PROPHET OF LIBERTY

     «So, our Father writes, he took on the highly romantic role of visionary and guide, charged by Providence to lead the Christian religion to its perfect form, so that it might be the soul of this new world and even then... the movement for the spiritual animation of universal democracy which, tomorrow, would give birth to the Revolution! “What does this involve? Reconstituting the political society with the help of the religious society, which consists of the union of minds under obedience to one and the same authority.” (Preface to volume 2 of The Essay) This would make religion useful and attractive, the Gospel would proclaim the Revolution, the Church would put herself at the service of Liberty and thus gain the enthusiastic support of the People, and God would once again appear in Man and in History!

     «Lamennais banked on the most Christian Kings being the generous sponsors of the Liberty of the peoples, but the Kings disappointed him. Their realist utilitarian politics were diametrically opposed to his intoxicated dreams: “When it comes to religion and truth, I am much less fearful of the fever of democracy than I am of the drowsiness of despotism which kills while it sleeps” (11 May 1830)!

     «The bloody hordes of socialist agitators and the idealistic conceptions of freemasonry inflamed his mind, making him feel disgust for the mundane pacifism of the kings. Pope Leo XII made a correct assessment of our prophet when he said: “He is one of those lovers of perfection who, if left unopposed, would turn the world upside down.”

     «He felt the revolution of 1830 coming, he longed for it and proclaimed the definitive collapse of monarchies. Let the Church abandon them! Let her take up the sacred cause of Liberty as soon as possible! “The instinct of the peoples, perhaps guided by an indistinct presentiment of the future being prepared for them by Providence, demands a total separation of Church and State.” (18 October)

     «Henceforth, it is the Church alone, it is the Pope who must teach the peoples, in the name of God, the ways of Democracy! Removed from the power of princes, politics now comes under the domain of religious inspiration, and the Pope is requested to take the lead in this great evangelical insurrection of the peoples against the kings and to inaugurate the new times!

     «As for bishops, Lamennais despises them as much as he does kings. Far off in Rome, the Pope becomes the long-awaited Messiah of his dreams. It is he who will bring the nations the Good News of Liberty and reform the Church so that she might enter into the great movement of the peoples. Our visionary imperiously sketches the programme of this profound and necessary reform. Must not the Church be saved, even despite herself? To renew her, he will bring back the youthful and enterprising forces of the revolution. “Aggiornamento” on a fearful scale!

     «The Church is seen as too other-worldly in her hopes and “supernatural” in her dogmas, too given up to piety and ceremony. She must change into a social and humanitarian movement. She must exalt the poor and curse the rich. She must prepare for and assist in the reversal of the class system! But she must also be open to, and indeed merge with, the great divine current of the one universal religion which is carrying humanity onwards to the ultimate heights. She is but the privileged expression and infallible conscience of the peoples.» (Letter to my friends n^o 236)

THE JUDGEMENTS OF THE MAGISTERIUM:
THE ENCYCLICAL MIRARI VOS

     Pope Gregory XVI, an austere and erudite man but also a demophile, will grant an audience to Lamennais and his two companions, Lacordaire and Montalembert, on 13 March 1832. But after examining his appeal, he will condemn his pretensions and the whole of his programme in the encyclical Mirari vos dated 15 August 1832:

     «To use the words of the fathers of Trent, it is certain that “the Church was instructed by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and that all truth was daily taught her by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain restoration and regeneration for her as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. The aim of the innovators is “to lay the foundations of a new human institution” and to bring about that which Saint Cyprian held in horror, “that the Church, which is divine, should become something completely human”. Let those who devise such plans be aware that, according to the testimony of St Leo, “the right to grant dispensation from the canons” is given only to the Roman Pontiff. He alone, and no private person, can “pronounce on the rules of the Church Fathers”. As St Gelasius writes: “It is the pope's responsibility to rule on the canonical decrees and to evaluate the precepts of previous popes, so that, when the times and the interests of the Churches require some relaxation of these, they may be adjusted after diligent consideration.”»

     The Pope spells out and denounces the claims of the innovators against ecclesiastical celibacy and against the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage. Then he goes on to condemn the human right to social liberty in matters of religion.

     «This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition, or rather that delirium, which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. The full and unlimited freedom of opinion prepares the way for this pernicious error, a freedom which has spread far and wide for the ruin of religious and civil society, though some repeat with the greatest impudence that a certain advantage accrues to religion from it. But, as Saint Augustine said, “What is better suited to kill the soul than the liberty of error?”

     « Here We must include that ruinous freedom, for which one can never feel enough horror: the freedom of the press to publish anything whatsoever, a freedom which some dare to demand and promote with great ardour and clamour [...]. It is quite evident how false, temerarious and injurious to the Holy See, as well as pregnant with harm for the Christian people, is the doctrine of those who not only reject the censure of books as too onerous a burden, but are even so depraved as to affirm that such is contrary to the principles of right and justice, and dare to deny that the Church has the right to decree and act thus.»

     This is followed by the sovereign Magisterium's judgement on the insurrectional movements of 1830:

     « We have learned that certain teachings are being spread among the common people in writings which attack the trust and submission due to princes; the torches of treason are being lit everywhere. Care must be taken lest the people, being deceived, are led away from the straight path. May all recall, in accordance with the admonition of the Apostle, that “there is no authority except from God. Therefore he who resists authority resists the ordinances of God, and those who resist bring on themselves condemnation.” Therefore, both divine and human laws cry out against those who strive by the shameful web of treason and sedition to shake the people's confidence in their princes and to force them from their thrones.»

     The Pope opportunely recalls the attitude of Christians in the face of the persecuting pagan emperors, then he continues:

     « These beautiful examples of the unchanging subjection to the princes, a necessary corollary of the holy precepts of the Christian religion, condemn the detestable insolence and improbity of those who, consumed with unbridled lust for an audacious freedom, are entirely devoted to impairing and destroying all rights of dominion, whereas in reality they are merely imposing servitude on the people under the guise of liberty. The same tendency is clearly seen in the infamous and wild plans of the Waldensians, the Beghards, the Wycliffites, and other such sons of Belial, who were the sores and disgrace of the human race and often received a richly deserved anathema from the Holy See. These deceivers, who work for the same end, have thus but one aspiration: that they may congratulate themselves along with Luther on being exempt from the control of nayone. To attain this end more readily and quickly, they audaciously attempt the most criminal activities.

     « Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate Church and State, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. For it is certain that this concord, which has always greatly favoured and benefited the interests of religion and the civil order, is feared by the partisans of an unbridled liberty.

     «To the other causes of bitterness and disquiet that torment and afflict Us principally in view of the common danger, are joined certain notable associations and gatherings which make common cause with the followers of every false religion. They feign piety for religion, but they are driven by a passion for everywhere promoting novelties and sedition. They advocate every kind of freedom, stir up disturbances in sacred and civil affairs, and pluck even the most respectable authority to pieces.»

     After reading this encyclical, Lamennais officially submitted, but several months later, on 30 April 1834, he openly entered into rebellion against the Sovereign Pontiff by publishing his Words of a believer, despite the exhortations and entreaties of his brother Jean-Marie. This book is a revolutionary firebrand. Using striking and crude images, our «feverish visionary» effected a satanic inversion: he identified all hierarchies and laws, both human and divine, with Evil.

     Then Gregory XVI condemned him by name in the encyclical Singulari nos of 7 July 1834:

     «Having consulted several of our venerable brothers, cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, of our own accord, with all the certainty of our understanding and with the full plenitude of our apostolic power, We hereby denounce, condemn and desire it to be held as denounced and condemned for perpetuity, the book that We have just spoken of, entitled Words of a believer. By a wicked abuse of the Word of God, it criminally incites the peoples to dissolve the bonds of all public order, to overturn each and every authority, and to rouse, foster, extend and strengthen seditions, riots and rebellions throughout the empires»...

     Hardening in his revolt, Félicité will find himself alone, but he will have marked his generation with an indelible character.

     «His friends, explains our Father, carried away in their generous hearts and unthinking minds the virus of heresy. Only the Abbé Gerbet would understand just what an implacable system lay behind the fiery imagination of the author of Words of a believer, and it was he who would prepare the Syllabus.

     «The others, Montalembert and Lacordaire, would never pull down the altar they had erected in their hearts, in opposition to the altar of God, to celebrate their new cult. They would maintain their impossible motto: “God and Liberty!” It was Lacordaire who uttered this dreadful phrase which contains the germ of all future apostasies: “The primary virtue today is not the faith, it is the sincere love of liberty.” There we have the service of God pushed into the background and, thrown onto centre stage, the futuristic vision of the reign of Liberty on earth. “Faith in man” had stolen a march on religious beliefs, which were now seen as no more than private opinions.» (Letter to my friends n^o 236)

THE CHIEF LESSON OF HIS CONDEMNATION
DRAWN BY... HIMSELF!

     In 1836, in his book Affairs of Rome, Félicité de Lamennais would draw a number of conclusions from the Roman condemnation of his programme. These are of extraordinary importance, and our Father commented on them in memorable circumstances a dozen years ago (cf. English CRC n^o 205).

     Lamennais considers the question whether the Roman Pontiff might one day retract and go back on his teachings of 1832 and 1834.

     «For each thing there exists but one moment in human affairs. After that, there is no longer a choice between two possibilities, and necessity prevails. Nothing that we proposed in 1831 is possible today, and it will not be possible at any time in the future: because one cannot step back in time; because no one would believe in the sincerity of a system that were to change direction, such a move being seen as no more than calculated self-interest; and finally because, having condemned in the most express manner the principles on which the new system would rest, those who would now change direction would breach the immutability of doctrine, and, no matter how it were disguised or its consequences eluded, such a change would entail a fatal contradiction of the authority that had pronounced itself so categorically.

     «So it is necessary to carry on right to the end along the intended path and for the same maxims to be forever declared immutable, no matter what changes may take place in the social order, since such maxims will be said to belong to the tradition of the Apostles and the Fathers or to divine revelation. Anyone effectively deviating from these principles would violate a divine commandment, and whoever contested them or ceased to be inwardly attached to them with an absolute faith would thereby break with Catholicism.»

     Lamennais rightly insists on the dogmatic character of the condemnations pronounced by Gregory XVI. The encyclical Mirari vos belongs to the ordinary magisterium of the Church. It was an infallible, obligatory and irreformable act.

     Further on, he again considers whether Rome might in the future reconcile herself with the modern world, rallying to democracy and to the principles of 1789.

     «Will Rome, on the other hand, renounce her present doctrines? Will she give her belated sanction to those doctrines made sacred by the people's victory, doctrines which form a kind of social faith the more they take hold in the universal reason and conscience?

     «But, we ask, who would believe in the sincerity of such a change? Who would not see in this, as we have already indicated, a shameful example of calculated interest, as variable and contingent upon events as is the reality of interest itself? Who would not see in it a hypocritical mockery of what is just and right? And what advantage could the papacy draw from such an action? Could it have any effect other than that of lowering her further in public opinion and, by adding to the bitterness of past memories the contempt inspired by cowardice, of effacing from souls the final vestiges of respect and even of pity?

     «Besides, even if she were to resign herself to such a change, it would be impossible for her to put it into practice. How could she renounce doctrines which she has declared to be part of the tradition of the Apostles and the Fathers, and consequently of divine revelation? It would be an act of apostasy on her part.

     «Would she say that she had made a mistake about this revelation, that she had misunderstood it? To do so would be to abjure her authority. Whoever has been mistaken once can be mistaken twice and can be mistaken every time.

     «Might she attempt to elude her own decisions by means of evasive interpretations? Again impossible: their meaning has been all too clearly fixed by her overall conduct, by the declared aim she has desired to achieve. Such an attempt would be foiled by the simplest good sense.

     «Might she claim that these decisions were lacking the character needed by Catholic law to identify an obligatory teaching or irreformable judgement? But who better than Rome knows what constitutes an irreformable judgement, and who can reasonably doubt that it was her will to make such a matter irreformable? After the express or at least tacit adherence of the entire episcopate, nothing would remain but ridiculous quibbles over forms that have not been rigorously fixed by Church law.

     «To go back in any way on acts thus solemnly defined; to abandon any point of doctrine proclaimed in the name of Jesus Christ from the heights of the principal see and adopted by the bishops, not one of whom expressed any objection; to tell Christians: You may now reject as false this doctrine which I previously declared to be the purest expression of divine truth itself and which I demanded you submit to with an absolute and unlimited submission of your minds – such language, which defies description, would clearly amount to a complete negation of the foundations on which the Catholic hierarchy is based. Now, authority does not destroy itself. It can die if it is mortal, but it does not commit suicide.

     «The papacy is therefore irrevocably tied to the system it believed itself bound to embrace in these latter times and, come what may, we must accept all the consequences of this.» (quoted in the English CRC n^o 205, December 1987, p. 3-5)

     The style is powerful, the reasoning strong, and the conclusion implacable: Félicité de Lamennais announced and demonstrated that, after the doctrinal condemnations of Pope Gregory XVI, any rallying by the Catholic hierarchy to democracy could be nothing but apostasy.

     Nevertheless, he could not have foreseen or even envisaged that one day the Church, in both her Head and her members, might be almost entirely won over to and ravaged by this apostasy. 

THE PROGRESSIVISM OF THE APOSTATE

     «In Lamennais' bedroom, states the Abbé de Nantes, the bust of the Republic took the place of the statue of the Blessed Virgin.

     «“I will not betray the people”, he exclaimed to those who spoke to him of submission. This “faith in the people” led him deep into the mists of a mystical socialism: “The Gospel leads to action, bringing men together and getting them to cooperate in a common task, which is none other than the transformation of society or, according to the language of the Gospel, the establishment of the Kingdom of God.” “People reproach me for having changed. I have simply continued along my path, that is all”, he declared. And he spoke truly.

     «Michel Mourre, in his excellent study Lamennais or the heresy of modern times, explains this very clearly: “Even at the time of The Essay on Indifference, Christ was no more than a stage for him... He nourished a single hope that never changed: that of a religion in constant metamorphosis, of a succession of divine revelations ultimately leading to the birth of God on earth, a God who arises from the earth.”

     «Humanity is on the march. It carries within its infallible conscience a hidden truth that is richer and  truer than all the dogmas of all the religions. In its loins it possesses a divine fecundity that is preparing to give birth to a new society, one that is free and fraternal. “Yes, Christianity is only now starting to be born; its political and truly social action is just beginning.” Lamennais would therefore take his place in the Chamber of 1848 among the representatives of the extreme left! His Catholicism was now no more than the unreal symbol of the great social revolution.

     «Modern day religions are all mystical approaches to the Future, notes Michel Mourre, and it is Lamennais who was responsible for this. His vision, his system, would truly constitute “that immense disintegration which would destabilize the whole world”; it would be a “spiritualism”, a religion if one likes, in which the outpourings of the heart replace theology, holy Democracy replaces the Church, and Humanity replaces Christ”.» (Letter to my friends n^o 236)

     In 1846 he published a translation of the Gospels along with a series of commentaries and notes which make a travesty of Christianity, distorting it into a kind of political and social progressivism.

     His accounts of the Annunciation and the Nativity lose their whole historical character to become the mere product, the reflection, of the early Church's meditations. Read this for example:

     «Saint Luke, whose Gospel was only written after those of Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, follows the traditions current among the first Christians and provides many new details in his account of the births of John and Jesus. The faith of the people had already surrounded these two nativities with the marvels of a divine poetry [...]. Zechariah prophesies, Mary prophesies; and in their chants can be found the spirit which, in Luke's time, animated the thoughts and hopes of Jesus' disciples, and one can see what in their eyes was their master's mission and what were to be its effects.» (p. 182)

     Lamennais gives a revolutionary interpretation of the Magnificat, which becomes the expression of the human race's aspiration to be free from any authority:

     «Harsh afflictions weighed down on humanity. An unjust inequality gave rise to unjust domination, the oppression of the poor, and every kind of iniquity. God could not suffer these disorders much longer. He said in his heart: The proud will be scattered, the mighty cast down from their thrones, the hungry filled with good things and the rich sent empty away.

     «The old society, the kingdom of Satan, must disappear, so that the kingdom of God, the new society, may be established. And because the children of Satan will fiercely resist the children of God, immense havoc must be wrought before they will yield. Here we have the wars predicted by Jesus.» (ibid.)

     «Let us move on to Jesus' dialogue with Pilate. Here is Lamennais' commentary:

     «Questioned by the high priests, Jesus replied that he is the Christ. Interrogated by the governor, the minister of the oppressive government, he replies that he is King. Now Jesus represented the whole of humanity, and the fact of the matter is that in humanity, and in humanity alone, resides the true royalty, the true sovereignty and universal right, whence derives the particular right of each people. And this sovereignty, this royalty, which had always and everywhere been exercised in the interests of certain men or certain classes, is the very thing which Jesus came to claim in the name of God, who is its source.» (p. 172)

     Must one point out the absolutely blasphemous character of such an interpretation which – let us not forget! – can be found today on the lips and under the pen of a very august Pontiff? [Cf. the opening pages of the Book of Accusation against John Paul II where the Abbé de Nantes examines the Pope's version of Lammenais' theory and quotes him as saying: “Christ is king in the sense that in him, in the testimony he rendered to the truth, is made manifest the ‘kingship’ of every human being, the expression of every person's transcendent character. Such is the Church's proper inheritance.” (N'ayez pas peur, 1982) – Translator's note.]

     Our Lord Jesus Christ is thus reduced to the level of an ordinary man, any kind of man. Before Pilate, He is supposed to have made no claim to a transcendence or kingship unique and proper to Himself. He would simply have presented Himself as a witness and prophet to the kingship innate in man, every man. Stripped off His divine attributes, Christ is therefore no more than the symbol of a humanity engaged in its revolutionary struggle against the powers of oppression.

     At the end of his unhappy career, Félicité de Lamennais would conceive of and preach the fusion «all religions united in a single universal movement in order to contribute its spiritual aid and all its divine force to the world revolution.

     «Such a religion would be the strongest solvent of every established order and of every historical community that is of necessity imperfect and vulnerable. Thereafter, the Gospel will be (?) the best cement for a new humanity, one that if free, equal and fraternal, built on justice, peace and liberty.» (French CRC n^o 50, November 1971, p. 12)

THE SIGN OF MALEDICTION

     «Following Rome's condemnations, the Abbé Jean-Marie would continually suffer, in the deepest part of his soul, from the folly, the waywardness and the apostasy of his brother:

     «This man of Christian action in which the grace of God was poured out on so many human endeavours, this founder of orders, this clear-sighted judge of the politics of his times, this administrator of genius, this promoter of the good in all its forms, had a kind of shard fixed in his flesh, uniting him at every moment, in the secrecy of his soul, to the Passion of his gentle Saviour. The unsparing devotion he showed everyone, especially his brother, was thus carried to the height of perfection. Having already given his brother everything, nothing remained for him but to offer himself for his redemption, in expiation for the one he loved. Yes, truly he lost everything for his brother: he lost his honour, after it had been sullied in such an unjust, crude and offensive way by the infamous accusation spread abroad by the press of heresy, republicanism and hypocritical insubordination to the teachings of Rome. He lost his very position as founder and superior of the admirable Congregation of Saint Peter. He also lost his vocation, since he did not even keep his place as a simple religious. And he lost great quantities of material possessions, which were dispersed during the judicial liquidation of the congregation. And, above all, he lost the affection of his brother who henceforth could only show him that disgraced face on which each of the vices had painted its features.» (French CRC n^o 244, June 1988, p. 25)

     Never losing heart, the Abbé Jean-Marie, with an admirable constancy, would promote, encourage and continue tender devotions to help his brother and to facilitate his return to the bosom of the Church. His correspondence provides clear evidence of this .

     Alas, on 27 February 1854, «surrounded by freemasons, he died without receiving absolution, lost in his revolt and in his dreams. He would be buried by Father Lachaise, in a common grave, in accordance with his last wishes, his last fanciful notion: to be buried with the poor. “Shouldn't a cross be laid on him? asked the gravedigger. – No!” The face of Jesus, unique hope of the people and the poor, had long since been effaced from the visions of the prophet of Liberty. The only thing that remained was his idol, that of the People or Humanity, in all its mythic grandeur.» (Letter to my friends n^o 236)

     Four months later, in June, the old Abbé Jean-Marie paid a final visit to La Chesnaie. He said Mass in the chapel where God had been absent for the last twenty years. Having made his way to the terrace with its eight linden trees and then come back, he raised his eyes towards the front of the building. The bedroom, to which Féli would never return, had its window closed and its shutters drawn. Unspeakable heartache. Stretching out his arms, he cried: « Féli! Féli! Where are you now?!» and he collapsed in the arms of his close companions.

     The vice, the guilty practice of Lamennais, in which the Abbé de Nantes saw the sign of malediction, was simony. He had made money, vast amounts of money, by selling and republishing, even after his apostasy, his original works, particularly his books of devotion: The Christian day or the way of sanctifying oneself in the world, The spiritual guide, The young person's guide, and, above all, The Imitation of Jesus Christ, which had been translated by Jean-Marie but whose copyright and author's rights had been made over by him to his brother. Now, Félicité failed to donate these monies to the poor, he did not distribute them to charitable works. Instead, he made himself a personal fortune and even had his own collection of paintings (cf. Tanguy Kenec'hdu, Lamennais, un prêtre en recherche, Téqui, 1982, p. 241-242). In short, the personal accounts of the revolutionary prophet reveal that his heart was lacking in any genuine charity.

     Although it appears vain, alas, to pray for his eternal salvation, at least we can still pray and offer sacrifices for the theologians and the pontiffs who today, o horror! follow him in his delusion.