Loisy's Faith - Landshift in Catholic Thought

Loisy's Faith: Landshift in Catholic Thought Author(s): Ronald Burke Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol.
60, No. 2 (Apr., 1980), pp. 138-164 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1202393 . Accessed: 07/02/2013 10:08
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Loisy's Faith: Landshift in Catholic Thought / RonaldBurke Universityof Nebraskaat Omaha

Catholic theology has changed. It is different today from the way it was at the beginning of this century, different then from the way it was 250 years before. The more recent change has been so prolonged and remains so near at hand its measure might not be clearly noted. But a reflection of the change which continues today is found in a new perspective on the faith of Alfred Loisy. Was Alfred Loisy an atheist or a harbinger of contemporary Catholic faith? Prior to forsaking the efforts of Catholic Modernists to reform the Church, was he already an apostate and a deceit as a priest? Or was he more a prototype of intellectually honest and institutionally acceptable faith for Catholics in a post-Vatican II era? The question at first seems absurd. If the anti-Modernist documents of Rome condemned any individual's position, they condemned Loisy's. He was the very "father" of Catholic Modernism.' Loisy himself admitted he could no longer embrace any dogmas of the Church by the time he was 29 (1886) and already seven years a priest. The man to whom he once assigned responsibility to write his biography, Albert Houtin, claimed that Loisy admitted in 1907 that for the past twenty-one years (during most of which time he had been saying mass daily) he had not believed in any personal or impersonal God, in future life, or in anything supernatural or spiritual. Loisy represented Catholic Modernism until the spring of 1904. Evidence against the Catholicity of his Modernist faith is massive, almost overwhelming. It suggests that common, learned views of Loisy are correct, that he was indeed a heresiarch, unbeliever, and impostor as a priest.
'This title was assigned to Loisy by M.-J. Lagrange in M. Loisyet le modernisme (Paris: Cerf, 1932), p. 136. It was made prominent, more in praise than blame, by Loisy's Protestant admirer, Friedrich Heiler, in his valuable review of Loisy's life and writings, AlfredLoisy, der des Vater katholischen Modernismus (Munich: Erasmus Verlag, 1947). The title has endured (see 32 Roger Aubert, "Alfred Loisy, der 'Vater des Modernismus'," Orientierung [1968]: 246-49; and Tarcisio Stramare, "II Padre del Modernismo," Divinitas13 [1969]: 737-46). ? 1980 by The University of Chicago. 0022-4189/80/6002-0002$02.14
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But there have been revolutions in Catholic thought since the beginning of this century. Basic to these revolutions is a landshift in the Catholic perspective on history. For the century has witnessed the birth in Catholic circles of historical consciousness. Even earlier, at the end of the seventeenth century, in reaction to the social, political, scientific, and philosophical changes of the age, Catholic theologians replaced scholastic theology's patient quest for understandingwith a dogmatic theology which purported to provide certitude.From the unquestionable premises of scripture and tradition, these theologians proposed to deduce universal and eternal truths, supported by the authority and sanctions of the Church. This sort of theology endured for more than two centuries. But today the assertions contained in scripture and tradition are no longer unquestioned. They are seen, rather, as historical expressions of faith, facilitated and restricted in their particular formulations by the cultural milieux in which they were authored. They no longer constitute premises for irrefutable conclusions. They constitute data. The data must be viewed and interpreted historically. This work of interpretation is arduous and its results, like those of any empirical science, are at best only probable. Catholic theology has entered a new age.2 Amid this landshift in Catholic thought a new perspective on Alfred Loisy emerges. One of the things which most distinguished him from other Catholics of his day was his own historical consciousness.3 This played a fundamental role in excluding him from the Catholic social and religious institution of his time. That same important characteristic of historical consciousness, fundamental to his ostracism and condemnation, now marks the mind of almost every educated Catholic in the "modern" world. Loisy and his brand of Roman Catholic Modernism can no longer be cursorily excluded from the mainline of the Catholic tradition. He raised decisive challenges to the historical, exegetical, and theological methods employed by Catholic scholars of the day. However, more
2See Bernard Lonergan, "Theology in Its New Context," in Theologyof Renewal, ed. L. K. Shook (New York: Herder & Herder, 1968), 1:34-46. For the same point at greaterlength, see Claude Geffre, O.P., Un NouvelAge la theologie de (Paris: Cerf, 1972). 3This important aspect of Loisy's thinking was previously noted by Bernard B. Scott and by T. Howland Sanks, S.J. See Scott's introduction to the recent republication of Loisy's The and Gospel the Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), pp. xiii, xxx; see Sanks's "Cooperation, Co-optation, Condemnation: Theologians and the Magisterium 1870-1978," Chicago Studies17 (1978): 242-63, esp. pp. 252-53 (hereafter cited as "Cooperation").
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recent changes in method among Catholic historians, exegetes, and theologians bring Loisy's position of objection much closer to the mainstream of Catholic thought.4 Recent historical studies support the claim that Loisy's place in the development of contemporary Catholic thought needs to be reassessed. In this essay I shall demonstrate that these studies manifest a growing consensus among Catholic scholars regarding Modernism in general, including agreement that there were various types of Modernism which as a group can no longer be perfunctorily condemned (Sec. I). I shall also show that a foundational characteristic of Loisy's kind of Modernism, historical consciousness, is now officially accepted as a methodological principle by the Catholic Church and is embraced by Catholic exegetes and theologians at large (Sec. II). I shall further show that the historical studies suggest that although Loisy's Modernist Catholic faith had little trust in dogma, it included a sincere commitment to the principles of the Catholic religious tradition (Sec. III). Finally, having completed a critical review of these studies, I shall offer a proposal for a new and more friendly perspective on Modernist Loisy (Sec. IV).
I. CONSENSUS REGARDING ' MODERNISM
Histories of the origin of the term "Modernism" and of its use in Catholic theology previous to the papal documents of 1907 have already been written.5 Alec Vidler has summarized in the shortest space,
40ne of the most astute of North American defenders of the value of Loisy's Modernist theology has been Normand Provencher, O.M.I. He did his doctoral dissertation on Loisy's et dans theology of revelation (La revelation son diveloppement l'Eglise selonAlfredLoisy [Doctoral diss., Gregorian University, 1971]). More recently he has published the full text (with critical introduction) of the previously unpublished last chapter of Loisy's seminal apologetic work, Essais d'histoireet de philosophiereligieuses (1899 manuscript); see Provencher, "Un inedit 4 d'Alfred Loisy," Egliseet theologie (1973): 391-413. (The Essais is on file at the Bibliotheque nationale de Paris as part of the "Papiers Loisy," Nouvelles acquisitions francaises (NAFr) 15634-15667. For a list of the contents of the "Papiers," see Henri Bernard-Maitre, "Un de 57 Episode significatif du modernisme," Recherches sciencereligieuses [1969]: 49-74.) Most recently Provencher has analyzed Loisy's methods of textual interpretation in terms of an understanding of revelation less reductionistic than that of either liberal Protestants or of Catholic traditionalists(see Provencher, "Une Tentative de renouvellement de l'hermeneutique 7 biblique: Le modernisme d'Alfred Loisy," Eglise et theologie [1976]: 341-66). John Ratti has also reported the value of Loisy's Modernist theology. His praise is somewhat hidden, however, by preliminary warnings about "Modernists" in general and by references to the "humanistic religion" of the post-1904 Loisy (Ratti, ThreeModernists [New York: Sheed & Ward, 1967], pp. 3-42, 43-141). W. J. Wernz has pointed out weaknesses in Loisy's theology and criticized Ratte on several points, but he concludes that familiarity with the "necessity and enormity" of Loisy's "bold and imaginative project" to update Catholic theology "should elicit admiration and temper criticism" (see Wernz, "Loisy's 'Modernist' Writings," Downside Review92 [1974]: 25-45). 5Albert Houtin, Histoiredu modernisme catholique (Paris: Chez l'auteur, 1913), pp. 81-95; and dans Jean Riviere, Le Modernisme l'Eglise(Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1929), pp. 13-34.
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however, the official Catholic view of Modernism at the beginning of the century. According to Vidler, Pope Pius X originally referred to Modernism as the "mal francese of the Church," a friendly Italian name for venereal disease.6 Since the time of more recent popes it has become clear that the phenomenon called Modernism cannot be so univocally rejected. Three themes in various forms have come to be almost commonplace in recent research regarding Roman Catholic Modernism. (1) Modernism was a phenomenon so diverse it fits under no single informative definition. (2) The Modernist controversy erupted in a wider historical context of tension in the Catholic Church. (3) The Church's condemnations of Modernism were too imprecise and destructive to have brought any gain to theology's quest for understanding. 1. "Modernism" included a variety of persons pledged to a variety of philosophical, theological, scientific, political, and ecclesiastical positions. The label was used as grounds to dismiss country pastors and university professors, to challenge every position from immanentism in France to democracy in Italy. It was George Tyrrell who first said it: "There are as many [different] Modernisms as there are Modernists."7 Though Modernism was termed a "conspiracy" when condemned by the Holy Office and by Pope Pius X in 1907, the data available today do not fit the conspiracy portrayal.8 As more materials on Modernism have become available, agreement has increased that it was a broad and sundry historical phenomenon, with distinct characteristics in and among its various forms in France, England, Italy, the United States, and Germany.9 To appreciate the
6See Vidler, A Variety Catholic Modernists of (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 20 (hereafter cited as Variety). 7George Tyrrell, "Revelation as Experience," lecture, 1909; first published (with an historical introduction) by Thomas Loome in HeythropJournal (1971): 117-49, here p. 130. 12 8The two most important Roman documents which outlined and condemned the supposed Modernist "system" were Lamentabili SaneExitu, Decree of the Holy Office (July 3, 1907), and Pius X, Pascendi DominiciGregis, encyclical (September 8, 1907). For translation of the important Modernism sections, see Bernard M. G. Reardon, Roman Catholic (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1970), pp. 237-48 (hereafter cited as Modernism). 9Daniel Donovan, Emile Poulat, Alec Vidler, and many others have all emphasized the complexity and diversity of Modernism (see Donovan, "The Lesson of Alfred Loisy" [paper presented to the Roman Catholic Modernism Consultation of the American Academy of 15 Religion, St. Louis, 1976], later published in Ecumenist no. 1 [1976]: 5-11 [hereafter cited as "Loisy"]; see also Poulat, "Le Modernisme, d'hier a aujourd'hui," Recherches science de 59 religieuses [1971]: 161-78; and Vidler, "Autobiographical Introduction" to Variety, pp. 1-19, esp. pp. 12-19).
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variety of Modernisms, it is helpful to witness the variety of longstanding political and theological tensions which Catholics faced in these countries.10 The single unifying theme of "Modernists" was an effort to bring greater accord between the teachings and policies-social their Catholic Church and and intellectual as well as theological-of the basic themes of modern thought. 2. This endeavor for accord was not novel: Some scholars say it had been needed and sporadically attempted for 200 years. " Yet the effort was precarious, and not simply because there is a risk of apostasy in any effort to work compromise or synthesis between a Christian faith and a secular culture. It was especially dangerous at the end of the nineteenth century because the official Catholic Church of the times showed signs of a reactionary fear of being "attacked" by the theological, intellectual, and political developments of modern culture. A condemnation summarizing the feelings which eventually ruled the papacy of Pope Pius IX appeared in his Syllabus of Errors (1864), rendering anathema the very idea that "the Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile himself with, and accommodate himself to, progress, liberalism, and modern civilization."12 It was this pope who experienced in 1870 something of a reaction to the threats of the age when the bishops at the First Vatican Council declared and defined papal infallibility. In the same year he experienced the fulfillment of one modern "threat": the effective liquidation of papal temporal possessions with the fall of Rome. The next pope (1878-1903), Leo XIII, was more diplomatic than his predecessor and was more open to modernity. Yet any openings he allowed to modern sciences were very cautious and were reversed in the anti-Modernist stridency of his successor, Pius X. The intransigent
'?Publications pertaining to the variety of situations in all these countries are numerous. Examples include, regarding Europe at large, Bernhard Welte, "Zur Structurwandel der Katholischen Theologie in 19. Jahrhundert," in Auf der Spur des Ewigen (Freiburg: Herder, au Lessianum, 1965), pp. 380-408, and Edgar Hocedez, Histoirede la theologie XIX siecle,Museum Section Theologique no. 43, 3 vols. (Brussels: Edeticus universelle, S.A., 1947-52); regarding France, Bernard M. G. Reardon, Liberalismand Tradition:Aspects of Catholic Thoughtin France Nineteenth-Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); regarding Germany, in Alec Dru, The Church the Nineteenth 1800-1918 (London: Burns & Oates, Century: Germany e Cattolicoin Italia 1963); and regarding Italy, Pietro Scoppola, Crisi Modernista rinnovamento (Bologna: II Mulino, 1961), and Edward Grace, "The Vatican and Italian Politics," Ecumenist 15, no. 1(1976): 1-5. "The point has been made by both Alec Dru and Nicholas Lash; see Dru, "Modernism and the Present Position of the Church," Downside Review 82 (1964): 103-110; and Lash, "Modernism, Aggiornamento and the Night Battle" (paper presented at the meeting of the Nineteenth-Century Group of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, 1977; also in Theology Papersof theNineteenth-Century Working Group,ed. James Livingston [Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union, 1977]). '2This oft-cited passage is taken from Reardon, Modernism, 13. p.
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policies of his papacy were previewed in the year of his election, 1903, with the publication of his December syllabus of nineteen modern errors.'3 The power of the anti-Modernist Curia grew in these years and, although exaggerated perhaps by some, became very effective in exterminating deviations from orthodoxy.14 3. Amid the division in the Church between those who sought and those who opposed modern changes, many Catholics, priests and laity alike, were writing and doing things which contradicted official Catholic policies and inherited understandings of Catholic faith. There were indeed some in this heterogeneous group who did go to heretical extremes and merited excommunication from the Church. Yet there were others, like Baron Friedrich von Hiigel, whose primary intention was but to understand and continue the Catholic tradition.'5 Hence the label of "Modernist" cannot be used as identical with perfidy. Roger Aubert has proposed a comparison for the blend of orthodoxy and heresy in the Modernist phenomenon: "Jansenism in the seventeenth century was only the extreme fringe of a vast Augustinian movement that was often perfectly orthodox and sometimes simply imprudent, so at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century there was in the Catholic Church a movement of intellectual renewal which took at certain moments and in certain of its representatives a direction that was clearly heretical, but which in itself was legitimate and healthy."16 Unlike the Augustinian movement, however, in the malfrancesethe church saw nothing healthy at all. Without any apparent
'3For a report of how these policies pertained particularly to Alfred Loisy, see Francesco Turvasi, The Condemnation A. Loisy and the HistoricalMethod(Rome: Edizioni di storia e of letturatura, 1978). I obtained this valuable report too late for use in the following study. 4Two important books on official opposition to Modernism are by Emile Poulat and Lorenzo Bedeschi. In his Intigrisme et CatholicismeIntegral: Un reseau secret international la antimoderniste, "Sapiniere" (1909-1921) (Paris: Editions Casterman, 1969), Poulat published the best-to-date documentation of an arm of the Curia, the feared organization of Catholic Integralists called the SodalitumPianum or Sapiniere. These documents included letters, confidential circulars, two dictionaries of code names, and more. His lengthy footnotes help to reckon the real but limited power of this group. There were never more than 100 members and less than ten were truly active. They were led by the Curial Msgr. Umberto Benigni, from first to last (1909-21), and dedicated always to uncovering and eliminating any manifestations of unorthodoxy. Almost as important is Bedeschi's work, La Curia Romana durantela crisi Modernisto (Parma: Ugo Guanda Editore, 1968). It includes numerous new documents and sociological data (as well as too much rumor and gossip), arguing that during and because of the Modernist crisis the Roman Curia centralized Church administration and gained too much power, making even the pope subordinate to it. Though this conclusion is overstated, the argument is convincing that Church historians must give the Curia more solid study. 15See my "An Orthodox Modernist with a Modern View of Truth," Journal of Religion57 (1977): 124-43. "6The comparison was proposed by Aubert in Revued'histoire 58 ecclesiastique (1963): 645; it is taken here as quoted by Donovan in "Loisy," p. 6.
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attempt to distinguish what might be helpful and necessary from what was most dangerous in this movement, the whole phenomenon was broadly, abruptly, and heavy handedly condemned. Some Modernists had experimented with dangerous kinds of theologies which at least bordered on agnosticism, immanentism, and the dissolution of distinctions between the natural and the supernatural. Yet some of those who initiated such explorations were offering in good faith tentative responses to challenges posed to Catholic beliefs by natural sciences, modern philosophies, and historical consciousness. Many of these ideas have since been incorporated into later and accepted theologies. The sweeping and militant condemnations of these Modernist hypotheses at best postponed the intelligent Catholic discussion of modern questions placed on the doorstep of Christian faith. '7 Because the records of the papacy during the reign of Pius X are not yet available, the Vatican's perspective on this controversy has not yet been fully heard. It should be noted, however, that records of at least the preludes to the crisis are now available for examination. Opened usually by whole pontificates, and until 1978 open only through that of Pius IX (died 1878), records in the Vatican Archives for the entire pontificate of Leo XIII (died 1903) are now available. Since they are still largely uncataloged, they may remain difficult to use for some
time.
18
New documents from papal files can hardly alter, however, the three conclusions now generally agreed upon. (1) Whether or not perceived by the papacy and Curia, there were significant differences among persons known as Modernists. (2) New evidence can only underscore the fact that the papacy was beset with serious problems and strident division on many fronts in the late 1980s and early 1900s. This was a painful time of transition in Catholic history. Vatican documents will reflect these tensions and in that sense help to explain why the Modernist movement became so severe a crisis. (3) Lament properly belongs to the way in which the efforts of Modernists were arrested. Full justification for the Church's actions should not be expected. This may well come to be seen as an instance of the sinful and human character of
1974 Supplement '7In The CatholicEncyclopedia, (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1974), John Heaney spoke of the "short-term gains" and "long-term losses" of the condemnation of Modernism (pp. 299-300). Similar mixed evaluations have been formulated by Karl Rahner and Eduard Schillebeeckx. T. Howland Sanks concluded, "It is fair to say that the magisterium in this case was harsh and overreacted, and, as Vidler remarks, 'a reign of doctrinal terrorwas maintained ..."' (see "Cooperation" [n. 3 above]). '8Mary Jo Weaver's reference to a "present 100-year rule" before Vatican documents are available for study is ambiguous and misleading (see her otherwise informative "Wilfrid Ward, Review [1978]: 21-34, here p. 21). 96 George Tyrrell and the Meanings of Modernism," Downside
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Loisy's Faith the graced and enduring Church.19 In this instance, with whatever true and false excuses there may have been, the official position of the Church defended a deaf-earedhierarchyand an ideology of intellectual
mediocrity.
II. HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN METHOD
The critical historical study of Catholic scriptures is a telling instance of the degree of change that has come to Catholic thought in the twentieth century. At the beginning of the century such study was introduced, resisted, and rejected. It was seen to contradict the theme that the Bible was divinely inspired. But by 1943 it was officially, though cautiously, accepted in the encyclical of Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu.By 1955 certain restrictions on the critic were lifted by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the same commission which had itself earlier imposed them. By 1964 criticism was fully encouraged in the commission's "Instruction on the Historical Truth of the
Gospels.
''20
Today criticism is presumed among Catholic biblical scholars and required in Catholic seminaries. Attitudes toward Loisy's own methods of biblical criticism must be altered along with this general policy change. The great majority of Loisy's writings were in the area of biblical criticism. In this field he introduced, before Bultmann (whose early writings made considerable use of Loisy's), the principle of form criticism.21 In practical terms, the principle meant for him that the Gospels were not so much records as interpretationsof what Jesus had done and said, interpretations written from the faith-influenced
'9Hans Kiing's words of a wider reference apply to the condemnation of Modernism: "The Church is a sinful Church . . [and] a part of the history of mankind: rich yet impoverished, . wide-ranging yet narrow, grand and yet petty . . . in a constant state of re-formation throughout its two thousand years of history. . . . [Yet] we cannot honestly regard as inevitable all the lack of feeling the Church and its representatives have shown towards the needs of mankind .... There is nothing inevitable about all the warnout apologetics and lazy excuses designed to maintain the statusquo ... There is an evil at work here which is far greater than the failure of individual human beings, a force which can only be described as demonic" (The Church [1967; reprint ed., Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1976], pp. 412-14. 20For the particulars of the instruction see Joseph Fitzmeyer, "The Biblical Commission's Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels," Theological Studies25 (1964): 386-408. For broader summaries of the revolution in Catholic criticism, see Keith D. Stephenson, "Roman Catholic Biblical Scholarship: Its Ecclesiastical Context in the Past Hundred Years," Encounter 33 (1972): 303-38; and Raymond E. Brown in his introduction to The VirginalConception and BodilyResurrection ofJesus(New York: Paulist Press, 1973), pp. 3-5. 21SeeRosemary Reuther's "Loisy: History and Commitment," Continuum (1965): 152-67. 3 Diether Hoffman-Axthelm made similar points in his lengthy discussion of Loisy's contributions to biblical criticism (see his "Loisy's 'L'Evangile et l'Eglise,' Besichtigung eines und 65 ftr zeitgenossischen Schlachtfeldes," Zeitschrift Theologie Kirche [1968]: 291-328).
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III. LOISY S MODERNIST FAITH
The character of Loisy's faith has been debated since at least the time of the censure of his writings in 1904.24 Since the beginning of the
22MacRae's address was published in Theology Digest24 (1976): 338-48, here p. 346. 23Translation of ecclesiastical documents which acknowledge the historical dependency of on dogma has been provided by Raymond E. Brown, BiblicalReflections CrisesFacingthe Church (New York: Paulist Press, 1974), pp. 109-18. 24For random examples of common Catholic criticisms of Loisy (not treated in this article and less well documented than the ones that are), see Jean Levie, "La Defection d'Alfred 2d Loisy," Sous lesyeux de l'incroyant, ed. (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1946); Louis de Lacger, "Mgr. Mignot et Loisy," in Revue d'historiede l'Eglise de France 19 (1933): 161-205; and E. E. Y. Hales, The Church the ModernWorld(Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1958). in For defenses of Loisy, also not treated here, see four works by his contemporary and friend, Maude Petre: AlfredLoisy:His ReligiousSignificance(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 29 1944), esp. chap. 2; "M. Loisy's Autobiography," HibbertJournal (1930-31): 655-66; "A Comment on M. Loisy's Articles," ibid., 36 (1937-38): 530-33; and "Alfred Loisy (1857-
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Church's long condemnation of Modernism, he has become something of a scapegoat for modern challenges to a conservative Church. His name has remained taboo as a source for Catholic thought. But recent studies suggest that despite the acerbity of some charges against him, he may well have been a person of honest faith, at least until the time he was effectively excluded from the community of the Church in 1904. Loisy 's A utobiographies Loisy told his own story of his life and faith in two autobiographies, Chosespasseesof 1913 and the three-volume Memoires 1'histoire pour servir"a of religieusede notretemps25 1930-31. Both autobiographies told a story based on Loisy's memory, substantiated by extracts from his letters and his journals. Dispute regarding the character of his life and faith is in part a debate regarding the accuracy of the picture of Loisy drawn in these autobiographies. In the two autobiographies Loisy presented himself as a Catholic priest and scholar, troubled by historical consciousness and opposed in his efforts to update the Church's faith to meet the demands of historical science. Both autobiographies frankly admit that after his early ordination at 22 (1879), and at least by age 29 (1886), his study of history had led him to disavow claims to the absolute and unchanging truthfulness of scripture and dogma.26 Yet the autobiographies also assert that this did not lessen his love for the Church. He saw the Church as the irreplaceable spiritual tutor of humanity.27 Loisy recalled that he long felt alienated from the authoritarian form of the Church's teachings, and he felt isolated in this alienation, forced to retreat to "purely academic" scholarship. But in the mid-1890s a hope to help update the Church was rekindled, partly by new responsibilities as chaplain at a convent and girl's high school in Neuilly (a suburb of Paris), partly by the papacy of Leo XIII (who seemed somewhat more open than his predecessor, Pius IX, to modern
1940)," ibid., 39 (1940-41): 5-14. See also Joseph Bonsirven, "Loisy," in Supplement au dictionnaire de la Bible (Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1957), 1:530-44; and Oskar Schroeder's Aufbruch und Missverstiindnis: Zur Geschichteder reformkatholischen Bewegung (Vienna: Styria, 1969) (the chapter on Loisy depends heavily on Petre's work). 25Alfred Loisy, Choses passies (Paris: Emile Nourry, 1913). Quotes below are taken from the authorized English translation by Richard Wilson Boynton, My Duel with the Vatican (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1924) (hereafter cited as My Duel). Alfred Loisy, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire religieuse de notre temps, 3 vols. (Paris: Emile Nourry, 1930-31); vol. 1 covers the years 1857-1900; vol. 2, 1900-1908; and vol. 3, 1908-27 (hereafter cited as Memoires). 26See My Duel, pp. 92-106; and Memoires, 1: 147-55. 27Various places in both autobiographies, but as a summary of 1895-99, see My Duel, p. 168, and Memoires, 1:443-44.
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scholarship), and partly by a new friendship with a fellow advocate of change, Baron Friedrich von Higel.28 According to the autobiographies, it was not until age 47 (1904) that Loisy's dedication to changing the Church was spent. The opposition and reaction his efforts aroused in the Church finally exhausted his hope in that institution's future. But even then, it was suggested, there survived in him a confidence in a transcendent Mystery, historically incarnated and articulated in the person of Jesus, long vivifying the religious tradition Jesus had appropriated and transformed. Dedication to this transcendent Mystery, dulled for a time, later grew and flourished in Loisy as he grew further from the Church which previously had both supported and restricted his life and work. The story Loisy told of himself in the autobiographies was not the same as one told of him by many others. Most came to see him as a heresiarch and total apostate. Even many who, like him, desired changes in the Church found cause to criticize him. Jean Riviere, moderate and scholarly throughout his classic history of Modernism, argued that the direction of change advocated by the excommunicated Loisy was too extreme.29 Riviere wanted clearly to distinguish the condemned Loisy from his own champion of change, his teacher at Toulouse, Pierre Batiffol. But an instance of more drastic charges made against Loisy's faith was that of a long-time associate and onetime friend.
Houtin and Sartiaux Albert Houtin (1867-1926), a defrocked priest like Loisy and his junior by ten years, had once been something of Loisy's disciple and seemingly close, if not intimate, friend. It was to Houtin that Loisy, amid his illness of 1907, had assigned (in case of his imminent death) the task of publishing his almost completed work, Les Evangiles synoptiques.And to him he gave materials and responsibility for writing, in that case, his biography.
28The possible value of the theology Loisy composed at this time has been suggested by Richard Resch. In his analysis of correspondence between Loisy and Maurice Blondel, Resch found that what Loisy rejected was not a high christology but false sorts of Catholic history which studied the past primarily to confirm traditional theological assertions (see Resch, "History and Dogma and Individual Psychology," Journal of Religion 59 (1979): 35-55; see also n. 4 above). 29Riviere (n. 5 above).
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It was the younger and healthier Houtin, however, who died first, on July 28, 1926. From Houtin's executor, Felix Sartiaux, Loisy was surprised to learn in October of 1927 that Houtin had proceeded with a biography, one to be published only after Loisy's death. And when Sartiaux published in December of 1928 Houtin's short portrait of an anonymous priest, entitled "Chez un tacticien," Loisy saw not only that he was the subject but also that he was defamed as a hypocritical priest. Fears regarding the full biography mounted in Loisy.30 In 1960, twenty years after Loisy's death, Houtin's La Vie d'Alfred Loisy was published.31 Its publication had been delayed by Loisy's long life (he did not die until eighty-three as the Germans approached Paris in 1940), by the war, by Sartiaux's death in 1944 (only on the eve of liberation), and by the distractions of the postwar years. But Houtin's charges finally appeared in the book. Houtin claimed that in the spring of 1907, when Loisy had been so ill and had asked him to write his biography (and see his Les Evangiles synoptiquesthrough to publication in case of his death), he had also made a surprising confession to him. He gave him papers to aid the biography but knew these did not contain all his thinking. So he purportedly explained that he did not believe in a personal God or in any impersonal or "myriadpersonal" one; he believed neither in gods nor in future life. Nothing supernatural or spiritual existed for him. Even free will was an illusion. And all this had been the way he felt for twenty-one years. Houtin said he was violently repelled by this confession. It was Loisy's faith which had previously kept him in the Church. He felt duped. Only that fact that Loisy had also duped so many others was offered to explain why Houtin did not tell Loisy immediately (or ever after) how he felt. Rather, he accepted responsibility for the biography and for publishing Les Evangiles (Loisy, pp. 157-60).
30The portrait of an anonymous Loisy first appeared as one of a series of "silhouettes of clerics" in part of Houtin's two-volume autobiography, entitled Mon experience. II: Ma vie laique (1912-1926). Documents et souvenirs (Paris: Rieder, 1928), pp. 155-61. The same portrait later appeared as part of a chapter in the full Loisy biography (Emile Poulat, Alfred Loisy. Sa vie, son oeuvre, par Albert Houtin et Felix Sartiaux [Paris: Editions du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1960]; pp. 93-96 (hereafter cited as Loisy). For two versions of the story of Loisy's growing dislike for Houtin and Sartiaux after the death of the former, see Memoires, 3:501-16 and Loisy (Sartiaux's version) pp. 254-61. 31Houtin's La Vie d'Alfred Loisy appears in Poulat's Loisy. Poulat has included in this volume a comprehensive bibliography of Loisy's sixty books and more than 200 articles, as well as a bio-bibliographical index of some 412 names (including pseudonyms), intended especially to clarify references by Houtin and Sartiaux to persons perhaps important to the Modernist years but commonly forgotten.
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The charge was, then, that Loisy was a fraud. His only motivation from the time he was eleven was a passion for personal glory. He held faith in nothing spiritual or supernatural. Besides his own glory, the study of history was his only dedication. His membership in the Catholic clergy and his supposed hope to change the Church were but facades and tactics to encourage that glory. Houtin's view was complimented by that of the executor of his will, Felix Sartiaux. Sartiaux had known Loisy since 1910 and had attended some of his lectures at the prestigious College de France, where he was professor of the history of religions, after his 1908 excommunication, from 1909 to 1932. Upon Houtin's death, Sartiaux had received all Houtin's papers, including the critical biography. He had agreed with Houtin's charges and composed his own extension of the biography, L'Oeuvre d'Alfred Loisy.32 In this work he analyzed Loisy's writings from the time of his excommunication. He compared them to contemporary developments in philosophy and exegesis. He claimed that Loisy's unbelief had continued, and he charged that Loisy's two autobiographies were both fabrications, written primarily to contest the despicable image Loisy knew that he would acquire if all the facts were honestly presented-as they would be by Houtin (Loisy, pp. 254-61). Emile Poulat It was the assiduous scholar of French Modernism, Emile Poulat, who in published Houtin's La vie and Sartiaux's L 'Oeuvre a single volume in 1960. Poulat's motive in bringing the two to publication was not that he felt they alone presented the accurate and definitive picture of Loisy. Poulat has twice admitted his puzzlement in regard to the character of Loisy's personal faith, finding his spirit "supple" to the point of being insaisissable.33But Poulat sought to facilitate rigorous investigation of the whole phenomenon of Modernism in France and felt these documents were important sources. They offered details and firsthand testimony regarding Loisy and his times. Poulat encouraged other persons to make available any similar documents for study (Loisy, p. vi). Although Poulat gave very little introduction to the lengthy works by Houtin and Sartiaux, he praised them for the information they
L'Oeuvre d'Alfred Loisy also appears in Loisy. 3Poulat noted that "Loisy est un homme insaisissable" at a conference on Henri Bremond in 1965 (see Entretiens sur Henri Bremond, ed. Maurice Nedoncelle and Jean Dagens [Paris: Mouton, 1967], p. 92). He had earlier written a similar comment, that Loisy is an "esprit souple jusqu'a paraitre insaisissable" in the introduction to his Loisy (p. vii).
32Sartiaux's
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Loisy's Faith supplied and suggested three interrelated factors which at least contributed to Houtin's negative judments on Loisy. First, although Loisy and Houtin were cohorts in the Modernist campaign, and were both priests and then defrocked priests, they were almost opposites in character and sensibilities. Loisy's spirit was complex, always fascinated by nuance and mystery. Houtin was rigid, opposed to mystifications, seeking total truth and the simplification of confusion (Loisy, p. viii). Second, both originally attempted to discount their fundamental differences in temperament and expectations. But these differences led them further and further apart in their intellectual developments. Differences were recorded at their first encounter and returned throughout their careers (Loisy, p. vii). Third, Houtin had originally come to Loisy, in 1901, as a student to a master, as a person troubled by the historical discoveries and challenges to accepted teachings of the Church which his own study of history had brought. He sought from the man he saw as the "master of truth" an explanatory truth, something simple and immediate. The supple and complex Loisy had then and ever after no such truth to offer (Loisy, p. vii). There may well have been, Poulat suggested, a deep-seated and developing animosity between Houtin and Loisy. Even though they were close associates for many years, they may have repressed ill will toward each other because together they battled against the larger and more obvious opposition of conservative and reactionary Catholicism. Partly because of the latent animosity between the two scholars, Poulat felt, Houtin's picture of Loisy needed to be published. Because it was so different from Loisy's own it had to be made available for close comparison. The two pictures balanced and competed with each other like the two wings of a diptych, reflecting something of the enigma of Loisy's character and faith (Loisy, pp. vii, ix). In his preface Poulat accepted as a suspicion (though not as a final judgment) Sartiaux's claim that Loisy had written the Memoires because he learned after Houtin's death in 1926 that a biography had been written and because he became obsessed with fear of the picture of himself that would be revealed (Loisy, p. viii). Later, in 1962, Poulat published a very important review of the controversy surrounding Loisy. In his Histoire, dogmeet critiquedans la crise moderniste34 was still of the opinion that fear of Houtin's La Vie he
34Emile Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (1962; reprint ed., Paris: Casterman, 1979) (hereafter cited as Histoire; available through Continental Books, Long Island, NY 11101). The work is irreplaceable for scholarly investigation of Loisy's L'Evangile et I'Eglise (1902), his Autour d'une petit livre (1903), and reactions to both. Although the book was titled vol. 1, the intended later volume regarding Eduard LeRoy has not yet appeared.
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was of primary significance in Loisy's decision to write the Memoires (Histoire, p. 318). This opinion, though not decisive, would render the contents of the Memoires more suspect in regard to their honesty and objectivity. It is important to note, however, that by the time of his introduction to another manuscript regarding Loisy, published in 1972, Poulat had changed his opinion.35 There he wrote it was not the defamatory chapter about an unnamed priest that led Loisy to write the Memoires; it was the fact that after the 1925 death of his long-time friend, Baron von Hiigel, Loisy learned that his voluminous correspondence with the baron had been preserved and would be returned to him. This would give him data to augment his journals and allow him to complete an autobiography. Hence the first two volumes of the Memoires were indeed finished even before "Chez un tacticien" appeared in December 1928. And it was this portrait, Poulat proposed, which "explains the irritated tone of the third volume, so different from the other two, especially in regard to Houtin and Sartiaux" (Une Oeuvre,pp. 24-25). Thus, on one hand, according to Poulat's investigation, the Memoireswere not primarily a fabricated response to Houtin, certainly not in the case of the first two volumes (which review Loisy's life from 1857 to 1900 and 1900 to 1908). On the other hand, even though the third volume does show exceptional "irritation," the possibility is not precluded that Loisy had a suspicion that Houtin had writtin a biography and that it would be disparaging of him even before the publication of the anonymous portrait (December 1928) and before he began the Memoires(in December 1926). To whatever degree this is the case, all three volumes doubtless were tinted by Loisy's own vision of himself, a vision which has been evaluated not only by Houtin and Sartiaux but also by others. The question remains open, Who was Loisy and what was his faith? Responses to this question quite respectful of Loisy have come to dominate recent Catholic histories.
Guerin Responses to the works by Houtin and Sartiaux, like earlier responses to Loisy's life and autobiographies, were mixed. Three years previous
35Uomini e Dottrini (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1952-), vol. 19, Une Oeuvre clandestine d'Henri Bremond: Sylvain Leblanc, un clerc qui n'a pas trahi. Alfred Loisy d'apres ses memoires, 1931, ed. Emile Poulat (1972) (hereafter cited as Une Oeuvre).
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to the Houtin-Sartiaux publication, on the centenary of Loisy's birth (1957), Pierre Guerin had written a long defense of Loisy's enduring faith, developing his case from almost 180 passages from Loisy's Memoires and other writings.36 In response to the new publication, he said he found the works to be "scholarly, detailed, and interesting" but felt their disparagement of Loisy was not justified.7 He asked how the authors could be so sure Loisy was an "atheist priest" when they also described him as "a subtle and complicated spirit." Could they know he was an atheist simply because he had rejected the rigid categories used by the Church to describe God ("La Vie," p. 334)? Guerin, like Poulat, felt Houtin was bound to criticize Loisy because their personalities were so opposed. Houtin had no "finesse," did not understand nuance, judged things according to narrow categories, and simplified positions despite their irreducible complexity and subtlety ("La Vie," p. 336). Loisy was the opposite, an example of flexibility, complexity, and nuance. Houtin soon left the Church because he lost faith that it could ever adopt an honest apologetic. Loisy long remained, not because he sought acclaim but because he felt that despite all the Church's faults and needs for reform, there was no better institutional possibility available for meeting the inherent and universal religious needs of humanity ("La Vie," p. 335). Houtin had made the mistake, Guerin felt, of equating the rejection of dogma with total unbelief and absolute deceit. Loisy had not claimed to be a Catholic in the same sense as the pope. He had been a Catholic much less tied to traditional orthodoxy but a true and sincere Christian who loved the Church nonetheless. His greatest contribution to the Church, Guerin felt, was neither his exegetical efforts nor his historical synthesis. It was the distinction he introduced and embodied between true religious faith and total surrender to a dogmatic tradition ("La Vie," p. 342). Guerin also criticized Sartiaux's use of Loisy's works. He felt that Sartiaux's quotes from Loisy's writings in the philosophy of religion, from his conversations and his private letters, proved little if anything. They only suggested that with narrow enough definitions of religion and of God, and with enough private words, anyone could be proved an irreligious atheist ("La Vie," pp. 338-39). In opposition to Sartiaux's exegesis of Loisy's writings, and referring to his own previous article, Guerin remained convinced that throughout his life Loisy was a person of sincere "mystical" faith (" La Vie," p. 341).
36Pierre Guerin, "La Pensee religieuse d'Alfred Loisy," Revue d'histoireet de philosophie 37 religieuses (1957): 294-330. 37Pierre Guerin, "La Vie et l'oeuvre de Loisy a propos d'un ouvrage recent," Revue d'histoire dephilosophie et 41 religieuses (1961): 334-43 (hereafter cited as "La Vie").
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The Journal of Religion Aubert In his review of literature on the Modernist movement, Roger Aubert gave important place to Poulat's publication of Houtin's La Vie and Sartiaux's L'Oeuvre.38 Aubert realized this was not the definitive word on Loisy's faith or unbelief. He mentioned its publication was but part of Poulat's admirable effort to provide complete documentation of the Modernist crisis in France. Yet he did draw two derogatory conclusions regarding Loisy. The new publication shed "unexpected light" on the circumstances in which Loisy had produced his Memoires.The fact that Loisy (according to Sartiaux) wrote the work in anticipation of Houtin's La Vie did cause it to look more like "an artificial reconstruction of his religious development" ("Literature," p. 92). Second, Houtin's and Sartiaux's combined testimony, though biased as that of "two disappointed admirers," shed "new light" on Loisy's personality. "What emerges most clearly is the touchiness, short temper, vindictiveness and pitiless egocentricity of this desk-bound intellectual, not to mention his vanity over honors in the intellectual sphere, his taste for extremely flexible formulas of compromise and, above all, his special capacity for assimilation and adaptation rather than creation" ("Literature," p. 93). In neither conclusion did Aubert affirm the primary and formidable charge that Loisy was an atheistic and fradulent priest. Even his comment regarding the Memoires did not say their contents had been proved false but only that the reported circumstances of their production rendered them suspicious. Yet Aubert's repeated use of the truthconnoting term of new or unexpected "light," as well as his recital without rejoinder to the long litany of Loisy's supposed personality faults, did suggest some agreement with the Houtin-Sartiaux position. Vidler Alec Vidler, an Anglican Catholic priest and long-time scholar of Modernism, took Aubert's report to be more than just the suggestion of partial agreement with the Houtin-Sartiaux position. He feared that this "judicious and liberal minded" Roman Catholic historian had "swallowed Houtin-Sartiaux more or less whole"; so as part of the Oxford Sarum lectures of 1968-69 he undertook a reexamination of Loisy.39
vol. 17, 38Roger Aubert, "Recent Literature on the Modernist Movement," in Concilium, Historical ed. Investigations, Rogert Aubert (Glen Rock, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1966), pp. 91-108, esp. pp. 92-93 (hereafter cited as "Literature"). 39Publishedas Vidler's Variety 6 above). (n.
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Loisy's Faith Vidler began with the admission that people are always difficult to understand (Variety, pp. 21-22; unless otherwise specified the following page numbers are from Variety).He agreed with Poulat that Loisy was "extraordinarily elusive" (p. 40). But he also admitted that he had honored Loisy's name and writings ever since he began his study of theology in the 1920s. In 1931 and again in 1938 he had visited him and remembered being impressed both times by his candor and faith (even though he had lost his notes of the second visit) (pp. 1-6). Loisy was "a contentious figure" and had disconcerted even his friends with the frankness of both his autobiographies (p. 23). Some of the charges against him, however, were of the sort "hardly to be regarded as morally culpable or as a grave blot on his character" (p. 29). Like so many others he may have been to some degree egotistical, and he may have tried somewhat to hide his ambitions (p. 31). But Houtin and Sartiaux had so searched for wickedness in Loisy's case and so grossly exaggerated what they had found that the total effect, Vidler felt, was to bring the greater discredit on themselves (p. 32). Taking a look at the standpoint of Houtin, Vidler found that his life (in some ways similar to that of fellow expriest Loisy) had shown signs of the duplicity he had charged to his friend: wearing the soutane for nine years after being denied the right to celebrate the mass (p. 25) and not apprising Loisy of how upset he was by his (supposed) personal confession (p. 34). Further, Houtin's writings contained so many scurrilous comments regarding other clerics that Vidler was not the first to find him preoccupied with debunking the clergy (pp. 32-33). Whether or not Loisy had ever told Houtin personally about his 1886 crisis of faith (and Vidler gave evidence for doubting he had [pp. 34-35]), he was certainly public enough about it in his later autobiographies. The question in dispute was not whether Loisy had lost confidence in dogmas or, eventually, in the Church itself. Certainly and quite early he lost faith in the adequacy of dogmas, and even Vidler was sure that he also lost faith in the Church, to a degree and for a time. But this latter loss of faith occurred only after the emotional battering he received in 1904 in response to his Modernist efforts and his books. The question was whether Loisy was still enough a person of faith, from 1886 to 1904, to be honestly then a part of Catholic efforts within the Church to change it. Vidler brought to mind the testimony of a man who was in close touch with Loisy during the contested period, often walking and talking with him at the turn of the century-Abbe Felix Klein. Klein was sure that to the end of this period Loisy had retained what was essential to Catholic faith (p. 46). Even Loisy's Jesuit critic, Jean Levie, admitted that any Catholic could be most proud of much that Loisy 155
The Journal of Religion had written in his 1903 commentary on John (p. 51). Through these years Loisy had retained the respect and friendship of Mgr. EudoxeIrenee Mignot, Baron von Hiigel, and Maude Petre (p. 55). Vidler trusted their testimonies more than those of Houtin and Sartiaux. Further, in later commenting on his 1902 L 'Evangileet I'Eglise, Loisy claimed that he had not called into question, either in private thought or in the book, the existence of God (p. 53). In a letter of the same year he had shown a strong christology: "Jesus is more God than the Church of Nicaea said .... The outcome of historical research regarding Christian origins will be a more real, intimate and profound conception of the divinity of Christ and of his vivifying action, not the evacuation of Catholic dogmas" (p. 54). More than to any quotations, however, Vidler's attempt to resolve the enigma of Loisy's faith turned him to another man's book.
Bremond Vidler introduced a "little" and "little known" book that he had read when it was first published in 1931. The book was Un Clercqui n'a pas trahi, an evaluation of Loisy's Memoires.Vidler had accepted the author to be an unknown "Sylvain Leblanc." Later, apparently in 1960, he had learned the book was actually written by a friend of Loisy's, Henri Bremond, a former Jesuit and a noted historian, one who had stayed only on the "noncombatant" fringes of the Modernist controversy (pp. 41-42).40 Bremond proposed that Loisy was a "cleric without deception" in two senses. He was always both an authentic priest and an honest scholar of history. Though devoted to scientific, historical criticism, he was also constantly dedicated to the service of religion and the religious well-being of mankind. Neither role was allowed to compromise the
other.41
Loisy had certainly abandoned "dogmatic" Catholic faith, as Bremond termed it, meaning total acceptance of revealed dogmas claimed infallible and immutably true by the Church. But what replaced this was not unbelief and atheism but "mystical" faith. This latter faith, Bremond explained, was far less confident in the adequacy of the Church's metaphysical and dogmatic formulas. Yet it included an allegiance and devotion to the Church as witness to and guardian of the spiritual and moral education and guidance of humanity.
40More recently, this book has been republished, again through the efforts of Emile Poulat, and it includes his introduction, referred to above (see also n. 34 above). 41Une Oeuvre, pp. 117-19, 159-61; pp. vii-ix, 61-65 in the original Leblanc Un Clerc, noted in the columns of the new edition.
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Loisy had begun to lose dogmatic faith as early as 1886 but had retained a sincere mystical faith, with a strong love for the Church, until much later. This love was only finally stamped out-and even then perhaps only for a time-at some point in the series of blows Loisy received from the Pian Church. These blows began most decisively in the spring of 1904 with a letter from Pius X which denied the sincerity of Loisy's acceptance of the authority of the Church. They included his excommunication in 1908 ("to be personally and professionally avoided by all Catholics") and extended to the grim condemnation of the Sillon in 1910.42 Composed by another contemporary and friend of Loisy's, Bremond's book offered strong opposition to the sort of critical judgment against Loisy authored by Houtin and Sartiaux.
De Boyer Just before the publication of Vidler's book, and four years before the republication of Bremond's (which Vidler used to explain Loisy), another work was published which dealt with Loisy's faith. Alfred was written by a friend, Raymond de Loisy. Entre lafoi et 1'incroyance, de Saint Suzanne, who knew Loisy through 200 letters and Boyer many visits during twenty of the last twenty-three years of his life
(1917-37).43
De Boyer found the text of Houtin-Sartiaux to be "bubbling with documents and precise information." "But for my part I don't think it renders an accurate account of Loisy's religious personality" (Alfred Loisy, p. 230). De Boyer testified he had found in Loisy a profound and still-developing "religious sensibility." He offered evidence of this in the form of numerous citations, often from previously unpublished letters, long extracts of which he provided in an appendix (AlfredLoisy, pp. 179-216). Though Loisy's whole life was reviewed, the most interesting new data pertained to his later years, when he devoted himself to "meditation affective" (Alfred Loisy, pp. 141-44) and affirmed, despite earlier hesitations about the inadequacy of words, that God was "un Etre au-dessus de tous les etres" and a living, transcendent reality (Alfred Loisy, pp. 148, 145-49). De Boyer, with the bias and insight of an old friend, sensed undeserved tragedy in Loisy's life and reputation
42Une Oeurve, pp. 141-58; Leblanc, pp. 33-60. 43Raymond de Boyer de Sainte Suzanne, Alfred Loisy: Entre la foi et l'incroyance (Paris: Centurion, 1968), p. 13 (hereafter cited as Alfred Loisy).
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among Catholics. He expressed both his respect and sympathy by offering a portrait he felt more accurate than those which brought dishonor to Loisy. Scottand Loome After reviewing these many and conflicting interpretations of the character of Loisy's faith, it might be well to note two recent and opposed judgments upon them. The first was by Bernard Scott, who completed his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt with a dissertation on Harnack and Loisy in 1971. He was chosen by Fortress Press to introduce its republication of the Christopher Home translation of Loisy's The Gospeland the Church.4 In the introduction Scott mentioned all recent parties to the debate on Loisy except the most recent, Poulat's new edition of Bremond. Stating his conclusion on the matter, Scott said that he felt Loisy had been "more than adequately exonerated from any duplicity" by Guerin and Vidler (Gospel, p. xx, n. 18). Though he felt the later period of Loisy's career had "not received the examination it deserved," he also noted de Boyer's efforts in this area and reported that he had found throughout all period of Loisy's life "a consistent [religious] thrust" (Gospel, p. xxvi, n. 43). The other recent judgment on interpretations of Loisy's faith was by Thomas Michael Loome.45 He perhaps had done less previous study of Loisy than Scott, having written his Tiibingen dissertation on German Modernism. But he is very well studied in many dimensions of Modernism.46 He mentioned all the interpreters of Loisy's faith noted above, save Guerin, and, unlike Scott, he even footnoted Poulat's new publication of Bremond.
4Bernard Scott, ed., The Gospeland the Church,by Alfred Loisy, Lives of Jesus Series (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976) (hereafter cited as Gospel). The only significant typographical error in the book is in the "Selected Bibliography" (p. lxxi), where My Duel is rather than of Choses mistakenly listed as the translation of the Mfmoires passies. 45Thomas Michael Loome, "The Enigma of Baron Friedrich von Hiigel-As Modernist," 3 pts., Downside Review91 (1973): 13-34, 123-40, and 204-30 (hereafter cited as "Enigma"). 46His bibliography of George Tyrrell's works is extremely helpful (see "A Bibliography of the Published Writings of George Tyrrell (1861-1909)," Heythrop Journal 10 [1969]: 280-314, and "Supplement," ibid., 11 [1970]: 161-9). A larger work, essential to the study of many dimensions of Modernism, is Loome, LiberalCatholicism, Catholicism, Reform Modernism, Tiibinger Theologische Studien, vol. 14 (Mainz: Matthias-Griinewald-Verlag, 1979). It includes 120 of bibliography and a catalog of ninety manuscript collections important to Modernist pages research. (In America this forty-dollar publication is available through its author, Department of Theology, College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minn. 55105).
158
Loisy's Faith In his work, Loome sought an explanation for why Baron von Hiigel was ever a Modernist. He concluded it was because he had been duped by Loisy. Arguing against the position of Lawrence Barmann,47who had claimed that von Higel was consciously and consistently a Modernist, Loome claimed that he was only temporarily and, even then, unwittingly a Modernist. That brief period of his life was explained as a mistake resulting from the naive trust he put in Alfred Loisy ("Enigma," pp. 215-17). The baron's error resulted from Loisy's duplicity. This particular excuse for von Hiigel's Modernism (if excuse is needed) amounted to little more than a rhetorical flourish compared with the scholarship in other parts of Loome's article. The history of Loisy's relation to the baron was not reviewed. Charges against Loisy were stated cavalierly. Houtin and Sartiaux were not mentioned by name, only charges by "Roger Aubert and Jean Levie." In fact Aubert had only summarized Houtin and Sartiaux and quoted only Levie's claim that Loisy had lost his faith in 1886 and lived as a priest, though "inwardlyan infidel ... for twenty years" ("Enigma," p. 218). Loome did mention defense for Loisy's faith in terms of the work by Vidler. Without analyzing all the arguments, however, he rejected Vidler's "lengthy defense" and his use of "a curious work of Henri Bremond" ("Enigma," p. 219). The insult to Bremond was not explained. No arguments were offered against his portrait of Loisy save that the idea of "mystical faith" remindedone of Charles Maurras. (Loome did not clarify the reference, but Maurras was an atheist who supported the Church only because he saw it as part of the ancien The rejection of Vidler's whole evaluation of Loisy's faith was just as elliptical and even more surprising. Three years before, Loome had written a review of Vidler's book in which he said that he found his "detective work" (on Loisy's case and that of another Modernist) "assiduous" and his conclusions "certainly persuasive . . . if not The von Hiigel article does not reveal what made Loome "un-" convinced that Loisy was a person of sincere faith. The only apparent gain from reassigning duplicity to Loisy was to strengthen the argument against Barmann that von Hiigel, despite long sponsorship of Loisy's work, was not truly a Modernist but only a man who had been duped.
47Lawrence F. Barmann, Baron Friedrichvon Hugel and the Modernist Crisis in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). 48"Modernism in Context," Tablet(March 21, 1970), pp. 284, 286. Loome did a longer review of the same book for Downside Review(88 [1970]: 431-38), but in it he made no mention of the case for and against Loisy's Modernist faith.
regime.)
absolutely convincing. '48
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The Journal of Religion A word must be said about an ill-chosenquotation. Loome presented to parts of a June 7, 1904, journal entry by Loisy, from the Memoires, summarize his unbelief. The original passage included some signs of faith that were totally missing in what was quoted, though a footnote
did invite the reader to consult the whole text.49 The selection of particular sentences is not the problem with the excerpt; the problem is the time and context in which the original journal entry was written. The quote was used to show that Loisy was guilty of duplicity during his involvement in the Modernist project. Yet the quote came from June 1904, after Bremond, Vidler, and Loisy himself all claimed he had changed and had given up on the Church and on Modernist efforts to improve it. The entry came, in fact, after his books had been condemned, his letter of submission to the pope had been rejected as insincere, and rumors had reported that an excommunication had already been issued against him and then recalled. In light of this sequence of events, Loisy struggled in the journal over whether he did not himself have to leave the Church. In the unreported portion of the journal entry, Loisy found he longed not to leave the priesthood, longed not to grieve those who still supported him, and longed not to abandon the Church in which he was born. But in this time of recollection he also formulated, in the most harsh ways possible, the factors which most distinguished his faith from the common Catholic faith of his time. It is these reflections which were quoted. The reflections suggested the inner turmoil Loisy experienced in trying to retain his affiliation with the Church after the death of his dogmatic faith. He wished to remain an honest scholar and an honest Catholic. Bremond and Vidler lamented the degree to which excessive demands were made on him by Rome, as with the sweeping demand that he recant everything written in the books which had been condemned. It was this pressure which forced Loisy away from both Modernism and the Church. The single evidence Loome chose to show his duplicity and unfaith was taken from his reflections after he had given up on Modernist reform, while he remained in the Church because he wanted not to leave it, and while he awaited the excommunication he knew to be inevitable. "Evidence" from this time hardly proved Loisy had ever duped von Hiigel or ever been guilty of unbelief during his years as a Modernist Catholic and a Modernist priest. This is an instance of Loisy being used as a scapegoat, distracting from the challenge necessarily posed to many Catholics by modern thought.
49"Enigma," pp. 206-7, p. 207, n. 9; Memoires, 2:396-97.
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VidlerRevisited Alec Vidler mentioned he had lost his notes of his 1938 (second) visit with Loisy. He since has found and published them.50 The notes are anticlimactic at this point, containing no surprises. Loisy reaffirmed his belief in God and the strong christology he claimed to have expressed in Autour d'un petit livre (1903), saying that the significance of Christ was even greater than could be expressed in the terms of thought available to the formulators of early Christian dogmas. He reemphasized his belief in the universal importance of religion and the fact he would have remained in the Catholic Church until his death if he had not been evicted.5'
Moran Most recently, Valentine G. Moran, S.J., authored an attentive study of many of the most important writings in Loisy's literary corpus.52 He concluded there was little theological change in Loisy between the historian-priest of 1886 and the excommunicated priest of 1908. Even the most extremely non-Catholic outbursts in Loisy's journals of 1904-7 (where Loisy confessed to be more a "pantheistic-positivisthumanist" than a Christian) could be matched by earlier, comparable confessions. Yet the outbursts, Moran noted, "sound more radical than they were." They came from Loisy's pen only after "telling incidents" had "destroyed the affection and loyalty that had made him want to work within the Church." These outbursts continued to be balanced by statements of a strong theism, a strong christology, and a continuing strong love for the people of the Church. What Loisy really fought was "the orthodoxy imposed by Rome." His opposition to this orthodoxy was based as much on its source as on its content. Loisy's personality would not tolerate authoritarian and centralized Church structure, especially since that structure opposed historical criticism and the scientifically historical study of scripture and tradition. Hence much that he said was but the keenly expressed echo of an earlier age, of earlier liberal Catholic scholars who had opposed infallibility and had tried to direct Catholicism away from the ahistorical scholastic theology which was predominant in Rome.
50Alec R. Vidler, "Last Conversation with Alfred Loisy," Journalof Theological Studies,n.s. 28 (1977): 84-89. 51Ibid., pp. 82-88. 52Valentine G. Moran, "Loisy's Theological Development," Theological Studies40 (1979): 411-52.
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Loisy's impetus and his sometimes displeasing personality courted little favor in Rome.53 His proposals were met with "strong and sometimes brutal acts of authority." He was expelled from the Church. But Jesuit Moran suggested it was as much a dispute over Catholic polity as it was a question of Catholic faith which drove Alfred Loisy from Catholic communion.54
IV. CONCLUSION
53Thispoint is detailed by Turvasi (n. 13 above). 54Asimilar conclusion was reached by Normand Provencher (n. 4 above) in his most recent work on Loisy. He reaffirmed the conclusion reached by Fr. George Fremont in 1904 that the Church must investigate further the paths which Loisy explored, lamenting that too often and too late orthodoxy comes to robe itself in the skins of the monsters it has slain (Provencher, "The Spiritual and Intellectual Journal of Alfred Loisy (1857-1940)," in Papersof the Working Groupon Roman CatholicModernism,ed. George Gilmore and Ronald Burke [Mobile, Ala.: Spring Hill College Duplicating, 1979], pp. 105-28). 55Forrecent exposition of this claim by a scholar noted for his appreciation of the Catholic tradition, see Karl Rahner, "Thomas Aquinas on the Incomprehensibility of God," in Journal of Religion58 (suppl., 1978): S107-S125.
Moran's article closes recent debate on Loisy's Modernist faith. Not all participants have been named, but an important turn in the debate has been seen. Dispute may continue, further evidence be introduced, and new arguments be presented. But important data and a history conscious perspective have now rendered presumptuous previous assertions that Loisy was a fraud during his years as a Catholic Modernist priest. Loisy's was not a dogmatic faith, not that of the saintly peasantpope of his time, Pius X. He had too much modern historical consciousness to subscribe to the notion of absolute, eternal truths, defined by formulas of the Church. The exact character of his alternative, his "mystical" faith, requires further investigation. Its particulars will undoubtedly be difficult to chart. Yet Loisy's words and actions and the testimony of the majority of those who have known him, friends and scholars alike, attest that he was committed to a Catholic kind of faith. The exact content of the adjective "Catholic" cannot be permanently defined. Historical consciousness perceives the variety and change in the Catholic tradition. Despite the sometimes excessive claims of seventeenth to twentieth-century dogmatic theologies, Catholic faith cannot be reduced to an index of irreformable propositions. Living with hope in a transcendent and inescapable Mystery is more integral to the width and breadth of the ongoing community of the Catholic Church.55 Loisy as Modernist stood as witness to the reality and the undefinability of this Mystery.
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Loisy's was a faith expressed in an era of intellectual revolution, when historical consciousness was first seeking admission to faithful Catholic minds. The theological expression of his faith was bound to be new, untried, and subject to criticism. Yet it can be argued that what Loisy attempted was to express his faith meaningfully in the perspective and grammar of modern thought. The effort was as necessary and as difficult as early efforts by Christians to express their Jewish faith in Hellenistic terms. The process of translation was intricate and provoked harsh criticism. But such criticism is not permanently legitimate in the Catholic Church. Loisy's condemnation was not necessary in principle. It is explained by a variety of historical factors, by the sinfulness of the Church, and by its very institutional character. Every institution tends to promote its own power, importance, and perpetuation. Institutions are tempted to see themselves as more important than the persons they are intended to serve. Effects on the institution's own authority and influence become criteria by which ideas, policies, and events are judged. Whatever threatens the superiority of the institution is regarded then as evil or untrue. Power may be mounted against whatever endangers the institution's superiority. Anything new becomes suspicious; people with new ideas are suspect. Any proposal which is not strictly conformist is regarded as subversive. A paranoia develops in which the institution sees itself as superior and Such is the inherent narcissism of institutions. The post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church has been exceptionally free of this social pathology. More rigorously than ever before, it has explored its history, its principles, and its very foundations. It has opened its doors and windows to a political, philosophical, and intellectual pluralism. But the tides of history move only with ebb and flow. Such exceptional self-criticism will not unhesitatingly endure. It was not the policy of the hierarchy in all former days. In fact it was the pathology of institutions which was a prominent factor in bringing the condemnation of Alfred Firmin Loisy. The official Church did not promote the twentieth-century landshift in Catholic thought, but now the Church has quite formally endorsed historical consciousness. With that endorsement the condemnation of Loisy receives a new tone. His work seems more integral now to the wide and winding historical path which leads into and through the contents and consequences of the Second Vatican Council.
56GregoryBaum, The Credibility the ChurchToday(New York: Herder & Herder, 1968), of pp. 81-82. See also Avery Dulles, The Survivalof Dogma(Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1973), pp. 186-88.
suspects the world of plotting against it.56
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Loisy must be read and evaluated in a wider historical horizon than the one bordered by his condemnation. He did refuse intellectual submission to the Church, but that was a Church which demanded of him a position of intellectual dishonesty. It was a peculiarly unCatholic Church, one pledged to a kind of intellectual mediocrity. Revolution was needed and eventually came. And it was that revolution in thought, the development of historical consciousness, that Loisy had sought to bring and for which he was condemned. Contemporary Catholic thinkers, exegetes and theologians alike, will benefit by paying more explicit attention to Loisy's writings. He was something of a Catholic genius. And though flaws and inadequacies will be found in his work, he stated and struggled with crucial modern questions, some of them yet to be resolved. The words of Loisy, spoken as the prophet of a coming day, may well be read as the paradox of his own and of Catholic history: "The heresies of today are part of the orthodoxy of tomorrow. "57
57Memoires, 1:35.
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Loisy's Faith - Landshift in Catholic Thought

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Loisy's Faith: Landshift in Catholic Thought Author(s): Ronald Burke Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol.