Jansenism
Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that arose in an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of free will and divine grace. Jansenists claimed to profess the true doctrine of grace as put forth by Augustine of Hippo. In 1653, Pope Innocent X promulgated the bull Cum occasione, which condemned five errors attributed to Jansenism, including the idea that Christ did not die or shed his blood for all men.
The movement originated in the posthumously published work of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, who died in 1638. It was first popularized by Jansen's friend Abbot Jean du Vergier de Hauranne of Saint-Cyran-en-Brenne Abbey, and after Vergier's death in 1643 the movement was led by Antoine Arnauld. Through the 17th and into the 18th centuries, Jansenism was a distinct movement away from the Catholic Church. The theological center of the movement was Port-Royal-des-Champs Abbey, which was a haven for writers including Vergier, Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, and Jean Racine.
Jansenism was opposed by many within the Catholic hierarchy, especially the Jesuits. Although the Jansenists identified themselves only as rigorous followers of Augustine's teachings, Jesuits coined the term Jansenism to identify them as having Calvinist leanings.[1] Cum occasione, the apostolic constitution promulgated by Pope Innocent X in 1653, condemned five cardinal doctrines of Jansenism as heretical, especially the relationship between human free will and efficacious grace, wherein the teachings of Augustine, as presented by the Jansenists, contradicted Jesuit thought.[1] Jansenist leaders endeavored to accommodate the pope's pronouncements while retaining their uniqueness, and enjoyed a measure of peace in the late 17th century under Pope Clement IX. Further controversy led to the papal bull Unigenitus of Pope Clement XI in 1713, which condemned further Jansenist teachings.[2] This controversy did not end until Louis Antoine de Noailles, cardinal and archbishop of Paris who had opposed the bull, signed it in 1728.
Factionalism[edit]
Jansenism persisted in France for many years but split "into antagonistic factions" in the late 1720s.
One faction developed from the convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard, who were religious pilgrims who went into frenzied religious ecstasy at the grave of François de Pâris, a Jansenist deacon in the parish cemetery of Saint-Médard in Paris. The connection between the larger French Jansenist movement and the smaller, more radical convulsionnaire phenomenon is difficult to state with precision. Brian Strayer noted, in Suffering Saints, almost all convulsionnaires were Jansenists, but very few Jansenists embraced the convulsionnaire phenomenon.[12]: 236
"The format of their seances changed perceptibly after 1732," according to Strayer. "Instead of emphasizing prayer, singing, and healing miracles, believers now participated in 'spiritual marriages' (which occasionally bore earthly children), encouraged violent convulsions [...] and indulged in the secours (erotic and violent forms of torture), all of which reveals how neurotic the movement was becoming." The movement descended into brutal cruelties that "clearly had sexual overtones" in their practices of penance and mortification of the flesh. In 1735 the parlements regained jurisdiction over the convulsionary movement, which changed into an underground movement of clandestine sects. The next year "an alleged plot" by convulsionnaire revolutionaries to overthrow the parlements and assassinate Louis XV was thwarted. The "Augustinian convulsionnaires" were then absconded from Paris to avoid police surveillance. This "further split the Jansenist movement."[12]: 257–265
According to Strayer, by 1741 the leadership was "dead, exiled, or imprisoned," and the movement was divided into three groups. The police role increased and the parlements role decreased "in the social control of Jansenism" but cells continued engaging in seances, torture,[e] and apocalyptic and treasonous rhetoric. By 1755 there were fewer than 800 convulsionnaires in France. In 1762 the parlements criminalized some of their practices "as 'potentially dangerous' to human life."[12]: 266–269, 272 The last crucifixion was documented in 1788.[12]: 282
Jansenists continued to publish anti-Jesuit propaganda through their magazine Nouvelles ecclésiastiques and played a central role in plotting and promoting the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in 1762–64.[13]
Legacy[edit]
Unigenitus Dei Filius marks the official end of toleration of Jansenism in the Church in France, though quasi-Jansenists would occasionally stir in the following decades. By the mid-18th century, Jansenism proper had totally lost its battle to be a viable theological position within Catholicism. However, certain ideas tinged with Jansenism remained in circulation for much longer; in particular, the Jansenist idea that Holy Communion should be received very infrequently, and that reception required much more than freedom from mortal sin, remained influential until finally condemned by Pope Pius X, who endorsed frequent communion, as long as the communicant was free of mortal sin, in the early 20th century.
In 1677, a pro-Baianism faction from the theological faculty at Louvain submitted 116 propositions of moral laxity for censure to Pope Innocent XI, who selected 65 propositions from the submission and "limited himself to condemning the deviations of moral doctrine."[10]: p. 466 On the other hand, Pascal's criticism of the Jesuits also led Innocent XI to condemn, through the Holy Office, those 65 propositions in 1679,[10]: nn. 2101–2167 [f] "without naming the probabilism prevalent in Jesuit circles."[15] Those 65 propositions were taken chiefly from the writings of the Jesuits Antonio Escobar y Mendoza and Francisco Suarez. All 65 propositions were censured and prohibited "as at least scandalous and pernicious in practice."[10]: n. 2167
At the pseudo-Synod of Pistoia, a proposition of Jansenist inspiration, to radically reform the Latin liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church, was passed. This proposition along with the entire Synod of Pistoia was condemned by Pius VI's bull Auctorem Fidei several years later.[16]
Jansenism was a factor in the formation of the independent Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands from 1702 to 1723, and is said to continue to live on in some Ultrajectine traditions, but this proposition began with accusations from the Jesuits.
In Quebec, Canada, in the 1960s, many people rejected the Church, and many of its institutions were secularized. This process was justified frequently by charges that the Church in Quebec was "Jansenist". For instance, Paul-Emile Borduas' 1948 manifesto Le Refus global accused the Church in Quebec as being the result of a "Jansenist colony".[17]