The Resurgence of Integrism the Action of the Holy Office Against René Draguet

The Resurgence of Integrism The Action of the Holy Office against René Draguet

Ward DE PRIL KULeuven

I. INTRODUCTION

On July 4, 1942, the Belgian Archbishop Ernest Van Roey received a letter from the Holy Office, instructing him – without any further explana- tion – to prudently remove René Draguet (1896-1980) from his teaching duties at the Louvain Faculty of Theology1. Draguet, a secular priest, theologian and orientalist, had been teaching fundamental theology – at that time called dogmaticageneralis– since 1927. One day earlier, Van Roey had received the instruction from the Holy Office that the Catholic Univer- sity of Leuven had to deprive Vincenze Buffon, a former student of the Faculty of Theology, of his doctor’s title2. Buffon’s dissertation on Paolo Sarpi – written under the direction of Draguet – had been “condemned” by the Holy Office two weeks earlier (June 17, 1942)3. These decisions hit the University of Louvain very hard: one of its professors and one of its doctors were denounced by the Holy Office. Some months earlier, Louvain theologians had been startled when Louis Charlier’s Essaisurleproblèmethéologique4 had been put on the Index, together with Marie-Dominique Chenu’s UneÉcoledethéologie:Le Saulchoir5. Charlier was a professor at the Dominican studiumin Louvain. It was common knowledge that he shared the outspoken views of Draguet on the nature and method of theology. Ever since the Essaisurlepro- blèmethéologiquehad come out in late 1938, rumours were circulating that Draguet was its real author. The close ties of both Charlier and Buffon as “disciples” of Draguet seem to make of him the key figure in the sanctions issued by the Holy Office in 1942. The case of the Louvain theologians was

1. Archives Archdiocese of Malines (AAM), VanRoeyCollection-IV,5c, Marchetti- Selvaggiani to Van Roey, July 4, 1942. 2. AAM, VanRoeyCollection-IV,5b, Marchetti-Selvaggiani to Van Roey, July 3, 1942. 3. V. BUFFON, ChiesadiCristoeChiesaromananelleopereenelleletteredifraPaolo Sarpi (Dissertationes ad gradum doctoris in Facultate Theologica consequendum conscriptae. Series I, tomus 95), Leuven, Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis, 1941. 4. L. CHARLIER, Essaisurleproblèmethéologique (Bibliothèque Orientations. Section scientifique, 1), Thuillies, Ramgal, 1938. 5. M.-D. CHENU, UneÉcoledethéologie:LeSaulchoir, Kain-lez-Tournai – Étiolles, Le Saulchoir, 1937.

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inseparable from the vicissitudes of Marie-Dominique Chenu and Le Saulchoir. In what follows, I will try to sketch the complex relations between the sanctions against Draguet, Buffon, Charlier and Chenu in their broader historical-theological context of theological renewal.

II. CONTEXT

The 1930s are of crucial importance in the history of 20th-century Catholic theology. In this decade, the foundations were laid of the theological developments in the 1940s and 1950s, sanctioned at the Second Vatican Council: the discovery of the importance of history (Lieuxthéo- logiquesenacte) and the believing subject for theology (Chenu), the reform of ecclesiology and nascent ecumenical reflection (Congar) and the recovery of the broad and deep Catholic tradition (de Lubac)6. One of the most directly relevant factors in explaining this revival and renewal is the changed ecclesiastical situation, “the waning of the anti-modernist zealotry that had nearly smothered Catholic intellectual life in the two decades after the condemnation [of modernism] in 1907”7. In 1929, the first historical study of modernism had appeared: Lemodernismedansl’Égliseof Jean Rivière8. The work was still very apologetic: Rivière wanted to show that modernism was a reality and not a myth created by the imagination of the Magis- terium9. But it was important, because modernism was dealt with as some- thing that belonged to the past and was an object of historical study. The last chapter, entitled “Fin du modernisme”, was quite clear in that regard. Here we find Rivière stating that “il est permis de dire sans témérité que la phase du modernisme aigu est maintenant close”10. Two years later and in response to Rivière’s study, Chenu considered the time ripe for a historical-theological reflection on the modernist crisis11. In Lesensetles leçonsd’unecrisereligieuse12, Chenu approached modernism as a crisis

6. J.A. KOMONCHAK, ReturningfromExile:CatholicTheologyinthe1930s,in G. BAUM (ed.), TheTwentiethCentury:ATheologicalOverview, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 1999, p. 45. 7. Ibid., p. 36. 8. J. RIVIÈRE, Lemodernismedansl’Église:Étuded’histoirereligieusecontemporaine, Paris, Letouzey, 1929. 9. Cf. R. DRAGUET, review of Lemodernismedansl’Église, byJ. Rivière, in Revue d’histoireecclésiastique26 (1930) 427-430, p. 427. 10. Quoted in P. COLIN, L’audaceetlesoupçon:Lacrisedumodernismedanslecatho- licismefrançais1893-1914(Anthropologiques), Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1997, p. 465. 11. In the academic year 1933-1934, Chenu studied the modernist crisis in the context of his course Histoiredesdoctrineschrétiennes. See C. BAUER, OrtswechselderTheologie: M.-DominiqueChenuimKontextseinerProgrammschrift“UneÉcoledethéologie:Le Saulchoir”(Tübinger Perspektiven zur Pastoraltheologie und Religionspädagogik), vol. 1, Berlin, Lit, 2010, p. 227. 12. M.-D. CHENU, Lesensetlesleçonsd’unecrisereligieuse, in LaVieIntellectuelle (1931) 356-380.

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of growth for the Church: after grammar in the 9th century and dialectics in the 12th, history proposed to become theology’s handmaiden in the 20th century. For Chenu, the task of post-“modernist” theology consisted in “reap- ing the fruits” of the historical method13. The idea that the time was right to rescue for the Church whatever was of value in modernism was clearly shared by Draguet and Charlier, especially with regard to the application of the historical-critical method to Christian data14. This interest in history has certainly been one of the most prominent constituent parts of the theological renewal from the mid-1930s onwards15.Yet, this historical orientation could give rise to quite divergent forms of renewal, as is proved by the concrete projects of Draguet and Charlier and that of Chenu. I will briefly discuss these projects before examining the opposition they raised in Roman circles, leading up to the condemnations of 1942.

1. TheTheologicalRenewalofRenéDraguetandLouisCharlier Draguet started his academic career as a historian of Christian doctrine. Especially his study of the monophysitism of the 5th and 6th cen- turies instilled into his mind a profound sensitivity for the importance of the historical, literary and grammatical context of a doctrine together with an abhorrence of any dogmatic-apologetic reading of the Christian past16. By appointing Draguet to the chair of fundamental theology in 1927, rector Paulin Ladeuze hoped to integrate the results of historical sciences into theology. In the following years Draguet developed a specific theological theory in an attempt to respect the legitimate claims of both faith (dogma) and facts (history). He aimed at addressing anew and in an orthodox way the problems history posed to theology since the crisis of modernism.

13. Cf. C.F. POTWOROWSKI, ContemplationandIncarnation:TheTheologyofMarie- DominiqueChenu(McGill Queen’s Studies in the History of Ideas, 33),Montreal, McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2001, pp. 101-102. 14. Cf. G. FLYNN, YvesCongar’sVisionoftheChurchinaWorldofUnbelief, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, p. 32. 15. Cf. Chenu’s foreword in C. GEFFRÉ, Unnouvelâgedelathéologie(Cogitatio fidei, 68), Paris, Cerf, 1972, p. 8: “Entre tant de réflexions et de suggestions, je m’attacherai volon- tiers à la méthode historique, comme dénominateur commun des problèmes et des novations, tels que je les ai rencontrés, reconnus, énoncés, tels que, aujourd’hui, je les ressens, parfois comme en impasse. Des souvenirs précis me remontent en mémoire, épisodes minuscules de l’itinéraire de la théologie qui va de la crise moderniste à l’ultime sursaut avant liquidation, lorsque fut dénoncée en haut lieu la nouvelle théologie en 1946-1950, avec l’encyclique Humanigeneris”. 16. See especially his dissertation: Juliend’HalicarnasseetsacontroverseavecSévère d’Antiochesurl’incorruptibilitéducorpsduChrist:Étuded’histoirelittéraireetdoctrinale suiviedesFragmentsdogmatiquesdeJulien,textesyriaqueettraductiongrecque (Universi- tas catholica Lovaniensis. Dissertationes ad gradum magistri in Faculta Theologica consequendum conscriptae. Series II, tomus 12), Leuven, 1924.

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Most importantly, the results of scientific history turned out to be incon- sistent with theological claims on the apostolic origin of dogmatic and institutional Catholicism. Instead of manipulating historical records, Draguet urged to take account of the importance of history in unfolding Revelation. Historical facts show us that the revealed was only handed on to the Church in the state of principles that had to be specified later on in a process of dogmatic development. This reality was indicated by Draguet as the “law” of revelation17. An intervention of the Magisterium explaining the exact meaning of the revealed principles is thus necessary. Theology as the “science of revelation” should therefore take the teaching of the Magisterium as its object and thus develop into a positive theology of the Magisterium (théologiepositivedumagistère). In reaction to “rationalist” Neo-Scholastic theology, Draguet put strong emphasis on faith in theology, more precisely, faith in the Magisterium. In respect for the mysterious and transcendent nature of revelation, he distrusted the possibilities of human reason – historical but also philosophical – in obtaining “scientific” knowledge in this field: while dogmatic development, i.e. “the law of revelation”, disables the historical research of the theologian, its speculative endeavors are crip- pled by the analogical character of the revealed tenets. Consequently only the Magisterium can tell us infallibly whatexactly has been revealed and how it has to be interpreted. In several ways, Draguet’s plea for theological renewal was stimulated by his historical orientation. First of all, his insight as a doctrinal historian into the conflict between the results of historical research and the truths of faith necessitated a reconsideration of the theology of revelation and of the sources of faith, and a redefinition of the nature, object and method of theology so as to arrive at a positive theology of the Magisterium. In line with the Fathers, theologians had to redirect their research towards revelation in its historical process of unfolding by the Church, which enjoys dogmatic authority. In addition to this, special mention should be made of the impact of his historical-contextual study of the theology of Saint Thomas. This research showed the historicity of Thomas’s theology by pointing to the influence of the historical context on it. Draguet con- cluded, for instance, that Aquinas applied the Aristotelic notion of science only in a loose analogical way to theology, out of opportunistic reasons, because the Aristotelianism enjoyed great prestige in the 13th century. Draguet used the findings of his Aquinas research to attack the priority given to theological conclusions in the then prevailing Neo-Scholastic theology or Konklusionstheologie: Neo-Scholastic theologians had no right to claim the authority of Aquinas18. The strategy to attack Neo-Scholasticism

17. Archives de l’Université Catholique de Louvain (AUCL), Cours, CII 1233: Course notes R. Aubert, 1939 [pp. 130-131]. 18. He described this as a “centrifugal” movement with regard to the revealed Given. AUCL CII 4335: Course notes G. Thils, 1935 [pp. 11-16].

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by denying its alleged fidelity to Thomas’s concept of theology was unheard of at that time and influenced theologians like Louis Charlier and Jean- François Bonnefoy19. Charlier largely adopted Draguet’s project of reorientating theology towards revelation, studied in the light of the actual teaching of the Mag- isterium. Draguet had still been fairly discrete about his “revolutionary” ideas, but Charlier was not afraid of publishing them in his Essaisurle problèmethéologique. For Charlier, the renewal of theology meant that theology redirects itself towards its true object, Revelation, and defines its proper nature and methods departing from this object20. Draguet stuck to a more traditional notion of revelation as a whole of principles that are explicated in the course of Church history. Charlier, by contrast, conceived the revealed Given as a reality, being Christ in his historical appearance and presence in the Church. Our faith directs itself to the revealed that is actually present in the Church and is expressed infallibly by the Magiste- rium21. Thus, the Church’s preaching is the expression of the faith that exists in a continuous mystical perception of intuitive contact with the revealed reality with its proper life and mysterious law of development22. This concept of revelation demands that theology abandons the Neo-Scholastic position of theology as a “science” in the Aristotelian sense and becomes once more truly doctrinasacra, completely oriented towards the revealed Given as present in the Church and interpreted in the light of the Magis- terium. The theologian must situate himself within the mystery of the Church in contact of faith with the revealed Given23. Against the “rationalism” of Neo-Scholasticism, Charlier affirmed the primordial importance of faith in theology; not individual, but collective faith, as expressed in the official preaching of the Magisterium24. Even more than in the case of Draguet one can see how the new historical consciousness affected Char- lier’s conception of the revealed Given as a reality that lives and develops in the mystery of the Church. Theology has to grasp the revealed Given and the stages of its development with the help of history, that is still considered as an extrinsic auxiliary science. Both Draguet and Charlier clung to the Magisterium as an ultimate authority, above history, that is

19. J.-F. BONNEFOY, LanaturedelathéologieselonSaintThomasd’Aquin, Paris, Vrin, 1939. 20. “La théologie a comme objet: la vérité révélée en tant qu’elle vit et se développe dans le mystère de l’Église et qu’elle s’exprime par l’organe surnaturel du magistère”. CHARLIER, Essai (n. 4),p. 75. 21. Ibid., pp. 66-70. 22. Ibid.,p. 71. 23. Ibid., p. 77. 24. “La théologie est fonction de la foi, non de la foi individuelle, mais de la foi collective, telle que l’exprime la prédication officielle du magistère ecclésiastique. Fonction sociale, pourrait-on dire, du Corps mystique, rendue nécessaire en raison de l’économie complexe du donné révélé instatuviae”. Ibid., p. 75.

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capable of assuring the certainty that “history” cannot give25. Both com- bined and justified their programme of renewal – the plea for a positive theology of the Magisterium – with a historical study of Aquinas showing that Neo-Scholasticism and its concept of theology as a “science” in the Aristotelian sense could not claim the authority of Aquinas, since his understanding of deductive reasoning in theology was completely different from that of the Neo-Scholastics. For the latter, theology was a science if a strict theological conclusion (the “virtually revealed”) was deduced from a principle of faith and a principle of reason. Following Draguet, Charlier cate- gorically denied the legitimacy of theological conclusions all together. They both wanted to re-orient theology in a radical way to its original and true object, the revealed Given.

2. TheTheologicalRenewalofChenu Chenu’s project of theological renewal has already been thoroughly studied26. Only some fundamental elements of this project can be mentioned here27. Like Draguet, Chenu started his theological career as a historian of Christian doctrines, especially Thomism. The historical consciousness, ensuing from this kind or research “dictated the direction of his future theology”28. It led him to a re-evaluation of Christianity in terms of an economy rather than of propositions29. From the law of the economy of revelation – the law of Incarnation – that God manifests himself by and in history, results that what develops in and through time becomes a source for the intelligibility of this revelation30. In other words, history is a central locus of theological understanding. History is not equivalent to Revelation, but the place of Revelation; the divine reality or mystery is manifested in history. This forces theology to study history, to acknowledge its theandric structure, to perceive in faith the data of revelation in the past, but especially also in the “present life of the Church and the actual experience of Christianity”31. The theologian

25. Cf. J.-C. PETIT, Lacompréhensiondelathéologiedanslathéologiefrançaiseau XXesiècle.Versunenouvelleconsciencehistorique:G.Rabeau,M.-D.Chenu,L.Charlier, in Lavalthéologiqueetphilosophique47 (1991) 215-229. 26. See especially BAUER, OrtswechselderTheologie (n. 11). 27. Chenu developed his project of renewal especially in his – later condemned – Une Écoledethéologie:LeSaulchoir (n. 5). 28. J. GRAY, Marie-Dominique Chenu and Le Saulchoir: A Stream of Catholic Renewal,in G. FLYNN – P.D. MURRAY (eds.), Ressourcement:AMovementforRenewal inTwentieth-CenturyCatholicTheology, New York, Oxford University Press, 2012, 205- 218, p. 208. 29. POTWOROWSKI, ContemplationandIncarnation (n. 13), p. 111. 30. Ibid., p. 109. 31. CHENU, LeSaulchoir (n. 5), p. 67.

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has to read and interpret human history in the light of faith as a place where God speaks through “events”32. As was the case with Draguet and Charlier, Chenu’s historical reading of Aquinas and the insights into the historical contingency of doctrine and the historical status of Christianity inevitably involved a critique of the prevailing Neo-Scholasticism with its rigid concept of the immutability of dogma and the absolute validity of Thomas’s doctrine. Chenu vehemently denounced the “detemporalizing” tendency of Neo-Scholasticism33. At the same time, Chenu firmly held on to the Thomist synthesis of faith and reason (ratio fide illustrata) and thus defended the possibility of a full integration of both the historical and the speculative method within theology. As long as reason remains at the service of faith and under the light of faith, the continuity and homogeneity between revelation and the rational elaboration of theology are guaranteed. Faith, understood as perception of the divine reality, assumes all available instruments (deductive reasoning, historical method, …) in its pursuit of clarity and understanding. Thus, theology is truly a “spirituality that has found the rational means adequate to its religious experience”34. To summarize, the theological renewal proclaimed by Draguet and Charlier and by Chenu is grounded on a new historical consciousness resulting in a new conception of revelation in history and of the nature and method of theology as the “science of revelation”. The similarities between the two projects are easy to note: the reorientation of theology towards revelation, the recognition of the autonomy of auxiliary sciences and especially the distaste for Neo-Scholastic rationalism. But Chenu’s emphasis on the continuity between mysticism and theology, between subjective faith and rational procedures, makes it, nonetheless, clear that his “alternative Thomism” was fundamentally different from the more radical renewal project advocated by Draguet and Charlier. It is possible for two quite disparate groups to face the same opponent35.

32. See T. EGGENSPERGER – U. ENGEL, MutigindieZukunft:DominikanischeBeiträge zumVaticanumII, Leipzig, Sankt Benno, 2007, pp. 112-113. 33. See especially CHENU, LeSaulchoir (n. 5), p. 48: “La révélation elle-même s’est revêtue des couleurs humaines selon les âges où elle nous fut manifestée. Saint Thomas ne saurait entièrement s’expliquer par saint Thomas lui-même, et sa doctrine si haute et si abstraite soit-elle, n’est pas un absolu, indépendant du temps qui l’a vu naître et des siècles qui l’ont nourrie: conditionnement terrestre de l’esprit, par où les contingences historiques et l’accident humain s’insinuent et s’inscrivent jusque dans la plus spirituelle pensée, et nuancent d’un discret relativisme l’armature des systèmes les plus cohérents et les plus unifiés”. 34. Ibid.,p. 75. 35. H. BOERSMA, AnalogyofTruth:TheSacramentalEpistemologyof“Nouvellethéo- logie”, in FLYNN – MURRAY (eds.), Ressourcement (n. 28), 157-171, p. 159.

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III. THE CONFLICT

The action of the Holy Office against René Draguet in 1942 was part of a larger offensive against theological renewal. The relative ease of the antimodernist tension came to an end in the second half of the 1930s. This was partly due to the growing political-social nervousness in the build-up to the war. The middle of the 1930s were a highly tumultuous era for French Catholicism36. At the background of the victory of the Popular Front in the elections of May 1936 and the Spanish Civil War, the Holy See was wor- ried about the political alignment of some sectors of French Catholicism37. The impartiality of the French Church towards political parties in the elec- tion campaign of 1936 led to a political and cultural pluralism of Catholics and to free debates in (Catholic) journals. A segment of the Catholic intellectual and spiritual elite sought a dialogue with the Communists38. Very illustrative of the growing tension between Rome and the French Church is the near suppression of LaVieIntellectuelle – a journal of the Parisian Dominicans. In the issue of September 10, 1937, the editorial of Cristianus, entitled L’Église,corpsdepéché, was followed by an article of Henri Guil- lemin, Parnotrefaute, in which he pointed to the responsibility of French Catholics in the dechristianisation of France and the rise of anti-clericalism39. Chenu was the censor who had allowed the two articles to appear. He invoked the support of the French archbishops Suhard, Liénart and Feltin to prevent an official ban of LaVieIntellectuelle40. The journal indeed escaped suspension, but Rome aired its grievances in an article in L’Osservatore Romano (November 14, 1937) written by the Dominican Mariano Cordo- vani41. Cordovani condemned both the content and the method of the two articles on the basis of (church-)historical and theological arguments42. Fur- thermore, he stressed that the moment was highly inopportune to weaken the Church from the inside as unity was more than ever needed against nascent “barbarism”43. This comment by a key figure in the condemnations

36. See R. RÉMOND, Lescrisesducatholicismefrançaisdanslesannées1930, Paris, Seuil, 1996. 37. A. RICCARDI, UneÉcoledethéologiefralaFranciaeRoma, in Cristianesimonella storia5(1984) 11-28, pp. 16-17. 38. J. HELLMAN, French“Left-Catholics”andCommunismintheNineteen-thirties, in ChurchHistory45 (1976) 507-523. 39. RICCARDI, UneÉcoledethéologie (n. 37), p. 18. 40. BAUER, OrtswechselderTheologie (n. 11), vol. II, p. 505. 41. This article was also published in LaVieIntellectuelle. See M. CORDOVANI, Àpropos d’unarticledeLa Vie Intellectuelle, in LaVieIntellectuelle 52/3 (1937) I-IV. 42. “Que l’irréligion et la haine des masses (des masses communistes, par exemple) puissent s’expliquer par les fautes de ce qu’il y a d’humain dans l’Église, voilà qui est injuste”, ibid., p. II. 43. “En ce tournant de l’histoire où nous sentons plus tragiquement que jamais le besoin de vérité et de justice, d’orientation et d’équilibre, le besoin de nous unir contre une barbarie qui rappelle celle de Néron et submerge l’Europe, quel est donc cet écrivain catholique qui

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of 1942 characterises the growing unease with every kind of deviation from the Roman norm that would weaken the position of the Church in a time of distress. Of course, the “Roman norm” referred to was not only political, but also theological: Chenu aptly spoke about the “political- theological” context of the condemnation44. The real theological problems for Chenu and Le Saulchoir date back to the end of 1937, when UneÉcoledethéologie, a sort of theological self- portrait of Le Saulchoir, came out in a very limited edition. Raymond Louis, socius to General Martin Stanislas Gillet, presented a copy of the bookto Michele Browne, rector of the Angelicum, and to another unnamed Father. The evaluation of both advisors was unambiguously negative45. Browne said the manifest “really cannot pass”, indicating “55 passages that are more or less outrageous”46. The other Father was no less clear, stating that “if there is no formal protest against your [Chenu’s] way of thinking and writing, the Angelicum would no longer have any reason for existence”47. They decided to suspend the sale of the book.Chenu was summoned to Rome to explain himself. His fellow Dominicans decided that – as a kind of precaution against a possible condemnation – he should

parcourt rapidement l’histoire de l’Église pour énumérer les fautes, faire bénéficier les persécuteurs de circonstances atténuantes, et nous accuser, en alléguant pour motifs que nous, catholiques, nous n’avons pas le droit de nous tromper, et que si Dieu nous pardonne, les hommes ne nous pardonnent pas. L’auteur n’a-t-il donc pas senti combien il était dan- gereux d’écrire tout cela dans une revue catholique?”. Ibid.,p. III. 44. See Archives de la Province dominicaine de France (APDF), Archives Chenu, Dossier 1942 (“Autour de la mise à l’Index”). 45. Cf. APDF, ArchivesChenu, Jourdain Padé to Chenu, January 17, 1938: “Hier matin le P. Louis vient chez moi avec votre brochure sur le Saulchoir. ‘Encore un ennui, mon pauvre Père’, me dit-il. ‘J’avais songé à présenter cette plaquette à Mgr Ruffini, et avant de le faire j’ai voulu avoir l’avis du P. Browne. Celui-ci vient de me dire de m’abstenir. On ne saurait laisser passer les idées du P. Chenu. Un autre père consulté m’a déclaré ce midi que s’il n’y avait pas de protestation formelle contre votre manière de penser et d’écrire, l’Angelicum n’avait plus sa raison d’être. Il faudrait éviter que le Saint-Office soit informé: autrement il y aurait du vilain’. […] Tout le monde a été d’accord pour que la vente de la brochure soit arrêtée, du moins jusqu’à plus ample informé, et c’est le pourquoi de mon télégramme dont la formule a été rédigée par le Père Louis. […] Je vois les esprits très montés. Je n’ai pas besoin de vous dire que je m’emploie de toutes mes forces à calmer les uns et les autres. Espérons que nous éviterons l’irréparable”. See also APDF, ArchivesChenu, Raymond Louis to Chenu, January 20, 1938: “Pour vous dire que votre livre a soulevé une telle émotion dans le milieu du Collège que le P. Provincial a commencé à faire une enquête qu’il n’a pas encore terminée et à la fin de laquelle il veut vous écrire”. 46. Cf. APDF, ArchivesChenu,Padé to Chenu, January 27, 1938: “J’ai vu […] le Père Browne […]. Il m’a dit: ‘Vraiment cela ne peut passer’.[…] Le Père [Browne] a noté 55 passages plus ou moins délictueux”. Browne also wrote to Chenu: “Je suis très affligé avec vous et avec nos frères du Saulchoir mais il me semble que plusieurs phrases de votre opuscule auront besoin d’explication. Je vous les indiquerai. Si l’on arrive à les expliquer convenablement, personne ne sera plus heureux que moi et que nous tous d’ici. Soyez sûr que nous sommes de la meilleure volonté envers vous et tous nos frères du Saulchoir”. APDF, ArchivesChenu, Browne to Chenu, January 25, 1938. 47. APDF, ArchivesChenu, Padé to Chenu, January 17, 1938.

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sign ten propositions48. These formulated the major grievances against Chenu’s theological project that were reiterated by Parente49 and Garrigou- Lagrange50 in 1942 to explain and justify the condemnation of his Une Écoledethéologie. The first five propositions were clearly aimed against any kind of relativism (metaphysical or historical); the next four were aimed against any deviation from Thomism. So there was a clear link between the historical orientation of the renewal and the endangerment of the absolute and eternal value of the Thomist system. The last proposition alluded to Chenu’s polemical and irreverent style. This reproach might seem more harmless, but it certainly was not. Garrigou-Lagrange later explained that authors like Chenu, Charlier and Draguet were much too sure of themselves and were inadmissibly sharp in their criticism of major traditional theologians who by far surpassed them51. One should not pretend to understand Aquinas better than the great commentators like John of Saint Thomas or Cajetan. Chenu admitted to sign the propositions but it did not stop the imputa- tions against Le Saulchoir. In early 1939 Congar’s Chrétiensdésunis caused agitation in Roman circles, but escaped condemnation. Far more danger- ous, however, was the rising controversy in the wake of the publication of Charlier’s Essaisurleproblèmethéologique in September 1938. The fact that Charlier was a Francophone Dominican, intrepidly exposing his conception of the nature and method of theology – already explains the poten- tial impact of the publication on the fortunes of Le Saulchoir. According to Gillet, Charlier’s Essai unleashed a storm that could not be controlled any more. The Holy Office feared a return of modernism. Gillet listed five issues and errors causing this fear: the priority of religious experience at the expense of dogmatic formulas; the oppression of speculative theology in favour of positive theology; the modernization of philosophy, theology and Aquinas himself; the presentation of theologians as a useless cog in the Church, squeezed between the facts (positive theology) and dogma; and finally, the discord within the Dominican Order as a result of the fact that young members abandon the Thomist positions. Moreover, this con- cern of the Holy Office was aggravated, according to Gillet, by the fact that all those involved were Dominicans, intellectual sons of Aquinas52. In his dossier on the condemnation of Chenu, Garrigou-Lagrange quoted

48. APDF, ArchivesChenu, Louis to Padé, February 6, 1938. 49. See Parente’s comment on the condemnation of UneÉcoledethéologie:LeSaulchoir: P. PARENTE, Nuovetendenzeteologiche, in OsservatoreRomano (February 9/10, 1942) 1. 50. See the dossier prepared by Garrigou-Lagrange in preparation of the apostolic visi- tation of Le Saulchoir: APDF, ArchivesChenu, Pièces relatives à la condamnation du Père Chenu (From here: Pièces). 51. “Ces écrivains ont paru beaucoup trop sûrs d’eux-mêmes et d’une âpreté inadmis- sible dans leur discrédit de grands théologiens traditionnels qui les dépassent beaucoup”. Pièces, p. 11. 52. APDF, ArchivesChenu, M.-S. Gillet to Chenu, February 2, 1939.

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a Jesuit professor (possibly Boyer) as saying: “the Dominicans cannot say that we, the Jesuits, are destroying the doctrine of Saint Thomas. They are doing it themselves”53. For that reason, the publication of the Essai had infuriated Gillet as the book was generally perceived to discredit Scholastic theology and Thomism. In Louvain, the publication of Charlier was not tied up with Chenu and Le Saulchoir, but with Draguet and the Faculty of Theology. First of all by Draguet himself, who was astonished and irritated that Charlier, without consulting him, had largely drawn from his course Denotione,obiecto etmethodotheologiae. Charlier’s dependence of Draguet’s was also evi- dent to Draguet’s students and colleagues. Consequently, the rumour was spread that Draguet had published his own ideas under the name of Charlier. Offended by this rumour, Draguet wanted to set things right by publishing a review on the Essaisurleproblèmethéologique54. He made it clear that Charlier had indeed based himself on his course (“the principal source of the book”) without consulting him. Draguet’s avowal that his course was the principal source of Charlier’s book would later be held against him as an unambiguous plea of guilt. Furthermore, Draguet endorsed Charlier’s denial of the legitimacy of theological conclusions and criticized the “Scholastic theory of theology as a science of theological conclusions”, as defended by the Dominican theologians Ambroise Gardeil and Francisco Marin Sola. At the same time, Draguet mentioned Chenu’s UneÉcolede théologie:LeSaulchoir as one of the recently published books that went in the same direction as that of Charlier. He added that Une École de théologie deserved a large spread and praised the open-mindedness within the Dominican order that allowed its members to freely contest positions that were characteristic for their tradition. This remark was all the more painful as Chenu’s book had been withdrawn from the market for more than one year, while Le Saulchoir in general had lost de facto its liberty of research and Charlier’s Essai had been blocked by Roman Dominicans and was still under investigation. In sum, Draguet praised the open-mindedness of the Dominican authorities while in reality they were doing their best to suppress “doctrinal dissidence” (the term is from Gillet). Particu- larly embarrassing for the Dominican General House was Draguet’s praise of UneÉcoledethéologie. Later on Garrigou-Lagrange explained how difficult it was to dissuade or forbid students from reading Chenu’s book while the Louvain professor Draguet had been praising it55. The controversy on the book of Charlier entered its decisive stay in late 1930s, after the publication of the article Qu’est-cequelathéologie? by

53. Pièces, p. 7. 54. R. DRAGUET, review of Essaisurleproblèmethéologique, by L. Charlier, in ETL16 (1939) 143-145. 55. Maurits Sabbe Library, Archives René Draguet (ARD), Report Draguet about a Conversation with Godfried Geenen, July 9, 1954.

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the Jesuit professor and qualificator of the Holy Office, Charles Boyer56. Boyer aimed specifically at Draguet and Charlier (not Chenu), connecting their denial of the legitimacy of theological conclusions with the modernist notion of knowledge, which is immanentism. From then onwards, Draguet, and especially Charlier, were talked about in “official” and other Roman milieus as “modernists”. Shortly after, the first rumours were spread about a possible denunciation of Charlier’s Essaisurleproblème théologique at the Holy Office57. This occurred in September 1941 through the agency of Gabriele Maria Roschini58, a member of the Servite order who had been appointed some months earlier as qualificator of the Holy Office59. As a conservative Roman Thomist, Roschini most probably wanted to put an end to the theological renewal within the Servite order. This renewal was inaugurated by its general superior, Alfonso Benetti, who sent some of his best students (among whom Buffon) to Leuven to be initiated in the Louvain method instead of being trained in the spirit of the Roman Universities. If Roschini succeeded in getting Charlier condemned, it would strike a heavy blow at the Louvain school. The archival sources contain evidence that Roschini seized the opportunity to denunciate also Chenu’s book60. Besides the fact that the latter was also an exponent of this theological renewal, Roschini also had some old scores to settle with Chenu personally. Shortly after Charlier’s Essai had been denunciated, the Holy Office added the research and teaching of Draguet to the investigation, as it was the principal source of the Essaisurleproblèmethéologique. Cardinal Van Roey was summoned to send documentation about Draguet61. The purpose was apparently to put also a publication of Draguet on the Index, but this attempt was unsuccessful. On February 4, 1942 the Holy Office62 issued

56. C. BOYER, Qu’est-cequelathéologie?Réflexionssurunecontroverse, in Grego- rianum 21 (1940) 255-266. 57. Draguet’s student Vincenze Buffon, living in Rome, informed Draguet about these rumours. See the correspondence between Draguet and Buffon, ARD, [pp. 4-10]. 58. On Roschini, see G.M. BESUTTI, Roschini (Gabriel-Marie), in Dictionnaire de spiritualité 13 (1987) 982-993 and M. O’CARROLL, Roschini,GabrieleMaria,OSM, in Marienlexikon5 (1993) 547. 59. Within the Servite order, Roschini had been boasting that he had denunciated Char- lier’s Essai. See ARD, Conversation with P. V. Buffon, October 15, 1946. 60. See for instance a note (of Congar?) in ADPF, Archives Chenu, Dossier 1942. Autour de la mise à l’Index: “On m’a assuré qu’un certain servite, qualificateur du Saint Office a joué un rôle excitant dans le procès, par vengeance contre une notice nécrologique sévère qu’avait publiée quelques temps avant le P. Chenu”. 61. AAM, VanRoeyCollection-IV,5c, Marchetti-Selvaggiani to Van Roey, Decem- ber 22, 1941. 62. On the basis of the AnnuarioPontifica Christian Bauer has reconstructed the com- position of the Holy Office at that time: Ottaviani (assessor); Ruffini, Tardini, Montini (consultores curiales); Cordovani, Parente, Hürth, Creusen, Tromp (consultores non curiales); Garrigou-Lagrange, Roschini (qualificatores). BAUER, OrtswechselderTheologie (n. 11), vol. II, p. 531.

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a decree by which Chenu’s UneÉcoledethéologie and Charlier’s Essai surleproblèmethéologique were put on the Index. On February 9 the decision of the Holy Office was elucidated by Msgr. Parente in an article in the OsservatoreRomano63. Chenu and Charlier were found guilty of discrediting Scholastic theology and Thomism, of relativism, and of spiritual pragmatism. In the conclusion Parente stated that the “new theology” introduced and defended by Chenu and Charlier provided no firm funda- ment for a new doctrine in harmony with the exigencies of orthodoxy and that nothing could justify that the truths revealed by God and interpreted and defined by the Church were weakened or modified64. After the condemnation of Charlier, the position of Draguet had become very precarious, both in Rome and in Louvain. In Louvain, there were complaints of students who had lost confidence in his teaching. Rome started a kind of witch hunt against Draguet and the Louvain Faculty of Theology. The Roman Dominicans blamed Draguet for letting Charlier go astray. Dominican students were dissuaded to follow courses at the Lou- vain Faculty. The Holy Office investigated publications of former students of Draguet, like the Dominican Godfried Geenen65 or alleged disciples of his, like the Franciscan Jean-François Bonnefoy66. In the case of Vincenze Buffon, this resulted in a formal condemnation (see above n. 3). In May 1942 the Holy Office started an investigation because Buffon had “expounded the opinions of Paolo Sarpi exclusively in an objective way”67, i.e., without refuting them. According to Buffon, the Holy Office recognized in this objective approach the method of Draguet and of the Louvain School68. On June 17, 1942 the Holy Office issued a decree by which the dissertation was formally condemned, but not put on the Index. The Louvain Faculty was summoned to withdraw Buffon’s degree and the man himself was forced to write a refutation of the errors of Sarpi69. A fortnight later, on July 1, 1942, the Holy Office decreed that Draguet had to be deprived of his teaching. An official or officious motiva- tion for this decision was never given, but it was the outcome of a process that had been going on for several years70.

63. See n. 49. 64. PARENTE, Nuovetendenze (n. 49), p. 1. 65. On Godfried Geenen O.P., see C.E.M. STRUYKER BOUDIER, WijsgerigleveninNeder- land en België. Vol. 2: De Dominicanen, Nijmegen, Katholiek Studiecentrum; Baarn, Ambo, 1986, p. 196. 66. On Jean-François Bonnefoy and the issue he had with the Holy Office, see W. DE PRIL, Historical-CriticalThomasResearchandtheDebateonthe“Scientific”Natureof Theologyinthe1930s, in Cristianesimonellastoria32 (2011) 527-561. 67. ARD, Van Roey to the Dean and Professors of the Faculty of Theology, October 14, 1942. 68. ARD, Buffon to Draguet, October 3, 1942. 69. ARD, Buffon to Draguet, July 10, 1942. 70. On the basis of the recently disclosed personal archives of Draguet, one has to contradict the view of R. Guelluy that the Draguet case was only an unfortunate side-effect

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IV. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONDEMNATION

Chenu, Charlier and Draguet were victims of a direct intervention by the Holy Office. Their superiors (the superior general or the [arch]bishop) were merely the executers of the decisions taken by the Holy Office. Martin-Stanislas Gillet, the general master of the Dominican order who had tried to prevent Chenu’s condemnation, wrote in a personal note that the action of the Holy Office against Chenu and Charlier was possibly only the beginning71. And he was right. The sanctions of 1942 were only the beginning of a decade marked by suspicion, hostility, active opposition, and sanctions by Church authorities. Contemporary theologians, and others, were shocked by what was commonly labeled a resurgence of “integrism”. This expression was not only used by those who suffered from it72, but also by their superiors. Gillet, Cardinal Suhard73, archbishop of Paris and Arthur Monin74, dean of the Louvain Faculty of Theology, were equally displeased with this course of action. At the basis of this resurgence of integrism was a true theological controversy, the most serious one since the modernist crisis. Again the deficiencies of Neo-Scholastic rationalism were challenged by the interest in history (“relativism”), the believing subject (“spiritual pragmatism” or “subjectivism”) and the sense of mystery (“anti-intellectualism”). Furthermore, Chenu, Charlier and Draguet worked – in opposition to most “modernists” – in the setting of universities and study houses of religious

of a process that was aimed against Chenu and that his theological position was interpreted from the perspective of philosophical presuppositions that were completely foreign to his thinking. R. GUELLUY, Lesantécédentsdel’Encyclique“Humanigeneris”danslessanc- tionsromainesde1942:Chenu,Charlier,Draguet, in Revued’histoireecclésiastique81 (1986) 421-497. See especially p. 486: “impliqué dans le procès qui visait avant tout le P. Chenu, il s’est vu interprété en fonction de présupposés philosophiques qui lui étaient entièrement étrangers”. Yet, from the moment on the real campaign against Charlier broke loose in the late 1940s, Draguet was also made a target as the principal cause of Charlier’s errors. The Holy Office was well informed about his teaching as it had closely examined his course on the notion, object and method of theology. It is even so that in Garrigou’s PiècesrelativesàlacondamnationduP.Chenu, Chenu’s alleged discredit of Scholastic theology is interpreted from the perspective of Draguet’s criticism on the deductive proce- dure in theology. The amalgam that was made of their thinking in this regard caused Chenu to exclaim that if someone had discredited Scholastic theology, it had been Draguet, but certainly not he. See APDF, ArchivesChenu, Chenu to Giraud, December 23, 1949. 71. ADPF, ArchivesChenu, Note du Père Gillet. 72. Congar even held a dossier titled Intégrismecontemporain in his archives. ADPF, ArchivesCongar, 400.8 Intégrisme contemporain. 73. In a conversation with Father Bouessé, Cardinal Suhard affirmed: “Oui, il y a une levée d’intégrisme en ce moment”. ADPF, ArchivesCongar, 400.2 Quelques notes à propos des affaires du Saulchoir. 74. “Cet émoi [with regard to the condemnation of Draguet] est d’autant plus vif que cet événement se produit à un moment où un peu de tous les points de l’horizon nous arrivent des rumeurs au sujet d’une recrudescencedel’intégrisme”. AAM, VanRoey Collection-IV, 5c.

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orders. Their influence as founders of alternative theological “schools” (Le Saulchoir / Louvain) to the “Roman School” was feared by their Roman opponents and combated by promulgating prohibitions to teach. The sanctions of 1942 aimed at silencing innovative theologians and at reinvigorat- ing the Roman standards (emphasis on speculative theology, subordination of auxiliary sciences to theology, immutability of theological concepts …) in these foreign “schools” of theology, first in Le Saulchoir and Louvain, later on also in Fourvière. The conflict would reach its apogee in 1950 with Humanigeneris, which was aimed against what was by then widely known as nouvelle théologie, an ambiguous term introduced by Parente in the context of the sanctions of 1942.

Faculty of Theology Ward DE PRIL and Religious Studies KU Leuven St.-Michielsstraat 4/3101 BE-3000 Leuven Belgium

ABSTRACT. — In July 1942 the Holy Office decreed that René Draguet (1896- 1981), a Louvain professor in fundamental theology, had to be removed from his teaching activities. This decision of the Holy Office was preceded by the condemnation of M.-D. Chenu’s UneÉcoledethéologie:LeSaulchoirand L. Charlier’s Essai surleproblèmethéologique(both February 1942) and of V. Buffon’s doctoral dissertation on Paolo Sarpi (June 1942). In the first paragraph of this article we focus on the historical and theological context of the conflict. In the 1930s the darkest hours of antimodernist zealotry seemed to have passed, giving confidence to theologians that the time was ripe for elaborating theological alternatives to strict obser- vance Thomism. Centers of renewal were both Le Saulchoir (Chenu) and Leuven (Draguet, Charlier, Buffon). In analysing their respective projects of theological renewal we are confronted with both similarities (e.g. historicisation of theology) and fundamental differences (e.g. regarding the role of reason in theology). In the main paragraph we sketch the history of the condemnations of Chenu and the Lou- vain theologians together with their complex interrelations. The main argument is that the sanctions of the Holy Office were the outcome of a series of deliberate actions that were going on since 1938 and were aimed at silencing two schools of theological renewal (Le Saulchoir, Leuven) who challenged the Roman standards of theology. In the concluding paragraph we briefly reflect upon the significance of the 1942 condemnations as a resurgence of integrism that characterised the history of theology in the two decades preceding the Second Vatican Council.

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