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Rehabilitating a Radical Catholic: Pope Benedict XV and Marc Sangnier, 1914–1922

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

GEARÓID BARRY
GEARÓID BARRY
Affiliation:
Department of History, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Republic of Ireland; e-mail: Gearoid.Barry@nuigalway.ie
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Abstract

Pope Benedict xv's gradual rehabilitation of the French Christian Democrat Marc Sangnier, whose Sillon movement stood condemned for social Modernism, demonstrated his desire to end the excesses of his predecessor's anti-Modernist crusade and to return to the policies of Leo xiii. Sangnier, unofficial emissary of the French republic to the Vatican, helped to prepare for the restoration of diplomatic relations in 1921. Perplexed, like most French Catholics, by papal neutrality on the war, he later campaigned for Franco-German reconciliation, adopting the Vatican critique of the Versailles settlement. Sangnier's pardon, like Benedict's cautious endorsement of the Popolari in Italy, highlights the paradoxical papalism of advanced Social Catholicism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , July 2009 , pp. 514 - 533
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 Madeleine Barthélémy-Madaule, Marc Sangnier, 1873–1950, Paris 1973, 55–67.

2 On Lamennais see Jean-Marie Mayeur, Des Partis catholiques à la démocratie chrétienne XIXe–XXe siècle, Paris 1980, 28–31.

3 Frank J. Coppa, The modern papacy since 1789, London 1998, 124.

4 Ibid. 130.

5 André Darricau, Marc Sangnier, Paris 1958, 8–9.

6 Ernest Pezet, Chrétiens au service de la cite: de Léon XIII au Sillon et au MRP, 1891–1965, Paris 1965, 38.

7 Ibid. 54.

8 Jean Guiraud to Pierre Petit de Julleville (brother-in-law), 18 June 1903, Jean Guiraud papers, Archives nationales, Paris, 362 AP 145, dossier 2.

9 Barthélémy-Madaule, Marc Sangnier, 135–6.

10 Henri Chapon, bishop of Nice, to pope, [Jan.–Feb. 1920], ASV, Segretaria di Stato, 1920, rubrica 14, fasc. 4.

11 Martin Conway, Catholic politics in Europe, 1918–45, London 1997, 24.

12 Jean-Claude Delbreil, ‘Les Formes politiques de la démocratie chrétienne en France au vingtième siècle’, in Kay Chadwick (ed.), Catholicism, politics and society in twentieth-century France, Liverpool 2000, 119–41 at p. 120.

13 R. E. M. Irving, The Christian Democratic parties of western Europe, London 1979, 3.

14 Michel Meslin, ‘Introduction’, to IMS (ed.), Marc Sangnier en 1910: la lettre ‘Notre charge apostolique’ et ses suites: actes de la journée d'études du 19 septembre 2000, Paris 2002, 5.

15 Darrell Jodock (ed.), Catholicism contending with modernity: Roman Catholic Modernism and anti-Modernism in historical context, Cambridge 2000, 1.

16 John Pollard, Benedict XV: the unknown pope and the pursuit of peace (1999), 2nd edn, London 2005, 46.

17 Meslin, ‘Introduction’, 5.

18 For the text see J. F. Maclear, Church and State in the modern age: a documentary history, Oxford 1995, 317–21.

19 Pezet, Chrétiens au service de la cité, 39.

20 Eugen Joseph Weber, Action Française: royalism and reaction in twentieth-century France, Stanford 1962, 244.

21 Yves-Marie Hilaire, ‘Le Dossier romain’, in IMS, Marc Sangnier en 1910, 7.

22 Maclear, Church and State, 320.

23 Barthélémy-Madaule, Marc Sangnier, 18.

24 Ibid. 200.

25 La Démocratie, a daily newspaper set up in 1910, also occupied Sangnier.

26 Eamon Duffy, Saints and sinners: a history of the popes (1997), 2nd edn, London–New Haven 2002, 337.

27 Pollard, Benedict XV, 25.

28 Ibid. 27.

29 Ibid. 69.

30 For a fuller examination of Sangnier as soldier and propagandist see Gearóid Barry, ‘Marc Sangnier's war, 1914–1919: portrait of a soldier, Catholic and social activist’, in Pierre Purseigle (ed.), Warfare and belligerence: perspectives in First World War studies, Leiden 2005, 163–88.

31 Typed transcript of speech by Marc Sangnier to troops, April 1918, IMS, Paris, ms 26.

32 Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 14–18: retrouver la guerre, Paris 2000, 122.

33 James McMillan, ‘French Catholics: Rumeurs infâmes and the union sacrée, 1914–1918’, in Frans Coetzee and Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee (eds), Authority, identity and the social history of the Great War, Oxford–Providence 1995, 113–32 at p. 113.

34 Marc Sangnier to Louis Meyer, 11 Aug. 1916, IMS, ms 26.

35 Jean Sangnier, memo on his father's wartime activities, n.d., ibid.

36 McMillan, ‘French Catholics’, 114.

37 Jules Tiberghien to Eugenio Pacelli, 29 July 1916, ASV, AES, Francia 1916, fasc. 658. On Franco-Vatican relations in 1916 see Jacques Fontana, Les Catholiques français pendant la grande guerre, Paris 1990, 192–7. However, Fontana ignores Sangnier's visit. Paris-based, Mgr Tiberghien was a member of the papal chapel according to the Annuario Pontificio, 1917.

38 Alfred Baudrillart, Les Carnets du Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart: 1er aoÛt 1914–31 décembre 1918, ed. Paul Christophe, Paris 1994, 388–9, entries for 6, 7 July 1916.

39 Account revealed in 1973 in Barthélemy-Madaule, Marc Sangnier.

40 Marc Sangnier, memo, ‘Audience du pape 1916’, IMS, ms 26.

41 Duffy, Saints and sinners, 329.

42 Tiberghien to Pacelli, 29 July 1916, ASV, AES, Francia 1916, fasc. 658.

43 Sangnier, ‘Audience du pape 1916’.

44 Sangnier to Holy See, 15 Aug. 1916, ASV, AES, Francia 1916, fasc. 658.

45 John Horne and Alan Kramer, German atrocities, 1914: a history of denial, New Haven–London 2001, 268–9.

46 Jean-Marie Mayeur, ‘Les Catholiques français et Benoît xv en 1917: brèves remarques’, in Nadine-Josette Chaline (ed.), Chrétiens dans la première guerre mondiale: actes des journées tenues à Amiens et à Péronne les 16 mai et 22 juillet 1992, Paris 1993, 153–65 at p. 160.

47 Sangnier, diary, Aug. 1916, IMS, ms 26.

48 Idem, ‘Audience du pape 1916’.

49 Baudrillart, Les Carnets 1914–18, 414, entry for 22 Aug. 1916.

50 Ibid.

51 Joseph-Marie Tissier, bishop of Châlons to Pietro Gasparri, 9 Oct. 1916, ASV, AES, Francia 1916, fo. 658.

52 Pacelli to Tissier, 16 Oct. 1916, ibid.

53 Notes sur audiences pontificales (1906–9), papers of Cardinal Amette, Archives historiques de l'archévêché de Paris, Paris, 1 D XI, 13, fo. 32.

54 Chapon to Sangnier, 26 Dec. 1916, IMS, ms 26.

55 Chapon to Guiraud, 22 Aug. 1918, Jean Guiraud papers, 362 AP 145, dossier 2.

56 Chapon to pope, May 1919, ASV, AES, Francia 1919, fasc. 697, fos 36–48.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 John F. V. Keiger, Raymond Poincaré, Cambridge 1997, 267.

61 Interview of Sangnier by L'Intransigeant reported in La Croix, 4 Dec. 1919.

62 Gérard Cholvy and Yves-Marie Hilaire, Religion et société en France, 1914–45: au péril des guerres, Toulouse 2002, 49–50.

63 Chapon to Pacelli, 3 Jan. 1920, ASV, AES, Francia 1919, elezioni, fasc. 700, fo. 40.

64 Delbreil, ‘Les Formes politiques’, 119–41 at p. 121; Cholvy and Hilaire, Religion et société, 47–56.

65 Pierre Pierrard, Un Siècle de l'église de France, 1900–2000, Paris 2000, 87.

66 Alfred Baudrillart, Les Carnets du Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart: 1 janvier 1919–31 décembre 1921, ed. Paul Christophe, Paris 2000, 372, entry for 19 Jan. 1920.

67 Ibid. 470, entry for 11 May 1920. Cholvy and Hilaire testify to the bishops' resistance: Religion et société, 51.

68 Cholvy and Hilaire, Religion et société, 52.

69 Robert Cornilleau, ‘Les Républicains-Démocrates’, Le Petit Démocrate, 18 Oct. 1925.

70 Pezet, Chrétiens au service de la cité, 94; James McMillan, ‘France’, in Tom Buchanan and Martin Conway (eds), Political Catholicism in Europe, 1918–65, Oxford 1996, 34–68 at p. 43.

71 Pollard, Benedict XV, 143.

72 Ibid.

73 Coppa, The modern papacy, 171.

74 Ibid. 168.

75 Count Harry Kessler, The diaries of a cosmopolitan, 1918–37 (1961), Eng. trans. London 1971, 142, entry for 23 Jun 1921.

76 La Démocratie, 10 Feb. 1922.

77 Georges Hoog, ‘Le Rappochement moral’, in Georges Hoog (ed.), France et Allemagne, Paris 1928, 127–59 at p. 142.

78 Pollard, Benedict XV, 148.

79 Simone De Beauvoir, Memoirs of a dutiful daughter (1958), Eng. trans., London 1984, 132.

80 Gasparri to Sangnier, and Sangnier to pope, 9 Feb. 1920, ASV, Segretaria di Stato, 1920, rubrica 16, fasc. 1, fos 153–4.

81 Chapon to pope, n.d. [Jan.–Feb. 1920], ibid. rubrica 14, fasc. 4.

82 Gasparri to Chapon, 15 Feb. 1920, ibid. fo. 51.

83 Tedeschini to Chapon, 15 Feb. 1920, ibid. fo. 52.

84 Ibid.

85 Chapon to Tedeschini, 25 Feb. 1920, ibid. fo. 50.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 Bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Tours to pope, 6 Apr. 1920, ibid. fo. 137. This joint letter was signed by Albert Nègre, archbishop of Tours, and the bishops of Angers, Laval, Nantes and Le Mans.

90 Gasparri to Nègre, 30 Apr. 1920, ibid. fo. 139.

91 Ibid.

92 La Démocratie, 10 Feb. 1922.

93 Marc Sangnier, ‘Pour le Désarmement des haines’, La Démocratie, 25 Jan. 1921: speech delivered at the Salle Wagram, Paris, 17 Jan. 1921.

94 For a full account of this congress see Compte-rendu complet du Ier congrès démocratique international de la paix, Paris, 4–11 décembre 1921, Paris 1922.

95 La Démocratie, 10 Feb. 1922.

96 Jeune République, 22 Jan. 1922.

97 Ibid. 29 Jan. 1922.

98 Ibid.

99 Ibid.

100 Coppa, The modern papacy, 171.

101 Sangnier to Pius xi, 21 Sept. 1922, IMS, ms 36 (letter seeking blessing for second congress at Vienna).

102 Weber, Action Française, 252.

103 Chapon to AES, 3 Jan. 1920, ASV, AES, Francia 1919, elezioni, fasc. 700, fo. 41.

104 Pierrard, Un Siècle, 90.

105 Ibid. 155.

106 Duffy, Saints and sinners, 334.

107 Baudrillart, Les Carnets 1914–18, 389, entry for 7 July 1916.

108 See Jean-Marie Mayeur, Un Prêtre démocrate: l'abbé Lemire, 1853–1928, Paris 1968, 489, 535.

109 Chapon to pope, May 1919, ASV, AES, Francia 1919, fasc. 697, fos 36–48.

110 Pollard, Benedict XV, 175.

111 Duffy, Saints and sinners, 334.