Episcopal Leadership in a Time of Crisis the Elusive Attempt to Incardinate George Tyrrell Jonas Bognar

Episcopal Leadership in a Time of Crisis The Elusive Attempt to Incardinate George Tyrrell Jonas Bognar

Abstract. — This article hones in on a particularly difficult and trying period in the Roman Catholic Church, namely that of episcopal leadership during the Mod- ernist Crisis. It explores not only the specific situation of the attempted incardinations of the expelled English Jesuit, George Tyrrell, into the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels, but more importantly, it leads one to question just how this situation came to be and how it failed to be resolved in an institution where no priest is to be left without a home. Finally, this article articulates the pressure that members of the episcopacy faced, forcing them to walk the tightrope between the pastorally practical solution to these challenges, and the ongoing rigid and reactionary attitudes espoused by the Holy See.

If one were to investigate the causes, needs, and procedures to incardinate a priest into a bishop’s see today, one would find all of the pertinent information in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, specifically Can. 265-272. These canons were naturally built upon the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917, but prior to its promulgation by Benedict XV (1914-1922) various rules and regulations existed in a patchwork of decrees that came into existence as interpretations of the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). These included instructions that every cleric be attached to a bishop and not “homeless” or “wandering.”1 In the case of George Tyrrell (1861-1909), with his hopes of being incardinated into a diocese as a secular priest following his dismissal from the Society of Jesus in 1906, he encountered a situation of difficulty with a number of bishops whom he contacted, due in great part to his role in the Modernist Crisis. The entire exercise with the ecclesiastical authorities led Tyrrell to two prospective incardinating bishops, namely Patrick Riordan (1841-1914) of San Francisco and Désiré Cardinal Mercier (1851-1926) of Mechelen

1. Concilium Tridentinum, Sessio XXIII, Canon 16; Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1990), 750. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 65

(Malines). Conversely, the bishops themselves also found themselves in a precarious situation, as they were to be charitable in accepting foreign priests into their respective sees, while following mandates from the Sacred Congregation of the Council and maintaining a certain degree of scrutiny into such requests. In the pages that follow, we shall first of all demonstrate that even though Tyrrell and Riordan came from different backgrounds during the condemnations of Americanism and Liberalism, they managed to forge a connection, thanks to Tyrrell’s The Soul’s Orbit2 and Riordan’s desire to acquire well-educated priests in the Archdiocese of San Francisco via incardination. Secondly, we shall explore Mercier and Tyrrell’s dialogue concerning incardination in the Archdiocese of Mechelen. Finally, we will compare Riordan and Mercier in their roles of episcopal authority during the Modernist Crisis in regards to Tyrrell.

I. Introduction

The name Désiré Mercier strikes a familiar tone in several avenues of theological, philosophical, and historical discourses. Hailing from the village of Braine-l’Alleud in Brabant, where his grandfather had been mayor for some thirty-four years, Mercier entered the Minor Seminary at Mechelen in 1868 and was ordained a priest for that diocese in 1874. He completed his Licentiate in Theology at the University of Louvain in 1877 and was assigned to teach and give spiritual direction back at the Minor Seminary. Following the promulgation of Aeterni Patris (1879) and to fill the philosophical void at Louvain, Mercier – who was already a Professor of Theology – was appointed Professor of Philosophy in 1882 and, at the behest of Leo XIII (1878-1903) to revive Thomism, founded the Higher Institute of Philosophy in 1889.3 His academic

2. William L. Portier, “George Tyrrell in America,” U.S. Catholic Historian 20, no. 3 (2002): 69-95, at 84-85. George Tyrrell, The Soul’s Orbit, or Man’s Journey to God, ed. Maude Petre (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1904). 3. Goyau points out that this void had existed since Rome’s ire against French traditionalism that had manifested itself in the person of Gerard-Casimir Ubaghs (1800- 1874), Professor of Philosophy at Louvain (Georges Goyau, Le Cardinal Mercier [Paris: E. Flammarion, 1930], 17-18). As early as 1834, Ubaghs attacked rationalism to an extreme degree in defence of the Church, and he was finally censured by the Holy Office in 1866. For more on this ‘semi-traditionalism’ supposedly upheld by Ubaghs and condemned by Rome, see: C. Walker Gollar, “John Lancaster Spalding on Academic Freedom: The Influence of Louvain on an American Catholic Bishop,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 72, no. 1 (1996): 112-130. 66 JONAS BOGNAR

successes aside, Mercier quickly ascended the hierarchy with his appoint- ment as Archbishop of Mechelen in 1906, followed by the cardinalate in 1907.4 The academic background of Patrick Riordan was similar to that of Mercier, especially concerning Louvain. Riordan was born in Chatham, Canada, in 1841, and at a young age emigrated to Chicago with his family. At the age of seventeen and after a period of discernment at the University of Notre Dame, he entered the seminary for the Archdiocese of Chicago and was sent, after a brief stint in Rome and Paris, to Lou- vain for his philosophy and theology. It was the fall of 1861 when Riordan arrived at the American College of the Immaculate Conception,5 where he began his theological studies at the University of Louvain.6 In 1865, he was ordained by Cardinal Engelbert Sterckx (1792-1867) and he completed his licentiate in theology at Louvain in 1866. Upon his return to Chicago, Riordan was immediately named a professor of Canon Law and Church History at the seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake. In 1871, he was named the pastor of St. James Parish, and in 1884 he became Archbishop of San Francisco. George Tyrrell became an infamous figure to both Mercier and Riordan in the early twentieth century. Born in Dublin and a young convert from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, Tyrrell entered the novitiate of the English Province of the Society of Jesus on September 1, 1880. Agitated by the incessant immaturity of his brother novices, Tyrrell was also vexed by what he called the ‘Jesuitism’ of the Society, a view that he felt was blind to the rest of the Church’s theological tradition. Later in his writings, Tyrrell would use Aquinas and the narrow Jesuit interpretation of the Angelic Doctor to prove his point, as he saw

4. For a brief biographical sketch on Mercier and a detailed historiography, see: Luc Courtois, “Le cardinal Mercier: introduction à l’étude d’une personnalité,” in Le cardinal Mercier (1851-1926): Un prélat d’avant-garde: Publications du Professeur Roger Aubert rassemblées à l’occasion de ses 80 ans, ed. Jean-Pierre Hendrickx, Jean Pirotte and Luc Courtois (Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia/Presses universitaires de Louvain, 1994), 79-97. 5. Riordan was one of a few Americans that actually lived and studied at the American College, which had been originally established as an institution to train Belgian missionaries to the United States. For more on this, see: Kevin A. Codd and Brian G. Dick, The American College of Louvain: America’s Seminary in the Heart of Europe (Leuven: The American College, 2007); John D. Sauter, The American College of Lou- vain (1857-1898), Recueil de Travaux d’Histoire et de Philologie (Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1959); Joseph Van der Heyden, The Louvain American Col- lege: 1857-1907 (Louvain: Fr. & R. Ceuterick, 1909); Kevin A. Codd, “The American College of Louvain,” The Catholic Historical Review 93, no. 1 (January 2007): 47-83. 6. James P. Gaffey, Citizen of No Mean City: Archbishop Patrick Riordan of San Francisco (1841-1914) (Wilmington, NC: Consortium Books, 1976), 16. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 67 that a pure view of Aquinas was necessary in theological studies in light of Leo XIII’s encyclical, Aeterni Patris (1879).7 After spending a number of years defending Thomism in its purist form, Tyrrell began a slow transformation to being an ever-critical author towards ecclesiastical authority. His critical turning-point came in September 1899, when a consultor of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, the then Archbishop Merry del Val (1865-1930), came across his latest book, External Reli- gion (1899), in a London bookshop.8 The result was a strict demand that all of his writings endure strict censorship by the Jesuits both in England and in Rome, which led to Tyrrell’s rejection of such tactics and his imminent dismissal from the Society of Jesus in 1906. After composing two articles in the Protestant-associated newspaper, The Times,9 ques- tioning and contesting Pius X’s encyclical condemning Modernism, Pas- cendi Dominici gregis (1907), Tyrrell was excommunicated on Octo- ber 22, 1907.

II. Riordan and Tyrrell: The Context of Americanism and Liberalism towards Modernism

Although Riordan and Tyrrell lived in different parts of the world, Rome’s condemnations of Americanism and Liberalism placed them in the camp of liberal Catholicism, leading up to the eventual condemnation of Modernism. For Riordan, it was Americanism that placed him in such a context. Americanism, specifically condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae (1899) as a response to the alleged theological errors contained in Walter Elliott’s The Life of Father Hecker (1894) – namely Hecker’s reliance on the guidance of the Holy Spirit to the extremity that it berated dogma and the deposit of faith (Heckerism) – was in essence a symbol of progressive liberal Catholicism as espoused by Archbishop John Ireland (1838-1918) of St. Paul.10 In the realm of

7. For a thorough treatment of the Jesuits and Scholasticism during this period, see: Oliver P. Rafferty, “The Thomistic Revival and the Relationship between the Jesuits and the Papacy, 1878-1914,” Theological Studies 75, no. 4 (2014): 746-773. 8. Nicholas Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’: A Life of George Tyrrell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 75-76. 9. The Times, September 30 & October 1, 1907. 10. Walter Elliott, The Life of Father Hecker (New York: The Columbus Press, 1894). Heckerism became an issue with Rome following its translation into French in 1896 and the biased criticisms of Charles Maignen (1858-1937) in his book, Le Père Hecker: Est-il un Saint? (1898). The Jesuits, including Salvatore Brandi, S.J., the editor- in-chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, convinced Leo XIII and others in the Curia that 68 JONAS BOGNAR secular politics, the Spanish-American War (1898) had divided the Church’s hierarchy over loyalty to the bishops’ nationalistic loyalties. The Vatican had relied upon Archbishop Ireland and Spain’s Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Francica-Nava de Bontifè (1846-1928), to con- vince the two countries to find a peaceful solution, but stubbornness on both sides led to the aggregation of war. Ireland quickly backed U.S. President William McKinley (1843-1901) and sealed the fate of the Americanists.11 Archbishop Riordan and John Lancaster Spalding (1840-1916), a former theology classmate at the American College of Louvain, were among the so-called ‘Americanist’ bishops. Their vision of a progressive Church, rooted in freedom and democracy, sprang forth from their education. It was during his time at Louvain that Riordan met his close friend and confidant, Spalding, and when Riordan, the then pastor of St. James Parish on the south side of Chicago, rededicated his parish church in 1880, he insisted that his former classmate preach at the rededication Mass: “His thoughtful and carefully prepared address, entitled “Religious Thought and Physical Science,” discussed in heightened tones the scriptures and Darwinism, pointing out how there could be no valid conflict between science and the Church.”12 That homily by Spalding invigorated Riordan throughout his ecclesiastical career, and it aligned both men to the so-called ‘Americanist’ party of American bishops.13 While adapting to the reality of a post-condemnation Church and defending the person of Isaac Hecker and simultaneously rejecting the existence of Heckerism, they, together with Ireland maintained their progressive theological views. Simultaneously in Europe, Rome’s ongoing reactions to liberal Catholicism landed at the doorstep of George Tyrrell and the English

Americanism was a severe problem rooted in Heckerism. See: Gerald P. Fogarty, The Vatican and the Americanist Crisis: Denis J. O’Connell, American Agent in Rome, 1885- 1903, Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae 36 (Rome: Università Gregoriana Editrice, 1974), 210. 11. For a thorough history on the emergence of Americanism, see: Gerald P. Fogarty, “The Catholic Hierarchy in the United States Between the Third Plenary Council and the Condemnation of Americanism,” U.S. Catholic Historian 11, no. 3 (1993): 19-36. 12. Chicago Tribune (May 24, 1880), 3, as quoted in: Gaffey, Citizen of No Mean City, 45. 13. Historians have divided the U.S. bishops into two groups: the progressive ‘liberal’ party (later known as the Americanists), and the conservative party of the status quo. Fogarty offers an intense scrutiny of this politique ecclésiastique of the American bishops: Gerald P. Fogarty, The Vatican and the American Hierarchy from 1870 to 1965, Päpste und Papsttum 21 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1982). EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 69

Jesuits. Liberalism had already been broadly condemned in the Syllabus errorum (1864) of Pius IX (1846-1878), and due to the involvement of the then Archbishop Merry del Val in the Catholic Church in England, a specific condemnation of Liberalism was published in a Joint Pastoral signed by all the English bishops in 1900. While the condemnation was mainly aimed at the writings of an unrepentant biologist, George Mivart (1827-1900), and his writings on the Theory of Evolution and the Church’s doctrine on Hell,14 Merry del Val sought to indirectly impli- cate and warn Tyrrell of the latter’s theological errors in his article on Hell, “A Perverted Devotion.”15 Tyrrell’s article had passed the English Jesuit censors, but had failed to gain the approval of the Roman Jesuit censors imposed by the Jesuit Superior General, Luis Martin (1846- 1906).16 Shortly thereafter came the Joint Pastoral. Jesuits Salvatore Brandi and Thomas Hughes were hand-picked by Merry del Val to author the document, which was in itself also a warning to all the Jesuits of the English Province. While the specific condemnations of Americanism and Liberalism by Rome were specific responses to respective situations,17 their underlying currents were linked in several ways. Liberalism was no doubt feared by the conservative party in the U.S., as personified in the Archbishop of New York, Michael Corrigan (1839-1902). With audacity, he pro- claimed to the new rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary at Dunwoodie that “the vast majority of our clergy are opposed to liberalism,” and even went so far as to say that he “could not tolerate the liberalism accredited to His Eminence of Baltimore,” Cardinal James Gibbons (1834-1921).18 The reference to Gibbons – to whom Leo XIII had addressed Testem Benevolentiae – was a direct charge by Corrigan that Americanism was

14. Mivart was a visiting professor at the University of Louvain from 1889-1891. For more on Mivart, see: John D. Root, “The Final Apostasy of St. George Jackson Mivart,” The Catholic Historical Review 71 (January 1985): 1-25. 15. George Tyrrell, “A Perverted Devotion,” The Weekly Register 100 (December 16, 1899): 797-800. 16. Martin was convinced that Tyrrell’s writings were heterodox, and he fought vigorously to impose heightened censorship on the English Jesuit. For more on Martin and his views on Tyrrell and the English Jesuits, see: David G. Schultenover, A View from Rome: On the Eve of the Modernist Crisis (New York: Fordham University Press), 1993, especially pp. 83-113. 17. Félix Klein, who authored the preface to the French translation of The Life of Father Hecker, claimed that Americanism was a ‘phantom heresy’, contrived by Charles Maignen and other ultramontanes in order to advance their own Romanized agenda (Félix Klein, Americanism: A Phantom Heresy [Cranford, NJ: Aquin, 1951], 119-131). 18. T. J. Shelley, “‘A Good Man but Crazy on Some Points’: Father Thomas Farrell and Liberal Catholicism in 19th-Century New York,” Revue d’Histoire Ecclésias- tique 97, no. 1 (2002): 111-112. 70 JONAS BOGNAR simply another form of Liberalism. Luis Martin certainly drew no dis- tinctions between Americanism and Liberalism. Martin considered them to be both one in the same and was drawn into this discussion after discovering that Merry del Val had already commented about Tyrrell on the same subject matter, claiming that Tyrrell: “in speaking about that form of Liberalism which is now customarily called ‘Americanism,’ had said of himself, ‘Americanism can be held; I myself am an Americanist, but I know how to use the words’.”19 When speaking of Americanism and Modernism in the same breath – with Liberalism as an underlying current bonding the two together –, two things need to be taken into account: the names of characters that continually resurface in the contexts of both condemnations, and the theological content in cultural contexts. While many scholars agree that names overlap in both condemnations, most are apt to label each individual as an Americanist or a Modernist, but not both. In deference to the characters involved in both, Denis J. O’Connell (1849-1927)20 and John Ireland come to the fore. After all, it was O’Connell who founded a group (the “Club”) to discuss academic freedom, modern theological thought, and the idea of ‘Americanism’ in the Church that met regularly at his Rome apartment (“Liberty Hall”) in the late 1890s. The group was ripe with names that would all be associated with Modernism, including von Hügel, Loisy, and Tyrrell. However, O’Connell distanced himself from such activities after the condemnation of Americanism. Ireland had a fastidious reputation for his Americanist tendencies, but he too relented by asking O’Connell to disband “Liberty Hall.” How- ever, work continued behind the scenes, as Loisy recalled, and he himself met with Ireland to discuss the biblical method in the year 1900.21 But unlike Loisy, who was soon to be condemned for his work as a Modern- ist, Ireland remained in Rome’s good graces, for the Holy See seemed to have the impression that Ireland was able to exert political power within the U.S. government.22 Beyond O’Connell’s “Liberty Hall” connections,

19. ARSJ, Registrum Epistolarum ad Provinciam Angliae, vol. 5, p. 85, Martin to Charnley, Rome, February 12, 1900, translated from the original Latin in: Schulteno- ver, A View from Rome, 89. 20. Dennis J. O’Connell was a tremendous figure in American Church history, as he served as the rector of the American College in Rome, the rector of the Catholic University of America, and the Bishop of Richmond. He was also a central figure in the Americanist Crisis, as detailed by Fogarty, The Vatican and the Americanist Crisis. 21. Loisy had also met with Ireland in previous years in order to discuss more advanced scholarship in the Bible. Alfred Loisy, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire religieuse de notre temps, vol. I (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1931), 563. 22. Ibid., 560. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 71 there were also some American Paulists who sought to bridge American- ism and Modernism. Among them was William Lawrence Sullivan (1872-1935), who championed Isaac Hecker and Americanism. In con- necting Americanism and Modernism, Sullivan wrote, “We know what the American spirit is in the political and social order. Translate it into the religious order, and you have Modernism in its purest.”23 Riordan himself managed to remain on the periphery of the Ameri- canism debates, mostly because he was occupied with an international court case at The Hague involving the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the State of California. However, Riordan was very involved in Modern- ism, in that he spent a great deal of energy defending his hand-picked successor against accusations brought before the Propaganda Fide. It became a tumultuous affair because of his selection of Edward J. Hanna (1860-1944) as his co-adjutor archbishop in 1907. As it was the height of the Modernist Crisis, Propaganda Fide was extremely cautious in reviewing the qualifications of bishops. In the case of Hanna, Propa- ganda discovered that he had authored a series of articles that had been published in the infamous New York Review, entitled, “The Human Knowledge of Christ.”24 The articles focused on the human and divine nature of Christ. In the end, he concluded that it was possible that Christ suffered from the human limitations of knowledge and intelli- gence, in hopes of bringing about intellectual studies on the topic. Unsurprisingly, the case ended up before Cardinal Merry del Val, who in turn referred it back to Propaganda. Riordan travelled to Rome to defend Hanna, but it was of no use. Due to Hanna’s Modernist file, they simply would not discuss or vote on the matter, and that was the end of Riordan’s attempt to vindicate Hanna. However, it is interesting to note that Hanna became Riordan’s successor as Archbishop of San Francisco in 1915 anyhow.25 As archbishop of one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S., Riordan found himself in a precarious situation during the Modernist crisis: While other large archdioceses, such as Chicago and New York, had well-established seminaries, Riordan was consistently lacking the

23. Letters to His Holiness Pius X (Chicago, IL: Open Court Publishing Co., 1910), xviii. Although published anonymously, most scholars agree that Sullivan was the author. 24. Edward J. Hannah, “The Human Knowledge of Christ,” The New York Review 1 (October-November 1905), 303-376; (December 1905-January 1906), 435- 436; (February-March 1906), 597-615; 3 (January-April 1908), 391-400. 25. Richard Gribble, An Archbishop for the People: The Life of Edward J. Hanna (New York: Paulist Press, 2006), 29-50. 72 JONAS BOGNAR numbers of priests required to minister to the ever-growing number of Catholics arriving daily because he lacked a seminary to produce a steady supply of clergy to operate his parishes. Yet, he was resourceful enough to find ways to expand and build up his see into a prosperous and vibrant archdiocese. To do this, Riordan relied heavily on immigrant Irish priests who he had incardinated into his see, year in and year out, to the point where out of a total of eighty-eight priests archdiocesan priests, an overwhelming sixty-four were of Irish birth, and only four were born in the U.S.26 However, such a practice was contrary to the decrees of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884), which accepted the practice of bishops bringing in foreign priests to their respective sees, but only on a temporary basis. For that reason, Riordan set out to build his own seminary staffed by the Sulpicians as quickly as possible. Much to the chagrin of Riordan, following the dedication of St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park on August 27, 1898, many of the Irish-born clergy were irritated and quipped that the low number of pupils were “conclusive proof that the native Californian was unsuited for the priestly life.”27 Therefore, he had to continue to rely upon incardinating foreign priests to staff his parishes well into the first decade of the twentieth century. However, Riordan was not in the worst possible situation. Most other U.S. dioceses had to rely upon missionaries to maintain their existence, as the U.S. was still considered a missionary country by Propaganda Fide prior to the year 1909. Riordan’s clerical woes were George Tyrrell’s good fortune, as Tyrrell needed to be incardinated into a diocese by the local ordinary in order to complete the process of regularisation. Both Riordan and Tyrrell came into contact with each other in the years immediately following the condemnations of Americanism and Liberalism, and on the thresh- old of the Modernist crisis. It was Riordan who first discovered Tyrrell when he came across a copy of The Soul’s Orbit (1904), in which Tyrrell attempts to break the shackles of Jesuit theology that had for so long oppressed Jesuit spirituality. The book is broken into three main sec- tions: “The Outset,” “The Way,” and “The Return.” While following a rhythm and themes of Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises, it follows a spiritual imitation of Christ: “It matters not how many causes have intervened in the production of my being, His Hand is in them all, and His touch

26. Gaffey, No Mean City, 87. 27. Ibid., 101. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 73 more intimate than any.”28 He quickly follows in tones of St. Ignatius: “Take me therefore as I am, at the present moment, in the setting or framework of all my present circumstances and antecedents, with my face towards the unknown future, I, like everything else in the universe, am God’s creature, suspended over the abyss of nothingness by the exercise of His continual, conscious love.”29 In his ecclesiology, Tyrrell describes the authority of the Church in a way foreign to the theology of the First Vatican Council (1869-1870): “As purely spiritual, the authority of the Church, like that of my conscience, can in no way oppress or do violence to that in me to which it appeals – to my intel- ligence and my moral sense; […] it therefore not only consists with, but fosters the most perfect liberty and autonomy.”30 Furthermore, Tyrrell broke from the traditional nineteenth-century theological view of the Ecclesia docens/Ecclesia discens model of the Church: How far we are from the fullness is obvious; yet the nature and truth of the Church, like that of anything that lives and grows, is to be found in her ideal and potentiality, not in her present attainment and actuality. In the ideal there is no distinction between the bounds of Catholicism and those of humanity, or between the invisible and the visible Church – that is, between Catholics in spirit (inside the pale or outside), and Catholics by profession. The actual body is but a small section of humanity, excluding multitudes who are true Christians, including multitudes who are not; for the Church is still in the womb of time and will be till “the end of the world,” that is, as long as time lasts.31 Riordan was undoubtedly impressed with Tyrrell’s spirituality and updated theology, and he immediately began a correspondence with the Jesuit. On December 29, 1905, Tyrrell responded to a previous letter by Riordan in which he offered to incardinate him into the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Tyrrell thanked him, but he warned him that he was “to be the object of some sort of ecclesiastical censure.”32 He goes on to decline the offer by Riordan for the time-being, but he leaves the door open for the future: “Should I obtain a guarantee of peaceful intentions, I may turn to you again; but assurances from diplomats are not easy to

28. Tyrrell, The Soul’s Orbit, 27. This book was in fact authored by both Maude Petre and George Tyrrell, as both contributed chapters to the work. 29. Gaffey, No Mean City, 101. 30. Ibid., 186. 31. Ibid., 183. 32. Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Riordan Papers, Tyrrell to Riordan, Richmond, Yorkshire, December 29, 1905. Also see: Portier, “George Tyrrell in America,” 85. 74 JONAS BOGNAR trust.”33 Within a month, the Great 1906 Earthquake obliterated San Francisco, and Tyrrell and Riordan seemed to have lagged in their correspondences. However, when Tyrrell wrote to Riordan in June 1909, he asked him to “forget the Modernist & remember the man” while beseeching the archbishop to consider a German priest for incardination into his see.34 By the time Riordan had his secretary issue a response, as Riordan had been ill and had not been out of his house in some time, Tyrrell was already dead. This letter is interesting for several reasons, especially the fact that it begins with “Rev. dear Fr. Tyrrell,” with the heading reading “Rev. G. Tyrrell,” nearly two years after his excommu- nication. Another fact worth pointing to is the end of the letter, in which Riordan states, “there is a place for him and plenty of work for him to do in the great Church of Christ.”35 The endearing tone of the letter leads us to conclude that Riordan still thought highly of Tyrrell, despite his sullied reputation.

III. Mercier and Tyrrell: Episcopal Authority

During Tyrrell’s period of canonical uncertainty, he also sought out incardination from Archbishops Bourne of Westminster and Walsh of Dublin, but they both refused, and both cited a policy of not accepting religious in their respective sees.36 However, a most surprising offer came from the then newly installed Archbishop of Mechelen, Désiré Mercier, through the intercession of his Irish friend and confessor, Dom Columba Marmion (1858-1923).37

33. Tyrrell, however, confided in Bremond this plan to be impossible: “By the way, the Archbishop of San Francisco accepted me; but I think he expected I would go over there and work for him – an impossible plan” (Tyrrell to Bremond, December 28, 1905, in Portier, “George Tyrrell in America,” 85). 34. Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Riordan Papers, Tyrrell to Riordan, Storrington, Sussex, June 23, 1909. 35. Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Riordan Papers, Ramm to Tyr- rell, San Francisco, July 20, 1909. 36. Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’, 197. 37. Raymond Thibout, Dom Columba Marmion: Abbé de Maredsous: 1858-1923, 3rd ed. (Namur: Abbaye de Maredsous, 1934), 323; Lieve Gevers, “Belgium and the Modernist Crisis: Main Trends in the Historiography,” in Il Modernismo tra Cristianità e Secolarizzazione: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Urbino, 1-4 ottobre 1997, ed. Alfonso Botti and Rocco Cerrato, Studi e testi 6 (Urbino: Quattro Venti, 2000), 290; Robrecht Boudens, Two Cardinals: John Henry Newman, Désiré Joseph Mercier, ed. Lieve Gevers, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 123 (Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1995), 303. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 75

Like Riordan, Mercier obtained his licentiate in theology from the University of Louvain. Thereafter, he spearheaded a drive to fill the Louvain’s philosophical void as professor and chair of the Higher Insti- tute of Philosophy by bringing Thomism to the fore along with the knowledge of modern thought and science. Mercier had been influenced by a study on the works of Aquinas, Die Philosophie der Vorzeit, by the German Jesuit Joseph Kleutgen (1811-1883),38 which perhaps partially explains his eventual quest to bring the English Jesuit and Thomist scholar, Tyrrell, to Belgium. Nonetheless, the problem of traditionalism, which had made its way from the counter-Revolutionary Louis de Bonald (1754-1840) to Louvain, thanks to Ubaghs,39 posed a vexation to Mercier because it caused a rift between intellectuals and the Church. His solution was to pursue philosophy for its own sake – and not for any external purposes, be it dogmatic or otherwise – to promote freedom of scientific research, and to seek out the truth, no matter the cost.40 He attempted to counter the erroneous thought of de Bonald and de La Mennais by stating “the fact that science and philosophy existed before the foundation of the church, and the Author of Christianity came not to destroy the natural endowment of man but to enrich it with better gifts.”41 In the end, it was the institute itself that stamped out the stain of traditionalism, while launching Mercier into a prized status with Rome. His intellect and his success in establishing the Institute of Phi- losophy, when previous attempts failed to appease Leo XIII, proved himself worthy of rapid advancement in the hierarchy. Following the death of Cardinal Pierre-Lambert Goossens (1827-1906), Mercier was appointed Archbishop of Mechelen on February 21, 1906.42 Prior to Mercier’s episcopal consecration, when the year 1900 rolled around, scientific research was in a period of revival and renewal in Louvain, including at the Faculty of Theology, where Church historian Alfred Cauchie (1860-1922) and biblical scholar Paulin Ladeuze (1870-1940) led the way in renewing and updating critical and practical research and by co-founding the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique in 1900. With the works of Loisy landing on the Index, Rome began to look

38. Roger Aubert, “Introduction: Désiré Mercier and the Origins of the Institute of Philosophy,” in D. A. Boileau, Cardinal Mercier: A Memoir (Leuven: Peeters, 1996), xv. 39. Concerning Ubaghs, see footnote 3 above. 40. Boileau, Cardinal Mercier, 50. 41. Désiré Mercier, A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy, vol. 1 (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1938), 21-22, as quoted in Boileau, Cardinal Mercier, 51. 42. See: Courtois, “Le cardinal Mercier: introduction à l’étude d’une personna lité,” 79-97. 76 JONAS BOGNAR suspiciously at the work of biblical scholars such as Ladeuze. At the height of the Modernist crisis, Ladeuze was elected rector of the Univer- sity of Louvain in 1909, which raised the ire of Pius X and Merry del Val – who considered Ladeuze heterodox, thanks to the negative reviews of Ladeuze’s works by the Belgian Jesuit and Biblical Commission consultor, Alphonse Delattre (1841-1928). Others at the Faculty of Theol- ogy were also affected or suspected of Modernistic tendencies as ‘collateral damage’ to the charge led on Ladeuze during this period, including: Albin Van Hoonacker (1857-1933), an Old Testament professor; Henry Poels (1868-1948),43 a biblical exegete; Gaston Rasneur (1874-1939) and Honoré Coppieters (1874-1947), both future bishops and protégés of Ladeuze; Hippolyte Delehaye (1859-1941), a Jesuit and Bollandist hagiographer.44 All of these scholars faced various levels of scrutiny by the hierarchy, especially Delehaye and Van Hoonacker, who narrowly avoided being condemned by the Congregation of the Index, thanks to Mercier’s intervention on their behalf.45 Mercier himself was also rebuked by Delattre because of a statement the cardinal had made during a speech to the professors of the Faculty of Theology on Decem- ber 8, 1907. In essence, Mercier drew a distinction between the condemnation of Modernism and the historical critical method used at Louvain, which, thanks to the Jesuits in Louvain and Rome, then turned attention back to Ladeuze.46 Mercier was on the defensive, knowing that the entire future of the University was on the line. All the while, Mercier defended his priests and professors as best he could, bearing in mind that he certainly was against any kind of philosophical modernism.47 Unlike Tyrrell’s direct correspondence with Riordan, Mercier uti- lized the Prioress of the English Convent of Bruges, Mary Stanislaus

43. See: Henry A. Poels, A Vindication of My Honor, ed. Frans Neirynck, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia 25 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1982). 44. According to Courtois, all of these scholars were ‘collateral damage’ to Ladeuze. For a more detailed account of these men, see: Luc Courtois, “A Panorama of the Modernist Crisis in Belgium (1898-1914),” in Religious Modernism in the Low Coun- tries, ed. Leo Kenis and Ernestine van der Wall, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologi- carum Lovaniensium 255 (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 45-63. 45. Ibid., 54. 46. Luc Courtois, “Pie X, Mercier et le modernisme en Belgique à la lumière de l’Archivio particolare di Pio X,” in La papauté contemporaine (XIXe-XXe siècles). Il Papato contemporaneo (secoli XIX-XX): Hommage au chanoine Roger Aubert, professeur émérite à l’Université catholique de Louvain, pour ses 95 ans. Omaggio al canonico Roger Aubert, professore emerito all’Università cattolica di Lovanio, per i 95 anni, ed. Jean-Pierre Delville and Marco Jacov, Bibliothèque de la Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 90; Collectanea Archivi Vaticani 68 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Collège Erasme; Leuven: Universiteitsbiblio- theek; Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2006), 262-267. 47. Gevers, “Belgium and the Modernist Crisis,” 285-294. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 77

(1854-1938), to communicated with Tyrrell. Despite notions that the Jesuits had something to do with initiating the incardination dialogue between Mercier and Tyrrell,48 it was actually the Irish Columba Mar- mion of the Abbey of Maredsous who inspired Mercier to inquire about the regularisation of Tyrrell.49 Mercier made it clear from the beginning that Tyrrell “would not preach, nor hear confessions, nor publish anything without his authorization.”50 However, Tyrrell was convinced that he had no wrongdoings, and demanded that “I must be received on the ordinary footing or not at all.”51 His response did not sit well with Mercier. Nonetheless, he continued to communicate via the Prioress, and Mercier pushed Tyrrell further in order to understand his intentions to be regularised. In an attempt to seemingly appease Mercier, he said, I purpose to go and live quietly with some friends and retire defini- tively and finally from the ecclesiastical life with all its vexations and unkindness. […] The fact is that no bishop can take me till Rome releases me from my vows as a religious, and Rome is determined to make things as difficult for me as possible. […] I wrote long ago from Freiburg to the Congregation [for Bishops and Religious] for my release [from religious vows] and leave to say Mass, but got no reply; I wrote again four weeks ago; still no reply. […] How can I then allow any bishop (even were I freed by Rome) to accept me with such discredit in front of me? … So just pray for me and say nothing. Continue as Job’s comforters began when they sat with him and said nothing.52 At this point, Tyrrell appears to be either confused, uninformed, or unwilling to follow the procedures of the Sacred Congregation of Bish- ops and Religious.53 Officially, upon direct orders from Pius X, Tyrrell had been dismissed from the Society of Jesus on February 7, 1906, and his dismissal papers were delivered to him on February 19 by Richard

48. Boudens points out that Gout makes the unsupported assumption that the Jesuits initiated the dialogue (Boudens, Two Cardinals, 303; R. Gout, L’affaire Tyrrell [Paris: Nourry, 1910], 154). 49. Thibaut, Dom Columba Marmion, 323. 50. Ibid., 324; Boudens, Two Cardinals, 303; James J. Kelly, “Medievalism and Modernism: Cardinal Désiré Mercier (1851-1926) and George Tyrrell (1861-1909),” in Religious Modernism in the Low Countries, ed. Kenis and Van der Wall, 172. It must be noted that only Tyrrell’s letters have survived and not those of the Prioress. 51. Tyrrell to Stanislaus, April 13, 1906, quoted in: Boudens, Two Cardinals, 304. 52. Tyrrell to Stanislaus, Storrington, Sussex, undated, quoted in: Boudens, Two Cardinals, 305-306. 53. Schultenover details this confusion concerning Tyrrell’s status and dismissal: David G. Schultenover, George Tyrrell: In Search of Catholicism (Shepherdstown: Patmos Press, 1981), 319-325. 78 JONAS BOGNAR

Sykes (1854-1920), the Provincial of the English Province of Jesuits. Either way, Martin made it clear in his dismissal letters that he could petition the Congregation for regularisation or rehabilitation to the Order.54 The act of petitioning for regularisation required a bishop that was willing to incardinate him. Such was the case of his close friend and fellow Jesuit, Henri Bremond (1865-1933), who had been expelled from the Society and incardinated in the Archdiocese of Aix-en-Provence by Archbishop Bonnefoy (1836-1920) in 1904.55 However, Tyrrell saw himself as a just cause worth fighting for, unwilling to capitulate nor accept terms that would even hint at any wrongdoing. Therefore, he appears to have understood the situation, but persisted in his politics in hopes of achieving vindication above anything else. Finally, after Tyrrell himself practically begged Mercier not to inter- cede in his behalf, Mercier wrote to Merry del Val in order to begin the process of regularisation and incardination, a letter which was forwarded to Cardinal Domenico Ferrata (1847-1914), Prefect of the Sacred Con- gregation of Bishops and Religious. Ferrata agreed to allow Mercier to incardinate Tyrrell into the Archdiocese of Mechelen, so long as he agreed “formally neither to publish anything on religious questions nor to hold epistolary correspondence without the previous approbation of a competent person appointed by Your Eminence.”56 While Mercier was pleased with such conditions, Tyrrell was livid, and his response literally went head-to-head with ecclesiastical authority: I should not have the slightest difficulty in submitting all my private correspondence to so wonderfully kind and good a friend as Msgr. Mercier has proved himself to be, but my acceptance of that condition would mean that I acknowledged a right on the part of ecclesiastical authority to interfere in my private converse with my friends. No such right exists and I should be guilty of a grave sin against principle if by any action of mine I were to countenance such an unprecedented claim. It was because I feared the imposition of some such impossible condition that I desired to take no step during the present crisis of reaction, to recover my station as a priest. Later on I might have been reinstated without conditions or at least without the impossible condition. Now having proposed that condition they cannot very well withdraw it: so I am afraid the

54. Martin to Sykes, February 13, 1906 in The Autobiography of George Tyrrell, ed. Maude D. Petre, vol. 2 (London: Edward Arnold, 1912), 254. 55. Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Reg. Prov. Lugdun. VIII, Martin to Bremond, February 6, 1904, as quoted in: Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’, 152. 56. Ferrata to Mercier, Rome, June 18, 1906, as quoted in: Boudens, Two Car- dinals, 307. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 79

impasse is perpetuated. My head got bad and I was advised to drop all work and correspondence and go away for some months. As Msgr. M[ercier] has never written to me I suppose I may not write to him; but will you tell him how profoundly I am touched by his generosity; and how sorry I am that what seems so small a sacrifice of principle makes it impossible to avail myself of his goodness.57 A few items must be addressed in this letter. First of all, Kelly points out that the “my head got bad” line was in reference to Tyrrell’s early symp- toms of Bright’s Disease.58 This may be the reason why he seemed to be so confounded over the process of regularisation and the Congregation of Bishops and Religious. Secondly, Tyrrell has a point about his rights pertaining to his clerical status and the condition that the ecclesiastical authority wishes to impose upon him in the censorship of his personal correspondences. The fact that the authority of the Church was so broad as to invade his thoughts and words truly vexes him, and poses the legitimate question: Does ecclesiastical authority have such a right? We already know from the case of Henri Bremond that he was followed by a private detective on orders directly from Martin. In that situation, all of Bremond’s letters were scrutinized and his whereabouts traced, only to reveal that he was having a love affair with a woman from Paris.59 Tyrrell obviously worried about receiving the same treatment as Bremond, and even more so worried about the invasion of his privacy. Mercier replied to Tyrrell’s concerns: You may submit your writings to a man in whom you yourself declare you have full confidence. To my great surprise you do not accept this simple condition. Are you wise in refuting it? Evidently it cannot be a question of putting “your private converse with your friends” before us. Simple good sense says that this cannot be, that this is not the intention of the Congregation. It can only be those correspondences which would have as their object the theme of your publications. You say, my dear sacerdotal confrere, that “if Our Lord wants your Mass, He will secure it by straight means;” to this I respond: “if you were yourself wanting Mass, would an act of humility and simplicity not be a straight means to secure it?” […] My dear confrere, leave to others, to your superiors, the care of judg- ing what is demanded by the wise administration of the Church; as

57. Tyrrell to Stanislaus, June 19, 1906, as quoted in: Boudens, Two Cardinals, 307. 58. Kelly, “Medievalism and Modernism,” 174. 59. Sagovsky, ‘On God’s Side’, 152. 80 JONAS BOGNAR

far as you are concerned, take care of assuring the peace of your soul and its ultimate salvation. […] I remain willing to assist you if I can, but a first free act has to emanate from you; your friends await it out of the grandeur of your soul.60 The format of Mercier’s letter – taking Tyrrell’s concerns point-by-point and addressing them – is intriguing, as Tyrrell will use a similar format in his response to Mercier’s Lenten Pastoral on Modernism in 1908. Despite the assurances that only correspondences of theological content would be subject to censorship and the pastoral tones of the Archbishop, Tyrrell still could not agree to the terms of the incardination, as it would betray the confession-like seal that he offered to all those who came to him in times of distress with the understanding that confidentiality was paramount in his spiritual advice (which was completely intertwined with his theology). In his final letter to the Prioress, he reiterates this sentiment, and then sums it up: “It is just this most private of all my private correspondences which the Holy See proposes shall be submitted to censorship.”61 With this letter, the correspondence between Mercier and Tyrrell concerning incardination was brought to a close, but their relationship would re-emerge in the full context of Modernism. In 1907, Mercier was named a cardinal, and with the condemnation of Modernism in Pascendi, he quickly took to the floor at the Uni- versity of Louvain on December 8, 1907 to give a speech to faculty and students on the pitfalls of Modernism: “Distinguished professors, because, being more clearsighted than others, you have practiced with rigor the objective study, the serene study of facts, you have known at once how to preserve our Alma Mater from the digressions of Modern- ism and also to assure it the advantages that are derived from modern scientific methods.”62 In fact, the Cardinal’s statement was quite ambig- uous, stating that the University should be preserved from Modernism and, at the same time, continue using scientific methods that were specifically condemned by Modernists such as Loisy. However, concerning Tyrrell, it was Mercier’s infamous Lenten Pastoral condemning Modern- ism and specifically naming Tyrrell as a Modernist in the spring of 1908

60. Mercier to Tyrrell, July 4, 1906, as quoted in: Boudens, Two Cardinals, 308, as translated in: Kelly, “Medievalism and Modernism,” 176. 61. Boudens, Two Cardinals, 309-310. 62. Désiré Mercier, Œuvres pastorales. Actes. Allocutions. Lettres, vol. 2 (Brussels: A. Dewit; Louvain: E. Warny; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1911-1926), translated in: Boileau, Cardinal Mercier, 157; Courtois, “Pie X, Mercier et le modernisme en Belgique à la lumière de l’Archivio particolare di Pio X,” 262. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 81 that ruffled the feathers of Tyrrell and brought about a whole new dimension to the relationship between the two. The Pastoral begins by quickly exonerating Belgium and the University of Louvain of Modern- ist tendencies in one fell swoop: “Thank God, these errors, which have principally taken root in France and Italy, find scarce an adherent in Belgium. You preservation from them is due to the watchfulness of your Pastors, and to the spirit of scientific impartiality and Christian obedience that animates the representatives of higher education in this country of ours.”63 He goes on to define the heresy: Modernism consists essentially in maintaining that the devout soul should draw the object and motive of its faith from itself and itself alone. It rejects every sort of revealed communication that is imposed on the conscience from the outside; and thus, but a necessary con- sequence, it becomes the denial of the doctrinal authority of the Church established by Jesus Christ, the contempt of the hierarchy divinely appointed to rule the Christian community.64 He then reiterates the ecclesiology of the First Vatican Council, describ- ing a ‘top-to-bottom’ Church, with the bishops and the pope, sanctioned with infallibility, teach and feed the lowly souls of the laity at the bottom of the pyramid. At the heart of his text when he describes his greatest fear, the ‘spirit of Modernism’, Mercier delves into the differences between Protestant- ism and Catholicism: Protestantism is individualism and Catholicism is authority. And who was the one person whom he felt fit this description of the ‘spirit of Modernism’? None other than George Tyrrell: “The most penetrating observer of the present Modernist movement – the one most alive to its tendencies, who has best divined its spirit, and is perhaps more deeply imbued with it than any other, is the English priest Tyrrell.”65 Mercier quickly connects Tyrrell to Protestant ideas in his writings, where “we find, often in the spirit that animates these very pages, the fundamental error of Doellinger; that is to say, the parent-idea of Protestantism. Little wonder, for Tyrrell is a convert whose early

63. Tyrrell included both the French original and an English translation of Mer- cier’s Pastoral in his book: George Tyrrell, Medievalism: A Reply to Cardinal Mercier (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908), 1. Also see the new edition: George Tyrrell, Medievalism: A Reply to Cardinal Mercier, with a foreword by Gabriel Daly (Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, 1994), 21. The following citations will include both editions, as the 1994 edition is based on the third printing of Medievalism from 1909 (George Tyrrell, Medievalism: A Reply to Cardinal Mercier, 3rd impression, with addi- tions [Longmans, Green & Co., 1909]). 64. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 3; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 22. 65. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 9; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 26. 82 JONAS BOGNAR

education was Protestant.”66 Mercier then defines what he thinks Tyrrell believes: “Revelation, he thinks, is not a deposit of doctrine committed to the charge of the teaching Church, and of which the faithful are to receive authoritative interpretation from time to time. It is the life of the collectivity of religious souls, or rather, of all men of good will who aspire to realise and ideal higher than the earthly aims of egoists.”67 Key for our discussion here, Mercier talks about Tyrrell’s attitude towards authority: “The authority of the Roman Catholic Church – the bishops and the Pope – interprets the interior life of the faithful, recapitulates the results of the general conscience, and proclaims them in dogmatic formulae. But the interior life of religion remains itself the supreme directive rule of beliefs and dogmas.”68 Again, we see the divide between the two polar opposites: Authority and individualism, more specifically in the decent of Tyrrell from Catholicism to Protestantism. Further on, Mercier blames the Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) for having indoctrinated the masses with the crude idea that the directive authority of a country is the sum of the individual wills of the whole community. The representatives of authority are thus considered as delegates whose exclusive function is to interpret and execute the mind and will of their constituents. And this is the conception of authority that Doellinger wanted to apply to the bishops united at the Vatican Council. Tyrrell, in his turn, applies it to the bishops as well as to the faithful, lay or ecclesiastic, of the Christian community so as to leave the bishops, and even the Pope, who is the supreme authority, no more than the right of recording and authoritatively proclaiming the thoughts, desires, and feelings of the scattered members of the Christian family, or rather of the communion of religious souls.69 Mercier ends his Pastoral with a call to vigilance in the face of Modern- ism and stronger trust in the Pope of Rome. Despite Mercier’s consistent rigid Ultramontane tone steeped in the theology of the First Vatican Council in his Pastoral, his views in reality were of stark contrast. In a letter from Wilfrid Ward (1856-1916) to the Duke of Norfolk following a luncheon between the former and Mercier, the true feelings of Mercier were revealed: “[Mercier] thinks the Roman

66. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 9; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 26. 67. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 9-10; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 27. 68. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 10; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 27. 69. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 14; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 29. The statements by Tyrrell to which Mercier alludes are developed in: George Tyrrell, The Church and the Future (Hampstead: Priory Press, 1910). A treatment of Tyrrell’s thoughts on doctrine and ecclesiastical authority in The Church and the Future can be found in: Schultenover, George Tyrrell, 297-301. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 83 theology quite impossible: yet though he is hand and glove with the Pope he does not give him the least inkling of his view.”70 While this clandestine view is seen as a relief by many, it was viewed as authoritative hypocrisy by Tyrrell, and he intended to expose it in his published reply to Mercier. On May 17, 1908, Tyrrell penned an ‘open letter’ in response to Mercier’s Lenten Pastoral entitled, Medievalism: A Response to Cardinal Mercier. In essence, he used the same method as Mercier did in his final letter to Tyrrell by responding to each of his statements, point-by-point. Many of the points made by Tyrrell were in response to some of the most obviously erroneous statements made by Mercier. Case in point was the very first chapter, in which Tyrrell simply points out that by declaring that Belgium is utterly free of Modernism while countries such as France and Italy are tainted with it, he is simply avoiding the issue and unfairly blaming others: “For Germany has been pronounced unspotted by the Holy Father himself; England declared guiltless by the Archbishop of Westminster; the Americans affirm that it is an exclusively European malady; the Italians say that the Encyclical was intended for France; the French, that it was clearly aimed at Italy. Every bishop thanks God that his diocese has been preserved as an oasis of light in the desert of Egyptian darkness; each asks: Is it I? none confess: It is I.”71 He goes on to challenge the ecclesiastical view of the First Vatican Coun- cil and the Ecclesia discens and Ecclesia docens: “You say it is only the episcopate united with the Pope that has the right to interpret revelation officially. If you mean that it is their office to gather up, formulate, and proclaim the sacred tradition with lives in the collective conscience of the whole Church Discens and Docens, lay and cleric, it is what every true Catholic holds.”72 However, he goes on to say: “If you mean that the tradition lives exclusively in the collective episcopal conscience of the Pope, your meaning is repudiated by all the Churches of the East and was vehemently disputed in the West till, in 1870, it was apparently but not really approved by the Vatican Council. If you are right, the whole Church was in error about her essential constitution for many centuries of her existence.”73 On papal authority, he is clear: “The right of com- mand, the duty of obedience, have no place among brethren. Their

70. Ward to the Duke of Norfolk, May 24, 1908, in Maisie Ward, Insurrection and Resurrection (London: Sheed and Ward, 1938), 317-318, as quoted by: Kelly, “Medievalism and Modernism,” 180-181. 71. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 27; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 39. 72. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 53; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 58. 73. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 53; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 59. 84 JONAS BOGNAR agreement must be a spiritual and spontaneous agreement. Even Christ did not lord it over his Apostles.”74 As to Mercier’s charge that Tyrrell was Protestant and another Döllinger, Tyrrell retorted, “If you can find Protestantism in Doellinger, it is not wonderful that you find it in Mod- ernism. Doellinger was even less of a Modernist than Newman.”75 The responses made by Tyrrell are numerous and well spelled out, however, we should look closer at why Mercier wrote such a document – especially if Belgium was, according to Mercier, devoid of Modernism to begin with – and why he specifically called out Tyrrell in regards to Modernism, and not the obvious choice, Loisy. After all, Tyrrell cor- rectly points out that by calling him out as a Modernist by name, Mercier made this affair personal and indeed went far beyond that which Pius X wrote in Pascendi: “Even the Encyclical Pascendi, which does not err on the side of excessive tenderness and charity, is content to signalise errors without mentioning names. Is it not enough to be as zealous as the Pope?”76 And still further on, he points out that “Your Eminence’s Pastoral Letter is an unfettered expression of your own personal convic- tions, and not merely a dutiful conformity to the ideas and sentiments of the Encyclical Pascendi.”77 Tyrrell ends the letter on direct jab at the Cardinal: “For I know from personal experience how deep and sincere may be the conviction which, regarding the official view as identical with God’s view, makes it a matter of conscience to shut one’s eyes and ears to every suggestion of the possibility of any other view. I conceive it a false conscience, but as conscience in any form I respect it.”78 Tyrrell was clear in his views on Mercier, and it was surprising that Mercier had published such a Pastoral given the fact that most Modern- ists, such as von Hügel, thought that he was on their side.79 The best explanation can be found in the actions of Mercier himself towards those who were accused or suspected of Modernism. His attempt to help out Tyrrell by incardinating him into his see was one example. He also intervened in behalf of others at the University of Louvain, such as the exegete and Professor Albin Van Hoonacker and Jesuit Bollandist

74. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 61; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 65. 75. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 93; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 91. 76. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 23; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 36. 77. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 25; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 38. 78. Tyrrell, Medievalism, 188; Tyrrell, Medievalism, ed. Daly, 169. It should be noted that Mercier penned a response to Tyrrell’s response, however, he never published it or sent it to Tyrrell. The complete text can be found in: Boudens, Two Cardinals, 325-334. 79. Michael de la Bedoyère, The Life of Baron von Hügel (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1951), 174. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 85

Delehaye, who were both suspected by the Index of Modernist tendencies.80 There were many other situations where the Cardinal intervened at his own risk, and in the end, it earned him a particular reputation in Rome that was summed up by the integralist Msgr. Umberto Benigni (1862-1934),81 who characterized Mercier in 1913 as “dubious, known as siding with all the traitors of the Church.”82 Kelly further argues that Mercier showed his true colors in his 1915 Lenten Pastoral (the year following the death of Pius X) by condemning the anti-Modernists, stating his intent “to put to death that brewing integralism.”83 This certainly proves that Mercier was indeed at least sympathetic to the Modernists, and perhaps simply fearful of Pius X in regards to both his own ecclesiastical career and how the pope might have cracked down even further had Mercier publicly supported alleged ‘heretics’. Kelly comes to a similar conclusion: “in demonstrating publically that Belgium was in a safe pair of hands, the Pastoral’s aim may have been to divert Rome’s attention away from Belgium, while, at the same time safeguarding, indeed strengthening Mercier’s own position as cardinal and enaabling him to continue in his role of protecting and defending scholars under suspicion of modernism in Rome.”84

IV. Riordan and Mercier: Against a Backdrop of Modernism

The years spanning the condemnations of Americanism, Liberalism, and Modernism were tumultuous times for Roman Catholic bishops the world over. Increasingly, ecclesiastical politics and discretion were necessary to accomplish activities that would have been, in other non- auspicious times, much simpler. Anything contrary to the established Ultramontane theological norms of the nineteenth century was

80. Courtois, “A Panorama of the Modernist Crisis in Belgium,” 54. 81. Benigni was a priest working in the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesi- astical Affairs. He was an avowed anti-Modernist, and used his media connections to out suspected Modernists. For more on Benigni, see: Émile Poulat, Intégrisme et Catholicisme intégral: Un réseau secret international antimoderniste: la “Sapinière” 1909-1921 (Paris: Casterman, 1969); William L. Portier, Divided Friends: Portraits of the Roman Catholic Modernist Crisis in the United States (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 44. 82. Poulat, Intégrisme et Catholicisme intégral, as quoted in Kelly, “Medievalism and Modernism,” 184. 83. Poulat, Intégrisme et Catholicisme intégral, 600. 84. Kelly, “Medievalism and Modernism,” 185. 86 JONAS BOGNAR considered anathema by Rome. While each condemned heresy had its own characteristics (Americanism carried with it the ideas laid out in the U.S. constitution and democracy; Modernism was associated with scientific scholarship and biblical criticism stemming from German Prot- estants; and Liberalism was characterized by the heterodox theological views of English Catholics living in an Anglican nation) they all held in common progressive, liberal Catholic ideas. All three of these thought systems were also interconnected in the person of Cardinal Merry del Val, whose constant precipitous interventions exacerbated delicate political situations as well as the personal lives of Catholic priests –, including Loisy, Tyrrell, Sullivan, and many others. The result was a resounding debacle called the Modernist crisis, and it served as a witness to the sac- rifices that had to be made in order to advance theological scholarship. In the case of George Tyrrell, there occurred a most incredulous situation, where a man, suspected of heresy, was actually sought after by bishops who wished to incardinate him into their sees following his dismissal from the Society of Jesus. Archbishop Riordan of San Francisco and Cardinal Mercier of Mechelen both extended such an offer to Tyrrell, but under different conditions, surroundings, and cultures. Riordan was essentially acting as a missionary in his own see: trying to build a seminary and a cathedral; importing priests to feed his flock; finding ways to connect pastorally to his church. When Riordan reached out to Tyrrell, while he found his spiritual writings striking, his first concern was that he had the opportunity to import another well-educated priest for his fledgling archdiocese. Also, San Francisco was geo- graphically far from the epicentres of most of the controversies that con- sumed the Church at that time. Therefore, Riordan’s decision to correspond directly with Tyrrell in an open and welcoming way was certainly influenced by such circumstance to some degree. Riordan was also on the record as being a supporter of the Americanist party in the years leading up to the condemnation of Americanism. In fact, he sided with the Americanists at the first meeting of the American archbishops following the condemnation by voting to fish out the errors of Ameri- canism in every diocese (obviously, he did this to try and coax the conservative archbishops into a wild goose chase), a proposal made by Ire- land himself.85 However, Modernism was a very different situation for Riordan. As we discussed earlier, he worked tirelessly to support and defend Edward Hanna against the accusations of Modernist tendencies

85. Marvin R. O’Connell, John Ireland and the American Catholic Church (St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988), 467. EPISCOPAL LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF CRISIS 87 that he faced. In the end, considering the lengths to which Riordan went to exonerate Hanna, it is astonishing that Tyrrell did not take up Riordan’s offer of incardination, as it probably would have taken Tyrrell far away from his troubles with more freedom to write nearly uninhib- ited, unlike his situation in Europe. It also begs the question as to what happened to the German priest that Tyrrell had mentioned to Riordan for incardination into his see. Surely such a priest would be ideal for Riordan, however, there is no further mention of the German priest after Tyrrell’s death. Perhaps it highlights how fond Riordan was of Tyrrell. Like Riordan, Mercier was educated at Louvain, but instead of only residing there temporarily, Mercier spent most of his life at the Univer- sity. When Liberalism and eventually Modernism arrived at his doorstep, he had to be very careful as he had already encouraged modern scientific investigation in almost all of the university’s faculties. In essence, when accusations were made, Mercier protected and defended the University and had a ‘dual-commitment’ to both the progressive intellectuals and to the anti-Modernists aligned with Pius X.86 This brings us once again to the reaction of Wilfrid Ward when he discussed frankly the impos- sibility of Rome’s theology as spelled out in Pascendi while simultaneously affirming complete loyalty to the Holy See and its anti-Modernism. When Mercier agreed to offer incardination to Tyrrell in 1906 at the behest of Marmion, he elected to do so quietly and indirectly, with the use of an intermediary to control the correspondences. Mercier was hopeful that Tyrrell would be obedient by at least stating that he would try to adhere to the proposed conditions of his incardination. However, unlike in the case of Riordan, Tyrrell did not like being so indirect and clandestine about the incardination. What Tyrrell did not take into account was the fact that, at least for Mercier, this was all a matter of diplomacy, as was the style in Belgian culture. As Kelly puts it, “He governed the Belgian church with an aristocratic authoritarianism. In fact, his treatment of Tyrrell was not atypical of Mercier’s actions as Primate of Belgium. As cardinal he was willing to assist people so long as they accepted his conditions and did as he proposed.”87 Tyrrell’s lack of this cultural and diplomatic aspect of Mercier was the major part of the problem. The other part was Tyrrell’s temperament, especially when he was attacked. Left unanswered is the question as to why Tyrrell was mentioned by name in Mercier’s Pastoral. Perhaps Mercier did take the

86. As Courtois puts it, “un double engagement, à la fois progressiste et anti moderniste” (Courtois, “Pie X, Mercier et le modernisme en Belgique,” 258-259). 87. Kelly, “Medievalism and Modernism,” 185. 88 JONAS BOGNAR situation personally, especially after all the effort he went through to get Rome to agree to Tyrrell’s proposed incardination. Or, maybe by setting Tyrrell against such weak arguments, Mercier left him room to vindicate himself from the entire crisis in the future. Either way, it is still unknown as to why Mercier singled him out amongst the Modernists. Finally, the case of the attempted incardinations of George Tyrrell by both Riordan and Mercier highlights the fact that the Modernist crisis placed many bishops in a precarious position when it came to their authority and clergy who were accused of Modernist tendencies.88 In essence, the Modernist crisis had stifled episcopal authority by placing bishops in these kinds of situations and consolidating power in Rome. Furthermore, it left priests like Tyrrell ‘homeless’ and ‘wandering’, contrary to the mandates of Canon Law and conciliar decrees.

Jonas Bognar received his Ph.D. and S.T.D. from the KU Leuven and currently forms and mentors university students in liturgical ministries, while overseeing the sacramental preparation programs for Baptisms, Marriages, and Confirma- tions at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He specializes in Con- temporary Church History, Theology and Liturgy, with particular research interests in Americanism, Modernism, Canon Law, and the Papacy. He serves as a consultant and is regularly involved in the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, California, as a master of ceremonies at various liturgies and works with prelates in the Catholic Church worldwide. Addi- tionally, he resides on campus, serving as a Resident Minister in the Resident Ministry Program at Loyola Marymount University. Address: Loyola Mary- mount University, 1 LMU Drive, MS 8445, Los Angeles, CA 90045, USA. E-mail: [email protected].

88. For example, Archbishop Eudoxe-Irénée Mignot (1842-1918) of Albi was in a very delicate situation, as he tried to defend scientific biblical scholarship and his friend, Alfred Loisy. While Mignot advised Loisy and helped him gain an indult to say Mass, he still had to give his loyalty to Rome during the ongoing political upheaval against the Church in France at the time. This prevented Mignot from being able to incardinate Loisy into his own see, however it did not stop the Archbishop from advising him when approaching other bishops for incardination (Marvin R. O’Connell, Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis [Washington, DC: The Catho- lic University of America Press, 1994], 249-250, 269). For more recent information on Mignot, see: Louis-Pierre Sardella, “Mgr Mignot, the ‘Ultimate Modernist’?,” trans. Elizabeth Emery, in Harvey Hill, Louis-Pierre Sardella, and C. J. T. Talar, By Those Who Knew Them: French Modernists, Left, Right, & Center (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 150-186.