Princes, Ministers, and their Confessors--Montalembert's part in the
Revival--His Posthumous Work on Spain--Indignation against the New
Assumptions--Debate of Clergy in Paris on the Lawfulness of Absolving
a Liberal Prince or Minister--Wrath at Rome--True Doctrines taught to
Darboy and his Clergy.
In proportion as this Popery of physical force came into view, did the
mental stress of Catholics who had put their faith in finer forces
increase.
Chateaubriand, who played a brilliant part in the Catholic reaction
which followed the great French Revolution, especially in that phase of
the movement which aimed at linking together, in the imagination, Rome
and ideas and hopes now dear to mankind, left a work, at his death,
which he called _Memoirs from Beyond the Grave_--_Memoires d'outre
Tombe_. Montalembert, who played a still more brilliant part in the
Catholic reaction which followed the Revolution of 1830, also left
behind him a work, to appear after his death. In that work we can trace
the pains of a representative mind, showing what must have been those
of multitudes at the time of which we now write.
Montalembert saw, in "the absolutist politics, the retrospective
fanaticism, the embittered hostility to all modern ideas and
institutions, flaunted everywhere by the religious press,"[114] not
only a blot on the cause, which had been his life-passion--a passion
of feminine flame but of masculine vigour--but also a personal
wound. It made his past look like a well-played hypocrisy. He had
enthusiastically and victoriously argued for Catholicism under plea
of liberty. "I neither can nor will," he cries, "keep silence, as
to the monstrous articles published this very year (1868) by the
_Civiltá Cattolica_ against liberty in general, and precisely against
those Liberal Catholics who, like me, have had the _naïveté_ in the
Parliamentary tribune to assert the rights of the Jesuits, and cause
them to triumph in the name of liberty."[115]
On the second anniversary of that mysterious Thursday in February
1848, when King Louis Philippe, of the Tuileries, suddenly changed
into Mr. Smith in a street cab on the way to exile, Montalembert and
Thiers pleaded in the National Assembly for "freedom of instruction" on
behalf of the Jesuits. "It was only," says our orator, "in the name of
liberty, of modern constitutions, of modern liberty, of the liberty of
conscience, of the Press, and of the tribune, that we made the claim."
He adds that the victory was won only by Thiers brandishing the text
of the Republican constitution in the face of the furious Mountain, a
constitution proclaiming equal freedom of worship and association to
all. The italics are his own--
"We were all wrong, it is clear. In sound theology M. Renan alone
was right--he and the like of him who maintained that Catholicism,
and above all, the Jesuits, were absolutely incompatible with
liberty. Only--we ought to have been told it _then_. It was _then_,
and not now, that they ought to have taught us that liberty was a
_plague_, instead of taking advantage of it, and that by our help,
in order, twenty years later, to come insulting and repudiating
both it and us, at one and the same time.
I have long passed the age of disappointments and passionate
emotions, but I declare on reading these bare-faced palinodes
I have reddened to the white of my eyes, and shivered to the
ends of my nails. I am no longer child enough to complain of the
inconsistencies of men in general, or of Jesuits in particular, but
I loudly say that this tone of the puppy and the pedant (_ce ton de
faquin et de pédagogue_), employed towards old defenders, all of
whom are not dead, and in respect of old struggles, which may be
renewed to-morrow, does not become either monks or reputable men.
It may be perfectly orthodox. In matters of theology I am no judge,
but I think I am a judge in a matter of honour and decency; and I
declare it is perfectly indecent."
We give but one more extract from this unconscious palinode of the
high-souled Montalembert, who could not even then see that the Liberal
Catholicism of his ideal was a generous phantasy, irreconcilable
with the Popery of Rome, as much so as was his beloved parliamentary
system in politics with the Second Empire. No more could he see that
Pope and Jesuit were true to themselves in urging their old and
fixed principles, and had been equally true to themselves in using
instruments like him so long as they struck or stayed their hand at
"the beck of the priest," and in disowning them so soon as they set up
to keep a conscience for themselves, "as if the rod should shake itself
against them that lift it up." He and his friend Lacordaire carried to
Rome the large ideas of a great people, and bathed the quaint figures
of the Curia, and the quaint objects of the city, in the tropical light
of their own genius, just as Lamartine had done with the withered
remnants of the East. After such pictures as Montalembert had drawn in
his books, and his speeches, of his ideal Catholic Church, it must have
been mortifying to have, in age and sickness, to write as follows--
"Certainly, a strange way has been invented of serving religion, of
making the modern world accept, comprehend, and love it. One might
say that they treat the Church like one of those wild beasts that
are carried about in menageries. Look at her, they seem to say, and
understand what she means, and what is her real nature! To-day, she
is in a cage, tamed and broken in, by force of circumstances. She
can do no harm for the present; but understand that she has paws
and tusks, and if ever she is let loose you will be made to know
it" (p. 641).
As he wrote this sad passage, in all probability there would rise
before his imagination one of the most memorable scenes in the life of
any orator. When glorifying the return of the Pope to Rome, restored
by French force, and deprecating any attempt at a conflict with the
Church, he said that from any such conflict only dishonour could
result, as to a strong man would result dishonour from a combat with
a woman. And then, turning upon his audience, he said, "The Church is
more than a woman; the Church is a mother," with a gush and a power
which produced such a scene as perhaps has hardly ever been witnessed
in any parliamentary assembly. And both ideals were quite sincere. The
Church of Montalembert's imagination was a mother; the Church of the
_Civiltá Cattolica_ is a dam, holding to her young while they continue
in sheer dependence, treating them as strangers when they can take
care of themselves. His Church is the dream of an exceptional few, the
Church of the _Civiltá_ is the strong reality.
The articles which called forth this protestation of Montalembert,
were among the most curious even of the _Civiltá_. They dealt with
France--Paris and Darboy. On February 5, 1868, the Archbishop of Paris
held a conference of his clergy in the Church of Saint Rocque, and
there argued the following case of conscience. By some exceptional feat
of the worst of all evil genii, Publicity, the discussion, and its
result, were reported in the _Patrie_; and this indiscretion caused
the world for once to gain a real peep into the consultations in the
judges' chambers, behind the _internal tribunal_.
"A man engaged in politics," says the case of conscience, "declares
to his confessor that he has no intention of renouncing the
doctrines which prevail among modern nations, the principal points
of which are, liberty of worship, liberty of the Press, and the
action of the State in mixed affairs. The confessor asks if he is
to grant absolution to a penitent in this state of mind, or to deny
it."--_Civiltá_, VII. ii. 151.
The reasoning ascribed to the supposed penitent is the following--
You, as my confessor, have not the right to lay on me as you
would on a private man, the duty of devoting a certain day, and
of adopting certain means for the conversion of this or that
person. Doubtless, I ought, by word and example, to lay myself out
for the conversion and edification of my neighbour; but it rests
with me as a free agent to select the means and to discern the
opportunity. In like manner, you cannot order me as politician,
legislator, or prince, to take, this very day, this or that
measure, against blasphemy for example, or Sunday labour, or the
licence of the Press. Lay it upon me to attend to the propagation
of righteousness and truth; but leave it to me to judge of the
opportunity, and to choose the means. And, I pray you, consider
the grounds of my opinions. In the first place, whenever we speak
or act, we have on one side the truth and right, which certainly
ought to be respected; but on the other side we have fitness and
opportunity, of which also we must take account, if we would speak
to good purpose. Now, in this respect, I know better than any other
what I can do, and what I cannot, in my family, or in a political
assembly, or in the nation. In the next place, perhaps you do not
see the absurdity which would follow the opposite opinion. It
would follow that you had the right to decide and _regulate all
my actions_, because into every one of them _morality may enter_;
and every one of them may be connected with religion. You would be
able to dictate my will, to tell me what vote I ought to give, to
determine whether I am to declare peace or war. Mere trifles, you
say. But what, in that case, would temporal power be, but a passive
instrument of the spiritual power, and a mere machine? These are
the reasons why I stand to my old notions on this point, and have
no thought of changing them for others.
In this case, as thus put, and in the ensuing discussion, we see the
confessor of a king or minister preparing to meet his "penitent." In
the language of Montalembert, we see the feeling of a politician in
facing the "tribunal," under an Ultramontane confessor; and in the
papers of the _Civiltá_ we see the glaring eye of Rome searching out
every movement of the one and the other.
The case being thus stated, both as to its substance and as to the
reasoning of the supposed penitent, the discussion began. Abbé
Michaud, of the Madeleine, maintained that the confessor ought to
grant absolution. Abbé G----, a Dominican, maintained that he ought
not to do so. Archbishop Darboy now and then interfered, to moderate
the opposition of the latter. The Abbé Falcimagne interrupted the
Archbishop, declaring that he would deny the absolution, for the
supposed penitent was unworthy of it. Finally, the Abbé Hamon, Curé of
Saint Sulpice, read out four conclusions, which were fully accepted
by the Archbishop, and which allowed the confessor to grant the
absolution. The _Opinion Nationale_ and other journals said that this
conclusion showed to how little the condemnations of the Syllabus
amounted.
Both the conclusion and the grounds on which it was rested gave huge
offence at Rome. The _Civiltá_ was not content with less than five
long articles, making ninety octavo pages. It is in these that the
things are set forth which fired the embers of Montalembert's true
love of liberty, and damped his dying hope of ever seeing his ideal
Catholicism and actual Popery seated on the same throne. We need not
quote the passages which are echoed in his indignant repudiation; but
we give a few others, which show that, strongly as we have seen him put
the case, he was not guilty of any injustice. The Abbé Michaud said
that the liberty condemned was not moderate liberty, but unbounded
liberty.[116] The _Civiltá_ took it for granted that he could not have
been sincere.
"Similar to liberty of worship, is that worst of liberties,
never sufficiently execrated or abhorred--liberty of the Press,
which some dare to invoke and promote with so much clamour." It
continues--"In respect of religion and the Press, it is idle to
distinguish between two sorts of liberty, one wise and the other
unbridled, as the Abbé did. In such matters, all liberty is a
delirium and a pestilence. There is no healthy man's delirium;
all delirium is that of a sick man. There is no praiseworthy and
harmless plague; every plague is deadly.... Hence, it is never a
decent thing to introduce such liberty into a civil community. It
is only permissible to tolerate it in certain cases, in the same
way that a pest is tolerated" (p. 160).
The Abbé Michaud had said that, in mixed questions, the State
interfered by _the same right as the Church_! Such an utterance
savoured of our bad times. It was infected with the idea of the
independence of the civil power in regard to the ecclesiastical. This
idea was born with Protestantism; but it has been received by some
Catholics, sincere, it is true, though not discerning.
It is true that the temporal prince is invested with supreme power
and authority, in his order; but from this it follows only that
he is not subject to any other earthly power. It does not follow
that his authority, sovereign in its order, cannot be subject and
is not subject to another authority of a more perfect order; that
is, the spiritual.... It is necessary that whoever holds power,
even sovereign, for temporal rule shall be regulated by the Roman
Pontiff (pp. 161-63).
So far for the independence of the State. Now as to its right of
intervention in mixed questions, and above all, as to the defining of
limits between the two powers--
The State ought first to learn, from the Church, what are mixed
questions, that it may not take spiritual matters for mixed ones,
confounding both the one and the other with those which are called
temporal ones. Each separate kind of corn must be tied up into a
separate sheaf. The State ought to arrange with the Church every
time it puts a hand to what is temporal in these mixed matters, in
order that it may not violate what is spiritual.
The _Civiltá_ quotes M. Renan, where he shows how the Syllabus has
proved his assertion of 1848. "The Syllabus is a luminous demonstration
of the proposition I maintained, that Catholicism and liberty are two
things incompatible." The _Civiltá_ adds that, in order to know this
fact, M. Renan did not need to be a profound theologian, but only
needed to read the works of any author sincerely Catholic. It points
out that the Liberal Catholics fancy that the Popes, in condemning
liberty of worship and of the Press, only spoke of part of the subject,
that is, of some sorts of liberty; and that it was, therefore, some
liberty, not all, that they called madness, poison, and pestilence. But
the Popes, asserts the _Civiltá_, on the contrary, thought that all
liberty of worship and of the Press bore those characters (p. 314).
The Abbé Falcimagne insisted (p. 316) that the supposed penitent should
be at once treated as a sick man, and as being not of sound reason--
He comes to submit himself to my tribunal, and at the same time
rejects my authority. To see how far I can yield to his spiritual
infirmity I must see how far the authority of the confessor over
the penitent extends. On this point, I shall cite the words of
Domenico Soto, who, after hearing the confession of Charles
V, said, "So far, you have confessed the sins of Charles; now
confess those of the Emperor." Soto at least thought that the
actions of his penitent, although they belonged to the political
order, nevertheless came within the cognizance of his tribunal.
Our patient is of a diametrically opposite opinion. He will not
recognize in me the right of judging him in what touches doctrine
and morals indirectly. But I hold that, as confessor, I have a
right to judge my penitent, be he a legislator, or even a prelate
of the Church, in things pertaining to dogmas and morals, and
to prohibit what is contrary to either, whether directly or
indirectly. So I can command him to cease from holding presumptuous
tenets.
The Archbishop then asked the Abbé Falcimagne, requesting him to give
a direct answer, if he had a right to order his penitent to leave a
hundred thousand francs in his will to be distributed among the poor.
To this the Abbé Falcimagne made no reply. He said the point now was
to know whether the penitent, who would not renounce his modern ideas
as to liberty, was or was not guilty of presumption, _temerarius_.
"Guilty of presumption," replied the Archbishop, "is that confessor
who lays his hands on temporal things, assessing what he has no right
to assess." "But," retorted Falcimagne, "I have the right to judge my
penitent as to his disposition; and if he comes to me, and says that he
wishes to maintain his principles, and declares that I have not a right
to judge him, I tell him that his pretensions are illegitimate; that
his reason is disordered by modern principles; and that, if he will not
renounce those principles, I cannot absolve him."
The _Civiltá_ thinks that, at this point, they came to the heart of
the matter. On one side they began to allege that the confessor could
not require his penitent to renounce his opinions unless they were
heretical, or were opinions condemned by the Church. A very false
doctrine! exclaims the oracle; for, in addition to heretical opinions,
a true Catholic must renounce many others--those, for instance, which
are proximate to heresy; those which are presumptuous, scandalous,
and all indeed that are offensive to pious ears. The teaching power
of our Church is not merely infallible, and not only does it define
with infallibility when defining articles of faith, but also when
defining any truth, scientific or practical, political or historical,
which is connected, in any manner whatever, with dogma and morals; and
whoever would be a sincere Catholic must conform not only in respectful
silence, but with interior assent of the intellect (p. 318).
The _Civiltá_ proceeds to quote the opinions of the "good journals"
of Italy, laying stress on the point that the opinions held by the
supposed penitent could not be probable opinions--being in fact those
which were already condemned in the Syllabus. It proceeds with great
vigour to maintain that the Syllabus was the decree, not only of the
Pope, but also of the five hundred bishops who had adhered to it
last year (1867). Of these, the _Civiltá_ correctly says that Darboy
himself was one. It next contributes an important item of information,
which completes the evidence of the perfect and formal ecclesiastical
authority of all the condemnations of the Syllabus, on either theory
of the constitution of the Church, the Papal or the Episcopal. After
the address of the five hundred bishops present in Rome, all the absent
ones, asserts the _Civiltá_, sent in their adhesion by letter, which
they hastened to forward to this Roman chair, where, with the living
Pontiff, resides the "spirit of truth" (p. 324). Hence it draws the
inference, which is a just conclusion, if we may say so, in the face
of a hundred English writers who, following an old tradition, when
reviewing what Dr. Newman put upon paper on this subject, called it
logical.
"This penitent (says the great organ of the Vatican), openly
opposes the teaching power of the Church, whether that teaching
power is considered as being exercised by the Bishop of Rome alone,
or as being exercised by him in conjunction with all the bishops of
Christendom. That teaching power has pronounced in the one mode and
in the other, and has proscribed those opinions. In both ways has
it condemned opinions, not imaginary or belonging to bygone times,
but opinions which to-day, and under our eye, are pertinaciously
maintained and reduced to practice" (p. 324).
Returning with intense earnestness to this point, it says (p. 543)--
The universal Bishop has spoken alone, and further, he has spoken
conjointly with the bishops of the particular Churches. To
contradict after this, is in effect to separate oneself from the
whole of the pastors, and from him who is supreme among them all.
This is not enough. Some pages later, hesitation, on this question so
vital to practical government, is again censured, in replying to the
plea that the supposed penitent might be worthy of absolution on the
ground of invincible ignorance--
We shall never tell him that ignorance consists in this, namely,
that after he has read the Encyclical and the Syllabus, and re-read
them, he could not understand that the modern opinions, which
he retained, have been truly condemned, or that they have been
condemned rightfully. This is not ignorance. It is an error and a
pertinacity proper to a man not far removed from heresy. In this
case, we once more repeat, confession is not the thing wanted. The
first elements of the faith, and of the Catholic profession, have
to be set straight in this man's head (p. 547).
It would almost seem as if Montalembert was personally pointed at in
the two later articles. It is not a little curious to learn here that
his bosom friend, Lacordaire, long the charm of the French pulpit, was
called to Rome in 1850 to answer for his doctrine. The points on which
he had to set himself right with Rome were anything but, in our sense,
religious ones: (1) The coercive power of the Church; (2) The origin
of sovereignty; and (3) The temporal power of the Pope. He did set
himself right. Father Jandel, the General of the Dominicans, exulting
over his answer on the question touching the coercive power, says,
"It avenges his memory from the suspicion of complicity with certain
opinions which some Catholics would fain shelter under the authority of
his name."[117] Avenges his memory! It proves that whatever Lacordaire
believed, he submitted to write as his own the doctrine of Rome,
that the Church has power to "employ external force," and to inflict
bodily pains. And so France sees the memory of her Bossuet held up
to reproach, and the memory of her Lacordaire yoked by the Dominican
General to his beloved Inquisition. She sees her Montalembert driven
from public life, assailed, yea, reviled, while living, preparatory to
being insulted when dead.
Any one acquainted with the high spirit and immense emotional force of
Montalembert, can imagine his reddening and shivering at finding the
following among the citations from Renan to prove that the sceptic
understood the doctrine of "Catholicism" better than its professed
friends in France--
The remedy applied by the Church of Rome to the liberty of worship
and liberty of thought is the Inquisition. The Councils have
established and approved the Inquisition, the Fathers and bishops
have counselled and practised it. The Inquisition is the logical
outgrowth of the whole orthodox system, and the quintessence of the
spirit of the Church.[118]
Strongly as our sympathies are with Montalembert and Darboy, we feel
that, so long as the Jesuits have to prove that persecution is the
doctrine and has been the practice of the Church, they have it all
their own way against the Liberal Catholics, till they creep up to the
early ages.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 114: _L'Espagne et la Liberté._ Bibliothèque Universelle de
Lausanne, 1876, p. 626.]
[Footnote 115: Ibid. p. 635.]
[Footnote 116: _Civiltá Cattolica_, VII, ii. p. 150 ff.]
[Footnote 117: Serie VII. vol. iii. p. 65.]
[Footnote 118: Serie VII. vol. iii. p. 56.]