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 LAMENNAIS

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LAMENNAIS

(d. 1176) became the first bishop. It was at that time a suffragan of Braga. At the instance of Arch- bishop Peter of Santiago de Compostela, Innocent III, in 1199, re-arranged the Dioceses of C'oimbra, Vizeu, Lamego, and Egitania (the present Guarda), allotting the first two to the Archbishopric of Braga and the last two to Santiago de Compostela (Florez, op. cit., IV, 274 sqq.; Lopez Ferreiro, op. cit., V, 29 sqq.). Lamego remained a suffragan of Compostela until the Archdio- cese of Lisbon was established in 139-1, after which it was a suffragan of that see. The diocese was enlarged in 14.30, when the district of Riba Coa was ceded to Portugal by the Kingdom of Leon. Until then this district had belonged to the Spanish See of Ciudad Rodrigo, but once joined to Portugal, it became part of the Diocese of Lamego. Clement XIV (10 July, 1770) created the Diocese of Pinhel (Pinelensis) in the aforesaid district, which, however, was suppressed by Leo XIII by the Bull "Gravissimum" (30 Sept., ISSl), which replaced Lamego under the metropolitan of Braga and gave new limits to the diocese.

Lamego is bounded on the east by the Diocese of Guarda, on the south l>y that of Vizeu, on the west by Coimbra, on the north by Porto and Braga; it has (1909) 273,741 inhaliitants, almost entirely Catholic, 283 parishes, 283 parish churches, 1144 public chapels, 314 secular priests, one college for boj's at Lamego conducted by Benedictines; 2 houses of Portuguese Franciscan nuns, one house of Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, and one of Franciscan nuns. The present bishop (1910) is Francisco Jos6 de Vieira e Brito, who was born 5 June, 1850, at Rendufinho (.Archdio- cese of Braga), studied at Coimbra, was professor of theology at the seminary at Braga, also canon and vicar-general there. On 13 Jan., 1892, he was nomi- nated to the See of Angra (.^.zores), and m 1902 was transferred to Lamego. He restored the cathedral and the bishop's palace, enlarged the diocesan semi- nary, and assisted in the foundation of a new Cath- olic workingmen's club.

Florez. Espana Sagrada, XIV (Madrid, 1758), 153-66; da FoNSECA, Memoria chronologica dos excetlentissimos prelados de Lamego (Lisbon, 1789); de Figueiredo, Introduc^ao para a his- toriaeccles. do bispado Lamecense (Lisbon, 1787); de Azevedo, Historia eccles. da cidadc e bispado de Lamego (Porto, 1878). Gregor Rbinhold.

Lamennais, (I) Felicite Robert de, b. at Saint- Malo, 29 June, 1782; d. at Paris, 27 February, 1854. His father, Pierre Robert de Lamennais (or La Men- nais), was a respectable merchant of Saint-Malo, en- nobled by Louis XVI at the request of the Estates of Brittany in acknowledgment of his patriotic devotion. Of the six children born of his marriage with Gratienne Lorin, the best-known are Jean-Marie (see below) and Felicite. The latter, though delicate and frail in phy- sique, early exhibited an exuberant nature, a lively but indocile intelligence, a brilliant but highly impression- able imagination, and a will resolute to obstinacy and vehement to excess.

Education. — At the age of five Lamennais lost his mother: his father, absorbed in business, was thus obliged to confide the eflucation of Jean-Marie and F6- licite to Robert ck's Saudrais, the brother-in-law of his wife, who had no children of his own. Jean-Marie and F^licit^ — or Fi^di, as he was called in the family — were taken to live with their uncle at La Chcnaie, an estate not far from Saint-Malo, which F(51icit(5 was afterwards to make famous. At La Chenaie there was a well- filled library in which works of piety and theological books were mingled with the .incient classics and the works of the eightccnth-ecntury ]ihiloso])hers. I'Y'li- cit**! was not very docilr at bis lessons, and, to punish him, M. des Saudrais would sometimes shut him up in the library. The child aeijuired a taste tor tin- books he found aroun<l him, and read voraciously uiid indis- criminately all that came to his hands, good and liad. He even multiplied reasons for being shut up in the li-

brary, abandoned himself there to his favourite read- ing, and made such rapid progress that he was soon able to read the classical authors without difficulty. The Revolution was then at its height; the proscribed priests had been obliged to leave France, or to con- tinue from hiding-places their sacred ministrations at the peril of their lives. The Lamennais household af- forded an asylum to one such priest, Abb6 Vielle, who sometimes said Mass at La Chenaie in the middle of the night. F61icit(5, who used to assist at the Divine services, derived from these early impressions a lasting and lively hatred of the Revolution. At the same time, his unwise reading, especially of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, seduced his ardent mind and prejudiced him against religion. These prejudices found vent in objections which moved his confessor to postpone in- definitely his First Communion.

His father at first intended Lamennais to join him in his business, but the youth obeyed without enthusi- asm. Always ill-at-ease in the office, he visited it as little as possible, and gave to reading all the time he could steal from his regular occupation. While he thus succeeded in completing his literary education and acquiring foreign languages, these studies under- taken without teachers or guidance necessarily left gaps in his training, and made him liable to contract dangerous habits of intellectual intolerance. The pas- sions, too, gained a certain mastery over him, drawing him into lapses which he says, not without some exag- geration, in a letter written in 1809 to his friend Brut^ de R^mur, the future Bishop of Vincennes in Indiana, "the most rigorous austerities, the severest penance would not suffice to expiate". The happy influence of his brother Jean-Marie, who had recently (1804) been ordained a priest, rescued him from this condi- tion. Restored to Christian sentiments, he made his First Communion, and resolved to consecrate himself to the service of the Church. He withdrew to La Chenaie and there gave himself up under his brother's direction to ecclesiastical studies, briefly interrupted (January to July, 1806) to re-establish his threatened health by a sojourn at Paris.

The Church of France was then in a struggling and precarious condition, being deprived of material re- sources and served but poorly by a clergy either en- feebled by age or inadequately prepared to meet the intellectual demands of the time. The two brothers set themselves to labour as best they could for the re- hef of the Church. In the common task which they imposed on themselves with this aim, the part that fell to F(51icit6, as being the better suited to his tastes, was chiefly intellectual and literary. In fact the story of his life is almost entirely contained in his books and articles. The first result of the joint labours soon ap- peared in a book published in 1808 under the title " Reflexions sur I'^tat de I'Eglise en France pendant le dix-huiticme siecle et sur sa situation actuelle". The first idea of this work and the materials were due to Jean-Marie, but the actual writing was done almost exclusively by F61icit6. After describing the evils under which the Church laboured in France, the au- thors point out the causes and propose remedies, among others provincial councils, diocesan synods, re- treats, ecclesiastical conferences, community life, and proper methods in recruiting the clergy. Many of these views were calculated to offend the imperial gov- ernment; the book was suppressed by the police, and was not rep\iblished until after the fall of the Empire. Meanwhile, the two brothers had left La Chenaie for the College of St-Malo, in which they had been ap- pointed professors. Felicit/' was to teach mathemat- ics; for he had to earn a living now that his father, already financially injured by the wars of t he ( 'onven- tion, haw his business ruined by the Continental Hlock- a<le, and was obliged to surrender all his projierty to his creditors. This ecclesiastical college having been closed by imperial authority, F(51icit6 withdrew to La