Yesterday we
looked at the errors made by the Abbé Hugues Félicité Robert de Lamennais and
why they were wrong. This is important
because the errors de Lamennais made eventually became the foundation of what
many people think is authentic Catholic social teaching — and they are wrong.
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| Abbé Hugues Félicité Robert de Lamennais |
The problem was
that de Lamennais’s errors were not the only problem — and they may have been
the least part of the trouble. The fact
was that de Lamennais had an excitable personality and impressionable mind, so
much so that it verged at times on hysteria.
He was also
stubborn past the point of pertinacity. Once
he set himself on a course of action, he could rarely be persuaded to change
his mind, even if it was in his own best interest. He tended to act precipitously and then
refuse to reconsider, however inimical his actions to himself and others.
For example,
Alexis de Tocqueville noted that during the French constitutional debates of
1848, de Lamennais and the Fourierist Victor-Prosper Considerant, “little worse
than chimerical visionaries,” (Alexis de Tocqueville, The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville. Cleveland, Ohio: The World Publishing
Company, 1959, 186.) were the only radical members of the constitutional
committee. De Lamennais had published a
version of his ideal constitution, and insisted that the committee first
consider his proposals for regulating local government.
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| Alexis de Tocqueville |
De Lamennais’s
position — with which de Tocqueville agreed — was that individual rights must
be the basis of national sovereignty, and that a strong and centralized
national government tended to undermine individual rights. The committee decided to discuss other issues
first. Rather than accept the decision,
de Lamennais resigned from the committee the next day. As de Tocqueville related the incident,
Under the circumstances, an occurrence of this sort was
annoying. It was bound to increase and
[deepen] the prejudices already existing against us. We took very pressing and even somewhat
humble steps to induce Lamennais to reconsider his resolve. As I had shared his opinion, I was deputed to
go and see him and press him to return.
I did so, but in vain. He had
only been beaten over a formal question, but he had concluded from this that he
would not be the master. That was enough
to decide him to be nothing at all. He
was inflexible, in spite of all I could say in the interest of the very ideas
which we held in common. (Ibid.,
190.)
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| Victor-Prosper Considerant (no accent; he insisted) |
The fact was de
Lamennais tended to turn trivialities into major incidents whenever
possible. This made dealing with even
extremely minor problems virtually impossible, to say nothing of trying to
correct fundamental errors, or even identify them through the barrage of de
Lamennais’s hysterical and self-serving accounts of his alleged persecution by
religious and civil authorities.
. . . and this
was the man to whom the pope had to try and deal out a little fraternal
correction. . . .
On August 15,
1832, a few days after de Lamennais had left Rome in a snit, Gregory XVI issued
the encyclical Mirari Vos, “On Liberalism
and Religious Indifferentism.” Without
naming de Lamennais,
Mirari Vos opened with a cautious
acknowledgement of his efforts to defend the Church against Gallicanism, other
State encroachment into religious affairs, and reason cut off from faith. At the same time, however, it made it clear
that the end does not justify the means; the desirability of securing the
freedom of the Church did not excuse unsound or exaggerated doctrine or tactics.
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| Pope Gregory XVI |
Mirari Vos made it clear that de Lamennais’s
enthusiastic partisanship for his version of democracy, however much it
outraged Catholic royalists, should be toned down, and he should respect duly
constituted civil authority. This was
something of a moot point, as he had already suspended l’Avenir.
What de Lamennais
took as a slap in the face was that Gregory XVI, a far better scholar than
politician, identified the error in de Lamennais’s philosophy: the theory of
certitude, the heart of Neo-Catholicism.
As far as the pope was concerned, this struck directly at what it means
for something to be true.
To correct de
Lamennais’s error, the pope reminded people that they must be careful not to
reject reason in their anxiety to be faithful Catholics. The primacy of the Intellect, something that
all subsequent pontiffs would stress in their struggles against the “new
things” of the modern world, must be maintained. As he explained, “the discipline sanctioned
by the Church must never be rejected or be branded as contrary to certain
principles of natural law.” (Mirari Vos,
§ 9.)
In particular,
Gregory XVI condemned the idea that truth is determined by the general
consensus of humanity and accepted on faith, instead of individual reason
guided and illuminated by faith:
[I]t is obviously absurd and
injurious to propose a certain “restoration and regeneration” for [the Church]
as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered
subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. Indeed these authors of
novelties consider that a “foundation may be laid of a new human institution,”
and what Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing “may
become a human church.” (Ibid., §
10.)
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| Sheen: Religion must be God-centered, not man-centered. |
As Fulton Sheen
would point out nearly a century later, this reorients religion to be
man-centered instead of God-centered.
This was the same error into which Saint-Simon, Fourier, and other
socialists had fallen, and which is the principal error of modernism and the New Age as well.
Developing this
theme, Mirari Vos addressed various
problems associated with Saint-Simonianism, Fourierism, and other schools of
religious socialism, as well as secularism and rationalism — the latter two
being problems de Lamennais also worked to counter. Gregory XVI clearly attempted to steer de
Lamennais back to orthodoxy, but without singling him out or embarrassing him
by chastising him publicly. Mirari Vox comes across as a stern but
fair warning that, laudable as efforts to defend the Church might be, they must
adhere to correct principles and doctrines or the defense could end up being
worse than the attack.
Unfortunately, de
Lamennais took immense pride in his theory of certitude and his position as
leader, even prophet of the Neo-Catholic movement. These were, respectively, the philosophical
breakthrough he believed best demonstrated his genius, and the position that
gave him his status and power. They were
the cornerstones of his defense of the Church and of his political philosophy.
That is why, perhaps
inevitably, what Gregory XVI intended as a kindly correction of someone whom he
viewed with favor and affection, de Lamennais took as a vicious attack and a
betrayal of his life’s work.
. . . and then
things really got ugly. . . .
#30#
