Alfred Loisy’s Use of St. John Henry Newman: Newman’s Contested Modernist Legacy

Alfred Loisy's Use of St. John Henry Newman: Newman's Contested Modernist Legacy Jeffrey L. Morrow (bio) Prior to the 1980s, there was not much in the way of sustained studies of the influence of St. John Henry Newman on Alfred Loisy. Among the earliest of these studies is Ronald Burke's 1985 essay, "Was Loisy Newman's Modern Disciple?"1 Nicholas Lash published the next significant piece on Loisy's use of Newman in his 1990 essay, "Newman and 'A. Firmin.'"2 Perhaps the most important study on this topic, Francesco Turvasi's essay, "The Development of Doctrine in John Cardinal Newman and Alfred Loisy," was published in 1992, seven years after Burke's original essay appeared in print.3 Each of these essays contributes important insights into the question of Newman's actual influence on Loisy, and I am indebted to them. Newman was sometimes portrayed as the inspiration for Loisy's understanding of development, particularly within the Bible.4 This was clearly in part due to Loisy's own expressed fondness for Newman and for his use of Newman in some of his early theological writings. In his 1913 autobiographical Choses passées, for example, Loisy wrote, "The spirit of Newman pleased me much more than that of Protestant theologians. I studied mainly his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. This is how I prepared my catechism."5 Albert Houtin argued that Loisy simply used Newman [End Page 68] tactically, as a rhetorical device hiding his rationalism.6 Others who defended Loisy emphasized Newman's pivotal role as an inspiration and the first to teach Loisy about doctrinal development. According to this reading, Loisy decided to apply the developmental approach to the scriptures themselves. The situation, however, was more complicated than either of these facile positions. This article explores both the way in which Loisy used Newman and the difficult question of influence. modernism contested Before examining Loisy's use of Newman, however, a brief word about modernism is in order, in part because it is so difficult to define.7 Scholars tend to follow the broad definition of modernism defined in Pope St. Pius X's 1907 encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, wherein he condemned modernism,8 or else they find a more complex approach to defining modernism.9 Gabriel Daly warned scholars that, "Defining Modernism is a political act, in that it commits one, if not to a position, at least to a perspective from which to launch one's investigations."10 Modernism is difficult to define because in the course of the controversy such a vast and diverse group of individuals were caught in the net of the anti-modernists, including future popes like Benedict XV and Pope St. John XXIII.11 What those lumped together often shared in common was that they found themselves compelled to confront the intellectual currents of modernity, at least on some front: Developments in science like Darwinian evolution; modern philosophical [End Page 69] currents especially perhaps the thought of Immanuel Kant; developments in modern historical biblical criticism; etc. The relationship between faith and reason, history and tradition, the knowing subject and the object known, were all a part of the conflict. Those identified as modernists were often aware of these tensions, and in fact, felt themselves to be conflicted. The term "modernist" itself has a long history, and in general was not used very often in the terms of how it appears in Pascendi prior to 1907. Typically, at least in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the term "modernism" was used within Catholicism, e.g., in France, it typically functioned as a stand in for the broader notion of "liberalism." There were a few examples where the language approaches that of Pascendi, such as in an 1881 book review of a work on "modernism" (Le modernisme) published in French, where we read the following: Now we know the birth certificate of modernism. This child of the revolt will have as its elder brother liberalism which only lives through fear, and for its younger brother opportunism which will reign through terror . . . that day they gave access to the demon of liberalism who presented...