CHURCH HISTORY II: FROM THE th 14 CENTURY TO THE PRESENT

Theo 273 B

COURSE OUTLINE ........................................................... 14 I. CATHOLIC REFORM, PROTESTANT REFORMATION, AND THE CATHOLIC COUNTER REFORMATION ............. 26
A. The Basic Question: ..................................................................... 26 1. The Traditional Thesis: .......................................................... 26 2. The Protestant Position: ........................................................ 29 3. The Marxist Reading: ............................................................. 30 B. The Contemporary Consensus: .................................................... 32

II. THE RELIGIOUS CAUSES OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION ................................................................ 36

A. Preliminary Outline: Religious and Other Causes ......................... 36 B. Religious Causes .......................................................................... 36 1. The Conflicts between Boniface VII and Philip the Fair36 2. The Avignon Papacy (The Babylonian Captivity of the Church) ........................................................................................................... 39 History: ........................................................................................... 39 Three important aspects of this Avignon Period: ............................ 41 1. The pope, as the chaplain of the French king ..................... 41 2. in second place ................................................................... 42 3. The aversion to the growing fiscalism / the Avignon papacy44 3. The Great Western Schism; Conciliarism ........................ 45 a. The return to Rome: election of Urban VI ................................. 46 b. The beginning of the Schism ..................................................... 47 c. The genesis of the theory of Conciliarism ................................. 50 d. The Council of Pisa (1409): three popes .................................... 54 e. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) ..................................... 56
2

f. The Council of Basel and a new schism ..................................... 59 g. The Problematic ........................................................................ 61 h. Consequences of the Western Schism ...................................... 68 In France ................................................................................ 69 In German .............................................................................. 69 In England .............................................................................. 70 In Spain .................................................................................. 70 4.The Renaissance ....................................................................... 72 a. Interpretations: discontinuity-continuity-diversity in continuity 72 1. The theory of discontinuity ................................................ 72 2. Theory of continuity ........................................................... 72 3. Our Optic: Diversity in continuity ....................................... 72 b. The essence of the Renaissance .................................................. 72 c. The Church and the Renaissance ................................................. 72 d. Alexander VI: Renaissance pope par excellence ......................... 72 C. OtherReligious Causes ................................................................. 72 1. The decadence of scholasticism and the rise of nominalism ......... 72 2. The defective ecclesiologies of Wyclif, Hus and Wessel ................. 72 3. False Mysticism .............................................................................. 72 4. Evangelism ..................................................................................... 72 5. Corruption of the Church ............................................................... 72 6. The psychological turmoil of the late medieval period .................. 72

III. POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION .................................... 73
Introduction .................................................................................... 73 I. The Protestant Reformation ...................................................... 74 1. Resistance against Rome................................................................ 74
3

2. Resistance against Hapsburg centralization and absolutism. ......... 76 3. The Socio-Economic Situation in Germany. ................................... 77 4. The Personality of Luther. .............................................................. 79 II. New Historiographical and Methodological Problems ................ 80

IV. MARTIN LUTHER AND THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN GERMANY ...................................... 86

A. Martin Luther .............................................................................. 86 1. The Personality of Luther ............................................................. 86 2. Brief summary of his life .............................................................. 89 3. Three essential points of Luthers doctrine .................................. 92 Sola scriptura .................................................................................. 93 Justificatio sola fide (justification only by faith) .............................. 93 Sola gratia ....................................................................................... 98 4. Chronology of the break .............................................................. 100 B. The Religious Struggles in Germany until 1555 ........................... 110 1. Period of Social Unrest: 1521-1525............................................ 112 The uprising of the knights of the lower nobility (1521-23) ......... 112 Revolution of the Anabaptists....................................................... 112 The Peasant Revolution (1524-1525) ............................................ 115 2. Period of Diets and Colloquiums (1525-1532) ........................... 117 Diet of Speyer: 1526 ..................................................................... 117 Diet of Speyer: 1529 ..................................................................... 117 Diet of Augusta: 1530 ................................................................... 118 Diet of Nurnberg: 1532 ................................................................. 120 Colloquium of Worms: 1540 ......................................................... 121 Colloquium of Regensburg (Ratisbon): 1541 ................................. 121 3. Period of War and the Final Truce: 1532-1555 .......................... 121 Outbreak of hostilities .................................................................. 121
4

Peace of Augusta: 1555 ................................................................ 122 Abdication of Charles V: 1556 ....................................................... 123 Germany in 1555 .......................................................................... 124 C. Conclusion: The Religious Division of Europe ............................. 125

V. JOHN CALVIN AND CALVINISM.............................125

A. Calvin: His Life (1509-1564)........................................................ 125 B. Calvin: His Character.................................................................. 127 C. Calvin: His Doctrine ................................................................... 132 D. Calvin in Geneva: Realization of Calvinist Doctrine ..................... 136

VI. THE REFORM IN ENGLAND ..................................140

A. The General Situation in England at the Beginning of the 16thCentury B. Henry VIII (1509-1547) ............................................................... 143 C. Edward VI (1546-1553) .............................................................. 147 D. Mary the Catholic or Bloody Mary (1553-1558) ...................... 148 E. Elizabeth I (1558-1603) .............................................................. 149 140

VII. THE EFFECTS OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION ............................................................................................157

A. In General: The Religious Division of Europe and Its Effects ........ 157 B. Protestantism and Spiritual Renewal: Pro and Con..................... 164

VIII. THE CATHOLIC REFORM AND COUNTERREFORMATION ..............................................................172

A. The Fundamental Problematic: Two Central Questions .............. 172 1. First Half of the 1500s: Reaction to Protestantism or Catholic Reform? a. The Traditional Presentation ..................................................... 174 b. A Revisionist Reading ................................................................ 174 c. The Contemporary Consensus................................................... 176 The positive element: .......................................................... 176 The negative element: ......................................................... 176 d. In Summary ............................................................................... 177 2. Second Half of the 1500s: Catholic Reform our Counter Reformation? A. A generally negative evaluation: ............................................... 179 B. A generally positive evaluation: ................................................ 181 a. Counter Reformation thesis ...................................................... 185 b. Catholic Reform thesis .............................................................. 185 c. Synthesis: Both Counter Reformation and Catholic Reform ...... 185 B. The Catholic Reform .................................................................. 185 1. Various Lay Associations .............................................................. 185 2. Reform of the Ancient Religious Orders ....................................... 186 3. Birth of New Religious Institutes .................................................. 188 4. Reforming Work of Bishops in Their Dioceses ............................. 188 5. Program of the Christian Humanists ............................................ 190 6. Circles of Catholics Evangelism .................................................... 190 7. Roman Initiatives: Curia and Popes .............................................. 190 C. The Popes of the 1500s .............................................................. 193 D. Renewal of Religious Life ........................................................... 196 1. Genesis and Development of Religious Life ................................. 197 a. Two Elements: Charism and Institution .................................... 197
6

174

179

b. The Medieval Period Three Forms of Religious Life: 1) the monastic communities; 2) canons regular; 3) mendicant friars ................... 198 2. The 1500s: New Religious Orders ................................................ 200 a. General Considerations ............................................................. 200 b. Women and the Religious Life .................................................. 202 c. Evolution of the Franciscans: the Capuchins ............................. 205 d. Carmelite Reform ...................................................................... 210 e. The Oratorians .......................................................................... 212 f. The Society of Jesus ................................................................... 213 E. The Council of Trent ................................................................... 234 1. Prolegomena: The External History of the Council....................... 234 2. Attempts to Convoke the Council ................................................ 236 3. First Period of the Council: 1545-1547 ......................................... 238 4. Second Period of the Council: 1551-1552 .................................... 244 5. Third Period of the Council: 1561-1563 ....................................... 246 6. Significance of the Council of Trent ............................................. 256 a. religious unity............................................................................ 256 b. capacity for renewal ................................................................. 256 c. the dogmatic decrees ................................................................ 257 d. the disciplinary decrees ............................................................ 260

IX: THE AGE OF ABSOLUTISM ...................................262

A. Causes and Characteristics ....................................................... 262 1. Causes. ....................................................................................... 262 2. Political Characteristics .............................................................. 264 3. Social and Juridical Characteristics ............................................. 266 4. Economic Characteristics ........................................................... 269 5. Other Considerations ................................................................. 270 B. A Society Officially Christian .................................................... 273
7

1. Fundamental Principle ............................................................... 273 2. Applications of the Fundamental Principle ................................ 279 a. It was founded on the theory of the divine right of kings. ...... 279 b. Political unity founded on religious unity ................................ 282 c. Catholicism, in the Catholic states, was declared the state religion 283 d. It was the kings strict obligation to defend and promote religion. 284 e. Civil laws were to be in harmony with canonical laws ............ 285 f. Accepted was the use of the civil authoritys coercive powers by ecclesiastical authority for its own proper ends ........................... 288 g. A doctor was required to call for a priest in attending to a patient in danger of death ........................................................................................ 290 h. There was the Christian organization of work as in the universities (which were corporations, i.e., single bodies) and confraternities. ... 290 i. The Church had the monopoly of social work and education, and of anything that had the character of the sacred or had some connection with the sacred... ........................................................................................ 294 j. The Church enjoyed immunity in various areas, ..................... 296 (1) The royal immunities: ..................................................... 296 (2) The local immunities: ..................................................... 298 (3) The personal immunities: ............................................... 299 C. A Church Controlled by the State: Jurisdictionalism .................. 301 1. From Support of the Church to Control of the Church ............... 301 2. Three Sets of the Rights of the State vis--vis the Church .......... 305 a. First group of rights, which deals, at least in theory, with the right of the State to protect and defend the Church: ...................................... 306 b. Second group of rights tended to defend the State from the potential danger that the Church could become vis a vis the State itself: ... 306 1) jus incipiendi or jus supremae inspectionis: ..................... 306 2) jus nominandi: ................................................................. 307 3) jus exclusivae: .................................................................. 308
8

4) jus placeti or the exequatur: ............................................ 309 5) jus circa temporalia officia: .............................................. 310 6) jus appelationis or, in French, appel comme dabus: ....... 310 7) jus dominii eminentis: ...................................................... 310 8) jus patronatus: ................................................................. 310 c. Third group: the commendum ................................................ 311 3. Areas of State Control over the Church [Discussed in class.] ..... 313 D. Interior Life of the Church: Becoming Worldly .......................... 314 1. Two Opposed Interpretative Directions ..................................... 314 a. The liberal-Marxist school ....................................................... 315 b. The Catholic-inspired school: .................................................. 316 2. A Summary Portrait of the Inner Life of the Church ................... 317 a. Positive aspects ....................................................................... 317 b. Negative aspects ..................................................................... 327 3. In conclusion, one may follow two lines of evaluation: ............. 344 a. Following Le Bras: ................................................................... 344 b. Nevertheless, one can make a more positive evaluation of the 17th and 18th centuries through the following fundamental observations: 345 Appendix I: .................................................................................... 346 Extracts from Bossuet's Work on Kingship ....................................... 346 Appendix II: ................................................................................... 353 On Social Order and Absolute Monarchy ......................................... 353 [Necessity and the Origin of Government] ................................... 355 [The Duties of the Governed] ....................................................... 357 [The Power, Rights, and Duties of Sovereigns] ............................. 358 Appendix III: .................................................................................. 365 G A L I L E O ' S M A J O R W O R K S ............................................ 365
9

X. JANSENISM .................................................................366
Introduction: The Principles of Jansenism ...................................... 366 I. The Dogmatic Aspect of Jansenism: ............................................ 368 II. The Moral Aspect of Jansenism: ................................................. 370 IV. The Disciplinary Aspects of Jansenism: ..................................... 373

XI. GALLICANISM...........................................................373
I. Antecedents ............................................................................... 373 II. The Controversy over the Regala (royal rights): ......................... 379 1) First grave incident: 1662 ............................................................ 379 2) Second grave incident: 1673-1680............................................... 380 III. The Declaration of Gallican Rights of 1682: ............................... 382 IV. The Compromise under the New Popes: ................................... 385 V. Febronius: ................................................................................. 388 VI. The Sunset and End of Gallicanism:........................................... 392 In conclusion: ................................................................................ 396 Appendix: ..................................................................................... 398 The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 1438 ....................................... 398

XII: THE ENLIGHTENMENT ........................................403

A. Causes: ..................................................................................... 404 B. Essential Characteristics of the Enlightenment: .......................... 406 1) faith in reason: ............................................................................. 406
10

2) faith in human nature: ................................................................. 406 3) devaluation of the past: ............................................................... 408 4) optimism:..................................................................................... 408 C. Practical Applications of Enlightenment Principles: .................... 409 1) in religion: .................................................................................... 409 2) in morality: .................................................................................. 409 3) in pedagogy: ................................................................................ 410 4) in economics: ............................................................................... 410 5) in politics: .................................................................................... 410 D. The Balance: Pros and Cons of the Enlightenment Project: ......... 411 1) Pros: ............................................................................................. 412 2) Cons: ............................................................................................ 413 E. The Tragedy of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries: ........ 415 Appendix I: .................................................................................... 416 Appendix II: ................................................................................... 418

XIV: OUTLINE OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL PROBLEMS OF THE HISTORY OF THE MISSIONS .............................437
Introduction .................................................................................. 437 A. Character of Portuguese, Spanish and Anglo-Saxon Colonization 441 1. Portuguese Colonization in Asia ................................................... 441 2. Spanish Colonization (but applicable to Portuguese colonization of Brazil) 442 3. Anglo-Saxon Colonization ............................................................ 452 B. The Patronato ........................................................................... 452 1 nomination to all benefices; ...................................................... 455
11

C. Relationship with Amerindians and the tragedy of African slavery462 1. Amerindians and slavery .............................................................. 462 2. African slavery ............................................................................. 471 D. The Portuguese in India, the Christians of St. Thomas, and the Holy See 482 E. The Question of the Chinese and Malabar Rites ......................... 488 1. Causes of the controversy ............................................................ 488 a. Difficulties in adaption .............................................................. 488 b. Different methods of evangelization ........................................ 490 c. Extrinsic Causes. ........................................................................ 492 2. Specific Object of the Discussion ................................................. 493 3. Historical Evolution of the Problem ............................................. 495 4. Conclusion of the Rites Controversy ............................................ 499 F. The Paraguayan Reductions ....................................................... 501 a) Origin. .......................................................................................... 501 b) The Organization of the Reductions. ....................................... 504 c) The End of the Reductions. ..................................................... 506 d) Historical evaluation of the Reductions. ................................. 507 G. Japan: Failed Hopes .................................................................. 509

XV: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ................................515

I. The Struggle against the Church. ................................................. 516 1. From the Struggle against the Church to the Direct Assault on the Papacy. ......................................................................................................... 525 2. Pius VII and Napoleon. ................................................................. 528 3. The Church in Italy and France from 1800 to 1814. ..................... 536 II. The Historiography on the French Revolution. ........................... 538
12

1. CONTRASTING JUDGMENTS OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. ................................................................................... 538 a. Contemporary accounts and historians of the 1800s; negative assessment. ...................................................................................................... 538 b. Contemporary accounts and historians of the 1800s: positive assessment. ...................................................................................................... 542 2. HISTORICAL FRACTURE OR HISTORICAL CONTINUITY? ................ 545 3. IMMEDIATE RESULTS OR, AFTER A RESPITE, A REGRESSION? ...... 548 III. Consequences of the French Revolution.................................... 549 1. Positive Aspects. .......................................................................... 550 a. EQUALITY. ................................................................................. 550 b. LIBERTY. .................................................................................... 553 2. Negative Aspects.......................................................................... 557 a. INDIVIDUALISM.COURSE OUTLINE ............................................ 559 b. CRISIS OF AUTHORITY AND THE SPIRIT OF SECULARISM........... 561 c. CRISIS IN FOUNDATIONS. .......................................................... 564 d. LOSS OF ECCLESIASTICAL GOODS. ............................................. 566 3. NEW HISTORIOGRAPHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS.570 APPENDIX I:................................................................................... 573 The Decree Abolishing the Feudal System, ...................................... 573 APPENDIX II:.................................................................................. 581 Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789 .......................................... 581 APPENDIX III: ................................................................................. 586 The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, ................................................. 586 Title I ............................................................................................. 587 Title II ............................................................................................ 589 Title III ........................................................................................... 591 Title IV ........................................................................................... 593
13

COURSE OUTLINE
I. Catholic Reform, Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Counter Reformation a. The Basic Question on the causes of the Protestant Reformation: three positions: 1. The Traditional Thesis; 2. The Protestant Position; 3. The Marxist Reading; 4. Recent Perspectives b. The Contemporary Consensus

II. The Religious Causes of the Protestant Reformation a. Preliminary Outline: Religious and Other Causes b. Religious Causes i. The Conflicts between Boniface VII and Philip the Fair ii. The Avignon Papacy iii. The Great Western Schism; Conciliarism 1. The return to Rome: election of Urban VI 2. The beginning of the Schism 3. The genesis of the theory of Conciliarism 4. The Council of Pisa (1409): three popes 5. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) 6. The Council of Basel and a new schism 7. Legitimacy of Haec Sancta and Frequens 8. Consequences of the Western Schism iv. The Renaissance 1. Interpretations: discontinuity-continuitydiversity in continuity 2. The essence of the Renaissance
14

3. The Church and the Renaissance 4. Alexander VI: Renaissance pope par excellence c. OtherReligious Causes i. The decadence of scholasticism and the rise of nominalism ii. The defective ecclesiologies of Wyclif, Hus and Wessel iii. False Mysticism iv. Evangelism v. Corruption of the Church vi. The psychological turmoil of the late medieval period III. Political, Social, Economic Causes of the Protestant Reformation a. Growing resistance against Rome and Roman centralism b. Growing resistance against Hapsburg centralism and absolutism c. Socio-economic factors d. Personality of Martin Luther IV. Martin Luther: the Protestant Reformation in Germany a. Martin Luther i. His psychology ii. Brief summary of his life iii. Luthers doctrine: Sola scriptura, Justicatiosolafide, Sola gratia iv. Chronology of the break b. The Religious Struggles in Germany until 1955 i. Period of social revolutions: 1521-1525
15

ii. Period of Diets and colloquiums: 1525-1532 iii. Period of War and the Final Truce: 1532-155 c. Conclusion: the Religious Division of Europe V. John Calvin and Calvinism a. Calvin: His life (1509-1564) b. Calvin: His Character c. Calvin: His Doctrine d. Calvin in Geneva: Realization of Calvinist Doctrine VI. The Reform in England a. The General Situation in England at the Beginning of the 16th Century b. Henry VIII (1509-1547) c. Edward VI (1547-1553) d. Mary the Catholic or Bloody Mary (1553-1558) e. Elizabeth I (1558-1603) VII. The Effects of the Protestant Reformation a. In General: The Religious Division of Europe and Its Effects b. Protestantism and Spiritual Renewal: Pro and Con VIII. The Catholic Reform and the Counter Reformation a. The Fundamental Problematic: Two Central Questions i. First Half of the 1500s: Reaction to Protestantism or Catholic Reform? 1. The Traditional Presentation 2. A Revisionist Reading 3. The Contemporary Consensus 4. In Summary
16

ii. Second Half of the 1500s: Catholic Reform our Counter Reformation? 1. Counter Reformation thesis 2. Catholic Reform thesis 3. Synthesis: Both Counter Reformation and Catholic Reform b. The Catholic Reform i. Various Lay Associations ii. Reform of the Ancient Religious Orders iii. Birth of New Religious Institutes iv. Reforming Work of Bishops in Their Dioceses v. Program of the Christian Humanists vi. Circles of Catholics Evangelism vii. Roman Initiatives: Curia and Popes c. The Popes of the 1500s d. Renewal of Religious Life i. Genesis and Development of Religious Life 1. Two Elements: Charism and Institution 2. The Medieval Period Three Forms of Religious Life: 1) the monastic communities; 2) canons regular; 3) mendicant friars ii. The 1500s: New Religious Orders 1. General Considerations 2. Women and the Religious Life 3. Evolution of the Franciscans: the Capuchins 4. Carmelite Reform 5. The Oratorians 6. The Society of Jesus e. The Council of Trent i. Prolegomena: The External History of the Council ii. Attempts to Convoke the Council
17

iii. iv. v. vi.

First Period of the Council: 1545-1547 Second Period of the Council: 1551-1552 Third Period of the Council: 1561-1563 Significance of the Council of Trent 1. religious unity 2. capacity for renewal 3. the dogmatic decrees 4. the disciplinary decrees

IX. The Age of Absolutism a. Causes and Characteristics i. Causes ii. Political Characteristics iii. Social and Juridical Characteristics iv. Economic Characteristics v. Other Considerations b. A Society Officially Christian i. Fundamental Principle ii. Application of the Fundamental Principle 1. divine right of Kings 2. political unity founded on religious unity 3. Catholicism: religion of the state 4. obligation of the state to defend and promote religion 5. harmony between civil laws and canon law 6. use of coercive power by ecclesiastical authorities 7. a limit case 8. Christian organization of work 9. Church monopoly of social assistance and education 10. Church immunities
18

c. A Church controlled by the State: Jurisdictionalism i. From Support of the Church to Control of the Church ii. Three Sets of the Rights of the State vis a vis the Church iii. Areas of State Control over the Church d. Interior Life of the Church: Becoming Worldly i. Two Opposed Interpretative Directions ii. A summary Portrait of the Inner Life of the Church X. Jansenism a. Introduction: Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) b. The Dogmatic Aspect of Jansenism c. The Moral Aspect of Jansenism d. The Disciplinary Aspect of Jansenism XI. Gallicianism a. Antecedents b. Controversy over the Regalia c. Declaration of Gallician Rights of 1682 d. Compromise e. Febronius and Febronianism f. Sunset and End of Gallicianism XII. The Enlightenment a. Causes b. Essential Characteristics of the Enlightenment i. Faith in Reason ii. Faith in Human Nature iii. Devaluation of the Past iv. Optimism in the Future
19

c. Practical Application of the Principles i. In Religion ii. In Morality iii. In Pedagogy iv. In Economics v. In Politics d. Evaluation: Pros and Cons of the Enlightenment Project e. The Tragedy of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries XIII. The Suppression of the Society of Jesus a. Historiographical Introduction b. Causes of the hostility toward the Society of Jesus c. Expulsion from Portugal d. The Dispersion in France e. The Expulsion from Spain f. Clement XIV and the Suppression g. Evaluation of the Suppression of the Society of Jesus XIV. Outline of Some of the Principal Problems of the History of the Missions preliminary remarks a. Character of the Portuguese, Spanish and English colonial enterprise i. Portuguese colonization in Asia ii. Spanish colonization iii. Anglo-Saxon colonization b. The Patronato c. Relationship with Indians and Africans d. Questions of the Chinese and Malabar Rites i. Causes of the controversy
20

1. Difficulties in adaptation 2. Different methods of evangelization 3. Extrinsic factors ii. Specific object of the debate iii. Historical evolution of the problem iv. More recent developments e. The Paraguayan Reductions f. Failed Hopes: Japan XV. The French Revolution Preliminary remarks a. Struggle against the Church i. Church and Revolution ii. Direct Assault on the Papacy iii. Pius VII and Napoleon iv. The Church in Italy and France between 1800 and 1814 b. Historiography of the French Revolution i. Contrasting Judgments of historians on the French Revolution ii. Fracture or Historical Continuity? iii. Immediate results or after a break and reaction? c. Consequences of the French Revolution: Positive and Negative XVI. The Church and the Liberal Regime a. A Society officially non-Christian i. Purely human and conventional origin of society / authority ii. Political unity founded on identity of political interests iii. The end of the concept state religion: full liberty of conscience
21

iv. Separation of civil legislation from canon law v. State assumption of social activities of the Church vi. The end of the Churchs various immunities in the ancient regime b. So-called Separatism: the hiatus between principles and reality i. Pure Separatism ii. Partial Separatism iii. Hostile Separatism iv. Concordats between the Holy See and the States c. Between Tradition and Modernity: Church in Search of her Identity preliminary Remarks: Church in the 19th century i. The Situation of the Secular Clergy ii. The Religious Clergy iii. Pastoral Care iv. Comprehensive view of the Church XVII. The Church and Liberalism a. Intransigents i. Characteristics of Catholics Intransigents ii. The Austrian Concordat iii. Judgment on Catholic Intransigence b. Catholics Liberals (or Liberal Catholics?) i. Condemnation of LAvenirbyMirariVos ii. Ulterior evolution of Catholic Liberalism: France iii. Judgment on Catholic Liberalism XVIII. The Roman Question a. Popes of the first half of the 19th century
22

i. The Roman Question: the facts (1859-1861; 1861-1870) ii. Retrospective Look and Relative Problematic b. Historical Evaluation of the Roman Question c. The Roman Question after 1870 XIX. Pius IX and the Syllabus errorum a. Genesis of the Document b. Errors Condemned c. Controversies generated by the Syllabus d. Conclusive Observations XX. The First Vatican Council (Vatican I) a. Causes b. Preparation c. Discussions before the Opening of the Council d. Discussion during the Council e. Conclusive Judgment on Vatican I and its Effects XXI. The Church and the Social Problem a. The Social Question in general i. Conditions of the proletariat in the beginning of the 19th century ii. Genesis of the social question iii. Utopian socialism, trade unionism and scientific socialism b. Slow Awakening of Catholics vis a vis social problems c. The Conservative Line d. Properly Social Line i. First period: to 1870-1878
23

ii. Second period: to 1891 Problems and Protagonists iii. RerumNovarumand its historical significance iv. Third period: from corporationism to unionism contrasting tendencies e. Conclusions: Historical Problems and Evaluations XXII. Modernism - Introduction a. Principal Protagonists b. Final Evaluation XXIII. The Church vis a vis Nationalism and Totalitarianism a. Nationalism and Totalitarianism: Genesis and Character b. Church vis a vis Nationalism and Totalitarianism: General Considerations c. Church vis a vis the Incipient Nationalism d. Church vis a vis the First World War e. Pontificate or Pius XI f. The Battle around Anti-Semitism and Fascist racial laws XXIV. The Church during the Second World War a. Pius XII and the War b. The Church in the Warring Countries: Italy, France, Croatia, and Germany XXV. The Postwar Church: 1945-1958 a. General Context b. End of Colonialism: from Missions to Local Churches c. The Vatican and Israel
24

d. Communism and the Church: Eastern Europe e. The Italian Case f. The concordat with Spain of 27 August 1953: Nostalgia g. Theological-Pastoral Shutdown of the 1950s h.New Initiative and Openings: Their internal logic i. A Comprehensive Appraisal XXVI. The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) a. The Idea and the Preparation b. The Opening of the Council: The Forces in the Camp c. First Period of the Council: 1962-1963 d. From One Pope to another: Continuity e. The work of the Second, Third and Fourth Periods: 1963-1965 f. The principal Conciliar Documents g. John XXIII and Paul VI and the Historical Significance of Vatican II XXVII. The Post-Conciliar Church: Renewal and Crisis a. General Context b. Institutional Reforms c. Liturgical Reforms d. Catechetical Renewal e. Situation of the Religious Institutes after the Council f. Catholic Associationism: the Catholic and Secular Press g. Church and State: New Concordant; Israel; the Ostpolitik h.The moral crisis of the years 1963-1989; Defection from the Clergy i. Contestations and Terrorism
25

j. The Lefevre Affair k. Latin America: from Medellin to Santo Domingo (1968-1992) l. The Fall of Old Europe m. Concluding Observations

I. Catholic Reform, Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Counter Reformation

A. The Basic Question:
What are the causes of the Protestant Reformation? Three Positions: the traditional thesis, the Protestant position, and the Marxist reading 1. The Traditional Thesis: -- Held by both Catholics and Protestants, this has become the classic position in the historiography of the Protestant reformation -- The thesis: the Protestant reformation came into being because of the abuses and disorder then
26

diffused throughout the Church, particularly in the Roman Curia -- Sound proofs for this classic interpretation: a) Pope Adrian VI (1522-1523) himself: We shall direct all our efforts so that the Curia be reformed, because from it the evils in the Church are probably derived, and so as the corruption of the Church derives from it, so from it must the health and reform of all begin b) Pope Paul III (1534-1549) would repeat the same message in 1537 and strive to set the ball of reform rolling c) The Fathers of the Council of Trent would sound warnings touching on the same issue, as for example Cardinal Madruzzo, in his discourse of 22 January 1546: For our adversaries, this has been the first cause of their schism; and then Cardinal Lorraine who, on his arrival in Trent on 23 November 1562 for the third phase of the council, declared: This tempest has broken out because of us.
-- This thesis would be repeated all throughout Church History, in the 1600s by Bossuet in France and in the 1800s by Lord Acton in England, and even today
27

-- But from the beginning of the 20th century this thesis has been subjected to a severe criticism: -- Imbart de la Tour, Catholic, in 1905: other Church historical periods also had grave abuses, but without these issuing in anything like the Protestant Reformation, i.e., in a revolt against Rome -- Georg von Bulow, in 1916, denied that Luther was the product of a corrupt convent; he asks why the reform did not break out in Italy where things were certainly not any better than in Germany -- G. Miegge, an Italian Waldensian, has more recently asked how it was that a fully decadent Church could nevertheless produce a powerful and vital movement as the Protestant Reformation -- Today therefore we have Catholics and Protestants united in rejecting the traditional thesis, at least as an adequate explanation; this rejection has taken two directions: a) To correct the caricature of the Church at the time of Luther as decadent, and b) To look into the pronouncements of the protagonists themselves in order to see what they thought they were aiming for -- The general line of argument today: the Protestant Reformation came about not just because of the need to reform
28

the life, morals and discipline of the Church but to correct what, in the eyes of the reformers, were errors in faith and belief and doctrine; thus, not just the Church in its life and praxis but the truth about God, man, Jesus Christ, salvation, faith, the Church

2. The Protestant Position:

-- For the Protestants, the reformation came about because of the felt need to call the Church back to the genuine and authentic meaning of Christianity from which the Roman Church had alienated herself for so long -- In Luthers own words: -- Life is just as evil to us as among the papists, and therefore we do not condemn them for their practical life. The question is totally different: do they teach the truth ? -- Even if the pope were as holy as St. Peter, he would always be for us impious. -- I do not impugn the immoralities and abuses, but the substance and the doctrine of the papacy. -- Although Luther himself denied that he had initially planned to separate from Rome, in reality he nevertheless intended a transformation of the Catholic faith, a refusal of essential points of Catholic doctrine, for example the primacy of the pope, justification understood in the traditional sense, the sacrificial nature of the Mass; in effect, it was never
29

simply a case of a mere moral or administrative reform of the Church but indeed of a revolution in the Church and of the Church, not only in structure but also in doctrine

3. The Marxist Reading:

-- According to this account, Luther was not an authentic theologian nor a human being endowed with profound religious sentiments but a popular agitator, the son of a peasant who shared the aspirations of his people oppressed by the landowning bourgeoisie and, expert that he was in the methods of agit-prop (agitation and propaganda), knew how to efficaciously guide them on the way to revolution -- The Protestant Revolution therefore was nothing but the religious expression of a socio-economic crisis that had attained general proportions throughout Europe in the middle of the 1500s. -- Expositors and defenders of this position were Engels and his collaborators such as K. Kautsky, C. Barbagallo, and more recent Russian historians -- Questions however have been raised about the adequacy of a Marxist reading of the Protestant Reformation; how does one explain a spiritual and religious phenomenon of a universal resonance such as Lutheranism, taking into account only economic factors? Besides, one must not forget that the economic transformation of Europe was in part contemporaneous and in part posterior to the Protestant Reformation. The publication of Luthers 95 theses on
30

indulgences in 1517, which one may take to be the beginning of the Protestant Revolt, was at least two years before Corts touched the shores of Mexico -- How does one make sense of the fact that members of the different social classes adhered to the Reformation: peasants and artisans, bourgeois and nobles and princes, that is, people who in substance had opposing economic interests? -- The flow of gold from Germany to Italy in the 1500s had diminished with respect to that of the 1300s. -- And finally, it is difficult to establish an exact relation between economic crisis and separation from Rome; indeed, in Antwerp in 1566, how does one explain the anti-Roman revolt accompanied by the smashing of images in conditions of full economic boom and increase in wages and salaries? -- Furthermore, one may not undervalue the mystical and spiritualist ideas of the leaders of the rioting peasants of 1524-1525, nor the attitude decisively counter-revolutionary of Luther in that occasion, after an initial moment of hesitation when he demonstrated himself favorable to the aspirations of the rebels -- All of these questions highlight the inadequacies of a reading that is exclusively Marxist in orientation; one must rather hold that the Protestant Reformation was a complex historical phenomenon that cannot be reduced to one explanatory scheme
31

B. The Contemporary Consensus:

-- The Traditional Thesis continues to have relevance in any consideration of the Protestant Reformation. It cannot be denied that abuses in the Church provided the immediate context and inciting reason for Luther to emerge from relative obscurity to overwhelming public scrutiny. It also cannot be denied that abuses provided the rationale for the cry reformatio ecclesiae in the late medieval period. Neither can one deny that these abuses had, by and large, never really been attended to and corrected. -- The Protestant Position, which focuses on the question of truth, must be given greater weight. Luther himself understood what he was about in this way. This has become an important point, and one that has generated a lot of historical studies regarding the truly real differences between Luther, Calvin and their followers on the one hand, and Catholic theologians on the other, on such topics as justification for example. The ecumenical movement has focused on this subject and dialogue has taken place on the mutual clarification of doctrines. -- The Marxist Reading, although overblown and reductionist, has nevertheless given rise to the conviction that, in the consideration of the Protestant Reformation, one cannot and may not overlook the material conditions of life. A social history of the Protestant Reformation need not take
32

the ideological and reductionist trajectory pursued by classical Marxists. -- Variants of one or the other historical account above are reflected in the following: -- Lucien Febvre, in a study which came out in 1929 and amplified in 1959, and in agreement with the growing consensus among Catholic and Protestant historians to reject the Traditional Thesis, proposed a new explanation of the Protestant Reformation by primarily underlining the psychological factors informing the events of the time. -- Thus in the 1500s: -- Diffused was a need for a new religiosity, one that was far from the superstition of the common masses of people and from the aridity of scholastic teachers, purified of every form of hypocrisy, and anxious for a certitude of salvation that would assure people an authentic interior peace -- Two components of this new religiosity or even spirituality: a) the direct and immediate knowledge of the word of God, without human intermediaries (thus: the translation of the Bible into the vernacular tongues), and b) the consolation of feeling and knowing themselves to be really pardoned by God, something which auricular sacramental confession no longer seemed to provide sufficiently, because of the utter impossibility of wiping away any doubts about the efficacy of the sacrament actually
33

practiced, or the possibility of an unforeseen death before a good confession -- in summary: this certainty could be obtained precisely by recourse to the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith -- other historians (G. Ritter, L. Cristiani, J. Lortz, R. Garcia-Villoslada) provide a more complex understanding of the Protestant Reformation: a) religious causes: anti-papal tendencies of the age due to the diminution of papal prestige since the 1300s, a false mysticism, the decadence of scholasticism, the collective psychological situation of the German people, etc. b) political causes: growing opposition to Rome and to Hapsburg centralism; the rise of the nation-states c) social causes: ferment among the German classes, particularly the peasantry d) personal factors: the personality of Luther himself, with his complex character, his terrible and grandiose religiosity, which never failed to leave a strong impression on his listeners e) cultural factors: the renaissance and its recovery of classical and humanistic studies f) economic factors: the development of capitalism
34

[-- Finally, new methods in historical research and historiography are continuing to provide new perspectives and interpretations of the Protestant Reformation. Minute studies on particular aspects and local histories are providing new data for an ever growing need to come up with an adequate and comprehensive account of this period in the history of the Church. For example, political factors would now seem to supplant any straightforward interpretation of the thirty year war that ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 as a religious war; Catholics and Protestants were both allies and enemies at the same time, with Catholic France often allied with some Protestant states against the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which had its own Catholic and Protestant contingents. It is also the case that cultural studies are bringing to the fore various points of view that highlight issues connected to women, bodies, etc. Some historians today consider the events surrounding the Protestant and Catholic reform movements as attempts to deal with a changing cultural situation, the situation of modernity.]

35

II. The Religious Causes of the Protestant Reformation

A. Preliminary Outline: Religious and Other Causes B. Religious Causes
1. The Conflicts between Boniface VII and Philip the Fair Two different and opposed mentalities o The pope, an intransigent and overly juridical mind o The King, unscrupulous, an exalted view of his royal rights: the king is supreme in his own territory; neither the Emperor nor the Pope has any authority over him Occasion for conflict: o The king, due to financial demands imposed on him by the war against the English, imposed extraordinary taxes on the clergy. The Pope (clericislaicos) prohibits the exaction of taxes on
36

ecclesiastical goods without the authorization of the Holy See. The King responds by prohibiting the exportation of money outside his kingdom. The Pope, deprived of alms form France, saves the situation agreeing to rename the taxes as gifts. o Pope appoints as nuncio a French bishop who was a declared enemy of the French King; the king arrests the French bishop. The Pope issues a bull AuscultaFiliprotesting against the action of the King; king prohibits the bull from being disseminated in France. Pope issues UnamSanctam(*Theory of the Two Swords) Attempts to bridge the gap would prove unavailing; the king would send a contingent of troops to Italy to arrest the pope and to put him on trial in France where it was intended to call a general Council.
37

Meanwhile, the Pope had, in his bull Super Petri Solio, beganto prepare the solemn excommunication of the French king and the release of his subjects from their oath of loyalty to him (1303). French troops however, one day before the publication of Super Petri Solio, occupied the city of Avagni and imprisoned the pope, who was waiting for them in his chambers dressed in full papal regalia The Pope was rescued by the people of Avagni and is escorted back to Rome by a Roman faction; broken in health of mind and body, Boniface VIII dies on 11 October 1303. Significance of this episode in the history of the Church; o The death of Boniface VIII is considered by many as the end of the Middle Ages o The first of the struggles: Political authorityof the pope among the nations impaired and his then recognized role as moderator overall interests now in ruins.

38

 Put in question therefore, the medieval ideal which subordinated the political to the moral and, in the strict collaboration of the two powers, religious, and civil, which tended to construct a civilization based on the Christian faith In the strictly religious field, the papacy, though intact, nevertheless suffered damage to its prestige as the supreme authority in the Church, given that a Catholic sovereign had dared to put him under his power and authority. In the estimation of Cardinal Matteod'Acquasparta in the consistory of June 1302, the pope had been humiliated, the medieval unity of Christians broken definitely, the collaboration between the two powers destroyed, and public life was well on its way to secularism and secularization.... 2. The Avignon Papacy (The Babylonian Captivity of the Church)

History: After Boniface VIII: Benedict XL, but a brief reign

39

Election of a new pope in 130 at Perugia after 11 months of conclave: Bertrande de God, Archbishop of Bordeauz, who was not a cardinal (and who had maintained neutrality in the conflict between Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair) Took the name Clement V but did not go to Rome and in 1309 found himself at Avignon. From 1309 to 1376, Avignon became the papal seat. Benedict XII constructed a sumptuous palace. Clement VI acquired the territory of Avignon from Giovanna; the Queen of Napoli, to whom it then belonged so that at least formally the popes at Avignon were supposed to enjoy independence. Urban V: After some order and restoration had been effected in Rome and the papal states, the popes returned to Rome and stayed there from 1167 to 1370 but because of political instability in the Italian peninsula, decided to return in Avignon. Gregory XI was persuaded to return due to the prayers of St. Catherine of Siena, by the objective necessity of the Church and the state she was in, by the outbreak of war between France, England again; definitive return therefore in 1377 by the whole curia.
40

Three important aspects of this Avignon Period:

1. The pope, as the chaplain of the French king

Although juridically free and independent, in fact the Avignon popes were freely under the influence of the French monarchy, so that it was said, with some exaggeration but substantially true, that the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, hadbecome reduced to being thechaplain of the French king....

Seven Popes during this period: all were Frenchmen, the majority of the cardinals were Frenchmen. o In 70 years of the Avignon Papacy: created were 113 French cardinals, 13 Italian cardinals, 5 Spanish, 2 English and one Ginevran Cardinal. o In canonization: prevailing were French saints, almost a third of the grand total. Clement V was particularly weak before the French King. o He revokes the papal bull UnamSanctamfor France o Agrees to suppress the Order of the Knights Templars on the insistence of the French King, and looks the other way when the latter
41

confiscated the wealth and property of the Templars for his own. In general, the papacy became an instrument of French political power given the ever more serious rise of nationalism in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries. o Note the Hundred Years War between France and England, which lasted from 1339 to 1483.

2. in second place

John XXII (elected at 72 years old, died at 90 years old) engaged in a quarrel with Ludwig of Bavaria, the German Emperor Context: Struggle for the German Imperial crown between Ludwing and Frederich of Austria In the meantime: John XXII arrogated to himself the right to rule and administer the Italian parts of the Empire while the question of who should be the legitimate emperor remained unresolved; the pope appointed Robert dAjou. Ludwig refuses to recognize Robert; the pope threatens to excommunicate him; the German emperor accuses the pope of heresy and appeals to a General Council; the pope excommunicates him and releases his subjects from his obedience
42

Stalemate controversy continues under the successors of John XXII; Benedict XII and Clement VI, ending only with the death of Ludwig o 20 years: Germany was under interdict, with the Emperor and his supporters excommunicated several times o Effect therefore: A fearful decline in papal authority which abused the power of excommunication for largely political reasons In the political sphere: In the Diet of Frankfurt of 1338, the Emperor, confirming the decision taken by the Prince-Electors several weeks earlier, declared that the Imperial election would now be reserved to the seven Germans (3 ecclesiastical: the prince-bishops of Colgne, Trier and Mainz; 4 lay: the sovereign heads of Bohemia, Saxony, Brandenburg, and the Palatinate) WITHOUT the need for papal confirmation Thus, the thesis of Innocent III, who worked for a considerable control by the pope over the imperial selection, would now be definitely voided.
43

 Peace would return only after 1347, death of Ludwing, and the new Emperor, Charles IV, came to be recognized by all

3. The aversion to the growing fiscalism / the Avignon papacy

Note: The Avignon curia was financed by money coming from: o 1) Tribute from the papal states and from the kingdoms which were vassals of the popes like the Kingdom of Naples; taxes from the exempted monasteries and from bishops and other prelates on the occasion of their nomination and other occasions o 2) The spoils from deceased prelates, i e., their goods which in many cases passed to the pope o 3) The procurations or taxes paid in occasion of canonical visitations o 4) Taxes from the chancellery, where various things were south and granted: dispensations, privileges, graces whether spiritual or material. o 5) The annates: the fruits of the first year of benefices conferred.... Compounded by the ever-growing tendency of the Avignon papacy to arrogate to itself the nomination
44

of more and more offices in the dioceses, which before were decided locally by the people or by the local bishop.... o Bishops therefore reduced to dependence on Rome for various things: Avignon crowded by office seekers Attempts to caltulate revenues: o 18 milions florins (Villani, whose brother was the banker of the pope) left by John XXII o Gave rise to various pamphlets, which denounced the wealth of the papacy o Cry: Reformatio Ecclesiae It would now become more and more difficult to distinguish between (a) moral and disciplinary reform, and (b) dogmatic and institutional reform 3. The Great Western Schism; Conciliarism Gregory XI, the last Avignon pope and the first who returned to Rome 14 months after his return to Rome, Gregory XI dies* new election by 16 cardinals then present in Rome: 7 from the southern part of France, 4 from other parts of France (11 French cardinals, therefore), 4 Italians and 1 Spaniard (Pedro de Luna)
45

a. The return to Rome: election of Urban VI Roman crowd, fearful that another Frenchman would be elected to the papacy and who would be favorable therefore to a return to Avignon, applied pressure on the conclave, to elect, if not a Roman then an Italian... Elected: BartolomeoPrignano, Italian, archbishop of Bari, subject of the Queen of Naples, Giovarim of the Angiovene ancestry (therefore French). o Election of 8 Aril 1378: Prignano receives 11 votes o But doubt; vocation repeated (was it 10 or 13 votes?) o Roman crowd irrupts into the conclave; confusion o Several cardinals flee o 9 April 1378; 12 cardinals remain in Rome results of election communicated to the popeelect and announced to the people o A few days after, the new pope who takes the name of Urban VI, was regularly crowned at St. Peter's; for several weeks thereafter, no protests from the cardinals regarding the validity of the elections...
46

b. The beginning of the Schism Urban VI lacked mental balance; attached his own cardinals and subjected them to various indignities French cardinals react; irritated by the unstable behavior of the pope and frustrated in heir desire to return to Avignon, they withdraw to Avagni. 2 August 1378: 13 cardinals publish their declaration, with its own version of what transpired; followed on 9 August by a letter to the pope and an encyclical addressed to the people: all of which declared that the election of Urban VI was invalid because it was extorted from them under duress and by pressure from the Roman crowd. No reactions were forthcoming, so the cardinals met in Fondi on 20 September 1378 and elected as new trace Robert of Geneva cousin of the king of France, known for his diplomatic prowess and military acumen. Robert would take the name Clement VII. After a failed attempt to take over Rome, Robert/Clement VII transferred himself and his court to Avignon. The Catholic world was now divided into two camps or obediences:
47

o Recognizing Clement VII as the legitimate pope were France, Spain and Scotland and, later, the Kingdom of Naples o Recognizing Urban VI as the rightful pope were Northern Italy, Central Italy, England, Ireland, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Germany o Catherine of Siena supported Urban VI; Vicente Ferrer supported Clement V11, of whom he was fora long time the confessor The Question: The cardinals, in electing Urban VI, were they free or did fear render null and void the elections? o This is not an idle question.... Why was the declaration by some of the cardinals delayed in coming? Was not this an indication that they had before given taut acceptance of the validity of the election of Urban VI? o Inany case, the question remains open even today... Historians' evaluations have often followed national lines: the Italians defend Urban VI and the regularity of his election; the French on the other hand doubt the
48

correctness of the election; the Germans side with the Italians... One historian, Fink, declares that the election of Urban VI was neither valid nor invalid.... We do not have sufficient historical data to make a definitive judgment at this point.... Meantime, several cardinals who had hitherto supported Urban VI were planning to capture him; they were discovered however and were arrested and executed on orders of the pope.... In 1389, Urban dies; succeeding him were: Boniface IX, then Innocent VII, and finally Gregory XII Contemporarily, at Avignon, Clement VII was succeeded by Benedict XIII (the Aragnonese Pedro de Luna) Attempts to bring the two meet and dialogue would end in failure; at one point, Benedict XIII was somewhere near La Spezia, and Gregory XIII was at Lucca There they remained, neither waiting to make the first move The division seemed irreparable

49

c. The genesis of the theory of Conciliarism Within this context of controversy, turmoil and division, while discussion were being held regarding whet means could be employed to put an end to the schism, old ideas would once again come up, but now in a more radical dress In short, something that was meant to be a stopgap in a situation of emergency, would now be taken up as the norm and rule in Church structure and ecclesiology. The question: If so, by whom? And under what circumstances? o 7 century: The idea had already come up with Yves of Chartres and other canonists (during the time of the controversy over investiture) and finally the DecretumGratiani o Supreme authority of the Church rests in the pope, but he can fall into heresy or cause a schism in the Church and can therefore be deposed by a Council Better: A Council, convoked in case of necessity or emergency by bishops or by whomever had sufficient authority and prestige, could and should pronounce a sentence, a declaratoria i.e., could and should take action officially that the pope had
50

lost his authority because of the crime which has now marked him. Note however that the medieval canonists had given the term heretic a rather wide and elastic meaning so that the term could also bepredicated of a pope who; refusing to resign, makes himself responsible in some way for the destruction of unity in the Church or for its being endangered.... The conciliar theory in this context stands at the base of the appeals to a council in the controversy surrounding Boniface VIII and John XXII and has been accepted as legitimate by succeeding tradition, from Suarez to Bellarmine, down to Wernz and (thus, providence) Vidal who expresslystudied the case of a pope who was crazy, heretical and schismatic. In this way, providence would have provided the extreme means by which the Church could be saved from a potentially insolvable problem. Note that this thesis does not contradict that of the primacy of the pope in the Church. This balanced view however was easily set aside in the doctrine taught by such o John of Paris, De potestaderegia et papali (1300s)
51

o Marsilius of Padua, DefensorPacis (1324) o William of Occam, Dialogusdeimpcratorum et pontificumpotestate In these authors, the subject of authority is NOT the pope, i.e., not the head, but the head and members together. Thus, in the dioceses, the bishop and the diocesan chapter, and in the universal Church, the pope and thecardinals in as much as they are constituted representatives of the Christian people, or in other words, the pope and the Council, convoked by the emperor by delegation of the Christian people. The Church is therefore NOT a monarchy; the pope is reduced to the rank of a constitutional sovereign or ruler, the executor of laws stabilized by the Council. Regarding the composition of the Council itself, this could be understood in various ways: o As composed only by bishops and priests o Or as extended toinclude participation by lay people of different sexes and conditions... As often happens in history, it was quite easy to, pass from what was conceived as an emergency
52

measure to deal with an urgent case to that of a norm and a principle in normal times due to the pressures of the moment... And it is not always easy to distinguish with clarity thedefenders of one system from those of the other.... 11th century: watermark - Conciliar Theory Umberto di Silva Candida - but at the end of the 14th century - through the University of Paris... Various attempts to deal with the problem of multiple popes: o 1)Heinrich from Heinbuch or Langenstein, Epistulapacis (1379), Epistulaconciliipacis (1381) o 2)Ganhausen, Epistulabrevis(1379), Epistulaconcordiae (1380) Proposals by Pierre d'Ailly and Nicolas de Clemanges (1394), three ways to reestablish peace in the Church: 1) The viacessionis (resignation of the two popes) 2) The viacompromissionis (arbitration as to who is the rightful claimant of the papacy) 3) The via concilii Others: Jean Gerson in France, Cardinal Zabarula in Italy; also favorable to the conciliar theory: Odo Colonna, who later would be elected pope....
53

The Councils of Pisa and Constance would provide favorableoccasions for the clarification and development of the thesis of conciliarism.... d. The Council of Pisa (1409): three popes Difficulty of getting the two popes to reach an agreement; cardinals of both obediences convinced that the only way to resolve the impasse was to convoke a council, which was opened in Pisa at the end of March 1402 Despite the opposition of the two principal adversaries, the Council went on to pronounce its judgment on the two popes (Gregory XII, Benedict XIII). They were declared notorious schismatics and therefore no longer conceivably popes, not one or the other. The cardinals then proceeded to elect Cardinal PietroFilargi, Archbishop of Milan, who took the name of Alexander V and who would be succeeded by BaldassareCossa, who took the name of John XXIII The Avignon pope Benedict XIII (Pedro de Luna) and the Roman pope Gregory XII (Angelo Covario) refused to recognize the validity of the Council of Pisa nor do they renounce their rights - thus we
54

move from the "empiadualita (impious duality) to the "maldetatriplicate" (accursed triplicity). Naturally enough, those who considered valid the election of Urban VI and therefore his successor Gregory XII as the legitimate pope judged Pisa to be illegitimate because the Council was convoked against the wishes of the pope. But it must be said that the wider Church did accept the validity of Pisa as a Council, by appeal to the Conciliar Theory of the heretical pope, which was applied precisely in the Councils decision of 5 June 1409. But John XXIII did not endear himself to the Christian world and the Pisan obedience would soon fill into discredit and the same would be extended to the Council itself. Interestingly however was the fact that the Borgia who came to power in the 15th century would continue the papal line by calling king Alexander VI (but Angelo Roncalli would refuse to do so when he decided to call himself John XXIII) From 1947 on however, the two Pisan popes would no longer appear in the list of popes of the AnnuarioPontificio; but the problem remains open and unresolved
55

e. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) Failure therefore of the Council of Pisa to resolve the problem of multiple popes. Emperor Sigismund, taking advantage of the critical political situation in which John XXIII found himself (who had to flee Rome, then invaded and sacked by the force of Ladislas, King of Naples), induced the pope to convoke a new Council which opened at Constance in November of 1414. Decision was, taken that vocation was by nation which neutralizedthe great number of Italian prelates present in the Council (Italian bishops and theologians, with the right to vote made up 50% of the Council's membership). John XXIII had promised to abdicate if the other papal claimants did so also..., but new disagreements convinced the pope to flee Constance.... The emperor decides to have the Council continue its work and approved the Council over the pope. o Haec Sancta (cf., Martina, p. 74) It [i.e., the Council of Constance] first declares that it is lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit,constitutes a General Council, represents the Catholic Church and has immediate power
56

from Christ to which anyone, of whatever status, and condition, even if holding the papal dignity, is bound to obey in matters pertaining to the Faith, extirpation of the schism and reformation of the said Church in head and members. o It also declares that any one of whatever condition, status and rank, even if holding the Papal dignity who will contumaciouslydisdainto obey the orders, status, ordinances or instructions made or to be made concerning the aforesaid subjects or matters pertaining to them by this hold synod or by any other lawfullyconvened General Council, shall be, unless he comes to his senses, subjected to appropriate penance and duly punished, and recourse shall be had, if necessary, to other resources of the law." John XXIII brought back to Constance by force where on 29 May he was deposed for reasons of simony, scandal and schism.... Gregory XIII then agreed to abdicate, but on the condition that his letter convoking the Council be read in plenary session; the Council of Constance
57

would agree to this request and received the abdication of Gregory XII. Remaining was Benedict XIII who, unmovable, even if abandoned almost by all his erstwhile supporters, even by Vicente Ferrer, was deposed in July of 1417, under the usual accusations of perjury, heresy and schism The way was opened therefore to the election of a new pope but the Council wished to treat first various reforms in the Church, hoped for not only as a struggle against the worldliness the curie and the indiscipline of the clergy, but also as a way of changing the ecclesiastical constitution of the Church, with the suppression of a good part of the centralization which developed in the 12th to 14th centuries, together with an affirmation of a greater power for the ecclesial base. However, only a few pints could be agreed upon due to various contrasting positions - the decreeFrequensof October1417rested the superiority of a council, stabilized its periodic convocation at every10 year, and suppressed several rights attributed to the papacy. Only then did the Council proceed to elect a new pope...
58

Elected was Odo Colonna who took the name of the day's saint Martin V (1417-31) The Council had already condemned two protoreformers:Wyclif and Hus, the latter was burned at the stake on 6 July 1415. New decrees of reform were approved, and on 22 April 1418 the Council was declared closed. Martin V, in the last full assembly of the Council declared his approval for everything decreed by the Council in the matter of faith. Eugene IV would do the same in 1446, but without prejudice the right, dignity and preeminence (or honor) of the Apostolic See.... f. The Council of Basel and a new schism Martin V, following the Council of Constance decree of Frequens, and after a modest celebration of a Council at Siena in 1423, where tensions were felt between pro and anti-reform elements in the Church, convoked another Council at Basel in 1431. The Council of Basel opened, after Martin Vs death, and under his successor, Eugene IV; surfacing immediately were tendencies identified with extreme conciliarism; from the second session (February 15, 1432) , the decrees of Constance
59

which declared the superiority f the Council over the pope were confirmed In 1437, opportunity came when a big group of Greeks came in search of union with Rome for religious as well as political reasons; Council transferred to Ferrara and then to Florence, where Cosimo de Medici (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosimo_de'_Medici) offered hospitality. Majority of the Fathers in Basel refused the translation of the Council to Italy; they initiated a new schism, which lasted from 1438 to 1449; Eugene IV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Eugene_IV was excommunicated and deposed, and a new pope elected, Amadeus VIII http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope_Felix_V of Savory who took the name of Felix V; the schism had a limited extension however, in 1449, Felix V abdicated, while the rest of the Council elected pro forma the reigning pope, Nicholas V (1447-1455); the Council then, after negotiation, dissolved itself. In the meantime, the Council of Florence continued its work, realizing between 1439 and 1442 union with the Greeks, the Armenians and the Jacobites, and defining in July 1439 various points of dogma, the procession of the Holy Spirit, the existence of purgatory, and most important of all the primacy of jurisdiction of the pope over all of
60

the Church (cf., Martina quoting the decree Laetenturcaeli, p. 76) o We also define that the Holy Apostolic See and the Roman pontiff have primacy over all the earth; that the Roman pontiff, insofar as he is the successor of Blessed Peter, Prince of all the Apostles and the true Vicar of Christ, is the head of the whole Church, the father and teacher of all Christians; that it is to him that the full power of shepherding, directing and governing the universal Church has been transmitted by our Lord Jesus Christ, as contained in the acts of the ecumenical councils and in the sacred canons. o We confirm the order to be conserved among the other venerable patriarchs which has been transmitted to us by the canons, so that the Patriarch of Constantinople is the second after the most holy Pontiff of Rome, that of Alexandria the third, that of Antioch the fourth and that of Jerusalem the fifth, all their privileges and rights being safeguarded.

g. The Problematic From the straightforward narrative of the events that transpired, from Constance to Basel, a whole complex of problems emerges which, in substance, can be summarized in two points over which historians are clearly divided:
61

1.First, the legitimacy of the Council of Constance, which is connected to the significance of the reading in full assembly of the letter of Gregory XII convoking the Council. In former times, this fact was interpreted as the Councils acknowledgment of the legitimacy of Gregory XII and of the superiority of the pope over the Council. Today, almost all historians consider this fact to be nothing more than a diplomatic concession whit no juridical value or, more realistically, as a genuine instance of play-acting. The question therefore: Was the Council of Constance legitimate or not? The majority of historians now consider the Council of Constance to be a legitimate Council, but the related problems are far from resolved satisfactorily Fink says that the Councils legitimacy was only for its own time and place, i.e., limited to the situation of emergency and necessity in which the Church then found herself. Note that the two succeeding popes, Martin V and Eugene IV had never approved Constance in an absolute and unconditional way. Fois accepts the argument of Fink, but only for the initial convocation of the Council and the role-played in it by the Emperor Sigismund.
62

 Garcia Villoslada however continues to entertain doubts about the legitimacy even of the first part of the Council 2. Second, the more intricate question of the meaning and juridical value of the decree Haec Sancta. According to some historians (de Vooght who would later mitigate his own position, Hans Kung, Francis Oakley), the Council Fathers, in the decree Haec Sancta, wanted to propose a doctrinal point, a doctrinal principle, thus interpreting in an excessive manner the old thesis of the heretical pope: the Council is superior to the pope in so far as the pope could be considered responsible for the division of the Church (i.e., for the damage to its unity) and therefore heretical and schismatic According to the private opinion of some theologians, from exception or epicheiato the law, the thesis thus becomes an explicit truth of the extreme form find this full expression The error therefore of the older historians would consist in attributing to the Fathers of Constance the mentality that would develop much later in Basel, i.e., in interpreting Constance in the light of the event of Basel Another current of interpretation, headed byJedin and Franzen(the author of your textbook), and which now seems to be the dominantinterpretation, is that Constance
63

never intended to dogmatize or topropose a definitive law, but only to defend a moderate conciliarism i.e., to stabilize a legislative measure, non-doctrinal in nature, but valid for exceptional cases of emergency, and to sustain the authority of the Council to judge persons who at the moment carried papal authority but without the requisite secure legitimacy. This thesis (of Jedin, Franzen and others, including it seems of my professor at the Greg, Giacomo Martina) is based on the following arguments: a) The declaration of the protagonists themselves in the days before the affirmation they gave to Haec Sancta. b) A careful exegesis of the text of HaecSancta which shows that the immediate goal of the decree is said to be the end of the schism and the reform of the Church from the then prevailing abuses, there are no references at all to Scripture and Tradition which are usually found in dogmatic treatises and decrees; and the terms usedare quite different from those usually found in dogmatic definitions. c) Only in the Council of Basel is the superiorityof theCouncil over the pope is declared Veritasfideicatholicae (a truth of the Catholic Faith).
64

d) Nobody ever thought to condemn those like the Dominican general who held the contrary opinion (i.e., contrary to extremeconciliarism). e) Martin V, even before the closing of the Council of Constance,reaffirmed the supreme authority of the pope in the bull Intercunctasof 22 February 1418 (cf., Martina, quoting "Intercunctas, no. 24", p. 78). "It is believed that the pope, canonically elected, who is the one at the moment [i.e., Martin V], after the proclamation of his own name, is the successor of Blessed Peter, possessing supreme authority in the Church of God." Conclusion: Haec Sancta was therefore an emergency measure meant to deal with an emergency situation in the Church, NOT a dogmatic definition of an article of the Catholic Faith, Only a few, like Pickler, see in the decree a "fundamental law of Canon law,"which goes beyond the concrete situation in which the Church found herself. Even fewer are those who have seen in Haec Sancta that extreme conciliarism which would transfer supreme authority in the Church from the pope to the Council in a habitual way: Gil had defended this opinion in his volume, "Constance et
65

Bale-Florence" (cf. Martina, quoting Gil, p. 78), but later abandoned it. o "It wasConciliarism in its most extreme form, proposed by the Council as infallible truth." Finally and historically, more than the exact content and meaning both theological and juridical, of the decree, it is the efficacy (i.e., the effect) which the decree that had in public opinion which has importance for us however o Here, it cannot be denied that Haec Sancta and its radicalization in the extreme conciliarism of the Council of Basel contributed to the diminution in the eyes of the people of the prestige and authority of the pope. o Under this perspective, the decrees Haec Sancta and Frequens may be compared, with the requisite distinction kept in mind, to the famous Canon 28 of Chalcedon, which in the immediate historical context may be explained and understood in a similar way. Canon 28: The Orientals did not intend to negate the divine originprimacy, but only to affirm and safeguard the dignity and prerogative of the patriarchate of Constantinople. This later became interpreted literally as a foundation for theByzantine Church, thus opening the way to the schism of 4054)
66

In the same way, the positions of Constance, isolated from their own historical context, became the foundation for many attempts undertaken to prove and secure the independence of national Churches, to the point of becoming the hinge on which turns the movement and theory which isGallicianism (the Gallican articles make explicit reference to the decrees of Constance). From Constance on, theappeals made to a Council would increasewhich fact Pius II would condemn in his bull Execrabilis(1460) under the pain of excommunication, but despite which will continue nonetheless, from Savonarola to Luther. o Incidentally, this explains why, in succeeding generations, popes have been very reticent indeed in convoking Councils; Trent itself needed to hurdle various fears before it was set in motion, and even then, it was toolate to repair the damage of the Protestant Reformation. Absolutely historically sterile on the other hand was the definition of papal primacy arrived at in the Council of Florence in 1439, which could have constituted a clear response to the conciliarism thesis and its defeat o This passed relatively unobserved, remaining unknown even to bishops of the Roman see
67

o Trent seemed to be ignorant of the same; subsequent theological tradition also ignorant of the same, from the 1400s to the 1800s o Martina: a historical enigma, the definition of papal primacy arrived at in the Council of Florence... A lesson to be learned: decisions from on high are efficacious only if they correspond to the hopes and exigencies of the base... h. Consequences of the Western Schism There have been many attempts to alternate or to reduce almost to nothing the consequences of the schism in order to underline the responsibility of Luther, the unique author of the Protestant revolution. But undeniable the clear tendency of many rulers to exploit the occasion in order to extract from the Holy See the greatest possible number of concessions... o Rulers would demand concessions to exchange for their adherence to this or that obedience. o Reinforce in this way was the tendency toward national Churches which undoubtedly was one of the principal cause of the Protestant revolution.
68

 In France
In France, 1438, publication of the Pragmatic Sanction which would ratify for Frame many decrees of Basel as state law:

Theory of conciliarism No appeals to Rome as ultimate chamber Limitation of the rights of the Holy See in the nomination to the offices and benefices of the Church in France.

Clearly delineated in the 15thcentury the aspirations in France to form a national Church, independent or at least autonomous from Rome, in various aspects dependent on thestate....

In German

Complains against Rome always on the rise, to be found for example inthe Gravamina NationisGermenicae, presented for the first time in themiddle of the 15thcentury (1400s) by, the Archbishop of Mainz and thereafter repeated many times in the various diets of the Germans... German princes begin to usurp ecclesiastical jurisdiction in their territories, with the imposition of taxes on Church goods, the naming of candidates to ecclesiastical offices, etc....
69

The saying: Dux Cliviaeest Papa in terries suis (the Duke of Clives, a small feudal state in the Rhineland) Nationalist movement becomes particularly strong in Bohemia for two reasons: o Reaction against the judgment against Hus o Reaction against the centralism of the Hapsburgs

In England

Diffidence toward Rome stronger from the Avignon period of the papacy; pope in English eyes was an instrument of the French king Thus: denial to the pope of the right to appoint candidates to Englishecclesiastical offices, prohibition of appeal to Rome and the interdiction of papal bulls into English territory without consent of the English king Wide sympathies for reform idea of Wyclif

In Spain

Religious unity at the base of national unity and to defend it better, the setting up of the Spanish Inquisition (against the ambiguous behavior of converts from Judaism andIslam), which was
70

under the direct control of the Spanish state or monarchy Thus in this way the Church would lose her independence even in a state defined almost by nature as Catholic...

71

4.The Renaissance a. Interpretations: discontinuity-continuitydiversity in continuity

1. The theory of discontinuity 2. Theory of continuity 3. Our Optic: Diversity in continuity

b. The essence of the Renaissance c. The Church and the Renaissance d. Alexander VI: Renaissance pope par excellence

C. OtherReligious Causes
1. The decadence of scholasticism and the rise of nominalism 2. The defective ecclesiologies of Wyclif, Hus and Wessel 3. False Mysticism 4. Evangelism 5. Corruption of the Church 6. The psychological turmoil of the late medieval period
72

III. Political, Social and Economic Factors of the Protestant Reformation

Introduction
In general, we have to remember that, in the life and diffusion of all great heretical (and/or schismatic movements), the political factor is almost always never absent. For example: 1. Monophysitism owed its diffusion in Palestine, Syria and Egypt also to political motives. These motives contextualized the religious aspect opposition to Byzantium, more or less common in that region. 2. The Greek Schism of 1054 was the effect not so much of theological controversies but of the by then already antique antagonism between Rome and Constantinople, an antagonism that became more acute from the moment that Charlemagne assumed the title of Holy Roman Emperor.

73

3. In Bohemia, John Hus was exalted as a national hero in protest against tendencies that would deprive Bohemia of her national character, tendencies that sought to reduce her to one more German province.

I. The Protestant Reformation

It is therefore not surprising that, in the matter of the Protestant Reformation, we find an analogous situation. At the root of the Protestant revolt we find a double opposition: 1) against Rome, and 2) against the Hapsburgs (who were seen to be allied with Rome). 1. Resistance against Rome. According to Erasmus, the aversion to the name of Rome had already penetrated the soul of many peoples through that which is narrated about the customs of that people. The anti-Roman sentiment was particularly strong in Germany following the long struggle between Ludwig of Bavaria and Pope John XXII. The Avignon Pope was a supporter of an antiGerman political strategy and responsible for the centralization and most of all the fiscalism of the
74

Roman curia based at Avignon, provoking therefore endless lamentations summarized and codified in the programs of the so-called Gravamina nationisGermanicae (complaints of the German nation). That Germany may be free, Let us not forget that we are Germans, Ulrich of Hutten used to repeat, defining himself as the savior of Germany. Thus, in the prologue to his complete works, Luther in 1545 united his own cause to that of German independence, affirming: The Germans are tired of supporting the thievery [] The popular aura propitiously breathes forth everywhere, because those arts and the ways of proceeding of the Romans, with which they have filled and fatigued the world, are already and now abhorrent to all. The Nuncio Aleander informed Rome in 1521 that, in a nutshell, the enterprise launched by Luther was in fact something that transcended Luther himself because the issues precisely had their roots in a profound antiRoman affect particularly among the nobility.

75

2. Resistance against Hapsburg centralization and absolutism. The evolution of the feudal state into the absolutist state, already common in large parts of Europe, implicated a long and hard struggle between the nobility and the monarchy. In England, Spain and France, the kings, coming at the end of a long process lasting many centuries, would strip the nobility of every political power and erect on the ruins of feudal power a strong national state. In Germany, this same struggle would have the opposite effect: the great feudal powers succeeded, in the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, to wrest full independence, reducing the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to a simple confederation of sovereign states. Naturally, the emperors of the House of the Hapsburgs would exert every effort to maintain and reinforce their own authority, and this would generate an irreducible opposition between nobility and the emperor. This situation of conflict would influence in definitive manner the religious attitudes of the nobility. If the emperor, by tradition, interest and conviction, proclaimed himself the defender of Catholicism, left to the German princes was exactly the opposite sentiment. It is in this historical context that one must
76

position the appeal launched by Luther in 1520, on the occasion of the imperial election of Charles V (Charles I, King of Spain) who with his power seriously threatened the autonomic tendencies of the German lords (cf. Luthers address To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation) and the editorial success of his publication.

3. The Socio-Economic Situation in Germany. Though this does not provide an adequate and exclusive explanation of the birth of Luthers movement, it must nevertheless be considered in order to better understand its rapid diffusion in Europe. Most of all in Germany, two social classes suffered the effects of the economic crises consequent to the discovery of the Americas: the peasant and the lower nobility. The feudal knights had lost their old power due to the depreciation of the value of their agricultural lands in the face of a) the rise of trade and commerce centered in the towns and cities, b) the transformation of military techniques that now accentuated infantry over against the cavalry, and c) the reinforcement of the higher nobility (the dukes and
77

princes). Obviously, not happy with their lot, the knights were looking for a way to catapult themselves once again into positions of power, and the prospect of their acquisition of Church lands offered a comfortable and easy occasion, more so that it was easy for them to hide their true motives under the pretext of zeal for the reform initiated by Luther and others. Among the peasants, revolt had been fermenting for a long time, with riots violently exploding periodically in Germany from the last quarter of the 15th century to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation (1476, 1478, 1486, 1491, 1492, 1502, and 1513). But more than the unbearable material condition of their lives, the peasants were impelled to rise in arms by their inferior juridical condition. Unlike their counterparts in France, Italy and Spain, the German peasants continued to languish in the position of serfs, dependent on their feudatory lords who, if sometimes dealing with them in a paternalistic way, usually dealt with them harshly in their attempt to preserve and promote their feudal rights. Certainly, pushed beyond the limits of their patience and suffering, the peasants often had no recourse but to explode in violent action.

78

4. The Personality of Luther. All of this enormous complex of religious, political, and social factors constituted, in a manner of speaking, the immense explosive material that had accumulated in the course of various decades. It was enough for a spark to make it explode. Now, as in many other cases, it was easy enough to find a man to generate that spark, so that we do not have to believe that without Luther nothing would have happen. On the one hand, the papal nuncio Aleander had already reported that in Germany 100 other persons were ready to put themselves at the head of a movement in the place of Luther. On the other hand, it would be anti-historical, in this and other cases, to ask what would have happened if Luther did not come into the scene. This is a pseudo-problem; it is not possible to give a scientific response different from a simple hypothesis. Instead, it is the task of history to establish what state could have been the effective contribution of Luther in the genesis and development of the Protestant Revolution. We have to respond immediately and without hesitation that his influence was very strong: he was the one who took the present but disparate, dispersed and even latent factors together, brought them to their maturation, and
79

assured their maximum efficaciousness. For his gifts, his talents of preaching, leadership, guidance, his vivacious imagination full of sculpted images, his conviction of having been sent by God in order to announce not a theoretical system but an intimate and overwhelming experience, which in his mind constituted the only way to peace and to salvation, his vehemence in asserting his affirmations, his external appearance that magnetized his listeners, impressed by the gleam in his eyes, Luther was made in order to inflame and to enthral the popular masses and to convince and to rouse the intellectuals of his day. In short, Luther did not determine the cause of the revolt, but he hastened the moment of its explosion and threw the weight of his strong personality in support of it, increasing its effectiveness. On the other hand, it was the same typically German temperament of Luther that ended with restricting the significance of his action, so that he brought about the development of a religiosity that was more national than international in expression.

II. New Historiographical and Methodological Problems

80

1. In order to know well the spiritual environment in which the Protestant Reformation reached its mature point, it is necessary to have a good understanding of Erasmus of Rotterdam (14661536). The bibliography on Erasmus is large. His practical program of church renewal is perhaps better revealed, among his works, in Enchiridion militischristiani, also in his ElogioumMoriae, his Colloquia, in several of his letters. Erasmus incarnated, perhaps in a much more vivid and therefore more efficacious manner than others, the tendencies of Christian Humanism and Evangelism, of which he was the recognized leader. With his brilliant writings he contributed to the founding in large parts of Europe the ideals typical of the movement: tolerance, purification of the worn out and anachronistic structures that still weighed down the Church, return to the sources. Erasmus left behind a spiritual heritage off which we continue largely to live. It is not excessive to assert that he was, for several decades, the intellectual father of central Europe.
81

Two essential questions come immediately to mind in thinking of Erasmus. First, what was the source of the great influence exercised by a man who was not really a profound thinker and whose moral temperament was nothing to crow about? Second, was this influence positive or negative? It is easy enough to respond to the first question. Erasmus better than many others knew how to express the aspirations that were widely diffused in many strata of public opinion. He was in some way the interpreter of his time. But then, as usually happens, history started to move more decisively and more rapidly than what the writer had foreseen, Erasmus, arm chair intellectual that he was and not a man of action, less original and less creative than what is first apparent, wanted to remain neutral and thus was surpassed and left behind. More difficult is the response to the second question. According to the schemas typical of Marxist historiography, Erasmus was the classic bourgeois individual, who wanted reform but refused revolution, and because of his fears
82

ended with arresting the march of authentic renewal. Catholic scholars considered the Dutch intellectual weak, both physically and morally, who first with his sarcasm and then with his indecision, ended with favouring the Protestant Reformation. Erasmus posuit ova, Lutherusexclusitpullos. Erasmus laid the egg, Luther hatched the chick. In other words, Erasmus planted, Luther harvested. More recent historians, from Imbart de la Tour to Garcia Villoslada, despite admitting the limited intellectual and moral character of Erasmus, show themselves more benevolent toward him, substantially considering him a precursor of genuine Catholic Reform of the first half of the 1500s. One could then revise the old saying, affirming instead: Erasmus posuit ova, Loyola exclusitpullos. Erasmus laid the egg, but Loyola hatched the chick. 2. Hubert Jedin, in his fundamental work Catholic Reform or Counter-Reformation, affirms: No other work of Luther is so lacking in originality in its concrete content as much as his writing addressed to the (German) nobility dated 1520.
83

This affirmation could be documented more usefully, recalling here the many plans and projects of reform before 1520. Again, Erasmus would be useful to remember here, particularly his work Colloquia, reworked many times by the author from 1518 to his death. Expressed in humoristic form, with biting insinuations and scenes presented in shaded colors, the humanist criticized the abuses of the times: pilgrimages reduced to tourism, the excessive cult of relics, the pharisaism of certain exterior religious observances, vows lightly meant and pronounced, the excessive reliance on indulgences, the prevalence of devotion to the saints rather than Jesus, etc. But Erasmus was in substance more fortunate, at least due to the wide diffusion of his works, than other writers who also invoked the need for reforms in the Church but with a different tone. 3. Still to be explored are the themes of anxiety, guilt and sin and their various aspects and up to what point they weighed on the mentality of the 1400s and the 1500s. E.Castelli, in his work Il demoniaconellarte(Rome, 1952), has
84

demonstrated with what frequency the theme of death and the devil runs through the art works of the Quatrocentoand the Cinquecento. J.Delumeau, in his Le pecheet la peur: la culpabilisation en Occident (XIII-XVIII sicles) (Paris, 1983), has analysed the pessimism and the sense of the macabre in the Renaissance, examining the almanacs, homilies, and other Catholic and Protestant pastoral works. One may also read with profit this other work from the same author: La peur en Occident: une cite assiegee(Paris, 1978). 4. One may query whether the numerous descriptions of religious life in Europe and especially in Italy in the beginning of the Cinquecento were always contrasting aspects, positive and negative. Helpful in this regard would be H.Bohmers book Ignatius von Loyola (Stuttgart, 1941). Also useful, particularly life in the Rome of the Cinquecento, would be P. TacchiVenturi, La vita religiosa in Italia durante la prima eta dellaCompagnia di Gesu (Roma, 1950).
85

IV. Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation in Germany

A. Martin Luther
1. The Personality of Luther - Traditional Catholic portrait of Luther: drawn from the frame traced, three years after Luther died, from a canon of Breslavia, Johannes Cochlaurs of Wittenberg: Luther here is painted as a demagogue without a conscience, a hypocrite and a vile person. - Beginning of the 1900s this portrait of Luther still dominant in tow classical works: that of the Dominican H.Denifle and that of the Jesuits H.Grisar. o But Denifle had the merit of identifying Luthers theological formation in Augustinianism, of late scholasticism, and strongly impregnated with nominalist ideas o He pictures Luther however in starkly negative terms as without humility, proud,
86

tepid in prayer, dominated by strong passions and moved to formulate a new doctrine in order to justify his own behavior Grisar the Jesuit, who rejects the thesis of Luthers moral depravity, nevertheless insists on his psychological deformation, his proclivity to scruples, anxiety, assailed by terror of the devil and of sin, even a pathological disposition inherited from his parents. For Denifle: Luther = morally corrupt For Grisar: Luther = a neurotic TODAY: A re-evaluation of Luther as a person and monk o Recognized today as a man of deep religiosity Luther had a deep personal experience of God, an authentic sense of sin and of his own nothingness, from which emerged his profound attachment to Jesus Christ and his blind trust in the Lord and in the Lords redemption. To this was united a deep charity for the poor. o On the other hand, the Augustinian possessed a strong character which often
87

was unilateral, excessive, exuberant, impulsive, more prone to impose his own interpretation of reality rather than to consider it in a humble fashion, and a strong tendency towards subjectivism, which pushed him to make rather unilateral interpretations of Scripture and rendered him less ready to accept the directives of those who presented themselves as mediators between God and humanity (thus: the Church, the pope, the hierarchy, the priests, religious superiors, even secular rulers like the emperor.); he fascinated those who came into contact him with; he had the natural gift of leadership; but from his spirit, anger would usually issue, which brought him to use crude and vulgar expressions, and even to lies, invectives and expletives; he was called doctor hyperbolicus - Thus: Authentic and profound religiosity A man of Tendency to subjectivism, contradictions Authoritarianism and violence
88

 Fichte: the German man par excellance He had an authentic gift for the German language and contributed to the development of a German national consciousness 2. Brief summary of his life Born in Eisleben, Saxony (northeast Germany, south of Berlin) 10 November 1483 Died in the same city on 18 February 1546 From a family of peasants, but whose father knew how to improve the familys economic situation to that common to the lower bourgeoisie Studied philosophy at Erfurt, in an atmosphere decidedly Ockhamist In 1505, entered the Augustinian convent at Erfurt in fulfilment of a vow made during a storm during which a lightning almost struck him Ordained a priest (1507); 1508 moved to Wittenberg (southwest of Berlin, on the Elba River); taught ethics, then dogmatics and
89

exegesis, commenting on the Psalms and the Pauline letters - 1510: in Rome for questions of internal reorganization of the Augustinians - 1515-1517: period of evolution of Luthers doctrine but also period of psycho-spiritual crisis: o Feared that he would not be able to free himself from sin; also that he belonged to the ranks of the damned. o Probably due to the excessive work he had to do and his propensity toward melancholy, and by his Ockhamism, with its accent on the arbitrary will of God coupled with the extreme importance given to the human will Had difficulty distinguishing between/among concupiscence and temptation, from sin itself Engaged in an anxious search for a way of salvation: his spiritual director, Johannes Staupitz, tried to allay his fears Began studying the German mystics, but in a direction which accentuated
90

the nothingness of the human being before God and of human passive abandonment towards God - Probably in 1517: the tower experience (turmerlebnis) o In his room: an illumination, while meditating on Romans 1, 17: The justice of God reveals itself in the Gospel from faith to faith as it is written: the just shall live by faith. o According to Luther: Scriptures teaches us that justice does not refer to the intervention of God through which God rewards the just and punishes the sinner but rather it refers to the act by which the Lord covers the sins of those who abandon themselves to him through faith o The Letter to the Romans therefore speaks not of vindictive justice but of salvific justice, the grace by which God sanctifies us o It could be that the Augustinian reformer had given excessive importance to one moment in a long psychological process; in any case, the concept of salvific justice, or
91

justification, would now assure an always more important place in Luthers doctrine o This doctrine was in itself traditional, but Luther would push it before the limits of orthodoxy, negating in a unilateral way every necessity on the part of the human being to dispose himself to Gods grace with his free cooperation o Thus for Luther: It was sufficient to abandon ones self to the salvific action of God; it enough to believe, in order for one to know and to feel ones self saved o Fromm this: short step to the other crucial points of his system, which admittedly is quite difficult to synthesize o In any case, we can attempt a synthesis of the essential points of Lutheranism in the following manner: sola scriptura, justificactio sola fide, and sola gratia. 3. Three essential points of Luthers doctrine

92

Sola scriptura Luther begins by attacking the decadent scholasticism of his time and its rationalism But he arrives quite far: Scripture contains everything that is materially necessary for salvation and is selfinterpretative, does not need to be illumined and clarified by the tradition; in short Scripture is by itself sufficient to give to the Church the certitude on all revealed truth; excluded therefore the tradition of the Church and the mediation of the Church through its magisterium Justificatio sola fide (justification only by faith) We must distinguish between two different questions, even if the two are connected Luther, for a long time, oscillated between two concepts of justice: 1. Intrinsic justice (i.e., authentic interior, intrinsic and ontological renewal of the person)
93

2. Imputed justice (i.e., purely attributed, extrinsic, juridical, noninherent, not accompanied by an interior renewal) The greater stress would be placed on the second however (although the first would not disappear totally), particularly by the Lutheranism that followed Luther and Melanchton Apparently for Luther, at least according to an interpretation which today has been largely abandoned, human nature after the fall, i.e., after original sin, is intrinsically corrupted, the human being has now lost his freedom, so that every work of his, even if considered good, is necessarily sin. But God, without cancelling the sin and without interiorly renewing the person who believes in him and entrusts himself to him (God), nevertheless attributes to him, to the person, the merits and holiness of Christ, and therefore looks on the sinner as if he were renewed and just
94

1. These ideas appear clearly in his Lectures on the Letter to the Romans, written by Luther between 1515 and 1516. 2. The human being would therefore be, at the same time, sinner and just, simul Justus et peccator, but understood thus: the human being is really a sinner, but just thanks to the consideration of God and his promise to liberate him from sin and to heal him perfectly a.He is healthy in hope, but a sinner in reality b. But he has the beginning of justice, so that he can ask to be always more justified, knowing that he really is unjust. The teaching of Luther is in reality more complex than we are able to lay out here, and as a whole, quite close to the traditional teaching of the Church. He admits that there is a real change in the human being through grace, but such a change is not realized in one
95

instance but only through a long and arduous process. The human being therefore does NOT possess grace as something that is his, there for the taking and according to his pleasure. No, grace remains a gift which calls, from outside and from above, the person to go out of himself; in this sense one can call the human being sinner and just a the same time, because he is prone as always to fall into sin This tendency, not eliminated in the baptized, is subdued only slowly and with great effort. In Philipp Melanchton however, i.e., in his Apologia ConfessionesAugustanae, a genuine interior renewal is denied outright on the one hand, and yet admitted also a rebirth and a new life the first affirmation would become more dominant and classical in subsequent Lutheranism, as understood by Catholics down the centuries; but one
96

wonders how objectively correct that interpretation is Luther admits however that one arrives at faith only of one has already been justified by Christ (cf. Martina, p. 133) Nevertheless, Catholic interpretations of Luther would have him admit that one could arrive at justification only by way of a trusting faith. 1. i.e. not only through an intellectual adhesion to an objective truth but at the same time through an existential conviction that all of that has happened for me, pro me, pro nobis, or, in other words, the abandonment of ones self to God with the certainty that God saves me. 2. Our good works have no effect at all in this process; but the Catholic Church insists on the necessity of good works, even if it also admits that these are not the efficient cause of salvation, but that they only prepare us, they dispose us, toward salvation
97

3. For Luther, the human being, once made just, operates good works, but he does not accept that good works could be a way to God, of moving towards God 4. But that salvation itself is truly gratuitous, a divine gift, is a point on which Luther and Catholics are fully in agreement Sola gratia o Because there is a real immediacy between the human being and God (as affirmed by Paul in his Letter to the Galatians), Luther rejects every external mediation instituted by the human being, not the work of God and therefore as totally without salvific value. Here lies in nuce Luthers ecclesiological doctrine: he does not accept therefore the traditional hierarchical Church o Though Lutheranism admits pastors and even bishops (but only as an honorific and disciplinary dignity, without any extra
98

powers), it agrees with Luther on the blurring of lines between lay and clergy o Luther therefore rejects papal primacy (and therefore the whole hierarchical structure of the Church), and upholds the fundamental concept of a direct relationship between the Lord and the individual believer: The Church is a spiritual communion of souls united in one unique faith. The union of all believers in Christ over the earth is spiritual unity, sufficient to form the Church. o Corollary to this: The denial of the sacrificatory nature of the Eucharist. The Mass is NOT a sacrifice; the idea that the Mass is a sacrifice was for Luther the most grave and terrible mistake among all the other forms of idolatry proposed (by the Catholic Church); this because it detracts from the unicity and sufficiency of the sacrifice of the Cross This also has the effect of reducing the ministerial priesthood of presbyter to the function of preparing and administering of the sacraments and
99

therefore to the firm rejection of any claim that priests offer any sacrifice at all at Mass The sacraments are therefore mere signs, but not efficacious themselves to office grace; and only the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist o Thus: Liberty of worship and discipline, but Luther would discover that this was grounds for division, so that his idea of a spiritual Church would give way to that of the State Church, under the control of princes 4. Chronology of the break - 1507: Julius II construction of the new St. Peters Basilica o Concession of indulgence in the manner of jubilee indulgences to those who gave alms for the enterprise - 1514: Initiative repeated by Leo X o In Germany: The situation is complicated through its being mixed up with and ultimately determined by another question:
100

 Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg (Marburg), southwest of Berlin, on the River Elbe, and administrator of Halberstadt, was nominated bishop of a third diocese, Mainz on the Rhein, rich and glorious traditions, including the right to participate in imperial elections as an elector. In order to enter into full possession of this third diocese, he needed to pay to the Apostolic Chamber a sum of money which at the same time he did not have. This difficulty Albert solved by receiving a lone from the Fugger family, banker of Europe, the sum of 29,000 ducats which he needed to send as payment to Rome The bishop then, in order to pay this loan, obtained the faculty of having preached in his dioceses the indulgence and the alms collected would be divided: half to the Fuggers, and half to Rome for the construction of St. Peters
101

o 1517: The preaching of the indulgence begins in the province of Magdeburg (Marburg) with great solemnity by Johannes Tetzel, Dominican, who did not always remain within the limits of orthodox doctrine regarding indulgences. Tetzel preached that, correctly, indulgences were a way of remitting punishment for sin, not of guilt; he however also taught that the state of grace, confession and remorse were necessary only for the effecting of the indulgence for live human beings, not for the application of the indulgences to the dead. Thus: At the very moment when the money hits the bottom of the alms box, a soul is liberated from Purgatory. o Vigil of the Feast of All Saints, 1517: Luther, reacting to this abuse of the preaching of indulgences, indeed to the very idea of an indulgence in the first place, wrote a strong but perfectly orthodox letter to Albert of Brandenburg and to his own bishop, inviting them to go against the
102

abuses connected with the preaching of indulgences; he attached to this letter however 95 theses on indulgences, inviting the bishops to a discussion over the matter No response from Albert of Brandenburg Luther shows the theses to several theologians The theses were published without Luthers knowledge and were diffused through Germany For the professor of Wittenberg, i.e., Luther, the indulgence pertained only to the canonical penance inflicted by the Church on sinners, not of the punishment in the future life, and could not be applied to the dead There is no such thing as a treasury of the Church, the result of the merits of Christ and the saints, which the Church could dispose of
103

o Because if there is such a thing, then how come the Pope does not proceed to evacuate Purgatory of all its occupants, according to holy charity and the supreme need of souls, now that he had proceeded to liberate so many other souls from Purgatory for motives of constructing a basilica, a reason very light indeed? o 1518: Due to the widespread diffusion of the Lutheran theses, which had a deep resonance throughout Germany, Leo X ordered their examination and called Luther to present himself in Rome. But, and this would remain constant all throughout the life of Luther, through the intervention of Frederich, elector of Saxony, Luther was dispensed from having to travel to Rome and was instead ordered to present himself at Augusta in October 1558 in order to be interrogated by Cardinal Thomas de Vio, otherwise known as Cajetan.
104

 The interrogation did not have the desired result because Luther proceeded to appeal from a badly informed pope to a well-informed pope, and then from the pope of a future Council Cajetan would try to have Luther consigned to the ecclesiastical authority but did not succeed; Luther enjoyed the protection of Frederich the Elector who at this time had a great influence in political affairs due to the death of Emperor Maximilian his vote was sought by the two candidates then: Charles the Hapsburg and Francis I, King of France. Leo X did not push for Luthers arrest because he did not want to antagonize Frederich, whom the pope was trying to influence to vote for Francis if not to have himself decaled a candidate (the pope was wary of Charles who, if elected emperor, would have amassed even greater political power and this the pope did not want)
105

 The pope therefore would suspend the pursuit of Luther o 1519, at Leipzig: A great debate was held between Luther and Johannes Eck who represented and defended the traditional position The debate was crucial because Luther, pushed by Eck to come clean, was obliged, for the first time in public, to clarify his own teaching on the Roman primacy, the infallibility of councils, which Luther would in fact deny, and overall to clarify the fundamental position of Protestantism: the recognition of Sacred Scriptures as the adequate and exclusive source of revealed truth At this point, it was becoming all the more clear that Luther was primarily concerned, not with correcting abuses (i.e., reforming the Church), but with questioning the essential constitution of the Church herself (thus with a reformation of the Church).
106

o 1520: Conclusion of the judicial process against Luther; issuance of the bull, ExurgeDomine, which demanded from Luther to retract within 60 days his thesis on free will, original sin, sacraments in general, grace, contrition for sins, confession, good works, indulgences, purgatory, and the primacy of the pope. Before and after the publication of this bull, Luther was himself engaged in a frenetic publishing activity; he would write and publish three important works: (a) To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, (b) On the Prelude to the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and (c) On Christian Liberty; also, AdversusexecrabilemAntichristibullam a.To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation written in German, distributed widely with 4,000 copies. o Called for the pulling down of three walls which Luther
107

considered the defences of the Roman Church: i. The distinction between clergy and lay ii. The exclusive right of the pope to convoke a council iii. The exclusive right of the hierarchy to interpret Scripture o In Luthers view, a new council, with the participation of the laity with full voting rights, would have reformed the Church and put an end to the gravamina nationisgermaniae b. On the Prelude to the Babylonian Captivity of the Church o Criticized the traditional doctrine of the sacraments, declaring only baptism, penance and the Eucharist as authentic sacraments, while denying the doctrine of transubstantiation
108

and the sacrificial value of the Mass. c. On Christian Liberty o Exalted the freedom of the interior man, justified by faith and unity intimately to Christ. o Good works are not necessary for justification, nor do they make the human being who does them good; rather, good works are the fruits or the necessary consequences of justification. Thus, through these three works principally, the ideas of Luther would be disseminated and find an ever wider audience in Germany. In October of the same year, he published a pamphlet, Against the hated bull of the Antichrist, renewing his call for an ecumenical council, and in December of the same year, he would burn the Corpus JurisCanonici, symbol of papal authority, and the bull ExsurgeDomine
109

o 1521, the bull, DecetRomanumPontificam, excommunicates Luther and his supporters But the bull could have its effect only if sanctioned by the civil authority. April 1521: Diet of Worms: discussion of Luthers doctrine the elector of Saxony intervenes in favour of Luther, who makes an appearance to defend his position; but the Emperor rules to banish him from all imperial territories and his writings are burned. Luther is kidnapped by a group of knights and brought to the Castle of Wartburg where he remained for 10 months, engaged in writing various works and in translating the Bible into the German language

B. The Religious Struggles in Germany until 1555

- Helpful to struggles: 1521-1525 Revolution distinguish three periods of these (1) Period of Social Revolutions: (Uprising of the lower nobility, of the Anabaptists, Revolt of the
110

peasants), (2) Period of Diets and Colloquiums: 1525-1532, and (3) Period of War and the Final Truce: 1532-1555. - In all of these, the progressive diffusion of Lutheranism would continue - The general European background: o The wars between Francis I, King of France (and his successor, Henry II) and Charles V (and his successor, Philip II of Spain) o The advance in Eastern Europe of the Turks, after the defeat of the Christian forces at Moliacs in 1526, particularly in Hungary, and their siege of Vienna in 1529. o The lack of a genuine accord between Charles V and the pope; the pope was afraid of a too powerful emperor who had, aside from Spain, Austria and the Netherlands, territories which surrounded the papal states (Milan in the north and Naples in the south), so much so that the pope would feel it necessary to align himself with the king of France against Spain; also, the pope was very much against what he thought to be the tendency of the Emperor to intervene in properly ecclesiastical affairs
111

 all of this had the effect however of weakening the position of Charles V vis-vis the Protestant nobles and their followers whose help he needed if he were to counter the Turkish challenge. The memory of 1527: The sack of Rome by Imperial troops (Germans and Spanish) 1. Period of Social Unrest: 1521-1525 The uprising of the knights of the lower nobility (1521-23) o Leadership of Franz von Sickingen invasion of the territory of the Prince-Bishop of Trier in order to open the road to the world of the Gospel but in reality an attempt to despoil the Church of her goods. o Alliance among the Rhineland Princes put an end to this. Revolution of the Anabaptists o At Zurickau, near Wittenberg: NicolausStorch starts a monument which
112

was religio-social in nature and which wanted the destruction of the religio-social system then in place; the movement considered the sacraments without importance and denied the efficacy of infant baptism o Thomas Muntzer and other priests join the movement; which came to be called Schwarmgiester (the fanatics). o Luther initially supports the movement for religious and social reform, but differences in doctrine, particularly with Muntzer, impel Luther to condemn the movement. Muntzer was a millenarian, a chiliast, who identified the reign of God with a particular and determinate political regime; Muntzer was also an anarchist who refused every civil or religious organization which he thought delayed the coming of the reign of God. o The Anabaptists origins in Switzerland because of differences between Zwingli and some of his supporters.

113

 The believed in a community of the elect, a spiritual elite, which was independent of all authority. They also denied infant baptism, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (which they considered to be simple a meal); believed in the community of goods; they refused any oath-taking, military service and government offices They took shape at and took over Munster for almost a year and a half (1534-1535) through the work of Johannes of Leiden, abolishing private property and allowing polygamy. From the Anabaptists derived the Mennonites (from Menno Simons, who gave final shape to the group in order to distinguish it from the Anabaptists of Munster); they also denied infant baptism, obedience to any civil authority, oath-taking and military service, but remained faithful to the principles of non-violence and passive resistance; persecuted by both Catholics and Protestants, they find
114

refuge in the Low Countries (the Netherlands); they would find greater freedom to follow their way of life in the new English colonies of the Western hemisphere. The Peasant Revolution (1524-1525) o Aspirations of the peasant classes expressed in February 1525 in 12 articles, among which was the abolition of the tithes and of other feudal laws, the implementation of free elections of their parish priests. o From the Rhineland, the revolt spread to central and southern Germany (with exception of Bavaria), burning and sacking everything along their way. o Peasants led by Thomas Muntzer and Goetz von Berlichingen o But defeat at Frankenhausen; the Duck of Lorraine executed 20,000 rebels o Luther, initially sympathetic to the demands of the peasants, but alarmed and frightened by their excesses; would exhort the princes to put an end to the revolution
115

by violent means (he wrote, Against the impious and wild band of peasants) o This about-face of Luther was bound to have a singular effect in the history of Lutheranism Disorder and chaos were spreading in Germany among various social groups, strengthened by Luthers own doctrine, but incapable of controlling themselves Luther would therefore search for a principle on which to found order and stability but which could not be the papacy and the hierarchy; he had no choice but to turn to the secular authority, to the Princes, i.e., to the State, so that to the authority of the pope would now succeed that of the Princes, to that of the invisible, democratic Church that of the State Church o Intrinsic contradiction therefore of Luthers system; the rights of the Princes over the Church in their territories would be extended more and more, with the consequence that their subjects are taught
116

passive obedience toward their authority against which it was never legitimate to rebel 2. Period of Diets and Colloquiums (1525-1532) Diet of Speyer: 1526 o Concession given to the Princes to embrace Protestantism (n.b. the Emperor forced to concede this because the Turks were at the gates of central Europe) o Thus, Eastern Prussia would pass to Protestantism Diet of Speyer: 1529 o Turks had been defeated; Emperor felt much more in a position to impose his will o Prohibition of any introduction of novelties into Germany: the Protestant states could remain Protestant, but no new German states were allowed to pass to Protestantism o It is at this Diet that the term Protestants would come into canonical use for those
117

who adhered to the new doctrine of Luther et al for the already Protestants states would protest this imperial prohibition Diet of Augusta: 1530 o Organized in order to examine a profession of produced by the reformers, the ConfessioneAugustane, written by one of the loyal disciples of Luther, Philipp Schwarzerd, also known as Melanchton. An attempt to present Protestant belief clearly, but without distancing itself too far from the traditional faith. Thus, silence on Purgatory, indulgences, primacy of pope But could not deny its own principles of: Justification by faith, without human cooperation through works The nature of the Church, excluding many institutional features from it Denial of a ministerial priesthood different from that of the priesthood of the faithful Consubstantiation of the Eucharist
118

 Free penitential practice Rejection of the cult of saints The confession, in its second part, dedicated to the correction of disciplinary abuses, ordered: Communion under both species of bread and wine Rejection of ecclesiastical celibacy Rejection of private Masses, the sacrificial and satisfactory nature of which is denied Rejection religious vows, abstinence and fasting o On the power and authority of bishops: recognized legitimate the right of bishops to preach, to administer the sacraments, to absolve form sin, to condemn doctrines deemed not evangelical, but without the power to excommunicate or to exclude anybody from the ecclesiastical communion; rejected however was the right of bishops to impose new legislation on food, feasts, grades in the ministry and on such things as celibacy already declared anachronistic
119

o Charles V orders read a ResponsorioAugstanaeConfessioni, refuses to accept the Apologia ConfessionisAugustanae of Melanchton, but then agrees to a compromise o At the end, this Diet of Augusta, Charles V prohibits any further innovation, but renew his edict against Luther at Worms (1521), and orders the restitution of ecclesiastical goods confiscated by the Princes o In Charles mind: needed was the convocation of a new council o Reaction of the Protestant states: the formation of the Schmalkalden League, which tried to obtain the assistance of external powers (e.g., the Catholic king of France, then the rulers of England and Denmark) o Protestantism therefore was clearly at this stage no longer simply a religious movement but also a political one. Diet of Nurnberg: 1532 o Charles V attempts to moderate his position at Augusta
120

Colloquium of Worms: 1540 Colloquium of Regensburg (Ratisbon): 1541 - Clear from all this: the division between Catholics and Protestants had become insurmountable 3. Period of War and the Final Truce: 1532-1555 Outbreak of hostilities o Charles V decides to launch an open war against the Schmalkalden League o Battle near Muhlberg, 1547: Protestants defeated o N.B. 1546: death of Martin Luther his last words: We are beggars, it is true i.e., last words written the evening before o But despite this death of their champion and the defeat at Muhlberg, their political and military force remained intact, and their religious powers remained strong o 1548: truce
121

o Imperial decree: concessions in two areas: communion under two species and matrimony for priests o But rejection on the part of the pope, who protested against Charles usurpation of properly ecclesiastical rights to decide religious questions, and on the part of the Protestants, who saw the concessions as superficial... Peace of Augusta: 1555 o Concluded between the Protestant Princes and Ferdinand, brother of Charles V. o The agreements provisions: 1. Cuiusreligio, eius et religio: the princes are free to adhere to the new religion; but their subjects have no such freedom either they follow their ruler in adhering to his religion or they must migrate to another territory which is of their religion 2. Reservatumecccelesiasticum: the ecclesiastical Princes, who chose to abandon their Catholicism after 1552, lose their goods the disposition of which
122

is taken over by Ferdinand in a unilateral way 3. DeclaratioFerdinandea: a secret article added to the peace treaty, recompensing the Protestants for the loss of their goods imposed by the reservatum; recognizes the right of nobles, cities and villages which for various years had adhered to the ConfessioneAugustanae, to remain freely in their new faith Abdication of Charles V: 1556 o Charles V abdicates and retires to a monastery in Extremadura, western Spain o Philip II Spain, Low Countries, The Americas, Italian possessions o Ferdinand the Hapsburg states of Germany o The Peace of Augusta determined for a long time the relations between the two confessions, stabilizing the religious division of Germany which today remains largely unchanged

123

o The states that remained Catholic in 1555 today continue to be the Catholic regions in Germany o Note however that we are still very from any notions of religious tolerance and religious liberty; these were recognised as rights but only for the Princes, not for the ordinary citizens; indeed recognized was the right of Princes to impose their religion on their subjects Unusrex, unafide, unalex At this point, definitively destroyed was the ideal European religious unity, of a republica Christiana, i.e., a complex of sovereign states united by common religious and political bonds Germany in 1555 o Thus, in 1555, we have a Germany divided into two confessions. o Lutheranism at this period will reach its greatest extension, conquering almost 2/3 of the nation o In the decades that follow, a counteroffensive from the Catholic side, sustained
124

by the efforts of the religious orders, particularly the Capuchins, the Jesuits, and several excellent reforming bishops who enjoyed imperial support Result: several areas would become Catholic again, and in other regions, at least partially Catholic This provokes a Protestant reaction o Thus, from 1618 to 1648, the Thirty Years War to be resolves only by the Peace of Westphalia, signed at Munster and Osnabruck on 28 October 1648

C. Conclusion: The Religious Division of Europe

V. John Calvin and Calvinism

A. Calvin: His Life (1509-1564)
- Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) in Italian: Giovanni Calvino - Born in Noyon, Picardy (between Paris and Belgium)
125

- Studied in Paris and other cities: Letters and Jurisprudence; due to his fathers wishes, took the license in law - Temperament pulled him in other directions however; letters in Paris, came under the influence of the French evangelism of such as Le FevredEtaples and Guillaume Briconnet - At the same time, Ignatius of Loyola would begin his own studies at the Sorbonne; but it seems that the two never really met and encountered each other - Calvin, because of a desire to go back to the life and praxis of the early Church, converted to Protestantism; this meant he had to leave Parish and at Basel he published in 1536 the first edition of his work, still rather limited and modest, The Institute of the Christian Religion, which the author himself would expand and translate from Latin into French. - On a brief visit to Italy, the young reformer exercised a noteworthy influence on Renate of France, daughter of Louis XII and wife of ErcoledEste, Duke of Ferrora. - Passing through Geneva, he was prevailed upon by Guillaume Farel to stop in the city and to
126

sustain the incipient reform there; introducing various religious and civil innovations, he soon engendered strong opposition and had to leave the city with Guillaume Farel - For three years, he exercised the pastoral ministry at Strassburg, but in 1541, the friends of Farel begged him to return and take up once again his task as pastor at Geneva. - There he remained for the rest of his life, applying in an organic and definitive way his principles of reform and exercising an absolute dominion over the city and from here extending his influence over the rest of Europe.

B. Calvin: His Character

- Profoundly different from Luther, gave the impression of a totally antithetical life; he never knew the anguished struggle of the Augustinian against temptations nor his latters exuberant fantast; where Luther was usually surrounded by friends with whom he willingly engaged in prolonged cordial conversations in which were mixed invective and curses, Calvin remained essentially a solitary man who, in order to give a
127

good example and to fulfil his duty, married a widow who already had two children. Today as then, not many find Calvin a sympathetic figure, but for the wrong reasons; a false legend had grown around his personality, as recently recognized by scholars. Rather acknowledged today: the impassioned search for that God revealed and hidden at the same time; for the God of the Bible and of the prophets, pervaded his works; his desire for the greatest glory of God brings him near particularly, in some ways, to St. Ignatius of Loyola The exigency for an absolute authenticity in the encounter with God would find parallels in the more intransigent expressions of Cistercian and Carmelite mysticism. Calvin believed himself to be called by the invincible God, who had in his hands the destiny of humankind, for a special mission to which he totally devoted himself. This conviction would enable him to draw the energy to overcome his timidity, which could have made him content to remain willingly among his books, and the tenacity of will to see
128

through to its conclusion what he considered to be his mission, with an absolute disinterest which allowed him to accept without regrets poverty. This profound religiosity is imprinted in a unique (?) method, extraordinarily lived and clear, and brought to an organic systematization of various questions, arrived at through a patient and continuous work, which affected his rather bad health, but arrested by his tremendous memory and by his facility in writing. Though he admitted Pascals reasons of the heart, intelligence and logic, clarity and sobriety remained his most profound talents His more than 4,000 letters demonstrate to us an affective and friendly human being, rich in sensibility, faithful to his friends, while his works reveal the vast range of his interests, from classical literature to the economy, law and politics It was perhaps this vast work which enabled him to exercise a worldwide influence; he was certainly a marvellous organizer, gifted with leadership.
129

- The picture drawn of him by such historians as Daniel Rops as a cold judge who looked primarily to conquer the soul of a crowd or as one of those incorruptible men who committed atrocities in the name of their principles (like Robespierre, Saint Just or Lenin) was certainly false and unjust; he was rather a man who knew how to bring to himself a vast network of disciples and friends and who could count on their unlimited dedication because he followed them and their destinies closely; from his room issued letters to collaborators and friends from as far as Scotland to Poland, Scandinavia to Italy (and this too brings him close to St. Ignatius who form his room near the Church of Santa Maria dellaStrada would write letters to his sons spread all over the world, directly and controlling their activity). - Calvin, however, like all human beings, had his own human limitations and frailties o As a man, a bit unilateral in his views, too attached in considering only one aspect of reality, allowing himself to sideline the Classics and to undervalue the importance of the fine arts (although not of music, but this
130

considered nonetheless only in its religious function, i.e., as a way of drawing religious sentiment) o The same unilateral character brings him to paint a concept of God in which the image of an omnipotent and omniscient Lord, severe judge of humans, absolute arbiter of their destinies, obscures that of the Redeemer Christ o More than personal love for Christ, Calvin underlines the Lord of Glory, to which all belongs and to which everything is referred. o His morality tended towards a severity unusually excessive and almost inhuman, to the point of condemning not only vices but also harmless distractions. o The same rigor he applied to the political field, installing after condemning Roman intolerance a regime totally intolerant, which nevertheless, through a paradoxical turn, after his death would open itself to unexpected developments

131

C. Calvin: His Doctrine

- Calvins merit lies not in his originality but in the organic systematization of the theses of preceding reformers usually disorganized and at best juxtaposed. - Thus, the InstitutioChristianaereligionishas constituted this systematization in the Protestant camp what Thomas Aquinas Summa represented for the Catholic camp - On the Eucharist: oscillating between the Lutheran consubstantiation: and the Zwinglian mere symbol, Calvin presents a nuanced and complex solution o Bread and wine are instruments through which we enter in communion with the substance of Christ, participating really in the benefits of the incarnate God. - The center of the Calvinist system: the doctrine of predestination o God from eternity with a positive act of his will, independently from the prevision of original sin, elects some to eternal happiness and others to eternal damnation o The pessimism of Luther thus reaches an extreme and despairing conclusion
132

o But an improvised and unexpected psychological conversion prevents this pessimism from falling into fatalism and inertia; if our works do not contribute to our salvation, these nevertheless give glory to God, and we have to do them in order to demonstrate to God our respect and to execute his will o Calvin explains well his thought in Institutio, III, ch. XIV, n. 18: The saints, having to found and stabilize their salvation, must fix their eyes on the unique goodness of God, without considering their own works. And not only must they do this before everything else, as the foundation of their beatitude, but considering them also as their fulfilment, they completely consent to it and rest in it. When conscience is thus founded, guided and confirmed, it could also strengthen itself by considering their works: insofar as these are testimonies that God inhabits and reigns in us the Christian soul should not consider the merit of works as a refuge of salvation, but to rest entirely in the gratuitous promise of justification
133

Nonetheless we do not prohibit humans to sustain themselves and to take comfort from all the signs of the benediction of God [] the good works that (God) has given us should serve to demonstrate that the spirit of adoption has been given to us o This Calvinist doctrine, which can be harmonized with Catholic doctrine, would however undergo an evolution post-Calvin, a degeneration in contrast with the origins: the reformers put the accent on the soul abandoning itself in God, on the theology of the cross; after Calvin, due to a complex of reasons not traceable here, a certain vulgar Calvinism would end at considering external success and material wealth as indexes or signs of divine blessing and of predestination o to salvation o Thus, distinction between Calvin and Calvinism on this point: Calvinism, distancing itself from Calvin in a perspective more typical of the Old Testament rather than the New, sure of divine help also in matters of business, is impeded to confront with courage the inevitable risks of
134

commerce: dynamism and proselytism become proper characteristics of the new religion o If the dignity of labor is upheld in this way, in opposition to the mentality then common, there is opened nonetheless the way to depreciating the poor, who, in the light of the doctrine of the election and divine protection of the elect, now appear as an accursed people, rejected by the Lord also in this life - On the Church: o The Church does not have temporal power; nevertheless civil authority must not only respect the Church but must really contribute to the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth, punishing the evil-doers and rewarding the good, according to the design of the Church o The state thus is reduced to the status of an instrument of the Church and in clear contrast with the modern tendency to autonomy and distinction of the two camps, thus returning to a concept of full theocracy. o If Luther recognized the right of the state to reform the Church, Calvin attributes to the
135

Church the right to impose on the state her own moral principles, her own laws and her own organization

D. Calvin in Geneva: Realization of Calvinist Doctrine

- Geneva: free city-state but part of the German Empire - Had defended successful its independence from the dukes of Savoy and the bishops, who would have extended their power and influence over the city as willing instruments of the Savoy nobility - Economically favoured by its location in the crossroad of lines of communication, the city enjoyed economic prosperity and was therefore less than enthusiastic about the new pastors (i.e., Calvins) austere directives; not lacking therefore were acts of resistance and difficulties put in the way of Calvins reform program for the city. - Nevertheless, the strong personality of the reformer was able to overcome this resistance, not least because of his rigorous method and his willingness to punish his adversaries.
136

- The city would accept 5,000 refugees from other parts, thus increasing its 15,000 population, of which refugees were a firm support for the reform; also, the city was afraid that the defeat of Calvin would mean the victory of the Savoy and duke. - 1541 Calvin was able to introduce his Ecclesiastical Ordinances, which stipulated the setting up of four ecclesiastical offices: 1. The deacons for works of charity 2. The doctors for instruction in the schools 3. The elders for the surveillance on customs and the piety of the people 4. The pastors for predication and the administration of the sacraments o Quick to gain prominence were the elders, for their full authority over the aspects of public and private life and for their assiduous control over the whole city. o Every week, the elders and pastors came together for a consistory, listened to the denunciations, and pronounced judgment; according to the gravity of the offence, fines were inflicted or punishment meted out (imprisonment, excommunication [or the
137

exclusion from the Supper, celebrated four times every year], or the death penalty) - Geneva, pro9ud of its independence (from external enemies), thus lost its liberty: lectures, games, songs, meals, everything was controlled by the elders, and everyone (by love or by force) had to practice the virtues o Thus, many examples of interventions by the elders, rigorous to the point of being ridiculous, which prohibited dances, card games, the reading of romances; they controlled haircuts, luxuries, the frequency of public ceremonies, and burned books like the LAmadigi, a romance o From 1542 to 1546, 70 persons were exiled and 60 condemned to death. Example of MejuielServet (Servite) who in his book Christianismi restitution, published in secret in Vienne in 1553, had denied the dogma of the Trinity and of Original Sin; he had escaped from the prison of Inquisition at Lyon, but had the unfortunate idea that he would find refuge at Geneva, when he was immediately recognized, arrested, and, by
138

the consensus of a large majority, which considered Calvin too moderate, was condemned to death by burning because of his tenacity in holding to his ideas - The Servet case would cause a split in the ranks, with several accusing Calvin of an excessive severity o Calvin would defend himself and his methods in his Declaratioorthodoxaifidei, reminding his readers that, for the honor of God, if it is necessary, one would not hesitate to destroy whole populations and cities o SebastienCastulion would intervene in the controversy with his own work, De haeretics, ansintpersequendi, provoking in his turn an acrimonious reply from one of Calvins most faithful disciples, Theodore de Bize (TeodoroBeza) - But it must be said, tolerance was hardly practiced in the 1500s, not by the Catholics, not by the Protestants - The ideas of Erasmus, of several humanists, the behaviour of the Polish authority and of the German duchy of Clive on the Rhine all this was an exception to the rule.
139

- Geneva was considered special; it remained and had to remain the citadel of reform, to which those who in every part of Europe abandoned Catholicism could seek refuge, and where pastors were trained (in the theological academy run by Beza) and from which they were sent out to propose the new religion in various countries (1,500 young pastors educated in the academy) - Given this atmosphere of war, one could understand if not justify, the intolerance of Calvin and his supporters

VI. The Reform in England

A. The General Situation in England at the Beginning of the 16thCentury
- The break with Rome consummated in 1534 was not due exclusively to the passions and initiatives of Henry VIII but was the last act of a long process from the end of the 14th century - England in the 1400s and the first decades of the 1500s presented two opposed aspects: o First, a sincere and vibrant popular devotion, which assisted with frequency and full
140

participation at religious ceremonies, an intimate faith, a fervent religious observance in the numerous convents, particularly among the Carthusians and the Franciscans, the development of a truly Christian humanism of which Thomas More was the most if not the unique splendour, a copiousascetic and devotional literature o Second, and in an opposed sense, not lacking were abuses on the part of the clergy, even if less serious than those in Germany and Italy not to be undervalued were the remains of Lollardism (i.e., the doctrine taught by the disciples of Wycliffe who preached for England while professing full poverty and rejecting the hierarchy) The common people, though still nurturing respect for the religious who were truly poor, were losing respect more and more for the clergy and the hierarchy in general, due mainly to the fiscalism of their courts and to the ignorance of many priests.

141

 Thus in the years spanning the 15th and 16th centuries, a growing anti-Roman feeling for various reasons. In any case, the spirit of independence was certainly on the rise on the part of the English, probably as a reflection of the general political atmosphere. - The live aspirations for the formation of an autonomous Church is that which is the religious aspect of the political tendencies of the time, which would push England to follow a line directly opposed to that practiced in the Middle Ages, renouncing every territorial expansion on the continent and searching for its own destiny outside of Europe in colonial expansion and commerce. - Thus, to the isolation of the island vis--vis the continent in politico-economic terms, there corresponded the isolation of the English Church form Rome on the religious level. - The religious change, which was maturing slowly for these reasons, would be completed in four stages: Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary the Catholic, and Elizabeth I.
142

B. Henry VIII (1509-1547)

- 1509: Henry VIII of the House of Tudor married Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand, the Catholic king of Spain, and aunt of Charles V, Emperor (Carlos I, king of Spain) o Catherine had previously married Arthur, brother of Henry VIII; after the death of his brother, Henry, after gaining a dispensation from the impediment of affinity, married Catherine - 1527: Henry taken in very much by Anne Boleyn tried to procure a declaration of nullity re: his marriage to Catherine; another reason: Henry wanted a male heir, whom he could no longer expect from Catherine and expected to have from Anne o Henrys reasoning: based on Old Testament passages which seemed to prohibit marriages between in laws, but in contradiction with certain other passages which seemed to impose the obligation of marriage o Two phases to his matrimonial process: First period Clement VII, timid and uncertain, not wanting to displease anybody, not the
143

king of England nor the Emperor Charles, nephew of Catherine and practically Lord of the Italian peninsula, would delay the juridical process, thus hoping that Henry would cool his passions and renounce his own request for nullity. But at the same time, the pope gave assurance to the English king of his good cause. Conceded to the English king the dispensation from the impediment of illegitimate affinity, due to the relations he previously had with the sister of Anne Boleyn; this was given for the eventuality that the nullity of marriage between Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII could be demonstrated. Second period In 1529 however, Catherine herself appeals to Rome, so that the cause came to be discussed in Rome. Clement VII would show himself more resolute, perhaps because he was
144

convinced of the validity of Henrys marriage to Catherine or because he was afraid of Charles V informed Henry that, under pain of excommunication, he was to desist from contracting a new marriage until the question of his first marriage (i.e., to Catherine) had been resolved. o Thus, the final crisis 1531: Henry VIII, in a general assembly of the clergy, had himself proclaimed head of the English Church, even if with the clause within the limits permitted by the law of Christ 1532: Thomas More, Chancellor, seeing that his attempts to stop the king were inutile, submits his resignation. Thomas Cranmer, an obscure priest who in January 1533 would officiate at the wedding between Henry and Anne Boleyn, is nominated Primate of England; he declares null and void Henrys marriage to Catherine. Clement excommunicates Henry VIII. Henry VIII responds in 1534 (3 November), a few weeks after the death of Clement VII and the election of Paul III, with his Act of Supremacy
145

which attributes to the king the rights and privileges which the pope had enjoyed over the Church of England before. Paul III renews the excommunication on 30 August 1535. The English Church maintains the traditional faith, but rejects papal primacy as well as several articles of Lutheranism (i.e., under penalty of death, such articles of faith as transubstantiation, ecclesiastical celibacy, communion under a single species, religious vows were to be accepted as part of the belief and practice of the English Church, against therefore Lutheran rejection of these). Catholics and Lutherans would be persecuted. English reform: primarily in ecclesiastical structures o Bishops give in, followed by the lower clergy o But thousands who wanted to remain faithful to the traditional faith would die The success of the English reform due to the great ability of Henry VIII to prepare for it in a gradual manner, without any precipitate action, to the absence of theological clarity (on such fundamental points re: the Church and the
146

papacy), the uncertainty and timidity of Clement VII for many years - Suppression of convents and monasteries and confiscation of their properties and other ecclesiastical goods

C. Edward VI (1546-1553)
- Son of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour; came to occupy the English throne when he was still a young boy; under the tutelage of an uncle; the English Church would pass quickly from schism to heresy - 1549: the Book of Common Prayer published increasing tendency towards a more Protestant theology in such areas as the Eucharist for example, the sacrificial nature of which the book rejects. - 1553: new edition, a more Calvinistic orientation, but the ecclesiastical hierarchy conserved all in 42 articles. - Only in 1571, under Elizabeth, definitive redaction of the Book of Common Prayer, this time in 39 articles

147

D. Mary the Catholic or Bloody Mary (15531558)

- Daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, remained faithful to Catholicism; once upon the throne, desired to restore the Catholic faith, with the support of her cousin Cardinal Reginald Pole - 1554: 20 years after the Act of Supremacy Englands submission to the pope - But Mary highly unpopular her marriage to Philip II of Spain and her zeal to impose the ancient faith thus condemned to death circa 300 persons, certainly proportionately more than those executed under Elizabeth in her some 40 years of rule. - Difficult to distinguish political form religious motives and reasons under Mary - Paul IVs anti-Spanish sentiments did not help; he in fact attracted the ire of the English at the time allied with Spain - Cardinal Pole, then of the papal legation to London, was recalled to Rome to be subjected to a process by the Inquisition (he would die before he could leave England).
148

- Marys attempts: a failure the tendencies of two centuries could no longer be undone

E. Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
- Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; united in her person an extraordinary talent for government and an authentic cynicism in her own private life. - With a secure intuition, she brought England into the highest reaches of political and economic power; the beginnings of industrialization particularly in the area of the textile industry, supremacy on the seas (the destruction of the Spanish Armada), colonial expansion, commercial expansion on a world scale, a strong anti-Spanish policy which offered protection to Spains enemies. - England under Elizabeth would become the champion of the resistance against Catholicism; within the island itself, the Church of England would become decisively more Protestant; under her rule, love of country and loyalty to the reigning dynasty would become fused and inseparable with this united strictly to hostility towards the papacy and Catholicism, to the point
149

that this complex would become part of the essential components of the English soul, at least all the way up to the 19th century o One therefore can understand the explosion of popular anger over the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850, and the anguish of Newman at the moment of his conversion which risked making out of him a traitor. o It was certainly most difficult for the English Catholic of the 16th century to show that their Catholicism did not in any way diminish their loyalty to the crown - 1559: promulgation of a new law, confirming and clarifying the Act of Supremacy of 1534, which recognized the Queen as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and which imposed on all ecclesiastics and civil officials an oath of loyalty to the sovereign o All the bishops, except one, refused to take the oath; but there was widespread acceptance on the part of the lower clergy, a least a third. o Matthew Packer, erstwhile chaplain of Anne Boleyn, promoted to head of the new English
150

hierarchy; consecrated in December of 1559 by a certain William Barlow, who used to be an Augustinian priest and raised to the episcopal dignity by Henry VIII in 1536 and ordained in the first months when England was still Catholic in faith if no longer so in obedience. o Barlow: for many historians, validly consecrated bishop even if illegitimate; the co-consecrating bishops also validly ordained even if illegitimate bishops o Question however re: validity (and not just the legitimacy therefore) of Barlows ordination of Matthew Parker for defect in form of ordination because the ordination rite used was the one published under Edward VI and this rite had struck out the part that spoke of the capacity to offer a sacrifice Attempts to arrive at an understanding would end with the bull ApostoliaeCurae of 1896 where Pope Leo XIII declares: We pronounce and declare that the ordinations received according to the Anglican rite were invalid and are therefore null.
151

 Contemporary attempts, while awaiting the clarification of the quaestiofacti, look towards the future - Elizabeths government two periods: before and after 1570 o Before 1570, Catholics enjoyed a certain tolerance o But, 25 February 1570 Pius excommunicates Elizabeth, deposes her (i.e., frees her subjects from loyalty and obedience to her), in the bull Regnaus in excelsis The pope based his unfortunate judgment on the medieval concept of the power of the pope over temporal sovereigns, determined not by revelation but by concrete historical circumstances o The effect: Totally counterproductive the bull furnished Elizabeth with an easy rationale for considering Catholics as rebels, if not in fact then potentially For acting with a mentality typical of the Middle Ages, without taking into account the changed political situation of the moment, and repeating the error of Boniface VIII who at least merits
152

attenuating considerations for the diverse historical situation in which he found himself, Pius V seriously damaged the English Catholics and their plight. - Other factors which served to make the situation of the English Catholics even more precarious and difficult: o Conspiracies against Elizabeth, with the intention of replacing her on the throne with Mary Stuart o The agitation provoked by St. Bartholomews massacre in France (1572) i.e., French Protestants massacred by French Catholics o Plans to kill Elizabeth, the perverse Jezebel of the North, approved even by such as Cardinal TolomeoGallio, who was then invested with the office which today is exercised by the Secretary of State, when he said that the enterprise was full of merit!!! (under Gregory XIII, 1580) o The war between England and Spain which ended with the famous defeat of the Invincible Spanish Armada in 1588

153

o Condemned to death: 124 priests and 61 lay people; many more were imprisoned in the dungeons of London o Difficult situation of candidates to the priesthood, who could not undergo training in England and had to seek it on the continent 1587: Cardinal Allen founded a college at Douai in Flanders; Gregory XIII would open the English College in Rome After their training and education, English priests were smuggled back into the island where they had to confront unending dangers while hiding their true identity. Cardinal Newman (in his work, Second Spring) would describe the situation of the English Catholic Church with rare efficacy in his introductory discourse at the first Synod of Oscatt near London on the 13th of July 1842. - Other contributing factors to making life difficult for the English Catholics: dissension among themselves, e.g., between the secular clergy and Jesuits
154

o Desperation of some Catholics would push them to hatch what has come to be known as the Gunpowder Plot, designed to kill the king and his parliament in 1605; the conspirators were discovered and executed; the Provincial of the Jesuits, P. Garner, who knew about the plot but could not do anything as the information came to his knowledge under the seal of confession, was implicated and condemned to death. o Under Oliver Cromwell, the reduced state of the Irish would provoke them to revolt, put down harshly by the English, many deported to the U.S., etc Religious liberty denied to the Irish; also they were excluded from the parliament and form every public office; but Ireland would remain Catholic, except for the northern part of Ulster where there were many English and Scottish Protestant migrants Irish Catholics would play a very important role in the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States and in England itself during the renaissance
155

of Catholicism there at the beginning of the 19th century. - England likes to think of herself as standing at the forefront and Avant garde of modern democracy, which is largely true; nevertheless it cannot be dined that England was rather late compared to other countries in insuring religious liberty for all its citizens. o The emancipation of the Irish and English Catholics would come only in 1829, and this not in any complete sense, and this when Protestants in Catholic countries had reached full civil and political equality - Re: the interior life of the Anglican Church: highs and lows, but highs particularly in its AngloCatholic form, e.g., the Caroline divines (i.e., theologians during the reign of Charles I and Charles II of the Stuart family) o In 1739 however, John Wesley would separate from the Anglican Church and found the New Methodist Church, awakening the revivalist trend in Protestant life and spirituality o From 1836-1860 The Oxford Movement new religious impulse given to Anglicanism
156

 But this would also serve as the inviting moment for many Anglican literati to convert to Catholicism, men like Newman and Gerard Manley Hopkins

VII. The Effects of the Protestant Reformation

A. In General: The Religious Division of Europe and Its Effects
- For centuries in Catholic dominated countries: Protestantism seen in an exclusively negative light and made the scapegoat for all the evils of modern and contemporary society. - Thus, Protestantism declared the Father of rationalism, of the Enlightenment, and therefore of the French Revolution and its guillotines, of secularist liberalism of the 1800s which in its own turn would generate socialism, communism, and totalitarianism o A common picture of Protestantism derived from Catholic intransigent circles and publications, e.g., CiviltaCattolica
157

- Thus, was born the mythic genealogy of modern errors, a simplification of a complex process. o When, during Vatican I the Croatian bishop Strossmayer warned the Council Father not to lay the blame about all the errors of Modernity on the feet of Protestantism, he caused a sensation among the 600 bishops present who accused their brother bishop of being a philoprotestant, shouting, Lucifer! Step down from the rostrum! o Only gradually and with much effort would Catholic evaluation of Protestantism find a more objective ground - Certainly, the Protestant Reform has constituted a grave evil for the Catholic Church, causing greater damage to the Church and to the Christian world than the heresies of the 4th to 7th centuries in the life of the early Church and of the medieval heresies, even that of the schism between East and West in 1054. o First, the loss of the numbers of believers and their exodus from the Church; in the middle of the 1500s the population of Europe stood at around 60,000,000; a third, or roughly
158

20,000,000, would pass to the Protestant camp Toward 1550, England, Scandinavia, the Baltic States (with the exception of Lithuania), many German states and a good part of the Low Countries would separate themselves from Rome. Thus, just as Islam had taken away from the Catholic Church all the southern area of the Mediterranean, now Protestantism has taken away the northern countries Even in central Europe and eastern Europe, the new religion had gained many adherents: Switzerland would become Protestant, and there would be Protestant minority populations in Austria, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia France would oscillate between Catholicism and Protestantism for quite a long time, and only at the end of the 16th century would Henry IV make a definitive return to the traditional faith of the country; Calvinism however would have a secure foothold in several parts of France.
159

 Thus, only Portugal, Spain and Italy would remain entirely Catholic. Immediate effect of the religious division of Europe: the religious struggles, some of which were genuine religious wars, in countries such as France, the Low Countries, Germany, Bohemia And not just wars, but massacres and killings for religious reasons in countries like Spain and Italy Thus, for something like a half century, European Christians were killing each other in the name of Christ. But all this put in relief only the quantitative and external aspect of the division; what then about the more profound, intellectual and religious consequences? o Protestantism has contributed greatly to the subordination of the Church to the State, i.e., to the creation of state or national Churches Thus has served to accentuate the phenomenon of nationalism in various
160

countries and the hostility between German and Latin countries Reformed religion presented itself as involved in struggle against Roman centralism, but this has come to mean an even greater dependence on the part of the civil authority of their countries, a move opposite to that of Catholicism which has struggled to liberate itself from civil and state control. In the Middle Ages, the tendency was for the Church to subordinate the State to itself thus UnamSanctam: The spiritual sword must be used by the Church, the material one for the Church. The first by the clergy, the second by the hands of the king or knights, but according to the dictates and directives of the priest. It is indeed necessary that one sword depend on the other, and that the temporal authority be subjected to the spiritual. With Protestantism, inversion of the relationship between the spiritual and temporal authorities
161

 Lutheranism ended up with attributing to the secular authority the jus reformandi of the Church; from this, an easy step to the politico-religious principle cuiusreligio, eius et religio, its most noteworthy, more simple and radical application being that of Anglicanism Calvinism, a more complex situation, but even here, what was aimed at was the compenetration of the religious and secular spheres. The Church of the State, the State Church: this is the authentic creation of Protestantism which, born because of the aspirations to render purer and more interior religion, i.e., the vital contact between God and man, has ended with substituting one hierarchy and dependence for another hierarchy and dependence. - The Roman papacy would exit from these religious conflicts morally renewed, but weakened in its effective prestige and in its real power to govern the entire Church.
162

o In Protestant countries: vehemently denounced and attacked o In Catholic countries: the popes considered to be potential enemies by the governments, and therefore the need to defend themselves from the popes and to secure their independence - On the more concrete and popular front: Protestantism has created around Catholics for centuries (still present today) an atmosphere of distrust, of depreciation, and of prejudices; the cry no popery extended from the pope to all Catholics o In Great Britain: Catholics lived in semihidden fashion, in condition of being pariahs, till the 1800s o In Germanys Protestant states (Prussia, Saxony, Hannover), Catholics were considered second class citizens, ties to a foreign power, obscurantists and the enemies of progress o Protestantism has contributed greatly to the subordination of the Church to the State, i.e., to the creation of state or national Churches o More in the Scandinavian countries; but even in the United States, in a climate juridically
163

and politically different, during the 1800s, the Catholics (Poles, Lithuanians, Irish, Italians) were looked down for their national traditions and their papism - On the other hand, Catholics would do the same to Protestants and would have the same attitudes or prejudices against them o Thus, Luther was a fraudulent friar, full of avarice, pride; his followers could not have been in good faith; their doctrine was perfidious which brought its adherents to perdition and damnation; they were corrupt and outside of the way to salvation - The incomprehension was therefore reciprocal and mutual.

B. Protestantism and Spiritual Renewal: Pro and Con

- A more important question: Have Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anglicanism constituted an authentic factor in the spiritual renewal of their followers, or involuntarily, but in consequence of their principles or for a historical deviation from these same principals, have they rather weakened their faith or at least their moral life?
164

- Secularist historiography has largely favoured Protestantism - Thus, Germany has become the country of most conscientious bureaucrats and hard workers; the country in which Herr Professor and the policeman are venerated by the citizens; it has also succeeded in preventing the success of Hapsburg centralism in German lands; the state authority has acquired a moral and material force never known before, i.e., superior to times past, and has therefore rendered the State a more efficient institution than the medieval one. - But this is obviously a one-sided assessment; in the area of a renewed efficiency of the state, yes, - but in the area of the life of the individual, the picture is more complex. - The Protestant pastor conserved, it is true, and at least in many rural centers, a real practical importance in the daily event and affairs of their communities. o But because he had become a mere representation of the people and therefore owes whatever power he has to them, the Protestant pastor could operate only from a position of weakness, i.e., with a weakened
165

authority, at least in comparison with the Catholic priest. o Thus, individual confession, which remained one of the cardinal points of all pastoral life and on which preachers and missionaries had insisted and which constituted for the masses of the faithful an efficacious recall to the moral life, a solid help to rise form evil and to return to the Lord, would gradually (i.e., from the end of the 1600s) fall into disuse in the various forms of Protestantism. o Obviously, this was a grave consequence of Luthers theology of the sacraments which for him was merely a sign, not a cause of grace, and of the liberty which he left the faithful to either run to the priest or to directly ask God for forgiveness and pardon. This was fine for a small elite of serious Christians, but for the great majority, this did not help at all in the renewal of the Christian life. - The Eucharist, at least for those Protestants who continued to believe in it (the Lutherans who held the real presence to be true, and some Anglicans), this would become a purely Sunday
166

celebration; it would have been impossible to find in the Netherlands, Germany, and in Great Britain a book like that of St. AlphonsusLiguori, i.e., Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament, or at least a diffused Eucharistic devotion analogous to that practised in Austria - Missionary activity, this would come to Protestantism relatively late, i.e., only towards the end of the 18th century. - In general, one may affirm that Protestantism, insisting on the direct relationship of the Christian to God, and largely rejecting the mediation and the magisterium of the Church hierarchy, and decisively excluding the tradition, has contributed to leaving the individual without any support (= individualism therefore), without any guide, thus without any challenge that was stronger and therefore more efficacious. o Despite the example of excellent exemplars among Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans, particularly pastors, preachers and bishops, certain pessimism was nevertheless prevalent. - One may not undervalue the positive effects reached in various areas by Pietism and
167

Methodism, which had given their followers a solid spiritual formation and a serious education in prayer, so that for example it is not altogether rare to find Protestant families for whom prayer had become part of their daily family life but this constitutes perhaps more the exception rather than the rule, more or less frequent, given the general picture. - We must not discount the positive effects which a Church hierarchy, under the authority of the pope, and the constant presence of the ministerial priesthood, distinct from the general priesthood of the laity, the sacramental practice, the assistance at Mass as a sacrifice and not only as a meal nor the listening to the Word of God, for Catholics everywhere. - The Question: Did European unity finally break with the coming of Protestant Reformation? o Certainly true that the concept of a Europe as a unity which had in common many characteristics wold continue to persist. o But that unity which was profoundly religious and which recognized a truly high moral authority (and for certain aspects also a high political authority) of the pope, i.e.,
168

that which had been called the Republica Christiana, would be gone. o Thus, a Europe which would now be religiously pluralistic o Europe would be divided into various confessional countries; the Church as the transnational space it used to be would be gone or at least restricted. o There was still something like Christian Europe but it was a different Christian Europe than the one that existed before Luther come into the scene - In summary: We have to recognize in the Protestants the existence of partial truths which they have taken to be an adequate synthesis of reality (according to the etymology therefore of the word heresy), a choice of values which the Catholic Church in the 1500s tended to leave in the shadows, and to which the reforms had given pride of place. It is true that the Catholic Church recognized as part of her doctrinal heritage these values, but his does not dispense us from recognizing also that among the elements or goods from the complex of which the same Church is built and vivified, some, indeed many,
169

could be found outside of the visible confines of the Catholic Church (UnitatisRedintegratio, nn. 3-4) - The following Protestant values must be recognized and accepted: 1. The drive towards a purer and more intimate religion, not suffocated by a juridicism of a dubious nature, nor put in danger by an excessive external pomp, and geared towards a vivifying personal relationship with God. 2. The sense of mystery before the omnipotent God, strongly emphasized by Calvin 3. A certain austerity of life, alien to the easy compromises of the century 4. The cult (i.e., worship) and frequent reading of the Scriptures, in measure certainly much more widespread than among Catholics 5. The importance attributed to grace in the Christian life, too often almost forgotten by many Catholics impregnated by a mentality almost semipelagian, a mentality which gives too much weight to the strengths of the human being and to human initiative.

170

6. A more active and more conscious participation in the liturgy, which has developed in a more popular direction. 7. The awareness, certainly greater among Protestants, of the priesthood of the faithful (Christians forming a royal priesthood). 8. The exaltation of the liberty and interiority of conscience which, sooner or later, would conduct the Church to repudiate the use of force in the defense of the truth or its promotion 9. The sense of having social and civic obligations certainly stronger in English and German lands than in the Latin ones 10. The encouragement given to and the increase in historical and positive scholarship - All of these were also to be found among and shared by Catholics. o Thus, personal relationship with God among the mystics, from Catherine of Siena to Rsysbroeck; the defense of the supernatural character of Scripture against the rationalists; the cathedra of exegesis in many Catholic universities; the many Catholic historians (e.g., the Bollandists of Belgium)
171

o But we have to ask ourselves whether the development and deepening of these values were not due to the influence exercised by the Protestants and as a reaction to this influence o In any case, the attitude and mentality required of us by the Church today: to recognize that in all, even those who are in imperfect communion with the Catholic Church, are present elements of the truth and the good which we all have to acknowledge and accept with joy and gratitude

VIII. The Catholic Reform and CounterReformation

A. The Fundamental Problematic: Two Central Questions
Two central problems, distinct but strictly connected, occupy the history of the Church in the 1500s; they may be reassumed in the following way: Catholic reform or counter-reformation?
172

 First of all, we have to ask ourselves two questions: 1. Was the renewal which took place in the Church during the 16th century essentially a reaction to the Protestant revolution, i.e., did it arise from outside, in a heteronomous manner, chronologically after the defection of Martin Luther 2. OR was this renewal the fruit of a tension that was always or already in act in the Church, operating in an internal and spontaneous way, which effectively was beginning to produce the first fruits even before 1517? Second, we have to ask ourselves whether, in the life of the Church in the 2nd half of the 1500s, one can really talk of a renewal, not limited to the external, but affirming itself from within (the intimacy) of consciences, not imposed from above and by the physical force and massive intervention of political authority, but flaming out of a profound interior exigency and animated by an authentic religiosity, not restricted to a disciplinary and doctrinal rigidity, but springing from a spiritual
173

deepening and enrichment, and capable of assimilating the positive elements of the Protestant movement

1. First Half of the 1500s: Reaction to Protestantism or Catholic Reform? To the first question, three answers have been given: a. The Traditional Presentation The traditional presentation: the medieval Church was corrupted by abuses of every type, was languid and moribund, and did not manifest any sigh of renewal; in the general silence, Luthers voice was raised, and only then did the Church wake up In this presentation, the renewal of the Church was a pure reaction to Luthersrevolution, or at least only after 1517 did Catholics finally and fully understand the necessity of a reform in customs and in the institutions of the Church: The Church is indebted to Protestantism for its renewal. b. A Revisionist Reading The revisionist presentation: Other scholars, not satisfied with the traditional explanation, would examine the real conditions then operative in various
174

European countries, discovering in the process noteworthy sighs of ferment and happy initiatives already being enacted at the end of the 1400s and the beginning of the 1500s. Spain under the Catholic kings (los reyescatolicos i.e., under Isabela and Fernando), was already experiencing some kind of reform, under for example the leadership of Cardinal Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros (1436-1517) Germany itself was undergoing an intense spiritual vitality during this period (i.e., before Luther himself, and of which Luther himself was a product and extension). Italy itself witnessed various attempts at the renewal of Church life and discipline. England was undergoing a similar ferment. And France was witness to a growing evangelism, for example in groups surrounding the figure of Le FvredEtaples. Thus, we have a portrait quite different from the traditional one, inciting some to admit the on-thewhole spontaneous character of the Catholic reform, which would have been realized with or without the
175

intervention of Luther. In this position therefore, Catholic reform antedates Luther and is not dependent on him. c. The Contemporary Consensus The contemporary presentation: the revisionist position has been submitted to criticism by drawing attention to the dismal lack of success of Lateran Council V; thus, without the Lutheran revolution, the disordered state of the Church would not have been diminished at all. Huber Jedin however has proposed a more nuanced position. In the history of the 1500s, one can observe two elements:

The positive element:

This is the spontaneous and vital tendency toward reform, acting primarily even if not exclusively in the ecclesial base and which already made its presence felt in the late medieval age

The negative element:

A dialectical counter movement, this element is constituted by the reaction to Protestantism, which proceeded principally from the top and develop under the guidance of the popes and the Roman curia, using
176

methods different from those of the first positive element and turning even to coercive means. Jedin would name the first positive element Catholic Reform and the second negative element CounterReformation. d. In Summary A spontaneous movement for reform existed before Luther within the Catholic Church. However, though certain initiatives for reform were taken, the results proved to be scarce, and this was due primarily to the resistance to religious renewal from the Roman curia, with pope and functionaries unable or unwilling to take seriously into account the gravity of the danger into which the Church had fallen. Nevertheless, the movement for reform would ultimately need both the pressure from below and the push from above. The two elements, positive and negative, are complementary, with the first one providing the charismatic element and the second one the juridical-institutional element. The element of the charismatic: It is the inspiration that God directly plants in the hearts of individuals, is characterized by spontaneity,
177

freshness, and intimate vitality; however it lacks stability, continuity, vast diffusion, and could remain sterile or could produce at best very limited results; it also risks falling into error. The element of the juridical-institutional: It risks alienating itself from the proper tension of religious authenticity, and tends to prevail with the letter rather than with the spirit of reform; it also lacks agility and is not always ready to adapt structures to the exigencies of the moment and of historical timeliness and change. It is however necessary in order to give universal and efficacious durability to individual initiatives coming from below and to incarnate (inculturate) valid and absolute values in a historically valid manner. Thus, they form the enduring pairs in the life of the Church and her renewal: charism and hierarchy, spirit and letter, initiative and obedience, all to be united through a necessary but creative tension. The one cannot be without the other, and a balance must always be aimed at. The Catholic reform, anterior and parallel to the Tridentine reform (i.e., to the reform mandated by the Council of Trent), was more spontaneous and vital
178

(one can think of the founding of many religious institutes e.g., the Society of Jesus and the reforming of others e.g., Carmel under Teresa de Avila and Juan de la Cruz), though perhaps less general and efficacious. The Counter-reformation, beginning with the pontificate of Paul III, in some measure lost that religious priority (thus one can think of the institution of the Holy Inquisition founded in 1542, which is considered by many historians as the true beginning of the counter-reformation), but gained in extension (through the enactment of the decrees of the Council of Trent in various countries).

2. Second Half of the 1500s: Catholic Reform our Counter Reformation? To the second question, different answers have been given by different historians: A. A generally negative evaluation: The Roman popes were at the center, indeed they were the center, of a vast political and diplomatic movement which, with great ability but with scarce religious sense, tried to reconquer the positions that had been
179

lost to Protestantism and to reacquire control over the European states (von Ranke). Other historians (like Martin Philippson and Gatherin) assert that the counter-reformation was the affirmation of two personalities, Ignatius of Loyola and Philip II, who impressed on the Church the shadow of their authoritarian character, in which asceticism was mixed with a certain thirst for domination. Historians in Italy, considering certain special conditions proper to the Italian peninsula, have given in to the temptation to blame the Church and to pin on her the principal responsibility for all the evils then afflicting the peninsula. Thus Benedetto Croce saw the counter-reformation as essentially a movement directed for the defense not of an absolute value but of an institution and therefore necessarily limited to a contingent work. The major responsibility for the extrinsic and legalistic character of the period was laid on the feet of the Jesuits. Marxist historians today continue speak of a post-Tridentine quagmire, of a jesuitical conformism, of the triumph of Spanish custom and mentality in Catholicism In conclusion: the counter-reformation would represent the hispanization of the Church, i.e.,
180

itssimple dogmatic and disciplinary rigidification. This signaled the end of the creative movement and of the autonomy of thought and the beginning of a period of moral and intellectual aridity, a movement in which the political element had the clear prevalence over that of the religious. In effect, there was no other way of reform because, according to this reading, the only true and authentic reform was that initiated by Luther

B. A generally positive evaluation: Diametrically opposed to all the above is the thesis defended by various Catholic scholars, a thesis that underlines the intimate religious vitality of the counter-reformation, springing from the inexhaustible riches of the Church. The positive elements brought out by these scholars (thus Garcia Villoslada), today sometimes denigrated, are the following: A true spiritual and moral reform; the mature fruit of a thousand anterior attempts Also a canonical and disciplinary reform; thus the inquisitorial impetus under the Carafa pope, the
181

prayerful and militant holiness of Pius V, the new and renewed religious orders A scholastic renaissance in theology under Francisco de Vitoria in Salamanca; the vigorous asceticism of Pedro de Alcantara; the Paulinism of Juan de Avila; the writings of Luis de Granada; the Dark Night and the Lamp of Fire of Juan de la Cruz; the battle cry launched by Teresa de Avila in her last Mansions at her own fellow contemplative nuns The missionary impetus among the religious orders The great literary achievements of the 16th century The achievements of the art of Mannerism and the Baroque The musical mysticism of Thomas de Victoria and the polyphony of Palestrina

Given all of these achievements, how is it then possible to speak of the counter-reformation as a movement that was primarily or predominantly political, a movement of hypocrisy and conformism, and of an intellectual aridity? But the problem here is that these Catholic scholars put in sharp relief only the positive aspects of the counter-reformation.
182

The counter-reformation presents in fact movements now juxtaposed, now interconnected:

two

Autonomous development of renewal Reaction against the Protestant reformation, with a prevailingly negative and defensive intent and means Artistically, these two movements have been given expression, without meaning to, by two sets of statues to be found flanking the statue and altar of St. Ignatius in the Church of the Ges in Rome: On one side: one woman to whom kings genuflect and render homage On the other side: another woman, now flagellating two men, Luther and Calvin, explicitly named, who vainly try to escape and to defend themselves

Two sides of the coin therefore: Missionary expansion BUT ALSO repression of heresy
183

Vigorous, dynamic and conquering faith BUT ALSO hard intolerance having recourse to coercion and force In summary: The counter-reformation, through a historically inevitable historical movement, has ended by suffocating not only the errors BUT ALSO the positive fermenting contents not so much of Lutheranism but more so of evangelism and Paulinism, of the Christian humanism of such as Le FvredEtaples and of many others, who would at a later time now be drawn to Jansenism However, one cannot reduce the counter-reformation to a simple correction of abuses, to a reaffirmation of traditional doctrines, to a work of repression and of prevention, to a politico-religious conquest; there was indeed a sincere attempt at religious renewal, usually Christocentric (e.g., the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius), even if insufficiently developed and diffused Finally, it is worthwhile to accentuate two aspects or two ideals of sanctity, certainly of secondary importance but nonetheless significant: John Berchmans and Alfonso Rodriguez.

184

a. Counter Reformation thesis b. Catholic Reform thesis c. Synthesis: Both Counter Reformation and Catholic Reform

B. The Catholic Reform

The attempts at a renewal of the Church which precedes the Protestant Reformation and which then develops in a parallel fashion to it, but with its own proper methods and its own spirit, could be reduced schematically to the following: 1. Various Lay Associations These usually proposed two goals: Works of charity toward the poor and the sick Devotional practices connected with Eucharistic piety Various examples all through out Italy, e.g., the Company of Divine Love in Genoa, similar initiatives in Milano, Brescia, Venezia, Vicenza, Roma, Napoli These works of charity, e.g., the setting up or renewal of hospitals for the poor and infirm, responded to the needs of the time with its pestilences and other natural calamities (like the plague of 1495-1496)
185

The members of these associations engaged in monthly confession and received communion at least four times a year. These associations were basically lay, but with strong support from bishops and cardinals, some of whom would in their turn found religious institutes -- thus Gaetano Thiene and Carafa (the latter would become pope later). There was also the example of MatteoGiberti, bishop of Verona, whose pastoral work would serve as a model for the Fathers of the Council of Trent as it tried to trace the lines of ecclesiastical reform 2. Reform of the Ancient Religious Orders During this period we witness the multiplication of cases of a more faithful and rigorous observance of rules (e.g., perfect common life, the observance of poverty, cloister, penitence and work) Two examples among the religious orders: a) Religious orders with non-centralized regimes (e.g., the Benedictines, Augustinian canons regular, etc.), with new congregations and communities founded with a stricter observance of the rules

186

b) Religious orders with highly centralized governments (the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Augustinians, etc.), with the rise of observant convents, which then were united into reformed congregations. These would remain under the rule of the General of the order, but usually under vicars and with a clear tendency toward full autonomy. This phenomenon would be visible in Italy, France, Spain, the Low Countries, and Germany among the Benedictines, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians. The Franciscans would do the same under the influence of three santi and one beati: Bernardino da Siena, Giovanni da Capistrano, GiacomodellaMarca, and Alberto da Sarteano these would give impetus to the creation of the Observant Friars Minor. The same phenomenon may be observed among the women congregations: the application in full vigor of the primitive rule of St. Clare (Santa Chiara). This in fact would also be true in the case of Martin Luther. He belonged to a reform Augustinian convent. He was at some point in Rome in order to find a solution to his reformed congregations relations with the Augustinian religious order
187

And of course, the most well-known among the attempts to reform established religious orders were those of Teresa de Avila and Juan de la Cruz of the Carmelite reform 3. Birth of New Religious Institutes To be noted in this regard are the following points: a) Some of the orders were the result of a logical development of the lay associations and confraternities b) The genesis of these institutes was slow, their initial stages taking place toward the end of the 1400s or the beginning of the 1500s, with papal approbation coming later c) Many of these institutes arose independently of the Lutheran reform, e.g., the Society of Jesus 4. Reforming Work of Bishops in Their Dioceses We find many examples of bishops convoking synods, promoting preaching, and involved in improving the formation of clergy A fine example, in the middle of the 1400s, would be Nicholas of Kues (or Cusa), bishop of Bressanone (Brixen?), who extended his pastoral activity to other parts of Europe as papal legate, visiting monasteries,
188

presiding over synods, and promoting reform, from Bavaria to Holland. In Spain: we have three names: The great Cardinal, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza The first archbishop of Granada, Fernando Mendoza Talavera And finally: Cardinal Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, the Archbishop of Toledo The Spanish case: characterized by a strict collaboration between the bishops of the Church and the Spanish kings: Nomination of zealous candidates to the episcopate Obligation of residence (the Spanish bishops would be particularly strong in their promotion and support of this reform measure during the Council of Trent) Limitation of the privileges and exemptions of the religious clergy (thus greater Episcopal oversight) Ximenes de Cisneros also founded the University of Alcala, took care of the edition of the Complutense Bible and the translation of The Imitation of Christ

189

5. Program of the Christian Humanists The Christian humanists inculcated the need to study Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers in order to renew a scholasticism that was then too attached to formalism, through a return to the sources and the study of languages (Contarini and Cervini in Italy, Pole in England, with Erasmus of Rotterdam as the foremost example) 6. Circles of Catholics Evangelism There was a general desire for purer forms of worship and a more intimate kind of religion (again: the great examples would be Erasmus in Germany, Le FvredEtaples in France; also Guillaume Brionnet, Bishop of Meaux), all drawing inspiration from the devotiomoderna (of which the Imitation of Christ was the most popular expression) 7. Roman Initiatives: Curia and Popes This constituted the weakest part of the whole of the Catholic reform It lacked a genuine and profound knowledge of the necessity for Church reform What prevailed was the fear that various requests for reform from various ecclesiastics could arrive at a new
190

reaffirmation of the Conciliarist theory -- thus the example of Lateran V: The council was convoked by Julius II (1503-1513), not to respond to the universal hope for a reformatio in capite et membris (reform in head and members, i.e., of the whole Church) but to counter and reduce in importance the initiative of Louis XII, King of France, then engaged in war against the pope; Louis XII had opened at Pisa in 1511 an assembly which aimed to constitute itself an ecumenical council. The Council of Lateran V, which opened in May 1512, continued after the death of Julius II under the pontificate of Leo X and closed in March 1517. In the opening discourse of Egidio da Viterbo (the Superior of Martin Luther, and successor to Egidio Romano or Colonna, the inspirer of UnamSanctam!), he criticized openly enough the warlike policies of Julius II and underlined without reticence and without ambiguity the dramatic urgency of Church reform Two Camaldolese monks would be even stronger in their calls for reform under Leo X (1513-1521): Paolo Giustiniani and PietroQuerini, in their LibellusadLeonem (1513), which called for the purification of the pontificate in its politics, the end of
191

curial fiscalism, the renunciation of the pretext of the Holy See to resolve all problems by itself, the reform of the religious, the selection of good candidates for the clergy, the careful choice of bishops, the translation of the Bible, the rendering of the liturgy in the popular languages, the periodic convocation of councils and synods This manifesto, certainly more audacious than the 95 theses of Luther (!), would however remain a dead letter Lateran V would succeed in neutralizing the pseudocouncil meeting at Pisa and would indeed undertake several measures of reform in the nomination of bishops and on the preventive censorship of the press, but the reform decrees against the abuses accentuated by the two Camaldolese monks contained so many exceptions and conditions as to evacuate them of every practical significance. Thus permitted still in various cases was the accumulation of benefices, and nothing was done against the current fiscalism Lacking was a real, profound and constant conviction on the part especially of the popes in this pre-Luther
192

period for genuine, deep and far-reaching reform of the Church in both its head and members Thus after Lateran V, after the publication of the bull of reform, read in the ninth session of the Council, and contemporaneous with the permission granted to Albert of Brandenburg to obtain the government of three dioceses and to receive their revenues, under the condition of the payment of a huge tax to Rome through the preaching of indulgences, nothing would be achieved. Lateran V was closed on 16 March 1517. Luther would send his theses on indulgences on 31 October 1517 seven months after the closure of the inutile Council of Lateran V

C. The Popes of the 1500s

The Popes of this period demonstrate strong enough personalities, superior to that of the many of their successors in the 1600s and 1700s: indomitable energy, administrative sagacity, and great patronage. Nevertheless, up to 1534, the popes were weak in confronting the need to reform the Church; their interests were focused somewhere else.
193

In the 2nd half of the 1500s however, we see popes showing themselves aware of their mission: Pius V: an authentic saint Gregory XIII: a benefactor of ecclesiastical studies (the Pontifical Gregorian University, originally and otherwise known as the Collegio Romano, would be named after him) Sixtus V: demonstrated the temperament of a statesman Between the two halves: Paul III was a live synthesis of the contradictions of the epoch, who closes the series of worldly and renaissance popes and opens that of the popes of the counter-reformation, being the first pope to take this under his direction. The first half of the 1500s: Alexander VI (1492-1503) regnavaunavoltaVenere Julius II (1503-1513) Leo X (1513-1521) scettroPalladeAtena. poi marted oraregge lo

Then Adrian VI (1522-1523), the last non-Italian pope before John Paul II: austere, severe, understood in full
194

the exigencies of reform and desired to achieve it through a firm policy of religious measures Clement VII (1523-1534) was however uncertain, vacillating, easily excited; he lacked the necessary courage to pursue the urgent reforms Finally, Alessandro Farnese came to the papal throne and took the name of Paul III; he ruled for 15 crucial years. He was the brother of Giulia la Bella (rumored to have been the lover of Pope Alexander VI. He was promoted to the cardinalate at the young age of 25 years old. He himself had four sons and daughters. After becoming pope, a character defect would show in his inability to withstand the temptation of nepotism; thus he raised to the cardinalate two nephews, aged 15 and 16 years old. He also ceded Parma and Piacenza as feudal territories to his favorite son, Pierluigi. Despite these character flaws, he was however committed to Church reform. He convoked the Council of Trent, renewed the College of Cardinals, approved new religious institutes, founded the Roman Inquisition in 1542 which had a universal jurisdiction in the repression of heresy Perhaps the most significant change came with the renewal of the College of Cardinals.
195

There were certainly good cardinals before the 1500s: Capranica, Cajetan, Nicholas of Kues (Cusa), etc. But Paul III created new cardinals known for their sterling qualities: of the following eight, seven took part in the Council of Trent: Giovanni PietroCarafa (Paul IV), co-founder of the Theatines Marcello Cervini (Marcellus II) Giovanni del Monte (Julius III) Reginald Pole, cousin of Mary the Catholic Otto Truchsess Giovanni Morone GaspareContarini John Fisher, Archbishop of Rochester, martyr.

D. Renewal of Religious Life

Because of the great interest in this topic, it is opportune to trace here a rapid synthesis that will take us beyond the chronological limits of the Catholic Reform and the Counter-Reformation.

196

1. Genesis and Development of Religious Life The genesis and development of the religious orders clearly show two elements: a. Two Elements: Charism and Institution Charism: the free inspiration of God, independent of every law and every human mediation Juridical constitution: necessary or at least useful in order to distinguish true from false charism and to assure its stability In the course of centuries, religious life has assumed various new forms; thus do we assist at the periodic births of new forces in the history of religious life, each of which responds to a new exigency of the historical moment In a first phase, usually rapid, of development, growth and diffusion, there usually follows a phase of consolidation, and then sometimes of decadence due to the passing away of the original or special circumstances that surrounded the birth of the religious institute itself Though the ideal of individual personal perfection remains, a shift nevertheless usually takes place toward a greater attention to the apostolate
197

b. The Medieval Period Three Forms of Religious Life: 1) the monastic communities; 2) canons regular; 3) mendicant friars In the middle ages, we find the birth and development of three forms of religious life: 1. The monastic communities 2. The religious canons (canons regular) 3. The mendicant friars

The Monks: almost all, except the Carthusians, followed the rule of St. Benedict, but adapted in the new Benedictine reforms of the Cluniacs, the Camaldolese, the Vallambrosians, the Cistercians, the Florentines, the Silvestrinians, all the way to the Trappists or reformed Cistercians, distinguished for their individual even if not for their collective poverty, for their stability, the absolute preponderance given to a life of prayer, particularly to the choir, while leaving the pastoral care of people to their free time and as long as this was not incompatible with monastic life. The Canons Regular: these aimed to fill the needs of the parishes that were in crisis in the 11th century because of the deficiencies of the diocesan
198

clergy. They were usually priests incardinated in a diocese (thus they were canons), but who practiced the common life and professed the religious vows, primarily according to the rule of St. Augustine (thus, they were also religious). Examples of canons regular are those of the Lateran in Rome (from the 2nd half of the 11th century) and the Premonstratensians (founded by St. Norbert in the 12th century). The Mendicant Friars: these began to appear in the beginning of the 1200s (13th century). They were characterized not only by individual poverty but also collective poverty. They also gave importance to the pastoral care of souls, particularly through preaching. Unlike the monks, they demonstrated a readiness to move to other places according to necessity and the demands of the apostolate. They were also characterized by a highly centralized institutional administration and government structure, differing therefore from the highly autonomous structure of monastic congregations. It could be said that monastic life was in general tied to the feudal structures of medieval society, while the mendicant orders had their life-setting in the rise of cities, towns and
199

villages. The Dominicans, Franciscans, Servites, Augustinians, Carmelites, Mercedarians, Trinitarians were the primary examples of this form of religious life. In the 1300s, there were 8,000 Dominicans, 5,000 Franciscans, and 3,000 Augustinians 2. The 1500s: New Religious Orders a. General Considerations The new religious orders, in a manner more decisive than that of the mendicant orders and in conformity with the new spirit of the modern age, more dynamic and restless, would distance themselves from the forms of monastic life in order to engage in the apostolate much more easily. Thus They did not wear the monastic garb Others limited themselves to the recitation of the Office in private They dedicated themselves to the education of the young, to preaching, to the administration of the sacraments More than in the mendicant orders, the administrative and government structures of the new religious orders
200

were even more centralized, with the traditional structure of chapters falling into disuse The name of the members of these new religious orders: Clerics Regular, i.e., religious priests, priests dedicated to the apostolate in its various forms. In effect, religious life itself would become a means to greater efficiency in the apostolate. Note the analogical movement and circumstances surrounding the foundation of the following religious orders: In the 13th century: Innocent III approved the Franciscans and Dominicans In the 16th century: Paul III approved the Society of Jesus Almost all the religious orders of clerics regular appeared in the 16th century: Theatines: 1524 Barnabites: 1533 Jesuits: 1540 Somaschans: 1540 Camillians: 1582 Marianists: 1595 Scolopians: 1617

201

Many difficulties were encountered by the new religious orders in this movement of change in religious life. For example, the choir was thought to be essential to the religious life, and the Jesuits for a time had to bow to the verbal wishes of Paul IV (the Carafa pope) that recitation of the Office in choir be imposed on them. Another innovation brought about by the new religious orders was the introduction of simple vows. In the 17th century, other religious orders of the same type would appear: the Redemptorists, the Passionists, etc. b. Women and the Religious Life Because of many and persistent prejudices, the evolution of religious life for women would suffer delays and setbacks, particularly in the areas of solemn vows and of cloister (which allowed women to leave the convent only in cases of fire, leprosy and epidemics or plagues!!!). Thus, Pius V, in Circa pastoralis (1566), imposed on all womens congregations the double requirement of solemn vows and cloister, thus rendering impossible every immediate apostolate of religious women outside of their convents and houses, i.e., outside the cloister,
202

and pushing women to make a decision between two choices: EITHER 1) to save religious life, renouncing all active apostolic work, OR 2) to consecrate themselves to the apostolate, renouncing religious life in the process St. Francis de Sales would be forced to adopt the first solution for the congregation of women he founded, the Visitation Sisters. St. Vincent de Paul would opt for the second solution for the congregation of women attached to his name, the Daughters of Charity who, even today, do not form a religious institute in the juridical sense of the word (they do not have perpetual vows but must renew their vows periodically) There is the example of the Ursuline Sisters. Founded by St. Angela Merici towards the end of her life (1535), they were approved in 1544 after her death. This congregation for women was an absolute novelty; the task of each sister was to live her consecration to God while remaining in her family (thus anticipating by four centuries what we now call the secular institutes). However, her group would end up divided into three:
203

1) The Society of St. Ursula, Daughters of Angela Merici, which would remain faithful to the original inspiration of the foundress, but which would end up today as a secular institute 2) The Ursulines gathered by St. Charles Borromeo would adopt the common life 3) And a third group in France, adopting strict cloister, thus becoming nuns Then there is the attempt of Mary Ward (1585-1645) to relate in strict unity religious life and apostolic work, similar to what St. Ignatius had achieved for the Jesuits and modeled on his Society of Jesus; her efforts would end in utter failure. After the initial tolerance and acceptance by Church authorities, her open house in Rome would be closed in 1625. Five years after, the religious institute itself would be suppressed, with Mary Ward herself being arrested and imprisoned for heresy and schism, until Urban VIII himself finally ordered her release. Only in 1749 would her institute finally gain official recognition
204

The juridical situation of religious institutes for women would remain, strictly speaking, unchanged until the end of the 19th century (1800s). Only the nuns of strict enclosure or cloister were considered up to that time as true religious Only a slow development would lead to the official recognition of sisters engaged in active apostolic work as true religious, after the de facto situation in which many women religious found themselves Before this, the clausulasalutaris which approved the existence of women congregations excluded any formal recognition of the religious character of women religious institutes, limiting their members to a determinate kind of life usually expressed in their constitutions c. Evolution of the Franciscans: the Capuchins The whole history of the Franciscan Order is one long and continuous struggle between on the one hand the heroic aspirations for the complete realization of the idea/ideal of poverty resulting from the life and rule of St. Francis of Assisi and on the other the inevitable and necessary adaptations for the incarnation, diffusion and stability of this idea/ideal. After the death of Francis, three tendencies emerged:
205

1) The rigorists, among whom were the early companions of St. Francis, e.g., the friars Leone and Cesario da Spira (i.e., the Spirituals, who would plunge the Order into controversy) 2) The laxists or those who opted for a mitigated observance of the rule of St. Francis, with the friar Elia, who expanded the rule and constructed the Basilica of Assisi, splendid exaltation of the founder but at the same time a certain alienation from the primitive ideal of poverty 3) The moderates, like Antonio di Padova and Bonaventura... The controversies centered on the following issues: the observance of poverty and the necessity of studies and scientific formation (considered useless by the rigorists). The popes would be constrained to intervene several times, adopting, according to the character of each pope, an oscillating line: Nicholas III in 1279, in Exiit qui seminat, would confirm the Franciscan ideal, reminding its readers that Christ and his apostles did not own property, and inculcating in the Franciscans of his day the
206

observance of a concrete poverty not tainted by abuses. At the same time however, in order to meet the concrete exigencies of every day life, the pope substantially confirmed the figure of the nuncius (or spiritual friend), which saved the letter of the rule while it rendered possible acts of property (thus the friars were not to purchase anything but were to inform their spiritual friend of their needs). This was an attempt to reconcile the principles of Franciscan life and its reality Clement V in 1312, with the bull Exivi de Paradiso, would put limits to the recourse to the spiritual friend and would impose a more literal observance of the rule. John XXII, irritated by the lack of discipline on the part of the rigorists, would drastically intervene in the affairs of the Order, and, instead of suppressing the abuses, would opt for an enlargement of the rule. Mixed in with the controversy on poverty would be political conflicts. A faction of Franciscans would throw their support behind Ludwig of Bavaria against John XXII, and the General of the Order, Michele da Cesena, would be excommunicated.
207

The tempest would take a long time to die down, but the division would be heightened, giving rise to two distinct branches of the Order: the Conventuals and the Observant Friars Minor, with the latter more faithful to the primitive ideal. In the 1400s, the Observant Friars Minor obtained their own vicar general. The definitive separation of the two branches took place in 1517, with Leo X and his bull Iteetvos in vineammeam; it is calculated that, at this time, the Observant Friars probably numbered 30,000, and the Conventuals another 30,000 The Observant Friars Minor seemed to have won a clear victory in their desire to live the Franciscan ideal as faithfully and as close to the letter of the rule of St. Francis as possible But, through time, a weakening and a relaxation of the rule took place, thus seemingly making necessary a new reform in order to save the Franciscan ideal. It was thus that in 1525, Matteo da Bascio, a friar minor, left his convent of Montefalcone in the Marche in disguise, arriving in Rome and obtaining from Clement VII the permission to observe to the letter the
208

rule of St. Francis, to put on a new habit, similar to that which St. Francis himself had worn, and to preach. This angered the friars minor, who succeeded in having Matteo arrested and incarcerated; the latter however was freed through the intervention of CaterinaCybo, wife of the Duke of Camerino and niece of Clement VII. From another convent, two other Franciscans fled: Ludovico da Frossombrone and a companion imitated the example of Matteo and they also obtained the same permission and faculties. After more incidents and controversies, Clement VII juridically recognized in 1528 the new family as an autonomous branch of the Franciscan Order, ruled by a superior with the powers of a Provincial, under the protection of the Conventual branch of the Order (!); in order to practice a more rigid observance, the Capuchins now invoked the protection of that branch of the Franciscan family which practiced a more mitigated austerity of life! In 1529, the Capuchins celebrated their first chapter in Albacina, the Marche. Matteo resigned his office and was succeeded by Ludovico da Frossombrone.
209

In 1534, the Observant Friars Minor succeeded in getting Clement VII to use an edict suppressing the Capuchins; but a popular outcry ensued and the Pope relented. However, he also decreed that no member of one branch could pass to the other. In 1639, the Capuchins finally achieved complete independence by cutting every juridical tie to the Conventuals. Initially, they lived an almost eremitical life, but one in which work and assistance to the sick occupied a place of primary importance. Studies however occupied a rather limited place in their formation. Their poor and austere life, their care, very often heroic, toward the sick and the poor, their preaching founded on the Gospel, expressed in simple from and adapted to the popular classes, far from the excesses of an out of place erudition, and severe in their denunciations of vice and scandals, but ready to defend the poor oppressed by the powerful, all of this would enable them to earn the love and favor of the people d. Carmelite Reform The struggle between the conservative and reformist Carmelites in Spain would give rise to one of the most
210

vivacious movements of spirituality in the Church, the mystical school of Teresa de Avila and Juan de la Cruz, and a flourishing theological movement which would exercise a great influence in Europe from its center in Salamanca. Teresa de Cepeda became a Carmelite in 1536 in the Carmel of the Incarnation in Avila. After almost 30 years of religious life, she felt the inspiration to found a new monastery where the rule approved by Innocent IV in the 1200s could be practiced without any mitigation, i.e., in full poverty and austerity of life. The Teresian reform consisted not so much in a reform in the sense neither of a reaction against abuses nor of a return to the origins, but in the affirmation of an ideal of religious, eremitical and contemplative life that was largely original and in open dissension with the prevailing tendencies of the calzati. With the initial support of the Provincial of the Carmelites, and having overcome the difficulties put in her way by the nuns and the civil authorities who were hostile to the opening of new religious houses, Teresa opened in 1562 the first reformed monastery in Avila itself.
211

In 1566, the General of the Carmelites, P. Rubeo (or P. Giovanni Rossi di Ravenna), visiting the houses of the Order in Spain, encouraged Teresa to open new houses and to found at least two houses for the male branch of the Carmelite Order. Teresa then met Juan de la Cruz, convert him to her vision and cause, and Juan would open in 1568 the first convent of the male Discalced Carmelites. Subsequent problems, difficulties and controversies did not succeed in derailing the project of reform. In 1593, Clement VIII allowed the Discalced Carmelites to have their own General Superior. e. The Oratorians FilippoNeri, several years after 1550, moved not so much by personal inclination but by the encouragement of his disciples, agreed to gather around himself in commonality of life a small group of priests and lay people, bound together by ties of fraternal charity. Later, Gregory XIII gave the Oratory, as the Philippian foundation was then called, the structure of a congregation, but this conserved a noteworthy elasticity, and still today is entered in the category of societies living in common without vows.
212

The Oratory became diffused in France, receiving new impulse from Berulle. In the 1800s, the Oratory would count among its members the most significant representatives of the Catholic Reawakening in England: Faber and Henry Newman f. The Society of Jesus A. St. Ignatius of Loyola was born in 1491 at Loyola, Azpeitia, in Pais Vasco, the Basque territory. He passed his young life as a page of the royal court and became noted not so much for his military skills but for his diplomatic tact. In 1521, he was wounded in the leg during the siege of Pamplona by French forces. He was brought back to the family manor to recuperate. There, with nothing much to do, he asked for romances to read, but was given instead the lives of saints. He then underwent a profound conversion and offered himself to the Lord. As a penitent, he went to Montserrat and then to Manresa where he received special divine illuminations. He resolved to go to the Holy Land to pass the rest of his life in the land that knew the earthly presence of the Lord.
213

Constrained to leave Jerusalem by the anxious Franciscans, he returned to Spain and decided to go through the Latin course of studies at his mature age and in the company of young boys in Barcelona. He also found himself in Alcala and Salamanca, sites of prestigious centers of learning in Spain. Because of the cloud of suspicion that hovered over him, he decided to leave Spain for the more salubrious air of Paris academia. There he gathered several friends together who went through the Spiritual Exercises that he had composed. They then vowed themselves to a life of poverty, chastity, and to go to Jerusalem in a chapel in Montmartre. They then left for Italy to wait for a ship to bring them to the Holy Land, but this became impossible due to the outbreak of war. The small band of companions then decided to go to Rome instead, there to put themselves in the service of the pope. In these years before 1540, also due to the example of the Theatines and other religious orders of clerks regular, the idea of founding a religious institute, still uncertain, developed gradually. This idea proposed to do away with observances that were monastic in
214

nature and to totally dedicate religious itself to the apostolate. Ignatius finally arrived at this decision after overcoming two difficulties: 1) The fear of the first companions that the religious vows might constitute an obstacle for the apostolate; 2) The perplexity of the Roman curia with regard to the profound novelties of Ignatiuss project, a project that formed a clear break with the traditional forms of religious life. In 1540, Paul III, through the bull Regiminimilitantis Ecclesiae, approved the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits spread themselves out to engage in apostolic works in various places, from Italy to Germany to India. Ignatius remained in Rome, elected General by his companions, and from his rooms in a building adjoining a church dedicated to Mary, Madonna dellaStrada, he worked to administer the rapidly growing Society, writing his prodigious correspondence (more than 6,000 letters) and drafting and perfecting the Jesuit Constitutions. Ignatius died in 1556. The Society of Jesus at his death counted about 1,000 members, some of whom
215

had reached India and Japan. Ignatius had already founded the Collegio Romano and the CollegioGermanico whose products would render signal service to the Church in Germany, France and Spain. B. The Characteristics of the New Religious Institute: It has been said, not without exaggeration, that the Society of Jesus represented an absolutely new case in the history of religious life. But it is more accurate to affirm that in her the evolution already taking place in the Theatines and other groups of religious priests had reached its ultimate development. Thus this way one is able to see how Ignatius was less original than what might appear at first sight, but nonetheless how he then exercised a great influence on the subsequent historical development of diverse religious institutes. The end for which the Society of Jesus was founded was not only the sanctification of its members; rather, it included the sanctification of the other, of the neighbor, and this on the same level as an equally principal goal of the institute.

216

To the apostolate therefore was dedicated not only that time left over after other duties (usually prayer and liturgical and devotional practices) had been complied with, but the entire life and activity of the Jesuit. Thus, negatively, many traditional elements of the religious life had to be suppressed because they were now considered incompatible with a free and mobile apostolate: choir, distinctive dress, fixed penitential practices, etc. But, positively, the institute created structures well-adapted to its goal: In place of the monastic vow of stability, the religious must now be ready to go anywhere in every part of the world in order to achieve whatever purpose and mission useful to the Church and the sanctification of souls. The counter-weight to this inevitable dispersion of religious was the governing structure of the institute itself, a regime that was monarchical and oligarchic. The supreme authority rested with the general congregation, convoked rarely however (usually, at the death of the General, its first task was to elect his successor). The General Superior was elected for life; chapters, regular or not, were therefore abolished, and the
217

General himself chose almost all superiors. The life term of the General was not an absolute novelty; it was already a feature of Benedictine abbacies, the Carthusians and Dominicans. This appeared to be a dangerous innovation however to the Roman curia, particularly to Paul IV (the Carafa pope) who during his pontificate would abrogate this rule of the Society (but which would be restored almost automatically after his death, for the abrogation was verbal). Jesuit formation was particularly long: two years of novitiate, studies in the faculties of theology up to the attainment of university degrees, something that was quite rare at the time, and then a third year of novitiate (called the tertianship). Solemn profession of the final vows came at the end of many years of study and preparation (which subsequent norms would fix at seventeen years for those who were to complete the entire course of studies in the Society of Jesus), in difference therefore from the ancient orders where solemn final vows came at the end of novitiate, one year after entrance. Grades in the Society of Jesus were another feature: not all the religious had the same rights, the full extent of which was reserved to the professed of four
218

vows (the fourth vow being that of special obedience to the pope in the matter of missions). All kinds of ministries were admitted, except the stable care of the parishes and of women religious. However, after 1548, Ignatius understood the importance of the colleges and directed the institute toward its course, thus admitting a certain restriction to the mobility of his men. Rejected was the idea of a parallel religious order for women, quite common among the older religious orders. Prescribed was a special obedience to the pope; but ecclesiastical dignities were to be refused and avoided as much as possible. In all of this, the Society of Jesus preceded by three centuries what would become common norms in religious life. C. The First Difficulties: The old religious orders and those attracted to the established traditions looked with diffidence on these innovations. Paul IV (the Carafa pope), immediately after the death of Ignatius, ordered the Jesuits to recite the office in
219

choir (but this order, verbally expressed, was rescinded immediately after the death of this pope). Again imposed by Pius V, it was definitively abrogated after his death. Particularly hostile to the new religious institutes were Melchior Cano, the Dominican, and several theologians of the Sorbonne (Paris). Sixtus V wanted to the change the name of the institute, which in his judgment smacked of pride, but he died before his decree could be published. At the end of the 16th century (1500s), during the pontificate of Clement VIII, a small group of Spanish Jesuits, who had a penchant for intrigue, gave rise to gross difficulties and with the help of Philip II, King of Spain, attempted to diminish the authority of the General Superior based in Rome; the opposition, unanimous on the part of the rest of the Society of Jesus, convinced the pope to withdraw his initial adhesion to the idea Within the order itself, two tendencies became noteworthy with regard to the length of prayer required of Jesuits:

220

1) The tendency, essentially supported by the Spanish Jesuits, in part at least until the generalate of Francisco de Borja (second successor of Ignatius, and therefore third General of the Jesuits), which favored a life that was primarily contemplative and therefore with a propensity to prolong the time of prayer prescribed by the Constitutions 2) The tendency, more favorable to the letter of the Constitutions, averse to the extension of the time for prayer The first would have wanted to see the Society of Jesus become a contemplative-active order, close to the ideal of the Carmelites; the second defended the physiognomy that St. Ignatius had given to the order, essentially apostolic, characterized by his desire that Jesuits be contemplative in actione Discussions would continue all the way up to the generalate of Claudio Acquaviva, elected in 1580 at 37 years old. Acquaviva found himself having to deal with the scarce or absence of sympathy for the Jesuits on the part of Sixtus V, the diffidence provoked in Clement VIII by the repeated accusations of the Spanish Jesuits, the threats of the religious of Spain who were bent not only in giving the Society a different
221

orientation but also to limit the powers of the General in Rome and to obtain a special autonomy for the Spanish provinces. In 1593, Acquaviva convoked a general congregation and, by his wish, his government was put under examination. This severe testing would render to Acquaviva and his government due recognition and justice and he would be confirmed in his direction of the Society. In 1608, Acquaviva called another general congregation for similar reasons; he emerged vindicated once again in his office. Thus, Acquaviva saved in this way the apostolic character of the Society of Jesus, despite encountering opposition in some points from the party of Jesuits opposed to him. He did impose one hour of meditation for all members of the Society and prohibited entrance into the order of those Christians with Jewish origins (something which was accepted by the religious orders at the time), even if this was expressly against the spirit of St. Ignatius, as indeed Ribadeneira had informed the members of the general congregation To formulate a judgment on Acquavivasgeneralate, one must keep the following in mind:
222

He succeeded in saving the essential character of the Society, i.e., its preeminently apostolic character. But one must nevertheless question whether certain compromises made did not render the apostolic body of the Society less than what Ignatius had intended it to be. Acquaviva had allowed juridical elements to prevail over charismatic ones, so that the Society in consequence lost some of that free character which Ignatius had designated for the Societys nature and mission. Acquavivasgeneralate, lasting 34 years (from 1581 to 1615) was decisive for the subsequent history of the Jesuits; on the whole, historians have given his term a largely favorable judgment. D. The Activity of the Jesuits: Jesuit apostolic work embraced above all four camps: 1) In the Americas, India, China and Japan, a particular impulse to missionary activity was given by the Jesuits. Their work had become so important in this area of apostolic activity that it would suffer great damage on the occasion of the orders expulsion from Spanish and Portuguese dominions and its papal

223

suppression toward the end of the 18th century (1760s-1773). 2) The secondary education of the youth, in the Europe of the counter-reformation, would take place largely in the colleges of the Jesuits. This education was given for free, thanks to the generous endowments and donations of princes and cities. It was oriented predominantly although not exclusively to the sons of noble families and of the bourgeois class. The method used in Jesuit education: the Ratio studiorumSocietatisIesu (redacted under Acquaviva). The emphasis was placed on the teaching of Latin and Greek, learned as living languages and not according to arid logico-grammatical schemes. Along with the classical languages (and therefore the classic literature in those languages), attention was also given to the mathematical sciences and to philosophy. Little space remained however for the positive disciplines like history and geography, and the national languages were largely ignored This method would be severely criticized later in the 19th and 20th centuries in which the classical languages would give way to the positive disciplines of history and the natural sciences. The Ratio however
224

did have the merit of forming the mind, through a deepening familiarity with the classics and philosophy, with a taste for the aesthetically beautiful and for careful reasoning, all of which were supposed to be imbued with Christian principles. In reality however, the Jesuits did not always succeed in evading a certain abstract formalism. We recall here the criticism of Ren Descartes in his Discourse on Method, which examined the education given at the time and which indirectly affected the schools of the Society of Jesus of which he was an alumnus. In any case, these colleges of the Jesuits (from which came zealous prelates and saints like St. Francis de Sales, but also secularist philosophers and unbelievers like Voltaire) did exercise a profound and tremendous influence in all of Europe and did contribute to the salvation of the Church, especially in Germany. Perhaps more useful still was the work undertaken in the seminaries entrusted to the Jesuits, from the CollegioGermanico to the Seminario Romano, from the 1500s to the eve of the suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773). 3) Then there was the scientific activity of the Jesuits. Faithful to St. Thomas Aquinas, the Jesuits
225

contributed to the renewal of scholasticism, in dogma (Molina), in moral theology (the theory of probabilism), in political philosophy and ethics (Suarez, and Bellarmine, with his doctrine of papal indirect power in the temporal area, whose book was put on the Index by Sixtus V and remained there for several years), critical hagiography (the Bollandistes). When P. Papebroeck denied that Elia the Prophet was the founder of Carmel, his book was also placed on the Index. 4) Finally, the Jesuits also engaged in the pastoral care of souls. Jesuits became renowned for their popular missions, for their preaching to various groups and social classes, both of the nobility and the ordinary, for their spiritual exercises, penitential doctrine, and spiritual direction. Jesuits would also become the favorite or preferred confessors of many princes and rulers. In this activity, the Jesuits intended the formation of Christian elite groups, impregnated with the serious Christian spirit, through prayer and frequent communion. There were three ways favored by the Jesuits in this area of their work: a) spiritual direction

226

b) the gathering of individuals and their being formed into groups the Marian congregations or the Sodalities for example c) courses of the Spiritual Exercises to individuals and groups of lay and priests; this last work was indeed an authentic novelty in the area of apostolic work.

E. Essential Characteristics of the Activity of Jesuits: Common to all the works of the Society in all of these areas: the defense of the human person and of human values. Jesuits were to be found between the extremes of Protestantism and Jansenism, both of which sustained the thesis of the total corruption of human nature. Jesuits therefore were clearly Christian humanists, defenders of the innate goodness and rectitude of human nature, showing a marked even if cautious optimism, defending the responsibility of the human being as the maker of his own destiny. In this sense, one can also understand the legitimate aspirations of a) Molinism, which, being assured of the efficacy of grace, would be preoccupied with explaining in the best possible manner human freedom itself, and of probabilism, which, between rigorism and laxism,
227

desired to leave a certain space to the initiative and choice of the individual We find Jesuit pedagogy itself deeply animated by this same Christian humanist spirit, open to the use of the classics as helpful means in the formation of the youth. In this matter, the Jesuits would have to defend themselves and their methods in the 1800s against those intgristes like Gaume and Veuillot who attempted to abolish from Catholic schools the reading of the classic pagan literature (like the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer and the Aeneid of Virgil). We find this same Christian humanist spirit in Jesuits like Bellarmine and Suarez who were among those who, against the principle of the divine right of kings, would retain that the immediate source of civil authority was to be found in the people And finally we find this same spirit in those Jesuit missionaries who, tenacious defenders of adaptation, and distinguishing between Christianity and European civilization, welcomed whatever was not evidently illicit in the customs and traditions of India, China, and Japan. Thus do we understand their attempts to assimilate the same, not only the language but also the local customs, becoming like the Indians, the
228

Chinese, the Japanese, and therefore showing once again the same fundamental optimism vis a vis the human wherever it was to be found. F. The Accusation against the Jesuits Jesuits would soon be noted as signs of contradiction. Vincenzo Gioberti, who had gathered in five volumes of The Modern Jesuit all the criticisms and the accusations directed against the Society, is only one name in the long list of anti-Jesuit bibliography, which includes famous personages, sometimes great figures of the Church, like Pascal, but also decided anticlericals like J. Michelet and E. Quinet. While dismissing various affirmations that immediately appear to be ridiculous (e.g., that the Jesuits were guilty of the assassination of Henry IV, king of France, or that they had poisoned Clement VIII, or that they taught that the end justifies the means), some made accusations that left one even more perplexed. Some of these accusations were directed not so much against the Society in itself but against approved doctrines recommended even by the Church (such as Molinism and probabilism), and in general against the morals called Jesuitical but which should rather be called the doctrine of St. Alfonso de Liguori. Indeed,
229

the beatification, canonization and proclamation of de Liguori as Doctor of the Church explicitly confirm the doctrine commonly followed by the Jesuits in their pastoral work. It was not by chance that Pius VIII wanted that the decree on the heroism of the virtues of de Liguori be read in the Church of the Ges in Rome Other, more serious accusations however the following: It must be asked whether the Society of Jesus, initially an element that was strongly innovative, had not with time transformed itself into a clearly conservative force, had not defended a certain a certain juridicism, had not at times identified the good of the Church with the victory of a politically conservative regime, absolutist in ideology (primarily during the 1800s, in the struggle between liberal Catholics and intransigent Catholics, in which the Jesuits had more than once given the impression of condemning democracy and of sustaining absolutism with unsheathed swords). Not lacking were excesses in the doctrine of some Jesuit moralists of the 1600s who provoked the ire (just indignation) of Pascal in his Provincial Letters; moved to save whatever was not intrinsically evil,
230

several Jesuit moralists slipped easily from probabilism into casuistry, and from casuistry into laxism, thus ending with the defense of theses wholly incompatible with the true evangelical sense. It is enough to recall here P. Etienne Bauny (15641649), author of Somme des pchs qui se commettent en toustats, de leur conditions et qualits, en quelles occurrences ilssontmortelsouvniels, et en quellefaon le confesseurdoitinterroger son pnitent (Paris, 1630). The book was put on the Index and the author of theses thus condemned by the Church, theses usually identical to those referred to by Pascal, given that they depended on a common source. Even if it is false that laxism was a doctrine common to all Jesuits, and more false that it was a doctrine sustained only by Jesuits, it cannot be denied that this tendency did show a certain affinity with that mentality which sought to save all that was not intrinsically evil, a mentality not immune therefore from dangers. Analogous observations may be made about Jesuit pedagogy, at times too trusting in human means. In a similar way, the vaunted Jesuit asceticism did not always demonstrate the proper balance between
231

nature and grace, inclining sometimes dangerously towards positions close to a certain kind of semipelagianism. Not lacking were uncalled for interferences in political matters, on the part of court confessors or of superiors of the Society, who tended to forget evangelical poverty and humility. It is not altogether clear up to what point the Jesuits, in the question of the Chinese and Malabar rites, had always demonstrated obedience to the decrees of the Holy See, to which the Constitutions of the Society obliged them. This question remains open. Other defects and sins of the Jesuits may be enumerated thus: A certain exclusivism, which frequently provoked conflicts with bishops and with the schools set up by the secular and other religious clergy A kind of formalism in their approach to situations and a certain kind of hypocrisy An intolerance shown by their attacks against doctrines not yet condemned by the Church (thus, in the 1800s, the Jesuits engaged in heated polemics against the Rosminians, or followers of Rosmini, which
232

usually went beyond the limits imposed by charity, perhaps more on the side of the Jesuits than of their adversaries) A triumphalism that we find for example in the work Imago primisaeculiSocietatisIesu, a solemn apologia for the history of the order in its first hundred years of life, understandable only in the baroque cornice of the epoch This complex of reasons had its foundation in the nature itself of the Society of Jesus, in the characteristics of the post-Tridentine Church, in the intrinsic limitations of human nature which always and everywhere unite the good and the bad It would however be unjust and unhistorical to underline only these lacunae and to give a judgment on the work undertaken by the order by taking into account only these negative points. A balanced evaluation cannot prescind from the energetic work undertaken in defense of the Church and of the papacy, both within and without Europe, the reason for which the Society of Jesus had become an integral and strict part of the post-Tridentine Church. The different judgments passed on the order depended at
233

least in part on positions that various historians have taken vis a vis the Catholic Church in general.

E. The Council of Trent

We shall examine three aspects of the Council of Trent: first, its external history; second, the problems discussed and the decrees promulgated; and third, the significance of the Council in the life of the Church. 1. Prolegomena: The External History of the Council Despite the widespread diffusion of a desire to have a council convoked, considered as the unique means of saving the Church, to its convocation were put various obstacles and difficulties, both from the side of the Protestants and of the Catholics. Luther, in 1518, and then again in 1520, had appealed to a council. All the German states, Catholic and Protestant, had appealed to a council at the Diet of Nurnberg in 1522, but it had to be universal, free, Christian, and on German territory. Free, i.e., under the direction of the emperor and the princes, not of the pope
234

Christian, meaning to say, composed also of lay people, and faithful to a unique criterion of faith, the Scriptures Pope Adrian VI was actually open to the idea, but he died before anything definite was worked out; his successor, Clement VII, always vacillating, remained indecisive, for fear of the rebirth of the Conciliarist theory, and put his faith rather on the supposed efficacy of diplomatic and political efforts. Although he did not refuse outright the calls of Emperor Charles V for the convocation of a council, he nevertheless multiplied excuses and pretexts in such a way that the calls went unheeded. It must however be admitted that historical circumstances then did not help to facilitate the convocation of a council, for the following reasons: From 1521 to 1559: the repeated outbreak of various wars (1521-1529, 1536-1538, 1542-1544, 1552-1559) between the Hapsburgs and France, with the latter concerned to secure its own independence and to break the hegemony of Charles V in Europe. In short, given such historical conditions, how does one assure the free transit of bishops, the assembly in a pacific discussion of representatives of the two parties then
235

struggling against each other, and the conciliation of political neutrality of the pope in the wars between the two blocks with the strict union necessary between emperor and pope for the struggle against schism and heresy? The King of France feared that the Emperor might reap a political advantage from the council, if this would succeed in reestablishing once again religious unity among the Germans, and did not therefore demonstrate any enthusiasm for the project itself 2. Attempts to Convoke the Council In 1536, eighteen months after his election, Paul III (the Farnese pope) indicated his desire to convoke the council for the following year (1537) at Mantova But difficulties presented by the Duke of Mantova, who required a strong armed force for the assembly, by the outbreak of a new conflict between Charles V and Francis I, imposed the necessity of choosing a new site for the council, this time in Vicenza, in Venetian territory and therefore neutral, and the postponement of the council to 1538. By 1538 however, the war was still in progress and there were very few bishops who could attend, so that the date of the councils opening was again deferred.
236

A new site for the council was decided, this time Trent in the foothills of the Austrian Alps. It was hoped that this new site would be acceptable to the Emperor and the Protestants for at that time the city was politically a part of Germany (or at least of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation). It was of course true that Trent, because of its location in northern Italy, was more easily accessible to the Italian bishops, less exposed to the danger of excessive Hapsburg interference, and furnished moreover with easy communication with the Pope in Rome, who certainly wanted to exercise effective control over the council. A new date was set: 1542. But another armed conflict make the convocation of the council that year impossible Finally, in September of 1544, an agreement was signed between Charles V and Francis I, even though it was far from stable and was really more of a truce than a peace treaty. Two months after, in November 1544, the papal bull Laetare Jerusalem set the opening of the council for 15 March 1545. The absence of many bishops and other difficulties would however delay the opening of the council once more. This finally took place on the third Sunday of
237

Advent, i.e., 13 December 1545. Present were 25 bishops and 5 generals of the religious orders, a number clearly inferior to the 325 bishops of Nicaea and the 451 bishops of Chalcedon The Various Phases of the Council and its Concerns 3. First Period of the Council: 1545-1547 The Protestants reacted strongly in a negative way to the assembly that they had unceasingly invoked. Luther would publish another work against the papacy and against the council, on the basis more of insults rather than arguments (Against the Roman Papacy founded by the Devil). There were fears that the Protestants would descend from the north and attack Trent. However, more serious were difficulties internal to the running of the council itself: There was for example no real and systematic preparation for the council and its mode of operations, i.e., there were no internal rules and no plan of the tasks, etc. The council really had to begin from zero. It was decided that the way of proceeding of the council was not to be imposed from above but to be arrived at and approved by the council fathers
238

themselves. Also, deliberative votes were recognized for the bishops and for the generals of the religious orders and the monastic congregations. The German bishops were granted the right to send their own representatives in case of their own personal inability to attend, but these representatives could only make their known their decisions known through a consultative vote. The arguments were to be prepared in special congregations, composed by theologians and canonists. The redacted schemas were then to be examined in the general congregations to which were admitted only those who had voting rights. Finally, these schemas were then to be approved and proclaimed in solemn sessions. Discussed long and hard was the following question: which precedence in the deliberations of the council: disciplinary reforms OR dogmatic questions? The Emperor favored the first; the Pope was decided for the second. A compromise was reached when the antagonists agreed that reform and dogma should be dealt with in a parallel and simultaneous fashion, with the aim of producing a correspondence between every dogmatic degree and its disciplinary counterpart. Several council fathers would lobby to have every decree prefaced not only with the words
239

SacrosanctaTridentinasynodus in SpirituSanctolegitimecongregata but with the words added universalemecclesiamrepraesentans. The papal legates who acted as presidents of the council vetoed this request, however, because these words brought to mind the Conciliarist theory of the Councils of Constance and Basel where they were used. The legates would instead add the words oecumenica et generalis. Between 1545 and 1547, the following dogmatic decrees were agreed upon: 1) the decree on Scripture and Tradition 2) the decree on the Canon of Scripture (Old and New Testaments) 3) the decree on the authenticity of the Vulgate 4) the decree on Original Sin 5) the decree on Justification 6) the decree on Sacraments in general 7) the decree on Baptism and Confirmation Also promulgated were the following disciplinary decrees: 1) the decree on preaching
240

2) the decree on the obligation of residence on the part of bishops 3) the decree on the prohibition of the accumulation of benefices On the dogmatic decree on Scripture and Tradition: the Councilaccepts and venerates with equal sense of respect and veneration both Sacred Scripture and Tradition The definitive text on this point would distance itself from the scheme prepared in March 1545; this schema had, in rejecting the principle of sola scriptura of Luther, proposed that divine revelation was contained partly partim in the written books (of the Bible) and partly partim in the traditions not written. The final reduction of the decree simply affirmed that divine revelation was contained in librisscriptis et [in] sine scriptotraditionibus. The disappearance of the adverbs partimpartim, for reasons not only of style but also of conviction, more or less shared, although its significance was not at the time fully appreciated, did not have a purely grammatical value but signified an attenuation, unfortunately in consequence almost forgotten, of the anti-Protestant concept of the two sources
241

For some interpreters, the Scripture contained only a part of revealed truth, not revelation in its wholeness A clear statement of the Catholic position here would come only with Dei Verbum of Vatican II. On original sin, the council taught that this consisted in the sin committed by the first Adam, without specifying the nature of this sin and without awareness of other problems which are properly of our own time (e.g., on the individual or collective nature of this sin). The consequence of this original sin was that Adam lost the holiness and the justice in which he originally found himself created, in which he was created. This consequence or effect of original sin was transmitted to all human beings by generation and was cancelled only through baptism. Remaining in the baptized person was concupiscence, the tendency towards evil, which did not constitute sin itself, but was its consequence and an attraction to evil. On justification, the council insisted on its intrinsic nature, i.e., on the interior, ontological change that grace effects in the human being; the long process which ends in justification, i.e., repentance and all that is connected with it. The council also accepts the
242

possibility of observing all the commandments with divine grace In March 1547 however, the council was transferred to Bologna due to fears of the plague breaking out in Trent itself, but also to the hopes, entertained in particular by the papal legate Cardinal Cervini, of subtracting the council from imperial control and of hastening the work of the council, which had to occupy itself primarily with arriving at solutions regarding the doctrinal points discussed more than with the exigencies of reconciling with the Protestants. In Bologna, new meetings of the theologians were held that prepared the ample material that was going to be used later, but no new decrees were promulgated. Indeed, if anything, in September 1549, the Pope, before the strong opposition demonstrated by the Emperor, suspended the council. Thus, the translation of the council from Trent to Bologna was perhaps an error, because this interrupted the council and its work just at the moment when the Protestants had been defeated by Charles V at Mhlberg (i.e., against the Schmalkaldic League in April of 1547, thus diminishing the possibility/probability of recuperating Germany for the
243

Church (because Bologna was in the Papal States and no Protestant would have wanted to attend the council in Bologna). In any case, the differences between Charles V and Paul III could not be overcome, with the latter becoming more preoccupied with the fortunes of his own family. 4. Second Period of the Council: 1551-1552 Paul III died in 1549; taking his place as the newly elected pope was Giovanni del Monte, who took the name Julius III. He had been one of the three papal legate-presidents of the first phase or period of the council. Julius III was not immune however to the temptation of nepotism. He also loved parties and was not altogether a very zealous promoter of reform. Nevertheless, he did have the courage to re-open the council in November 1550 through a bull. It was thus that the Council of Trent was able to resume its work on 1 May 1551. The council however could meet in solemn session only in September 1551 due to the absence of many bishops. Promulgated were the following dogmatic decrees:
244

1) on the Eucharist 2) on Penance 3) on Extreme Unction

Also promulgated were the following disciplinary decrees: 1) on Episcopal Authority 2) on the customs of the Clergy 3) on the collation of benefices In October 1551, the delegates of the three Protestant princes and six Protestant cities arrived in Trent. Hopes for a fruitful dialogue immediately vanished however when these Protestant delegates refused to meet any of the papal legates and when they made demands that would have transformed the council and produced its effective paralysis. The council fathers, they demanded, must free themselves from their oath of loyalty to the pope, the superiority of the council over the pope must be proclaimed, the decrees already approved must be annulled, and the work must begin from ground zero this would have put an effective and definitive end to whatever hopes were still being
245

entertained of a possible rapprochement between Catholics and Protestants. In the spring of 1552, the Protestant princes invaded southern Germany. The council fathers then decided to suspend the work of the council for a second time. 5. Third Period of the Council: 1561-1563 Julius III died in 1555. Elected to succeed him was Marcello Cervini, who took the name of Marcellus II. He was a relentless promoter of reform; unfortunately, he died after only three months in office. He was succeeded by GianPietroCarafa, who took the name of Paul IV and ruled from 1555-1559. A Neapolitan who was rather stern in his ways, Paul IV, despite his zeal and good intentions, deluded those who hoped for more profound reforms. Again, this pope proved vulnerable to the temptation of nepotism, creating his own natural nephew, Carlo, an immoral man and a murderer, a cardinal and making him his strict collaborator as Cardinal-nephew (so that under Pius IV, Carafas successor to the papal throne, Carlo and his brother Giovanni, Duke of Paliano, would be condemned to death and executed!). Paul IV engaged Philip II in a useless war (the papal forces were roundly defeated). He was a rigid man,
246

impatient and with a choleric disposition. He did not re-open the Council of Trent because he did not trust long debates and discussions. He therefore tried to reform the curia directly, and the Inquisition would be thus strengthened (so that even Cardinal Morone, a great reformer, would be arrested and subjected to a trial!). He also set up the Index of prohibited books, but this did not have any great effect and in fact even provoked the protests of such as Peter Canisius, the Jesuit apostle of Germany. Nobody lamented the death of Paul IV in 1559 Giovanni Angelo Medici was elected to succeed Carafa. A Milanese, he came from a different branch of the Medici family. He took the name of Pius IV and reigned from 1559 to 1565. Stimulated and assisted by his nephew, Carlo Borromeo, he decided to re-open the council and succeeded in overcoming many difficulties. Thus, for example, the Emperor and the King of France, though agreeing to the plan to re-open the council, wanted the council somewhere else and to begin all over again

247

Spain however insisted that the soon-to-be-re-opened council be seen to be in continuity with the one preceding it. In any case, the council was re-opened in January 1562, resuming its work with great energy even if with great difficulties and disagreements, reaching its official end on 4 December 1563. The presidents of this third phase of the council were Cardinals Gonzaga, Seripando (who was General of the Augustinians), and Simonetta (this third one just a little bit too inclined to engage in intrigues) In July and September, the decrees on communion under both species, declared not necessary, and on the sacrificial character of the mass were promulgated. N.B. The question of communion under both species had become a symbolic point for Protestants. Though Catholics did not think there was any dogmatic reason for refusing it, nevertheless it did so refuse it on this symbolic ground, i.e., that it came to mean the emancipation of the laity and of the confessional divide. Also, private masses would now be permitted. Various abuses in the celebration of the Eucharist
248

were castigated, particularly that which made of the mass a product to be bought and sold On the question of what language was to be used for the celebration of the mass, again, because of a desire to oppose the Protestant thesis that tied the essence of the mass to its celebration in the popular language, the council decided to conserve the ancient practice of using Latin for the administration of the sacraments. In recompense, from September 1562 to November 1563, the council insisted on the opportunity and necessity of explaining in the popular language all the parts of the mass and of the rites used in the celebration of the sacraments. Unfortunately, this was not always implemented because of the lack of adequate liturgical preparation of the clergy itself Contemporaneously, the question of the residence of bishops in their dioceses, which was already treated in the first phase of the council, came up again and provoked the most serious discussions, bringing the assembly to the point of failure because of the irreducible differences between the two tendencies, to wit:
249

1) The Spaniards, French and some Italians like Seripando thought that the only efficacious way to obligate the bishops to reside in their dioceses was to declare that the obligation derived not only from a dispensable ecclesiastical prescription but also from a divine command and therefore was de jure divino. 2) Others, primarily the Italians, particularly the functionaries of the Roman curia, among whom was Simonetta, opposed this thesis for both practical reasons (for they feared the end of other abuses, like the accumulation of benefices) and theoretical considerations (the preoccupation to preserve the primacy of the pope). The votation held to determine the voice of the assembly on the question was not however clear and definitive (in 1562) because a fourth of the council fathers present wanted the issue to be decided by the Pope, who then prohibited the matter from being discussed further. The arrival in November 1562 of the Cardinal of Lorraine shifted the discussion to the nature of episcopal power and office. The question was: is the episcopate fruit of a historical development or was it willed and established by Christ? Are his powers of
250

jurisdiction derived immediately from God or are they transmitted through the pope? In the final analysis, the genuine problem consisted in defining what the relationship was between papal primacy and the rights of the bishops. At Constance, this question was already tackled and answered in Conciliarist terms. The Pope, displeased at the lengthening debates (from autumn of 1562 to spring of 1563), fired Cardinals Gonzaga and Seripando from their posts as presidents of the council. These two good men, ardent reformers, would die one after the other in March 1563. The Catholic powers would attempt to hijack the council for their own political ends, but the Pope was astute enough to save the council by appointing Cardinal Morone as the new papal legate. Truly and extremely capable, Cardinal Morone knew how to deal with Cardinal Lorraine and with the Emperor who was then at Innsbruck (not far from Trent therefore). He succeeded in conciliating the two parties in the debate on the episcopate, the decree on which was approved on 15 July 1563.

251

The decree reaffirmed the essential function of the sacerdotal ministry (or the ministerial priesthood, against the Protestants), the capacity to offer sacrifice, but it also limited itself to affirming the existence of different grades, in the sense of a spiritualespotestas, for the existence of bishops, priests, and ministers, distinct from the laity and not to be confounded among themselves, and as an essential component of the Church. No more talk however was allowed on the ultimate foundation of the obligation of residence (the council limited itself to reminding bishops to get to know the people who had been entrusted into their care), nor did the council specify any further from what source the bishops power of jurisdiction derived, and neither did the council clarify if the episcopate was of divine or ecclesiastical origin, if episcopal consecration constituted a sacrament. All of these questions, left hanging by the Council of Trent, would find their decisive answer only at Vatican II. Thus was the crisis overcome, even if at the cost of leaving in suspension a fundamental problem, that of the structure of the Church, and of renouncing the definition of those points on which it was not possible to arrive at a moral unanimity
252

In the same solemn session of July, the reform decree on the setting up of seminaries in every diocese, the obligation of residence (under pain of privation of the revenues of the diocese!), and the selection of worthy candidates to the priesthood was promulgated. During the summer of 1563, Cardinal Morone, helped by the future cardinal, Paleotti, prepared the last, great project of reform, substantially approved on 11 November, as refracted into the following positions: annual celebration of diocesan synods triennial celebration of provincial synods pastoral visits at least once every two years reform of the cathedral chapters assignment of the parishes to the more worthy priests, though a program of competition prohibition of the accumulation of benefices for all, including cardinals (here, vociferous protests from those hit by the prohibition, particularly Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who was a major benefactor of the Society of Jesus in Rome). However, the reform of the Roman curia was left to the Pope to consider and carry out.
253

Also approved on 11 November were the following: The decrees on matrimony: 1) Defined as dogma of the faith was the sacramentality of marriage and its indissolubility (the traditional teaching, which stipulated that not even adultery was ground enough for the dissolution of a marriage, was upheld by Trent) 2) The decree Tametsi: this decree declared null and void what had come to be called clandestine marriages, i.e., marriages celebrated only with the exchange of vows of the two partners, without witnesses and without any written contract. Considered valid however was marriage between minors, contracted without the consent of parents, and parish priests were ordered to keep records of the baptized and the married spouses In the last four weeks of the Council of Trent, approved with some haste were the decrees on purgatory, the veneration of the saints, the matter of indulgences, the religious (norms on the acceptance of candidates, on cloister, on the novitiate, and on the reduction of exemptions from the common jurisdiction of bishops were set out).
254

On 4 December 1563, after reading the solemn acclamations in honor of the Pope and of the Emperor prepared by Cardinal Lorraine, Cardinal Morone declared the Council of Trent closed. After eighteen years from its beginning, the council was finally conluded. Pius IV, with the bull Benedictus Deus, post-dated to January 1564, confirmed the Tridentine decrees Note on the men and forces in play at the Council of Trent: Present at the opening of the council in 1545: 31 fathers In the first and second periods: around 65-70 fathers At the last solemn session, the decrees would be signed by 225 fathers Compare: Nicaea: 220 (or 318) fathers Chalcedon: 350 fathers Vatican I: + 700 fathers Vatican II: + 2,500 fathers
255

Note: Trent did not define explicitly the doctrine of papal primacy, which, despite the preceding definition of the Council of Florence, would pass unobserved and, in France, not recognized and would meet opposition from the Gallicanists and episcopalists. Implicitly however, the Council of Trent did recognize papal primacy, and this primarily in the fact that the council did subject the validity of its decrees to the confirmation of the Pope. 6. Significance of the Council of Trent a. religious unity The Council of Trent did not succeed in re-establishing the religious unity of the Church, and this because of the internal logic of the events themselves, i.e., the rigidification of Protestant positions, which were in themselves undergoing deeper clarification in the direction of a greater divergence from Catholic teaching b. capacity for renewal This failure to re-establish religious unity does not however detract from the substantial importance of the Council of Trent for the life and doctrine of the Catholic Church, and this we see in the enormous influence that the council exercised in the Church, in
256

the clarification of dogma and the restoration of the discipline of the Church. This we can summarize in three points: a) Trent puts in evidence the strong capacity of the Church to bounce back from a situation of crisis and disaster, victorious over all adversity and threats, even those coming after the council itself. b) Trent reinforced dogmatic and disciplinary in the Church. c) Trent opened a new epoch in the history of the Church and in a certain way would determine the essential lines of Church life and discipline from the mid 1500s to our own day c. the dogmatic decrees The Tridentine dogmatic reform decrees gave an authentic response, in a certain sense and within certain definitive limits, to the affirmations of the Protestant reformers. Aside from the condemnation of errors (note that Trent was careful NOT to condemn the reformers by name BUT ONLY their theological ideas and positions), the council fathers did concern themselves with a more positive exposition of Catholic doctrine.
257

Nevertheless, the council fathers were careful not to pass judgment on legitimate differences in the use of philosophical and theological terms and language, and limited themselves as much as possible to the use of Scriptures and the Church Fathers An example of this may be seen in the reticence in closing the argument on the relationship between grace and human free will (i.e., Dominicans versus Jesuits, Cano versus Molina, etc.). This brings the Council of Trent closer to the early councils of the Church than to the medieval councils. Trent would reject Protestant individualism and affirmed once again the necessity of the mediation of the Church, which is both the mystical Body of Christ as well as a juridical organism, in which the mystical and invisible element is juxtaposed to, supported by, and expressed in the juridical element, which has its first affirmation in the hierarchy established by Christ, which differentiates and subordinates the laity to the episcopate even if all are united in the common priesthood founded on baptism. This juridicalmystical Church is the custodian and interpreter of the revealed Word of God, maintained alive through the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is the ordinary source
258

of grace through the sacraments, the objective value and intrinsic effectiveness of which are reaffirmed, independently of the subjective righteousness of their ministers (thus ex opereoperato affirmed). Trent also rejected Protestant unilateralism and instead taught that: 1) The necessity, in the process which leads to justification, of both grace and human cooperation, of faith and works, thus conserving the equilibrium between,on the one hand, pelagianism and semipelagianism, and,on the other hand, the priority of grace from on high. Trent also rejected Protestant pessimism, declaring that the human being was infected with original sin, but that human nature was not thereby totally corrupted and that human free will was only weakened not abolished. Trent thus underlined the real and ontological character of justification, implicitly inculcating the conformity of the subjective order with the objective order Trent also distinguished between sin and concupiscence, and accentuated the efficacy of grace
259

that rendered it possible for the graced person to observe the commandments of God. Thus, what we have from Trent is this: a cautious optimism with regard to the human being is made possible, far from the renaissance exaltation of the human and from the Lutheran thesis of invincible concupiscence. d. the disciplinary decrees The Council of Trent would give a vigorous impulse to the religious life of the Church. In sum: it insisted on the proper mediation between the centripetal and centrifugal forces of the Church. It held on to the fundamental principle: salusanimarum, supremalexesto (the salvation of souls, this is the supreme law); the leitmotif of the Tridentine disciplinary decrees was nothing less than curaanimarum. The essential mission of the Church is the salvation of souls, not the increase of arts and the exaltation of human values, much less the economic well-being of privileged members of the Church.

260

Trent thus restored the dignity and prevalence of the ministerial office; the bishop is the pastor of souls in his diocese. Affirmed by the Council: Obligatory residence of bishops No accumulation of benefices Foundation of a seminary in every diocese Delineation of a method to be followed in the formation of candidates to the priesthood, with the recognition of forming the candidates in the ecclesiastical sciences. N.B. For the Tridentine decrees to take effect, it was necessary that the Catholic states give their own approval Many Catholic states accepted the decrees without much problem Spain accepted all the decrees, but with the clause except the royal rights (i.e., for as long as these decrees did not impinge on the royal rights) France accepted only the dogmatic decrees, but rejected the disciplinary ones The states that adhered to the Protestant reform of course did not care one way or the other.
261

Finally, to be noted was the subsequent fortune that the Church would have. After Pius IV, reform-minded popes who labored long and hard to have the Tridentine decrees implemented: Pius V (1566-1572) Gregory XIII (1572-1585) Sixtus V (1585-1590)

IX: THE AGE OF ABSOLUTISM

A. Causes and Characteristics
1. Causes. - The age of Absolutism is the point of arrival of a long process, beginning with the Middle Ages, into which flowed various factors, primarily the struggle initiated by the monarchy against the nobility and the breakdown of medieval distinction between the civil and religious authority. a) France: the example par excellence of this process - Since the 1300s, the French kings had tried with all their might and used all kinds of means to dismantle the power of the feudal nobility and to concentrate all power and authority in their hands.
262

- Various factors would give the victory to the French monarchy despite the strong and long resistance by the nobility: (1) Strong personalities of the kings themselves and their ministers, (2) The social fatigue that came in the wake of the politico-religious wars of the 1500s, (3) The interested support of the bourgeoisie, which looked on the strengthening of the monarchical power and authority as the guarantee of peace and security in their commercial activity, and therefore as a bulwark against the arbitrary will of the nobles and as a possible camp for the investment of capital b) Spain and England: - Riches accumulated through their colonial investments and the internal dissension among the members themselves of the nobility ensured the triumph of the monarchy. c) Germany: - Only Germany would go the opposite direction. The princes succeeded in breaking away form the imperial authority and in transforming the ancient feudal territories into sovereign states
263

- In summary: with the nobility neutralized and made impotent, the monarchs were now able to concentrate in their hands all power and authority in their own territories

2. Political Characteristics - The King declared himself absolved (absolutus) from any and every external authority. He no longer recognized imperial authority (rex in suo regno est imperator). He also no longer admitted in some way the right of the pope to sanction the legitimacy of his own authority within his own territory. -Internally, all power and authority are now concentrated in the hands of the monarch. The tendency therefore was toward administrative uniformity. All political powers were now vested in the ruler, in an exclusive, total, indivisible and irrevocable manner. Thus, the king was no longer subject to any law
264

- E.g., Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy in 1561, could say: As princes, we are absolved and freed from every law!; or Ludwig of Bavaria: We are above the law! The fiscal system also came under the control of the sovereign ruler, so that he could impose taxes on anyone or on any institution without his or its consent The sovereign could also arrest and imprison anyone, car tel est mon plaisir (because such is my pleasure) through what has been called the Lettres de cachet. The sovereign ruler could also intervene anywhere and in every process. For the first time really, what we see is now a standing army under the control of the sovereign ruler, where before he had to rely on the feudal lords to supply him with men and weapons. Now, the army marched in common uniform and received their sustenance from the royal coffers and become salaried In summary: the kingdom was for all practical purposes now considered the private property of the king, which he could then pass as inheritance to whomever it pleased him to do so (in practice,
265

this would give rise to various conflicts of succession). 3. Social and Juridical Characteristics - Absolutism based itself on an inequality among the different social classes or orders, i.e., on privileges granted to some and denied to others - A small group of the privileged coexisted with a great mass of people deprived of privileges, an anonymous crowd that usually lived in oppressive economic conditions, always constrained to give way to the upper classes, and without the possibility of making its voice heard because they were deprived as well of political rights, and were unable to correct this anomaly because they were confirmed in their resignation by the mentality of the times and by the religious doctrine taught them This situation has been called lancien rgime The privileged class:

(a) noblesse dpe: descendants of the ancient feudal nobility (b) noblesse de robe: those who, by royal concession, receive some title as reward and recognition for services rendered to the king
266

- Privileges granted them by the king: social, juridical, and economic (a) Social privileges army Monopoly of certain offices, particularly in the Exclusive colleges for their sons

- Distinction in dress, in the theatre and in church king Participation in the royal feasts The right to have their heads covered before the All of this however was part of a political strategy: drown the nobility with every social privilege but deprive them of every real political power and authority. For this reason, the royal courts required the nobility to reside with the king, not far from his court, to better control them: thus the phenomenon of Versailles (b) Juridical privileges - Fede commesso: the juridical institution of the trust the trustor has the right to leave his
267

property after his death to whomever he designates as his trustee; from this would issue the juridical principle of the primogeniture, i.e., the eldest son receives in inheritance all of the property Thus what we have here is the diminution of the rights of the other siblingswho however may be allowed to live in the household of their eldest brother or in a house assigned to them, with a stipend Usually, other siblings are shunted off to the Church where they hopefully can become bishops or abbots or some such ecclesiastical dignitary Ignatius of Loyola for example in his childhood had received the tonsure - Also, special courts were set up for the nobles; there were also special punishments and penalties for their erring members (c) Economic privileges - This usually took the form of exemption from taxes.

268

4. Economic Characteristics - The general principle: the absolutist state did not recognize, as we do today, the autonomy of the economic sphere from the political. In effect, it is the use of the economic sphere as an instrument of the political that characterizes mercantilism, a form of capitalism then in vogue at the time, which looks on the economic system as primarily providing the means in order for the sovereign ruler to advance an ambitious imperialist politics not concerned to secure the common good. - Mercantilism: it is the identification of public wealth with the amount of liquid money in circulation, but retained in the state treasury (colbertism and protectionism), the increase of industrial output for purposes of export, the lowering of salaries and wages This economic system was involved in a contradiction however: there was an increase not only in public wealth, but also in public debt. Those who suffered the most were the lower classes. Ultimately, however, it was the bourgeoisie that chaffed under this system, so

269

much so that they became the prime movers behind the French Revolution - Externally, the economic system was a kind of imperialism, i.e., premised on the need to control the world economy, i.e., of sources of raw materials and markets for finished products. Foreign affairs therefore were conducted primarily in economic terms, but in the service of the politics of the king 5. Other Considerations We can identify two kinds of absolutism: (a) There is pure absolutism, the best example of which was Louis XIV, the Sun King. Dominant here would be the patrimonial concept of the state, considered the property of the king and directed according to his wishes. (b) Then there is enlightened despotism, seen in the monarchs of the 18th century (in Spain, we have the example of Carlos III, under whose rule the Jesuits were ousted from all Spanish dominions). The sovereign ruler denies every political liberty to his subjects, but takes care of the common good.
270

- In the period of the restoration of the monarchy (lancien rgime) in the post-French Revolution period (19th century), the uniform administrative reforms inherited from Napoleon were conserved, but political liberties were denied there was only a limited return to the regime of privileges (for the nobility?) - Demographics: Europe was demographically stagnant in the 1500s and 1600s, but there was an increase in population in the 1700s. Thus Rome experienced a fall in birth rates because of the high number of celibates in its population, but in 1702 there was an increase of the population by 1.64%. In the 1600s: Europe experienced a high infant mortality, famine, plagues and pestilences, wars, and therefore low population growth. Life expectancy: 30-40 years In Naples, due to the plague of 1656.1657, the citys population fell from 310,000 to 70,000 To 1600: Europe had a population of 90,000,000 To 1700: population grew minimally to 115,000,000

271

 In the 18th century (1700s): the population jumped to around 188,000,000. - World population was estimated between 1500 and 1800 anywhere from 400,000,000 to 800,000,000. - Note that in progress was a growing urbanization of the population: Amsterdam: 1514 = 40,000 150,000 Berlin in the 1700s: from 50,000 to 170,000 In the beginning of the 1700s, there were eight cities with a population of more than 100,000: Rome, Madrid, Venice, Milan, Lisbon, Vienna, Seville, Palermoand two cities had a population of more than 200,000: Paris and London Note well the changing sense of distance. We may see this in the postal service then operative: the family Tassi of Bergamo, Italy (Our modern day taxi is derived from this Italian family name.), later Thurn und Taxis, obtained in the 1500s the monopoly of the imperial Hapsburg mail: From Madrid to Rome: 24-26 days
272

From Milan to Bruxelles: 5 days

B. A Society Officially Christian

1. Fundamental Principle - Note well that the absolute state officially recognized itself as a Christian state. - A fundamental principle inspired Absolutism with regard to the influence that religion could have in society: there must be a perfect parallelism between Church and State, between the spiritual-religioussupernatural order and the political-civil-temporal order. - This is to be understood not in a separatist sense however (as in our modern day understanding of the separation of Church and State and therefore of their being parallel realities) but in a collaborationist sense, with one influencing the other in some way or other, for both were considered to have been derived from the same principle and tended toward the same end: the good of the human being. - More concretely, between the political and ecclesiastical societies, the specific differences that characterized the essence, end and proper methods of
273

one or the other were notably attenuated. Civil society tended to assume certain sacred traits proper to religious society, while the latter in its turn tended to adopt the legal means, more properly of the temporal regimentation than the ecclesiastical - This same tendency may be expressed in another form: all that was prohibited or permitted in the religious order must also be prohibited or permitted in the civil order, with some rare exceptions. If this mentality is diametrically opposed to that of the 19th and 20th centuries, which wanted to completely separate the spheres proper to the two societies, the temptation to project in one of the two societies the methods proper to the other has not totally disappeared, even if today the phenomenon has assumed a one-way street: if civil society does not look anymore to the religious society as its model, the Church tends however to assimilate and make its own the methods typical of democratic society. - Post-Tridentine ecclesiology has certainly been influenced greatly by Robert Bellarmine, the great Jesuit Cardinal, most of all in its great theological works but also, though in less measure, in its catechisms. The Roman theologian, outstanding in his works on controversial theology, in many parts of his
274

Controversiae (in De ecclesia militante, but also in his De Christo, etc.), detained himself much on the nature of the Church, underlining the following aspects: a) The visibility of the Church (against the Lutherans who in art. 7 of the Augsburg Confession called the Church congregatio sanctorum) b) Its hierarchical character (at its head: the pope, the Vicar of Christ, from whom derived his (the popes) universal jurisdiction over the Church, with the episcopate, which was instituted by Christ himself) c) The Churchs intimate relationship with Christ (Ecclesia tota est unum corpus, cuius caput est Christus, Christus, ut influens in omnia membra, dicitur caput) d) Its infallibility All these elements reveal a great anti-Protestant stress. Lost was the spiritual-mystical character of the Church. Bellarmine of course had a complex ecclesiology, not reducible to an apologetic, juridical and sociological vision. It is however true that he gave, beyond a definition of the Church which brings to
275

mind that of the catechism of Pius X (i.e., the three essential elements of baptism, common faith, and subjection to the legitimate pastors, especially the Pope), another definition: the Church is a human community that is visible and palpable, just as the Roman people, the Kingdom of France, and the Republic of Venetians are visible and palpable (coetus hominum ita visibilis et palpabilis, ut est coetus populi romani, vel regnum Galliae, aut respublica venetorum). In effect therefore, Bellarmine defines the Church as one visible society like any other, though of a higher order. This definition is comprehensible in the historical context in which it was made, that is, in the anti-Protestant polemic and the effort to underline the visible and hierarchical nature of the Church. In the preoccupation, expressed by the same Bellarmine in the pages which immediately followed his definition, to complete [this definition] by indicating her true riches, i.e., the interior gift of the Holy Spirit, faith, hope, charity, etc. (interna dona Spiritus Sancti, fides, spes, charitas etc), he clarified that this definition indicated the minimum which one may say of the Church
276

- Unfortunately, those lines had an import beyond the intention of their author. The insistence on the visible and social character of the Church constituted an opportune way for responding, on the one hand, to Lutheran ecclesiology, which was interior and radically spiritualist, and on the other hand, to the tendencies of the Catholic and Protestant jurisdictionalists, who negated the independence of the Church from the State. - Thus was it easy to pass from the coetus visibilis et palpabilis to the concept of societas perfecta, which unilaterally accentuated the institutional, exterior and juridical aspect of the Church, admitted also by the Catholics, but which finally ended with putting in the shadows the more important elements, such as that of the sacramental nature of the Church, that is, as sign and instrument of salvation, as the mystical body of Christ, which recognized Christ as her true head and from whom she draws that supernatural life which flows in her various members. - It seems that the expression (societas perfecta) gained currency in the second half of the 1700s through the work of the school of Wrzburg (northwestern Bavaria, to the southwest of Frankfurt), but might have been enunciated with clarity in the
277

Synopsis juris ecclesiastici publici et privati, which came out in Vienna in 1777: Societas igitur christiana divinae originis est. Est societas perfecta, nexu animorum non interno solum, sed externo etiam colligata, cum unionis, tum subiectionis nec non et pacti sollemnis. The Austrian canonist Franz Reitenstrauch (1785) probably must have influenced this evolution. However the definition of Synopsis of 1777 put in evidence the two aspects, internal and external, of the Church; much later that which was remembered would be the external and juridical aspect. - The opposed line would reemerge here and there, in the ancien rgime as in Vatican I, where the idea of the mystical body would flourish in theologians and writers like Rosmini and Newman. But practically confirmed in essentially all ways was the idea that the Church had all the means to reach her goals, that she was independent of the State, so that one ended with unconsciously thinking that the Church was like a society that in many aspects was very similar indeed to the State, i.e., that she had analogous structures and therefore could use analogous means, especially coercive ones.
278

2. Applications of the Fundamental Principle - Let us now attempt to gather the principal applications of this fundamental principle and this mentality. Here and there, in providing examples, we shall bring forward facts and laws of the first half of the 1800s; we shall avoid all kinds of anachronism because we shall always be dealing here with the laws of the restoration, still inspired by the same mentality as that of the ancien rgime... - In summary, the characteristics of the Absolutist State are as follows: a. It was founded on the theory of the divine right of kings. - Under the influence of Protestantism, thus a certain alienation from medieval political doctrines favorable to the participation of the people in political life (thus Scotus, Durandus, Egidio Romano, Giacomo da Viterbo), various authors like James I of England, William Barclay, Bodin, and Bossuet surrounded the royal power with a sacred aura, transferring to the civil sovereignty the religious consecration and the most special prerogative of the supreme authority of the Church

279

- Only the monarchy was considered the legitimate form of government; the right of sovereigns was imprescriptible and inalienable and superior to any utilitarian consideration - The sovereign had his authority directly and immediately from God, who did not, in order to manifest his will, deem it necessary to use external secondary circumstances The Lord conferred authority on the sovereign with a positive act analogous to that verified in the election of the pope; it therefore possessed a transcendent investiture which brought with it an intangible right and which gave to the person of the sovereign a sacred character: Le roy ne tient son scepter du Pape, ny de lArcheveque de Rheims, ny du people, ains de Dieu seul. The king therefore is Gods lieutenant on earth, the living image of God, seated on the throne of God - The ceremony of royal consecration with the anointing and the invocations recited over the king had this signification: the sovereign acquired a character superior to that of the human, and an
280

ancient tradition attributed to him the power to heal certain illnesses, above all scrofula (swelling of the lymph nodes of the neck). - Of his manner of acting, of his decisions, the sovereign needed to give an account only to God; no earthly authority, not even the pope, and a fortiori no parliament and no assembly could intervene The king, in any case, could always have hidden in his royal breast the ultimate motives of his decisions Unchained from the principle of any direct responsibility toward his subjects, a noteworthy passage was made toward a complete autonomy of the political authority from every transcendent law To the subjects remained blind obedience; the Bishop of Pistoia, Scipione de Ricci, admonished the people in a pastoral instruction: Only the sovereign, who has received from God the office of looking after the conservation of the republiccan see the true needs of the State and to God alone does he
281

need to give an account of the execution, not to private citizens

b. Political unity founded on religious unity - Presupposed here was the destruction of religious unity that characterized medieval Europe, which considered itself a species of respublica christiana and its replacement, not least due to the Protestant Reformation, became definitive with the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648) - Religious unity would now be sought from within the borders of the State; it was impossible then to consider that a given State could be politically united but religiously divided: thus un roi, une loi, une foi - Thus even Saint Francis de Sales, with iron logic, could write to the Duke of Savoy, begging him to expel the obstinate heretics from his territory; those who did not want to enter into the kingdom of God did not have the right to be part of the earthly kingdom - The consequence: he who does not follow the dominant religion loses not only his political rights
282

(expressed for example in the right to hold public office), but also his civil rights (liberty of residence, of movement, of profession, of property); this principle was valid for both Catholics and Protestants, although its application varied here and there -Thus, in France from 1598 (the Edict of Nantes promulgated by Henry IV) all the way to its abrogation through the decision of Louis XIV (in 1685), in Poland, and in several German States, non-Catholics enjoyed civil rights (with very particular privileges granted by Henry IV to the French Calvinists, who almost formed a State within the State) - In Brandenburg, where the majority was Protestant, Catholics were able to obtain some recognition. - In England and in Ireland, Catholics remained, until 1793, almost deprived of every political right and were strongly limited in their civil rights; only from 1829 can one speak of equal rights for Catholics in the two island-nations c. Catholicism, in the Catholic states, was declared the state religion - There was official recognition of the Catholic faith as the only true religion, and of the Church as a
283

sovereign society in her own sphere (though this latter would be restricted more and more); official recognition and strict unity between the religious and the political would issue in the understanding that the Catholic religion and its interests were tightly connected with those of the State; recognized therefore was the ideal of the unity between throne and altar. d. It was the kings strict obligation to defend and promote religion. - Thus the sovereign sought to create and maintain the structures that facilitated and rendered more easily the observance of religious obligations of his subjects - The sovereign defended religion, impeding heretical proselytism, and prohibiting the diffusion of books contrary to religion (thus in 1765, Ferdinando IV, King of Naples, prohibited the diffusion of the Dictionnaire de philosophie, published in Lyons in 1764, exemplar of the new spirit of the Enlightenment) The gravity of punishment however for proselytism varied from state to state - Crimes against the established religion however were considered crimes against the spiritual patrimony of the State, and even as a species of lse majest, and
284

not only against the Lord whose honour the State was obliged to defend

e. Civil laws were to be in harmony with canonical laws - The State was not content to be inspired in her legislation by Catholic doctrine but recognized as well the canon law of the Church, and thus gave the support of the secular arm in order to coactively impose its execution; indeed, usually, the State made the canon law of the Church her own, promulgating a civil law parallel and analogous to the ecclesiastical law Examples of this: the laws concerning marriage, e.g., laws fixing the conditions of the marriage bond, stabilizing its impediments, regulating the forms of its celebration, juridically pronouncing on the validity of the matrimonial bond and on the validity of the nuptials (or engagement); the matrimonial regime remained the one fixed in the 24th Solemn Session of the Council of Trent, of November 1563, with the decree Tametsi; the competence of the civil authority was restricted to the civil effects (succession, extension of the
285

authority of parents, reciprocal obligations of the spouses, patrimonial conventions, and other similar things) - Through the years however, the State, with insistent and subtle actions, and under the influence of the Enlightenment and of Jurisdictionalism, would attempt, not without efficacy, to limit the rights of the Church and to extend her own competence in the area of marriage - Thus in France, Tuscany and Naples, the State refused to recognize the legal effects of marriages in conscience, i.e., marriages celebrated in secret, with the dispensation of their publication and with only the assistance of the parish priest and some witnesses - Regarding religious vows were recognized by the State, so that actions opposed to them were considered null and void by the State (e.g., marriage of a religious); or, in some States, a religious with solemn vows was considered civilly dead, so that he became incapable of receiving any inheritance (due to his vow of poverty); other laws looked to facilitating or, better, imposing the ecclesiastical precepts, above all of the feasts, abstinence and fasting; the non-observance of these was punished; prohibited were the engaging in
286

business and the opening of shops, recreation in public during sacred functions; those who did not demonstrate the proper religious decorum and reverence in Church were to be punished - Significant in its evolution was the complex legislation regarding the press In the first phase: from the 1500s towards the 1600s, in many though not in all countries, no other mechanism for censorship existed than then ecclesiastical one, established by Lateran V in 1515 for all books and other written works, and on whatever argument (Trent would take this up again with regard to the Sacred Books); the bishop exercised this function of censorship, and then later the Inquisition would break into the scene In a second phase, the State intervened in censorship, so that the competence of the Church was restricted to religious questions, variously determined, but in a way that always excluded more and more juridical questions, i.e., those that had anything to do with Church-State relations; in practice, writers had to submit their work to two censorship boards, but with the State functioning as an oversight body on the magisterium itself;
287

increasingly, Church writings, including pastoral letters of bishops, were subjected to State review and censorship: in 1776, the Hapsburg government of Lombardy prohibited the reprinting of Bellarmines catechism, and prohibited the circulation of copies printed elsewhere from being diffused in the realm Again, note the trajectory of this development: from providing support to Churchs efforts to exercising control over the Church herself f. Accepted was the use of the civil authoritys coercive powers by ecclesiastical authority for its own proper ends - Thus the death penalty carried out by the civil authority for the ecclesiastical offense of heresy - Primary receivers of this service of the State: inquisitors, bishops, religious superiors - The State in many concordats had explicitly accepted the obligation of lending its assistance for the application and enforcement of ecclesiastical procedures - The religious-ideological basis of this practice: a tradition, which rose in medieval times and which appeared in the canon law of the epoch, which
288

considered the bishop as pastor, which duty now necessarily included the tutelage of the faith and of morals; but how then to exercise this role with authority and its own proper methods? - The Council of Trent appealed to this medieval tradition when, in the decree of reformation of the 13th Solemn Session (1551), it admonished the bishops to show themselves first of all pastores, non percussores, but then it authorized them almost immediately, and if necessary, to run to the juridical practice, establishing precise norms for the processes to be taken in the courts Parish priests shared in this office of the bishop, and they too could and should denounce public sinners to the episcopal courts; examples: Milano, Foligno, Mexico City - Naturally this presupposed a corps of policemen, directly dependent on the ecclesiastical authority and distinct from the State apparatus, and also a prison house; thus the Inquisition, religious houses for both men and women, and episcopal courts had their own prison cells; this idea and practice of having places of incarceration for wayward religious, in strident contrast to the principle of free consecration of the self
289

to the Lord, persisted from the first centuries of Christianity to the time of the Enlightenment; only with the new mentality created by the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, among many other negative aspects, would we encounter this positive effect: a change in the constitutions and rules of the religious institutes, inspired by other principles, particularly with the abolition of prison cells in religious houses

g. A doctor was required to call for a priest in attending to a patient in danger of death In hospitals, medical assistance and spiritual care were tied to each other, so that a doctor was required to call for a priest in attending to a patient in danger of death. This ruling however reached absurd proportions, as patients were threatened with the refusal of medical assistance if they did not confess their sins to a priest! h. There was the Christian organization of work as in the universities (which were corporations, i.e., single bodies) and confraternities. - Every worker, teacher, assistant or apprentice, in order to exercise his profession, needed to become a
290

member of a corresponding corporation, or university, and to observe its regulations - These corporations, which excluded simple workers (probably nonprofessionals) and salaried employees who were abandoned to themselves, had a duplex finality: economic and religious Economic end of corporations: this proposed to eliminate competition, fixing the rates and conditions of work, and to guarantee the genuineness of the product, and to defend the rights and privileges of members Note that the corporations were typical medieval creations, but with time, they had regressed somewhat and had become a closed caste, eminently preoccupied above all with the interests of their members; in this manner it effectively blocked every novelty (given the lack of any competition), and access to a profession was precluded to those who did not belong to a family that for generations had been involved in them. It was obvious that these negative developments, well-noted by economic researchers, would sound the death knell to the corporations with the break out of the French Revolution.
291

 We should not however forget the other end of the corporations: their religious-cultural-charitable end: members of the corporations were required to profess their Catholic faith vigorously (thus, they mandated the practical exclusion of non-Catholics, a practice that differed though from country to country), and to participate in communitarian religious celebrations (assistance at processions, funerals, preaching), in many cases, in their own churches, which had conserved, after many centuries, their own names (e.g., San Giuseppe de Falegnami in Rome, etc.). Every corporation had its chaplain, who received a regular stipend, and who watched over the moral conduct of the members. - The religious character of the professions were accentuated by the existence at least in many cases of a confraternity distinct from the university/corporation but parallel to it - The confraternity, in difference from the university/corporation, even if in practice very much related to it, had exclusive religious-moral ends or goals, e.g., celebration of masses for its dead members, the celebration of its patronal feast, assistance to ill
292

members, the enjoyment of religious privileges (e.g., indulgences, etc., particularly diffused in Rome) - The universities/corporations later on suppressed, the confraternities would continue to exist, but in more straitened circumstances and deprived of any authentic efficacy, until the blows of secularization would condemn these same confraternities either to non-existence or to change their ends - In any case, one must note here the great diversity of confraternities, particularly those not tied to the corporations, but which were dedicated to cultic ends (adoration of the Blessed Sacrament), or to charitable ones (assistance extended to those condemned to death, to prisoners, etc.), or to catechetical instruction (confraternities of Christian doctrine) - Christian life in these centuries would not be recognizable and understood without taking into account these confraternities, their statutes and activity, their influence and even their struggles

293

i. The Church had the monopoly of social work and education, and of anything that had the character of the sacred or had some connection with the sacred... - The State had no interest, until the 1700s, in education, which therefore remained in the hands of the religious of the various orders (Jesuits, Scolopians, Barnabites, Brothers of the Christian Schools, Benedictines, etc.) - Jesuits were known for the education to which flocked the elite; but schools for the other social classes were directed by the Brothers of the Christian Schools (known in the Philippines as the De la Salle Brothers) - Less developed but nonetheless present was education for girls/women; for the daughters of the nobility or of the high bourgeoisie, there were schools attached to the convents and, later, in the 1700s, the conservatories which issued from the transformation of contemplative institutes; daughters of the lower classes were practically abandoned, and only in the end of the 1600s would arise some providential initiatives on their behalf, like the pious teachers (the Venerini, the Filippini, from the name of the foundress, and others), who opened various schools in
294

Rome and in Lazio, in numbers however which were not equal to the need - Popular education was, on the whole, inexistent, for lack of means and because of a deep insensibility to the problem, so that the number of the illiterate must have superseded 90% of the population; nevertheless, the little that was being done during this period was being done by the Church - The academic university, from the 1200s to the time of Napoleon (early 19th century) remained in essentially ecclesiastical hands - An analogous development characterize the hospitals and medical assistance in general, considered an emanation of Christian charity and therefore managed substantially by the hierarchy; not lacking however were conflicts between the ordinary of the place and the local governments, usually regarding control over the local hospital; the Council of Trent would require bishops to visit hospitals and other pious places and to watch over their management; these conflicts were also political and economic in nature, but here the Church enjoyed some measure of success over her secular antagonists
295

j. The Church enjoyed immunity in various areas, i.e., exemption from the common law, e.g., exemption from taxes, recognition of the right of sanctuary, exemption from military service and from the jurisdiction of ordinary civil courts of ecclesiastical persons, etc

(1) The royal immunities:

ecclesiastical goods were exempted from taxes; they were also considered inalienable, i.e., they could not be sold or divided, because they were sources of financial support for the various types of social work and assistance engaged in by the Church - The complex of ecclesiastical goods that were immobile (nonmovable assets such as land, houses, etc) was designated with the name manomorta (with a term from Germanic law, initially used to designate individuals endowed with limited juridical rights, passing from there to subsequently indicate the religious, insofar as they did not possess rights, and then the religious corporations and the patrimony which constituted its base and finally every landed property subtracted from free commerce) - It came to pass however that not only the patrimony of the churches and of the convents came to
296

be considered ecclesiastical goods but also the property of each and every priest or deacon, even including those who had received only the tonsure, indeed usually in order to gain the exemption from taxes - In this manner, with that which was considered manomorta ever increasing, the fiscal weight of taxes ended with falling on an increasingly restricted number of persons, so much so that these were usually humble workers - Not missing were other inconveniences, first of all that of subtracting from commerce and industry a fixed quantity of the immobile patrimony of the country which, though intended for the support of social work, was often not rationally exploited to full use - Thus did the manomorta become a political and social problem; the three most important concordats of the 1700s (with Spain in 1737, with Sardegna in 1741, and with Napoli in 1741) dealt long with this problem, attempting to salvage the principle, but also to avoid its abuses, remaining firm on the principle of exemption, but determining the quality and quantity of
297

the goods exempted; in this way were excluded those who did not intend to receive the major orders

(2)

The local immunities:

these may be reduced to the right of asylum, particularly in churches and convents; this institution appeared towards the end of the Roman empire and had a useful social function in the obscure feudal age, saving innocents from a blind violence, stopping the course of justice until such time that the passions had been spent, so that the truth could appear in its full light; this was also useful at a time when State authority was lacking or absent, so that asylum assured the safety of those accused until such time the State could exercise its function of meting out justice - The problem with this arrangement however was that the truly guilty could flee and avoid justice - The concordats once again would try to save the principle while minimizing its abuse through determining with some exactness the extension of the privilege, but then again this was done through a kind of casuistry which would end up devoid of any religious sense
298

 (3) The personal immunities:

besides the exemption from military service, this comprised above all the exemption of ecclesiastics from the jurisdiction of ordinary tribunals, and the right of being tried by the ecclesiastical courts: thus do we have the institution of the ecclesiastical forum - A special congregation, called of ecclesiastical immunity, was instituted by Urban VIII in the beginning of the 1600s, developing a preceding commission; this had the task of deciding all controversies relative to the liberty and independence of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and had its maximum development parallel to that of jurisdictionalism, toward the middle of the 1700s, only to fall into decadence in the 1800s and to completely go out of existence sometime between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th - The existence of two diverse jurisdictions in the same territory easily created problems because of the difficulty of clearly determining the competence of the two forums, with the added problem that there were no ecclesiastical courts in certain areas; in any case, the State continued to look with some disapproval on the ecclesiastical forum
299

- Suffice to say at this point that the Holy See would continue to press its own rights in this area, contributing therefore to one of the most heated points of controversy between the States and herself; the Holy See and the hierarchy would substantially repeat the same mistakes of the popes of late medieval times, who wanted at every cost to defend their supremacy over all of Europe, instead of adapting themselves to the new situation, i.e., at the birth and development of the national States jealous of their own sovereignty; what took place was a certain rigidification in the Churchs defense of her privileges of the forum, of the right of asylum, of the manomorta, largely outdated and now superseded - The point in all this was the inability of the Churchs hierarchy to distinguish between the historical contingent forms of some of its institutions, rights and privileges and the defense of the independence of the mission of the Church; however, it must also be said that the new national states were bent on a secularization of society and the instrumentalization of the Church and her subordination to the civil power - The Churchs intransigence on this point, and the agenda of the national states to subordinate the
300

Church to their own designs, would result in the deepening of the gulf between Church and State, between Church and modern world in general

C. A Church Controlled by the State: Jurisdictionalism

1. From Support of the Church to Control of the Church - Ironically, in the Absolutist State, the Church, considered a parallel institution, would be subjected more and more to the control of the state. - The theory that attributes to the State ample prerogatives in ecclesiastical matters is called jurisdictionalism. - We see this development from the 1600s to the 1700s: beware of the hand that feeds you from the Church receiving help from the rich, to the rich controlling the Church, from the Church receiving assistance from the powerful, to the powerful controlling the Church Expressions of this development we find in the following works: Pierre Pithous Les liberts de
301

lEglise gallicane (1594), Edmond Richers De ecclesiastica et politica potestate (1611), Pierre de Marches De Concordia sacerdotii et imperii (1641, put on the Index), in the Gallican Articles approved in 1682, in the teachings of Bernard van Espen, professor at Louvain between the 1600s and 1700s, the book of Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, also known as Justinus Febronius, De statu Ecclesiae, and last but not least, Antonio Pereiras Doctrina veteris Ecclesiae de suprema etiam in clericos potestate (1766). Countries where jurisdictionalism became a dominant voice: France, Austria (under Joseph II and his brother, Peter Leopold), Tuscany (under Peter Leopold), Spain, Portugal and several German states - For jurisdictionalism, the absolute State found it difficult to tolerate the existence within its own territory of a society (read: the Church and her organs) that presented itself as sovereign, independent, with its own proper jurisdiction, not derived from the civil authority - The sovereigns were pushed into this position by three factors:
302

a) The jealous tutelage of the power of the State, with its propensity to extend its control over the life of its subjects, including their consciences, suspicious of every other authority, above all it this happens to be supranational, usually hostile to Catholicism and desirous of setting up a national Church b) The preoccupation to resolve every economic problem at the expense of ecclesiastical resourcesand, c) The conviction of a true religious mission destined to eliminate abuses unfortunately too real and against which bishops and pontiffs opposed themselves in a rather weak manner Note however that the princes and sovereigns found support in their pretensions to hold power over the Church from many quarters, including ecclesiastical ones; thus, Ludovico Muratori, in his Della pubblica felicit, oggetto dei buoni principi (1749), looked at State intervention as the only efficacious means for religious renewal

- In general: jurisdictionalism took care not to openly deny liberty to the Church, but in fact it limited
303

the Churchs voice to the intimacy of the individuals conscience, excluding as much as possible that this should have an effect in the public arena even if it had something to do with dogmatic/doctrinal issues, the cult, and ecclesiastical discipline - The effect on the Church: paralysis in the public domain An outstanding example: Kaunitz, minister of Joseph II of Austria, in his letter to the Apostolic Nuncio, Giuseppe Garampi, dated 12 December 1781 In answer to the complaints of Garampi regarding imperial intervention in Church affairs, Kaunitz would reply: The abolition of abuses which do not touch the principles of the faith or the intimacy of conscience and of the human soul cannot depend solely on the Roman See, because she has no authority at all in the State beyond these two camps (i.e., dogma/doctrine and conscience). The State has exclusive competence with regard to the external discipline of the clergy and of the religious orders Therefore His Imperial Majesty, in order to fulfil his high mission, is obliged to proceed as he has done in the past that which has
304

nothing to do with dogma and the questions which have to do with the intimacy of conscience Under the sovereign jurisdiction falls everything which in the Church does not derive from divine institution, but which has been thought and willed by men and which owes its existence only to the concession and approbation by the sovereign power This means, in the concrete, that the State has rights to regulate the administration of ecclesiastical goods, the nomination of bishops and parish priests, the discipline of the clergy and the laity, and even the celebration of public worship itself These rights of the State over the Church may be classified into three groups.

2. Three Sets of the Rights of the State vis--vis the Church

305

a. First group of rights, which deals, at least in theory, with the right of the State to protect and defend the Church: 1) jus advocatitiae et protectionis: the State has the right to guarantee the unity of the Church and the purity of the faith against every attempt at apostasy, heresy and schism; the sovereign therefore becomes custos et vindex canonum 2) jus reformandi: this gives to the prince or sovereign the right to introduce reforms deemed necessary in order to eliminate abuses in the Church and to render ecclesiastical organs more efficacious; the only one who is to decide when these reforms are opportune is of course the State, not the Church b. Second group of rights tended to defend the State from the potential danger that the Church could become vis a vis the State itself:

1) jus incipiendi or jus supremae inspectionis:

a generic right to examine and to observe the activities of the Church - Thus, the state had the power to limit the freedom of relations between ecclesiastical elements and the Holy See, to watch over councils and missions, to
306

discipline the institution of new ecclesiastical bodies, secular or religious, to suppress bodies not retained necessary, to guard the observance of religious vows, to look into the patrimonial administration of the Church - An example: in absolute States, in order to enter a religious order, male or female, it was necessary to send a request to the corresponding civil authority (the prefect, or minister of the cult, etc),which, after having collected the necessary information, could now give its nihil obstat

2) jus nominandi:
this attributes to the sovereign the nomination of bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastical functionaries - In substance, from 1516 (the concordat between Pope Leo X and King Francis I, subsequently renewed with Napoleon in 1801) to1905 (i.e., the law of the separation of Church and State in France), all French bishops were nominated by the State, with the popes limited to giving canonical institution to the preselected candidates - The same obtained in other European countries (Spain, Portugal), except in Germany where, with the
307

concordat of Vienna in 1448, the election of candidates to the episcopate remained with the cathedral chapters

3) jus exclusivae:
the sovereign had the right to exclude from a determinate ecclesiastical office somebody with whom he is not pleased - The most clamorous example of course had to do with the election of the successor of St. Peter himself in the conclaves; sovereigns exercised a kind of veto power over papal candidates (although the veto could only be used once in a given conclave); thus Spain for example exercised this veto over various candidates in 1644, 1655, 1721, 1730, 1758, 1823, 1830, and 1903 - Only on 20 January 1904, with the election of Pius X (elected partly because the Austrians vetoed the candidacy of Cardinal Rampolla), was this practice prohibited, under penalty of excommunication latae sententiae, through the apostolic constitution Commissum nobis; but the times and the mentality of the age had changed, so that there were no violent objections to this prohibition on the part of the States
308

 4) jus placeti or the exequatur:

all ecclesiastical actions of the local curias to the Roman curia are submitted to the civil nihil obstat, in order that the State could be sure that there is nothing in these actions that was against the authority of the State itself - This practice was obligatory, even for dogmatic definitions, the Roman dispositions (including those relative to matrimony), the jurisdiction for confessions, the invitation to foreign preachers/speakers, the hours of ecclesiastical functions, the concession of honors and distinctions, almost for everything in fact (indeed, it is easier to list the exemptions to this practice: wearing the biretta, saying votive masses, eating meat during the prescribed days of fast and abstinence) - The placet and exequatur for the most part remained the preferred fundamental weapons of jurisdictionalism, precisely because of their elastic character, extendable according to the States pleasure - There was nothing much that the Church could do; suffering the violence of these instruments and ceding to their practice, she protested them if only to save the principle (of the liberty of the Church)
309

 5) jus circa temporalia officia:

this permits the State to confiscate revenues of offices occupied by persons judged not worthy and up to par to their execution or, more usually, deemed not faithful to the monarchy

6) jus appelationis or, in French, appel comme dabus:

this offers the possibility to a priest or a member of the faithful the possibility of having recourse to the State against the decrees of ecclesiastical authority - Examples: if a bishop fired a morally corrupt priest, or if a parish priest denied absolution to a penitent, there was always the possibility of recourse to the State in order to have the decision revoked; this principle was quite frequently used by the State

7) jus dominii eminentis:

this right authorizes the State to impose taxes on ecclesiastical goods and to administer them during the absence of their tutelary

8) jus patronatus:
the right not only of the State but of a family for example or an institution permitting it to name abbots
310

or rectors of the churches and of the religious houses subjected to its patronage c. Third group: the commendum The commendam: this is a juridical instrument, which rose in the time of Charlemagne, for which the revenues of a church or a monastery were conceded to an individual, ecclesiastic or lay, who took the title of commendatory abbot, but who then left the direct government of the abbacy or of the church to a representative, a prior or some other office, leaving him an autonomy more or less extensive according to the interests, zeal and occupations of the commendatory abbot - The revenues were usually divided into three parts: one for the commendatory abbot, another for the support of the prior and the monks of the abbacy or the church, and the third part for the economic support of the monastery or the church itself - Effects: the system often left the monasteries or churches, rich in revenues though they may be, in misery, and the scarce authority of the prior, which very often led to the spiritual decadence of the abbacy or church community
311

- The diffusion of the commendam was in large part connected to the law of primogeniture, which gave in inheritance all properties of a given family to the firstborn male child, leaving the system of the commendam for the support of the other children, including illegitimate ones Examples of commendatory abbots: Cardinal Mazzarino of France had 12 commendams, a Protestant (!), Sully, had a commendam to his name, and in 1642, the son of the Prince of Conti was named, at 13 years old, the commendatory abbot of Cluny, which in the 10th century was the center of monastic reform, and finally the famous friend of Janssen, Du Vergier de Hauranne, who is known to history as Saint-Cyran, because he was in fact the commendatory abbot of the abbacy of the same name - The commendam was in fact the most clamorous example of the instrumentalization of religion for the sake of the dominant social class

- In summary: all of these examples of rights and practices served the absolute State to consolidate its hold on the Church in its territory, to the point where
312

it even tried in some countries to limit the power and authority of the Superiors General of the members of their religious order in the territory of the absolute sovereign, by means such as influencing their election or having vicars rule autonomously their members in a particular country; the Society of Jesus for example had, as Superiors General, from its beginning to its suppression in 1773, out of a total of 18 Superiors General, only 4 Spaniards (the first three Superiors General of the Society were Spaniards: Ignatius, Laynez and Borja), 10 Italians, 2 Belgians, 1 German, 1 Bohemian - Strangely enough, it was the French Revolution that put an end to jurisdictionalism, at least in part, and because of a psychological reaction brought in its wake extreme excess in the opposite direction, i.e., the absolute separation of Church and State; this in fact would project new possibilities for theorizing the relationship between Church and State

3. Areas of State Control over the Church [Discussed in class.] a. Religious institutes b. The choice of cardinals
313

c. Election of popes

D. Interior Life of the Church: Becoming Worldly

1. Two Opposed Interpretative Directions - Accent here is on the internal life of the Church, her inner vitality, her religious life - The religious life of the masses and of the elites have been submitted to various studies in recent years, conducted with the strictest scientific critical methods; sources have been the following: diocesan synods, pastoral visits, relations ad limina, parish registers, pastoral letters of bishops, catechisms, processes of beatification and canonization, statutes of confraternities, collections of homilies and sermons, relations on popular missions, processes of the Inquisition, state and ecclesiastical documents on jurisdictional conflicts - The conclusions, at which scholars have arrived, after the analysis of this vast material, may be classified according to two interpretative schemes: the
314

liberal-Marxist scheme and the Catholic-inspired scheme a. The liberal-Marxist school - Among the liberals: De Sanctis, Croce and Salvemini in Italy, Guizot, Michelet and Taine in France, von Ranke in Germany, Madariaga in Spain; and among the Marxists: Antonio Gramsci, but also Einaudi, Rosa, De Martino and Ginzburg - Italy was reduced by the counter-reformation culturally, morally and religiously depressed and undeveloped; the country was typically characterized by ignorance, hypocrisy and conformism, a lack of energy, egoism, cynicism - On the popular level, we find a mixture of folklore, superstition, rites of magic, residues of the old paganism that was never extinguished; there was never really any substantial and qualitative difference or a dialectical jump among religion, superstition and magic; the clergy tended to leave the masses in this inferiority so that they could dominate them more easily - In the words of Indro Montanelli, a contemporary Italian journalist: the triumphant CounterReformatioin had taken away from the Italians the
315

defense of the individual conscience conscious of its own rights And from this moment on that the propensity for the servile jobs developed, in which the Italians today still excel. They are the best waiters in the world, the best majordomos, the best bellboys of hotels, the best shoe-shiners, because they started being these things from then, four centuries ago b. The Catholic-inspired school: in general, the Counter-Reformation was a battle only partly won, but this was the fault not so much of the hierarchy but by the tenacious resistance of all the classes: the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the people - There was a great tendency to see the Church as an institution that was there to be exploited to ones own advantage - Thus Gabriele De Rosa, in open polemic against Ginzburg, De Martino and others, in his work Vescovi, popolo e magia nel Sud and Chiesa e religiosit popolare nel Mezzogiorno, underlined not only the pastoral efforts of the clergy to inculcate the true faith and to purify the cult from too many folkloristic elements, but also above all the neat qualitative distinction between folklore and magic on the one hand and religion on the other
316

- This same discourse could be repeated with Delumeau for France and with other authors for the other European countries (Spain for example) and for Latin America

2. A Summary Portrait of the Inner Life of the Church a. Positive aspects (1) The frequent and massive popular participation in the sacraments not only in the 1600s but also in the 1700s; according to Le Bras, in the beginning of the 18th century, almost all the faithful frequented the sacraments at least at Easter; spiritual directors like St. Franois de Sales recommended weekly communion, and not unheard of were recommendations of daily communion - In Italy, the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament became well-established everywhere, solemnly exposed in the church for two consecutive days, and in many churches perpetual adoration was practiced - In many places, the months of May and October were consecrated to Mary through devotional practices
317

(2) Heroic sanctity was very much evident in the 1600s and 1700s - Missionaries like Leonardo da Portomaurizio, Paolo della Croce and Alfonso Maria Liguori; priests like the Roman Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Gerardo Maiella, and Benedetto Giuseppe Labra, Vincent de Paul and Franois de Sales, and among the popes, Innocent XIbut also la Chantal, Madame Acarie (1566-1618), Marie Guyart (also known as Marie de lIncarnation, 1599-1672), widowed in 1620, entered the Ursulines, and left for Canada in 1639 where she lived an intense mystical life, and de Berulle, Olier, and Eudes (3) New religious institutes arose in the 1600s - The Scolopians, Lazarists, Trappists, Brothers of the Christian Schools; in the 1700s, the Redemptorists and the Passionists (4) The flowering of the culture of the Age of the Baroque - In Spain alone In literature Lopez de Vega, Calderon de la Barca, Miguel Cervantes
318

 In architecture Juan de Herrera (the architect of the Escorial, Philip IIs monastery-palace) In painting the Spaniards El Greco, Velasquez, Murillo and the Flemish Rubens, Van Dyck - In France, the sacred oratorios of Bossuet, and the school of spirituality associated with de Berulle - Rome had her baroque artists Bernini, Boromini, and in music, Palestrina (5) The wide diffusion of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, already cultivated in the middle ages by various saints like Gertrude and Bernard of Clairvaux - The devotion received new impetus through the work of three saints: Jean Eudes (+1680), Marguerite Marie Alacoque (+1690) and Claude de la Colombire (+1682) - The devotion to the Sacred Heart became an effective counterweight to Jansenist rigorism - St. Jean Eudes consecrated his congregation dedicated to the formation of the clergy and to popular missions to the Sacred Heart and laid the foundation of the devotion - St. Margaret Mary Alacoques stories of visions of the Sacred Heart, which she had from 1673 to 1675
319

and approved by her spiritual director, Claude de la Colombire, played a major role in the diffusion of the devotion; Church officials were initially doubtful, and only in 1765 was the devotion officially approved, this time by Clement XIII - The devotion to the Sacred Heart could be understood in two forms which clashed between themselves: (a) One form was favorable to an emotive piety, which touched the human being in his existential difficulties, and to the frequent access to confession and communion, but at the same time it was tied to absolutism, to the status quo, against every attempt at renewal, in the Church and in society, and radically hostile to every form of the Enlightenment, even in its moderate tendencies typical of the so-called Catholic Enlightenment (b) The second form defended a more intellectual kind of Christianity, almost rational, rigorist, contrary to the frequent practice of the sacraments, which could degenerate into a dangerous custom and into conformism, looked with favor on efforts to renew the Church and society
320

- Only slowly was the devotion to the Sacred Heart able to free itself from the legitimist, conservative, paternalistic, nationalist and reactionary character, and therefore reveal the great truths it contained and its real pastoral benefits a century after (6) The Church maintained its important role in daily life; habitual routine continued to be broken by the great religious feasts; aside from the extraordinary feasts, -- like the consecration of churches and the canonization of saints, which sometimes lasted for days on end there were grand processions (on the feast of Corpus Christi for example), sacred plays and representations (like the Passion Play), etc - The problem perhaps was precisely the bloated calendar of feasts In 1642, Pope Urban VIII started to reduce the feasts of the Church with the bull Universae per orbem, but on the whole there remained about 90 feasts, occupying three months of the annual calendar; Mons. Borgia, Archbishop of Fermo, requested permission from the Holy See to suppress 17 feasts and to allow people to work after the obligatory festal mass was celebrated
321

- In big cities, listening to preached homilies, which sometimes took more than an hour and a half, became a solemn event, probably due to lack of any outside entertainment as well; Among the great orators of the period in France were the Jesuit Bourdaloue and Bossuet, this latter who knew how to unite psychological analysis to the vigor of reason and of consequences, to the ardor of disputes against the heretics and the libertines, and to fantasy and sensibility; Also there were Massillon and Fnelon, much superior to Bossuet in religious depth One notes the following aspects: - The secular clergy was less well-trained for preaching than the religious clergy; - In the 1500s, great effort was expended in clarifying the fundamental truths to the faithful, directly or indirectly confuting Luther and the other various forms of Protestantism; - In the 1600s, the taste for the solemn, pompous, the theatrical predominated, while there was an insistence on the severity of the Lord, the supreme
322

judge, underlining the negative aspect of Christianity more than the positive; - In the 1700s, the central problem became the defense of the faith against the various currents of the Enlightenment, and the century of impiety was deplored, though there were attempts to analyze the causes of the phenomenon, even if in an apologetic and superficial way - Popular missions had some success, preached by the Jesuits from the very beginning, and by the Capuchins, Lazarists, and, later, by the Passionists, Redemptorists, and other religious institutes; In general, groups of priests, accompanied by some lay brother, dedicated themselves to this work preferably in the countryside, from September to April, when the peasants were less assailed by daily work in their fields, stopping in small centers, not far from the other villages, from which people would walk for half an hour in order to listen to the missionary; The local clergy did not always look kindly on these popular missions, but the bishops were grateful for these initiatives;
323

 The popular missionaries preached in the local language or dialect, accepted the hard conditions of life in the rural areas, and aimed to provide occasion for good confessions to the people, who often enough did not have enough trust and confidence in their own parish priests These popular missions may be classified into three types: (a) Penitential missions, practiced particularly by the Jesuits, had a predilection for spectacle and the spectacular, like processions and penitential ceremonies, which culminated in flagellation in public by the orator, who was then imitated by the people to whom were distributed instruments of penitence, including a dialogue between the missionary and an authentic skull in his hand; through time the spectacular gave way to moderation, and many practices were declared demonstrationes obsoletas et ridiculas; but one cannot deny the efficacy of sacred representations in pastoral work (b) Catechetical missions, the method used by the Lazarists, avoided theatricality and essentially occupied itself with teaching the fundamentals of the
324

faith (for ignorance was rather high in the rural areas), divided the people into age-groups (children, youth, women, men) and preached to them the whole day, interrogating the children on their catechism, maintaining themselves sober but clear and brief (c) Eclectic missions, a middle way, was employed by the Franciscans and the Redemptorists, who cut back on the theatricality of the Jesuits, prolonged the missions to a month, and spent long hours in the confessional The challenges they faced: a society less Christian than was imagined, a great ignorance in matters of the faith, the diffusion of certain inhuman customs (vendetta and violence, homicides, theft of farm animals, blasphemy, cohabitation more uxorio, abduction of the young, including abortion and premarital sex - Intensive enough were efforts at catechesis, particularly in France and Italy, so that one is permitted to talk of a Babylon of catechisms; bishops, religious orders, writers and theologians composed many catechisms, some of them with hundreds of editions, and translated into various
325

languages; among the noted writers of catechisms: Canisius, Bellarmine, Ripalda, Astete, and Casati - The lay, usually gathered into confraternities and Marian congregations, exercised a true apostolate, though this was limited to catechetical work and charitable works, such as assistance to those condemned to death, to prisoners, to the sick, to the redemption of prostitutes - In general, especially for less fortunate populations, the bishop, the religious, and the parish priest constituted a constant point of reference, a civil, social, psychological refuge. A civil refuge, because the Church personage could offer a certain protection against the abuses of the local lords, the frequent arbitrary exercise of their authority, the excesses of usurers A social refuge, inasmuch as the Church usually constituted the only concrete possibility for a certain human promotion, offering a whole series of privileges or at least a genuine respectability to those in one way or another who could present themselves as related to the clergy, sacristans for example (in southern Italy, they were called wild
326

deacons), and also related to the hermits, priests, and religious Apsychological refuge, because the priest presented himself as a mediator of salvation, of grace, but then also he assumed the physiognomy of a guarantee against dangers and anxieties caused by the occult forces in which the people believed and therefore the priest assumed the character of a protector; the use of sacramentals and other sacred objects bordered on the superstitious, so that synods constantly had to call for a purification of such attitudes and practices b. Negative aspects - Society was divided more or less clearly into two social classes: First, a small group of the privileged, in whom a noteworthy economic well-being was usually accompanied by a widespread immorality and by an always stronger skepticism; and Second, the great mass of the poor who found life difficult in their chronic misery - The Church however presented an image that mirrored the social class of the privileged; it was a rich Church; it is difficult to compute exactly this
327

ecclesiastical wealth in the 1600s and 1700s; but one must not forget the heavy weight the Church carried in fulfilling certain social goals (hospitals, orphanages, schools, the poor, even the maintenance of roads and public works) - The fact remains however that various categories of ecclesiastical goods enjoyed a conspicuous patrimony (though here one must note the relative poverty of the lower clergy); Thus Gregory XIII was not content with the Vatican but had another papal palace constructed (the Quirinale, now the official residence of the President of Italy); The etiquette of the papal court and the ceremonials in St. Peters were inspired by the luxury of other courts; Cardinals enjoyed rich pensions of various grades, of multi-benefices and many commendams; Charles Borromeo, before his conversion, had 150 persons in his entourage (while Robert Bellarmine, after a severe examination of conscience, retained that he could not reduce his familiars below 30 persons);
328

 Episcopal courts followed the example of the Vatican and of the local nobility; To become a priest was to assure ones self a secure position not only in the Church but also in society; Only a few ecclesiastics, authentic saints, nurtured a genuine love for poverty and raised their voice against material abuses; Also diffused was a certain spirit of triumphalism, which considered worldly success as a sign of what it means to belong to the true Church - In reaction to all this, we can delineate three lines of opposition: (1) Theologians and ascetical writers continued to sing the praises of the poor, closer to the Lord and more tranquil; Bellarmine, more severe than many, considered alms as a necessary restitution of goods subtracted from the avarice of the rich for the needy masses (2) Others would draw up plans of social reform, in two directions: (a) Through a more or less ample State intervention, expressed in various ways (census of the poor, their employment in various works, support for
329

the sick and the invalid, the arrest of incorrigibles, expulsion of migrants, prohibition of mendicancy, the setting up of hospices for the compulsory reclusion of the poor) (b) Others opposed compulsory reclusion or residence, but insisted on well-prepared rehabilitation centers to which all the needy should have free access - On the practical plane however, in various countries (the Netherlands, England, France and Rome, other parts of Italy), these plans failed due to various factors (the ever growing number of the poor, resistance on their part, insufficient number of edifices, etc (3) In the 1700s, there was a change in mentality: the poor ceased being the blessed of God; rather, poverty became something accepted as necessary, not eliminable; in 1798, the essay of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was published (An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, London, 1798) , contrary to every social reform in favor of the poor, so that the only efficacious solution was thought to be the delay of marriage and in the abstention from sexual relations
330

- Other negative aspects reveal several significant limits of religious society in this period: The excessive number of ecclesiastics (religious and secular priests, monks and nuns, those in the service of the cult such as the sacristans or wild deacons) - In the 1700s, there was 1 priest per 40/50 inhabitants In the 1800s, 1 priest per 200/250 inhabitants

- In the 1900s, 1 priest per 1000 inhabitants (with the exception of Latin America, where there was 1 priest per 10,000/30,000 inhabitants) - In Italy, as a whole: the religious in the middle of the 1700s, including lay brothers, exceeded 300,000 in a population of circa 17,000,000 - This plethora of ecclesiastical persons constituted a veritable and serious social problem: how to economically provide for people who were not really productive in an economic sense (i.e., who did not really contribute to the economic sustenance and growth of the country) Also, the formation of future priests left much to be desired; the Tridentine decree on the setting up of
331

seminaries was late in execution (in central Italy, only in the middle of the 1600s); in France, 1789, 32 dioceses still did not have their own seminary In the high clergy, composed almost exclusively by the nobility, to whom in fact episcopal seats were reserved, strong personalities that had emerged from the Tridentine period had become rare, bishops like Borromeo, Paleotti, Giberti; there was a marked decline in the ecclesial spirit Paradoxically, to the great number of clergy there corresponded a numerical deficiency of priests involved in the direct pastoral care of souls, priests already overburdened with work; - If we prescind from the parish priests, only a minimal part of the clergy gave themselves, both on a stable and part-time basis, to the exercise of directly sacerdotal ministry among the faithful; - The major part of the clergy, which had taken the way of the priesthood for purely personal interest, through inertia or sloth, contented itself with celebrating mass in order to enjoy the stipends attached to the intention, and then passed the rest of the day loafing about, while others cultivated the patronage of the nobility, so that it was not unusual to
332

see two priests classified as priests for masses and priests for confessions Note must also be taken of the social practice of forced entrance into the monastery, applied particularly to women Note also the progressive decadence in lay Christian life, particularly in the area of marriage; primary examples may be drawn from the royal and noble strata of society (among the royals: France - Louis XIV, Louis XV, Spain - Felipe III) - In the 1700s, quite common was the practice of the cavalier servente, the lover of a woman whose husband was constrained to support in the same household in order not to be disqualified in the opinion of good society as jealous and intolerant (!) - The ruling classes were therefore far from being truly and profoundly Christian, with a mentality characterized by the loss or attenuation of an authentic moral sensibility, the giving in to the prejudices of the times, the spirit of caste, not only in the Latin countries but in the German and Slavic as well, the depreciation of the poor, the conscious instrumentalization of religion (united to a formal
333

correctness and external observation of social norms) - Usually confirmed in this mentality by the moralists of the time, they became one reason for the rise of Jansenism and its rigorist backlash - Another negative aspect of the post-Tridentine Church in this period was her excessive trust in her own authority, which appeared not only in her external relations but also in her internal life, a trust that was characterized by a theoretical and practical intolerance of any hint of challenge to her own authority The Church was prone to questioning the good faith of non-Catholics a priori, - So that even a St. Francis Xavier, in recounting the story of a Buddhist sailor who drowned while being in transport to Japan, could comment that all the prayers said on his behalf were useless because he was damned from all eternity, or - St. Jeanne Franoise Frmyot de Chantal, still a child, could refuse a gift offered to her by a Calvinist, throwing it into the flames and exclaiming: Thus are burned those who refuse to believe in Christ (this
334

episode, even if perhaps invented, nevertheless possess an ontological and historical truth in as much as it reveals the mentality of the one who told the story and inserted it into the Breviary in the middle of the 1700s, praising the reasoning of the child as superior to her age) This same mentality (which we see in Xavier and de Chantal) inspired and pervaded the formula of the oath of loyalty to the Pope that the individual bishops had to pronounce during their consecration, considering all heretics and schismatics and rebels as all in bad faith; There was also the diffidence and suspicion in which members of the oriental rites were considered, so that Latin-rite Catholics considered even those united to the Roman Catholic Church as second class Christians, to the point where attempts were made to Latinize these Churches (e.g., the Thomas Christians of India were subjected to attempts at Latinization in the Synod of Diamper, near Cochin, in the year 1599) Another indication of this mentality: the suspicion cast on mystical works, like those of St. Teresa de Avila, denounced to the Inquisition in 1590-91, the writings of Juan de Avila, like Audi filia, put on the
335

Index of Prohibited Books, or of Luis de Len, an Augustinian professor at Salamanca, imprisoned from 1752 to 1756 and then rehabilitated, and even of the Archbishop of Toledo, Bartolom Carranza, put in jail in Spain and then in Rome from 1559 to 1576 And of course, the most clamorous example of them all: the Galileo Galilei case, which saw a hard and bitter struggle between the defenders of the traditional and conservative religious conception of the universe and the promoters of a new vision, which had nothing contrary to the ancient faith, but seemed then to demolish its foundations - For centuries, the classic understanding was the Ptolemaic geocentric conception of the universe, which considered the earth as standing firm with the sun and the other planets moving around it, a conception which seemed to be in harmony with various passages in Sacred Scriptures - Initially there was the Polish canon, Copernicus, who presented an alternative system in his De revolutionibus orbium (1543), a system that was heliocentric, though in the manner of a hypothesis that made it possible to explain the phenomena rather
336

than as an adequate and unique and objective explanation of reality; this book was criticized not only by Catholics but also by Protestants - Galileo, with his telescopic discoveries of the satellites of Jupiter, the rotation of Venus around the Sun, and Solar spots, the first of which were announced in his book Sidereus Nuncius (1610; see Appendix III below), gave a new wounding blow to the Ptolemaic system, even if neither then nor later was he able to give incontrovertible objective and solid proof to demonstrate the absolute validity of the Copernican system - The traditionalists thought they could explain the phenomena by another way (i.e., by appeal for example to the Danish Tycho Brahes model, which saved appearances but not did not really explain the reality through an ever complex system of planets moving for example around the Sun but all of this moving around the earth at the center, still immobile) - The discussion however shifted ground from astronomy to Scripture and its interpretation; were Scriptural passages to be interpreted literally, or did they not intend to give any scientific explanation, and
337

therefore simple expressed, in popular language, the external appearances? Augustine in his De Genesi ad litteram took this latter route, but his exegesis had been forgotten and in this period the exegetes, with the exception of the Spaniard Diego de Zuiga, defended the literal interpretation of these passages; - A Florentine Dominican attacked Galileo in a sermon in the Advent of 1614; - Galileo responded, in a letter written to the Grand Duchess Christine of Lorraine, mother of the Grand Duke, Cosimo II, where he quoted Augustines chapter xix of his De Genesi ad litteram, concluding that the intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go; - But this act by which a lay person entered into theological matters was what did Galileo in, even if what he said was in fact true - The case was brought before the Holy Office, which concluded on 24 February 1616, under Paul V, with the judgment: (1) That the Sun is in the center of the world and immobile of local motion, is an absurd and false in
338

proposition in philosophy and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Sacred Scripture (2) That the earth is not at the center of the world and is not immobile, but according to itself moves in a daily motion, is as well an absurd and false proposition in philosophy and, considered theologically, is at least erroneous in faith - On 26 February 1616, Cardinal Bellarmine, communicated the decision to Galileo and advised him to adhere to it; this remained the status quo for quite a long time - In 1632, Galileo published his work Dialogues of the Two Chief Systems of the World (see Appendix III below), in which he put in confrontation the two systems (geo- and heliocentric), putting them in the mouth of two interlocutors, an intelligent and cultured gentleman, defender of the Copernican thesis, and a simpleton, upholder of the traditional thesis - The recently elected Pope, Urban VIII, approved the institution of a new process, and Galileo, returning to Rome, was constrained on 22 June 1633 to abjure the Copernican system, i.e., to declare that with a sincere heart and a genuine faith, I abjure, curse and detest the said errors and heresies () and I vow that, in the
339

future, I will never hold such things which would occasion similar suspicion again; Galileo was at the same time condemned to imprisonment through the intervention of the Holy Office, a sentence commuted to relegation to house arrest in his villa of Arcetri above Firenze; The Dialogues was put on the Index, there to accompany Copernicuss own work De revolutionibus orbium, put on the Index from 1616 Galileo, blind since 1637, died in Arcetri in 1642; Only in 1741, some 50 years after the discovery of the law of gravity by Newton, which eliminated every doubt regarding the Copernican system, was permission given for the publication of the works of Galileo, including the Dialogues; Only in 1757 were all the works upholding the heliocentric view of the universe removed from the Index; and, Only in 1820, after long discussions among the different organs of the Roman curia, was it allowed for a work of Galileo that was clearly Copernican to be published in Rome
340

- The judgment of 1633 was therefore annulled, but more implicitly than explicitly; an official rehabilitation in solemn documents, aside from some clear affirmations in discourses of John Paul II, has never taken place Perhaps the most significant of all the ecclesiastical mentality of the times was the pastoral practice commonly applied, which mandated the strict and rigid surveillance by the parish priests of weekly mass and the observance of the Easter precepts - At Easter, the faithful had to give to the parish priest, while receiving communion, the card distributed during Lent; a careful examination of these permitted him to individuate those who failed to do their Lenten duties, who were then denounced publicly and, in cases of continued non-compliance, were submitted to the judgment of the bishop, who could inflict on them spiritual and material penalties, prohibition of spousal engagement, marriage, or acting as godparents; in extreme cases, the interdict might even be applied, or even excommunication and imprisonment

341

- Only with the French Revolution did the hierarchy slowly begin to take note of the need for new pastoral practices and methods, founded on the formation of consciences more than on moral and material coercion; attempts to go back to the old practices, identified with the ancien rgime, would give rise to resentment of the clergy on the part of the ordinary faithful - Another negative aspect of the religiosity that characterized the post-Tridentine Church was a devotionistic piety that served as a substitute for real and serious conversion; Devotionism becomes negative when piety carries with it the absence of any biblical and liturgical basis, and when such an absence is deemed unproblematic An ingredient of this accent on devotionistic practices was in fact the prohibition of popular access to the Bible, or at least a diffidence shown towards its being made available to people, the grave effect of which was felt more not by the common masses, but by the educated classes

342

 It is perhaps more important to underline the fact that this devotionistic piety hardly made a dent on the common moral life of the people; - Concubinage, residual magical practices, and other superstitions continued to abound; - Indeed, there was a veritable obsession with and anxiety over the devil and the satanic, so much so that individuals could find themselves accused of having contracted pacts with the devil; - We can only point to the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the case of the Ursuline convent of Loudun in northwest France, between Tours and Poitiers, in which the mother superior, Jeanne des Anges, accused the parish priest of the place, Grandier, of having entered into a pact with the devil, to the great damage of the community which now believed itself invaded by the devil - In any case, it would be enough to peruse the acts of several synods in order to gather through the condemnation of many pseudo-religious deviations, and the insistence on the more authentic and profound aspects of religion the attempts at the purification of the faith employed by the hierarchy, not as efficacious as desired because of the resistance to
343

changing the socio-economic structures connected with the political, cultural, environmental factors, to which enchainment these efforts were subjected by jurisdictionalism

3. In conclusion, one may follow two lines of evaluation: a. Following Le Bras: the society of the 1600s and 1700s was not really Christian, so that the dechristianization experienced in the 1800s was nothing but the manifestation of a situation already pre-existing in the preceding centuries, but in a hidden manner under official structures; - This judgment is valid not only for France but also for Italy and other European countries; - Without negating the existence of a substantial and genuine faith, nevertheless, we cannot forget the strong conformism of the ancien rgime, united to a good dose of skepticism and of hypocrisy

344

b. Nevertheless, one can make a more positive evaluation of the 17th and 18th centuries through the following fundamental observations: - Beyond all reservations expressed then and now (following Le Bras), one must admit that in these centuries the people of the ancien rgime in the majority had strongly imprinted the fundamental truths of Catholicism and accepted them without question; - There was here a sincere faith, at least in substance; - This faith was expressed in the forms proper to the level of culture of the various social classes: Thus we pass from the great ascetical and mystical works of the French, Spanish, German, and Italian cultural elites, to the rugged and primitive expressions of underdeveloped regions, prevalently agricultural-pastoral; This was not about magic truly and properly, nor of an alternative culture to that of Catholic doctrine, nor of diverse levels of the sacred (Ginzburg), but of diverse levels of perception of the sacred, of the different capacity of gathering the essence of the sacred, of a consciousness more
345

or less illumined to discover the spirituality of God as it was then possible in those depressed sociocultural conditions in which the faith was living; - Finally, this faith, as in other times in history, scarcely made an impact in practical life, and was connected with strong moral abuses, but the sense of sin was nonetheless not suffocated; - Furthermore, the tempest at the end of the 1700s in the conditions outlined above did have positive consequences, purifying the Church, and enabling her to discern the good from the bad

Appendix I:
Extracts from Bossuet's Work on Kingship Bossuet, Politique tiree des propres paroles de l' Ecriture sainte in J.H. Robinson, Readings in European History 2 vols. (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 2:1273-277. Scanned by Brian Cheek, Hanover College. November 12, 1995. ________________________________________

346

We have already seen that all power is of God. The ruler, adds St. Paul, "is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Rulers then act as the ministers of God and as his lieutenants on earth. it is through them that God exercises his empire. Think ye "to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David"? Consequently, as we have seen, the royal throne is not the throne of a man, but the throne of God himself. The Lord "hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel." And again, "Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord." Moreover, that no one may assume that the Israelites were peculiar in having kings over them who were established by God, note what is said in Ecclesiasticus: "God has given to every people its ruler, and Israel is manifestly reserved to him." He therefore governs all peoples and gives them their kings, although he governed Israel in a more intimate and obvious manner. It appears from all this that the person of the king is sacred, and that to attack him in any way is sacrilege. God has the kings anointed by his prophets with the
347

holy unction in like manner as he has bishops and altars anointed. But even without the external application in thus being anointed, they are by their very office the representatives of the divine majesty deputed by Providence for the execution of his purposes. Accordingly God calls Cyrus his anointed. "Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him." Kings should be guarded as holy things, and whosoever neglects to protect them is worthy of death . .. There is something religious in the respect accorded to a prince. The service of God and the respect for kings are bound together. St. Peter unites these two duties when he says, "Fear God. Honour the king." . . . But kings, although their power comes from on high, as has been said, should not regard themselves as masters of that power to use it at their pleasure; . . . they must employ it with fear and self-restraint, as a thing coming from God and of which God will demand an account. "Hear, 0 kings, and take heed, understand, judges of the earth, lend your ears, ye who hold the peoples under your sway, and delight to see the multitude that surround you. It is God who gives you the power. Your strength comes from the
348

Most High, who will question your works and penetrate the depths of your thoughts, for, being ministers of his kingdom, ye have not given righteous judgments nor have ye walked according to his will. He will straightway appear to you in a terrible manner, for to those who command is the heaviest punishment reserved. The humble and the weak shall receive mercy, but the mighty shall be mightily tormented. For God fears not the power of any one, because he made both great and small and he has care for both." . . . Kings should tremble then as they use the power God has granted them; and let them think how horrible is the sacrilege if they use for evil a power that comes from God. We behold kings seated upon the throne of the Lord, bearing in their hand the sword which God himself has given them. What profanation, what arrogance, for the unjust king to sit on God's throne to render decrees contrary to his laws and to use the sword which God has put in his hand for deeds of violence and to slay his children! . . The royal power is absolute. With the aim of making this truth hateful and insufferable, many writers have tried to confound absolute government with arbitrary government. But no two things could be more unlike, as we shall show when we come to speak of justice.
349

The prince need render account of his acts to no one. "I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God. Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not on an evil thing for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou? Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing." Without this absolute authority the king could neither do good nor repress evil. It is necessary that his power be such that no one can hope to escape him, and, finally, the only protection of individuals against the public authority should be their innocence. This conforms with the teaching of St. Paul: "Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good." I do not call majesty that pomp which surrounds kings or that exterior magnificence which dazzles the vulgar. That is but the reflection of majesty and not majesty itself. Majesty is the image of the grandeur of God in the prince.

God is infinite, God is all. The prince, as prince, is not regarded as a private person: he is a public personage, all the state is in him; the will of all the people is
350

included in his. As all perfection and all strength are united in God, so all the power of individuals is united in the person of the prince. What grandeur that a single man should embody so much! The power of God makes itself felt in a moment from one extremity of the earth to another. Royal power works at the same time throughout all the realm. It holds all the realm in position, as God holds the earth. Should God withdraw his hand, the earth would fall to pieces; should the king's authority cease in the realm, all would be in confusion. Look at the prince in his cabinet. Thence go out the orders which cause the magistrates and the captains, the citizens and the soldiers, the provinces and the armies on land and on sea, to work in concert. He is the image of God, who, seated on his throne high in the heavens, makes all nature move . . . . Finally, let us put together the things so great and so august which we have said about royal authority. Behold an immense people united in a single person; behold this holy power, paternal and absolute; behold the secret cause which governs the whole body of the state, contained in a single head: you see the image of God in the king, and you have the idea of royal
351

majesty. God is holiness itself, goodness itself, and power itself. In these things lies the majesty of God. In the image of these things lies the majesty of the prince. So great is this majesty that it cannot reside in the prince as in its source; it is borrowed from God, who gives it to him for the good of the people, for whom it is good to be checked by a superior force. Something of divinity itself is attached to princes and inspires fear in the people. The king should not forget this. "I have said," - it is God who speaks, - "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." "I have said, Ye are gods"; that is to say, you have in your authority, and you bear on your forehead, a divine imprint. "You are the children of the Most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." "I have said, Ye are gods"; that is to say, you have in your authority, and you bear on your forehead, a divine imprint. "You are the children of the Most High"; it is he who has established your power for the good of mankind. But, O gods of flesh and blood, gods of clay and dust, "ye shall die like men, and fall like princes." Grandeur separates men for a little time, but a common fall makes them all equal at the end.
352

O kings, exercise your power then boldly, for it is divine and salutary for human kind, but exercise it with humility. You are endowed with it from without. At bottom it leaves you feeble, it leaves you mortal, it leaves you sinners, and charges you before God with a very heavy account.

Appendix II:
Modern History Sourcebook: Jean Domat (1625-1696): On Social Order and Absolute Monarchy ________________________________________ Jean Domat (1625-1696) was a renowned French jurist in the reign of Louis XIV, the king who perfected the practice of royal absolutism. Domat made it his lifes task to explain the theory behind this absolutism by setting French law and social structure into the wider context of the law of nature and the law of God. Louis XIV regarded Domats work so highly that he assigned him a pension, and in effect the royal government sponsored his publications. Public Law, the treatise that dealt most directly with the origin of social order and government, and with the rights and duties of kings, appeared in 1697, the year after Domats death.
353

There is no one who is not convinced of the importance of good order in the state and who does not sincerely wish to see that state well ordered in which he has to live. For everyone understands, and feels in himself by experience and by reason, that this order concerns and touches him in a number of ways.... Everyone knows that human society forms a body of which each person is a member; and this truth, which Scripture teaches us and which the light of reason makes plain, is the foundation of all the duties that relate to the conduct of each person toward others and toward the body as a whole. For these sorts of duties are nothing else but the functions appropriate to the place each person holds according to his rank in society. It is in this principle that we must seek the origin of the rules that determine the duties, both of those who govern and of those who are subject to government. For it is through the place God has assigned each person in the body of society, that He, by calling him to it, prescribes all his functions and duties. And just as He commands everyone to obey faithfully the precepts of His law that make up the duties of all people in general, so He prescribes for each one in particular the duties proper to his condition and
354

status, according to his rank in the body of which he is a member. This includes the functions and duties of each member with respect to other individuals and with respect to the body as a whole. [Necessity and the Origin of Government] Because all men are equal by nature, that is to say, by their basic humanity, nature does not make anyone subject to others.... But within this natural equality, people are differentiated by factors that make their status unequal, and forge between them relationships and dependencies that determine the various duties of each toward the others, and make government necessary.... The first distinction that subjects people to others is the one created by birth between parents and children. And this distinction leads to a first kind of government in families, where children owe obedience to their parents, who head the family. The second distinction among persons arises from the diversity of employments required by society, and which unite them all into a body of which each is a member. For just as God has made each person depend on the help of others for various needs, He has differentiated their status and their employments for
355

the sake of all these needs, assigning to people the place in which they should function. And it is through these interdependent employments and conditions that the ties binding human society are formed, as well as the ties among its individual members. This also makes it necessary to have a head to unite and rule the body of the society created by these various employments, and to maintain the order of the relationships that give the public the benefit of the different functions corresponding to each persons station in life. It is a further consequence of these principles that, since all people do not do their duty and some, on the contrary, commit injustices, for the sake of keeping order in society, injustices and all enterprises against this order must be repressed: which was possible only through authority given to some over others, and which made government necessary. This necessity of government over people equal by their nature, distinguished from each other only by the differences that God established among them according to their stations and professions, makes it clear that government arises from His will; and because only He is the natural sovereign of men, it is from Him that all those who govern derive their power
356

and all their authority, and it is God Himself Whom they represent in their functions. [The Duties of the Governed] Since government is necessary for the public good, and God Himself has established it, it is consequently also necessary for those who are subject to government, to be submissive and obedient. For otherwise they would resist God Himself, and government, which should be the bond of peace and unity that brings about the public good, would become an occasion for divisions and disturbances that would cause its downfall. The first duty of obedience to government is the duty to obey those who hold the first place in it, monarchs or others who are the heads of the body that makes up society, and to obey them as the limbs of the human body obey the head to which they are united. This obedience to him who governs should be considered as obedience to the power of God Himself, Who has instituted [the prince] as His lieutenant.... Obedience to government includes the duties of keeping the laws, not undertaking anything contrary to them, performing what is ordered, abstaining from what is forbidden, shouldering public burdens, whether offices or taxes; and in general everyone is
357

obliged not only not to contravene public order in any way, but to contribute to it [positively) according to his circumstances. Since this obedience is necessary to maintain the order and peace that should unite the head and members composing the body of the state, it constitutes a universal duty for all subjects in all cases to obey the orders of the prince, without taking the liberty of passing judgment on the orders they should obey. For otherwise, the right to inquire what is just or not would make everyone a master, and this liberty would encourage seditions. Thus each individual owes obedience to the laws themselves and [even] to unjust orders, provided he can obey and follow them without injustice on his own part. And the only exception that can qualify this obedience is limited to cases in which one could not obey without disobeying the divine law. [The Power, Rights, and Duties of Sovereigns] The sovereign power of government should be proportionate to its mandate, and in the station he occupies in the body of human society that makes up the state, he who is the head should hold the place of God. For since God is the only natural sovereign of men, their judge, their lawgiver, their king, no man can have lawful authority over others unless he holds
358

it from the hand of God.... The power of sovereigns being thus derived from the authority of God, it acts as the arm and force of the justice that should be the soul of government; and that justice alone has the natural claim to rule the minds and hearts of men, for it is over these two faculties of men that justice should reign. According to these principles, which are the natural foundations of the authority of those who govern, their power must have two essential attributes: one, to make that justice rule from which their power is entirely derived, and the other, to be as absolute as the rule of that justice itself, which is to say, the rule of God Himself Who is justice and Who wishes to reign through [princes] as He wishes them to reign through Him. For this reason Scripture gives the name of gods to those to whom God has entrusted the right of judging, which is the first and most essential of all the functions of government.... Since the power of princes thus comes to them from God, and since He gives it to them only as an instrument of His providence and His rule over the states whose government He delegates to them, it is clear that they should use this power in accordance with the aims that divine providence and rule have
359

established for them; and that the material and visible manifestations of their authority should reflect the operation of the will of God.... [The will of God] Whose rule they ought to make visible through their power, should be the governing principle for the way they use that power, since their power is the instrument [of the divine will] and is entrusted to them only for that purpose. This, without a doubt, is the foundation and first principle of all the duties of sovereigns, namely to let God Himself rule; that is, to govern according to His will which is nothing other than justice. Thus it is the rule of justice which should be the glory [of the rule] of princes. Among the rights of the sovereign, the first is the right to administer justice, the foundation of public order, whether he exercises it himself as occasions arise or whether he lets it be exercised by others whom he delegates for the purpose.... This same right to enforce the laws, and to maintain order in general by the administration of justice and the deployment of sovereign power, gives the prince the right to use his authority to enforce the laws of the Church, whose protector, conservator, and defender
360

[sic] he should be; so that by the aid of his authority, religion rules all his subjects.... Among the rights that the laws give the sovereign should be included [the right] to display all the signs of grandeur and majesty necessary to make manifest the authority and dignity of such wide-ranging and lofty power, and to impress veneration for it upon the minds of all subjects. For although they should see in it the power of God Who has established it and should revere it apart from any visible signs of grandeur, nevertheless since God accompanies His own power with visible splendor on earth and in the heavens as in a throne and a palace... He permits that the power He shares with sovereigns be proportionately enhanced by them in ways suitable for arousing respect in the people. This can only be done by the splendor that radiates from the magnificence of their palaces and the other visible signs of grandeur that surround them, and whose use He Himself has given to the princes who have ruled according to His spirit. The first and most essential of all the duties of those whom God raises to sovereign government is to acknowledge this truth: that it is from God that they
361

hold all their power [sic], that it is His place they take, that it is through Him they should reign, and that it is to Him they should look for the knowledge and wisdom needed to master the art of governing. And it is these truths they should make the principle of all their conduct and the foundation of all their duties. The first result of these principles is that sovereigns should know what God requires of them in their station and how they should use the power He has given them. And it is from Him they should learn it, by reading His law, whose study He has explicitly prescribed for them, including what they should know in order to govern well. These general obligations ... encompass all the specific duties of those who hold sovereign power. For [these obligations] cover everything that concerns the administration of justice, the general policing of the state, public order, the repose of subjects, peace of mind in families, vigilance over everything that can contribute to the common good, the choice of able ministers who love justice and truth [sic], the appointment of good men to the dignities and offices that the sovereign himself needs to fill with persons known to him, the observance of regulations for filling other offices with people not subject to his personal
362

choice, discretion in the use of severity or mercy in those cases where the rigor of justice may be tempered, a wise distribution of benefices, rewards, exemptions, privileges, and other favors; good administration of the public finances, prudence in conducting relations with foreign states, and lastly everything that can make government pleasing to good people, terrible to the wicked, and worthy in all respects of the divine mandate to govern men, and of the use of a power which, coming only from God, shares in His own Authority.

We may add as a last duty of the sovereign, which follows from the first and includes all the others, that although his power seems to place him above the law, no one having the right to call him to account, nevertheless he should observe the laws as they may apply to him. And he is obliged to do this not only in order to set a good example to his subjects and make them love their duty, but because his sovereign power does not exempt him from his own duty, and his station requires him to prefer the general good of the
363

state to his personal interests, and it is a glory for him to look upon the general good as his own. ________________________________________ Source: Jean Domat: Le droit public, suite des lois civiles dans leur ordre naturel, vol. 3, Oeuvres compltes, nouvelle dition revue corrige, ed. Joseph Remy (Paris: FirminDidot, 1829), pp. 1-2, 15-2 1, 26-27, 35, 39, 40, 4445. Translated by Ruth Kleinman in Core Four Sourcebook _______________________________________ This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.
364

Appendix III:
GALILEO'S MAJOR WORKS

YEAR BOOK SUBJECT CONTRIBUTION 1610 Sidereus nuncius

[Sidereal Messenger] Telescopic observations. Qualitative observations of the stars, moon, Venus, moons of Jupiter, and the 'handles' on Saturn were polemical ammunition for Copernicanism. 1613 Lettere sulle macchie solari

[Letters on sun spots] Telescopic observations and mathematical analysis of sunspots. Demonstration of solar 'imperfections', axial rotation, and contiguous nature of sunspots. 1615 Lettera a Madama Cristina

[Letters to the Grand Duchess Christina] Science and religion; philosophy of science. Attempt to separate scientific concerns from theological dogma; the strengths and limits of scientific inquiry. 1623 Il saggiatore [The Assayer] Philosophy of science; wide discussion of troublesome physical phenomena. Polemic on the nature of scientific
365

investigation, particularly astronomical phenomena, based on observation & descriptive mathematics. 1632 Dialogo [Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World] Cosmology in the broadest sense; Copernicanism; kinematics. Brilliant literary polemic against Aristotelians in favor of Copernicus and the physics of a moving earth: inertia, relativity, and conservation of motion. 1638 Discorsi [Discourse on the Two New Sciences] Terrestrial kinematics; theory of matter, strength of materials. Mathematical (kinematic) demonstration and systematization of the science of motion and a discussion of the strength of materials.

X. Jansenism
Introduction: The Principles of Jansenism
The term Jansenism is derived from Cornelius Janssen (1585-1638), who brings to mind the cold but tenacious character of the Dictator of Geneva, John Calvin

366

Janssen was Flemish. He studied at universities in Louvain, Utrecht and Paris. He befriended Jean Du Vergier De Hauranne (otherwise known as the Abbot of Saint Cyran). He was reported to have read the whole Augustinian corpus then known ten times, and the writings on grace and Pelagianism thirty times. He then became Bishop of Ypres. But he became famous (or notorious) because of his book Augustinus, which comprised three parts: Book I resummarized the Pelagian controversy Book II denied the possibility of the state of pure nature Book III explicated his own theory of efficacious grace In the whole controversy surrounding Jansenism, Janssen was thought to be the head and Saint Cyran the heart of the movement to renew the Church, thought to have become Pelagian, worldly, powerful and sinful. Two disciples stood out: the brother and sister tandem of Antoine and Angelique Arnauld; a little bit later, through the connection with Port Royal, Blaise Pascal
367

In dealing with the whole historical phenomenon of Jansenism, its three principles must be kept in mind: 1) the dogmatic principle: characterized by a certain pessimism 2) the moral principle: characterized by a certain rigorism 3) the disciplinary principle: characterized by reformism

I. The Dogmatic Aspect of Jansenism:

The great dogmatic authority for the Jansenists was none other than the Doctor of Grace, St. Augustine. Because of the great esteem down the centuries with which the Church has considered Augustine, the Jansenists would now tend to measure every statement of the magisterium by the standard of Augustinian theology, indeed must be interpreted in such a way that it does not contradict Augustine. Note however that, in the final analysis, the controversy was really about how to interpret St. Augustine himself, for Janssen would come very close indeed, on the matter of grace and nature and human
368

free will, to certain positions held by Luther and Calvin Thus Janssen 1) denied the supernatural character of the state of original justice, and 2) in consequence, after original sin, human nature, now intrinsically corrupt, lost its genuine liberty, maintaining only its immunity from external influence but not from an internal determination; 3) and that therefore the human will necessarily followed (because intrinsically or internally determined) the impulse which it was given, i.e., the grace that it was offered OR the concupiscence in which it was left by the absence of grace; 4) but grace is not always and everywhere offered, therefore some men, left to their own devices without supernatural help, necessarily follow concupiscence and fall into sin Note: the Church has always defended both grace and human freedom For Janssen, however, grace has become invincible to the point that human freedom itself is essentially destroyed.
369

The Church does distinguish between efficient or efficacious grace, not always offered, and sufficient grace, always offered Janssen denies the always offered sufficient grace, and admits only not always offered efficacious grace The Christological significance of this: Christ died on the Cross only for the elect, not for all men and women; only to the elect is efficacious grace therefore given The Jansenist cross symbolizes this Christological position: the arms of Jesus are stretched out and held not wide but up high The ecclesiological effect of this Christological doctrine therefore is that the Church becomes not the Church where there is a place for all human beings but the Church only of an elect, the select few that have been saved

II. The Moral Aspect of Jansenism:

There is a psychological and historical connection between the dogmatic and moral aspects (rather than a strictly logical one).
370

Before a God who is the absolute judge of the human destiny, i.e., of the destiny of every human person, a God who at his own pleasure elects a small number of people, and who dies only for them, the most spontaneous human attitude before such a God could only be fear and not love Thus, in consequence, where moral matters are concerned, Jansenism fosters a certain rigorism, which has diverse manifestations: The refusal of probabilism (which the Jansenists had identified with Jesuit moral teaching) The negative vision of the works of the faithful, particularly of sinners, works that are always sinful because they were the fruits or effects of an intrinsically corrupted human nature, not even ordained to God by an initial charity The condemnation of attrition, considered not only insufficient to obtain remission of sins outside of the sacrament but in itself and for itself immoral The delay of absolution to penitents whose perseverance (in the moral life) was not considered sufficient enough evidence, and, in any case, to those

371

who had not yet completed the penance imposed on them The denial of absolution to those who are bound to fall back into sin The affirmation that ignorance, even if invincible ignorance, does not excuse from sin The ineluctability (inevitability) of sin in human life The accumulation of conditions, almost impossible to fulfill, as requirements for Holy Communion The predilection for extraordinary penances The depreciation of human nature in itself The excessive devaluation of marriage vis a vis chastity The doctrine that perfection is possible and salvation easy only by fleeing from the world The diffidence shown toward demonstrations of familial affection and of friendships The criticism of popular Marian piety and its devotional expressions

372

IV. The Disciplinary Aspects of Jansenism:

The Church as the Jansenists then knew her they identified as adulterous and unfaithful. The Church must therefore be integrally renewed through a return to the pristine origins and by eliminating all the novelties introduced in 15 centuries of her history. The Jansenists considered the Church as a divine creature that did not admit of growth or development or evolution; they held a rather strongly anti-historical image of the Church. Infallibility was reserved to the Church and not only to the pope. Later, through alliances with the secular authority, particularly in Italy with the Synod of Pistoia, the Jansenists would give rise to the historical phenomenon of jurisdictionalism.

XI. Gallicanism
I. Antecedents

373

In the high Middle Ages, we see the first affirmations of Gallicanism, more or less vague, on the independence of the episcopate and of the civil authority from Rome. These same affirmations were repeated with greater clarity and vigor during the conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip the Fair of France. The same tendencies resurfaced and took new life in the resistance to the fiscalism promoted by the Avignon popes, and finally in the discussions of and attempts to put an end to the Western Schism (i.e., in the theory of conciliarism and its temporary victory at Constance in 1415 and at Basel in 1431). Given the confused situation of the Church after the Councils of Constance and Basel, France then tried to gain the advantage by issuing the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges in 1438; this upheld the conciliar theory and Frances relative independence from Rome, reducing for all practical purposes to the minimum the powers of the pope over the French Church (the Gallican Church). In order to invest the document with great authority, it was falsely attributed to the action of King Louis IX of France. The concordat of 1516 between Rome and Paris abrogated the Pragmatic Sanction in theory, but it
374

continued to attribute to the King of France a great part of the privileges which were arrogated to the French monarchs by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1438, even though these privileges were now granted as concessions of the Pope, so that the Pragmatic Sanction would continue to be cloaked by a veil of veneration on the part of the French. Between the end of the 1500s and the beginning of the 1600s, we see the following: the really long resistance against the introduction of the Tridentine decrees because they were thought to be imposed by an authority external to France; the position assumed by the popes in the wars of religion; the affirmation of absolutism. All of these reinforced the old Gallican tendencies of autonomy from Rome. Attempts to cloak the claims of the French Church with systematic form and to give to them a patina of antiquity were made, as if the clergy had done nothing but defend the ancient traditions (of the French or Gallican Church) against the novelties introduced by Rome Pierre Pithon, in his Les liberts de lEglise gallicane, written in 1594, would catalogue, on the basis of consuetudinary laws (i.e., customs), these liberties in
375

83 articles, regrouping them around 2 functional principles: 1) the absolute independence of the sovereign king from the popes in temporal matters 2) limitations of the powers of the Pope in the kingdom according to conciliar (read: Conciliarist) canons and the traditions proper to the French/Gallican Church. Also, Edmond Richer, in his De ecclesiastica et politica postestate, published in 1611, defended the oligarchic concept of the Church, attributing sovereignty over the Church to all priests, the legislative power to the synods and councils, and the executive power to the pope and bishops in equal measure The constitution of the Church would have been made similar to that of Poland or the Republic of Venice, and the Pope, like the Doge of Venice, would have been reduced to a simple executor of the orders of the senate. Pierre de Marche, Archbishop of Toulouse, in his De concordia sacerdotii et imperii, printed in 1641 and subsequently placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, sustained the position that papal laws do not oblige until they are accepted by the Church, i.e., by the
376

body formed by the faithful and represented by the Prince. In practice, this meant that the Prince, as representative of the faithful in his own territory, could accept or reject the Roman dispositions. Thus was a complex spirit diffused in France, diffident toward the Roman authority, jealous of its own independence, attached to its own customs, and submissive to the exigencies of the state More or less consciously, two diverse tendencies together flowed in this mentality: 1) the first tendency: the attempt to move the authority of the Church from the center to the periphery, including a whole range of attitudes, which went from one position quite close to schism to a great autonomy still compatible with the most rigid orthodoxy: Ecclesiastical Gallicanism 2) the second tendency: the propensity to accept the intervention of the civil power in religious questions; thus the temptation offered by a moment in the old caesaropapism, reinforced in the Modern Age through historical phenomena like the breakdown of religious unity and the birth of the absolute state; this is called Political Gallicanism
377

In theory: These two tendencies could remain distinct, i.e., it is possible that the jealous guarding of ones own autonomy vis a vis the Supreme Head of the Church could also be wholly alien to any servile attitude vis a vis the civil power. In reality: According to Rome: ecclesiastical Gallicanism inexorably and inevitably led to political Gallicanism. Thus the comments of a Roman prelate to a French magistrate then visiting Rome in 1739, Charles de Brosses: In France, while on the one hand you refuse to have even the least deference toward that which emanates from papal authority in the spiritual camp, you seem, on the other hand, to want to attribute to your King () an unlimited authority on the same argument. According to some French historians like Pierre Blet, S. J., ecclesiastical Gallicanism was really quite more moderate than what it seemed, and did not necessarily lead to political Gallicanism.

378

II. The Controversy over the Regala (royal rights):

It is undeniable that the clergy did find itself in serious difficulty on the occasion of a conflict between the Quirinale (the Papacy) and Versailles (the French King), an eventuality that was possible enough in the case of a Church and State directed by strong personalities: Louis XIV (the Sun King) succeeded in swaying the more flexible popes like Alexander VII to his way of thinking, but he screamed against a wall of bronze when he had Innocent XI to deal with 1) First grave incident: 1662 Following a brawling incident between the Corsican papal guards and the soldiers of the Duke of Crqui, the ambassador of Louis XIV to the papal court, the papal nuncio was expelled from France, and the papal territories of Avignon and the surrounding region on the left bank of the Rhone, called the Contado Venassino, were occupied by French troops. Alexander VII (1655-1667) was constrained to accept the humiliating compromise of Pisa (1664), presenting his apology and firing his own Corsican guards The courts, the episcopate, or royalist sympathies, the Sorbonne, the Jesuits, and the confessor of the King,
379

the Jesuit P. La Chaise, did not attempt to hide their admiration for the King and did not oppose any real resistance to his pretensions 2) Second grave incident: 1673-1680 The Sorbonne: discussions were held over the regalia, the rights enjoyed by the Crown from medieval times (and recognized from the time of the Second Council of Lyon in 1274) to administer the goods of some dioceses during the vacancy of their seats and to receive their revenues (temporal regalia), and to confer their benefices without the care of souls (spiritual regalia) Louis XIV would declare the spiritual regalia an imprescriptible and inalienable right of the Crown and extended it to all dioceses of the Kingdom Two bishops, Nicolas Pavillon of Alet and Etienne Caulet of Pamiers, resisted the royal declaration and appealed to Rome; these two dioceses, Alet and Pamiers, are found in southern France A side issue: Pavillon and Pamiers were sympathizers of Jansenism, but this did not prevent them from professing fidelity to Rome Innocent XI (1676-1689), the Odescalchi Pope:
380

Possessed of a firm and resolute character, the Pope did not allow any further royal interference in ecclesiastical questions. However he himself was not very well prepared in the field of theology; neither was he well prepared in the diplomatic field. He did not always express himself well in his judgments over men, not out of fear but due to the different orientations of his own advisers. He sent three papal briefs to Louis XIV, redacted in rather strong terms, particularly the third brief, which threatened ecclesiastical censure and the divine wrath. Louis XIV then proposed a tacit agreement or a compromise: a papal indult ceding to the King the right of regalia. The Pope however refused. In the meantime, in 1680, the Ordinary Assembly of the Clergy met in Paris. The participants in the assembly avoided being drawn into the substantial issues but limited themselves to lamenting the opposed positions of the King, to whom they protested their loyalty, and of the Pope Failure in negotiation led to initiatives to call for an Extraordinary Assembly of the Clergy to be held toward the end of 1681
381

III. The Declaration of Gallican Rights of 1682:

In November of 1681, Bossuet opened the Assembly with a discourse that distinguished between the Roman See and the person who occupied it, carefully calibrating praise and reservations vis a vis Rome and diligently reaffirming the traditional liberties of the French Church, among which was its absolute independence in temporal matters In January of 1682, recent declarations of Louis XIV served to diminish further the range of the regalia and its rights, in a measure retained by the Assembly to be fully acceptable, such that some difficulty was lifted on the part of the Parliament of Paris, rather inclined to vigorously defend the rights of the Crown But Innocent XI, ill-advised and not well-informed, proved intransigent and refused to compromise, rejecting the letter that the Assembly of the Clergy had addressed to him and in which they begged him to accept the most recent decisions of Louis XIV, decisions which as a whole created for the Church in France a situation more favorable than that anterior to 1673 In Paris, a strong negative reaction me the papal intransigence and in March of 1682, the Assembly
382

approved a declaration redacted by Bossuet, despite his reluctance, and by order of the King. Very probably through the intervention of the Archbishop of Rheims, Mons. Le Tellier, the declaration was corrected in a more radical direction. The declaration of the rights of the Gallican Church contained four articles: 1) the absolute independence of the King in temporal matters 2) the superiority of the council over the pope according to the decrees of the Council of Constance 3) the infallibility of the Pope conditioned by the consent of the episcopate 4) the inviolability of the ancient and venerable traditions of the Gallican Church Thus for the first time, the Gallican principles, up until then rather indeterminate and exposed in various ways, now assumed a precise and definitive formulation that could be given a wider interpretation and greater possibilities of intervention in the affairs of the French Church by the French sovereign Louis XIV then imposed the Four Articles and its teaching on all the theological faculties in France
383

Innocent XI, even before he was informed of the tenor of the Four Articles, issued his brief Paternae charitati of 11 April 1682, expressing his bitterness at the weakness of the French bishops who did not dare take to the defense of the Church and her rights, refuting their arguments and declaring null and void the dispositions on the French regalia But, upon being informed of the Four Articles, the Pope chose not to comment on them; he decided instead to withhold the canonical institution of the candidates to the episcopate who participated in the Assembly of 1681-1682. Louis XIV in his turn refused to ask for the bull of canonical institution for the other candidates until those who were deputies in the Assembly had received theirs. The effect of this battle of wits and bulls/decrees was that, at the death of Innocent XI, the number of vacant episcopal seats in France had the 40s When the new French Ambassador to the Holy See arrived in Rome,* the Pope refused to receive him, considered to be excommunicated as he was by the Pope. The Ambassador informed that royal court that
384

the King and his ministers must therefore be under the ecclesiastical censure also. The French King did not allow himself to be troubled too much by this snub however; he decided rather to occupy Avignon and Venassino and to call for the convocation of a council With the death of Innocent XI, the resolution of the conflict passed into the hands of his successors, Alexander VIII and Innocent XII

IV. The Compromise under the New Popes:

At the end of the 1600s, the political situation was no longer favorable to the Most Christian King of the French, now troubled by the scarce resources of the royal treasury, the strong rebound of the Hapsburgs and the new English power. Without submitting, he nevertheless initiated a prudent strategic retreat: He restored the occupied territories to papal power, renounced the right of asylum for his embassy in Rome, but did not give in on the matter of the Four Articles Alexander VIII (1689-1691), having ceded on less important and secondary points, and hoping to reach agreement on the more substantial questions (i.e., the
385

Four Articles), just before his death, divulged in his brief Inter multiplices, signed six months before, the following: he once again declared juridically null and void the acts of the Assembly of the Clergy of 1682, their confirmation by the King, and the edict on the regalia The Articles were now declared to be without effect for the French clergy, although the French courts did not expressly condemn their content. Under Alexander VIIIs successor, Innocent XII (16911700), new attempts at an agreement were made: In 1693, Louis XIV announced to the Pope that he had revoked his order that the Gallican Articles be taught in the theological faculties. Innocent XII finally gave canonical institution to the candidates to the vacant episcopal sees, but only after each and every candidate had written to the Pope expressing his regrets over the affair. The royal decree on the regalia was never revoked, but there must have been a tacit agreement between the Pope and the King not to activate it.

386

The Four Articles, not having been condemned, would however continue to be taught and sustained by many French theological faculties The Gallican controversies would be intertwined in the 1700s with the Jansenists controversies, provoking alliances and reversals, the logical and psychological causes of which would take too long to explain here however The French parliaments supporting the Jansenists would deny to the Church every coercive power and would vindicate the claim of the civil authority to possess the competence to admit the faithful to the sacraments. From the other side, several Jesuits, in the hope of combating more effectively the spread of Jansenism, and above all in the desperate preoccupation to ward off from their leader a final destruction, would adhere within certain limits to Gallicanism. More than 100 Jesuits in 1762 had promised to teach the Four Gallican Articles, all to no avail because Gallicanism and Jansenism would end up forming a common united front against the Society of Jesus in the 1700s
387

V. Febronius:
The setting: German-speaking territories The issue: opposition to Roman centralization, the echo of which one finds in the capitulation imposed on the candidates to the Imperial Crown and in the ever repeated Gravamina nationis Germanicae, which sets its sights primarily on the fiscalism of the Roman curia, on the obligations imposed on the bishops to renew their faculties every five years, on the conferment of various benefices on the part of Rome, on the jurisdiction exercised by the nunciatures in the host countries, usually in competition with that exercised by the bishops Though these anti-Roman tendencies did not have the same importance that they had in France, nevertheless this was due more to the absence of a strong central political organism (unlike the French monarchy) and to the fear of aggravating the Protestant scission The inciting occasion: the work of the coadjutor bishop of Trier, Nicolas von Hontheim (1701-1790). Hontheim had studied under Bernard van Espen at Louvain, the well-known jurisdictionalist whose work Jus ecclesiasticum had been placed on the Index.
388

After many small writings, Hontheim published in 1763, under the pseudonym Justinus Febronius (after his niece Justine who, after her entrance to religious life, had taken the name Febronia), his major work De statu Ecclesiae et de potestate legitima Romani Pontificis liber singularis, ad reuniendos dissidentes in religione compositus. The book declared that, in the primitive Church, supreme authority rested in the bishops and the council. Thus: Hontheim held a kind of absolute episcopalism, already defended by earlier writers such as Richer. Febronius recognized in the papacy a primacy, to which he tried, after many contradictions, to give a juridical content, but which in fact he reduced to a preeminence honoris, directionis et inspectionis. The Pope, as representative of the Council, oversaw the application of conciliar deliberations, and did make dogmatic and disciplinary decisions, but these had binding force only after their acceptance, also implicit, by the national Churches and the dioceses In short, the laws emanating from the papal office had an obliging force only after they had been accepted by
389

the episcopate, not therefore on the basis of the authority of the Pope himself but on the consensus of the bishops Evident here is the analogous position enunciated in the fourth Gallican article of 1682. According to Febronius, all the other powers exercised by the Pope, powers such as the confirmation and deposition of bishops, the granting of dispensations, etc., were the result of a long series of usurpation by Roman authorities of powers that should now be restored to the episcopate Decisive help in the vindication of episcopalist claims could come from the civil power, which, in order to defend the bishops, may have recourse to the placet, and can convene provincial and national synods, and in extreme cases can use even force against the Pope Hontheims book enjoyed immediate and widespread success, provoking discussion and polemics from Poland to Portugal, from Naples to Bruxelles; it went through four editions Confutations of the Febronian theses were not long in coming:

390

The Jesuit Francesco Antonio Zacaria wrote his AntiFebronius. The Dominican Tomaso Maria Mamachi wrote his Febronius. The Capuchin Viatore da Coccaglios Italus ad Febronium The Prince-Bishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier attempted to arrive at a basis for a reform inspired by the Febronian theses in a convention held in Coblenz in 1769; the convention was delegated by them and put under the presidency of Hontheim. Only in 1778 did Hontheim retract his own ideas, but probably without much sincerity as can be seen in the following: he did attenuate his retraction in his Commentarius in suam retractationem and in his correspondence, and he gave his approval to the Congress of Ems of 1778 in which the three bishops wanted to move toward effective action, with a program of reform founded on two essential principles: 1) the limitation of papal jurisdiction in Germany, maintaining only the bishop as the unique authority in the dioceses

391

2) the elimination of Church customs hated by the followers of the Enlightenment This attempt on the part of the Prince-Bishops would fail however for the following reasons: 1) the vigorous opposition of the papal nuncio in Cologne 2) the fear of the suffragan bishops that the powers of the metropolitans would be increased to the detriment of their own 3) the intervention of Pius VI 4) the scarce agreement on the positions of the three bishops with those of Joseph II

VI. The Sunset and End of Gallicanism:

The gravest wound inflicted on Gallicanism came, rather unexpectedly and paradoxically, from the French state authority, indeed precisely from Napoleon Bonaparte himself with the concordat signed with Pius VII in 1801. Though imbued with Gallican ideas, as demonstrated by the unilaterally attached complex of clauses to the concordat, called the organic articles, all of which
392

remained faithful to the pure regalist and Gallican tradition, Napoleon nevertheless made a serious step the consequences of which were not clearly foreseen. The concordat stipulated that, in order to conveniently provide for the reorganization of the dioceses according to the new order of civil administration, which reduced the ecclesiastical areas to seventy, these reorganized dioceses were to have new titularies The bishops were then invited to resign their sees, and in case they refused, the Pope was to proceed to act against them given the new directives Thirty-six bishops, many if not all of whom had remained loyal to Rome all through out the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and who had suffered poverty and exile, refused to submit their resignation Pius VII, in order to resolve the impasse, made recourse to a heretofore unheard proceeding in 18 centuries of Church history: on 29 November 1801, the bull Qui Christi Domini deposed thirty-six French bishops together in one stroke of the pen Though this action came about because of extraordinary circumstances, still it had the effect of
393

eloquently demonstrating just how much authority the Pope had over the French Church and the French episcopate This signaled the beginning of the end to any more Gallican pretensions in the French Church In the following years, the supreme authority of the Pope underwent a noteworthy development. The moral prestige of the Pope was paradoxically reinforced by the humiliations and vexations imposed by Napoleon on Pius VII who, despite having made all the possible concessions to the desires of the First Consul and later Emperor, would dare to resist and oppose Napoleon when his conscience impelled him not to give in anymore Romanticism, which exemplified the need for a firm support that could no longer be found in the secularist and liberal state, found an example in the constant and conscientious action of Pius IX to gather directly around himself the universal Church, seen in the following: The ever-frequent interventions made by the Roman congregations in diocesan affairs and problems The creation of grand national seminaries in Rome
394

Assemblies of bishops in Rome The proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in which the episcopate played a supporting role to that of papal authority The personal charism of the Pope that rendered him immensely popular All this had the effect of diminishing the attraction that Gallicanism might have exercised. There remained theoretical resistance, but in practice the authority of the Pope was never higher Finally, Vatican I would give the definitive blow to Gallicanism with its two definitions of 18 July 1870: Against the fourth Gallican article of 1682, according to which papal definitions acquire definitive, irreformable, i.e., infallible value only after they are given a positive reception by the Church (in other words, when they are accepted by the Church), Vatican I would reiterate that the dogmatic definitions of the Pope are infallible in themselves, i.e., that they are infallible of their own nature, through the most special assistance given by God to the papal magisterium, not through the consensus of the Church (thus, ex sese, non ex consensus Ecclesiae).
395

Moreover, always with a view to fully refute the Gallican doctrines, and also the Febronian theses which looked to weaken papal power and authority, Vatican I would teach the universal primacy of jurisdiction of the Pope over all the Church; the universal papal legislation possessed obligatory value through the authority of the Pope himself, before this is accepted by the Church and independently of this acceptance

In conclusion:
Between Trent and Vatican I, indeed from Trent to Vatican I, we find developing in the Church a vigorous struggle between two forces: Centripetal forces, which in the 1800s would come to be called ultramontanism Centrifugal forces, represented by Gallicanism, Febronism, episcopalism This struggle would be characterized by dramatic moments and would have its conclusion only in the 1800s with Vatican I, which signaled the culmination of the work of restoration undertaken by Pius IX and his centralizing action
396

This centralization, the intimate adhesion of all the Church to the Pope, would allow the Church to overcome with minor difficulties the attacks of absolutism and liberalism, given that this gave the Church the strength and moral force to face up to the challenge posed by the modern state. The dialectic of history: this positive arrangement, which would allow the Church to conserve her independence and to maintain her own proper dignity, would nevertheless have its own negative consequences: Thus the unity of the Church would come to be understood as a rigid uniformity so that legitimate differences in customs and traditions would come to be devalued and suppressed Episcopal authority would come to be controlled by Rome in a minute, detailed manner, thus leaving the bishops without any sufficient autonomy and in practice making them dependent in some cases on the functionaries and bureaucrats of the Roman curia who happened to be inferior to them in grade and dignity. Vatican II would seek to restore the balance once again with its acknowledgment of the episcopal collegiality and the practical emphasis on the authority of bishops
397

of which the concrete expression above all would be the episcopal synods. This would augur a new equilibrium, founded on the harmonious cooperation between the center (Rome) and the periphery (the dioceses).

Appendix:
Medieval Sourcebook: The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 1438 ________________________________________ In 1438 the King of France, Charles VIII, called a Synod that met in the city of Bourges. Among the decrees of that synod was the "Pragmatic Sanction," which placed significant restrictions on the powers of the pope. The king declares that, according to the oath taken at their coronation, kings are bound to defend and protect the holy church, its ministers and its sacred offices, and zealously to guard in their kingdoms the decrees of the holy fathers. The general council assembled at Basel to continue the work begun by the councils of Constance and Siena, and to labor for the
398

reform of the Church, in both its head and members, having had presented to it numerous decrees and regulations, with the request that it accept them and cause them to be observed in the kingdom, the king has convened an assembly composed of prelates and other ecclesiastics representing the clergy of France and of the Dauphin. He has presided in person over its deliberations, surrounded by his son, the princes of the blood, and the principal lords of the realm. He has listened to the ambassadors of the Pope and the council. From the examination of prelates and the most renowned doctors, (1) and from the thoroughgoing discussions of the assembly, it appears that, from the falling into decay of the early discipline, the churches of the kingdom have been made to suffer from all sorts of insatiable greed; that the riserve and the grace expectative (2) have given rise to grievous abuses and unbearable burdens; that the most notable and best endowed benefices (3) have fallen into the hands of unknown men, who do not conform at all to the requirement of residence(4) and who do not understand the speech of the people committed to their care, and consequently are neglectful of the needs of their souls, like mercenaries who dream of nothing whatever but temporal gain; that thus the
399

worship of Christ is declining, piety is enfeebled, the laws of the Church are violated, and buildings for religious uses are falling in ruin. The clergy abandon their theological studies, because there is no hope of advancement. Conflicts without number rage over the possession of benefices, plurality of which is coveted by an execrable ambition. (5) Simony is everywhere glaring;(6) the prelates and other collators are pillaged of their rights and their ministry; the rights of patrons are impaired; and the wealth of the kingdom goes into the hands of foreigners, to the detriment of the clergy. Since, in the judgment of the prelates and other ecclesiastics, the decrees of the holy council of Basel seemed to afford a suitable remedy for all these evils, after mature deliberation, we have decided to accept them-some without change, others with certain modifications-without wishing to cast doubt upon the power and authority of the council, but at the same time taking account of the necessities of the occasion and of the customs of the nation. 1.General councils shall be held every ten years, in places to be designated by the pope. 2.The authority of the general council is superior to that of the pope in all that pertains to the faith, the
400

extirpation of schism, and the reform of the Church in both head and members. 3.Election is reestablished for ecclesiastical offices, but the king, or the princes of his kingdom, without violating the canonical rules, may make recommendations when elections are to occur in the chapters or the monasteries. 4. The popes shall not have the right to reserve the collation of benefices, or to bestow any benefice before it becomes vacant. 5. All grants of benefices made by the pope in virtue of the droit d'expectative are hereby declared null. Those who shall have received such benefices shall be punished by the secular power. The popes shall not have the right to interfere by the creation of canonships. 6. Appeals to Rome are prohibited until every other grade of jurisdiction shall have been exhausted. 7. Annates are prohibited (7). * ______________ (1) "Doctors" means here professors of theology.

401

(2) "Rserve" was the practice of the raising money from offices over which the pope had no jurisdiction; "droit d'expectative" was raising money from offices which were not yet vacant. (3) A "benefice" was an endowment set aside for the maintenance of clergy. (4) "Residence" meant that the holder of a benefice had to actually do the work associated with that benefice. (5) "Plurality" was when a cleric held more than one benefice. (6) "Simony" is the buying and selling of Church offices. (7) "Annates" were the first years revenues from an office. These were to be sent to the pope. ________________________________________ Source. From: Milton VIORST, ed., The Great Documents of Western Civilization (New York; date?) pp. 77-78. ________________________________________ This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
402

copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use. Paul Halsall, July 1998 halsall@murray.fordham.edu

XII: The Enlightenment

The aim of this chapter is not to give an exhaustive and complete account of the Enlightenment and its history, but simply to provide a summary of essential points that would allow us to arrive at a picture of the problems with which the Church had to deal and confront.

403

A. Causes:
The Enlightenment was in grand part the product of two philosophical systems diffused or widespread in Europe in the 1600s: empiricism and rationalism. Empiricism: this philosophical system denied any substantial difference between sensible knowledge and intellectual knowledge, putting in the senses the unique source of all our knowledge and rejecting innate ideas, while exalting and promoting the experimental method. Rationalism: this system of thought attributed an absolute value to rational knowledge, which develops independently of the senses, and admits reason alone as the unique criterion of truth, a reason which possesses in itself the first principles of which every knowledge of ours is only logical consequence, and to which reality itself necessarily conforms (quia necessario sic cogito, necessario sic est...), and expresses a special preference for the mathematical sciences. These two systems were apparently opposed, so that one cancelled out the other necessarily. Nevertheless, they did have various aspects in common:
404

Both put the criterion of truth in the subject (the one in the senses, the other in the mind). And therefore both deny that which transcends the subject. From these two positions, it was easy enough to arrive at the fundamental affirmation of the Enlightenment itself: the full auto-sufficiency of the human being, or at least the tendency to achieve this ideal. The Illuminist (i.e., the enlightened one), with full trust in his own resources, is determined to put an end to the obscurantism of the past, opening new ways in philosophy, in politics, in economics, in law, in morality, in religion itself... That which was present in the renaissance and humanism, but which remained confused, unclear, incipient and contradictory, would now find, in the Enlightenment project, its explicit and unambiguous awareness and expression...

405

B. Essential Characteristics of the Enlightenment:

1) faith in reason: -- reason: one and the same in all centuries, in all places, in all people; universality therefore is a characteristic of reason... -- the model for reasons operations: mathematical reason, i.e., the application of mathematical principles to the realm of experience in order to reach reality itself and to subject it to the human, to his control and productive powers... -- discounted therefore: truths from revelation, the faith, the Church, from any authority that is extrinsic to reason itself; indeed, truths from such are themselves to be subjected to the authority of reason itself, which becomes their norm and measure... 2) faith in human nature: -- the human being is good in itself, not corrupted by sin, and therefore has no need for any kind of redemption which descends from on high... -- the doctrine of original sin is either denied outright or passes into oblivion
406

-- the human being, left to himself, and relying solely on his own inner resources, can conquer all obstacles in order to win his happiness, discover the truth, and follow that which is good -- corruption is the product of evil laws derived from false principles, and the human being has it within himself to find the resources from within himself to correct the situation without any external assistance (e.g., of grace from God or through the sacraments, etc.) -- thus was born the myth of the noble savage (Rousseau), of the simple and good human being who is corrupted by past civilizations -- example usually given: China, which had not known any supernatural revelation, had already achieved security, peace, prosperity, the sciences, and philosophy... -- ironically, this was an idealized portrait of China, which astounded the West, but derived from the propaganda of the Christian missionaries themselves, particularly the Jesuits... -- it is not strange that the illuministi did not recognize or pay Confucius any authentic cult...
407

3) devaluation of the past: -- the past: necessarily the age of darkness for the proponents of the Enlightenment project (the Middle Ages were characterized as the Dark Ages by the illuministi... in contrast, the present and the future comprise the Age of Light, of lights (luce, luz, lumire)... -- basically responsible for the darkness of past ages: the Church, which transformed the free human being into the slave of a revelation from on high, a transcendent revolution -- thus: an open hostility, without limits, toward the Church, which must be deprived of her influence and status in society and, if possible, destroyed, for the sake of the good of humanity... 4) optimism: -- the proponents of the Enlightenment were imbued with a certain prophetic and messianic ardor, a faith in unlimited progress, a you aint seen nothing yet, baby kind of attitude, so that the best is still to come, indeed, is always set to come, is always on the way to arriving...

408

C. Practical Applications of Enlightenment Principles:

1) in religion: -- the refusal of every positive (as opposed to natural) religion, every revelation, every dogma, every institution that pretends to play a mediating role between man and God, and that claims to draw its authority from an extrinsic realm of reality... -- only a natural religion is acceptable, reduced to a vague Deism, in which the divine essence or nature remains unknowable, so that it denies every possibility of divine intervention in the world, leaving the human therefore to rely only on himself and on the ethical principles drawn from his reason... 2) in morality: -- there is no such thing as the natural law presented as the manifestation in this world of the divine and eternal law... -- there is only a morality which is the exigency of human reason itself and the human will; the law must oblige, etiam si Deus non esset, as if God does not exist...

409

3) in pedagogy: -- the adolescent must freely reach the truth on his own, without receiving it passively from his teacher, i.e., he must follow his instincts, and acquire for himself control over his passions... -- religious ideas, which are rather few and quite simple, must be learned rather late in life, and only in a gradual manner... 4) in economics: -- considered a science ruled by necessary laws, just as in physics and astronomy, so that it is enough therefore to discover what these laws are and to respect them in order to assure the economic order... -- state intervention in order to influence or change the natural development of economic facts is considered an error and bound to produce serious damage... -- thus we find a move from mercantilism to physiocracy, which promotes the liberty of commerce and of production (laissez faire, laissez passer) while it gives preference to agriculture over industry... 5) in politics: -- the sovereign ruler must assure the ordered happiness of his subjects who nonetheless do not
410

enjoy liberty or true rights; subjects must rather depend on him for everything... -- the absolutism that characterized rulers in the 1600s give way to what has been called enlightened despotism in the 1700s, i.e., the ruler now seeks to impose his will no longer because that pleases him but because such is an exigency of reason itself, necessary for the good of his subjects (and indeed for his own good); the king remains a despot, but the reasons for his governing and acting have become more enlightened -- enlightened despotism nevertheless had the effect of increasing state intervention in all areas of life, regulating down to the most minute the details of every day life, but putting limits to privileges and tending to render all subjects as equal before the law...

D. The Balance: Pros and Cons of the Enlightenment Project:

In summary: the Enlightenment presents two faces of itself... -- a genuine civil and social progress

411

-- but also a progress which lacks any religious inspiration and therefore is usually wedded to a spirit profoundly anti-religious in character... 1) Pros: -- education would receive a noteworthy growth in the multiplication of schools for all social classes and genders -- there is therefore a renewal of pedagogical methods -- teaching draws closer to reality, with more weight now given to law, history, economics, statistics, instead of the traditional emphasis in theology, philosophy, Latin and Greek... -- there is also a rapid development in trade and commerce and infrastructure -- agricultural experiments with new methods of production are now widened to cover areas heretofore untouched -- the invention of machines and the progress of technology -- the state itself is renewed

412

-- the traditional privileges (granted to the nobility) are abolished; primogeniture is abrogated... -- there are reforms instituted in the civil administration and bureaucracy; and a more rational system of taxation put in place -- civil and political rights are now extended to all regardless of religious affiliation -- penal procedures undergo changes: torture as a way of discovering the truth by coercive confessions is now suppressed; the death penalty is now abolished for the first time...; a full stop put to the processes against women considered to be witches, processes which usually ended up in a kind of lynching and burning at the stake... 2) Cons: -- the hostility of the illuministi towards the Church and towards Church personnel -- attempts therefore to weaken the authority of the Church in many areas of social life -- the enlightened state, finding it impossible to abolish positive religion and revelation, would settle for an almost total control of the Church, so that in fact the Church would become an instrument of the state
413

-- thus: jurisdictionalism, Josephism (Jurisdictionalism as implemented by the Hapsburgs in Austria and their other territories) -- effects of this hostility against the Church: -- abolition of many convents and monasteries -- confiscation of Church properties declared mano morte or mortmain -- clergy now become salaried officials of the state, taking on the tasks of teachers of agriculture and collaborators of the police in order to assure social peace and order -- even worship and its rites are now regulated by the state -- candidates to priestly and religious life now examined by state officials -- popes and heads of international religious orders and congregations residing in Rome are now considered foreign powers whose authority, through their representatives in the territory of the enlightened state, must be controlled and regulated... -- thus: the extension of the exequatur and the placet to many areas of ecclesiastical life and discipline...
414

-- perhaps the deepest negative effect: the triumph of reason over any positive sense of faith and revelation: God becomes unreal in the concrete lives of people...

E. The Tragedy of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries:

In summary: the Church would turn not only conservative but also reactionary instead of creatively responding to the signs of the times... The Church was unable to discern and distinguish the good from the bad, so that the Enlightenment would be condemned in toto for all the evils and errors of the times... The French Revolution and its subsequent deterioration and degeneration into the Reign of Terror (with the Revolution devouring as it were its own sons and daughters and Reason now worshipped as the Goddess of a new religion and enthroned in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris) would further convince the Church that the Enlightenment was an evil project through and through and that it must be resisted with all her might... Unfortunately, this resistance in fact took the form of a desire and a program to restore the ancien regime,
415

i.e., the old alliance between throne and altar, between Church and State... Thus: we have Quanta cura and the Syllabus errorum, Vatican I, and the Modernist crisis of the early 20th century... Only in Vatican II would a new equilibrium be achieved...

Appendix I:
Modern History Sourcebook: Montesquieu: The Persian Letters, No. 13, 1721

Letter 83: If there is a God, my dear Rhedi, he must necessarily be just; for if he were not, he would be the worst and most imperfect being of all. Justice is a relation of suitability, which actually exists between two things. This relationship is always the same, by whatever being it is perceived, whether by God, or by an angel, or finally by a man.
416

It is true that men do not see these relationships all the time. Often, indeed, when they do see them they turn away from them, and what they best see is always their self-interest. Justice raises its voice, but has difficulty in making itself heard amongst the tumult of the passions. Men are capable of unjust actions because it is in their interest to do them, and they prefer their own satisfaction to that of others. They always act with reference to themselves -- no one is gratuitously wicked; there must be a determinant reason, and this reason is always a reason of self-interest. But it is not possible that God should ever do anything unjust. Once it is assumed that he perceives what is just, he must necessarily act in accordance with it, for since he has no need of anything, and is sufficient to himself, he would be the wickedest of all beings if he were wicked without self-interest. Consequently, even if there were no God, we should nonetheless still love justice, that is to say, make an effort to resemble this being of whom we have so exalted a conception, and who if he existed would be just necessarily. Even if we were free of the constraints
417

of religion, we ought not to be free of those imposed by equity. It is this, Rhedi, which has led me to think that justice is eternal, and does not depend on human conventions. Even if it were to depend on them, this truth would be a terrible once, and we should have to conceal it from ourselves. This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook. (c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997 halsall@murray.fordham.edu

Appendix II:
The Philosophical Dictionary
418

Voltaire Selected and Translated by H.I. Woolf New York: Knopf, 1924 Scanned by the Hanover College Department of History in 1995. Proofread and pages added by Jonathan Perry, March 2001.

Religion I MEDITATED last night; I was absorbed in the contemplation of nature; I admired the immensity, the course, the harmony of these infinite globes which the vulgar do not know how to admire. I admired still more the intelligence which directs these vast forces. I said to myself: "One must be blind not to be dazzled by this spectacle; one must be stupid not to recognize the author of it; one must be mad not to worship Him. What tribute of worship should I render Him? Should not this tribute be the same in the whole of space, since it is the same supreme power which reigns equally in all space? Should not a thinking being who dwells in a star in the Milky Way
419

offer Him the same homage as the thinking being on this little globe where we are? Light is uniform for the star Sirius and for us; moral philosophy must be uniform. If a sentient, thinking animal in Sirius is born of a tender father and mother who have been occupied with his happiness, he owes them as much love and care as we owe to our parents. If someone in the Milky Way sees a needy cripple, if he can relieve him and if he does not do it, he is guilty toward all globes. Everywhere the heart has the same duties: on the steps of the throne of God, if He has a throne; and in the depth of the abyss, if He is an abyss." I was plunged in these ideas when one of those genii who fill the intermundane spaces came down to me. I recognized this same aerial creature who had appeared to me on another occasion to teach me how different God's judgments were from our own, and how a good action is preferable to a controversy. He transported me into a desert all covered with piled up bones; and between these heaps of dead men there were walks of ever-green trees, and at the end of each walk a tall man of august mien, who regarded these sad remains with pity.

420

"Alas! My archangel," said I, "where have you brought me?" "To desolation," he answered. "And who are these fine patriarchs whom I see sad and motionless at the end of these green walks? They seem to be weeping over this countless crowd of dead." "You shall know, poor human creature," answered the genius from the intermundane spaces; "but first of all you must weep." He began with the first pile. "These," he said, "are the twenty-three thousand Jews who danced before a calf, with the twenty-four thousand who were killed while lying with Midianitish women. The number of those massacred for such errors and offences amounts to nearly three hundred thousand. "In the other walks are the bones of the Christians slaughtered by each other for metaphysical disputes. They are divided into several heaps of four centuries each. One heap would have mounted right to the sky; they had to be divided." "What!" I cried, "brothers have treated their brothers like this, and I have the misfortune to be of this brotherhood!"
421

"Here," said the spirit, "are the twelve million Americans killed in their fatherland because they had not been baptized." "My God! Why did you not leave these frightful bones to dry in the hemisphere where their bodies were born, and where they were consigned to so many different deaths? Why assemble here all these abominable monuments to barbarism and fanaticism? " "To instruct you." "Since you wish to instruct me," I said to the genius, " tell me if there have been peoples other than the Christians and the Jews in whom zeal and religion wretchedly transformed into fanaticism, have inspired so many horrible cruelties." "Yes," he said. "The Mohammedans were sullied with the same inhumanities, but rarely; and when one asked Amman, pity, of them, and offered them tribute, they pardoned. As for the other nations there has not been one right from the existence of the world which has ever made a purely religious war. Follow me now." I followed him. A little beyond these piles of dead men we found other piles; they were composed of sacks of gold and silver,
422

and each had its label: Substance of the heretics massacred in the eighteenth century, the seventeenth and the sixteenth. And so on in going back: Gold and silver of Americans slaughtered, etc., etc. And all these piles were surmounted with crosses, mitres, croziers, triple crowns studded with precious stones. "What, my genius! it was then to have these riches that these dead were piled up? " "Yes, my son." I wept; and when by my grief I had merited to be led to the end of the green walks, he led me there. "Contemplate," he said, " the heroes of humanity who were the world's benefactors, and who were all united in banishing from the world, as far as they were able, violence and rapine. Question them." I ran to the first of the band; he had a crown on his head, and a little censer in his hand; I humbly asked him his name. "I am Numa Pompilius," he said to me. "I succeeded a brigand, and I had brigands to govern: I taught them virtue and the worship of God; after me they forgot both more than once; I forbade that in the temples there should be any image, because the Deity which animates nature cannot be represented. During
423

my reign the Romans had neither wars nor seditions, and my religion did nothing but good. All the neighbouring peoples came to honour me at my funeral: that happened to no one but me." I kissed his hand, and I went to the second. He was a fine old man about a hundred years old, clad in a white robe. He put his middle-finger on his mouth, and with the other hand he cast some beans behind him. I recognized Pythagoras. He assured me he had never had a golden thigh, and that he had never been a cock; but that he had governed the Crotoniates with as much justice as Numa governed the Romans, almost at the same time; and that this justice was the rarest and most necessary thing in the world. I learned that the Pythagoreans examined their consciences twice a day. The honest people! how far we are from them! But we who have been nothing but assassins for thirteen hundred years, we say that these wise men were arrogant. In order to please Pythagoras, I did not say a word to him and I passed to Zarathustra, who was occupied in concentrating the celestial fire in the focus of a concave mirror, in the middle of a hall with a hundred doors which all led to wisdom. (Zarathustra's precepts are called doors, and are a hundred in number.) Over
424

the principal door I read these words which are the prcis of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: "When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain." " Certainly," I said to my genius, "the barbarians who immolated all these victims had never read these beautiful words." We then saw the Zaleucus, the Thales, the Aniximanders, and all the sages who had sought truth and practised virtue. When we came to Socrates, I recognized him very quickly by his flat nose. " Well," I said to him, " here you are then among the number of the Almighty's confidants! All the inhabitants of Europe, except the Turks and the Tartars of the Crimea, who know nothing, pronounce your name with respect. It is revered, loved, this great name, to the point that people have wanted to know those of your persecutors. Melitus and Anitus are known because of you, just as Ravaillac is known because of Henry IV.; but I know only this name of Anitus. I do not know precisely who was the scoundrel who calumniated you, and who succeeded in having you condemned to take hemlock."
425

"Since my adventure," replied Socrates, " I have never thought about that man; but seeing that you make me remember it, I have much pity for him. He was a wicked priest who secretly conducted a business in hides, a trade reputed shameful among us. He sent his two children to my school. The other disciples taunted them with having a father who was a currier; they were obliged to leave. The irritated father had no rest until he had stirred up all the priests and all the sophists against me. They persuaded the counsel of the five hundred that I was an impious fellow who did not believe that the Moon, Mercury and Mars were gods. Indeed, I used to think, as I think now that there is only one God, master of all nature. The judges handed me over to the poisoner of the republic; he cut short my life by a few days: I died peacefully at the age of seventy; and since that time I pass a happy life with all these great men whom you see, and of whom I am the least." After enjoying some time in conversation with Socrates, I went forward with my guide into a grove situated above the thickets where all the sages of antiquity seemed to be tasting sweet repose. I saw a man of gentle, simple countenance, who seemed to me to be about thirty-five years old. From
426

afar he cast compassionate glances on these piles of whitened bones, across which I had had to pass to reach the sages' abode. I was astonished to find his feet swollen and bleeding, his hands likewise, his side pierced, and his ribs flayed with whip cuts. " Good Heavens! " I said to him, " is it possible for a just man, a sage, to be in this state? I have just seen one who was treated in a very hateful way, but there is no comparison between his torture and yours. Wicked priests and wicked judges poisoned him; is it by priests and judges that you have been so cruelly assassinated? " He answered with much courtesy--"Yes." "And who were these monsters? " "They were hypocrites." "Ah! That says everything; I understand by this single word that they must have condemned you to death. Had you then proved to them, as Socrates did, that the Moon was not a goddess, and that Mercury was not a god? " "No, these planets were not in question. My compatriots did not know at all what a planet is; they

427

were all arrant ignoramuses. Their superstitions were quite different from those of the Greeks." "You wanted to teach them a new religion, then? " "Not at all; I said to them simply--' Love God with all your heart and your fellow-creature as yourself, for that is man's whole duty.' Judge if this precept is not as old as the universe; judge if I brought them a new religion. I did not stop telling them that I had come not to destroy the law but to fulfil it; I had observed all their rites; circumcised as they all were, baptized as were the most zealous among them, like them I paid the Corban; I observed the Passover as they did, eating standing up a lamb cooked with lettuces. I and my friends went to pray in the temple; my friends even frequented this temple after my death; in a word, I fulfilled all their laws without a single exception." "What! These wretches could not even reproach you with swerving from their laws? " "No, without a doubt." "Why then did they put you in the condition in which I now see you? " "What do you expect me to say! They were very arrogant and selfish. They saw that I knew them; they
428

knew that I was making the citizens acquainted with them; they were the stronger; they took away my life: and people like them will always do as much, if they can, to whoever does them too much justice.'' "But did you say nothing, do nothing that could serve them as a pretext?" "To the wicked everything serves as pretext." "Did you not say once that you were come not to send peace, but a sword?" "It is a copyist's error; I told them that I sent peace and not a sword. I have never written anything; what I said can have been changed without evil intention." "You therefore contributed in no way by your speeches, badly reported, badly interpreted, to these frightful piles of bones which I saw on my road in coming to consult you? " "It is with horror only that I have seen those who have made themselves guilty of these murders." " And these monuments of power and wealth, of pride and avarice, these treasures, these ornaments, these signs of grandeur, which I have seen piled up on the road while I was seeking wisdom, do they come from you? "
429

"That is impossible; I and my people lived in poverty and meanness: my grandeur was in virtue only." I was about to beg him to be so good as to tell me just who he was. My guide warned me to do nothing of the sort. h lie told me that I was not made to understand these sublime mysteries. Only did I conjure him to tell me in what true religion consisted. "Have I not already told you? Love God and your fellow-creature as yourself." "What! if one loves God, one can eat meat on Friday? " "I always ate what was given me; for I was too poor to give anyone food." "In loving God, in being just, should one not be rather cautious not to confide all the adventures of one's life to an unknown man?" "That was always my practice." "Can I not, by doing good, dispense with making a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella? " "I have never been in that country." "Is it necessary for me to imprison myself in a retreat with fools? "
430

"As for me, I always made little journeys from town to town.'' "Is it necessary for me to take sides either for the Greek Church or the Latin? " "When I was in the world I never made any difference between the Jew and the Samaritan." "Well, if that is so, I take you for my only master." Then he made me a sign with his head which filled me with consolation. The vision disappeared, and a clear conscience stayed with me. Necessary OSMIN: Do you not say that everything is necessary? SELIM: If everything were not necessary, it would follow that God had made useless things. OSMIN: That is to say that it was necessary to the divine nature to make all that it has made? SELIM:
431

I think so, or at least I suspect it; there are people who think otherwise; I do not understand them; maybe they are right. I am afraid of disputes on this subject. OSMIN: It is also of another necessary that I want to talk to you. SELIM: What! Of what is necessary to an honest man that he may live? Of the misfortune to which one is reduced when one lacks the necessary? OSMIN: No; for what is necessary to one is not always necessary to the other: it is necessary for an Indian to have rice, for an Englishman to have meat; a fur is necessary to a Russian, and a gauzy stuff to an African; this man thinks that twelve coach-horses are necessary to him, that man limits himself to a pair of shoes, a third walks gaily barefoot: I want to talk to you of what is necessary to all men. SELIM: It seems to me that God has given all that is necessary to this species: eyes to see with, feet for walking, a
432

mouth for eating, an esophagus for swallowing, a stomach for digesting, a brain for reasoning, organs for producing one's fellow creature. OSMIN: How does it happen then that men are born lacking a part of these necessary things? SELIM: It is because the general laws of nature have brought about some accidents which have made monsters to be born; but generally man is provided with everything that is necessary to him in order to live in society. OSMIN: Are there notions common to all men which serve to make them live in society? SELIM: Yes. I have traveled with Paul Lucas, and wherever I went, I saw that people respected their father and their mother, that people believed themselves to be obliged to keep their promises, that people pitied oppressed innocents, that they hated persecution, that they regarded liberty of thought as a rule of nature, and the enemies of this liberty as enemies of the human race;
433

those who think differently seemed to me badly organized creatures, monsters like those who are born without eyes and hands. OSMIN: Are these necessary things in all time and in all places? SELIM: Yes, if they were not they would not be necessary to the human species. OSMIN: So a belief which is new is not necessary to this species. Men could very well live in society and accomplish their duty to God, before believing that Mahomet had frequent interviews with the angel Gabriel. SELIM: Nothing is clearer; it would be ridiculous to think that man could not accomplish his duty to God before Mahomet came into the world; it was not at all necessary for the human species to believe in the Koran: the world went along before Mahomet just as it goes along to-day. If Mahometanism had been
434

necessary to the world, it would have existed in all places; God who has given us all two eyes to see the sun, would have given us all an intelligence to see the truth of the Mussulman religion. This sect is therefore only like the positive laws that change according to time and place, like the fashions, like the opinions of the natural philosophers which follow one after the other. The Mussulman sect could not be essentially necessary to mankind. OSMIN: But since it exists, God has permitted it? SELIM: Yes, as he permits the world to be filled with foolishness, error and calamity; that is not to say that men are all essentially made to be fools and miscreants. He permits that some men be eaten by snakes; but one cannot say "God made man to be eaten by snakes." OSMIN: What do you mean when you say " God permits "? Can nothing happen without His order? Permit, will and do, are they not the same thing for Him?
435

SELIM: He permits crime, but He does not commit it. OSMIN: Committing a crime is acting against divine justice, it is disobeying God. Well, God cannot disobey Himself, He cannot commit crime; but He has made man in such a way that man may commit many crimes: where does that come from? SELIM: There are people who know, but I do not; all that I know is that the Koran is ridiculous, although from time to time it has some tolerably good things; certainly the Koran was not at all necessary to man; I stick by that: I see clearly what is false, and I know very little that is true. OSMIN : I thought you would instruct me, and you teach me nothing. SELIM: Is it not a great deal to recognize people who deceive you, and the gross and dangerous errors which they retail to you?
436

OSMIN: I should have ground for complaint against a doctor who showed me all the harmful plants, and who did not show me one salutary plant. SELlM: I am not a doctor, and you are not ill; but it seems to me I should be giving you a very good prescription if I said to you : Put not your trust in all the inventions of charlatans, worship God, be an honest man, and believe that two and two make four.

XIV: Outline of Some of the Principal Problems of the History of the Missions
Introduction
Between the end of the Quattrocento (1400s) and the beginning of the Cinquecento (1500s), a series of discoveries, due to the courage and genius of great navigators, expands the horizons and determines a new course of history. One of these great navigators was none other than the much acclaimed Christopher Columbus
437

The best available evidence suggests that Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo in Italian; Cristobal Colon in Spanish) was born in Genoa in 1451. His father was a weaver; he had at least two brothers. Christopher had little education and learned to read and write only as an adult. He went to sea, as did many Genoese boys, and voyaged in the Mediterranean. In 1476 he was shipwrecked off Portugal, found his way ashore, and went to Lisbon; he apparently traveled to Ireland and England and later claimed to have gone as far as Iceland. He was in Genoa in 1479, returned to Portugal, and married. His wife, Doa Felipa, died soon after his son, Diego, was born (c.1480). By this time Columbus had become interested in westward voyages. He had learned of the legendary Atlantic voyages and sailors' reports of land to the west of Madeira and the Azores. Acquiring books and maps, he accepted Marco Polo's erroneous location for Japan2,400 km (1,500 mi) east of China and Ptolemy's underestimation of the circumference of the Earth and overestimation of the size of the Eurasian landmass. He came to believe that Japan was about 4,800 km (3,000 mi) to the west of Portugal a distance that could be sailed in existing vessels. His idea was furthered by
438

the suggestions of the Florentine cosmographer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. In 1484, Columbus sought support for an exploratory voyage from King John II of Portugal, but he was refused. The Portuguese also underestimated the distance but believed it to be beyond the capabilities of existing ships. In 1485, Columbus took his son Diego and went to Spain, where he spent almost seven years trying to get support from Isabella I of Castile. He was received at court, given a small annuity, and quickly gained both friends and enemies. An apparently final refusal in 1492 made Columbus prepare to go to France, but a final appeal to Isabella proved successful. An agreement between the crown and Columbus set the terms for the expedition. On 12 October 1492: Cristobal Colon reached the shores of Guanahani in the Bahamas (which he then called San Salvador, today Watling), and then hugged the coasts of Cuba and Haiti. In 1493, he circumnavigated the island of Cuba, in order to dispel any doubts that this was an island and not the continent of India that he had been seeking by a westward route. In 1498, the Admiral set out from Spain again and found himself in the mouth of the Orinoco River, Venezuela, and in 1501, he touched
439

Honduras and a huge tract of land on the coast of San Intanto. John Cabot, the English explorer, reached Terranova at 50 Alvarez Cabral, in the employ of the Portuguese, pushed by winds on a direction contrary to that which he had planned on, touched the shores of Brazil. Earlier, in 1487, a Portuguese, Bartolomeu Dias, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and eleven years after Vasco da Gama would set foot on Calicut, on the southwestern coast of India. And in 1510, Alfonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa. It did not take too long before other lands were opened to Spain, Portugal, England and the Netherlands.

Alexander VI, with the bull Inter caetera (1493), fixed the boundaries between the Portuguese and Spanish colonial expansions at a line 100 leagues (or about 500 kilometers) west of the Azores and the Capo Verde Islands. The question that has been posed over this papal action: was this an autonomous papal decision (based on late medieval recognition of the rights of the papacy), or an arbitrated one, or only a solemn confirmation of an agreement between the two parties (i.e., the Spanish and the Portuguese)? The contemporary consensus leans toward this third one.
440

The following year (7 June 1494), the Treaty of Tordesillas was directly signed by the two parties, quite before the discovery of Brazil by the Portuguese, which moved the boundary even farther west, i.e., 370 leagues (or 1,400 kilometers) west of the Capo Verde Islands. Only several years after would the Pope, Julius II, confirm the treaty. In any case, these papal interventions, even though solemn in form, did not exert any strong influence on future historical evolution, indeed were not able to impede armed conflicts between the two parties. They certainly did not constitute an obstacle to the colonial expansion by other European powers who were completely ignored in Inter caetera, i.e., England, France and the Netherlands.

A. Character of Portuguese, Spanish and Anglo-Saxon Colonization

1. Portuguese Colonization in Asia The Portuguese did not attempt at all to penetrate the interior of the Asian continent, for which they did not have the requisite manpower and resources; they therefore limited themselves to the creation of a network of commercial stations, located in carefully
441

selected strategic places, from the interior of which flowed the desired goods, and from which naval expeditions annually departed for Portugal. Commerce was subjected to the strictest state monopoly which was exercised however through contracts. Given these conditions, it was not possible therefore to exercise any influence on Indian and Malaysian civilisations, which therefore remained almost untouched by a European culture that was absolutely extrinsic to these countries. 2. Spanish Colonization (but applicable to Portuguese colonization of Brazil) Spain did not content herself with remaining in the coastal areas but systematically planned and successfully carried out a penetration inland. Neither did she limit herself to the exploitation and expropriation of the natural wealth dispersed all throughout the continent; rather she also engaged in an authentic educating project, creating in Central and South America a new civilisation. Conquistadores of the first generation and functionaries of the subsequent centuries did not limit themselves to extending beyond the Ocean the institutions and
442

customs of the Old Continent but gave life through the fusion of indigenous and European elements to a third reality, Latin American civilisation, rich in original beginnings. It was a task of world significance, carried out in a substantially positive manner, despite the grave lacunae, the shadows, the painful errors committed: the result still perdures . . . Spain did not respect the ancient civilisations of the Aztecs and the Incas; but she eliminated not only idolatry but the customs associated with it, for example, human sacrifices (rather numerically conspicuous in Mexico, with at least a thousand victims every year, less so in Peru but nonetheless a reality there), and polygamy. An objective judgment on Spanish colonialism, largely seen under a light rather gloomy, has to take this historical success into account. Certainly, grave culpable errors were not lacking, whether in the first conquest or in the subsequent colonization. The conquistadores committed appalling cruelties, usually under the shadow of the Cross, and in the succeeding decades the Indians came to be oppressed in a systematic manner. Nevertheless, on the whole, the condition of the indigenous peoples subjected to the Spaniards remained better than that of the Redskins or North American Indians in contact with the English
443

who conducted a systematic extermination of the local tribes. In this diverse development of South America and North America different factors came into play. In Anglo-Saxon colonial lands, one meets with a strong racism, not yet fully uprooted today; in Spanish domains, one meets with a less clearly delineated and extreme hatred of other races. On the one hand, the Anglo-Saxons were for the most part migrant colonies in North America with their whole families; naturally therefore this rendered possible marriage between the whites and made contact with the indigenous peoples more difficult. On the other hand, the Spaniards were instead mostly state functionaries, soldiers, merchants who had left their families and relatives behind. The solitude in which the colonizers found themselves, deprived of a family, fatally resulted in close relationships with indigenous women. In an earlier phase, these marriages between the new arrivals and the Amerindian women rarely lasted, because of racial and, even more so, social prejudice. Developing in this way however and for years was a diffused enough and well-recognized concubinage, which had become a social convention considered normal by public opinion though condemned and combated by priests who had
444

come to the New World with the conquistadores. It is difficult to fix the date when the first Spanish women arrived and when this phenomenon finally reached its end. In any case, one can say that this took place in a relatively brief period. But in summary the two races, at least in the more elevated social strata, came close to each other, so that a certain fusion, partial but real and still visible today to the attentive observer, was the point of arrival of this complex process. Moreover, one should not forget another essential difference between the Anglo-Saxon and Spanish/Portuguese colonies. The first had left England essentially for political and commercial reasons, motivated by a hope to found a wealthy colonial dominion, and thus to augment the power of the mother country, and by a confidence to easily accumulate a substantial patrimony. Only later, toward the middle of the 17th century, with the Pilgrim Fathers (Calvinists who set foot in North America in order to flee Anglican intolerance and to peacefully live their own religion), did the religious motivation acquire some fundamental resonance. But even then these groups, proud of their own faith, did not nourish any desire to proselytize among the indigenous peoples; one cannot talk, at least all the
445

way to the 1800s, of a missionary spirit, first among the early English colonies, and subsequently among the citizens of the United States. Rather different was the general climate, the mentality of the Spaniards (and, at least in part, that of the French in their colonies which were then called New France, almost corresponding to what is today Canada). The SpanishPortuguese expansion in South America was due to a complex of factors, strictly interconnected among them, even if distinct and diverse, precisely because of the special character of the two nations, especially the Spanish: imperialism, terrestrial interests (i.e., hopes of easy enrichment), sincere missionary zeal. It is difficult to determine which of these three motives was prevalent; perhaps it is necessary to distinguish case by case in order to answer this question. But it would be a grave error to wholly exclude, at least in the best elements of this historical phenomenon, a sincere missionary zeal, a genuine preoccupation for the eternal salvation of the indigenous people, unfortunately accompanied however, and usually, by methods which reflect the mentality of the epoch. Certainly the Popes have confirmed many times in their bulls their evangelizing and missionary preoccupation. Already, in 1455, Nicolas V declared in
446

a solemn document that the conquests made have to be directed to the salvation of souls, the growth of the faith, the humiliation of the enemies of this, that the enterprise demanded, i.e., the faith and the universal republic of the Church. Similar ideas were expressed some forty years after by Alexander VI. We may smile today while reading in this Popes bull, Inter caetera, the prohibition, under pain of excommunication latae sententiae, of going to the Americas for commercial reasons without any special authorization from the sovereigns. Still, it is certain that the Pontiffs saw the enterprise under a profile that was almost exclusively religious, and it is difficult to think that the sovereigns completely forgot this aspect or that they considered it secondary to the politico-commercial. Indeed, these sovereigns, more or less willingly, accepted the repeated Roman reminders regarding the argument as well as the rebukes often addressed to them by the missionaries for their scarce zeal shown in supporting the new missions. Nor must the priests, secular and religious, be forgotten, leaving for the Western Indies because of a pure religious spirit. We meet a good group of fervent priests, of authentic saints, ready even for martyrdom, of excellent pastors, like the
447

Spaniard Toribio de Mogrovejo, 1538-1605, the holy Archbishop of Lima, Peru . . . Initially coercive means were frequently made use of in evangelization, and conversion was inspired by motives which were predominantly political. The initial stage passed however, intense catechetical work, today still witnessed to by the multiple catechisms diffused in Mexico, in Peru, and in other places, took off, concerned to uproot idolatry and to inculcate the Ten Commandments. A comparison between the European catechisms of the 1600s and 1700s and the elementary ones of Latin America of the same period is instructive: the danger was not so much Jansenism or Laxism, but a persistent paganism . . . Soon enough, but only with royal authority, for reasons that we shall soon advert to, the first dioceses were erected, the first seminaries opened (though not for the indigenous peoples, for a while still considered incapable of acceding to the priesthood, but for the sons of Spaniards), and various synods celebrated. A critical problem was constituted by the diffusion of polygamy, particularly because, in many cases, the chief could not recall who his first wife was, nor were marriages between brothers and sisters unknown. Paul III in 1537, through a constitution
448

important not only from the pastoral point of view but also from the theological, authorized the indigenous men, who could not remember who their first wife could be, to choose from among their wives whom they would wish to become their regular Christian partner. The First Council of Lima (1551) permitted, at least until an eventual contrary decision of the Pope, the ratification in facie Ecclesiae some marriages contracted by indigenous men with their sisters. The practice however would soon after be condemned by the Second Council of Lima (1565) and would be settled once and for all. It is worthwhile to underline that wherever Spain arrived, Catholic nations were born, not only in America but also in Asia, where the Philippines are the only State traditionally Catholic and whose name today still recalls the son of Carlos V, Felipe II, always vigilant, from his palace of the Escorial, in minutely overseeing the life of his distant dominions. Regarding the political-economic system of the Spanish colonies, three essential points must be highlighted: first, the colonies were administered by viceroys who enjoyed wide-ranging powers over the inhabitants
449

(except legislative power however); they were nonetheless subjected to the Supreme Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias), which met in Madrid and exercised effective control through commissioned periodic visitors. second, commerce, according to the common criteria of the time, applied also in Asia by the Portuguese, but usually counterproductive, was subjected to a rigid state monopoly. third, and with still more serious consequences, a regime that for various aspects may be called feudal became applied on a wide scale. The colonizers received, in exchange for services rendered to the King, the right of usufruct of territories for the space of two or three generations, through which they exercised some kind of partial authority and jurisdiction over the inhabitants of the territories. The colonizers to whom were conceded these privileges were called encomenderos, from the name of the juridical institution encomienda. The Spanish government was pushed to grant these privileges by the necessity of evading anarchy, to which the weakness of colonial central governments would have been brought, by the urgency of putting a legal sanction to a de facto already existing situation, and by the opportunity of
450

stimulating the more enterprising colonizers, all of which are causes singularly analogous to those which determined the rise of feudalism in Carolingian Europe. And, as in those times, the system early brought on in America easy and grave abuses: the colonizers exploited in every way the Indians in their territories, so much so that mortality rose to very high levels. According to a report sent in 1582 to the Spanish government, the indigenous population of Antioquia fell in fifty years from 100,000 to 800. One has grounds for retaining this calculation false, but it is nevertheless necessary to admit without any doubt that this had a foundation in reality: the extremely harsh conditions to which the Indios had been reduced and extremely high mortality rates. Even the affirmation, repeated here and there with great security by scholars, usually Anglo-Saxon, that the Mexican population had fallen in fifty years (15211571) from 25,000,000 to 2,000,000 must be rigorously checked. The drastic demographic decline of these years is undeniable, but remaining in any case to be investigated are the causes, among which one may not exclude a priori the physical vulnerability of the indigenous Mexicans to various kinds of virus
451

brought by the Spaniards, who were themselves immune carriers... 3. Anglo-Saxon Colonization Like the Spaniards, the English undertook an effective penetration of the continent and did not limit themselves to a network of commercial stations. But differently from the Spaniards, the English did not establish any rapport of friendship with the indigenous populations, whom they slowly but inflexibly pushed toward the interior, in order then to exterminate them in a cruel but efficacious manner (alcohol and other means). In North America, no new civilisation was born, but European customs and traditions were imported wholesale . . .

B. The Patronato
From the middle of the 15th to the 18th centuries, from Nicolas V to Paul V, the Popes conceded to the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal ever greater privileges, demanding at the same time from them that they take responsibility for the evangelization in the newly discovered lands. The Popes adopted this line for many reasons. Some simply thought that, absorbed as the Popes were by various other
452

preoccupations, they sought to free themselves from the responsibility incumbent upon them in this matter, imposing on others the onerous weight of the apostolate in the missions. Other explanations are more probable: the Popes, according to the mentality of the age, had concluded that the support of the civil authority constituted the most secure and efficacious way for the Christianization of Asia and America, and that the discovery and occupation of the new lands came to be considered as the continuation of the liberation of the Iberian peninsula from the Islamic yoke, that is, as an enterprise essentially sacred . . . Every one of these theses has a grain of truth, but the system is not fully comprehensible without taking into account the strictest unity between State and Church, typical of the absolute regimes, which we have already tried to delineate in preceding lectures. In conclusion therefore, the Patronato regio in the missions was simply a particular aspect of this vaster phenomenon, that is, the union between the two societies, civil and religious, with its own advantages and its own very grave risks. The system would come to be theoretically espoused by the Spanish jurist Solrzano in the beginning of the 1600s. Various authors however continued to discuss the problematic of whether the
453

Patronato constituted a simple privilege graciously conceded by the Popes to the sovereign rulers, or an onerous contract, whether the privileges extended to all the territories placed respectively in the orient and the occident of the line of demarcation fixed with the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, which divided the world in two parts, assigned to Portugal and to Spain, or that it limited itself only to the countries placed under the effective dominion of the two crowns. This was not about academic questions. If this had been about a gracious privilege, the Holy See could have revoked it with a unilateral act, otherwise, no. If the privilege had been limited only to Portuguese colonies, then the Church in China and in Japan was free, otherwise, no. The discussion immediately provoked grave conflicts, which became protracted in part until the 19th and 20th centuries. Prescinding from these controversial points, it is certain that determinate rights and obligations came to be attributed to the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal, which rendered the evangelization of the infidels a duty of the State, but contemporaneously they also attributed to it full authority over the Church in the territories of the missions. The rights of the State could be summarized in the following points:
454

1 nomination to all benefices; 2) admission or exclusion of the missionaries remanded to the will of the sovereign, and on condition however that these depart primarily from Lisbon or Sevilla or Cadiz. The missionaries therefore could not leave without the royal authorization. Now the Portuguese did not look with kind eyes on the proliferation of foreign missionaries, tolerated more easily by the Spaniards (in Latin America, during the 1700s, Jesuit missionaries were 4/5 Germans); 3) supervision of all ecclesiastical affairs, with the exclusion of whatever other authority, so that the missionaries could deal with Rome only through Madrid or Lisbon, and the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith never had any authority in Portuguese or Spanish colonies. To these rights obviously corresponded certain obligations: 1) choice and sending of missionaries, so that Alexander VI admonished the King of Spain: We impose on you by virtue of holy obedience to send to terra ferma and to the islands selected upright men fearful of God in order to instruct their inhabitants; and
455

2) provide for the expenses of worship, the sustenance and the journeys of the missionaries, from the bishop to the last sacristan, to take care of the election, the maintenance and the restoration of the cultic edifices. In conclusion, civil authority in America and in Asia enjoyed rights superior to those which Europe enjoyed. It was natural: he who paid has in hand the levers of power, and pleasing or not, it was necessary to obey him! The Patronato certainly had positive consequences: sovereigns became more aware of their serious obligation to promote the diffusion of the faith and for a time they efficaciously fulfilled this assignment. Spain and Portugal extensively furnished the missions with the material means necessary; the missionaries would have had insuperable obstacles in procuring these means by themselves or by other means. They also enjoyed the protection and the favor of the State. But not lacking, particularly in the initial stages, inconveniences and damages, which would worsen through the centuries. Portugal even at the end of its colonial power, jealously guarded the privileges granted to her, but fulfilled her obligations only in part. All ecclesiastical activity was controlled by a pedantic bureaucracy, papal legates were never
456

allowed entry into the colonies, and the bishops in 1629 were obliged to take an oath of fidelity to the Patronato, which implied the promise not to maintain direct relations with Rome. In many cases imposed on dioceses were elected bishops who never received canonical institution from Rome but who in fact governed the dioceses with full authority. The necessity of a state nihil obstat for the apostolate in the Portuguese colonies impeded the arrival of a sufficient number of missionaries. These conditions, already burdensome, would worsen when in the 1600s the Portuguese domains in Asia collapsed and England and the Netherlands took over these colonies; the Portuguese authority continued to arrogate to itself the ancient rights even in territories which had already passed to other colonial masters, provoking thus painful conflicts with the Congregation of the Propaganda, which tried to overcome the obstacles by nominating, instead of true and proper bishops, vicars apostolic. With the 1700s, the old mentality, in which together with other interested motives there certainly were a sincere faith and genuine zeal, gave way to the new rationalist and skeptical spirit of the Enlightenment. The Patronato, initially conceived as a means for favoring religion, was now transformed into
457

an instrument of which Portugal served itself in order to preserve its political influence in dominions under the rule of other powers. With the 1800s, this arrangement was reduced to a dead weight, to a stumbling block, and gave rise to occasions for grave divisions within the clergy, e.g., between a faction of the Indo-Portuguese and Rome (known in history as the Schism of Goa). Despite this however, the Patronato ceased only after long negotiations which took place between 1928 and 1950. Analogous observations could be given where the Spanish Patronato in the American colonies was concerned; this ended, not without extremely grave discussions, with the achievement of independence by the colonies in the early decades of the 1800s. Historians who a priori consider ominous the support of the Church by the State, hurriedly dismissed the Patronato. Other historians recalled its positive aspects, but everything considered, they all agree in giving a negative judgment: In theory, a direction more Roman and ecclesiastical would have been preferable even if accompanied by an intimate collaboration by the crown. But [ . . . ] the origin of the Patronato was legitimate, although its practice showed itself usually excessive and abusive, as happens in the
458

concessions that the Church makes to the grand powers [ . . . ] In the end, the work realized by this institution was truly great and perennial. In other words: The most serious drawback was the almost complete deprivation of the clergy of its liberty. The most serious reproach is that of its having survived too much, and of becoming an instrument of enslavement after having been initially an instrument of the apostolate. The negative impact therefore of the Spanish and Portuguese Patronato on the missions could not be ignored by the Holy See, which, on the other hand, was not disposed to completely unload the responsibility for the evangelization of peoples on other authorities. Pius V had already instituted in 1568 a cardinalatial congregation for the missions, and another one for Germany, but the absence of a solid organization and the opposition of Philip II left the initiative without any effect. Clement VIII erected a Congregation de Propaganda Fide, but even this failed due, first, to the resistance of the Patronato powers, and second, to the death of the head of the dicastery himself, Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santori. The decisive impulse for the formation of a permanent and wellstructured dicastery came from the work of the
459

Spanish Discalced Carmelite, Toms de Jess (15541627), De procuranda salute omnium gentium, which was published in Antwerp in 1613. He proposed with consistency, among other things, the foundation of a missionary center in Rome. The idea, supported in diverse forms by various authors of the time, was realized only on 6 January 1622 by Gregory XV (i.e., Alessandro Ludovisi, 1621-1623), who, despite the brevity of his pontificate had left the Church a lasting inheritance. On 22 June 1622, the official bull of institution of the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, Inscrutabili divinae providentiae arcano, was signed. The soul of the Congregation until his death in 1649 was its secretary, Francesco Ingoli, great organizer, of wide and anticipatory vision, but of a character a bit harsh, who did not always avoid errors and friction with the most dominant missionary organization of that time, the Society of Jesus, preoccupied, in difference with Ingoli, with maintaining good relations with the monarchs of Spain and Portugal. The Congregation had the obligation of watching all of missionary activity, providing for the formation of missionaries, receiving reports and giving directives. Above all, Ingoli attempted to transform the missions from a colonial phenomenon into an ecclesiastical and
460

spiritual movement, to defend the missionaries from the interference of the political authority, to rationalize the work in a systematic way, to form indigenous clergy, and to provide for the printing of books in various languages, creating the necessary multilingual typography for the task. The birth of the Propaganda re-proposed in careful terms the problem of the coexisting tensions between local initiatives and centralizing directives, between the Patronato and the independence of activity of the Holy See from the States. Regarding the first problem, and despite the attempts of various recent studies to defend the Propaganda in every way, it seems just to observe that the centralizing tendency of the Propaganda did not always have a happy result, that the directives of the Propaganda did not sufficiently take into account local situations, that the missions directly administered by the Roman dicastery did not always have a positive effect. Regarding the second problem, nobody could then think of the abolition of the Patronato; instead efforts were expended to realize a friendly collaboration to the point of proposing the erection of two branches of the Propaganda in Lisbon and Madrid. The major difficulty consisted in the nomination of bishops, above all in the territories
461

where Portuguese rule had either ended or had never existed at all. The Propaganda tried to overcome Portuguese objections by appointing vicars apostolic, who juridically were not true residential bishops but special representatives of the Pope. Inspite of the protests of Lisbon, Propaganda declared in 1680 that the institution of vicars apostolic did not contradict the Patronato. The institution was presented as provisional; de facto it constituted a turning point in the history of missions, even if consequently it acquired a different significance, i.e., that of a local church not yet arrived at full maturity and habitually depending on the assistance in personnel and economic means from other Churches.

C. Relationship with Amerindians and the tragedy of African slavery

1. Amerindians and slavery The Spaniards were not in sufficient numbers to exploit all the immense wealth that the Americas, with all her precious metals and agricultural products, had to offer; but neither did they have that intention. It was more simple and comfortable for them to have the
462

Amerindians work for them. The egoism of the conquistadores and of the colonists found unexpected support in the theses of various theologians for whom the Amerindians were destined to slavery because of their guilt and the natural inequality among human beings. The first to raise their voice against the oppression of the Amerindians were the Dominicans. On the fifth Sunday of Advent of 1511 in Santo Domingo, P. Antonio de Montesinos, without hesitation and euphemism nailed his listeners to their responsibility: AWith what right do you hold the Indios in such a horrible and cruel slavery? [...] In the state in which you find yourselves, you will not be able to save your own souls more than the Turks and the Moors . . . @ His preaching was a scandal without precedents, which brought down on the head of the preacher his Provincials order, by virtue of holy obedience and under pain of excommunication latae sententiae, that he refrain from talking about the argument. But the courageous preacher had already raised the problem, and thus was born the controversy of the Indies, and all of Spain had to put to herself her caso de conciencia. If the Dominicans defended the liberty of the Amerindians, Franciscans like Antonio de Espinal
463

retained that the Amerindians needed to be maintained in slavery for at least three generations, if there was really a desire to bring them to a civil state. The discussions took decades, and it saw the intervention of religious, sovereigns, theologians and pontiffs but unfortunately not listened to at all and thus constrained to retract for prudence their decisions. But slavery continued, and against it pamphlets and public debates multiplied. Among the defenders of the indigenous people we encounter in the first line Bartolom de Las Casas, an early colonizer, already a priest, who in his encomiendas had exploited as the others had done the Indios under his care, until a crisis of conscience had induced him to enter the Dominican Order and to consecrate himself entirely to the redemption of the Indios with a conviction and ardor sometimes unilateral which had made him from then on an object of profound admiration and of lively criticisms. In his work, Historias de las Indias. La destruccin de las Indias, he vigorously denounced the abuses of the encomiendas, even though with some exaggeration, understandable besides, in style and in statistics. With him other Dominicans are to be remembered, the Montesinos already mentioned, and a third
464

Dominican, Garcia de Loaisa, President of the Council of the Indies, the Jesuit Antonio Vieira (1608-1697), deported to Portugal because of his defense of the Amerindians, together with other Jesuits of the College of Belm, being able to return to Brazil only after twenty years of exile, and the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagun. On the opposite side several Franciscans stood out, like Bernardino de Arvalo, and above all a lay person, Gins de Seplveda (1490-1573). Son of poor but respectable parents, limpid and old Christians, never contaminated with Moors, Jews or conversos, Seplveda had studied at Bologna, had been in contact with Carlos V and his son Felipe II and other personalities, and had defended in Democrates primus (1533), under certain conditions, the legitimacy of wars, including religious ones. Before the polemics of de Las Casas, he intervened between 1544 and 1545 with his Democrates secundus, seu de justis belli causis, in defense of the legitimacy of Spanish conquest of America and of Spanish policy beyond the Ocean. State censorship fortunately prohibited the printing of this work, which nevertheless had a certain diffusion in manuscript form. Its substantial principle was: I say the barbarians are not only to be invited
465

but compelled to the good, the same to justice and to religion Between Seplveda and de Las Casas, i.e., between the rigid conservatives, who ended with misconstruing the validity of human values, and the defenders of human rights, also natural, one may put Francisco de Vitoria (1493?-1546), another Dominican professor of theology at the University of Salamanca, who owed his fame above all to his Relectiones (sic) de Indis and his De jure Belli. The jurist and theologian did not descend to the concrete particulars dealt with by Seplveda and Montesinos but sought rather to establish the principles from which one could deduce the conclusions opposed to those of Seplveda. Neither the discovery of America nor even the refusal of the true faith on the part of the Amerindians justify the conquest and the war, which is legitimate only for other motives, like the right of free transit and, above all, that of preaching the Gospel, of defending the converts, of impeding the inhabitants from committing crimes against the innocent (e.g., human sacrifices). Vitoria traced in substance the lines which would be taken up again by the school of Salamanca: violence is not a legitimate means for the propagation of the true faith.
466

Perhaps on the concrete plane, the most clamorous moment of the discussion rested with the dispute that took place in Valladolid in 1550, in the presence of Carlos V, between Seplveda and de Las Casas (who had traversed the Atlantic Ocean seven times, with the means of transportation then) in order to defend the Amerindians from all abuses. The intervention of the Franciscan Bernardino de Arvalo in the concluding sessions, in support of Seplveda, impeded the complete triumph of the Dominican, obliged for the moment to be silent together with his adversary. In this controversy, not lacking were the interventions of the Popes. Already Nicolas V on 15 June 1452 with his brief Divino amore communiti (a title which today sounds strange to our delicate ears) had conceded to Alfonso V of Portugal the faculty in perpetuam servitutem redigendi [...] Saracenos, paganos, infideles et Christi inimicos. In the vision typical of Nicolas V, we do not deal with a pure and simple diffusion of the Gospel so much as with a defense against authentic enemies of the Church, as the Muslims were then considered to be. It was possible then to understand with minor difficulty the terms and considerations of the Pope. The general context of the 1500s was however different, after the discovery of the Americas
467

and the encounter with the Amerindians. And the attitude of the Popes would also be different.Paul III issued on two separate occasions only five days apart two different documents on the same topic, the relationship with the inhabitants of the discovered lands. On 28 May 1537, with his Pastorale Officium, the Pope condemned the racist theses: the Indios, even if outside of the Church, were human beings, capable of embracing the faith and of being saved; they could not therefore be deprived of their liberty nor despoiled of their goods; the were not to be reduced to slavery but were instead to be invited to life through predication and good example. The enslaving of the Amerindians was condemned with the usual penalty, excommunication. The second document, was dated five days after. Paul III warned: the Indios and all other peoples who shall be known by Christians in the future, despite living without the Christian faith, can licitly and freely use, acquire, enjoy the liberty and the dominion of their own goods, nor should they be reduced to slavery, and every contract of the kind is null and without efficacy. It is enough to recall here that these two documents, Veritas ipsa and Pastorale Officium, while using language slightly diverse, condemned the slavery of whatever people, American
468

or African, as results also from the genesis of these two texts. The Indios are true human beings: these words, banal today, were not so then, so much so that Carlos V succeeded in having revoked after a few months, if not the condemnation of slavery, then at least the ecclesiastical penalty that struck at this practice. The prohibition was reaffirmed by Urban VIII (1639, Commissum nobis), and, with greater vigor, by Benedict XIV (1741, Immensa pastorum). This last papal declaration ordered all bishops in Latin America to strike with excommunication anybody of whatever state, sex, condition, and dignity even if from the secular or regular clergy who had dared to reduce the so-called indigenous peoples...transporting of having them transported far from their native land, and depriving them in whatever way of their liberty and reducing them to slavery. But the slavery and the slave trade would remain intact. Cartagena, in Colombia was one of the most important markets in the buying and selling of slaves, and slavery in Goa was habitual even in the women monastery of Santa Monica, while every Portuguese functionary had twenty or so slaves.
469

Naturally, this constant repetition of the prohibitions show -- through the admission of the Popes themselves -- their almost non-existent efficacy. But more than the durability of the abuses on the part of the colonizers, what astonishes is the obstinacy of theologians like Seplveda, who in 1550 -- 13 years after Veritas ipsa -- continued to sustain the natural inferiority of the Amerindians. But Seplveda had never left European soil; the missionaries who were in place, Dominicans and Jesuits, publicized ever more the scandal of the slavery of the Amerindians, and they struggled to the end for its abolition. It is interesting to note that, while the Spanish legislation had already aligned itself with favorable positions on the indigenous peoples, that of the Anglo-Saxon colonies continued to show itself irreducibly hostile. The laws emanating from Virginia in the second half of the 1600s not only prohibited mixedmarriages but denied to half-breeds or mestizos and mulattos the right to own property, considering Indian prisoners as perpetual slaves, and authorizing the whites to capture the Indians as reparation for eventual damages caused by them, and establishing the principle of the collective responsibility by the whole village for the killing of one white...
470

Differently, Spain, though between uncertainty and slowness, would traverse another path. From 1512, the assembly of Burgos, through the work above all of the Dominicans, issued some laws which mitigated the fate of the Amerindians. The evolution of legislation against slavery continued in successive decades, with the instructions of Carlos V of 1520 and of 1523, and with the New Laws of the Indies, promulgated in Barcelona in 1542. The ideas of de Las Casas were slowly prevailing.

2. African slavery De Las Casas, in order to defend more effectively the indigenous Americans, had another idea the consequences of which he probably did not foresee: the need for labor which the colonists had could be satisfied by importing Blacks from Africa who were of a stronger and more resistant constitution. The generous but impetuous defender of the oppressed did not imagine the fatal consequences of his suggestion, did not suspect that he was involuntarily cooperating in an oppression that was harsher and more inhuman. To the slavery of the Amerindians was substituted the slavery of and commerce in Blacks.
471

From mid-1400s, Portuguese navigators had captured Blacks on the coasts of Guinea whom they then sold on the markets in Europe. This traffic in slaves had remained still limited and the Portuguese then had a monopoly on the trade, with Spain cornering a small part of the market. With time, the initiative developed to the point of assuming gigantic dimensions, above all when, in the middle of the 1600s, while the mines of gold and silver were being exhausted, exploited voraciously by the first generations of colonists, sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations were increasing on a vast scale in the Americas, economically profitable enough, but such that the need for manual labor was always mounting. Spanish and Portuguese ships were then joined by English and French vessels, who then ended up wholly supplanting the former. In 1713, with the Treaty of Utrecht, which put an end to the War of Spanish Succession, England indirectly secured the monopoly of the slave trade for herself,annuallytransporting to America 5,000 slaves for thirty years... From the port of Liverpool, as earlier from the ports of Nantes and Bordeaux, the shipowners sent expeditions to the Gold Coast or the neighboring zones ships filled with cloth, alcohol, arms and gunpowder, bought in Europe at low prices and
472

exchanged in Africa, behind careful calculations, for slaves which African merchants had succeeded in procuring from the interior through raids or barter. Thus the trade had become a long chain, and if the first Portuguese had to capture Africans with great difficulty, now it was the same inhabitants of the coastal regions who succeeded in providing from the interior the goods the traders sought with such great avidity. The Blacks, according to Francesco Carletti, who had circumnavigated the world with varying fortunes from Africa to America to Japan, attempting to compete with the Spanish and English slave traders or Negrieri, they were acquired in herds as among ourselves we buy a herd of sheep, with all the attention and circumstances of verifying if they are well disposed and without any defect in their person. We know the conditions of the crossing in America from many contemporary accounts, which at least show the scarce knowledge of papal directives, the confusion of ideas, the brutality. The Italian Capuchin Dionigi da Piacenza (Dionigi Carli), like many others, has told us in the work Il moro trasportato nellinclita citt di Venezia (Bassano 1687) the voyage that he completed in 1671 on a slave ship from Angola to Brazil. About 700Africans were spread out in the
473

infected hold without light, constrained to sleep one on top of the other for lack of space. The only preoccupation of the friar and the captain is that they be baptized before the departure there being excommunication in conducting slaves from Angola to other parts without having been first baptized Christians. Thus, at the last minute, once the last human cargo had arrived, about seventy slaves, it was necessary to catechize and to baptize them. My services ended, they were then marked, with hot irons, and registered. During the voyage, because of a prolonged dead calm, food became scarce, and the Capuchin counseled that the whites must be provided for and if the Blacks die, well, patience then. Meanwhile however, he exhorted the sailors to repent of sins committed while becoming drunk and giving the name of the Madonna to the whip with which they flagellated the Africans, In this voyage, 33 Blacks died, which was esteemed to be a singular grace from God, given that ordinarily half and at times even more than half die. It is calculated that out of 1,000 Blacks captured in the interior of the continent, several hundreds fall before reaching the coast, another hundred during the Atlantic crossing, and a little than a hundred in acclimatizing to their new environment
474

in America. The profits depended much on these factors. In any case, the ship-owners were always fortunate because their ships almost never sailed empty, and from America they transported sugar and other colonial products. On the one hand, a slave acquired in Guinea for 20 florins could fetch a price of 800 florins in America! Survivors of the long and dangerous voyage across the Atlantic were put to work in the huge landed estates, in the harshest conditions, on the whole, according to the judgment of contemporary scholars, worse than the life they had lived in Africa, where it seems a more or less paternalistic regime was more or less diffused. The slaves had to work up to fourteen hours a day, and it was impossible to freely create a family, and the penalties for infractions were extremely harsh. It was not uncommon for despair to push some to suicide or insurrection, which, harshly put down, aggravated their treatment by their masters. According to trustworthy calculations, from 1511 to 1800, more than 10,000,000 Blacks were coercively transported from Africa to America. The greater part of this number was transported between 1650 and 1800. On the other hand, total human losses suffered by Africa were much higher (almost double) if one takes into
475

account slaves who died before departure and in the crossing. The number of slaves was greater in the English colonies, where they suffered even worse conditions. Even in the beginning of the 19th century in the United States, in many states, the master could sell the members of the same family separately, it was strictly prohibited to teach slaves how to read and write, and in many cases they were crowded together in filthy and tiny huts, they did not have the right to testify against whites, which was equivalent to putting them in every case at the mercy of the whites. The non-efficacy of the papal documents, prohibitions, excommunications, many times reiterated, depended on a whole complex of factors. It was practically impossible to defeat the slave traders and to overcome their immorality. The unanimous consensus of theologians was often lacking, frequently brought to minimize the Roman condemnations, to forget them, and to have recourse to artificial hypotheses and arguments. The hierarchy found itself confronting a system that was ever more consolidating itself, appearing as one of the irreplaceable bases, or better one of the foundational columns of American social life. Attentive research into the ad limina reports and local synods could allow us to better see if and up to
476

what point the bishops had really fought against slavery, or, discouraged and insensitive, they had resigned themselves and preferred to keep quiet. St. Peter Claver himself, in his heroic charity, was not able to overcome paternalism, never thought at all of demanding the liberty of the slaves, never considered excommunicating the slave owners. This mentality appears clearly in the work of a jurist, professor in the University of South America, Ciriaco Morelli: Fasti novi orbis et ordinationum apostolicarum ad Indias pertinentium breviarium, Venice 1776. From p.468 to p.475 the author examines the problem, if the trade and slavery of blacks were illicit in se. He immediately admits that this was full of dangerous consequences, and therefore almost or nearly illicit. He then reassumes the arguments usually adopted to demonstrate the immorality of slavery: a) one presumes that the black has been reduced to slavery for the first time in an unjust manner; b) the slave traders are moreover irreligious (out of 3,000, approximately 200 have recourse to the sacraments at Easter);

477

c) the slaves have been treated in an inhuman fashion on board the ships (in only one night, out of 500 slaves, about 120 died); d) the trade is cause of scandal for the non-believers. But Morelli also refers to the arguments on the opposite side: a) the blacks could have been treated as slaves in the event of a just war or because of crimes they have committed; b) they could have voluntarily renounced their own liberty in exchange for an adequate compensation; c) many slave traders are good Christians; d) in the buying and selling itself, the titles on which the trader bases his ownership of slaves have been examined in general, and they have been determined to be just. Other moralists add: it is legitimate to lead a black into slavery who is on the point on being killed, thus rendering him an authentic service by saving his life in the process! In conclusion, for these theologians, if it is licit to reduce anybody to slavery so that he may become aChristian, one nonetheless cannot deduce from the cruelty of some slave owner that slavery in
478

itself is illicit. Morelli adds that the slavery of the blacks in America has assumed mitigated forms, given that the slaves receive food and clothes, enjoy a full day of rest, and in sum conduct a life more tranquil than that which they would have had if they had remained in Africa. Thus, under an apparent misery they do enjoy real happiness!!! While the moralists were losing themselves in these sterile discussions, the traders continued undaunted in their activity. Indeed, from the distance of years they recalled that which they had seen, they gave proof of a moral sense under a certain point of view much more alive than the theologians and missionaries themselves. While Dionigi Carli remained unaffected in his narration, Francesco Carletti, remembering his vain attempt to compete with the Spanish, Portuguese and English negrieri, confessed that to recall having done it [...] has caused me a certain sadness and confusion of conscience, because truly this always seemed to me an inhuman traffic and unworthy of the Christian profession and piety. There is no doubt at all that one has made business out of human beings, or, to speak more properly, of human flesh and blood; and it is all the more shameful, being baptized, though they are different in color and in their fortune on
479

earth, they nevertheless have the same souls formed by the same Maker who formed ours. I have begged the Lords mercy, for he knows that my intention and will had always felt repugnance toward this affair, though I did not desist. But everyone knows, and to Your Highness is certified, that this affair has never been pleasing to me. Probably, the Bishop and the clergy of Capo Verde themselves did not have scruples, who, in so far as Carletti remembers, gained their own livelihood from the sale of slaves, and neither did the Jesuits who, it seems, had received from the Pope the privilege of earning a percentage from the slave trade, to the advantage of the missions to the greater glory of His Divine Majesty. In substance, while he who was in the middle of the reality felt at times a certain interior uneasiness because of his behavior, when he had not yet lost every moral sense, or when economic disagreements had restored this sensibility almost dead, he who studied the matter in his armchair, far from being in direct contact with the concrete situation, was the one who left himself open to be influenced by the prejudices of the times, and therefore no longer was able to espy the truth.
480

Those who contested the slave trade were few, scorned and sent back to Europe. The Jesuit Antonio Vieira (1608-1697) was deported to Portugal together with his companion Jesuits of the College of Belm because of his firm taking of position in favor of the Amerindians. After four years of judicial process, he was able to return to Brazil. The error of the moralists did not derive from the difficulty of arriving at a solution to a difficult theoretical problem (something which is easily understandable) but in wanting to apply almost at any cost to the concrete reality an abstract category, in closing their eyes to the real conditions of the slaves and to the effective behavior of the negrieri. Was it really that difficult to know in America what was happening in Angola? Abstractionism and Academism, here is the true lacuna of the moralists of the ancien rgime on this theme, which Pascal did not waste time to attack in his Provincial Letters. It is necessary however to add that the excommunications did not have their much effect. The system rested on a complex of economic and social conditions that the Church had no power to change, and came to an end only when the general structure of society was turned on its head in the wake of the French Revolution. The
481

Congress of Vienna of 1815, not least because of the pressures applied by Pius VII, finally condemned the traffic in slaves, the dangers inherent in the commerce of slaves were on the increase while the gains did not change, and capitalists began to look for other sources of revenue, so that the slave trade gradually had its end in the course of the 1800s. Parallel to this was the development of a finer moral sensitivity, and that practice judged to be admissible in a different socioeconomic context came now to be considered wholly illicit.

D. The Portuguese in India, the Christians of St. Thomas, and the Holy See
On their arrival in India, the Portuguese encountered early enough a group of Christians of St. Thomas. This was how the Indian Christians were called. Substantially spread in the zone around the Malabar coast, corresponding more or less to the actual Kerala (where Catholics now form about 30% of the population), they still boast today of descending from the Christians directly evangelized by the Apostle Thomas. His arrival in India is defended by these
482

Christians even now with great tenacity, pride and vibrant sensibility. In reality, no document of the first or second century exists which talks of the apostolic work of this saint in India, which remains among the infinite possible things, but which has never been demonstrated to have been actually the case. In any case, three things are certain: 1) Christianity had reached India since the 4th century; 2) this conquered a small but solid minority through the work of priests coming from Mesopotamia or Chaldea (present day Iraq); and 3) these Indian Christians did not speak Hindi but one of the languages of the Dravidic group, i.e., Malayalam, and they remained for centuries tied to the Chaldean Patriarchs, receiving their influence and embracing the Syro-Chaldean or Syro-Malabar rite. Discussions are ongoing on whether these Christians had received in their doctrine Nestorian infiltrations, typical of many Chaldean Christians, and if they could be considered united to Rome through Chaldean Patriarchs or they could be separated from Rome, but without being aware of it.
483

The cordial relations between the Christians of St. Thomas and the Portuguese, who arrived at Calicut in 1498, did not last very long. The Indian Christians defended their rite, their traditions, their discipline (they permitted married priests, like the Oriental Churches, united or separated from Rome). The Portuguese missionaries looked with suspicion at this community of oriental rite, doubting their orthodoxy, their loyalty to Rome and soon started serious efforts to eliminate every trace of Nestorianism, making them accept the pure doctrine defined in the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), in order to establish or reestablish a clear and complete union with Rome. But not content with this, the Portuguese also desired, if not properly to abolish the Syro-Chaldean rite, at least to modify it in various points thus rendering it more similar to the Latin rite. And obviously the Portuguese did not accept any Christian community to be independent from the Portuguese Padroado, and they attempted in one way or the other to subject the Christians of St. Thomas to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Goa. The foundation of the seminary of Cranganore (Malabar) for aspirants to Indian priesthood (1541) was the first important step of this policy. But the
484

decisive initiative historically remained, even today, the synod convoked in 1599 at Diamper, south of Calicut, near the equator. Goa, Calicut, Cochin, Diamper formed the centers of Portuguese missionary expansion in southern India. The Archbishop of Goa thought that in this way he could purify the Indian Church from all that which did not conform to the Latin traditions, that is, from all that which he thought could not be other than a complex of heresies and of errors. The synod, which seems to have never been approved by any pope, was evaluated differently by the Congregation of the Propaganda and by the Christians of St. Thomas. For the Roman congregation, the synod would have eliminated the Nestorian infiltrations which from time immemorial had threatened the integrity of the faith. Thus the synod would have constituted a healthy means of salvation for that remote Christian Church, liberating her from errors and bringing her back to the purity of the Chalcedonian Faith. But for the Christians of St. Thomas, the synod would represent a further step, substantially successful, to modify their ancient traditional rite, to abolish every dependence of their Christian community on Chaldea, in order to subject her to the Portuguese Padroado. Effectively the
485

Christians of St. Thomas were placed under the authority of a Latin bishop, the Jesuit Francis Ros. The effective power of the ancient Christian Indian authority, that is of the archdeacon, a figure of great importance in the history of Christianity in Malabar, was not suppressed but emasculated, i.e., made limited. The dissatisfied brought many priests and lay people in 1653 to an oath against recognizing the authority of the Latin bishop. It is not clear whether this also constituted a schismatic break from Rome. Only the efforts of an Italian vicar apostolic, the Carmelite Giuseppe Sebastiani, succeeded in the second half of the 1600s to reestablish at least in part peace and unity, and this despite the difficulties created not only by the old antipathy felt by the SyroChaldeans for the Jesuits but also by the arrival of the new colonial masters, the Dutch, who certainly did not like the Portuguese bishops. One part of the old Christians returned to communion with Rome, accepted the western vicars apostolic but conserved their own rite (Syro-Chaldean or Malabar). Another group, rather small, continued its opposition, refusing to recognize the vicars apostolic, and introducing instead the Syro-Antiochene rite (or Malankara), and uniting themselves with the Monophysites of Antiochia
486

in Syria (a part of this Church would pass to Anglicanism in the 1800s). Only after the end of Portuguese domination in India would a big part of these dissidents reunite with Rome, remaining Catholics of the oriental Antiochene rite, while a group remained faithful to the Antiochenes separated from Rome. The long history of these conflicts, more alive and more dramatic than we are able to present in this brief exposition, shows the limits of Portuguese religious policy, in part shared by the Jesuits themselves. The Portuguese Church was made to impose a rigid uniformity, did not respect local traditions, ending with dangerously confounding, in conflicts with the Propaganda, Catholicism and western culture, particularly Portuguese culture, in an way not too different from that with which some Jewish Christians of apostolic times had identified Christianity and Jewish traditions, attempting to impose on those who aspired to baptism the practice of circumcision and the observance of the whole Mosaic Law...

487

E. The Question of the Chinese and Malabar Rites

1. Causes of the controversy a. Difficulties in adaption The difficulty of adapting Christian principles to the different national cultures. In theory, all were convinced that Catholicism cannot be identified with any one determinate form of civilization and therefore can adapt itself to the traditions and customs of the diverse nations, accepting that which was not intrinsically evil, but without for all that confounding herself with these various cultures. In practice however, the distinction is not all that easy and clear, and only slowly is it reached through discussions and difficulties, sometime painful. The early Church distinguished herself from the synagogue only after strong discussions took place between Christians coming from Judaism and those who were converted directly from paganism. In the 4th century, in the middle of the pain of the disappearance of the Roman Empire, Christians became slowly aware of the distinction between Christianity and the empire itself, this second destined to disappear soon, the first kept for an imperishable future. At the beginning of the
488

1300s, after the not always happy attempts of the popes and the exasperated affirmations of the defenders of papal theocracy, it became clear that the Church was not necessarily tied in an indissoluble way to the Roman empire of the German nation; the crisis of the empire was already definitive, while that of the Church, even if serious, was transitory. The problem would resurface in the modern age, when the missionaries reached not now primitive populations but nations that, having reached for sometime a high level of civilization, had developed an original philosophy and literature. In China, Japan and India, up to what point could the Church serenely accept usages and institutions drawn from a civilization that had remained up until then completely extraneous to every Christian influence? The theoretical solution was clear. Already in 1659, Propaganda recommended to missionaries certain guidelines. But in practice, which were the customs which did not have any religious significance, able therefore to be assimilated by Catholicism? The missionaries were not unanimous in responding to these concrete questions...

489

b. Different methods of evangelization Diverse methods of evangelization. The Dominican and Franciscan missionaries, at least in the first years of their missionary work, did not give too much weight to human means, putting all their trust in divine grace which had to sustain the conversions. They were not concerned to earn the respect and esteem which the scholars enjoyed in the Far East, they did not cultivate studies, and in their preaching they underlined the mystery of the Cross, and in morals as well as dogma they showed themselves rather severe, applying literally and without exception the liturgical rubrics. With great courage, and without worrying about the consequences, they transgressed the laws which limited or impeded preaching in public. They did not care about the prohibition to enter China, sometimes showed an active resistance to civil authority, the favor of whom they did not actively seek, and, challenging every prohibition, they preached the Gospel in the town and city squares to all, men and women. Conversion was to consist in a total and complete renewal, internal and external, in an authentic metanoia, which brought the new Christians to the abandonment of many traditional customs in a society that had never known Christian traditions. Only with
490

the passing of time, after initial mistakes of tact, the missionaries of the mendicant orders adapted themselves to exteriorly, in vestments and social usages, to Chinese customs, but for motives purely tactical, not really to hide or to nuance the specifically Christian. This school, for the rest, worked among the more simple sections of the population (which means, in socio-economic terms, the lower classes), unlike the Jesuits who worked among the mandarin class. Its adherents were concerned with immediate and externally verifiable successes, not with a patient and slow transformation of a culture through dialogue of a very high level. Like the Christians of the early centuries, which remained a small seed in the middle of an immense field, Catholics would then show themselves eager to please God, rather than men, and ready to affront persecutions. The Jesuits followed the opposite line, even before the arrival of missionaries from the other orders. In Japan, adaptation was enthusiastically recommended at the end of the 1500s to all the Jesuits by Alessandro Valignano, Visitor of all the missions of East Asia, and one of the greatest missionaries of all time. In China, at around the same time, in 1583, Michele Ruggeri and his disciple, Mateo Ricci,
491

succeeded in penetrating the country in the midst of great difficulties overcome only through a heroic tenacity, immediately fixed the following norms for missionaries: a) they must profess maximum esteem for the customs and traditions of the nations and of the society in which they find themselves; b) they must use great prudence in dealing with the learned and scholars; c) they should not insist on the superiority of the Gospel over the doctrine of Confucius; d) they should value science as the most efficacious means for the evangelization of the cultured classes; e) they should respect the imperial law, and therefore they should not preach the Gospel in public but only in private; f) they must direct their efforts towards the ruling class and must not refuse eventual honors. c. Extrinsic Causes. There were external factors which contributed to aggravating the controversy. The problem, already difficult in itself, was made even more delicate by the almost inevitable opposition among the missionaries
492

coming from different nations and belonging to different religious institutes, by the upholders of the Portuguese Padroado and the defenders of the rights of the Congregation for the Propaganda Fide, by the hostility between the first colonial powers Spain and Portugal and their new competitors, the English, the French, and the Dutch, and finally by the enthusiasm with which the Jansenists profited from the occasion offered them, which gave them more ammunition in their campaign to discredit the Society of Jesus before Church and society in Europe. 2. Specific Object of the Discussion Debated overall were the following points of contention. a. The name to be used to refer to God: could one accept the words Tien (heaven),Shang-ti (supreme lord, emperor), or did these terms assume a dangerous pantheistic and naturalistic nuance? It was not the first time that the use of one term rather than another has given rise to serious dissensions in the Church; it is enough to recall here the long drawn out Arian controversy and the interminable discussions over the terms omoosios and omoiosios.

493

b. The demonstrations of honor directed toward deceased ancestors and to Confucius: in every family tablets in honor of ancestors were conserved and before which one bowed ones head, offering incense and scents and lighting candles; and scholars, in order to attain an official title in the schools of higher learning, needed to swear loyalty to Confucius. c. The mitigations that needed to be eventually introduced in the practice of fasting and Sunday rest: what was to be done? d. The occasion for talking to all about the Cross from the beginning of evangelization: should one risk provoking the alienation of souls little prepared to understand and accept this mystery? Analogous difficulties appeared in India where Roberto De Nobili, who had adopted the tenor of life of Indian ascetics, and who addressed only the members of the more elevated classes in order not to offend the class prejudices rooted in the Hindu soul, permitted his neophytes some customs, like that of having their hair cut in a determinate manner, of wearing a band around their neck, of bathing in public according to the Indian custom, of marking the forehead with the cow ashes, of omitting in the baptismal rite the
494

unction with saliva. All of these customs were indicated in technical language with the name of Chinese rites and Malabar rites.

3. Historical Evolution of the Problem The first discussions, born among the same Jesuits, were resolved early enough through the intervention of the superiors of the Society in favor of the method of adaptation. The question became urgent again however with the arrival in China of missionaries of other religious orders. Father Morales, a Dominican, presented in Rome a report and submitted to the Propaganda Fide various questions. Under Innocent X, Propaganda, in 1645, answered by prohibiting the usages presented by Morales as idolatrous. The Jesuits obviously did not allow this to pass without taking action, so they sent to Rome a representatives to deal with the matter, and in 1656, under Alexander VII, the Holy Office put out a judgment that was contrary to the one made by Propaganda. The contradiction was later resolved by the same Holy Office, which now decided that both decisions were to be considered valid, prohibiting the local customs if
495

they were effectively infected with idolatry and permitting them in the contrary case. There was no need for a Roman intervention at this point, and the Curia preferred not to pronounce any definitive judgment given that the situation still lacked clarity. Naturally, this attitude meant that the discussions could go on. Thus, in the second half of the 1600s, another Dominican, Navarette, published in Madrid a treatise which sustained a position opposed to that of the Jesuits, Tratados histricos, polticos, ticos, y religiosos de la monarqua de China. The work was received joyfully by the Jansenists who exploited it in their anti-Jesuitcampaign, without giving much weight to the fact that the work was actually put on the Index. A little after, a vicar apostolic, Mons. Maigrot, prohibited the Chinese rites in the territory subject to him and sent his legate to Rome in order to obtain a definitive decision on the burning problem. The Jesuits, to avoid the condemnation, obtained from the same Emperor Kang-shi in the beginning of the 1700s a declaration, prepared in reality by the Jesuits themselves, according to which the honors bestowed on Confucius and on the dead were of a purely civil significance.
496

Clement XI in 1704 did not take this act into account and prohibited all the rites. Given however that his own special envoy, Charles Tournon, was already on his way to China, the Pope did not want to publish his decree right away. Meanwhile, Tournon, who showed himself unequal to the task because of his imprudence and his inflexibility, arrived in China, and met with the Emperor who became very irritated when he found out that his declaration on the civil nature of the rites in question had not been listened to. He then expelled Tournon from Beijing and ordered that from then on only those missionaries who acknowledged the rites as licit were to be allowed to engage in their activities. The papal envoy then condemned the rites in January 1707 as a sign of protest, after which he then retired to Macao where he received various kinds of vexations from the Portuguese who were irritated because he had acted independently of the Padroado. There he died. Clement XI in 1710, and again in 1715, reaffirmed the prohibitions of 1704. The Emperor, more than ever offended by the Roman decisions, expelled from China all missionaries,banned Christian worship, and had the Christian churches destroyed. The Jesuit missionaries then appealed to Rome against Tournon, considering themselves not bound
497

until a definitive sentence had been passed, without in the process realizing that this behavior contrasted with the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, had comprised its reputation, and had given into the hands of her enemies a dangerous weapon. Obviously accusations against and denunciations of Jesuits and their comportment in the question of the Chinese rites were not lacking, even from official circles. In 1723 the Secretary of Propaganda Fide by order of the Pope wrote to the General of the Society, blaming him for not taking stronger measures to call the quarrelsome Jesuits of Beijing to order. The great historian of the popes, Ludwig Pastor, calls this letter the warning sign of the brief of suppression of 1773. The seriousness of the situation induced Clement XI to undertake a new initiative. In 1721, a new legate, Ambrogio Mezzabarba, departed for China. In hopes of reconciling with the Emperor, certain concessions were made, declaring legitimate for example the ceremonies before the altars of ancestors and the honors rendered to Confucius. In reality however, given the ambiguity of the new dispositions, Mezzabarba did not get a sympathetic hearing from the Emperor. He also provoked new bitter dissension from the missionaries. Clement XII therefore revoked the dispositions of the
498

legate, and finally Benedict XIV in 1742 put an end to the controversy, at least for the next 200 years, prohibiting in a definitive way the rites and imposing on the missionaries an oath of loyalty. The same evolution verified itself in India where the Malabar rites, allowed by Gregory XV in the beginning of the 1600s, were put under the ban by Tournon during his voyage in China.

4. Conclusion of the Rites Controversy In 1935 the rites were declared legitimate for Manchuria; in 1936, for Japan; in October 1939 Pius XII explicitly declared, in the encyclical Summi Pontificatus, his intention to finally proceed by the way prepared by Pius XI: on 8 December 1939, the Chinese rites were declared legitimate, and the same dispositions were declared valid for India as well in April 1940. The oath imposed by Benedict XIV was abrogated. The different attitude of the Holy See in 1742 and 1935-1940 may be explained, at least within certain limits, and admitting more than a retraction and an implicit confession of a strategic error (owed to a more mature reflection), by an objective clarification of the
499

problem: the same customs with time even for the process of secularization of modern civilization, from which even the Orient could not subtract itself, could have changed their significance. It is not to be excluded that even in the 1600s and the 1700s the same rites did not have the same value everywhere. If the intellectuals in the huge centers practised them as a simple manifestation of familial piety and of national homage, the peasants of the countryside could have attributed to them a religious sense. Now the Jesuits were engaged in apostolic work primarily in the urban centers and among the more educated classes, while the other missionaries predominantly worked in the countryside among the less well-off classes. Whatever one thinks of this evolution in the thinking of the Holy See -- which brings to mind many analogous situations to historians -- the polemics against the rites and the decision of 1742 had fatal consequences not only in the Orient, where the disagreements among the missionaries first, and then the imperial hostility after, had the result of paralyzing and almost annihilating the flowering missions of China, but also in the Occident, increasing the dissensions among the Catholics themselves when the assaults of enlightened rationalism were being
500

launched more strongly against the Church, and aggravating further the climate of suspicion toward the Society of Jesus, with great damage to her apostolic work.

F. The Paraguayan Reductions

a) Origin. In the beginning of the Seicento (1600s -- the 17th century), one of the superiors of the missions of the Society of Jesus in Latin America wanted to engage once again, in a more systematic way, in an enterprise that was here and there already operational through out the continent: to induce the indigenous populations to abandon their nomadic way of life and to settle themselves in a stable manner in some wellorganised villages which would allow them to live a more elevated, i.e., more civilized, existence. Thus was born the first reductions, which looked toward the material and spiritual progress of the Amerindians who, up until then, roamed the huge forests of the new continent. The choice of a stable domicile was the indispensable presupposition for every civilizing action, on both the natural and supernatural planes, and the formation of indigenous villages responded to the opportunity of bringing the Amerindians even
501

further than was possible from the terrible example of European colonizers. The villages organized under the auspices of the Jesuits were to be found not only in the country of Paraguay as we know it today (i.e., among the Guarani people, the first to be reached by the new system of evangelization) but also extended into the regions of Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, and, a little bit later, the upper reaches of the Amazon, to the east of present-day Ecuador, among the tribes of the Maynos. This enterprise met with immediate success and developed all through out the 1600s and the first half of the 1700s, developing into 33 reductions with 100-150,000 Amerindians, divided into something like 40+ villages. The idea of reductions was not all that new. But new were two characteristics that assured the success of the venture. The indigenous peoples had personally suffered the harshness of the Spanish colonial regime, in which higher authorities had not succeeded in effectively controlling their subalterns and curbing their arbitrary moves. Now the Jesuits assured them complete liberty from the feared white man. On the one hand, in fact, the Areductions@ enjoyed a noteworthy autonomy: the indigenous peoples were exempted from the jurisdiction of lower level
502

authorities, directly placed as they were under the jurisdiction of the Vice-Roy. They were also free from every personal servitude towards the government in Madrid, to which they only had to pay tribute, consisting in a certain quantity of mate, from which was extracted an excellent drink. On the other hand, this autonomy from the Spanish authorities was counterbalanced by an almost total dependence on the missionaries. The system of paternalism was developed to the maximum. In this way the Amerindians had the educators that they needed. Around 1630, the Areductions@ suffered grave assaults from slave hunters in search of prey. From the coasts of Brazil came armed groups, spreading destruction and death. Tens of thousands of Amerindians were captured and deported or killed. In order to prevent this from ever happening again, the missionaries were able to obtain from Philip IV and from his all powerful minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares, permission to organize an armed body of Amerindians for their own protection. Fathers and Brothers instructed the neophytes in the use of arms. When, in 1641, the slave hunters again tried to assault them, now with an even superior force, these were repulsed, but with great loss of life on the part of
503

the Amerindians, guided by the Jesuits. From then on, these slave hunting activities ceased.

b) The Organization of the Reductions.

The Amerindian villages presented an identical fundamental structure. In the center of the village was the church, the convent of the Fathers, and the storage buildings. Around this center were the houses of the Amerindians. The churches were commodious and capable of holding large congregations; the central nave could accommodate 80 persons in single file for communion! Not uncommon were belfries that had 8 bells. Ornamentation, particularly sculpture using wood, was much developed. The spiritual governance of the community was completely in the hands of the Fathers who, however, had to take into the account the Patronato real. The Patronato tied the hands of the superiors in various ways, taking away from them for example the assignment and transfer of missionaries. The civil administration was, in theory, supposed to be in the hands of selected indigenous members, but this was more apparent than real because the indigenous leaders more often than not did not move or decide anything without the placet of the Jesuits. Entry into the Areductions@ by strangers, European or otherwise, was strictly prohibited, with
504

two exceptions: the bishop and a representative of the colonial government. But even these two were not much welcome, so that slowly but surely the Areductions@ became rather hermetically sealed communities, a species of a state unto itself, separated from the rest of the world by a bamboo curtain... Minute regulations, similar to those in Jesuit colleges, ordered the life of the reductions. Fixed were times of rest, work and prayer. Every family had a piece of land to cultivate, the fruits of which they disposed of freely. But every family had to collaborate in the cultivation of the communal lands, destined to meet the needs of the whole community. The missionaries functioned as judges, but without straying from the paternalistic system that supported the reductions. The more serious crimes merited the punishment of expulsion from the reduction or with being consigned to the Spanish authorities. Under this regime, the Amerindians passed in a span of three generations from an extremely primitive level of existence to a rather elevated stage of civilization. They learned not only agriculture but also various industries, erected the first printing machines in the new continent, and crafted musical instruments... Taken as a whole, it seems that the Amerindians, at least for quite a long
505

time, had willingly accepted the paternalistic regime of the Jesuits.

c) The End of the Reductions.

In the 1700s, the anti-Jesuit campaign trumpeted the rumor that the Jesuits had accumulated immense riches in their American state, that they were tyrants ruling over the Amerindians whom they victimized, and that they had organized an army responsible to them alone. Also mentioned was the name of a temporal coadjutor who was supposed to have proclaimed himself the Emperor of Paraguay with the name of Nicholas I. The Pope, Benedict XIV, had told this story to his friend, confidant and traitor, the Cardinal Tencin, prudently adding: ...if this were true... In truth, the end of the reductions was decided not by the rumors diffused here and there among the general public, but by the rivalry between the Portuguese and the Spaniards. In order to eliminate every danger of competition that the city of Sacramento offered to Buenos Aires, both cities lying on opposite banks of the Rio de la Plata, the former under the Portuguese, the latter under the Spaniards, a treaty was signed in 1750 between the two colonial
506

masters, with Sacramento now given over to the Spaniards but with a third of the territory which contained the reductions ceded to the Portuguese. Thirty thousand Amerindians of the Areductions@ affected, faced now with the alternative of abandoning their villages or falling under Portuguese jurisdiction, rebelled. In two years however, this rebellion was suppressed. The villages were abandoned, and new attempts would be made elsewhere to found reductions. A few years after, the Jesuits would be expelled from all Spanish dominions. The surviving villages and new reductions would fall into ruin.

d) Historical evaluation of the Reductions.

The history of the reductions raises various interesting questions. Did Jesuit paternalism effectively produce a good educative system, or was it good only for forming human beings who lacked strong personalities, children more than adults? Was the fervor of the Amerindian neophytes, the piety and the generosity with which they practiced penitence, even though reduced to the exaggerations that pleased baroque historiography, the fruit brought to maturity in an artificial and hurried manner, and therefore
507

lacking in profound solidity, or did it respond to an intimate vitality in the hearts of the indigenous peoples? Why is it that the Jesuits, in all of the 150 years of their work among the Amerindians, never even minimally bothered with the formation of an indigenous clergy? Could not paternalism, perhaps the only system possible in the beginning, have given way to a more effective participation of the Amerindians in government? Were the missionaries aware of the limitations of this system? One needs to recognize of course that the Jesuits in the 1600s and the beginning of the 1700s could not foresee the catastrophe that would overtake the missions, and in fact were hoping that they could continue to pursue their civilizing and educative work among the Amerindians. But it seems nonetheless evident that, here and there, a certain discontent was already being felt among the Amerindians, even if incipient, through the long years of their civil and human inferiority, and the Jesuit Fathers did not foresee the need and opportunity for a gradual evolution of the paternalistic system. On the whole, the Jesuits were apparently excellent pastors, mindful of the welfare of the individual faithful given to their care, but perhaps they were also lacking in political foresight.
508

G. Japan: Failed Hopes

The Asian missions were given an efficacious impulse through the efforts of St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552). He disembarked at Goa in 1541, and in eleven years had reached the coasts of southern India, Sri Lanka, Malacca, and the Moluccas Islands. On 15 August 1549, he made it to Japan where he stayed and worked for some two years. He attempted to cross over into China, but he died on the small island of Sancian, mainland China in view. He was 46 years old! After his death, Christianity did not achieve a wide diffusion among the indigenous populations, due in part to the terrible example that the Europeans themselves had given, largely motivated by a desire for quick wealth and characterized by loose morals. The system of the Patronato and a missionary strategy that reduced the ancient Indian cultures to a tabula rasa became instruments of European power and European civilization. The method of adaptation followed Roberto de Nobili (1577-1656) and by St. John de Britto (1647-1693) remained for the most part a singular exception subjected to strong criticism
509

(including those that came from fellow Jesuits) rather than a constant and universal rule among the missionaries. Even in China, where Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was the prime exemplar among missionaries using the method of adaptation and successful in reaching the capital Beijing and exercising some influence on the cultured classes, to the point of obtaining at the end of the 17th century full liberty to preach the Gospel, the dissensions among the various religious orders and the unfortunate controversy over the Chinese rites impeded a more secure development of Chinese Christianity, even though this had been the religion of about 300,000 faithful in the years leading to 1700. The Asian country where the Church seemed to obtain the greatest success, prescinding from the example of the Philippines, was instead Japan. Here, the name of Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606) easily comes to mind: Jesuit Superior of all the missions of the Society of Jesus in East Asia, convinced promoter of the method of adaptation, at some point ready to prescribe for missionaries the use of careful use of the tea ceremony in welcoming local dignitaries, united to the real aspirations of the Japanese people for a purer kind of religion, a politician as well in so far as,
510

confronted with the weakness of the central power of Japan vis a vis the local feudal lords, he did not hesitate to profit from every occasion to affirm his own independence before the Mikado. Given the Japanese situation, he did not hesitate to favor, in the 2nd half of the 16th century (1500s), a rapid expansion of the Church. Excessive is the estimate of some historians that there were about 1,000,000 Japanese Christians in the beginning of the 1600s. A more reliable figure would be about 300,000 baptized, almost all of them in the south, but nonetheless remarkable for the fact that travel to Japan from Lisbon, Portugal, via GoaMalacca-Macao, took at least two or three years to accomplish! Unfortunately, this bright situation of Japanese Christianity would dramatically change in the transition from the 16th to the 17th centuries, because of various intersecting factors: the sure formation of a strong central power ended with subordinating the existence of the Church to the arbitrary will of the supreme effective power, which flowed not from the Emperor but from the Shogun. The fear that the missionaries were the advanced guard of the political and commercial expansion of the colonial powers of the West became reinforced by
511

various imprudent actions of the Spanish and Portuguese. Also, it was not inconceivable for some local magnate to seek assistance from these European powers against the Emperor and the central power. Also evident to the Japanese was the contrast in missionary style between the Jesuits and members of the friar orders, e.g., the Dominicans and Franciscans, with negative consequences for the stability and growth of the Japanese Church. After an initial attempt at persecution conducted by Hideyoshi at the end of the 16th century, which resulted in the martyrdom of 26 Christians, both European and Japanese, all crucified in Nagasaki in 1597, a new wave of persecution was let loose in 1614 under Ieyasu, a persecution that was not anything less in its ferocity compared to other persecutions of Christians in other historical periods and other places. To decapitation, slow and protracted roasting, baths in boiling sulfuric water of Mount Unzen, one may add the suspension of the human being upside down in a well, subjecting the tortured person to an agony that could last for over a week, while rapid death was prevented, with a bell put in the hand of the person which he or she could ring at anytime in order to signify his or her apostasy from the faith and therefore
512

liberation from the process of torture. A political revolt in 1640 in territory heavily populated by Christians would end in further aggravating their situation. From 1638, Japanese Christians were prohibited from having contact with missionaries, while at around the same time anybody suspected of adhering to any foreign religion was required to step on a crucifix. Among the more dramatic episodes, noteworthy was the apostasy of the Jesuit Provincial, Cristobal Ferreira, which took place in 1633 after three hours of being suspended head first in a well. Various Jesuits would attempt to penetrate Japan, in order to reach their brother and to bring him back to the faith, or at least to inspire him to have recourse to martyrdom to repair the damage to his soul that he had incurred. Some of these died martyrs, while others were not able to resist, thus joining the growing ranks of apostates (among whom was the Italian Jesuit Francesco Chiara). Some Portuguese traders would bring the news to Macau that Ferreira, at the end of his life, did return to the faith and suffered martyrdom, but this has not received secure historical verification. The drama of the Japanese Church of these years, including the tremendous case of conscience of Ferreira and his companions, has been told in a novel
513

which marries historical background with a vast literary imagination: Shusaku Endos Silence. The author recounts however another, perhaps more significant, factor. Torn away from the rest of the Christian world, without priests to minister to them, and living amidst a society that hated them and would have exterminated them if it had found out its secret, some families (several tens of thousands of individuals) handed down their Catholic faith, from parents to children, through 200 years. When, in the 2nd half of the 1800s, Japan was forced to open her doors to the outside world and the missionaries were able to return, Fr. Petitjean, who was then praying in a small church in the periphery of Nagasaki in honor of the 26 martyrs of 1597, saw a small group of persons from the nearby village of Urakami. After an initial uncertain glance at the edifice, they asked him if he was married and if he venerated the Madonna. It was their way of ascertaining whether he was Catholic or Protestant. At his clear response, they said: The heart of everybody here is like your own. St. Francis Xavier was not wrong in his great estimation of the Japanese people.

514

XV: The French Revolution

In the second half of the 1700s, a series of sociopolitical reforms imposed by the times was developing in various European states (the Hapsburg states, the Spain of Charles III, Prussia, the Kingdom of Naples with Tanucci and King Ferdinand IV, the Kingdom of Sardinia with Carlo Emanuele III...). On the one hand, this series of socio-political reforms may be characterized negatively due to the following factors: a foundation in various enlightenment principles hostile to the Church, a quasi total disregard for the hallowed popular traditions, an excessive haste, an apriorism that did not pay attention to the concrete and to deleterious effects, a strong tendency on the part of the state to intervene in ecclesiastical affairs. On the other hand, this same series of socio-political reforms revealed itself to be on the whole a positive phenomenon and gave a strong impulse to the development of the modern state. France however, where the Enlightenment had deep roots, remained extraneous to these reforms, without sensing in any way their necessity or their urgency. It is precisely from France of the end of the 18th century and by way of reaction that that radical movement which changed
515

the face of Europe would take its departure. The French Revolution was not in any sense a satanic revolution, moved by unbelief, with the aim of totally destroying the Church; its causes were rather more ample and more complex: political, social, economic, and only in part philosophical and religious. In due time however, the revolution, which proposed the end of absolutism and of the structures tied to it, would assume antireligious aspects, first with the attempt to create a national church, largely independent from the Holy See, and then, given the failure of this experiment, it would transform itself into a movement for the dechristianization of the country, the first of a series of attempts carried out in the 1800s and 1900s in Europe and Latin America. The Catholic Church suffered grave consequences, including the loss of human lives, and would come out of this historical episode rather shaken up and rather in a bad way, but on the whole it would survive the struggle and resume her journey through time.

I. The Struggle against the Church.

The crisis always more evident induced Louis XVI to convoke the Estates General (composed of the three estates of the nobility, the clergy and the third estate) for May 1789. Of the 296 cleric deputies we
516

find 47 bishops and 208 parish priests. The prevalence of the lower clergy allowed an alliance to be formed between this group and the third estate, decisive in the history of the estates general, and in view of the weakness of the King, this transformed itself into a Constituent National Assembly. After the abolition of feudal rights (of the nobility: on 4 August) and the declaration of the rights of the human being and of the citizen (26 August), with evident traces of the Enlightenment, a series of anti-ecclesiastical measures would be set in motion: confiscation of ecclesiastical goods and properties of the clergy (2 November) and their sale, and suppression of the religious orders (13 February 1790). These two decrees (the first of which would be partially useful for easing the financial situation of the state) would constitute a firm point of reference according to which all the liberal states of the 1800s would orient themselves, at least the so-called Latin states. Thus we encounter analogous laws in the 19th-20th centuries from Spain to Mexico. But more serious was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (12 July 1790). This decreed the following: 1) a new systematization of the dioceses (one per civil department, i.e., 83 dioceses instead of the then preexisting 135 dioceses); 2)
517

popular election of bishops and parish priests without confirmation or any canonical investiture of the bishops from the Pope; 3) state stipend for the ministers of the cult; and 4) obligation of residence. Thus was enshrined some principles dear to Richerism and ecclesiastical Gallicanism, i.e., the tendency toward a national church, but at the price of a substantial subordination of the Church to the State. All of this was set in place in a unilateral way, without any consultation or agreement with Rome. On 27 November, the oath of fidelity to the civil constitution of the clergy was imposed on all bishops, parish priests, and other ecclesiastical functionaries. Except four, all the bishops rejected the oath, but soon in great numbers they would leave France, seeking refuge in England, Italy and Germany. But almost half of the lower clergy would submit to this imposition. France would therefore be divided in priests asserments or constitutionals and priests inserments or rfractaires. Meanwhile, efforts were ongoing to reorganize the constitutional Church: 83 bishops were elected and consecrated (through the work principally of Talleyrand, already Bishop of Autun), and pastors assigned to the parishes. Pius VI, following declarations already published by many of the
518

disenfranchised bishops in France, condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy on 10 March and 13 April 1791. The Episcopal consecrations were declared criminal and sacrilegious, and all constitutional priests were suspended a divinis. Later instructions insisted that the faithful do not assist at functions presided over by and receive the sacraments from those priests who had taken the oath. The two churches confronted each other then. In the countryside however, the faithful had retained their sympathy for the clergy that had remained faithful to Rome. This precipitated events. The Constituent Assembly was dissolved at the end of September 1791 and the Legislative Assembly took its place (17911792). Dominated initially by the Girondists, the Assembly declared war on 20 April 1792 against Austria, which had repeatedly threatened France. After a series of defeats, the French forces stopped the Austro-Prussian army on 20 September at Valmy sur Marne (to the west of Verdun). From then on, a series of victories, initially due not so much to the genius of the French generals (in reality modest) but to the enthusiasm of the sans culottes, to the almost mystical trust in the Revolution, to the electrifying
519

passion that we can still sense today in the French national anthem Marseillaise, releasedat the beginning of the war. The Revolution initiated its victory march through Europe. But the excitement of the times, the conviction over the need to unmask suspected traitors and eliminate them, and perhaps the astute calculation of some of the bourgeoisie to assure the security of their own property ay directing the attention of the fanatical masses of the people who had taken up arms somewhere, the anticlericalism that was always more evident by the refuge sought by members of the nobility and the clergy in foreign lands, provoked in Paris the massacre of over a thousand of suspects The carnage, which today we can perhaps comprehend much more easily if not justify, included the death of around 300 priests. Thus was opened an abyss between the Catholic Church and the Revolution. From the foundation of a national church, France passed to an open struggle against religion itself, to a declared intention to deChristianize the country. The 3rd assembly, now known as the National Convention (1792-1795), above all in the years 17931794 (up to the fall and the death of Robespierre on 28 July 1794), organized a genuine persecution against
520

priests and religious. Always more oppressive were the restrictive measures against those priests who refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and executions were increasing. In Paris most of all, scores of priests and nuns would ascend the platform of the guillotine with a dignity that impressed the crowd. The 16 Carmelites of Compigne, who before the guillotine renewed their religious vows in the presence of their Mother Prioress on 16 July 1794, constituted only one of the many examples of these strong groups of Christians faithful to their mission to the point of death. One of these Carmelite nuns, while waiting in jail for her execution and paraphrasing the Marseillaise on small bits of paper, wrote: Allonslheure de la gloire, cest arrive (Let us gothe hour of glory has arrived.) After the death of Robespierre, the persecution lost steam But with the Directory (1795-1799) now at the head of government, after the coup dtat of September 1797 against the tendencies of the right, the assault against the Church was renewed. Restored were laws that fallen into disuse, many oppositors were exiled to Guyana, while others were killed in Nantes or on old ships moored in various small ports. Meanwhile, the feast of the goddess
521

Reason was celebrated in the Cathedral of Paris, Notre Dame (November 1793), and the cult of the Supreme Being was introduced (feast: May 1794). A new calendar was stabilized, which would remain in use until 1806, designed to eliminate every trace of the old religion from ordinary daily life, and substituting among other things the feast of the dead for that of Sunday, the Lords Day The same Constitutional Church herself suffered much. Two successive laws (September 1793 and September 1794) first reduced the constitutional clergy to a network of poor pensioners, with a more or less miserable treatment accorded them, and then suppressed the financing of Catholic worship itself. It was clear by this time that the Republic did not intend to profess any religion and remained estranged from any manifestation of religious cult. At the same time, the authorities exerted great pressure on the constitutional clergy to abandon their ministry. The most famous case was that of the constitutional Archbishop of Paris, Gobel, who caved in to the pressures, and on 7 November 1793, before the Convention, he explicitly renounced the Episcopal dignity and the priesthood. But even then, citizen Gobel could not evade new accusations (due perhaps
522

to personal enemies, old resentments, or to the hope to create an impression on the public); he was arrested, condemned, met one of his vicars in prison, confessed himself, and made sure that his confessor did not forget to add in the absolution the formula ab omni vinculo excommunicationis. The poor archbishop was then guillotined on 26 April 1794. But the ideal of the Jacobins was the married priest. How many married priests or ex-priests were there in France during this period? Consalvi, known for his sobriety, suggests 10,000; others, like Latreille, reduce the number to around 2,000. It is difficult to establish the exact number. Certainly, some clerical marriages were a species of pure legal comedy, for example between an already old parish priest and a 90 year-old woman who died two days after the event. () In any case, the number must have been around 4 or 5,000 cases which do not allow us to forget the other thousands of priests who proved themselves faithful in clandestine ministry, with masses celebrated at midnight in barns scattered in the countryside, constantly on the move Another problem befell the French clergy. After the imposition of the oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, three other oaths were imposed on the clergy in 1792, 1795, and 1797:
523

fidelity to the Republic, to the constitution, and to new laws. More serious was the oath of 1797, which imposed, as part of the oath, hatred of the monarchy. In general, the refractory clergy (i.e., those who refused to take the oath), broke into two groups. The moderate group, like the head of the Sulpicians Emery, without saying anything on the oath of hatred of the monarchy, retained the first two oaths licit, interpreting them in generically and thinking of some pastoral advantage that could be gained by them (e.g., a certain security and liberty as the engaged in works of pastoral ministry). The other group, composed of bishops in exile who were the most bitter antirepublicans, condemned with an almost absolute hardness every concession, every weakness before the Revolution and the Republic, considered the work of the devil, arriving at the point of looking down on the moderates who tried to deal with the problem as best as they could. In revolutionary France,the position of Emery, who had never taken the oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, is understandable and historically justified. This man of the Church exercised a great influence on the Paris clergy and could be considered a kind of grey eminence. Unfortunately, this case provoked bitter divisions that
524

would last for quite a long time and constitute a kind of leitmotiv of the history of the French Church in the 1800s.

1. From the Struggle against the Church to the Direct Assault on the Papacy. From 1792, the war against Austria and Prussia was undertaken contemporaneously with the struggle against the Church within France. This war would leave France master of Belgium up to the Rhine River. On the Italian front, all remained more or less in a kind of deadlock until Napoleon Bonaparte, at 27 years, assumed the command of the French army in 1796. Napoleon invaded the Romagna (part of the Papal States), obliging Pope Pius VI to sign an armistice at the end of June 1796 at Bologna. Ceded to the French were Bologna itself, Ferrara and Ancona, with millions in money and 100 works of art thrown into the deal. But the Directory was not satisfied; it wanted the Pope to issue a papal brief asking the French Catholics to accept the Republican regime. To negotiate the affair, the Pope sent the Abbott Pieracchi to Paris with the requested text. The Pope exhorted the French Catholics to testify to their submission to
525

those who command them, but meanwhile not to lend their faith to anybody who would propose to them another doctrine, different from that of the Holy Apostolic See. It was a courageous step that could have constituted a great advantage for the Republican government. But the radicals would have wanted that the Pope revoke all the documents relative to France published after 1789; i.e., they wanted him to revoke the papal condemnation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and to rehabilitate the clergy that took the oath of loyalty to it. But it was impossible for the Pope to give in on this matter. Pieracchi then proposed a moderate redaction, a compromise document. He was rather expelled from France. But the text of the papal brief (not promulgated, and therefore without any effect) came to be known immediately. The Directory then realized that it had lost a great chance, and Emery and the moderates among the clergy found in it confirmation of their own line.

In February 1797, the armistice of Bologna became the Peace of Tolentino, concluded not without difficulty. Napoleon then gave up Avignon and the Venaissin region of southern France, and confirmed the cession of the Emilia-Romagna and of Ancona to
526

the French, and payment of indemnity in monetary terms and in the form of works of art. The demand for a papal retraction of the condemnations pronounced by Pius VI was passed over in silence. Large tracts of land were sacrificed, but the principles seem to have been preserved. But this proved to be only an interlocutory phase. A disturbance at the end of December 1797, during which the French General Duphot was killed, provided the Directory with the pretext for sending the French army into Rome on 2 February 1798. Almost two weeks after, hundreds of Francophiles gathered at the Campidoglio and solemnly declared the end of the temporal power of the Pope and the birth of the Roman Republic. On 20 February, Pius VI, already in his 80s and semi-paralyzed, was constrained to leave Rome. After a long sojourn in Siena, and then at the Carthusian monastery in Firenze, he arrived exhausted at Valence in the Dauphinat on 14 July. A month and a half after, at the end of August, the Pope passed to his eternal reward. A little after his departure from Rome, two cardinals of Roman blood, Antici and Altieri, had asked and obtained liberation from their cardinalatial dignity. Antici would die soon after, but Altieri had the gall to present himself in the
527

next conclave for the election of the next pope, demanding to be rehabilitated and restored to his old position and to participate at the assembly. He was rebuffed in no uncertain terms. Before leaving Tuscany for French territory, Pius VI had signed the new norms for the future conclave, which was foreseen to lie in the near future. The Dean of the Cardinals and four other more trustworthy dignitaries had then decided where to hold it. For a valid election, the votes of two thirds of all those present were deemed to be sufficient. The ceremonial was simplified. The Pope had made it known to his representative in Rome, the Dean Albani and the Apostolic Delegate Di Pietro, that he desired the next conclave to take place in Venetian territory, at that time under Austrian sovereignty. The situation looked desperate

2. Pius VII and Napoleon. The conclave, which opened on 1 December 1799 in Venice, on the island of San Giorgio just across the Piazza di San Marco, was attended by 36 Cardinals (out of a total of 45) and lasted three months and a half, until 4 March 1800. Two candidates came
528

to the fore that would result in a deadlock: Mattei, the candidate of the Austrians and exemplar of an almost absolute intransigence and opposition to the French Revolution, and Bellisomi, Bishop of Cesena, who showed more independence from the Austrians. It was the great ability of the secretary of the conclave however, the young Consalvi, and of the auditor of the Spanish Rota, Despuig, sent to Venice from Madrid with special powers, which enabled the conclave to exit from the deadlock. They succeeded in rallying all the votes to the cause of Cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti, then Bishop of Imola, who chose to be named Pius VII. Chiaramonti, in a homily on Christmas 1797 on the Gospel and democracy, had shown his moderation and tendency toward conciliation. Even Napoleon had declared himself satisfied with the citizen Cardinal Chiaramonti. Studies at Padova, teaching at Parma, government of the abbacy of San Paolo, where a new openness and new tendencies appeared, in contrast to conservative ones, had showed him the necessity of an intellectual and religious renaissance, of a Church less attached to the temporal power and more committed to her religious mission. The rapid choice of Consalvi as Secretary of State by Pius VII quickly revealed the program of the new pontificate: firmness in principles,
529

adaptation to circumstances. Meanwhile, Napoleon, having returned from Egypt, had wrested power from the Directory on 9 November 1799, defeated Austria again (), and reestablished French power in Italy. With a fecund intuition, which recalls the example of Constantine in the 4th century, he had understood the sterility of a protracted struggle against the Church and immediately proposed conciliation. The First Consul was quite ready to sacrifice the constitutional bishops, but he also wanted to be rid of the bishops of the ancient regime, and evading in this manner any division according to winners and losers. He also hoped to gain the affection of the population attached to Catholicism. He did intend to use the Church to serve his interests and those of the state Pius VII, moving prudently, saw in the new situation the possibility of a more substantial freedom granted to the Church in France. The Catholic Church needed to make sacrifices, but it would have come out victorious over the Constitutional Churchand over the persecution that had lasted more than a decade The negotiations took place in Paris according to the desire of Napoleon, from November 1800 to July 1801, with some difficult moments, overcome only by the arrival in Paris of Consalvi, one of the greatest Secretaries of
530

State ever. On 15 July, Consalvi and Joseph Bonaparte, brother of the First Consul, four other representatives, two from each part, signed the accord. The dream of Robespierre to de-Christianize France vanished, but the brother of Louis XVI, the future Louis XVIII, was abandoned to his fate. The Concordat of 1801, which would last until 1905, acknowledged Catholicism as the religion of the majority of the French and accepted the advantage accruing to them derived from the reestablishment of Catholic worship and life and from the particular profession of the consuls of the Republic. The Holy See for its part renounced the privileged position which she held in the ancien rgime, but secured for herself a vast liberty of worship. On the drawing board was a new division of the dioceses (which had then been reduced to 60). Then all the titulars of the French episcopate (a neutral expression that embraced both constitutional and legitimate bishops without distinction) were invited to submit their resignation, to pave the way for new appointments by the First Consul and his successors. () The Holy See promised not to contest in any way those who had acquired alienated ecclesiastical property. Without agreeing to the principle, it definitively accepted the
531

confiscation of the goods of the Church by the State. The Religious were not even mentioned (and they would remain in this juridically uncertain situation for quite some time). Not mentioned as well were the rectors of churches that effectively functioned as parishes though without being formally considered as such, which had multiplied soon enough, and therefore remaining without any secure stipend and stability in their position. With the prompt resignation of the constitutional bishops, and despite the resistance of a small group of legitimate bishops, a new French episcopate would be set in place. This was composed of 16 bishops from the ancien regime (but assigned to other dioceses), 12 constitutional bishops, and 32 priests promoted to the Episcopal dignity for the first time. Contemporaneously, the remaining parishes, numbering about 3,000 (from the 30,000 parishes of the ancien regime!), were reorganized. The concordat, rapidly ratified by both parties (i.e., by the French government and the Holy See), was published by Napoleon after some noteworthy delay on 18 April 1802 and presented to the public in a grand religious ceremony celebrated at the Cathedral of the Notre Dame de Paris with the bells, after 12 years of
532

silence, ringing again, to the enthusiasm of an immense crowd. In the bookstores, Chateaubriands Le genie du christianisme was put on display. But the concordat was published together with 77 so-called organic articles, forming a codex of ecclesiastical rights that had a decidedly Gallican spirit to them. Gallicanism, it seems, had been thrown out through the door, but it made a reentry through the window. The placet, now with an even greater extension, was reconfirmed, for Roman decisions, the convocation of diocesan synods and provincial or national councils, their decisions, the nomination of parish priests. Imposed on the seminaries was the teaching of the 4 Gallican articles of 1682. The jus appellationis was reestablished, i.e., the recourse to civil authority against eventual ecclesiastical decisions considered inimical. The ordination of priests was subjected to precise control. Only one catechism was allowed for the whole country (which would turn out to be the Napoleonic catechism, characterized by an ample insistence on submission to the Emperor Napoleon demonstrated imperial ambitions not long after he had become First Consul). Affirmed was the precedence given to civil marriage over the sacrament of matrimony. This inflicted a grave wound on the
533

traditional system, which had subordinated marriage to ecclesiastical legislation, within a vision that identified sacrament and contract. The Napoleonic Civil Code of 1804, also applied to Italian territories under French rule, confirmed the subordination of religious matrimony to civil marriage. As a result of all of this, Pius VII and his successors would protest the organic articles, but to no avail, and a good part of the edifice (i.e., the concordat as designed by Consalvi) would therefore crumble. It seems that what Napoleon had conceded with his right hand he had taken back with his left. The succeeding years would witness continuing concessions by Pius VII to Bonaparte, by this time already known simply as Napoleon, culminating in the Popes journey to Paris for the imperial coronation of Napoleon at Notre Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804. Unfortunately, Napoleon was becoming more and more rigid in his dealings with the Church. In 1806, he was instrumental in forcing Consalvi to resign as Secretary of State of Pius VII. On 2 February 1808, French troops occupied Rome and pointed their canons at the Quirinale (otherwise considered as the residence of the Pope as temporal ruler). In May 1809, Napoleon annexed the Papal States to France. This decision was
534

proclaimed in Rome with fireworks and artillery fire on 10 June. On the night that straddled 10-11 June, the papal bull excommunicating those engaged in the usurpation of the Popes temporal power was plastered on the walls of the churches. In the night of 5-6 July, the French troops forced their way into the Quirinale; they induced the Pope and his last Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacca, to leave Rome. Pius VII arrived in Savoy alone; he was not long after transferred to Fontainebleau in May 1812. In the meantime, in 1810, the marriage of Napoleon and Maria Luisa of Austria was celebrated, after a sentence of dubious validity was made by the Parisian ecclesiastical court on the nullity of the marriage between Napoleon and Josephine. Many cardinals were forcibly brought to France and scattered in various cities. Pius VII, isolated, depressed, physically reduced, signed a new concordat on 25 January 1813 at Fontainebleau that practically left him at the mercy of Napoleon. Nevertheless, despite his depression, and perhaps because of it, recognized his error in a written declaration and retracted the new agreement three days after. On 12 January 1814, Napoleon ordered his transfer to Savoy, and on 10 March, his return to Rome. In the beginning of May of the same year,
535

Napoleon was at Elba, but due to the fiasco of Waterloo, he was transferred to the island of St. Helen in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The Pope arrived in Rome on 24 May. The Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacca, also arrived in Rome and would later recall the disposition of the inhabitants of Rome, who were enthusiastic to have the Pope back in the midst. Soon enough, Napoleons family would find refuge in Rome: his mother, Leticia, his brother, Cardinal Fesch, Pauline, Louis, ex-king of Holland, and Lucien, brothers of the emperor. Pius VII, ex-prisoner of Napoleon, demonstrated then his greatness of soul. He received them with kindness and hospitality, thus showing his meekness and magnanimity.

3. The Church in Italy and France from 1800 to 1814. For Italy, three important and significant factors should be remembered. In 1810, the religious orders both male and female would be suppressed. The religious would be constrained to leave their houses and to seek refuge here and there. The same would be the case in the Kingdom of Naples with the arrival of
536

Joseph Bonaparte. Many bishops and ecclesiastics, obliged to take an oath of loyalty to Napoleon, would refuse to do so and would therefore be exiled to Corsica or elsewhere. () Obviously, the Roman ecclesiastical bureaucracy would be paralyzed. The properties of the Propaganda Fide would be confiscated. Novitiates and seminaries would be closed, and the dioceses, deprived of their ordinary pastor, would now be governed by vicars general. In France, the situation was different. There was freedom of worship, reorganization of the dioceses and the parishes, cautious opening of some seminaries and of some female religious congregations dedicated to hospital work. Perhaps one of the more characteristic aspects of the French Church at this point in time was the coexistence in the clergy and the bishops of subjects rather diverse, with a past that was always tortuous, characterized now by abandonment of their pastoral posts, now by their return to the priestly life and service, now to heroic fidelity, without compromise, to their mission, now to years of hiding and waiting. Collaboration with the state functionaries was not without great difficulties; there were tensions, resentments, dissensions. Among the faithful, many had been without the sacraments for
537

years, many couples were without the benefit of the sacrament of marriage, which the priests tried to regularize as much as they could.

II. The Historiography on the French Revolution.

1. CONTRASTING JUDGMENTS OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Perhaps no other historical phenomenon has generated more heated controversy than the French Revolution and its significance. For those who lived during the period of the revolution itself, the abyss was truly unbridgeable. Today, there is greater consensus on both the positive and negative aspects of the Revolution, but it continues to excite partisan controversy, particularly in France.

a. Contemporary accounts and historians of the 1800s; negative assessment. Contemporaries and historians of the first half of the 1800s, seeing above all the more superficial aspects of the Revolution, would converge, for some motive or
538

other, on a harsh negative judgment of this historical period: 1) Joseph de Maistre, Considerations sur la France (1796): the Revolution was a time of chaos, madness, impiety, the ruin of all the principles and of all the political and moral foundations of any civilisation 2) Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790): the Revolution destroyed every tradition, subverted the established order through violence 3) Other historians would follow basically the same line of argument (the Italians: Papi, Cuoco, Botta, Manzoni; and the Frenchman, Hippolyte Taine, Les origines de la France contemporaine (1876-1894). All would underline the damage due to the violent break with the past. The argument was made that, in fact, all through out the 1700s, the ancien regime was in fact already on the way of being superseded. The French Revolution had interrupted this peaceful development, and in various cases had in fact deflected this development from its normal course, due to the following: a) the apriorism of the solutions universally imposed without taking into consideration the diversity of the local conditions; b) the Revolutions
539

egalitarian utopianism; c) the suffocation of the national sentiments of various peoples; d) the illegality of the procedures adopted, thus issuing in a protracted instability in governance. In substance, these authors counter-pose constructive evolution to destructive revolution. 4) Catholic apologetics would persevere in a drastic condemnation of the French Revolution, recalling among other things the following: the massacres, anarchy, assault on property and, above all, persecution of the Church, particularly those who refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790), and of the Pope, the interventions against Catholic worship and Catholic doctrine (symbolized by the Republics elevation of the Reason as Goddess or of a Deist Supreme Being). Here one must recall the Jesuit editors of the journal Civilt Cattolica, particularly Taparelli dAzeglio, who went beyond immediate and particular abuses to condemn the principles proclaimed by the French Revolution, i.e., Equality, Liberty and Fraternity without any nuance or qualification For these Catholic apologists, the French Revolution constituted the ultimate phase of the apostasy of modern society, supposedly started by the Renaissance, developing
540

with Protestantism and the Enlightenment. The principles of 1789 were supposed to have been the logical conclusion of Lutheran thesis on private judgment and the separation of the objective order from the subjective order. For them as well, refusal to submit to God led inexorably to subjection to and the tyranny of the national assemblies. In short, the aim was not just to denounce the pathological abuses of the French Revolution but to condemn the principles of the Revolution itself, principles enshrined in the abolition of the feudal system and in the Declaration of the Rights of Man for example. 5) Finally, only recently have studies critical of the French Revolution emerged, but from a perspective quite different: the French Revolution was hijacked by the bourgeoisie. Instead of the people, the bourgeoisie remained the director of the drama of the Revolution, directing it for its own exclusive profit: the equality proclaimed by the revolutionaries would be immediately limited to the advantage of the wealthy bourgeois. To the system of privilege by bloodline would be substituted privilege of income, and to the dictatorship of the King would be substituted the dictatorship of a few, the owners of the means of production, promoted by the demolition of the old
541

corporative structures of the guilds and associations that offered to the working classes the possibility of defending their rights, even if this be limited and insufficient. The people of Paris and of the countryside it seems then essentially struggled not to proclaim and defend their rights but the rights of the bourgeoisie.

b. Contemporary accounts and historians of the 1800s: positive assessment. Parallel to the interpretation invariably negative, a positive evaluation of the French Revolution would develop, slowly forming the more profound significance of the event and of its historical import. 1) Already, Madame de Stal, in her Considerations sur les principaux vnements de la Rvolution Franaise (1818), admonishing those who chose to limit their vision to the violent excesses after 1789, sought to go beyond contingent and immediate factors to the perennial values of the revolutionary movement. Admitting that fanaticism was inevitably present in every revolution, she nevertheless wanted to put the accent on the examination of the factors that provoked the demolition of the then existing social structures of the ancien regime and on the consequences that in
542

one way or another the revolutionaries had arrived at. Also to be included in this group would be historians and philosophers, many of them Germans (for example Joseph Grres, who saw in the event the dawning of a new age, but also Fichte and Schlegel). With the enthusiasm of the poet rather more than that of the historian, Michelet, in his Histoire de la Rvolution franaise (1847-1853) would salute in the revolutionary movement the triumph of the superior ideal of justice, the redemption and the resurrection of France. Liberal historians from Thiers (1797-1877) to Mignet (1796-1884) would also highlight the positive import of the work completed by the revolutionaries. 2) Across shocking events, violence and injustices, the Revolution had achieved a work of historical importance. But could one say that this progress was inspired by Christianity? Was this progress not instead in clear contrast with Christian principles? If many Catholic apologists (note: apologists, NOT historians) have sustained the latter thesis (that the French Revolution was in permanent contrast to Christianity and could not in any way be said to be inspired by it), others have, slowly but surely, have put in relief the profound affinity, even if unconscious, that connects the principles of 1789 and Gospel values. It
543

is enough to recall here several names. Buchez, in his Histoire parlementaire de la Rvolution franaise (1846), and Mazzini, in his Sulla Rivoluzione francese del 1789 would make the claim that the French Revolution was the historical application of fundamental ideas of Christianity to the political realm. Rosmini would hold analogous ideas. Ventura would assert that the Revolution was the blind and almost desperate attempt of a Christian nation to induce the exercise of power then to be returned within the limits that Christianity had at one time imposed and which had become pagan, i.e., to make it Christian. Cant could not but see progress in the Revolution, despite its excesses. Lacordaire would recall to mind, in polemical exchange with his friend du Boys, how the French Revolution gave birth to political liberty, freedom of religion, and equality. The same judgment would be typical among the so-called Catholic liberals (Montalembert, et alii). And, in the months of the Reign of Terror itself, a French exJesuit, P. De Clorivire, would write in his hiding place a commentary on the Book of Apocalypse (or Revelation), still partially unedited, in which he would express the opinion that the excesses of the Revolution were punishment for the abuses of the Church of the
544

ancien regime and the hope that this was the necessary purification that the Church needed to go through. 3) Regarding the bourgeois and anti-people character of the Revolution, although one has to recognize the validity of the observations made about this, one could also sustain with Salvamini the opinion that, in a wider perspective, the Revolution was nonetheless the first step toward the emancipation of the proletariat and a more effective equality, even if the path to be traveled to attain this would remain long and arduous and the time needed to make it would take much longer.

2. HISTORICAL FRACTURE OR HISTORICAL CONTINUITY? Against those like Burke and Botta who castigate France for having operated an extremely drastic cut in the ties with the past, seeing in this one of the graver limitations of the French Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), in his famous work LAncien Rgime et la Rvolution (1856), has pointed to the continuity in French political life before and after 1789. The French made a giant effort to bridge the
545

abyss between the past and the future, but their efforts failed, and, without wanting to, they used fragments of the demolished old edifice in order to build the new national house. Because the revolution had two rather distinct phases: the first, during which the French seemed to want to abolish the past, and the second, in which they would take up again a part of that which they left behind. Effectively there exists a fundamental identity of objectives between (1) the politics of the absolute monarchy, engaged in combating the nobility, in limiting the latters privileges, in favor of a centralized administration, and (2) the politics of the Republic, which abolished every privilege and created the modern unitary State. A great number of the laws and political customs if the old regime would brusquely disappear in 1789, in order to reappear a few years after, like certain rivers that disappear into the earth only to flow once again some distance away, carrying along new banks the same waters. Weve had occasion to return to this fundamental intuition, rich in broad developments. It is necessary however to recognize that, as often happens to the one who discovers the truth, partial though this may be, and is enthused by the conquest to the point of
546

forgetting other aspects, Tocqueville, after having justly delineated the continuity between the two regimes (ancien et nouveau, old and new), would end in exaggerated positions in his affirmations, saying for example that all that the Revolution had donewould have been done as well without it. According to this view, the Revolution had only accelerated an evolution already on-going, and this evolution would have achieved the same result, with or without the Revolution. One may or may not accept this affirmation, but on the whole this seems to be a pseudo-problem, analogous to those others encountered and summarized in the question: what would have happened if the factors had developed differently? What if.? The question is speculative. And history does not deal with the realm of the possible but only with concrete reality. Because of this, it is not useless to repeat that we are not concerned to know whether the goals achieved by the Revolution could have been reached by other ways. We also prescind from the question whether the methods used by the Jacobins were moral or not, or at least were proportionate to the desired end. Nor are we concerned to arrive at an answer to the question, though this has rights to historical investigation,
547

whether the first actors of the great drama of the French Revolution had been totally clear about their objectives or not, and whether the Revolution corresponded to their expectations or not, or whether they changed partly or completely the route that it followed. Rather, we are more simply concerned with clarifying what definitively were the ultimate consequences of the French Revolution. 3. IMMEDIATE RESULTS OR, AFTER A RESPITE, A REGRESSION? Beside the problem of continuity with regard to the past, there is the question of continuity with regard to the future. In the same way that there is no fracture in continuity with the past, neither is there a fracture in continuity with the future. Historia non facit saltus. History does not take temporal leaps. In other words, the Revolution does not produce its results simply from day to day. After the fall of Napoleon, from 1814 to 1830, and then again in 1848, sovereigns would return to power in many European states, all attempting to restore the status quo ante of the French Revolution and to suffocate the tendencies that had emerged with the French victory. Under some aspects, there was indeed a return to some principles of the absolute regime. The ideas, though fragile, would end
548

up prevailing and, by the middle of the 19th century, the ideals of 1789 would be accepted everywhere as part of the way things should be. Those who, like us, are interested in tracing the grand lines of historical development, by way of a grand synthesis, have full rights to simply attribute to the French Revolution and to the principles proclaimed in 1789 the results of a complex historical process. This process in reality had its initial step before 1789 considered as the decisive point in time, and only gradually and after partial lapses and temporary retreats would it completely unfold its virtuality.

III. Consequences of the French Revolution.

In brief, the French Revolution destroyed in great part the political-social-economic structures of the ancien regime. In doing so, however, it did lay the foundations of a new society. It aimed to actuate in concrete terms the principles and ideals that were being elaborated all through out the 1700s. To privilege would succeed equality, to the absolute will and authority of the sovereign would be substituted popular sovereignty and liberty.

549

1. Positive Aspects. For the sake of simplicity and commodity, we may summarize the positive aspects of the French Revolution in two words: equality and liberty. These two words form the nucleus of the principles solemnly proclaimed on 26 August 1789, very often referred to as the immortal principles of 1789, even though analogous expressions had been made in 1776 and 1787 in the Constitution of Virginia and in the Federal Constitution of the United States, and indeed even earlier during the English parliamentary revolution of the 1600s.

a. EQUALITY. The Declaration of the Rights of Man often repeats the principle: Men are born and live free and equal in rights; social distinctions cannot be founded on anything except the common good.(Art. 1) All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.(Art. 6) For public expenditures, contribution by all is necessary: this should be equitably
550

distributed among the all the citizens in proportion to their means.(Art. 13) Indeed a few days before the proclamation of these rights, the Constituent National Assembly had declared on 4 August 1789 the end of the feudal rights and privileges enjoyed by the nobility. The system founded on privilege, or rather privilege founded on bloodline and codified by the law would be abolished and privilege founded on income or wealth though no longer sanctioned by any law would be substituted for it, even if this continued to be seen as the consequence still of human egoism. The principle would have a rather wide enough application. In the environment of the family, primogeniture would be abrogated. In society, the economic privileges and exemptions of whole classes from fiscal obligations would also be abrogated. This was perhaps something that was more theoretical than actually practiced, for legislated equality did not easily translate into changed attitudes and practical reality. Still, changes were taking place. Social discrimination in penal laws would end (30 January 1790), and also in the admission to public responsibilities and offices. The nobility, no longer recognized as a distinct order or class by the French Revolution, would reappear with the restoration, but even then no longer with all the
551

economic and social privileges of the ancien regime. Naturally, it would conserve its prestige for quite some time still, but its decline was already signaled. Also religious or confessional discrimination would end, implicitly abrogated by Article 6 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and explicitly outlawed by the requisite laws (enacted on 24 September 1789, 28 September 1791, and 17 March 1808). Meanwhile, declared null and void would be the various immunities once enjoyed by Church personnel vis a vis the civil law; ecclesiastics would be treated as ordinary citizens by the State, with the same rights and obligations as everybody else. As a corollary of this and as a matter of civil obligation, ecclesiastics could now be conscripted into the armed forces The principle of equality was also applied to government administration. Thus was born the modern State, centralized and with a uniform juridical order throughout. The old divisions in diverse territories, each with its own set of laws, would be suppressed and replaced with divisions of a purely administrative character, with each territorial division now directed by a prefect. Analogously, the old autonomous local tribunals would also be suppressed and substituted by three grades of instances rigidly
552

subordinated to the central power. A little later, this centralizing and uniformalizing work would be perfected by Napoleon. b. LIBERTY. Together with the principle of equality, liberty, which Art. 4 of the Declaration says consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else, has only one limitation, i.e., the respect due to another who is imbued with the same liberty. This principle finds its application in politics, in which popular sovereignty replaces the divine right of kings. Thus Art. 3: The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation, from which the various powers are derived, but powers that are distinct among themselves in order to assure a stable equilibrium and to avoid arbitrariness. The king could no longer have recourse to the formula by the grace of God but only by the will of the nation in order to indicate the source of his power and duty to render an account of his work to people, composed no longer of subjects but of citizens. A little later, due to an irreversible evolution, the king would be reduced to a mere symbol of national unity, with very limited effective powers, according to the principle the kind reigns but does not govern. Thus slowly but surely, a transition is made from a pure
553

constitutional monarchy, in which ministers remain responsible to the sovereign, to parliamentary monarchy, in which ministers are responsible to parliament (and, through parliament, to the people) and need to retain its confidence in order to continue to govern. In the more properly civil area, citizens now enjoy precise guarantee that protect them from possible arbitrary exercises of power on the part of the executive branch of government. Thus Art. 7 says: No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in cases and according to the form prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed any arbitrary order, shall be punished. Not less important is the recognition of freedom of expression and of publication contained in Art. 11: The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law. The immediate and concrete application of this principle was the abolition of any preventive censorship (the constitution regarding this was promulgated 3 September 1791). The same liberty is now recognized
554

as well in religious matters as expressed by Art. 10: No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law. With this the right to practice and to propagate ones religious was implicitly recognized. In the same spirit, respect for others guarantees that in no case may the dissemination of opinions contrary to ones own be impeded, according to the principle: I do not approve of what you say, but I will struggle to the point of death so that you may continue to say it. Underlying this is the conviction that the free exchange of opinions enables the truth to come out all the more easily. In the economic area, the privileges and monopolies of the old guilds would be abolished to be replaced by freedom of initiative and of commerce. With the law proposed by Chapelier in 1791 known in history as attached to his name, on the one hand the medieval corporations that once were of great usefulness would be suppressed. These medieval corporations no longer responded to the situation of modern workers, having become rather closed circles to which were admitted only the sons of those who were already members and instruments of defense of
555

the patronal class and therefore impeding every initiative that might put in danger the old enterprises. With the same law, on the other hand, every professional association was now prohibited, in order ostensibly to protect more efficaciously the liberty of initiative and effective equality. It is worth noting that this law and all those enumerated above so far, which translated the essential principles of the French Revolution into practice, would sooner or later be imitated in all European countries. This is sign enough that here we have something that is more than just an aprioristic ideological construction; i.e., these laws responded in some crucial way to the objective exigencies of society then and to the aspirations of the contemporary mentality. But one should not fail to note also that this legislative operation, compared to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, of which it wanted to be the realization, put in sharp relief the intimate contradictions of the French ruling class. The constituents of 1789 sustained in theory and in conformity with their formation in Enlightenment principles, the absolute equality of rights of ALL men. But in practice, this legislative work would in fact defend to some degree the privileges of the bourgeoisie
556

to which these constituents belonged and would therefore issue in the dangerous limitation of this equality. One of the more evident examples of this strident contradiction was the limitation of the right to vote according to income. Nevertheless, despite this practical incongruity, the principles of 89 ended in large part impregnating the modern mentality, constituting a potent stimulus toward a society truly founded on the equal dignity of all its members. Even though the realization of this ideal remained partial, still it always remained the goal to which the modern world tended. In this perspective, the French Revolution and the solemn declaration of 26 August 1789 constitute an important step forward in humanitys journey toward the future.

2. Negative Aspects. It is often a lesson learned in history that those who react against an abuse find it difficult to maintain a correct equilibrium. The Revolution, in its laudable intention and attempt to demolish the regime of privilege and arbitrary will, would end up radicalizing or absolutizing the principles of equality and liberty, without always succeeding in tempering them with
557

other aspects of reality and thus imbuing them with a mythic quality, an absolute, with the danger of ironically rendering the realization of these ideals more difficult in the concrete, precisely because they have been radicalized and extremized. This danger, present in every radical renewal, was aggravated by being founded on Enlightenment principles which motivated the framers of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and thus circumscribing them in abstract considerations because they had forgotten to take into account the obstacles of the economic and social order that limited de facto the equality and liberty of all the citizens and impeding therefore the full development of the human person. In other words, the members of the French Constituent National Assembly considered human nature as uncorrupted in itself and for itself, ready to accept the truth and to follow the good, thus opening the door to abuses in damage to the weak. To these two causes, i.e., first Enlightenment presuppositions conditioned by a certain abstractionism and, second, the natural difficulty of maintaining a just measure, one must add a phenomenon quite different, the Industrial Revolution, already in via from the middle of the 17th century, but exploding in the beginning of the 18th
558

century in a vast measure. This substituted the machine for the human being, thus originating industry and modern capitalism and creating a new regime of privilege and arbitrariness, and reducing once again the liberty and equality of many to a vain illusion. Just when it became necessary to forge an efficacious remedy to this problem, the abstractionism of the new regime took away from the oppressed every possibility of redemption. The Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, flowing into each other, would drive society to individualism and to the misery of the proletariat, while the myth of liberty would issue in a strong development of secularism.

a. INDIVIDUALISM. The radicalization of the principle of equality would issue in individualism. In order to better defend the equality and the liberty of all the citizens, the State suppressed the professional guilds or associations. Chapelier, in the law which he designed, would declare: Corporations no longer exist in the State; there is nothing else but the individual interest of everybody and the general interest of all. It is up to the free conventions to fix the day of every worker, and it is up to the single worker to maintain the contract
559

that he has fixed with his employer. Every contract of employment, entered into freely by the two individuals (the worker and the employer), is just and must be respected. Unjust violation of the freedom of entering into contracts would be when the State intervenes for example to impose obligatory collective contracts or even to determine the concrete conditions of work. Thus while homage is paid to an abstract egalitarianism, the workers remain abandoned to themselves, without the protection of a professional association, and fall into the hands of entrepreneurs. The State refuses to intervene in the defense of their effective freedom, considering it enough to satisfy the exigencies of the common good by limiting itself to defending the positive juridical arrangement. Indeed, one of the more vivid preoccupations of the Napoleonic Civil Code of 1804 was, precisely, the defense of the right to private property, which perilously reduces the social function of which to the simple enrichment of the owner. In this way, society becomes the sum of a unity closed in on itself, which one may compare to the monads of Leibniz, with no doors nor windows, living and developing in itself and from itself. The common good is therefore reduced to an abstract and pure summation of individual interests. The final
560

result is the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few and the pauperism of the masses, certainly more apparent, seems to be worse than in previous epochs, including that of the ancien regime. Born it its wake would be new forms of social discrimination and servitude. All of this would develop rather slowly, but we can affirm that already the social question was already germinating at the heart of the Revolution itself.

b. CRISIS OF AUTHORITY AND THE SPIRIT OF SECULARISM. The myth of equality and of liberty would be damaging to the less affluent classes; it would also end up 1) with putting the authority of the State in crisis, and b) giving a new impulse to the secularism of the 1700s. The anxiety to protect the principle of liberty assured the predominance of the legislative power over the executive, thus issuing in a parliamentary system which, however, would degenerate into a kind of parliamentarism: interminable and sterile discussions in the chambers, crises of governments without stable majorities, lack of authority capable of guaranteeing the security of the common good and promoting it, violation of the essential rights of the minority on the
561

part of a majority that abuses its own position of power, etc. And therefore from this parliamentarism is born the desire of a strong authority. License destroys liberty and opens the way to dictatorships. This was the drama of Europe in the turn from the 18th century to the 19th. Contemporaneously, due either to a natural reaction to the most special status of the Church in the ancien regime or to the intolerance typical of those who deny any absolute truth, the freedom of worship and of expression would transform itself in many cases into an open assault against Catholicism and the Church. Not only would truth and error be put on the same plane, a situation inevitably and fundamentally respondent to criteria of justice in a pluralistic society, but the Catholic religion would be oppressed in various ways, while the ordering of society would progressively prescind from every religious inspiration. One of the most significant aspects of post-French Revolution secularism is, without doubt, the new conception of the State. If in the 1600s and 1700s the absolute sovereign already tended to consider himself free from every moral accountability, now this is affirmed in a much clearer fashion. Worth quoting in this regard are two citations from a liberal historian, A.
562

C. Jemolo. First: The introduction of civil marriage is nothing but a corollary of the ethical State, i.e., of the State that, insofar as its activity could not but take into account the gestures that come from moral principles and take inspiration from them, nevertheless does not limit itself to accepting those principles from the Church and being its respectful and faithful executor, but rather it affirms its own proper notion of good and evil and wants to actuate it, without troubling itself with whether this always corresponds to that of the Church. And second: Such an introduction (of civil marriage) is the corollary of that which, it could be said, together with the principle of nationality, with its sense of an attachment to the Fatherland instead of to the Prince, is the durable achievement of the French Revolution: the absolute and exclusive submission of the citizen to the State, the negation of every power extraneous to and independent of the State, from which the citizen stands out, and who can also protect him from the State. These are grave affirmations that could even appear liberticidal (in the sense of liberty committing suicide or hara kiri), but which in any case evoke in the readers the profound truth of the intuition of de Tocqueville.
563

c. CRISIS IN FOUNDATIONS. The consequences of the French Revolution are made even clearer through a brief comparison between society as it was in the ancien regime and as it was in the liberal regime which followed it. In the period of the ancien regime, many abuses were hidden under a Christian etiquette, contrasting sharply with a true evangelical spirit. In the period of liberalism, authentic values emerge and are vigorously defended, values which may be summarized as a better understanding of the dignity of the human person. At the same time however, the ultimate foundation of these values is put in crisis and, in consequence, the same dignity of the human person, thus on the one hand defended, but on the other hand threatened. In liberalism, affirmations and theses that themselves are Christian values or at least reconcilable with Christianity are severed from their Christian basis and the natural order is not at all elevated and perfected by the supernatural order (i.e., the order of grace). In the absolutism of the ancien regime, Christian principles are not coherently developed to their ultimate consequences and the supernatural order does not sufficiently inform the natural order. In other words, modern society, from the 1500s to the French
564

Revolution, exalts the proper autonomy of singular human activities, with the danger of visiting upon these activities, beyond the legitimate autonomy and the necessary distinctions of the specific areas (of nature and grace), a genuine separation and an absolute independence of the one from the other. The proper autonomy of philosophy, which is not founded directly and immediately on faith, leads to rationalism and therefore excludes the possibility of any other knowledge. The proper autonomy of political activity, which has for its immediate goal the common temporal good of citizens, not that of the supernatural, and which therefore does not receive its justification from the Church and her theology, is transformed into secularism, which excludes every influence of the Church on society, abstracting in every case from the supernatural end of humanity, to which every human being is destined. Indeed, it ends with excluding from political activity every religious consideration, even on the purely natural plane. One could multiply examples here, but given how much has already been written about this process of secularization that leads to secularism, which started in the renaissance and humanism, developed with the Protestant reformation and with modern philosophy, above all with the
565

Enlightenment, and gathered its final fruits with the Revolution of 1789, it is enough at this point to understand how this human progress never in fact develops in a purely linear and monovalent fashion, but embraces complex aspects that, if not directly contradictory, then remain for the most part polyvalent or ambivalent in themselves.

d. LOSS OF ECCLESIASTICAL GOODS. We have tried to delineate the more profound significance and the more extensive consequences of the French Revolution. This was necessarily a reflection rather too general, but which would now find exemplification in the next few lines. We want now to accentuate at least one of the immediate consequences of the French Revolution vis a vis the Church: the loss of a grand part of the riches and the temporal power that it used to possess. The confiscation of ecclesiastical properties that took place in France in November 1789 was only the first example (prescinding from the confiscation of church properties under the absolutist regimes) of a process that would repeat itself frequently through out the 1800s, both in Europe and beyond the Atlantic. Germany would
566

imitate France almost right away with the secularization of German ecclesiastical principates (Trier, Mainz, and Cologne), which was a typical medieval residue destined in any case to disappear sooner or later, but then also still deeply rooted in the German social fabric at the end of the 1700s. After several partial measures taken in 1794 and in the concordat with the Holy See in 1801, the procedure would become general with the Peace of Lunville between France and Austria in 1801. Art. 7 of the treaty established that the hereditary German princes would be compensated for their territorial losses through funds taken from the old ecclesiastical feudal lands. The practical realization of the article, orchestrated at Regensburg and sanctioned in Paris on 27 April 1803, would go beyond what was foreseen. Arts. 34 and 35 of the definitive dispositions assigned to the lay princes the goods of bishops, of Cathedral chapters, of the collegiate churches of the abbacies and monasteries. Despite the insinuation of the possibility that these would be directed to charitable and social ends, the decisions taken was nonetheless left to the will of the local ruler. Thus did the ecclesiastical principates of Cologne, Trier and Mainz, the holders of which were traditionally participated in
567

the election of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and other ecclesiastical principates reach their end, so that the whole political axis of Germany would undergo a profound transformation. The evident sign of this change was the renunciation on the part of Francis I of Austria of the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation on 6 August 1806. In this definitive way, the institution that in medieval times constituted one of the pillars of European society, but which from the beginning of the 14th century had lost much of its prestige and with the Peace of Westphalia had been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self, would finally pass out of existence. The disappearance of this title already considered anachronistic was a simple recognition of a situation that had been the case for quite sometime. And the end of the ecclesiastical principates responded to the general tendencies of the modern world, toward a major distinction of the two powers. For the most part, various ultramontane historians of the 1800s would judge this event (of the disappearance of the ecclesiastical principates) positively. But the consequences for the Church would be noteworthy. The bishops and in general the German clergy would pass from a position of wealth and power to a
568

condition more modest economically and socially. Immediate difficulties would be encountered in the financing of the ministries and the formation of priests, but this would be balanced by a noteworthy deeper spiritual reawakening. With a realism that bordered on brutality, but which ended with forgetting wider, more elevated but for this any less concrete, the Secretary of State of Pius IX, Cardinal Ercole Consalvi observed: A great number of Catholics in the German empire is certainly composed of poor people. Therefore if every mode of supplying the needs of these Catholics would not be available to the bishops and to the clergy in the future, then the Protestants well furnished with riches would convert many Catholics to their party with much facility A different set of sentiments would be expressed by the Papal Nuncio at Cologne, Della Genga, the future Pope Leo XII, who did not find it a strange thing to desire a real evil in order to put a remedy to many other greater ones. Hearing the initial rumors of secularization, he reflected with satisfaction on the end of the sordid gang of canons who with their immense wealth which they wrest from a plurality of benefices, without any service for the Church, they are none other than the pests of Germany He rejoiced over the definitive
569

disappearance of the ecclesiastical feudal territories, where pastors held in both their hands the two authorities, civil and religious, with the result that these were predominantly concerned with temporal issues What took place on a grand scale in Germany would be repeated in reduced form in all of Europe. The Church would exit from the French Revolution impoverished and despoiled of her political power of a former time. But is this really to be considered damage to the Church? Or was Rosmini correct when he compared the riches of the Church to the weaponry of King Saul that rendered David impotent, and when he exclaimed: In what part (of the world?) do we find an immensely rich clergy that found the courage to make itself poor? In Rosminis estimation, the hour has now arrived in which to impoverish the Church is to save her 3. NEW HISTORIOGRAPHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. The French Revolution continues to be a controversial topic and to inspire a lot of research and writing. The following points are noteworthy.

570

a The phenomenon of de-christianization and its causes have been brought to light clearly by J. Leflon (see his work La crisi rivoluzionaria). The Revolution, seen in the light of aspects that were more hostile to religion, inherited from the French Enlightenment its anti-Church bias and disposition toward Atheism. But de-christianization itself was the result of a complex network of causes, among which we must number the weaknesses and the errors committed by the institutional Church herself, too attached to the royal power, too jealous of its privileges, too easily amenable to accepting into Holy Orders men without any authentic vocation, if not exactly without faith. Other factors that contributed to de-christianization would be religious hatred, revolutionary patriotism, and the factions that made up the powers that be of the French Revolution itself and their internal rivalries. In any case, France in revolutionary and postrevolutionary times has often served as the exemplar of a once Christian and Catholic society that today would be one of most secularized in Europe.

b What exactly is the relationship between the French Revolution (1789) and the Reign of Terror (1793)? Is this relationship to be defined as continuity
571

or as a break? Was the Reign of Terror inevitable? Could it have been averted? The Revolution ended by devouring its own children, with the execution of Robespierre as the most clamorous. What lessons can be learned about revolutions? This is a historical problem, but one that gives rise as well to philosophical reflection on revolutionary violence.

c New light has been shed on the behavior of those priests who took the oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The oath-takers were more numerous in the countryside than in the cities, more advanced in age as well, and more tied to local customs and traditions rather than to supranational identities (e.g., the Holy See and Rome). Here of course one must take note of the various types of priests during the period of the Revolution and its aftermath

d New studies that focus on some important historical figures have emerged. One such figure was Sieys, the priest who was the author of the work Quest-ce que le Tiers Etat? (What is the Third Estate?)
572

and collaborator of Napoleon in the Consulate (which replaced the Directory).

e The counter-revolution of the Vende region of France has been the object of various passionate studies in French and English (some of the scholars: R. Dupuy, P. Blois, D. Sutherland, M. Hutt). These studies focused on such topics as opposition to mass conscription into the armed forces, action of local priests, attachment to traditional religion, loyalty to the King and aversion to the Republic, all typical of the poorer regions of the country. The repression of this counter-revolutionary movement was ferocious. Between 1789 and 1804, the Vende region would lose 1/6 of its population (something like 114,000 of a total of 815,000 inhabitants).

APPENDIX I:
The Decree Abolishing the Feudal System, August 11, 1789 J.H. Robinson, ed., Readings in European History 2 vols. (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 2: 404-409
573

Hanover Historical Texts Project Scanned by Brooke Harris, October 1996. Proofread by Angela Rubenstein, February 1997 Proofread and pages added by Jonathan Perry, March 2001.

Robinson's Note: The abolition of the feudal system, which took place during the famous night session of August 4-5, 1789, was caused by the reading of a report on the misery and disorder which prevailed in the provinces. The report declares that " Letters from all the provinces indicate that property of all kinds is a prey to the most [Page 405] criminal violence; on all sides chateaux are being burned, convents destroyed, and farms abandoned to pillage. The taxes, the feudal dues, all are extinct; the laws are without force, and the magistrates without authority." With the hope of pacifying and encouraging the people, the Assembly, in a fervor of enthusiasm and excitement, straightway
574

abolished many of the ancient abuses. The document here given is the revised decree, completed a week later. ARTICLE I. The National Assembly hereby completely abolishes the feudal system. It decrees that, among the existing rights and dues, both feudal and censuel,[1] all those originating in or representing real or personal serfdom shall be abolished without indemnification. All other dues are declared redeemable, the terms and mode of redemption to be fixed by the National Assembly. Those of the said dues which are not extinguished by this decree shall continue to be collected until indemnification shall take place. II. The exclusive right to maintain pigeon houses and dovecotes is abolished. The pigeons shall be confined during the seasons fixed by the community. During such periods they shall be looked upon as game, and every one shall have the right to kill them upon his own land. III. The exclusive right to hunt and to maintain uninclosed warrens is likewise abolished, and every landowner shall have the right to kill, or to have destroyed on his own land, all kinds of game,
575

observing, however, such police regulations as may be established with a view to the safety of the public. All hunting capitaineries, [2] including the royal forests, and all hunting rights under whatever denomination, are likewise abolished. Provision shall be made, however, in a manner compatible with the regard due to property and liberty, for maintaining the personal pleasures of the king. [Page 406] The president of the Assemby shall be commissioned to ask of the king the recall of those sent to the galleys or exiled, simply for violations of the hunting regulations, as well as for the release of those at present imprisoned for offenses of this kind, and the dismissal of such cases as are now pending. IV. All manorial courts are hereby suppressed without indemnification. But the magistrates of these courts shall continue to perform their functions until such time as the National Assembly shall provide for the establishment of a new judicial system. V. Tithes of every description, as well as the dues which have been substituted for them, under whatever denomination they are known or collected (even when compounded for), possessed by secular or regular congregations, by holders of benefices, members of
576

corporations (including the Order of Malta and other religious and military orders), as well as those devoted to the maintenance of churches, those impropriated to lay persons, and those substituted for the portion congrue,[3] are abolished, on condition, however, that some other method be devised to provide for the expenses of divine worship, the support of the officiating clergy, for the assistance of the poor, for repairs and rebuilding of churches and parsonages, and for the maintenance of all institutions, seminaries, schools, academies, asylums, and organizations to which the present funds are devoted. Until such provision shall be made and the former possessors shall enter upon the enjoyment of an income on the new system, the National Assembly decrees that the said tithes shall continue to be collected according to law and in the customary manner. Other tithes, of whatever nature they may be, shall be redeemable in such manner as the Assembly shall determine. Until this matter is adjusted, the National Assembly decrees that these, too, shall continue to be collected. [Page 407] VI. All perpetual ground rents, payable either in money or in kind, of whatever nature they may be, whatever their origin and to whomsoever they
577

may be due, . . . shall be redeemable at a rate fixed by the Assembly. No due shall in the future be created which is not redeemable. VII. The sale of judicial and municipal offices shall be abolished forthwith. Justice shall be dispensed gratis. Nevertheless the magistrates at present holding such offices shall continue to exercise their functions and to receive their emoluments until the Assembly shall have made provision for indemnifying them. VIII. The fees of the country priests are abolished, and shall be discontinued so soon as provision shall be made for increasing the minimum salary [portion congrue] of the parish priests and the payment to the curates. A regulation shall be drawn up to determine the status of the priests in the towns. IX. Pecuniary privileges, personal or real, in the payment of taxes are abolished forever. Taxes shall be collected from all the citizens, and from all property, in the same manner and in the same form. Plans shall be considered by which the taxes shall be paid proportionally by all, even for the last six months of the current year. X. Inasmuch as a national constitution and public liberty are of more advantage to the provinces than the
578

privileges which some of these enjoy, and inasmuch as the surrender of such privileges is essential to the intimate union of all parts of the realm, it is decreed that all the peculiar privileges, pecuniary or otherwise, of the provinces, principalities, districts, cantons, cities, and communes, are once for all abolished and are absorbed into the law common to all Frenchmen. XI. All citizens, without distinction of birth, are eligible to any office or dignity, whether ecclesiastical, civil, or military; and no profession shall imply any derogation. XII. Hereafter no remittances shall be made for annates or for any other purpose to the court of Rome, the vice legation at Avignon, or to the nunciature at Lucerne. The [Page 408] clergy of the diocese shall apply to their bishops in regard to the filling of benefices and dispensations, the which shall be granted gratis without regard to reservations, expectancies, and papal months, all the churches of France enjoying the same freedom. XIII. [This article abolishes various ecclesiastical dues.] XIV. Pluralities shall not be permitted hereafter in cases where the revenue from the benefice or benefices held shall exceed the sum of three thousand livres. Nor shall any individual be allowed to enjoy several
579

pensions from benefices, or a pension and a benefice, if the revenue which he already enjoys from such sources exceeds the same sum of three thousand livres. XV. The National Assembly shall consider, in conjunction with the king, the report which is to be submitted to it relating to pensions, favors, and salaries, with a view to suppressing all such as are not deserved, and reducing those which shall prove excessive; and the amount shall be fixed which the king may in the future disburse for this purpose. XVI. The National Assembly decrees that a medal shall be struck in memory of the recent grave and important deliberations for the welfare of France, and that a Te Deum shall be chanted in gratitude in all the parishes and the churches of France. XVII. The National Assembly solemnly proclaims the king, Louis XVI, the Restorer of French Liberty. XVIII. The National Assembly shall present itself in a body before the king, in order to submit to him the decrees which have just been passed, to tender to him the tokens of its most respectful gratitude, and to pray him to permit the Te Deum to be chanted in his chapel, and to be present himself at this service.
580

XIX. The National Assembly shall consider, immediately after the constitution, the drawing up of the laws necessary for the development of the principles which it has laid down in the present decree. The latter shall be transmitted by the deputies without delay to all the provinces, together with [Page 409] the decree of the 10th of this month, in order that it may be printed, published, read from the parish pulpits, and posted up wherever it shall be deemed necessary. Footnotes [1] This refers to the cens, a perpetual due similar to the payments made by English copyholders. [2] See above, p. 365. [3] This expression refers to the minimum remuneration fixed for the priests.

APPENDIX II:
Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789 Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789

581

The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen: Articles: 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
582

2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. 3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. 5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law. 6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and
583

occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents. 7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense. 8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense. 9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law. 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
584

11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law. 12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be entrusted. 13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means. 14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes. 15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.

585

16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all. 17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.

APPENDIX III:
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, July 12, 1790 J.H. Robinson, ed., Readings in European History 2 vols. (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 2: 423-427

Hanover Historical Texts Project Scanned by Brooke Harris, October 1996. Proofread by Angela Rubenstein, February 1997. Proofread and pages added by Jonathan Perry, March 2001.
586

Robinson's Note: The reorganization of the Church which followed upon the confiscation of its vast possessions is an excellent illustration of the spirit of the National Assembly The demand for complete uniformity and simplification is especially pronounced in the reform of this most venerable institution of France, the anomalies and intricacies of which were hallowed not only by age but by religious reverence. The chief articles are given below, and indicate how completely the Assembly desired to bring the Church under rules similar to those which they were drawing up for the state. The National Assembly, after having heard the report of the ecclesiastical committee, has decreed and do decree the following as constitutional articles: Title I ARTICLE I. Each department shall form a single diocese, and each diocese shall have the same extent and the same limits as the department. II. The seat of the bishoprics of the eighty-three departments of the kingdom shall be established as follows: that of the department of the Lower Seine at Rouen; that of the department of Calvados at Bayeux.
587

All other bishoprics in the eighty-three departments of the kingdom, which are not included by name in the present article, are, and forever shall be, abolished. The kingdom shall be divided into ten metropolitan districts of which the sees shall be situated at Rouen, Rheims, Besancon, Rennes, Paris, Bourges, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Aix, and Lyons. These archbishoprics shall have the following denominations : that of Rouen shall be called the Archbishopric of the Coast of the Channel. IV. No church or parish of France nor any French citizen may acknowledge upon any occasion, or upon any pretext whatsoever, the authority of an ordinary bishop or of an archbishop whose see shall be under the supremacy of a foreign power, nor that of his representatives residing in France or elsewhere; without prejudice, however, to the unity of the faith and the intercourse which shall be maintained with the visible head of the universal Church, as hereafter provided. VI. A new arrangement and division of all the parishes of the kingdom shall be undertaken immediately in concert with the bishop and the district administration.
588

XX. All titles and offices other than those mentioned in the present constitution, dignities, canonries, prebends, half prebends, chapels, chaplainships, both in cathedral and col legiate churches, all regular and secular chapters for either sex, abbacies and priorships, both regular and in commendam, for either sex, as well as all other benefices and prestimonies in general, of whatever kind or denomination, are from the day of this decree extinguished and abolished and shall never be reestablished in any form. Title II ARTICLE I. Beginning with the day of publication of the present decree, there shall be but one mode of choosing bishops and parish priests, namely that of election. II. All elections shall be by ballot and shall be decided by the absolute majority of the votes. III. The election of bishops shall take place according to the forms and by the electoral body designated in the decree of December 22, 1789, for the election of members of the departmental assembly. VI. The election of a bishop can only take place or be undertaken upon Sunday, in the principal church of the chief town of the department, at the close of the
589

parish mass, at which all the electors are required to be present. VII. In order to be eligible to a bishopric, one must have fulfilled for fifteen years at least the duties of the church ministry in the diocese, as a parish priest, officiating minister, or curate, or as superior, or as directing vicar of the seminary. XIX. The new bishop may not apply to the pope for any form of confirmation, but shall write to him, as to the visible head of the universal Church, as a testimony to the unity of faith and communion maintained with him. XXI. Before the ceremony of consecration begins, the bishop elect shall take a solemn oath, in the presence of the municipal officers, of the people, and of the clergy, to guard with care the faithful of his diocese who are confided to him, to be loyal to the nation, the law, and the king, and to support with all his power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the king. XXV. The election of the parish priests shall take place according to the forms and by the electors designated in the decree of December 22, 1789, for the election of members of the administrative assembly of the district.
590

XI. Bishoprics and cures shall be looked upon as vacant until those elected to fill them shall have taken the oath above mentioned. Title III ARTICLE I. The ministers of religion, performing as they do the first and most important functions of society and forced to live continuously in the place where they discharge the offices to which they have been called by the confidence of the people, shall be supported by the nation. II. Every bishop, priest, and officiating clergyman in a chapel of ease shall be furnished with a suitable dwelling, on condition, however, that the occupant shall make all the necessary current repairs. This shall not affect at present, in any way, those parishes where the priest now receives a money equivalent instead of his dwelling. The departments shall, moreover, have cognizance of suits arising in this connection, brought by the parishes and by the priests. Salaries shall be assigned to each, as indicated below. III. The bishop of Paris shall receive fifty thousand livres; the bishops of the cities having a population of fifty thousand (p. 426) or more, twenty thousand livres ; other bishops, twelve thousand livres.
591

V. The salaries of the parish priests shall be as follows : in Paris, six thousand livres; in cities having a population of fifty thousand or over, four thousand livres; in those having a population of less than fifty thousand and more than ten thousand, three thousand livres; in cities and towns of which the population is below ten thousand and more than three thousand, twenty-four hundred livres. In all other cities, towns, and villages where the parish shall have a population between three thousand and twenty-five hundred, two thousand livres; in those between twenty-five hundred and two thousand, eighteen hundred livres; in those having a population of less than two thousand, and more than one thousand, the salary shall be fifteen hundred livres; in those having one thousand inhabitants and under, twelve hundred livres. VII. The salaries in money of the ministers of religion shall be paid every three months, in advance, by the treasurer of the district. XII. In view of the salary which is assured to them by the present constitution, the bishops, parish priests, and curates shall perform the episcopal and priestly functions gratis.
592

Title IV ARTICLE I. The law requiring the residence of ecclesiastics in the districts under their charge shall be strictly observed. All vested with an ecclesiastical office or function shall be subject to this, without distinction or exception. II. No bishop shall absent himself from his diocese more than two weeks consecutively during the year, except in case of real necessity and with the consent of the directory of the department in which his see is situated. III. In the same manner, the parish priests and the curates may not absent themselves from the place of their duties beyond the term fixed above, except for weighty reasons, and even in such cases the priests must obtain the permission both of their bishop and of the directory of their district, and the curates that of the parish priest. VI. Bishops, parish priests, and curates may, as active citizens, be present at the primary and electoral assemblies; they may be chosen electors, or as deputies to the legislative body, or as members of the general council of the communes or of the
593

administrative councils of their districts or departments.

594