Emmanuel D'alzon

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Emmanuel D'alzon Gaétan Bernoville EMMANUEL D’ALZON 1810-1880 A Champion of the XIXth Century Catholic Renaissance in France Translated by Claire Quintal, docteur de l’Université de Paris, and Alexis Babineau, A.A. Bayard, Inc. For additional information about the Assumptionists contact Fr. Peter Precourt at (508) 767-7520 or visit the website: www.assumptionists.org © Copyright 2003 Bayard, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission of the publisher. Write to the Permissions Editor. ISBN: 1-58595-296-6 Printed in Canada Contents Contents Preface ................................................................................................. 5 Foreword .............................................................................................. 7 Historical Introduction ......................................................................... 13 I. The Child and the Student (1810-1830) .................................. 27 II. From Lavagnac to the Seminary of Montpellier and on to Rome (1830-1833).................................................................... 43 III. The Years in Rome (1833-1835) ............................................... 61 IV. The Vicar-General (1835-1844) ................................................ 81 V. Foundation of the Congregation of the Assumption (1844-1851) .............................................................................. 99 VI. The Great Trial in the Heat of Action (1851-1857) .................. 121 VII. From the Defense of the Holy See to the First Missionary Thrust (1858-1861)................................................................... 137 VIII. Mission to the Orient and Foundation of the Oblates of the Assumption (1861-1866) ................................................... 151 IX. Before and During Vatican Council I (1866-1870) ................... 167 X. The Campaigns in Favor of Catholic Action (1870-1875) ......... 183 XI. The Final Years (1875-1880) ..................................................... 199 XII. The Death of Emmanuel d’Alzon ............................................. 213 XIII. The Soul of Father d’Alzon ....................................................... 221 Notes ........................................................................................................ Photos ...................................................................................................... Preface Gaétan Bernoville, the author of this biography of Father Emmanuel d’Alzon, founder of the Augustinians of the Assumption, was asked to write this study when the congregation was marking its centennial. At the time, Bernoville had already published twenty-three books, including biographies of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes. Fourteen of these volumes were biographies of founders and foundresses of religious congregations, among them Father Etienne Pernet, who founded the Little Sisters of the Assumption, and another on the Religious of the Assumption, focusing on Eugénie Milleret, their foundress. These two communities are considered to be “sister” congregations of the Augustinians of the Assumption because both Father Pernet and Mother Marie Eugénie were so closely allied to Father d’Alzon, the first as an Assumptionist himself, and the second as a lifelong correspondent and close friend. Our readers will find them both mentioned more than once in the pages which follow. In 1948, and again in 1950, Gaétan Bernoville was honored by the Academie française for his writings. In a very succinct Foreword to the French edition, Bernoville expressed his debt of gratitude to Father Siméon Vailhé, A.A., whose two- volume biography of Father d’Alzon, written over a thirty-year period, as well as his three volumes of the founder’s voluminous correspondence up to 1850, are still considered to be standard reference works for any study of Father d’Alzon. In the final sentence of his Foreword, Gaétan Bernoville writes as follows about them: “These are the fundamental works in which 6 Emmanuel d’Alzon to seek further documentation; nothing would please me more than to have the present book awaken such a desire in my readers.” Given the complexity of the Catholic Church’s constantly changing status in nineteenth-century France, the translators requested of Rev. George Tavard, an Assumptionist theologian as well as a native of France, that he write a scholarly Introduction to this book. The thoroughness of Father Tavard’s analysis will enable readers to “situate” Father d’Alzon in his fierce struggle against the French State for official recognition of Catholic schools, and against French prelates in his ultramontane stance against the Gallicanism widespread in the French Church of his time. The numbered endnotes are meant to clarify certain events and give some background information on persons and places mentioned by the author and which may not always be familiar to our readers. Bernoville’s translators hope that this English version will help readers to understand the heroism of Father d’Alzon. For the Church, Emmanuel d’Alzon gave up a life of great privilege, sacrificed a goodly portion of the family’s fortune and what could have been a brilliant career in any number of fields. The Catholic Church in post-revolutionary France of the nineteenth century was in dire need of men like d’Alzon, true believers willing to give up everything for the priesthood which they considered to be the noblest calling of them all. May his example spur others to follow in his footsteps. Claire Quintal Foreword The State of d’Alzon Scholarship since the Publication of the Bernoville Biography Since the appearance of the biography of Fr. d’Alzon by Gaétan Bernoville in the fifties, research on the founder of the Assumptionists has steadily advanced and matured. In this regard, it is only fitting to cite the truly authoritative works of Fr. Athanase Sage (1896-1971), considered to be the best analyst and interpreter of the writings of Fr. d’Alzon (cf. Écrits spirituels, 1956, and Un Mâitre spirituel du XIXe siècle, 1958). Though the years which followed marked a pause in d’Alzon scholarship, the celebration of the centennial of Fr. d’Alzon’s death in 1980 gave rise to a new wave of interest and study. A colloquium held in Paris,—Emmanuel d’Alzon dans la société du XIXe siècle (Le Centurion, 1982)—chaired by the renowned scholars, René Remond and Emile Poulat, was complemented by the publication of its proceedings which contain articles of the highest academic quality for the most part. The centennial also inspired the completion of the publication of the known correspondence of Fr. d’Alzon, a total of 18 volumes to date. This was a monumental enterprise due to the efforts of Siméon Vailhé (3 volumes), Pierre Touveneraud (2 volumes), Désiré Deraedt (11 volumes), and Jean- Paul Périer-Muzet (2 volumes). What may be of the greatest significance has been the creation of a database, begun in 1986, on d’Alzon and Assumptionist life, which includes the inventory, scanning, and indexing of all of Fr. d’Alzon’s writings — whether in his own hand or recorded by others. This has fostered a comprehensive and annotated rereading of this material. It has also made possible renewed studies such as the important volume Documentation biographique, dossier vie et vertus du P 8 Emmanuel d’Alzon d’Alzon (Rome, 1986), due to the efforts of Pierre Touveneraud, Désiré Deraedt, and Wilfrid Dufault. The extraordinary quality, detail, and depth of this work cannot be overemphasized. Fr. George Tavard has likewise written in-depth books on specific topics (The Weight of God, Fr. d’Alzon at Vatican I, and La Croix de Jésus). He recently completed two other books published by Le Cerf: Textes spirituels (2002) and Foi et Royaume (2003). Finally, Fr. Jean-Paul Pèrier- Muzet, the current archivist of the Congregation, has contributed his own historical approach which complements the spiritual biography of Fr. d’Alzon by André Sève (Ma Vie c’est le Christ, Le Centurion, 1980; in English, Christ Is My Life, New York: New City Press, 1988) with his own works, Prier 15 jours avec Emmanuel d’Alzon (Nouvelle Cité, #75, 2003) and Le P. d’Alzon par lui-même: Anthologie alzonienne (Rome, 2003). This latest wave of scholarly activity underlines the extent to which the personality and the apostolic activity of the founder of the Assumptionists remain rich and relevant at the dawn of the third millennium, not only for the congregations he founded to serve the Church, but also for the laymen and laywomen who today share a concern for that universal mission — the coming of Gods Kingdom. Emmanuel d’Alzon: A Word from the General Archivist What am I? What do I want to be? How will I become what I want to be? For quite some time, it is true, I have had a plan for my life. I pretty well know, or I believe I have a vague notion of what I wanted to do, but I have never entered deeply into myself, never have I tried to lay out clearly the means I wanted to use to reach my goal. Today, that’s what I really want to seek. I want to know clearly what I am, what I want to be, and what means I am going to use to become what I want to be. (Ecrits Spirituels/ES p. 736, 19 February 1831) This is the questioning of a young man at the age of twenty-one, a questioning which, in fact, spans his whole life. Emmanuel d’Alzon (1810- Foreword 9 1880) was a son of the Cévennes Region who spent almost his entire life in Nîmes, considered to be the Rome of Southern
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