History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 1MacCaffrey, James
Religion
History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 1
MacCaffrey, James
Catholic Church -- History -- Modern period, 1500-
While the controversy was raging round Quesnel's book, another
incident occurred that tended to arouse all the old partisan feeling.
A confessor submitted to the judgment of the Sorbonne the celebrated
case of conscience. He asked whether a priest should absolve a
penitent, who rejected the teaching set forth in the five propositions
of Jansenius, but who maintained a respectful silence on the question
whether or not they were to be found in the book /Augustinus/. In July
1701 forty doctors of the Sorbonne gave an affirmative reply to this
question. The publication of this reply created such a storm in France
that Clement XI. felt it necessary to condemn the decision of the
Sorbonne (1703). The papal condemnation was supported by Louis XIV.,
as well as by the great body of the bishops. Two years later Clement
XI. issued the bull /Vineam Domini/,[2] confirming the constitutions
of his predecessors, Innocent X. and Alexander VII., and condemned
once more in an authoritative form the doctrine of respectful silence.
The document was accepted by the king, by the Assembly of the Clergy,
and by the majority of the bishops, though the attachment of some of
the latter to Gallican principles led them to insist on certain
conditions which the Pope could not accept. As the nuns of Port Royal
still refused to submit, their community was broken up, the sisters
being scattered through different convents in France (1709), and the
following year the convent buildings were completely destroyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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