the internal affairs of the Church before becoming Archbishop of Milan. Both were significantly influenced by the currents of intellectual thought in France. They were to preside over a twenty-year period of dramatic reform inaugurated by an ecumenical council that essentially enshrined nouvelle théologie ecclesiology and used it as a platform to effect dramatic theological and pastoral reform, dialogue with the world, and ecumenism. Both of these men would be the Popes of Second Vatican Council, the former convening it and the latter guiding it to completion. During the 1940s, the Suhard–Roncalli–Montini triumvirate, as it has been called, eagerly sought to reform the Church by softening its opposition to the modern world through dialogue and a deeper pastoral commitment, and the nouvelle théologie, and the French Left Catholicism from which it took its inspiration and grew, provided the blueprint for this reform.4 In December 1944, the apostolic delegate to Bulgaria, Angelo Roncalli, was appointed the nuncio to France and took up his residence at the nunciature. Roncalli was an affable and jovial figure who immersed himself in the life of the French church and people, and everywhere he studied ‘the historical background, the source and inspiration of French piety’; he did not ‘shut himself up in an imposing palace at the end of a street in Paris, but went out every day in search of a community, or a soul, that for him was France: the clochards of the Seine embankments and the young seminarists of Cannes, the fishermen of Sables-d'Olonne’.5 Besides seeking the ‘soul of France’, Roncalli was vitally aware of the active post-war ferment of Catholic culture and intellectual life, immersed himself in it, ‘judged with great openness of soul the new pastoral experiments’, and tried to take an active part in the general reawakening of the Christian conscience that called for renewal and promoted self-criticism in order to purify everything in the Church that was seen as an obstacle to the Gospel. He was present at the [Semaines sociales] of France, he participated in the study sessions of the Institut Catholique, and went to the offices of Études, the innovative review of the French 4

Giancarlo Zizola, The Utopia of John XXIII (New York: Orbis Books, 1978), 93. Loris Capovilla, in the forward Mission to France: 1944–1953, by Giovanni Roncalli (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), xi–xii. 5

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Jesuits, and to the publishing house of the Dominicans, Le Cerf, which published avant-garde books. Dom Lambert Beauduin, Mauriac, Claudel, Étienne Gilson, Daniel-Rops were, together with Raissa and Jacques Maritain, his new points of cultural reference.6

Roncalli was close with Suhard, read his pastoral letters, and was undoubtedly influenced by him. As we saw earlier, Suhard personified the esprit of the French Church during the 1940s, and Peter Hebblethwaite writes that ‘he was open to the modern world and ready to learn from it. He believed that there should be a dialogue with Communists and other men of good will and that it could not begin with fulminations. He wanted a renewal of the Church at all levels, a reanimated, active laity and a priesthood adapted to modern industrial life.’7 Hebblethwaite argues that these aspects all influenced Roncalli greatly and ‘the “French” or “Suhardian” ideas lay fallow in his mind, waiting for the time when they would be seen as pastorally necessary, evangelically based, and justified as a response to history’.8 Thus, it is not surprising that Roncalli attempted to shield the worker–priest movement from Roman pressure, claiming that he ‘was not [in France] to be a policeman’.9 He agreed with Suhard and Montini that ‘nothing supernatural should be impeded’, and in fact as Roman pressure against the worker–priests was mounting, he managed with Montini to have a positive article published in L’Observatore Romano, the official paper of the Vatican, on Suhard and the experiment and the Paris Mission.10 Taken as official support for the movement, this was an important coup. Roncalli was not merely indirectly influenced by the nouvelle théologie through churchmen such as Suhard but also had direct contact with their work, although it is difficult to determine to what extent, given that he seems not to have had engaged in any depth the theological or philosophical controversies of the time. However, his relationship with Suhard, his passion for historical study, his relentless optimism, and his desire to engage with the modern world in a spirit of dialogue rather than recrimination puts him on common ground with the nouveaux théologiens. He admired de Lubac and Congar, quoted passages from Sources chrétiennes in his homilies, and prophetically scribbled in the margins of Congar’s True and False Reform: ‘is a reform of the Church possible”’11 The nunciature was only across the Seine from the Jesuit house of Études, where Daniélou, Fessard, Teilhard, and d’Ouince lived, and he was a frequent

6

Zizola, Utopia, 90, 94, 95. Peter Hebblethwaite, John XXIII: Pope of the Century (London: Continuum, 2000), 109. 8 Hebblethwaite, John XXIII: Pope of the Century, 109–10. 9 10 Zizola, Utopia, 91. Zizola, Utopia, 92, 96. 11 Zizola, Utopia, 96; Hans Küng, My Struggle for Freedom: Memoirs. Grand Rapids MI: William B (Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2003), 105. 7

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visitor. To many, however, Roncalli remained a mystery, and his jovial, seemingly light-hearted attitude, led some to judge him to be a ‘clown’. After one dinner with the Jesuits of Études, ‘over a good cigar’, he quipped, ‘Ah, yes, as you say in French: demi-tour à droite, demi-tour à gauche!’12 Born in 1897, Giovanni Battista Montini exemplified the characteristics of the generation of 1930s in many ways, intellectually, spiritually, and politically. His father was a lawyer, journalist, director of Action catholique, and the managing editor of the progressive Catholic daily newspaper Il Cittadino for over three decades, who sought to vigorously promote the Leonine social teachings of the Church. Montini was considered physically unfit for military service and entered the seminary in 1916 and was ordained four years later. Thoughtful and intellectually inclined, he cared deeply about reuniting Catholic thought with the university so as to respond with a new apology to the problems of Modernity.13 In 1919, he wrote a revealing article, ‘Crisi Spirituale’, that shows how close his thinking was to the nouveaux théologiens, most of whom had just returned from the war and were resuming formation and grappling with the ‘deep existential malaise’ that gripped their generation. Philippe Chenaux writes that ‘with remarkable lucidity [Montini] analysed the roots of the profound disarray that struck the generation d’après guerre. The spiritual crisis that he diagnosed was first a metaphysical crisis of the relationship between truth and intelligence.’14 Quoting Montini, Chenaux writes: ‘Whereas formerly everything was governed by “a system of doctrines, of principals, of theories” known by all, today doubt and incertitude are everywhere.’ Man today swears on beliefs that tomorrow he will deny and disavow. Faced with this, Christian thought remains intact but inaccessible to modern man: ‘it seems that such thought had to stiffen, like an Egyptian mummy, closed in the formulas [away from the] people, not [accessible to] the common people [to] know and understand, but to a few scholars devoted to archaic traditions’.15 Three years later he wrote that the Cartesian revolution had left the human person in a state of doubt, and now ‘modern man is first a man without philosophy’.16 Whereas before, philosophy would prepare one to read the Scriptures, now the Scriptures must push the human intelligence toward truth: ‘There was a day when this was not so: metaphysics led to the Gospel; philosophical study prepared one to read the sacred pages. Today man weeps on these same pages, which

12

Paul Johnson, Pope John XXIII (London: Hutchinson, 1975), 70. Jacques Prévotat, ‘Les Sources françaises dans la formation intellectuelle de G. B. Montini (1919–1963)’, in Paul VI en la modernité en l’Eglise. Actes du colloque organisé par l’École française de Rome 2–4 Juin, 1983 (Rome: Institut Poalo VI, 1984), 125. 14 Montini is quoted in Philippe Chenaux, Paul VI et Maritain: les rapports du ‘montinianisme’ et du ‘maritanisme’ (Brescia: Instituto Paolo VI, 1994), 12. 15 16 Chenaux, Paul VI et Maritain, 13. Chenaux, Paul VI et Maritain, 14. 13

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are still bright despite so much darkness, and confidently finds the path toward speculative truth.’17 Given these early intellectual sympathies, it is not surprising that Jesuit Jacques Prévotat proposes that Montini had deep sympathy for the work of Blondel. He had read L’Action in the seminary and it ‘seemed to have soothed certain doubts that emerged from the Scholastic teaching he received’.18 Montini later read Blondel’s Carnets intimes and during the 1950s encouraged the publication of his complete works. Prévotat convincingly argues that Montini was the anonymous author of a glowing account of Blondel’s intervention at the 1928 Semaines sociales in Paris, which as we discussed earlier was heard by de Lubac and Daniélou, the former having enthusiastically recounted it to de Montcheuil in a letter. Unsatisfied with the Thomism presented in Scholastic manuals, Montini found the Catholic intellectual life he was looking for during his stays in France throughout the 1920s, in the world of Parisian Catholicism that revolved around Maritain, Loisy, still lecturing at the time, and de Grandmaison, to whom he lived virtually next door on the rue Monsieur. Jean Guitton, with a note of exaggeration, called his visit to Paris in the summer of 1924, his ‘first experience with Modernity’.19 He knew well the work of prominent literary figures, such as Bernanos, Claudel, and Bloy, translated de Grandmaison’s La Religion personelle, was an ardent admirer of Teilhard’s thought, and kept abreast of the latest works of French theology. His library was well-stocked with French works and included from that the period of the 1930s, de Grandmaison’s Jésus-Christ, Lebreton’s Histoire du dogme de la Trinité, and the first volumes of the Unam Sanctum series, Möhler’s La Unité dans l’Église, and Congar’s Chrétiens désunis, to name only a few.20 Of the towering French intellectuals of this time, it was Maritain to whom he became a loyal devotee. He translated into Italian Trois reformeurs and provided a preface, writing that in Maritain, one found ‘thomisme le plus pur’, while in Neoscholasticism one found ‘those brave men who crush their opponents under the weight of Thomist manuals without even being aware that the manuals were designed not to crush but above all to be read and meditated upon.’21 For Montini, Maritain’s Art et scholastique, opened for him the question of aesthetics, which became for him a passionate interest which he applied to questions of sacred architecture and liturgical reform.22 It was however, Humanisme integral that was most influential and provided him

17 19 20 21 22

18 Chenaux, Paul VI et Maritain, 14, n 14. Prévotat, ‘Les Sources françaises’, 115. Hebblethwaite, Paul VI (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 86. Prévotat, ‘Les Sources françaises’, 102, 119–21. Montini is quoted in Prévotat, ‘Les Sources françaises’, 113. Hebblethwaite, Paul VI, 107–8.

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with the blueprint for a ‘New Christendom’ that was lay, democratic, and open to mass political parties composed of all those who generally shared ‘Christian values’.23 The Church in this plan had merely an indirect role. Maritain and Montini would develop a close relationship, and the former’s thought, under the influence of the latter, would became enshrined in the documents of Vatican II, especially that on religious liberty. Montini’s dramatic ecclesiastical rise began in 1922 when he joined the Secretariat of State, and in 1931 Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, appointed him to teach at the diplomatic school. Six years later he became the Substitute to Secretary of State Pacelli, having frequent contact with Pius XI. Upon Pacelli’s election to the papacy in 1939, Montini was confirmed in his position and had daily contact with him until his departure for Milan in 1954.24 Montini remained for many an enigma, but his intellectual sympathies and admiration for French thought were well known, and the French reformers considered him an ally.25 He acted discreetly and prudentially, rarely promoting reform openly, but nonetheless used his position to advance the project of ressourcement when he was able. He was a well-known supporter of the worker–priest movement, the only one in the Pius XII’s circle who did so. Moreover, he angered Pius by helping Roncalli place a positive article on the Paris Mission in L’Observatore Romano. Likewise, after the release of Humani Generis, which was a clear denunciation of the reformist currents in the French Church, Montini in a conversation with Guitton tried to put a gloss on the encyclical, distancing it from Pascendi by insisting that it did not condemn errors as such but only opinions and modes de pensée, which might potentially lead to errors: Certain Catholics in France and elsewhere will have the impression [that the encyclical is hostile to all modern thought]. I am sure that impression will be dissipated. Moreover, we will take care that it shall be dissipated. The encyclical Humani generis gives certain warnings. It places certain limits to the right and left—in order that one may go forward along the path of progress in safety, especially so that the sources may be pure, so that a new age of cultural progress may open before the Church. I would say that it opens a royal road, that is, an open and secure road.26

Toward the end of 1944, another example of Montini’s discreet attempts to aid reform in the French Church might be cited. Blondel remained 23

Hebblethwaite, Paul VI, 122. Etienne Fouilloux, ‘G. B. Montini face aux débats ecclésiaux de son temps: 1944-1954’, in Paul VI et la modernité dans l’Église. Actes du colloque de Rome, 2–4 juin 1983 (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1984), 85–100. 25 Hebblethwaite, Paul VI, 216–19. 26 Jean Guitton, The Pope Speaks (New York: Meredith Press, 1968), 11. 24

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a controversial figure, and, as Garrigou would accuse him two years later, many thought his philosophy was the source of the problem, as it undermined the gratuity of the supernatural and thus led to Modernism. Montini drafted a letter to Blondel on behalf of Pius XII, but went much further, assuring him of the pope’s approval and in fact restating what was most beneficial—and controversial—about his work. Montini’s covert enthusiasm for Blondel seems evident as he goes out of his way to enthusiastically praise the philosopher’s treatment of the supernatural and his conception of the relationship between faith and reason. The result was as intended, in that it acted as a kind of official papal imprimatur, shielding him from Neoscholastic attacks and winning Montini the admiration of those intellectuals who were under suspicion.27 Some have seen here Montini’s enthusiasm on full display, especially given that subsequent statements from Pius regarding the nouvelle théologie are hardly so enthusiastic.28 Montini writes: [Your work] proves to be truly a monument of profound and beneficial apologetics; and how could your expression of filial homage to His Holiness not be pleasing to him? No one can miss the importance of your studies which you make with such sagacity: the relations between Christianity and philosophy, faith and reason, as well as the supernatural and natural. You rightly emphasize their 'incommensurability’ without excluding either their 'symbiosis' or that unique end from which no man can legitimately escape, a mystery full of mercy and infinite goodness which all noble and reflective souls cannot fail to embrace, for their own greater intellectual and moral progress, as for their greatest and truest happiness. Moreover, because your philosophical speculations are entirely respectful of the transcendence of revelation and cannot be fruitfully applied to all of the mysteries of the faith, they are more likely to find an audience with this current generation, so imbued with the autonomy of reason, the bankruptcies of which are only too well recognized today. Your intellectual charity, like that of the Good Samaritan, seeks to tend to a wounded humanity while striving to understand it and speak its own language and will surely help to restore the resolute and saving aspects of its divine vocation. Also, rejoicing at the wonderful news of your improving health, the Holy Father wishes that you may have the necessary strength to bring your important work to a successful conclusion and most wholeheartedly gives you His Apostolic Blessing. Please accept the respectful assurance of my religious devotion. J. B. Montini29 27 Owen Cummings, A History of the Popes in the Twentieth Century (Lewiston: Edwin Mellon, 2009), 84. 28 Montini told Jean Guitton ‘several people attacked me for the letter’, in Fouilloux, ‘G. B. Montini face aux débats’, 96, n 37. 29 Montini, in a letter to Blondel, La Documentation Catholique 42 (8 July 1945), 498–9.

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The Vatican II Reformers and the Nouvelle Théologie The influence of the nouvelle théologie on the cardinals, bishops, and intellectuals who drove the Conciliar agenda was also significant, and in addition to Cardinal Suhard, many other French bishops were shaped by Left Catholic movements. Cardinal Achille Liénart (1884), Archbishop of Lille, had been an active supporter of Cardijn and Action catholique after the First World War. He was interested in Blondel and the nouvelle théologie. Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier (1880), Archbishop of Lyon, was particularly close to de Lubac. Albert Ancel (1898), a philosophy professor and great supporter of Action catholique and the worker–priests became the Auxiliary Bishop of Lyon and was also influential at the Council.30 Moreover, a diverse number of influential international churchmen who exercised a decisive influence at Vatican II were shaped by Left French Catholicism, including bishops from Austria, Italy, Belgium, and Canada, and in fact, a cursory glance at the birth years of some of the most influential Conciliar figures exemplifies how influential the generation of 1930 was at Vatican II—Montini (1897), Suenens (1904), Alfrink (1900), Léger (1904), and König (1905). To illustrate this process of internationalization, it would be helpful to discuss the influence of French thought on three influential Vatican II churchmen. Cardinal Franz König (1905), Archbishop of Austria (1956–85), lived in France in 1936 during the height of the Fronte populaire and was deeply impressed by French avant-garde Catholicism and the de-Christianization of France: ‘in the Semaines sociales [he] learned the economic, social and religious problems of the French workers’.31 Another influential Conciliar figure, Cardinal PaulÉmile Léger (1904), Archbishop of Montreal (1950–68), arrived for studies in Paris in 1929 and was taken in by the ‘new Catholic spirit’ of France.32 Léger travelled widely, was immersed in French Catholic thought at the Institut catholique, and became involved with youth movements and ‘les nouvelles approches’. The close Franco-Belgian intellectual and political exchanges we have witnessed, for example in Cardijn’s Action catholique and the work of Jospeh Maréchal, was further exemplified in the life and work of Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens (1904), Archbishop of Brussells (1961–79). One of the most powerful prelates at the Second Vatican Council, he was especially adept at facilitating the infusion of French thought into the Council. From his

30

Catherine Masson, Le Cardinal Liénart: Évéque de Lille, 1928–1968 (Paris: Cerf, 2001), 485. Richard Barta, Francis Cardinal Koenig (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964), 21. 32 Bernard Murchland, Paul-Émile Cardinal Léger (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964), 13. 31

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seminary formation in the 1920s, Suenens was taken by the need for reform in the Church. Convinced that the Church’s classical apologetic approach was irrelevant and theology and philosophy must respond more carefully to Modernity, he was an enthusiastic supporter of Blondel in the early years, even writing under the pseudonym Testis. Suenens was likewise involved in the Christian philosophy debates of the early 1930s as well as Action catholique. After Vatican II, he remarked: ‘Vatican II was the heir and beneficiary of those great movements of renewal which were, and are, stirring in the heart of the modern Church; we mean the biblical, liturgical, patristic, theological and pastoral renewals.’33

The Intellectuals In addition to the powerful ecclesiastics at the Council, many of the leading intellectuals who exercised enormous influence at the Council were themselves members of the generation of 1930, such as Karl Rahner (1904) and John Courtney Murray (1904), and some were heavily influenced by the nouvelle théologie and French Left Catholicism, such as Gérard Phillips (1899), not to mention the younger ressourcement protégés, such as Schillebeeckx, Ratzinger, and Küng. Throughout much of the twentieth century, there was a constant flow of international seminarians streaming into France for philosophy and theology studies. The influence of the ressourcement on Edward Schillebeeckx and Gustavo Gutierrez, for example, illustrates this diffusion among intellectuals. Schillebeeckx, a Dominican and one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century, went to Paris to study in 1945 at Le Saulchoir in addition to attending the lectures of figures such as Étienne Gilson and Jean Wahl. There he ‘met the greats’, Congar and Chenu, and he writes that Chenu in particular had a marked influence on him, teaching him ‘to tackle problems from a historical perspective and not just literally’.34 Ten years later a young Peruvian seminarian, Gustavo Gutierrez, the future founder of Liberation Theology, went to Lyon to study theology after four years at Louvain, where he had been introduced to Joseph Maréchal and transcendental Thomism. In Lyon, Gutierrez was immersed in French Left Catholicism at the Institut catholique, and the influence of the nouvelle théologie was profound: Nonetheless there is no denying the European roots [of Liberation Theology] springing from Maritain’s integral humanism, Mounier’s committed personalism, 33 Léon-Joseph Cardinal Suenens, Coresponsibility in the Church, trans. Francis Martin (London: Burns & Oates, 1968), 13. 34 Edward Schillebeeckx, I am a Happy theologian (London: SCM Press, 1994), 8.

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Teilhard de Chardin’s progressive evolutionism, de Lubac’s social dogmatics, Congar’s theology of the laity, Lebret’s theology of development…35

In fact, Gutierrez had private classes with de Lubac, and was marked by Daniélou’s work on dialogue as well as Blondel’s philosophy of action. As the notoriety of the nouvelle théologie spread, however, so also did the controversy. Even in the immediate post-war years, some theologians were dismissing the ressourcement movement as fundamentally ‘French’, an outgrowth of existentialism, and wrapped up in the obsession of the European intellectuals with ‘Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Engels.’’36 The English theologian David Greenstock noted offhand that some had been in fact waiting apprehensively for the influence of existentialism to manifest itself in Catholic theology—‘sooner or later’ it was bound to happen.37 Ressourcement itself was seen by some as imbued with a doctrinal and methodological vagueness, and its raison d’être seemed to be aimed entirely at destroying Neoscholasticism. While adopting modern methods and philosophies so as to ‘present the truths of the faith in a way which will appeal to ordinary people’, the nouvelle théologie, which emerged from the philosophical line of ‘Plotinus, Bruno, Kant, Schelling and Hegel’, had not made clear what in fact should take the place of Neoscholasticism.38 In his criticism of the French movement, Greenstock hit on many of the well-trod issues surrounding the nouvelle théologie, historicism, the notion of truth, and the danger of substituting immutable dogmatic propositions for more fluid ones, as suggested by Bouillard, who protested in the name of contemporary theology. It is here, in surveying the possible dangers of the nouvelle théologie, that Greenstock found himself on common ground with Garrigou–Langrange, Boyer, and Labourdette. Although more restrained than Garrigou, his reservations were clear. We are now asked to accept, in exchange for this solid foundation, the fluid concepts of a new philosophy, destined to change with time—we are told—like everything else in this fluid world. This to our way of thinking, is not merely unreasonable but also very dangerous. There are certain basic philosophical concepts which cannot be abandoned without danger to our faith…We are not told what is to happen to [certain] ontological notions and concepts [such as

35 Frei Betto, ‘Gustavo Gutiérrez–A Friendly Profile’ in The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honor of Gustavo Gutiérrez, ed. Marc Ellis and Otto Maduro (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 32. 36 David Greenstock, ‘Thomism and the New Theology’, Thomist 13 (1950): 567–96, here 567. 37 Greenstock, ‘Thomism’, 567. 38 The same criticism has been made recently by two articles in First Things, Reinhold Hütter, ‘The Ruins of Discontinuity’, First Things 209 (January 2011): 37–41, and R. R. Reno, ‘Theology after the Revolution’, First Things 173 (May 2007), 15–21.

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subsistence, which have been included in Conciliar decrees] were Thomism to be abandoned in favour of a new theology and philosophy, but we can guess!39

Moreover, Greenstock cut to the central divergence between the nouvelle théologie and Neoscholasticism: the question of Modernity. Along with Blondel, the ressourcement thinkers maintained a much more optimistic view, while more traditional Thomists saw little room for a rapprochement: How can we ever expect to reconcile a materialistic philosophy, with its theories of the dependence of the spiritual on the material with Catholic thought in all its branches? Or, to take a more modern example still, how are we to bring together the extreme voluntarism of the existential theories and that basic intellectualism which is part of our Catholic spiritual and our Thomist tradition?40

This debate over the value, and even existence, of ‘Modernity’, properly speaking, was one of the central disputes in the twentieth century that emerged between liberals, conservative reformers, and Neoscholastics. As we have seen, it began in earnest during the Modernists crisis and continued through the interwar period, the après-guerre, and even into the halls of the St. Peter’s basilica during the Conciliar era.

The Letter to the World Less than four months after his election to the papacy, John XXIII called an ecumenical council ‘to address the spiritual needs of the present hour’, and immediately the Roman Curia, aware of the significant support for reform among bishops and intellectuals, sought to take control of the Conciliar preparations. John’s approval, however, of the nouvelle théologie became immediately apparent as he called de Lubac and Congar, among others, to participate in the preparatory commission, much to the chagrin or the Cardinal Ottaviani, the head of the Holy Office. In John’s opening address a strong note of sympathy with the nouvelle théologie can be detected. First, there is a relentless, almost utopian, optimism that evokes themes present in the early writings of Blondel, de Lubac, Teilhard, and the post-war Parisian milieu that sought to create a ‘new man’ and ‘new society’. Echoing this, John declared that the ‘hand of God’ must be recognized in the events of the Council, and indeed he wrote that ‘present indications are that the human family is on the threshold of a new era’ for the Church’s good.41 Over and against this grand vision, he excoriated the ‘prophets doom’ 40 Greenstock, ‘Thomism’, 580. Greenstock, ‘Thomism’, 590. John XXIII, ‘Opening Address to the Council’, 11 Oct. 1962, The Encyclicals and Other Messages of John XXIII (Washington D.C.: TPS Press, 1964), 423–35, here, 427. 39 41

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who in their lack of prudence and judgement ‘can see nothing but calamity and disaster in the present state of the world. They say over and over that this modern age of ours, in comparison with past ages, is definitely deteriorating’. As did the nouveaux théologiens, John chastised this closed conservative thinking for its inability to discern the movements of history, or as he said in his earlier encyclical, to read the Signs of the Times: One would think from their attitude that history, that great teacher of life, had taught them nothing. They seem to imagine that in the days of the earlier councils everything was as it should be so far as doctrine and morality and the Church's rightful liberty were concerned. We feel that We must disagree with these prophets of doom, who are always forecasting worse disasters, as though the end of the world were at hand.42

The nouveaux théologiens were immediately frustrated by the schemas drafted by Ottaviani’s Preparatory Commission, and in August of 1962, Chenu wrote to Karl Rahner that they ‘provoked in him affliction and regret’ on account of their scholastic nature which refuses to address ‘the dramatic questions that men are asking’.43 He wrote that the Council ‘is becoming an operation of intellectual police within the closed walls of the Church’, to the detriment of the ‘transcendence de la foi’ and ‘liberté’.44 Chenu then posed an idea that would be one of the first great victories of the Council, a letter from the Council to the world. Within this proposal we can find the language of the nouvelle théologie and the French Left Catholic generation of 1930: Incarnation, the Mystical Body, existentialism, the dialogue with atheism, and the building of a new human community. Central to much of this are the presence of certain Blondelian overtones that recognize within Modernity unfulfilled aspiration rather than error and rebellion against truth. He wrote to Rahner: It will be necessary that the decisions of the Council are opened by a broad declaration, which, in the style of the Gospel, in the prophetic perspectives of the Old and New Testament, will proclaim the plan of salvation in the incarnation of Christ and the Mystical Body of the Church. It should be a declaration addressed to a humanity in which grandeur and distress, hidden beneath failures and errors are aspirations to the light of the Gospel and the presence of the Creator God, who atheists cannot recognize under the conceptual and cultural figures by which he is presented today. It should be a declaration that will proclaim the fraternal unity of man, transcending borders, races and

John XXIII, ‘Opening Address to the Council’, 427. Chenu, in a letter to Karl Rahner, dated 4 September 1962, reprinted in its entirety in André Duval, ‘Le Message au monde’, Vatican II commence : Approches francophones (Leuven, Belgium: Bibliotheek van de Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid, 1993), 110–11; 105–18. 44 Chenu, in a letter to Karl Rahner, 110. 42 43

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regimes—in a refusal for violent solutions, in the love of peace, striving for the Kingdom of God. Thus the community of Christians participates publicly in the hopes of men, to promote it to its supreme end.45

Chenu sent Congar an outline of the proposal, writing that the declaration ‘will be of major importance to the public and the faith of the men to which the Council is addressed, beyond les clercs’.46 Congar recorded in his journal that the idea was ‘inspirée’ and wrote to Chenu: ‘YOUR PROJECT MUST TAKE SHAPE’.47 The pair immediately began enlisting episcopal help, communicating the proposal to a number of sympathetic cardinals and bishops, many whom we have already mentioned, who over the next three years would be the key figures promoting French thought at the Council.48 Arriving in Rome before the Council, Chenu wrote an article to reinforce his vision.49 Liénart was greatly supportive of the project and took charge of moving it along, finding approval with Pope John XXIII as well as Cardinals Montini, Liénart, Léger, Alfrink, Döpfner, Frings, and Garrone. It was determined, however, that significant redaction was necessary, as Chenu’s text remained solely in the natural plain with no mention of the need for salvation. Chenu later declared that it had been ‘dipped in holy water’.50 The existence of the message, he subsequently said, grabbed the public’s attention, and the paths it opened up were almost always followed by the deliberations and orientations of the Council. Nonetheless, the French influence is still readily visible in the positive tone of the letter, the mention of peace and fraternal unity, and the historical and existential language that would emerge so prominently again under French influence in the final dramatic document of the Council, Gaudium et Spes. Coming together in unity from every nation under the sun, we carry in our hearts the hardships, the bodily and mental distress, the sorrows, longings, and hopes of all the peoples entrusted to us. We urgently turn our thoughts to all the anxieties by which modern man is afflicted. Hence, let our concern swiftly focus first of all on those who are especially lowly, poor, and weak. Like Christ, we would have pity on the multitude weighed down with hunger, misery, and lack of knowledge. We want to fix a steady gaze on those who still lack the opportune help to achieve a way of life worthy of human beings. As we undertake our work, therefore, we would emphasize whatever concerns the dignity of man, whatever contributes to a genuine community of peoples.51

45

46 Chenu, in a letter to Karl Rahner, 110. Chenu, in a letter to Karl Rahner, 110. 48 Chenu, in a letter to Karl Rahner, 111. Chenu, in a letter to Karl Rahner, 111. 49 Marie-Dominique Chenu, ‘Un Concile à la dimension du monde’, in La Parole de Dieu. 2, L’Évangile dans le temps (Paris: Cerf, 1964), 633–7. 50 Chenu, in a letter to Karl Rahner, 117. 51 Second Vatican Council, ‘Message to the World’, 20 Oct. 1962, in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter Abbott (New York: Guild Press, 1966), 3–7, here, 5. 47

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A CO NCILIAR METHODOLOGY: PHENO MENOLOGY, HISTORY, AND E NGAGEMEN T Although a full treatment of the influence of the nouveaux théologiens on the Council would require a lengthy session-by-session analysis of the key figures and debates, a brief sketch of French methodological contributions will help to ground this analysis. Two points, however, should be made regarding the difficulty of locating specific Conciliar methodologies. First, it was the intent of the Council, as John XXIII declared from the beginning, to speak both dialogically and doctrinally. Gerhard Müller elucidates this dynamism. These texts have a wide range of theological language forms; somewhat simplified their polarity is divided between “dialogical” and “doctrinal” or “dogmatic”. This diversity of language was brought about on the one hand by the abundance of different themes that was worked on during the council, on the other hand by the intention of the council, as it was intended by St John XXIII from its very first announcement onwards in January 1959, and as he unfolded it in the famous opening speech Gaudet Mater Ecclesia on 11 October 1962: this depositum fidei,— that was his guideline—, should be preserved and explained intact, but this should especially be done by putting the present into focus, and by researching and interpreting the doctrine “as required by our time”.52

On the other hand a further complexity arises that has been noted by Walter Kasper, among others, regarding the deliberate ambiguity of certain adjacent and seemingly contradictory Conciliar texts designed to delimit each other.53 Chenu himself detailed how his happened: There is some gossip that claims that it was the theologians who led the Council, and this is not entirely false. I remember a very small but very revealing episode. During the discussion surrounding the Decree on the Laity [Apostolicam Actuositatem]. I noticed a paragraph still permeated by the very dualistic notion of a “mandate” given by the hierarchy to the laity: on one side the world, on the other the Church. Another French expert and I agreed that this was bad, but it had already been adopted by the commission and was therefore impossible to change. So we drafted an additional text that corrected it, a second paragraph that said pretty much the opposite. The former admitted to a kind of dualism, and the second insisted that the action of the Church must surpass this. It was the French bishops who presented our new text, and it was adopted.54

With these difficulties in mind, we shall nonetheless attempt to highlight certain approches conciliaires. One of the most significant French contributions 52 Gerhard Müller, ‘The Church in Dialogue: Vatican II Today’, (opening speech, Brussels, 26 October 2014), Vatican Website, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/mul ler/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20141026_church-in-dialogue_en.html. 53 In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano (12 April 2013), Kasper explicitly admits this. 54 Marie-Dominique Chenu, Jacques Duquesne interroge le père Chenu: un théologien en liberté (Paris: Le Centurion, 1975), 17.

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to the Council was the adoption of the Mystical Body ecclesiology of the 1930s and 1940s that was based in part on certain aspects of phenomenology, history, and engagement. The draft schemas conceived of ecclesiology in militant and hierarchical terms and maintained a significant separation between Scripture and Tradition, which allowed for the former to be conceived primarily in dogmatic terms and the latter to be closely joined to the Magisterium. The nouveaux théologiens argued that this ecclesiology was excessively pessimistic and closed to the modern world. In the ressourcement ecclesiology that prevailed, mystery, communion, and sacramentality were the primary motifs, and the world–Church (nature–grace) divide was dramatically softened. Unarguably, this Mystical Body ecclesiology was largely indebted to Congar and de Lubac, and in particular the latter’s Blondelian notion of the tradition. With this insight in mind, it is not surprising that Congar called Blondel the philosopher of the Council: ‘if we had to characterize the Council’s approach in one word we could invoke the ideal of knowledge that Maurice Blondel proposed and which he reclaimed in the face of what he so oddly called “monophorism,” that is to say a thingly conception of knowledge’.55 Jesuit J. M. Somerville goes even farther, noting that together ‘Blondel and Teilhard created the atmosphere that made Vatican II possible, and they seem destined to carry on and justify its best achievements for many decades to come.’56 Regarding phenomenology and the existentialist variants that dominated French avant-garde circles in 1930s and 1940s, it is worth recalling its primary aim was to address the ‘overwhelming problem of the “crisis in human beings”’.57 Catholic intellectuals in France used existentialist phenomenology as a diagnostic tool and sought to build bridges by initiating a dialogue ‘with a largely pluralistic secularized and socially disrupted community’.58 This mode of analysis and concern was very much present in the language Vatican II used. It was not content with merely propagating dogmatic formulae, the Church was instead concerned with the ‘joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age’.59 It is not surprising that the Council’s use of dialogical language was one of the early victories of the French-speaking bishops. A convincing example of this phenomenological diagnosis is evident in John XXIII’s reading of the ‘signs of the times’ in the Apostolic Constitution 55 William Portier quotes Congar in ‘Twentieth-Century Theology and the Triumph of Maurice Blondel’, Communio 38.1 (2011): 129, n 8. 56 Somerville is quoted in a blurb on the back cover of Continuum 5/4 (1968). 57 58 Kobler, Vatican II, 4. Kobler, Vatican II, 5. 59 Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes: Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the Modern World, 7 December 1965, 1, Vatican Website, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_ councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html (accessed 30 April 2017).

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that convoked the Council, which he hoped would bring peace to a world that was ‘lost, confused, and anxious’: [Progress itself] has aroused not a few anxious questions, which makes men now aware of their own limitations, desirous for peace, longing to better understand the importance of spiritual values, and at last to accelerate the path of social progress, which humanity seems to have already begun with uncertain steps, and which increasingly impels individuals, classes, and nations themselves, to collaborate peacefully and complete and perfect themselves with mutual assistance.60

Moreover, the Council perceived a world taken hold of by a kind of existential dilemma, trying to find answers to the unsolved riddles of the human condition, which today, even as in former times, deeply stir the hearts of men: What is man? What is the meaning, the aim of our life? What is moral good, what is sin? Whence suffering and what purpose does it serve? Which is the road to true happiness? What are death, judgment and retribution after death? What, finally, is that ultimate inexpressible mystery which encompasses our existence: whence do we come, and where are we going?61

Likewise the Conciliar turn toward history is especially apparent in the concept of aggiornamento, which is intimately linked to the dynamism of ressourcement we examined earlier, where the past is examined in light of the present (which also involves a kind of phenomenological analysis) so as to develop a path toward the future. This method is explicitly stated in the Council’s desire to reform religious life: ‘The adaptation and renewal of the religious life includes both the constant return to the sources of all Christian life and to the original spirit of the institutes and their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time.’62 Gaudium et Spes in fact, speaking of the ‘mystery of history’ in which the earthly and heavenly cities penetrate each other, employs a Teilhardian notion of historical progress, noting that ‘modern man is on the road to a more thorough development of his own personality’.63 Moreover, just as the world must recognize the Church as an ‘historical reality’, the Church must also recognize it has itself ‘profited by history’ and human progress: 60 John XXIII, Humanae Salutis: Apostolic Constitution to convoke the Second Vatican Council, Vatican Website, 25 December 1961, no. 4, https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/ es/apost_constitutions/1961/documents/hf_j-xxiii_apc_19611225_humanae-salutis.html, (accessed 5 October 2017). 61 Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate: Declaration on the Relation of the Church to NonChristian Religions, Vatican Website, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_ council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html (accessed 30 April 2017). 62 Second Vatican Council, Perfectae Caritatis: The Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life, 2, Vatican Website (last accessed 30 April 2017), http://www.vatican.va/ archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651028_perfectae-car itatis_en.html (accessed 30 April 2017). 63 Gaudium et Spes, 40.

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The experience of past ages, the progress of the sciences, and the treasures hidden in the various forms of human culture, by all of which the nature of man himself is more clearly revealed and new roads to truth are opened, these profit the Church, too. For, from the beginning of her history she has learned to express the message of Christ with the help of the ideas and terminology of various philosophers, and has tried to clarify it with their wisdom, too. Her purpose has been to adapt the Gospel to the grasp of all as well as to the needs of the learned, insofar as such was appropriate. Indeed this accommodated preaching of the revealed word ought to remain the law of all evangelization. For thus the ability to express Christ's message in its own way is developed in each nation, and at the same time there is fostered a living exchange between the Church and the diverse cultures of people.64

Moreover, the Council’s historical analysis seems in some respects to echo the thought of Blondel, de Lubac in Catholicism, and Mounier and the Personalists: progress and human flourishing are dependent on a certain communitarian understanding of Modernity in which the Church plays a major role. While Gaudium et Spes speaks at length about this, the introduction to Nostra Aetate also provides a lucid articulation. In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church…[in her] task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations…considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship.65

Finally, the French obsession with engagement and dialogue in the 1930s and 1940s came to fruition in the Conciliar attempt to build bridges with not only the secular world but also with Jews, Protestants, and non-Christians. As a starting point, the Church sought to proclaim how much it was dependent on the world: ‘The Church living in various circumstances in the course of time has used the discoveries of different cultures so that in Her preaching She might spread and explain the message of Christ to all nations, that She might examine it and more deeply understand it, that She might give it better expression.’66 While examples of all the above tendencies could be multiplied, these illustrate the broad lines of this approach.

LA CRISE APRÈS-CONCILE The halcyon years of the Council quickly dissipated, and the well-documented post-Conciliar crisis saw a kind of peaceful rupture occur between the nouveaux 64

Gaudium et Spes, 44.

65

Nostra Aetate, 1.

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Gaudium et Spes, 58.

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théologiens.67 The disagreement emerged even before the Council had ended, as the more conservative-minded reformers were already becoming disillusioned with the more radical direction the Church was taking. For them, the New Springtime of aggiornamento was becoming a revolution. Congar noted that even by 1964 de Lubac was becoming pessimistic and claimed that the ‘the Holy Spirit had been forgotten everywhere’.68 The result for de Lubac was a kind of isolation as he was increasingly ignored and passed over: Congar writes: ‘I saw Fr. de Lubac briefly, he was very tired, crushed and down in the dumps: he is not employed in anything, he is not resorted to, he is not given notice of meetings’.69 The conservative–liberal split became more apparent over the direction of the journal Concilium, the idea for which had been hatched soon after the progressive victory over the schema on divine revelation in 1962. As the more progressive figures associated with the journal, such as Congar, Chenu, Rahner, Küng, and Schillebeeckx, embraced a more open attitude toward the world, Daniélou argued forcefully against this direction, and in fact convinced the other French Jesuits to pull out of the project. Hans Küng recounts in his memoirs: French Jesuit Jean Daniélou, at one time exponent of the nouvelle théologie… fulminates against our planned journal everywhere…Daniélou develops into the main agitator against Concilium and trumpets everywhere: ‘This journal will be dead in a year. The Curia will not allow it to live.’ At any rate he manages to dissuade the French Jesuits from joining in, and de Lubac, a generous man, has to withdraw. But even without Daniélou our journal remains alive.70

Congar, Chenu, de Lubac, and Joseph Ratzinger, a young theologian at the Council very much influenced by de Lubac, were all involved with the founding in 1965 of Concilium—a journal led by Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx, and Hans Küng, which was by no means exclusively ressourcement. Concilium was at the forefront of promoting several important aspects of the programme of the nouvelle théologie, the appropriation of the historical method and a vigorous engagement with the modern world. Because of the perceived leftward drift of the journal, however, Daniélou persuaded de Lubac to withdraw. Although Chenu and Congar remained attached to Concilium, Joseph Ratzinger also broke away over the same worries and joined de Lubac with Balthasar, who was fomenting a plan for a new journal, Communio, that 67

It should be noted that the reformers generally remained personally very friendly. Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, trans. Mary John Ronayne et al. (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 581. 69 Congar, My Journal of the Council, 798. 70 Hans Küng, My Struggle for Freedom: Memoirs (Grand Rapids MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2003), 387. 68

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would be more conscious of continuity with tradition and have greater sensitivity to the sources of Christian theology. Ratzinger writes: ‘[Balthasar] was seeking for new solutions to divert theology from the partisanship toward which it was more and more tending. His project was to gather together all those who did not want to do theology on the basis of the pre-set goals of ecclesial politics but who were intent on developing theology rigorously on the basis of its own proper sources and methods. This is how the idea was born to start an international journal whose work would both be done out of the heart of communion in sacrament and faith and also lead to its enhancement.’71 Within these two camps, which were widely dubbed progressive and conservative, there continues to be widespread respect for the legacy of the nouvelle théologie. Many progressive theologians that might be grouped with Concilium still regard it as having taken on and vanquished Neothomism, making a fundamental rapprochement with the modern world as well as opening Catholic theology to critical categories of history and experience. In addition, they still regard many of the early books written by the nouvelle théologie as classics and the nouvelle theologians themselves as monumental figures. The origins of Communio and Concilium have been summed up succinctly: Among European theologians the different sides [liberal and conservative reformers] produced two multilingual quarterly periodicals—Concilium and Communio—which eventually became symbols of the different understandings of how the church should interpret the Council and react to modern culture… Concilium, founded in 1964, represented those who were ultimately optimistic about the problems of the post-conciliar period and who were willing to work their way through them. These were the Catholics who felt that the church must maintain its critical openness to the modern world and participate fully in contemporary culture. Communio…wanted to maintain a focus on the preconciliar ressourcement or ‘return to the sources’. It wanted to highlight the great spiritual, liturgical, artistic and theological classics of the Christian past. Communio emphasized the need to use this great tradition as a source that was relevant to the contemporary church.72

The Final Debate By the late 1960s, the crisis in the Church had grown more profound, and with it the rhetoric and worry of the French Jesuits and other conservatives. Maritain offered a scathing rebuke of the optimism of the age in a book 71

Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones: Memoirs, 1927–1977 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998), 144. Paul Collins, God’s New Man: The Election of Benedict XVI and the Legacy of John Paul II (New York: Continuum, 2005), 57. 72

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finished only weeks after the conclusion of the Council.73 Besides criticizing the excesses of major Conciliar currents, such as ecumenism, he disparaged the very attitude the Church itself was taking toward Modernity, which, he said, was a ‘kneeling before the world’.74 This was nothing short of an ‘insane mistake’ that was causing dramatic confusion in how the very notion of ‘world’ was understood.75 Daniélou was a vociferous critic of the liberalizing trends in the French Jesuits, and de Lubac was convinced that the Church was confronting a crisis, the gravity of which had seldom been seen in its history. In a 1969 lecture he said: It is evident to all of us that the crisis we are now witnessing is more acute and more accelerated than those of other periods of history. Until only recently we spoke of it as a ‘mutation.’ Today, when describing a new phase of this crisis, another word is fast becoming prevalent: the word ‘destruction’.76

Congar and Chenu seemed less concerned with the dire prognostications of the Jesuits, and Bouyer wrote that Congar was anxious to oppose anything that might hinder ‘what he called “Renewal in the Church”’.77 Toward the end of the Council, when de Lubac had become so pessimistic, Congar was filled with enthusiasm and wondered, as he watched Paul VI address the United Nations, if the Church had finally ‘found the language in which to speak to the world’. Paul’s optimism seemed unbounded as, in addition to tasking the UN with building peace and human dignity, he encouraged it to initiate a new way of thinking about humanity and its necessary ‘transformation’ and ‘interior renewal’ as well as the ‘pathways of history and the destinies of the world’.78 Chenu, for his part, went farther than Congar, and insisted, with the historical analysis that typified so much of his work, that the tumultuous après-Concile in fact must be interpreted ‘prophetically’ in the light of historical progress: I see the cause [of the post-Conciliar trouble] in the Council itself, in the logic of its approach and its dynamism. At the same time this is what gives me an understanding of the present and a certain serenity. If the Council was to be characterized by a major feature, I would propose to call it prophetic, in the proper sense of the word and the theological and sociological senses as well.

73 Jacques Maritain, Peasant of the Garonne, trans. Michael Cuddihy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968). 74 75 Maritain, Peasant, 60. Maritain, Peasant, 60. 76 De Lubac, ‘The Church in Crisis’, Theology Digest 17 (1969), 312–25, here 312. 77 Louis Bouyer, The Memoirs of Louis Bouyer (Kettering OH: Angelico, 2015), 229. 78 Congar, Journal, 801. For Paul VI’s speech to the United Nations, see the Vatican Website) https://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651004_ united-nations.html (accessed 1 May 2017).

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A prophet is he who knows how to interpret the events of the present in light of the continuity and ruptures of historical progress.79

As the ecclesiastical polarization and internal turmoil of the post-Conciliar period grew, likewise did the admonitions from conservative churchmen quick to recall that their repeated warnings of precisely this catastrophe, even from the very floor of St. Peter’s Basilica, went unheeded. Thus the nouveaux théologiens were forced to respond and interpret these unexpected consequences. In a controversial 1972 interview with Vatican Radio, Daniélou argued that it was not the Council that was at fault but a ‘false interpretation’ of Vatican II, which, although declaring that human values must be taken seriously, ‘never said that we were entering into a secularized world where the religious dimension would be no longer present in civilization’.80 Furthermore, he criticized the false notion of freedom that arose after the Council: [It is a] false conception of liberty that induces the depreciation of the institutions and rules, and exalts spontaneity and improvisation. This is so much the more absurd, as western society suffers in our times from the absence of the discipline essential to liberty…If environments change, nevertheless the constitutive elements of man and of the Church are permanent.81

Characteristically, both de Lubac and Congar explained the turmoil historically. While de Lubac argued that the troubles were in fact the final bitter fruit of Neoscholasticism and Cajetan’s doctrine of pure nature, Congar insisted the Council had indeed warned against the troubles and warded them off. [The doctrine of pure nature] may be only just beginning to bear its bitterest fruit. As fast as professional theology moves away from it, it becomes so much more widespread in the sphere of practical action. While waiting to protect the supernatural from any contamination, people had in fact exiled it altogether—both from intellectual and social life—leaving the field free to be taken over by secularism. Today that secularism, following its course, is beginning to enter even the mind of Christians.82 I do not believe that the present crisis in the Church is the result of Vatican II. On the one hand many of the realities that preoccupy us today were already present or beginning to appear in the 1950s, and even in the 1930s. The Council did not give rise to them. On the other hand, the current crisis is clearly due to an important degree to causes that have revealed their strength since the Council. Indeed it warned against them, warding them off rather than bringing them about. Vatican II has been followed by socio-cultural change more extensive,

79

Chenu, Jacques Duquesne, 191. Jean Daniélou, Why the Church? (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1913–39), 165–8. 81 Daniélou, Why the Church?, 165–8. 82 Henri De Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York NY: Crossroad, 1998), xxix. 80

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radical and rapid and more cosmic in its proportions than any change at any other period in man’s history.83

One of the most vigorous French critics of the après-Concile was the reformminded Louis Bouyer. A decade younger than the nouveaux théologiens, he was a scholar widely respected for his spiritual, liturgical, and historical writings. In 1968, he issued a scathing rebuke of the Conciliar era with the release of Le Decomposition du Catholicisme.84 Almost no one escaped Bouyer’s sharp condemnation, including the episcopacy and experts. He began his analysis in a state of bewilderment that French Social Catholicism had seemingly taken over the Church. The renewal that John XXIII sought to usher in was rooted in the currents of the age, a return to the sources, the recovery of Scripture and the Fathers, and various openings to certain scientific, cultural and social problems, but, he noted, until the Council, all these things seemed to be merely ‘the private preserve of a small elite, easily suspect in high places, and of little influence with the general public’.85 Furthermore, he said, ‘unless we are blind, we must even state bluntly that what we see looks less like the hoped-for regeneration of Catholicism than its accelerated decomposition’.86 Bouyer claimed that the Church had opened itself to the world, and in doing so, it had emptied the Gospel and had nothing to say to the world. Moreover, many had given up on the idea of converting the world and had in fact allowed ‘themselves merely to become caught by it like flies on fly-paper’.87 The 1970s were no less peaceful for the French Church, and French Catholicism seemed to be in freefall. Scores of priests and religious were returning to their lay states, and the French episcopacy seemed to be strongly embracing Socialism and far-Left politics. Fessard wrote Eglise de France, prends garde de perdre la foi! [Church of France, Beware of Losing the Faith!] to strongly critique the French episcopacy’s sharp move to the Left. Summarizing the decade in an article entitled, ‘L’Eglise catholique en crise’, Bouyer wrote that as months and years passed, it turned out that in France in particular, the ‘New Pentecost’, greeted with confidence by the good Pope John, turned out to be a ‘New Babel’ in every ecclesiastical domain: after the seminaries, it was catechesis, Action catholique, and especially that which is most visible to the faithful rankand-file, Sunday worship, which degenerated into novelty, anarchy, and even more, left-wing politicization, while mere carelessness was pompously called ‘desacrilization’.88

83 Yves Congar, ‘A Last Look at the Council’, in Vatican II: By Those Who Were There, ed. Alberic Stacpoole (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1986), 337–58, here, 351. 84 Louis Bouyer, The Decomposition of Catholicism (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1969). 85 86 Bouyer, The Decomposition, 3. Bouyer, The Decomposition, 3. 87 Bouyer, The Decomposition, 88. 88 Louis Bouyer, ‘L’Eglise catholique en crise’, Commentaire 1 (1978): 17–26, here 21.

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A Generational Cohort Breaks Away As this history of twentieth-century French Catholicism draws to a close, there remains but one member of the generation of 1930 to introduce, an unlikely missionary bishop in Sub-Saharan Africa, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who as founder of the Fraternité Sacerdotale Saint-Pie X (SSPX) became the reluctant and unlikely leader of the conservative French Catholicism championed by men such as Billot and Garrigou-Lagrange in earlier decades. The story of the growth of the SSPX and finally the excommunication of Lefebvre and its bishops needs no retelling here, but a history of the French Catholic generation of 1930 that ignores this final chapter would be remiss, because what remains in France of the once-powerful anti-modern Catholicism that dominated the French church during the first half of the twentieth century and fought the rise of Social Catholicism, the nouvelle théologie, and Maritain’s political thought tooth and nail from 1890 to 1960 essentially remains alive only in this movement or its offshoots.89 Marcel Lefebvre was born in 1905 on the Franco-Belgian border only ten miles north of Le Saulchoir, and began his priestly formation in 1923 at the French College in Rome. While the nouveaux théologiens were wrestling with modern historiographical and phenomenological currents in their respective theologates, Lefebvre was being formed under the tutelage of a well-known conservative Sulpician, the rector of the French College, Henri Le Floch, who was removed from his position after the condemnation of Action française in 1926. Lefebvre’s time in the seminary was spent in an atmosphere very much faithful to the anti-Modernist encyclical Pascendi. He was ordained in 1929, completed a doctorate in 1930, and in 1931, was released to be a missionary with the Holy Ghost Fathers. Lefebvre spent his entire ministry in various places in Africa, eventually becoming the Apostolic Delegate to French speaking Africa in 1948 and finally Archbishop of Dakar in 1955. During the Second Vatican Council, Lefebvre was a member of the Central Preparatory Committee and was counted among the group of conservative bishops called Coetus Internationalis Patrum, who generally fought against many of the reforms, and Congar writes that ‘incredible expressions of extremism and negativity are voiced’ from these Fathers. After his intervention regarding the notion of collegiality, Congar recorded in his diary: ‘[Lefebvre] said they were witnessing the making of accusations against the papacy. It was as if the pope had assumed powers belonging to others and they were now being taken back from him while saying to him: Redde quod debes [Pay what you owe]! Now THAT IS TRUE. I have studied and I know 89 Although at the time of writing a reconciliation between Rome and the SPPX is purportedly close at hand, offshoots of the movement, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) and the Institute of Christ the King (ICK) are recognized canonically by Rome.

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this history: it is that of the schemes, pursued by every means throughout the centuries, by which the papacy HAS USURPED the place of the Ecclesia and of the bishops’.90 He made twelve interventions, opposing episcopal collegiality and ecumenism and supporting a proposal to condemn Communism. During the first session he famously argued that the Council should have two sets of texts: one dogmatic for theologians and one pastoral for the laity. Congar noted that this suggestion fell flat.91 His strongest intervention came during the protracted and contentious dispute over the document on religious liberty. For French conservatives this document was unthinkable as it essentially offered a Conciliar imprimatur for Maritainisme, and the Conciliar debate immediately developed along largely the same lines as it had after the release of Humanisme intégrale in the 1930s. Lefebvre argued vigorously that freedom in and of itself should not be seen as an unqualified good. At the request of various progressive bishops, de Lubac wrote a strong point-by-point critique.92 As various documents were drafted, Lefebvre and other conservative Fathers repeatedly predicted disaster for the Church, even an impending ‘revolution of doctrine’, but these warnings were dismissed by the nouveaux théologiens as overly negative and intransigent.93 Congar wrote in his journal that in Lefebvre’s group ‘incredible expressions of extremism and negativity are voiced’, and further he noted: ‘I do not blame these men for having their own opinion, but for being purely NEGATIVE. That is my first criticism with respect to the integrists. They do not look for any dialogue, any collaboration. They are stuck in a narrow system of ready-made formulas, they reject or condemn without opening themselves up to any problem at all. They provide a reaction as simplistic as their own. For many people, it is sufficient for these people to take up such and such a position for the contrary position to appear to be the only acceptable one!’94 The French traditionalists gathered around Lefebvre had found Conciliar champions in Cardinals such as Ottaviani, Ruffini, Siri, and Bacci, and they were beside themselves during the post-Conciliar crisis, insisting that all of their dire and discounted prognostications were coming true. In fact, they claimed, all the worst fears of figures like Popes Pius X and XII were being realized, but nonetheless, Lefebvre argued that the conservative Council Fathers had limited the damage. 90

Congar, My Journal of the Council, 417. It is interesting that some conservatives not associated with Catholic traditionalism, such as Peter Stravinskas, have suggested that much trouble might have been circumvented if this suggestion had been implemented. 92 For the exchange between Lefebvre and de Lubac, see, http://www.ratapoil.com/public/blowupimages/Liberte/La_liberte_religieuse_Lefebvre_vs_Lubac_V4.pdf; Henri de Lubac (accessed 21 April 2017). 93 94 Congar, My Journal of the Council, 810. Congar, My Journal of the Council, 589. 91

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In 1968 Lefebvre resigned as General of the Holy Ghost Fathers because of its liberal trajectory and two years later established the SSPX in response to the requests of a number of seminarians who were troubled by the progressive reforms and Marxist climate that dominated many French religious houses of the day. In 1975, thanks to increased public exposure and certain large celebrations of the then-forbidden traditional mass, Lefebvre became the public face of resistance against the Council, was suspended by Rome, and the SSPX suppressed. That year he wrote to de Lubac regarding the Conciliar notion of ecumenism, charging that it was nothing short of an ‘adaptation to the modern world, and through it the principles of modernism and liberalism become those of the pastors of the Church. This betrays the doctrine taught for two centuries continuously and explicitly by the Sovereign Pontiffs.’95 The following year Congar wrote a book addressed to Lefebvre and his followers, Challenge to the Church: The Case of Archbishop Lefebvre.96 He conceded that although there might have been too much optimism during the Conciliar years—perhaps even ‘certain documents were already out of date and irrelevant to the actual circumstances’—nonetheless, it was not the fault of the Council, which had ‘marvellous results’.97 The ‘fictitious notion of a monolithic, self-assured Church with an answer to everything’ had been finally lost, and by opening her doors and windows, ‘the Council has put an end to what may be described as the inflexibility of the system’, by which Congar meant a coherent set of codified teachings, casuistically-specified rules of procedure, a detailed and very hierarchic organization, means of control and surveillance, rubrics regulating worship—all this the legacy of scholasticism, the Counterreformation and the Catholic Restoration of the nineteenth century, subjected to an effective Roman discipline.98

He did claim that Lefebvre’s movement had opened his eyes ‘even more [to the reality] that there is quite a deep-seated malaise in large areas of the lay faithful’, but nonetheless he dismissed many of the accusations of abuse and crisis as ‘grossly unfair’.99 Congar wrote that certain friends told him that he was minimizing the abuses and omissions of Catholic regulations regarding celebration, catechesis, preaching and pastoral practice. My reaction to these things comes from not wanting to generalize; I would by no means deny that certain

95 Lefebvre’s letter is found in Georges Chantraine and Marie-Gabrielle Lemaire, Henri de Lubac, vol. 4 (Paris: Cerf, 2013), 594. 96 Yves Congar, Challenge to the Church: The Case of Archbishop Lefebvre (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1976). 97 98 99 Congar, Challenge, 51. Congar, Challenge, 51–2. Congar, Challenge, 50.

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malpractices exist but, having knowledge as I do of so many loyal efforts and of so many irreproachable priests, I didn’t want to use all embracing formulations of the sort typified by ‘Priests don’t believe in…any longer’, or ‘Nobody preaches about sin or grace any more,’ or even ‘They are destroying the faith of our children’. Because of their vagueness and their generalizations, accusations such as these appeared to me, and still do appear to me, to be grossly unfair.100

Despite the prestige that Congar and Chenu enjoyed in the après-Concile, one of the ironies of the period was the bitter persecution de Lubac and Daniélou suffered in their own communities. Far from being heroes who brought down the Neoscholastic goliath, their fellow Jesuits resented their pessimism and saw them as obstacles toward liberal reform. The project of ressourcement was simply dismissed by many intellectuals after the Council by a hermeneutic that interpreted it as merely a first step in a larger liberalizing process that ultimately sought to reinterpret Catholic thought along modern more progressive lines.101 Likewise, Blondelian philosophy was utilized by progressive theologians to justify moves beyond traditional moral and dogmatic positions.102 This dismissal—even by many French bishops—is illustrated by an anecdote recounted by Bouyer in which Daniélou, who was then a cardinal, hosted a dinner for a leading member of the French episcopacy, also a cardinal, and certain French theologians, all members of the International Theological Commission. It was hoped the event might provide a calm environment in which to discuss problems raised by the ‘pastoral’ policies of the French episcopate.103 Bouyer recounts with disbelief—while insisting that his quote is verbatim—that one of the cardinals exclaimed: ‘It is true, we bishops did bet on the “progressives” after the Council. It may well be that we were wrong! Well, in that case, then, we’ll fall back on the “intégristes”!’104 These words had been addressed to an unnamed theologian who sounds suspiciously like de Lubac—Bouyer describes his as ‘the most impressive [of those gathered], on account of his age and venerable personality’. The theologian replied: ‘“But, Your Eminence, isn’t the problem, rather, one of recovering the pure and authentic sources of Christianity so as to express it and in practice translate it in such a way that it makes sense to our contemporaries?” “Oh!”, the Cardinal replied quite simply, “that’s just the intellectuals talking! ”’105

100

Congar, Challenge, 57. Joseph Komonchak, ‘Interpreting the Council: Catholic Attitudes toward Vatican II’, in Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America, eds. Scott Applebee & Mary Jo Weaver (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 17–37, here 32. 102 For example, see the work of Jesuits Joseph Moingt, or John McNeill, The Church and Homosexuality, Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. 103 104 The quotation marks are Bouyer’s. Bouyer, ‘L’Eglise catholique’, 24. 105 Bouyer, ‘L’Eglise catholique’, 24. 101

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THE P RESSURE OF HISTORY A decade after the close of the Council, Chenu gave a fascinating book-length interview to Jacques Duchesne, another veteran of the Left Catholic aprèsguerre battles. Together they underscored how seminal the 1930s was for the earth-shaking ecclesiastical events that came later. Striking is the fact that Loubet del Bayle’s book on les années trente is their point of departure—no doubt a confirmation of our own order of discovery. Equally remarkable, however, is the generational thinking that permeates their analysis as well as Chenu’s ironic frustration with the youth of the 1970s who were intent on ignoring the ferment of the 1930s. Following Duquesne’s observation that the decade was characterized by the ‘extraordinary outpouring’ of ‘an entire generation that explored new paths, invented systems, launched journals, polemicized, and fought, but all the while prepared for the future’, Chenu replied: It’s true. Everyone today agrees—believers and non-believers, practitioners and theorists, historians, sociologists, and theologians—all agree that in this period a fabric had been woven, not only economic and social, but also mental, that has points of coherency, continuity, and determinism…By instinct, I scrutinize origins to understand nature, but indeed today there are many young people who want to ignore the past, as if everything began today. But the novelty of today is intelligible only through its origin. I cannot help but think that the après-guerre, with its euphoria and innovations, the crisis of industrial society, and even mai 1968, have their roots in this period. The point of departure is clear: the economic crisis of 1929. I was unable to analyse these events at the time, but at that moment I began to understand the importance of economics, to understand that the phenomenon of production determines the great human movements, the great cultural evolutions.106

That the interview with Chenu leaves the reader with more questions than answers, however, is attested by the marginalia in the personal copy Chenu had given to de Lubac (inscribed by the Dominican with: ‘Regarding a “journey”, all the memories of which we have in common’). Unsurprisingly, it is the chapter on the 1930s which de Lubac has annotated the most. Next to Chenu’s claims that Vatican II ushered in a Copernican revolution in the ‘axis of the faith’, in that the Word of God is now found in ‘the existential fabric of the Church, in the life of the Church’, rather than ‘reduced in a series of authoritative utterances’, de Lubac simply scribbled, ‘absurd’.107 In the paragraphs that follow, where Chenu expounds his theory of history, in which the Word of God is discerned not in propositions but, rather, in ‘events’ or ‘signs of the times’, and theology’s role is to interpret these unfolding events,

106

Chenu, Jacques Duquesne, 66

107

Chenu, Jacques Duquesne, 69.

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de Lubac has filled the margin with question marks punctuated by the word ‘superficial’.108 After more than five decades of struggling to discern the owl of Minerva’s flight over the landscape of French Catholicism, and both well into the dusk of their own lives, these two revered nouveaux théologiens had radically divergent notions of how the historical method itself, and thus ressourcement, is to be utilized in terms of theology and dogma. The historical tension, one might even say conflict, between these two figures is so emblematic of that which characterizes their generation, and in the year of 1945, when revolution filled the French air and the generation of 1930 had been thrust onto the world stage, Sartre wrote a prescient article in Les Temps modernes. He contended that humans are historical beings, radically contextualized and forced to grapple with historical facticity in every event: ‘under the pressure of history, we have learned that we are historical’, and our fate is to ‘live in history as fish do in water’, but he nonetheless recognized the limits of historical understanding (unlike Chenu, who seemed to have an unlimited confidence in his ability to read the ‘signs of the times’ and determine the movement and meaning of history). In Hegelian terms, Sartre understood that the dusk that bids the owl of Minerva to take flight, cannot be rushed and is understood only by future generations: ‘the more exquisite our historical awareness, the more we are irritated at floundering in the dark…Is it not offensive that the secret of our era and the exact appreciation of our errors belong to individuals who have not yet been born?’109

108 109

Chenu, Jacques Duquesne, 70. Sartre is quoted in Mark Hulliung, Sartre and Clio (Oxford: Rutledge, 2014), 10.

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Names Index Alexandre, Marc 158 Alfrink, Bernardus Johannes 159, 264 Aquinas, Thomas 3, 6 n. 15, 12–13, 50, 73–8, 82–9, 92–134 passim, 158, 168, 171–80, 192, 194, 215–24, 239, 246 Aragon, Louis 39 Archambault, Paul 242 Aristotle 45, 52, 64, 78, 172, 175–6, 223 Aron, Raymond 39, 237 Aubert, Roger 239 Augustine 47, 53, 79, 84, 88, 109, 111–14, 127, 132, 189, 218, 239, 245 Bacci, Antonio 275 Bainvel, Jean 71 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 11, 92, 111, 169, 232, 248–9, 269–70 Barrès, Maurice 32–3, 35, 37, 44 Barth, Karl 11 Bataille, Georges 39, 150, 247 Baudelaire, Charles 54 Baudoin, Réginald, 11 Bayle, Loubet del 39, 135, 140 nn. 23–5, 28, 278 Beauvoir, Simone de 2, 38, 150, 153, 235, 237, 245 Bédarida, Francois 206 Bédarida, Renée 206 Benda, Julien 34 Benedict XV 157 Berdyaev, Nikolai 145 Bergson, Henri 14, 44, 49, 53, 66, 83, 93, 105, 109, 116, 148, 150 Bernadot, Marie-Vincent 157 Bernanos, Georges 35, 206, 256 Bernard of Clairvaux 111 Berrar, Émile 238 Bigo, Pierre 242 Billot, Louis 96, 107, 274 Biran, Maine de 63, 78, 109, 117–18, 128, 186–8 Blanchot, Maurice 39 Blondel, Maurice 1–279 passim Blum, Léon 34 Boersma, Hans 20n, 177 Boisselot, Pierre 12, 14, 178, 185 Bouillard, Henri 4, 7, 8, 11, 44, 115, 208, 221–5, 249, 261 Bourdet, Claude 234

Boutroux, Émile 109 Bouyer, Louis 252, 271–3, 277 Brasillach, Robert 38 Bremond, Henri 252 Breton, André 39, 150 Broglie, Guy de 120–3 Bruckberger, Raymond 248–9 Brunschvicg, Léon 44, 153 Bultot, Auguste 108 Butler, Judith 149 Cajetan, Thomas 87, 272 Camus, Albert 2, 39, 136, 205, 234–7, 245, 247 Cardijn, Joseph 127, 259 Chaillet, Pierre 7, 10, 165–6, 205–8 Chantraine, Georges 8 n. 19, 104, 110 n. 56, 114, 124 nn. 128, 130, 125 nn. 131, 132, 126 nn. 135–8, 140 Charles, Pierre 69, 76 Charlier, Louis 4, 179 Chenaux, Philippe 35–6, 191, 255 Chenu, Marie-Dominique 4, 12–14, 18–20, 106, 133, 158, 161, 165, 168, 174–92, 202–3, 223, 240, 260–71, 277–8 Claudel, Paul 44, 213n, 233, 254, 256 Clement of Alexandria 208 Coconnier, Marie Thomas 73 Cocteau, Jean 13, 138 Comte, Bernard 207 Congar, Yves 4, 13–14, 19–20, 106, 133, 160–2, 166, 169, 177, 182–4, 194, 260–7 Courtney Murray, John 260 Couturier, Marie-Alain 12–14, 19, 195–8, 240–1 Crémieux, Benjamin 39 Curtis, David 201 d’Alès, Adhémar 69 Damascene, John 74 Daniélou, Jean 2–20, 127, 159, 206, 208, 232, 243–8, 254, 256, 261, 269, 271–2, 277 Daniel-Rops, Henri 39, 137, 158, 254 Darwin, Charles 30 Datta, Venita 32–3 Debussy, Claude 44 Denis, Maurice 13 Denzinger, Heinrich J.D. 221 Desbuquois, Gustave 8

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304

Names Index

Descartes, René 46, 59, 129, 189 Descoqs, Pedro 63, 110, 119 Dilthey, Wilhelm 102 Donnelly, Philip 218 Döpfner, Julius 264 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 33, 213–14, 244 Draguet, René 4 Drey, Johann Sebastian 163, 166 Dreyfus, Alfred 30–6, 42–4, 69, 205 Dubarle, Dominique 12 Duchesne, Jacques 278 Edmunds, June 23 Émonet, Benoît 98 Engels, Friedrich 30, 261 Eriugena, John Scotus 111, 113 Fabrègues, Jean de 38, 138, 141 Féret, Henri-Marie 4, 12, 14, 19 Fessard, Gaston 4, 7–9, 19, 109–10, 117–30, 145, 158, 176, 187–8, 200–1, 206, 219, 273 Feuerbach, Ludwig 143, 213 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 54, 93, 109, 125, 163 Fontoynont, Victor 69, 76, 208 Fouilloux, Étienne 6, 127, 156 Frings, Josef 264 Gardeil, Ambroise 12, 69, 73–81, 110, 128, 133, 196 Garrigou-Lagrange, Réginald 5, 13, 106, 118, 128–9, 249, 258, 261, 274 Garrone, Gabriel 264 Gay, Francisque 158 Gerlier, Pierre-Marie 259 Gide, André 34 Gildea, Robert 29 Gilson, Étienne 36, 110, 158, 181, 245, 254, 260 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 29 Grandmaison, Léonce de 69–73, 77–8, 81–3, 89, 94–8, 107, 122, 124, 158, 162, 169, 208, 229, 236, 256 Greenstock, David 261–2 Gregory of Nyssa 2, 208, 245, 248 Grenier, Jean 39 Guérin, Georges 157 Gutierrez, Gustavo 260–1 Hamel, Robert 9, 104, 115, 118, 125, 127–8 Hamelin, Alonzo 109–10 Harnack, Adolph von 49, 102 Hegel, G.W.F. 1–8, 78, 107, 121, 125, 143–52, 170, 181, 186–8, 201, 211, 213, 244–6, 261, 279 Heidegger, Martin 102, 148–51, 181, 245, 247 Heine, Heinrich 46

Hellman, John 159, 201 nn. 200–1, 203 Henriot, Émile 35 Herbert, Ulrich 38 Herr, Lucien 43 Hexter, J.H. 15 Hölderlin, Friedrich 1 Horn, Gerd-Rainer 191, 239 Hourdin, Georges 242 Huby, Joseph 69, 76–7, 81–3, 89–90, 95, 98–9, 109, 121, 123–6 Hügel, Friedrich von 49 Hugh of St Victor 111 Huret, Jules 32 Husserl, Edmund 102, 181 Hyppolite, Jean 39, 149 Ignatius of Loyola 50, 187, 232 Izard, Georges 39 James, William 93 John XXIII/Angelo Roncalli 8, 10, 13, 20, 253–7, 262, 264–7, 273 Judt, Tony 234–5 Kasper, Walter 265 Kelly, Michael 234 Kojève, Alexandre 38, 149–53, 179, 187, 212 König, Franz 20, 259 Koyré, Alexandre 149, 181, 245–6 Küng, Hans 260, 269 Laberthonnière, Lucien 44, 48, 51, 63–6, 78, 84, 86, 180, 224 Labourdette, Michel 248–51, 261 Lacan, Jacques 39 Lachelier, Jules 109–10 Lacroix, Jean 242 Lamy, Bernard 189 Lebreton, Jules 11, 69–74, 81, 83, 89, 122, 128, 159, 208, 256 Le Corbusier, 13, 196, 241 Ledochowski, Wlodomir 108, 189, 199 Lefebvre, Henri 40, 189 Lefebvre, Marcel 274–6 Le Floch, Henri 96, 274 Légaut, Marcel 184 Léger, Fernand 241 Léger, Paul-Émile 20, 259, 264 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 109, 189 Lemmonyer, Antoine 12 Leo XIII 47, 96, 107, 156 Le Roy, Édouard 44, 51, 66–70, 78, 224 Leroy, Henri-Joseph 198 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 29, 46 Levinas, Emmanuel 39, 150 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 39

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Names Index Liénart, Achille 20, 259, 264 Loisy, Alfred 20, 44, 48–51, 60, 70–1, 78, 133, 170, 224, 256 Lombard, Peter 74–5 Lonergan, Bernard 81 Lorin, Henri 62, 242 Louis Napoleon 42 Lubac, Henri de 1–279 passim Luchaire, Denis J. A. 39 Luther, Martin 46, 59, 170, 195, 227 Malebranche, Nicolas 9, 109, 187–90 Malraux, André 38, 236 Mandonnet, Pierre 69, 73 Mannheim, Karl 24–5 Mansini, Guy 67 Maréchal, Joseph 7, 69, 76–8, 81, 84, 92–5, 109, 119, 122, 131, 165, 180, 219, 259–60 Maritain, Jacques 35, 119, 122, 128, 154, 181, 191–2, 256–7, 270 Marrou, Henri 38 Marx, Karl 2, 149–50, 201, 244–5 Massis, Henri 35, 37, 129 Matisse, Henri 13, 44 Maurras, Charles 35, 43 Maximus the Confessor 208 Maydieu, Jean-Augustin 12, 14 McCool, Gerald 86 Meister Eckhart 113 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 2, 38, 149–50, 235, 237–8, 250–1 Mersch, Émile 184 Méry, Marcel 126 Mettepennigen, Jürgen 5, 17–20 Möhler, Johann Adam 162–6, 194, 256 Montcheuil, Yves de 4, 7, 9, 111, 117–29, 176, 188–90, 206, 227, 229–32, 244, 256 Montini, Giovanni, Battista 20, 253–64 Mounier, Emmanuel 10, 39, 137, 140–7, 159, 193–4, 235, 239, 260, 268 Müller, Gerhard 265 Murdoch, Iris 236 Napoleon 1, 29, 42, 147, 152 Newman, John Henry 48–50, 84, 143 Nicolas, Marie-Joseph 248 Nicolet, Charles 7, 10, 18, 97, 124 Nietzsche, Friedrich 33, 102, 149, 181, 213–14, 236, 244 Nizan, Paul 38, 153–4, 190, 203 O’Malley, John 168 Origen 200, 208, 221–3 Ortega y Gasset, José 26–7 Ottaviani, Alfredo 262–3, 275

305

D’Ouince, René 7, 9, 18, 76–7, 97, 103–4, 120, 125, 254 Padberg, John 103 Pascal, Blaise 63, 239, 245 Péguy, Charles 34–7, 42, 44, 137, 141, 146, 205, 233, 238 Phillips, Gérard 260 Picard, Gabriel 110, 115 Picasso, Pablo 13, 195–7 Pius X 107, 275 Pius XI 35, 207 n. 12 Pius XII 3, 253 Plato 176 Plotinus 88, 111–13 Proust, Marcel 34, 43–4 Pseudo-Dionysius 88, 111 Psichari, Ernest 35, 37 Queneau, Raymond 150 Rahner, Karl 81, 221, 260, 263–4, 269 Ranke, Leopold von 29 Ratzinger, Joseph 260, 269–70 Ravel, Maurice 44 Reed, Piers Paul 43 Régamey, Raymond 12, 14, 195–7, 240–1 Remond, René 156, 198 Renan, Ernest 54 Richier, Germaine 241 Ricoeur, Paul 144 Rouault, Georges 44 Rougement, Denis de 239 Rousselot, Pierre 1–279 passim Ruffini, Ernesto 275 Sagnier, Marc 62, 156–7 Sales, Michel 105 Sartre, Jean-Paul 2–4, 10, 38, 55, 149, 153, 197, 205, 234–9, 245, 247, 279 Schelling, Friedrich W. J. 1, 109, 163, 261 Scheuer, Pierre 78 Schillebeeckx, Edward 20, 260, 269 Schiller, Friedrich 1 Schlegel, Friedrich 1, 29 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 1, 163 Schwalm, Marie-Benoît 73, 118 Sertillanges, Antonin 69, 158, 203 Sesboüé, Bernard 189–90 Sheehan, Thomas 83 Simmel, Georg 102 Siri, Giuseppe 275 Somerville, James M. 266 Soras, Alfred de 10, 18 Spiegelberg, Herbert 181 Spitzer, Alan 28

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Names Index

Stein, Edith 181 Stein, Gertrude 16 St Hilaire, Robert 86–7 Suenens, Leo Jozef 20, 259–60

Trethowan, Illtyd 218 Troeltsch, Ernst 102 Turner, Bryan 23 Tyrell, George 50–1, 224

Taine, Hippolyte 54 Tarde, Alfred de 35 Teilhard de Chardin 9, 36, 69, 76–82, 89–95, 103–6, 211, 252, 254, 256, 261, 266 Thorez, Maurice 143, 147, 191 Tillich, Paul 102–3 Tilliette, Xavier 126, 131 Tonquédec, Joseph de 80, 110, 128–9 Touchard, Jean 39

Valensin, Auguste 69–252 passim Valéry, Paul 24, 99–103, 145 Weil, Simone 150 William of St Thierry 111 Winock, Michel 30, 34–40 Zola, Émile 32, 43, 205 Zupan, Jean 7, 10

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General Index Absolute, the 59, 93–4, 116, 120, 122, 152, 161, 188, 210, 214, 220, 225 Action / action 1–279 passim Action catholique 10, 12, 99, 157–8, 202, 207, 230, 240, 244–5, 255, 259–60 Action francaise 14, 20–1, 35, 43, 63, 96, 98, 157, 274 Aeterni Patris 47, 73, 218 Annales 66 Anthropology 52, 60, 68, 101, 142–6, 151, 163–5, 177, 180–1, 188–90, 204, 212–16, 220, 225, 233, 246, 250 Anti-Semitism 205–7, 237 Aristotelianism, Aristotelian 13, 52, 59, 110, 121, 168, 216 metaphysics 86, 224 Art 13–15, 44, 100, 172, 195–8 artists 13, 16, 30, 32, 43, 100, 190, 195–7, 240–1, 270 Assy 241 modern sacred 14, 240–1 religious 196 Ronchamp 240–1 l’Art Sacré 14, 196–7 Atheism 59, 90, 160, 200–1, 263 Avant-garde 1–279 passim Bible, the 45–6, 51, 166, 191, 222 see also Scripture literalism 46 Blondelian 55, 64, 77–82, 89, 95, 126–8, 162, 169, 186–9, 194, 197, 213–19, 221–2, 231, 263, 266 anthropology 180, 233 ecclesiology 68, 185 influence 201 philosophical formation 108–21 philosophy 63, 106, 132, 212, 225, 277 thought 54, 68, 77, 79, 80–1, 94, 98, 105, 115, 126–7, 171, 186, 189 Bourgeoisie, bourgeois 143 decadence 155 Café de Flore 2, 245 Capitalism 140, 143, 193, 199 Catholic 1–279 passim -communist dialogue 157 Generation of 1930 156–203 intellectuals 16, 96–7, 156–9, 193, 232, 266

philosophy 83, 181, 245 progressive 157, 255 social teaching 62, 193 theologians 2, 74, 184, 218 worker 157, 191 writers 16, 35 Catholicism conservative 97, 193, 204, 212, 238, 252, 274 French 2, 97, 259, 273–4, 279 historical consciousness 166–81 left/social 12–14, 20–1, 62, 125, 156, 174, 204, 238, 241–3, 252–3, 260, 273–4 Catholiques de movement 156 Catholiques de position 156 Christian, Christianity 172 bourgeois 185 community 164, 173 culture 160 democracy 62, 157 experience 64, 185 humanism 142, 157, 165, 167, 206–7, 231 new 142, 192, 202–3 Church architecture 14, 196, 240, 249, 256 body of Christ 164, 166, 168, 173, 184–6, 201, 207, 226–9, 239 centralization 140, 175 crisis 159–61 decadent 134, 159–61, 196 Fathers 3, 71, 169, 174 see also Patristics French 96, 125, 156, 240, 253–4, 257, 273 individualistic 159–61 Mystical Body 161, 173, 181, 184–6, 194–5, 207, 212, 223–7, 239, 244, 263, 266 perfect society 164 rationalistic 159–61 tradition 46, 52, 61, 158, 163, 179, 209, 211, 215, 217, 224, 238–9, 270 unity 133, 163–6, 172–4, 195, 223, 226–7 Commitment 55, 138, 153, 253 Communio 5, 270 Concilium 5, 269–70 Crisis, crise 1–279 passim absolute 16 in civilization 139–41, 144 of humanism 135–55 interwar 17, 21, 37, 68, 146 n. 58 Modernist 20, 77, 78, 96, 106, 162

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308

General Index

Cubism 26 Culture, cultural 7, 16, 21–9, 38, 44, 100, 133, 140, 143, 145, 196–7, 230, 268, 270 Catholic 141, 197, 253 Christian 160, 204 French 16, 21, 24, 34, 44, 160, 204 history 22–8 interwar 15 memory 27, 30, 43, 137 post-war 21, 99 socio-political 21 Dadaism 26, 100 Decadence 34, 138–41, 152–5, 160–1, 167–8, 183, 196, 211, 213, 244 intellectual 218 rationalistic 134 Desire 94, 144, 149, 151–2, 189–90, 219 concept of 3 for God 65, 79, 84–9, 94, 109–13, 117–26, 134, 166, 171, 188–90 history of 179–81 for the supernatural 53, 59 for transcendence 144 for vision of God 177, 215–16, 219–20 Doctrine 50, 59, 69–70, 84, 107, 125, 131, 164–5, 173, 179–80, 209, 231, 265, 275–6 and Aquinas 111, 192, 223 Catholic 195 Christian 106 of faith 88 of immanence 45, 57, 60, 79 of pure nature 272 Dogma(s) 45, 132, 161, 173, 198 development of 123 and exegesis 220–5 and history 163, 166, 176–9, 181 Dominicans 4–5, 19, 40–1, 68, 97, 133, 158, 172, 181, 240, 248–51, 254 French 12–14 Generation of 1890 73–6 Le Saulchoir 4, 11–41, 69, 94, 97, 106, 174, 177, 185, 195–6, 227, 260, 274 Dualism 1, 59, 84, 88–9, 118–19, 216, 265 Ecclesiology 50, 68, 163–9, 184–5, 198, 204, 210, 212, 266 incarnational 194 of mystery 195 new 225–33, 253 progressive 50 Ecumenism 106–7, 133, 190, 194–5, 208, 253, 262, 271, 275–6 Engagement, Engagement 3, 16, 74, 97, 144, 149, 153–6, 169, 176–8, 182–6, 190–204, 250

artistic 195–8 and conciliar methodology 265–77 philosophical 51 political 4, 14, 48, 143, 191–5 social 2, 67, 69, 133–4, 230, 247 task of construction 210–13 with the world 161, 207 Enlightenment 42, 62, 143 Epistemology, epistemological 84, 93, 116–17, 225 anthropological 219–20 Neoscholastic 67, 201 realism 47, 58 religious 165 structure 58 Esprit 39, 138–9, 142–3, 157, 165, 234, 236, 239, 242 Études 70–2, 98–9 Eucharist 170, 210, 222–3, 226–7, 233 Evolution 30, 90–1, 199, 261 Existentialism 54, 101–2, 105, 182, 225, 236–9, 245–7, 261 Faith 47–51, 59–61, 72, 74, 103, 123, 156, 160–2, 177–8, 195, 236, 244, 261, 270 authentic 160 Christian 175, 197, 207 doctrine of 88–90 engaged 160 fideism 52 and reason 258 and science 92 Fascism 15, 23, 37, 143–4, 201 France, French 1–279 passim divided 22, 30, 42–67 intellectuals 1, 3 society 4, 10, 16, 32, 94–6, 104, 134, 136, 140, 144, 155–6, 159–60, 203, 212, 215 Third Republic 31, 42, 96, 136, 140, 204, 233, 235, 243 Freedom 56, 238, 272, 275 Gaudium et Spes 264, 267–8 Generation(s), generational / generation 1–279 passim of Agathon / of 1912 31, 34–9, 137 consciousness 21–36 of crisis/de crise 31, 37–40, 148, 156–203, 204–51, 252–79 of Dreyfus 31–6, 42–4, 69, 205 of fire 31, 36–7, 40 global triumph 252–79 identity 21–40, 132–3, 137, 139, 246 modern French intellectual 22–41 modernist 44–51

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General Index of 1930 21, 40–1, 69, 96–134, 135–55, 156–203, 204–51, 252–79 rebellion 33 and sedimentation theory 27–8, 42–68, 95, 205 theory 17, 21–41, 97 triumph of 204–51 twentieth century French intellectual 30–41 God 53, 64–5, 80, 120, 152, 164, 170, 172–80, 188, 191, 207, 210–32, 244, 248, 262 see also the Absolute, desire beatific vision / vision of God 86–9, 215–19 creator 46, 165, 217, 263 divinization 216 existence of 83, 199 idea of 165, 199–200 kingdom of 50, 63, 161, 203, 228, 243, 264 knowledge of 45, 47, 62, 165, 219 love of 88, 118, 190 personal 48 word of God 222–3, 278 Gospel 49, 104, 106, 191, 193–4, 227, 232, 234, 255, 263, 268, 273 Grace 59, 114, 134, 170, 178, 184–6, 228, 277 nature and 6, 59, 63, 68 Great Depression, the 2, 18, 20, 23, 37, 133, 137 Hegelian 4, 143, 148–52, 170, 179, 187, 200–1, 211, 244–5, 279 History, historical 1, 116, 133–4, 137, 140, 145–66, 173, 200–3, 221, 224, 240, 247, 267, 270, 278–9 of art 196 consciousness 143–8, 166–81 dialectical 152 historical method 22, 45, 69, 74, 244, 269, 279 historicism 3, 60, 101, 167, 169, 261 historicity 48, 67, 104, 204, 242 Holy Spirit 20, 164, 183, 269 Humani Generis 3, 5, 11, 13, 18–19, 21, 127, 250, 252–3, 257 Humanism 135–55, 160, 170, 173, 183, 191–2, 198, 207, 213–14, 225, 235 Christian 157, 167, 206 new 142–4, 212–13 Humanity, human 1, 49, 58, 132, 160–1, 172–4, 184, 201, 213, 228–33, 243, 258, 263–71 authentic 151 development of 185–6, 199 existence 5, 28, 53, 152 new man 149, 242

309

Idealism, Idealists 1, 54, 64, 102, 108, 111, 141, 143, 150, 167 German 44, 83, 89, 93–5, 125 Neoplatonic 86 Ideology 23, 48, 104, 143, 146–7, 153, 193, 202, 206, 238 Individualism 135, 140–4, 153, 157, 160, 163, 166, 169–70, 184–5, 199, 213, 231 Integrism 72, 98, 127 Intellection 84–6, 113 Intellectualism 52, 84, 214, 262 Interwar period 15–16, 35, 37, 68, 139, 184, 207, 239, 262 Jesuits Fourvière 6, 18–19, 27, 36, 40–1, 53, 58, 63, 68, 76, 80, 84, 89–98, 104–9, 115, 119–32, 149, 158, 163–6, 169, 177, 186, 198, 205–12, 230–2, 244, 249–52 French 6–7, 103, 128, 269, 270 Generation of 1890 69–73 Generation of 1912 76–95 resistance spirituelle 205–8 theologate 4, 8, 70, 125 theologians 4, 166, 250 Jesus Christ 42, 127, 141, 161, 164, 168, 173, 200–3, 223, 226–30, 241, 268 Christology 70, 163, 206, 228 Incarnation 90–1, 161, 164, 175, 178, 195, 207, 222, 228, 243, 263 Logos 221–3 Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne (JOC) 12, 127 Justice 184, 191, 207, 234 Kantian 12, 30, 33, 47, 52–3, 78, 80, 82, 86, 93–5, 116, 119, 148 Neo 47, 101–2, 153 philosophy 45 Knowledge 46, 59, 85–9, 94, 165, 178, 214, 219–20, 249, 266 categorical 45 conceptual 49, 59, 83–6, 110, 117 intellectual 85 religious 45, 72 speculative 45 Laity 254, 265 La Vie Intellectuelle 14, 19, 157, 184 Le Sillon 62, 89, 156–8 Liberty 60, 175, 187, 192 Literature 16, 24, 32, 44–5, 100, 138, 160, 213 Liturgy 161, 164, 226, 240, 244 Love 79, 88, 189, 196 Marxism 2, 15, 96, 143, 148, 158, 193, 199, 203, 236, 244, 248

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310

General Index

Materialism 138, 141, 144, 157, 182, 199 Metaphysics 45, 54, 66, 83, 86, 101, 116, 126–7, 192, 224, 255 Middle Ages, medieval 68, 71, 113, 147, 154, 163, 173–4, 192, 223 Modernism 3, 7, 20, 44, 50, 69, 72, 83, 96, 100, 107–8, 126, 162, 244, 250, 258, 276 anti 98, 133 Catholic 48 criticism of 75 philosophical 51–68 social 62 value of 106 Modernity 1–2, 45–8, 57–8, 62, 67, 73, 94, 100, 134, 157, 263, 268 mysticism 34, 39, 90, 102, 230 narrative 145–8 of the Catholic tradition 132 classical 45–6 declension 227, 229 historical 15, 17, 31, 51, 147, 174, 203 meta 46–7, 50, 67, 148, 168, 176, 179, 181 Nature 52, 59, 64–5, 92, 112, 118, 123, 200–1, 243 human 28, 60, 87, 101, 120, 122, 181, 190, 202, 216–17, 268 pure 124–5, 209, 212, 215, 216–17, 225 Nazism 14, 19, 205–6 anti 10 Neoplatonism 4, 82–9, 94, 208 Neoscholasticism 2–19, 45, 82, 115, 153, 258, 262 and Aquinas 73, 215 condemnations of 130 criticism of 2–19, 57–8, 66–9, 127, 134, 200, 213, 219–22, 248 Neothomism 13, 260 propositionalism 60 rationalism 68, 84, 86, 182, 214 rejection of 2–19, 52, 106, 121–34, 161, 170, 174, 220, 250, 261, 277 Nouveaux théologiens 2, 94, 134, 161–6, 174–82, 192–7, 221, 225, 279 and contemporary concerns 15, 21, 51, 157, 204, 247, 274 formation of 128 generation of 1930 24, 40–1, 69 influence on Vatican II 265, 274–5 and Ottaviani 263 work of 21, 240 Nouvelle théologie 2–25, 31, 36–7, 40, 43, 81, 166, 244, 252 and art 195–8 interdisciplinary study of 17 movement 5

and popes 253–8 revised periodization of 18 triumph 252–79 and Vatican II reformers 259–64, 269–74 Ontology 150, 215–19 Orthodoxy 52, 57, 71, 78–9, 83, 89, 121 classical 46 Radical 6 Patristics 4, 11, 72, 88, 162–3, 168, 171, 184, 216, 219, 225, 244 see also Church Fathers revival 169, 207–8, 212, 233, 260 Personalism 20, 139, 143–4, 157, 183, 200, 239 Phenomenology 2, 19, 52–5, 69, 102, 105, 134, 148–52, 181, 187–8, 247, 265 Blondelian 69, 79, 134 Existentialist 52, 266 Hegel 125, 201 Philosophy 1–279 passim Catholic 83, 181–90, 245 Christian 19–20, 176, 260 concrete 4, 102, 133, 143–4, 149–53, 169, 181–90, 204, 207 philosopher 1–2, 16, 23, 79, 94, 154, 176, 187, 219–20, 268 rationalistic 154, 216 social 60 Politics 16, 32, 76, 136–40, 147, 150, 160, 198, 207, 212, 239, 270, 273 Protestants 49, 59, 102–3, 106, 113, 206, 268 dialogue with 194–5 theology 45 psychoanalysis 149 Rationalism 1–3, 144, 152–3, 160, 163, 179, 182, 210, 243–4 see also Neoscholasticism decadent 237, 250 reproach of 213 religious 214 Reason 60, 86, 93, 143, 154, 192, 200, 219 Reformation, the 46, 49, 160, 194–5 Counter 276 Religion, religious 46–7, 51, 60, 63, 71, 76, 79, 82, 87, 98, 103, 127, 161, 215 experience 50, 173 knowledge 45 private affair 160 religions, the 236 revival of 194–5 truth 45, 132 Ressourcement 4, 20–2, 68–95, 166–9, 178, 181, 195, 208, 224, 257, 260, 266, 269, 279 ecclesiology 162, 233, 266 formation of 16–17

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/2/2018, SPi

General Index methodology 5, 248 movement 1, 261 patristic 212 proto 166, 194 Restorationism 63, 98 Revelation 5, 46–50, 60, 74–5, 80, 107, 119, 163, 178, 200, 235, 258, 269 Revolution 1, 62, 137, 142, 146–7, 193, 234–5, 239, 275, 279 French 28, 42, 46, 147 Sacrament 50–1, 170, 198 Sacramentality 44, 68, 185, 195, 223, 226, 266, 270 Sacred, the 43, 192, 209, 216, 240 and the secular 30, 45, 67–8, 94, 104, 134, 160, 212 Salvation 154, 169, 170, 190, 198, 244, 263–4 economy of 222–3 personal 169, 186 universal 230–3 Scholasticism, scholastic 45, 47, 50, 59, 64, 74, 82, 93–4, 217 Sciences 74, 91, 118 modern 73 natural 92 Scripture 46, 48, 157, 163, 190, 220–3, 246, 266 see also Bible Secularism 43, 157, 160, 216, 272 Semaines sociales 62, 156, 169–70, 232, 241–2, 253, 256, 259 Sept 19, 158 Signs of the times 1, 2, 185, 196, 245, 263, 266, 278–9 Society 18, 25, 38, 97, 146, 167, 192, 202, 225, 232, 272, 278 believing 61, 68 critique of 35, 139 future 214 modern 156 new 142, 149, 155, 212, 262 secular 230 solidarity 136, 169, 175, 178, 184–6, 203, 207, 223, 231 Subjectivity 1, 45, 48, 54–6, 67, 80, 143, 149, 220, 247

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Supernatural, the 52–3, 56, 60–7, 87, 92, 112, 118, 120–3, 129, 161, 170, 209, 213–18, 230, 258, 262, 272 Surrealism 26 Symbolism 32, 44, 60 Témoignage chrétien 9–10, 206–8 Theology, theological 1–279 passim Catholic 5, 48, 74, 94, 167, 181–90, 217, 227, 261, 270 concrete 181–90 historical 15–17 positive 70, 94, 107, 158, 208 Thomists, Thomism 47, 50, 82–3, 89, 111, 143, 157, 174, 181, 245, 250, 256 absolute 57 classical 97 modern 82–4 renewal of 7, 119 transcendental 5, 81, 260 Transcendence 53, 55–6, 80, 92, 179, 182, 221, 225, 244, 258, 263 Truth 5, 26, 46, 58–60, 73, 183, 221, 224, 248, 255, 268 Christian 45–6, 80, 131 of dogma 87 religious 45, 80, 173 Tübingen School 161–6 thinkers 2 Vatican I 47 Vatican II 11, 13, 18, 20–1, 68, 252, 257, 259–78 Will, the 56–9, 64, 85–6, 89, 105, 117, 178, 190 Wisdom 1, 122, 150, 222, 268 Worker-priest 13, 19, 186, 240, 254, 257, 259 World War I 8, 13, 23–6, 36, 39, 55, 91, 96, 99, 101–3, 106, 136–7, 205 inter-war 3, 15, 17, 21, 35, 37, 68, 139, 184, 207, 239, 262 post-war 106 World War II 2, 14, 89, 236