The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the grace of new missionary élan, which gave new impetus to Catholic missions. Indeed, it placed France in the vanguard of nations engaged in the propagation of the Faith. Much of the flourishing of this apostolate was due to the activity of the Foreign Missions, a society of secular priests. It was founded by the mysterious “Aa” with the decisive help of the Company of the Blessed Sacrament, the famous “cabale des dévôts” of the time of Louis XIII.
The French Revolution accelerated the revolutionary process, and Napoleon’s rule spread its errors. These events endangered any effort to bring the Faith to people ignorant of Revelation. They brought religious persecution and the systematic destruction of everything that represented Catholic civilization. The accompanying disorder and continuous wars involving various nations forced the Catholics of the time to fight for the Faith and to struggle for survival in Europe. The foreign missions were almost abandoned. Only a few missionary centers managed to keep going, and only at a significant cost.
After the usurper Napoleon’s defeat, Europe needed to reorganize and bring order to the confusion. Consequently, many argued that it was not an opportune moment to think about foreign missions. The attitude of Cardinal Consalvi, Pius VII’s Secretary of State, illustrates this attitude. He refused to approve the Secretary of Propaganda Fide’s project to reorganize the missions.
Grace, however, overcame the crisis that men did not dare to face. By touching souls, it brought a vigorous Catholic movement out of the rubble of the Revolution. It overcame many difficulties, reorganized Catholic life, and revived the missionary ideal. The nineteenth century thus witnessed a revival of the missions that compares favorably to previous centuries.
It is fascinating to study the early days of this new apostolic upsurge, which offers many opportunities for exploration. One important example would be to characterize the contribution of heroic associations, especially the Knights of the Faith in France and the Italian Amicizie. They fought valiantly during the revolutionary persecutions. Later, they strove to restore Catholic society and played a decisive role in this resurgence. However, they had to maintain secrecy due to the revolutionary circumstances. This fact makes it very difficult to evaluate their contribution precisely. At the same time, an analysis of the few available documents reveals a much more fruitful and varied apostolate than one could imagine
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Thus, Rev. Fr. Robert Rouquette, SJ, studying an association known only as “Aa,” came across by chance the archives of the Congregation of Men of Lyon. Its members were known as Les Messieurs de Lyon. Previously, this Congregation’s secret activities at the beginning of the nineteenth century defied historians’ investigations. This discovery allowed Father Rouquette, in an article published in the journal Études, to shed much light on the history of the Work of the Propagation of the Faith and Blessed Pauline Jaricot’s controversial role in its foundation.
More recently, the Edizioni Missioni Consolata of Turin launched La Rinascita Missionaria in Italia, a 1964 book by Rev. Fr. Candido Bona, IMC.1 We commented on his doctoral thesis on the Amicizie of Fathers Diessbach and Lanteri in a previous article. The book is excellent and well-documented. With his profound knowledge of Amicizie’s history, the author details these Italian Catholic societies’ contribution to the revival of the missionary ideal.
Father Bona highlights three aspects of that contribution. First, the Amicizie reminded Catholics of the doctrinal foundations of the apostolate to propagate the Faith and the importance and beauty of this ideal. Second, it gave constant support to the first North American dioceses, which lived in extreme poverty and insistently asked Europe for help. Third, it introduced the Work for the Propagation of the Faith into Italy.
Before going any further, let us quickly recall what Amicizia was.
Amicizia Cristiana was a secret Catholic association founded in the Piedmont region of Italy by Father Joseph von Diessbach. It was consolidated by Ven. Father Pio Bruno Lanteri. During the Revolution and the First French Empire, it fought for the freedom of the Church. Its members faced persecution and, nonetheless, actively collaborated with similar associations to secure communications between the so-called “black cardinals.” 2 and Pope Pius VII, mitigating the dire consequences for the Church of their imprisonment by Napoleon. Despite its members’ resistance to Joseph Fouché’s police, 3 Amicizia Cristiana’s membership was severely depleted by the time of the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1815.
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In 1817, the Society’s remaining directors met in the palace of the Marquis Cesare d’Azeglio to reorganize. Count Guiseppe Luigi Provana di Collegno proposed the foundation of a new, non-secret society composed exclusively of laypeople to spread good Catholic literature. Once the proposal was approved, Amicizia Cattolica (a name suggested by Joseph de Maistre) was born, with the Marquis d’Azeglio as secretary. The new association kept the same fighting spirit that animated Amicizia Cristiana. It successfully promoted the lay apostolate in Italy thanks to the personal prestige of its members and their zeal for serving the Church wherever necessary
Father Bona describes the actions of the new Amicizia in propagating the Faith. In so doing, he illustrates the importance of Joseph de Maistre’s books and Marquis Cesare d’Azeglio’s articles, which all contributed to the revival of the missionary ideal.
During the last years of his life, Joseph de Maistre frequented Amicizia Cattolica. Between 1819 and 1821, he finished his most important books: Du Pape, De l’Église gallicane, and Les Soirées de Saint Petersbourg.4 Thus, it was only natural that he addressed subjects discussed and debated at Amicizia meetings. In Chapter II of Du Pape, he considered the question of the missions from the angle of papal supremacy. He revisited that subject in the eleventh conversation of the Soirées de Saint Petersbourg. This new way of considering the problem, presented with incomparable depth and brilliance, drew the attention of Catholics to the importance of doing apostolate to spread the Faith. These works’ great success contributed to spreading the missionary ideal throughout Europe and favored the revival of the missions.
The Marquis Cesare d’Azeglio tirelessly strove to enlighten public opinion about the problem. He founded L’Amico d’Italia, one of the first great Italian Catholic newspapers. Its columns were always open to all missionaries who asked for its assistance. D’Azeglio helped them by publishing their appeals and writing numerous articles in their favor. He also worked through Amicizia for this purpose and used his prestigious position at the Piedmontese court to smooth out difficulties. This was especially important, for the government was full of revolutionary bias. It often created roadblocks to the success of missionary work.
Joseph de Maistre’s influence on the young Félicité de Lamennais, who at that “first phase” was a vibrant and zealous ultramontane, is well known. One can thus legitimately relate to the action of Amicizia Cattolica to the pamphlet Des sociétés bibliques, which Lamennais wrote at the same time and in which he also fought for the missionary ideal.
Considering the abundance of the economic prosperity of today’s American Catholics, it is difficult to conceive the extreme poverty of the first dioceses created in the United States after independence. They lived with permanent difficulties. To maintain them, their bishops often had to travel to Europe to ask for the help of European Catholics. Father Bona studied these prelates’ contacts with Amicizia Cattolica, showing how the nascent North American hierarchy found constant support there. For those bishops, a visit to Marquis d’Azeglio, the soul of the association, was obligatory. They knew he was a friend, able to procure all the help they needed.
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Father Bona’s very interesting research allowed him to correct several false interpretations. One concerned the conduct of Father Inglesi, the vicar-general of the Diocese of New Orleans. He was an adventurer who deceived Bishop Louis William Valentine DuBourg, one of the founders of the American hierarchy. Father Inglesi’d duplicity embittered the end of the bishop’s life. Equally interesting are the author’s considerations about Father Inglesi’s participation in the first phase of the Work for the Propagation of the Faith.
Blessed Pauline Jaricot’s fund-raising system for the missions and the work of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which consolidated her apostolate, are well known. However, the obscure origins of this work gave rise to much discussion. These difficulties are understandable as, early on, all these secret Catholic associations supported the Propagation of the Faith. A campaign of organized defamation targeted Pauline Jaricot’s work and almost destroyed her well-deserving apostolate.
The meeting that established the Society for the Propagation of the Faith was held in Lyon on May 3, 1822. Father Rouquette, in the above-cited study, discovered that the Messieurs de Lyon promoted this meeting. That association included Pauline’s brother, Philéas Jaricot, and Henri Didier Petit de Meurville, son of Madam Petit, her protectress. At this meeting, they created the Central Council of Lyon with nine members, eight of whom were Messieurs de Lyon.
The Central Council asked the Paris congregants to establish the Society in the French capital. The Knights of the Faith took up that task. The new Paris Council was composed of three of them: the Prince of Croy, president; the Marquis de Rivière, vice-president; and the Duke of Rohan, treasurer. This fact demonstrates the Knights of the Faith’s decisive role in spreading the Society’s work in France. It was also well known that their chaplain, Father Perreau, was the great encourager of the Propagation of the Faith in that country.
In his book, Father Bona explains how the work was established in Piedmont and the negotiations that preceded it. It is an essential contribution to the history of this association. Amicizia Cattolica spread it there, and, as was to be expected, the Marquis d’Azeglio dedicated himself entirely to it and overcame the government’s attempts not to allow the installation of a Council in Turin.
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François Dominique de Reynaud, the Count de Montlosier, later unleashed a campaign against the French Marian Congregations. This campaign reverberated in Italy with a revolutionary offensive against Amicizia Cattolica. The onslaught forced the Knights of the Faith and Amicizia Cattolica to dissolve.
This offensive also hit the Society of the Propagation of the Faith. The Society only survived thanks to the protection of Mauro Cardinal Cappellari, Prefect of Propaganda. Cardinal Cappellari later became pope under the name Gregory XVI. Today, its beneficial existence bears witness to Amicizia Cattolica and the Knights of Faith’s fruitful apostolate. The Knights helped Amicizia take its first steps and made it known in France and Italy.
Reading Father Bona’s highly attractive and suggestive study is a pleasure. Its orientation and abundant documentation are presented in such a way as to make it easy to read. It is a great book.
Footnotes
- Unfortunately, neither of Fr. Bova’s books have been translated into English.
- The thirteen “black cardinals” were those who snubbed the marriage of Napoleon and Princess Maria Louise of Austria under the ground that his previous marriage was still valid. Napoleon subsequently exiled them.
- Joseph Fouché was Napoleon’s Minister of Police from 1804-1810.
- Many, but not all, of Joseph de Maistre’s books have been translated into English. Du Pape is available under the title The Pope, and Les Soirées de Saint Petersbourg is available under the title Saint Petersburg Dialogues.