Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire - Lamennais, Montalembert, L'Avenir and Liberal Catholicism

Lamennais, Montalembert, L'Avenir and Liberal Catholicism

He had long resisted the views of Father Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais, "Felix", one of the leading intellectuals concerned with French Catholic youth, but in May 1830, Lamennais converted him to his liberal version of ultramontanism, that is, the adherence to the absolute universal authority of the papacy in opposition to nationalist and secularist ideas.

At that time, Lacordaire was considering missionary work in the United States, but the revolutionary events of 1830 kept him in France. He, Lamennais, Olympe-Philippe Gerbet, and the young Viscount Charles de Montalembert, who became one of his closest friends, allied themselves with the July Revolution. They demanded the integral application of the Charter of 1830 and voiced support of foreign liberal revolutions in Poland, Belgium and Italy. Together they launched the journal L’Avenir (The Future) on the 16 October 1830, whose motto was "Dieu et la Liberté!" ("God and Freedom!"). In that largely anti-clerical and revolutionary context, the journal sought to synthesize ultramontanism and liberalism to reconcile democratic aspirations and Roman Catholicism.

On 7 December 1830, the editors of “L’Avenir” articulated their demands as follows:

"We firstly ask for the freedom of conscience or the freedom of full universal religion, without distinction as without privilege; and by consequence, in what touches us, we Catholics, for the total separation of church and state... this necessary separation, without which there would exist for Catholics no religious freedom, implies, for a part, the suppression of the ecclesiastical budget, and we have fully recognized this; for another part, the absolute independence of the clergy in the spiritual order... Just as there can be nothing religious today in politics there must be nothing political in religion.

“We ask, secondly, for freedom of education, because it is a natural right, and thus to say, the first freedom of the family; because there exists without it neither religious freedom nor freedom of expression.”

Their other demands included freedom of the press, freedom of association, and the extension of electoral suffrage.

Lacordaire particularly distinguished himself by writing articles asking for freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom of education. He was against the government's monopoly of the universities, and opposed Montalivet, the minister of public education and faith. But he was especially vehement in demanding the separation of Church and State. To this end, he called on French priests to refuse the salary which was paid them by the government, advocating for the embrace of apostolic poverty by the clergy. On the 15 November 1830, he expressed himself: “We are preyed upon by our enemies, by those who regard us as hypocrites or as imbeciles, and by those who are persuaded that our life depends on money... Freedom is not given, it is taken." These demands, along with numerous attacks against bishops appointed by the new government, whom he characterized as ambitious and servile, provoked a scandal in the French episcopate, which was largely Gallican (i.e., conciliarist, nationalist, royalist, asserting the authority of the local episcopacy, and opposed to papal absolutism) and conservative. The virulence of “L’Avenir,” and particularly of Lamennais and Lacordaire, provoked the French Bishops to form a tribunal against the editors of the periodical. Lamennais and Lacordaire spent January 1831 before the court, and obtained a triumphal acquittal.

In order to defend the freedom of education, outside of the control of the universities, conforming to their interpretation of the Charter of 1830, the editors of “L’Avenir” founded in December 1830 the General Society for the defense of religious freedom, and on the 9 May 1831 Lacordaire and Montalembert opened a free school, rue des Beaux-Arts, which was shut down by the police two days later. After a trial taking place in front of the Chambre des Pairs (Chamber of Peers,) where Lacordaire defended himself, but failed to prevent the permanent closure of the school, “L’Avenir” was suspended by its founders on the 15 November 1831. On the 30 December Lacordaire, Lamennais and Montalembert, the “Pilgrims of Freedom,” went to Rome so as to seek the recourse of Pope Gregory XVI, to whom they presented a dissertation composed by Lacordaire. At first confident, they fast became disenchanted by the reserved welcome with which they were received. On 15 August 1832, the Pope, without naming them, condemned their ideas in the encyclical Mirari Vos, most notably their demands for freedom of conscience and freedom of the press. Even before this condemnation, Lacordaire distanced himself from his companions, and returned to Paris where he took up again his functions as a Chaplain at the Convent of Visitations.

On 11 September, he published a letter of submission to the Pope’s judgment. He then successfully used all his force of persuasion to convince Montalembert, who at first remained recalcitrant, to imitate him in his submission. In 1834 he also challenged Lamennais, who rather than accept what he saw as Rome's reactionary absolutism, publicly renounced his priesthood and published “Les Paroles d’un Croyant” (Words of a Believer,) a vociferous republican polemic against the established social order, denouncing what he now saw as the conspiracy of kings and priests against the people. Pope Gregory responded quickly, calling Lammenais' new book "small in size, but immense in perversity." He promulgated the encyclical "Singulari Nos" (15 July 1834) condemning its contents. Most commentators see this episode as effectively squelching of the open expression of modernist ideas in Catholic circles, until at least the papacy of Leo XIII at the end of the century. Lacordaire, for his part, then further distanced himself from Lammenais, expressed his disappointment at the consequences of the Revolution of 1830, and proclaimed his continued faithfulness to the Church of Rome. He condemned the pride of Lamennais and charged him with Protestantism, accusing him of having wanted to place the authority of the human race above that of the Church.

In January 1833 he met Madame Swetchine, who was to become a significant moderating influence upon him. She was a Russian convert to Catholicism who had a famous salon in Paris which Montalembert, the Earl of Falloux, and the Reverend Father Félix Lamennais also frequented. He developed a friendly filial relationship with her through an extensive correspondence.