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Liberal Catholicism in France, 1845-1670 Dissertation LIBERAL CATHOLICISM IN FRANCE, 1845-1670 DISSERTATION Presented Is fbrtial Ftalfillaent of the Requlreaents for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By JOHN KEITH HUOKABY, A. £., M. A, ****** The Ohio State University 1957 Approved by: CONTENTS Chapter Page I INTRODUCTION......................... 1 The Beginnings of Liberal Catholicism in F r a n c e ....................... 5 The Seoond Liberal Catholic Movement . 9 Issues Involved in the Catholic-Liberal Rapprochement . • ......... > . 17 I. The Challenge of Anticierlealism. • 17 II. Ohuroh-State Relatione........ 22 III.Political Liberalism and Liberal Catholic la n .................. 26 IV. Eeoncttlc Liberalism and Liberal Catholiciam ..... ........... 55 Scope and Nature of S t u d y .......... 46 II THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE UNIVERSITS.... 55 Lamennais vs. the Unlveralte........ 6l Oniv era it a under the July Monarchy. 66 Catholic and Unlversite Extremism .... 75 The Liberal Catholio Campaign ......... 61 III CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS................ 116 Traditional Attitudes ................. 117 The Program of L*Avaiilr........... 122 The Montalembert Formula* Mutual Independence but not Separation .... 129 Freedom of Conscience and Religion . 155 Syllabus of Errors ........... 165 17 GALL ICANISM AND ULTRAMONTANISM........... 177 Ultramontanism: de Maistre and Lamennais 160 The Second Liberal Catholic Movement. 165 The Vatican Council............. 202 V PAPAL SOVEREIGNTY AND ITALIAN UNITY. .... 222 71 POLITICAL OUTLOOK OF LIBERAL CATHOLICS . 249 Democracy and Political Equality .... 257 ii The Revolution of 1848 and Napoleon . 275 Quarantiem and Ant 1-etatlaae.............. 291 VII CONCLUSIONS.............................. 510 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY............................ 525 ill Chapter X INTRODUCTION In the aftermath of the French Revolution the Roman Catholic Church placed itself in opposition to the dynamic historical forces in nineteenth-century France. Pampered and protected by the Bourbons of the ancion regime, dislodged and almost destroyed by the Revolu­ tion, the Church after 1815 formed an alliance with those forces to whom the principles of 1789 and the results of 1793 were distasteful. Within the post-revolutionary divisions of French society, a division which Salwyn Schapiro has labelled the “two Francesn— -la nouvelle France and 1 1 ancienne France— -Catholics decidedly and with delibera­ tion coalesced with the latter, the champions of aristocracy and royalism, to demand a reversion to the spirit of things past. To­ gether they formed a solidly constituted conservative front which deprecated the achievements of the Revolution and anathematised its spirit* The Church detached itself from the new France of liberty, re­ presentative government, and equality. Taking a position far lesa than catholic, the Church enthusiastically chose the reactionary phase of the French social and political dichotomy. As its 2 philosophers it selected de Maiotre and de Bon aid, who sought to identify Catholicism with counterrevolution. The Church thereby divorced itself from the major positive forces in post-revolutionary France in the sense that it sought to negate the achievements of 1739. The religion of the French consequently threatened to be­ come isolated from the social and political attitudes which most Frenchmen had come to cherish. In short, a wide chasm separated the Church from the general movement of French history after 1315 toward the establishment of a liberal state. To remove that chasm, there emerged in 1330 a group of Catholics who stated that the Church's fortune was not necessarily anchored to a particular political and social philosophy and that the Revolution, far from permanently damaging the Church, had in a sense purified it and left it free to move forward unencumbered with France toward the realization of French Revolutionary princi­ ples. Around Felicite de la Marnais*- a group of young liberals gathered to form a new school of Catholic thought, a school mo­ tivated by the desire to harmonize the Church and the ideals of nineteenth-century Liberalism— ideals which had their origin in the French Revolution of 1739 and in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. This first Liberal Cathol ic group was short-lived, for so abhorrent was its ideology to the reactionary French hierarchy and to a counterrevolutionary Ream that it was struck down by Papal ^After leaving the Church, la Manuals was normally referred to as Lamennais, encyclicals, Mirarl voa and Singular! nos, in 16J2 and 1824. In 1843 * second Liberal Catholic coterie emerged, led by the followers of the discredited Lamennais and sharing his ideas. From 1843 to 1870 these Catholic Liberals sought to convince Frenchmen that the Church was not opposed to their liberties, and coinciden­ tally to find for themselves a freedom of intellectual activity with­ in the Church, which seemed to become more monolithic as Liberal challenges to ins traditional position became more evident. Always a small group, their significance lay not in their numbers, but in the fact that they alone in mid-century France sought to direct the course of the Church toward a reconciliation with modern French so­ ciety and the principles upon which it was based. In short, they were, or sought to be, both Liberal and Catholic— — therein lay their importance. It is with that second Liberal Catholic movement that this paper will concern itself. The Liberal Catholic task was a difficult one and in the final analysis it was doomed to failure. For if the new France distrusted the Church as a force of reaction, the Churchts official spokesmen condemned the new France as an insidious and subversive legion flying the banner of irreligion. Catholicism seemingly could not look for­ ward, for it was preoccupied with fond reminiscences. Throughout the century the Church dragged its feet at every turn; thus it fortified rather than weakened the alliance of Liberalism and anticlericalism. After 1815 the Church lamented the failure to restore pre­ revolutionary conditions, for there was not a restoration in 1815, if "restoration” is taken to mean the return to the institutions of the ancien regime. At best, it was restoration of the constitution of 1791. The Church could no more be restored to its privileged position of the eighteenth century than could the monarch declare himself absolute or the aristocracy reassume its status as the second estate. Almost wrecked by the Revolutionary schism regarding the constitutional clergy, deprived of its wealth, and subordinated to the state by the Concordat of 1801, the Church in 1815 found that its relationship with the state and society was radically changed. The past could not be re-established. What would the Church's attitude be toward the restored regime, which was based on the Charter of 1814? The more optimistic Catholics looked longingly for a real restoration of the ancien regime. Not only did they hope to re­ gain the Church's wealth and position and to realize the null if i- i cation of the Concordat; they also sensed the need to return to an authority which would protect France and the French Church against the recurrence of revolutionary radicalism which, they felt, had subjected the country to twenty-five years of objectionable rule. Rejecting revolutionary doctrines with horror, they even refused to accept the Liberal Charter of 1814, which was, in their opinion, only a diluted form of the Ideas of 1793. With de Maistre they went even further, calling for a thoroughgoing reaction to the past, and for the denial of the Enlightenment in general. De Maistre, as well as de Bonald, supported authoritarianism not only in the state but also in the Church, both becoming champions of a revivified Ultramontanism which denied any degree of independence of the Church of France. Even though some more moderate Catholic voices were heard, especially that of Chateaubriand, authoritarianism and reaction were the dominant notes sounded by the supporters of the Church during the governments of Louis XVIII and Charles X. Under the restoration, therefore, the Church allied itself with legitimacy and reaction, and consequently won for itself in­ creased enmity in the ranks of Liberals. Voltaire was right, the Liberals concluded; the Church stood unconditionally against human progress and unalterably opposed to Liberal institutions. The Re­ volution of 1830 assumed an anticlerical spirit which was violent in nature, and many Catholics began wondering if the Church did not face a total loss of rapport with Frenchmen, who were becoming ever more indoctrinated with liberal and radical ideas. It was to nar­ row that breach, to re-establish that rapport. that a few Catholics began thinking in terms of the factors which served to reconcile the Church to liberal tenets, rather than emphasize those which sepa­ rated them. Foremost among those Catholics was the Abbe Lammenais. The Beginnings of Liberal Catholicism in France Lammenais wanted to free the Church from its ideological and political association with reaction. His program, summarily stated, called for the separation of Church and state and for support of the liberties granted by the Charter of 1830* Only by the establish­ ment of a dualism between Church and the state the mutual indepen­ dence of the two could the Church be wholly free f’-om and uncon­ taminated by association with the powers which might momentarily control the state* By rejecting Gallicanism, he hoped to buttress the Church's independence
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