Old Roman Catholicism

 

O

ld Roman Catholicism is the modern revival of Catholicism, as it was understood in the first centuries - not an attempt to perpetuate the faults either of doctrines or of works, revealed by history in the Christian Church of the early centuries, but an endeavour, on the part of our supporters, while conforming to our own times and our own countries, to be guided by the spirit of Christ, our only leader, and to labour, by this spirit, to put an end to the imperfections and vices that have defiled the Church in the course of time.

 

The Church is called ‘Old’ not to disown the improvements which reason and the gospel declare to be necessary, but to show fundamental dependence on Christ and His Gospel.  We have no intention whatever of founding a new religion or of joining one of the sects that dreams of a fanciful Christianity in the future.  We are faithful to the Church founded by Christ and preached by His Apostles, as it appears in the books of the New Testament and in the Christian writings of the first centuries.  We try to live by the spirit of our fathers and the saints worshipped by our ancestors, and thus to unite the Christian past with the Christian present and the Christian future.

 

When we speak of the first centuries, we speak especially of the first three.  But in thought we include the next five also, because, in reality, the Church of the first eight centuries, in spite of its turmoils and its numerous dissentions, succeeded in remaining one in both East and West.  It was not until the 9th Century that Pope Nicholas I fell away from the Eastern Church and cause schism.  Although we are Westerners, Old Roman Catholics do not accept the inheritance of the faults of this pope.  And claim to go further, by extending the hand to Christians of the East and inviting them to labour with us for the restoration of union between the Christian Churches of the East and the West.

 

The Old Roman Catholic Church is a legitimate part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, having provable unbroken Succession of Orders from, and teaching the full faith of the undivided Church.  She adheres to the forms and formulae established by the early Church Fathers in order to preserve for succeeding generations the deposit of Faith received from our Lord and His Apostles.

 

The remark is often made that the clergy of the Old Roman Catholic Church lays an exaggerated stress on the validity of our orders – the underlying implication being that we are hypersensitive on the subject because of a subconscious fear regarding our standing.  The explanation is quite different.  The Old Roman Catholic clergy are forced by the very nature of things to present their credentials at every turn.  We are few in numbers, relatively unknown by the public at large, educated or otherwise, and the rare references to us in religious publications most often than not brand us as a ‘sect’.  It is no wonder that our first concern be to establish our identity.  There is perhaps no body of clergy in the world so well versed in the historical facts pertinent to their Apostolic Succession [see Appendix I] as is the clergy of the Old Roman Catholic Church.

 

We cannot deny that there have been scoundrels among the men who have received and handed down Old Roman Catholic orders.  Men with no other religious purpose than to deceive the ignorant and unwary, whose sole aim in life is to profit temporarily by the privileges, honours and life of ease so easily attained by those who ‘wear the cloth’.  But we cannot remain silent if this is made a general accusation.  The majority of Old Roman Catholic bishops and priests are men who dedicate their life to the growth of an ideal in a particularly difficult field.  Let the accusers look into the history of their own religious group and they will cease throwing stones.  To link holiness of life with the validity of orders is to strike at the very foundation of the Catholic structure -- in any Church.

 

The chain of Apostolic Succession has been dragged through the mire of worldly ambition many times in the past.  That such may have been the unhappy experience of some sections of the Old Roman Catholic Church in relatively recent times does not impair the spiritual solidarity of every link.  And our Church is making every effort to restore to it the shining beauty it should always have possessed, and is doing so in full acceptance of the facts, in humility and in truth.

 

So, as we do not attempt to whitewash some of the personages who link us with the past, neither do we attempt to explain away or conceal the evils that have disgraced the Church of Rome or the Eastern Churches.  These evils had for their punishment the explosive fragmentation of Christian Europe at the Reformation.  We only maintain that in spite of these weaknesses and these crimes, the Roman and Eastern Churches are to be regarded historically and until the Reformation the only legitimate messengers of the Gospel.  As far as we are concerned, the history of the first eighteen centuries of the Roman Church is the history of our Church.  The spiritual glory of the Roman Catholic Church of history is a glory, which we have inherited.  Its Saints are our Saints.

 

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches were, until the Reformation, the only religious bodies claiming to be ‘Catholic’ in virtue of Apostolic Succession.  They claimed to belong to the True Church of Christ because their clergy held an unbroken succession of orders back through the ages to the Apostles and to Christ.  The Old Roman Catholic Church bases her own right to this exalted membership on the historical fact of the Apostolic chain of Succession uniting it, through the Roman Catholic Church of the past, to the Divine Master.  [See Appendix II] 

 

Chapter Two 

 

M

any persons and groups, ecclesiastics and laymen, saints and fanatics, prudent men and enthusiasts, have in every century attempted to reform the Roman Catholic Church.  Some did so while remaining within the pale, others by declaring their independence and working from without.  Compare a Saint Francis of Assisi and a Martin Luther.

 

There is no doubt that in a Church founded by Christ, no individual can set himself above the commissioned representatives of its Founder and lay down the law.  “Obey them that rule over you and submit yourselves,” says Saint Paul [Hebrews 13: 17].  Saint Francis realized this.  Whatever mental agony he experience at the contemplation of the worldly atmosphere of the Church of his day, at the corruption of many churchmen, at the abuse of many religious practices, he still was able to practice and counsel a deep respect for the men who dispensed the Sacraments and “in whose hands the Saviour of the world comes down upon our altars”.

 

His ‘Little Brothers’ [Friars Minor] were never to undertake any religious activity without the consent of the local clergy.  At a time when the Order of the Dominicans were penetrating in all the countries of Europe on the strength of papal authorizations overriding any decision of the local bishops, Saint Francis persistently refused for himself or his followers any papal privileges and honours.  He sent his humble brothers to knock at the local bishop’s door for permission to preach.  A refusal was to be taken with obedience and humility.  When, near the end of his life, the Cardinal Protector of the Franciscans succeeded in imposing the Roman will on the Order of which Francis was no longer the head and to transform the Friars into deputies of the Holy see, he cries out:  “We must begin anew, create a new family who will not forget humility, who will go and serve lepers and, as in the old times, put themselves always, not merely in words, but in reality, below all men”.  These are not words of revolt but of infinite disappointment.

 

Martin Luther was a priest, a monk and a scholar of the Roman Catholic Church.  That he may have been sincere in his decision does not make that decision objectively right.  It is quite possible to be sincerely mistaken.  Now, the error of Martin Luther was basically to have let himself become so disgusted with the decay and abuse in the Church that he lost the spiritual sensitivity which would have kept him aware of its invisible spiritual structure, enduring always and certainly reformable.  Had he been humble in his ambitions for reforms, we might have had a Saint Martin Luther as well as a Saint Francis of Assisi.  As it is, his dubious title to fame is the role he played as the scourge of the Church.

 

What Saint Francis was on the individual plane, the Church in Holland was on the corporate level.  Under inspection of history of its dispute with Rome, the Church in Holland emerges uncondemned because it held the line of Christian moderation.

 

The Bishopric of Utrecht, which until the sixteenth century had been the only Bishopric in what is now Dutch territory, was founded by Saint Willibrord, an English missionary bishop from Yorkshire.  After having been educated, like all the most learned men of that period in Ireland, he was consecrated at Rome by Pope Sergius I in 696, and given the pallium of an archbishop.  Pepin, Mayor of the Place to the Merovingian dynasty, gave Willibrord the fortress of Utrecht on the Rhine, which has ever since been the ecclesiastical capital of the Northern Netherlands.  After fifty years missionary work among the pagan Friesians, Saint Willibrord died, and was buried at his favourite monastery, Echternach in Luxembourg, where his relics are still shown.  His feast is kept on November 7th.  His friend Saint Boniface, born at Credition in Devonshire succeeded him, who had given his life to the Church in Germany.  He had been Archbishop of Mainz, which continued until the French Revolution to be the primatial see of Germany.

 

In the last year of his life Saint Boniface resigned his archbishopric and retired to do pioneer missionary work in Frisia, where he suffered martyrdom, June 5, 754.  His body and the book he was reading when he met his death – the De Bono Mortis [On the Advantage of Death] by Saint Ambrose – were carried to Fulda, near Frankfurt-on-the-Main, where they still remain.  After this the Pope recognized the claim to the See of Cologne to jurisdiction over Utrecht, and Utrecht remained a simple Bishopric in the province of Cologne until 1559.

 

In the eleventh century the Bishops of Utrecht became temporal princes, charged with the duty of defending the frontier of the empire against the Northmen and other invaders.  They gave their support to the imperial cause against the claims of Pope Gregory VII.  In 1145 the right of electing the Bishops was taken away from the people because of their turbulence, and was confined to the Chapter of Utrecht, which consisted of the members of the chapters of the Cathedral of Saint Martin and Saint Saviour’s Church.  It was afterwards extended to include the chapters of three other collegiate churches.  Pope Eugene III granted this right and the Fourth Council of the Lateran confirmed this grant in 1215.

 

The history of the See was marked during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by several deplorable disputes between rival candidates, which often led to civil wars.  In 1520, Pope Leo X in the Bull, Debitum Pastoralis, granted to the See of Utrecht and its 57th Bishop, [Philip of Burgundy, who reigned from 1517 to 1524], giving to him and his successors, and to the clergy and laity of the diocese, the privilege of freedom from the claim of the Popes to “evoke” local causes to be heard at Rome.  Any attempt to evoke any church case from Utrecht was to be null and void.  [The Theological Faculties of Paris and the Louvain, in 1717, verified this privilege, known as the Leonine Privilege.  Both of these grants have been exercised by the See of Utrecht from the time of their promulgation and were of extreme importance during the period of the Counter Reformation when the ultramontane party questioned the rights of the See of Utrecht].

 

Philip’s successor, Henry of Bavaria, was driven from Utrecht by the partisans of the Duke of Gelderland; and in 1528, four years after his election, he had not yet been consecrated.  With the consent of his Chapter, and of the nobles of the province, he surrendered his temporal sovereignty to the Emperor Charles V on condition that the Emperor should restore him to his See.  From this time the Bishops of Utrecht ceased to be prince-bishops.

 

Chapter Three

 

D

uring the fifteenth century Utrecht had been remarkable for the society known as “The Brothers of the Common Life”, which was founded by Gerard the Great [Geert Groote], who died in 1378, for the purpose of teaching the young, sending out preachers, and recommending the study of Holy Scripture.  It was not a monastic order, but a voluntary association, the members of which did not take vows.

 

The parent house was at Deventer; the most famous member was Thomas a Kempis, usually regarded as the author of the Imitation of Christ, who spent most of his life at Mount Saint Agnes, near Zwolle.  The Brothers of the Common Life laid great emphasis on the study of Scripture; they tried to have a translation if it made into Dutch, and they were particular about using the best manuscripts available.  Among their pupils were Johann Wessel Gansfort, who had considerable influence over Luther and Erasmus, who as educated in one of their schools.

 

The type of piety encouraged by the Brothers of the Common Life persisted in the Netherlands, and was one of the causes of opposition to the very different type of piety encouraged by the Jesuits.  Thomas a Kempis says, “Before all arts, learn to read and understand the Holy Scriptures”; but the Bull ‘Unigenitus’, [see Appendix III] condemned the opinion that the laity are bound to read the Bible.  Another pupil of the Brothers of the Common Life was Pope Hadrian VI, who was born at Utrecht [where his house is till shown], was educated either at Deventer or Zwolle, became tutor to the Emperor Charles V, and in 1522 was elected Pope.  He was the last non-Italian Pope until 1978, and is celebrated for having given as his private opinion that the Pope is not infallible.

 

In the sixteenth century, the Netherlands, like the rest of Germany, England and indeed nearly all Northern Europe, had far too few Bishoprics.  The remoteness and the secular duties of the bishops were one reason why the Reformers did not value the episcopacy.  Philip II of Spain, on succeeding to the hereditary possessions of his father Charles V, decided to reorganize the Church throughout the Netherlands, and in 1559, when the war with France was over, persuaded the Pope to set up a number of new provinces and dioceses.  Utrecht became an Archbishopric, with the five new sees of Haarlem, Deventer, Grininen, Leeuwarden and Middelburg under it; they were endowed out of the revenues of wealthy abbeys, on the suggestion of Cardinal Granvelle, President of the Council of State at Brussels.

 

But this necessary reform came too late, and only precipitated the revolution.  The provinces of the Netherlands were full of men who had learned from Erasmus to study the Bible and to adopt a critical attitude towards the abuses of the Church.  The Reformation therefore found fruitful soil there.  Luther, indeed, did not appear to have exercised much influence; it was the extremer forms of the Reformation that spread through the Netherlands.  Charles V did what he could to surpress heresy; but there was something in the character of the burghers of the Netherlands cities which was attracted by the austerity and the independence of Calvinism, and it spread rapidly after 1550.

 

The seventeen provinces, which were only united because one sovereign had inherited them, were beginning to develop a national consciousness.  They had their common language [except the French-speaking districts in the south], they had their States-General at Brussels, and they had the same interest.  The difference between Holland and the Flemish part of Belgium which we see to-day was not in the first place due to a difference of religion or of culture, but simply to the fact that the Spaniards recaptured the southern provinces, but were unable, for geographical reasons, to recapture the northern ones.  There was at first a “reformed” movement in Flanders and Brabant, as strong as in Holland and Zealand; there was all along, as there is today, a very large Roman Catholic minority in Holland [in early days a majority]. But consisting largely of villagers.  Holland has never been a Protestant country in the same sense as the Scandinavian countries.

 

Charles V had been born in the Netherlands and spoke the language.  Philip II was by birth and character a Spaniard who had not the least sympathy with his subjects in the Netherlands.  His main object in setting up the new Bishoprics was to have a better organization for suppressing heresy; and the Spanish Inquisition was introduced in 1565.  National hatred of the Spaniards, combined with an independent attitude towards religion, as hateful as it was unintelligible to the Spanish king and his ministers, and with a determination to maintain the ancient privileges of provinces and cities, which the king was equally determined to destroy in the interests of autocracy, led to the Dutch War of Independence [1568-1648], carried on by both sides with horrible atrocity; it became a religious war in which both sides had great numbers of martyrs.

 

The most celebrated martyrs on the Catholic side were the nineteen Martyrs of Gorcum [eleven Capuchins, four members of other orders, and four secular priests].  Finally the seven northern provinces – Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overyssel, Friesland, and Groningen – became a republic, and adopted the reformed religion.  The independence was recognized by Spain by the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648.

 

Meanwhile the new bishops took possession of their Sees.  Frederick Schenk, Baron von Teutenburg, was consecrated in 1560, as the first Archbishop of Utrecht since Saint Willibrord and the fifty-seventh occupant of the See.  His suffragans were Nicolas Nieuwland, Bishop of Haarlem, who had been coadjutor to the last Bishop of Utrecht; John Mahusius, Bishop of Deventer; John Knyff, Bishop of Groningen; Cunerus Petersen, Bishop of Leeuwarden [the first bishop, Dirutius, was appointed to Bruges before he had been consecrated]; and Nicolas de Castro or Verburgh, Bishop of Middelburg.

 

On October 12, 1565, Archbishop Schenk held a provincial synod, which accepted the decrees of the Council of Trent, on faith, the Sacraments, and morals; the Chapter protested against interference with its rights and privileges, but the Synod rejected its protest.

 

The Revolution began in 1565; it was at first a movement for the defence of the rights of the provinces, ”with no other design but to preserve the Catholic religion in its purity” [William the Silent].  But the most ardent and successful of its promoters were Calvinists, who, whenever a city fell into their hands, stripped the churches of their ornaments and handed them over to the Reformed ministers, while the practice of the Roman Catholic religion was prohibited, in spite of all guarantees to the contrary.  The change was effected at Haarlem on May 29, 1578, when the garrison attached the congregation assembled in the cathedral, and the bishop had to flee for his life.

 

According to the terms of the Union of Utrecht, January 23, 1579 [from which date the independence of the Dutch Republic is reckoned], the rights and privileges of the Roman Catholic religion were guaranteed.  But on June 14, 1580, the practice of that religion was forbidden by the magistrates of Utrecht, and the Cathedral of Saint Martin was taken from the archbishop and his Chapter.  In truth the Prince of Orange and the Government were unable to control the extremists.

 

On August 25, 1580, Archbishop Schenk died, and the See remained vacant until 1602.  The Bishop of Haarlem, Godfrey de Mierio, a Dominican who had succeeded Nieuwland in 1569, took refuge at Bonn, and died there in 1587; he had no successor til 1742.  John Mahusius, Bishop of Deventer, was succeeded by Aegidius van den Berge [de Monte] in 1570, both were Franciscans.  Van den Berge died at Zwolle, May 26, 1577.  He had no successor til 1758.  Philip II did indeed nominate Gisbert Coeverinck as Bishop of Deventer in 1590, but he was never consecrated, as there was no money to pay even his fees to the Pope.

 

Cunerus Petersen, Bishop of Leeuwarden, founded a Cathedral Chapter there, but it did not survive his death in 1580, at Cologne.  He had no successors.  John Knyff, Bishop of Groningen, who was not so violently opposed as the others, died in his cathedral city in 1576.  He had no successors; for John de Bruherzen, Dean of Utrecht, who was appointed to succeed him was elected Archbishop of Utrecht, though never consecrated; and Arnold Nylen, who was then appointed, had to flee to Brussels and died there in 1603, without having been consecrated.  Nicolas Verburgh, the first Bishop of Middelburg, died there in 1573, and was succeeded by John van Styren, who, though consecrated, was never able to live in his diocese, and died at Louvain in 1594.  Thus the six sees of the ecclesiastical province of Utrecht were not all left vacant.

 

The diocesan organization, however, continued especially at Utrecht and Haarlem.  Although Roman Catholic services were forbidden, a large proportion of the people was still Roman Catholic.  It was the duty of the Cathedral Chapter to appoint “Grand Vicars” or Vicars General to administer the diocese during the vacancy of the See, according to the directions of the Council of Trent; but at Utrecht the Dean of the cathedral was by statue Vicar General ex-officio.  John de Brutherzen, Dean of Utrecht therefore became Grand Vicar on the death of Archbishop Schenk; he was elected archbishop, but the Pope never confirmed the election.  He had been banished from the country, because he had refused, as President of the Council of Utrecht; to invite William the Silent to the city; and he died at Cologne in 1600.  He was succeeded as Vicar General in 1583 by Sasbold Vosmeer, Dean of Saint Mary’s Church, The Hague, who was also, in 1592, appointed by the Pope Vicar Apostolic [a post not to be confused with that of Vicar General] for the whole of the United Provinces.  The Chapter of Deventer, removed to Oldenzaal in 1591, continued until 1665. 

 

Chapter Four

 

I

t was in 1592 that the Jesuits first entered the country; and the difference between their policy and that of Vosmeer and the national clergy, which ultimately led to the separation, began at once.

 

The Roman Catholics of Holland had their own diocesan organization; the Chapters had the right to elect bishops and present them to the Pope for confirmation.  They regarded the Pope as their lawful superior, but held that he was bound to respect their canonical rights.  A parallel may be drawn, perhaps, between their attitude towards their ecclesiastical and their civil ruler.  They recognized the King of Spain as their sovereign, but held that he was bound to respect the privileges of the provinces; they regarded the Pope also as a constitutional sovereign, bound to respect the canonical rights of local churches.  But neither King no Pope would recognize these limitations.  Both were convinced believers in the Renaissance ideal of absolute monarchy; both demanded blind obedience to their edicts.

 

The Jesuits were the new papal militia, vowed to absolute obedience to their General.  Their conception of the Church left no room for local rights, or for diocesan organizations.  Their policy was to abolish the hierarchy and the dioceses, and to secure that the Roman Catholic mission in the Netherlands should be controlled entirely by the Congregation de Propaganda Fide at Rome – that is, in practice, by them.

 

With this object, the Jesuits did their utmost, from the moment of their arrival in the country to prevent the Bishoprics from being filled.  They held that the bishop who was needed for ordination and confirmation should be only a Vicar Apostolic appointed by the Pope and removable at his direction; not a diocesan bishop with canonical rights of his own and power to hinder the designs of their Society.

 

The Chapters, on the other hand, and the majority of the clergy and people, while perfectly loyal to the Pope, did not want to be directly controlled from Rome.  They valued their ancient rights, and were determined to maintain them.  They detested what they regarded as the moral laxity of the Jesuits.  And they thought that their countrymen were more likely to return to the Church if the ancient constitution and the ancient type of piety were retained, and the bishops were elected by their clergy, than if the Church were entirely administered by Jesuits, whose moral teaching and exotic piety were alike repugnant to the Dutch.  Moreover, the Jesuits, who were believed to be in favour of political assassination, were particularly odious to the government.

 

This was the real cause of the dispute, which began more than forty years before the publication of Jansen’s Augustinus.

 

The accusation of Jansenism was brought against the Chapter of Utrecht much later, on the principle of “Give a dog a bad name and hang him”.  But from the first to last the real issue was the rights of the Chapters; and, behind it, the claim of the Papacy to unlimited obedience.

 

As early as 1598 the Jesuits successfully prevented the appointment of Vosmeer to the See of Haarlem.  In 1602 he went to Rome to protest against the intrusion of the Jesuits on the rights of the secular clergy, and to ask for the appointment of an archbishop.  The Archduke Albert, who had married the daughter of Philip II, and to whom the sovereignty of the Netherlands had been left by the King’s will [Philip died in 1598], believed [mistakenly] that he had the right to nominate the Archbishop of Utrecht under an edict of Charles V.  He nominated Vosmeer, who was also elected archbishop by the Chapter, and, much against his will, was consecrated at Rome, September 22, 1602,with the title of Archbishop of Philippi [in order not to offend the Dutch Government], but with the condition that he might assume the real title of Archbishop of Utrecht when circumstances would permit.

 

Neale, History of the Church of Holland, Appendix 2, gives the evidence that he was indeed Archbishop of Utrecht at length.  The following are some examples of it.  On January 11, 1603, the archbishop wrote to his brother, Tilman Vosmeer [who had been suggested for the See of Haarlem]:  “The Pope wished to promote me by a foreign title: but he gave me the people of Saint Willibrord, that I may be truly called Archbishop of Holland, Zealand and Utrecht”.  In 1609 he wrote to Gravius, his agent at Rome, that the Archduke had nominated him as Archbishop of Utrecht, but the Pope, in giving him the title of Archbishop of Philippe, and said to him, “You may change your title as soon as your Archduke pleases”.  [From the standpoint of the Roman Catholic clergy, the Archduke was the lawful sovereign of the whole of the Netherlands and the Dutch Government mere ‘insurgents’.]  In 1613 Vosmeer told Gravius that his title of Philippe referred, not to Philippi in Macedonia, but to King Philip!

 

He was banished by the government for having sought and accepted nomination to the Archbishopric of Utrecht from the Archduke Albert: which was naturally regarded as high treason by the Republic.  [Dr. Neale thinks the Jesuits themselves denounced him to the government].  Moreover, the Jesuits ordinarily addressed him as Archbishop of Utrecht – e.g., Louis Makeblyd, August 6, 1611, Gerard Contonnel, September 18, 1613.  He himself used the title regularly, often in the form Archiepiscopus Ultrajectenis et Philippensis.  Besides his ‘ordinary’ jurisdiction as archbishop, he had his special jurisdiction, as Vicar Apostolic of the Pope; these two separate forms of authority are carefully distinguished in his official documents.

 

Having been banished from the United Provinces, Vosmeer had to govern his diocese from abroad, first from the Spanish Netherlands, later from Cologne, though he visited it when he could at the risk of his life.  He had continually to struggle against the intrusion of the Jesuits and the mendicant orders; he once wrote to his brother, “The inconvenience caused by the Protestants is less than the trouble due to the Jesuits”.  There were only eight Jesuits in the country in 1609, but in that year the republic agreed to a truce with Spain for twelve years, and the Jesuits were able to enter the country more easily.

 

By every means in their power they encouraged the clergy and people to ignore the authority of the archbishop, with the object of increasing the power and wealth of their own order.  They complained to the internuncios at Brussels that the archbishop was hindering their work; but, as Vosmeer’s correspondence shows, they left the really labourious and dangerous work of ministering in the villages to the parish priests.

 

On December 16, 1609, the archbishop formally inhibited the Jesuits and the mendicant orders from the administration of the Sacraments and from preaching, and forbade the people to have recourse to them.  The Jesuits complained to the Pope, who deprived Vosmeer of his Vicariate Apostolic, but the archbishop made a complete defence of himself and the Pope gave way.

 

Chapter Five

 

     A

rchbishop Vosmeer died on May 3, 1614, and was buried in the Franciscan church at Cologne.  The Chapters of Utrecht and Haarlem had already recommended that Philip Rovenius, Dean of Oldenzaal, should be consecrated as his coadjutor.  Rovenius was unwilling, and the Chapter of Utrecht recommended Henry Vorden; but the Chapter of Haarlem insisted on having Rovenius, and the dispute was decided in favour of Rovenius by Jacobus Jansonius, then President of Hadrain VI College at Louvain.

 

            Rovenius was elected by the clergy immediately after the death of Vosmeer and was consecrated Archbishop of Utrecht, November 8, 1620 at Voorst near Brussels, by the Papal Nuncio.  He had already been Vicar Apostolic for six years.

 

In 1583 there had been about 600 priests in the United Provinces.  By 1614 the number was reduced to 170.  But from that time the number, both of priest and people, began to increase.  In 1663 there were 383 parishes in the six dioceses.  The cause of the increase seems to have been the cessation of the persecution after the truce with Spain had been agreed to.

 

The new Archbishop had the same titles as his predecessor.  Since the sovereignty of the Netherlands [according to the legitimist view] had reverted, on the death of the Archduke Albert, to Philip III of Spain, the clergy asked Cornelius Jensesn, who was going to Madrid on other business, to request the King formally to confirm the election of Rovenius as Archbishop of Utrecht.  It does not appear that the King ever did so; but on March 10, 1640, Rovenius was banished by the magistrates of Utrecht for having taken the title of Archbishop of Utrecht.  Until then he had lived at Utrecht, in secret, in the house of Mademoiselle de Duivenvoorde, a lady of noble birth who had bound herself by a vow of chastity; and he had at least one narrow escape from the officers of the Burgomaster.

 

Rovenius continued his predecessor’s struggle against the intrigues of the Jesuits; he even had to go to Rome to get his rights over the Jesuits and other orders confirmed.  They were compelled to sign an agreement promising obedience, but they did not keep the promise.

 

The principal work of Archbishop Rovenius was the reconstitution of the Chapter of Utrecht.  The canonries had never been suppressed, but most of the members were not Calvinists; the chapter still had its estates, and held regular meetings.  In 1622 the Government of Utrecht ordered that only Calvinists should be presented in future.  Archbishop Rovenius then chose nine of the few priests remaining in the chapters, added to them two others whom he had intended to present shortly to canonries in the months when he had the right of patronage and constituted this body with the “Vicarinate” of the Chapter of Utrecht, with all the ecclesiastical rights of the old Chapter.

 

            This reorganization, which was completed on June 9, 1633, was necessary if the Chapter, as a Roman Catholic institution, was not to come to an end.  No protest was raised at the time; most of the canons, which were priests but had not been selected by Rovenius, had left the country to avoid persecution.  Rome accepted the nominations made by the reorganized Chapter, down to the death of Archbishop Codde in 1710; and the chapter itself was recognized expressly, on many occasions, by Papal Nuncios.  After this, Rovenius and his successor'’ ceased to use their right of appointing members of the legal chapter, which had ceased to have any significance for them.

 

            Another important achievement of Rovenius’ episcopate was the foundation of the “Klopjes” or “Knocking Sister”, who, wearing ordinary dress and living in their own homes, did the work of teaching and nursing among the persecuted Roman Catholics in the villages.  In 1639 the government forbade them to teach children; but after 1667 the laws against them fell into disuse.  The last of them died in 1853.  They were called “Knocking Sisters” because they went from house to house to summon the people to church.

 

            In 1641 Rovenius, with nine of his priests, gave their approval to the Augustinus of Cornelius Jansen.  It seems that he also made certain liturgical changes.  During his episcopate, in spite of the persecution, the number of Roman Catholics increased from 200,00 to 300,000.  In 1647, Jacobus de la Torre was elected by the Chapters of Utrecht and Haarlem to be his coadjutor, and consecrated with the title of Archbishop of Ephesus; but he was shortly afterwards banished, and went to live at Antwerp.

 

            When Rovenius died in 1651, de la Torre succeeded him.  He was a weak man, and was induced by the Jesuits to sign a document, known as the “Concessiones Ephesinae”, which allowed them to increase their missions, although they had done their best to hinder his appointment.  He was out of his mind for some time before his death, and had a coadjutor, Zacharias de Metz [appointed by the Pope, though last on the list sent in by the Chapter], whose hasty temper caused much trouble, but who died two months before the archbishop.  Johannes van Neercassel was elected to succeed Metz, and as coadjutor, had the right to succeed on the diocesan’s death, but when the archbishop died on September 16, 1661, Baldwin Catz was appointed archbishop and Vicar Apostolic by the Pope, with Neercassel as his coadjutor.  They were consecrated together at Cologne on September 8, 1662, Catz as Archbishop of Philippi, and Neercassel as Bishop of Castoria.  But Catz soon became an imbecile, and died on May 18, 1663, when Neercassel came into possession of the Archbishopric.

 

Chapter Six

 

A

rchbishop van Neercassel was the last and greatest of the Archbishops of Utrecht who died in full communion with Rome.  He succeeded in solving an important problem of marriage for the whole Roman Communion.  The Council of Trent, in order to prevent secret marriage had decreed that no marriage should be recognized as valid without the presence of a priest.

 

This was interpreted as meaning that all Protestant marriages were invalid.  That a married person, on joining the Roman Communion must leave his or her spouse until the should be remarried; and that if the other spouse refused to repeat the marriage the Roman Catholic spouse might then marry any other person.  Archbishop van Neercassel, on the other hand, taught that marriages between persons not in communion with Rome were by natural law valid and indissoluble; and that if such persons afterwards joined the Roman Communion, their previous marriage only required the Church’s blessing to make it sacramental.  The view was accepted by the Roman Penitentiary in 1671, and was made the law of the Church by Pope Benedict XIV in 1741.

 

van Neercassel continued to suffer from the attacks of the Jesuits, who boasted that they would drive the secular clergy out of Holland and were always trying to discredit him by accusing him of false doctrine.  In 1670 he found it necessary to go to Rome to defend himself.  Taking with him letters of recommendation from the French ambassador at The Hague, M. de Pomponne [Simon Arnauld, brother of Antoine], the Princesse de Contil [a niece of Cardinal Mazarin], the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Christina, the former Queen of Sweden.  He was completely successful, and obtained from the Congregation de Propaganda Fide two decrees in his favour.  He at once returned to Holland.  During his stay in Rome he was much ridiculed for his simplicity of life, because he had only one servant with him.  During his journey to Holland he took every opportunity of preaching, especially in the diocese of Munster, where great crowds assembled everywhere to hear him; the Prince-Bishop, who could not preach himself, was delighted to find a bishop who could.

 

In 1748 Spain had recognized the independence of the Dutch Republic, so that the Dutch Roman Catholics no longer felt bound to regard the King of Spain as their real sovereign, and no longer felt obliged to risk being accused of high treason by seeking his confirmation for Church appointments.  On the other hand, the war with France caused some difficulty.  In 1672, when the French occupied Utrecht, the cathedral was restored to the Roman Catholics; and when they retired, the Archbishop thought it wise to take refuge at Huissen in the Duchy of Cleves, where he founded a diocesan seminary.

 

Some of the French Jansenists took refuge in Holland at this period.  In particular, Antoine Arnauld, who was an intimate friend of Archbishop van Neercassel, wrote, during his retirement at Huissen, a book called Amor Poenitens, defending the thesis of Arnauld, that contrition, founded on the love of God, is necessary to penitence and salvation, and that attrition, or sorrow due to punishment is not enough.

 

This book was attached with great violence by the Jesuits, but it was formally sanctioned by thirty French bishops, and received the commendation of Pope Innocent XI, who remarked, “The books is a good one, and the author is a saint.”  Under Alexander VII a decree was published forbidding the distribution of the book “until corrected”; but it was never formally condemned and the author published in 1685 a new and corrected edition.

 

In 1685 the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the arrival in Holland of crowds of Huguenot refugees from France, led to the last persecution of Roman Catholics. It was not very severe, because the Roman Catholics have liberally to the funds raised for the support of the French exiles.

 

            On June 6, 1686 the archbishop died of fever at Zwolle while visiting the eastern part of his jurisdiction.  According to Bellegarde, the episcopate of van Neercassel was the golden age of the Church of Utrecht; the persecution was just severe enough to keep the Church pure, the priests were united, obedient, and devoted to their work, and the number of adherents steadily increased.  Out of two million in the territory of the United Provinces, 330,000 were Roman Catholics.  [In England at that time the number of Roman Catholics was only 30,000].

 

            On the death of Archbishop van Neercassel, the Chapters of Utrecht and Haarlem unanimously elected Hugo Francis van Heussen as his successor; Peter Codde and John Lindeborn were appointed Vicars General to administer the diocese during the vacancy of the See.

 

            Heussen was the favourite disciple of van Neercassel, who called him his “Timothy”, and he had already in 1682 been elected coadjutor-bishop.  To prevent his consecration the Jesuits had denounced a treatise on indulgences, which he had written in 1681 as heretical.

 

            The Holy Office at Rome was still examining this book when he was elected by the Chapters to succeed van Neercassel.  The result of this attack was the condemnation of the book on May 15, 1687.  But this decree was found to be full of mistakes and the Pope suppressed it.  However, the Chapters saw that there would be difficulty in getting the election of Heussen confirmed at Rome, so they sent in three alternative names, of which that of Peter Codde was the first.

 

            All four, however, were accused of Jansenism and of supporting the Four Galican Articles by the other side.  On September 29, the Congregation de Propaganda Fide rejected Heussen.  They decided that in future the Church in the civil provinces of Utrecht, Holland, Zealand, and Gelderland should be placed under Bassery, the Vicar Apostolic of Hertogenbosch [Bois-le-duc], and the other provinces under a Vicar Apostolic to be chosen by the nuncio at Cologne and the internuncio at Brussels.

 

Cardinal Howard [uncle of the Duke of Norfolk] prevented this arrangement which would have brought the ancient dioceses to an end.  He had been a friend of Archbishop van Neercassel, and who used his influence as agent of King James II [this was a year before the English Revolution] to persuade the Pope to reject the decision of the cardinals.

 

            Various other proposals were made, but in the end Peter Codde was chosen.  Heussen was being rejected solely on account of his book on indulgences.  Heussen was profoundly thankful that he had not been made archbishop; he had now leisure to write two large historical works, Batavia Sacra and History of the Bishoprics of the United Netherlands, upon which his fame chiefly rests.

 

Chapter Seven

 

     P

eter Codde was born at Amsterdam, November 27, 1648 and educated at Louvain, where he joined the Congregation of the Oratory.  He lived for some time in devout retirement in the Oratorian houses at Paris and Orleans.

 

            Archbishop van Neercassel called him back to the Netherlands and in 1683 put him in charge of the most important parish at Utrecht.  Codde had published a Dutch translation of Bossuet’s Exposition of the Catholic Faith, and he was also a celebrated preacher.  The Archbishop of Malines and the Bishops of Antwerp and Namur, on Septuagesima consecrated him at Brussels Sunday, February 6, 1689 with the title of Archbishop of Sebaste.  Before the consecration, the internuncio, De Via asked him to sign a document condemning Jansenist beliefs:  this was the “Formulary” [Ad Sanctam Beati Petri Sedem], [see Appendix  IV] though Codde did not know it.  He replied that he had not studied the Jansenist controversy and that he must consult his friends before signing such a document.

 

            The internuncio said that it was of no importance and changed the conversation.  However, Archbishop Codde’s work was continually interrupted by the complaints made by the Jesuits at Rome that he was a Jansenist and a Galican.  As early as 1691 the worry caused by these complaints, together with overwork, threw him into a serious illness of which he nearly died.  Pope Innocent XII appointed a commission to inquire into these charges and presided over it himself.  The Archbishop was unanimously and unconditionally acquitted.

 

            However, the attacks continued, and in 1699 the cardinals secretly decided to get rid of Codde, and to appoint Theodore de Cock in his place.  The Chapters had sent this priest to Rome in 1686 to defend their interests; but since then personal ambition had led him to change sides.

 

            The archbishop was invited to come to Rome for the Jubilee of 1700.  He did not want to go, but decided that it was less dangerous to go than to stay.  Before he went, rejecting the suggestion of the internuncio at Brussels that he should appoint Theodore de Cock as his deputy during is absence, he appointed four “Pro Vicars” to take charge of his province; Catz and Heussen for Utrecht, Deventer and Middelburg; Groenhout and Swaen for Haarlem, Leeuwarden and Groningen.  This shows that the six sees, though all but Utrecht had been vacant for over a century, were regarded as still in existence.

 

            On his arrival at Rome the archbishop found that Innocent XII was dead, and that Cardinal Albani, who was entirely devoted to the opposite party had succeeded as Clement XI.  Codde was well received but fresh accusations were brought against him and his clergy.

 

            A protest in support of the archbishop was signed by 300 of his priest, headed by the four Pro Vicars, and sent to Rome; among those who signed it were Steenoven and van der Croon, who afterwards became Archbishops of Utrecht themselves.  These 300 constituted the majority of the priests in the six dioceses of whom there were altogether 470, 340 secular and 130 regular.

 

            The commission appointed to decide the truth of the charges against Codde was equally divided [December 1701]; nevertheless, in the following May; Theodore de Cock was appointed Pro Vicar Apostolic of the United Provinces, in the place of Peter Codde, deposed.  No mention was made of any reason for the deposition; the brief was not published at Rome, and Codde only heard of it by letters from his friends in the Netherlands.  The commission appointed to try the case had not yet issued its report.  Even the Ultramontane canonist, Hyacinth de Archangelis, issued a formal opinion that a Vicar Apostolic with the rights of an ordinary, as Codde undoubtedly was, could not be arbitrarily deposed.

 

            Precisely how this event occurred will probably never be known, for all the members of the commission were ordered to be silent, on pain of excommunication.

 

            The Chapters of Utrecht and Haarlem unanimously decided not to recognize the authority of de Cock on the grounds that the Pope had no canonical right to deprive even a Vicar Apostolic, still less an archbishop without trial and condemnation.

 

            From This Point Begins The Schism Between The Two Parties In The Dutch Roman Catholic Church.

 

            In some places the adherents of the Archbishop and the Chapters and those of de Cock ceased to communicate with one another.  There were popular disturbances; and the Dutch Government, having summoned Van Erkel, one of the leaders of the archbishop’s party, to explain the position, issued a decree forbidding Theodore de Cock to exercise any jurisdiction over the Roman Catholics in its dominions.

 

            It is clear that at this point the question at issue was not doctrinal, but the demand for blind obedience.  According to the canons, bishops could only be deposed after a proper trial and condemnation with full opportunity to defend themselves.  But to the Jesuits and their pupils the Pope was an absolute monarch, and any rights or privileges interfering with his will were intolerable.

 

            The Counter-Reformation, of which the Jesuits were the chief agents, had practically put the Roman Communion under martial law.

 

            Meanwhile the archbishop found himself in a difficult position at Rome.  The Jesuits announced in the Netherlands that he was in the hands of the Inquisition, and would be imprisoned for life, beheaded, or burned.  In reality, he was not interfered with but the Italian clergy could not understand his lack of personal ambition or his refusal to sign what he called “equivocal documents”, even to further his own cause.

 

            However the Dutch government, urged on by his three nephews, who were among the Burgomasters of Amsterdam, commanded him to return within three months.  And warned the Court of Rome that if he were prevented from coming the Jesuits would be banished from the country and de Cock confined to his own house.  De Cock accordingly begged the Pope to allow Codde to return and on April 12, 1702, the archbishop left Rome with special passports from the Emperor and the Republic of Venice, and with permission from the General of the Dominicans to celebrate Mass in every house of their order.  After travelling by Vienna and Dresden in order to avoid the war then raging in Europe, he arrived in the Netherlands on June 27.  He had four priests with him, one of who was Cornelius Steenoven, afterwards his successor.

 

de Cock, who had rashly accused the government of being bribed by the secular clergy was banished and fled to Rome, where he was given a canonry in the Basilica of Saint Lawrence.

 

            The Chapter of Haarlem was in a different position from the Chapter of Utrecht.  The Archbishop was not their diocesan; his authority over them was that of a Metropolitan.  To make sure that they were right in rejecting the authority of Theodore de Cock as Vicar Apostolic, they consulted Van Espen, the great canonist of Louvain.  His formal answer, the Motivum Juris pro Capitulo Cathedrali Haarlemiensi, laid down that the authority of a Vicar Apostolic could not override the right of the Chapter to govern the diocese during the vacancy of the See [which in the case of Haarlem had been vacant since 1587].  But that in any case the authority of even a diocesan bishop reverted to the Chapter is he were exiled, just as it would if he died; therefore, whatever authority de Cock had possessed had ceased when he was exiled.

 

            Though de Cock had been banished, his party remained; and Archbishop Codde found his flock divided by a schism.  He had been deprived, unjustly and uncanonically, of his powers as Vicar Apostolic of the Pope, but he was still Archbishop of Utrecht.  He had before him three possible courses:-

 

                        a]  to submit to the decision of Rome, and retire into private life.  But this would have been to desert his friends and to surrender the rights, and even the existence of his See.

 

                        b]  to continue to exercise his authority as archbishop, while appealing against his suspension as Vicar Apostolic.  As archbishop he had diocesan jurisdiction in Utrecht, and Metropolitan jurisdiction in the other dioceses; as Vicar Apostolic he had diocesan jurisdiction wherever there was no bishop or Chapter.  This was the course that Van Espen advised him to follow.  It would have led to an immediate breach with Rome; but this was in any case inevitable.

 

                        c]  to retire from the exercise of his office, while protesting against his suspension.  This was the course advised by Quesnel, and this he did, because he was afraid of hurting the consciences of simple people if he continued to resist the Pope.

 

            As the archbishop had retired, his jurisdiction reverted to the Chapters, and they appointed the four Pro Vicars as Vicars General of the See of Utrecht.  However, the internuncio at Brussels had received orders, even before the archbishop’s return to declare Jacob Catz, the first of the four Pro Vicars to be excommunicated.  In consequence, a protest was issued April 1, 1703 and was signed by more than 150 priests which shows the strength of the party of the Chapters at that time.

 

            Meanwhile, the government anxious to restore peace banished Van Beest and Van Wyck, two of the archpriests appointed by de Cock.  They also threatened to take more serious measures beginning with the banishment of all Jesuits; for they were convinced Pere La Chaise, the Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV was the origin of the trouble.

 

            The Jesuits were much alarmed and tried to put pressure on the government by means of the ambassador of the Emperor but in vain.  Bussi, the internuncio at Brussels, went to The Hague and finding that there was no hope that de Cock would be allowed to return, recommended the appointment of a new Vicar Apostolic.  Gerard Potcamp, the parish priest of Lingen, and a friend and supporter of the archbishop unwillingly accepted the post November 11, 1705.  He was recognized by Archbishop Codde [though without any withdrawal of his protest against his suspension], by the Chapter of Utrecht, whose rights he entirely accepted and by the government.  But he died a month later, December 16, 1705.

 

            The Chapter of Utrecht appointed Catz and Van Heussen Vicars General, since the See was vacant through the resignation of Archbishop Codde.  They begged the internuncio to appoint a new Vicar Apostolic from the candidates nominated by them but he refused.

 

            At this point the Pope arbitrarily transferred the government of the Church in the Dutch Republic from Bussi, the internuncio at Brussesl, to Piazza, the nuncio at Cologne.  Piazza announced his appointment to the Grand Vicars; they answered that they could not recognize his immediate jurisdiction over themselves, to the prejudice of the rights of the Chapters, but offered to have the point at issue decided by the Church Courts.  The result was that Van Heuseen was forbidden, on pain on excommunication, to exercise any jurisdiction; he replied that such a prohibition was uncanonical, and that the Chapters could not recognize it.

 

            Piazza was made a cardinal, and Bussi was transferred from Brussels to Cologne.  He proceeded, without consulting either the Chapters or the Dutch Government to appoint Adam Daemen as Vicar Apostolic, and to consecrate him Christmas Day, 1701 with the title of Archbishop of Adrianople.

 

            Daemen was a canon of Cologne, born at Amsterdam of foreign parents.  The Chapter refused to accept him as archbishop, considering his character unsuitable [for he had received 15,000 ducats for his vote in the Chapter of Cologne].  The government forbade him to enter the country because he had illegally accepted consecration without its permission and Holland and West Friesland banished all the Jesuits.

 

            The controversy now grew hotter; the priests who supported the Chapters were all summoned to be tried at Cologne but the government forbade them to leave the country.  Bussi then excommunicated all whom refused to recognize Daemen, declared the appointments recently made by the Chapters invalid, and poured in fresh priest of the Jesuit party who took possession of the parishes.  The Chapter of Haarlem, weary of strife, passed a resolution that it would in future perform no capitular act.

 

            The Chapter Of Utrecht Was Left To Carry On The Struggle Alone.

 

            Daemen seeing that he would never be allowed to enter Dutch territory resigned in 1710.  In the same year, on December 18, Archbishop Codde died after a long and painful illness.  He was condemned by the Roman Inquisition after he death for his refusal to sign the Formulary of Alexander VII, which had been presented to him on his deathbed and he was declared unworthy of the prayers of the faithful and of Christian burial.  It was too late, for he had already been buried beside Gerard Potcamp in the church at Warmond.

 

Chapter Eight 

 

     A

t this point it must be clearly defined the difference between the Chapter of Utrecht and the Jesuits, who were now in control of the papal policy.  The Chapter of Utrecht maintained that the province and diocese of Utrecht with all the ancient and canonical rights and privileges, were still in existence.  That the Vicariate instituted by Archbishop Rovenius was the ancient Chapter of Utrecht and possessed all the rights of the Chapter including the right to elect the Archbishop of Utrecht.  And that the later archbishops, from Vosmeer to Codde, were not only Vicars Apostolic of the Roman See, but also Archbishops of Utrecht, the canonical successors of Saint Willibrord.

 

The Jesuits and their party held, as Rome holds to this day, that the Province of Utrecht and all its dioceses, as well as the ancient Chapter of Utrecht had ceased to exist at the time of the Reformation.  That the Roman Catholic Church in the Dutch Republic was a mere mission, governed by a Vicar Apostolic who was appointed and removed by the Pope at his discretion and subject to the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, where the Jesuits were then all powerful.

 

Behind this constitutional issue lay a profound difference in political philosophy.  The Chapter of Utrecht, like other Galicans, held that the Church was a community of communities, in which each diocese, province and national church had its own rights and privileges; the Pope was monarch, but his monarchy was limited by the canons and by the rights of the local churches.

 

The Jesuits, on the other hand, held that the Church was a centralized despotic kingdom, in which the local churches were mere departments, and the bishops and other officers simply the local representatives of the papal authority.  It was a new conception, closely akin to the despotism in civil affairs, which at that period was steadily increasing in most European countries; but it was also the natural consequence of the development of the Papacy for many centuries.

 

It is significant that the only country where it was successfully resisted, though at the cost of schism, was the Dutch Republic, the one great European Power that owed its origin to the Reformation, and the earliest instance of a modern constitutional State.

 

There were other differences as well.  It is true that the charge of doctrinal heterodoxy brought against the party of the Chapters were false, their continual protest that they taught all the dogmas of the Roman Church taught was sincere, and it was true.  But they denied the right of the Pope to enforce new doctrines without the assent of a General Council; and they were unwilling to assent to statements of fact which they did not believe, simply because they were told to do so.  It was for this reason that they refused persistently to sign the Formulary of Alexander VII and the Bull “Unigenitus” [see Appendix II].  It must be added that most of them had been trained at Louvain, and were in close contact with the French Jansenist party, the leaders of which, such as Arnauld and Quesnel, had taken refuge in the Netherlands.

 

There were also devotional and ethical differences.  We are learning today that different types of piety mark the divisions of Christendom quite as much as differences of doctrine.  There was a great difference between the austere piety of the Dutch secular clergy, derived from the Brothers of the Common Life, and the new sentimental cults which the Jesuits were teaching everywhere, such as devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Conception.

 

How far these devotions were sometimes pushed is shown by an instance of slightly later date.  In 1740 strips of paper, on which praises of the Immaculate Conception were written were being sold in Naples, to be dissolved in water and given to hens that they might lay more eggs!  Saint Alfonso Liquoir [created a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX] sanctioned this descent to Central African superstition when he swallowed one of these strips during a serious illness.  Rome never condemned it, though acceptance of the condemnation of Quesnel’s 101 propositions was enforced on all Roman Catholics as necessary to salvation.

 

There was also a difference between the Dutch secular clergy and the Jesuits about ethics.  The former were strongly opposed to the Jesuit system of casuistry, especially to the doctrine that sorrow based on fear, not on love, is sufficient for repentance and absolution.  They held that the Jesuits encouraged sin by giving absolution too easily.

 

The Chapter of Utrecht was therefore fighting, not merely for its own constitutional rights, but also for the right of local churches to reject novelties contrary to truth and common sense, and unsuited to the temperament of their people.

 

The Dutch Government, being Calvinist, had no direct interest in the dispute, except the maintenance of order.  But it naturally preferred that is Roman Catholic subjects should be governed by a Dutch archbishop elected by Dutchmen, rather than by a Vicar Apostolic appointed by the Pope’s representative at Brussels or Cologne.  It was fortunate that the religious dispute was not affected, as in France, by the ever-changing diplomatic relations between the Government and the Vatican.

 

An attempt was made at reconciliation, but Cornelius Steenoven and William Dalenoort, the representatives of the Chapter found when they reached Cologne that they were required to submit to Daemenn as Vicar Apostolic, to deny the existence of the Chapters, and to sign the Formulary of Alexander VII.  The first they were ready to do, as soon as the Dutch Government should allow it, with the condition that the Chapter should retain its ancient right to elect the archbishop; the second they rejected absolutely, and the third, after some hesitation, they rejected also.

 

The question of the Five Propositions was only beginning to be understood by the Dutch clergy, and Heussen published a defence of the rejection of the “Formulary”.  On May 18, 1712, Jacob Catz, the Dean of Utrecht, died and was succeeded by Hugh van Heussen, the other Vicar General.  Cornelius Stakenberg became Vicar General in place of Catz.  In the same year Bussi was made a cardinal and recalled to Rome and the government of the Ultramontane section of the Dutch Church was transferred back to the internuncio at Brussels, an Italian named Santini.

 

The Chapter was now finding great difficulty in getting fresh priests.  No ordination had been held in Holland since Archbishop Codde’s departure for Rome in 1703; their opponents could easily introduce priests from other countries, but the Chapter had no means of filling vacant parishes, and their party was in danger of dying out.  They had to get their candidates ordained on letters dismissory to foreign bishops, and it was difficult to get any bishop to run the risk of ordaining men whom Rome regarded as schismatic.

 

In 1714 an Irish Carmelite priest named Marison, visited Heussen.  Filled with pity for the plight of the Church of Utrecht, he approached Bishop Giffard, the Roman Vicar Apostolic in London, who sympathized, but did not venture to do anything.  Marison then went to Ireland and persuaded Bishop Fagan, Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath, to ordain some candidates on letters dismissory from Heussen.

 

The first three were ordained in the spring of 1715.  The utmost secrecy was observed, and Fagan was much alarmed because the young men had informed others, contrary to his orders.  Twelve priests were ordained by Fagan at different times, including Hieronymus de Bock, afterwards Bishop of Haarlem, and Peter Meindaerts, afterward Archbishop of Utrecht.

 

The nuncio at Cologne was furious when he heard of the ordinations, and summoned before him fourteen persons whom he though had been ordained; but in reality some of them were married, and one or two were apparently Protestants!  Finding that he was making himself ridiculous by these proceedings, as well as annoying the government, the nuncio made John van Bylevelt, his deputy for this purpose, and on October 2, 1717 appointed him Vicar Apostolic.  But when Bylevelt instituted priests to take the places of those who have been appointed by the Chapter, riots ensured at Amsterdam, Hilversu, and other places.  Whereupon the States of Holland, Zealand, West Friesland, and later Utrecht banished him from their territory, fined him, and forbade their subjects to recognize his jurisdiction.  He retired to Arnhem in the province of Gelderland, and governed those who recognized him from there.  He was the last Vicar Apostolic in Holland for 100 years.

 

In 1715 the theological faculties of Paris and Louvain were invited to answer the following three questions:

 

            1]  Has the Church of Utrecht been reduced to the status of a mere mission?

 

            2]  Has the Chapter of Utrecht survived?

 

            3]  Does the Vicariate set up by Rovenius represent the ancient Chapter?

 

The answer given by Van Espen and four other doctors of Louvain was “No” to the first question and “Yes” to the others.  It was dated May 25, 1717.  Soon afterwards 102 doctors of theology at Paris and the whole faculty of law associated themselves with their answer, giving additional reasons for it.

 

Supported by these answers from the Universities, three French bishops declared themselves will to ordain priests for the Chapter of Utrecht.  Soanen ordained four in 1718, one of whom was Barchman Wuytiers, afterwards Archbishop of Utrecht, and others later.  Lorraine ordained three in 1720-21, the first of who was ordained at Paris, with the formal permission of Cardinal de Noailles; and Caumartin also ordained some.

 

Chapter Nine

 

N

ow at last, by unexpected means, a way was found to fill the long vacant Archbishopric.

 

Dominique Marie Varlet was a devoted missionary priest who had been since 1712 in charge of the French missions in “Louisiana”, the name given to the vast region beyond the Allegheny Mountains, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico, in fact, the region now known as the “Middle West”.  He had come to Quebec to report to his bishop on the state of his mission, and was about to go back there with three young priests from the seminary at Quebec when he received orders from Rome, dated September 17, 1718 to go to Persia as coadjutor to the Bishop of Babylon.

 

Accordingly he sailed for France and on arriving at Paris, received instruction to get himself consecrated as soon as possible, and to go to Persia at once.  The consecration was to be private, and he was to travel incognito.  He was consecrated with the title of Bishop of Ascaion in the chapel of the Seminary of the Foreign Missions at Paris on Quinquagesima Sunday, February 19, 1719 by the former Bishop of Condom, assisted by the Coadjutor-Bishop of Quebec and the Bishop of Clermont.

 

On the same day he received news of the death of the Bishop of Babylon, which had taken place at Ispahan on November 20, 1717 so that he was no longer coadjutor, but Bishop of Babylon.  He left Paris on March 18, without having received any further instructions from Rome.  When they were already at sea, the consul decided to land at Amsterdam, where they arrived on April 2.  They had to wait there for ten or twelve days, which included Holy Week and Easter.

 

Now, foreign priests were not allowed to say Mass in Holland without special permission from the government, for which the Bishop of Babylon could not apply because he was incognito.  One of the parish priests, Jacob Kyrs, asked him to stay with him, and told him that he could say Mass safely in his house, because he had influence with the magistrates.  Accordingly he stayed with Kyrs.  His host, and other priests who heard that the bishop was there, begged him to confirm a large number of candidates who had never had an opportunity of being confirmed; for no bishop had been there since the departure of Archbishop Codde eighteen years before.

 

The bishop consented to confirm 604 orphans and other poor children, who could not go to other countries to be confirmed.  Having done this, he sailed immediately for Russia, as it was impossible to travel through Turkey.  He arrived in Persia on October 9; his residence was at Schamake, in the province of Shirwan [now Shemakh near Baku in the Republic of Azerbaijan].

 

On Marcy 26, 1720, a Jesuit, Father Bachou, called on him and handed him a paper which he found to be a formal suspension from his office, sent by the Bishop of Ispahan by order of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide.  The reasons given for his suspension were:

 

            1]  that he had not called on the nuncio at Paris and given his adhesion to the Bull “Unigenitus”;

 

            2]  that he had not called on the internuncio at Brussels and obtained permission to perform episcopal functions in the Netherlands, and yet had performed episcopal functions there to the scandal of Catholics.

 

After careful consideration and prayer, the bishop decided that he would never be able to carry on his work because he would not be supplied with money from home and because the refusal of the Jesuits and Capuchins in his diocese to recognize his authority would make his work impossible.  He therefore returned to Europe, and settled at Amsterdam; he felt that he would have more time for study there than in France his native country.

 

He at once did all he could to get the suspension withdrawn.  He pointed out that having just come from Canada, he knew nothing about the question of the “Unigenitus”.  That he had been ordered to live as privately as possible, therefore he did not call on anyone; that it was at that time illegal for any French subject to sign the “Unigenitus; [and indeed the order from Rome on the subject had not reached Paris before he left].  And that as he had been invited to give confirmation by the representatives of the Chapter of Utrecht, who had jurisdiction there during the vacancy of the See, he had not hesitated to do so.  Moreover, the form of his suspension, and the manner in which it had been served on him were both highly irregular; nor was it in accordance with the canons that a diocesan bishop should be arbitrarily suspended, without trial or opportunity of defence.

 

Pope Clement XI, the author of the “Unigenitus”; died in 1721 and the bishop’s friends at the Paris Seminary though that he might get better terms from the new Pope if he went back to France.  Accordingly he went to Paris, and then to the house of Bishop Caylus at Auxerre.  He obtained an opinion on his case from M. Gilbert, a well known French canonist, that the suspension was null and void, and that he might well have ignored it completely; this opinion was supported by several theologians at Paris and Louvain.  Van Espen in particular declared that there was no case in all antiquity of such extraordinary treatment of a bishop.  But when Bishop Varlet told his agent at Rome that he would never in any case accept the “Unigenitus”, apologize for having given confirmation at Amsterdam, or resign his See, the agent answered that in that case all his appeals were quite useless.

 

After this he returned to Holland, settled down at Amsterdam, and set to work on an elaborate defence of his action and of the nullity of his suspension.

 

Meanwhile the Chapter of Utrecht had decided to provide themselves with an archbishop if possible.  Twice they begged Pope Innocent XII to allow the election and consecration; but he did not even answer their letters.  They obtained from Van Espen and two other doctors of Louvain an opinion proving that they had the right in the special circumstances, to elect their archbishop and get him consecrated without the consent of the Pope.  There were recent precedents both in France and Portugal.  Moreover, in case of necessity one bishop alone might consecrate.  This opinion was signed by nineteen doctors of the theological faculty of Paris [the Sorbonne], and others from Nanes, Rheims and Padua.  Van Espen with two other doctors of Louvain had already given their agreement in their Dissertation on the Miserable Condition of the Church of Utrecht.

 

The Chapter having obtained the permission of the government met at The Hague, April 27, 1723, and after a Moass of the Holy Ghost, elected with all the canonical forms, Cornelius Steenoven, Canon and Vicar General, to be Archbishop of Utrecht.  Steenoven had been educated at Rome, and had taken the degree of Doctor of Divinity there; he had also been at Rome with Archbishop Codde as we have seen.  He was elected as the candidate likely to be least obnoxious to Rome.  Both the Chapter and the archbishop-elect asked the Pope to permit the consecration, but they received no answer.

 

Meanwhile Van Erke, the Dean of Utrecht, had written some popular tracts on the rights of a national church to have a bishop if its own, and these were widely circulated.  On March 9, 1724, the Chapter sent a circular letter to all Roman Catholic bishops on the sufferings of their church.  At this moment Pope Innocent XIII died, and the cardinals, fearing that his successor might be more lenient, issued a violent attack on the Chapter, while the internuncio wrote a letter to all the Roman Catholics in the Dutch Republic, in the same sense.  The Chapter appealed to all Chapters everywhere and to eleven universities.  They wrote to the new Pope. Benedict XIII, but in vain.

 

They asked the neighbouring bishops and the Jansenist bishops in France to consecrate Steenoven.  Three French bishops certainly, and eight others probably, were in favour of the consecration but did not venture to carry it out.  Three bishops in the Austrian Netherlands, those of Antwerp, Arra and St. Omer, were almost persuaded to act but not quite.  The Bishop of Antwerp, to show that consecration by a single bishop was lawful without a papal dispensation, consecrated his brother Bishop of Rhodes in paritbus without any assistance; a strange way of showing sympathy!

 

The Chapter then entreated the Bishop of Babylon to consecrate Steenoven.  “What will be your praise in the Catholic Church’, they wrote, “if you raise up a church that has almost fallen, a church which God has perhaps preserved free from certain new bondages and scandals, that when He shall renew His signs, and shall do wondrously, it may minister to the execution of His counsels.”

 

The Bishop of Babylon consented.  Permission was obtained from the government for the first consecration of an Archbishop of Utrecht under that title, and in Dutch territory, since the Reformation.

 

On October 15, 1724, the 19th Sunday after Trinity, at 6AM [in order that the parish priests might be free for their duties later on], the Bishop of Babylon, in his private chapel at Amsterdam, in the presence of the whole Chapter, consecrated Cornelius van Steenoven to be the seventh Archbishop of Utrecht and canonical successor of Saint Willibrord.  The deed was done:  the Church of Utrecht, though as yet she did not know it, had begun her career as a church independent of the See of Rome.

 

As soon as the news of the consecration of Archbishop Steenoven became known, he received letters of congratulation from friends in France, as well as from the Austrian Netherlands [for what is now Belgium had been transferred from Spain to Austria in 1713] and Holland itself.  The Bishops of Auxerre, Bayeau, Macon, Montpellier, Pamiers, and Senez all of them prominent in the struggle against the Bull “Unigenitus”, congratulated him themselves; the Bishops of Bayonne, Castres, Dax, Lombez, Lucon, Rhodes, and Tarbes did so by deputy.  One friend, Chassaigne, wrote, “If the consecrator had never performed any other episcopal act than this, I should regard him as the first bishop in the Church”.  Another, Ruth d’Ans, writing from Brussels, told the archbishop that he might justly call himself Archbishop of Utrecht by the grace of God, for what other grace could have overcome the obstacles which had opposed the happy consummation of so great a work?

 

The new archbishop at once wrote to Pope Benedict XIII and to the chief Roman Catholic bishops everywhere to inform them of his consecration.  He also published a manifesto addressed to the whole Church, explaining the principles on which he and his clergy had acted and with it a formal appeal to the future General Council confirming the appeal of May 9, 1719.

 

On February 21, 1725, the Pope issued a brief, declaring the election of Steenoven null and void and his consecration “illicit and execrable”.  Forbidding the Roman Catholics in the United Provinces to recognize him as their archbishop or to have any dealings with him, especially in matters of religion, and pronouncing the severest censures on the Bishop of Babylon and his assistants.  Surprise was caused by the Pope’s accusation of false doctrine against the Church of Utrecht, an accusation that was indignantly repudiated.

 

When the brief reached Holland, Steenoven was already seriously ill.  After making a solemn declaration of his belief in the Catholic Faith, including the prerogatives of the Roman See, and appealing for himself and his flock to the future General Council, he died April 3, 1725.

 

Chapter T<