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The Problem of Le Courager, 1671-1776

A Study in Gallicanism and Reunion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2024

Maurice Wilkinson
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Extract

Pierre Francois Le Courager, Augustinian Canon and Librarian of Ste. Genevieve, was the forerunner of many Frenchmen of distinction who have shown a kindly interest in the Anglican position and who have regarded ‘reunion’ as a not impossible dream. The Père Le Courager was a product of the Gallicanism of his day, the result of the long and uncertain contest between the Holy Father and the Kings of France, in which success seemed to incline first to one side and then to the other; but the odd trick, as Maitland would have said, fell to the Most Christian King. Louis XIV at his death left the crown virtually supreme in the Church and State. Apart from his Gallicanism, it is improbable that the Canon would ever have manifested much interest in the Anglican body.

Le Courager reproduced all the arguments of the Caroline Divines in favour of validity and of himself he added nothing fresh to the dispute. In fact, like all Frenchmen who have taken up ‘reunion,’ he knew little or nothing of England and her peculiarities. When he came here to reside and was given the Oxford D.D., a most unprecedented step, and one which aroused the wrath of at least one good Protestant, he no doubt learned more, but he was never really familiar with the psychology of the English.

The ‘Validité des Ordinations des Anglois,’ published at Brussels but purporting to emanate from Paris, soon caused a mild excitement similar to that with which we at intervals are familiar.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 10 , Issue 113 , August 1929, pp. 1250 - 1258
Copyright
Copyright © 1929 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 He finds a sensible consolation in H.E.'s Instruction. Car je pense comme j'ai toujours pensé sur les matières qui font l'objet de votre Instruction (i.e. questions), et si je ne suis point dans l'erreur comme le croit V.E. c'est que je n'y ai jamais été. The points raised at Paris in an assembly of bishops were the Sacrifice of the Mass; the Priesthood; the Form and Character of the Sacraments; Ceremonies and Authority of the Church and the Primacy of the Pope. Perhaps Le Courager's reply as to the Pope is the most interesting, for to us it seems the place where the Père Le Courager was most inclined to get outside the line, but then and until 1870 it was not so. Je la reconnois au sens de l'Eglise Gallicane et telle que la demandoit feu Mgr. Bossuet dans son exposition et je condamne ceux qui la nient en ce sens. It must be remembered that the French hierarchy in rejecting any jus divinum went further than most Catholic countries would officially have done. He further says some hard words about the schoolmen in connection with the Sacraments: je ne me suis jamais écarté de la doctrine commune de l'Eglise, but they are rash who pronounce on matters which they do not know, could not know, and which are of small profit to determine. If that is heresy the learned R. P. Morin is in the same condemnation: il a taxé plus sévèrement que moy la témerité des Scholastiques de prononcer décisivement sur des choses desquelles ils étoient parfaitement ignorans. The Schoolmen had few friends in the France of that date. (Pamph. Godw. 22. Bodleian).

2 About the same time another work on the facts of the case had been printed, less restrained than Le Quien's, by the R. P. Hardouin, S.J.

3 Reason played a very large part amongst the French Churchmen when arguing about the Faith. See in Bossuet's ‘Connoissance de Dieu et de soi-même.’ Again, so dissimilar a person as Fénelon, who cannot be accused, as perhaps might Bossuet and others, of being somewhat unspiritual and inclined to Cartesianism, wrote: Assent is given to a truth when it is clear to a person's reason. There can be no reason above that reason to contradict it. That ‘clarity,’ not quite the same as Descartes', is not far removed from Newman's ‘illative sense.’

4 Pamph. Godw. 171. Bodleian.

5 3 §. 515. French Pamph. Bodleian.

6 To placate the numerous Huguenots and render their conversion more easy, Gallicanism was stressed further than it otherwise would have been and this in turn reacted on Anglicanism. The natural antipathy of Frenchmen to anything Italian must not be overlooked. One président of the parlement of Paris agreed that a Huguenot could not find a ‘sensible religion’ south of the Alps, but thought that if he stuck to Bossuet and the Gallican Liberties all would be plain and resonable. Viscount St. Cyres is good on this in ‘François de Fénelon’ and Vol. III C.M.H.