Loisy's Faith - Landshift in Catholic Thought

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Loisy's Faith: Landshift in Catholic ThoughtAuthor(s): Ronald BurkeReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Apr., 1980), pp. 138-164Published by: The University of Chicago Press

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Loisy's Faith: Landshiftin Catholic

Thought

RonaldBurke University fNebraska t 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 was250 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.' Loisyhimself 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 biog-

raphy, Albert Houtin, claimed that Loisy admitted in 1907 that for the

past twenty-one years (during most of which time he had been sayingmass 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 Loisyare correct, that he was indeed a heresiarch, unbeliever, and impostoras a priest.

'This title wasassigned

toLoisy by M.-J. Lagrange

in M.Loisy

et le modernismeParis: 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, derVaterdes katholischen odernismusMunich: Erasmus Verlag, 1947). The title has endured (seeRoger Aubert, "Alfred Loisy, der 'Vater des Modernismus'," Orientierung2 [1968]: 246-49;and Tarcisio Stramare, "II Padre del Modernismo," Divinitas13 [1969]: 737-46).

? 1980by The University of Chicago. 0022-4189/80/6002-0002$02.14

138







Loisy's Faith

But there have been revolutions in Catholic thought since the

beginning of this century. Basic to these revolutions is a landshift in

the Catholicperspective

onhistory.

For thecentury

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 providecertitude.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. Buttoday 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 longerconstitute 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 empiricalscience, are at best only probable. Catholic theology has entered a new

age.2Amid 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 socialand religious institution of his time. That same important characteristicof historical consciousness, fundamental to his ostracism and condem-

nation, now marks the mind of almost every educated Catholic in the

"modern" world.

Loisy and his brand of Roman Catholic Modernism can no longerbe cursorily excluded from the mainline of the Catholic tradition. He

raised decisive challenges to the historical, exegetical, and theologicalmethods 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 greater ength,see Claude Geffre,O.P., UnNouvelAge e a theologieParis: Cerf, 1972).

3This important aspect of Loisy's thinking was previously noted by Bernard B. Scott and byT. Howland Sanks, S.J. See Scott's introduction to the recent republication of Loisy's The

Gospel ndtheChurchPhiladelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), pp. xiii, xxx; see Sanks's "Coopera-tion, Co-optation, Condemnation: Theologians and the Magisterium 1870-1978," ChicagoStudies17 (1978): 242-63, esp. pp. 252-53 (hereaftercited as "Cooperation").

139







TheJournal of Religion

recent changes in method among Catholic historians, exegetes, and

theologians bring Loisy's position of objection much closer to the

mainstream of Catholic thought.4Recent 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 growingconsensus among Catholic scholars regarding Modernism in general,

including agreement that there were various types of Modernismwhich as a group can no longer be perfunctorily condemned (Sec. I). Ishall 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 byCatholic exegetes and theologians at large (Sec. II). I shall furthershow that the historical studies suggest that although Loisy's ModernistCatholic faith had little trust in dogma, it included a sincere commit-ment to the principles of the Catholic religious tradition (Sec. III).Finally, having completed a critical review of these studies, I shall offera 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 inCatholic theology previous to the papal documents of 1907 have alreadybeen 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'stheology of revelation (La revelation t son diveloppementans l'EgliseselonAlfredLoisy [Doctoraldiss., 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

philosophie eligieuses1899 manuscript); see Provencher, "Un ineditd'Alfred Loisy," Egliseet theologie (1973): 391-413. (The Essais is on file at the Bibliothequenationale 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, "UnEpisode significatif du modernisme," Recherchese sciencereligieuses7 [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 ofCatholic traditionalists(see Provencher, "Une Tentative de renouvellement de l'hermeneutiquebiblique: Le modernisme d'Alfred Loisy," Egliseet theologie [1976]: 341-66). John Ratti hasalso 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, ThreeModernistsNew York: Sheed &

Ward, 1967], pp. 3-42, 43-141). W. J. Wernz has pointed out weaknesses in Loisy's theologyand criticized Ratte on several points, but he concludes that familiarity with the "necessityand enormity" of Loisy's "bold and imaginative project" to update Catholic theology "shouldelicit admiration and temper criticism" (see Wernz, "Loisy's 'Modernist' Writings,"DownsideReview92 [1974]: 25-45).

5AlbertHoutin, Histoiredu modernismeatholiqueParis: Chez l'auteur, 1913), pp. 81-95; andJean Riviere, LeModernismeansl'Eglise Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1929), pp. 13-34.

140







Loisy's Faith

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 franceseof the

Church,"a

friendly Italianname 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 commonplacein recent research regarding Roman Catholic Modernism. (1)Modernism was a phenomenon so diverse it fits under no singleinformative 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 anddestructive to have brought any gain to theology's quest for under-

standing.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 pastorsand university professors, to challenge every position from immanentismin 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 bythe Holy Office and by Pope Pius X in 1907, the data available todaydo not fit the conspiracy portrayal.8

As more materials on Modernism have become available, agreementhas 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 f CatholicModernistsCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970),p. 20 (hereaftercited as Variety).

7George Tyrrell, "Revelation as Experience," lecture, 1909; first published (with anhistorical introduction)by Thomas Loome in HeythropJournal2 (1971): 117-49, here p. 130.

8The two most important Roman documents which outlined and condemned the supposedModernist "system" were LamentabilianeExitu,Decree of the Holy Office (July 3, 1907), andPius X, PascendiDominiciGregis, ncyclical (September 8, 1907). For translation of the importantsections, see Bernard M. G. Reardon, Roman CatholicModernismStanford, Calif.: Stanford

UniversityPress,

1970), pp.237-48 (hereaftercited 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" [paperpresented to the Roman Catholic Modernism Consultation of the American Academy of

Religion, St. Louis, 1976], later published in Ecumenist 5 no. 1 [1976]: 5-11 [hereaftercitedas "Loisy"]; see also Poulat, "Le Modernisme, d'hier a aujourd'hui," Recherchese science

religieuses9 [1971]: 161-78; and Vidler, "Autobiographical Introduction" to Variety, p. 1-19,esp. pp. 12-19).

141








variety of Modernisms, it is helpful to witness the variety of long-

standing political and theological tensions which Catholics faced in

these countries.10 The single unifying theme of "Modernists" was aneffort to bring greater accord between the teachings and policies-socialand intellectual as well as theological-of their Catholic Church and

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 timesshowed signs of a reactionary fear of being "attacked" by the theo-

logical, 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 experi-enced 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 onemodern "threat": the effective liquidation of papal temporalpossessions 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 heallowed to modern sciences were very cautious and were reversed inthe 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 derKatholischen Theologie in 19. Jahrhundert," in Auf derSpurdes Ewigen(Freiburg: Herder,1965), pp. 380-408, and Edgar Hocedez, Histoiredela theologieuXIX siecle,MuseumLessianum,Section Theologique no. 43, 3 vols. (Brussels:Edeticus universelle, S.A., 1947-52); regardingFrance, Bernard M. G. Reardon, Liberalismand Tradition:Aspects of Catholic Thought n

Nineteenth-CenturyranceCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); regarding Germany,Alec Dru, The Churchn the NineteenthCentury:Germany800-1918 (London: Burns & Oates,1963); and regarding Italy, Pietro Scoppola, Crisi Modernista rinnovamentoattolico n Italia

(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 andthe 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-CenturyGroup of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, 1977; also in

Papers f theNineteenth-CenturyheologyWorkingGroup, d. James Livingston [Berkeley:Graduate

Theological Union, 1977]).'2This oft-cited passage is taken from Reardon, Modernism, . 13.

142







Loisy's Faith

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 Thepower

of the anti-Modernist Curiagrew

in theseyearsand, although exaggerated perhaps by some, became very effective in

exterminating deviations from orthodoxy.143. Amid the division in the Church between those who sought and

those who opposed modern changes, many Catholics, priests and laityalike, 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 intentionwas but to understand and continue the Catholic tradition.'5 Hencethe label of "Modernist" cannot be used as identical with perfidy.

Roger Aubert has proposed a comparison for the blend of orthodoxyand heresy in the Modernist phenomenon: "Jansenism in theseventeenth century was only the extreme fringe of a vast Augustinianmovement that was often perfectly orthodox and sometimes simplyimprudent, so at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth centurythere was in the Catholic Church a movement of intellectual renewal

which took at certain moments and in certain of its representatives adirection that was clearly heretical, but which in itself was legitimateand healthy."16 Unlike the Augustinian movement, however, in the

malfrancese he 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 Condemnationf A. Loisy and the HistoricalMethod Rome: Edizioni di storia e

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 andLorenzo Bedeschi. In his Intigrismeet Catholicisme ntegral: Un reseau secret international

antimoderniste,a "Sapiniere"1909-1921) (Paris: Editions Casterman, 1969), Poulat publishedthe best-to-date documentation of an arm of the Curia, the feared organization of Catholic

Integralists called the Sodalitum Pianum or Sapiniere.These documents included letters,confidential circulars, two dictionaries of code names, and more. His lengthy footnotes help toreckon the real but limited power of this group. There were never more than 100 members andless than ten were truly active. They were led by the Curial Msgr. Umberto Benigni, from firstto last (1909-21), and dedicated always to uncovering and eliminating any manifestations of

unorthodoxy. Almost as important is Bedeschi's work, La Curia Romana durante a crisiModernisto(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 centralizedChurch administration and gained too muchpower, 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.15Seemy "An Orthodox Modernist with a Modern View of Truth," Journal of Religion57

(1977): 124-43."6Thecomparison was proposed by Aubert in Revued'histoirecclesiastique8 (1963): 645; it

is taken here as quoted by Donovan in "Loisy," p. 6.

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The Journal of Religion

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 handedlycondemned.

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 bynatural 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 Catholicdiscussion 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 yetbeen 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 arestill largely uncataloged, they may remain difficult to use for sometime. 18

New documents from papal files can hardly alter, however, the threeconclusions now generally agreed upon. (1) Whether or not perceivedby the papacy and Curia, there were significant differences amongpersons known as Modernists. (2) New evidence can only underscorethe fact that the papacy was beset with serious problems and stridentdivision on

manyfronts in the late 1980s and

early1900s. This was a

painful time of transition in Catholic history. Vatican documents willreflect these tensions and in that sense help to explain why the Modernistmovement became so severe a crisis. (3) Lament properly belongs tothe way in which the efforts of Modernists were arrested. Full justifica-tion for the Church's actions should not be expected. This may wellcome to be seen as an instance of the sinful and human character of

'7In The CatholicEncyclopedia,974 SupplementWashington, D.C.: Catholic University ofAmerica Press,

1974),John Heaney spoke of the "short-term gains" and

"long-termlosses"

of the condemnation of Modernism (pp. 299-300). Similar mixed evaluations have beenformulated by Karl Rahner and Eduard Schillebeeckx. T. Howland Sanks concluded, "It isfair to say that the magisterium in this case was harsh and overreacted, and, as Vidler

remarks, 'a reign of doctrinalterror was 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,George Tyrrelland the Meaningsof Modernism," DownsideReview 6 [1978]: 21-34, here p. 21).

144







Loisy's Faith

the graced and enduring Church.19In this instance, with whatevertrue and false excuses there may have been, the official position of theChurch defended a deaf-eared

hierarchyand an

ideologyof intellectual

mediocrity.

II. HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN METHOD

The critical historical study of Catholic scripturesis a telling instanceof the degree of change that has come to Catholic thought in thetwentieth century. At the beginning of the century such study was

introduced, resisted, and rejected. It was seen to contradict the themethat the Bible was divinely inspired. But by 1943 it was officially,though cautiously, accepted in the encyclical of Pius XII, DivinoAfflanteSpiritu.By 1955 certain restrictionson the critic were lifted bythe Pontifical Biblical Commission, the same commission which haditself earlier imposed them. By 1964 criticism was fully encouraged inthe 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 ownmethods of biblical criticism must be altered

alongwith this

generalpolicy change.The great majority of Loisy's writings were in the area of biblical

criticism. In this field he introduced, before Bultmann (whose earlywritings made considerable use of Loisy's), the principle of formcriticism.21In practical terms, the principle meant for him that the

Gospels were not so much recordsas interpretationsof whatJesus haddone and said, interpretations written from the faith-influenced

'9Hans Kiing's words of a wider reference apply to the condemnation of Modernism: "TheChurch 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 asinevitable all the lack of feeling the Church and its representativeshave shown towards theneeds 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 asdemonic" (TheChurch1967; reprinted., GardenCity, N.Y.: Image Books, 1976], pp. 412-14.

20Forthe particulars of the instruction see Joseph Fitzmeyer, "The Biblical Commission'sInstruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels," Theologicaltudies25 (1964): 386-408. Forbroader summaries of the revolution in Catholic criticism, see Keith D. Stephenson, "RomanCatholic Biblical Scholarship:Its Ecclesiastical Context in the Past Hundred Years," Encounter33 (1972): 303-38; and Raymond E. Brown in his introduction to The VirginalConceptionnd

BodilyResurrectionfJesus (New York: Paulist Press, 1973), pp. 3-5.21SeeRosemary Reuther's "Loisy: History and Commitment," Continuum (1965): 152-67.

Diether Hoffman-Axthelm made similar points in his lengthy discussion of Loisy's contribu-tions to biblical criticism (see his "Loisy's 'L'Evangile et l'Eglise,' Besichtigung eines

zeitgenossischen Schlachtfeldes," Zeitschrifttr TheologiendKirche 5 [1968]: 291-328).

145








memory of the early Church and responding to its developing needs.More generally, the principlemeant that all biblicalwritingswere seento arise from various cultural situations and, therefore, had to beexamined historically, like other human writings, to be accuratelyunderstood.This principleis synonymouswith historicalconsciousness.

It was perhapsbecause this new principlefor biblical exegesis was in

part dependent on German Protestant scholarship that it originallystirred great opposition in the Roman Catholic Church, especially in

Italy and France. Yet opinion on the matter now is reversed, anddebate on the issue seems closed. The Second Vatican Council andCatholic biblical scholarshipin general have accepted the validity and

necessity of something like the form-criticalapproachto the scripturesof the Church-a principleintroducedmost clearly,at least in Catholic

circles, by AlfredLoisy.Speaking on Loisy's role in biblical studies at the twenty-first

Annual BellarmineLecturesat St. Louis University, October 5, 1976,

George MacRae concluded that after a "turbulent history" theConstitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum f Vatican II) "had

formally accepted . . . a form-critical approach to the Gospels." Itwas Loisy's position, he emphasized, which had been accepted.22

Other and more recent official documents have further confirmedthe Church's acceptanceof this methodologicalprinciple, extending its

applicability, though with some hesitancy, to dogmatic statements.23The recognition of this principle suggests the need for wider reconsid-eration of the man who introduced historical consciousness to theCatholic Church and was condemned.

III. LOISY S MODERNIST FAITH

The character of Loisy's faith has been debated since at least the timeof the censure of his writings in 1904.24 Since the beginning of the

22MacRae'saddress was published in Theology igest24 (1976): 338-48, here p. 346.23Translationof ecclesiastical documents which acknowledge the historical dependency of

dogma has been provided by Raymond E. Brown, BiblicalReflectionsn CrisesFacing heChurch

(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

Loisy," Souslesyeuxde l'incroyant,d ed. (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1946); Louis de Lacger,"Mgr. Mignot et Loisy," in Revued'historiede l'Eglise de France19 (1933): 161-205; andE. E. Y. Hales, TheChurchn the ModernWorld Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1958).For defenses of Loisy, also not treated here, see four works by his contemporary and friend,Maude Petre: AlfredLoisy:His ReligiousSignificanceCambridge: Cambridge University Press,1944), esp. chap. 2; "M. Loisy's Autobiography," HibbertJournal 9 (1930-31): 655-66; "AComment on M. Loisy's Articles," ibid., 36 (1937-38): 530-33; and "Alfred Loisy (1857-

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Loisy's Faith

Church's long condemnation of Modernism, he has become somethingof a scapegoat for modern challenges to a conservative Church. Hisname 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 timehe was effectively excluded from the community of the Church in 1904.

Loisy'sAutobiographies

Loisy told his own story of his life and faith in two autobiographies,Choses

passeesof 1913 and the three-volume

Memoirespourservir"a 'histoirereligieusede notretemps25 f 1930-31. Both autobiographies told a storybased on Loisy's memory, substantiated by extracts from his lettersand his journals. Dispute regarding the character of his life and faith isin part a debate regarding the accuracy of the picture of Loisy drawnin these autobiographies.

In the two autobiographies Loisy presented himself as a Catholic

priest and scholar, troubled by historical consciousness and opposed inhis efforts to update the Church's faith to meet the demands of historical

science. Both autobiographies frankly admit that after his earlyordination at 22 (1879), and at least by age 29 (1886), his study of

history had led him to disavow claims to the absolute and unchangingtruthfulness of scripture and dogma.26 Yet the autobiographies alsoassert that this did not lessen his love for the Church. He saw theChurch as the irreplaceable spiritual tutor of humanity.27

Loisy recalled that he long felt alienated from the authoritarian formof the Church's teachings, and he felt isolated in this alienation, forcedto retreat to "purely academic" scholarship. But in the mid-1890s a

hope to help update the Church was rekindled, partly by new respon-sibilities as chaplain at a convent and girl's high school in Neuilly (asuburb of Paris), partly by the papacy of Leo XIII (who seemedsomewhat 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 reformkatholischenBewegung (Vienna: Styria, 1969)

(the chapter on Loisy depends heavily on Petre's work).25Alfred Loisy, Chosespassies (Paris: Emile Nourry, 1913). Quotes below are taken from the

authorized English translation by Richard Wilson Boynton, My Duel with the Vatican (NewYork: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1924) (hereafter cited as My Duel). Alfred Loisy, Memoires pourservir a l'histoire religieusede notretemps, 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.

147








scholarship), and partly by a new friendship with a fellow advocate of

change, Baron Friedrich von Higel.28

Accordingto the

autobiographies,it was not until

age47

(1904)that

Loisy's dedication to changing the Church was spent. The oppositionand 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, historicallyincarnated and articulated in the person of Jesus, long vivifying the

religious tradition Jesus had appropriated and transformed. Dedicationto this transcendent Mystery, dulled for a time, later grew and flourishedin 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 aheresiarch 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 thecondemned Loisy from his own champion of change, his teacher at

Toulouse, Pierre Batiffol. But an instance of more drastic chargesmade against Loisy's faith was that of a long-time associate and one-time friend.

Houtin and Sartiaux

Albert Houtin (1867-1926), a defrocked priest like Loisy and his junior

byten

years,had once been

somethingof

Loisy's discipleand

seeminglyclose, if not intimate, friend. It was to Houtin that Loisy, amid hisillness of 1907, had assigned (in case of his imminent death) the task of

publishing his almost completed work, Les Evangiles synoptiques.And tohim 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 byRichard Resch. In his analysis of correspondence between Loisy and Maurice Blondel, Reschfound that what Loisy rejected was not a high christology but false sorts of Catholic historywhich studied the past primarily to confirm traditional theological assertions (see Resch,

"History and Dogma and Individual Psychology," Journal of Religion 59 (1979): 35-55; seealso n. 4 above).

29Riviere (n. 5 above).

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Loisy's Faith

It was the younger and healthier Houtin, however, who died first,on July 28, 1926. From Houtin's executor, Felix Sartiaux, Loisy was

surprisedto learn in October of 1927 that Houtin had

proceededwith

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 onlythat he was the subject but also that he was defamed as a hypocritical

priest. Fears regarding the full biography mounted in Loisy.30In 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 longlife (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 ofliberation), 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 godsnor 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 wasoffered to explain why Houtin did not tell Loisy immediately (or ever

after)

how he felt. Rather, heaccepted responsibility

for thebiographyand 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). Documentset souvenirs(Paris: Rieder, 1928), pp. 155-61. The same portraitlater 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 yearsbut commonly forgotten.

149








The charge was, then, that Loisy was a fraud. His only motivationfrom the time he was eleven was a passion for personal glory. He heldfaith in

nothing spiritualor

supernatural.Besides his own

glory,the

study of history was his only dedication. His membership in theCatholic clergy and his supposed hope to change the Church were butfacades 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 attendedsome 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 chargesand composed his own extension of the biography, L'Oeuvred'Alfred

Loisy.32In this work he analyzed Loisy's writings from the time of hisexcommunication. He compared them to contemporary developmentsin 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 Loisyknew 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

published Houtin's La vieand Sartiaux's L 'Oeuvren a single volume in1960. Poulat's motive in bringing the two to publication was not thathe felt

theyalone

presentedthe accurate and definitive

pictureof

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 beinginsaisissable.33But Poulat sought to facilitate rigorous investigation ofthe whole phenomenon of Modernism in France and felt thesedocuments 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

32Sartiaux's L'Oeuvred'AlfredLoisy 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 "espritsouple jusqu'a paraitre insaisissable" in the introduction to his Loisy (p. vii).

150







Loisy's Faith

supplied and suggested three interrelated factors which at leastcontributed to Houtin's negative judments on Loisy.

First, although Loisy and Houtin were cohorts in the Modernistcampaign, and were both priests and then defrocked priests, they werealmost 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 simplificationof confusion (Loisy, p. viii).

Second, both originally attempted to discount their fundamentaldifferences in temperament and expectations. But these differences ledthem further and further apart in their intellectual developments.

Differences were recorded at their first encounter and returnedthroughout their careers (Loisy, p. vii).

Third, Houtin had originally come to Loisy, in 1901, as a student toa 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 oftruth" an explanatory truth, something simple and immediate. The

supple and complex Loisy had then and ever after no such truth tooffer (Loisy, p. vii).

There may well have been, Poulat suggested, a deep-seated and

developing animosity between Houtin and Loisy. Even though theywere close associates for many years, they may have repressed ill willtoward each other because together they battled against the larger andmore 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. Becauseit was so different from Loisy's own it had to be made available forclose

comparison.The two

picturesbalanced and

competed with eachother 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 Memoiresbecause he learned after Houtin's death in 1926 that a biography hadbeen written and because he became obsessed with fear of the pictureof 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 lacrisemoderniste34e was still of the opinion that fear of Houtin's La Vie

34Emile Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (1962; reprint ed., Paris:

Casterman, 1979) (hereafter cited as Histoire; available through Continental Books, LongIsland, NY 11101). The work is irreplaceable for scholarly investigation of Loisy's L'Evangileet I'Eglise (1902), his Autour d'une petit livre (1903), and reactions to both. Although the book wastitled vol. 1, the intended later volume regarding Eduard LeRoy has not yet appeared.

151








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 Memoiresmore suspect in regard to their honesty andobjectivity.

It is important to note, however, that by the time of his introductionto another manuscript regarding Loisy, published in 1972, Poulat had

changed his opinion.35 There he wrote it was not the defamatorychapter 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, Baronvon 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 anautobiography.

Hence the first two volumes of the Memoireswere indeed finishedeven before "Chez un tacticien" appeared in December 1928. And it

was this portrait, Poulat proposed, which "explains the irritated toneof 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, certainlynot in the case of the first two volumes (which review Loisy's life from1857 to 1900 and 1900 to 1908). On the other hand, even though thethird volume does show exceptional "irritation," the possibility is not

precluded that Loisy had a suspicion that Houtin had writtin a biog-raphy and that it would be disparaging of him even before the publicationof the anonymous portrait (December 1928) and before he began theMemoires(in December 1926). To whatever degree this is the case, allthree volumes doubtless were tinted by Loisy's own vision of himself, avision which has been evaluated not

only by Houtin and Sartiaux butalso by others. The question remains open, Who was Loisy and whatwas his faith? Responses to this question quite respectful of Loisy havecome 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 Oeuvreclandestine 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).

152







Loisy's Faith

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, developinghis case from almost 180

passages from Loisy'sMemoiresand other writings.36 In response to the new publication, hesaid he found the works to be "scholarly, detailed, and interesting"but felt their disparagement of Loisy was not justified.7 He asked howthe authors could be so sure Loisy was an "atheist priest" when theyalso described him as "a subtle and complicated spirit." Could theyknow he was an atheist simply because he had rejected the rigidcategories 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 notunderstand 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 lostfaith that it could ever adopt an honest apologetic. Loisy long remained,not because he sought acclaim but because he felt that despite all theChurch's faults and needs for reform, there was no better institutional

possibility available for meeting the inherent and universal religiousneeds of humanity ("La Vie," p. 335).

Houtin had made the mistake, Guerin felt, of equating the rejectionof dogma with total unbelief and absolute deceit. Loisy had not claimedto be a Catholic in the same sense as the pope. He had been a Catholicmuch less tied to traditional orthodoxy but a true and sincere Christianwho 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 betweentrue

religiousfaith and total surrender to a

dogmatictradition

("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 religionand of God, and with enough private words, anyone could be provedan irreligious atheist ("La Vie," pp. 338-39). In opposition toSartiaux's exegesis of Loisy's writings, and referring to his own previous

article, Guerin remained convinced that throughout his life Loisy wasa person of sincere "mystical" faith (" La Vie," p. 341).

36Pierre Guerin, "La Pensee religieuse d'Alfred Loisy," Revued'histoireet de philosophiereligieuses7 (1957): 294-330.

37PierreGuerin, "La Vie et l'oeuvre de Loisy a propos d'un ouvrage recent," Revued'histoire t dephilosophieeligieuses1 (1961): 334-43 (hereaftercited as "La Vie").

153








Aubert

In his review of literature on the Modernistmovement, Roger Aubertgave important place to Poulat's publication of Houtin's La Vie and

Sartiaux's L'Oeuvre.38Aubert realized this was not the definitive wordon Loisy's faith or unbelief. He mentioned its publication was but partof Poulat's admirable effort to provide complete documentation of theModernist crisis in France. Yet he did draw two derogatoryconclusions regarding Loisy.

The new publication shed "unexpected light" on the circumstancesin which Loisy had produced his Memoires.The fact that Loisy (accord-

ing to Sartiaux) wrote the work in anticipation of Houtin's La Vie didcause it to look more like "an artificial reconstruction of his religiousdevelopment" ("Literature," p. 92). Second, Houtin's and Sartiaux'scombined testimony, though biased as that of "two disappointedadmirers," shed "new light" on Loisy's personality. "What emergesmost clearly is the touchiness, short temper, vindictiveness and pitilessegocentricity of this desk-bound intellectual, not to mention his vanityover honors in the intellectual sphere, his taste for extremely flexibleformulas 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 hiscomment regarding the Memoires did not say their contents had been

proved false but only that the reported circumstances of their produc-tion rendered them suspicious. Yet Aubert's repeated use of the truth-

connoting term of new or unexpected "light," as well as his recitalwithout rejoinder to the long litany of Loisy's supposed personalityfaults, did

suggestsome

agreementwith 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 suggestionof partial agreement with the Houtin-Sartiaux position. He feared thatthis "judicious and liberal minded" Roman Catholic historian had

"swallowed Houtin-Sartiaux more or less whole"; so as part of theOxford Sarum lectures of 1968-69 he undertook a reexamination of

Loisy.3938RogerAubert, "Recent Literature on the Modernist Movement," in Concilium, ol. 17,

Historical nvestigations,d. Rogert Aubert (Glen Rock, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1966), pp. 91-108,esp. pp. 92-93 (hereaftercited as "Literature").

39Publishedas Vidler's Varietyn. 6 above).

154







Loisy's Faith

Vidler began with the admission that people are always difficult tounderstand (Variety,pp. 21-22; unless otherwise specified the following

page numbers are from

Variety).

He agreed with Poulat that

Loisywas

"extraordinarily elusive" (p. 40). But he also admitted that he hadhonored 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 himand 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 ofthe 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, andhe may have tried somewhat to hide his ambitions (p. 31). But Houtinand 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 signsof 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) andnot apprising Loisy of how upset he was by his (supposed) personalconfession (p. 34). Further, Houtin's writings contained so manyscurrilous comments regarding other clerics that Vidler was not thefirst to find him preoccupied with debunking the clergy (pp. 32-33).

Whether or not Loisy had ever told Houtin personally about his1886 crisis of faith (and Vidler gave evidence for doubting he had

[pp. 34-35]), he was certainly public enough about it in his later auto-

biographies. The question in dispute was not whether

Loisyhad lost

confidence in dogmas or, eventually, in the Church itself. Certainlyand quite early he lost faith in the adequacy of dogmas, and evenVidler was sure that he also lost faith in the Church, to a degree andfor a time. But this latter loss of faith occurred only after the emotional

battering he received in 1904 in response to his Modernist efforts andhis 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 effortswithin the Church to change it.

Vidler brought to mind the testimony of a man who was in closetouch with Loisy during the contested period, often walking and talkingwith him at the turn of the century-Abbe Felix Klein. Klein wassure that to the end of this period Loisy had retained what was essentialto Catholic faith (p. 46). Even Loisy's Jesuit critic, Jean Levie,admitted that any Catholic could be most proud of much that Loisy

155








had written in his 1903 commentary on John (p. 51). Through these

years Loisy had retained the respect and friendship of Mgr. Eudoxe-

IreneeMignot,

Baron vonHiigel,

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, Loisyclaimed that he had not called into question, either in private thoughtor in the book, the existence of God (p. 53). In a letter of the same yearhe had shown a strong christology: "Jesus is more God than the

Church of Nicaea said .... The outcome of historical research regard-

ing 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 authorto 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" intwo senses. He was always both an authentic priest and an honestscholar of history. Though devoted to scientific, historical criticism, he

was also constantly dedicated to the service of religion and the religiouswell-being of mankind. Neither role was allowed to compromise theother.41

Loisy had certainly abandoned "dogmatic" Catholic faith, asBremond termed it, meaning total acceptance of revealed dogmasclaimed infallible and immutably true by the Church. But what

replaced this was not unbelief and atheism but "mystical" faith. Thislatter faith, Bremond explained, was far less confident in the adequacyof the Church's

metaphysicaland

dogmaticformulas. Yet it included

an allegiance and devotion to the Church as witness to and guardian ofthe 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's Faith

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 stampedout-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 grimcondemnation of the Sillon in 1910.42 Composed by another contem-

porary and friend of Loisy's, Bremond's book offered strong opposition

to the sort of critical judgment against Loisy authored by Houtin andSartiaux.

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

Loisy. Entre lafoi et 1'incroyance,was written by a friend, Raymond deBoyer de Saint Suzanne, who knew Loisy through 200 letters and

many visits during twenty of the last twenty-three years of his life

(1917-37).43De Boyer found the text of Houtin-Sartiaux to be "bubbling with

documents and precise information." "But for my part I don't thinkit 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 unpublishedletters, long extracts of which he provided in an appendix (AlfredLoisy,pp. 179-216).

Though Loisy's whole life was reviewed, the most interesting newdata pertained to his later years, when he devoted himself to "medita-tion affective" (AlfredLoisy, pp. 141-44) and affirmed, despite earlierhesitations about the inadequacy of words, that God was "un Etreau-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 oldfriend, 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).

157








among Catholics. He expressed both his respect and sympathy by

offering a portrait he felt more accurate than those which brought

dishonor to Loisy.

ScottandLoome

After reviewing these many and conflicting interpretations of thecharacter 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 repub-lication of the Christopher Home translation of Loisy's The Gospeland

the Church.4 In the introduction Scott mentioned all recent parties tothe debate on Loisy except the most recent, Poulat's new edition ofBremond.

Stating his conclusion on the matter, Scott said that he felt Loisy hadbeen "more than adequately exonerated from any duplicity" byGuerin 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 reportedthat 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 previousstudy of Loisy than Scott, having written his Tiibingen dissertation onGerman Modernism. But he is very well studied in many dimensionsof Modernism.46 He mentioned all the interpreters of Loisy's faithnoted

above,save

Guerin, and, unlike Scott, he even footnotedPoulat'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 typo-graphical error in the book is in the "Selected Bibliography" (p. lxxi), where My Duel is

mistakenlylisted as the translation of the Mfmoiresather than of Choses assies.45Thomas Michael Loome, "The Enigma of Baron Friedrich von Hiigel-As Modernist,"

3 pts., DownsideReview91 (1973): 13-34, 123-40, and 204-30 (hereaftercited as "Enigma").46His

bibliographyof

George Tyrrell'sworks is

extremely helpful (see"A

Bibliographyof

the Published Writings of George Tyrrell (1861-1909)," Heythropournal10 [1969]: 280-314,and "Supplement," ibid., 11 [1970]: 161-9). A larger work, essential to the study of manydimensions of Modernism, is Loome, LiberalCatholicism,eformCatholicism,Modernism, iibingerTheologische Studien, vol. 14 (Mainz: Matthias-Griinewald-Verlag, 1979). It includes 120pages of bibliography and a catalog of ninety manuscript collections important to Modernistresearch. (In America this forty-dollar publication is available through its author, Departmentof Theology, College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minn. 55105).

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Loisy's Faith

In his work, Loome sought an explanation forwhy Baron von Hiigelwas ever a Modernist. He concluded it was because he had been duped

by Loisy. Arguing againstthe

positionof 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 scholarshipin other parts of Loome's article. The history ofLoisy's relation to the baron was not reviewed. Charges against Loisywere stated cavalierly. Houtin and Sartiaux were not mentioned byname, only charges by "Roger Aubert and Jean Levie." In factAubert had only summarized Houtin and Sartiaux and quoted onlyLevie'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 workbyVidler. Without analyzing all the arguments, however, he rejected

Vidler's "lengthy defense" and his use of "a curious work of HenriBremond" ("Enigma," p. 219). The insult to Bremond was not

explained. No arguments were offered against his portrait of Loisysave that the idea of "mysticalfaith" remindedone of CharlesMaurras.

(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

regime.)The rejection of Vidler's whole evaluation of Loisy's faith was just

as elliptical and even more surprising. Three years before, Loome hadwritten 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

absolutely convincing. '48

The von Hiigel article does not reveal what made Loome "un-"convinced that Loisy was a person of sincere faith. The only apparentgain from reassigning duplicity to Loisy was to strengthen the argu-ment against Barmann that von Hiigel, despite long sponsorship of

Loisy's work, was not truly a Modernist but only a man who had beenduped.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 DownsideReview 88 [1970]: 431-38), but in it he made no mentionof the case for and against Loisy's Modernist faith.

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A word must be said about an ill-chosenquotation. Loome presented

parts of a June 7, 1904, journal entry by Loisy, from the Memoires,osummarize his unbelief. The

original passageincluded some

signsof

faith that were totally missing in what was quoted, though a footnotedid 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 duringhis 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 beencondemned, 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 longednot to leave the priesthood, longed not to grieve those who still supportedhim, 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 wayspossible, the factors which most distinguished his faith from thecommon 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 honestCatholic. Bremond and Vidler lamented the degree to which excessivedemands were made on him

by Rome,as with the

sweepingdemand

that he recant everything written in the books which had beencondemned.

It was this pressure which forced Loisy away from both Modernismand the Church. The single evidence Loome chose to show his duplicityand unfaith was taken from his reflections after he had given up onModernist reform, while he remained in the Church because he wantednot to leave it, and while he awaited the excommunication he knewto be inevitable. "Evidence" from this time hardly proved Loisy had

ever duped von Hiigel or ever been guilty of unbelief during his yearsas a Modernist Catholic and a Modernist priest. This is an instance of

Loisy being used as a scapegoat, distracting from the challengenecessarily posed to many Catholics by modern thought.

49"Enigma," pp. 206-7, p. 207, n. 9; Memoires, 2:396-97.

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Loisy's Faith

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 areanticlimactic at this point, containing no surprises.

Loisy reaffirmed his belief in God and the strong christology he

claimed to have expressed in Autourd'un petit livre(1903), saying that

the significance of Christ was even greater than could be expressed inthe 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 studyof many of the most important writings in Loisy's literary corpus.52 Heconcluded 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 of1904-7 (where Loisy confessed to be more a "pantheistic-positivist-humanist" than a Christian) could be matched by earlier, comparableconfessions. Yet the outbursts, Moran noted, "sound more radicalthan they were." They came from Loisy's pen only after "tellingincidents" had "destroyed the affection and loyalty that had made himwant to work within the Church." These outbursts continued to bebalanced by statements of a strong theism, a strong christology, anda

continuing stronglove for the

peopleof the Church.

What Loisy really fought was "the orthodoxy imposed by Rome."His opposition to this orthodoxy was based as much on its source ason its content. Loisy's personality would not tolerate authoritarian andcentralized Church structure, especially since that structure opposedhistorical criticism and the scientifically historical study of scriptureand tradition. Hence much that he said was but the keenly expressedecho 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.

50AlecR. Vidler, "Last Conversation with Alfred Loisy," Journalof Theologicaltudies,n.s.28 (1977): 84-89.

51Ibid.,pp. 82-88.52ValentineG. Moran, "Loisy's Theological Development," Theological tudies40 (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 some-

times brutal acts of authority." He was expelled from the Church. ButJesuit Moran suggested it was as much a dispute over Catholic polityas it was a question of Catholic faith which drove Alfred Loisy from

Catholic communion.54

IV. CONCLUSION

Moran's article closes recent debate on Loisy's Modernist faith. Not

allparticipants

have beennamed,

but animportant

turn in the debate

has been seen. Dispute may continue, further evidence be introduced,and new arguments be presented. But important data and a historyconscious perspective have now rendered presumptuous previousassertions 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 peasant-

pope of his time, Pius X. He had too much modern historical con-

sciousness 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 andthe testimony of the majority of those who have known him, friendsand scholars alike, attest that he was committed to a Catholic kind offaith.

The exact content of the adjective "Catholic" cannot be perma-nently 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 proposi-tions. Living with hope in a transcendent and inescapable Mystery ismore integral to the width and breadth of the ongoing community ofthe Catholic Church.55 Loisy as Modernist stood as witness to the

reality and the undefinability of this Mystery.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 theChurch must

investigatefurther the

pathswhich

Loisy explored, lamentingthat too often and

too late orthodoxy comes to robe itself in the skins of the monsters it has slain (Provencher,"The Spiritual and IntellectualJournal of Alfred Loisy (1857-1940)," in Papersof theWorkingGroupon RomanCatholicModernism, d. 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 Incomprehensibilityof God," in JournalofReligion 8 (suppl., 1978): S107-S125.

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Loisy's Faith

Loisy's was a faith expressed in an era of intellectual revolution,when historical consciousness was first seeking admission to faithfulCatholic minds. The

theological expressionof his faith was bound to

be new, untried, and subject to criticism. Yet it can be argued thatwhat Loisy attempted was to express his faith meaningfully in the

perspective and grammar of modern thought. The effort was as neces-

sary 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, andby 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 theinstitution's own authority and influence become criteria by which

ideas, policies, and events are judged. Whatever threatens the super-iority of the institution is regarded then as evil or untrue. Power maybe 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

suspects the world of plotting against it.56

Such is the inherent narcissism of institutions. The post-Vatican IIRoman 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 doorsand windows to a political,

philosophical,and intellectual

pluralism.But the tides of history move only with ebb and flow. Such exceptionalself-criticism will not unhesitatingly endure. It was not the policy of the

hierarchy in all former days. In fact it was the pathology of institutionswhich was a prominent factor in bringing the condemnation of AlfredFirmin Loisy.

The official Church did not promote the twentieth-century landshiftin Catholic thought, but now the Church has quite formally endorsedhistorical consciousness. With that endorsement the condemnation of

Loisy receives a new tone. His work seems more integral now to thewide and winding historical path which leads into and through thecontents and consequences of the Second Vatican Council.

56GregoryBaum, The Credibilityf the ChurchToday New York: Herder & Herder, 1968),pp. 81-82. See also Avery Dulles, TheSurvivalof Dogma(Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books,1973), pp. 186-88.

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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 ofhim a position of intellectual dishonesty. It was a peculiarly un-

Catholic Church, one pledged to a kind of intellectual mediocrity.Revolution was needed and eventually came. And it was that revolu-

tion 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 modernquestions, 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 paradoxof his own and of Catholic history: "The heresies of today are part of

the orthodoxy of tomorrow. "57

57Memoires,1:35.

164