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Maude Petre: Her Life and Significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

Charles J. Healey S.J.
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Extract

Maude Domenica Petre (1863-1942) has long been associated with the Modernist movement in the Catholic Church, but for the most part she has remained in the background. Whatever has been written about her has usually been in connection with George Tyrrell, since as his close friend, biographer and literary executor, she is a key source of information about him. Apart from that, there is her own apparent desire to stay somewhat in the background. She tells us very little about herself in her writings, and even in her quasi-autobiography, My Way of Faith, written in 1936 when she was 73 and could look back on a long and full life, she is very reluctant to focus on herself. And yet, in her own right she was a remarkable woman. Apart from the books which she either edited or translated, she wrote more than fourteen books of her own on a variety of subjects, as well as numerous articles. This paper, then, will focus on Maude Petre herself, using her own writings and the Petre Papers which were presented to the British Library some time after her death.

Type
Articles
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , May 1979 , pp. 23 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1979

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References

Notes

1 Petre, M. D., My Way of Faith (London, 1937).Google Scholar To be cited hereafter as My Way. Miss Petre writes on p. 323: ‘Throughout this work I have had no wish to interest the reader in myself nor in the outer events of my life’.

2 The unbound Petre Papers (Add. MSS. 52367-52382) were presented to the British Library on 18 February 1964 by Mrs Margaret Clutton, sister of Miss Maude Petre. Also pertinent are Add. MSS. 45361-45362 (letters of Miss Petre from F. von Hügel), and 45744-45745 (various letters to Miss Petre).

3 Miss Petre writes: ‘I was thus acquainted with and influenced by the strong, reserved temper of the old English Catholic, on the one side, and the more ardent and devotional temperament of the English, or, in this case, the Irish convert on the other side’. Cf. Petre, M. D., The Ninth Lord Petre or Pioneers of Roman Catholic Emancipation (London, 1928), xiii.Google Scholar

4 My Way, p. 14.

5 Ibid., p. 61.

6 Ibid., p. 86

7 Ibid., p. 96.

8 Ibid., p. 65. Reflecting back on this subject as an elderly woman, Miss Petre wrises; There is in me some curiously obstinate core of self-love and ambition which has not perished, even through the great changes that life has brought’. Ibid., p. 76.

9 Ibid., p. 144.

10 Ibid., p. 172.

11 Ibid., p. 161. Miss Petre devotes a chapter in this book ‘to that doubting propensity whichhas been the sting of mind and soul from youth to old age’. Cf. pp. 161-70.

12 Petre, M. D., The Temperament of Doubt (London, 1901).Google Scholar This was later included in herbook Catholicism and Independence, published in 1907.

13 My way, pp. 152-3.

14 Ibid., p. 154.

15 Petre, M. D., Aethiopus Servus: A Study in Christian Altruism (London, 1896).Google Scholar

16 The journals (diaries) of Maude Petre begin in September 1900. Cf. the Petre Papers inthe British Library, Add. MSS. 52372ff. The numbers 52372-52374 are relevant to the yearsunder discussion here and are a rich source of information.

17 My Way, p. 270. Miss Petre also writes: ‘Well, from the hour in which George Tyrrellentered my life, something happened for good’. Cf. ibid., p. 272.

18 Ibid., pp. 274-5.

19 For a warm and affectionate account of her friendship with Bremond, cf. Miss Petre'schapter on Bremond in My Way, pp. 260-9.

20 Ibid., p. 276.

21 Ibid., pp. 278-9. Miss Petre notes in her journal for 15 January 1901: ‘I cannot get at anyunity in him—it seems as though he might fall into pieces that could walk off in different ways,and I should not know which to follow’. Ibid., p. 281.

22 Ibid., p. 283. Miss Petre writes in her journal for 2 September 1904: ‘I came back to Richmond happier but a terrible blow has fallen. Mr and Mrs, who were staying and perhaps others persuade G.T. that the gossip was bad and it is decided I am to go’. Cf. Petre Papers, Add. MSS. 52373.

23 Petre, M. D., Where Saints Have Trod. Some Studies in Asceticism. With a preface by George Tyrrell, S.J. (London, 1903).Google Scholar A reviewer at the time writes of the book as ‘a work of power and merit, bringing out well the beauty, depth and value of the spiritual life’. Cf. Catholic World (August 1904), p. 683.

24 Where Saints Have Trod, p. 5.

25 The Soul’s Orbit, or Man's Journey to God. Compiled with additions by M. D. Petre (London, 1904).

26 For a fuller account of the book's history, cf. Petre, M. D., Autobiography and Life of George Tyrrell, 2 vols (London, 1912), 2, pp. 81–83.Google Scholar Miss Petre indicates roughly what was Tyrrell's and what was hers in the book.

27 My Way, p. 284.

28 In her journal she writes: ‘All over—my last day as superior’. Cf. entry for 2 February 1905 in Add. MS. 25373 of the Petre Papers.

29 Petre, M. D., Catholicism and Independence. Being Studies in Spiritual Independence (London, 1907), ix.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., xi; cf. also p. 101.

31 Cf. Miss Petre's entries in her journal during April and May of 1906, Petre Papers, Add. MS. 52374.

32 My Way, p. 284.

33 Ibid., p. 273.

34 Ibid., p. 276. Miss Petre often echoes this sentiment: ‘Had I cared for him less, and desiredless to be cared for in return, I should, perhaps, have succeeded better’. Ibid., p. 284.

35 For a fuller account of Tyrrell's sickness, death and burial, cf. Miss, Petre's Life of Tyrrell, 2, pp. 422–46.Google Scholar See also Add. MSS. 52368 and 52374 of the Petre Papers for much informationand details. For an account based on von Hügel's diaries, cf. Lawrence, F. Barmann, Baron Von Hügel and the Modernist Crisis in England (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 222ff.Google Scholar

36 My Way, p. 287.

37 Ibid., p. 273.

38 For the text of the will, cf. Life of Tyrrell, 2, pp. 433-4.

39 Unfortunately it seems that Miss Petre destroyed many of the letters after finishing with them, particularly many of Tyrrell's letters to her. Cf. ‘Revelation as Experience: An Unpublished Lecture of George Tyrrell’, edited with notes and historical introduction by Thomas, Michael Loome. The Heythrop Journal, 12 (April 1971), p. 124.Google Scholar

40 George, Tyrrell, Essays on Faith and Immortality. Arranged by M. D. Petre (London, 1914).Google Scholar

41 George Tyrrell's Letters. Selected and edited by M. D. Petre (London, 1920).

42 Petre, M. D., Modernism, Its Failure and Its Fruits (London, 1918).Google Scholar

43 Cf. Petre Papers, Add. MS. 52381. Copies of the correspondence mentioned in the following pages are here as well as any quotations given.

44 Ibid. There is also an interesting letter of 7 November 1910 of Archbishop Mignot to Miss Petre. Evidently she had sent to him a copy of her letter to her own bishop. In the course of the letter, Archbishop Mignot writes: ‘But the conclusions of your letter, which I admire, do not appear to be strictly theological, and they could create unnecessary danger for you and for others. Of the three ways you declare one can look at the oath, it is the second—that which pleases you the least—that appears to me to be the only acceptable, the only possible way, the only way that reconciles the pretensions of authority with the rights of the individual conscience.’

45 Among the same Petre Papers (Add. MS. 52381), there is a gracious letter written from the Vatican by Cardinal Maglione dated 14 April 1939, just after Pope Pius XII became Pope. Evidently Miss Petre wrote to the new Pope, but we have no idea of the contents of her letter. Cardinal Maglione's letter graciously acknowledges her letter, but has nothing specific. There is also among the papers dealing with this issue an account of an interview between George Clutton, nephew of Maude Petre, and the Archbishop of Southwark on 15 April 1943. The nephew sought information about the ecclesiastical sanctions against his aunt. According to the account by the nephew, the initiative for the measures taken against Miss Petre shortly after Tyrrell's death came from the Holy Office because of her defence of Tyrrell.

46 Cf. entry for 20 April 1914 in the Petre Papers, Add. MS. 52375.

47 My Way, p. 306.

48 Petre, M. D., Reflections of a Non-Combatant (London, 1915).Google Scholar

49 My Way, p. 312.

50 Walker, James A., ‘Maude Petre (1863-1942) A Memorial Tribute’, in Hibbert Journal, 41 (1942–43), p. 341.Google Scholar He also speaks of her preparation just before her death ‘for a Christmastree party at a L.C.C. nursery, where she attended regularly and was idolized by the children’. Ibid., p. 340.

51 Miss Petre writes elsewhere on this point: ‘Von Hügel impelled an incautious man into the fight, and then expected him to exercise restraint and caution in the very thick of the medley’. Cf. My Way, p. 291.

52 Ibid., p. 253.

53 Ibid., p. 254.

54 Cf. entry for 17 November 1909. Add. MS, 52374 of the Petre Papers. For von Hugel's article on Tyrrell, cf. ‘Father Tyrrell: Some Memorials of the Last Twelve Years of His Life’, in Hibbert Journal 8 (January 1910), pp. 233–52.Google Scholar

55 Cf. Petre, M. D., ‘Friedrich Von Hügel: Personal Thoughts and Reminiscences’, in Hibbert Journal 24 (1925–26), p. 85.Google Scholar The same thought is expressed by her in her book Von Hügel and Tyrrell: The Story of a Friendship (London, 1937), p. 203.Google Scholar

56 Petre, M. D., Alfred Loisy, His Religious Significance (Cambridge, 1944).Google Scholar

57 ‘Maude Petre, A Memorial Tribute’, pp. 340-1.

58 Ibid., p. 340.

59 Ibid., p. 341.

60 Cf. My Way, p. 292. Miss Petre also writes: ‘When I turn over the pages of Nova et Vetera I ask myself if anything in his later work ever surpassed them’. Ibid., p. 290.

61 Ibid., p. 293.

62 Ibid., p. 292.

63 Ibid., p. 149.

64 Ibid., pp. 340-1.

65 Ibid., xi.

66 Cf. Catholic World, 145 (August 1937), p. 63. Cf. also Robert, Hamilton, ‘Faith and Know-ledge, the Autobiography of Maude Petre’, in The Downside Review (April 1967), p. 157.Google Scholar

67 My Way, p. 336.

68 Ibid., p. 204.