Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility/Chapter 9

by William John Sparrow Simpson

CHAPTER IX

BOSSUET

The struggle between the Sorbonne and the Jesuits was no mere struggle between a theological school and a religious community. The universities held, in the theological controversies of those days, a position with which nothing modern exactly corresponds. They were exponents of the religious conceptions of the Church. They derived from it their principles and returned to it their inferences and suggestions. The Sorbonne was not an isolated school of independent theological speculators. It represented, generally speaking, the mind of the Church in France. Of course universities might utter conflicting decisions. But it is peculiarly true of the Sorbonne that it represented the indigenous as opposed to the imported theology of France. While the Ultramontane was Italian in origin, a foreign product, like the Jesuit, and under foreign control, the Sorbonne was typical of the traditions of the Church within the Kingdom. Its sentiments were endorsed by the Bishops. Political incidents occasioned the famous collective expression of the traditional convictions of the French Church in the Assembly of Clergy in 1682. That Assembly arose out of an unexpected collision between Louis XIV. and Pope Innocent XI, in a question of the relation between the Church and the State. The King already possessed over a portion of France the power, fully recognised at Rome, to appoint to vacant benefices and to be recipient of the revenues, during a vacancy. But he now sought to make this privilege co-extensive with the realm. The Bishops acquiesced with the exception of two—Pavilion of Aleth, and Caulet of Pamiers. Pope Innocent took their view, and upheld them against their respective Metropolitans. Thereupon Louis XIV. summoned an Assembly of Bishops and of selected Priests who, without hesitation, yielded to the King's desires. The personage selected to preach the sermon at the opening of this Assembly was Bossuet, incomparably the most important in this stage of French theological thought.

The selection testifies to the general conviction. Bossuet was highly valued alike by the King and by the Bishops. But he had a most delicate and difficult task before him. He must preach in a manner, if that were possible, to conciliate the temporal power, the episcopal power, and the papal power at Rome. He must be true to the traditional convictions of the Gallican Church, and yet not alienate the Gallicans from the Papacy, nor, if possible, offend the Pope. He must balance the temporal and spiritual power in such a manner as to satisfy Innocent without alienating the King. And never did Bossuet exhibit greater courage and dexterity.^[1] In his famous sermon, which was on Unity, he described the primacy of St Peter, and the divine selection of the one to be the centre of Unity. He set the occupants of the Roman See very high, but he did not hesitate to speak of occasions when one or two of the Popes had not sustained with sufficient constancy, or had inadequately explained the doctrines of the Faith.^[2] He even mentioned the one whom a Universal Council had condemned. This would be painful to the School of Infallibility, but it was the accepted doctrine of Catholic France. But Bossuet's magnificent conception of twelve centuries of unity, and his strenuous appeal to do nothing by which that record might be broken, or that unity endangered, must have tended greatly to conciliate and set the tone for the subsequent discussions. So far as to his first task—the papal power.

He was no less strong on the power of the Episcopate. The jurisdiction bestowed on Peter was also bestowed by Christ upon the Twelve.^[3] He said the same thing to all the Apostles.^[4] Their Commission was also immediate, direct from Christ. "One cannot imagine a power better established nor a mission more immediate." "It was manifestly the intention of Jesus Christ to bestow primarily upon one that which He ultimately willed to bestow upon many."^[5] The relation of the Pope to the Episcopate is not that he is lord over the Bishops, but one of their number, as says St Bernard.^[6] The power of the Holy See has nothing above it, says Bossuet, except the entire Catholic Church.^[7] In the calamitous times when the Pope claimed the allegiance of Christendom, it was the Episcopate, urged the preacher, which terminated the Schism and restored the Pope. They must firmly maintain these principles which the Gallican Church had found in the traditions of the Universal Church; and which the French Universities, particularly that of Paris, had taught with the full knowledge of the Roman See.

On the relation of the temporal to the spiritual power Bossuet said:—

 

"Woe to the Church when these two jurisdictions begin to regard each other with a jealous eye.^[8] Ministers of the Church and ministers of kings are both alike ministers of the King of kings, although diversely established. Why do they not remember that these functions are united, that to serve God is to serve the State, and to serve the State is to serve God? But authority is blind; authority ever aims at exalting itself, at extending itself; authority considers itself degraded when reminded of its limitations."

 

The Assembly ordered this sermon to be printed. The King was satisfied with it. Bossuet had conciliated two of the three departments, the Crown and the Episcopate. It remained to be seen how the sermon would be regarded at Rome. Bossuet sent the sermon with an explanatory letter to a friendly Cardinal.

 

"I must tell your Eminence," he wrote, "that I was forced to speak of the liberties of the Gallican Church. You will at once realise what that involved. I set before myself two things—the one, to do this without derogating from the true dignity of the Holy See; the other, to explain the Gallican principles as the Bishops understood them, and not as they are understood by the magistrates."^[9] …

"The sensitive ears of Romans ought to be respected. And I have done so most readily. Three points might wound them, namely—the temporal independence of the royal power; episcopal jurisdiction received immediately from Jesus Christ; and the authority of the Councils.

"You are well aware that in France we speak plainly on these matters, and I have endeavoured so to speak that, without wronging the doctrine of the Gallican Church, I might at the same time avoid offending the majesty of Rome. More than this cannot be expected of a Gallican Bishop whom circumstances compel to deal with points like these."^[10]

 

Bossuet's sermon, says his biographer, was received at Rome with approval, real or affected.^[11] The Assembly, however, was less successful. Subservient to the will of the temporal power, they made proposals which Rome rejected. But this antagonism between the Gallican Church and Rome led the Assembly to its reassertion of Gallican principles, in the four famous Articles of 1682. To Bossuet was ultimately entrusted the delicate task of formulating the Gallican belief as to the limits of the papal power. Bossuet, representing the Church of France, denied the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. He believed that permanence in the truth was promised to the Roman See as distinguished from its temporary occupant. He maintained that although the Pope himself might be in error, yet that error would not be inherent in the Roman See, and would be corrected by the Church in Council. Above the Pope was the Universal Church. If the Roman See were in error on the faith, it would be brought back to the truth by the other Churches. Rome would quickly perceive its error, and would never fall into heresy or schism. But he denied that Infallibility could be attributed to the occupant of the Roman See. This view was the traditional conviction of the Church of France. Accordingly, when the Assembly formulated its Declaration on the limits of papal power, it expressed itself by Bossuet's aid in the four Articles to the following effect:

1. That the Pope could not release subjects from obedience to the temporal power.^[12]

2. That the Decrees of Constance on the supreme authority of the Council remain in full force in Christendom.

3. That the independence of the Church of France must be maintained.

4. That the decisions of the Pope are not infallible.

 

"The Pope has the principal place in deciding questions of faith, and his decrees extend to every Church and all Churches; but, nevertheless, his judgment is not irreversible, until confirmed by the consent of the Church."

 

Here, then, is the essential point on the subject of Infallibility. It resides in the Universal Church, and not in the occupant of a particular See. As to this doctrine, says an able French historian, there was no real diversity of opinion in France. There existed indeed an Ultramontane party which, countenanced by certain powerful protectors, possessed a varying influence;^[13] but it never won the consent of the clergy in France, which at all times showed the strongest antipathy to Ultramontane ideas. The Declaration was signed by thirty-four Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of France. It experienced, says Bossuet's biographer, himself a Cardinal of the Roman Church, no opposition in the Kingdom.^[14] It did but reaffirm a doctrine which had been at all times dear to the University and theological Faculty of Paris.

But if this Declaration of the Assembly was congenial throughout France it was otherwise in Rome. "The Pope appointed a congregation to frame a censure of the propositions."^[15] Italian writers composed attacks upon them. One in particular was dedicated to Innocent XI., "Lord of Rome and of the World, only Keeper of the Keys of Heaven and Earth and Paradise, Infallible Oracle of the Faith." This provoked the comment of Arnauld:

 

"I pity the Holy See for possessing such defenders. It is a terrible judgment of God upon the Church if Rome adopts such methods of defence against the Bishops of France."^[16]

 

Bossuet's correspondents in Rome sent him most unfavourable reports of the probable action of the Pope.

Bossuet expressed himself very freely on the situation in a letter to the Monastery of La Trappe:—

 

"The affairs of the Church are in an evil plight. The Pope openly threatens us with denunciations and even with new Decrees. Well-intentioned mediocrity in high places is a grave misfortune."^[17]}}

 

" Your letter," wrote Bossuet to another correspondent, "presents a picture of the present state of the Roman Court which positively alarms me. Does Bellarmine really hold the chief place there? Has he become their tradition? Where are we if this is the case, and if the Pope is disposed to condemn whatever that author condemns? Hitherto they have never ventured to do it. They have never made this attack on the Council of Constance, nor on the Popes who have approved it. What shall we answer heretics when they confront us with this Council and its decrees, repeated at Basle with the express approval of Eugenius IV., and with all the other confirmatory acts of Rome? If Eugenius IV. did well in his authentic approval of these decrees, how can people attack them? And if he did wrong, what becomes, men will ask, of his Infallibility? Shall we have to elude these difficulties and escape the authority of these Decrees, and of so many others both ancient and modern, by the scholastic distinctions and miserable subtleties of Bellarmine? Must we assert with him and with Baronius that the Acts of the Sixth Council and the Letters of St Leo have been falsified? Will the Church, which has hitherto silenced heresy with solid reasons, have no better defence than these pitiful prevarications? May God preserve us from it."^[18]

 

Happily, says Cardinal Bausset, feeling at Rome quieted down; and Innocent XI. was "providentially diverted from censuring the doctrine of France. He restricted himself to rewarding, with more generosity than judgment, the numerous writers who attacked the Assembly of 1682."^[19] Not venturing to condemn the four Articles, he showed his displeasure by refusing Bulls to its members if nominated to Bishoprics. Louis XIV. retaliated by refusing to allow any Bishop to accept the papal Approval. This lasted through the pontificates of Innocent XI. and Alexander VIII. Innocent XII., says Cardinal Bausset, demanded and obtained letters of apology from the former deputies of the Assembly. They expressed their concern at his resentment, but in vague and general terms capable of various interpretations, and without any suggestion of abandoning their traditional convictions.

But when Clement XI. attempted, on the strength of these letters, to induce Louis XIV. to suppress the Assembly's propositions, Louis replied that Innocent XII. understood that his wisdom lay in not attacking principles regarded in France as fundamental and primitive, and held unaltered by the French Church over many centuries. His Holiness, said the King, is too enlightened to declare heretical what the Church of France maintains. "Innocent XII. did not ask me to abandon them," added Louis. "He knew that such a demand would be useless." And there the matter stayed. Clement XI. acquiesced, like his predecessors, in the independence of the Church in France from Ultramontane opinions.

The attack on the principles of the Church of France led Bossuet to write his greatest work—The Defence of the Declaration.^[20] Since the chief responsibility for producing the Declaration had fallen upon him, it became naturally his duty to defend it. From the year of the Assembly onward to the end of his life, some twenty years, he devoted an immensity of labour to its compilation. More than once proposals were made to publish, but reasons of State made it prudent not to offend the Pope, and the book never appeared during Bossuet's life. The MS. was left to Louis XIV., and in 1745 was printed. It is impossible in a limited space to give an adequate idea of the character of this monumental work. It is written in terse and vigorous Latin. It occupies two large 8vo. volumes of some 750 pages each. Suffice it to say that the most powerful refutation of Papal Infallibility ever published came from the pen of the most distinguished Bishop of the Church in France; from one who lived and died in communion with the Roman See. Authority never passed a censure on this work. Bossuet's Defence powerfully influenced belief in the Church in France. Many instances can be produced to show that it guided and taught the teachers of that Church down to the time of the Vatican Council itself. These volumes have proved the storehouse whence the most telling opposition to Ultramontanism has been derived.

Now the special interest is that this Defence of the Gallican Declaration was never condemned at Rome. Here is what Pope Benedict XIV., 1748, said about it:—

 

"In the time of our immediate predecessor, Clement XII., it was seriously debated whether this work ought not to be proscribed; but it was finally determined that no censure should be passed upon it. This decision was arrived at, not only out of regard for the author's memory, who in other respects so worthily served the cause of religion, but also out of just apprehension of provoking fresh dissertations and renewing the dispute."^[21]

 

A striking testimony to the powerful effect of Bossuet's treatise when it first appeared is that of his learned opponent, Cardinal Orsi:—

 

"I have heard, not only at Rome, but also in many other places, a great many persons, distinguished alike for their character, learning, and ability, declare, after careful study of this work of Bossuet, that the Roman theologians had better abandon the defence of so hopeless a cause; that it would be nobler if they would confess it frankly, since they do not see what answer they can make with any prospect of success to the historical evidence which Bossuet has collected."^[22]

 

Bossuet's personal conviction on Infallibility was the doctrine of the fourth Article of the Assembly's Declaration. He held that it requires the consent of the Church to make a papal decision on faith unalterable. He declared that whatever men may assert in theory, when it comes to practice, the final decision will inevitably depend on the consent of the Universal Church. This, says Cardinal Bausset, is exactly what occurs whenever the Ultramontanes are forced within their last entrenchments. Infallibility of the Pope ends by being only that of the Church.^[23]

Bossuet attached very little importance to objections about the practical inconvenience of Papal Fallibility.^[24] To his mind it was perfectly futile to argue that, if we must wait for the consent of the Church to a pontifical decree, we should be leaving the minds of the faithful in suspense. He considers that the true remedy is not to extend the papal power, but to exercise more faith in the Holy Spirit and the Catholic Church. It is no disparagement to the Pope if the Church be placed above him.^[25]

Similarly, the à priori argument that submission of the intellect must be due when the Pope defines a doctrine, otherwise faith would vacillate; and that such submissions can only be justified when the authority cannot err; leaves Bossuet unmoved, except to protest against the underlying assumption that unqualified submission is due.

Bossuet's survey of history from the Apostolic Age to his own time, Scripture, Fathers, Councils, Theologians, confirmed him in the truth of the principles of the Church in France. The ultimate and therefore irreversible decision in faith depended on the Collective Episcopate, and on that only; as voicing the belief of the Universal Church.

 

"What benefit to the Church," he exclaims in a striking passage, "can exist in that doubtful authority, which the Church has not yet affirmed, of a Pope's ex cathedra decisions? We live in the seventeenth century of the Catholic Church, and not yet are orthodox and saintly men agreed about that Infallibility. To say nothing of the Councils of Constance and of Basle, saintly and learned men are opposed to it. And if many private individuals clamour greatly, and pour forth imprudent censures against them, yet neither the Catholic Church nor Rome itself passes any condemnation upon them. Three hundred years we have controverted it with impunity. Has the Church waited for peace and security down to this our age, until the seventeenth century is almost at an end? Plainly, then, the security of pious souls must rest in the consent of the Universal Church. It cannot be that they should acquiesce in the doubtful Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. … A doubtful Infallibility is not that Infallibility which Christ bestowed. If He had granted it at all He would have revealed it to His Church from the very beginning. He would not have left it doubtful, inadequately revealed, nor useless for want of an indisputable tradition."^[26]

 

What made the Pope's advocacy of Ultramontane ideas additionally distressing to Bossuet and others was that in their presentation of Catholic Truth to Protestants no mention whatever had been made of Papal Infallibility as pertaining in any way to Catholic principles. In Bossuet's famous Exposition de la Doctrine Catholique, written expressly to explain the fundamental Catholic Dogmas to men of other Communions, he had spoken of "the authority of the Holy See and of the Episcopate," thus acknowledging a double power.^[27] He said that it was not necessary to speak of matters disputed in the theological schools because they formed no part in the Catholic Faith. And this Exposition was published with papal approbation.^[28] It had been singularly effective in commending the Roman Church to its opponents, and in gaining their submission. But if it was known that the Pope resented these principles, still more, if he openly ventured to condemn them as errors approximate to heresy, Protestant converts could hardly fail to retort: We submitted to the Church on the distinct assertion that no Catholic was required to believe either in the Infallibility of the Pope or in his right to depose kings.^[29] In that case we have been misguided and deceived. It is, exclaimed thoughtful French Catholics looking across to England, precisely these doctrines which are the principal cause of the persecution of Catholics there.^[30]

The publication of Bossuet's great work in 1745 may have given considerable strength to Catholicism in France of an Anti-Roman type; but other treatises show that the clergy of France were being persistently trained in similar ideas. The theological principles inculcated with the authority of the Archbishop of Lyons in 1784 in the seminaries of his diocese include the following propositions: The Roman Pontiff even when speaking ex cathedra, in matters of faith and morals, can be deceived; Bishops possess jurisdiction direct from Christ and not from the Roman Pontiff; the authority of the Roman Pontiff is inferior to that of a General Council. The principles taught at the same period in the diocese of Rouen were similar.^[31]

1. Bossuet, t. xi. p. 588.
2. Bossuet, t. xi. p. 596.
3. Ibid. p. 599.
4. Ibid. p. 600.
5. Ibid. p. 600.
6. Ibid. p. 618.
7. Ibid. p. 620.
8. Bossuet, t. xi. p. 623.
9. Ibid, p. 291.
10. Works, vol. xi. p. 292.
11. Cardinal Bausset, Hist. de Bossuet, p. 136.
12. Jervis, Hist. Ch. France, ii. p. 50.
13. Guettée, xi. p. 85.
14. Bausset, ii. p. 188.
15. Jervis, Gallican Ch. ii. p. 52.
16. Guettée, xi. p. 87.
17. Bossuet, Letter 110, t. xxvi. p. 313.
18. Bossuet's letter to M. Dirois.
19. Bausset, Hist, de Bossuet, ii. p. 197.
20. Cf. Jervis, Gallican Ch. ii. p. 56.
21. Jervis, Church of France, ii. p. 59.
22. Bausset, ii. p. 427. Orsi, De irref. R. P. jud. Preface t. i. d.
23. Ibid. ii. p. 197.
24. Bossuet, i. p. 112.
25. Ibid. i. p. 113.
26. Bossuet, t. xxi. p. 129
27. Ibid. vol. xiii. pp. 103, 104.
28. Ibid. p. 104.
29. Guettée, Histoire de l'Eglise de France, xi. p. 94.
30. Ibid. p. 95.
31. Sicard, L'Ancien Clergé de France, i. p. 425, n.