FEBRONIANISM. The movement in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany in the 18th cent. against the claims of the Papacy, esp. in the temporal sphere. It may be considered from some points of view as the German counterpart of Gallicanism. In 1742 the three Archbishop-Electors invited J. N. von Hontheim, suffragan Bp. of Trier, to investigate their existing grievances against Rome

     In 1763 von Hontheim  published his findings in De statu ecclesiae et legitima potestate Romani pontificis, under the pen-name of ‘Justinus Febronius’. The book, while recognizing that the Pope was the head of the Church and the supervisor of Church administration and (subject to the Universal Church or a General Council) of faith and morals, attacked what he regarded as the medieval accretions of temporal power. It advocated that Church affairs should be kept as far as possible in episcopal and civil hands, and that all Papal claims based on the (8th cent.) False Decretals should be annulled. In 1764 it was put on the Index, but in 1769 it received the approval of the Archbishop-Electors, who drew up a list of thirty objections against the Papal claims. The Archbishop Electors attempted to assert their claims at Bad Ems (q.v.) in 1786, but without success. The outbreak of the French Revolution and lack of support from other German bishops caused the movement to collapse.

O. Meyer, Febronius, Weihbischof Johann Nicolaus von Hontheim und sein Widerruf (Tübingen, 1880); J. Küntziger, Fébronius et le fébronianisme (Mémoires couronnés et autres mémoires publiés par l’Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Collection in-8°, 44; 1891; présenté à la Classe des Lettres dans la séance du 6 mai, 1889). V. Pitzer, Justinus Febronius: Das Ringen eines katholischen Irenikers und die Einheit der Kirche im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Kirche and Konfession, 20; Göttingen, 1976).

Hontheim, Johann Nikolaus von (1701–90), founder of Febronianism. He was a native of Trier, where he spent the greater part of his life. While a student at Louvain, he came under the influence of the Gallican canonist, Z. B. Van Espen. In 1728 he was ordained priest and in 1748 became suffragan Bp. of Trier. In 1742 he began an investigation, on behalf of the German Archbishop-Electors, of the historical position of the Papacy, and in 1763, under the pseudonym of ‘Justinus Febronius’, published his conclusions in his principal work, De statu ecclesiae et legitima potestate Romani Pontificis. Owing to its Gallican doctrines the book was put on the Index in 1764; but though for several years Hontheim was involved in controversy, he was not compelled to make a formal retractation until 1778. In 1781 he published Justini Febroni Commentarius in suam retractationem Pio VI, a work which, despite its conciliatory spirit, showed little real change of view. His other writings include two valuable historical works on the city of Trier, Historia Trevirensis Diplomatica (3 vols., 1750) and Prodromus Historiae Trevirensis (2 vols., 1757). His integrity, devotion to truth, and learning were admired even by his enemies.

The main propositions defended by Febronius were as follows. The constitution of the Church is not, by Christ's institution, monarchical, and the pope, though entitled to a certain primacy, is subordinate to the universal Church. Though as the "centre of unity" he may be regarded as the guardian and champion of the ecclesiastical law, and though he may propose laws, and send legates on the affairs of his primacy, his sovereignty (principatus) over the Church is not one of jurisdiction, but of order and collaboration (ordinis et consociationis). The Roman (ultramontane) doctrine of papal infallibility is not accepted by the other Catholic Churches and, moreover, has no practical utility. The Church is based on the one episcopacy common to all bishops, the pope being only first among equals.[1]

It follows that the pope is subject to general councils, in which the bishops are his colleagues (conjudices), not merely his consultors; nor has he the exclusive right to summon such councils. The decrees of general councils need not be confirmed by the pope nor can they be altered by him; on the other hand, appeal may be made from papal decisions to a general council. As for the rights of the popes in such matters as appeals, reservations, the confirmation, translation and deposition of bishops, these belong properly to the bishops in provincial synods, and were usurped by the papacy gradually as the result of a variety of causes, notably of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals.[1] The Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, also known as the False Decretals, are a set of false documents included in a collection of canon law, some concerning the relations of the political and ecclesiastical powers, composed about the middle of the ninth century by an author who used the pseudonym Isidore Mercator. Louis Saltet, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, wrote that the forgeries bear some of the blame for the distorted view of ecclesiastical antiquity in the Middle Ages, and they blurred the whole historical perspective.[4]

For the health of the Church it is therefore necessary to restore matters to their condition before the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, and to give to the episcopate its due authority. The main obstacle to this is not the pope himself, but the Curia, and this must be fought by all possible means, especially by thorough popular education (primum adversus abususn ecclesiasticae potestatis remedium), and by the assembling of national and provincial synods, the neglect of which is the main cause of the Church's woes. If the pope will not move in the matter, the princes, and notably the emperor, must act in co-operation with the bishops, summon national councils even against the popes will, defy his excommunication, and in the last resort refuse obedience in those matters over which the papacy has usurped jurisdiction.[1]

The Febronian doctrine, in fact, exactly fitted the views of the German bishops, which were by no means disinterested. The German bishops were at this time great secular princes rather than Catholic prelates; with rare exceptions, they made no pretense of carrying out their spiritual duties; they shared to the full in the somewhat shallow Enlightenment of the age. As princes of the Empire they had asserted their practical independence of the emperor; they were irked by what they considered the unjustifiable interference of the Curia with their sovereign prerogatives, and wished to establish their independence of the pope also. In the ranks of the hierarchy, then, selfish motives combined with others more respectable to secure the acceptance of the Febronian position.[1]

Among secular rulers the welcome given to it was even less equivocal. Even so devout a sovereign as Maria Theresa of Austria refused to allow Febronius to be forbidden in the Habsburg dominions; her son, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, applied the Febronian principles with remorseless thoroughness. In Venice, in Tuscany, in Naples, in Portugal, they inspired the vigorous efforts of enlightened despots to reform the Church from above; and they gave a fresh impetus to the movement against the Jesuits, which, under pressure of the secular governments, culminated in the Suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV in 1773.[3]

a degree of deference to temporal rulers as divinely instituted guardians of the Church’s well-being

his most important work, De Statu Ecclesiae et Legitima Potestate Romani Pontificis (“Concerning the State of the Church and the Legitimate Power of the Roman Pope”). 

Febronianism. The movement in the RC Church in Germany in the 18th cent. against the claims of the Papacy, esp. in the temporal sphere. It may be considered from some points of view as the German counterpart of Gallicanism. In 1742 the three Archbishop-Electors invited J. N. von Hontheim (q.v.), suffragan Bp. of Trier, to investigate their existing grievances against Rome, and in 1763 he published his findings in De statu ecclesiae et legitima potestate Romani pontificis, under the pen-name of ‘Justinus Febronius’. The book, while recognizing that the Pope was the head of the Church and the supervisor of Church administration and (subject to the Universal Church or a General Council) of faith and morals, attacked the medieval accretions of temporal power. It advocated that Church affairs should be kept as far as possible in episcopal and civil hands, and that all Papal claims based on the False Decretals should be annulled. In 1764 it was put on the Index, but in 1769 it received the approval of the Archbishop-Electors, who drew up a list of thirty objections against the Papal claims. The Archbishop Electors attempted to assert their claims at Bad Ems (q.v.) in 1786, but without success. The outbreak of the French Revolution and lack of support from other German bishops caused the movement to collapse.

O. Meyer, Febronius, Weihbischof Johann Nicolaus von Hontheim und sein Widerruf (Tübingen, 1880); J. Küntziger, Fébronius et le fébronianisme (Mémoires couronnés et autres mémoires publiés par l’Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Collection in-8°, 44; 1891; présenté à la Classe des Lettres dans la séance du 6 mai, 1889). V. Pitzer, Justinus Febronius: Das Ringen eines katholischen Irenikers und die Einheit der Kirche im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Kirche and Konfession, 20; Göttingen, 1976).

Josephinism was a set of policies and reforms enacted by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, that sought to bring the Catholic Church in the Habsburg lands under state control. This involved reducing the power of the papacy, dissolving monasteries, and controlling clerical education. While aiming for a more efficient and unified church, these reforms were met with resistance and ultimately had limited success.

State Control:

Joseph II believed the Church should serve the state and its interests, leading to increased state oversight of religious affairs.

Reduced Papal Authority:

He restricted communication between the Austrian Church and the Pope, and insisted on royal approval for papal documents.

Dissolution of Monasteries:

Joseph II closed numerous monasteries, particularly those deemed contemplative or not contributing to society, and confiscated their wealth.

Education Reforms:

He established state-controlled seminaries and made elementary education compulsory.

Religious Toleration:

While primarily Catholic, Joseph II also granted religious freedom to Protestants and Jews.

State Matter of Marriage:

Joseph II made marriage a civil matter rather than a purely religious one.

Motivations and Goals:

Modernization:

He sought to modernize the Church, streamlining its administration and making it more accountable to the state.

National Unity:

By centralizing religious authority and education, he aimed to foster a sense of national unity within the Habsburg Empire.

Ecclesiastical policy

Its development

Joseph was the father of Josephinism, which is nothing else than the highest development of the craving common among secular princes after an episcopal and territorial church. Its beginnings can be traced in Austria to the thirteenth century, and it became clearly marked in the sixteenth, especially so far as the administration of church property was concerned. It was fostered in the second half of the eighteenth century by the spread of Febronian and Jansenist ideas, based on Gallican principles. These notions were by no means new to wide circles of German Catholics or at the court of Vienna. Prince Kaunitz, the chancellor of state, who directed Austrian politics for forty years from 1753, was a personal friend of Voltaire, and thus a zealous champion of Gallicanism. The Jansenist, Van Swieten (court-physician to Maria Theresa), was president of the imperial commission on education. At the university, “enlightenment” had powerful advocates in Martini, Sonnenfels, and Riegger, and it was there that Joseph’s idea of a national state church received its legal basis. According to natural law, the chief object of a state ought to be the greatest possible happiness of its subjects. The chief obstacles, neglect of duty and lack of mutual goodwill in individuals, religion alone can remove by its appeals to conscience. Hence the State recognizes religion as the principal factor in education: “The Church is a department of police, which must serve the aims of the State until such time as the enlightenment of the people permit of its relief by the secular police” (Sonnenfels). The canonist Riegger derived the supremacy of the State over the Church from the theory of an original compact (pactum unionis), in virtue of which the Government exercises in the name of all individuals a certain ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the Jura circa sacra. Another canonist (Gmeiner) formulated the following theory: Any canonical legislation that conflicts with the interests of the State is opposed to natural law, and therefore to the will of Christ; consequently the Church has no right to enact such laws nor can the State accept them. Kaunitz reduced these principles to practice: “The supremacy of the State over the Church extends to all ecclesiastical laws and practices devised and established solely by man, and whatever else the Church owes to the consent and sanction of the secular power. Consequently, the State must always have the power to limit, alter, or annul its former concessions, whenever reasons of state, abuses, or altered circumstances demand it.” Joseph raised these propositions to principles of government, and treated ecclesiastical institutions as public departments of the State. Maria Theresa has been incorrectly represented as favouring Josephinism. Most of the measures that presaged Josephinism in the latter part of her reign had not her approval. Joseph’s entire policy was the embodiment of his idea of a centralized empire developing from within and in which all public affairs, political and ecelesiastico-political, were treated as an indivisible whole. His reforms, a medley of financial, social reformatory, and ecclesiastico-reformatory ideas, have no solid foundation.

The reforms

Bishoprics, religious orders, and benefices were limited by the Austrian boundary Non-Austrian bishops were excluded, which simplified the often very confused overlapping of diocesan authorities. The announcement of papal, in fact of all ecclesiastical, decrees, was made dependent on imperial approval (see PLACET); decisions on impediments to marriage were referred to the bishops; the communication of the bishops with Rome, and of the religious orders with their generals in foreign countries, was forbidden, partly from considerations of political economy. In 1783, while at Rome, Joseph personally threatened that he would establish an independent state-church; he abolished all exemptions from episcopal authority and by an obligatory oath brought the bishops into dependence on the State. The acceptance of papal titles and attendance at the German College in Rome were forbidden, and a German College was established at Pavia in opposition to the Roman institution.

The Edict of Toleration of 1781 granted to all denominations the free exercise of their religion and civil rights; at the same time a series of petty regulations concerning Divine service prescribed the number of the candles, the length and style of the sermons, the prayers, and hymns. All superfluous altars and all gorgeous vestments and images were to be removed; various passages in the Breviary were to have paper pasted over them; dogmatic questions were excluded from the pulpit, from which, on the other hand, all government proclamations were to be announced.

“Our Brother the Sacristan”, as Frederick the Great named Joseph, sincerely believed that in doing this he was creating a purified Divine service, and never heeded the discontent of his people and the sneers of non-Catholics.

The fundamental idea underlying a state-church is that the State is the administrator of the temporal property of the Church. Joseph embodied this idea in a law merging the funds of all churches, religious houses, and endowments within his territories, into one great fund for the various requirements of public worship, called the Religionsfonds. This fund was the pivot measure around which all other reforms turned. Not only ecclesiastical property hitherto devoted to parochial uses, not only the property which the suppressed religious houses had devoted to parochial works, but all ecclesiastical property--the still remaining religious houses, chapels, confraternities, and benefices, and all existing religious endowments whatsoever-was held to be part of the new fund. The suppression of the religious houses in 1782 affected at first only the contemplative orders. The Religionsfonds, created out of the property of the monasteries, gave a new direction to Joseph’s monastic policy. In the foreground stood” the wealthy prelacies”, which from 1783 were the chief object of his suppressions. The journey of Pius VI to Vienna was fruitless, and the laity reacted but feebly against the suppressions. Of the 915 monasteries (762 for men, and 153 for women) existing in 1780 in German Austria (including Bohemia, Moravia, and Galicia), 388 (280 for men, 108 for women) were closed-figures which are often greatly exaggerated. By these suppressions the “religious fund” reached 35,000,000 gulden ($14,000,000). Countless works of art were destroyed or found their way to second-hand dealers or the mint, numberless libraries were pitilessly scattered.

The suppression of the tertiaries and hermits brought no increase to the fund, and the suppression of the confraternities (1783) was likewise a financial failure. They were looked upon as sources of superstition and religious fanaticism; half their property was allotted to educational purposes, the other half was given over, “with all their ecclesiastical privileges, indulgences, and graces”, to a new “Single Charitable Association”, which possessed the features of both a confraternity and a charitable institution and was intended to end all social distress. But the people had little taste for this “enlightened confraternity”. The suppression of the filial churches and chapels-of-ease permitted the creation of new parishes. In carrying out this measure and in the suppression of the confraternities, Joseph’s reforms met with the first popular resistance. The endowments for Masses and altars, for oratories, chapels-of-ease, and confraternities, for processions and pilgrimages, and for devotions no longer permitted in the new arrangement of Divine service, all went to the Religionsfonds, which undertook to satisfy the provisions for Masses, wherever the fact of endowment could be proved. Joseph assigned a definite number as pensions for dispossessed monks and as the stipends of parochial clergy. Benefices without cure of souls, prebends in the larger churches, and all canonries above a fixed number, belonging to collegiate churches and cathedral chapters, were forfeited to the “religious fund”, and the incumbents transferred to parochial positions. A maximum was fixed for the endowment of bishoprics, the surplus being turned over to the “religious fund, as were also the incomes of livings during their vacancy.

The first duty of the “religious fund” was to provide for the ex-religious. Their number did not exceed ten thousand. They received a yearly salary of 150 to 200 gulden ($60 to $80), and the monks were transferred to parochial and scholastic work. The state-church reached its fullest expression in the parochial organization. The State undertook to train and remunerate the clergy, to present to livings, and to regulate Divine service. No parish church was to be over an hour’s walk from any parishioner; and a church was to be provided for every 700 souls. The monasteries which still remained bore the main burden of the parochial organization, and their inmates, as well as the ex-monks, were required to pass a state concursus for the pastoral positions, while only in cases of extreme necessity did the “religious fund” furnish the means for the building of churches and rectories, for the care of cemeteries and the equipment of churches. Naturally, the “religious fund” had to pay the costs of placing the clergy under state control, of the general seminaries and the support of the young clerics, who thus became wholly dependent on the Government, of the institutes for the practical education of the clergy, which were to be established in every diocese, and of the support of sick and aged priests after the incorporation with the “religious fund” of the funds created for superannuated priests (Emeritenfonds) and to supply needed support (Defizientenfonds).

The academic reforms of Maria Theresa (Studienreform) and of Rautenstrauch (Studienplan) in 1776, and the introduction of Riegger’s “Manual of Canon Law”, paved the way for the creation of the general theological seminaries. Joseph founded twelve: at Vienna, Graz, Prague, Olmütz, Presburg, Pesth, Innsbruck, Freiburg, Lemberg (two for Galicia, Greek and Latin Rites), Louvain, and Pavia. In 1783 all the monastic schools and diocesan houses of studies were suppressed. The “general seminaries” were boarding-houses (Konvikte) connected with the universities; some of them, however, had their own theological courses. Five years of study in the seminary were followed by one in the bishop’s training-house (Priesterhaus) or in a monastery. The principles of the seminary directors were Liberal, in keeping with the rationalistic theology of the State. Sharp opposition arose, especially on the part of the ecclesiastical foundations (Stifte) and the monasteries. The novices, educated at their expense in the general seminaries, for the most part lost their monastic vocation. Some of the general seminaries were badly managed, At Innsbruck, Pavia, and Louvain, unsuitable directors were appointed; at Louvain the general seminary was eventually the cause of a civil war and of the revolt of Belgium. However, other seminaries sent forth efficient pastors and learned theologians (Freiburg). The fermentation within the ranks of the clergy of southwest Germany and Austria until after the middle of the nineteenth century came from the Liberal ideas imbibed at this time.

GALLICANISM. The collective name for the body of doctrine which asserted the more or less complete freedom of the Catholic Church, esp. in France, from the ecclesiastical authority of the Papacy. During the Great Schism, such theologians as J. Gerson and P. d’Ailly had ably represented a primitive form of Gallican doctrine which had been taught in the Sorbonne almost from the time of its foundation (1257).

At this period the chief question at issue was the claim of the French Church to a privileged position in relation to the Papacy, these libertés de l’Église gallicane (whence the name Gallicanism) being based upon supposed prerogatives of the French Crown (prerogatives which a sober view of history scarcely warranted).

In 1516 the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438) was superseded by the Concord of Bologna in which the French king’s right of nomination to bishoprics and other high ecclesiasical offices was conceded.

The constitutional decisions of the Council of Trent (1545–63) were not received in France, and such writers as P. Pithou, Edmond Richer (1559–1631), and P. de Marca popularized a theory of Church government which [:]

In 1663 the Sorbonne published a declaration, the substance of which was reaffirmed by the Assembly of the French clergy in 1682 in the formula known as:

They described the alleged rights and privileges claimed by the French clergy at an assembly of 36 bishops and 34 deputies held at Paris on 19 March 1682. The demands arose from the dispute between Louis XIV and Innocent XI over the appointment of bishops and the revenues of vacant sees. The document was drawn up by J. B. BOSSUET

The Articles were quashed by the constitution “Inter multiplices” of Alexander VIII of 4 Aug. 1690, and by Louis XIV in a letter to the Pope on 14 Sept. 1693, but for over a decade they were taught in the French theological schools and made a test for admission to academic degrees and public office.

This declaration, though solemnly withdrawn by king and clergy in 1693, remained the typical Gallican manifesto.

After the Restoration, however, the work of the Jesuits, and of such writers as J. de Maistre and F. R. de Lamennais, bore fruit in a renascence of Ultramontanism in France, so that F. Dupanloup, H. Maret (1805–84), and A. J. A. Gratry found little support for their moderate Gallican positions at the time of the First Vatican Council (1869–70).

The definition of Papal Infallibility at the Council had the effect of making Gallican principles, at least in the field of dogma, incompatible with the profession of Roman Catholicism.

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