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 LAMENNAIS

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LAMENNAIS

Rome and, in reply to his critics, wrote the " Defense de I'Essai " (1821). Rome confined its intervention to giving its imprimalur to an Italian translation of the " Defense de I'Essai ". Lamennais himself soon visited the Holy See; Leo XII received him very kindly and at one time even thought of making him a cardinal, despite his excitable character and exaggerated ideas. On his return to France, Lamennais showed a greater determination than ever to combat Gallicanism and irreligious Liberalism. On the occasion of a minis- terial ordinance prescribing the teaching of the famous Declaration of 1682 (see Gallicanism, VI, 384), he published his " Religion consid^r^e dans ses rapports avec I'ordre civil et politique " (1825), in which he de- nounced Gallican and Liberal tendencies as the joint causes of the harm done to religion, and as equally fa- tal to society. Irritated by these attacks, a majority of the French bishops, who were moderate Galileans, signed a protest against this pamphlet which accused them of leanings towards schism. Lamennais was also cited before the Tribunal of the Seine for attacking the king's government and the Four Articles of 1682 in their charaeter of existing laws. Defended by his friend, the great advocate Berryer, he escaped with a fine of thirty francs. From this incident he conceived a lively hostility to the Bourbons, and was all the more energetic in maintaining ultramontane ideas against Frayssinous, Clausel de Montals, Bishop of Chartres, and other representatives of moderate Gallican princi- ples.

On the other hand, he derived valuable assistance from a certain number of young men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who gradually formed a group of which he was the centre. Of these the best known are Ger- bet, de Salinis, Lacordaire, Montalemtert, Rohrliacher, Combalot, Maurice de Guerin, Charles de Sainte-Foy, Eugene and Ldon Bor6, de Herc^. With them La- mennais founded the " Congregation de St. Pierre ", a religious society whose distinctive duty was to defend the Church by the study of theological and other sci- ences, by propagating Rmnan doctrines, by teach- ing in colleges and seminaries, by giving missions and spiritual direction. Hardly had tliis congregation come into existence when Mgr. Dubois, Bishop of New York, appealed to it to supply teachers to the Catho- lic University which it was then proposed to found in that city. The Revolution of 1830 put an end to this project. The congregation at one time possessed three houses — La Chenaie, Malestroit, and Paris — but it lived only aljout four years. Obliged to reckon with tli.e demands of the Liberals, whom the elections had returned to the Chamber of Deputies, the government of Charles X had revived (15 June, 1828) former legis- lative enactments against the religious congregations — particularly against the Jesuits, eight of whose col- leges were closed. Although ill-disposed towards the Jesuits on account of their lack of sympathy for his philosophic system, Lamennais took up their tlefence in a book published in lS2!t under the title " Progres de la Revolution et ile la guerre contre I'Kglise". His attacks spared neither the king nor the liishops, whom he reproached with their Gallicanism and their conces- sions to the enemies of religion. Here, for the first time, Lamennais openly broke with monarchy, setting his highest hopes upon political liberty and equal rights. "An immense liberty", he said "is indispen- sable for the development of those truths which are to save the world." This was what he called "catholi- cizing liberalism". The work met with enormous success. The bishops themselves protested almost unanimously against the Government's action. Not, however, that they approved of Lamennais' violent language; the Archljishop of Paris in a pastoral charge even condemned the work, and this drew from La- mennais two open letters in which the archbishop's Gallican ideas were unreservedly criticized.

When the Revolution broke out the next year (July,

1830), sweeping the Bourljons away and lifting the House of Orleans to the throne, Lamennais beheld without regret the departure of the one, and without enthusiasm the accession of the other dynasty. "Most people", he writes in his letters, "would prefer a re- public frankly declared; I am of that number". Thenceforward he thought only of the defence of Catholicism against the triumphant party, who never forgave it the favour it had enjoyed from the fallen monarchy. While labouring to ward off the danger which menaced the Church, he hoped at the same time to ensure its social triumph by setting up its de- fence on the basis of equal rights, uniting its cause with that of pulilic liberties. With this end in view hefounded the journal "L'Avenir" (16 October, 1830) and his "Cieneral Agency for the Defence of Religious Liberty". With Lacordaire, Gerbet, Montalembert, and de Coux, he waged a grim battle in defence of Cath- olics against the hostility of the government, of Roman ideas against the Gallicanism of the clergy, and of his system of the "common sense of mankind" against rationalistic philosophy. The force of his blows, the boldness of his ideas, his outspoken sympathy for every people then in a state of revolt, provoked new accusations against him and gave rise to suspicion of his orthodoxy. To set himself right in the face of all this hostility, he suspended the publication of " L'Ave- nir" (15 November, 1831), and went to Rome to sub- mit his cause to Ciregory XVI. Though accompanied by Lacordaire and Montalembert, he did not find there the pronounced welcome of 1824. He waited a long time, but received no definite answer: then some days after his departure from Rome, appeared the Encyclical "Mirari vos" (15 August, 1832), in which the pope, without expressly designating him, con- demned some of the ideas advanced in " L'Avenir" — liberty of the press, liberty of conscience, revolt against princes, the need of regenerating Catholicism, etc. At the same time a letter from Cardinal Pacca informed Lamennais that the pope had been pained to see him discuss publicly questions which belonged to the authorities of the Church.

Lamennais out of the Church. — Having forth- with declared that out of deference to the pope he would not resume the publication of " L'Avenir", Lamennais suppressed the "General Agency", went back to La Chenaie, and there apparently kejit silence. In his heart, however, he cherished deep resentment, the echoes of which reached the outer world through his correspondence. Rome was stirred liy this behav- iour, and demanded frank and full adhesion to the Encyclical "Mirari vos". After seeming to yield, Lamennais ended by refusing to submit without re- serve or qualification. Little by little, he began by re- nouncing his ecclesiastical functions (Decenilier, 1833) and ended by abandoning all outward profession of Christianity. The amelioration of humanity, devo- tion to the welfare of the people and of popular lib- erties, (loniiiiated liiiii more and more. In May, 1834, he pulilished the " Paroles d'un croyant", through the apocalyptic diction of which resounds a violent cry of rage against the established social order: in it he de- nounces what he calls the conspiracy of kings and priests against the people. In this way he loudly de- clared his rupture with the Church, and set up the symbol of his new faith. Gregory XVI hastened to condemn in the Encyclical "Singulari nos" (15 July, 1834) this book, "small in size, but immense in per- versity", and at the same time censured the philoso- phical system of Lamennais. One after another, all his friends abandoned him, and, as if to break finally w-ith his own past, Lamennais wrote a volume on "Les Affaires de Rome", in which he set forth, very much in his own favour, his relations with Gregory XVI. After this he published only works inspired by his new democratic tendencies, repeating with no great show of originality the ideas of Les Paroles d'un croys

1 croyant",