Several times in the course of this erudite, indispensable book, Richard Costigan emphasizes the inadequate citing of Gallican works in ecclesiological writings of the 20th century. The authors, he complains, “speak of ‘the Gallican doctrine’ without citing a single[his emphasis] Gallican treatise or any study about Gallicanism.” Costigan has remedied this neglect with learning and lucidity, leaving us heavily in his debt. Six Gallicans: Bossuet, Tournely, Bailly, Bergier and La Luzerne and four Ultramontanes: Orsi, Ballerini, Muzzarelli and Perrone are here presented in chronological order of their chief works. This arrangement splendidly serves to bring out the variously and carefully nuanced teachings of the Gallicans, effectively giving the lie to Thyrso Gonzalez's caricature of Gallican teachings: [They]“entrust doctrine to ignorant men, petty women [mulierculae], rustics, boys, shoemakers, the bleary‐eyed, and barbers.”(De Infallibilitate 1689). This is amusing knock‐about stuff, but a ludicrous travesty of Gallican views.
Gallicanism did not, of course, spring fully armed from Article 4 of the ‘Declaration of the Gallican Clergy’ in 1682. The main driving force for the ‘Declaration’ was the insistence, not of the French king but the bishops, that the time‐honoured privileges of France vis a vis papal authority should be reasserted. Such tensions arose not only in France but elsewhere and over centuries. It was not only in France that there was secular control over papal communications. As the Nation State evolved, such tensions increased and popes responded. The growth of ultramontanism which climaxed when papal infallibility was defined in the 1870 Constitution Pastor Aeternus, cannot be understood except in the context of geo‐political circumstances. Lamennais' remarkable career should teach us that.
Fenelon's condemnation for Les Maximes des Saints (1697) similarly illustrates the point. The most powerful Gallican churchman of the day, Bossuet, backed by royal authority, sought to suppress ‘Quietism’. To that end, Madame Guyon and Francois Fenelon, were grievously persecuted. Appeal had to be made to Rome for an authoritative ruling, but Innocent XII was extremely reluctant to comply with French demands. Nevertheless, after lengthy and frustrating consultation, a compromise was reached. The archbishop of Cambrai was indeed condemned but not too severely, the authority of the Pope maintained and Fenelon made his submission ‐ an edifying example of docility. Yet this condemnation of March 1699 fails to demonstrate papal authority exercised with that coercive power which Pietro Ballerini believed Christ had conferred on Peter's successors. Indeed, it appears that, among others, it was the aged Pope who was coerced.
How then did it come about that, by the 1850s, ultramontanism had triumphed? Reinforcement of the authority of the Holy See was held to be a necessary bulwark against assaults of aggressive secularism. Costigan elucidates the arguments and teachings of the ultramontanes by expounding the writings of Orsi, Ballerini, Muzzarelli and, most fascinating of all, Perrone. The papalist reasoning basically depends upon Christ's promises to Peter, though exposition is not simply and solely scriptural. Surely, they argue, as Costigan puts it: “it is unthinkable for the sheep to second‐guess the shepherd?” The scriptural metaphors are exhaustively deployed. Docility and obedience are expected of the sheep. How, ask these papalists, could papal teachings be held to be, as Gallicans do, reformable? Such dangerous teaching has to be resisted. The Gallican stress on ‘consensus’ would disastrously qualify papal authority and plunge the Church into uncertainty. In an eloquent passage, Muzzarelli asks: “My God, where is the remedy sure, universal, prompt and efficacious that you have given to the faithful for all times, and for all days, against nascent heresies, against the ruses and snares of the errant?” (L'Infaillibilité du Pape 1826) ‐ a rhetorical question demanding inescapable response.
In the added wording to Pastor Aeternus, Gallicanism received its coup de grace. The authority of the pope is “ex sese, non autem ex consensus Ecclesiae”. Though the definition of papal infallibility was certainly not all that extreme ultramontanists would have wished, these additional words secure the triumph of papal authority. Critics at the time said, as Hans Küng put it a century after the definition: “There is no disguising the fact that … no one can prevent the Pope from acting arbitrarily and autocratically in matters of doctrine …” (Infallible? p.86). What if he promulgate error? To this papalists reply: but it will never happen! Nevertheless, say Gallicans, it has happened in the past and the Church has survived. Both Muzzarelli and Perrone half‐heartedly take this dilemma on board, but do not suggest what procedures could be followed to resolve it.
This magisterial survey of leading exponents is admirably even‐handed, but one need not read too intently between lines to discover where Costigan's sympathies lie. By explicitly snubbing the episcopate with the “ex sese” phrase, the cause of collegiality was firmly relegated for many years. Now, more than forty years on from Vatican II, we await practical steps which are implied theoretically in chapter III of De Ecclesia. Might this generous and brilliant study move the matter forward somewhat? There are formidable stumbling blocks in the way. Meanwhile we can congratulate ourselves and the author that justice has been done to both sides of the argument – something that has been long awaited in the case of the Gallicans.
