Félicité de Lamennais

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Lamennais. Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Paulin Guérin

Hugues Félicité (François) Robert de Lamennais (actually Hugues Félicité Robert de la Mennais ; born June 19, 1782 in Saint-Malo , †  February 27, 1854 in Paris ) was a French priest, philosopher and author of political writings.

Life

Lamennais dealt intensively in his youth with the philosophers of the French Enlightenment , in particular with Jean-Jacques Rousseau . Lamennais' philosophical writings are devoted to the attempt to combine Catholicism with liberal and progressive ideas of the Enlightenment. In particular, the ideological and institutional interweaving of clergy and royalty, which had been established in the ancien régime within the framework of the Gallican system and practically continued through the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801 , was a thorn in his side. Influenced by Rousseau, he campaigned for democracy and a republic and called for freedom of religion and the press as well as the separation of state and church . At the same time, the deeply devout Catholic Lamennais advocated papal authority on questions of faith and the centralization of the Church, thus he was also a pioneer of ultramontanism , which began to become influential in France in the mid-19th century. The mouthpiece of his liberal political views was the magazine L'Avenir , which he published together with the theologian Lacordaire , the politician Montalembert and several other intellectuals.

His revolutionary ideas inevitably led to violent hostility from conservative bishops. In 1832 Pope Gregory XVI condemned without mentioning the name of Lamennais' writings in his encyclical Mirari vos and also wrote the encyclical Singulari nos (1834) with the subtitle: "On the errors of Lamennais". In the course of these conflicts Lamennais broke with Rome and turned to a Christian socialism. His Paroles d'un croyant , published in 1834, were among the most successful publications of their time and inspired an entire generation of religious socialists .

Lamennais is also considered to be one of the founders of fideism , an extreme form of Catholic belief .

Works (selection)

  • Réflexions sur l'état de l'église en France pendant le 18ieme siècle et sur sa situation actuelle (1808)
  • De la tradition de l'église sur l'institution des éveques (1814)
  • Essai sur l'indifference en matière de religion (1817ff.)
  • De la religion considérée dans ses rapports avec l'ordre public et civil (1825–1826)
  • Les Progrès de la revolution et de la guerre contre l'église (1828)
  • Paroles d'un croyant (1834)
  • Le livre du peuple (1837)
  • De l'esclavage modern (1839)
  • Politique à l'usage du peuple (1839)
  • Esquisse de philosophie (1840)

literature

  • Jean-René Derré: Lamennais, ses amis et le mouvement des idées à l'époque romantique 1824–1834 , Klincksieck 1962.
  • Waldemar Gurian: The political and social ideas of French Catholicism 1789/1914 , Volksvereins-Verlag 1929.
  • Julian Strube: A New Christianity. Early Socialism, Neo-Catholicism and the Unity of Religion and Science . In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 66/2, 2014, pp. 140–162.
  • Andreas Verhülsdonk: Religion and Society: Félicité Lamennais , Peter Lang 1991.

Web links

Commons : Félicité de Lamennais  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Félicité Robert de Lamennais  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Julian Strube: Socialism, Catholicism and Occultism in France in the 19th Century . De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, pp. 177–211; see. Julian Strube: A New Christianity. Early Socialism, Neo-Catholicism and the Unity of Religion and Science . In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 66/2, 2014, pp. 140–162.
personal data
SURNAME Lamennais, Félicité de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lamennais, Hugues-Félicité Robert de; La Mennais, Hugues Félicité Robert de (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Catholic priest, philosopher, and political writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1782
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint Malo
DATE OF DEATH February 27, 1854
Place of death Paris