Lucien Laberthonnière

Lucien Laberthonnière CO (5 October 1860 – 6 October 1932) was a French Roman Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher and historian of philosophy.

Biography

Lucien Laberthonnière was born in Chazelet, Indre. He studied at the major seminary in Bourges. Ordained a priest at the Oratory in 1886, he taught philosophy at the College of Juilly from 1887 to 1896. In 1894, he met Maurice Blondel, a long friendship will be born and an abundant correspondence published later by Claude Tresmontant, after having been enthusiastic about Blondel's thesis entitled: L'Action. He was appointed director of the Massillon school (1897–1900), then of the College of Juilly (1900–1903).

Freed from his scholastic responsibilities by the law on congregations (1903), he settled in an apartment located on Las Cases street in the 7th arrondissement of Paris to devote himself entirely and exclusively to the study of philosophical problems and to his intellectual apostolate. Anxious to define what a Christian philosophy could be, he opposed "Christian realism and Greek idealism".

In 1905, he founded an association of religious studies and became a full member of the French Society of Philosophy. Director of the journal Annales de philosophie chrétienne from 1905 to 1913, he was strongly criticized by various theologians. He then tried to renew the problematic and the solutions of many questions which are situated at the hinge of reason and faith. In 1906, the work Essais de philosophie religieuse as well as Le réalisme chrétien et l'idéalisme grec were condemned by the Roman censors. His attacks against L'Action française, notably in Positivisme et catholicisme (1911), raised against him the conservative currents. In 1913, the Index condemned the Annales. Laberthonnière submitted to the definitive ban on publishing anything but kept his ability to speak. During World War I, Laberthonnière, at the request of Bishop Chapon, was asked to write a doctrinal letter condemning pangermanism. He was almoner to the blind soldiers at the Hospital for the Blind, in the Quinze-Vingts district, where he met his friend Marc Boegner.

After the war, Laberthonnière participated in several private ecumenical meetings. For three years, from 1925 to 1927, he wrote the Lenten Conferences of Notre-Dame Cathedral for Father Sanson.

Lucien Laberthonnière died at the age of 72. His funeral was discreet, to the satisfaction of Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart who feared that it would be given a "demonstration character". His funeral took place in Paris at the Basilica of Saint Clotilde.

At his death in 1932, it was left to Louis Canet to ensure the publication of a part of the writings left by Father Laberthonnière.

Thought

Laberthonnière's thought is defined as a Christian personalism based on what he calls the metaphysics of charity. Laberthonnière conceives the Christian faith not as submission to an external authority, but as an "experience of life" including goodness, the divine grace that allows man to participate in the divine life. These theses, which anticipated the Second Vatican Council and the charismatic movements, were judged heterodox by the ecclesiastical authorities.

Laberthonnière denounces the harmful influence of the Greek thought on the Christian thought. He attacks Thomism which he finds too dependent on Aristotelianism and underlines the abyss which separates the God of Aristotle (logical, egoistic, impersonal) from the Christian God (loving, savior, creator, charitable). The God of Saint Thomas Aquinas, improbable mixture, is illogical and contradictory, properly "monstrous", according to him. Also, Laberthonnière goes so far as to speak of the "anti-Christianity of Thomism". This radical criticism went against the Thomistic restoration — the neo-Thomism — encouraged by the Catholic Church at the time.

But he also rejects the Cartesian agnosticism which would like to do without God, but, not being able to do so completely "could not prevent himself from giving him a flick of the wrist to set the world in motion: after that he has no use for God". Laberthonnière is opposed to this secularization of the world which he believed was initiated by Descartes.

He denounced the identification made between Church and ecclesiastical hierarchy, the absolutist conception of authority which to him idolizes dogmatic truths, but neglects the Christian virtues of charity. For Laberthonnière, true authority radiates goodness. Christ himself shows the way: supreme authority of the Church, he is divine Charity in action.

The intellectual must therefore be subjected to the spiritual, the idea to the act, the order of knowledge to that of charity. Laberthonnière does not reject dogmatic truths as such, but he subordinates them to the love of neighbor which translates into the gift of self and the unconditional charity that Christ manifested and experienced for all humanity.

Works

• Théorie de l'éducation (1901)
• Essais de philosophie religieuse (1903)
• Le réalisme chrétien et l'idéalisme grec (1904)
• Le catholicisme et la société (1907)
• Positivisme et catholicisme (1911)
• Autour de l'Action française (1911)
• Le témoignage des martyrs (1912)
• Sur le chemin du catholicisme (1913)
• Études sur Descartes (1935; 2 volumes)
• Étude de philosophie cartésienne et Premiers écrits philosophiques (1937)
• Esquisse d'une philosophie personnaliste (1945)
• Pangermanisme et christianisme (1945)
• Sciut ministrator (1947)
• Critique du laïcisme (1948)
• La notion chrétienne de l'autorité (1955)

References

Aubert, Roger (1978). Le Problème de la connaissance religieuse. Kinshasa: Faculté de théologie catholique.

Beillevert, Paul (1972) Laberthonnière, l’homme et l’oeuvre. Paris: Beauchesne.

Castelli, Enrico (1931). Laberthonnière. Paris: J. Vrin.

Chenu, Marie-Dominique (1979). La Jeunesse de Laberthonnière, printemps d'une mission prophétique. Paris: Beauchesne.

Colin, Pierre (2017). Morale et religion au temps de la crise moderniste. Louvain-La-Neuve: Presses Universitaires.

Losito, Giacomo (1996). "Lucien Laberthonnière Lettore della Levinasiana 'Théorie de l'intuition dans la phénoménologie de Husserl'," Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica, Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 4, pp. 624–44.

Losito, Giacomo (2009) "Gratry et Laberthonnière". In: E. Poulat, ed., Alphonse Gratry (1805–1872), prophète marginal ou précurseur?. Paris: Editions du Cerf , pp. 81–116.

Losito, Giacomo (2015). "Laberthonnière in the ‘Great War’: A ‘Modernist’ in the Trenches." In: Talar, C.J.T., Barmann, L.F., eds., Roman Catholic Modernists Confront the Great War. New York: Palgrave Pivot, pp. 53–76.

Olgiati, Francesco (1933). "La Filosofia Religiosa di Luciano Laberthonnière," Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica, Vol. XXV, No. 1, pp. 11–49.

Perrin, Marie-Thérèse (1975). Laberthonnière et ses amis: L. Birot, H. Bremond, L. Canet, E. Le Roy: dossiers de correspondance (1905-1916). Paris: Éd. Beauchesne.

Perrin, Marie-Thérèse (1980). La jeunesse de Laberthonnière : printemps d'une mission prophétique. Paris: Éd. Beauchesne.

Perrin, Marie-Thérèse (1983). Dossier Laberthonnière: Correspondance et textes (1917-1932). Paris: Éd. Beauchesne.

Scolas Paul (1977). "'Dogme et Théologie' de L. Laberthonnière. A propos d'une réédition," Revue Théologique de Louvain, Vol. VIII, No. 4, pp. 469–78.

Tilliette, Xavier (1961). "Blondel et ses Correspondants," Archives de Philosophie, Vol. XXIV, No. 1, pp. 157–84.

Vidler, Alec R. (1970). A Variety of Catholic Modernists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Widmer, Gabriel Philippe (1978). "Présence et Actualité de L. Laberthonnière (A propos de quelques publications récentes)," Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, Vol. CX, No. 3, pp. 281–90.

External links

• Works by Lucien Laberthonnière at Gallica