| Editor: Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard | N° 101– February 2011 |
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FATHER GEORGES DE NANTES,
THE ATTENTIVE KNIGHT OF THE IMMACULATE
Our Father, Georges de Nantes, was born, lived and died enveloped in the Church’s holiness, the source of which is the Holy Eucharist. The first volume of Mémoirs et récits is literally impregnated with the fragrance of this sacrament from cover to cover, from the « naive impressions of early childhood, where already the white Host and the gold chalice shone with an alluring and mysterious brilliance » to daily Mass, « an instant, an emotion, an action, a fresh mystery every day ».
This was so much so that, for our Father, writing his Memoirs amounted to discovering that, in fact « by threads more or less invisible, my whole life – my morning, my midday and my evening – has always been attached » to the Holy Sacrifice of Mass. « … Yes, I now see that deep down, because in every age I have passed, in all places and in every state of soul, the Mass has been the principal object of my life, by far and away the most considerable and soon became the reason for all the rest of my life.
« The other elements, work, friendships, cares, interests have been those of a season, of a place or a period, little dramas forgotten and negligible. Whereas the Mass has always been, however far back I go, of all time, everywhere for always and still, I hope and pray, to the end of my days. »
THE GIFT OF FILIAL PIETY
When that day arrived, he was the priest and the victim of his last Mass. Last month (He is Risen, no 101, January 2011), we undertook to trace the orthodromic career of this young predestined Provençal, filled from his early childhood with the gift of knowledge:
« Toulon, around the year 1934, was dazzling in its beauty. There was the beauty of the sea, of the mountains nearby; this Provence Maritime with its wealth of colour to keep a young child wide-eyed with wonder, with its strong scents, its chirping cicadas exulting in the dry heat of the olive trees, and with the murmur of running water flowing in the irrigation canals below the walls of cypress trees and along the plane-tree lined avenues was a beautiful place. One only had to climb to the top of the Faron from which the most wonderful view was to be seen.
« The images come back to me now, crisp and clear as all Mediterranean beauty must be. It was a silent, almost motionless, harmony of nature, civilisation and the nation in a state of dazzling perfection. The town lay at our feet and farther off were the port and the naval yard. In the harbour, the warships were moored to their buoys, prudently spaced. Their lines were totally aesthetic, like so many recumbent greyhounds, sleeping with only one eye shut, ready to sprint [...].
« Why was I never tempted by all this enthusiasm and fervour to become a sailor, a naval officer? Why is it that the worn, threadbare, shiny soutanes of the good Marist Fathers moved me far more than did the blue uniform and gold-braided cap of the senior officer? »
THE PARISH PRIEST OF CHÔNAS.
In his keen memory, the sunny holidays of Chônas are inseparable from the parish priest’s daily Mass that he loved to serve.
Here is the picture of the French clergy of the Ancien Régime, I mean of the clergy before the Second Vatican Council:
« Yet another gentle radiance exerted its attraction over me, so calm that I was not even aware of it, so profound that I still feel its effect in my heart as though of the hardness of steel. It was that of Fr. Fresnay. As with his church so with him; there was nothing to arouse enthusiasm for children incapable of deciphering the mystery of grown-ups. I can still see his face with his white hair and pince-nez, his calm and gentle smile, his simple language spoken a little haltingly, possibly due to shyness. We never saw him in our home, or at least so seldom that I have forgotten it. It may have been because of the condemnation of Action Française or because it was the manor house. Anyway, it was not his style. He knew his place as parish priest, which was to be apart and above with discretion and dignity. He lived in his church, in his presbytery and in his garden, which he tended and cultivated with obvious pleasure, dressed in the same kind of smock that we wore and a straw hat.
« How is it that he made such an impression on me? It is inexplicable. », unless it was through that grace of predestination of which we have spoken. « I was much closer to the Marist Fathers, the Jesuits of Brest and the Christian Brothers of Puy, all very able religious who taught me much more. With him, however, – dare I say it, admit it – it was simply the image of the priest. It was his way of doing things, of living, of talking to us; it was his humble, honest, dignified bearing, his affability towards us with just a touch of deliberate reserve. That was the portrait I was to make for myself, of the priest after God’s heart, whom I would imitate. I loved... the priest. I could not explain it any more than that for beyond the fact of his being a priest I knew nothing else about him. It was only much later that I truly gauged his secret hold over my soul when, having first attained my ideal at Anceaumeville and then duly installed as Parish Priest of Villemaur, I began to live like Fr. Frainet in something of a sure and delightful imitation that was all my joy and glory.
« Like him, I would be the first in Church, reciting my breviary beneath the only lighted lamp, then casting a fatherly eye over the bustling of the altar boys, letting them wake up the whole countryside with their bell ringing and shouts of laughter in the belfry. Was it me or was it not rather the parish priest of Chônas who would chide Roland for always lighting the candles a quarter of an hour too soon, or who would take Philip or Michael to task, as he used to “my little Georges”, for the same peccadillos:
– When you hand the burse to the priest, you will lean your elbows on the altar! The altar is sacred. And you cross your legs as though you were holding your bicycle. That is not the right thing to do.
Or again:
– Eric, I have already told you that you are touching the chalice at the ablutions, just be careful!
This altar boy had but one dream: to imitate his Parish Priest whom he admired intensely. These pages give off a perfume, a sweetness, “an indefinable something”… all the suavity of Our Mother the Church, without ostentation, in all its trueness. It was this incomparable charm that he in turn exerted on his pupils, disciples and Phalangists, when the time came to defend the holy Church from the criticisms of so-called Reformers!
THE BOARDING SCHOOL NOTRE DAME DE FRANCE,
AT LE PUY, « A SCHOOL FOR THE MISSIONARY MONK. »
The “dear brothers” of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, are more than a little proud of their former pupil. They devoted a long paragraph to him in their newsletter “L’Eveil” of 26 June 2010, on the occasion of the closing of the Boarding school. Among the “famous alumni” of the school, we find Marshal Fayolle, Louis Jouvet… and « Father Georges de Nantes (1924-2010). Born at Toulon into the Catholic and Action française family of a naval officer, he did his secondary studies with the Marist Brothers in Toulon, the Jesuit Fathers in Brest, and then at the Notre-Dame de France Boarding School in Puy-en-Velay around 1938 (he speaks about it in his Memoirs published in 1988). He enlisted in the Chantiers de jeunesse established by the French State of Marshal Pétain in 1942-43, and was posted to the group in the Vercors. Ordained a priest in 1948, he contributed to the newspapers of the far right. He was suspended, i.e., forbidden to celebrate Mass because of the positions that he took against the Council. He was, however, opposed to Archbishop Lefebvre’s movement. »
The boarding school! In the Mémoires et Récits, you can read a colourful description of this institution before the deluge that has just forced the closure of this hive of activity, energetically administered by absolutely devoted religious. [The boarding school was closed down in 2010 a few months after our Father’s death.] Jesus the Host present in the tabernacle was its centre. The author paints a portrait of his friends with a pen so lively that he brings them to life:
« Some of the local boys, as I have said, wore their smocks loose, coming down level with their trouser pockets, whereas we wore ours buttoned up over our jackets and belted. One of the day boys would always arrive with a leap and a bound like a will o’ the wisp, his smock never buttoned up but flying out behind him like a flag. He was naturally hilarious. He would always join the largest group and always had a story to tell. Of all the day boys, he was the most popular. He was funny and often disconcerting.
« One morning, a group of boarders were talking very seriously about a priest in their part of the world, near Saint-Chély-d’Apcher, who had gone off with a woman. One of them with an adult acerbity said: 0h! they are all the same! My friend arrived and he was told too. He burst out laughing, saying: I find that all right. He annoyed me with reflections of that kind, which I found impious. With a sparkle in his eyes, however, he was clearly amused at my anger and at the surprise of the others. Later, it seemed to me that Socrates proceeded in the same way. Was it irony? No, maieutics! Inevitably, we asked him to explain. Well, if they were all perfect who would dare to confess to them, and think what we would get: whereas, you see, with pigs like that when I roll up with my little escapades…
« Then he laughed, and the rest of us, somewhat taken in, somewhat enlightened, were forced to agree. Yet, what if he had come to the priests’ defence with the zeal of a true devout! But no, he was free underneath his libertine air, and it was that which was so pleasant and made him so appealing. Nowadays, he would be dubbed a controversialist, but it was something so new for me then that, like Alcibiades, I was charmed by it. We de Nantes had an innate respect for a uniform, for our large crowned caps with their gold badges. The day boys used to fold theirs in four, despite the wire stiffener, and tuck them under their coats as soon as they were outside the school grounds. He would disrespectfully refer to his cap as my tarp [...]!
« That is what attached my heart to this wonderful schoolmate. His free amusement with things and with people went as much against the set ways of others as against those sacred convictions that I could not bear to hear mocked. There was such dash in his criticism, however, that it turned into admiration: what began as a joke would prove to be pathetic.
« He would tell us about his Sunday. He talked about “the parents”, and the mimicry of his parents accompanying those tales would make us die of laughter. They were honest tradesmen, and profoundly Christian [...].
« He used to play the clarinet in the band and was among the first in everything: an athlete in sports, not through strength but through sheer suppleness, an actor, a born actor for tragi-comedy, which he could produce from everyday life. He was full of life, laughter and enthusiasm, always new and always free, as symbolised by the smock always flying behind him, in the midst of our heavy rigidity. Did he share my ideas? It is that, I believe, which created our friendship and secured it. Our endless conversations initiated me into those mental gymnastics during which all my family acquisitions are questioned and his dialectical resources are brought into play, just as a sportsman gradually limbers up all his muscles » for the great fight of his whole life. « As for him, after the perpetual fun that he poked at ridiculous people in the society of Puy-en-Velay, at the comical side of life, and at the grim seriousness of the brothers, he was astonished to find himself entering a little more each day into my fervent love of the Church, of France and of the King – even then! – and to see my principles escape from his universal criticism and shine with a dazzling brilliance [...].
« His was a deeply sensitive soul shot through with very strong cross currents. Light and darkness played in him: the conflict of the heaviness of a dark world – external fauna that were inaccessible to me – and of grace, in which our wonderful friendship shone with happiness. It was one winter evening – it must have been in February 1938 – that we went to the grande premiere, the first night for Le Puy, of Leon Poirier’s film, The Call of Silence. »
FR. DE FOUCAULD.
This deeply moving account of the showing of a film that would determine his vocation – and thus ours! – is must reading.
« In 1938 Father de Foucauld was doubtless unknown to me. I search but I can find no trace of any previous memory, not that that means much because the event to come would blot out everything with its dazzling light. It was in the boarding school’s recreation room one Sunday afternoon in winter. The day boys were there and Norbert Rousseaux, Bishop of Le Puy, was honouring this exceptional film show with his presence. It began with Leon Poirier making a speech about his film, which was unusual. The beginning of the film seemed to drag a little: Strasbourg, the birth of Charles, the death of his father and of his mother, his grandfather Morlet at Nancy [...].
« I remember better the scandal produced when the gay would-be Viscountess de Foucauld disembarked at Setif and all the amusing misunderstandings that followed [...]! After that I remember it all down to the last detail. The scene in Evian on the steps outside the hotel. Foucauld tells his chatterbox lady friend that Bou Amama is stirring in the South Oranais, is rousing the rebellious tribesmen that his regiment, his friends, is fighting [...]. It is the Army that led him in his first conversion. All that was caricature disappeared and the theatrical style of this period film was forgotten. My heart was seized. There were war scenes in the Atlas mountains... we saw Foucauld listening to the museum curator of Algiers, Mac Carthy, telling of his dreams of exploring the desert. Mac Carthy was never to go, but Foucauld entered into this fever of exploration and heard the call of unknown lands, of the forbidden back of beyond. There followed wonderful scenes of exploration in Morocco where Arabs and Berbers, especially the great Berbers of the desert, were waiting for the French and guessed that this “rabbi Joseph” was a French officer on reconnaissance and that his presence amongst them heralded the colonisation that would deliver them, as it had for the Berbers of Algeria, from the yoke of the sultans and from anarchy... Yes, that time was to come and was to go again, alas. At that moment, however, I could not have imagined it.
« There followed an interlude in Paris. The salons were excited over every new invention. The cinema had been invented in 1886! The vanity of that world, of all those mundane people contrasted sharply with the silence of the desert and the solitude of the disguised explorer, to which I subscribed, with which I identified. I fervently cast myself in the mould – is not that the distinctive character of the theatre, its hold and often its great danger? – in this instance turned to good? I melted into this character who came away from the parties held in his honour, weary and uneasy, avid for the light he did not have. And when his aunt Moitessier and his cousins showed him such discreet, intelligent and gentle care, I am filled with admiration and am burning to see their care lead to its proper conclusion. I love them, especially Marie, who until the very last day will be the best loved soul. Now here is the confession scene and the Communion which followed so unexpectedly at Saint Augustine’s, with no concession to cinematographic art. [...].
« The film carried us on, in its own rhythm, which is not that of real life: Our Lady of the Snows, Akbes in Syria, and Nazareth. There the Viscount de Foucauld became the gardener to the Poor Clares, delighted to live Jesus’ life, His contemplation during the long nights and the warm daylight hours and His humiliations in the very place where Jesus had lived. It was an entire spiritual itinerary, to which we would untiringly return between ourselves and which we imagined and wished to relive, that was being unfolded in that darkened room at the all too quickened speed of a film one would like to stretch out or stop.
« When Brother Charles of Jesus returned to the Sahara as a priest, we were conquered, burning with desire to follow the hermit in the white trappist’s cowl marked with a red heart and a cross with a big rosary hanging from his belt and that unforgettable smile of goodness. “I have found my vocation”, I could have said with St. Therese of the Child Jesus had I known those wonderful words at that time... I shall be a missionary monk, a hermit in the depth of the desert, an adorer of Jesus the Host, a living and silent presence of the divine charity for the poor pagans of the Sahara [...].
« My heart, soul and memory were filled with every scene of this film, which was passing too quickly. And since then, I have learned nothing of this venerable Father that I had not already perceived. Everything was converging, like the swift chapters of the Gospel, towards the Passion, towards the Cross, towards his martyrdom reconstructed in every detail. »
All the youth in the Catholic schools at that time were deeply moved and galvanised by the figure of Fr. de Foucauld, as a Crusader gone to reconquer the African continent for Christ. The Marshal Pétain would allow us to give concrete expression to this ideal thanks to the armistice that left us our Empire.
Thus, at fourteen years of age, the vocation of the young Georges de Nantes became clearer: he would be like Fr. de Foucauld, a missionary monk. From that day forward, the boarding school became for him, the school of the missionary monk, where he continued his studies with perpetual enthusiasm. He entered the Sodality of the Children of Mary, the Scouts, and even… the JEC, which almost spoiled everything.
TEMPTATION : THE JEC.
« JEC came to me indirectly during the happiest time of my second year at Le Puy; I was working better, I was getting on perfectly with my friends, and my fervour delighted in all the retreats, ceremonies and conferences that filled our lives as boarders. One day, during recreation, Bonnet asked me if I would like to join the JEC that he and a few day boys were starting up at the school after having attended a few of their meetings at the Lycee in Le Puy, where it had been in existence for a short while.
– What’s JEC? I asked Young Catholic Students?
– No! Not Catholic: Christian.
– What’s the difference?
– It’s so that the Protestants can join.
– Oh, good. And what do you do there?
– The Apostolate. It is to change the attitude of the boys in the school. Come to this evening’s meeting: you’ll see, you’ll like it.
« No sooner had I become enthusiastic than I tried to drag my best friend along. Alas, at the very first words he burst out laughing:
« It is all right for you, he said, you love all that sort of thing. But you want me to go in for the apostolate? Can you see me preaching to Grangeon and Juilliard? They would tell me to preach to myself first. »
In short, he refused to have anything to do with it. And yet JEC would have needed fighters of his kind, but it just made them laugh.
« When I recall my sudden entry into JEC and the way the decision was taken, I am quite struck. I did not have to ask anyone’s authorisation, it required no effort on my part and no proof of good will. In the hierarchical society in which I lived, where we were submissive and dependent in everything, in this boarding school where the dear Brother Headmaster decided everything, regulated the daily life of prayer, work and play, and where the Sodality of Our Lady grouped together the more pious pupils, nominated by Brother Cuminal, who himself took the meetings, this was something new and surprising. A modest boy of real virtue would doubtless have written to his parents asking advice and permission. I, however, accepted straight away, flattered to have been invited, all keen at the idea of doing some apostolate, and perhaps at the feeling of being some one, of playing a ro1e among my friends and taking decisions for myself! Taste of forbidden fruit? Hardly. Taste of fruit offered, of advancement and of something new in the monotony of a boarder’s life. It was, as I see now, my first democratic act, my evasion from the authoritarian setting that had been mine up till then and my entry into the unknown of a free egalitarian, fraternal movement. A movement of spontaneity and quest, which we were going to establish there in the boarding school in order to change the spirit of the boys.
« I went to the first meetings. It was quite pitiful, which is what made me return because I did not want to seem to be a deserter. Those four or five day boys mumbling a prayer and badly singing the JEC hymn would be caught out by the discussion. If it was a question of praying, singing and of livening things up, I was in my element. I stayed. Thus it was that the JEC had me. »
Until the day when, at home « our conversation turned to the JEC, and I told my parents how surprised I had been at the vast enquiry started at the beginning of the new school year in the JEC magazine “Messages” on Nazism. The questions rapidly slipped from Hitler to Maurras, from Rosenberg’s pagan racism to the integral nationalism of Action Française, as though they were one and the same thing. The lesson to be drawn was insistently given: the war made it a duty for young Christians to be on guard against all forms of racism, paganism and exaggerated nationalism. More than ever, the fascist hydra made Christians understand that democracy was the only true evangelical ideal for our day, etc.
« My parents showed no surprise at this base manoeuvre. They had always known that Catholic Action had inherited from Sangnier’s Christian Democracy a hatred for Maurras, the master of the counter-revolution, and that its partisans would pursue their quarrel at every opportunity in order to avenge their condemnation by Pius X. In the thick of the war, however, how was it that they did not hesitate to compromise sacred unity? And how could one believe them when Action Française had never ceased reminding Frenchmen of the danger of an ever renascent Germanism, whilst Catholic Action never stopped singing the praises of good peace-loving Germany and calling on France to disarm?
« It sickened me, and I found myself with my parents, happy and proud of their clear-sightedness and their patriotism. In one go, a veil was torn from my eyes – the veil of religious hypocrisy. I returned to Le Puy on 3 January 1940, my heart heavy with anguish for our country, which, as my father had seen, was ill-armed, ill-governed and doomed to inevitable defeat. By then, I was already very much out of love with my JEC, den of treason and of civil war. »
MARÉCHAL PÉTAIN, THE HEROIC OLD MAN.
It was during his last year of secondary school that, on 2 March 1941, Marshal Pétain came to Le Puy. All of France melted with gratitude and love for him, and his visit made this quite evident:
« Not long after that, there was great news: the Marshal was coming on an official visit to Le Puy. On that day the whole district of Le Velay was in town, all Le Puy was on the streets; the people were gravely awaiting the event. On the ninth stroke of nine o’clock, shouts were raised from near the station, Vive Petain! Vive Petain! and were being taken up wave after wave until they reached Le Breuil and the Place de la Prefecture thick with people, whilst amplified over loud speakers the patriotic hymns and songs being sung by the major seminary could be heard from the top of the rocher Corneille bearing the statue of Our Lady and overlooking Le Puy. The Marshal’s speech was punctuated by the most fervent applause. Then there was a long wait outside while he met the dignitaries of Le Puy.
« Then, there he is, only three yards away from us, who can hardly contain the crowd pressing forward. He gets into a car, and I can see him behind the window suddenly looking very weary, his face as pale as marble. I wept – what else could one do? Heroic old man, dedicated to our salvation! He is going. The crowd rushes forward, breaking through the fragile barriers: an entire people surge through the streets and alleyways to the Cathedral where the Head of State is to attend High Mass. France, thousand year old Catholic France is there at the foot of Notre Dame du Puy, and the voices of all the bishops, university professors, local government prefects, all the writers and all the journalists proclaim with Cardinal Gerlier – because it is quite obvious and good: France is Pétain, and Pétain is France. With the Marshal, the country will be reborn. “Maréchal, Maréchal, nous voila!”
« The next day, the time table was back to normal. Morning Mass, trigonometry, gymnastics... There was no doubt that we got down to it with a much better heart that day! »
In June, he sat the exams for his school leaving certificate (baccalauréat) and his father made him wait two years before allowing him to enter the seminary. The first year would be devoted to the study of philosophy at university, the other to work in the Youth Lumber Camps (Chantiers de Jeunesse). He exulted.
LYON – YOUTH LUMBER CAMPS
(LES CHANTIERS DE JEUNESSE): 1941-1943.
In Lyon, he lived with his Uncle Edmond. One day, he discovered « another world », which he had already known with the charismatics of Le Puy: the world of the Companions of St. Francis in whom he admired the intense fraternal charity mixed with a formidable spirit of subversion:
« We went together and celebrated Twelfth Night at the home of one of the Companions in Fourvière. On arrival, there was embracing all round with great gaiety. It is there that I heard the marvellous songs of Joseph Folliet, their founder:
O frere, gentil frere, quand mourut-il.... d’amour,
… quand mourut-il?
« One would be at the piano, others would talk about the next pele (pilgrimage), others would be getting to know people or looking after children. I retain a vivid impression of this sincere, expansive, conquering, simple friendship. To them, and to me too, it seemed as though with such love in one’s heart there could be no problems between couples, social classes, races or international politics. Pacifism and non-violence flowed naturally from their Franciscan spirit. Their generous and expansive joy made a deep impression on me, who was their secret enemy [although he was as yet unaware of it!]. Yes, indeed! I was in a hotbed of resurgent Christian democracy and these charming companions were all those frightful Sillonists and red Christians only recently denounced by Action Française. With these benumbed thoughts at the back of my mind, however, I still admired and wanted to share in the joy of my new companions, their mutual devotion and their feeling of a possible universal peace... »
This plunge into the Catholic left threatened to take him at the furthest remove from his family inheritance, when « grace circumvented me and seized me from without, thus saving me. Ex opere operato. It means: by the simple fact that I received this Sacrament [of the Eucharist] every day.
« This series of divine dispositions, my embarrassed attitudes, the discreet observations of my Uncle, the fears of my parents and the gentle irony of Father Tarcisius regarding my most cherished illusions were followed in the end by this letter from Papa advising me to anticipate my call-up for the next year and enlist for the nine months in the Youth Lumber Camps that had by then replaced military service. It was the work of God! Before the harm went too far, He had through His incomprehensible and boundless mercy, disposed all things for my good. Ex opere operato.
« No sooner had Papa’s letter come than with all my soul I was absolutely sure that that was the direction I had to take and, filled with a joy as though inspired by the Holy Spirit, I exclaimed: “Oh yes, that is what I must decide to do today. And long live Papa!”
« This docility came from my profound detachment from everything, from my attachment to my vocation alone, to Jesus alone. It was ex opere operato the natural, normal, unconscious but saving fruit, quid pro quo, of daily Mass. »
Thus he was saved from the worst and from the Mediocrity that reigned at Lyon in 1942, in contrast to the fine ideal that the Lumber Camps instilled into the youth of France.
Georges de Nantes belonged to the class of ’44 and it was 1942. He thus had to anticipate his call-up. He made the request, had an interview with the head of recruitment who enlisted him, promising him that he would have a rough time of it:
« This was the first time in my life – at least up to that day – that I had been almost totally without the Church’s rites and sacraments. There was no chapel in that summer camp, no church nearby, no Mass, no public prayer, no benediction, and no stations of the Cross. » At least he respired a pure air, as far away as possible from the false mysticism glimpsed at Le Puy and dangerously flirted with at Lyon.
THE HIGHEST SERVICE
On 1 October 1943, he entered the major seminary of d’Issy-les-Moulineaux with indescribable enthusiasm, and « for four years would never again experience the slightest minute of disappointment and uncertainty. »
Volume II of Mémoires et Récits, is an incomparable account of the state of the Church before the « ruin », to speak as Our Lady of Fatima did.
Émile Poulat, a specialist of the history of the contemporary Church, wrote to our Father on the subject of the chapter on the JEC saying that it was worth a treatise on Catholic Action. The same can be said for this account of the four years of seminary (1943-1947), twenty years before the Council (1962-1965). In it, we see Georges de Nantes with the soul of a disciple become captivated by the Church, Mistress of Truth, and prepare himself to become her defender in the most serious crisis of her history.
THE GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING
These four years of seminary can be divided into two distinct periods: 1943-1944 and 1944-47, because the Revolution of 1944 marks a cleavage in the Church of France, which the Second Vatican Council extended to the entire earth twenty years later.
« I was immediately seized by the reciting of the unknown prayer. These two hundred young men, kneeling before their superior and God, responded with their loud, manly voices, in perfect rhythm, marked the caesurae of the sentences with an abrupt and total silence, then resumed together their recitation. I found there all that I love as living order. Yes, order! Virility in prayer, discipline of the voices, attitude, and instincts which, far from constraining hearts, left them total freedom of inner converse and ardours of love for the Beloved One. I loved it! Ah, how I loved this room, this group of confreres who were there with the same vocation as I, full of emotion! Please forgive me for this pastiche of memorable verses. »
1943-1944: UNDER THE SIGN OF LEGITIMACY
« I do not know what Issy-les-Moulineaux was like in the past; I cannot imagine that it could be something other than what we experienced then and that seems to me to be an unchanging perfection. The future would teach me that instability can occur even in what we believe to be eternal, but during this first year, I entrusted myself to the Church like a child to his mother, in order to receive everything from her and from no one else. Now, what an unforgettable wonder, she came up to my expectations, she adopted me as one of her own. I forgot that my father was paying board and lodging, I had an oblate’s mentality, I was ready to accept everything. Later on, when I became aware of what was to follow, I considered this to be an inestimable grace.
« Because I lived in and received my first Catholic heritage and my first clerical imprint from the Church of always, in the absence of all contestation and division, I can say that I am the legitimate child, the truthful and faithful witness of this Church Had I entered a year later, I would not have had this opportunity, and I would not be able to vouch for anything. From the start, I would have been the member of a party, of a faction, and necessarily against the others. Most certainly, for my masters I would have looked like an opponent. They would have discouraged or expelled me. Even if they had they kept me, today I would still only be able to identify with one tradition, one school, one party in the Church, which would leave me powerless. As it is, I identify with the Catholic totality wherein I was born into clerical life in this year of 1943-1944, simply, peacefully devoted to the Church and accepted by her unreservedly. A certain party, which would soon dominate, may claim that it already existed and mistrusted me, but it was then “clandestine”. Nothing that is clandestine is Catholic, and there is nothing that is Catholic that must make itself clandestine in the Church. »
Fervour of prayer, Catholic order, joy of the Truth:
« Every morning in the Issy-les-Moulineaux seminary, the prospect of the different courses that we were going to take overjoyed me. The regular recurrence of the same programme accustomed me as though naturally to classifying the different sciences that were taught to us in the various parts of my mind and, thus, to pursue the conquest of the truth in several fields concurrently, not without having on many occasions established relationships between one of them and the others, which strengthened the perception of their coherence. »
REALISM IN THE SCHOOL OF FATHER RUFF.
« He was a Sulpician priest, a native of the Vivarais, a musician of great distinction, a cellist, with a very disconcerting appearance. He had a tuft of hair on the crown of his forehead in hilarious isolation, a small round face always animated, mocking eyes. He was unable to speak without gesticulations that ended up replacing words, and you had to do what you could to understand! He made you think of a clown, but as they are outside of the circus. When I blot the comic strip out of my mind, I discover how he really was: he had an extremely high and keen intelligence, inhibited in its élans by an insurmountable timidity. This is how I now account for those beginnings of sentences that were dazzling, followed by a spluttering of the motor, gesticulations of a man who is drowning, while the poor clown, ashamed and distressed, looked at his public saying: Do you understand me, all the same?
« Straightaway, we saw him charge into the most disheartening treatise, the most difficult of ancient and modern philosophy: the critique of knowledge. I say: charge, because, like a toreador, in every class he would resume the pursuit of Immanuel Kant and his whole troop of idealists, with banderillas and muletas, right up to the final death-blow. During the combat, Fr. Ruff would collapse ten times onto his rostrum, simulating the defeated animal… We understood nothing. Yet, by dint of listening and watching, the light gradually dawned. Through this flood of words and this prodigious mimicry, the reality of the objects of knowledge finally managed to appear to us, in the staggering intuition of their being, of their being as, for instance, a lion, a gazelle, a cello or an umbrella, and on the other hand, the futility of these famous a priori categories of pure reason that Kant laboured to invent in order to get himself out of a difficulty […].
« Thus he presented the whole of the history of philosophy to us as a dice game. How could I write that in my notebook? I had to understand! At the tenth explanation, that’s it, I got it! Should I have laughed at the pun? 1 The modern world collapsed on a throw of the d. Of a d? Yes indeed! It lost its d along the way and it is quite simply tragic.
« The ironical eye of Fr. Ruff hesitatingly sought our approval. He rushed on, however; listen well!
« …Immanuel Kant believed that the objectum quo was the objectum quod of knowledge and crash!...
« Ruff spread his arms and like a hand-puppet, his head fell with a good crack onto the rostrum, as though he were dead.
« … But then, it is he who placed an extra d where it should not be?!
« Distressed gestures from the prof…
« If you like, it is the same thing! He struck the objectum quod out of existence by going into raptures over the objectum quo, by Jove! The quo became quod, and it’s the end, all is lost. Understood? Reason bumps into the walls of its prison. It is Plato’s cavern that takes itself to be the out of doors, and we are inside and we are going around in circles. Something is askew, it’s the end of the world… »
« The catastrophe is underscored by another fall of his round head onto the rostrum. We can only see the pepper-and-salt tuft of hair.
– Father, I don’t understand…
– It is not all that difficult, though...
« And the turbulent flow of this gesticulatory eloquence gained new impetus like that of the Ardeche River rushing down to the Rhone at the spring thaw!
« Ah this throw of the dice! It was intended to serve as a permanent warning to us against the adoration of our ideas, of our mind and on the contrary to recommend an attentive openness to things and to God. The objectum quod, is – but did we already know enough Latin to be able to translate it? – what the mind knows: dog, liberty, comb, mud, the infinite… It is the object. But where is it? In my mind, my own idea, my creation? There you are, you have lost everything in the dice game. You mistook the quofor the quod, it is a quod pro quo, a mortal quid pro quo! If your idea is reality, there is not any reality at all outside of your creative reason! There finally emerged in my mind the difference between what I know: this dog, this comb, this liberty, and what I know about them, bits of explanations that were given to me, that I received ready-made in my reading or that I drew from my personal observations, that by which these objects are no longer completely unknown, foreign to me. A meagre stock of knowledge, indeed! And I have to admit that the ideas that I have about them are manifestly only a means through which, quo! I attain inadequately but really the object that I have before me and that remains beyond my grasp, objectum quod! […]
« Fr. Peissac [at Lyon], a disciple of St. Thomas, had given me the definite certitude of the mysterious relationship of our intelligence with the beings of nature, in the unique and beautiful light of God, Sun of spirits and creative Wisdom. Perhaps this supremacy of reason, however, would have led me after so many others, passing from Aristotle to Hegel, to satisfy myself with my ideas, the mirror of my mind, the treasure of my knowledge, in the refusal of the perpetual and humiliating questioning that experience inflicts.
« The Sulpician, a former teacher, it was said, and a converted Kantian, turned me away from this temptation before it occurred. This goes to show that unless someone is a genius, he remains what his masters make of him. Later on, I would meet so many Kantians, whether conscious or unconscious of the fact, that one would believe that there is not any other possible philosophy. Fr. Ruff’s lessons made me immune to this appalling disease of the mind and the heart. I know that true knowledge exists, that reason unceasingly controls. Its matter, however, is furnished by abstraction and induction from perceptible objects, in contrast with man’s crazy pretention to make himself the measure of all things. »
ARIANISM, THE ARCHETYPE OF REVOLUTION.
Fr. de Boysson taught the history of the Church, which began, according to the programme that year, in 313 A.D., in the century of Arianism.
« His course was all the more fascinating, and followed with a passion by our young, dumbfounded minds, because he recounted those massacres of the Nicaeans by the Arians, those exiles of the great faithful bishops, and that almost general apostasy of the two episcopates of the West and the East as the most miraculous of histories… I wondered later on, for he was very secretive, whether his History did not contain secret keys that he used for his own pleasure, relating to himself the disruptions of our own century under the masks of the ancient heresy.
« In any case, to my great surprise, I was really in my element in the fourth century like a fish in his native river. I associated the names of the figures of the fourth century with other figures and names, contemporary ones, well-known for the good or evil role they played in the great age-old struggle of the Church against Revolution. I thus connected contemporary figures with the names of the great saviours of Orthodoxy such as Athanasius and Hilary, or with heretics like Arius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Eunomius and Aetius, or with the saving Councils of Nicaea, Alexandria, and Constantinople, and the ignominious ones such as Sardica, Rimini and Seleucia, and finally with the strong or weak popes such as Liberius or Leo the Great.
« That was in 1943-1944… I did not know that this transferring from one history to the other would still continue today and even intensify in expectation of the triumph of Orthodoxy and the peace of the Church. »
DIVINE REVELATION: AN UNBEARABLE ANXIETY OVERCOME.
Fr. Cazelles taught the science of Holy Scripture. « He was, he is even more so today, a fount, an ocean of knowledge. We realised this when we listened to him. We got this feeling when we looked at him… He had the head of a Babylonian scribe. The lower part of his face was heavy, with two big, protruding eyes that often took on the alarmed expression of someone who is intensely searching but is unable to find what he is seeking; his speech was ponderous and sleep-inducing. I thought that he was practically an old man, all the more so because he had a limp that gave him a piteous gait. Yet since the Pope invited him to the last Synod, an extremely rare honour, I calculate with amazement that he must still have been young forty-three years ago! He heaved himself up into the very high rostrum by the strength of his thick, short arms. Then the torture began, for him and for us. The principles were clear, somewhat different from my simplistic and sterile facts.
« The Holy Bible, the collection of inspired Books, has as its main author God Himself, and as secondary authors – not as its instrumental cause, like a brush or a stylet, but as secondary authors – chosen men who recited, dictated, and finally wrote them. This is the first principle of all Catholic exegesis.
« The second principle is similar to it; it is drawn entirely from the first, with a simplicity and facility that is more apparent than real: the Holy Bible cannot contain any error and still less any deception. It is absolutely worthy of belief and trust, more than any human science, even when it goes contrary to all other human teaching. I say human because the Bible is also, and do not forget it, human thought, human language, human writing, without ceasing to be divine in all its parts – just as Jesus Christ, the Word of God given to us, is true God and true man, perfectly man without ceasing to be perfectly God. The mystery of the inspired writings is akin to the mystery of the Incarnation and is clarified by it.
« The explication throughout these three months of classes, however, was hopelessly complicated. Fr. Cazelles said very abstract things that he charitably peppered with disconcerting examples. When he uttered them, he himself seemed to be walking on eggshells, which, combined with his difficulty of elocution – he spoke as though he had a hot apple in his mouth that he was unable to swallow and dared not spit out – made his remarks muddled. This slowness of delivery, however, was to my advantage and allowed me to copy everything, which I did with growing attention and interest. Little by little, I came to realise that Fr. Cazelles was cautiously wising us up and introducing us to the sacred science of the Holy Scriptures, to the great detriment of that surge of blind faith which, until then, had taken its place – confusing all the literary genres, styles and periods, ignoring the duration, flattening out distinctions, deliberately heedless of all the divine text’s chaotic human history, inaccessible to our ignorance… Here Cazelles claimed that the Book of Jonas was most probably a tale, which nevertheless has lofty moral significance. The prophet’s sojourn in the belly of the whale was only an amusing feature that illustrated the almighty mercy of the true God towards His stubborn, recalcitrant witness, as further on it showed itself to be as benevolent towards the multitude of idolaters in the great, fabulously immense city of Nineveh, and towards their animals! Another day, he let it be understood that Moses was not necessarily the author of Deuteronomy as the Book indicates, or at least, he was not the sole and immediate writer since in it we can read the account of his death! An outburst of laughter came from the dozen students who kept their eyes and minds open. The others found themselves caught! The gust of laughter, however, once again shook me, snatched me despite myself from a childish, irrational faith, urging me further on in this formidable and fascinating exegetical critique, which is still Catholic, in which the Faith does not dread the anxious and suspicious investigations of the reason. From it, she hopes to triumph every time, enriched by a new treasure of intelligence and wisdom, and nevertheless of piety – at least that is what I was hoping!
« Did we get used to it? With difficulty … David suddenly ceased to be the author of the Book of Psalms. Only a few of the one hundred and fifty Psalms, written in archaic style, were doubtfully ascribed to him. In any case, the one that began with these unambiguous words: “O Lord, remember David, and all his meekness” was by no means written by the holy king. At other stages in this weighty introduction, which was apparently intended to vaccinate us, to immunise us against the impertinent critique of rationalism, we had to go so far as to suspect the historical existence of Job, a fine legendary figure, and to accept two or even three successive Isaiahs. Finally, we had to bear hearing this terrible and calm destroyer of immemorial beliefs demonstrate that Daniel had lived – if he had ever existed! – let us say: the Author of “Daniel” – let us accustom ourselves to scientific language! – two or three hundred years after the events that he prophesised with utter boldness… and great precision! There was another burst of laughter from the small group of students who were still paying attention (did you laugh?). I do not speak about the more technical chapters on the history of the texts, the study of the most ancient copies that remain of them. Oh, they are venerable fragments, already ten or fifteen centuries removed from the obviously lost originals! This was before the discoveries of Qumrân that allowed us to gain almost a thousand years. Fantastic! What was fantastic, however, totally escaped us during these first months of seminary!
« It was thus an immense relief when Fr. Cazelles suddenly stopped, waking up the class, and announced with a furtive and delightful smile, the avowed accomplice of our lassitude, the study of the Book of Genesis:
« “Take your Bible, page one, chapter one: the Creation of the world.”
« At last, we were going to study the text itself, and from the first to the last page without skipping a line, without avoiding a single difficulty! It was intoxicating. It was at least a minute of joy. It did not last any longer than that.
« From the very first verse, how many problems! Then we stumbled over each word. Cazelles was ruthless. Becoming lost in conjectures, he lost us along the way. The Hebrew had to be corrected; the Greek of the Septuagint required it; and the Latin translation is inaccurate. Soon the great Mesopotamian cosmogonies proposed accounts of the creation, closely related to our inspired text. We were going to sort out what it had copied from them and reveal what had been rejected, omitted, contradicted. Thus, would what was added be pure divine inspiration? The five-thousand-year-old Epic of Gilgamesh suddenly reappeared brand new at Issy-les-Moulineaux, exhilaratingly topical! In order to understand, we probed the text. In it we discover a mixture of three, of four earlier documents P, J, E…, I cannot remember the fourth one. Yes! It is D, for Deuteronomist! It is of capital importance! Each of them has its own mentality, its point of view, its own sources, like the four Evangelists, and the last writer wanted to keep everything all mixed up together. I underline my Bible in blue, green, yellow and red. You can just imagine! On each page, there were crucial problems in which the Faith seemed to risk its all. Cazelles was in front of us with his machete in his hand, dragging his lame leg, advancing slowly, pruning on the right, pruning on the left, and too bad for the damage. Legends vanished into thin air, reputations fell. On the right, my credulity, my naivety and my thoughtlessness were severely tested. On the left, it was the great enemies of the Faith, with names so foreign that they were unpronounceable, unknown to us, who were imperturbably massacred by our master at the very moment when we would have suspected him of reprehensible contacts with them: Mowinckel, Welhausen,… all conspiring to make us lose the Faith through their science.
« At last came the time when these classes that I attended with ever increasing interest plunged me into a state of unbearable anxiety. »
This account is enthralling because it shows us how Georges de Nantes, a young twenty-year-old seminarian, embraced the biblical question in its totality in the very year when the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu freed exegetical research from its old shackles and opened it to recognising the “literary genres”.
He suddenly decided to divulge his interior drama to Monsieur Cazelles:
« I told him of my agitation in a few words [...]. I did not dare, however, to risk the decisive question, which he clearly understood, as we passed through the tunnel leading to the Avenue Saint Jean: Knowing what you know, do you still believe what I believe? When all is said and done, what is the Christian Faith, a truth or a legend, a subjective certitude, a veritable myth, or a divine revelation witnessed to by inspired beings and proved by historical miracles? Father, do you have the Faith? [...]
« He replied to me, unreservedly, in a clear voice, his face suddenly expressing an impressive goodness and mildness, like a master to his disciple or, better still, like a father to his child haunted by a nightmare. He did not evade any of the difficulties that I had evoked; he did not distance himself in order to escape into the false clarity of first principles. He let me see – for the first and only time! – the bottom of his heart. This great altercation between the traditional representations and the inexorable modern critique was his own debate as well as mine, but he overcame it day by day, year after year, by a rigorous faithfulness to the directives of the Church – “even those of Pius X”, he specified with a subtle kindness, the ulterior motives of which only appeared to me later on – without renouncing the requirements of rigorous scientific procedures. He did this even if this meant formulating hypotheses that might shock uneducated people and that Rome, for this reason, forbade to be professed publicly and above all not as definite certainties… »
The master’s answer pacified the disciple who welcomed it with a well-disposed mind:
« I saw him as the obscure and deserving servant of God, working under the incomprehension of his betters, perhaps under Roman anathemas or under the paralysing threat of them, to draw a distinction in the immense arsenal of modern sciences between what is certain and worthy of enriching the Christian knowledge of the Scriptures, and what must absolutely be rejected as venom of incredulity as much as false science. A difficult work! Nevertheless, a vital work for the security of the faith of the faithful multitudes. »
This was the line of conduct of our Father in his inexhaustible commentary on Holy Scripture with which he fed our souls.
THE HINT OF A FIRST DISAGREEMENT
THE « METHOD OF IMMANENCE ».
Fr. Enne « had to his advantage dazzling gifts as a teacher. His papers in his hand, he came and went speaking and gesticulating with full liberty and ease, dictating his course each sentence of which could provoke – perfectly studied! – extemporaneous digressions of great interest: personal memories, novel pieces of information… Successively didactical, scholarly, moving, prophetic, he rarely argued. He preferred to demonstrate and, even better, to entice, to draw our young minds to his views with persuasion. He played all the strings of his lyre, with constant alacrity, without unnecessary tension. We listened to him with pleasure and followed him without lassitude. He, however, scorned this talent of the perfect teacher that was overtly admired, envious of a better gift that he knew he did not possess, humiliated, secretly vexed at not being able to attain, and therefore, not being able to stand up to every contradiction and to glide in the heights of absolute knowledge: he was, he used to say with too obvious bitterness, only a vulgariser, a repeater and not a thinker, a creator, a scholar like the other masters surrounding him whose careers, unlike his own, had been academic! This excessive humility, however, was perhaps only a provocation intended to raise himself and to situate himself apart from and above everyone…
« That is how the man was. For him, his course that year would once again be a combat. The young nineteen-year-old ignoramus that I was, however, certainly did not imagine it, all the more so because the first lessons on the Faith, strengthened by a framework of dogmatic definitions, in Latin, that were to be learned by heart, taken from the Acts of the Vatican Council – from the first, of course; it was twenty years before Vatican II! – and the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, thus participated in the clearness of the infallibility of the Church’s Magisterium.
« Agape, with our pens docilely racing across our notebook, we garnered this marvellous psychology that makes the entire act of theological faith into a work of grace, an inclination of the heart and a luminous intuition of the gratified intelligence… This was not yet his choice, but he laid down the terms in such a way as to turn them surreptitiously to his advantage. From that moment on, we had to understand that reason or intelligence alone, commanding even its most categorical deductions, is vain and its obvious facts sterile, if the heart does not participate in them, does not anticipate them, if some instinct does not incline the whole man to the objective that it expects, if an impalpable but very necessary grace does not predispose the subject to enter into it with happiness. This was already the subjective element that he favoured with a delicate touch, distinguishing it from objective reasoning. The former recommended us to make it an intimist, persuasive and warm art, a ministry, a pastoral action, the latter constituted apologetics in science […]
« At the same time as he expounded in detail this manner of approaching, of arousing the interest, then of persuading today’s “libertine” or indifferent person. He made a point of justifying its legitimacy in relation to the Faith and to the Church’s Magisterium. He made the most of the Thoughts of Pascal – the first outline of a discourse of modern apologetics! – in all their immortal vigour and profoundness. To protect himself from a possible accusation of Modernism, he invoked Blondel, his secret inspirer and sure reference, he said, for his “method of immanence” had not been condemned by the Church. She had clearly distinguished it from the “doctrine of immanence”, which alone was reproved.
« He seemed very preoccupied with obtaining our complete adherence to his idea, when we gave it to him with fervour! This was all the more so because he multiplied the guarantees of objectivity to the various elements of his approach, which was resolutely centred on subjectivity. His uneasiness almost overcame us… I had never heard about Modernism and yet I was being initiated to this heresy by him who denied being Modernist! Through him, I learned that it had exacerbated a latent conflict that was still festering between scholars and priests, between professors and bishops, between the intellectual elite and the hierarchy! When he referred to this crisis of the Church, Fr. Enne had the terrifying gaze of the sibyl. What was so akin to Modernism in his apologetics that could arouse suspicion? […]
« In February, we wrote our first end-of-semester examinations. We had arrived precisely at the crux of our apologetic approach. I still remember these two pages of my notebook, which Fr. Enne dictated with extreme care. They had been written, underlined and learned by us in the firm belief that we would be examined on them. I even remember having thought to myself that he would aim at incrusting all its detail in our minds by this means!
« It was in fact the expected question: “Plan of an apologetic systematisation”. We rushed through it. We knew it all by heart. The paragraphs that he himself had carefully numbered, 1, 2, 3, passed by like milestones. It was in the bag. Then, in number 3: “Truth of the doctrine”, which must gently lead us, by means of a clever upward turnaround, from the domain of subjective experience to the “Verification by science”. In number 4, I tarried too long. I had the impression that I was floundering and that I would be unable to make that famous turnaround which, however, was capital! If I failed to do so, my method of immanence would close on itself and change into a doctrine, the extreme danger! If I was unable to succeed, I would be a Mod-ern-ist! I would receive a bad mark and disappoint my passionately admired superior.
« While quickening my writing, I went more thoroughly into the desire of man, I gave more proof of the value of religion as a response to his longings, I already saw in it an indication of his truth… It is profoundly pleasing, thus it is true? Yes, no? Only partly! I sought out the passage towards the history of the beginnings, of miracles… I knew that also by heart. But the passage! I got bogged down; I was in an impasse. Fr. Enne’s entire anxious zeal was precisely to lead us from one stage to the other without sacrificing the first decisive one to the other which was resolutive and in-dis-pens-able! I however, could not manage it. It was time to hand in the examination script; I was still searching for a solution and was going round in circles. I realised that I gave the opposite impression, that from the longings of man to the divine truth, there was no possible upward turnaround, no acrobatic reversal, finally no through road from earth to Heaven, from the aspirations of man to the divine Truth…!
« Obviously, I did not get a good mark and worse, I felt that I was not and never would be counted among the true disciples. That was not the end of the world. It hardy made a dent. As they say: Don’t touch, it’s broken!
« I would learn much later how much I had upset Fr. Enne. Without taking into account the gaps in my knowledge, my thoughtlessness or the admiration and the veneration that I had for him, the dear man believed that my copy was a sort of “integrist” refutation of his secret “immanentism” and that my unsuccessful investigations to find a solution to his fundamental subjectivism was the mischievous and long foreseeable demonstration of the inevitable failure of his approach. It was essence art, the only originality of which he was proud, and crash! So, I thought he was a Modernist! I insinuated it! In the climate that still reigned at that time and the freshness of the relations between Rome and Paris, I became for him, on that day, suspect of suspicion. ».
THE KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF FATHER VIMAL.
« My first dissertation focused precisely on the titles given to Jesus in the Gospel. I had chosen it from among a whole list of others and took delight in doing it. To read the Gospel, to note down the beautiful names of Messiah, Lamb of God, Son of David and Son of man, Son of God, given to Jesus, to dream, pray, love, in order finally to jot down the thoughts, or rather the fiery feelings that these sublime and mysterious words aroused in me. Ah! What delightful moments! I got a very bad mark. Apparently, it was insubstantial daydreaming. I was expected to try to understand by means of the general and particular biblical context, what these traditional terms evoked very precisely at the time that they were uttered and in the minds of the inspired witnesses who used them in their accounts… »
Thus, « Jesus ceased to be an idealised image, a soft, conventional Jesus – and everyone painted Him in his own style! – and became a scientific problem. What a disturbing, unpleasant moment! Then He became an enigma, another difficult stage, fraught with pitfalls and temptations that had made so many others founder, like Renan, Loisy… There was reason to fear! Finally, He remained, in the proven authenticity of the basic documents and in the striking truth of His historical, physical and moral Being, an incomparable and fascinating mystery. »
« The decisive moment of this scientific progression is unforgettable for me, all the more so because our professor seemed to attach great importance to it while we only laughed about it. The name Couchoud was funny, and his system stupid. Did he not claim to solve all the difficulties by affirming that Jesus had never existed! What absurdity and what blasphemy. That day, I scarcely listened while our pens scratched on our notebooks, writing down, to be learned, Couchoud’s tortuous train of thought, and the lesson that had been indicated to us to draw. Twenty, thirty years later, one fine day, we understood! Couchoud, the radical rationalist, what a surprising acolyte for the Christian Faith! The indispensable, providential Couchard! I am ashamed to recite today with an intense intellectual satisfaction a chapter of the course that I laughed at stupidly when I heard it long ago.
« An implacable rationalist, Couchoud assailed all his predecessors, more liberal than himself, who claimed to reconstruct, everyone as he please and as he saw fit, the “Jesus of history”, an ordinary man whom the Church later on would have slowly, silently transfigured until she had made him a god! Nothing but nonsense, our man showed that none of it stood the test.
« Jesus did not only half exist or two-thirds or three-quarters exist: a preacher but without miracles, or a healer without prophecies, prophet and thaumaturgist full of illusions, a divine man but not God… It is all or nothing. The Gospel must be taken literally or be completely rejected. The Scriptures recount to us a God made man. You have to believe them and become fully Catholic, that is the only acceptable reconstruction!
« Otherwise, they would have to be understood in terms of mythology and the conclusion would be that Jesus never existed. In this hypothesis, it would only be a question of a god to whom the magicians of the word would have given human characteristics, thus composing from one to the other, throughout generations, this extraordinary painting of “God made man”, assuredly incomparable. Our professor wanted us to reach this logical extremity so as to cure us of all easy but insubstantial liberal exegesis. Then, once we had reached this state of radicalism, which in itself is untenable – for if it so, the Church would have been born clandestinely from a total deception! – our professor wanted us to hasten to the other extremity, to the solution that is henceforth unavoidable: to believe in the Scriptures, to believe the witnesses who had their throats slit, to proclaim that this Jesus is Christ and Lord, He who was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, was buried and nevertheless was raised from the dead on the third day for our justification.
« Now that I have recreated its climate by the mysterious game of reviviscences, our Sulpician seminary appears to me to have been entirely steeped in this knowledge of Christ that existed in profusion thanks to both science and faith. This knowledge governed our whole being: intelligence and heart, body and soul, present and future. The apologetic classes that demonstrated its truth were much more involved, if I dare say, in our communal life and in this whole centuries-old institution than Fr. Enne’s discourses of anxiety. Christ could not yet have been, at that time, the principle and foundation of everything, absolutely everything, for these hundreds of young men and priests, their directors, without Him being imagined there, without Him being loved there and without Him being adored there as the surest and most certain of all beings, full of grace and truth. »
Then, as the logical consequence of this “Cristology”, came the « demonstration of both the divine institution and the miraculous conservation of the Church by Jesus Christ, by His Holy Spirit. She as well was fully implicated in the order, discipline, fervour and cordial unanimity of this Seminary of St. Sulpice. We had the feeling that it was, very consciously, a living element, a life-giving organ of this great Church who is, as had been demonstrated to us, nothing other than “Jesus Christ diffused and communicated” (Bossuet).
« How beautiful this holy Church still was at dawn on this 6 June 1944, when the announcement of the Anglo-American landings in Normandy reached us! This “longest day” that was brutally going to interrupt and break the age-old course of our tradition, at the same time as the humble adventure of our personal destinies. (to be continued) »
1. Father Ruff’s pun is based on the fact that the French word “dé” (dice) used in the expression “coup de dés” (a throw of the dice) and the French letter “d” are identical in pronunciation: [day]. Immanuel Kant’s philosophical error comes from the confusion that he makes in the two Latin expressions objectum quod and objectum quo. The presence or absence of one letter “d” changes completely the philosophical consequences.
