The Black Legends and the Timeless Drama of Truth
A Series of Essays Based on the Gardone Lectures, 1993-2004
John C. Rao, D. Phil. (Oxon.), Assoc. Prof. of History, St. John’s University
I. Reason for Undertaking This Work
Three factors have played a role in stimulating my desire to write this book.
First of all, thirteen years of research covering Church History from the beginnings to the present has left me with a mass of material illustrating a basic problem which needs seriously to be addressed. On the one hand, it has revealed the superb work done by a large number of non-Catholic scholars who have painted reliable, insightful pictures of slices of Church History while often displaying terrible gaps in their knowledge of theology, philosophy, and historical eras other than the narrow one chosen for their studies. On the other hand, it has exposed me to excellent general meditations on historical developments which nevertheless do not sufficiently take into account the work of the above-mentioned specialists, and frequently read more like exaggeratedly tidy literary tours de force rather than honest studies of the past. It seemed to me, therefore, that something desperately needed to be done to bridge this gap between generalists and specialists.
Secondly, I began to think that it would be refreshing for a consciously traditionalist historian who did not accept the modernist contention that belief had to be left aside when discussing natural historical events, to add his voice to the record of the past. Even a sincere non-believer might have to admit that a traditionalist work, offering the perspective of a formidable religious force in world history, was necessary to his better understanding of the whole picture of human thought and action. But for me, a believer, for whom the Faith is a real, true, different, and central element in grasping the meaning of life, a history written with my Faith in mind would be one that could finally permit a combination of the general and the specific and allow for “seeing the forest and the trees” at one and the same time. It was, after all, the Faith that enabled a Ludwig von Pastor, whose career involved a recounting of endless tales of ecclesiastical misdeeds, to shed tears over the historical reality of holiness at a canonization ceremony in the early twentieth century. And it is the lack of Faith that causes solid, well-meaning historians to “miss the point”, and present a picture of a Church and a Catholicism that ultimately does not do justice to the spirit-exalting force that has inebriated men like myself, making our lives worth living in a way that our non-believing contemporaries cannot experience.
Finally, I came to the conclusion that a practical means of avoiding an unnuanced generalism and an all too mundane specialization could be found in presenting Church History within the context of the ancient battle of rhetoric versus philosophy. The more I looked over my notes, the more I realized that the basic “either-or” choice already posited in the quarrels of Plato and Isocrates in the pre-Christian world was merely intensified by the message of Christ. That choice, which centered round either the acceptance of the arduous hunt for truth as a prerequisite for proper human action or a wholehearted plunging into an unexamined “reality” to gain the immediate awards that it offered, lay at the heart of the drama of the confrontation of Christianity with “the world” as well. Church History could be seen from the perspective of a complex and often vicious war between the desire to place primary emphasis upon the hunt for truth and that of succumbing to the rhetorically-shaped call to seek immediate power, wealth, and fame. This conflict has given birth to The Black Legends regarding Christianity that have thwarted its progress and brought it into special (and fraudulent) disrepute in modern times. My work would deal with Church History with reference to these legends, as the accompanying outline indicates.
II. Outline
Introduction: A Syllabus of Anti-Catholic Black Legends
Chapter One
The Pre-Christian World and the Drama of Truth
(750 B.C.-The Coming of Christ)
Philosophy, Rhetoric, the Battle Over the Meaning of the Practical, and the “Either-Or” Option
The Sophist Option and the Accommodating Pagan Spirit
Alexander, the Successors, and the Curious Sophist Crusade
Double-Edged Swords: Greek Teachings, Eastern Mysteries, and Divinized Monarchs
The “Practical” Romans and Their Improbable Imperium
The Greco-Roman Magisterium and The Weaknesses of the Iron Fist
The Great Jewish Confusion and the “Either-Or” Option
Sophism, Pagan Accommodation, and The Ancient Roots of the Black Legends
Chapter Two
Reinforcing the Dramatic Dilemma
(From the Coming of Christ Until 395 A.D.)
The Sheep: A Grand Tour of the Early Christian World (1st-3rd Centuries)
Half Shepherd and Half Wolf: The Conflicted Greco-Roman Heritage
Plato, Isocrates, Prophets, and Wise Men: The Flock Confronts the Complexities of the Either-Or Option
Cataclysm or Crusade? The Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists
Invitations to a Christian Symposium
Where Are the Texts and Who are the Teachers?
Alexandria, Antioch, Cappadocia, and the Ascent of Mount Tabor
City or Desert? The Christian Polis and the Monastery
What Is To Be Done? Varied Impressions of the Christian Twilight Existence
The Practical Problems and Sophist Temptations of the Secular Authorities
The Greco-Roman Magisterium Has Seen a Small Light
The Arian Crisis and the “Either-Or” Option
The Formation of the Anti-Catholic Coalition
Chapter Three
The Indefinite Contours of a Definite Choice
(395-900’s)
Quick Apparent Victory Or Long Term Battle for the Truth? Nestorians, Monophysites, and the Perdurable Dilemma
Barbarians, Persians, Arabs, and the Tarnished Image of Eternal Rome
Zoroastrians, Moslems, and the Sharpening of the Christian Crusading Mentality in the East
Mirror of the World or Mirror of God? The War of Flawed Images and True Icons
A Troubled Roman World, the Battle of the Two Magisteria, and the Building of the Black Legends
Passons aux barbares: Isidore of Seville and the Appeal to the Noble Savage
Benedictines, Irish, and Philosopher-Chieftains
Practical Franks, Ambitious Carolingians, and A Leap of Catholic Imagination
The Dramatic Possibilities of the Western Catholic Choice
J. The Dramatic Possibilities of the Eastern Catholic Choice
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and the Procession to the Light
Chapter Four
Re-ordering the Procession to God (900’s-1300’s)
Theoretical Choice and Practical Failure in the Carolingian and
Byzantine Procession to God
The Western Procession and the Renewal of the Sacred Monarchy
Bishops, Monks, Christian Peoples, and the Flight From “Pragmatism”
The Monks, the Gregorian Reform, and the Superiority of the Truth Over Custom
Miles Christi, St. Bonaventure, and the New Nobility of the Christian Man
The Crusading Movement and the Mass Ascent of Mount Tabor
Let a Hundred Spiritual Flowers Blossoms
Let a Hundred Philosophical and Theological Schools Contend
Christ as King of A Transfigured Society
The Calls of the Wild and the Marring of the Icon
The Dull, Drab Demands of the Administrative Machine
The Reassertion of the “Practical” Mind and the Power
of the Third Estate
“I Must Destroy What Other Men Cherish”: The Reemergence
of Heresy
Power, Money, Heresy and the Reaffirmation of the Sophist
Option
Chapter Five
The Revenge of the Rhetoricians (1200’s-1400’s)
The Troubled Christian Procession to God and the Second Council of Lyons (1274)
Can Anything Good Come From the East?
Philosophy, Theology, and Mutually Assured Destruction
If It Makes Sense, It Must Be Meaningless
If It’s Legal, It Must Be Unquestionable
The Disastrous 14th Century, the Avignon Papacy, and the Pedant’s Progress
Conciliarism and the Dangers of Divinizing the Past
Un Ballo in Maschera: The Flawed Return to Apparent Unity
Humanism and the Garden of Esoteric Delights
A Heresy For All Utopias
The Real Threat to Christendom and the Impractical Pragmatism of the Lukewarm
Chapter Six
Protestant Rebellion, Catholic Reform, and Sophist Entrenchment (1500’s-1600’s)
The Desperate Plight of a Vibrant Catholicism
Lawyers, Humanists, and the New Sacred Monarchies
Luther, Zwingli, and the Divinization of the Written Word
Charismatic State, Charismatic Preacher, and Charismatic Manipulation
A Re-awakening at the Back of the Cave
The Council of Trent and Re-emergence to the Light
Too Great Was the Company of the Preachers
The Active Imagination of the Protestant Legend Machine
The Tridentine Reform and the Reaffirmation of the “Either-Or” Option
The Seduction of an Intractable East
The Religion of Love and the Butchery of Christendom
The Turk You Shall Always Have With You
Who’s Afraid of the Celestial Kingdom?
A New World? Christian Hope and Sophist Myth
Chapter Seven
Seizing the Image of Nature and Freedom
(1600’s-1700’s)
A. The Sacred Austrian Empire and the Last Crusade
Tridentine “Style” or Permanent Catholic Icon?
The Practical, Patriotic, Regalist Threat
The Grace-Free Will Battle: Sophism’s Secret Weapon
Grace, Free Will, and the Mask of Jansenist Simplicity
The Dutch Republic, England, Prussia, and the Appeal of
Success
G. The New Magisterium of Nature, Freedom, and Power
Jansenism, the Enlightenment, the Press, and the Manipulation
of Public Opinon
The Desacralization of the French Monarchy and the Building
of a Secular Crusading Tradition
Grace, Free Will, Power and the Savaging of the Missions
Half the Business of Destruction Done: The Dismantling of
the Jesuits and of the Smashing of the Tridentine Icon
The French Revolution and the Direct Assault on Christendom
The Anglo-American Revolutions, Tumultuous Monotony, and the Seductiveness of Indirect Secularization
The Calvary of the Uprooted East
1799: The Black Legends Triumphant?
Chapter Eight
Phoenix in a Fiery World: Reclaiming The Image
(1800’s)
Revolution and the Permanent Propaganda Machine
The Naturalist-Regalist Stranglehold
The Re-ascent of Mount Tabor and the Riches of the Mystical Body
D. Lamennais, the Internal Mission, and the Energy Abyss
E. Inviting the Outside World to the European Catholic Wedding
Catholic Activists, Pius IX and the Struggle for True Religious Freedom
Reinforcing the Black Legends: Liberal-Capitalist-Democratic Progress and Lost Catholic Illusions
Pius IX and the Modern Blindfold
Catholic Counterrevolution and the Assault on the Black Legends
An Incarnational Order Versus the Triumph of the Will
The Glories of the Liturgy and the Perfection of the Human Person
A Crippled East on the Hunt For Its Roots
The Protestant Implosion
The Armed Defense of Eternal Catholic Rome
The Culture Wars and the New Catholic Crusades
Leonine Gambles and the Opening to the Modern
Chapter Nine: Danger on All Fronts
The Church of Eugenio Pacelli (1876-1958)
The Messy Business of Marketing the Message
The Roman School, New Retrenchment, and the Separation of the Modern From Modernity
The Roman School and the Temptation of Isolating Philosophy From Rhetoric
Catholic Hopes and Nietzschean Nightmare
D. The First World War and the Peace of Christ in the Reign of
Christ
E. Crusading for Christ as King of Europe
F. Attacking for Christendom on the Global Front
Secular Wolves in the Catholic Trenches
The Orthodox Invasion
Protestant Shrapnel and Ecumenical Shock Troops
J. Battle Fatigue and The Appeal of the Vital
K. War, Vitalism and the Triumph of the Will
Danger on All Fronts
War, Vitalism, and the New Marxist Adam
Pluralism and the Trivialization of the Drama of Truth
Pius XII, the Marxist-Pluralist Maze, and Catholic De-constructionism
The Problem of Israel
Chapter Ten: When the Salt Loses Its Savor—The Victory of the Deconstructionists and the Acceptance of the Black Legends
The Vitalist-Pluralist Alliance, and the Conciliar Changing of the Guard
Lamennais and the Dramatic Implications of the “Practical” Desire to “Win”
Dictatorial Democracy and the Bureaucratic Body of Christ
Bending Truth to Pragmatism: Ostpolitik
Bending Truth to Pragmatism: Dethroning Christ as King
Bending Truth to Pragmatism: Liberation Theology
Bending Truth to Pragmatism: Third World Theology in an
Age of Religious Revival
From Catholic Church to Catholic Club
Witness For the Prosecution: The Catholic Club Condemns Itself
The Apology Owed to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful
By Contemporary Catholicism
Epilogue: My End is My Beginning
The Black Legends, the Modern Masquerade, and The Either-Or Option
III. First Chapter: From Una Voce America
The Ancient Roots of the Anti-Catholic Mentality:
An Introduction to the History of the “Black Legends”
Repeated, dismissive, self-assured calls for “closure” and “moving on” after one or another horrendous event in our personal and public lives clearly highlight some of the most salient features of contemporary culture: its dislike and downright fear of preoccupation with matters of profound significance; its love affair with immediate, superficial experiences which can be jettisoned, daily, along with yesterday’s newspaper; its absolute certainty of the approval by its shallow populations of a “no-nonsense” dispatch of the basic stuff of human existence; and, finally, its insistence that pandering to surface phenomenon at the expense of thought-provoking reflection is not a frivolity, but actually the only truly weighty and useful approach that men and women who embrace real life with joy can entertain. Catholicism, of course, can never be satisfied with this narrowing of human horizons to the concerns of the moment alone. A Catholic mentality uses serious events as a springboard for grave and sometimes very long-lasting meditation; it considers obsession with the petty, changing data of life to be unhealthy, a psychological flaw blinding people to the need to study the great matters, positive and negative, that shape reality; it knows, fears, and resists sinful man’s penchant for fleeing from the exalted to the vulgar; and it is convinced that it is only under the guidance of its broader outlook that the meaning of individual and social life can be fully grasped and become practically fruitful.
This conflict of mindset is one of the many reasons why contemporary culture loathes Catholicism. Unfortunately, the very nature of that mindset also tells modern society that it has achieved “closure” on the subject of its troubled relationship with the Church as a whole. It thus prohibits modernity from studying whence its hatred and the varied elements underlying it have emerged, where they have led, and what they really signify. Hence, our age’s self-satisfied reliance on a set of unexamined “Black Legends” to explain and reject its Catholic enemy, and then “move on”. After all, knowledge of Catholicism’s true character would require a fuss and bother which modernity’s dominant, shallow ideology orders it to direct elsewhere.
Anyone studying the modern preference for the shallow over the profound, its general war against Christendom, and its willing acceptance of ignorant Black Legends to dismiss the “absurdity” and ultimate “irrelevance” of its opponent must begin his labors in the ancient, pagan world. For the spirit of anti-Catholicism is older than our religion itself. It began being shaped long before the Christian Era was born, in the Classical Greece of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C., especially in the period of the Peloponnesian War and its dismal aftermath (431-336 B.C.). This is because Greece, as the home of the first insightful discussion of the meaning and practice of education, paideia, called forth that primary battle between those concerned with substantial and surface phenomenon, which Catholic Christianity then intensified and brought down more effectively to the level of the ordinary man.
Epic, lyric, and dramatic poets were the first teachers of Hellas. They sought answers to the basic issues of life by asking aesthetic questions, queries regarding the meaning of beauty. Aesthetic preoccupations led them to tackle the problem of how best to educate for a knowledge and possession of “the Beautiful”. That hunt for the tools essential to a primarily aesthetic formation slowly uncovered the need for consultation with, and guidance from, a variety of different sources: the individual and his immediate desires, the family and its long-term requirements for stability, and the demands of the polis, the city-state, in its search for attainment of a common as opposed to a merely individual or familial “beautiful” life.
The reputation of the polis as an aesthetic, educative, guiding force was enormous at the end of the Persian Wars (490-479 B.C.). Athens and Sparta, its two greatest contemporary representatives, had assured its prestige by winning a victory over the most impressive power in the world, before which, in contrast, a number of important individuals and purely family-dominated Greek lands had cowered. Such an unexpected but clear triumph made it appear that the community-focused polis could, in effect, accomplish anything. It was for this reason that Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.), in his Oristeia trilogy, has an unending cycle of superhuman vengeance and counter-vengeance concluded through polis-shaped (i.e., political) judicial action. Beauty, education, and the polis, one might have said; now and forever; one and inseparable.
Unfortunately, however, it was precisely the same cherished polis of Athens and Sparta which revealed insane, self-destructive passions and limitations during and after the Peloponnesian War, thereby stimulating further discussion of the basic tools required for a proper education for possession of beauty. Control of the renewed dialogue passed out of the hands of the poets alone, who had said everything that they could possibly say on all sides of this issue of paideia by the time of Euripides (480-406 B.C.). Greece now even witnessed the emergence of a quite different approach towards education, along the lines suggested by the first philosophers, the so-called pre-Socratics, who wished to replace an aesthetic understanding of man and nature with one founded firmly upon knowledge of the material structure of the universe, its constituent “scientific” elements.
Pre-Socratic approaches to life and education proved to be too radical a break with the traditional aesthetic vision for the mainstream Greek world to accept. They were rejected, in particular, by two schools of thought which were themselves destined to lock horns in mortal combat. One of these schools was that of the Sophists, men concerned with rhetoric, the successful use of language, who, in effect, argued that the old-line aesthetic method was correct, but that it needed to be organized, taught, and followed much more rigorously if it were to become a sure foundation for the individual and society. The other was the school of Socrates (469-399 B.C.), who, while also retaining much of the traditional aesthetic approach to education, recognized a need to critique, transform, and elevate it. The battle that this entailed was catalogued for us not by Socrates but by his most brilliant pupil, Plato (427-347), in his struggle with Isocrates (436-338), perhaps the most self-conscious proponent of the sophistic, rhetorical approach.
Plato’s great achievement as a philosopher and as an educator was that of demonstrating that the classical Greek formation of an individual for the possession of the beautiful required an understanding both of the nature of goodness as well as of the underlying truths of the universe towards which the pre-Socratics seemed to be groping. He showed Socrates, his model teacher, to be a “soul doctor”, a man who demanded the cure of moral and intellectual flaws in his continued hunt for aesthetic perfection. Education for beauty in the fullest possible sense was, Plato insisted, a project drawing the individual closer and closer to God, the measure of all things, shaping his soul as an image or icon of the divine as he advanced. Every tool that the Greeks had come to consider to be important, the polis included, had a crucial role to play in this all-encompassing, life-long enterprise. Nevertheless, those valuable tools were all flawed. Paradoxically, they themselves required correction and improvement at the hands of the individual “icons” that they helped to shape. This meant that soul doctoring could be a confusing and immensely difficult task, involving much meditation and self-questioning; an enterprise which could not help but appear to be a pointless, frustrating detour to those on a perpetual hunt for “get possession of beauty quick” schemes.
“Pointlessly frustrating” was certainly the criticism attached to Platonic education by Isocrates, who claimed the title of philosopher with as great a fervor as his fellow Athenian did. Still, apt student of the Sophist Gorgias that he was, Isocrates understood philosophy to be a wisdom that only the trained rhetorician could possibly grasp and use properly. His definition of any Good or Truth underlying the Beautiful had to differ considerably from that of the Socratics in consequence.
For Isocrates, there was no question of seriously critiquing, transforming, and possibly even rejecting the preoccupations of the ordinary man. Man was the measure of all things, and unquestionably correct in his “common sense” concern for obtaining the riches, power, and fame that he knew would yield the beautiful life. The average individual’s sole problem was a technical one: he could not relate one justifiable common sense experience to another, and thereby understand how best to exploit and satisfy them regularly and comprehensively. His efforts to explain his reactions to daily problems both to himself as well as to others proved to be “dumb” ones. It was effective words, and the arguments shaped through them, that were lacking to him. Only the well trained rhetorician, the master of words, could clarify the full depth of common sense experiences, show where they were headed, and stir people to do what was necessary to fulfill their promise. The Good and the True are, therefore, ultimately nothing other than “appropriate” explanations and developments of those common sense reactions to the raw stuff of daily life which are themselves absolutely infallible guides to the possession of Beauty.
To take but one simple example, the average person might be said to have eminently justifiable, positive, common sense reactions to the powerful experience of sexual passion. Nevertheless, without the right words and arguments to explain his “opinions” regarding this formidable force de la nature, he is not able to relate the meaning of his experience properly even to himself. Pragmatic efforts to gain the full promise of sexuality and cause it to work together with other experiences about which he has positive “opinions” are even further out of his reach. It is the rhetorician who illuminates Everyman through the use of appropriate and stimulating words, demonstrating the key to sexual understanding and its link with the multitude of other desirable goals. Everyman knows that the rhetorician is speaking appropriately when he sees how clearly and consistently his advice responds to his own preoccupations, and how the self-assurance of the master of words is crowned with the success for which he longs. Hence, Isocrates’ recognition of his need to underline the simplicity, lucidity, harmony of purpose, confidence, and material achievements of his pupils, while contrasting them with the cranky detours, self-criticisms, bitter divisions, and practical failures of the Socratics.
Isocrates longed to prove rhetoric’s ability to gain possession of the Beautiful on a grand, world scale. In order for him to find the key to such great success, the philosopher/rhetorician had to begin with the study of the raw experiences and the common sense reaction to them not merely of an individual, but of an entire people, since a city-state or nation alone could conceivably become a driving force in global events. The work of Herodotus (484-424), Thucydides (mid-400’s-403?), Xenephon (430?-355?), and others offered guidelines as how to how such historical data might be collected. Rhetoricians like Isocrates saw one of their tasks as being that of explaining to a population the appropriate greatness to which its otherwise “dumb” historical experiences were calling it. History thus came very early under rhetorical purview and influence, partly to its profit, since it became more readable and effective, but very often to its severe detriment, being transformed into a tool of propaganda .
From the raw history of his environment, Isocrates claimed to learn a number of important principles: that there actually was a Greek people, united by a shared culture, Hellenism; that the essence of Hellenism was the development of the illuminating, life-giving, and unifying “word”; that the universal value accruing from appropriate use of the word gave the Greece which possessed knowledge of its significance a world-wide cultural mission; that this universal vocation had been shown to involve the sea, struggle against Persia, and imperial expansion; and that Hellenist destiny would require a simultaneous concern for the “good old days” of the foundation of the Greek spirit and the institutions giving clout to it, as well as for the shaping a loyal population obedient to any vigorous, strong man who might guide it to its contemporary fulfillment, all stirred to positive political roles by the vital words of the creative rhetorical genius.
But philosophy, as defined by Isocrates, constitutes a gigantic circle, manipulated by the rhetorician who, through the clever use of appealing words and images, seizes control of the familiar concerns of the average man or State and runs with them where he wills. Common sense experience is pronounced the infallible basis for action simply because it is declared to be common sense experience and the infallible basis for action. Successful attainment of riches and power is said to prove the appropriateness of the rhetorician’s guidance of Everyman to the beautiful life because possession of riches and power is presented as axiomatic proof that beauty is in his grasp. Respect for the “good old days”, current strong men, and obedient populations is essential because denial of such reverence would be tantamount to putting into doubt the destiny for whose fulfillment the rhetorician insists these forces exist in the first place. Absolutely no questioning of “common sense”, “success”, the “historic mission” and the consistency of the tools required for its realization could be contemplated, lest this lead to the unacceptable argument that common sense, success, the historical mission, and its vital tools were themselves problematic. Isocrates, as Werner Jaeger notes, makes a virtue out of abandoning any deeper investigation of the meaning of life once he has shaped what for him appears to be a rhetorically beautiful “point of view’ with a chance of obtaining a successful outcome. That “point of view”, if attractive, must be accepted as Truth itself. With this, the debate is over. Closure has been achieved. One must move on to accomplishment of the Great Promise, or face the wrath of the rhetorician and the outraged nature whose infallible voice he has proclaimed himself to be.
And the rhetorician is powerful indeed. He knows that he can count on the support of individual, family, or polis-wide “common sense” passions in his call for their immediate satisfaction. He senses the understandable and well-neigh universal fear that Socratic self-criticism would paralyze action, preventing exploitation of favorable opportunities to fulfill desire, causing men to “lose out” on success, perhaps even to the very moment of death. The rhetorician, with his mastery of words, can paint the profound, life-determining, “either-or” option offered to men by Sophists and Socratics in all of its dramatic colors, but weighted to his advantage. Afterwards, any Socratic who calls the average man to logical, painful soul-searching at the possible expense of satisfying immediate passion becomes a sitting duck for rhetorical abuse. He lends himself to the accusation of representing both a crackpot idealism, indifferent to the obvious demands of human nature, as well as a cynical opposition to the successes of “real men”, whom he cannot emulate, bitterly envies, and wishes to destroy in consequence.
Plato was himself a literary genius, sensitive to the power of purely rhetorical arguments over the average man, and the need to respond to them “beautifully” to demonstrate their flaws. He did so reply, by showing the pure rhetorician to be a self-deluding failure. Contrary to what such a man argued, his influence arose precisely from his inability to educate those whom he claimed to be illuminating. For Plato, the “word” spoken by the rhetorician styling himself to be a philosopher could itself never rise above “dumb” opinion, and merely illustrated a trained man’s ability effectively to flatter peoples’ fancies. Rhetoricians possessed what he called a “knack” of appealing to a particular appetite, like that of a cook in a fast-food restaurant, ignoring entirely the question of whether such an admittedly successful flattery and knack ought to have been indulged in the first place. The successful rhetorician deceives himself into thinking that he is superior to his “wordless” audience, but he is simply more effectively thick than it is. His words resemble an overbearing and endlessly repeated rock rhythm in a room filled with impressionable, but musically illiterate hedonists. They fail to elevate, just as any tool that uses man, rather than God, as the measure of all things falls miserably short of its pretensions. Anyone responding to the “either-or” option confronting him by choosing for the rhetorician would, therefore, be voting for eternal mediocrity and blindness. Sadly, precisely due to the rhetorician’s observable knack for maintaining power over the vulgar mob, the pathetic outcome of such a wrong choice could conceivably be hidden from its victims forever. False rhetorical philosophers needed only to do two things: enthusiastically to invent ever “new” surface variants on the proven appealing slogans to keep men thinking that fulfillment of the brilliant promise of the Empty Life lay just around the corner; and constantly to drill into a benumbed population’s mind the fear of the “dead-end” impotence that the Socratic hunt for a more profound goal would ensure.
One of Plato’s painful labors was that of explaining instances of this seeming Socratic impotence, the disaster of his own political missions to Dion in Sicily in 388 and 367 being primary among them. Such shipwrecks, he argued, were not attributable to philosophy’s innate inability to navigate effectively. Rather, they were simply another confirmation of the difficulty and very infancy of the task that the real lover of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth had set for himself. Yes, he admitted, philosophy needed the aid of rhetoric, of the lesser “word” to explain itself successfully to a world filled with ambiguous though powerful passions, and convince it to change its ways. But that secondary “word” must always be subordinated to a deeper Word, the Logos towards whose ultimate knowledge it was meant to be employed. Alas!, at least in Plato’s own day, it had proven to be “hard to find the creator and father of the world”, and “impossible to describe his nature publicly.” Men could not yet be guided properly to the divine imitation that would definitely perfect them and give them possession of the Beautiful. As dilemmas went, this certainly was a killer, and Plato feared that it would remain an unresolved one unless “some God” came to the earth to unravel it.
Faulty or not, the ideas of his opponents helped to form that mixed Greek/Middle Eastern/Latin civilization which we call the Hellenistic World. This new reality did demonstrate the literal value of the Greek language, whose superiority in transmitting manifold, complex concepts was universally recognized. It also reflected all of the potential practical consequences of a cosmos shaped by a purely rhetorical “word” alone. For Hellenistic Civilization was one that did indeed work for the “common sense” benefit of men, though only of those “vigorous strong men” praised by the rhetorician as essential for fulfillment of its mission. These leaders learned to create and manipulate powerful state machinery for the purpose of keeping the “dumb” mass of the population in submission. “Doers of great deeds”, from Alexander through to the Caesars and the Senatorial Aristocracy of the Roman Empire that worked with them, were willing to tolerate satisfaction of certain specific, immediate desires of the multi-cultural, pluralist world over which they ruled. Still, this had to be at the price of its constituent elements accepting “closure” regarding matters that might disturb what really counted: the personal power, wealth, and fame of the victors.
Rhetoricians were very active from the 300’s B.C. through the 300’s A.D., providing the Hellenistic cosmos, or ecumene, the arguments proving that the debate over who possessed the things that made life beautiful, and what those things were was over. They contributed mightily to efforts to overcome “parochial” religious “superstitions” whose concerns might threaten the status quo. Such integration of divisive elements involved publicizing the need to submit to and adore the superior divinity of the State apparatus and the self-made men who dominated it. “Closure” had been achieved in the realm of the gods as well as that of men, and the “word” could now “move on”.
It moved on by devoting itself to legal and civil service careers, and to sickly praise or boring, encyclopedic chronicling of the existing, unchangeable order of things, thereby sharing in any trickle-down benefits its Divine Masters permitted. It moved on by finding substantial employment producing that esoteric, archaic, and pointless heap of pretty sounds and properly placed commas adulated by exclusivist literary circles. Failing that, it moved on by churning out pornographic material for the gross diversions of a rabble ever tempted to accept subordination and abandon true enlightenment for cheap material satiety. The spiral downward from the more sophisticated “apologetic” writings and literary achievements of earlier Hellenistic regimes to the servile, pedantic, and vulgar oeuvre of much of the so-called Second Sophistic of the 2nd through 4th Centuries, A.D. is instructive. It reminds one, anew, of Plato’s argument that word merchants indifferent to true philosophy were destined to a low-class butchering of even their own art and talent. One need only consult the biographies and stories to be found in Aulius Gellius’ (123-165) Attic Nights, the 2nd Philostratus’ (c. 170-248), Lives of the Sophists, Eunapius’ (346-414) Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, Diogenes Laertius’ (no later than 200’s) Lives of Eminent Philosophers, and Athenaeus of Naucratis’ (200’s) Doctors at Dinner to test the validity of his hypothesis.
Ironically, however, solid philosophy itself ended by adapting nicely to the depressing, conformist, “common sense” rules established by a degenerate, power-worshipping, rhetorically justified cosmos. This was partially due to certain innate weaknesses of schools of thought like Stoicism. Stoic insistence on the purposeful structure of the universe, in the absence of a concept of sin, tempted it into treating accommodation to the successful status quo as though it were obedience to the will of God. Acceptance of the idea of universal purposefulness also convinced many Stoics that crude popular experiences of reality, including truly offensive superstitious practices, should be approached seriously as well, even if often only as fuel for more “sophisticated” (dare we say “appropriate”?) explanations of their deeper meaning. Indeed, even Plato’s passionate rhetorical embrace of the use of allegory to explain complex truths could be called upon to defend this dressing up of popular opinion. Finally, Neo-Platonists, with their admittedly exalted discussion of the existence of a Hierarchy of Being leading to the final, divine, unchangeable principle of the universe, also became propagandists for the powers that be. They were fearful that any disorder and alteration in the political and social world could open the path to what they considered to be a totally unacceptable conception of change, willfulness, and unpredictable action on the part of the very Godhead itself.
It was at this point, however, that the Divinity whom Plato said might have to intervene in human events to resolve the dilemma of possession of Beauty did just that: He intervened. Through the Incarnation, the establishment of the Church, and the offer of the gift of Faith and Grace, God called men to complete the march to the fullness of wisdom and individual “divinization”. He thus injected a vibrant new force into the “stable” ancient cosmos. Christians were summoned to reject “closure”. They were told that they could not “move on” under the old rules. The debate over what was required to complete life’s voyage had to be reopened. All the tools of antiquity needed to be re-examined, and, if found to be lacking, transformed through Christian Light. But from the standpoint of those willingly imprisoned in a familiar, rhetorically justified strait-jacket, this meant that a revolutionary Monster had leaped into their Peaceable Kingdom.
Hence, the emergence of a strange alliance, a kind of United Nations of the Status Quo, co-opting all who were contented, for varied reasons, with “closure”, and repelled by rabble-rousers who would not allow men to “move on” to “get the real job of life done”. Participants in this alliance were legion. They included the many-headed tribe of legal and literary rhetoricians; those philosophers who were convinced that the existing, dominant order must necessarily be the true one, and others worried about the turmoil that the personal Christian God could bring into a universe where everything had been hung so carefully on its proper, immovable peg; the ordinary man, whether highborn or low, fearful lest satisfaction of his customary pointless or lewd appetites be disturbed by an exhortation to avoid sin and strive for higher rewards. Heretical Christians eventually sought membership in this alliance, too, such as those Gnostics, expelled from the Church for following up on the teaching of their greatest teacher, Mani (200’s A.D.), who urged them to use language to deconstruct the message of salvation and reshape it to suit their own nature-hating purposes. Even Church authorities themselves could be found in its ranks, as time-serving bishops saw how their restraint of Christian militancy could be useful to the status quo, gaining for them all the paybacks enjoyed by earlier rhetorical lap dogs of the regime.
Our United Nations of the Status Quo pursued its program with a variety of eminently successful tools. One of these was a conspiracy of silence, many of the great literary men of the late Roman period writing as though Christianity simply did not exist and would therefore quietly go away. This approach was complemented by an attempt to hide a clear understanding of the real substance and history of our religion. To that end, all obviously popular and beneficial Christian fruits were attributed to anti-Christian beliefs and labors, Christianity being held responsible only for what was deemed dangerous to the State and to the passions of the men of common sense. Rhetorical ability and fervor embellished this entire mish-mashed story. In short, the United Nations of the Status Quo developed the stuff of what would become a library of dramatic Black Legends, the full flavor of which I will present in future articles. Whenever circumstances permitted, these Black Legends could now be brought before the eyes of the Established Authorities, with the accompanying demand that force be applied to re-establish the wonderful world of productive closure anew.
Great strength was shown by this rhetorically-armed alliance through its ability to appeal to the aforementioned “either-or” option. It called men irresistibly to the same overwhelming choice: support “either” its point of view, rooted in common sense desire, protection of order, and successful pandering to the familiar, obvious joys of the great and small, “or” enter onto the Christian path, with its paradise “seen through a glass, darkly”, its self-denial, and the endless disruption that Christ said His sword had brought into the world. With this “either-or” alternative, it continually tempted the resolve not only of the clueless, but also that of the faithful. For, ultimately, not one of us is infallibly protected from doubt.
Strength came as well from the rhetorical refusal to admit that qualitative questions were at stake here, requiring it to find different, more substantive justifications for promotion of its position. Each time any given argument on its behalf did not work, it simply called forth a handy “new deal” out of its full, one-dimensional, surface bag of tricks—this being “new” only in the sense that it varied a word or an image to describe its ever monotonous qualitative sameness. Each readily available “new deal” or “new frontier” could then be proclaimed some specially brilliant chance for gaining the Beautiful Life that meaning-obsessed Christians would have men critique and lose. Hence, the same, unchanging, underlying appeal to common sense, the spirit and institutions of the Good Old Days, the great men and loyal, obedient populations needed to assure the fulfillment of the Mission, the limited passions of the vulgar mob, and the importance of silencing or misinterpreting “naïve” and “cynical” questioning of the golden opportunity could be repeated in a billion varied forms. But an anti-Christian Pragmatism, Foundation, and Imperial Mission are just as dangerous if pursued by pagan rulers or those appealing to the Manifest Destiny of the United States as standard bearer for freedom-loving mankind on the lookout for a good deal. The world has heard it all before, sugared differently according to taste, if not with chocolate topping, then with vanilla or mocha.
Given the fact that this United Nations could draw arguments, at will, from all of its many diverse constituent elements, it was also armed with the capacity seriously to confuse anyone honestly seeking to counter its assault. For just when a more logical mind might think that he was debating successfully on a relatively sophisticated historical plane, the UNSQ could level an argument drawn from and appealing to its truly vulgar supporters. This change of tactics would require a corresponding alteration of defensive strategy from the Christian, a lowering to the demagogic level. That modification could then itself, in turn, be condemned by insisting that dialogue take place on the rigorous philosophical or refined aesthetic plane favored by still other members of the alliance. If the befuddled Christian, always responding to attack, and never taking the initiative in this cat and mouse game, sought to discuss the absurdity of constantly changing the basic character of the argumentation, the customary rhetorical sigh of frustration could be audibly emitted. For, once again, as with Plato, time was being demanded for a diversion from the real task of “moving on” in order to satisfy the unrewarding, abstract speculations of impotent, loser “enemies of mankind”. In the Kingdom of the Illogical it is the wily one who generally calls the shots. And in doing so, he drives the sane man mad.
Still, our United Nations of the Status Quo was not without its weaknesses. Like the modern exemplar from which I have drawn its name, its varied members were their own own Soviet Unions and United States of Americas, temporarily united in opposing a common foe, but ever poised to fight out irreconcilable difference should their joint combat someday cease. Rhetoricians supporting one “beautiful vision” serving the established authorities were girded therein against any upstart colleagues who might begin touting another; philosophers unwilling to be used purely for intellectual ornamental purposes chafed under rhetorical domination; have-nots envious of the people who had “made it” could rise up to satisfy the fullness of their own uncontrollable passions. “Time Bomb” might be a better name for this alliance, since, the exaggerated fancies of conspiratorial theorists notwithstanding, no absolutely reliable, indissoluble glue held its members miraculously together.
But could their divisions be exploited for Catholic benefit, so that the Black Legends they created, and through which they all prospered might be uncovered and effectively refuted ? Catholic History offers an ambiguous answer to that question. Instances of victorious Christian battling of powerful, rhetorically-crafted lies are available, but, sadly, they are buried amidst many more indications of dismal failure in this enterprise. I intend to investigate a variety of such examples over the course of articles to come.
One fact seems absolutely clear to me in plowing through the divided evidence of the historical record of the Catholic resistance. Cleverly constructed Black Legends, fueled by half truths and outright lies, can only be overturned by a Christianity that accepts all the lessons of the Incarnation, and honestly uses the full arsenal of tools that God and nature provide to protect itself. A Christianity that roots its supernatural “newness” in the whole of God’s nature would not hunt for answers to its problems in the immediate experiences of its own time bound world, but in all of divine and human history. In doing so, it would come to appreciate that it must fight its enemies not just with abstract theological arguments, even when these are supported by the philosophical strength that comes from the Socratics. It would also embrace the just use of rhetoric in all of its forms, which Plato himself saw a need to snatch from the hands of rootless Sophists. In short, only a full, Incarnational Truth, seeking the Good, gaining full, supernatural possession of the Beautiful, and living a life of active imitation of God through transformation in Christ can prevent a premature “closure” in a world tempted by the lesser “word”. Only this can “move on” to restore the Christian Order that we have seen torn down around us by men possessed by the libido for the ugly.
Chapter Seven
Seizing the Image of Nature and Freedom
(1600’s-1700’s)
A. The Sacred Austrian Empire and the Last Crusade
Tridentine “Style” or Permanent Catholic Icon?
The Practical, Patriotic, Regalist Threat
The Grace-Free Will Battle: Sophism’s Secret Weapon
Grace, Free Will, and the Mask of Jansenist Simplicity
The Dutch Republic, England, Prussia, and the Appeal of
Success
G. The New Magisterium of Nature, Freedom, and Power
Jansenism, the Enlightenment, the Press, and the Manipulation
of Public Opinon
The Desacralization of the French Monarchy and the Building
of a Secular Crusading Tradition
Grace, Free Will, Power and the Savaging of the Missions
Half the Business of Destruction Done: The Dismantling of
the Jesuits and of the Smashing of the Tridentine Icon
The French Revolution and the Direct Assault on Christendom
The Anglo-American Revolutions, Tumultuous Monotony, and the Seductiveness of Indirect Secularization
The Calvary of the Uprooted East
1799: The Black Legends Triumphant?
Seizing the Image of Nature and Freedom
A.
The Council of Trent (1545-1563) had two broad concerns which were related. One was the relationship of universal truths and direction to particular, parochial needs and guidance. This involved Church and State relations, as well as the Papacy and intenational religious orders versus bishoprics and secular clergy. The second were doctrinal and pastoral questions. These were connected with one another and the first problem. They involved the accuracy and importance of supernatural teaching and pastoral issues: the recognition of enormous failures in the past, the need for a purified approach making Christianity a real and not a formal force, and the relationship of the natural base with supernatural truth and aid. Underlying everything was a tremendous desire for knowledge and results.
By the early 1600’s there were positive results. Much was won back and there was much world wide expansion. Much Church-State cooperation with Hapsburgs and Bourbons, Kings and confessors. Much strengthening of the Papacy and international religious order; and yet much cooperation with nuncios and bishops. Much work on doctrine and real pastoral initiative with France as an example. Educated episcopacy, seminaries and educated clergy, educated dedicated laity, mystical and active. Constructing an international, sacred, corporate society; network of alliances; Mystical Body of Christ. Exuberant flavor we call Baroque.
But there were problems. Trent leaves much unresolved. Church-State relations and regalism. Papal-episcopal, religious-secular relations. Teaching authority. Methodology, whether scholastic or positive, classicist, cartesian, Newtonian. Grace and Free will. Missions not touched. Protestant and Eastern split unresolved. Enlightenment. Sin, with unnecessary animosities poisoning things.
All these combine together to explain what happens. Attack on “Baroque” which becomes an attack on Trent which becomes an attack also on the essence of Catholic Christianity. Nationalization, desacralization, destruction of corporate network of alliances. In name of knowledge and results which are better. Produces a Reign of Force with no means of discovering one’s errors.
B.
Holy Roman Empire, Thirty Years War, and Treaty of Westphalia (1648).
Replacement of Imperial Ideal with Balance of Power politics,. Dynasties and wars, 1648-1799 adjusting borders. Britain and non-dynastic. Troubles of other non-dynastic. Constant concern for war and what will prepare for war externally and internally. Backed by Regalism: Imperial tending to national already in the 1200’s through to Republics. Legalism, patriotism, reason of state, spiritual aura (glory and program of connection with divine wil, exercised through monarchs).
Chain of consequences for religion and regalists. International organized religious influence on foreign affairs retreats. Too dangerous. Demands on Papacy (Italy and extent of influence internally, nuncios, communication, papal elections, cardinals, etc. ) Demands on religion internally (appel comme d’abus, control of appointments and teaching). Splits unity of Tridentine Catholicism. Ultramontanists who are pro papal. Ultramontanist who are regalists, because kings support religion. Gallicans who are regalists, because Kings support religion. Gallicans who are pro independence from kings. All using theology to defend their positions.
Long term problem for regalists too. Illogical. It is not a rational ideal, nor are the mystical powers of the king. Offset for a time by continued faith of rulers and influence of religion and religious custom (Coronation Oath). Works towards exhaltation of the will. Disaffects different groups. Serious Ultramontanists if king not faithful. Serious Gallicans if king not faithful. Serious Gallican regalists if he is faithful. Those scandalized by power-religion connection. Competing secularist regalist forces ready to pick up pieces. Then secularized: Dutch Republic: Holland and Orange. France with Law Courts-Parlements versus King.
Empire. Problem of Imperial Church. Emperors power restricted. Staatskirchentum-local-uncanonical. Wittelsbachs in Bavaria. Even Hapsburgs. Problem of prince-bishoprics. No reason for existence. Play various powers versus one another and dynasty build. Twist Churchers in their realms to support. Versus Rome. Support canonical anti-Romanism. Hontheim/Febronius.
France. Kings, bishops, Leagues, Parlements and Tridentine Catholicism. Richelieu, Mazarin, and crushing of the Fronde. Louis XIV (1643-1715) after 1660. Anti-papal, Alexander VII, Innocent XI, Gallican articles of 1682. But controlled Gallican. Dependent bishops made supreme in their realms. Anti-parlementary/nobles, and hence Versailles. Academies and Glory.
Spain. Anti-papal measures for political and internal ecclesiastical reasons (for example, bishops versus chapters). Worsening under Bourbon. Philip V, due to greater efficiency and fall out from War. Then aimed versus Church internally as well.
Portugal, 1640, problems with Papacy due to dispute over independence. Later, most severe.
Italy. Naples/Sicily and Monarchia Sicula and Venice. Tuscany, Lombardy with the Hapsburgs. Parma-Piacenza with the Bourbons. Savoy/Sardinia.
Worse still, when talking about colonies and missions.
C.
Regalism and Missions. Portuguese Padroado and Spanish Patronado. United from 1580-1640. Own bishops. Religious orders accommodation with them. Concern for what builds control and commerce offsets belief. Local rigidity especially. Legal codes.
Efforts at universal direction. Propaganda. Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660), Paris Seminary (1653/1664). Instruction of 1659. Vicars Apostolic, 1664/1673/1677, 1678 onwards.
Problems. Jurisdictional fights. Religious orders and question of whom to obey. Religious/secular disputes. Disputes among religious. Spanish bishops sense of dignity of their office. French anti-regular influence over Propaganda. Native reaction to power religious questions. Dutch and English incursions. Throwing whole enterprise into question.
Overview of missions. In Africa, in North, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and far South. Elsewhere, Padroado of São Tomé and Capo Verde with Propaganda tentatives. Commerce and Slavery questions. In the Americans. In Padroado (Brazil with Dutch overcome). Slavery and neglect. Religious orders on their own. In the Patronado, many different groups, many legal vexations, much creole problem. Many fights among regulars and between regulars and seculars. Juan de Palafax y Mendoza (1600-1659). Franciscan Colleges and Apostolate. Jesuit Reductions. Call for Spaniards and Foreigners not Creoles. French Relations. English restrictions and joy over USA. In Asia, all sorts of missionaries. Padroado claims all, watched by Goa and Macao. Basically coast and islands with Dutch and English vexations. Patronado in the Philippines where less regalist, though some regular-secular battles. Oceania. Propaganda out of Ajuthia in 1664. All missionaries ordered to obey it in 1677/1678.
Independent lands and frictions. Japan, Shimabara (1637-1638), Catholic bravery and aftermath. Indian interior with Mogul Regalism. China and Manchu Regalism. Jesuits and Dominicans. Persecution, 1664-1671. Pallu at Fukien (1684) and Macao (1695). Vicar Apostolic, Padroado bishops, Court Missionaries. Kangshi in 1692. Lettres edifiantes et curieuses.
D.
Catholic World and regalism in teaching. Latching onto unresolved Papal and Episcopal Issue. State control of teaching int two ways. Through Gallicanism. Bishops controlled by monarchy for national purposes. Richerist with bishops through to priests to laity to parlements. Or through Canonical ideas influential in German world. Van Espen, Barthel, Hontheim/Febronius and early Church versus Ultramontanism. Control by Prince Bishops or State as part of nature (difference between Concordat and legislation).
Protestantism. Protestant Orthodoxy. Bible, Holy Spirit, and Justification. Pastors, synods, confessions and Church orders. Tendency to division, impotence, and retreat “inward”. Regalist controls of the English, Dutch, and Prussians. From Catholic monarchs. From Protestant rulers disturbed by potential for divisiveness. Irenicism for political motives. Some real. Much bitterness.
Orthodoxy. Eastern dilemma. Ottoman Empire and Timur. Educational and financial collapse. Protestant influences fought off in many areas. Roman influences more pressing. Roman education and missionary effort. Uniate Churches. Africa. Asia—St. Thomas Christians. Southern/Eastern Europe-aided by conquests versus Turks, Russian problems, etc. Then goes other way with Russians. Ottoman Regalism. Millet system, phanar, politicization, hellenization. Russia and Russian Regalism. Symphonia and Romanovs—Possessors and Russophiles. Alexis, Nikon, changes and Old Believers Schism. Peter the Great and successors. Foreign influences, war, and state. Regalism. Holy Synod. Disaster, and continues and worsens under successors. Problems for Church in Poland. Latins, Uniates, Orthodox. Deluge and Russian advance. Partitions. Catherine’s reordering.
Regalism and definition of what is and what is not part of the Magisterium.
E.
Theology. Systematic: scholasticism of various schools and universities. In Protestant world as well. Positive: Humanism and Classicism. Living sources, scholarship in Scripture, Fathers, Liturgy, Saints Lives, History. Scientific methods favored by this. Congregation of St. Vanne-St. Maur-Maurists-St. Blasien-St. Germain des Pres-Jean Mabillon (1632-1707). Daniel Papebroch (1628-1714) and Bollandists. Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750). Enrico Noris (1631-1704).
Fights. Systematic consider positive theologians destructive and utopian. Legend destruction. Early Church. Richard Simon (1638-1702) in 1678, to prove importance of Tradition. Positive consider systematic overblown, hidebound, and inaccurate. Decline of universities. Bossuet. Exacerbated by the usual: sin, jealousy, religious orders.
Problems from philosophy and natural sciences. Since 1100’s. In 1500’s and 1600’s, esoteric mixings of nature and supernature frightening to Christian thought-semi magical.
Cartesianism. Descartes (1596-1650). Dualism, separation of natural and supernatural. Clear and distinct ideas. Self to God to Nature. Followers who spread and defend for religious reasons. French circles of women and nobility. Minim Marin Mersenne (1588-1648). Nicholas Malebranche (1638-1715). Cult at St. Genevieve, tie with St. Augustine. Religious orders divide up. Leibniz. Problems for theology and doctrine. For Catholics, don’t emphasize Bible, Eucharist, pastoral and mystical. For Protestants and Dutch Republic. Descartes there. Gisbertius Voetius (1589-1676) at Utrecht versus Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669) at Leiden. Balthasar Bekker (1634-1698) and De Betovorde Welt (1691). Spinoza (1632-1677).
Newtonianism. Bacon, Galileo, experimental science. Royal Society. Isaac Newton (1643-1727). President of Royal Society in 1703. Spread and defense for religious sake. “Space” for mysterious. Dutch Republic. William Jacob van Gravesande (1688-1742), Pieter van Maaschenbroek (1692-1761). Arminian Boerhaave (1668-1738) and Gerard van Swieten (1760-?). Problem for theology and doctrine. Can space be filled up? Battle with Leibniz and the Sorbonne (1671).
Results are confusion over certitude. Bitter recriminations. Alternative societies created.
F.
Trent, grace/freee will, confusions and compromises.
Enormous pastoral considerations. Salvation and sanctification. What is it that sanctifies. What role does nature play? All agree a purification required and sometimes it is rough. Those more favorable to nature are the Jesuits and Baroque civilzation. Thomism through to Suarez. Ratio studiorum, nature, classical, state and all kinds of externals. Sufficient grace through to Molina and Probabilism. Sacraments as medicine, attrition and communion. Internal mystical union, Sacred Heart, Devout Humanism. More reticent include the Dominican Thomists and Augustinians. Bañes. Fear of Semi-Pelagianism. Fear of superstition, time serving, and externalism with nature and sacraments. Fears of exaggerated mysticism. Rome as broker. Has to be examined with reference to missions and Europe.
What is it about native natural thought that one can accept? People as clergy and ideas? Missionaries. Some utopianism. Model of ancients and Germans. America—Sahagun and training. Asia, clergy, liturgy, Indian and Chinese rites, Figurists. Complicated story of opposition. Concerns of settlers and sometimes governments. Fights of religious orders. Results. America: rejection and tutelage (Reductions). East: more complicated. Philippines. Elsewhere. Paul V and liturgy. Rites and native priests. Battle begins: Spanish mendicants and Morales in 1645. Jesuits and Martini in 1656. Paris missionaries opposition. Rome: Clement XI (1704). Maillard de Tournon (1705/1707). Mezzabarba (1721). Benedict XIV (1742). Major consequences. Persecution, 1717 onwards. 1784-1785.
Europe. Jesuit-Barooque; Dominican Thomist-Augustinian opposition and bitterness. Complications from Noble Simplicity, Mystical Debacle, Jansenism, Enlightenment.
Noble Simplicity. Classicism, positive theology, and early Church. Cartesianism and Newtonianism. Opposition to Baroque pomposity in liturgy, processions, pilgrimages. Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Della regolata divozione christiana.
Mystical debacle of Quietism. Molinos, Guyon, Fénélon.
Jansenism: four factors to be taken into account.
Ideas. Louvain and Baius. Dutch Republic, Dordrecht, efficacious grace. Bishop Cornelius Jansensius (1585-1638) and Augustinus (1640-1641). Spread in France, in varied ways, by Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, Abbot of St. Cyr (d. 1642). Arnauld Family (Mother Agnes, Mother Angelica, Antoine Arnauld, 1612-1694), Oratorians, and many others.
Penitential practice: choc. Contrition. Attitude towards sacraments and union with God (Sacred Heart). Spread catechetically, liturgically, etc.
Dévot: anti-Richelieu/Mazarin. Mars Gallicus. Withdrawal. St. Cyran’s imprisonment. Fronde.
Sympathies of all the other groups which are anti-Jesuits and anti-Baroque.
Otherwise, complex twists due to terribly convoluted and hate-filled history, crucial to understanding the Revolution.
France. Opposed by Baroque Monarchy with Roman help. 1640’s onwards. Mazarin, Urban VIII, Innocent X, Alexander VII. Stages in France. 1643-1653, First Condemnations, Frequent Communin, 5 Propositions. 1653-1668/1669-Right versus Fact,Formulary, Arnauld and Port Royal Expulsions, Pascal’s Provincial Letters, and Probabilism. 1668/1669-1679-Clementine Peace and “pastoral activity”. 1679-1713, Louis versus, Papal/King battles complicated, Richer, Quesnel, Noailles, and Unigenitus. 1713-1726 is persecution, reflowering, constitutionalists and appelants, new persecution. 1726-1750, with Embrun, Fleury, Vintimille, Beaumont; Law, Lettres, General Hospital, Sacraments. Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques, Miracles and Convulsions and Aids. Figurism. The Cult of Heroes. Richerism and Parlements. 1750 onwards. Government (and Church) cave in.
Elsewhere. Spanish Lowlands, Dutch Republic and Utrecht Schism, through to Spain and Germany/Austria, and Italy.
Main consequences: Opposition to French Monarchy and its form of Gallicanism. Opposition to Rome. Richerism: Due to episcopal opposition. Clergy penetrated, Oratorian Colleges, etc. Laity with Parlement and Parlementary Gallicanism. “Sincere Conscience” versus “Despotism” and Authority. Appeal to public opinion which it shapes as sole “just” force. Conciliarism and Utrecht.
Aided by Papal confusion, cause Jansenists debout and aid versus Louis when Jesuits do not. Problem of personalities: Louis XV and ponography. Illogic of Regalist and Ultramontanist cooperation: Gregory VII Feast. Problem of State Church: Civil Rights and Sacraments. Reputation as martyrs. Mystical debacle. War needs. Jesuit confusion, too. With men like Tirso.
Protestant powers successes. Maritime powers and Prussia. Spanish Succession, Austrian Succession, Seven Years War. How? In ways that involve religion? In world where power primary? Downplaying religion in two ways. Emphasizing toleration: Dutch Republic, native and Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), Dictionnaire and experience. England: experiences of Civil War, Restoration, Hannoverians, Latitudiniarism, Whigs and John Locke. Prussia: Needs of Lutheran-Calvinist divisions. Government with final word. Reinterpreting Christianity in terms of morality and good manners. Protestantism and initial desire for denial of free will: Dordrect versus Arminians. Still, concern for following God’s Law and further Reformation. Inner Man and man’s heart. With doctrine, grace, externals. Free will? Some like Methodists. With grace, no real need for externals of free will? Pietists and Moravian Brethren, Quakers, Raskolniki and Hasidim. Free will in God’s nature, moralists without supernatural doctrine troubline. There as a backdrop—don’t quarrel. God is in the book of nature—reasonable—all else is fraud. Common sense. Obvious natural law of which State is the sole administrator. Christian Wolff. Deism, Shaftesbury, Classical Model. Merchant/power and divinization of banal. Practical Newtonianism. Press, Royal Society, Patriotic Societies, Confraternities. Pietism: England, Dutch, Germany, Francke. Cameralism, administrators. Great influence in Russia too. But Power behind the whole thing. Which power depends. Conclusion: An efficacious moral society requires an end to doctrine. Common sense practicality. Progress visible in medicine. If do not follow, die. Catholic powers’ fear. Regalists thought so already anyway
G.
Complicated by the Enlightenment. A catch-all term. Cartesianism/Newtonianism/Noble simplicity of the Classical. Simple and Motion. Doctrinal downplay/Deism/Nature and Revelation.
The term as used by the philosophes. Who are they? Basic names. “The little band”, Locke, Hume. The Encyclopedia. Basic themes: World is in process of healing itself. Christianity is a disease preventing its healing. Metaphysics and sin and corporate society. Use Christian problems to discredit them: Fights of systematic and positive theology. China. Missions. Janenist-Jesuit battle. Need for tolerance a la John Locke to tolerate to death. Two steps. Replace with Reason. Reason=Limitation. Descartes. Newton and modesty. Locke and experimental sciences. How? Use of literature to create an alternative egalitarian society. Bayle and the Republic of Letters-satirical. Letters and salons and women. Gravity and cooperation. Capture Academies. Direction of Public Opinion-Causes celebres, 1750 onwards. Politics: desacralization and decorporatization. Various fields. Sensibility. Example of the New World.
Big problems. Classicists-scientists-some doctrinaire like Physiocrats. “The sect”. But create irrational world of endless wills. Atheism of D’Holbach and China again. Power with Frederick. Hume’s answer. Political division. Patronized-need help of most efficient order. Thèse Royale, but Catholic! Particular. Thèse Parlementaire-versus Despotism. Montesquieu/Britain. But hidebound. Radicals create a literary underworld. Illuminati. Jean-Jaques Rousseau. Influence on Catholic: Classicists, scientists, bad clerics.
H.
Rousseau’s life: 1712, Geneva. 1778 Ermenonville. 1794 to Pantheon. Calvinism/Jansenism and ambiguous nobility, religius,philosophical world.
First Discourse in 1750. 2nd in 1754. 1756 first soc. N-H. (Julie, Claire, Saint-Peux, Wolmar. 1757-Nouvelle, Emile. Lettre a D’Alembert in 1758. N.H. in 1761. England and Paris. Confessions in 1760’s but published in 1780’s. Dreams of a Solitary. Rousseau Juges Jean-Jaques. Talent, unconventional, mad, wants to make a splash. Versus eighteenth century preense. Power of women. Masks make him unhappy. Knows what the philosophes are and what they claim to be.
Message. Virtue not in actions, a state of being, sincerity, cut off by effeminate world. Contemplating and swooning over one’s goodness. Alone! People swoon over you. But alone needs whole. La Nouvelle Heloise. Whole must be made into the sincere one. Emile, Social Contract, Corsica. Pol. (Calvin). Attack of Voltaire. World is evil, not so-called sinful man. He is a martyr, they are not human, but atheists. He and AB Beaumont and “God”. Spectator animal. Geneva and ceremonies of contemplating one’s holiness. Cult of Rousseau in 1780’s. Specific things. Unsuccessful hated or alienated. Provides way out. Kant-Hugo-Brissot-Roland-Robespiere.
I.
Coalition of different groups with different goals adding up to desacralization and decorporatization in result. Lack of effective papal response: Innocent XIII, Benedict XIII, Benedict XIV, Clement XIII, Clement XIV.
Attack on the Jesuits is a real conspiracy. Ratio studiorum (educational reformers). Reductions (Regalists). Missionary Tactocs (Different religious orders, opponents of Semi-Pelagianism, Popes, Jansenssts, etc. ) books versus. Laxism (Popes, Tirso, jansenists). Constitutions and their despotism (Jansenists and Parlements). Anything and everything. Passionei, Vasquez, Roda, Oratorians, Plan of attack.
The Assault. Portugal—José Carvahlo e Melho-Pombal/Saldhin. Joseph I, Reductions, earthquake, attempt on king. 1758. Attack. Expulsion. France. Duc de Choiseul. Bankruptcy. Lavalette and Martinique. Constitution. King and Parlement, 1761-1764. What happens. Spain. Charles III, 1759 onwards and Tanucci. Arandi, Campomanes. Riots—Hat and cloak, 1766, Squillaci. Plan of 1767. Expulsion and Rome’s refusal. Naples 1767. Parma Piacenza 1768. Du Tillot.
General. Plan of Bourbon Family for pressure. Austria. Resistance of Clement XIII. Clement XIV. Dominus ac Redemptor 1773. Fate of Ricci very harsh. Bernis, Floridablanca. Vasquez.
Shock of ease. Corporate group. Education. Whole Church the same way?
J.
Immediate causes often practical wealth and power and war worries. Different in different places. Utilized by opponents. One group does not thing, another, another. Long term effect is a destruction of national and international sacred (In Coena, versus religious, versus Feast Days) corporate (different groups, laicized) society. Some of this justified. Much not. Versus property, with consequences. Versus own agenda in education, ec. State employees for public order. Seculars out. Secular confraternities.
Portugal: Commerce, Pombal and allies.
Italy and Spain: Commerce, famine, etc. Naples/Sicily. Tanucci. Pietro Gianna. Parma/Piacenza: du Tillot. Spain and colonies: 1732/1753 Concordats. Campomanes. Mexico in 1771 and Palafax. Particularly brutal.
Germany: State Churches. Progress to common law rather than Church-State relations. Prince-Bishoprics, secular rulers, Febronius, inter- denominational. Bavaria often aided by Rome versus bishops. Hapsburg lands: Austria, Charles/Maria/Joseph. Belgium with cities and Church. Lombardy, local region and Church. Tuscany with local, Church, Pistoia in 1786. Hungary. Horror of AB of Vienna.
France. Monarchy versus corporate order (Vintieme, Parlement, Physiocrats). Corporate order and Monarchical authority (but also Church). Versus Church: Hospital and Sacraments. Versus monarchy through Louis XV. General efforts to rule. Monarchy losing and confused. Parlment/monarchy/ Church debate. Nation and control. Ultramontanism.
Reign of force disguised as freedom and progress. This or that reform not in question. “Practical” and “free”. Strongest force defining practical and free. Irrational: Voltaire and eyes. No Religion. No Reason. No war out.
K.
Portugal, Spain, Italian States, Hapsburg Lands, Prince-Bishoprics and other German States. Attack on contemplative, spiritual as non moral. Dismantling of corporations/property. Strengthening of the state often for war.
France: 1748-1789. Issues involving religion. Jansenist-related. Status of Unigenitus, refusal of sacraments, General Hospiral. Devotions like feasts, 1775 Jubilee, catechisms. Religious orders related. Jesuit and others. Nation and property. 1766 commission. General policing measures. Vingtieme of 1749-1750. Protestant Emancipation of 1787 with civil marriage as state duty. Catholic=civil. Etc.
The players are the king and his ministers. Their problems. Louis’ appreciation. The Parlements along with Jansenists and Princes of the Blood (Le Paige, May and Maultrot.) The bishops and devots. 1765. Lefranc de Pompignon and Beaumont. Enlightenment figures. Voltaire and Diderot. Pope, very little, unless called in like Pope Benedict XIV.
Involves very serious debate over the nature of the State and Church State relations. Nature of the State: a Catholic monarchy? If king not Catholic, what then? “League” and “Ulramontanism”? Separation and judgment? If not automatic, freedom for other French? The king’s two bodies: momentary will versus real will in laws. Parlements as historic interpreter. Parlement and national will. Estates General and National will. Nature of Estates General. King as mere executor. Nature can dethrone. Or assertion of king’s boundless authority in Hobbesian war. Free from dubious history. Pope as well! In both of latter, an attack on the corporate order; in both of former, on monarchy’s power.
Church-Stae relations. Is it a Catholic country? Citizen=Catholic or Catholic=citien. But, no conflict possible? Reduces to meaninglessness. King decides? Parlement? Estates General? Bishops? Pope? If leave private? Spiritual/temporal, no comme d’abus. No judgment of Solomon possible. Desacralization. Language problem: Love, saints, Rousseau.
Stages: 1748-1754: Kingly bishop alliance versus Parlement. 1754/57-1770. Kingly parlementary versus bishops (transfer of exiles, Beaumont). 1766/1770-1774. Kingly alone versus “patriots”. 1774-1789: Confused. Louis and devots. Louis and power. Louis and parlements. Drift. 1787-1789 is last assertion of Kingly power. Parlement/patriot—bishops opposition. Attak on “privileged classes” begun by monarchy. Taken up by Enlightenment/unprivileged versus Estates General.
L.
Revolution and Rousseau. First part (1789-1791), history, procedure. Brissot and Robespierre. Need for massacres and institutions. Massacres, king’s trial, war and world, terror, counterrevolutionary, idea of justice. Fight-cult of the Supreme Being. How? Men of talent and langue. We not. Old are baffled by language and sell out. Moderates, both confused and cynical cannot defend. Intensity. These insist. Pure power, but believed justice.
French Revolution overview: three elements involved. Pressing problems and measures to resolve. Self interested groups clashing. Ideology-Enlightenement of varied types, and, later Barruel. Long term. Bourgeois Victory, using each other. Force behind language of reason, freedom, progress. Enormous difficulty disentangling. Five to ten year period only.
Part one. 1789-1792. May-July, 1789. Third Estate with leaders=Nation. Bourgeois and anti corprate. Backing of Paris, while army collapses. National Assembly. July-October. Paris=Nation. Pro bourgeois, anti corporate measures. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Problems not dealt with. Peasants. Great Fear. National Guards. Paris National Guard and Commune. Women/Guard to Versailles. King and Assembly to Paris. Artois leaves. First Emigration. October to Summer, 1791. Borugeis/Enlightenment alliance=Nation. Pro bourgeois, anti-corporate Constitution. Voting, Chapelier Law, Departments, etc. Expropriation and Civil Constitution of the Clergy and Oath. Assignats. Veto. Second Empigration. Non Juring and Constitutional Clergy. King and Provence flee. Bourgeois dilemma and Enlightenment dilemma. Constitution with King. Clubs and districts more radical. Need king. Lafayette and Champs de Mars. Seemingly succeed. Summer, 1791-Summer, 1792. Legislative Assembly; Provincial bourgeois/Enlightenment/Girondins. Play with Rousseau Republican. Paris. Ex representatives like Robespierre. Clubs like Jacobins, Cordeliers with Danton. Press with Marat and Hebert. Districts with Sansculottes. Provincial Paris battle and pressing problems. War: Old issues, revolt versus Austria, Holland, emigrees. Others pre-occupied with Poland. Brissot, Lafayette, Robespierre. War and disaster. Recriminations. Paris Commune, Districts. Clubs. Paress and NG campagin versus in August: attack and imprisonment.
1792-1794. Republic. National Convention. Difficult elections (Mountain and Plain). Summer, 1792-Spring, 1793. Fatherland in Danger (beyond as well). Levee en masse. Conscription of labor. Controls on econmy. Septemeber, 1792, hurled back, but by next Spring, troubles again. Counterrevolutionaries are non people. September massacres. King in January, 1793. Girondins/Jacobins Duel with Girondin losing. Purge. Civil War. Aristocratic, Girondins, Lyons, Marseilles. Vendee. Summer, 1793-summer, 1794. National Convention and Pris Commune, districts, clubs, press. Committees and Reign of Terror. Bourgeois support to survive. Dictatorship. Total war, total control, permanent hunt for counterrevolutionaries. Queues. Where headed? Virtue, calendar as symbol, Robespierre and Saint-Just. Problem: Danton and Desmoulins as Indulgents. Hebert and Enraged Ones. Neither are virtuous and therefore are non-people/counterrevolutionaries. Germinal. Cult of the Supreme Being and Virtue. But: Prairal Laws and threat to property. Thermidor. Justice for everybody!
M.
Church. Battered by Jansenist, Richerist, Enlightenment, Rousseau. Corruption of certain monastic orders. 1516, bishops and aristocracy. Difference of incomes: Talleyrand, Sieyes, Fouche. Much solid. Clergy as average Frenchman. Enthusiastic for Revolution.
Expropriation et all before Civil Constitution. Annates, tithes. August, 1789. October-November, 1789. Talleyrand, Raynal, Gregoire: moral functionaries. Paris anticlericalism; Charles IX. Sieyes. December 19th, highest bidder. February 13, 1790 monastic vows. Gregoire and pulpit. Barruel, Ecclesiastical Journal. Dom Gerle, Lectures. Oath of priests. Mirabeau. Religion to everybody.
Civil Constitution of 1790. July 12, 1790: rearrangement, election, stipends, residence.No papal involvement. Opposition of Borsgelin and Maury. Voidel and Oath of November 1790. Purely for police purpposes. King signs on December 26. January 2, 1791 is oath. Talleyrand ordaines. Adelaide and Victoire, February. Pope condemns on March 10, 1791.
Republican anti-Christian. Official. Calendar of Fabre d’Eglantine. Unofficial. Paris sections, theater, armee revolutionaire with ex priests and ex monks. Chaumette, Hebert. Missions of representatives like Fouche. 1792-1794. November, 1793 in Notre Dame. Disasteful to Robespierre and Saint Just.
Vendee civil war of 1793. Socially inclusive: La Rochejaquelein and Charette. Peasant clergy and intrus. Decrees versus refractoires. Death of king. March conscription and closing of Church. March 10-12 through May in Nantes. Grand Royal and Catholic Army. Abbe Barbotin and Bernier. Saint Just: “the Republic consists in the extermination of everything that opposes it.” Westermann, Beyssier, Carrier: April, 1794. Republican education: Rousseau—Gregoire, David, Robespierre. Supreme Being on June 8, 1794. Revolutionary prayer books.
N.
The French Revolutionary dilemma, 1794-1799. Thermidorean Reaction: anti Jacobin and free trade. Neo-jacobin assault, May, 1795. National Convention between Royalism and Jacobinism.
The Directory, October, 1795. Two houses with limited vote. Five man board of directors. Annual 1/3 change.Two thirds decree. Sense of power and right to use. Versus Royalist and Babeuf coups, 1795-1796. Coups of their own: Fructidor (September, 1797, Royalist versus Carnot and Barthelemy) and Floreal (May, 1798, neo-Jacobin). War continuing: 1795, Belgium and Left Bank into departments. 1796, Italy Cisalpine, Roman, and Parthenopean Republics. 1797, Netherlands as Batavian Republic, Switzerland as Helvetian Repubblic. Conscription and financing.
Anti-Catholic reinforced, especially in 1797 onwards. New oaths and severe deportations. Revolutionary calendar and mass on decadi. Cult of Theophilanthropy. Jean Baptiste Chemin-Dupontès. Manuel de Theophilantropie in 1796. Revéllière-Lepéaux’s support. Notre Dame and 17 other Catholic Churches. Liturgy—red, white, blue. Scripture, Koran, Zoroaster, Seneca, Voltaire, Fenelon, and above all, Rousseau. Pro Socrates and George Washington. Toleration, solidarity, love of country.
Other countries. Emigration, 30,000 to 40,000 clerics. Opera Pia della ospitalita francese. Extension of revolutionary laws to other countries.
Papal States. Pius VI, Civil Constitution, Avignon (1791). Inside papal states. Cagliostro, French Academy. Other discontents due to papal helplessnes. War and republicanism. Italy invasion. Madame Roland’s letter. Hugon de Bassville in September, 1792 and murder, Januar 13, 1793. February 11 and 12 riots. New war and negotiations. Peace of Tolentino on February 19, 1797. General Duphot on December 28, 1797. General Berthier to Rome. February 10 surrender. February 15, 1798 enter. Pope must leave on February 20. Berthier’s speech. Robbery. Intensification of war and Pius’ fate. Neapolitans, Austria in March of 1799. Siena-Sardinia. March 28, 1799. Valence, July 14, 1799. August 29, 1799. Rome on February 17, 1802. Future. Conclave regulations on November 13, 1798. “The death of Pius VI has, as it were, placed a seal on the glory of philosophy in modern times.” December 1, 1799, San Giorgio. March 14, 1800. “The defenceless successor of the Galilean fisherman had won a lasting victory.”
VII: Phoenix in a Fiery World
A. The Naturalist-Regalist Stranglehold
Regalism and Natualism. Regalism practiced by sacred monarchies, Jansenist parlementarians, and revolutionary systems of varied types. Naturalism behimd them all by 18th century. Unequal Concordats and “Natural Law” theories. Jansenist ecclesiology and control from below and nature. Prussian Pietism and British Common Sense. Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1791).
Our period: practiced by all—a stranglehold on the Church. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) and Bonapartism. Coup (1799) December 2, 1804. Myth of His European System. Concordat (1800-1802). Negotiations and agreement. In conjunction with Civil Code and 77 Organic Articles. France, Italian Rep/Kingdom, annexed Lowland, central/southern Italy, Holland, German areas. “Restored”, clumsily, and corporate independence broken. Government employees and cheering squad for military-bourgeois social order. Catechism and St. Napoleon.
Legitimist Restoration Europe (1814-1830-1848). Congress of Vienna and Holy Alliance-Problematic from start from a spiritual standpoint. Effects of individual monarchs. Strong Enlightenment remnants. 1830 shakeup and 1848 “ends”. Cardinal Consalvi (1757-1824) and attempts at negotiations of Church’s situation—Concordats. Basic unilateralism or leaning in that direction.
Russian Empire. Internally and “Congress Poland”. Latins and Uniates; Jesuit question (1816/1820). With Nicholas I and after 1830 intensified controls. Papal acceptance of them. Uniates: government restructuring (1828), Bill of Union (1829), Synod of Polozk-Siemasko.
Parts of German Confederation, Switzerland, and Kingdom of the Netherlands; Iberia. German Confederation of Congress of Vienna. No Prince-Bishops (1803), top-heavy Protestant, Josephist, regalist. Ignaz von Wessenberg (1774-1868). No Empire-wide decisions, so state by state. Problems in Hannover (1817-=1824), elsewhere. Southwest the worst (and Switzerland similar). Articles of Baden, 1834 onwads. Josephist-Wessenberg-Helvetic Society. Baden-Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Electoral Hesse, Nassau versus Rome. From better (1820) to all identically restrictive curbs (1830). Kingdom of the Netherlands. North and Belgium. Organic Articles of 1815 applied. Obstacles increase after 1822. Versus schools. Obstacles to a new Concordat (1827). Complications in Iberia.
Serious negotiations and seeming improvement. German Confederation. Francis I (1792-1835), Metternich, and easing of controls. Bavaria (1817-1821), Ludwig I (1825-1848). Prussia. Problems, like many, of Rhineland, plus Silesia and Posen. Bunsen, Pius VIII (1830), and mixed marriage time bomb. Italy. Austrian territories evolve similarly. Tuscand, after 1824, Leopold II. Modena, 1841. Naples, 1818, 1834, 1839. Kingdom of Sardinia, 1839/1841: the great hope.
France. 1815-1830. Napoleonic Concordat acceptance (1817). No Organic Articles. Support in diverse ways. Education and Religious Orders. Problem from Regalists and Liberals leading to 1830-1848 and Liberals. Concordat plus Organic Articles. Guizot and Moderation if no boat rocking. Schools and Religious Orders.
Liberal Regalism and Iberian World. Portugal and Brazil. Heritage of Pombal. Complications of move to Brazil, Liberals return, and Civil War of Pedro/Maria and assaults with liberal backing. Pedro I and Pedro II of Brazil and tight controls. Hispanic World has heritage of Charles III and IV and Joseph (1809 religious suppression). Juntas/Cadiz and Constitution. Effects in the Americas. Creole Revolutions. Liberals (1820-1823) and effects in Americas. Complications of Isabella/Maria Cristina versus Don Carlos, 1833 onwards. Moderates, Progressives, and Radicals. Liberal assault in Spain. Creole imposition of regalist controls in Latin America.
Papal difficulties due to Spanish Regalist pressure in Latin America. Etsi longissimo (1816). Muzi Mission (1823) and Pius IX. Etsi iam diu (1824). Appointments in partibus (1825). Residential bishops by motu proprio (1827). Sollicitudo ecclesiarum (1831).
Understandable appeal to some of Anglo-Saxon Liberalism. United Kingdom. Regalism affecting Anglicans causing Oxford Movement, dissident Churches, Canada. Tendency to a freeing of non-Anglican in UK and Canada. United States, 1789, no restrictions. Immigrant clergy and great enthusiasm. Problems, but need more to understand.
B. Rising From the Ashes (1800-1848)
Devastation of the whole period from 1750. Varied but general. Intellectually, spiritual, structural, political and social. Tremendous loss of confidence over mission in world.
Four-fold theme of revival: Rediscovery of the supernatural; recommittment, revaluation of Rome; rebirth of determination to transform the world. Problems with all of them.
Rediscovery of the supernatural. Reasons: Never-dying tradition reevocked. Romanticism, contextualism, and appreciation of mysterious. Whole and individual relationship. Corporate destruction awareness. Ideas and History. Reaction to the Revolution. Sin as overwhelming reality dictated by experience.
Main consequences (5). Sense of insufficiency of naturalist straitjacket in all forms; overcoming alienation. Exotic Middle Ages as key to overcoming alienation. Church, dogma, and morality as a living, active, supra-rational body with own organic laws and not pure mechanism. Person of Christ in it. Participation in this for perfection of life and divinization. Community of Christ bearers. Timeless, universal mission with historical peculiarities, political and social. Need for freedom of association for her.
Centers: mix in all without reference to later problems. Mixed lay-clerical circles in places like Munster and Vienna. University faculties. Seminaries. Revived religious orders and congregations. Press.
Where and who? Germany. Madame de Staehl, De l’Allemagne (1810), opposition to Napoleon and copied classicism. Munster, 1779 onwards. Circle of Princess Amalie Gallitzin (1748-1806) with Bernard Overberg (1729-1810); Count Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg’s conversion in 1800. Vienna: Clemens Maria Hofbauer (1751-1820) with Friederich Schlegel (1772-1829), Ludwig von Haller (1768-1854), others. Landshut/Munich, 1800 onwards. Johann Michael Sailer (1751-1832) thorugh Crown Prince Ludwig (King, 1825 onwards), Ringseis (BSV at Munich, 1826 onwards), Schenk (Minister of Jusice’s religion and education section), with Josef von Görres (1776-1848). Franz von Baader (1765-1841), Ignaz von Döllinger (1799-1890), Eos (1828-1830), Historisch-Politische Blätter, Schelling. Mainz: Johann Ludwig Colmar (1760-1818) and Franz Leopold Liebermann (1759-1844). Seminary, other bishops, Der Katholik (1822 onwards). Tübingen: Johann Sebastian Drey (1777-1851), Theologische Quartalschrift, Johann Baptist Hirscher (1788-1865), Johann Adam Möhler (1776-1838). Bonn, Koblenz, etc. Luzern in Switzerland.
Return to main page.