By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center [1 ed.] 9780813218380, 9780813215372

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Copyright © 2008. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

By Those Who Knew Them

Copyright © 2008. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.



By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

Copyright © 2008. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.



By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.



H a rv e y H i l l , Lo u i s- P i e r r e S a r d e l l a ,



& C . J . T. Ta l a r

By Those Who Knew Them

Copyright © 2008. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.







French modernists L e f t, R i g h t, & C e n t e r

The C atholic Universit y of A meric a Press 

Wa shington, D.C .

By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

Copyright © 2008 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

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∞

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hill, Harvey, 1965–   By those who knew them : French modernists left, right, and center / Harvey Hill, Louis-Pierre Sardella, and C.J.T. Talar.    p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-0-8132-1537-2 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Modernism (Christian theology)—Catholic Church.  2. Catholic Church—Clergy.  3. Catholic Church—France—History—19th century. 4. Pius X, Pope, 1835–1914.  I. Sardella, Louis-Pierre.  II. Talar, C. J. T., 1947–  III. Title.   BX1396.H55 2008   273´.9—dc22  ­­  2008010650

By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

C o nte nts

I ntro d u c ti o n C . J. T. Ta l a r a n d H a rv e y Hill

1

Pa rt One  Th e Le f t

1 Th e M o r a lit y o f A p osta sy Félix Sartiaux's Biography of Joseph Turmel

17

2 A n I d e a l M o dern ist Marcel Hébert

41

C . J. T. Ta l a r

C . J. T. Ta l a r

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Pa rt t w o  Th e ri g ht

3 Le M o d ern iste M a lgré Lui Pierre Batiffol

71

C . J. T. Ta l a r

P a rt three  Th e c e nte r

4 H o uti n ’s Lo isy The Construction of a Modernist

93

H a rv e y Hill

5 I n D efense o f Lo isy ’s Mysti c is m Bremond’s Modernist Confession

122

6 M gr M i gn ot, th e “Ulti m ate M o dern ist ”? Lo uis- P ierr e S a rdell a

150

Bibliography Index

187 195

H a rv e y Hill



Translated by Elizabeth Emery

By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

Copyright © 2008. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

Copyright © 2008. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

By Those Who Knew Them

By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

Copyright © 2008. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

I ntro d u c ti o n

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C .J.T. Ta l a r a n d H a rv e y H i l l

“M oder n i s m ” in i ts Roman Catholic guise is hardly familiar to the vast majority of Catholics. Like most “isms” (with the possible exception of Catholicism, depending on whom one is talking to!), it carries a vaguely negative scent. And further acquaintance would verify that impression. Its condemnation by the Vatican in 1907 termed it “the synthesis of all heresies” and positioned it as going a step beyond Protestantism (till then the ogre in the theological forest) and lingering but a step away from atheism. Its partisans were represented as driven by inordinate curiosity and pride, whose consequences were destructive for the very life of the Church. As is often the case, the historical reality is far more complex than its schematic synthesis. Rather than being the conspiracy alleged by the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, Roman Catholic Modernism was a loosely structured movement that encompassed a series of initiatives that aimed at bringing Catholicism into a more positive relation with the modern world. It arose out of a concern on the part of a number of priests and laity that minds formed by modernity needed to be addressed in a way that spoke to that formation; consequently, the language of Scholasticism constituted a barrier rather than a bridge to the truths of the faith. This inevitably led those who held this conviction to call for reform: intellectual reform in philosophy (especially as that bore upon apologetics); academic reform in bib-

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lical and historical studies (utilizing the historical critical method), with implications for the understanding of dogma and its development; and structural reform insofar as Catholicism needed to come to terms with democratic forms of organization. The consequences of such reforms would be far-reaching. The question then became how much of the ancient tradition of the Church would endure. The Vatican’s sense was “too little” and Modernist initiatives were rejected, their advocates sanctioned, and their works put on the Index. Moreover, Vigilance Committees were erected, and in 1910 an Oath against Modernism was imposed that endured until the time of Vatican II. The consequences of condemnation were also far-reaching, setting a climate in which theological work was conducted for succeeding decades. If the truth were more simple, it would be possible to position Modernists as reformers out of due time, Vatican II Catholics who had the misfortune of arriving several decades too soon. Equally, it would be possible to simply affirm Pascendi’s portrait as adequate without remainder. Here the truth is, as in so many cases, much more complex. While reformers had the courage to pose the questions, they did not always possess the requisite resources to adequately address them. While there was a great deal of diversity among them, at least in some cases positions they advocated would have been corrosive of a transcendent faith. Thus the condemnation of Modernism was not entirely off the mark and the encyclical put its finger on a number of issues that constituted a danger to the historical faith. However, in its attempt at positing a synthesis of a variety of initiatives, Pascendi imputed an organization, both intellectual and structural, to the movement that it in fact did not possess. Moreover, real differences between rationalist extremists, centrists, and more moderate progressives were elided, with unfortunate consequences for representatives of the progressive wing especially.

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i n t r o d u c t i o n      3

All this said, why should we care about the intricacies of a movement condemned a hundred years ago? Centenaries can become mere occasions for looking back, generated by the numerical interval of one hundred years. However, a look back at Modernism and its condemnation does more than mark an interval. Emile Poulat, as a result of his extensive scholarship on the period (1890–1914),1 has argued that the watershed event for Catholicism in the twentieth century was not Vatican II but Modernism. “The fundamental issue of the Modernist crisis is, in the end, the status of truth and above all that of religious truth . . . in contemporary thought”2—and, one might add, the status of ecclesiastical authority in relation to religious truth. This is a large claim, to be sure, and one might suspect a somewhat biased one given his work, but for all that a defensible one. The Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt observed that a lack of a sense of one’s history can result in a lack of a sense of one’s identity (more directly: if you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know who you are). For generations of Catholics born after Vatican II that council is, operatively, “ancient history.” An understanding of Modernism, which entails an understanding of historical consciousness and pluralism—dominant issues over the twentieth century—is necessary for any measured appreciation of Vatican II, in terms of the issues it addressed and the places where it was creatively innovative as well as where it remained in strong continuity with the past. While the history of the “Modernist Crisis” is primarily a story about the clash of ideas, it is also a story of those who advocated or opposed ideas out of a conviction that nothing less than the future of Catholicism was at stake. And while ideas advanced and ideas reject1. A bibliography of Poulat’s publications through 1999 may be found in Valentine Zuber, ed., Un objet de science, le catholicisme. Réflexions autour de l’oeuvre d’Émile Poulat (Lonrai: Bayard, 2001), 291–326. 2. Émile Poulat and Dominique Decherf, Le christianisme à contre-histoire (Monaco: Rocher, 2003), 192.

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ed remain central to that story, it is incomplete without some appreciation for those who hold them. “If history never has the final word on a person, a person can teach us a great deal about history.”3 A similar assumption standing behind all of the essays in this volume is that the Modernist Crisis in the Catholic Church during the first decade of the twentieth century stemmed not only from divergent interpretations of the Bible and the Christian tradition, but also from the particular personalities involved.4 To cite only the most obvious example from the period, Pius X, the pope who condemned Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies,” was peculiarly ill-suited by temperament or intellectual training to appreciate the efforts at reform on the part of those he condemned. From the other side of the ideological divide, Alfred Loisy, the so-called Father of Catholic Modernism, viewed religion in highly intellectual terms that were surely not compelling to many of his less educated coreligionists. This volume therefore explores the personalities of several Catholic priests—both the biographical subjects and the biographers themselves—who were centrally or tangentially involved in the efforts at ecclesiastical reform branded “Modernist” by Pius X in 1907. The biographies that are analyzed in these pages are of French Modernists, and were written by those who knew their subjects and were, for the most part, themselves “Modernists” in a broad sense of the term. Interesting in their own right, the stories by and about these French Modernists in turn shed light on the intellectual and ecclesi3. Émile Poulat, Modernistica (Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1982), 12–13. 4. Recent histories of Modernism include Marvin O’Connell, Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994), and Pierre Colin, L’audace et le soupçon: La crise moderniste dans le catholicisme français (1893–1914) (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1997). These works certainly describe the personalities involved, but closer in conception to this volume is an analysis of Modernist autobiographies, Personal Faith and Institutional Commitment: Roman Catholic Modernist and Anti-Modernist Autobiography, edited by Lawrence Barmann and Harvey Hill (Scranton, Pa.: University of Scranton Press, 2002). It includes chapters on autobiographies by Turmel, Houtin, and Loisy.

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i n t r o d u c t i o n      5

al horizons that encompassed their lives. “Defining Modernism is a political act. . . .” So writes Gabriel Daly,5 and one can easily verify it in reading Pius’s anti-Modernist encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis. Writing the biography of a Modernist is equally a political act because Modernism itself is defined, implicitly or explicitly, by example or by contrast, as part of the story of the Modernist subject. What, then, was Modernism, in its French Catholic form? As the essays in this volume make clear, no simple answer suffices. No single position was shared by everyone studied in this volume, much less by all self-professed or accused Modernists. However, all of the Modernists here considered shared a common question, which was certainly characteristic of Modernism more generally: How should one relate the findings of modern scholarship, especially critical history, to the inherited doctrine and theology of the Church? Implied in the question was the conviction that modern scholarship should inform Church teaching in one way or another. But the Devil was in the details. Different opinions about how modern scholarship should inform Church teaching and with what authority created sometimes bitter ideological divides between intellectual priests who might otherwise have been allies. Émile Poulat places the principal figures of French Modernism on a continuum based in part on how they understood the relationship between critical scholarship and Catholic theology. “Loisy’s Modernism,” he suggests, “is situated in reality at the center of a range of tendencies whose right was represented by the progressivism of Mgr Batiffol, of Père Lagrange and Père de Grandmaison, etc., and which clashed with the rationalism of men such as Turmel, Houtin and Sartiaux on the left.”6 5. Gabriel Daly, “Theological and Philosophical Modernism,” in Darrell Jodock, ed., Catholicism Contending with Modernity: Roman Catholic Modernism and Anti-Modernism in Historical Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 89. 6. Émile Poulat, Une oeuvre clandestine de’Henri Bremond (Rome: Edizioni di storia

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The rationalists to Loisy’s left, represented here by Sartiaux’s biography of Turmel and Houtin’s biographies of Hébert and Loisy, accorded full authority to critical history and insisted that it discredited Catholic theology.7 Houtin’s mature position illustrates this view. His forays into local history led him to reject accounts that located the origins of the Church at Angers in the first or second centuries. Additional research undermined his confidence in allegedly miraculous events outside of the Bible, and in legendary accounts of the apostolic origins of French dioceses. Outraged, he “began to collect forgeries by ecclesiastics, false miracles, false prophecies, pious frauds, devout impostures. I rapidly reaped an abundant harvest of all these things.”8 Subsequent work on biblical criticism in France erased the boundary that had until that time protected the Bible from the corrosive effects of the criticism that had dissolved his faith in postbiblical Church history. As a consequence, he lost any remaining confidence in an ecclesiastical system that supported such fabrications and suppressed the truth of the matter. Unable to reconcile the historical evidence with Catholic teaching, Houtin repudiated his religious faith and became increasingly hostile to anyone who did not do likewise. In one of the biographies analyzed here, he therefore celebrated the Kantian philosopher Marcel Hébert as an ideal Modernist. Like Houtin himself, Hébert abandoned his own early efforts to find a compromise between critical hise letteratura, 1972), 21–22. Poulat’s insight supplied the subtitle to this volume: Modernists Left, Right, and Center. 7. Christoph Théobald, “L’entrée de l’histoire dans l’univers religieux et théologique au moment de la ‘crise moderniste,’” in Jean Greisch et al., eds., La crise contemporaine (Paris: Beauchesne, 1973), 13. 8. Albert Houtin, Une vie de prêtre. Mon expérience 1867–1912 (Paris: F. Rieder, 1926), 216–17; translated as The Life of a Priest: My Own Experience 1867–1912, trans. Winifred S. Whale (London: Watts & Co., 1927), 127. For perspective on Houtin’s journey from faith to unbelief, see C. J. T. Talar, “Identity Formation, Reconstruction, and Transformation: The Autobiographical Trajectory of Albert Houtin,” in Barmann and Hill, Personal Faith and Institutional Commitments, 39–65.

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i n t r o d u c t i o n      7

tory and critical philosophy, on the one hand, and Catholic dogma, on the other. He resigned his academic appointment, published his radical conclusions, and quietly left the Church. By contrast, in another biography analyzed below, Houtin attacked Loisy for continuing his career in the Church while holding views fundamentally at variance with its teachings, a situation that rendered both his moral integrity and his sincerity highly questionable. In his attitude toward both Hébert and Loisy, Houtin thus exhibited a tendency, typical of those on the left wing of Modernism, to evaluate people in binary terms: either honest scholars who rejected Catholicism or frauds who did not. For Houtin and his fellow travelers, there was no middle way. Given this commitment to historical factuality and moral integrity, left-wing Modernists would, one might think, subject Joseph Turmel to a judgment at least as harsh as Houtin’s of Loisy. After all, Turmel lost his faith in the 1880s, while the impetus for intellectual renewal was still gathering momentum, and yet remained a priest, continuing both to say Mass and to hear confessions in his post as chaplain. Worse still, he published pseudonymous articles with the express purpose of undermining Catholicism and, when confronted on this point, flatly—and falsely—denied authorship. Such a clear discrepancy between private belief and public behavior raises formidable problems of justification for any would-be defender. Defending Turmel was, however, precisely the task that his biographer and fellow rationalist Félix Sartiaux set himself. The primary issue facing Sartiaux was not how best to position Turmel’s intellectual production in relation to the theology then dominant in Catholicism. Like Houtin, Hébert, and Sartiaux himself, Turmel clearly believed that critical history discredited Catholic theology. Rather, Sartiaux offered a moral defense of Turmel’s conduct. Turmel himself provided the line his biographer would adopt. The Bible was the product of a gross imposture, evident to all who took the trouble to study it, and the dogmatic edifice constructed upon it therefore lacked all founda-

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tion. The fact of this imposture was concealed from those still in seminary formation, and indeed seminary professors themselves were typically the victims of the same instruction, passive instruments of a superior will. In order to preserve itself, the Church perpetrated a lie. Turmel dedicated his pseudonymous publications to revealing the truth to his readers, and unconventional though it was, his personal life was not objectionable, Sartiaux suggested, because the Church did not deserve his loyalty or his honesty. It had forfeited that right.9 Linking these figures on the left wing of Modernism was their faith in the facts of history as recovered by modern critical historians and applied, with destructive results, to contemporary Catholic theology and life. They condemned sincere but naive Catholics as “pious frauds.” However, they reserved their harshest judgments for those who understood the challenge of modern critical scholarship for Catholic teaching without promptly rejecting Catholicism as a whole. They had no interpretive category that could help them understand people like Loisy, who neither believed Catholic theology in its contemporary form nor attacked it directly. Christoph Théobald describes the mind-set of this group as “binary” because they saw only two possibilities for enlightened people: open hostility to pious fraud or disingenuous submission to it. In his biography of Loisy, Houtin effectively rejected any distinction between the Modernists that this volume places in the center and those it places on the right; all were subject to the same accusation of intellectual dishonesty for their desire to remain in the Church. Houtin here obscures important distinctions between the two groups, however, particularly on the issue that we have identified as central to Modernism: the relationship of critical scholarship and Catholic theology. The “progressives,” the Modernists of the right represented 9. For an analysis of Turmel’s own efforts to make this case, see C. J. T. Talar, “Multiple Identities: Joseph Turmel: Moderniste Démasqué,” in Barmann and Hill, Personal Faith and Institutional Commitments, 67–89.

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i n t r o d u c t i o n      9

in this volume by Pierre Batiffol and his biographer Jean Rivière, believed in the possibility of reconciling history and theological orthodoxy in a way that did not require the radical reformulation of Catholic teaching, while the Modernists of the center disagreed. Progressives like Batiffol tried to reconcile critical history and Catholic theology by distinguishing an essential static element in orthodox doctrine from that which was clarified by ecclesial reflection over the course of centuries. This distinction could not be determined a priori, but by applied historical research on the part of positive theology, by a domesticated historical criticism so to speak. In Batiffol’s formulation, “[H]istory alone allows us to distinguish in a dogma the essential and immobile element, and the element rendered explicit or inferred little by little by ecclesiastical reflection. The first of these two elements is a constant, for which history is going to show that it does not have a history. The second element, on the contrary, is legitimate[ly open to historical investigation] because it does have a history.”10 Batiffol thus endorsed modern historical criticism, but subordinated it to positive theology in the conviction that “knowledge of the essential . . . cannot be affected by history.”11 From this perspective, Batiffol could certainly condemn the rationalists, but he could, with equal justification, attack the Modernists in the center insofar as they insisted on the full autonomy of modern scholarship 10. Pierre Batiffol, “Évolutionisme et histoire,” in Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 7 (1906): 169–79 at 175. In his application of this way of doing theology to the study of the Eucharist, Batiffol established as the permanent element the realism of the eucharistic presence, putting paid to any attempts to legitimate from the early texts a purely figural sense. What has undergone historical development, then, is not the core conviction of the real presence, but rather the mode of this presence. The subject of ecclesiastical reflection, of divergent speculations, finally of sharp controversy, it eventually attained clear definition in the dogma of transubstantiation. “The novelty of our study, if there is one, consists in establishing that the conversion of the bread into the body and the wine into the blood of the Savior, is an article of faith that has become explicit slowly.” See Pierre Batiffol, Études d’histoire et de théologie positive, Deuxième série, L’eucharisite, la présence réele et la transsubstantiation, 3rd ed. (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1906), 379–80. 11. Théobald, “L’entrée de l’histoire,” 16.

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or on the role of critical scholarship in reforming Catholic teaching. Because rationalists and progressives occupy opposite ends of the Modernist spectrum as identified in this book, the comparison and the contrast between them is illuminating. The two groups shared the presumption that history and theology had to agree in essentials if both were true. Thus, as Théobald notes, the real question was not the entry of history into the religious universe. Rationalists and progressives alike were aware of that.12 The distinction between these positions was more one of authority: the authority of critical history to discredit Catholic theology for the rationalists and the authority of Catholic dogma to limit critical history for the progressives. What, then, of the center? Inevitably this was the most amorphous position. Though linked by bonds of affection, the representatives of the center in this volume, Loisy, his sympathetic biographer Henri Bremond, and Mgr Mignot, did not perfectly agree on the central question of Modernism: How might one relate modern critical scholarship to Catholic theology? Nor did they agree on the closely related question: What did this relationship imply for one’s allegiance to the Church? The papal condemnation of Modernism was widely viewed as striking at Loisy, among others, and Loisy claimed to accept the excommunication that soon followed with relief. Though suspected of Modernism, both Mignot and Bremond remained loyal to the Church until their deaths. What, then, linked them, beyond personal affection? The most important idea shared by Loisy, Bremond, and Mignot that appears in the chapters of this volume is their common recognition that critical scholarship posed a real and substantial challenge to Church teaching as it was articulated in their day. More than Batiffol or Rivière, the three Modernists of the center acknowledged the val12. Ibid., 17–18. Théobald says the same is true even for those who adopt a kind of anti-Modernist dogmatism, though this position could not easily accommodate truly critical historical scholarship.

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i n t r o d u c t i o n      11

ue of scholarship that was genuinely autonomous and assumed that its conclusions mandated theological reform. To that extent, all three were genuinely Modernists, and they genuinely differed from the progressives to their right. Over against the rationalists to their left, the three figures of the center—Mignot, Bremond, and Loisy during his Catholic period— all agreed that the Catholic Church and its theology retained value in the modern period. If reforms were necessary, the reformed institution, at any rate, had a valuable part to play in the religious life of modern France. Bremond particularly emphasized this point in his biography of Loisy—as long as Loisy continued to hope that the Church might reform, he remained a Modernist. As soon as Loisy surrendered this hope, he abandoned his Modernist position. Bremond therefore carefully distinguished the post-Catholic Loisy from Mignot, who retained his hope in Catholicism to the end of his life, a point Louis-Pierre Sardella also emphasizes in his chapter on Mignot in this volume. Presumably Bremond intended to distinguish himself too from the later Loisy on this point. In sum, then, the Modernists of the center, including the Catholic Loisy, rejected the notion shared by Modernists to their left and their right that critical history and Catholic theology in its contemporary form had to agree. Like the Modernists of the left, they acknowledged the gap between the conclusions of critical history and contemporary expressions of Catholic theology. Like the Modernists on the right, they affirmed the enduring value of Catholic teaching and the institutional Church. But unlike either they looked to a future theology informed by—indeed reformed by—modern critical scholarship as the best grounds for their loyalty to the Church. These similarities notwithstanding, the Modernists of the center differed among themselves in at least one important respect as well: their sense of an enduring essence in Catholic doctrine. The Modernists who remained in the Church, Bremond insisted in his biog-

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raphy of Loisy, accepted the value of dogma in principle and therefore isolated some doctrinal claims from critical scrutiny in deference to the teaching authority of the Church. As Sardella shows, Mignot too rejected “religious subjectivism,” and he could continue to defend Loisy in part because he persisted in interpreting Loisy’s L’Évangile et l’Église as an apology for Catholicism even after Loisy’s excommunication. On this point, then, Bremond and Mignot rejoined Batiffol in affirming an enduring ahistorical essence in Catholic dogmatic teaching and therefore also in finding value enough in the teaching authority of the Church that it could impose some limits on modern critical scholarship. To this degree, they leaned toward the right. Bremond and Mignot here parted company with Loisy, who denied any essential element in Catholic teaching and who rejected any role for the Church in overseeing critical scholarship. In Bremond’s words, “the very idea of dogma and of faith . . . became to him . . . entirely unthinkable” (146). Nothing endured; everything was subject to ongoing development. Unlike Batiffol, for whom the practice of criticism would reveal an essential permanent element in dogma distinguishable from the historical forms dogma had assumed, Loisy believed that the scientific work of the recent past had introduced a schism between the ancient religious universe and modern historical consciousness. The operation of the latter had the effect of dissolving the essential element rather than of bringing it into focus. Efforts to preserve the traditional formulae therefore often resulted in incomprehension, and eventually in incredulity. A work of translation was necessary, and more than a simple translation of language; what was required was a translation of ideas themselves. To this degree, Loisy leaned toward the left. Loisy did not rejoin Houtin, Hébert, Turmel, and Sartiaux, however, because he found epistemological warrant for the work of reconstruction in the form of a new conception of truth—the notion of “relative truth” or historical relativity—that was foreign to the ra-

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i n t r o d u c t i o n      13

tionalists. Truth, he believed, always had to be viewed in relation to a historical situation. This relativity acknowledged a distance between the horizon of the interpreter and that of the historical object. The gaps revealed between different historical moments were no less apparent for Mignot, who wrote that “dogma loses its character of immutability since it is no longer the immediate expression of Revelation, but its translation mediated in terms of a theological elaboration eminently subject to change.”13 But Mignot did not follow this idea to its logical conclusion in the way that Loisy did. On this point, Loisy was alone among the figures considered in this volume. From his patient analysis of Loisy’s exegetical practice and reflection upon it, Théobald concludes that the exegete was more successful in revealing the “great ugly ditch” of history, in destroying “the serene knowledge of the religious essential,” than he was in resolving the hermeneutical problem.14 We shall not follow Théobald as he uncovers ambiguities structured into Loisy’s epistemological foundations and explores consequent limitations in those. Here, retrieval of two conclusions will suffice. First, Théobald underscores the idea that Loisy’s attempts at coming to terms with historical relativity in the form that he conceived it represented an advance over the progressives, for whom “the hermeneutic problem in the recent sense of the term still cannot be posed.” Second, Théobald suggests, any resolution to the hermeneutical problem presupposes a much greater awareness of the relativity imposed by the horizon of the interpreter. “Loisy highlights the historical relativity and the finitude of the religious phenomenon. He veils those in the historian’s own work.”15 The latter is also characteristic of his Modernist colleagues to the left: Houtin, Hébert, Turmel, and Sartiaux. 13. Louis-Pierre Sardella, Mgr Eudoxe Irénée Mignot (1842–1918). Un évêque français au temps du modernisme (Paris: Cerf, 2004), 670. 14. Théobald, “L’entrée de l’histoire,” 41–42. 15. Ibid., 43, 42.

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This attempt to position the various protagonists epistemologically should not, of course, be construed as a static template to be imposed on them. There were historical dynamics at work in the development of their respective positions as each continued to reflect on the central issues raised by the emerging crisis of Modernism. Moreover, in the midst of the Modernist crisis itself, its participants themselves could see that lines of demarcation were not static. Depending on the criteria that served as the basis of differentiation and the timing of the judgment, positionings and position takings could vary. The biographical studies analyzed here, all written some years after the condemnations of Modernism, have hardened lines that were less clear in the midst of the intellectual ferment that led up to the crisis and the period of crisis itself. So long as we acknowledge this hardening, however, the biographies serve as useful heuristic devices enabling us to interpret the dynamics of the Modernist Crisis more subtly than we might otherwise be able to do.

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Pa rt O n e   The Left

By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

Copyright © 2008. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

  C h a p te r

One

Th e M o r a lit y o f A p o sta sy F é l i x S a r t i a u x ’s B i o g r a p h y o f J o s e p h T u r m e l

C .J.T. Ta l a r . . . [A]postates’ tales can also be heard in certain situations as prospective and illocutionary statements about the way in which speakers wish to be treated. In addition to being interpretive constructions of the past, they are also prospective in so far as they can be used to

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support implicit claims for a certain kind of moral status.1

Ev en t o t ho se with only superficial acquaintance with Roman Catholic Modernism, the names of principal figures such as Alfred Loisy or George Tyrrell would be familiar. One would have to delve rather deeply into the movement, however, before encountering Joseph Turmel. In a number of ways Turmel can be considered a marginal figure. His chosen area was patristics, in a movement that generated controversy mainly over apologetics, biblical criticism, Church history, and dogma. After a relatively brief stint on seminary faculty, he adopted a reclusive lifestyle, pouring his energies almost exclusively into 1. James A. Beckford, “Talking of Apostasy, or Telling Tales and ‘Telling’ Tales,” in G. Nigel Gilbert and Peter Abell, eds., Accounts and Action (Aldershot, England: Gower Publishing Company, 1983), 89.

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his scholarship. Félix Sartiaux, his friend and biographer, remarks that between 1898 and 1908 Turmel published under his own name a hundred articles and four books. After 1908 he evolved a team of pseudonymous identities to continue this voluminous output while insulating himself from censure. Following his excommunication in 1930 Turmel once again took credit for his own writings, including a sixvolume history of dogma.2 Some have contested the legitimacy of identifying Turmel as a Modernist at all, despite this considerable bibliography and his association with such journals as Loisy’s Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses, Demain, and the New York Review. Alec Vidler goes to the heart of the matter. While Turmel clearly was involved in the Modernist movement, “at no time did he hope or work for a modernizing of Catholicism or believe in the possibility.”3 In making this judgment Vidler is apparently in good company. Albert Houtin, in his history of Catholic Modernism, thought Turmel to have been dragged into Modernist polemics on the basis of conclusions and methods that were critical. Rather tellingly, Houtin relegated Turmel to an appendix.4 And in the biography under consideration here, Sartiaux stated, “He did not present himself as a reformer. He was never a Modernist, as has been claimed.”5 Others, however, have taken Turmel to be a typical Modernist in the worst sense of the term if only because he published pseudonymous works that subverted dogma while maintaining an outwardly correct ecclesiastical persona. This was the line adopted by Eugène Portalié in his 1908 study which, moreover, highlights points of sol2. For a bibliography of Turmel’s writings, see Kurt-Peter Gertz, Joseph Turmel (1859–1943). Ein theologiegeschichtlicher Beitrag zum Problem der Geschichtlichkeit der Dogmen (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1975), 310–39. 3. Alec Vidler, A Variety of Catholic Modernists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 61. 4. Albert Houtin, Histoire du modernisme catholique (Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1913), 397–401. 5. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel: Prêtre, historien du dogmes (Paris: Reider, 1931), 212.

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the m o r a lit y of a posta sy      19

idarity between Turmel’s thought and Loisy’s.6 It was also followed by Jean Rivière some two decades later.7 From this perspective, Turmel’s example illuminates the true character of Modernism with particular clarity. Canon Gaudeau, for example, did not hesitate to affirm that “the true character of Modernism is the insincerity, dare we say the vulgar and hideous lie, developed, among the definitive victims of this error, into a constant and habitual attitude, and pushed to the point of complete deformation of moral being.”8 In all of this, what of Turmel himself? In his mind, separating him from those he identified as Modernists were differences in tactics, not in fundamental aims. The work of Louis Duchesne, Marie-Joseph Lagrange, Pierre Batiffol, and Alfred Loisy he saw as no less corrosive of dogma than his own writings. However, while they duplicitously concealed their “heretical intentions” under cover of “reassuring formulas,” of “calculated reticence,” he proceeded more straightforwardly, if pseudonymously, “leaving no place for subterfuge, for the equivocations dear to Modernists.”9 In thus positioning himself, Turmel raises a problem that his biographer must face and that he himself had to come to terms with in his later autobiography.10 In accusing Modernists of duplicity, how could he justify his own use of pseudonyms to cover his identity, let 6. Eugène Portalié, La critique de M. Turmel et “la Question Herzog-Dupin” (Paris: Lethielleux, 1908). 7. Jean Rivière, Le modernisme dans l’Église (Paris: Letouzey, 1929). The chapter devoted to Turmel is entitled “Offensive contre le modernisme masqué” (484–505). 8. B. Gaudeau, Le péril intérieur de l’Église (Paris: Aux bureaux de la “Foi catholique,” 1914), 2. He went on to tax Loisy with “the most cynical lies” (2) and accused Tyrrell of “duplicity” (3). 9. Joseph Turmel, “Mémoire sur mes travaux,” published in Gertz, Joseph Turmel (1859–1943), 302–9, citing 307. In the biography Sartiaux will make the same point by quoting passages from Loisy’s recently published Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps, 3 vols. (Paris: Émile Norry, 1930–1931). 10. Although written as a single unit, completed in 1931, the autobiography was published in two volumes several years apart. See Joseph Turmel, Comment j’ai donné congé aux dogmes (Herblay: Editions de l’idée libre, 1935) and Comment l’Église romaine m’a donné congé (Herblay: Editions de l’idée libre, [1939]).

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alone his outright denial of their use when the writings in question were stigmatized as heretical? Moreover, although Turmel had lost his faith in Catholicism as early as 1886, he had continued to function as a priest, offering Mass and dispensing the sacraments, all the while waging a destructive campaign against Catholic doctrine. There is a tension, then, embedded in the very title of Sartiaux’s biography: Priest, Historian of Dogmas. Given Turmel’s conduct as a historian of dogmas, how could he continue to function as a priest and still claim integrity? How does Sartiaux go about making that claim on his behalf? Although Turmel is admittedly an extreme case, those who also used pseudonyms, or who insinuated equivocally or via subterfuge what they judged could not be said openly, had to answer a like criticism. Indeed, Thomas Howard has suggested that “overlooked and marginal types are often the ones who best illustrate the problems and tensions of a given epoch.”11 While Turmel’s story is interesting in its own right, it has implications that range beyond his own situation.

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T u r m e l’s Sto ry

To be in a better position to appreciate the task his biographer faced, and given Turmel’s marginal status and consequent obscurity to most readers, a brief synopsis of his life will be useful at this point.12 It will serve as a basis for appreciating just how formidable a challenge Sartiaux engaged in seeking to exonerate Turmel from charges of duplicity, dissimulation, and outright lying. Turmel came from a family that knew real poverty. Born in Rennes on 13 December 1859 as the second of seven children, his youth was 11. Thomas Albert Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5. 12. For a more detailed rendering of Turmel’s life, based on an analysis of his autobiography, see C. J. T. Talar, “Multiple Identities: Joseph Turmel: Moderniste Démasqué,” in Lawrence Barmann and Harvey Hill, eds., Personal Faith and Institutional Commitments: Roman Catholic Modernist and Anti-Modernist Autobiography (Scranton, Pa.: University of Scranton Press, 2002), 67–89.

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the m o r a lit y of a posta sy      21

marked by intense piety and an intellectual ability that a local priest nurtured. Like many clerics of his generation, Turmel was indebted to the Church for educational opportunity. At the Rennes major seminary he devoured books on theology and apologetics, joining a passion for study to a desire to defend the Church from unbelievers. He remained no less passionate in his devotional life. Both his intellectual promise and his industry did not go unrecognized; he spent 1880–1881 at the Angers faculty of theology, deepening his knowledge of Scholasticism under Louis Billot, S.J., the future cardinal and anti-Modernist. After ordination to the priesthood in 1882, he was assigned to teach dogmatic theology at the seminary in Rennes. It was primarily Turmel’s forays into biblical studies that were to prove fatal to his faith. Reading critical commentaries on the Old Testament written by Edouard Reuss13 initially unsettled him, and ultimately convinced him that much of what he had been taught or had acquired from Catholic authors on his own was simply untrue. Moreover, he perceived enough indications that authorities in whom he had trusted were aware of this disjuncture between the formulas of faith and the facts to judge them guilty of deliberate deceit. While initial acquaintance with critical scholarship had surfaced in Turmel a conviction that the Church needed reform and was capable of it, further study completely disillusioned him. By 1886 he had lost his faith, but nonetheless continued in his public teaching role while privately pursuing his studies of Old Testament exegesis. This continued until 1892, when some remarks Turmel made to a seminarian in private conversation found their way to the seminary’s rector and led to Turmel’s dismissal from the faculty. After a liminal fifteen months, he was given a modest post as chaplain and thereby acquired abundant leisure to resume his research, turning his critical 13. Reuss was instrumental in the diffusion of German critical biblical scholarship into France, both through his own publications and via his students; see Laplanche, Dictionnaire du monde religieux 9: Les sciences religieuses (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996), 578.

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gaze from Scripture to the history of dogma. Over the next several decades he became something of a scholarly ascetic, adopting a quasieremetical lifestyle, evidencing the same drivenness that had characterized his intellectual labors in seminary, but initially at least having no public outlet for its results. Then, in 1897, a fellow diocesan priest brought one of Turmel’s manuscripts to Loisy’s attention, and Turmel soon began to publish prolifically. Having recently launched the Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses, Loisy was looking for collaborators. For the next several years a steady stream of articles from Turmel appeared in its pages and evoked invitations to contribute to other Catholic journals of a liberal orientation14 as well as to the newly launched Bibliothèque de théologie historique. The first volume of Turmel’s Histoire de la théologie positive appeared in 1904 in this series, followed by a second in 1906. Tertullian (1905), Saint Jérôme (1906), and Histoire de dogme de la Papauté (1908) round out the books published under his own name during the period. Despite this positive reception by some of the younger clergy, Turmel’s work generated controversy from the beginning. Works published under his own name drew fire from guardians of orthodoxy such as the Jesuits Julien Fontaine and Eugène Portalié, and came to the attention of Cardinal Richard, archbishop of Paris, who in turn denounced them to the Holy Office. The real controversy, however, concerned pseudonymous works that engaged dogma directly, most notably writings on the Trinity in 1906 under the name Antoine Dupin and on Mariology the following year as Guillaume Herzog.15 Both series of articles were violently attacked as heterodox and catalyzed the 14. In addition to those already noted, these included the Annales de philosophie chrétienne, the Revue catholique des Eglises, and the Revue du clergé français. 15. “Dupin’s” articles on the Trinity appeared in Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses 11 (1906): 219–31, 353–65, 515–32, and were published in book form the next year. “Herzog’s” contributions to Mariology were in Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses 12 (1907): 118–33, 320–40, 483–607. They too came out as a book in 1908.

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the m o r a lit y of a posta sy      23

condemnation of the Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses in 1907 by Cardinal Richard. Their pseudonymous nature motivated a search for the true culprit(s). In an interesting tour de force Louis Saltet, professor of Church history at the Toulouse Institut catholique, used the methods of internal criticism dear to liberals to show the dependency of both Dupin and Herzog on Turmel’s published work.16 The chronology of appearance of the various writings in question made Turmel’s explanation of plagiarism unconvincing, especially since he refused to supply any names of possible plagiarizers. Still, the outright disclaimer of authorship made to his bishop stonewalled critics—at that point. In the aftermath of this controversy, the names of Antoine Dupin and Guillaume Herzog disappeared from the ranks of published authors, as did Turmel’s. By way of compensation he multiplied himself into a veritable team of pseudonymous identities, establishing a division of labor among them in assigning each to an area of historical theology. Meanwhile, Turmel outwardly conformed. When his own works were placed on the Index in 1909, and again in 1910 and 1911, he submitted.17 He took the Oath against Modernism when that was promulgated in 1910. Maintaining his eremetical existence, he emerged to say Mass and hear confessions. So matters stood until 1929, when Saltet published proof positive of Turmel’s identity with both Dupin and Herzog.18 The details of this unmasking need not detain us here. Suffice it to say that, not only was Turmel compelled to acknowledge his authorship of the controversial articles, he went on to assume responsibility for the 16. See Louis Saltet, La Question Herzog-Dupin (Paris: P. Lethellieux, 1908). 17. L’eschatologie à la fin du IVe siècle, Histoire du dogme de la papauté, and Histoire du dogme du péché originel were Indexed in 1909; Historie de la théologie positive, depuis l’origine jusqu’au concile de Trente, Saint Jérôme, and Tertullien followed in 1910, and Histoire de la théologie positive, du concile de Trente au concile du Vatican was added in 1911. 18. Louis Saltet, “La suite des pseudonymes de M. Turmel,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 30 (1929): 83–90, 104–25, 165–82.

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pseudonymous team that had emerged after Dupin-Herzog’s demise. In November 1930 the Holy Office excommunicated Turmel vitandus, concluding what the Revue apologétique termed “Un épisode actuel de modernisme.”19

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Sa rti au x ’s T u r m e l

Though a layman who worked outside the academic establishment, Félix Sartiaux had a wide circle of ecclesiastical acquaintances and knew several prominent Modernists rather well.20 Marcel Hébert exercised a formative influence on Sartiaux as his philosophy teacher at the École Fénelon in the early 1890s, forging a relationship that lasted until Hébert’s death in 1916. It was not until 1910 that Sartiaux encountered Alfred Loisy. Although he attended Loisy’s lectures, read his works and critical responses to them, and carried on an extensive correspondence with the exegete, Sartiaux never achieved the close relationship with Loisy that he had enjoyed with Hébert. By contrast with Loisy, Albert Houtin, whom Sartiaux met in 1916, seemed a kindred spirit. To provide insight into their mutual affinity Sartiaux borrowed words that a common friend applied to Houtin: “All morality is a hierarchy of values. Absolute intellectual probity seemed to both of us the primary condition for proper conduct of thought and, as much as possible, of life.”21 This in turn gives perspective on Sartiaux’s appreciation of Turmel, with whom he initiated contact in 1926, the year of Houtin’s death, developing a close relationship that lasted until the end of Turmel’s life in 1943. Though each of these priests differed notably from the others, Sartiaux experienced Turmel as unique: “I have 19. Bruno de Solages, “Un épisode actuel de modernisme,” Revue apologétique 49 (1929): 385–403. 20. He prefaces his account of Turmel’s life with a survey of his relationships with Hébert, Loisy, and Houtin (19–38). 21. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 28. The complete text of Dr. Eugène-Bernard Leroy’s testimony was published in the second, posthumous volume of Houtin’s autobiography, which Sartiaux edited as Houtin’s literary executor.

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known many priests, several of whom certainly did not lack for knowledge, loftiness, or personality. Turmel is the most surprising, fascinating example of ecclesiastical psychology that I have run into.”22 In December 1930 Sartiaux wrote a short biographical piece on Turmel which was published in Europe the following month.23 Sartiaux’s stated aim in this was explanation rather than justification: “I do not propose to treat a moral problem here, to judge Turmel’s conduct: my sole object is to try to understand it.”24 This object reflected Sartiaux’s notion of the ideal biographer, an ideal apparently achieved by Houtin in his various biographical writings, but especially so in his Life of Loisy. “Writing not to prove but to relate and understand, [Houtin] effaced himself before the facts, only occasionally suggesting to the reader, by his choice of the most significant, the interpretation that seemed to impose itself.”25 Sartiaux affirmed that this same ideal informed his own work on Loisy, a continuation of Houtin’s project, and he reiterated it at the outset of his biography on Turmel.26 Nonetheless, the moral question could not be ignored. In a section devoted to Turmel’s case that followed the biographical narrative, Sartiaux addressed it in ways that reflected his moral positivism. In 1917 he had published Morale kantienne et morale humaine, an extensive critique of Kant’s work that revealed Sartiaux’s own commitment to a positivist moral science.27 His evolutionary perspective took seri22. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 15. 23. Félix Sartiaux, “Une grande figure d’excommunié: Joseph Turmel,” Europe (15 January 1931): 129–51. 24. Ibid., 149. 25. Sartiaux’s Forward in Emile Poulat, Alfred Loisy. Sa vie son oeuvre. (Paris: C. N. R. S., 1960), 2. 26. “It has no other object than relating, than attempting to understand and explain”; see Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 15. 27. Félix Sartiaux, Morale kantienne et morale humaine (Paris: Hachette, 1917). For the larger contest of positivism’s influence on moral theory in nineteenth-century France, see Phyllis Stock-Morton, Moral Education for a Secular Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), especially chapter 7.

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ously the particular and relative character of moral reality, placing him poles apart from any moral system founded upon abstract principles that were accorded an absolute status. Although he does not introduce explicit moral argument into his rendition of Turmel’s life, this perspective clearly informed his sympathetic portrayal of his subject. The moral issues at stake were not lost on Jean Rivière, who wrote a brief anonymous response to Sartiaux’s article in the Revue apologétique later that same year.28 The core issue for Rivière was “the difficult problem of morality” posed by the sort of “double game” played by Turmel over several decades. And Sartiaux was seen to address it by going well beyond a plea for extenuating circumstances to an actual defense of lying. Rivière quoted what he viewed to be a key passage: “. . . [Turmel] lied. He lied in the temporal order, in an order which did not count for him, for the sake of guaranteeing his freedom of feelings and ideas, for the sake of not lying in the spiritual order. . . . At the price of a lie, of a unique, distinct, sharp, cynical lie, he avoided a thousand ambiguous lies. He secured his spiritual liberty; he hid his thought. . . .”29 Rivière judged this to be “singular rhetoric,” “sophisms,” that indicated a “deformation of moral sensibility.”30 D e f e n d i n g th e Li e

Writing as Louis Coulange, Turmel had observed, “The priest . . . who opens his eyes to the truth resembles a passenger, who, coming 28. “Un plaidoyer pour le mensonge,” Revue apologétique 52 (1931): 625–26. Published anonymously, its author was Jean Rivière, author of the work cited in note 7 above. Sartiaux briefly discusses this and two other responses to his article in Joseph Turmel, 223–26. Rivière (1878–1946), ordained priest in 1901 for the archdiocese of Albi, did further theological study at the Toulouse Institut catholique. In 1904 he returned to Albi to teach at the seminary and later, from 1919, taught at the University of Strasbourg. See Laplanche, Dictionnaire du monde religieux 9: Les sciences religieuses, 587–89. 29. “Un plaidoyer pour le mensonge,” 626, quoting Sartiaux, “Une grande figure d’excommunié,” 148–49. 30. Rivière, “Un plaidoyer pour le mensonge,” 626.

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upon the open sea, realizes he is on the wrong ship. Throwing himself into the sea would constitute useless suicide. The only thing to do is to bear the consequences of an irreparable error and journey to the end.”31 Applied to himself, the analogy is somewhat misleading, however. Turmel was not content to be a passenger, passively borne along. As noted, he worked actively to undermine Church teaching and beliefs, continued as an unbeliever to function as a priest, and explicitly denied authorship of his pseudonymous articles. These were the dominant issues in his life. Unlike those who were more centrally networked into the Modernist movement, Turmel’s reclusive life was relatively uneventful. In the brief synopsis given earlier three nodal points can be distinguished: first, his loss of faith and decision to remain a priest; second, the controversy over Dupin-Herzog and his response to it; and lastly, his excommunication. At stake is not only telling a lie, but living a lie. Sartiaux will attempt to address that problem, not through argument from abstract principle, but by narrating a life. As Peter Levine has remarked, “[D]etailed stories are the most effective vehicles for moral argument.”32 F i r st N o d a l P o i n t: D e c o n v e r s i o n

Prior to the crisis that catalyzed his loss of faith, Turmel had done remarkably little secular reading. Sartiaux notes that Turmel did not read anything by Renan until 1885 or by Voltaire until 1886 to make the point that his crisis of faith came from another source. It was Turmel’s careful study of portions of the Old Testament itself—notably the Hexateuch and Daniel, both of which figured prominently in the critical debates of the period—abetted by Reuss’s commentary that proved decisive. Try as he might, employing “dialectical subterfuges” 31. Sartiaux, “Une grande figure d’excommunié,” 149, quoting Catéchisme pour adultes, 2:213–14. He repeats the quote in Joseph Turmel, 214. 32. Peter Levine, Living without Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 33.

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was no proof against “the evidence.” As a result, “he perceived that the Church, in which he had placed his entire confidence, was . . . an immense school of lies.”33 No longer believing that the Church was reformable, his disillusion was total—yet he kept these convictions to himself and remained a priest. In justifying Turmel’s conduct of life, Sartiaux appealed first to other lives. “Turmel did what the vast majority of priests who no longer believed did, he did as Loisy: he remained.”34 Those who left in similar circumstances—Hébert and Houtin are singled out—constituted the exception. But those who remained did so from different motives. Loisy preserved a hope that a reformed Catholicism could still play an important role in a modern world, but Turmel did not share such optimism, nor could he claim to be working in service of a like ideal. With Turmel, however, Sartiaux could point to a higher ideal, that of truth. Since open resistance would have been equivalent, in Turmel’s own terms, to a suicidal leap into the sea, he remained on the ship. He did so not out of any hope of redirecting its course, but rather with the intent of revealing the flimsiness of its construction. “’Martyr for the truth,’ he said, ‘I wish to be its apostle.’”35 Sartiaux also highlights the importance of family ties. Unlike Hébert, Loisy, and even Houtin, for Turmel “to leave was to separate from all those he loved, to inflict a cruel sorrow, a veritable despair upon them, to strike them ‘a dagger blow,’ as he often said to me. In remaining, he made only himself suffer.”36 In positioning Turmel’s decision to remain within the Church and to maintain the functions of priesthood, Sartiaux did not try so much to excuse his conduct as to offer justification for it. As a type of account, justifications “recognize a general sense in which the act in question is impermissible, but claim 33. Ibid., 45. 34. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 45. 35. Ibid., 53. 36. Ibid., 46. On Turmel’s solicitude for his parents, but especially for his mother, see 49–50.

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that the particular occasion permits or requires the very act.”37 In other words, in contrast to excuses where the immorality, wrongness, or inappropriateness of the act is accepted, but full responsibility for it is not, justifications accept responsibility while seeking to challenge the pejorative character of the conduct in given circumstances. In his recourse to family ties Sartiaux utilizes an “appeal to loyalties” as a technique of neutralization: “[H]is action was permissible or even right since it served the interests of another to whom he owes an unbreakable allegiance or affection.”38 Then there was Turmel himself. The formational system that had constricted his ideas had longer term effects on his person. The narrow environment in which he had functioned for years rendered him a stranger to his century, weakened his will through the very educational process that shaped his intellect, and made any other form of existence virtually inconceivable. “Free intellectually, he was chained by forces from which he was incapable of breaking loose.”39 The sympathetic portrayal of Turmel in light of the effects of the ecclesiastical formation he received represents the type of justification termed “denial of the victim.” Rather than the Church appearing as the victim of his dissembling, Turmel emerges as a victim of an ecclesiastical environment. S e c o n d N o d a l P o i n t: T h e D u p i n - H e r zo g C o n t ro v e r s y

By the time of the Dupin-Herzog controversy, Turmel had amassed an impressive body of published work. Sartiaux emphasized in Turmel’s life and work the “absolute intellectual probity” he found so admirable in Houtin. As a good positivist, dedicated to the disinterested pursuit of objective truth, Sartiaux portrayed his biographical subject along the same lines. The circumstances surrounding Turmel’s 37. Martin B. Scott and Stanford M. Lyman, “Accounts,” in American Sociological Review 33 (1968): 46–62 at 51. 38. Idem. 39. Ibid., 47; cf. 48.

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entry into the public forum reinforced the portrait of the historian in a scientist’s lab coat. The collaboration with Loisy’s Revue established a pattern: invitations to publish came to him. The stated point here is that they came in recognition of his extensive knowledge of the sources, his critical spirit, and his stylistic vigor. The unstated point: is that he was no propagandist intentionally hoaxing a gullible Catholic public. Turmel’s historical credentials are further established by recourse to peer review. Loisy’s may be taken as indicative: “On the whole, I believe that M. Turmel’s history of dogma will be able to rival the most scholarly work that Germany has produced; further, that it will have the advantage of being conceived more broadly, outside of any a priori system, and of being more clear in its exposition.”40 In the initial negotiations with Loisy, there was some hesitation over whether Turmel’s contributions should appear under his own name or under a pseudonym. The decision to claim authorship rested in part on their engaging doctrine (e.g., angelology) rather than dogma (although Modernists did not always distinguish clearly between the two), and in part on the nature of his method of approach. Against a Catholicism that stressed the continuity of its tradition and relegated variation to Protestant error, Turmel marshaled texts from the Church Fathers, from the great doctors of the Church, and from the Scriptures themselves to show that some dogmas were not held from the very first but only emerged later, that others once held had subsequently disappeared, that even figures highly regarded in the tradition had advanced doctrines incompatible with the faith.41 Sartiaux is careful to emphasize here that the results of Turmel’s investigations appeared in print with ecclesiastical approval. This is explained by invoking “an important trait of the ecclesiastical mentality”—its willingness to easily accommodate itself to “false situations,” be they breach40. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 57. Loisy is referring here to the two-volume Histoire de la théologie positive. 41. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 60.

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es of discipline or subversive ideas, as long as public scandal is not at stake. Since Turmel was shaped by this mentality in the course of his formation, it was a case of the Church reaping what it sowed.42 Picking up on a point he had made earlier, Sartiaux renewed his case for diminished culpability. Turmel was formed in a Church marked by an “atmosphere of compromise, of dissimulation,” which had active recourse to “pious fraud” to maintain its official teaching and authority. Though contrary to his basic temperament, he was not immune to its effects. The lesson to “safeguard the appearances and avoid scandal” was not lost on him.43 Turmel’s abnormally isolated lifestyle constituted another factor of importance. For him, paramount reality included “safeguarding his two supreme freedoms: his affections and his thought.” The institution that loomed so large in the lives of his ecclesiastical critics and superiors held little reality for him.44 More troublesome than Turmel’s signed articles was his pseudonymous work, however, particularly the articles published under the names Dupin and Herzog. Although recourse to pseudonyms was common practice on both sides of the ideological divide during the Modernist period—and so could be taken in stride by Sartiaux45— Turmel’s outright denials of authorship were not. In the body of his narrative Sartiaux reiterated the stance he had taken earlier in the Europe article. He would continue to function as a historian and psychologist who seeks to understand, not as a moralist who judges.46 42. Ibid., 61–62; cf. 104. 43. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 102–4. 44. Ibid., 106. 45. Sartiaux notes the names of several modernists who used pseudonyms, after establishing historical precedent for the practice within the Church, and going back to the Old Testament itself (63–64). In his Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Tournai: Castreman, 1979) Emile Poulat discusses the use of pseudonymous and anonymous productions during the Modernist crisis and provides a bibliography of both types of works identifying their true authors. 46. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 80.

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In exploring this episode in Turmel’s life the biographer repeatedly reminded his reader that he was doing so from his subject’s perspective. In interlacing that perspective with the views of predecessors and contemporaries (significantly, Houtin moved into prominence here), Sartiaux suggested that Turmel’s way of regarding matters was not as idiosyncratic as it might otherwise appear. Sartiaux insisted that Turmel’s conduct was not exceptional in several respects. For example, Sartiaux gave Turmel’s estimate that five or six hundred of his French contemporaries had, since their ordination, lost “their theological illusions,” yet retained the exercise of their ministry. Though contemporaries who actively resisted the Church from within were thinner on the ground, their number could be augumented by prominent historical predecessors. Again, Turmel was not unique.47 He did, however, stand out in his reply to his archbishop’s query, elicited by the controversy catalyzed by Saltet and Portalié over Dupin-Herzog, regarding his identity with those pseudonyms. Not only did he deny the allegation, he signed a letter in which he affirmed his complete adherence to the Church’s teaching. Moreover, he did this not only in general terms, but went on to specify his adherence to the very Marian dogmas that he had negated as Herzog.48 Even in this Turmel’s case was not unique, Sartiaux suggested. Prominent Modernists again provided precedent, with Loisy once more being singled out, in his letter of adhesion to the pope following the issuance of Providentissimus Deus (1893). “This is what Turmel did in 1908, under different conditions. Once again, I do not judge. I state a fact, I compare.”49 Yet Turmel went beyond even Loisy in explicitly denying authorship of his subversive writings. 47. Ibid., 80–86. 48. Sartiaux reproduced the text of this letter on 87–88. He does note that, ironically, in this instance Turmel signed his name to something he did not author. The letter was drafted by his bishop and conveyed to Turmel (86). 49. Ibid., 91.

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Since the burden of proof fell upon Turmel, Sartiaux had to supply good reasons for the chosen mode of conduct. In this connection Sartiaux’s choice of language is interesting: “For us, priesthood, ecclesiastical institution, dogmatic and disciplinary authority form a unit whose parts are integral.”50 As a result of his historical investigations this unity was no longer operative for Turmel. His research had convinced him that, contrary to what he had been taught, dogma and disciplinary practices did not in fact have the historical legitimacy claimed for them. This neutralized any obligations to Church authority or authorities. Lacking a solid basis for their authority, they forfeited any right to judge his theological work. In consequence, the institution, in perpetuating a false state of affairs, became his adversary. “He believed he had the right to pay in its own coin this power which he regarded as a perpetual deceiver, as the greatest mistress of error and falsehood that had ever existed. . . .”51 That left the priesthood. The faithful who remained sincerely and profoundly believing had need of the consoling and fortifying rites of Mass and confession. If dogmas were ephemeral, souls remained real.52 A passion for truth combined with compassion for the souls entrusted to his care were the avenues for arriving at an understanding of Joseph Turmel: priest, historian of dogmas. Then there was the issue of the lie itself. The Scholastic tradition in which Turmel had been educated defined lying essentially from a relational perspective. Sartiaux invoked no less an authority than Saint Thomas Aquinas to show that more is at stake than the mere act of lying itself. Its gravity depended on its effects upon faith and charity. Thus there were circumstances that would permit “a prudent dissimulation.” Moreover, there was the additional consideration of having the 50. Ibid., 98. 52. Ibid., 99.

51. Ibid., 100.

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right to truth. “’The truth is owed only to those who have the right to it,’ Turmel wrote to me on the tenth of December 1930. ‘But, in order to have the right to truth, the basic condition to fulfill is consenting to listen.’”53 Faced with a Church that had chosen to dissimulate, to alter the true character of its past, the historian was placed in a difficult position. “To remain in accord with the Church, he would have had to abandon his status as a historian or renounce exercising it honestly.”54 The implication was clear: in playing false with the Church, Turmel remained true to himself, exhibiting the “absolute intellectual probity” that ranked so high in Sartiaux’s stated hierarchy of values. Lies are linked to secrecy, and both are connected with power.55 “Lies protect the weak from the strong” and “a secret is a form of political capital that can be invested in domination or in resisting domination by others.”56 Lying and its attendant secrecy can thus take adversarial forms—at the extreme, lying to enemies. In her study of lying, Sissela Bok targets two primary modes of justification of such lies: appeal to the principle of fairness (enemies deserve such treatment) and the avoidance of harm, or duplicity as self-defense. With respect to the first, Sartiaux explicitly stated that Turmel regarded the institution “which had duped him, whose misdeeds he fought and in which he remained practically a prisoner” as “the enemy.” “He considered himself in a state of war with it. And truth is not owed to an enemy.”57 For Bok the appeal to fairness is based on an intuitive moral judgment: “People should receive the treatment that their behavior merits.”58 Where fairness does not convince, invoking self-defense may. By 1908, the Vatican repression of Modernism was all too apparent on 53. Ibid., 97. 54. Ibid., 85. 55. Sissela Bok, Secrets (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), xix, 19. 56. F.G. Bailey, The Prevalence of Deceit (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), xx, 37. 57. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 99–100 (italics in original). 58. Sissela Bok, Lying (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 136.

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any number of fronts. By then several journals had ceased publication, censorship had been tightened, delations had multiplied. Turmel’s letter denying authorship of Dupin-Herzog and affirming his adherence to Church teaching was signed in late May of that year; Loisy had been excommunicated the previous March. In addressing the issues of Turmel’s use of pseudonyms and his explicit disavowal of several of the most compromising of those, Sartaiux again made use of the accounting techniques of “appeal to loyalties” and “denial of the victim” (or better, in this case, reversal of the victim). In the foregoing retrievals from the biography two additional strategies are evident as well. With the device termed “condemnation of the condemners,” an admission of performing the censurable act is coupled with the argument that it escapes justifiable censure in that “others commit these and worse acts, and these others are not caught, not punished, not condemned, unnoticed, or even praised.”59 Sartiaux’s castigation of the “ecclesiastical mentality” and his invocation of others in the Church who had used pseudonymous writings as means of resistance from within, and who even went so far as to sign formularies affirming their adherence to Church teaching, would all fall under this rubric. Lastly, the technique of denial of injury to persons surfaces in the rhetoric of warfare and enemy. This positions the recipients of the subject’s actions as “deserving” of whatever injury they receive precisely because of their inimical status. T h i r d N o d a l P o i n t: E x c o m m u n i c at i o n

As indicated earlier, Turmel thought it prudent to let “Dupin” and “Herzog” quietly disappear. Successive Indexings of his own publications over 1909–1911 validated his decision to retire his own name as well. Nonetheless, his method of approaching the history of dogma was distinctive in France, and his style could not entirely be con59. Scott and Lyman, “Accounts,” 51.

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cealed. The common parentage of the brood of pseudonymous identities he evolved was not opaque to those who took the trouble to look. The common source, if not the precise identity of their author, became apparent to Sartiaux. At one point he asked Houtin about their true author and received the reply, “Assemble, compare, apply criticism, and you will find out.”60 Controversy reopened when in 1928 Jean Rivière detected strong similarities between the work of Hippolyte Gallerand (another pseudonym) and that of Dupin and Herzog, and between all three and Turmel—and said so in print. This time documentary evidence establishing the common parentage of the three in Turmel was forthcoming. These revelations were more than sufficient to reopen the question of Turmel’s pseudonymous activity both with his archbishop and with Rome. In light of the proof brought forward, denying his authorship of the offending Herzog and Dupin texts was no longer possible. In the hope (naïve he judged in retrospect) of lifting the sanctions he thereby incurred, Turmel assumed responsibility not only for Gallerand but for the entire pseudonymous team he had formed after the 1908 controversy. In both the Europe article and in the longer biography Sartiaux portrays Turmel as being led to believe that his case was being handled at the archdiocesan level, and that submission with a promise to publish nothing further against the faith would lift his suspension and the interdiction on his saying Mass. In reality, the affair was being managed from Rome. Turmel’s admissions earned him excommunication in November 1930. Sartiaux underscores the factual basis of both accounts, in Europe and in the biography, based as they were on Turmel’s own notes of the period, to secure a larger claim: the Church that had duped Turmel at the early part of his ecclesiastical career did so again at the end. 60. Sartiaux, Joseph Turmel, 110.

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the m o r a lit y of a posta sy      37 Acc o u nt Acc e p ta b i lit y

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The efficacy of accounts depends upon a set of shared background assumptions regarding what is acceptable as legitimate or reasonable.61 Sartiaux needed to convince his readers of his own legitimacy as a biographer in order to establish a sense of legitimacy and reasonableness for Turmel’s actions.62 Throughout the biography Sartiaux in effect claimed legitimacy for himself by taking great pains to establish his credibility as a trustworthy reporter, not an advocate. He proceeded with a scrupulous regard for the facts, relying not only on Turmel’s version but, where possible, seeking independent confirmation from other involved parties. Sartiaux repeatedly noted where he was presenting events from Turmel’s point of view—again, for the sake of understanding. The case for Turmel’s character rested ultimately on his unswerving dedication to truth established on fact (an epistemology Sartiaux shared), wher61. “An account is treated as illegitimate when the gravity of the event exceeds that of the account or when it is offered in a circle where its vocabulary of motives is unacceptable.” “An account is deemed unreasonable when the stated grounds for action cannot be ‘normalized’ in terms of the background expectancies of what ‘everybody knows.’” See Scott and Lyman, “Accounts,” 54. 62. In an appendix to the biography, “Pour servir à un jugement moral,” Sartiaux concludes with a version of the “unless you’ve walked in another’s moccasins” argument: “If, reader inclined to severity, you had pushed a barrow of firewood throughout your youth to come to the aid of parents in their poverty; if you had experienced raptures and visions before the Blessed Sacrament and passionately embraced priesthood; if, cut off from the world, you had been carried away by devotion, mysticism and scholasticism;—if, achieving the height of your ambitions, going deeper into the history of dogma in a provincial seminary, you had been cast down form the heights of faith, cut off from the only profession for which you were prepared and cast into destitution, forced to choose between the infinitely dear beings you did not wish to dishearten and an exclusive passion for studies forbidden to you;—if you had lived for forty years, between chapel and library, with no other companions than your solitude, an ascetical and eremetical life, exclusively vowed to mental activity; you could more easily put yourself in his place, imagine what you would have done or wanted to do” (264–65). In the biography proper Sartiaux’s language is less colorful. Nonetheless, like Houtin, he is capable of writing with rhetorical skill when attempting to establish the legitimacy and reasonableness of Turmel’s conduct.

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ever that led, and a faithful dedication to the pious souls to whom he ministered. As a largely solitary, scholarly ascetic, Turmel needed humanizing in order to appear sympathetic. Attachments to his faithful and his family assisted that aim. As a railway official, outside both the ecclesiastical and the academic establishments, Sartiaux had little of the social and intellectual capital that would wield influence within the Church. If an essential function of rhetorical argument is to persuade and not simply to clarify, then who was his intended audience? Certainly Rivière was no more persuaded by the book than he was by the original article on Turmel. He entitled his brief review of the biography “Un mauvais avocat d’une mauvaise cause.” In the course of it he impugned Sartiaux’s competence to evaluate justly work on doctrines or on Christian origins (“Turmel’s opinion on the administration of the Northern Railway would weigh equally”), highlighted Sartiaux’s “subjective” mode of argument, and dismissed his account as a tissue of “defamatory suspicions, conjectures bereft of all proof, unsubstantiated gossip, formal calumnies.”63 Sartiaux did, at several points, air his conviction that the less familiar laity were with the actual workings of the Church, the more severely they were likely to judge Turmel’s conduct. In that sense, his discussion of “the ecclesiastical mentality”—to the extent such readers found it convincing—could conceivably ameliorate their evaluation of Turmel. More speculatively, I wonder if Sartiaux, in distinguishing Turmel from the Modernists, simultaneously sought to claim him as a fellow freethinker. Sartiaux himself apparently lost his faith rather early on, and came to see Church dogma as no more than human constructions. Turmel too lost his “illusions” quite early. The case could be made that he saw more clearly than Loisy into the 63. Jean Rivière, “Un mauvais avocat d’une mauvaise cause,” Revue apologétique 54 (1932): 560–63, citing 562 and 563.

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Church’s true nature and thus acted more incisively in choosing subversion over reform. On this reading Sartiaux’s lack of capital vis-à-vis the Church would be less important. His aims, and his audience, were elsewhere. It is noteworthy that, in 1933, Turmel himself gave his adherence to Free Thought and his autobiography as well as some of his manuscripts were published under its auspices.64

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C o n clusi o n

Sartiaux’s biography is primarily about understanding Turmel the person and much less about understanding his work. Of course, the two are not easily separable, especially in Turmel’s case where so much of himself was invested in his research. Nonetheless, Sartiaux tends to discuss the content of his subject’s publications only in general terms as his main concerns obviously lie elsewhere. It is apparent that I have—to an even greater extent—followed Sartiaux in his chosen emphasis. Turmel’s mode of doing historical theology and its limitations merit a study in their own right. Here, let me conclude with some observations regarding Sartiaux. F. G. Bailey observes that “[t]hose who claim to stand above the fray and hold the ring impartially for truth either lie or deceive themselves. Whether they wish it or not, whether they realize it or not, umpires are always drawn into the contest and, if they are to be effective, must, like any other contestant, strive to make their own definition of the situation . . . prevail.”65 Despite the unrelentingly negative 64. See Claude Laillet, “Joseph Turmel,” Cahiers du Cercle Ernest-Renan 49 (1966): 5. Recently La Libre Pensée Rennaise has begun reissuing Turmel’s works. The two volumes of the autobiography have appeared in a single volume, Autobiographie (2003); also published are Les religions (2003), two of his writings on the Johannine corpus under the title Deux écrits pseudo-johanniques interpretes (2003), and the Herzog text on Mariology together with several contemporary articles critiquing it as Turmel, l’Église et la virginité mariale au debut du 20ème siècle (2004). 65. Bailey, The Prevalence of Deceit, 67.

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evaluation of Sartiaux’s biography by Rivière, there is no indication that its author was anything but sincere in his claims for impartiality. Sartiaux saw himself as scrupulously attentive to the facts—in that he did not lie. But to hold that the facts speak for themselves is to be selfdeceived. The facts must be made to speak, through a variety of discursive devices. As noted in the Introduction, Houtin, imbued with this form of positivism, may be located epistemologically on the extreme left of the Modernist movement, with Loisy and Mignot as more centrist, and figures such as Batiffol and Lagrange to the right. Positioned on the same grid Turmel stands with Houtin. And though Sartiaux is more marginal to Modernism than even Turmel, he at least shares the epistemological location. But Sartiaux shared more than epistemology with Turmel. As suggested earlier, he saw in Turmel a fellow freethinker, uncompromising when it came to “absolute intellectual probity.” This draws Turmel closer to Houtin, likewise antipathetic to “pious fraud” wherever he found it, but distances both from Loisy, who was too reflective of the stigmatized “ecclesiastical mentality” for Sartiaux’s taste. Like Turmel, Sartiaux functioned as a scholar outside the academic establishment. They shared basic convictions and published in the same series—Christianisme—to which Sartiaux contributed Foi et science au moyen age (1926) and for which Turmel’s pseudonymous team wrote a number of volumes. Though there were clear differences in their life trajectories, Sartiaux saw in Turmel a kindred spirit. In representing Turmel’s life he reflected important parts of his own.

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  C h a p te r

Two

A n I d e a l M o d e rn ist Marcel Hébert

C .J.T. Ta l a r I have known but two perfectly honest, selfless, dedicated modernists: Marcel Hébert and Giovanni Pioli.

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—Albert Houtin1

T he even t s in Hé be rt ’s life that led up to his attempts to accommodate the Roman Catholic Church to modernity, his relation to similar or parallel initiatives for renewal, and his activities subsequent to his leaving the Church, form the substance of Albert Houtin’s Un prêtre symboliste. Marcel Hébert (1851–1916). Hébert initiated contact with Houtin in 1902, shortly after the appearance of the latter’s La question biblique chez les catholiques de France au XIXe siècle. That 1. Albert Houtin, Ma vie laïque 1912–1926 (Paris: Rieder, 1928), 260. Accused of Modernism in 1908, Giovanni Pioli (1877–1969) left the priesthood and devoted himself to teaching and writing. He became an intimate friend of Hébert. See the Index biobibliographique in Émile Poulat, Alfred Loisy, sa vie son oeuvre (Paris: C. N. R. S., 1960), 392. Pioli memorialized Hébert in the Italian Methodist review, Bilychnis (August 1916; also published in brochure form). His “Albert Houtin: A Memoir,” originally published in the Contemporary Review ( June 1927), prefaced the English translation of Houtin’s Une vie de prêtre (1926). See Albert Houtin, The Life of a Priest, trans. Winifred S. Whale (London: Watts, 1927), vii–xix.

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developed into a friendship that lasted until Hébert’s death. Though he had been urged by several of his friends to write his autobiography, Hébert had declined to do so. On the basis of their fourteen-year relationship with its extensive correspondence, and having been given the task of classifying Hébert’s papers by his executors, Houtin decided to provide an account of Hébert’s career.2 Following an established pattern in his biographical and historical works, Houtin affirms his objectivity. Un prêtre symboliste is written “not to sustain theses, but to set forth circumstances, recount developments, contribute to the history of the great contemporary religious crisis.”3 That Houtin accorded Hébert a significant role in that crisis would have been apparent to those acquainted with Houtin’s earlier Histoire du modernisme catholique. Hébert is featured prominently in its initial chapters.4 We shall see that not all of those who were involved in the Modernist movement shared this estimation of Hébert’s importance.5 Marcel Hébert’s formative years were marked by a home envi2. Houtin also sought out correspondence from others and had his manuscript reviewed by several persons who knew Hébert from a variety of contexts; see Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 8. 3. Idem. 4. See Albert Houtin, Histoire du modernisme catholique (Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1913), chapters 1 and 3. At the time of Hébert’s death, Salomon Reinach observed that “[t]he history of thought in France in the first years of the twentieth century will not be written without taking Marcel Hébert’s personality and influence into account”; see Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 227. 5. Including Hébert himself. Following upon publication of Houtin’s Histoire, Hébert wrote to Roger Martin du Gard: “I had influence on several individuals, but not historical influence. . . . Houtin has, out of friendship, exaggerated, not in what he tells, which is exact, but in the chapter headings”; see letter of 8 December 1912 (Houtin’s book actually appeared the previous month), quoted in Un prêtre symboliste, 227–28. Loisy is more critical yet: “Houtin’s Histoire du modernisme has a fictitious starting point: the joining, between 1881 and 1889, with Duchesne at the center, of the ideas of Duchesne himself on the early history of the Church, of mine on the history of the Bible, and those of Marcel Hébert on philosophy, in order to construct a vast philosophico-historical system into which other of Duchesne’s friends, Margival, for example, and Batiffol . . . would have been initiated over the same period”; see Alfred Loisy, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1930), 1: 535. In Henri Gouhier’s judgment, the “’crisis’ in Catholic thought” evoked by articles such as Hébert’s “La dernière idole” (1902) is remembered in

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ronment of exemplary piety and a record of distinguished academic achievement on his part. Since her husband died the year following his son’s birth, Madame Hébert naturally exercised a strong influence on her two children. Nonetheless, Houtin emphasizes that Hébert’s orientation to the priesthood was no “maternal vocation.” His entry into the seminary was not a foregone conclusion, given fragile health and the prospect of having to support a widowed mother and his sister. Other significant figures of these years included a maternal great uncle, who stimulated an interest in geology and paleontology in the boy, lifelong concerns that would surface in future publications. Working toward a bachelor of arts awarded in 1868 and a bachelor of sciences degree awarded the following year undermined his health to a point where it would not support the rigors of a seminary regime.6 For a time he acquiesced to the urgings of a childless uncle to join him in business. Meanwhile, he undertook private study of philosophy, for which he exhibited a pronounced taste.7 In the fall of 1871, Hébert realized his desire to study for the priesthood, and entered the Sulpician seminary at Issy. There, although he was exposed to the philosophical tradition of Descartes and Malbranche, Thomist philosophy proved decisive, and he became a convinced disciple. The combination of his formal academic credentials and his private study, viewed in light of his ready adaptation to seminary life, led the faculty to dispense him from the second year of philosophy. Thus in 1872 he embarked upon the three-year course in theology. Over this period Sulpicians were known for their virtuous lives rather than for their scholarly attainments. The manual system then in the history of this period because of its proximity to the crisis catalyzed by historical critical methods; see Henri Gouhier, “Tradition et développement à l’époque du modernisme,” Archivio di filosofia 1–2 (1963): 75–99, citing 76. 6. For an indication of the effects of seminary life on the constitutions of those subjected to it, see Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 30n. 7. Hébert’s early years are discussed in Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 9–15.

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use expressly discouraged originality on the part of the instructor or active curiosity on the part of the seminarian.8 John Hogan, S.S., constituted a notable exception to this state of affairs. He sought out the most intelligent among the seminarians and exercised a formative influence on several.9 In Hébert’s case, part of the effect was to temper a passion for Scholastic philosophy and metaphysics, and to open new horizons in psychology. By 1875 Hébert’s health was once again in serious decline, and he was obliged to retire from seminary. He did not return, but instead finished his course of instruction through private study, supplementing the standard manuals with works recommended by Hogan. Hébert received ordination to the priesthood in June 1876. At this point, some comparisons are worth making with other figures in this volume. Like Joseph Turmel and Albert Houtin, both of whom may be located on the “left wing” of Modernism, Hébert early on manifested a strong intellectual bent. Like them his seminary formation reflected the prevailing Scholasticism. Though each of them eventually distanced himself from the substance of Scholasticism—Houtin in Church history, Turmel as a historical theologian, and Hébert in philosophy—all retained Scholastic habits of mind. (Commenting on Hébert’s later development, Loisy would observe, “Hébert reasoned about the infinite and the perfect as the Scholastics; but he had borrowed from Kant the idea of becoming.”)10 Moreover, in each of their chosen areas of intellectual endeavor, they were 8. The portrayal of seminary formation sketched out by Houtin in the biography may be augmented by consulting Christian Dumoulin, Un séminaire français au 19e siècle: Le recrutement, la formation, la vie des clercs à Bourges (Paris: Téqui, 1978). Bourges was also under Sulpician direction. 9. “Although Hogan published very little, his teaching, his conversation, and his letters had a profound influence on a greater part of the French priests involved in the renewal of Catholic thought at the end of the nineteenth century: Birot, de Broglie, Douais, Frémont, Klein, d’Hulst, Hébert, Mignot”; see François Laplanche, La Bible en France entre mythe et critique (XVIe–XIXe siècle) (Paris: Albin Michel, 1994), 192. 10. Alfred Loisy, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1931), 2:110.

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largely autodidacts. The combination of training in Scholasticism and independent acquisition of critical methods in history or philosophy would prove volatile for their Catholic faith. In the eyes of his seminary contemporaries Hébert seemed destined for seminary teaching, given his intellectual interests and accomplishments—a path followed by both Turmel and Houtin. His state of health dictated otherwise and, like Loisy, he found himself for a time assigned to a country parish. As with Loisy, Hébert’s parish duties left him ample time for continued study. In addition to theological studies in Scripture and in several areas of systematics, he “reimmersed himself in Scholastic philosophy.”11 If Hébert’s health imposed limits that made seminary teaching unsustainable on the one hand, his strong intellectual interests rendered ministry in a rural parish unsatisfying on the other. In 1879 he obtained a position that returned him to Paris and provided a forum in which he could develop his knowledge of philosophy without overtaxing his physical resources. In that year he joined the staff of the École Fénelon, a school that provided a Catholic education for sons of well-to-do bourgeoisie. Students in its upper divisions attended the lycée Condorcet, returning to the École Fénelon for their religious formation and to have their studies monitored by a priest-director. Since Hébert had acquired already while in seminary a reputation for possessing a flair for philosophy, in his first year, and again over 1891–1895, he was placed in charge of students following the philosophy course of studies.12 While the purpose of the École Fénelon was to expose students to the influence of its priest-staff, in Hébert’s case the students were to exercise a decisive influence upon him. 11. Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 37. Hogan continued to offer guidance on Hébert’s studies. Given the Sulpician’s low estimation of Scholasticism, Hébert’s philosophical reading reflected his own commitments. 12. In the interval the elementary division was confided to him, especially the sacramental preparation of his young charges. See Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, chapter 5.

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The philosophy taught in the French université over the period was strongly impregnated with Kantianism. At the lycée Condorcet students were exposed to Victor Brochard, one of the strongest advocates of Kant’s ideas in France, and Kant’s ideas were transmitted to Hébert via student notes in the course of his tutoring. Houtin points out that Hébert “felt for the German philosopher the respect that any lover of dialectic naturally experiences for a great dialectitian.”13 Moreover, the criticisms of Kant imparted in seminary and prevalent among the clergy now seemed to him exaggerated. The reading of Kant then prevalent in Catholic circles positioned him as a destroyer of metaphysics, and with it natural theology, the motives of credibility in revealed truth, and external revelation itself. Any positive valuation of practical reason did not compensate for negation of speculative reason. Whatever Kant’s own intentions, to follow him would lead ineluctably to skepticism. By contrast, philosophers working in the secular academy were willing to take seriously Kant’s aim of providing an alternative basis for metaphysics, situating it on the terrain of practical reason. Rather than being held responsible for an agnosticism, Kant emerges as a defender of metaphysics. This more optimistic assessment of Kant had its effect on Hébert. His growing respect for Kant surfaced in the form of favorable comments made in the midst of a review published in Louis Duchesne’s Bulletin critique in May 1881. Such a departure from the usual clerical censure of that philosopher so shocked the archbishop of Paris that he directed Duchesne to keep closer tabs on his collaborators.14 Hébert soon gained a reputation as a Kantian of doubtful orthodoxy. By 1885, when Mgr D’Hulst invited Hébert’s participation in the 13. Ibid., 53. In other words, while the substance was very different from Hébert’s Scholastic studies, the habits of mind formed by the latter provided a bridge to Kant’s work. 14. Ibid., 54.

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recently founded Société de Saint-Thomas d’Aquin, he alluded to the already “questionable” orthodoxy of the invitee. D’Hulst was sufficiently broad-minded to see in this an opportunity for other members to learn. A mark of Hébert’s growing commitment to Kantian thought is evident in a paper read before the society later that same year, in which he claimed that Kant had made important advances on Saint Thomas in problems of epistemology.15 Although Kant was far from being the sole influence on Hébert’s philosophical orientation, the impact was sufficiently apparent for Mignot to observe in 1901 that Hébert was “more Kantian that Kant himself.”16 To gain perspective on the implications of the Kantian philosophy for Hébert’s own development, and for Modernism more generally, a brief excursus on the “philosophical crisis” in France is necessary. Surveying this scene in 1908, Abel Rey discerned a division that ran between rationalist, intellectualist, and positivist systems on one side, and a less clearly defined opposing set of currents characterized as pragmatist, fideist, and intuitionist on the other. If the first gave theory primacy over practice, speculative reason precedence over practical reason, the second reversed these priorities. While Pierre Colin has judged Rey’s analysis overly schematic, he allows that it does point to an opposition that was real. And to the degree that this divide shaped the perceptions of neo-Thomists who occupied the intellectualist side (as it manifestly did), it stiffened resistance to positions emphasizing intuition or sentiment discerned among liberal Protestants or Catholic Modernists.17 With its emphasis on practical over speculative reason, Kantian15. Subsequently published as “Thomisme et Kantisme. Note lue à la société SaintThomas d’Aquin,” in Annales de philosophie chrétienne ( January 1886): 364–84. Hébert pursued this line of inquiry in “Connaissance et certitude” which appeared in the same journal in July 1886. 16. Letter of Mignot to Loisy, 13 September 1901; quoted in Loisy, Mémoires, 2, 57. 17. Pierre Colin, L’audace et le soupcon. La crise moderniste dans le catholicisme français (1893–1914) (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1997), 168–71.

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ism clearly fell within the second of the two philosophical orientations delineated by Rey. However, its significance went well beyond its forming one current in a broader philosophical stream. As Maurice Blondel, Victor Delbos, and others saw at the time, if Kant had not provided the solution, he had altered the terms of the problem. In Colin’s formulation,

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The true line of division does not pass between Thomists and non-Thomists, or even between Kantians and non-Kantians, but separates the acceptance or the refusal of the Kantian problematic insofar as this problematic exhibits the values of modernity. . . . There exists so strong a link between Kant and modernity that it is difficult to engage modernity with a keen intellect without at least passing through Kant. . . . Reciprocally, moreover, the refusal of Kant can signify the conscious or unconscious refusal of modernity. The anti-Kantian battle of Catholic adversaries of Kant is an anti-modern fight, at the same time that it is an anti-Protestant battle.18

The prominence of the charge of “Kantianism” in anti-Modernist polemic is therefore unsurprising. Before turning back to Hébert’s development, however, one further observation by Colin is worth remarking, as it has a direct bearing on what follows: “[T]he Catholic discussion of Kantianism is engaged in a larger discussion on the value of religious experience.”19 Hébert’s forays into modern and contemporary philosophy eroded his commitment to orthodox Catholic beliefs. He found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the existence of suffering and evil with an infinitely good and perfect Creator.20 Though he was not yet com18. Ibid., 201. The importance of Kant—and of German idealism more broadly—for setting the terms of the problems Blondel sought to address is well brought out in J.J. McNeill, The Blondelian Synthesis: A Study of the Influence of German Philosophical Sources on the Formation of Blondel’s Method and Thought (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966). 19. Colin, L’audace et le soupcon., 225–26. 20. In “Métaphysique de l’inconscient dans la doctrine de Schopenhauer,” initially presented before the Société de Saint-Thomas d’Aquin and subsequently published in the Annales de philosophie chrétienne 23 (1891): 401–29, Hébert stated, “The objection raised against Providence based on the existence of evil, of physical evil especially,

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pletely won over by Kant’s criticisms of the traditional proofs for God’s existence, his earlier commitment to Scholasticism was no longer tenable. Over the decade of the 1880s the latter gave ground before a Kantian and evolutionist perspective. As encapsulated by Houtin, “With the Kant of practical reason, he identified God and the ‘Moral Law’; with evolutionism, he made this law ‘the Great Law,’ ‘the Orientation of universal activity,’ thus keeping together the two terms he desired to reconcile: a profound reality that is the ground of evolution, of the world’s tendency toward an ideal of perfection.”21 These philosophical pressures toward a symbolic reading of dogma were complemented by historical ones. Houtin attributes Hébert’s loss of confidence in the historicity of the gospel Resurrection narratives and their relegation to the category of “legends” to Duchesne’s influence.22 In the binary mentality also evident in Houtin, Turmel, and some of the other Modernists, history was equated with fact and legend with (pious) fiction. The historicity of the Resurrection had apparently constituted in Hébert’s mind a point of solidity for Christianity. Its loss provided additional impetus toward a symbolic interpretation of the tradition. Although he had traveled a fair distance from the Church’s traditional teaching, Hébert cherished the notion that these ideas were not incompatible with it. Houtin noted that Hébert experienced something of a philosophical crisis around 1892. By February of the following year he was able to write to Hogan, “I am thankful that I have come through the crisis, in which so many others have foundered, with a creed whose formulas have been slightly modified, but in which all that is fundamental remains.”23 The key lay in treating which seems to weigh upon man as a fate for which he is not responsible, this objection is always profoundly disturbing. Truly one does not know if one ought to laugh or get angry in reading the majority of the responses made in the name of philosophy” (416). 21. Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 88–89. 22. Ibid., 89–90. 23. Hébert to Hogan, 23 February 1893; Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 92n.

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much of Catholic dogmatic and philosophical expression as symbolic, images necessary in an evolutionary process of gaining a more adequate conceptual understanding. The essential role accorded symbol in relation to both faith and philosophy in Platon et Darwin, published in May 1893, illustrated this resolution to his crisis. The dialogue not only contained the main lines of a solution he continued to develop in future publications, it also demonstrated ways in which Kantian and evolutionist perspectives contributed to that resolution. The Kantian distinction between space and time as humanly experienced and the noumenal reality that lay beyond space and time surfaced in the dialogue, but as ancillary to Hébert’s main concern with God. In a way analogous to space and time, the images traditionally used to represent God “do not in any way function as portraits, but as symbols, signs, insufficient for satisfying curiosity, sufficient for a guide to action. Thus every simple idea is the expression of practical relations between the mind and reality.”24 The realization that “God is the perfect, the infinite, decked out in the image of human personality”25 opened a way for coming to terms with the problem of evil. The ostensible problem stemmed from mistaking image for reality, the metaphors and symbols in Scripture for literal representations. “If God fashioned things as a potter fashioning a vase, assuredly the tiger’s claws, the eagle’s talons, the panther’s teeth remain inexplicable.”26 Once the idea of the infinite was distinguished from the attributes of personality that were but the image, the problem was placed on another footing. It was no longer a case of reconciling a benevolent Creator, whose providential care for his work harmonized badly with a nature red in tooth and claw. Rather, the addition of an evolu24. Hébert, Platon et Darwin (Bar-le-Duc: Impremierie-Librairie de l’oeuvre de SaintPaul, 1893), 17. Also published in Annales de philosophie chrétienne in May 1893. Translated as Plato and Darwin, trans. William Gibson (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899). Translations are my own. At the time of its appearance this dialogue aroused no opposition, perhaps because the literary form obscured its author’s meaning. 25. Ibid., 25. 26. Ibid., 20.

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tionist view saw this infinite as still in the process of realization, a process of struggle between the attraction to the Divine and the obstacles inherent in nature itself. As expressed in the dialogue,

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The mass of humanity is undoubtedly still only at the beginnings of its evolution, but it submits nevertheless, at certain times, to the divine influence, to the attraction of justice and truth. Like Galatea, half statue and half woman, humanity is only half released from primitive animality. If the metamorphosis remains incomplete, it is because nature continues to oppose its unbridled desire for pleasure to the divine attraction; but little by little, thanks to the victories of our freedom, the metamorphosis is taking place.27

Yet, if the idea gave a less inadequate notion of reality, the image remained necessary. If ideas addressed the intellect, images spoke to the heart. For the infinite to retain an intimate connection with human life, it needed to retain expression in images. “The essential point is never to isolate speculation from practice.”28 The philosophical underpinnings of this dialogue clearly belong to the second of the two orientations discerned by Abel Rey, and as such would hardly be reassuring to Scholastics. Nonetheless, Platon et Darwin set off no alarms. Hébert’s Le sentiment religieux dans l’oeuvre de Richard Wagner (1894), which likewise served as a vehicle for its author’s symbolist outlook, even garnered favorable reviews.29 Over the 1890s Hébert’s views continued to develop along a number of fronts. His evolutionist notions, applied to the study of social questions, moved him in the direction of socialism. Despite the possession of opinions at variance with both Catholic orthodoxy and with the social background of students at the École Fénelon, he was sufficiently circumspect to be named the school’s director in 1895. Despite later accusations to the contrary, this discretion was es27. Ibid., 23. 28. Ibid., 29. 29. See Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 96–98. A few notices that sounded a cautionary note regarding the views expressed or implied apparently went unremarked by the guardians of orthodoxy.

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pecially evident in his relations with the students placed in his care. Roger Martin du Gard, who was in a position to know firsthand, affirmed that he could

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cite more than ten of Abbé Hébert’s penitents, accustomed to living with him on a footing of great spiritual intimacy, who, for a long time after he had resigned the direction of the school for reasons that are known, suspected none of the causes of his departure, and for whom his return to the lay state was a sudden catastrophe without any prior indication. On the contrary, instead of accusing Abbé Hébert of having led several young men away from orthodoxy, it would be closer to the truth to attribute to these young friends a role in their master’s evolution.30

Still, despite Hébert’s care, the more perceptive among the students understood that there was “more of symbolism than of dogmatism” in his discourses with them.31 In 1899, after his return from a trip to Umbria, Hébert composed another symbolist dialogue that he entitled “Souvenirs d’Assise.” More openly critical of the Catholicism of the present, if still strongly hopeful regarding a Catholicism of the future, and clearer in its expression of its author’s position, this small work was not originally composed for publication. He had written it for a family whose members he hoped to retain within or return to the Church. Early in the dialogue the old Capucin who serves as a mouthpiece for Hébert’s ideas foresees that the Catholicism of the future will be neither the despotic sort too often evident in his day, nor one modeled on an individualist Protestantism with little connection to tradition and to the historical religious development of humanity. Those who are tempted to break with the Church do not see beyond 30. Martin du Gard’s memorial of Hébert appears in Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 251–70, citing 261. It was also published in Roger Martin du Gard, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1955), 1:563–76?. 31. Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 104. Among these was Félix Sartiaux, who was at the École Fénelon in the early 1890s.

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the present and fail to distinguish “between the idea of the Church and the appearances that it has taken on or assumes; but, these external realizations have, as our philosophers say, only an entirely phenomenal, relative, transitory value.”32 Themes that had emerged earlier made their reappearance here: from the philosophical side, the existence of evil (noted, though not developed), the fragility of the proofs for God’s existence (circularity alleged); on the historical front, the contradictions among the gospel narratives (the Resurrection serves as prime example), and the metaphorical language of Scripture generally. The problem was that theologians maintained the distinction between image and reality in theory, but failed to uphold it in practice. Hence criticism—historical and philosophical—was to be welcomed rather than feared. Far from destroying dogmas, criticism “purifies, re-creates, reinvents them, invests them with new forms, less material, more psychological.”33 In analogous fashion it worked upon the traditional metaphysics, placing its images of divine personality in true perspective, and leaving intact the experience [sentiment] of the existence of the Divine. In consequence, the God who punished even to the fourth generation, who consigned to an eternal hell all who do not love him, was seen to be the mythical expression congruent with an earlier evolutionary stage, not an insurmountable obstacle to consciences formed by a more enlightened one. “The policeman-God preached from the catechism suits savages, not free beings.”34 In consequence, “prayer would no longer be the supplication of a self-interested beggar, but the energetic effort, accompanied by words and aspirations, for this realization of the Good.”35 Miracle and morality would likewise be transposed and renewed. 32. The dialogue was eventually printed for private circulation and ultimately published in the Revue blanche. I cite from its brochure form, Abbé Hébert, Souvenirs d’Assise (Paris: Éditions de la revue blanche, 1902), 6. 33. Ibid., 13. 34. Ibid., 14. 35. Idem.

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Hébert thought to see in this symbolist program the capacity to regard image and idea in their true relation. The provisional character of the image, its inevitable inadequacy to the reality it engaged, was balanced by an awareness of the image’s necessity—it tied the abstract idea to the heart of the believer. Hence the dialogue’s concluding recommendation not to break with the old Catholic tradition: “[B]e with those who can say with Christ: ‘I have not come to destroy, I have come to bring things to their perfection.’”36 Souvenirs d’Assise circulated among some of those Hébert judged to be potentially sympathetic to its aims, including Duchesne, Loisy, and Baron von Hügel. In his Mémoires Loisy reports that von Hügel was not at all shocked at Hébert’s ideas on the Church, but that he had reservations on the representation of the Resurrection, and found the proposals on the personality of God unacceptable. Loisy also notes that, prior to acquaintance with this work, Hébert’s ideas had not engaged either his or Duchesne’s attention. Always suspicious of metaphysical constructions, Loisy acknowledged that developments in human knowledge had “posed the problem of God in new terms.”37 But he found the proposed solution both inopportune and insufficiently thought through.38 As for Duchesne, he saw little hope for reform, at least in the near term, and regretted the brochure’s very existence because of the potential threat it represented for its author. “The only outcome of such initiatives is to get oneself thrown out the window, without any benefit either to others or to oneself.”39 Martin du Gard’s reaction to the symbolist compromise was even more blunt. After having vainly tried to arrest his former student’s steadily eroding faith by recourse to “the arsenal of orthodox arguments, whose lack of effectiveness he knew better than anyone,” Hébert offered him the revision36. Ibid., 16. 37. Loisy stated this in Autour d’un petit livre (1903), and Hébert quoted it in later writings. 38. Loisy, Mémoires, 2:48–52. 39. Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 115.

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ist program set forth in Souvenirs d’Assise. The would-be recipient remained unconvinced. He saw the position as inherently unstable, and went so far as to predict that its creator “could not adhere to this seductive and convenient manner of getting around the difficulty, and that he would be obliged, one day or another, to choose, that is, to leave.”40 That day, with its necessary choice, would not be long in coming. However, before rehearsing the events that led to Hébert’s separation from the Church, it is worth pondering how he could think that his symbolist compromise could win a sympathetic hearing from orthodox Catholics, and especially from members of the hierarchy. If one may justly speak of a “philosophical crisis” in French thought that existed beyond the confines of the Church, it is also possible to discern a related apologetic crisis within Catholicism. This was precipitated by the internal state of Catholicism as well as by developments outside it. There was clearly a felt need for a “new apologetic,” at least in some Catholic quarters. In the biography, Houtin notes that the turn of the century could be termed a time of “dogmatic anarchy.”41 In a letter written to Hébert in 1900, Hogan saw Catholicism in “a state of transition.” While real difficulties were all too apparent, the way forward was less clear. In a situation in which solutions deemed necessary by some could have drastically unsettling effects on others, he urged restraint in the public airing of progressive views.42 The fragility of classical theological and philosophical positions, the impact 40. Ibid., 260, 261. Martin du Gard, Oeuvres complètes, 1:569–70. A close reading of the chapter entitled “The Symbolist Compromise” in Martin du Gard’s novel Jean Barois (1913) shows that the arguments set forth by Abbé Schertz (modeled on Hébert) were often close paraphrases of those advanced in Souvenirs d’Assise. See Réjean Robidoux, Roger Martin du Gard et la religion (Paris: Aubier, 1964). 41. Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 122. 42. Hogan to Hébert, 13 March 1900, in Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 124. Readers conversant with the work of Maurice Blondel, especially during the 1890s, will be familiar with his attempt to respond to this challenge. René Virgoulay, Blondel et le modernisme. La philosophie de l’action et les sciences religieuses (1896–1913) (Paris: Cerf, 1980), is helpful in positioning Blondel in relation to this broader context.

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of the scientific worldview, and the state of flux induced in Catholic thinking on social and intellectual fronts led Hébert to a conviction that, while the hour was not yet, there remained hope in the future for his symbolist program. That conviction found support in Hébert’s contact with Loisy’s work. “What he liked in Loisy was that he sought (as did Hébert himself from his side) after a symbolism that allowed a certain reconstruction of the old beliefs.”43 So matters stood, until the summer of 1901, when a copy of Souvenirs d’Assise was lifted from Hébert’s study by one of his orthodox colleagues and communicated to Cardinal Richard. If earlier suspicions regarding Hébert’s orthodoxy could be allayed by attributing them to the overliteral piety of the accusers, written evidence of symbolist revisionism was another matter. Given the alternative of retracting or resigning, Hébert chose to give up his directorship of the École Fénelon. This cast him into a kind of ecclesiastical limbo. At this juncture he affirmed a necessary social and moral role for the Church. He was even willing to subscribe to any formulary that would be required of him, so long as it were understood that he did so while interpreting it in a symbolist manner. As he wrote to Martin du Gard at the time, the ideal would be to remain in the Church while criticizing its abuses.44 There followed an interval of interventions and further evaluations of the Souvenirs that left Hébert’s liminal status unaltered.45 If anything, he became more marginal as authorization to say Mass was withdrawn. Finally, feeling that he had been cast aside by his ecclesiastical superiors, Hébert decided to bring his ideas before a larger public. In July 1902 he published “La dernière idole. Étude sur la ‘personalité divine’” in the Revue de métaphysique et de morale and a sec43. Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 123. Houtin adds that Hébert based part of the treatment of the Resurrection in Souvenirs d’Assise on a note furnished by Loisy. Consistent with his other portrayals of Loisy, Houtin also noted here that the exegete had lost his Catholic beliefs in 1885, but had taken care to conceal that fact from Hébert. 44. Hébert to Martin du Gard, [August 1901], in Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 138. 45. Houtin gave an account of these in chapter 10 of the biography.

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ond study on that same theme in March of the following year.46 If the title of the first of these articles especially was provocative, even more so was his signing both as “Abbé Marcel Hébert.” In publishing “La dernière idole” he had taken leave of the Church. That separation was accentuated by its sequel, and by the appearance of “La faillite du catholicisme despotique” also in 1903.47 Hébert began “La dernière idole” with a critique of Aquinas’s celebrated proofs for the existence of God. Finding fault with their logical structure, his further point was that, even if their arguments were allowed, they are not really theistic proofs. For Hébert, “these arguments allow the inference of a beyond, an Ideal, a Divine, not a personal God.”48 Moreover, the image of a Heavenly Father retained too much of the imprint of its origins in a more primitive stage of humanity’s development. The arbitrary, tyrannical governance of the oriental despot had been transmitted by Christianity along with its doctrine. This failed to do justice to the fundamentally benevolent character of reality, whose evolutionary forces were oriented toward realization of the Good. Hence to substitute the “Divine” for “God” would be “to sacrifice the image in order to save the idea.”49 In continuity with his earlier expressions of these notions, Hébert’s evolutionism is complemented by his Kantianism.50 The latter surfaced in his observation that after having formed ideas, concepts, there is a mistake and an immense danger in generalizing from the data of the senses or of psychological consciousness, in applying those to Reality as it is in itself and not as it appears in our 46. Marcel Hébert, “La dernière idole. Étude sur la ‘personalité divine’” and “Anonyme ou polyonyme? Seconde étude sur la ‘personalité divine,’” in Revue de métaphysique et de morale 10 (1902): 397–408 and 11 (1903): 231–47, respectively. 47. “La faillite du catholicisme despotique” appeared in Revue blanche (15 March 1903): 439–57. “Souvenirs d’Assise” had appeared in that same review in September 1902. 48. Hébert, “La dernière idole,” 400. 49. Ibid., 404. 50. True to his own principles, Hébert admited that evolution was as much an hypothesis as creation, but one that gave a better account of the existence of evil and the sufferings undergone by both human and beast; see “Anonyme ou polyonyme?,” 238.

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fragmented, imperfect experiences. The Divine is beyond all that we know as substance and as essence. . . .51

Baroque Scholasticism—to which the neo-Thomism of Hébert’s day was strongly indebted—had pushed analogy in the direction of resemblance rather than difference. Its stress on the ways in which God is like his creation rendered the dominant theology vulnerable to the rationalist tendencies of its intellectual environment. A perceived need for a counterconceptualizing emphasis on God as Other made Kant appear as an attractive alternative—more in line with Aquinas’s caution that we know more of what God is not than of what God is.52 The pragmatist strain in Hébert’s symbolist project showed up again in his concluding comments on “the practical formulas of councils and theologians”:

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[I]t is a matter of not transforming these figures into fetishes; it is a matter . . . of loyally calling an image an image, a legend a legend, of leaving each one free to symbolize, according to his temperament, his religious sensibility, and of attaching an importance to any rite, any formula, solely to the measure in which these means effectively assist us in becoming better.53

“La dernière idole” and the articles that followed it evoked little by way of critical response, at least in the public forum. An obser51. Hébert, “La dernière idole,” 406 (italics in original). 52. The development of the notion of analogy beyond Aquinas and its effect upon philosophical and theological understandings of God is well analyzed in William C. Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1996), especially chapter 5. 53. Hébert, “La dernière idole,” 408 (italics in original). In the sequel to this article, “Anonyme ou polyonyme?,” this pragmatism was once more apparent in Hébert’s affirmation that the idea of a personal God corresponded really to human nature rather than to the Divine and, as such, was an expedient, “a belief of the practical order” (246). But this article also showed some movement in its author’s position, with Christianity’s role becoming more marginal. The necessity of the imagery of personality was eroding for members of a younger generation not raised on these traditional notions. For those for whom the mythical status of the image was transparent, direct access to the Ideal as idea could be more congenial (246–47).

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vation made by Lucien Roure is indicative of the gap between those who retained a Scholastic perspective and those whose mind-set was shaped by modernity. In the course of commenting on “La dernière idole” he saw the modern notion of personality as more psychological, less metaphysical, and consequently as less comprehensive than that of the ancients. In this shift he detected the proximate source of Hébert’s difficulties with divine personality and his deficiencies in treating it.54 The interest in psychology, initially stimulated by Hogan and detected by Roure in this connection, came to occupy an increasingly prominent place in Hébert’s subsequent publications.55 However, it was not only Scholastics who balked at Hébert’s formulations. The reservations expressed by Loisy and others over the private circulation of Hébert’s ideas have been alluded to earlier. The public disclosure of those ideas in “La dernière idole” caused even greater concern, for their publication risked reprisal not only against the author, but also against those identified as theological innovators in biblical or historical questions. In August 1902 Loisy apprised von Hügel that “the Hébert case has already been exploited against us.”56 The appearance of “Souvenirs d’Assise” in the Revue blanche the following month was problematic for Loisy personally, as annexed to it was a note that associated the exegete with its contents. Since Loisy had come under episcopal censure for his “Firmin” articles, he could ill-afford any connection with Hébert. The introduction to L’Évangile et l’Église, published in November, carried a critical reference to Hébert’s “Imperfect activity aspiring to Perfection”—though without naming him explicitly.57 It seemed, however, that more immediate 54. Lucien Roure, “La dernière idole,” Études 93 (1902): 527–38, citing 534. See also A. Bouyssonie, “La nouvelle idole,” Annales de philosophie chrétienne 145 (1902–1903): 294–307. 55. Cf. Marcel Hébert, Le divin. Expériences et hypotheses (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1907), which its author styled as “Psychological Studies.” 56. Loisy to von Hügel, 26 August 1902, in Mémoires, 2:128. 57. Alfred Loisy, L’Évangile et l’Église (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1902), xxxiii; translated as The Gospel and the Church, trans. Christopher Home (London: Isbister, 1903), 21.

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and explicit disavowal of Hébert’s ideas was advisable. And so, having sought the counsel of Mgr Mignot, in mid-October Loisy conveyed that message to Cardinal Richard via letter.58 In his Mémoires Loisy speculated over possible reasons why Hébert’s articles, clearly contrary to Vatican I’s Dei Filius and more extreme than Loisy’s own writings, escaped both episcopal censure and the Roman Index. In part he attributed the lack of official action to their publication in “laic” journals, in part to Hébert’s then marginal status because he lacked authorization to say Mass. But he emphasized the nature of the articles themselves: if they evoked in certain quarters a sympathetic curiosity, they “stimulated no movement in Catholic opinion, no agitation among the clergy. It was a wise political move to let them be.”59 By June 1903, Hébert had formally left the Church and taken a position in Brussels. The hopes he had nurtured for a renewed Catholicism he transferred to the socialist movement. Through the offices of Émile Vandervelde, one of the movement’s leaders, Hébert was able to offer unremunerated courses at the Université nouvelle de Bruxelles.60 Though the audience was disappointingly small, these lectures formed the substance of L’évolution de la foi catholique (1905) and Le divin (1907), which Hébert considered “the summary of my entire spiritual life.”61 The former of these two books provides insight into how Hébert judged Loisy and Blondel in light of his own devel58. Loisy to Richard, 17 October 1902; See Mémoires, 2:136–39. 59. Loisy, Mémoires, 2:135–36. Alfred L. Lilley in “France and the ‘Affaire Loisy’” (1903) remarked of “La dernière idole”: “Strangely enough this audacious defiance of scholasticism is said to have been saved from condemnation by the Spanish Capuchin, Cardinal Vives y Tuto”; see A. L. Lilley, Modernism: A Record and Review (1908; Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1970), 187. 60. This university was founded by Belgian freethinkers as a counter to the Catholic University of Louvain and to the two state universities that were deemed insufficiently liberal. 61. Hébert to Houtin, 16 May 1906, in Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 169 (italics in original).

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oped position. Abbé Hippolyte Gayraud’s critical reactions to this work attest the assimilation of Loisy’s views to those of Hébert and the liberal Protestant Auguste Sabatier, despite the exegete’s efforts to differentiate himself from both. Hébert could well have entitled his study, “Evolution beyond the Catholic Faith.” He views Catholic dogma as caught in a vice, one of whose jaws is constituted by critical philosophical thought and the other by historical criticism. The pressure had been steadily mounting and Catholicism must inevitably break, for the escape proffered by symbolism had been rejected with the condemnation of Loisy’s works by the Holy Office—L’Évangile et l’Église among them—in December 1903. Hébert traced the roots of the symbolist interpretation of dogma back to the Kant of Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793). Kant had the merit of discerning the moral symbolism conveyed by dogma. However, it was necessary to go beyond him to acknowledge that dogmas were equally symbols of metaphysical hypotheses.62 To do this in a thoroughgoing manner it was also necessary to go beyond the transitional nature of “loisyste” Catholicism and extend that symbolic awareness to the very fundamentals of Christianity, not excluding the mythical image of divine personality. The impossibility of Christianity’s making this admission without selfdestructing limited it to an outdated, if fruitful and interesting, stage in the evolution of human consciousness. The challenge, then, was to find what was good and efficacious in Christianity, hard won over the course of its historical development, and incorporate that into the current progress of humanity.63 “Symbolism,” he insisted, is always acceptable as a method of historical explanation; it enables us to see how the natural faith of human consciousness has “constructed” supernatural 62. Marcel Hébert, L’évolution de la foi catholique (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1905), 164–65, 150–55. 63. Ibid., 3.

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faith, in line with the period and the context. It also enables us to understand why the disappearance of the despotic, dogmatic form of faith does not in any way entail the ruin of its natural and spontaneous form; finally it reminds us that the new forms will have to respond to the same aspirations and to the same psychological needs satisfied by dogmatic faith.64

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But to minds increasingly free from socialization into the traditional dogmatic language, simpler and more effective expressions would need to be found as alternatives to Christian myths and imagery. Hébert deemed Loisy’s and Sabatier’s work useful in addressing the first of the tasks accorded to symbolism. They stressed the creative role played by believers in constructing dogmatic faith. Blondel was credited for his exposition of the needs to which dogmatic faith responded—though faulted for giving dogmas an objective reality. L’évolution de la foi catholique and its successor volume were designed to build upon these accomplishments and to find a way forward in these “obscure hours of transition.”65 Prior to the publication of his La foi devant la raison (1907), Hip64. Ibid., 206. 65. Ibid., 210. Hébert’s reviews of works by Houtin, Turmel, and others associated with the Modernist movement provide additional perspective on how he positioned them in relation to his own thought. Loisy’s L’Évangile et l’Église was termed “the manifesto of the new theology” which accorded dogma the status of symbolic constructions of faith (Review of Albert Houtin, La question biblique au XXe siècle, in Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles 11 (1905–1906): 725–27, citing 726)—an estimation of dogma also shared by Turmel, though put forth more circumspectly (Review of Joseph Turmel, Histoire de la théologie positive depuis l’origine jusqu’au Concile de Trente, in Revue de Belgique 42 (15 September 1904): 89–90). While Hébert did not share Tyrrell’s ongoing attachment to a mystical sort of Catholicism, he could cite with approval the ex-Jesuit’s judgment that, while religion in its profound sense, answering as it does fundamental human needs, could survive, the same could not be said for any particular historical manifestation of religion, Christianity not excepted (Review of Georges Tyrrell, Le Christianisme à la croisée des chemins, in Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles 16 (1910–1911): 497–98). In the course of a review of several Modernist and anti-Modernist works (Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles 15 (1909–1910): 387–92), Hébert stated what he deemed to be the principal shortcoming of the Modernists: “In general, what is lacking, in the majority of Modernist works, is the extension of criticism to all the facts, all the notions: one has reservations here, another there according to his personal or atavistic sympathies. The traditional notion of God is, let it be known, one of those

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polyte Gayraud published an extract in the Revue de philosophie in which he critically engaged Hébert’s L’évolution de la foi catholique. Retrieving Hébert’s image of a Catholicism caught between philosophical and historical jaws of a vice, Gayraud directed most of his attention to the arguments drawn from historical criticism and its evolutionist underpinnings. Hébert had made open use of the conclusions of Loisy’s exegesis. By critiquing Hébert, Gayraud could avoid discussion of biblical texts and instead counter the evolutionist tenor of both Hébert’s and Loisy’s thought with the logical theory of development congenial to neo-Scholasticism. In doing so, the critic checked the open-ended character of development left implicit in Loisy but made explicit in Hébert’s thesis that the religious future of humanity resided in an idealist socialism rather than in a renovated Catholicism.66 La foi devant la raison bore the subtitle Réponse à deux “évadés.” The first of these “renegades” was designated “Abbé Z,” while the second was identified as Hébert.67 Gayraud wrote out of conviction that in “this time of positivist or Kantian criticism and masterful seduction of evolutionist science” a loss of faith “is less rare than is thought.”68 Accordingly, before undertaking a refutation of objections raised against specific Catholic doctrines by Abbé Z (but with Hébert also in view), and critiquing directly L’évolution de la foi catholique in the final chapters of his book, Gayraud addressed the factors he identified which is considered inviolable” (391). Thus Modernism became for him a transitional phenomenon, “only an episode in a universal effort to reestablish agreement between two aspects of the spiritual life of man: science and conscience” (392). 66. See Hippolyte Gayraud, “Étude critique: L’évolution de la foi catholique d’après M. Marcel Hébert,” Revue de philosophie 9 (1906): 506–42. 67. Houtin explained the anonymity of “Abbé Z” in noting that he reentered the Church—manifestly not the case with Hébert. See Albert Houtin, La crise du clergé (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1907), 325; translated as The Crisis among the French Clergy, trans. F. Thorold Dickson (London: David Nutt, 1910), 181. 68. Abbé Gayraud, La foi devant la raison. Réponse à deux ‘évadés’ (Paris: Bloud, 1907), 12.

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as underlying their apostasy. In view of the material discussed earlier in this chapter, only Gayraud’s engagement with Kantianism will be examined here. The understanding of Kant prevalent in France for much of the nineteenth century was heavily indebted to Victor Cousin. He popularized the equation of Kantian philosophy with a subjective idealism. This reduced the idea to a simple logical and subjective form, confined within the limits of thought and thereby incapable of attaining the being or the reality of things. On this interpretation—eventually challenged by Jules Lachelier—Kantianism necessarily lead to the destruction of all metaphysics rather than representing a search for new ways for its realization. And the Kantian primacy of the practical reason could only mean “the primacy of the subjective over moral objectivity, or again the primacy of sentiment over reason.”69 This way of regarding Kant surfaced in the course of Gayraud’s critique: It seems to me impossible to maintain a rational justification of Catholic belief, if one concedes, either through criticism or sensationalism, that the faculty of the universal, of general ideas, of the absolute, of metaphysics, of the a priori, namely reason lacks capacity for real and objective knowledge; that it does not attain, does not penetrate the reality, the object, the being in itself, the substance, the cause, the soul of God; that it is only a cogwheel in the mechanism of thought, uniquely suited to project from without, following the stimulations of sensibility, empty form, vain appearances, illusory shadows which replace it: a kind of magic lantern whose variously colored images are made to project, on the uniform and indistinct whiteness of the cloth, the illusion of movement, of order and of life. Religion and faith can henceforth be only an affair of sentiment, of psychic need, of taste, of expediency, of fashion and of fantasy.70

69. Colin, L’audace et le soupcon, 226. 70. Gayraud, La foi devant la raison, 46–47 (italics in original). The affirmation of Chrisitanity as a solid and objective basis for morality and the frailty of an attempted laic alternative was addressed on 218ff.

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Though Hébert did not encounter among Belgian socialists the degree of opposition he experienced from Catholic critics, his ideas found little success. For leaders of the socialist movement, his idealism appeared suffused with a religious nostalgia, prone to religious illusion.71 In 1907 he retired to Paris, where he continued to write until his death in February 1916. Houtin supplements the biographical narrative with a chapter on Hébert’s “doctrine” and another on his influence.72 Since his ideas and something of their context have been examined in the foregoing, this account may conclude with some assessment of Hébert in relation to the Modernist movement. As noted, in his history of Modernism Houtin had accorded to Hébert a certain prominence. To a degree this finds an echo in Jean Rivière’s Le modernisme dans l’Église. Rivière saw in Hébert a liason between those engaged with exegetical and historical questions, on the one hand, and those working on problems of a more speculative order, on the other. “Collaborator of the Bulletin critique for books on philosophy and, in this capacity, friendly with Duchesne, from early on he played an important role in the redaction of the Annales [de philosophie chrétienne].”73 Based on Hébert’s own estimation of the part he played in the development of Modernism, and those of others working for renewal, Houtin’s and Rivière’s estimations of his contribution would appear to concede too much. However, Julien Fontaine’s characterization of Hébert as merely derivative bestowed too little.74 Hébert’s symbolist notions were formed during the 1880s and were already evident in Platon et Darwin in 1893—predating any di71. Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 177. 72. Houtin admited that Hébert’s writings did not have a large readership, but emphasized their quality, noting, for example, the favorable impression Le divin made on William James. Houtin also discerned Hébert’s influence on some of Edouard Le Roy’s and Antonio Fogazzaro’s work. See Un prêtre symboliste, 232–33 and 230n. 73. Jean Rivière, Le modernisme dans l’Église (Paris: Letouzey et ané, 1929), 99. 74. Julien Fontaine, Les infiltrations kantienne et protestante et le clergé français (Paris: Vistor Retaux, 1902), 476.

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rect influence to that point from the symbolo-fideist school that came to be identified with Sabatier and Ménégoz. Both those who worked for renewal within the Church and those who opposed their efforts as corrosive of Catholic faith positioned Hébert in relation to Loisy.75 Certainly Hébert drew upon Loisy’s expertise in exegetical matters, benefiting from both private communication and published research. He came to the conclusion that historical arguments, being more concrete than those of a philosophical nature, were more difficult to evade. In his own case, however, the major force of historical criticism appears to have been mediated through Duchesne rather than through Loisy. Still, in exegetical matters Hébert yielded to Loisy’s technical competence. Whether or to what extent Hébert may have influenced Loisy is a question more difficult to answer. Despite Loisy’s denials of any indebtedness to Hébert, both Houtin and Sartiaux thought L’Évangile et l’Église owed something of its symbolist reading of Catholicism to the author of Souvenirs d’Assise.76 Based on Loisy’s own testimony and the timing of his publications, Auguste Sabatier is a more likely candidate if sources of influence are being sought. While Hébert recognized that his philosophical expertise did not match Loisy’s critical expertise, he did feel himself in advance of the exegete in the conclusions to which these studies had led him. Though not every reader of L’Évangile et l’Église considered that its author was destined to follow the same route traced by Souvenirs d’Assise or “La dernière idole,”77 Hébert evidently thought so and said as much in print.78 For Alec Vidler, Hébert emerges from Houtin’s biography as “a 75. E.g., Houtin in his Une vie de prêtre, 2nd ed. (Paris: Rieder, 1928), 270, and Gayraud, in La foi devant la raison, 51. 76. See Émile Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Tournai: Casterman, 1979), 316–17n. 77. Cf. Fernand Mourret to Maurice Blondel, 26 November 1903, in René Marlé, Au coeur de la crise moderniste (Paris: Aubier, 1960), 328n. 78. Hébert, “La faillite du Catholicisme despotique,” 454–57.

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type of modernist who broke with the Church but retained a nostalgia for what he had had to abandon.”79 That nostalgia, along with the largely self-acquired nature of his philosophical education, accounts for some of the tensions and ambiguities discernible in his thought. Sartiaux found a degree of incoherence between Hébert’s rejection of divine personality and retention of a moral order, which he traced to his Kantian sympathies. “Impersonal in the domain of the intellect, the Divine once again becomes an individual for him where morality is concerned.”80 Also at odds with Hébert’s divine Ideal was his retention of a hope in some form of eternal life.81 Hébert figures as one admired more for his personal character than for the substantive weight of his ideas. Nonetheless, if of less importance substantively, those ideas are indicative of a tendency within Modernism: “[T]he new and significant element here is in the method of systematic transposition adopted to introduce under the old received terms a content different from the correct meaning, which allowed conserving the Christian Credo while adapting it to an entirely different reality.”82 Finally, what are we to make of Houtin’s characterization of Hébert as a sort of ideal Modernist, cited in this chapter’s epigraph? Houtin became extremely sensitive to detecting what he thought to be “pious frauds”—either in the form of legends whose historicity did not stand up to critical scrutiny or of persons who knowingly perpetuated such legends. Insofar as Hébert expressed his convictions forthrightly and without equivocation and, when he could no longer reconcile those ideas with the Church, quietly left, Houtin could identify 79. Alec R. Vidler, A Variety of Catholic Modernists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 74. 80. Félix Sartiaux, “La métaphysique de Marcel Hébert,” in Houtin, Un prêtre symboliste, 284–300, citing 293. Sartiaux wrote his Morale kantienne et morale humaine (Paris: Hachette, 1917) in criticism of Hébert’s views. 81. See Alfred Loisy, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps (Paris: Nourry, 1931), 3:279, 307. 82. Rivière, Le modernisme, 150.

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with him. The contrast to his perception of Loisy is patent. It is important to note that not all of the figures considered in these studies shared the same ideal. For Sartiaux, Houtin and Turmel were considered “pure” Modernists because they finally employed their lives in denouncing Christianity—a “purity” Hébert and Loisy never attained.83 This disjuncture serves to underscore one of the leitmotifs of this book: the lives of these Modernist figures are important as well for what they tell us about “those who knew them.”

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83. Loisy, Mémoires, 3:558. In a review of Le divin in L’ami du clergé, Hébert’s loss of faith was lamented, but he was commended for his very positive view of Christian mystics; see L’ami du clergé 29 (1907): 78–79.

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P a r t T w o  T h e R i g h t

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  C h a p te r

T h r ee

Le M o d e rn iste M a lg ré Lu i P i e r r e B at i f f o l

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C .J.T. Ta l a r

In a r et ro s pe cti ve lo ok in Témoins de la pensée catholique en France sous la IIIe république (1940), Pierre Fernessole extolled Pierre Batiffol’s orthodoxy: “[F]aced with the Modernist heresy, the Church had no defender of Catholic Truth more zealous, more authoritative, more effective than Mgr Batiffol.” However, he found it necessary immediately to add that “this role was too often misunderstood in certain Catholic circles.”1 Pierre Batiffol suffered a fate similar to that of the Dominican biblical scholar Marie-Joseph Lagrange, with whom he was closely associated.2 Attempting to mediate between Catholic tradition and modern criticism, they appeared from one side as Modernists in moderate’s clothing. In September 1906, several months prior to the condemnations of Modernism in the syllabus Lamentabili and the encyclical Pascendi, Batiffol was characterized to Cardinal Merry del Val as “more rationalist than Loisy and the Protestants themselves.”3 To the other side, Batiffol seemed not Modern1. Pierre Fernessole, Témoins de pensée catholique en France sous la IIIe république (Paris: Beauchesne, 1940), 230. 2. Bernard Montagnes, “L’amitié Batiffol-Lagrange” in Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 98 (1997): 3–20. 3. Letter of Montagnini to Merry del Val, 24 September 1906, cited in Alfred Loisy,

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ist enough. Alfred Loisy positioned Batiffol as holding more extreme views in private than he aired in public, but not so extreme as to place Batiffol within the Modernist camp: “Rome . . . never pardoned him for this crime of Modernism that he had not committed.”4

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Ri v i è re ’s B ati f fo l

Just as Albert Houtin’s La vie d’Alfred Loisy and Henri Bremond’s Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi yield two rather different Loisys, the memories of Jean Rivière when juxtaposed with Loisy’s Mémoires portray two Batiffols. The premature death of Batiffol in 1929 brought forth two articles from Rivière that were published shortly thereafter in the Revue apologétique.5 Reviewed, corrected, and expanded, they appeared as a small volume that claimed no pretense of being an adequate presentation of Batiffol’s life, but presented simply “a brief outline of the essential traits of his career and his work.”6 From the first page of his introduction, Rivière apprises his reader that it is necessary to account for the fact that Batiffol, “one of the most eminent representatives of ecclesiastical science,” had been “ordered to leave his post as rector of the Institut catholique at Toulouse” “despite the zeal that he had displayed against the nascent Modernism.”7 As is the Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps, 3 vols. (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1931), 2: 604n. 4. Ibid., 604. 5. Jean Rivière, “Monseigneur Batiffol,” in Revue apologétique 48 (1929): 385–411, 513–25. Rivière studied with Batiffol at the Toulouse Institut catholique and became Batiffol’s “favorite student.” See François Laplanche, Dictionnaire du monde religieux 9: Les sciences religieuses. Le XIXe siècle 1800–1914 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996), 587–89. 6. Jean Rivière, Monseigneur Batiffol (1861–1929) (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1929), 5. 7. Ibid., 7. Already, the same year, in Le modernisme dans l’Église, Rivière had defended Batiffol. For the author, the fact that Modernism had been unmasked was the consequence of initiatives taken by courageous and lucid persons such as Batiffol; had he not been among the first to recognize and point out the real danger? His efforts, and those of like-minded theologians, bore fruit in the encyclical Pascendi, which synthesized their criticisms and checkmated the Modernists’ program. The less than satisfying nature of Rivière’s

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case with several other biographies in this volume, here too the biographer is an advocate. To a significant degree, Rivière’s advocacy took the form of establishing Batiffol’s credentials as a scholar whose research and publication met the critical standards of the Academy without, however, compromising his loyalty to the Church. In the first part of his study Rivière highlighted those aspects of his subject’s formation that contributed to Batiffol’s “loyal union between modern criticism and ancient faith.”8 Batiffol’s background was rather exceptional in relation to the majority of French clergy of the period. His father’s position as a professor at the Toulouse lycée gave him early exposure to an intellectual culture that was worlds apart from the experience of Turmel, and distant even from that of Loisy or Houtin. It provided a foundation in both classical and modern languages, acquaintance with literary classics, and contact with the ethos of the French université. His education in state schools prior to his entering the Seminary of SaintSulpice facilitated an openness to modernity uncharacteristic of Catholic contemporaries exclusively formed in a traditionally Catholic mold. These aspects of Batiffol’s early formation found support in the encouragement he received from the liberal Sulpician John Hogan, who had an influence on a number of seminarians who later became prominent in the work for the intellectual renewal of Catholicism that was already gathering momentum in the 1880s while Batiffol was at Saint-Sulpice.9 At the same time Rivière emphasized the sense of soliaccount is well summed up by Poulat: “Masses of naïve innocents gulled by several corruptors; does not this all too simple explanation deepen obscurity rather than shed light?”; see Émile Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Tournai: Casterman, 1979), 291. 8. Rivière, Batiffol, 8. 9. Batiffol later acknowledged Hogan’s influence on himself and others in an article on the Sulpician in the Revue de clergé français 31 (1902): 449–63. Batiffol entered SaintSulpice in 1878 after a brief period spent at the École Sainte-Barbe in Paris preparing for the examination for admission to the École Normale Supérieur.

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darity with the Church and its tradition that was a hallmark of Sulpician formation. On the basis of Batiffol’s own testimony, he asserted the secondary role to be accorded critical or speculative inquiry in relation to one’s attachment to the Church as mediator Dei.10 After ordination to the priesthood in 1884, Batiffol continued his studies, pursuing the historical orientation already discernible during his seminary years. The church historian Louis Duchesne, ever on the lookout for collaborators in the work of improving the intellectual quality of the clergy, invited Batiffol to participate in the Bulletin critique. Batiffol became a member of a small circle around Duchesne that included Loisy, Marcel Hébert, Jacques Thomas,11 and select others for whom Duchesne served as mentor. Already by the end of the decade Batiffol was able to discern within this circle a nascent divergence into a left wing and a right wing, one that would develop into a real rift under the pressures of the Modernist crisis.12 A two-year sojourn in Rome beginning in June 1887 afforded him access to the archaeological expertise of Giovanni De Rossi,13 an important complement to Duchesne’s influence for Batiffol’s future work. When he returned to Paris to work on his doctoral thesis it was as a young scholar of growing international reputation, gained from publications in German as well as in French.14 10. Ibid., 453, quoted by Rivière, Batiffol, 12. 11. Jacques Thomas (1853–1893), ordained priest in 1877, occupied the Chair of Sacred Scripture and Semitic Philology at the Institut catholique de Toulouse from 1881 to his early death from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-nine. Like Batiffol, he was solicitous of relating criticism and theology. See Pierre Batiffol, “L’enseignement ecclésiastique vers 1880: L’abbé Jacques Thomas,” in Questions d’enseignement supérieur ecclésiastique (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1907), 253–79. 12. See Brigitte Waché, Monseigneur Louis Duchesne (1843–1922) (Rome: École française de Rome, 1992), 160, quoting a letter of Batiffol to Duchesne of 12 February 1898. 13. Giovanni Battista DeRossi (1822–1894) laid the foundations for the scientific study of Christian archaeology in applying modern scientific methods to his archaeological explorations. See Henri Leclerq’s entry in Dictionnaire d’archaéologie chrétienne et de liturgie 15/1 (1950), cols. 18–100. 14. See Rivière, Batiffol, 18–19, for reviews and article titles.

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Over the decade 1889–1898 Batiffol served as chaplain at the École Sainte-Barbe. While dedicating himself to the spiritual needs of the students, he did not neglect the intellectual apostolate for which he had been preparing. His steady stream of publications broadened his contact with scholars to include those in England and Germany. While these networks reflected the more technical side of his production,15 there was another, more popular, aspect to his writing, especially in his Histoire du bréviaire romain. When Batiffol published this book in 1893, he was following in the methodological footsteps of Duchesne’s Les origines du culte chrétien (1889). De Rossi’s influence was also reflected in Batiffol’s stated aim of treating his subject “from the standpoint of Christian archaeology and the history of Christian literature.”16 Engaging as it did a much less volatile topic than Maurice Blondel’s L’action or Mgr Maurice d’Hulst’s article on the biblical question, both of which also appeared in 1893, Batiffol’s book did not attract the attention garnered by these more controversial writings.17 Nonetheless, Batiffol’s early study is worth remarking on several counts. In it, Batiffol noted, with respect to the history of the liturgy, “how many unexplored countries are still to be found in that ancient continent.”18 In a positive vein, he undertook a critical reconstruction of the successive stages of development undergone by the breviary, a procedure he later 15. In this connection Rivière retrieves Batiffol’s publications relating to Arian hagiography and historiography, as well as his collaboration with the Revue biblique; see Batiffol, 22–23, 27–28. 16. Pierre Batiffol, Histoire du bréviaire romain (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1893), viii; translated (from the second edition of 1895) as History of the Roman Breviary, trans. Atwell Baylay (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1898), xii. Batiffol later revised the study; a translation of this third edition, also by Baylay, was published in 1912. 17. Maurice Blondel, L’action: Essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1893); translated as Action (1892): Essay on a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice, trans. Oliva Blanchette (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984). Mgr d’Hulst, “La question biblique,” in Le correspondant 170 (1893): 201–51. 18. Batiffol, Histoire, vii; History, xii.

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applied to such topics as the sacrament of penance and the Eucharist, with more contested results. Lastly, in the book’s preface, Batiffol retrieved the Anglican Newman’s appreciation for the “excellence and beauty in the services of the breviary”—giving notice that this history was intended as a work of edification as well as a work of criticism.19 As characterized by Rivière, this work was “an attempt . . . to put within the reach of all the results of historical scholarship as well as a fervor of liturgical inspiration, rather new at that time, that he knew how to communicate because he himself was imbued with it.”20 Anciennes littératures chrétiennes: La littérature grecque (1897) likewise was designed to function as a sort of manual to diffuse scholarship to a wider audience,21 while the contents of Six leçons sur les Évangiles (1897) were originally given as lectures to young women at the Institut catholique in Paris. In both his specialist writings and in those designed for a wider public Batiffol demonstrated his concern to hold together questions of history and questions of theology. He was aware that, in taking this position, he was differentiating himself from other practitioners of critical history who thought it possible—and strategically advisable, given the tenor of the times—to separate them. He opposed the separation of history and theology in an article published in La quinzaine in 1897, and argued for the necessity of a “positive theology” that would do justice both to the standards of scientific criticism and to the Church’s rule of faith.22 In a letter written to Duchesne the following year, Batiffol noted the divergence he had earlier experienced 19. Ibid., ix, xiii. Batiffol quoted Tract 75, “On the Roman Breviary.” 20. Rivière, Batiffol, 25. 21. As part of a Bibliothèque de l’enseignement de l’histoire ecclésiastique whose direction Batiffol assumed. 22. Pierre Batiffol, “Les études d’histoire ecclésiastique et les catholiques de France,” La quinzaine 19 (1897): 185–205. The Revue du clergé français also served as a forum for his advocacy of “sacred science” that would combine methodological rigor with fidelity to the regula fidei.

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within the circle of disciples that his correspondent had formed. In installing himself among the right wing as one committed to a criticism that took the Church’s tradition as its norm, over against those on the left who advocated a “pure” criticism applied independently of theology, Batiffol claimed fidelity to their mentor’s principles, if not his practice.23 In 1898 Batiffol was able to return to Toulouse, after having been appointed rector of the Institut catholique located there. This period of his life (1898–1907) was a watershed for Batiffol personally and for Catholicism more largely. Rivière devoted two sections, roughly a quarter of his biographical study, to the rectorship, considering in turn Batiffol’s organizational work and his scholarly activity. While it was one of the products of the latter that occasioned his dismissal from this post, Rivière contended that opposition evoked by administrative reorganization of the Institut catholique played a part. Beyond opposition generated by institutional changes there was the matter of Batiffol’s personal style—more Parisian than provincial—that was experienced as off-puting, even offensive.24 In this portion of his narrative, then, Rivière showed Batiffol’s recognition of the Modernist threat and efforts to counter it, identified the various factors that conspired to bring about his dismissal from the rectorship, and sought to establish a clear differentiation between Batiffol’s own position and those who truly merited censure as Modernists. Even after being called to assume the leadership of the Toulouse Institut, Batiffol continued his more technical work of scholarship. However, far from simply being an academic, Rivière portrays him as “what Saint Jerome called a vir ecclesiasticus.”25 The conviction that a valid marriage between a solid critique and theology was possible can be found not only in his more specialist writings, but in his dis23. Rivière, Batiffol, 15–16. 24. J. Calvet, Visages d’un demi-siècle (Paris: Grasset, 1959), 35. 25. Rivière, Batiffol, 12.

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courses as rector and in his writings destined for a wider public, all of which contained explicit criticisms of the schools of the left. This encompassed his criticism directed against “the subjectivist and agnostic tendencies” of the Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses in 1900; against “the latent antichristianism” of Loisy’s L’Évangile et l’Église in 1903; and, after Autour d’un petit livre, “the doctrinal contramanifestation to which he allied P. Lagrange and P. Portalié”26 that appeared in the Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique in 1904, and his L’enseignement de Jésus (1905).27 In sum, “When the official decisions of the ecclesiastical magisterium came out against Modernism, it could be noted that no one had done more than he to prepare the clergy of France to understand them and to facilitate their reception.”28 In a few paragraphs Rivière surveys a number of initiatives taken by Batiffol and his colleagues to signal the dangers of an autonomous criticism and to secure the legitimacy of their own practice of a criticism informed by theology. Since the case for Batiffol’s being a perceptive and early critic of tendencies that would be censured under the rubric of Modernism is central to Rivière’s biographical study, a look at principal writings and reactions to those is in order. In November 1900, in the course of his address as rector of the Institut catholique at the beginning of the academic year, Batiffol censured Protestant tendencies to see an antinomy between Christian life and scientific theology, and warned of their appearance among certain (unnamed) Catholic writers.29 Mgr Mignot, in attendance, asked the 26. Eugène Portalié (1852–1909) entered the Society of Jesus in 1867. His active life was devoted to the teaching of theology, initially in Jesuit scholasticates (1888–1899), latterly at the Toulouse Institut catholique (1889–1909). See Paul Duclos et al., Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine: 1. Les Jesuites (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985), 217–18. 27. Ibid., 51–52. 28. Rivière, Batiffol, 54. 29. Published as “Le triple fonction de notre haut enseignement ecclésiastique” in Bulletin de literature ecclésiastique 2 (1900): 327–33.

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rector if he had Loisy and his critical school in mind—and was not reassured by Batiffol’s denials.30 At variance with those denials was another article by Batiffol published around the same time. He claimed to find in Henri Margival’s defense of Richard Simon in Essai sur Richard Simon et la critique biblique au XVIIe siècle (1900) an oblique advocacy of recent critical practice deemed corrosive of Catholic tradition.31 In his Mémoires Loisy notes that Mignot was no more edified by this critique of Margival than he had been by Batiffol’s address. In Loisy’s own retrospective judgment, the rector, while sincere in his assessments, was driven more by the need to secure credentials for orthodoxy than by a measured critique of actual positions in view.32 Soon after the appearance of L’Évangile et l’Église Batiffol engaged Loisy directly. While abstaining from judging the exegete’s intentions, he noted the consequences of the philosophy of religion that permeated the book, characterizing those in terms recognizable from the earlier evaluation of Margival.33 At base, the problematic nature of Loisy’s apologetic stemmed not from the use of critical methods as such, but from the underlying philosophy that informed his use of them. The appearance of Autour d’un petit livre intensified Batiffol’s efforts. He gave three lectures at the Institut catholique in December 1903. The first remained unpublished; the second was printed as a brochure, Jésus et l’histoire (1904); while the third furnished the substance of “Jésus et l’Église” which appeared in the Toulouse Bulletin 30. Loisy supplies this in Mémoires, 2: 11. 31. Margival’s Essai sur Richard Simon et la critique biblique au XVIIe siècle (1900) had earlier appeared as a series of articles in the Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses. Batiffol’s “A propos de Richard Simon” was published in the Bulletin de literature ecclésiastique 2 (1900): 257–68. When republished in Questions d’enseignement supérieur ecclésiastique, it was with an added note: “If one wished to compare these conclusions with those I formulated on L’Évangile et l’Église three years later . . . one would discover that Loisy’s entire philosophy of religion, namely, evolutionist fideism, had been expounded by Abbé Margival in 1900” (303–4). 32. Mémoires, 2: 12. 33. “L’Évangile et l’Église,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 4 (1903): 3–15.

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together with critical contributions by Lagrange and Portalié.34 Rivière judged L’enseignement de Jésus still to be without peer in “defending Catholic positions in their integrity against the radical negations popularized by Loisy.”35 In taking these stances, and in attempting to put his ideal of a positive theology to work, Batiffol sought to occupy a middle position in the larger arena of French Catholicism. Loisy, and the group associated with the Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses, remained to the left: they followed criticism’s lead and left theology with the task of making any adjustments in light of its conclusions. On the other hand, the program-statement of the Bibliothèque de théologie historique may serve as an indicator of a less adventurous position than the one taken by Batiffol. The statement asserted a fundamental identity of faith between ancients and moderns and thereby defended the principle of interpreting the past via the present. “How many times did the Fathers say or want to say what we do, though seeming to say the opposite or something else.”36 If the left did not do justice to the integrity of the tradition, in Batiffol’s view, the right did not respect sufficiently the integrity of the texts. In the four studies that comprised Études d’histoire et théologie positive—on the disciplina arcana, the origins of the sacrament of penance, the primitive hierarchy, and the agape— 34. Batiffol’s contributions are summarized by Poulat, who also draws upon L’enseignement de Jésus to explore areas of accord and difference between Loisy and his critic; see 376–92. Lagrange’s “Jésus et la critique des Évangiles” appeared in the Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique early in 1904, as did Portalié’s more polemical “Dogme et histoire.” Lagrange republished his article as an appendix to the second edition of his La méthode historique (1904) and thus it also appears in English translation as “Jesus Christ and New Testament Criticism” in Historical Criticism and the Old Testament, trans. Edward Myers (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1906), 215–43. 35. Rivière, Batiffol, 53. 36. Jean Vanot, “Une grande enterprise théologique,” Études 90 (1902): 405–9, at 407. This series was initiated by Jesuits at the Paris Institut catholique, who assumed its direction. Ironically, in light of the program statement authored by Vanot, the inaugural volume was written by Joseph Turmel. The first volume of his Histoire de la théologie positive appeared in 1904, and was followed by a second in 1906.

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Batiffol aspired to do both. Each study examined the historical evolution of its subject and admitted that this evolution raised doctrinal problems, not all of which were perceived by the early theologians, but which a modern critic could not simply put aside.37 Although, as characterized by one reviewer, “the conclusions advanced are on some points entirely new and on most points at variance with the views previously current among Catholics and more or less consecrated in the schools,”38 the volume did not incur censure. Such was not the case with a second series of Études d’histoire et de théologie positive (1905) which focused on the Eucharist, the real presence, and transsubstantiation. In an article also published in 1905, Batiffol not only affirmed the continuity in method with the first series of Études d’histoire et de théologie positive but also with that of Newman himself: Our study of the development of the dogma of the real presence is of such character that we would be tempted to advise anyone who had not previously read Cardinal Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, or his Oxford University Sermon of 1843, against reading it. We have applied to this study a method no different than that previously applied elsewhere to the study of the origins of penance, that is, the historical method: taking the texts, situating them in their time and context, trying to interpret them by themselves, then grouping the assertions they make according to their affinities, and, this empirical classification once accomplished, discovering, with the continuity of a central idea, the slow elaboration of dogmatic reflection. . . . And this development, in itself, is found to be a verification of Newman’s law, more convincing, perhaps, than any of the historical examples proposed by Newman himself.39 37. “We believe that ecclesiastical criticism is bound to indicate the solutions that it sees to the problems it poses”; Pierre Batiffol, Études d’histoire et de thélogie positive [First Series] (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1902), viii. 38. P. J. Toner, review of Pierre Batiffol, Études d’histoire et de thélogie positive, 4th ed. (1906), in Irish Theological Quarterly 1 (1906): 107–8. 39. Pierre Batiffol, “Pour l’histoire des dogmes,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 7 (1905): 151–64, at 158.

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Batiffol made it clear that he regarded Newman’s Essay as providing a synthetic view of what he had expressed historically in his tracing of the stages of development of the real presence. Batiffol’s claim to Newman’s mantle did not prove successful in neutralizing the book’s doctrinal shortcomings as those were perceived by partisans of the dominant theology. Its first edition, published in April, was followed three months later by a second, unchanged. Reservations expressed by critics motivated a slightly revised third edition that appeared in April 1906.40 It became apparent, however, that more extensive revision would be required to meet the objections that had been raised against the work. The third edition of Batiffol’s book was placed on the Index in July 1907, the same month in which the antiModernist syllabus Lamentabili sane exitu was promulgated. The decision of the Congregation of the Index was not then made public, although word of it leaked out.41 The event that evoked that disclosure was Batiffol’s abrupt departure from the Institut catholique and its rectorship at the beginning of an academic year. The wave of reaction against Modernism provided the context, and the Indexing of the eucharistic study the pretext; however, Rivière was at pains to point out that the causes went deeper and were more enduring.42 The book first. Rivière dwelt on the volatile nature of the study of the history of dogma over these decades. Where Duchesne had no longer cared to tread after his brush with ecclesiastical authority over 40. In a forward to this third edition Batiffol affirmed his fidelity to the course Newman had traced in his Essay and referred his reader to “Pour l’histoire des dogmes.” He reiterated this in the conclusion. See Pierre Batiffol, Études d’histoire et de théologie positive, Deuxième série (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1906), v–vi, 380. 41. Marcel Bécamel reproduced the article by Julien de Narfon that appeared in Le Figaro in December 1907 and revealed the Indexing of his book. See Marcel Bécamel, “Comment Monseigneur Batiffol quitta Toulouse, à la Noël 1907,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 72 (1971): 258–88 and 74 (1973): 109–38, at 111–14. 42. Rivière, Batiffol, 56–57.

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the development of the Trinity, Batiffol boldly went forward, first with his examination of the origin of penitence in the initial volume of Études, then with his tracing of the development of the real presence and transubstantiation. At a time when the historical treatment of dogma was largely identified with “the schools of the left” which “already had begun to make of it a weapon against the Church,” little wonder that the pioneering efforts of Batiffol—legitimate successor to Newman—could be misunderstood.43 Thus Rivière positioned the offending study as containing “tendencies judged dangerous more than errors properly so-called.”44 In his review of the third (1906) edition of the Études, E. Leroux summarized the changes that had been introduced into it, giving thereby a good indication of the contested points: The most notable change consists in the addition of a chapter at the end of the volume, in which the author has formulated the principal conclusions that have emerged from his study (pp. 377–87). Also to be noted are several modifications in the exegesis of the texts of Saint Paul, 1 Cor. 10.14–21 and 11.27–29, and particularly the suppression of certain passages in which exegetes who see an affirmation of the real presence in these texts are taken to task. However, Mgr Batiffol persists in believing that an argument sufficient to prove the dogma of the real presence on that basis alone cannot be drawn from the words of the apostle himself (p. 379).45

43. Ibid., 45–47. 44. Ibid., 57. 45. E. Leroux, review of Batiffol’s Études d’histoire et de théologie positive, 2me série. L’Eucharistie, la présence réelle et la transsubstantiation, 3me édition (1906), in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 8 (1907): 104–10, at 104n. Cf. 108–9. On the whole, Leroux’s evaluation was highly favorable. The book reflected “a vast erudition, a remarkable synthetic mind that accords each question its proper importance, with a great clarity of expression,” and he hoped to see further studies of this genre from Batiffol that would treat other sacraments (108, 105). Adhémar d’Alès’s review of the initial (1905) version provided some specifics of what theologians objected to in the study, with regard to exegesis and interpretation of patristic texts. See “Sur l’histoire d’un dogme” in Études 104 ( July–Sept. 1905): 238–47. Another prominent critic of the book was Louis Billot.

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The reviewer’s last observation (which Batiffol disputed) indicates why, even with the modifications incorporated and the further revisions added to the privately circulated successor version, the book failed to meet the tests of orthodoxy. While points of exegesis and matters of textual translation and interpretation were surely at stake, the developmental framework in which the study was cast proved a more intractable issue. While Batiffol had affirmed the realism that inhered in the understanding of the Eucharist from the very outset, he did not find in the early tradition a sense of the conversion of the elements. Thus he concluded that the adoption of the word by the Church Fathers represented not only progress in terminology but development in thought. The silence of the early texts regarding a primitive doctrine of conversion, coupled with a later diversity of understandings of its mode of occurrence, and an appreciation of a maturation of the eucharistic doctrine proceeding in parallel with that of Christology, led to the conclusion of real development that went beyond that of terminology. This was the primary point at issue in the Indexing of the book.46 As Rivière represented matters, the decision of the Index constituted more pretext than primary cause of Batiffol’s removal. Prior to treating his subject’s historical works during the period of the rectorship, he traced a campaign of denunciation waged against him, and advanced this as the real reason for Batiffol’s dismissal. Shortly after assuming his post, he undertook a reorganization of the Institut catholique in accord with the archbishop’s designs. Inevitably there are gainers and losers in any restructuring, and this earned Batiffol the enduring rancor of some members of the faculty. His initiation of the Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique provided a forum for the Toulouse theological faculty and greatly extended its influence. But its program 46. M.-J. Lagrange, “Monseigneur Pierre Batiffol,” La vie intellectuelle (1929): 398–423, at 419–20.

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of steering a middle course between what it regarded as the critical excesses of the left and the intransigent rejection of criticism by the right aroused opposition.47 The emergence of adversaries both academic and theological went far “in explaining the formation of a cabal which found the way to get around ecclesiastical authority and to exploit against him the obsessive fear of the Modernism that the pope had just condemned.”48 Rivière devoted the final section of his study to Batiffol’s activity in the years following his departure from Toulouse. The affair was managed through the expedient of having his ordinary recall Batiffol to his diocese, where he resumed his former position at SainteBarbe. In that capacity he continued his intellectual apostolate, undertaking his multivolume study of the early Church. In L’Église naissante et le catholicisme (1909) he defended the presence of Catholic elements in early Christianity against Protestant claims dating them to a later time. Rivière emphasized that this volume and its successors49 did not represent a withdrawal from the field of the history of dogma. Again the contrast with Duchesne was raised, to the credit of Batiffol.50 Another product of these years was the revision of the early study on the history of the breviary, published in 1911, and—a personal vindication for Batiffol—permission to revise and publish his work on the Eucha47. Rivière, Batiffol, 24–25, 51–52. 48. Ibid., 56. In the estimation of Louis Saltet, a member of the theological faculty under Batiffol’s rectorship, while Lebreton ascribed the dismissal to the condemnation by the Index, and Lagrange and Rivière accorded more influence to a campaign and to denunciations against him, it seemed more correct to join the two causes; see Louis Saltet, “Monseigneur Pierre Batiffol,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 30 (1929): 7–18, 49–62, 126–41, at 138–39. “In reality, Mgr Batiffol fell under the blows of a triple conspiracy: Modernist conspiracy, reactionary and integrist conspiracy, local conspiracy” (Fernessole, Témoins de pensée catholique, 236). 49. The initial volume was followed by La paix constantinienne et le catholicisme (1914), two volumes on Le catholicisme de saint Augustin (1920), and finally Le siège apostolique (1924). See Gustave Bardy, “L’oeuvre de Mgr Pierre Batiffol,” Recherches de science religieuse 19 (1929): 122–41, at 130–36, for the significance of these works. 50. Rivière, Batiffol, 60n.

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rist. This appeared in 1913 as L’Eucharistie, la présence réele et la transubstantiation.51 As further evidence of Batiffol’s scholarly activity, and of his theological soundness, Rivière documented his contributions to the great Catholic encyclopedic projects of the period: the Dictionnaire de la Bible, the Dictionnaire apologétique, the Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, and the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique.52 An impressive array of academic journals provided outlets for his work, as well as some aimed at more popular audiences, to which could be added various modes of service to both scholarly and ecclesial communities. In 1911 Batiffol was invited to the Semaine liturgique in Louvain by the Benedictines, in 1916 by the Institut catholique de Paris to deliver a series of lectures subsequently published as Leçons sur la Messe (1919), in 1921 by Cardinal Mercier to be associated with the Malines Conversations of that year, and in 1928 sent by the pope to the historical Congress in Oslo. In short, the portrayal of Batiffol as vir ecclesiasticus, set out early in his biographical study, was reinforced at its close. Batiffol observed that anyone writing on the history of the popes of the first ten centuries could not do so independently of Duchesne’s contributions. Rivière proposed that a similar affirmation could be made with respect to Batiffol and his legacy in the areas of ancient Christian literature, the history of liturgy, and the history of dogma: “[H]enceforth it will be impossible to treat of these areas, not only without recourse to his books and taking account of his views, but without recognizing that his work is at the source of all that has been done in the Church in this regard, over the past thirty years.”53 51. (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1913). A comparison the tables of contents between this and earlier editions reveals how thorough a revision this underwent. The chapter in exegesis of the New Testament texts was omitted, as was the chapter on developments during the Middle Ages. The material on the patristic period was expanded and presented under a new arrangement. In later editions Batiffol reverted to the original title, Études d’histoire et de théologie positive. 52. Rivière, Batiffol, 68. 53. Ibid., 77.

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Lo isy ’s B ati f fo l

Loisy did not produce a biographical study of Batiffol. Nonetheless, a counterportrayal of the historian of dogma emerges from the volumes of Loisy’s Mémoires. If Rivière could call Batiffol a “vir ecclesiasticus” in a laudatory sense, Loisy would freight it with a more opportunistic meaning by letting Batiffol’s character emerge from his actions.54 Already, by 1893, Loisy could cite epistolary evidence that Batiffol regarded his views on the dating of the synoptic gospels as overly advanced. The exegete’s dismissal from the Institut catholique later that same year “was able to confirm Batiffol in orthodoxy.”55 Two years later Lagrange invited Loisy to contribute to the Revue biblique. He accepted and submitted a study on the synoptic Apocalypse, drawn from the commentary on the first three gospels that he was in the midst of writing. Any potential for possible convergence of views was soon dispelled by Batiffol’s response, in his capacity as editorial secretary of the journal. Batiffol proposed numerous revisions, with a view toward attenuating the conclusions expressed in the article. From Loisy’s perspective, these had the cumulative effect of compromising the integrity of the piece, and he responded giving the alternatives of publishing it without the suggested corrections or suppressing it entirely. The article did appear, but with an editorial note dissociating the Revue from some of the views expressed in the second part.56 This effectively ended Loisy’s relations with Lagrange and Batiffol. As the Mémoires progressed, it became increasingly clear that 54. “My intention in these memoirs is not to pass any judgment on him; his actions will make him known”; Alfred Loisy, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps (Paris: Nourry, 1930), 1: 112. 55. Ibid., 243n. 56. Ibid., 400–401. These events are recounted from Lagrange’s perspective in Le Père Lagrange. Au service de la bible. Souvenirs personnels (Paris: Cerf, 1967), 66–70; translated as Père Lagrange: Personal Reflections and Memoirs, trans. Henry Wansbrough (New York:

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what Loisy found problematic was less their differences in positions and more a “showy orthodoxy” on Batiffol’s part. Loisy’s comment that Batiffol’s public views were in effect sanitized versions of those he held in private has been noted earlier.57 He was able to cite similar reservations from Duchesne and von Hügel.58 And the allocutions, lectures, and published writings put forward by Batiffol during his rectorship that were for Rivière evidence of an early and perceptive appreciation of the dangers of an autonomous philosophy and an independent exegesis, for Loisy displayed a conscious attempt to gain credit for staunch orthodoxy by blackening the reputation of others. Ironically, Batiffol’s strategy of conspicuous orthodoxy had the result in some quarters of heightening suspicion of his own use of criticism and history in theology. In Loisy’s trenchant imagery, Batiffol’s theological orthodoxy was always virginal, but a bit like that of a Hellenic goddess whose virginity, joyously lost each year during the spring, would also be restored in a sacred bath each spring. Batiffol also flirted with science: a dangerous game for one of his caliber. Those more pure than he could, with every appearance of logic, suspect him of being less pure than he made a pretense of being; they also told themselves that he would not have been so thoroughly informed of people’s heresies that he congratulated himself on knowing so well if he detested what they imparted to him. He will have been the principal victim of his own ardor of denouncing heretics.59

Paulist Press, n.d.), 49–51. Loisy’s study appeared in the Revue biblique as “L’Apocalypse synoptique” in two parts: (1896): 173–98 and 335–59. 57. See note 4 above. 58. The “showy orthodoxy” comment is actually Duchesne’s; see Mémoires, 1: 487n. Von Hügel’s estimation in 1898 is given on 484. At the end of 1901 von Hügel was able to meet with Batiffol on three occasions and came away with the impression that with Batiffol it was not a matter of personal animosity toward Loisy, but rather “his career, his security in ecclesiastical opinion” that shaped his actions; see Letter of von Hügel to Loisy, cited in Mémoires, 2: 76. 59. Mémoires, 1: 538.

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As for Rivière’s book on Modernism published in 1929 and the timing of the campaign directed against Turmel by both Rivière and Saltet earlier that same year, Loisy saw both as forming part of a concerted effort to rehabilitate Batiffol. Unfortunately, he wrote, the attempt did not have time to bear fruit, given Batiffol’s untimely death in 1929.60 Batiffol’s career illustrates the difficulty of making a case for the use of critical methods in theology, even while maintaining overt ties to the latter, in the Modernist period. It also shows that, while those engaged in the work of intellectual renewal could appreciate lines of divisions among themselves, those boundaries were less visible to their opposition.

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60. Alfred Loisy, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps, 3: 559–60, 542–43n.

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P a rt T h r e e   T h e C e n t e r

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  C h a p te r

Four

H o u ti n ’s Lo isy The Construction of a Modernist

Harvey Hill Glory became for [Loisy] a fever with which he burned all of his life.

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Albert Houtin1

F e a r ing t h at t he ir Church was becoming increasingly anachronistic, many Catholics at the beginning of the twentieth century sought to update its teachings. The ecclesiastical hierarchy condemned these efforts as “Modernism” and excommunicated the most prominent Modernists, including Alfred Loisy (1857–1940). For our purposes, the most important aspect of the Vatican’s anti-Modernist attack was its characterization of the Modernists, who were described as philosophical agnostics motivated primarily by pride and a morbid curiosity. Although Modernists posed as reformers, the papal documents claimed, they were actually enemies of the Church who remained in the Church under false pretences.2 1. La vie d’Alfred Loisy, in Alfred Loisy: Sa vie—Son oeuvre, ed. Émile Poulat (Paris: Centre national de la recherché scientifique, 1960), 11. Subsequent references to this work are embedded in the text of this chapter. 2. On the portrayal of the Modernists in the encyclical, see Émile Poulat, Critique et

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Like several prominent Modernists, Loisy sought to defend himself from such charges.3 Already, in 1907, the year before his excommunication, he had commissioned his friend and fellow traveler Albert Houtin (1867–1926) to write his biography. To facilitate the task, Loisy provided Houtin with private correspondence and his diary. Houtin did not produce the biography, but he did publish a history of Modernism in 1913 that included sharp criticisms of Loisy. As a result, Loisy realized that Houtin’s projected biography of him would not defend his integrity to the degree that he had hoped. Despite this realization and although he had already published his own autobiography by this time (Choses passées appeared serially in 1912 and was released integrally the next year), Loisy nonetheless continued to cooperate with Houtin, providing him with another batch of notes in 1915.4 When Houtin’s biography of Loisy did finally appear in 1960 (long after the deaths of both Houtin and Loisy), it was quite critical of Loisy and therefore initiated a new round in the debate about Loisy’s character, as Houtin had hoped and Loisy had feared it would. Scholars questioned the sincerity of Loisy’s convictions at various stages on the road to his excommunication, and Houtin’s witness was central in these debates. Particularly relevant were the numerous quotations that Houtin provided from Loisy’s diaries and letters, many of which did not appear in Loisy’s own account. Shaped as it was by a sense of personal betrayal, however, Houmystique: Autour de Loisy ou la conscience catholique et l’esprit moderne (Paris: Le Centurion, 1984), 82–88. 3. Loisy offered his perspectives on the crisis and his role in it in his autobiographical Choses passées (Paris: Emile Nourry, 1913) and Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps, 3 vols. (Paris: Emile Nourry, 1930–1931). 4. The relationship between Loisy and Houtin is one of the oddest features of Modernism. Houtin lost all respect for Loisy in 1907, and yet he continued to act as Loisy’s friend, even campaigning on Loisy’s behalf at the Collége de France in 1908. Loisy realized that he could not trust Houtin in 1913, and yet continued to correspond and cooperate with him. Were they enemies or friends? The answer seems to be an unusual combination of both.

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tin’s interpretation of Loisy’s life and character was unbalanced. In fact, Houtin’s biography of Loisy reveals as much about Houtin himself as it does about Loisy. The image of Loisy that he constructed was at least in part an exercise in self-justification, and it reflected both his binary mentality and his post-Catholic critical stance toward the Modernist enterprise more generally. Attention to this feature of his work on Loisy can thus clarify his own religious position and, by extension, that of the “left wing” of the Modernist movement more generally.

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Th e Myste ry o f Lo isy ’s C h a r ac te r

In his preface to the biography, Houtin claimed to have read everything written “about [Loisy’s] undulating career and mysterious character” and to have found none of of it satisfactory. Loisy’s autobiography in particular, he said, “posed more problems than it resolved,” and therefore “aggravated the task” of understanding him. As one who had known Loisy well and who had numerous letters from Loisy as evidence, Houtin thought it appropriate to offer his own explanation. He, presumably in contrast to earlier and unsatisfactory authors, including Loisy himself, promised to maintain “a method of rigorous objectivity.”5 His work would finally reveal the truth about his enigmatic subject (3–4). Houtin’s quest for objectivity did not preclude him from incorporating his own first-person presence into his story, however. His accounts of his interactions with Loisy reinforced his prefatory claim that Loisy was mysterious. Houtin first met Loisy in 1901, at a time when Loisy was having difficulties with his ordinary, Cardinal Rich5. Ironically, Loisy made similar claims to objectivity in his autobiographies; see Choses passées, viii, and Mémoires, 1:6–7. See also Harvey Hill, “More Than a Biblical Critic,” in Lawrence Barmann and Harvey Hill, eds., Personal Faith and Institutional Commitments: Roman Catholic Modernist and Anti-Modernist Autobiography (Scranton, Pa.: University of Scranton Press, 2002), 14–17.

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ard, the archbishop of Paris. This is how Houtin described his initial impression: “He appeared to me with the halo of science and of persecution. His gravity and certain devout expressions gave him also the halo of sanctity. . . . M. Loisy appeared to me a confessor of the Gospel, persecuted for his sincerity.” Lest the reader take this impression at face value, Houtin then added “I was seduced” (93–94). Houtin did not, at this point, explain exactly how Loisy’s pious appearance misled him, but he clearly indicated that it did not convey an accurate impression of Loisy’s character. Houtin maintained this implicit opposition between Loisy’s false appearance and the as yet undisclosed hidden reality for the next forty pages of his text, covering the next six years of Loisy’s life. Describing the reaction to Loisy’s 1904 Autour d’un petit livre, for example, Houtin noted that “[t]he benevolent spectators were disconcerted. They hesitated to conclude that the negations of M. Loisy were so radical. I remained benevolent” (116). Later Houtin defended his characterization of Loisy in 1906 as more orthodox than he in fact was with the assertion that “he still had not taken the trouble to reveal to me the base of his thought” (137). Such autobiographical asides, precisely because they were not central to the narrative, reinforce the reader’s sense of a gap between Loisy’s appearance, at least to initially benevolent spectators like Houtin, and the radical negations that were the true base of his thought. Fearing his own death early in 1907 and determined that his conservative critics not have the last word in interpreting his life, Loisy appointed Houtin his literary executor and finally did reveal the “base of his thought.” To Houtin’s chagrin, Loisy suggested that he had not believed in the soul, free will, the future life, or the existence of a personal God for twenty years (138). This revelation called into question the sincerity of everything Loisy had said or done during this period. In light of this passage, the reader can finally understand Houtin’s earlier claim to have been seduced by Loisy, as well as the numerous

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hints about Loisy’s duplicity. It also clarifies the events that follow, even after Loisy’s excommunication. In Houtin’s view, notwithstanding his pious appearance, an appearance that he assiduously cultivated, Loisy was an atheist who only pretended to have any real commitment to the Church and who maintained this false appearance even to his closest friends and confidants. For Houtin, this insight into Loisy’s duplicity was important enough to conclude the book, which ends with the words “It is thus necessary to ascertain, one more time, . . . the duality of his thought and the expression which he gives it in his writings” (185).

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A F e v e r fo r Glo ry

But why would Loisy maintain this false appearance? Houtin’s answer was that Loisy actively sought adulation. Houtin first found the key to Loisy’s character in notes written in 1882 (notes that would have become available to him following the climatic 1907 interview), where Loisy confessed to a triple fever of science, employment, and, most tellingly to Houtin, glory (31). Houtin interpreted Loisy’s desire for glory as a compulsion that drove his behavior for much of his life. Writing in 1884 about prizes he had won in 1868, Loisy said, “Everything vain about these things escapes the mind of [an eleven-year-old] child. That day, I had a vague suspicion of the glory that works of the mind can win.” Houtin commented, “The vague suspicion that Loisy had that day of glory, far from being effaced, grew and became more specific. That which was effaced was the sentiment of the vanity of these things that his Christian teachers had tried to inculcate in him. The glory became for him a fever with which he burned all of his life” (11, with a reference to Loisy’s 1882 notes). When Loisy won prizes for his work at the Institut catholique, according to Houtin, “sweet memories returned” (32). Presumably Houtin meant sweet memories of Loisy’s earlier academic glory. Houtin continued to return specifically to Loisy’s fever of glory

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(e.g., 35, 95). Even years after his excommunication and despite the limited success of his later writings, Loisy still suffered from the same fever and still claimed glory for himself, Houtin insisted in the last pages of his biography (180, 184). But how to win the glory he sought? Initially Loisy seemed to incline toward an academic career. After all, he first tasted glory when he won academic prizes. The Church offered another possible road, however. Immediately following his account of Loisy’s taste for academic glory, Houtin described Loisy’s developing sense of religious vocation. According to Loisy’s own notes from 1884 (in a passage omitted from Choses passées), the first time some one suggested to him that he should become a priest, he responded, “[I]f I make myself a priest, it will be to become at least a bishop” (13).6 The installation of Henri Munier as his village’s new priest in 1871, which Houtin recorded next, reinforced Loisy’s sense of the glory available to servants of the Church. Houtin made the comparison with academic glory explicit: “The ceremony of installation impressed Alfred just as forcefully as the distribution of prizes two years before at Châlons. . . . Then, for the first time, Alfred suspected his vocation.” This was not a genuine religious vocation, Houtin implied, but rather an alternative avenue for winning glory. Houtin reinforced this impression by subordinating Loisy’s religious commitment to his interest in academics. Juxtaposing the glories available through academics and through the priesthood emphasized the common drive impelling Loisy in either or both directions. Beginning with academics gave Loisy’s intellectual ambition priority over his religious ambition. And titling the chapter in which Loisy first discerned his religious vocation “Classical Studies” buttressed the emerging picture of one more interested in intellectual life than in God. By contrast, Loisy titled the parallel chapter in Choses passées “Toward the Priesthood,” thus foregrounding his religious commitment. 6. Houtin, and Loisy in his 1884 notes, later repeated this idea; see Vie, 41.

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Loisy continued to pursue a vocation in the Church, with, Houtin argued, less and less honest conviction. Houtin quoted Loisy’s account of his 1878 ordination to the subdiaconate and commented, “Perhaps one discovers [in his decision to go ahead with the ordination] more stubbornness than pure piety or idealism.” In support of his claim, he then quoted a passage from Loisy’s 1884 notes that Loisy had omitted from his autobiography: “I have naturally the bitter and trenchant tone, the blind, opinionated nature of my maternal family,” Loisy wrote. “Without that, my ecclesiastical vocation would have disappeared after three months of seminary, when I glimpsed the travesty of ecclesiastical education, and especially at the end of three years, when I had perceived the feeble side of our doctrines. My will remained firm under the ruins which, since then, have been heaped on the field of my first beliefs” (19). A few years later, Loisy’s first beliefs were even more clearly in ruins. In a chapter entitled “Crisis of Faith,” Houtin quoted Loisy’s notes from 1884 to 1886 to show that Loisy, by that time ordained to the priesthood and teaching at the Institut catholique, had no recognizably Catholic beliefs at all. He espoused, rather, “an evolutionary pantheism” (39; Houtin quoted the phrase from Choses passées). In his commentary on these passages from Loisy’s journal, Houtin emphasized Loisy’s dishonesty. “This page [of Loisy’s journal] marks the end of all the theological illusions of M. Loisy. . . . In losing completely their theological beliefs, M. Loisy at the age of twenty-eight and M. Joiniot7 at the age of twenty-four, arrived in good time at the place where sooner or later a number of reflective and sincere priests arrive. But it did not occur to them to be sincere like the others and to quit the Church” (44–45). Clearly Houtin was not defending Catholic theology, which he 7. Alfred Joiniot (1860–1901, ordained 1883) studied with John Hogan at the Society of Saint Sulpice at the same time as Pierre Batiffol. Loisy described Joiniot as “one of the most open spirits that I have ever known” (Loisy, Mémoires, 1: 129–30).

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too as a “reflective and sincere” former priest, had long since rejected. For Houtin, the problem was that Loisy exhibited scandalous intellectual dishonesty in not openly avowing his doubts and abandoning the priesthood after his disillusionment. This dishonesty marked the entire period of Loisy’s priesthood, especially the period from the mid-1880s forward, and it took its toll on Loisy himself. Houtin explained one of Loisy’s periodic collapses thus: “He was giving himself much pain especially in the study of Assyriology. But still more than the work, the care of his false situation weakened him” (46–47). Because Loisy sought ecclesiastical glory despite his lack of religious faith, Houtin alleged, Loisy had to conceal or to misrepresent his true ideas. Even before his final loss of faith, Loisy wrote, in a passage from his 1883 notes not quoted in Choses passées, “The best would be, while waiting [for the Church to recognize the truth], to hide all the results and all the emotions of my interior work in the silence and cloister of the grave. The cross above. Within a hidden life which will appear on the day of God.” A few days later, he acknowledged, again in a passage omitted from his autobiography, “I practice a reserve to the point where it becomes almost a dissimulation” (35). A year later, after Loisy’s thesis on the doctrine of divine inspiration had been rejected by the rector of the Institut catholique, Loisy reaffirmed his commitment to this reserve. “It was too soon to produce my conclusions,” he wrote. “It would be better to begin with works of detail; the conclusions will then come of themselves. The terrain is not ready” (38). Two years later, Loisy erected this reserve to the level of a guiding principle for his life as well as for his writings. “As for disturbed spirits who want to see higher and farther,” he wrote in 1886, in yet another passage omitted from his autobiography, “the beginning of wisdom is for them to understand that their practical life must have another rule than their always variable speculations” (47). In these passages, Houtin saw the origin of the mystery of Loisy’s character: in order to win glory in the Church, he consciously concealed his true

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beliefs behind a pious façade that he knew would be more palatable to late-nineteenth-century French Catholics. Houtin’s description of Loisy’s graduation from the Institut catholique de Paris in 1890 illustrates the way he emphasized Loisy’s false situation in the narrative of the biography itself, as opposed to relying on Loisy’s private journal. For the events immediately leading up to the graduation ceremony, Houtin’s account agreed with, and often followed exactly, Loisy’s own in Choses passées. But Houtin emphasized considerably more than did Loisy the equivocation in which the award ceremony involved him. “The ceremony,” Houtin wrote, required “the new doctor [to] recite the profession of faith of Pius IV of which he believed almost nothing and which says, among other things, ‘Holy Scripture I acknowledge in the sense that our Holy Mother Church, which judges the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, has held and holds. I acknowledge it, and I will never acknowledge or interpret it except according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers.’” In Choses passées, Loisy himself had recorded his hesitation at publicly pronouncing this creed. Houtin quoted this passage and then added, “In reality, that which M. Loisy proposed to do was precisely to disengage the Church from the traditional interpretation of the Bible” (50–52). This episode thus combined the various features of Loisy’s character as Houtin presented it. Loisy sought academic and ecclesiastical advancement by concealing his true opinions and even by publicly affirming a creed that he did not believe. Loisy’s vocation was set: he would win glory by serving the Church as a historian and exegete, but all at the expense of his religious and intellectual integrity. C a m pa i g n i n g fo r a B ish o p ri c H o u t i n ’s V e r s i o n o f t h e Sto ry

Houtin’s portrait of Loisy’s career and character remains consistent throughout the rest of his account of Loisy’s life. Because Loisy’s

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life story is relatively well known, there is no need to repeat its details here.8 However, tracing Houtin’s treatment of a single episode of Loisy’s life, his quest for a bishopric in the first years of the twentieth century,9 and contrasting Houtin’s assessment to Loisy’s own as presented in Choses passées, sheds additional light on Houtin’s picture of Loisy. It again shows Houtin’s belief that Loisy was motivated entirely by the desire for glory and that his behavior was dishonest and hostile to the interests of the Church. It also makes explicit the dissimulation that Houtin claimed to find in Loisy’s autobiography. Houtin introduced the subject of Loisy’s episcopal candidacy in a chapter on his experiences at the Sorbonne, again giving priority to Loisy’s academic ambitions. Loisy had begun offering a course at the École pratique des Hautes Études in December 1900. One of the regular professors at the École pratique, Auguste Sabatier, died the following April, and Loisy hoped to win Sabatier’s vacated position. He was disappointed in this hope, decided to leave the École practique at the next opportunity, and turned his attention back to seeking preferment in the Church. That fall, he received some encouragement from Cardinal Mathieu, and the following January he learned of his nomination to the see of Monaco (99–101). In order to advance his episcopal candidacy, Loisy dramatically modified his behavior. “In allowing his candidacy for the episcopate to be presented,” Houtin wrote, “M. Loisy took the proper attitude to make himself agreeable to the pope. He no longer pronounced a single word capable of disturbing orthodoxy in his course. He strict8. On Loisy’s life, see Hill, The Politics of Modernism: Alfred Loisy and the Scientific Study of Religion (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002); and Émile Goichot, Alfred Loisy et ses amis (Paris: Cerf, 2002). 9. For more recent accounts specifically of Loisy’s quest for a bishopric, see Marvin O’Connell, “The Bishopric of Monaco, 1902: A Revision,” Catholic Historical Review 71 (1985): 26–51; and Harvey Hill, “French Politics and Alfred Loisy’s Modernism,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 67 (1998): 521–36, especially 523–26, and The Politics of Modernism, 175–79.

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ly surveyed the articles of his collaborators of his Review” (102).10 Worse yet, in Houtin’s eyes, Loisy virtually severed contact with a heretofore close friend, Marcel Hébert.11 Houtin dwelt on their relationship for five pages, commenting particularly on the change in the way Loisy spoke of Hébert to his visitors. While aspiring to episcopal office, Houtin wrote, “he affirmed to all of his visitors that he did not think, that he had never thought, like M. Hébert. He even felt the need to write to Cardinal Richard, archbishop of Paris, to denounce his friend” (106). Not only did Loisy thus show himself incapable of true friendship, but he also revealed his lack of intellectual integrity. Houtin explained in a footnote that Loisy really did differ from Hébert, but only because he was “much more heterodox,” not at all the difference that Loisy emphasized during his period of feigned orthodoxy. When the Vatican resisted Loisy’s candidacy even despite his efforts to appear orthodox, Loisy found allies among civil leaders prepared to do battle with Rome. Prince Albert of Monaco informed Loisy in October 1902 that Pope Leo XIII had rejected him, as well as the other two candidates Albert had proposed because they all lacked the requisite qualities of a bishop. However, the prince had decided to renominate the same three candidates in an effort to force the Vatican to accept one of them. A few weeks later, Loisy learned that his name had been added to the list of prospective nominees for a bishopric in France. Although Charles Dumay, the head of the central administration of religions, agreed to make the nomination, he quipped that “one might as well present Robespierre” (107). Loisy’s unpopularity at Rome may actually have been an asset in Dumay’s eyes, how10. Houtin referred to the Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses, a journal established in 1896. It lasted until 1922. 11. Houtin wrote a sympathetic biography of Hébert entitled Un prêtre symboliste. On Houtin’s biography of Hébert, see chapter two of this volume. See also Houtin, Histoire du modernisme catholique (Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1913), 67–70.

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ever. When Loisy visited him, he explained that the civil government of France and the Vatican were battling over the form of the nominations. At stake was who appointed Catholic bishops. The government intended to use its nominations to show that it ultimately had authority over appointments. Dumay then “asked M. Loisy if he accepted being nominated in these conditions. The candidate responded affirmatively” (107). That is, Houtin made clear, Loisy agreed to serve as a political weapon against the Vatican at a tense moment in Church-state relations. The implication was also clear: Loisy put his desire for ecclesiastical advancement above the interest of the institutional Church that he ostensibly served. At Dumay’s suggestion, Loisy wrote to Cardinal Mathieu to solicit his support for Loisy’s dual candidacy, a tactic that, Houtin claimed, demonstrated once again Loisy’s unprincipled ambition. In a letter dated 27 October 1902, Loisy tried “to make Mathieu understand what a good bishop he could be.” He also argued that the Church should make use of his talents, and he added that a “very honorable scientific career” remained open to him if the Church neglected the opportunity to appoint him bishop (108). In a note, Houtin reminded his readers that Loisy exaggerated the academic opportunities available to him. “The career was not at all open, since [the École pratique des Hautes Études] had refused to give him a title and since he himself had decided, he said, to leave the École pratique des Hautes Études when he finished his work on the Gospels.” In his response to Loisy’s letter, Mathieu informed Loisy that the cardinal secretary of state had told him that Loisy could be “reassuring” in his academic career as well as in episcopal office. Loisy responded in turn that he “was never preoccupied with being reassuring, but with being honest.” “That he had never preoccupied himself with being reassuring was slightly inexact,” Houtin commented. Readers of Houtin’s work to this point would know that it was even less accurate to say that Loisy preoccupied himself with being honest.

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In fact, Houtin attributed Loisy’s most famous publication, L’Évangile et l’Église, precisely to his effort to be reassuring to the ecclesiastical hierarchy and thus to advance his episcopal candidacy. Houtin characterized the book as “destined to seduce the dogmatic authorities [as Houtin himself had been ‘seduced’] without discontenting scholars.” Before publishing the book, he reported, “in order to be sure not to commit a faux pas, [Loisy] had submitted the manuscript to his friend the Archbishop of Albi. The prelate had judged that the publication could only be advantageous for his episcopal candidacy” (109). In an effort to capitalize on this advantage, Loisy sent the book, along with one other, to Mathieu with his October letter seeking Mathieu’s support. For Houtin, then, the book most associated with what came to be called “the Modernist Crisis” was initially part of a campaign to win Loisy ecclesiastical office, and the widely acknowledged subtlety of the book stemmed from Loisy’s desire to placate the hierarchy without discrediting himself among scholars.12 Throughout his account of these events, Houtin was carrying on an implicit debate with Loisy’s own presentation of the same events in Choses passées, but he made this debate explicit in the final page of the chapter. “Ten years later,” Houtin began, “after having exposed in his Choses passées what it pleased him to divulge on the vicissitudes of his candidacy for the episcopate, M. Loisy said that ‘the [unsuccessful] issue of this negotiation caused him “a true relief.”’ One may well doubt it. M. Loisy spoke to me many times on these diverse incidents. . . . He regretted not being able to play the political and social role of which he believed himself capable and which the head of 12. If this was indeed Loisy’s hope, he was disappointed in it. The pope rejected Albert’s three nominations a second time, and Albert and the Vatican eventually compromised on another candidate. (Houtin added, as an aside, that the successful candidate was “ignorant, rich, and titled,” and was therefore promptly accepted.) Dumay too elected not to insist on Loisy’s candidacy in order not to confront the pope on dogmatic grounds (110).

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a diocese could easily play in epochs of trouble or transition” (111). Houtin added a long footnote further damning Loisy’s presentation of these events: His episcopal candidacy caused M. Loisy many mortifications that it seemed to me useless to recount. One of them, however, possesses some interest because it explains why he has spoken of this affair himself in his Choses passées. . . . When M. Loisy decided to publish his Choses passées in 1912, he charged me to research what had become of Cardinal Mathieu’s papers and, consequently, [to discover] if the two letters that he had written to him on the subject of his episcopate had been conserved. The result of my investigation frightened him and then for fear that one would exhume these letters against him, he resigned himself to publish from them that which is cited in Choses passées.

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Loisy’s account of these events was, therefore, as suspect as Loisy’s behavior during his candidacy itself. He sought to conceal information or, failing that, to misrepresent his attitude and, by extension, to misrepresent events more generally. Houtin’s comments on Choses passées thus reinforced his general picture of Loisy as ambitious and dissembling. Lo i s y ’s V e r s i o n o f t h e Sto ry

As one might expect, Loisy’s picture of these events differed in numerous ways from Houtin’s. First, Loisy deemphasized his candidacy by including considerably less about it in his autobiography. Houtin devoted one of the longest chapters in his biography to Loisy’s candidacy and explicitly discussed the impact of his candidacy on Loisy’s teaching, his relationship with friends, and his publishing. By contrast, Loisy relegated his account of his candidacy to a section in a much longer chapter entitled “At the École pratique des Hautes Études.”13 Loisy did not mention his teaching in the relevant 13. For Loisy’s account, see Choses passées, 102–6. In his Mémoires, Loisy devoted considerably more space to his episcopal candidacy; see 2:91–166.

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section of this chapter, and certainly did not claim to have changed the tone of his course to appeal to the hierarchy. He also omitted any mention of the change in his relationship with Hébert.14 Furthermore, Loisy offered a radically different context for his episcopal candidacy than did Houtin. Rather than emphasize his disappointment at the École practique, as Houtin did, Loisy stressed his role in the much larger movement of modernization in the Church. He began the section with the assertion that “[m]y friends were much more careful than I to minimize the ecclesiastical condemnations” that he had already experienced. The starting point was thus the fact of his conflict with the hierarchy, a conflict that did not shape his behavior even as much as it shaped the behavior of others on his behalf. The reason both for the initial censure and for his allies’ efforts to defend him was, he said, his position as a symbol and spokesperson for modern intellectual life in the Church. “From my side,” Loisy explained, “I was not ignorant of the movement in question, which the force of things and not my puny literary activity, had unleashed. I was to a point the organ of it and, my situation giving me adequate liberty, I spoke for all those who could not say anything.” He recognized, he continued, “that there was still time for me to make a career” in the Church if he would not express the full range of his beliefs. “But I could not resign myself to [such self-censorship] because of all those whom I knew to be tormented under the yoke of the old theology and who were accustomed more and more to count on me to help them breathe more freely.”15 To this point, he had not mentioned his episcopal candidacy. Instead, he had identified all of the reasons why he could not, in good conscience, seek ecclesiastical preferment at the expense of his intellectual integrity. However, Loisy continued, precisely his role in the movement for 14. In his Mémoires, Loisy described his changing relationship with Hébert at length; see 2:126–40. 15. Loisy, Choses passées, 230–31.

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intellectual freedom in the Church encouraged him to allow his name to be put forward as a prospective bishop. “The movement [of modern ideas into the Church] needed not to be crushed but to be directed. That is why, in 1902, I allowed myself to be proposed to the Holy See by S. A. S. Prince Albert for the bishopric of Monaco.”16 “I wanted,” he added in the next paragraph, “to serve the Church in the crisis that it was experiencing and that I knew was very grave.” In fact, he did not want to be a bishop, he insisted, especially not “to the detriment of what appeared to me to be the interest of truth, as of the Church, in the present time.”17 Loisy’s two letters to Cardinal Mathieu in support of his candidacy made the same point, and Loisy quoted them both in full.18 These letters supported his representation of his motivation and dominated his account as a whole in terms of space. The two accounts of the support that Loisy received from political leaders differed similarly. Loisy emphasized that he did not initiate either of his two nominations. He never, he asserted, knew why Albert chose his name, and a friend, rather than Loisy himself, broached his candidacy with the minister of religious affairs in France. Like Houtin, Loisy then summarized his exchange with Minister Dumay, but the exchange looked quite different in Loisy’s version of it. Houtin stressed Dumay’s explanation of current Church-state tensions, highlighting Loisy’s willingness to serve as a political tool of the government against the Church. Loisy, by contrast, ignored this part of the conversation and noted that “M. Dumay, people know, did not want to foster the separation of the Church from the State.”19 As a result, Loisy significantly downplayed the way in which his candidacy served anticlerical political interests, including ultimately the movement to end state financial support for the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps the most striking difference of all in the two portrayals 16. Ibid., 232. 18. Ibid., 235–37, 238–40.

17. Ibid., 233. 19. Ibid., 234.

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was the way they characterized the publication of L’Évangile et l’Église. Houtin claimed that Loisy published the book in order to reassure the Catholic hierarchy of his orthodoxy without jeopardizing his academic reputation among non-Catholics. Loisy said the opposite. He introduced his publication of the book in the same sentence in which he first mentioned his episcopal candidacy. The two were thus linked from the beginning of his presentation of these events. But neither was well calculated politically, he insisted. “The least political wisdom would have counseled me to put aside the presentation [of his name as a possible bishop] and to adjourn publication [of the book].” Because Cardinal Richard had condemned an earlier work by Loisy, only years in which Loisy acted as a resolute “advocate of the tradition” would have made him palatable to the hierarchy. “L’Évangile et l’Église was certainly not the manifesto necessary to take this position,” he insisted; “this book was even the opposite.”20 Gone is any reference to his request that the archbishop of Albi read the manuscript before publication and comment on its potential impact on Loisy’s episcopal prospects. Thus presented, the book served as the counterweight to Loisy’s candidacy. He became a candidate for the episcopate only in order to serve the Church at a time when it needed intellectual guidance from within the ecclesiastical hierarchy. His book ensured that he would become a bishop only if the hierarchy could acknowledge this need. Events justified Loisy’s assumption about the book, as he presented it. “Whether I was right or wrong,” he wrote at the end of his account of these events, “it was clear that the views of Rome were entirely different than mine. . . . I have always thought that the condemnation of L’Évangile et l’Église by Cardinal Richard in January 1903 had been prescribed by Roman authority, not only because of ‘errors’ that this book might contain but in order to render henceforth impossible

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.

20. Ibid., 232–33.

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the presentation” of his name as a candidate for a bishopric.21 That is, he used the book to send a message to the Roman hierarchy about his intentions should he become bishop, and the Roman hierarchy understood and responded accordingly. At no point was he motivated by personal considerations, nor did he in any way conceal his true opinions. The conflict with Houtin’s interpretation of these events could not be more profound without dramatically altering the events described.

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A sse ssi n g Lo isy a n d H o u ti n

In assessing what Houtin’s biography of Loisy reveals about Houtin himself and his view of Modernism, assessing the character of Houtin’s interpretation of Loisy’s episcopal candidacy is a helpful first step. First, Houtin and Loisy substantially agreed on the basic events. This agreement becomes even stronger when the witness of Loisy’s second autobiography, his three-volume Mémoires, is taken into account. At issue, then, is not so much what happened as why Loisy acted as he did and how he interpreted his own actions at the time. Houtin portrayed Loisy as willing to sacrifice his integrity—what remained of it anyway—on the altar of his ambition. Loisy insisted that he was motivated by a concern to help the Church address its pressing need to rethink its doctrinal teachings. Who was more accurate? The answer is complex, but it seems clear that Loisy was not purely disinterested in his campaign to become bishop. As many have noted, including Loisy himself in some contexts, the precautions of language in L’Évangile et l’Église suggest that it was not an unambiguous statement of Loisy’s reform program.22 The fact that Loisy sent the 21. Ibid., 240–41. 22. See, for example, Gabriel Daly, Transcendence and Immanence: A Study in Roman Catholic Modernism and Integralism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 55–58; Emile Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Paris: Casterman, 1962), 90–92; Stephen Sykes, The Identity of Christianity (London: SPCK, 1984), 137–38; and C. J. T. Talar,

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manuscript of the book to the archbishop of Albi and then the book itself to Cardinal Mathieu indicates that he hoped it would advance his candidacy. As Houtin noted, he exaggerated his professional opportunities in the academy in his letters to Mathieu, presumably in an effort to encourage Mathieu to support his candidacy.23 And Loisy demonstrated an unacknowledged “prudence” in the negotiations following the condemnations of L’Évangile et l’Église.24 It seems reasonable to suppose that he exercised a similar prudence in his campaign to become bishop, notwithstanding his comments to the contrary. Thus far, Houtin’s portrait seems reasonably accurate. At the same time, I see no reason to question Loisy’s sincerity in his hope to work for the intellectual reform and modernization of the Church. After all, he could have refrained from publishing anything, constituted himself an unambiguous advocate of the tradition, or concentrated on narrowly specialized topics unlikely to cause controversy (a strategy he did adopt for certain periods of his Catholic career). The fact that he continued to publish works critical, however subtly, of the dominant theological position in the Church of his day suggests that he was not solely motivated by the desire for personal glory and willing to sacrifice his integrity to achieve it. As a result, Loisy’s self-representation surely contains significant elements of truth as well. In fact, Houtin seems to admit as much in several places in his biography. At the end of his chapter on Loisy’s crisis of faith in the mid-1880s, Houtin noted that Loisy “resolved to make a career [in the Church despite his lack of faith in its dogmas], justifying [his] perseverance on the social and moral role of the Church” (45). While criticizing Loisy’s hypocrisy in pronouncing the creed of Pius IV at his “A Reading of the Gospel (and the Church) According to Alfred Loisy,” Thought 67 (1992): 302–16. 23. See Hill, “More Than a Biblical Critic,” 28–30. 24. Ibid., 22–27, and The Politics of Modernism, 162–72.

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graduation ceremony in 1891, Houtin accused him of hoping to modify the Church’s traditional interpretation of the Bible (51), a goal that dated back at least to 1884 (38). Houtin entitled his chapter on the years 1899–1901 “The Reformer of the Catholic Theory.” In each of these cases, Houtin integrated Loisy’s hopes for Church reform into a criticism of his lack of sincerity. Nonetheless, Houtin acknowledged that Loisy combined his disbelief in the current teachings of the Church with hope for its future teachings. Loisy did not claim more faith than that. Was Loisy sincere, then, in his desire to serve the Church? Loisy seems to have wanted to serve the Church, but not the Church of the present so much as the Church of the future, the Church as he envisioned it could be. He wanted to be a doctor of the Church, teaching it the modern lesson about historical relativity and the legitimacy of ongoing progress. This reform agenda justified his decision to remain in the Church, at least as far as he himself was concerned.25 But the hierarchy of his day resisted his lessons. When speaking of the Church of the present, the Church that expected him to conform to its teaching, he could therefore sound quite skeptical, and he clearly went through a period of serious doubt in the 1880s. Furthermore, he wanted recognition for his efforts, from both scholars and ecclesiastical superiors. Does that discredit him? The central issue seems to be the legitimacy of his hopes and ambitions. Could he ethically remain a priest given his apparently sincere hopes for the future, despite his rejection of much current teaching? I would say yes, but would add that this is no longer a historical question, and any answer says as much about the one answering as it does about Loisy.26 25. See Hill, The Politics of Modernism, 31–33, 60–62. 26. The majority of scholars seem to agree with this view that Loisy’s religious commitment remained sincere until the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1980 Ronald Burke surveyed the various opinions about Loisy’s sincerity, including Houtin’s, and articulated what appears to be the consensus: that Loisy had at least a “Catholic kind of faith”;

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”Pi o us Fr aud”

Assuming that Loisy was sincere at least in his hopes for the future, why was Houtin so critical? Why did Houtin view Loisy’s reform agenda so negatively when it was precisely this reform agenda that Loisy offered as his best reason for remaining Catholic, at least through the first years of the new century? One answer is personal. Let us return to Houtin’s description of the climatic moment when Loisy finally revealed the “base of his thought” to Houtin. Houtin noted that “these confidences did not flatter me. He had formally deceived me since we had become acquainted. He had never considered me as a friend, but only as an ally, as an instrument, even as a dupe” (138). In this passage, Houtin stressed not so much Loisy’s dishonesty, a topic on which the biography as a whole dwelt, as his own sense of betrayal. Loisy had never, he complained, considered him a friend. Some, at least, of the animus that Houtin showed toward the subject of his biography surely stemmed from this sense of personal hurt. Other passages in Houtin’s biography reinforce the impression that he wrote partly out of a sense of personal betrayal. Houtin began the work by suggesting that Loisy was somehow unnatural and incapable of true friendship. At the beginning of his account, Houtin claimed that “Alfred was raised as a little girl and with little girls,” and he devoted a paragraph to describing the girlish amusements of Loisy’s youth. Even as a professor at the Institut catholique, Houtin claimed, Loisy enjoyed making clothes for his nieces’ dolls (7). This feminine nature did not endear Loisy to the other boys at school, who see “Loisy’s Faith: Landshift in Catholic Thought,” Journal of Religion 60 (1980): 138–64. I have found Lester Kurtz’s way of framing the issue helpful. He suggests that Loisy experienced ambivalence about his life as a scholar and as a priest. This ambivalence led to an oscillation of behaviors on his part. Denunciations of Catholic intransigence could stand alongside expressions of devotion to the teaching authority of the Church, and both could be sincere; see Kurtz, The Politics of Heresy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), 92–94.

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tormented him (10–11). Houtin continued to emphasize that Loisy had few friends (e.g., 14), and he quoted Loisy’s own notes to the effect that “friendship is a dream” (36). We have already seen the way that Houtin characterized Loisy’s relationship with Hébert. The great example of Loisy’s inability to sustain true friendship was, of course, his relationship with Houtin himself. After noting that Loisy had never considered him a friend, Houtin added that Loisy “did not conceive family and friendship except under the aspect of an exchange of services” (138–39). Loisy did not, it appears, enter into normal human relationships. The answer as to why Houtin portrayed Loisy so negatively involves more than his sense of personal hurt, however. There is no reason to doubt Houtin’s hostility to religious hypocrisy. Indeed, he made a writing career out of exposing “pious fraud.”27 Although not truly pious, Loisy’s life, as Houtin portrayed it, certainly evidenced fraud. But why did Loisy’s behavior appear so fraudulent to Houtin? To answer this question is to begin to probe Houtin’s own character. Many have noted that Loisy had the more subtle intellect of the two and was more thoroughly grounded in a sense of the flow of history. For him, the Church had always changed in the past and would always continue to change. No single moment could fully capture, and therefore freeze, the essential nature of the Church. Given this attitude, the fact that he disagreed with the contemporary position of the Church might be personally inconvenient, even wounding, but it did not necessarily mean that he had no faith in the capacity of the Church to speak to the modern situation.28 What Henri Bremond called his 27. See C. J. T. Talar, “Pious Legend and ‘Pious Fraud’: Albert Houtin (1867–1926) and the Controversy over the Apostolic Origins of the Churches of France,” in Lawrence Barmann and C. J. T. Talar, eds., Sanctity and Secularity during the Modernist Period (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1999), and “Unfaithful Persuasion: Albert Houtin and ‘La question biblique,’” in C. J. T. Talar, (Re)reading, Reception, and Rhetoric: Approaches to Roman Catholic Modernism (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). 28. Talar notes that Loisy applied the model of historical development to his own life

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“mystical faith,” a faith that transcended particular doctrinal claims and institutional forms, enabled him to maintain his commitment to the Roman Catholic Church while still seeking to change it.29 Houtin, on the other hand, could interpret religious faith in only two categories: foolish naiveté or conscious deception. He had no appreciation for “mystical faith” because he had a lower tolerance for ambiguity and tended to see issues in narrow categories.30 Naive Christians failed to recognize the overpowering evidence contradicting their faith. They might be sincere, but they were also wrong. More informed Christians practiced a “pious fraud.” Although they knew that their religious claims were false, they held to them anyway. Loisy was in the second category, and the primary question for his biographer was, Why did he practice this deception? Unprincipled ambition was Houtin’s answer. Houtin applied the same categories to his own life in his biography of Loisy. Like Loisy, Houtin was a scholarly young priest who gradually lost his faith and ultimately abandoned the Church. Like Loisy, therefore, Houtin was vulnerable to accusations that he had betrayed the Church or, at the very least, that he had concealed his doubts in the interest of maintaining his ecclesiastical position. C. J. T. Talar has demonstrated Houtin’s concern to defend himself from these charges in his autobiography.31 In subtle ways, this effort in Choses passées ([R]ereading, Reception, and Rhetoric, 175–79). My point is similar here. His view of historical development shaped his understanding of the Church and thus his assessment of his role in it. Loisy could therefore view himself as legitimately faithful to the Church because he was faithful to it as he anticipated it developing. 29. See Sylvain LeBlanc [Bremond], Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, in Emile Poulat, ed., Une Œuvre clandestine d’Henri Bremond: Sylvain LeBlanc, Un Clerc qui n’a pas trahi: Alfred Loisy d’après ses Mémoires (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1972). See also chapter five in this volume. 30. See, for example, C. J. T. Talar, “Identity Formation, Reconstruction, and Transformation: The Autobiographical Trajectory of Albert Houtin” (in Barmann and Hill, eds., Personal Faith and Institutional Commitments), 39–65; Burke, “Loisy’s Faith,” 153; and Poulat, Critique et mystique, 47. 31. Talar, “The Autobiographical Trajectory of Albert Houtin,” 39–65.

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at self-defense appears in his biography of Loisy as well, particularly in Houtin’s narration of the events following the condemnation of L’Évangile et l’Église. After describing the initial condemnation by Cardinal Richard, Houtin said that at that time he still believed one could legitimately hold “loisyste” ideas in the Church. His belief was important because, as he went on to say, many associated his own book on La question biblique with Loisy’s condemned work (115). Shortly thereafter, books by both Loisy and Houtin were inscribed on the Index. The question was, How to respond to the condemnation? Loisy initially told Houtin that he believed that these decrees required “an interior adhesion.” Houtin agreed and was therefore surprised to learn less than a week later that Loisy was taking a different tack (118–23). After extended negotiations, Loisy did submit and, as late as 1905, he apparently encouraged Houtin to do likewise, “a dishonesty that,” Houtin proudly noted, “I did not commit” (138).32 Loisy’s calculated submission to the decree of the Holy Office thus contrasted with Houtin’s principled refusal to submit. Houtin was not a dishonest priest who maintained the outward appearance of piety while disbelieving the central teachings of the Church. That was Loisy. Houtin was merely his dupe: a naïve Christian who initially assumed that Loisy shared his faith and who then refused to disavow his opinions in the face of ecclesiastical condemnation. In fact, Houtin implied, his sincerity and intellectual integrity made him, rather than Loisy, the ideal Modernist. Shortly before introducing himself into the narrative, Houtin described Loisy’s advocates as “young priests, generous, enthusiastic, determined to march into the future” (88). Surely he included himself in this class—he noted that he had been reading almost everything that Loisy had written for six years (93). This self-characterization remained apt during 32. For Houtin’s account of these events in his own life, see Une vie de prêtre: Mon expérience, 1867–1912 (Paris: F. Rieder et Cie, 1926), 281–308.

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the early years of their relationship. Describing Loisy’s candidacy for a bishopric in 1902, Houtin affirmed that he still had an “entire confidence” in “the orthodoxy of this priest.” Speaking more personally, he added,

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I was still absolutely convinced of the divine institution of the Church. I fought for scientific liberty, believing that there was no disagreement between science and the essence of revealed doctrine. . . . It seemed to me that there was conflict between poorly-informed superiors and not with the doctrine that they represented. In separating the Church from directions that seemed to me to be superannuated and compromising, I thought to render it a service, according to my abilities, and to accomplish my duties as a priest. Loisy took me such as I was and left me my illusions. I took Loisy such as he showed himself to me (103).33

He could criticize “poorly informed superiors” who articulated “the essence of revealed doctrine” badly and still embrace “the doctrine they represented.” This statement of faith intrudes in Houtin’s narrative, but it serves the important function of highlighting the contrast between Loisy and Houtin at this pivotal moment for both. Houtin was truly a Modernist, in the sense that he wanted to force the hierarchy to recognize the liberty of scholarship. But he was also a faithful priest who remained loyal to the Church and to “the essence of revealed doctrine.” Loisy was not. Loisy and Houtin shared the goal of winning academic freedom and modernizing Church teachings, but Houtin worked out of a sincere commitment to the Church,34 while Loisy worked to shape an institution in which he had no faith in order to win glory for himself. Loisy’s character suffered by comparison with Houtin’s partic33. See also Houtin, Une vie de prêtre, 314. In this passage, he is describing his religious beliefs as of 1901, but the wording is strikingly similar. He does claim in this passage that he largely abandoned his faith between 1901 and 1902. 34. See ibid., 318, describing his position after he lost his dogmatic faith. But he remained, he insisted, sincerely devoted to the Church in a way that he claimed Loisy never had been.

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ularly because he did not distinguish the essential doctrine of the Church from those incidental matters that did, indeed, conflict with modern science. This, of course, was precisely Loisy’s point against the liberal Protestantism of Adolf Harnack in L’Évangile et l’Église. Loisy rejected Harnack’s effort to distinguish the kernel of true Christianity from the husk of its institutional and doctrinal expressions. “Why,” he asked, “should not all the elements of Christianity, in all the forms in which they are conserved, be the essence of Christianity? Why not find the essence of Christianity in the plenitude and totality of its life, which is movement and variety precisely because it is life?”35 The quotation could also be reversed, as Houtin finally saw in 1907. How could one distinguish any part of Christianity as more essential than any other? Everything was subject to change. There was no “essence of revealed doctrine” to be distinguished from what “poorly informed superiors” taught. Like Harnack and unlike Loisy, Houtin still distinguished between “the essence of revealed doctrine” and the way that “poorly informed superiors” articulated it at least as late as 1902. This distinction hints at Houtin’s theological position, a hint that is all the more valuable since he offered relatively few such hints, and it suggests that he may well have failed to see the nuances of Loisy’s different position all along. Houtin later called his own efforts to make this distinction between essence and articulation an “illusion,” but it was an illusion that guaranteed his good faith. He had been wrong, he concluded, but he had been sincere and naïve, not consciously deceptive. On the other hand, as a historical relativist who argued that everything could change, Loisy demonstrated to Houtin a cynical lack of faith. Here, at last, is the theological difference that informed Houtin’s reaction to Loisy’s revelation in 1907. We must go one step further, however, albeit tentatively. Hou35. Loisy, L’Évangile et l’Église, 3d ed. (Bellevue: Chez l’auteur, 1904), xxv–xxvi.

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tin criticized Loisy for remaining a Catholic priest after he rejected the dogmatic teachings of the Church. Joseph Turmel did the same, and Turmel remained a priest long after he renounced any hope that the hierarchy might ultimately accept his views. Yet Houtin judged him with less rigor than he did Loisy.36 Why? What made Turmel’s duplicity more acceptable than Loisy’s? One can only speculate, but it appears that Houtin’s ultimate problem with Loisy was precisely his hope for Church reform.37 At least, this hope was the primary characteristic distinguishing Loisy from Turmel. Unlike Turmel, Loisy hoped to change the teachings of the Church, and this hope, Loisy suggested, justified his continued allegiance to the institution. When he lost all hope for reform, he also lost all commitment to Catholicism, and, from that point forward he claimed to anticipate excommunication with pleasure. In Houtin’s mind, Loisy’s dreams of Church reform did not alleviate his cynicism, and, if the contrast with Turmel suggests anything, these dreams may have actually reinforced Houtin’s hostile judgment. Better to abandon the Church altogether, as Houtin did when he realized the full depth of the Church’s hostility to modern intellectual life, or at least consciously to work against the interests of the Church, as Turmel did for so many years. If this judgment is correct, it has two implications for our thinking about Houtin’s work as a whole. First, it illustrates that Houtin’s later work, including his biography of Loisy, very strongly reflected the anti-Catholic perspective of his final years. Second, and as a corollary of the first, it demonstrates the degree to which Houtin’s criticism of Loisy was at the same time a criticism of any mediating figure and of the Modernist project as a whole. People like Loisy who saw problems with Catholic doctrine but who did not abandon the 36. See Houtin, Histoire du modernisme catholique, 397–401. See also Vidler, A Variety of Catholic Modernists, 26–27, 56–62. 37. It is perhaps relevant that Houtin had roughly analogous hopes for reform as late as 1904; see Houtin, Une vie de prêtre, 321–25.

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Church were initially naïve (as in Houtin’s own case) and ultimately cynical (as in Loisy’s case).38 Perhaps Houtin’s condemnation of the Modernist project stemmed in part from his much shorter historical perspective. His publications tended to concentrate on recent controversies in French Catholicism as distinguished from Loisy’s work on the Bible and early Christian history.39 Alternatively, it might have stemmed from his refusal to separate historical fact from religious meaning to the degree that Loisy did.40 Regardless of its origin, however, Houtin was not able to appreciate a distinction between disbelief in the contemporary institutional manifestation of Catholicism and disbelief in Catholicism itself. One either believed (wrongly) or did not. His portrayal of Loisy is one of the clearest examples of Houtin’s preference for sharp distinctions rather than nuanced judgment.

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C o n clusi o n

At the end of his preface, Houtin expressed the hope that subsequent historians would be grateful at least for his role in preserving “materials for posterity” (4). He deserves our gratitude if only for his role in preserving passages of Loisy’s notes that are not preserved in Loisy’s autobiographies or in his papers at the Bibliothèque nationale of Paris. But what Houtin offers, of course, is much more than that. During the Modernist crisis itself, Houtin was important enough to merit condemnation. In the years that followed, he became one of the important early interpreters of the crisis. Ironically his perspec38. Ironically, Loisy argues similarly in his characterization of other mediating figures like Maurice d’Hulst, Pierre Batiffol, and even his closest friend, Baron Friedrich von Hügel. He judged Archbishop Mignot and Henri Bremond more charitably. 39. For example, in 1906 he published La question biblique au XXe siècle. Most of his work concerned controversies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 40. See Émile Poulat, “Critique historique et théologie dans la crise moderniste,” Recherches de science religieuse 58 (1970): 542.

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tive reinforced the Vatican’s own interpretation of the Modernist crisis. Houtin was explicit about this agreement, at least as regards Loisy. He commented that two of Loisy’s books published immediately in the wake of the condemnation of Modernism (Quelques lettres sur des questions actuelles et sur les événements récents and Simples réflexions sur le Décret du Saint-Office, “Lamentabili Sane Exitu” et sur L’Encyclique, “Pascendi Dominici Gregis”) proved the legitimacy of the papal campaign (147–48, 159).41 We can thus locate Houtin in the historiography of Modernism alongside the official view condemning Modernism as an implicit agnosticism and the Modernists themselves as treacherous Catholics inspired by a perversity of mind that stemmed from excessive curiosity and especially from pride. However, like any historian, particularly one as involved in the history that he or she interprets as was Houtin in the Modernist movement, his own experiences and beliefs exercised a powerful influence on his interpretation, despite his alleged “method of rigorous objectivity.” His sense of personal betrayal, his need for self-defense, his earlier theological position, and his subsequent rejection of Christianity all shaped his presentation of Loisy. Scholars today generally reject his characterization of Loisy, but when we recognize these various factors in his judgment of Loisy, and on Modernism more generally, we can better benefit from the witness he offers. This in turn can help as we seek to make our own historical, ethical, and theological judgments about the crisis, and perhaps about contemporary events as well. 41. Here, too, Loisy was actually close to Houtin. He also viewed the papal actions as the natural outgrowth of the theology dominant in the Church and therefore praised it at least for making the respective positions of the Church and modern society clear. See Simples réflexions sur le Décret du Saint-Office, Lamentabili Sane Exitu et sur L’Encyclique, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 2d ed. (Ceffonds: Chez l’auteur, 1908), 289.

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  C h a p te r

Five

I n D e f e nse o f Lo isy ’s Mysti c is m B r e m o n d ’s M o d e r n i s t C o n f e s s i o n

Harvey Hill [Loisy] is still, and with all his heart, with us. The constructions of the mind are so unimportant.

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Henri Bremond1

In t he enc yclica l condemning “Modernism,” Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), Pope Pius X characterized those he condemned as philosophical agnostics motivated primarily by pride and morbid curiosity. Although Modernists posed as reformers, Pius insisted, they were actually enemies of the Church who remained in the Church under false pretenses.2 Two of the early histories of Modernism, by the rationalist Albert Houtin and the Catholic progressive Jean Rivière, followed Pius at least in their portrayals of one of the most prominent Modernists, Alfred Loisy (1857–1940, excommunicated 1908).3 1. Une Œuvre clandestine d’Henri Bremond: Sylvain LeBlanc, Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi: Alfred Loisy d’après ses Mémoires, ed. by Emile Poulat (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1972), 182–83. 2. On the portrayal of the Modernists in the encyclical, see Émile Poulat, Critique et mystique: Autour de Loisy ou la conscience catholique et l’esprit moderne (Paris: Le Centurion, 1984). 3. Albert Houtin, Histoire du modernisme catholique (Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1913);

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Loisy responded with his own efforts to interpret his past, especially the critical years from 1893 to 1908, in a series of autobiographical writings, the most important of which were Choses passées (1913) and Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps (3 vols.; 1930–1931).4 Both told essentially the same story. Loisy was a biblical critic who simply pursued his scholarly work to its logical conclusions. While so doing, he was the subject of unfair attacks by theological opponents who did not have the expertise necessary to assess his scholarship on its own merits. These opponents drove him from the Church despite his loyal attitude. Loisy had other defenders as well. Under the pseudonym Sylvain Leblanc, Henri Bremond (1865–1933), a member of l’Académie française and the author of the multivolume Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France, wrote a sympathetic biography of Loisy entitled Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi: Alfred Loisy d’apres ses Mémoires. However, although Bremond described Loisy “according to his Mémoires,” his portrayal of Loisy differed from Loisy’s own. Where Loisy stressed his critical scholarship, Bremond argued that Loisy was both a scholar and a priest and that he had remained faithful to both vocations during and after his Catholic career. Furthermore, of the two vocations, Bremond emphasized Loisy’s “mystical priesthood.” Critical to this argument was Bremond’s distinction between dogmatic faith in official Church doctrine and mystical faith in God and God’s Church. Long before his excommunication, Bremond claimed, Loisy had abandoned his dogmatic faith while retaining a mystical faith. After a Jean Rivière, Le modernisme dans L’Église: Étude d’histoire religieuse contemporaine (Paris: Letouzey et ané, 1929). 4. Choses passées (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1913) and Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps, 3 vols. (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1930–1931). On the similarities and differences in Loisy’s two autobiographies, see Harvey Hill, “More Than a Biblical Critic: Alfred Loisy’s Modernism in Light of His Autobiographies,” in Lawrence Barmann and Harvey Hill, eds., Personal Faith and Institutional Commitments: Roman Catholic Modernist and Anti-Modernist Autobiography (Scranton, Pa: University of Scranton Press, 2002) and, in shorter form, in Anglican Theological Review 85 (2003): 689–707.

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series of events exposed Loisy to “the ugly face of the Church” (152), he renounced his attachment to the Church and thus renounced his Catholic Modernism. But even this renunciation did not represent a betrayal of his vocation as priest because he retained his mystical faith, only in a non-Catholic form. But Bremond’s support for Loisy was more than the support of a person; it also articulated a religious position. By defending Loisy’s religious integrity as a Catholic even after he had rejected many orthodox doctrines, Bremond defended Loisy’s Modernism as a legitimate Catholic option. And because Loisy’s Modernism was a legitimate Catholic option, Loisy need not have left the Church, at least not as a result of his intellectual convictions. Bremond thus seems to have advocated a moderate Catholic Modernism that resembled Loisy’s but that remained committed to the Church. Thus read, Bremond’s defense of Loisy appears as the self-confession of a moderate Catholic Modernist, one who, like Loisy before his excommunication, remained in the Church as a result of his mystical faith rather than from a commitment to orthodox doctrine. A S o u l i n M oti o n

As the title of his biography indicates, Bremond’s work was closely tied to Loisy’s Mémoires.5 On 11 November 1926, Bremond suggested to Loisy that he write a correction to the misrepresentations of Modernists in Houtin’s recently published autobiography, and Loisy began work on the Mémoires the following month. Bremond then helped Loisy with those chapters that covered events in which he had been involved. Loisy’s Mémoires in turn prompted Bremond’s work, and Loisy helped him with it. Émile Nourry, Loisy’s publisher, pro5. For all that follows, see Émile Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 43–69.

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posed that Bremond help to publicize the three-volume Mémoires, and, after much thought, Bremond agreed, producing Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, a pseudonymous biography of Loisy “according to his Mémoires.” After completing it, Bremond sent the manuscript to Loisy for his comments and incorporated his suggestions. Loisy and Bremond differed substantively on little, so Bremond’s work has the status of an “authorized biography.”6 From the beginning, Bremond considered his book to be primarily a commentary on Loisy’s Mémoires rather than an independent work. In the first section, Bremond contrasted Choses passées and the Mémoires in a way that illustrated his view of his task as commentator. According to Bremond, Choses passées did not describe “the total history of [Loisy’s] thought,” “the key to [his] evolution” (115). Loisy himself could not have identified this key at the time he wrote Choses passées, Bremond continued, because the events of his Catholic career were still too fresh. But by the time of the Mémoires, Loisy no longer felt the need to defend himself and could describe his religious and intellectual development in a more detached way.7 Bremond therefore relied on the narrative of the Mémoires and simply affirmed Loisy’s version of the facts. For example, he referred the interested reader to the Mémoires rather than offering his own account of “the odious details” surrounding the condemnation of Loisy’s L’Évangile et l’Église (135). By contrast, Loisy went into great detail about the polemics surrounding his book, the formal condemnation of it, and the elaborate negotiations between him and the hierarchy over the appropriate 6. Loisy kept a manuscript of Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi in his papers and ultimately gave it to the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. Loisy self-consciously limited his papers to those that might “be usefully preserved” (Loisy to Joseph Bédier, 11 June 1930, quoted in Poulat, Une Œuvre clandestine, 15), so he regarded Bremond’s work highly. 7. Bremond simply follows Loisy’s own assertions in the Mémoires at this point. For a different assessment of Loisy’s agenda in the Mémoires, see Hill, “More Than a Biblical Critic,” 14–17.

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form for his submission to the decision of the Magisterium.His analysis of these events was, in many ways, central to the apologetic goal of his autobiographies.8 Instead, then, of narrating the facts as in a conventional biography, Bremond focused on the “interior drama” taking place in “Loisy’s conscience” (136) in an effort to identify the elusive “key to his evolution.” This approach to Loisy’s soul was consistent with Bremond’s hagiography more generally. He sometimes incorporated legendary material into his work on the “religious sentiment” not for its factual content, which he rejected, but because it helped to reveal “the spirit of an epoch and the soul of those who wrote.”9 In Loisy’s case, Bremond did not question the facts, but he tried to go behind them to paint a portrait of Loisy’s soul in motion.

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Th e Fa ith fu l C le ri c

Although Bremond relied on Loisy’s narrative in the Mémoires, his portrait of Loisy’s soul differed in that he emphasized the integrity of Loisy’s “mystical priesthood.”10 Bremond distinguished between two ways in which Loisy was a “cleric”: as a scholar, especially of biblical texts, and as a “priest,” one who defended and propagated “the totality of suprarational principles on which the religious life of humanity is 8. See ibid., 22–27. See also C. J. T. Talar, Metaphor and Modernist: The Polarization of Alfred Loisy and His Neo-Thomist Critics (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1987); Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Paris: Casterman, 1962), 125–60, 190–243; Gabriel Daly, Transcendence and Immanence: A Study in Catholic Modernism and Integralism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 167–216; and Hill, The Politics of Modernism: Alfred Loisy and the Scientific Study of Religion (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 162–72. 9. Henry Hogarth, “The Abbé Henri Bremond as an Historian,” Church Quarterly Review 157 (1956): 317–22, at 322. 10. Loisy himself agreed with Bremond’s emphasis in the final analysis. His epitaph, which he composed, prominently identified him as a priest and, quoting the Catholic burial service, commented that he had remained faithful to God’s will. See Poulat, Critique et mystique, 171–75.

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based” (117–18).11 Bremond’s thesis was that Loisy combined these two clerical vocations without subordinating either to the other (118–19). However, given that Loisy ended his career as a scholar of religion stripped of his priesthood and excommunicated from the Church, the part of this thesis that required most defense was the claim that Loisy had not betrayed his religious vocation or subordinated it to his critical work. Bremond therefore concentrated on this point. Bremond’s book defended his thesis that Loisy had not betrayed his religious vocation in three main chapters. In the first, entitled “Faith Menaced,” he traced the formation of Loisy’s dual vocation in order to emphasize Loisy’s “priesthood,” his genuine mysticism. Bremond claimed that Loisy’s religious vocation took root “more quickly and with more intensity” than did his academic interests. In fact, Loisy’s ecclesiastical superiors were the ones who encouraged him to pursue his career as a scholar (121–22). Loisy studied with the famous Catholic apostate Ernest Renan, Bremond noted, but only with the support of his confessor (123). Thanks to this training, Loisy learned to apply the historical method to the Bible and to the Catholic tradition through the 1880s, but his principal task remained to fulfill both vocations, “the mystic and the critic, making reciprocal concessions, trying to believe in the possibility of a solution that would safeguard the rights of the one and the other” (129).12 During this period, at least, Loisy’s growing critical expertise did not compromise his mystical faith. Although Loisy’s writings from around the turn of the century, especially L’Évangile et l’Église, apparently emphasized critical scholarship at the expense of his religious faith—after all, Loisy himself insisted that L’Évangile et l’Église was “purely historical”—Bremond claimed that they actually indicated his continuing effort to reconcile the two. Bremond called L’Évangile et l’Église “the work of a crit11. Bremond noted that this definition of a “religious cleric” included, but was not limited to, the priesthood in the normal sense of that term. 12. See Poulat, Critique et mystique, 59; Hill, The Politics of Modernism, 12–35.

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ic, certainly, but also of a priest . . . who had not capitulated in the face of [historical] criticism” (133).13 When L’Évangile et l’Église met ecclesiastical censure following its publication in 1902, the chapter title’s “menace” to Loisy’s faith, Loisy experienced a period of “fecund agony” during which he both struggled with his religious vocation and produced outstanding critical works. As Bremond noted, Loisy claimed at this time to be “no longer Catholic in the official sense of the word” (136, quoting Mémoires, 2: 380). But quotations like this one were offset by other comments such as “the economy of religious progress is tied to the fortune of the gospel, and it really proceeds from Jesus” (138, quoting Mémoires, 2: 421). Bremond concluded that even after the condemnation of his book, Loisy had “still not abandoned as worm-eaten the provisional bridge that he had constructed in L’Évangile et l’Église” (139). Although embattled, Loisy retained his mystical faith. The whole of chapter one, then, argued that Loisy did not subordinate his religious vocation to his vocation as a critical scholar either in his controversial publications or in their immediate aftermath. The second chapter, entitled “Faith Lost,” introduced the central problem of the book: even accepting the claim that Loisy retained his mystical faith through 1904, when he submitted to the censure against L’Évangile et l’Église, how could one claim that Loisy had not betrayed his religious vocation in 1908, when he was excommunicated? Unlike in 1904, Loisy refused to make any concessions to the Catholic hierarchy in 1908, and he claimed to greet the prospect of excommunication with indifference or even with relief. The mystical faith that 13. Few have taken seriously Loisy’s claim to have limited himself to historical concerns independent of their theological implications. Loisy acknowledged as much in his autobiographies; see Choses passées, 245–46, and Mémoires, 2: 168–69. In support of Bremond’s assertion that Loisy was still genuinely religious at least through the publication of L’Évangile et l’Église in 1902, Poulat cites a letter Loisy wrote that year; see “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 89–92, and Critique et mystique, 61–65.

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had kept him in the Church in 1904 despite the public condemnation of his religious position apparently could no longer sustain him as a Catholic. And yet, Bremond noted, nothing had changed with regard to Loisy himself in the interval. Already by 1904, Loisy had arrived at conclusions that differed significantly from the dogmatic teaching of the contemporary Church. He had gone further still; gradually he had come to reject the very idea of orthodoxy as philosophically untenable (146–47).14 Loisy had not become significantly more radical by 1908. Why, then, the change in his attitude? What distinguished 1908 from 1904 for Loisy (141–42)? Bremond’s answer to the problem posed in chapter two, and really to the basic problem of the book as a whole, was that Loisy’s mystical faith in its Catholic form included a deep affective attachment to the Church that was uprooted by his exposure to “the ugly face” of the hierarchy between 1904 and 1908 (150–52). Bremond listed several events that undermined Loisy’s attachment to the Church: Pius’s response to Loisy’s appeal “from the heart” in 1904 (151–52); the response of the Vatican to the separation of the state and the Church in France in 1905 and 1906 (154)15; the manner in which Pius condemned Modernism and characterized the Modernists in 1907 and 1908 (155–56)16; and finally, after his excommunication, the condemnation of the Sillon movement in 1910 (157). Collectively, these events compromised Loisy’s affection for the Church and therefore killed his mystical faith in the Church. However, this loss of affection for the Church did not constitute Loisy’s betrayal of the Church so much as the Church’s betrayal of him. “It was not the critic” who killed the Catholic priest in him, Bremond argued, “it was Pius X” (160). 14. See also Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 94–96, and Critique et mystique, 59–60, 65–68. Poulat notes what a difficult position this creates for a Catholic defender of Loisy. 15. See Hill, The Politics of Modernism, 179–91, and “French Politics and Alfred Loisy’s Modernism,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 67 (1998): 521–36. 16. See Hill, The Politics of Modernism, 191–200.

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The third chapter, titled “Faith Liberated,” argued that Loisy’s mystical faith endured in modified form even after his excommunication.17 Bremond began the section by reminding the reader of his thesis: Loisy did not betray either of his vocations. Loisy did not sacrifice his critical autonomy to his religious beliefs, Bremond claimed, as did many who remained in the Church (159). Loisy could be this free in his critical investigations because he drew a distinction between dogmatic faith, which he willingly called into question, and mystical faith, which his critical work could not threaten (159). Pius might have killed this mystical faith in its Catholic form, but, Bremond continued, Loisy did not lose his mystical faith altogether even after his excommunication and thus remained faithful to his religious vocation as well. Despite his reputation to the contrary, Loisy was no more a pure critic after his excommunication than before (161). After excommunication, Loisy still hoped to save “religion itself ” “from the successive bankruptcies of the historical religions” (162)18 even if he had renounced his efforts to adapt Catholicism to modernity and thus had renounced his Catholic Modernism. Representative of this continued “priesthood” was Loisy’s 1917 book La religion, which Bremond praised as “one of the most profoundly and purely religious books of universal literature” (167).19 In sum, then, Bremond insisted that Loisy held together two apparently contradictory vocations: an academic one and a religious one. As a scholar of religion, Loisy challenged the dogmatic teaching of the Church, and he personally rejected most of it. But alongside of this rejection existed a mystical faith that guaranteed his essentially religious vocation. As a Catholic, this mystical faith included an inde17. Poulat, Critique et mystique, 60–61. 18. After reading the Mémoires, Bremond praised Loisy for this effort. He said that “if the fundamental religion can be saved, no one will have saved it like you” (Bremond to Loisy, 26 March 1931, quoted in Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 51). 19. Loisy, La religion, 2d ed. (Paris: Emile Nourry, 1924).

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finable faith in the Church. As an excommunicate, Loisy continued to hold and to articulate this mystical faith in books like La religion. Because he retained this faith, albeit in a very different form, Loisy did not betray his religious vocation. Bremond’s Loisy was thus a mystic more than anything else, including more than a biblical critic or a scholar of religion.

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O f M o d e rn ists a n d M o d e rn i s m

With the third chapter of his book, Bremond had apparently made his case. He had described Loisy’s soul in terms of his double vocation and traced the evolution of his mystical faith through the period of his excommunication. However, Bremond did not stop at the third chapter, but added a fourth, entitled “Alfred Loisy and the Modernists,” which was neither integrated into the rest of Bremond’s book, with its neat scheme of “Faith Menaced,” “Faith Lost,” and “Faith Liberated,” nor necessary to his argument. Why include this portrayal of different Modernists and of Modernism itself? Although in a different way from the preceding chapters, this chapter did defend Loisy’s intellectual and especially his religious integrity. Rather than describing Loisy himself, Bremond defended Loisy by contrasting him to others who did betray their vocations. Bremond first dismissed the official Catholic construction of Modernism and called into question both the intellectual and the religious integrity of its authors, particularly relative to Loisy. He called the representation of Modernism in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, the papal document condemning Modernism, a “myth” that erected a fictitious system allegedly common to all Modernists. This myth could not withstand the kind of critical scrutiny that Loisy and others celebrated as a hallmark of modern intellectual life. Even if the papal condemnation of Modernism was theologically appropriate, Bremond continued, the papal documents need not have stooped to “calum-

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niating all [the Modernists] as they did.” Bremond concluded that “the pontifical documents that claim to define Modernism . . . constitute a true defiance to intellectual probity and to evangelical charity” (169–70). To reinforce the impropriety of the papal documents, Bremond quoted a passage from Loisy’s Mémoires contrasting “honest controversy” to the “fracas” and “calumnious insinuations” with which Catholic polemicists greeted his works (170). In the process, Bremond established a contrast between Loisy, who conducted himself with integrity in religious disputes, and the pope and his supporters, who did not. Other hostile portrayals of Modernism failed similarly and thus similarly contrasted with Loisy. As he criticized Pius, so Bremond criticized Jean Rivière’s history of Modernism for ignoring important distinctions among the Modernists in a way that was “sovereignly unjust.” “On a crowd of points,” he continued, “the Mémoires reestablishes the exact truth, manifestly falsified by . . . Rivière” (173). Of Loisy more specifically, Rivière derived his “purely mythical” view from his teacher Pierre Batiffol (173). However, Bremond responded, Batiffol had less intellectual and religious integrity than Loisy. A “progressive” Catholic, Batiffol himself was suspect at Rome, and he proved his own orthodoxy partly by denouncing Loisy (113).20 Bremond acknowledged that Batiffol and his fellow progressive Marie-Joseph Lagrange genuinely differed on some points from Loisy. But he added that the papal condemnation of Modernism struck them as well, and he asked “how they could abandon and condemn from one day to the next, on an order from Pius X, the conclusions that their own critical work had imposed on them. . . . Should we believe that what appeared to them true before the condemnation appears false to them today? Rivière does not inform us on this point” (174). In contrast to Loisy, Batiffol and Lagrange sacrificed their intellectual integrity by 20. On this point and on Batiffol more generally, see chapter three of this volume.

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publicly abandoning “scientific” positions in deference to religious authority. And although Bremond claimed to give them the benefit of the doubt, he also called their moral integrity into question by implying that they denied positions they actually continued to hold. Here, again, the contrast between Loisy and his critics established Loisy’s superior historical ability as well as his greater integrity. Bremond reserved his harshest criticisms for Albert Houtin, however.21 After finishing with Rivière and Batiffol, Bremond turned to Houtin, who was, he said, “as prejudiced a historian as Rivière” (174). Bremond quoted at length Loisy’s own criticisms of Houtin (174–75) and concluded that “Houtin is of such little importance that one might wonder if Loisy would not have better left him in his oblivion and not scorned his posthumous attacks. I believe, on the contrary, that it is important that Loisy, in exterminating Houtin, succeeds in defining himself. He [Loisy] has always wanted to be, and has always been exactly the opposite of this little man, ‘negative, anti-Catholic, antireligious.’” “Stupidly,” Bremond concluded, some anticlerical and some Catholic writers believed that Loisy resembled Houtin in these characteristics (175–76). Here Bremond quite explicitly used his criticisms of Houtin to set off by contrast Loisy’s virtues, and the virtue that Bremond emphasized more than the unbiased character of Loisy’s historical work was his positive religious tone. Loisy was indeed the superior scholar, but he was also, and more importantly, the superior soul. Loisy thus remained faithful to his dual vocation as scholar and as priest better than his critics did because he refused to submit to ecclesiastical censure, as did Rivière’s hero Batiffol, or to become vicious and negative, as did Pius and Houtin in their very different ways. 21. As Poulat notes in the introduction to Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, Bremond was hostile to Houtin in part because Houtin had portrayed him as negatively as Houtin had portrayed Loisy (27). See also Poulat, Critique et mystique, 51–52.

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Th e M o d e rn ist “ Pa r E xc e lle n c e ”

But if the fourth chapter of Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi defended Loisy’s fidelity, it also implicitly criticized him by celebrating a Modernism that still lived in the Church after his disillusionment and excommunication. In four pages at the end of the book (177–81; the book ends on 183), Bremond praised Archbishop Eudoxe-Irénée Mignot of Albi (1842–1918) as “the Modernist par excellence and, by all his acts, the most decisive justification of Modernism” (181).22 Mignot contrasted with Loisy on this point, and to Mignot’s favor. According to Bremond, Loisy “had been a Modernist. One could even say that he had been the Modernist par excellence, or Modernism made man.” But Loisy, faithful mystic though he was, was no longer a Modernist after his excommunication, as the Mémoires made clear (169). One could therefore outline the chapters of Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi as follows: (1) Loisy attempted to combine modern scholarship and mystical faith in the Church; (2) Loisy struggled with this combination and finally abandoned it when he met with such unjust hostility from the Catholic hierarchy; (3) Loisy retained a mystical faith, but no longer in the Catholic Church; (4) Loisy thus ceded leadership in the Modernist movement to Mignot. Bremond reinforced point four in his concluding comment on Mignot: he was “a living response to the pessimism [about the future of the Church and of religion itself], however intermittent, of Loisy” (181). As Bremond himself recognized, “there are as many Modernisms as Modernists” (172). And yet Bremond’s claim that Loisy had been, but was no longer, the “Modernist par excellence” and that Mignot remained the “Modernist par excellence” gave the term some specific content. Most importantly, Modernism implied to Bremond some 22. See also Poulat, Critique et mystique, 71–72; Goichot Historien du sentiment religiuex, 304–5.

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effort to reconcile Catholicism and the findings of modern critical scholarship. The important word here is “reconcile.” As a Catholic, Loisy had labored to reconcile Catholic teaching with critical science. Although not the scholar that Loisy was, Mignot continued to work for this reconciliation. Bremond endorsed Loisy’s comment that “[o] ne sees [in Mignot] a man who has . . . a sense of the difficulties that modern science and the experience of every day oppose to traditional beliefs; who has also less assurance in transcendent metaphysics, but who . . . does not judge the game lost for the Catholic tradition, wisely interpreted” (179, quoting Mémoires, 3: 339–40). Both Mignot and Loisy recognized that modern life, including modern science, offered a powerful challenge to traditional theology. By 1908 Loisy judged this challenge to be fatal, and Mignot did not. This difference was presumably what made Mignot a Modernist and Loisy something else. Although Mignot acknowledged the problems that modern science created for Catholic theology, he still affirmed his attachment to the Church, thus embodying the reconciliation that Loisy had sought. Bremond’s assumption that Modernism implied some effort to reconcile traditional Catholicism and modern critical science was also visible by contrast in his description of non-Modernists. Bremond particularly criticized Rivière and Houtin for identifying as Modernists Marcel Hébert, who denied the personality of God, and Joseph Turmel, who published pseudonymous works aimed at destroying Catholicism even while he functioned as a Catholic priest.23 None of the important Modernists considered Hébert or Turmel an ally in the movement, Bremond insisted. Although committed to modern thinking, they were not truly loyal to the Church because they ultimately gave up all hope of combining their ideas and traditional Catholicism. On the Catholic side, Bremond denied that Cardinal Meignan, Mau23. Bremond could have added that associating Hébert and Turmel too closely with each other was equally unjust. See chapters one and two in this volume.

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rice d’Hulst (172), or Louis Duchesne were Modernists for analogous reasons. All three were Catholic scholars associated with Loisy in different ways and to different degrees. But they did not make serious efforts to relate their scholarship to their faith.24 About Duchesne, and he would surely have said the same for Meignan and d’Hulst, Bremond concluded that, if he “shared the Modernist faith, he did not share the Modernist hope” (135) and therefore did not significantly contribute to the Modernist movement (127).25 But Bremond’s view of Modernism was more specific still than an effort to reconcile traditional Catholic teaching and modern science; it included both criticism of particular dogmas and the affirmation of dogma in principle. On this point, Loisy even in his Catholic period was a negative example. Approaching the Bible as a modern scholar “led [Loisy] to particular conclusions that the official Church deemed contrary to orthodoxy.” So far Loisy had not, apparently, gone farther than Bremond considered appropriate, but Loisy’s next step was more dangerous. Loisy began, “very logically, to criticize the very notion of orthodoxy and to find it not only unsustainable, but even senseless. . . . The very idea of dogma and of faith, considered as the mind’s adhesion to a revealed dogma, became to him . . . entirely unthinkable.” Although Bremond defended the integrity of Loisy’s mystical faith in the Church at this point, he also suggested that Loisy 24. D’Hulst made more of an effort than Meignan or Duchesne; see Harvey Hill, “Leo, Loisy, and the ‘Broad School’: An Early Round of the Modernist Crisis,” Catholic Historical Review 89 (2003): 39–59. On d’Hulst more generally, see Alfred Baudrillart, Vie de Mgr. d’Hulst, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Paris: Poussielgue, 1912–1914), and Francesco Beretta, Monseigneur d’Hulst et la science chrétienne (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996). On Duchense, see Brigitte Waché, Monseigneur Louis Duchesne (1843–1922): Historien de l’Église, directeur de l’École française de Rome (Rome: École française de Rome, 1992). 25. Bremond was elected Duchesne’s successor at the Académie française and, as was the custom, delivered a lecture in praise of his predecessor. In a draft of his speech, he compared Duchesne to Loisy, although he ultimately omitted the reference as too controversial. On the speech, see Émile Goichot, “Deux historiens à l’Académie,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 78 (1983): 34–64, 373–96.

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had already moved beyond the limits of Modernist faith. “The Modernists who remained in the Church,” Bremond explained, did not reject orthodoxy entirely. They accepted the right of the Church authoritatively to define dogma, and “the notion of orthodoxy remain[ed] for them a theological postulate. As hypocrisy is a homage to virtue, Modernism is a homage to orthodoxy. In trying to attenuate or to interpret [orthodoxy], they canonize it still” (146–47). Later Bremond returned to this point. “In order to be a Modernist,” he wrote, “it is necessary to have faith, not only the mystical faith that delayed Loisy’s break [with the Church], but the essential [claims] of the traditional faith,” including “the very notion of revelation and, as a consequence, of orthodoxy; more, certain postulates that one decides to withdraw from criticism, for example the divinity of Jesus.” Modernists knew that Rome defined orthodoxy with considerably more specificity, Bremond acknowledged, but they believed, “wrongly perhaps, but very sincerely, that sooner or later the Pope of tomorrow would think as they do” (172). Bremond called this hope “the soul of Modernism.”26 According to Bremond, then, Modernism as represented by Mignot meant the reconciliation of Catholic theology and modern intellectual life. Because they took seriously modern intellectual life, Modernists challenged many specific doctrines. But in order to take the Catholic tradition seriously, Modernists also affirmed the idea of orthodoxy as defined by Rome and therefore refused to subject the tradition in its entirety to critical scrutiny. By this standard, Loisy had renounced his Modernism several years before he renounced his mystical faith in the Church, and Bremond’s claim that Rome’s condemnation was “almost inevitable” (169) made sense (as did Bremond’s adherence to this condemnation). In 1904, Loisy remained attached 26. So too did Maude Petre, another Modernist who remained in the Church after the papal condemnation of the movement; see Alfred Loisy, His Religious Significance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944), 40.

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to the Church by his mystical faith and, unlike his critics, did not betray his religious vocation even in its Catholic form. But unlike Mignot, he had already transgressed the limits of Catholic Modernism, and his true home lay outside the Church. It simply took the events of 1904 to 1908 to make him see this fact.

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A M o d e rn ist C o n f e ssi o n ?

Did Bremond himself endorse the moderate Modernism described in Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi—one genuinely critical of Catholic teaching and yet, like Mignot, faithful to the tradition “wisely understood”? To the scandal of some in Rome, he was openly friends with several of the most important Modernists, and some of his own writings were delated and condemned. But there are also ample reasons for disputing Bremond’s Modernism. As Roger Aubert notes, Bremond was neither an exegete nor a theologian and therefore did not focus on the issues of most importance to the undisputed Modernists.27 Furthermore, Bremond adhered to the condemnations of Pascendi Dominici Gregis and himself rejected the label “Modernist” not only on the grounds of his ignorance about biblical and theological questions, but also on the grounds of his disinterest in those questions. His greater interest was on the distinction that Newman identified between “real” and “unreal” (purely conceptual) assent.28 In the terms that he developed in Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, he was interested in mystical rather than in dogmatic faith and therefore did not pursue the Modernist agenda of reinterpreting Catholic doctrine in historical terms. Bremond thus appears as a fellow traveler of the Modernists, but not necessarily as a Modernist himself. 27. Roger Aubert, “Henri Bremond et la crise moderniste: Lumières nouvelles,” Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique 72 (1977): 332–48, especially 344–48. 28. Bremond, quoted in Poulat, Critique et mystique, 71–72. See also Goichot, Historien du sentiment religieux, 297.

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What light does Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi shed on the question of Bremond’s Modernism? First, caution remains in order. As Émile Poulat notes in his introduction to Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, simply identifying Bremond with Sylvain Leblanc would be rash, if for no other reason than that Bremond could sound very different when writing in different contexts. For example, Leblanc praised the Mémoires, as did Bremond in a letter to Loisy written at the same time as Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, in which he called the Mémoires “our Confession.” But writing in the same month to a different correspondent, he called Loisy’s book “distressing.” Still, Poulat concludes, scholars interested in Bremond should attend to Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, which, he says, reveals “the base of Bremond’s heart and thought.”29 If Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi indeed reveals “the base of Bremond’s heart and thought,” it was a Modernist base. In it, Bremond spoke of Modernism as an ongoing movement (169) and of Modernists who remained in the Church (144), but other than Bremond himself few important Catholic figures who had had any meaningful connection to the events or people of the Modernist crisis remained alive in 1931. Furthermore, Loisy described Sylvain Leblanc as “a Modernist priest who remained in the Church,” and worried that Bremond might therefore be recognized as the author.30 Loisy was surely correct about Sylvain Leblanc, at any rate, who identified with the religious position of Mignot when he praised him so highly and called him “the most decisive justification of Modernism.” Might we then go one step further and call Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi a defense not only of Loisy’s integrity, but also of the intellectual and religious integrity of the moderate Catholic Modernist position? 29. Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 98–100; see particularly note 17 on page 100. See also Poulat, Critique et mystique, 71. 30. Loisy to Nourry, 8 June 1931, quoted in Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 61. In general, Loisy was quite concerned that potentially hostile readers would identify Bremond as the author of the book; see ibid., 52–63.

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Openly to defend Modernism in 1931 was to court excommunication, so perhaps a pseudonymous defense of Modernism that took the form of an occasionally critical commentary on Loisy’s Mémoires was the best that a Catholic could offer. In his Mémoires, Bremond said, Loisy exposed, “with absolute frankness, all that he could recall of the oscillations of his mind and his heart during this long crisis.” Unfortunately, no Catholic Modernist, or even Modernist sympathizer, could do the same. “Not one of the survivors of the Modernist crisis who remained in the Church will give us his own memoirs, his confessions, to use the true word. If one recalls, for example, that some critical work of Lagrange’s cannot see the daylight, how could one hope that this same scholar would publish the detailed and complete report of his intimate distresses on the eve and the morrow of the pontifical bulls, which condemned him no less than they condemned Loisy” (144; italics in the original)? Bremond’s choice of Lagrange as a representative “survivor of the Modernist crisis” was surely ironic, given his subsequent aspersions on Lagrange’s intellectual and moral integrity. Presumably he used Lagrange rather than Mignot, the “Modernist par excellence,” in order to avoid compromising Mignot. But he himself would have been an even more natural representative than Mignot, having experienced ecclesiastical censure for his participation in the funeral of the important Anglo-Irish Modernist George Tyrrell and later the condemnation of one of his books. Perhaps Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi was the closest thing to a Modernist confession that Bremond thought he could safely offer in the circumstances of his day.31 If Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi was Bremond’s confession as a moderate Modernist, he defended this position as a legitimate Catholic alternative partly against Loisy himself. The fact that Bremond differed 31. Roger Aubert suggests that Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi is more interesting for its contribution to the scholarly understanding of Bremond than for its contribution to the scholarly understanding of Loisy; see Aubert, “Henri Bremond et la crise moderniste,” Revue d’histoire ecclêsiastique 72 (1977): 332–48 at 347–48.

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from Loisy in Bremond’s continuing Catholic Modernism appeared most obviously in his comments on Mignot, who “justified” the Modernist hope that the Church could change over against Loisy’s greater pessimism. Bremond strongly emphasized this contrast. After quoting at length a passage from the Mémoires containing a letter from Mignot to Loisy and Loisy’s commentary on it, Bremond called this passage worthy of “being read and reread. . . . It is perhaps the most important passage in these three volumes” and “their crowning. . . . These [were] two great spirits, worthy one of another, so far apart [in their relation to Catholicism], and yet so near one to the other [in spirit]” (179–80, commenting on Mémoires, 3: 339–40). How this passage “crowned” the Mémoires is not clear unless one sees Mignot as representing Bremond’s own position. Then the passage showed how close Bremond could remain to Loisy both personally and in his religious views, and, at the same time, showed how he could maintain his genuinely Catholic identity. In that case, Mignot justified Bremond’s own decision to remain in the Church with intellectual and religious integrity despite his Modernist sympathies. No more than Mignot did Bremond himself or other Catholics like him betray their vocations. That point would surely be worth emphasizing.32 Recognizing Bremond’s desire to articulate a moderate Catholic Modernism also clarifies his defense of Louis Duchesne, the historian at the Catholic Institute of Paris who first taught Loisy the historical method and who went on to great academic distinction, including membership in the Académie française.33 Some Catholics, including both the orthodox and the infamous Batiffol, like Loisy an often criti32. See also Poulat, Critique et mystique, 71. 33. Bremond devoted several pages to Loisy’s relationship with Duchesne (124–28) and mentioned him in many other places in Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi as well, enough material to indicate the importance of Duchesne to him. Loisy’s only serious difference with Bremond concerned this material. Loisy tried to sharpen Bremond’s picture of Duchense. See Poulat’s introduction to Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 55–63, as well as the footnotes to the pages where Duchesne appears.

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cal student of Duchesne’s, celebrated Duchesne posthumously as an example of Catholic scholarship who could buttress their own (quite different) positions. From the opposite perspective, Houtin argued that Duchesne, like Loisy and Batiffol, never really believed Catholic teaching and remained in the Church only to further his personal ambition (124). Loisy shared Houtin’s general assessment of Duchense (and Batiffol),34 and thus rejected the orthodox efforts to claim Duchesne for themselves. But he also sought to distance himself from what he took to be Duchesne’s cowardice and hypocrisy for ignoring the implications of his scholarship for Catholic faith. Bremond agreed with Loisy that the orthodox were wrong to claim Duchense, and he acknowledged Duchesne’s occasionally Voltairean tone (126). But Bremond also distinguished Duchesne from the more hypocritical Batiffol (174) and suggested that Loisy was too harsh in his judgment (134–35), even if Duchesne was not, in the final analysis, a Modernist. The real disagreement between Loisy and Duchesne was, Bremond insisted, “the uneasiness, almost the dread, of a mystical priest [Loisy] on encountering a priest who was less so and who tried to appear not at all mystical [Duchesne]” (125). This contrast between the two reinforced Bremond’s picture of Loisy as a mystic. But it did so without denying the reality of Duchesne’s own lesser, but still genuinely mystical, faith. Bremond might have defended Duchesne for any of a number of reasons, but one tantalizing possibility is that he identified with him. Like Duchesne, he had liberal religious views that made him suspect at Rome but that did not qualify him as an official Modernist. Like Duchesne, he sometimes adopted an irreverent tone. Like Duchesne, whom he succeeded in the Académie française, he directed much (but, in Bremond’s case, not all) his scholarship away from contro34. Loisy did say that he did not entirely associate Duchesne and Batiffol; see Loisy to Bremond, 31 May 1931, quoted in Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 58.

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versial topics into areas less likely to generate controversy (see 127 for his comment to this effect on Duchesne). Like Duchesne, who may well have “shared the Modernist faith,” he agreed with much that Loisy wrote but remained in the Church. To Bremond, then, Loisy’s criticisms of Duchesne could easily have seemed exaggerated since they could also have applied to Bremond himself. In that case, Bremond’s defense of Duchesne would be the defense of a liberal, scholarly, sometimes skeptical, but still genuinely faithful Catholicism that seemed to resemble his own.35 But the most important portrayal of all in this book was, of course, that of Loisy himself, and Bremond’s portrayal of Loisy also reinforced the point that critical conclusions and Catholic faith were not irreconcilable. Although Loisy had rejected Christianity and preserved his integrity in the process, Bremond described him in such a way as to leave open the possibility that one could agree with Loisy’s challenge to orthodox doctrine and legitimately remain Catholic. In chapter two, Bremond defended Loisy’s Catholicism even after he had renounced his dogmatic faith. Not until he lost his affective attachment to the Church did he have the obligation to leave. By implication, other Catholics who had renounced their dogmatic faith could remain in the Church so long as they retained a mystical faith that included some affective attachment to the Church, so long, that is, as they were not disillusioned in the way that Loisy had been between 1904 and 1908. Bremond made the same point at the end of the book. Without claiming that Loisy might rejoin the Church, Bremond suggested, quoting an unnamed friend, that Loisy might still remain a member of “the invisible Church” with Catholics like Mignot (181). Bremond could therefore conclude the book by claiming 35. Although with considerably less detail, Bremond said essentially the same about Maurice d’Hulst, the rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris during Loisy’s time there. In Bremond’s view, Loisy was unfairly critical of d’Hulst. Like Duchesne, he was a liberal, scholarly, sometimes skeptical but still genuinely faithful Catholic (172–73).

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that Loisy still had “something of the Modernist hope.” He “is still, and with all his heart, with us. The constructions of the mind [that separated Loisy from Catholics like Mignot] are so unimportant” (182–83).36 By thus stressing that Loisy’s mystical faith and hope united him with Catholics, Bremond once again demonstrated the possibility of both accepting Loisy’s challenge to orthodoxy and remaining Catholic. As Poulat notes, Rome did not accept this nondogmatic Modernism as authentic Catholicism. But did Bremond?37 He could both describe as his ideal an “adogmatic clerical life” and write to a friend that Loisy’s Mémoires “perfectly formulate the fundamental difficulty. Criticism of the very idea of orthodoxy, i.e., of intellectual adhesion to dogmatic affirmations.”38 But Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi suggests that Bremond did not go quite so far. While recognizing the difficulties associated with any essential doctrine insulated from criticism, he still apparently affirmed the doctrinal authority of the Church. On this point he was surely, like Mignot, simultaneously “so near” Loisy in his recognition of the problems facing the Church and “so far” from Loisy in his willingness to acknowledge the Church’s authority and to hope that it would eventually recognize the inevitable limitations of its own teaching. Bremond here appears as a Modernist, but as a moderate one who did distinguish his own religious position from Loisy’s in some respects, no matter how strongly he was willing to defend Loisy’s integrity. 36. Loisy disputed this characterization of himself. See Loisy to Nourry, 8 June 1931, quoted in Poulat, “Introduction,” 63. See also Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 181n1, which Loisy asked Bremond to add. 37. Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 96–99; Critique et mystique, 68–70. 38. Émile Goichot, “Henri Bremond: Aux frontiers de l’hagiographie,” in L. Barmann and C. J. T. Talar, eds., Sanctity and Secularity during the Modernist Period (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1999), 90; Bremond to Émile Baudin, quoted in Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 72; Aubert, “Henri Bremond,” 339–40.

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Mysti c a l M o d e rn i s m

If Bremond offered a guarded affirmation of Loisy’s doctrinal views, though without going to Loisy’s extreme of rejecting the very concept of orthodoxy, he more strongly identified with Loisy’s mysticism. Bremond once called ecstasy “mysticism properly speaking.”39 But neither he nor Loisy experienced mystical ecstasy. Bremond therefore consecrated his life to serving as the “scribe,” the “witness of the witnesses” to the highest forms of mystical life as exemplified particularly in his work on seventeenth-century French mystics.40 At the same time, Bremond, who often celebrated the mysticism of unlikely figures, famously democratized the mystical life by arguing that everyone experienced it in some form as the foundation of ordinary religious life. For example, he said in a letter to Loisy that they agreed in defining “the mystical experience as broadly as possible, almost as con-natural, under one form or another, to humanity.” Émile Goichot therefore speaks of Bremond’s “pan-mysticism,” of Bremond’s sense of the “universality of the mystical vocation.”41 Loisy espoused a similar view, especially in a lecture delivered at the Collège de France and subsequently published as the preface to the second edition of La religion. Bremond acknowledged how close he and Loisy were on this point. In 1920 he wrote to Loisy about “our common conception of mysticism,” and he endorsed Loisy’s new preface to La religion when it appeared four years later.42 In his very last letter to Loisy, written six months before Bremond’s death in 1933, he again praised Loisy’s discussion of mysticism, this time in Y a-t-il deux sources de la morale et de la religion?43 39. See Goichot, “Henri Bremond,” 99. 40. Ibid., 82. 41. Ibid., 67–102, at 68, 93–94, 100. 42. Loisy, La religion, 7–56. See Poulat, “Introduction,” Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 38–39; Critique et mystique, 76–77; Goichot, Historien du sentiment religieux, 300–302. 43. See Goichot, Alfred Loisy et ses amis, 158–61. See also Loisy, Y a-t-il deux sources de la morale et de la religion, 2d ed. (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1934), especially 32–66.

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To argue that Loisy, even after his excommunication, had a genuine, if not ecstatic, mystical faith therefore supported the theory, shared by Bremond and Loisy, that mystical experience need not be dramatic for it to shape religion and morality. And this theory in turn legitimated not only Loisy’s religious integrity, but also Bremond’s. Here more than anywhere else, Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi could serve as Bremond’s Modernist confession, the confession of a mystical, relatively nondogmatic priest who did not betray his religious vocation either in his support of Loisy or in his decision to remain in the Church. Here is not the place to assess the accuracy of Bremond’s evaluation of Loisy’s mystical faith and his fidelity more generally, which surely depends on how one defines religious fidelity, so much as to try to understand more precisely what Bremond meant when he described Loisy as having a mystical faith.44 What was the mystical faith that, Bremond thought, first assured Loisy’s place in the Catholic Church and that then remained consistent, if adapted, after his excommunication? And what does it reveal about Bremond’s own mystical Modernism? Loisy’s mystical faith had at least three important characteristics, according to Bremond. First, it was not at all dogmatic as reflected in the claim that Loisy’s mysticism was more or less consistent in its Catholic and its non-Christian forms. As a Catholic, Loisy had a mystical faith in the Church, though even then he did not always retain his dogmatic faith. After his excommunication, Loisy articulated his mysticism in more generic terms and presumed that the Church often obstructed this spiritual sensibility in its adherents. But Loisy always believed and taught the importance of the spirit and its necessary 44. Many have tried to assess Loisy’s faith. Ronald Burke has summarized the most important of these efforts, including Bremond’s and Houtin’s; see Burke, “Loisy’s Faith: Landshift in Catholic Thought,” Journal of Religion 60 (1980): 138–64. Here we take up where Burke concluded, with an examination of Loisy’s mystical faith.

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role in common life, in which Loisy included both religion and morality. As such, Bremond insisted, Loisy remained a “mystical priest” who did not betray his essentially religious vocation even after he renounced his Catholicism. In the process, Bremond stripped the mystical faith that he attributed to Loisy of any dogmatic content. How one articulated this mystical faith was secondary, not essential to the mystical faith itself. Second and more positively, Loisy’s mystical faith was affective and therefore very personal. Before his excommunication, Loisy presumed that the Church both incarnated the spiritual life and cultivated the spiritual life in its adherents. After losing all emotional attachment to the Church, this form of his mystical faith was, in the words of chapter two, lost. But Pius killed Loisy’s Catholicism, not his mysticism. Loisy retained an emotional attachment to religion itself and so remained a genuine mystic in a way that contrasted with many of his fellow travelers, including most obviously Houtin. Indeed, excommunication liberated Loisy’s mystical faith, according to the title of chapter three. No longer did he have to confront the “ugly face” that had so menaced his faith during his Catholic career. At last he could enjoy a mystical spirituality without the need for so many intellectual reservations. Third, Loisy’s mysticism had a social component. It brought people together. Most obviously, it united people when mystical religion took institutional form, as it did in Roman Catholicism. But even Loisy’s noninstitutional mysticism united him with fellow mystics. “If [Loisy] no longer believed the speculative dogmas” after his excommunication, Bremond claimed, “he still believed in the communion of saints, which is a real or concrete dogma, if one may so put it.” The communion of saints was a “real” dogma (not “unreal,” meaning merely cognitive) because religious people, Christian and nonChristian, could experience it in their lives as well as assert it in their creeds. To illustrate his point, Bremond noted that Loisy remained

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devoted to many of his former coreligionists, and especially to Archbishop Mignot, the other “noble cleric who has not betrayed [his vocation]” (177) that Bremond celebrated in his book. The mysticism that he shared with Mignot (and Bremond) united them in a genuine communion that transcended all institutional boundaries.45 For Bremond, Loisy’s affective and social mystical faith was the most important thing about him. During his Catholic period, it freed him to pursue those critical questions of interest to him even when the answers cast doubt on particular dogmas because it enabled him to offer a “real assent” to God that was largely independent of Catholic doctrine. As such, it justified his decision to remain in the Catholic Church even after he had renounced his dogmatic faith (as well as Bremond’s continued affection and respect for him after his excommunication). Better still than mystical faith alone, however, was the combination of mystical faith and Modernist hope for eventual reform in the Church, as was the case with Mignot and, so it would

seem, with Bremond himself.

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C o n clusi o n

Bremond’s biography of Loisy has played an important role in subsequent studies of Loisy. Was Loisy an unfaithful Catholic, as Houtin, Rivière, and others have suggested? Or was he an unorthodox, but genuinely committed, Catholic, as Bremond argued? Although this question will never be entirely resolved, Bremond’s distinction between the dogmatic faith that Loisy abandoned early and the mystical faith in the Church that he abandoned only gradually between 1904 and 1908, as well as his claim that Loisy the mystic did not knowingly betray his religious vocation or the Church, appears to have persuaded most contemporary students of Modernism. Scholars 45. Poulat, Critique et mystique, 70.

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will doubtless continue to investigate the character of Loisy’s mysticism—his affective attachment to the spiritual life and his belief that spirituality informed human life in its totality—but seem to have accepted the basic sincerity of his evolving intellectual and religious views. Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi has not played as large a role in the subsequent exploration of Modernism more generally. And yet it offers a construction of Modernism and of several of the central or marginal figures in the Modernist crisis by one of the “survivors” of the movement. Bremond portrayed Modernism as the effort to reform Catholic teachings by reference to critical scholarship, without altogether abandoning the notion of orthodoxy or Church authority and while retaining a mystical faith in God and in the Church. Bremond himself did not reflect on how one might accomplish this reform while still deferring to an authority that strongly opposed it, and he conceded that Loisy’s move from criticizing particular doctrines to criticizing the notion of doctrine itself (and by implication Church authority) was “logical.” But emphasizing Bremond’s view of Modernism in the analysis of the history of the movement could well alter the relation of the major players. Loisy might move off center stage earlier, and figures like Lagrange or Batiffol, who tried to combine modern critical methods and orthodox theology, might become more central, despite Bremond’s criticisms of them. Of course, Bremond’s is only one voice in the effort to define Modernism and to understand the motivations and aspirations of the Modernists themselves. But his is a voice well worth hearing.

By Those Who Knew Them : French Modernists Left, Right, and Center, Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

  C h a p te r

Six

M g r M i g n ot, th e “ Ulti m ate M o d e rn i st ”? L ou i s -P i e r r e S a r de l l a Translated by Elizabeth Emery

His only enemies were untruthfulness, injustice, stupidity, and the kind of intransigence that thinks itself a moral virtue when it is merely spiritual inadequacy.

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G. de Lapanouse, Journal de Tarn, 24 March 1918

M g r E u d o x e I r é n é e M i g n o t , bishop of Fréjus (1890– 1899), then archbishop of Albi (1899–1918), is one of the rare French bishops from the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century not to have been completely forgotten. He owes this privilege to his role in the important debates of his time, particularly during the Modernist controversy in France. His attitude throughout this painful crisis was the subject of astonishment during his lifetime and of debate after his death. The unshakable support he lent to Abbé Alfred Loisy was incomprehensible and scandalous to many. He supported the publication of L’Évangile et l’Église, and publicly established himself as the defender of the exegete in an article published in the liberal Catholic journal Le correspondant, even though Rome 150

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had just placed Loisy’s books on the Index.1 Moreover, he maintained his friendship with Loisy even after Loisy’s formal excommunication. This consistent support for Loisy provoked questions about the personal orthodoxy of Mgr Mignot. In the nebulous complex of people that the Catholic Church labeled “Modernist,” where and how should one situate Mignot? Can one call him “the ultimate Modernist, and, in all his actions the most decisive justification of Modernism,” as Bremond did?2 If so, in what sense? Without question, the attractive force of new ideas pulled him from the orbit of intransigent Catholicism. To the extent that the latter claimed to be the only orthodox expression of Catholicism, the slightest departure from this trajectory could be considered a clear expression of doctrinal deviation. But another point of view is possible, one taking into account the relativity of different protagonists’ movements, including those of Roman authority. On this view, these movements collectively contribute to the permanent construction of orthodoxy. The different portraits that Mignot’s contemporaries sketched after his death in order to explain why he had conducted himself “as if orthodoxy was not taboo”3 all reflected this question about the nature of orthodoxy. A C l a ssi c C a re e r , a n U n usua l I nte lle c t ua l Iti n e r a ry

Eudoxe Irénée Mignot was born on 20 September 1842 in Brancourt-le-Grand, a large rural village twenty miles or so from SaintQuentin, in the Aisne department. His father was a teacher and his mother belonged to a family of well-to-do farmers. It was she who 1. “Critique et Tradition,” Le correspondant, 10 January 1904, reprinted in Mgr Mignot, L’Église et la critique (Paris: Gabalda, 1908), 91–144. 2. Sylvain Leblanc (Henri Bremond), Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi (Paris: Nourry, 1931), 97. 3. Ibid., 16–17.

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tended to his early religious education: “I was raised by a very pious mother who formed me in her image. For me, piety outweighs intelligence,”4 he said later to one of his priests. He related only one anecdote in his memoirs about the religious education he received during catechism. “With the cruelty and ignorance that characterize children, I remember that at the age of eight or nine, I sometimes said to my friends: ‘Your father committed a mortal sin by not coming to Mass; if he dies, he will go to Hell.’” And, Mignot added, “I drew this intellectual ferocity from catechism.”5 He was an intelligent child who frequented the presbytery not just for catechism, but also for daily lessons in Latin and Greek. The image that emerges from the early education of Mignot, as he reconstructed it, was that of a thorough Christian education conforming wholly to the practices of his time. A point worth underlining is his great curiosity concerning crafts. He spent his Thursday afternoons with weavers, carpenters, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, and turners. “Everything interested me,” he wrote. His childhood coincided with France’s entrance into the era of the railroad. He never missed the chance to watch construction work on the railroad line between Saint-Quentin and Maubeuge. The impression of this work on him was so strong that the railroad remained a source of images and metaphors in his later work. Having, for example, to explain how the principle of Protestant free examination could only result in the negation of dogmas, he wrote: “People continued to believe out of habit, without realizing that the belief no longer had life, like a locomotive runs on the rails as a result of the speed it has gained even though the mechanic has reversed the steam.”6 Faced with technical progress, he was indisputably one of the thurifiers 4. Prosper Alfaric, De la foi à la raison (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Rationalistes, 1955), 234. 5. Souvenirs, 1er Reg., Archives diocésaines d’Albi (henceforth ADA): fo 269. 6. “Deuxième lettre sur les études ecclésiastiques,” in Lettres sur les études ecclésiastiques (Paris: Gabalda, 1908; henceforth LEE), 6.

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m g r m i g n o t , t h e “ u l t i m a t e m o d e r n i s t ” ?      153

that Michel Lagrée so well described in La bénédiction de Prométhée.7 After finishing at the minor seminary in Soissons, in 1860 Eudoxe Irénée Mignot entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. The results of his studies in this Mecca of French ecclesiastical education in the second half of the nineteenth century were mixed. Philosophy interested him little, and theology disappointed him greatly, but he nonetheless had the good fortune to meet professors who gave him a taste for intellectual reflection. In philosophy, he retained the idea of the power of individual reason in the face of Lamennais’s traditionalism and also the necessity of metaphysical intuition in the face of Auguste Comte’s positivism. Above all, however, he became convinced that no philosophical system could claim to be the one legitimate Christian philosophy. In contrast to d’Hulst, his schoolmate, for example, he never felt the need to return to the thought of Saint Thomas. Herein lies the probable explanation for his capacity to remain receptive to new philosophical perspectives. He believed that “our need to search is at the heart of our nature and that it appears [to be] a primary element of our intellectual composition.” He liked to cite a phrase that he attributed to Malebranche: “If I held Truth captive, I would free it in order to have the pleasure of seeking it again.”8 He thus found a theoretical justification for the insatiable curiosity that animated him. As for theology, the result was even less satisfying. The education he received did not provide Mignot with analytical tools commensurate with the questions he asked. Abbé Guillibert, the schoolmate who became vicar general of Aix, in writing to congratulate him on his Lettres sur les études ecclésiastiques and his speech on La méthode de la théologie, evoked the days of their theological studies: “Young clergy are so much more fortunate than we, who muddled about, con7. Michel Lagrée, La bénédiction de Prométhée. Religion et technologie (Paris: Ed. Fayard, 1999), 21–62. 8. LEE, 18–19, which includes the Malebranche citation.

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fused, racked by temptations. Naive, but intelligent, we had to swallow words, incoherent scraps, useless, indigestible jumbles. And they told us that theology was the science of sciences! Granted, there was truth in this; but why did they not extract it?”9 The mediocrity of theological teaching and its inadequacy in meeting Abbé Mignot’s expectations had a double consequence. On the one hand, he developed reservations about, if not a repulsion from, Scholasticism in the form that it was taught to him. On the other hand, this dissatisfaction would be, in great part, the spur that forced him to turn his research in another direction and ultimately directed him to the fields of biblical studies and history. However, two Sulpicians had a major influence on Mignot: Alfred Le Hir (1811–1868) and John Hogan (1829–1901). The first, a great scholar whose immense learning impressed Ernest Renan,10 led Mignot to discover that the Bible was a book open to analysis by critical methods. This was an overwhelming revelation.11 The second had the capacity “for discovering the living sense and the modern reach of the most seemingly dated questions” and for adapting them “with a rare skill to the current needs of the Church and society.”12 Hogan introduced Mignot to the thought of John Henry Newman, including particularly Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Newman’s Essay opened unsuspected horizons to him. “The impression caused by this reading was so profound that it is still as fresh in me as on the first day” he wrote in 1906, in the letter-preface to Abbé Henri Bremond’s French edition of the book for the series La pensée chrétienne. Mignot added: “Above all, I found in it a marvelous theory . . . that responded to our intellectual preoccupations, making us bet9. Letter of 7 February 1902, ADA, 1 D 5 01. 10. Ernest Renan, Souvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesse (Paris: C. Lévy, 1883), 165, 159. 11. In 1885, he wrote: “I remember the impression I had when, still a seminarian, M. Le Hir taught me to use it [criticism]. . . . I couldn’t get over it, I was so surprised”; see Étude sur l’inspiration, manuscript, ADA, 1 D 5 11-01. 12. Preface to J. Hogan, Les études du clergé (Paris: Lethielleux, 1901), 7.

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ter understand the meaning of the parable of the mustard seed.”13 We cannot underestimate the major intellectual shock this reading exerted on the young cleric. In making the Catholic Church’s capacity for development (not its immutability) a clear sign of its authenticity, the Essay brusquely and radically questioned representations that until then had gone undisturbed. Once a priest, Abbé Mignot followed a classic career trajectory that led him from professor in a minor seminary to vicar general. At the same time, he remained informed about research conducted in the biblical domain and in allied disciplines, particularly historical ones. He thus acquired an acute awareness of the Church’s need to establish an apologetics that would take into account the needs of the day. He was persuaded that each generation brought “its share of truths, errors, biases, tendencies, desires, intellectual needs that differentiate it from earlier ones,” and that the apologist must be capable of responding to needs that were quickly renewed. Late-nineteenthcentury people had “become almost insensitive to purely intellectual conclusions. They demand facts much more than ideas, they mistrust philosophy, theology, where they see only the thoughts of men against whom they must keep up their guard.”14 For this reason, he believed that the new apologetics could only be recast on the basis of a historico-biblical theology. This in turn explains why he followed the work of Abbé Loisy with interest. To what extent did Mignot share Loisy’s conclusions? This was the great issue in the war of memory that fueled all the portraits contemporaries left of the archbishop of Albi.

13. John Henry Newman, Le développement du dogme chrétien, ed. Henri Bremond (Paris: Bloud et Cie, 1906), v–vi. 14. Preface to Mignot, La polyglotte, 1899, in Fulcran Vigouroux, La Sante Bible polyglotte (Paris: Roger & F. Chernovit, 1899).

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F i r st Li n e o f D e f e nse : A D o c to r o f Fa ith O p e n to Q u e sti o ns o f th e Ti m e

Just after his death, a first line of defense was established without concerted planning, a fact attested to by three appreciably different portraits of the deceased prelate. The first, by Abbé Louis de Lacger, emphasized faith and piety as the forces that informed Mignot’s actions; the second, by Baron Friedrich von Hügel, intended to shed light on the eminently Catholic character of the archbishop’s Modernism; while the third, by Père Lecanuet, included Mignot in the group of “Modernists” in the fight over the biblical question.

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A b b é Lo u i s d e L a c g e r’s B ro c h u r e 15

Written very quickly,16 the brochure presented Mignot’s formation and career after a biographical note tracing family origins, and listed the major works of the archbishop (fifteen pages). Two short chapters were then dedicated to his intellectual apostolate (five pages) and his public achievements (seven pages), with a final concluding chapter constituting roughly a third of the small volume (sixteen pages) devoted to the prelate’s private life. The decision to devote only a tenth of the pages to the subject’s intellectual dimension is somewhat surprising, but makes sense given the point of view of the author. Abbé Louis de Lacger thought it important to demarcate clear boundaries for all future biographies: for him, Mignot’s action and his interventions in the important public debates of his time were only comprehensible if one understood the man himself. Abbé de Lacger explicitly painted the portrait of a Church Father 15. Louis de Lacger, Notice et souvenirs, Eudoxe-Irénée Mignot, archevêque d’Albi, 1842–1818 (Albi: Imprimerie Coopérative du Sud-Ouest, 1918). This brochure was published very quickly since Alfred Loisy made an allusion to it in a letter to Baron von Hügel on 7 May 1918. 16. The Nihil Obstat is dated 18 April 1918, a month to the day after the death of Mgr Mignot.

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and doctor of faith.17 “Since the death of the great Cardinal Newman, . . . no prince of the Church . . . had expressed such broad and healthy rules in sacred hermeneutics, had defined in more audacious and opportune terms the sense of what is called the Evolution of Dogmas.”18 The archbishop of Albi did not approach the biblical question as an exegete, but rather as a theologian and an apologist so that anyone wanting to work on “the intangible and immutable deposit of Revelation in light of modern investigations can banish the fear of getting lost if he takes shelter in the expressions of the doctor of Albi.” Mignot was a reliable guide because he intimately shared the contradictions and the demands of his time, and his intellectual relations in “generally less explored [milieux] of unbelief and heterodoxy” allowed him, better than anyone, to understand “the obscurities of the contemporary soul, sister of his own.”19 The attention Mignot paid to the contemporary world placed him at the center of the great events that marked the French Church and allowed him to play a leading role in the major struggles of his time, those concerning the relationship between Church and state as well as those internal to the Church, in particular the “acute crisis of Modernism with its painful episode, the Loisy Affair,”20 and the definitive condemnation of the Sillon. In all these cases, Mignot wanted to be a mediator who, out of mutual respect, intended, at least, to avoid ostracism and verdicts of condemnation. As an intellectual, conscious of the difficulty of the questions at hand, “he judged that . . . language, in order to be conscientious and loyal, should be nuanced . . . and that knowing when to 17. “Mgr Mignot holds a special place in the series of bishops who graced the seat of Albi. Among them were powerful and magnificent lords . . . ; hammers of heresy . . . ; statesmen . . . ; diplomats and academicians . . . . There were also, in our days, a Church Father and a Doctor of faith: and it was . . . he whom we mourn”; Lacger, Notice et souvenirs, 25. 18. Ibid., 21. 19. Ibid., 22. 20. Ibid., 28. Importantly, it is in the chapter “Action publique” and not in the chapter “Apostolat intellectual” that Modernism is mentioned.

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doubt was still knowledge.” His full effort “consisted in placing question marks,” in working to free himself from all prejudice and dogmatism in a constant quest for the truth: “He found his pleasure in following truth, fleeting and indistinct.” What might have appeared as a lack of doctrinal firmness on the part of Mgr Mignot was thus a response to the imperatives of any serious research, which must show prudence regarding its proposed results.21 It was not necessary to look elsewhere for the incomprehension or even suspicion directed toward him. This is why the bulk of the brochure sought to make the personal man known. “Before he gets away and we lose sight of him . . . we would like to bring back to life the private man, the one who walked with us, . . . with whom we lived side by side for many years.”22 This barely veiled transcription of the prologue from the first epistle of John, which opens the chapter entitled “Private Life,” gives it a quasirevelatory character. This personal portrait was intended to bring out the deep faith and piety of the prelate. Worthy and serious, devoid of affectation or pomp, living in a solitude that he protected by maintaining a certain distance in his human relationships, he was a man who loved silence and who “conserved places of retreat and hours of isolation.” “For Mignot, it is not the Gnostic who represents the perfect Christian; it is the mystic.”23 21. This brochure was appreciated by those who read it, whether they knew Mgr Mignot personally or not. Among the former were Alfred Loisy, “I am reading . . . the lovely text about Mgr Mignot. Its accuracy struck me” (Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps [3 vols.; Paris: Emile Nourry, 1930–1931], 3: 362); and Paul Sabatier: “You have shown him as he was, his true nature” (4 May 1918). Among the latter was Maurice Blondel: “You make me understand, admire, and love him whom your perceptive and pious sincerity revives in such a bright relief; and even the shadows of the painting testify to the delicious originality of the model . . . . It is valuable for me to know more deeply, thanks to you, the intelligence, character, and soul of a prelate for whom I have a reverence” (4 May 1918, Lettres to Abbé de Lacger, ADA, 1 D 5-13). 22. Lacger, Notice et souvenirs, 33. 23. Ibid., 41.

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Abbé de Lacger thus sheltered the memory of Mignot behind the ramparts of his spiritual life, a life “revealed only to a select fortunate few or persevering people,” of which none “can claim to have penetrated to its depths.”24 Abbé de Lacger planned in advance to mark the boundaries of a debate, if a debate were to occur. No matter what criticism might be directed to the archbishop of Albi, it would shatter against the indisputable reality of his faith and his piety.

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B a ro n v o n H ü g e l’s A rt i c l e o r a “C at h o l i c M o d e r n i st ” 25

Baron von Hügel met Mignot for the first time in November 1893, at the very moment when Abbé Loisy was dismissed from the Institut Catholique de Paris. A great friendship, founded on reciprocal admiration, grew between them and ended only with the death of Mignot. These men, so different in regard to class, education, temperament, and situation in the Church, united their efforts to get Rome to admit the legitimacy of historical criticism and to see that condemnations would not resolve the difficulties. Alfred Loisy said about them: “I can say that above all two angels watched over my existence with as much tender attention as my mother had watched over my cradle. One of them was Friedrich von Hügel, the other was the angel of a church, it was Mgr Mignot. . . . They acted . . . as if they had earlier sworn to protect and to defend the freedom of my scientific work against all threats or attacks.”26 The long correspondence between Mignot and von Hügel, as well as their few but lengthy meetings, made Baron von Hügel a privileged witness of the archbishop’s motives. The article began with the story of their first meeting in Fréjus. The bishop received his visitor in a study installed “in a round tower from whence the gaze 24. Ibid., 49, 33. 25. Ibid., 33. “Eudoxe Irénée Mignot,” Contemporary Review 113 (1 May 1918): 519–26. This article, “translated and adapted” by Abbé de Lacger, appeared in the Revue du clergé français 94 (1 June 1918): 347–57. 26. Couchoud, ed., Congrès d’histoire du Christianisme (Paris: Rieder, 1928), 3: 241–42.

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was drawn out to sea.” Mignot, whose solitary research culminated “in a broader understanding of the past and the present [was] surrounded by editions of the Bible and by aids to interpretation, works in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, and French.”27 In short, von Hügel painted the portrait of a new Saint Jerome. The baron proposed to show the principles—eminently Catholic, in his opinion—that guided the prelate’s reflection. He identified six. Above all, Mignot believed that the activity of natural faculties exerted themselves spontaneously. In other words, it was not necessary to ask permission to think. Next, he had a deep love of the intellectual life that brought him to place it immediately below the spiritual life and before elements concerning authority and power. Third, he was conscious of the dangers inherent in any intellectual activity, but considered that one should not be influenced by such unavoidable risks. Fourth, he thought that inductive, analytical, and experimental methods were the only ones that could respond to the needs of modern man. Fifth, he considered that the Roman Church represented the best and the highest conceivable ideal of the Church. Sixth, and finally, he deemed that, in the end, the deepest intentions of men escaped the competence of human judges. It is clear that Baron von Hügel’s portrait of Mignot was a conscious reconstruction. The baron effectively invented a model Catholic bishop from his own beliefs and used this model as a grid for interpreting the thought and action of Mignot. Of the six principles that von Hügel claimed guided Mignot’s reflections, only the third principle—on the vanity of wanting to erect barriers blocking the progress of science—was presented without any other referent than Mignot. Von Hügel explained at length that the first principle was his own, held since he joined the Catholic Church at the age of eighteen. He derived the second, fourth, and fifth principles from Gustave Bick27. Revue du clergé français 94 (1 June 1918): 347.

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ell, who regretted that the Catholic Church did not care more about intellectual questions; who “was accustomed to insisting that Bible study . . . should not be directed to a book that could be located on the moon . . . , but that study should concern a specific book placed on my table”; and, finally, who arrived at the fixed conclusion that nothing in religion could replace the Catholic Church.28 As for the sixth principle—that the deep intentions of a man remain, at heart, his soul’s secret—von Hügel learned it from an Anglo-Hindu statesman.29 The apologetic character of this piece is accentuated even further in the French version, which differed a bit from the original English text. Two paragraphs at the end of the introduction were amputated from it—one, fairly short, in which Baron von Hügel explained his intentions, and a longer one, at the end of the article, devoted to Mignot’s position with regard to Rome. In the first suppressed paragraph, Baron von Hügel explained that, as a layperson, he did not have to worry about delimiting orthodoxy. As a result, his portrait was confined to general conclusions, particularly “regarding those men still alive, like Loisy,” and recounted facts largely “independent of any peculiarities of the ‘Modernist’ movement and its condemnation—events still too recent for any ultimate appraisement.” This parenthetical statement was naturally unacceptable since he seemed to refuse to qualify the content. In the second omitted passage, the baron sought to portray relations between the archbishop and Rome in terms of a line of bishops on tenuous terms with the Holy See. “It is of course, impossible to deny that the Archbishop represented a temperament, gifts, outlooks and affinities markedly different from those of Pope Pius X, or that 28. Gustave Bickell (1800–1900) was an Austrian orientalist who had converted to Catholicism. Professor at the University of Innsbruck, Bickell gave the Baron von Hügel several tutorials in Hebrew. See Revue du clergé français 94 (1 June 1918): 352. 29. According to Loisy, Mémoires, 3: 358, Sir Alfred Lyell was the person in question.

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he was ever treated by Rome as more than a non-condemned teacher.”30 All things considered, Mignot was never any more unpopular in Rome than were Cardinal Newman or Cardinal Manning at the end of his life. To these illustrious English examples, he added some French examples: “Bossuet, defender of Gallican articles; Fénelon, an immortal type of saintly Catholic bishop, nonetheless condemned for his Maximes de Saints, and Mabillon, the pious Benedictine . . . several of whose books are on the Index.” And he concluded:

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This list would only illustrate how ruinous is the refusal to see suns where there are spots, or spots where there are suns; and how little in keeping with the complex facts of actual history is an orthodoxy pressed without patience or discrimination. A religion capable of complete measurement by sheer correctness alone would be no more the religion of Him who was officially rejected by the only fully installed official Church of His day, and whose entire life breathes the spirit of the Cross.31

In this long passage, Friedrich von Hügel insisted that not having been persona grata in Rome should not be interpreted as a sign of heterodoxy and would not be a trustworthy criterion for measuring Mignot’s attachment to the Church. Even more, he criticized explicitly and without compromise the notion of orthodoxy prevalent in Rome. What was comprehensible in the framework of English Catholicism was unthinkable in French Catholicism, marked as it was by the triumph of ultramontanism where there can be no disagreement between a bishop and the Holy See. In several other places, Abbé de Lacger’s French translation of von Hügel’s article strayed from the text, always to clarify, according to strict orthodoxy, assertions that might have seemed a bit too ambiguous for the French public. For example, with regard to the first principle of action, Baron von Hügel had written in English: “There 30. Contemporary Review 113 (1 May 1918): 524. 31. Ibid., 525.

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was a quite spontaneous, quite simple, activity of all the natural faculties—of these as the prerequisites, the substrates, occasions and materials of grace.”32 This was translated into French as:

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“En premier lieu, l’archevêque ne pensait pas que la dépendance de sa raison vis-à-vis de la révélation, que la soumission de sa volonté aux lois de l’Eglise dussent priver ses facultés de leur spontanéité et de leur libre exercice, ces facultés naturelles restant la condition, le terrain propice, la matière première et le sujet de la grâce” [First of all, the archbishop did not think that the dependence of his reason with regard to revelation, that the submission of his will to Church laws, should deprive his faculties of their spontaneity and of their free use, these natural faculties remaining the prerequisites, the substrates, the primary material and subject of grace]. With regard to the second, “There was a deep and delicate, touchingly naïf and fresh love of things of the mind,” it becomes: “En second lieu, il tenait que les choses de l’esprit doivent venir immédiatement après celles de l’âme dans les préoccupations d’un homme cultivé, avant celles de l’organisation extérieure, et il avait pour elles un amour tendre et profond, touchant dans sa simplicité et dans sa fraîcheur” [Second, he insisted that things of the mind should come immediately after those of the soul in the preoccupations of a cultivated man, before those of external organization, and he had for them a deep and tender love, touching in its simplicity and freshness].

These two examples of translation, like the suppressed passages, were characteristic of Abbé de Lacger’s concern with toning down, even erasing, as much as he could, everything that could be used against the archbishop in an eventual trial about orthodoxy. Alfred Loisy did not much appreciate this portrait. At the time, he wrote to the baron: “Certain parts of the article, especially the page mentioning me—and that I do not otherwise want to discuss—are more or less incomprehensible for anyone who has not followed our publications of the last twenty-five years very closely.”33 In his Mé32. Ibid., 520. 33. Letter of 7 May 1918, BN, Naf 15645, fo 306. The baron replied: “I have sincerely

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moires, he estimated that “the deceased archbishop would have little appreciated this panegyric and that, after having found it difficult to read, he would have taken the liberty of chuckling over it a bit with me.” First of all, Alfred Loisy reproached von Hügel for having “Hügelized” Mignot to the point of making him unrecognizable. He admitted that the archbishop would not have disputed any of the principles adopted by the baron. In this, “the portrait is not untrue.” But insofar as these principles traced the contour of what the baron felt was a real Modernist, they characterized not reality, but an ideal type. “Like a photograph, it is taken of von Hügel and not of the Archbishop.”34 Above all, Loisy reproached von Hügel for having only a single objective, that of “showing that the author of the article and the archbishop always had a clear perception of [Loisy’s] lapses and his errors and that they had never shared them.”35 This “retrospective and tendentious apologia [was] more compromising than opportune,” for it revealed anachronisms and made the mutual support they provided one another incomprehensible. Loisy believed that it would have been preferable to have traced the steps of his evolution and to “have said simply at what point he was no longer followed.” A Daring “Modern”

To these two portraits, we should add that of Père Lecanuet. Although his work on L’Eglise de France sous la Troisième République appeared only in 1930, it had long been complete and allows us to understand the state of the question prior to the polemics of the end of the 1920s.36 accepted your judgment regarding the quasi-complete obscurity of my brief article about Mgr Mignot. It is always others and never ourselves who are or can be the decisive judges, not of what we wanted to do, but of what we produced” (Letter of 18 October 1918, BN, Naf 15657, fo 148). 34. Loisy, Mémoires, 3: 358. 35. Ibid., 356. 36. Père Lecanuet, L’Église de France sous la Troisième République. La vie de l’Église sous Léon XIII (Paris: Alcan, 1930).

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Lecanuet invoked Mgr Mignot several times. First of all, his activity as the bishop of Fréjus provided Lecanuet with the chance to remind readers of Mignot’s adhesion to the intellectual and political directives of Leo XIII. Mignot’s activity in Albi raised the issue of his willingness to work toward the intellectual reform of the clergy. But it was in the chapter devoted to the biblical question, at the moment when Père Lecanuet unfolded the panorama of the diverse tendencies of Catholic exegesis at the turn of the century, that he spoke at greatest length about Mgr Mignot. This panorama apparently created troubles for Lecanuet because, after introducing five discrete tendencies,37 he discussed only three. He dismissed the extreme right in half a page and ridiculed it under the cloak of a citation from Houtin. The right, which, Lecanuet said, “defends with more talent and intelligence the classical teachings of the Church,” was represented by Cardinal Meignan, Père Brucker, and Abbé Vigouroux. Finally, he noted that “at the center and at the left the progressives form a large group.” The progressive group, united by the fact that its members were “favorable to science,” was presented from two points of view: their different tendencies and their different memberships. Père Lecanuet identified four tendencies and three memberships within the broader group. The range of tendencies was large. On one side were those who would be satisfied with better proving the arguments of apologetics. On the other side were those who held that objections formulated by science and history had no relevance for an evaluation of the Bible, which offered a religious teaching. In the middle were those who believed that certain rationalist arguments could be accepted, and those “even more daring” who believed that “criticism renders an important service and that it is unjust to dispute its conquests.” As for the 37. “There is in the Catholic school a right and even an extreme right; there is the center, the left, and even the extreme left” (Lecanuet, L’Église de France sous la Troisième République, 321).

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groups, they include the professors (Abbé de Broglie, Mgr d’Hulst, Abbé Duchesne), the bishops (Mgr Le Camus and Mgr Mignot), and the Jerusalem École biblique and its Revue. The result of this presentation, which elided the extreme left and the extreme right and grafted the moderate left to the center, finally reduced the exegetical tendencies to two: the right and the center. Lecanuet finally simplified the biblical question to the classic quarrel between Ancients and Moderns,38 which was less compromising for the progressives to the extent that such quarrels recurred frequently in the history of the Church. Among the Moderns, Mignot, who followed “with scrupulous attention and a superior intelligence all the critics’ moves,” proposed two major ideas. On the one hand, he felt that it was possible to reconcile critical contributions with theology if one could accept “displacing the scriptural base of apologetics a bit” and if one could admit the “idea of a development of Revelation.” On the other hand, Mignot demanded the right for Catholic scholars to pursue their studies freely, stating that it was imperative to grant them the “very human” right “to err.” It was thus not surprising that he felt it necessary to “do everything to keep a man of the value of M. Loisy in the Church and to use him,” even if that meant exposing himself to incomprehension, risking his authority, and compromising the influence he could have had. “Some even found him too daring, especially when, in 1904, just after the condemnation of M. Loisy, he worked to keep him in the Church.”39 That Mignot’s supporters felt the need to defend his reputation was clear immediately after his death, even ten years after the earthquake of the Modernist crisis, and two and one half years after the encyclical of Benedict XV, Ad beatissimi of 1 November 1914. There the pope had reminded readers that in discussing questions about which 38. “A silent war was waged between the two biblical schools, the conservative school and the progressive school” (Lecanuet, L’Église de France sous la Troisième République, 364). 39. Ibid., 331–32.

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the Holy See had not yet pronounced judgment, “there is room for divergent opinions.” “It is clearly the right of everyone to express and defend his own opinion,” provided that it be done “with due moderation.” Furthermore, “no one should consider himself entitled to affix on those who merely do not agree with his ideas the stigma of disloyalty to faith or to discipline.”40 The different portraits of Mignot sought to portray his views as common and to recontextualize them against a more classical ecclesiastical tradition, particularly with regard to the World War. This was the idea defended by Cardinal de Cabrières at the funeral of Mignot, in a eulogy given in Sainte-Cecilia’s Cathedral at Albi on 26 April 1918. In positioning himself at the outpost of exegetical studies, Mignot had only fulfilled his pastoral duties in order to bring to the fold of orthodoxy priests and laymen who could have, for a moment, been troubled by objections stemming from risky theories. Se c o n d Li n e o f D e f e nse : A Fo re ru n n e r

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“ Fo o le d by H is C o n f i d e n c e ”

In the 1930s, questions about Mignot’s orthodoxy resurfaced. As noted above, Alfred Loisy recalled the support he received from Mignot during a speech concluding the congress on the history of Christianity organized for Loisy’s jubilee in 1927. Loisy confirmed publicly that he had given his manuscript to Mignot, who “was alone in knowing it before publication,” and that he had decided to publish L’Évangile et l’Église “on his advice.” Loisy added: “Once the book was condemned by the archbishop of Paris and several other prelates, Mgr Mignot was not extraordinarily disturbed. From the beginning, he thought that this accident should not interrupt my literary activity, but that it was an opportunity for purely disciplinary submission in taking the book off the shelves, or for explanations.”41 40. Actes de Benoît XV (Paris: S. D. II): 41 and sq. 41. Couchoud, Congrès d’histoire du Christianisme, 3:242–43.

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Loisy’s comments elicited strong reactions from those who sought to defend the memory of the archbishop of Albi. To understand this intensity, one must keep in mind the ecclesiastical context of the preceding decade. It was a time when the fear of Modernism had resurfaced, leading to a series of measures against some who had submitted in 1907 and others who had heretofore escaped censure.42 Some feared that the Church was again entering a “little ice age” like that it had known at the beginning of the papacy of Pius X. It did not seem an opportune time to take out the Mignot file.

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V i c t i m o f Lo i s y ’s D u p l i c i t y

The first to react was Abbé Jean Rivière (1878–1946). Formerly professor of dogmatic theology at the Albi major seminary, he had himself been suspected of Modernism and therefore relieved of his position by Mignot’s successor. Henceforth professor at the Faculté catholique de Strasbourg, he was confined to apologetics. His book on Modernism, written after Loisy’s controversial speech, was intended to justify the line adopted by Batiffol. According to this view, Mignot’s approval of L’Évangile et l’Église was highly problematic. Rivière’s narrative about Mignot’s exchange with Loisy was somewhat circumspect.43 However, he could not ignore the fact that the exchange had been confirmed by Loisy himself to Abbé de Lacger as of May 1918.44 Rivière therefore tried to offer an explanation that saved 42. On this renewal of anti-Modernism, see Etienne Fouilloux, Une Église en quête de liberté. La pensée catholique française entre modernisme et Vatican II, 1914–1962 (Paris: Desclee De Brouwer, 1998), 20–32. 43. Jean Rivière, Le modernisme dans l’Église. Étude d’histoire religieuse contemporaine (Paris: Letouzey, 1929), 161n1. 44. In his letter of 6 May, Abbé de Lacger questioned Loisy on this point: “Julien de Narfon wrote in the Figaro that, before publishing L’Évangile et l’Église you had submitted the manuscript to the archbishop of Albi. We disputed the materiality of the fact here. Only your assertion can settle the question” (BN, Papiers Loisy, Naf 15658, fo 264–65). Loisy’s reply is not preserved in the archives of Albi. But on the 20th of May, Abbé de Lacger wrote to Loisy to thank him “for having shared [his] wealth,”—the letters that Loisy did not judge

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Mignot’s orthodoxy despite his endorsement of L’Évangile et l’Église. It involved two claims: first, Mignot was not the only one to have supported Loisy; second, he was tricked by the exegete, as were others. This line of defense became standard among Catholics. Mignot intervened to defend Loisy before the French Catholic public and even before the pope, Rivière acknowledged, but he was not the only bishop to have this attitude.45 Loisy also received aid from cardinals, for example, Cardinal Mathieu, who tried to prevent a condemnation of Loisy in 1901. Mignot was also joined by others in guaranteeing the priestly loyalty of Loisy. For example, Baron von Hügel vouched for him. Both the baron and the bishop were certain that Loisy would soon dissipate “the clouds accumulating around his name” and would yield “respectfully to the decision of religious authority.” One does not have to look far to find an explanation for this astonishing support: all these men were victims of Loisy’s hypocrisy; they were fooled. With regard to L’Évangile et l’Église, Rivière wrote: “Everything destined him to make dupes, and, at first, the dupes were very numerous. Those whose minds, being more enlightened, might have had scruples, found numerous reasons to reassure themselves.”46 Mignot and the others were fooled both about the intimate provisions of Loisy, who admitted in 1913 in Choses passées that he had lost faith as early as 1896, and about the program developed in L’Évangile et l’Église, enveloped as it was by “all kinds of ruses, dissimulations, ambiguities, and insinuations.”47 “ready for the hour of unveiling” and for “the fragment of correspondence that you kindly transcribed in reply to my question” (BN, Naf 15658, fo 266–68). In all probability, the fragment was an extract from Mignot’s letter of 17 September 1902 that accompanied the return of the manuscript of L’Évangile et l’Église to Loisy. 45. “Several bishops even took up their pens to reassure the public about M. Loisy and, with the aid of very indulgent restrictions, to attest to the purity of his life and the rectitude of his intentions” (181). But beside Mignot, Abbé Rivière could cite only Mgr Lacroix. 46. Rivière, Le modernisme, 167. 47. Louis Saltet, review of Abbé Rivière’s book in Revue d’histoire de l’Eglise de France 17 (1931): 88. “Loisy’s thought was expressed and hung on expressions of learned complex-

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At the time, Rivière’s explanation for Mignot’s defense of Loisy seemed satisfactory. It had in its favor simplicity and the appearance of logic. A few voices were, however, raised to question its pertinence. Thus Abbé Amann, for example, very clearly marked his reticence in his review of Abbé Rivière’s book: “Will I say that I do not much like the word ‘dupe’ used on this occasion by Rivière? No more than that of ‘victim.’”48 Lo i s y ’s M i g n ot

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The publication, in 1931, of Alfred Loisy’s Mémoires, which were, in part, a reply to Abbé Rivière’s book,49 offered a more complex image of the archbishop of Albi. Loisy portrayed him as “a bishop in whom the modern spirit harmonized with classical virtues,” but Mignot had the unfortunate privilege of being the only well-treated member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Loisy presented the archbishop as an exception in the ecclesiastical and episcopal world of his time.50 He was an exception first because of his immense knowledge: “He was more and better informed, on his own, than all the French bishops, including Cardinal Meignan51 ity, which allowed one not to perceive his latent tendencies,” wrote Jean Rivière, in turn, in the article “Modernisme,” Dictionaire de theologie catholique 10, col. 2026. 48. “Chronique d’histoire de la théologie contemporaine,” Revue des sciences religieuses 10 (October 1930): 684. 49. This was, in any case, the opinion of Abbé Bremond (Letter from Abbé Birot to Abbé de Lacger, June 1931, ADA, 1 D 5-13). 50. Primarily at three moments: that of the first interview between the bishop of Fréjus and the Baron von Hügel (Mémoires, 1: 292–93); that of his nomination to Albi (ibid., 1:532); and that of his death (ibid., 3: 354). The citations that follow are taken from these different pages. 51. Guillaume Meignan (1817–1896), professor of sacred scripture at the Sorbonne, bishop of Chalons in 1861, was at the origin of Abbé Loisy’s career. It was, indeed, he who sent the young seminarian to study at the Institut catholique de Paris. Meignan was bishop of Arras (1864), then archbishop of Tours (1884); prior to Mgr Mignot he was one of the rare French bishops to have worked on the biblical question. He was named cardinal in 1893.

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and Mgr Perraud.”52 Without being “a specialized scholar,” he was capable of following and understanding “the great problems of philosophy and exegesis.” Further, he was “in no way locked in by Scholastic theology” because his openness and broad-mindedness made him interested “in all works of intelligence and science” and allowed him to be “a man of his time as much as an ecclesiastic can be.” Finally, Mignot was distinctive by his goodness, which made him “kindly and intelligent with others’ thoughts.” This “true man of the Church and perfectly honest man” who thought of nothing but the future of Catholicism, suffered from “the intellectual and moral decadence of the Church under ultramontane despotism,” but he awaited “patiently the triumph of truth.” Loisy considered it self-evident that “men of such vast knowledge, such balanced minds, such truly independent character, will no longer be able to become bishops in our country.” This portrait was already compromising in that it could be read as the inverse portrait of Pius X. But there was more. Loisy claimed that Mignot was “a prelate with goodwill toward reforms that appeared necessary” and that “a work of reform could have been attempted” . . . “if men such as Mgr Mignot met each other in greater numbers [in the Church].”53 These reforms would have led the Church “to relax its uncompromising attitude; to allow discussion of current problems; to seek their solution in good faith.”54 This was precisely the project of Modernism.55 Loisy therefore claimed that Mignot’s “Discours sur la 52. Adolphe Perraud (1828–1906) was a former student at the École Normale Supérieure where he met Père Gratry; he entered the Oratory in 1852. He was successively professor of ecclesiastical history at the Sorbonne (1865), bishop of Autun (1874), elected to the Académie française (1882), and named cardinal by Leo XIII in 1895. 53. Loisy, Mémoires, 3: 248, 250. 54. Loisy, Mémoires, 2: 568. 55. “What really existed . . . was a fairly vague, yet intense effort—much less fanciful and blind than it might seem now . . . because it was defeated—to relax the rigor of Roman absolutism and that of theological dogmatism. . . . Considered from this point of view, which is that of reality, Modernism was not completely utopian and it was not at all a plot” (Loisy, Choses passées, 354–55).

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méthode de la théologie,” given during the opening week of the Faculté de théologie of the Institut catholique de Toulouse in 1901,56 was not only “one of the finest things he wrote,” but also “one of the most important manifestoes of Catholic Modernism.” It “proclaimed the fine principle . . . [that] the teaching Church was instructed through the work of the taught Church.”57 The Mémoires often referred to epistolary relations between Loisy and Mignot, which lasted twenty-five years even though they met only four or five times. What provoked ferment and even scandal was Loisy’s use of letters received from the prelate between 1894 and 1918: more than eighty citations showing that Mignot, despite minor reservations, considered Loisy to be a scholar whose absolute incompatibility with strict orthodoxy remained unproven. The bishop said as much in private comments that did not seem to take seriously doctrinal decisions taken by Rome itself. Because he “was not a fanatic of submission,” Loisy insisted, Mignot deplored “the abominable system of delation practiced by certain priests and [he] was not of the opinion that one should leave the field completely open for the intransigents.”58 “In short, the Archbishop, with all of his pastoral prudence, was a very daring, very enterprising spirit.” He simply “wanted to persuade himself that traditional dogma, defined dogma, would not be harmed by our boldness. Only certain theological theories would suffer.”59 Moreover, Loisy suggested that Mignot agreed with him in many important ways. Referring to an article of Mignot’s that appeared 56. “La méthode de la théologie,” in LEE, 297ff. It was inspired by an article by George Tyrrell (“Docens discendo,” Weekly Register, 19 July 1901). Mgr Mignot suggested going beyond the classical opposition between the teaching Church and the Church taught, taking into account “the reciprocal action, mutual solidarity that links the representatives of authority to the representatives of science” without limiting the work of the latter “to pure passivity.” 57. Loisy, Mémoires, 2: 77–78. 58. Ibid., 205–6. 59. Ibid., 232–33.

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in 1904, in Le correspondant, Loisy summarized Mignot’s view thus: “[T]he solution of these difficulties is in the theory of the development of revelation and dogma; . . . the authority of ecclesiastical tradition compensates for gaps in the evangelical tradition; and in general, critical findings should be completed by this tradition. . . . Basically, he wanted to reconcile the things that Rome wanted to declare irreconcilable.”60 The central point distinguishing Mignot from Loisy was Mignot’s enduring belief that such a reconciliation was possible. In his commentary on the baron’s article about Mignot, evoked above, Loisy explained:

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The unique desideratum truly expressed by the Archbishop before I clearly separated from the Church was . . . [that it] was necessary to turn to tradition to save dogmatic facts whose scriptural attestation is legendary or mythical. Basically, a theological expedient. . . . The essential difference between us could well have been, in fact, that I never fixed a stopping point in my intellectual labor; the archbishop wanted to hold himself to defined dogmas.61

Finally and especially, there was the question of Mignot’s approbation of the publication of L’Évangile et l’Église, which cast the gravest doubt over Mgr Mignot’s orthodoxy. Did he or did he not understand L’Évangile et l’Église? Either the archbishop understood the condemned book, in which case he protected its heresy, and perhaps even shared it. Or, if his orthodoxy was not questioned, he allowed himself to be misled by Loisy. Complicit or fooled, there was no other alternative. On this point Loisy was categorical: One may perhaps ask why the archbishop of Albi, if he understood my book, could have approved it without reservation. I believe that several people have already said that he did not understand it. He certainly understood the book thoroughly, but without looking for what was not there, and in taking it for 60. Ibid., 294. 61. Loisy, Mémoires, 3: 360–61.

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what it really was: a historical account of Christian development that provided certain conclusions favorable for Catholicism, unfavorable for Protestantism. No more, no less. . . . No doubt, the necessity of reform was implied; but the program of these reforms was not dogmatically traced in the book. It was the Church’s responsibility to provide for necessary reforms. . . . Mgr Mignot should not thus be counted among those who did not understand; but at the head of the latter one should put those who accused me of “mystification.”62

Despite Loisy’s effort to absolve Mignot of Modernism, his insistence that Mignot understood his theological position and supported him personally thus raised the question of how it was possible for a bishop to use his authority to protect a priest and a scholar who proved to be “a more or less pantheistic philosopher, unconnected, if not hostile, to any positive faith.”63

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A b b é d e L ac g e r’s C o u nte r at tac k

Abbé de Lacger dedicated two specialized articles and a massmarket book to answering this question and particularly to refuting Loisy’s assertion that Mignot understood and approved of L’Évangile et l’Église.64 “We should not let it be said that the archbishop fully understood the ‘little book,’” he insisted, because it would be “a strange and somewhat disturbing fact that a Church leader would read and approve a book that, afterward, appeared as the sum of ‘Modernism.’”65 Analyzing in detail these three texts, which basically repeat the same arguments with more or less detail, is unnecessary. All three clearly reflect the standard orthodox interpretation of Mignot’s relationship with Loisy. 62. Loisy, Mémoires, 2:133–134. 63. Louis de Lacger, “Mgr Mignot et M. Loisy,” Revue d’histoire de l’Eglise de France 19, no. 83 ( January–April 1933): 166. 64. Lacger, “Mgr Mignot, notice du Dictionnaire de theologie catholique,” 10, col. 1743–1751 and “Mgr Mignot et M. Loisy,” 161–205; Mgr Mignot (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1933). 65. Lacger, “Mgr Mignot et M. Loisy,” 180.

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If the heretical tendency of Modernism seemed perfectly obvious after the condemnations, it was, Lacger explained, “confusing and inextricable” in the first years of the new century.66 There was ambiguity about goals, with some working simply to renew scientific methods and others who envisaged “recasting the fundamental beliefs of Christianity.” There was ambiguity about the meaning of words as important as “faith,” “theology,” “revelation,” and “dogmatic development,” with different authors proposing different interpretations of each, some of which deviated notably but insidiously from their traditional meaning. There was ambiguity about the intentions of Abbé Loisy. His protectors considered him a defender of Catholicism against “the anemic evangelism of Protestant liberalism” even though he “only retained the Church’s role as the educator of humanity in the past, and temporarily in the immediate future . . . on the condition of evolving in its concepts if not in its expressions.” In other words, many Catholics, including Mignot, were lost in the fog. This argument explained Mignot’s attitude by the fact that he was misled, because his good faith was surprised. It was not the first time, in the history of the Church, that such errors occurred. Defending Mignot’s good faith in this way required that Lacger make concessions about Mignot’s scholarship. At the very end of the biography, Abbé de Lacger referred to the fact that “the autodidact that he was had developed more in breadth than in depth. . . . In no field, was he capable of acquiring true mastery.”67 In a note to this sentence he clarified his thought: “The gaps in his scientific formation, his critical method, his positive information, his isolation outside of a milieu of intellectual work, placed him at a disadvantage relative to specialists such as Duchesne, Batiffol, Lagrange, Grandmaison, for discerning the deficiencies of M. Loisy’s work and his carefully dis66. Ibid., 166, 167. 67. Ibid., 149.

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simulated tendencies. It is evidently one of the primary causes of his diagnostic error.”68 Lacger concluded: “Is it not in large part the reason that he was not, during the Modernist crisis, the doctor whom past controversies would ordinarily have called forth among the members of the teaching Church?”69

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T h e “O rt h o d o x ” R e a d i n g o f L’ É vangile et l’ Église

Despite Lacger’s defense, we might still ask if Mignot understood L’Évangile et l’Église. But this question only makes sense if one admits the principle that there is only one possible interpretation of Loisy’s book, that offered by the ecclesiastical authority, first in Paris, then in Rome. However, such a principle is questionable. After all, what is the true meaning of a work? That placed there by its author? That added by different readers? That fixed by an authority? There is thus no simple answer to the question of whether or not Mignot understood L’Évangile et l’Église.70 Mignot himself tried to understand L’Évangile et l’Église in terms of the stated aims of the book. In acknowledging receipt of L’Évangile et l’Église, Mignot told Loisy: “Those who have never read you and who only know you through your adversaries, who are frightened by your boldness and only see in you a demolition worker in accordance with the charitable idea they were given about you—will be surprised, if they understand you, to find you a defender of their faith. For many, it will be a revelation . . . especially if they have the fairness to respect the observations and reservations you present in the preface.”71 Mignot thus agreed to read Loisy’s book according to the 68. Ibid., 149n1. 69. Ibid., 150. 70. On the multiple readings of L’Évangile et l’Église, see C. J. T. Talar, “Reading Loisy,” in (Re)Reading, Reception, and Rhetoric: Approaches to Roman Catholic Modernism (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 7–34. 71. Mgr Mignot à l’abbé Loisy, 10 November 1902, BN, Naf 15659, fo 169.

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framework established by the author, without seeking in the book what was not there. In several places in his Mémoires, Loisy confirmed that this interpretation of the book as a defense of Catholicism agreed with his intentions. He maintained that those who claimed that the archbishop of Albi approved it without reservation because he did not understand it were in the wrong. L’Évangile et l’Église was not an “apologia of existing Catholicism,” he acknowledged, but it was “the apologia of Catholicism as it should be,” as well as “the discreet criticism of official and real Catholicism.”72 It was not “a war machine cleverly camouflaged to prepare the ruin of Catholicism.” Loisy thus maintained that the book was only a historical essay that hid no implicit theological agenda. Insofar as this was true, it was not Mignot who failed to understand the book, “but . . . those . . . who accused [Loisy] of ‘mystification.’”73 Elsewhere, he asserted about L’Évangile et l’Église and also Autour d’un petit livre: “At the heart of the two little books there was the following simple idea: that real Catholicism, perfectible in the past, still is in the present, that it must come to terms with this perfectibility to adapt to the needs of the time, as it had more or less adapted in earlier periods of its history.”74 Thus understood, L’Évangile et l’Église was not inconsistent with orthodox thought and contained nothing, in any case, that could not be approved by Mignot. Of course, the problem was more complicated because in other passages Loisy expressed surprise that the archbishop was unaware that he could only testify to his “complete adhesion to Church doctrine” with the benefit of the “broad interpretation” suggested by the little book. “It is surprising,” he wrote, “that such an open and wellinformed mind would not have noticed in the two first red books, es72. Loisy, Mémoires, 2: 321. 73. Loisy, Mémoires, 2: 133–34. Of course, many scholars have pointed out that Loisy’s claims here were somewhat disingenuous. 74. Ibid., 499.

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pecially in Autour d’un petit livre, the idea of transposition and interpretation of dogmas that would dispense with attaching an immutable meaning to them, justified by tradition when Scripture does not suffice.”75 But this more radical interpretation of L’Évangile et l’Église comes from a posteriori rereadings that reflected Loisy’s personal evolution. These later readings do not invalidate earlier ones. Still, in 1918, Canon Birot, Mignot’s former vicar general, denied to Mgr Lacroix that the exegete “set a trap” for the archbishop. Mignot had not been wrong in “seeing in it only a work of vigorous apologetics, . . . the historical refutation, of a very positive character” of Harnack’s thesis, since Loisy showed in the book that the Church’s organization was “tightly bound in Scripture to the establishment of the reign of God” in such a way that it was henceforth impossible to maintain the “radical opposition that M. Harnack wanted to see between historical Christianity and Jesus’ thought.” Loisy made this argument based on his textual findings and on the force of the facts themselves, “to the exclusion of any strict theological reasoning.” This is how M. Loisy’s book was read and understood by all those who first approached it without preconceived notions. The vigor and victorious evidence of this argument clouded their eyes to the imprecision of certain aspects of doctrine, which could seem merely outside of the author’s framework, and extraneous to the positive and purely historical method to which he confined himself . . . . It is under the influence of these impressions that Mgr M. read M. Loisy’s manuscript; he, no more than many other eminent minds, hadn’t the faintest suspicion of a latent, still less an intended, heterodoxy. It was later, when M. Loisy had definitively clarified his intentions, that one could interpret L’Évangile et l’Église in light of subsequent writings by the same author and discover in them the germ of the theological excesses for which he had been rightly reproached.76 75. Ibid., 621. 76. Letter from Canon Birot to Mgr Lacroix, 1919, Fonds Lacroix, BN, Naf 24404, fo 546-549-543.

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Courageously, in the preface to Abbé de Lacger’s biography of Mgr Mignot, Abbé Birot continued to maintain that it was possible to read L’Évangile et l’Église in an orthodox manner. It was perfectly possible for a Catholic to accept the conclusions of the little red book if one did not mind seeing in it no more than a purely historical discussion in which the author, by a methodological bias, had refused to introduce a theological affirmation. “A simple parenthesis, a declaration of two lines” on the part of Loisy proclaiming “the faith he had as a Christian and as a priest, would have sufficed to reassure minds and to dissipate any ambiguity.”77

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Th e M isu n d e r sto o d Fo re ru n n e r

With time, yet another strategy appeared to explain Mignot’s behavior. The review of Abbé de Lacger’s book in the Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France began with a question indicative of everyday Catholic opinion in the mid-1930s. “Is it not problematic to claim to classify Mignot, certainly endowed with ‘broad intellectual learning’ but ‘so bitterly discussed, so passionately denounced and attacked’ in the course of his episcopate, among the Teachers of a generation and to claim to use this prelate as an example for the faithful and for the clergy?” How could one explain and pardon “his more than daring, imprudent, and persevering contacts with ex-Abbé Loisy and ex-Père Hyacinthe?”78 Responding to a question about the timeliness of a biography about the archbishop, Mgr Baudrillart had addressed a similar warning to Abbé de Lacger: In my humble opinion, Mgr Mignot cannot be classed among ‘the Teachers of a generation.’ Teacher, he had the desire to be and he never was. . . . Very rarely did I see Mgr Mignot and he disappointed me every time: to me, his 77. Lacger, Mgr Mignot, xiv. 78. Review by Reginald Biron, Revue de l’histoire de l’Eglise de France 20 (1934): 654–55.

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mind appeared neither apt nor precise; aspirations, but confused. . . . If you tell the entire truth it will not be very flattering for this respectable bishop and, if you do not say it, you will mislead people into seeing a guide in someone who could not be one.79

Despite his cautions, the reviewer was more optimistic. He suggested that reading the biography could resolve the perplexity of “superficial, ignorant, or backward minds.” In fact, he claimed, “in spite of his gaps and audacities,” Mignot “really looks like an innovator and forerunner. As such he was condemned not to be understood by the masses.” The theme of the misunderstood forerunner had already been introduced by Canon Birot in the book’s preface. In it, he explained that if it had been necessary to wait so long for a biography of Mignot, it was because he “looked defeated” just after his death. “All the causes to which his great soul was devoted, seemed lost. . . . But there are necessary resurrections. So that full justice could be given to our dear and venerated archbishop, it was necessary to give him the time to be right. Fifteen years have passed over his grave, and what a change already!”80 The situation of the Church, as much in its relationship with the Republic as in its internal life, showed that ideas and events evolved in ways anticipated by Mignot. If one rereads his writings . . . , one would seek in vain . . . for a series of more complete, more certain, more topical lessons, for a teaching better adapted to that difficult turning point in Catholic thought formed by the transposition between the somewhat languishing traditionalism of the nineteenth century and the brilliant and daring renewal due to the meeting of sacred science and contemporary science; no episcopal pen of that time signed a doctrinal collection comparable to his.81

79. Mgr Baudrillart to de Lacger, 16 August 1932, ADA, 1D 5-13. 80. Louis Birot, “Preface” to de Lacger, Mgr Mignot, x–xi. 81. Ibid., xi.

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Ten years earlier, in a letter to Abbé Naudet, Abbé Birot had been even more biting in explaining why he did not want to begin a biography of Mignot:

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I do not think it possible to tell the truth. Mgr Mignot is only interesting for the points that differentiate him from other prelates and for those about which he was not in agreement with Rome. One can only show his clearsightedness in proving him right. And one can prove him right only in explaining how others were wrong, and how the leadership’s officially received opinions are camouflaged and artificial. . . . He always failed, even in supporting the best side.82

The fact that one could, in 1933, publicly claim this idea, also revealed the ground covered. Just after the archbishop’s death, La croix’s obituary evoked a constant concern about “being progressive at the same time as conservative, with all the advantages and inconveniences of judging oneself forty or fifty years ahead of one’s contemporaries.” The end of the sentence was a citation from a passage of Lettres sur les études ecclésiastiques in which Mignot evoked the difficulty that scholars encountered in getting their discoveries recognized. In private correspondence, Mignot applied this thought to himself and his coworkers. In a letter to Baron von Hügel, he wrote, “in a few years our ideas will be those of the Church, accepted by everyone, but in the meanwhile, we are the ones who take the beating!”83 In the hands of La croix, however, this attitude was grounds for severe criticism. To presume to thus anticipate future opinion was to have a very exaggerated confidence in one’s own intelligence, to show a bit too much pride and a lack of humility. To claim to anticipate certain kinds of future developments in the Church might have been objectionable, but to anticipate the pon82. Letter to Abbé Naudet, January 1920, in “La correspondance de Mgr Mignot et de l’abbé Birot avec l’abbé Paul Naudet,” Bulletin de litterature ecclesiastique (1973): 211. 83. Mgr Mignot to the Baron von Hügel, 3 January 1903, ADA, 1D 5-11.

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tifical condemnation of Modernism was a sure sign of orthodoxy. In his effort to exonerate Mignot of Modernism, Abbé Rivière claimed that Mignot’s 1897 article devoted to Auguste Sabatier’s book Esquisse d’une philosophie de la religion d’après la psychologie et l’histoire attacked as “the sum of religious subjectivism containing all the positions described by the Pascendi encyclical.”84 Mignot’s criticisms of Sabatier were, therefore, “a preparation and a distant introduction to the pontifical act.”85 Mignot himself enjoyed underlining this anticipation as clear proof of his perfect orthodoxy in the preface to L’Église et la critique in 1910. “I hope that readers will not be too surprised to learn,” he noted, “that there is a bishop pointing out ten years ahead, in this book, the errors that the supreme authority of the Church would later condemn. And for those still surprised by the whims and injustices of opinion, it may seem amazing to learn that this bishop was precisely the one that certain publicists presented as too indulgent for this movement.”86

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C o n clusi o n

At the end of this journey during which we have analyzed how Mignot’s contemporaries justified the support he lent to Abbé Loisy, we are more capable of answering the question about how to situate the bishop in the Modernist haze. Indisputably, “no other than he had fathomed and felt the obscurities of the contemporary soul, sister of his own, its doubts, its contradictions, its demands.”87 Persuaded that each generation brought “its share of truths, errors, biases, intentions, desires, intellectual needs that differentiate it from earlier ones,”88 he 84. Rivière, Le modernisme, 57. The article to which Rivière referred was Mignot, “L’évolutionnisme religieux, à propos d’un ouvrage récent,” Le correspondant (10 April 1897), reprinted in L’Eglise et la critique, 3ff. 85. Lacger, Mgr Mignot, 46. 86. Mgr Mignot, L’Eglise et la critique, vii. 87. Lacger, Mgr Mignot, 21–22. 88. Préface to Polyglotte (1899), viii.

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waited for the Church to do for the twentieth century what it had always done: to “extricate Catholic faith from the systems and opinions that were more or less accredited by the old philosophical and theological schools, those that could have been in conflict with new scientific discoveries.”89 As he explained it to his priests during a retreat: “True Modernism is the adaptation of nova to vetera, new methods to immutable dogma, to the problems of criticism and history, to economic and social questions that were not asked in the past.”90 Mignot clearly endorsed Modernism thus understood. What did this appropriate Modernism imply for theology? Mignot began by drawing a distinction. “Theology,” he insisted, “should not be confused with Revelation. It is a human system, which consists of grouping, framing, linking together Catholic and Christian truths. It is the science of Revelation.”91 This theology was necessarily biblical, and Abbé Loisy’s work seemed to Mignot the indispensable precondition for the elaboration of it in the Church of his day. As a scientific, historical critical approach to texts, it was just short of orthodoxy. The central problem of the Modernist crisis stemmed from competing ways of articulating the relationship between dogma and critical input. Mignot denied that there was only one solution possible, and he deplored the Roman attitude. “We used to believe,” he said, “that to be a good Catholic it was enough to believe all the truths that God revealed and that the Church teaches us. . . . Now it seems that we must do more, that the Church tells us not only what we must believe, but how we must think.”92 True orthodoxy, as distinguished from the Roman attitude, lay in tradition, which could only be defined in the long term. Time had to be allowed to sort things out; no measure 89. Lacger, Mgr Mignot, 85. 90. Mgr Mignot, Journal, September 1908. 91. Mgr Mignot, Journal, September 1908. 92. Mgr Mignot to Baron von Hügel, 7 January 1908.

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of authority could make the problem disappear. To believe as they did in Rome was “to imagine that we have saved everything, when we really have our heads hidden in the sand like ostriches. . . . The Church is not just up against Freemasonry but, much more seriously, against history . . . . The Church can be saved neither by ignorance nor by idleness.”93 Mignot was a man perfectly in tune with the problems caused for Catholic culture by contemporary culture because he belonged to both and because he wanted to allow the Church to implement the renewal he considered necessary. His actions during the Modernist crisis can be explained by the intersection of his temperament, his experience, and his intellectual method. Temperamentally, Mignot was a man in whom moderation reigned and who feared nothing more than being pulled toward extremes. His experience was that of the French Church of his childhood, a Church attached to local customs and capable of expressing its independence with regard to Rome when necessary. His intellectual method combined historical scholarship and appeals to the Church life of the past without, however, denying the irreversible character of some developments. In this sense, Mignot was the “true Erasmus of Modernism.”94 Invoking the patronage of Erasmus in relation to Mignot is to emphasize three indisputable aspects of his personality. First, of course, was his irenical nature, his desire in intellectual debate to allow tolerance and respect to prevail, his faithfulness in friendship. Loisy’s greatest homage to him emphasized this aspect of his character. “He was well loved by those who knew him. He himself was loving and admirably devoted.”95 Similarly, Abbé Lugan noted in the few pages he devoted to his memory of the archbishop: “Not blinded by the illusion of an 93. Mgr Mignot to Baron von Hügel, 7 January 1908, ADA, 1D 5-11. 94. J.-M. Mayeur, La séparation des églises et de l’état (Paris: Julliard, coll. Archives, 1966; nouvelle édition, Paris: Éditions ouvrières, 1991), 33. 95. Loisy, Mémoires, 3: 354.

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impossible reconciliation of diehard tendencies, he applied himself to narrowing the gulf that separated believers and nonbelievers, Catholics and dissidents. Couldn’t all of them put up with each other, at least for good faith and for the love of truth, in mutual respect and reciprocal esteem? He wanted to be an instrument of bringing people together, a minister of pacification.”96 Second, the comparison with Erasmus places his audacities in the context of his general submission to authority, his rejection of any willful revolt. His approach was not understood, and “he certainly suffered a great deal, but he also suffered gently.”97 If he was marginalized during his life, it was because his colleagues in the episcopate and Roman authority were incapable of respecting his appeals for an honest discussion of the problems that the world’s transformations caused for contemporary Catholics. Too many leaders in the Church failed to acknowledge the modifications of an intellectual environment largely determined by philosophical and scientific pretensions that promised right reason and independent thought. Third, the comparison with Erasmus emphasizes Mignot’s concern for a theology free of the formalist meanderings of Scholasticism, which obscured faith more than they nourished it. Mignot well “knew how nimbly [the truth] flees our grasp, [and he] had a spontaneous aversion for all irrational absolutisms . . . that deny the obvious complexity of ideas and things.”98 To borrow Loisy’s expression, Mignot mistrusted “novelty that takes itself for truth” and “routine that takes itself for tradition.”99 And because we began our discussion with Henri Bremond, we willingly give him the last word: “As a man of the Church, Mgr Mignot is and will remain for the historians of the future, the living an96. Lacger, Eudoxe-Irénée Mignot (1918), 22. 97. Loisy, Mémoires, 1: 354. 98. Abbé Lugan, L’esprit et le cœur de Mgr Mignot (1918), 4–5. 99. Loisy, Mémoires, 1:102.

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tithesis and the condemnation not only of ‘the jackals’ that he cursed so often, but also, and even more of Pius X, that stubborn and duplicitous pontiff. . . . The Church of Jesus is clearly not that of Pius X; why would it not be that of Mgr Mignot? By what right should one despair of a Church frequented by such men?”100

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100. Leblanc [Bremond], Un clerc qui n’a pas trahi, 97–98.

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index

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Abell, Peter, 17n1 Agnosticism, 46, 78, 93, 121, 122 Albert, Prince of Monaco, 103, 105n12, 108 d’Alès, Adhèmar, 83n45 Alfaric, Prosper, 152n4 Amann, Émile, 170 Apologetics, 1, 12, 17, 21, 55, 79, 155, 157, 165–66, 168, 177–78 Atheism, 1, 97 Aubert, Roger, 138, 140n31, 144n38 Bailey, F. G., 34n56, 39 Bardy, Gustave, 85n49 Barmann, Lawrence, 4n4, 6n8, 8n9, 20n12, 95n5, 114n27, 115n30, 123n4, 144n38 Batiffol, Pierre, 5, 9–10, 12, 19, 40, 42n5, 71–89, 99, 120, 132–33, 141–42, 149, 168, 175 Baudin, Émile, 144n38 Baudrillart, Alfred, 179 Baylay, Atwell, 75n16 Bécamel, Marcel, 82n41 Beckford, James, 17n1 Bédier, Jospeh, 125n6 Benedict XV, Pope, 166 Beretta, Francesco, 136n24 Bible, 1–2, 4, 6–7, 13, 17, 21–22, 24, 30, 42n5, 45, 50, 53, 59, 61, 63, 65–66, 74n11, 75, 79, 83–84, 86n51, 87–88, 101, 112, 120, 123, 126, 131, 136, 138, 154–57, 160–61, 165–67, 170n51, 171, 173, 183, 178 Bickell, Gustav, 160–61 Billot, Louis, 21, 83n45 Biron, Reginald, 179n78 Birot, Louis, 44n9, 170n49, 178–81

Blanchette, Olivia, 75n17 Blondel, Maurice, 48, 55n42, 60, 62, 75, 158n21 Bok, Sissela, 34 Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, 162 Bouyssonie, Amédée, 59n54 Bremond, Henri, 5n6, 10–12, 72, 114, 115n29, 120n38, 122–49, 151, 154, 155n13, 170n49, 185, 186n100 Brochard, Victor, 46 Broglie, Paul de, 44n9, 166 Brucker, Jospeh, 165 Burghardt, Walter, 3 Burke, Ronald, 112n26, 115n30, 146n44 Cabriéres, François Marie Antole de, 167 Calvet, Jean, 77n24 Church history. See History Colin, Pierre, 4n4, 47–48, 64n69 Comte, Auguste, 153 Couchoud, P.-L., 159n26, 167n41 Coulange, Louis (Turmel), 26 Cousin, Victor, 64 Daly, Gabriel, 5, 110n22, 126n8 Decherf, Dominique, 3n2 Delbos, Victor, 48 DeRossi, Giovanni, 74–75 Descartes, René, 43 De Solages, Bruno, 24n19 Development, 2, 9n10, 12, 52, 54–55, 57, 58n52, 61, 63, 75, 81–84, 86n51, 114n28, 155, 166, 173–75, 181, 184 Doctrine, 5, 9, 11–12, 20, 30, 38, 57, 63, 78, 81–82, 84, 99–100, 110, 115, 117–19,

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Doctrine (cont.) 123–24, 137–38, 143–45, 148–49, 151, 154, 158, 72, 177–78, 180 Dogma, 2, 7, 9–10, 12–13, 17–22, 30, 32–33, 35, 37n62, 38, 49–50, 52–53, 55, 61–62, 81–83, 86–87, 105, 111, 117n34, 119, 123, 129–30, 136–38, 143–44, 146–48, 152, 157, 171n55, 172–75, 178, 183 Douais, Marie-Célestin, 44n9 Duchesne, Louis, 19, 42n5, 46, 49, 54, 65–66, 75–76, 82, 85–86, 88, 136, 141–43, 166, 175 Duclos, Paul, 78n26 Dumay, Charles, 103–4, 105n12, 108 Dumoulin, Christian, 44n8 Dupin, Antoine (Turmel), 19n6, 22–24, 27, 29, 31–32, 35–36

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Erasmus, Desiderius, 184–85 L’Évangile et l’Église, 12, 59, 61, 62n65, 66, 78–79, 105, 109–11, 116, 118, 125, 127–28, 150, 167–69, 173–74, 176–79 Exegesis. See Bible Fénelon, François, 162 Fernessole, Pierre, 71, 85n48 Firman (Loisy), 59 Fogazzaro, Antonio, 65n72 Fontaine, Julien, 22, 65 Fouilloux, Etienne, 168n42 Frémont, Georges, 44n9 Gallerand, Hippolyte (Turmel), 36 Gard, Roger Martin du, 42n5, 52, 54, 55n40, 56 Gaudeau, B., 19 Gayraud, Hippolyte, 61–64, 66n75 Gertz, Kurt-Peter, 18n2, 19n9 Gibson, William, 50n24 Gilbert, G. Nigel, 17n1 Goichot, Émile, 102n8, 134n22, 136n25, 138n28, 144n38, 145 Gouhier, Henri, 42n5 Grandmaison, Léonce de, 5, 175 Gratry, Alphonse, 171n52 Greisch, Jean, 6n7 Guillibert, Félix, 153

Harnack, Adolf, 118, 178 Hébert, Marcel, 6, 7, 12–13, 24, 28, 41–63, 65–68, 74, 103, 107, 114, 135 Heresy, 1, 4, 19–20, 22, 71, 88, 103, 157, 162, 173, 175, 178 Herzog, Guillaume (Turmel), 19n6, 22–24, 27, 29, 31–32, 35–36, 39n64 Heterodoxy. See Heresy Hill, Harvey, 4n4, 6n8, 8n9, 20n12, 95n5, 102nn8–9, 111nn23–24, 112n25, 115n30, 123n4, 125n7, 126n8, 127n12, 129nn15–16, 136n24 Historical consciousness, 3, 12–13 Historical criticism/historiography, 2, 5–11, 21, 33, 43n5, 45, 49, 53, 59, 61, 63, 66, 75n15, 76, 81, 121, 127–28, 133, 141, 155, 159, 165, 177–78, 183–84 Historical relativity, 12–13, 112, 118 Historical theology, 23, 39, 44, 155 History/historian, 1–4, 6–10, 12–13, 17, 22, 30–31, 33–35, 37n62, 42, 44, 49, 52, 61, 65–67, 74–76, 81–83, 85–88, 101, 112, 114, 120–21, 133, 138, 141, 149, 154, 162, 166–67, 174–75, 177–79, 183–85 Hogan, John, 44, 45n11, 49, 55, 59, 73, 99n7, 154 Hogarth, Henry, 126n9 Holy Office, 22, 24, 61, 116 Houtin, Albert, 4n4, 5–8, 12–13, 18, 24–25, 28–29, 32, 36–37, 40–46, 49, 51n29, 52nn30–31, 54n39, 55, 56nn43–45, 60n61, 66–68, 72–73, 93–121, 122, 124, 133, 135, 142, 146n44, 147–48, 165 Howard, Thomas, 20 d’Hulst, Maurice, 44n9, 46–47, 75, 100, 120n38, 134–36, 143n35, 153, 166 Index, 2, 23, 35, 60, 82, 84, 85n48, 116, 151, 162 James, William, 65n72 Jerome, 77, 160 Jodock, Darrell, 5n5 Joiniot, Alfred, 99 Kant, Kantianism, 6, 25, 44, 46–50, 57–58, 61, 63–64, 65n74, 67

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i n d e x      197

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Klein, Félix, 44n9 Kurtz, Lester, 113n26 Lacger, Louis de, 156, 157nn17–20, 158nn21–23, 159, 162–63, 168, 170n49, 174–76, 179, 180nn79–81, 182n85, 87, 183n89, 185n96 Lachelier, Jules, 64 Lacroix, Lucien, 169n45, 178 Lagrange, Marie-Joseph, 5, 19, 40, 71, 78, 80, 84n46, 85n48, 87, 132, 140, 149, 175 Lagrée, Michael, 153 Laillet, Claude, 39n64 Lamennais, Felicité de, 153 Lapanouse, G. de, 150 Laplanche, François, 21n13, 26n28, 44n9, 72n5 Leblanc, Sylvain (Bremond), 123, 139, 151n2, 186n100 Lebreton, Jules, 85n48 Le Camus, Émile, 166 Lecanuet, Édouard, 156, 164–66 Leclerq, Henri, 74n13 Le Hir, Alfred, 154 Leo XIII, Pope, 102–3, 105n12, 165, 171n52 Leroux, E., 83 Le Roy, Edouard, 65n72 Leroy, Eugène-Bernard, 24n21 Levine, Peter, 27 Lilley, Alfred, 60n59 Loyson, Hyacinthe, 179 Lugan, Alphonse, 184, 185n98 Lyell, Alfred, 161n29 Lyman, Stanford M., 29n37, 35n59, 37n61 Mabillon, Jean, 162 Malebranche, Nicolas, 43, 153 Manning, Henry Edward, 162 Margival, Henry, 42n5, 79 Marlé, René, 66n77 Mathieu, François-Désiré, 102, 104–6, 108, 111, 169 Mayeur, J.-M., 184n94 McNeill, J. J., 48n18 Meignan, Guillaume, 135–36, 165, 170 Ménégoz, Eugène, 66 Mercier, Désiré, 86

Mignot, Eudoxe Irénée, 10–13, 40, 44n9, 47, 60, 78–79, 105, 109, 120n38, 134–35, 137–44, 148, 150–62, 164–86 Modernism, 1–14, 17–19, 21, 23–24, 27, 30–32, 34, 38, 40–42, 47–49, 62n65, 65, 67–68, 71–72, 74, 77–78, 82, 85, 89, 93–95, 105, 110, 116–17, 119–22, 124, 129–32, 134–44, 146, 148–51, 156–57, 161, 164, 166, 168, 171–72, 174–76, 182–84 Modernity, 1, 5, 8–12, 18, 41, 48, 59, 71, 73, 74n13, 80–81, 107–8, 111–12, 114, 117–19, 121n41, 130–31, 135–37, 149 Montagnes, Bernard, 71n2 Montagnini, Carlo, 71n3 Mourret, Fernand, 66n77 Munier, Henri, 98 Myers, Edward, 80n34 Mysticism, Mystic, 37n62, 62n65, 68n83, 115, 123–24, 126–31, 134, 136–38, 142–49, 158 Narfon, Julien de, 82n41, 168n44 Naudet, Paul, 181 Newman, John Henry, 76, 81–83, 138, 154, 155n13, 157, 162 Nourry, Émile, 124, 139n30, 144n36 O’Connell, Marvin, 4n4, 102n9 Orthodoxy, 9, 22, 46–48, 51–52, 54–56, 71, 79, 84, 87–88, 96, 102–3, 109, 117, 124, 129, 132, 136–37, 141–45, 149, 151, 161–63, 167, 169, 172–74, 177, 179, 182–83 Pascendi dominici gregis, 1, 2, 5, 71, 72n7, 121–22, 131, 138, 182 Perraud, Adolphe, 171 Petre, Maude, 137n26 Philosophy, 1, 6–7, 24, 42n5, 43–51, 53, 55, 58n52, 61, 63–67, 79, 88, 93, 122, 129, 153, 155, 171, 174, 183, 185 Pioli, Giovanni, 41 Pius IV, Pope, 101, 111 Pius X, Pope, 4–5, 122, 129–30, 132–33, 147, 161, 168–69, 171, 186 Placher, William C., 58n52 Positivism/positivist, 25, 29, 40, 47, 63, 153 Portalié, Eugène, 18, 19n6, 22, 32, 78, 80

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Poulat, Émile, 3, 4n3, 5, 6n6, 25n25, 31n45, 41n1, 66n76, 73n7, 80n34, 93nn1–2, 110n22, 115nn29–30, 120n40, 122nn1–2, 124n5, 125n6, 126n8, 10, 127n12, 128n13, 129n14, 130nn17–18, 133n26, 134n22, 138n28, 139, 141nn32–33, 142n34, 144, 145n42, 148n45 Progress, 61, 84, 122, 128, 152, 160 Progressives/progressivism, 2, 5, 8–11, 13, 55, 122, 132, 165–66, 181 Protestantism, 1, 30, 47–48, 52, 61, 65n74, 71, 78, 85, 118, 152, 174–75

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Rationalism/rationalist, 2, 5–7, 9–11, 47, 58, 71, 122, 165 Reinach, Salomon, 42n4 Renan, Ernest, 27, 127, 154 Reuss, Edouard, 21, 27 Rey, Abel, 47–48, 51 Richard, François, 22–23, 46, 56, 60, 95–96, 103, 109, 116, 167 Rivière, Jean, 9–10, 19, 26, 36, 38, 40, 65, 67n82, 72–73, 74n10, 14, 75n15, 76–78, 80, 82–89, 122, 123n3, 132–33, 135, 148, 168–70, 182 Robidoux, Réjean, 55n40 Roure, Lucien, 59 Sabatier, Auguste, 61–62, 66, 102, 182 Sabatier, Paul, 158n21 Saltet, Louis, 23, 32, 85n48, 89, 169n47 Sardella, Louis-Pierre, 11–12, 13n13 Sartiaux, Félix, 5–8, 12–13, 18, 19n9, 20, 24–40, 52, 66–68 Scholasticism, 1, 21, 33, 37n62, 44–45, 46n13, 49, 51, 58–59, 60n59, 63, 154, 171, 185 Scott, Martin B., 29n37, 35n59, 37n61 Scripture. See Bible Simon, Richard, 79 Socialism, 51, 60, 63, 65 Stock-Morton, Phyllis, 25n27 Sykes, Stephen, 110n22

Talar, C. J. T., 8n9, 20n12, 110n22, 114nn27–28, 115, 126n8, 144n38, 176n70 Théobald, Christoph, 647, 8, 9n11, 10, 13 Theology/theologian, 1–3, 5–11, 13, 21, 26n28, 32–33, 39, 43–45, 53, 55, 58–59, 62n65, 72n7, 74n11, 76–78, 80–82, 83n45, 84–86, 89, 99, 107, 111, 118, 121, 123, 128n13, 131, 135, 137–38, 149, 153–55, 157, 166, 168, 171–75, 177–79, 183, 185 Thomas/Thomism, 47–48, 57–58, 153 Thomas, Jacques, 74 Toner, P. J., 81n38 Tradition/traditionalism, 2, 4, 12, 30, 33, 49, 52–54, 58n53, 62, 71, 73–74, 77, 79–80, 84, 101, 109, 111–12, 127, 135–38, 153, 167, 172–73, 175, 178, 180, 183, 185 Turmel, Joseph, 4n4, 5–8, 12–13, 17–40, 44–45, 49, 62n65, 68, 73, 80n36, 89, 119, 135 Tyrrell, George, 17, 19n8, 62n65, 140, 172n56 Val, Merry del, 71 Vandervelde, Émile, 60 Vanot, Jean, 80n36 Vatican, 1–2, 34, 93, 103–4, 105n12, 121, 129 Vatican I, 60 Vatican II, 2–3 Vidler, Alec, 18, 66, 67n79, 119n36 Vigouroux, Fulcran, 155n14, 165 Virgoulay, René, 55n42 Vives y Tuto, Joseph Calasanctius, 60n59 Voltaire, 27, 142 Von Hügel, Friedrich, 54, 59, 88, 120n38, 156, 159–64, 169, 170n50, 181, 183n92, 184n93 Waché, Brigitte, 74n12, 136n29 Wansbrough, Henry, 87n56 Whale, Winifred, 6n8, 41n1 Zuber, Valentine, 3n1

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