Abstract
Lucien Laberthonnière (1860–1932)—in spite of having incurred the sanction of being ‘forbidden to write’ (a consequence of his involvement in the Modernist crisis) —played a not inconsiderable role in the propaganda campaign that emerged in France at the outset of the conflict of 1914–18.
Mgr Henri Chapon, bishop of Nice, asked him to prepare the reply of the French bishops to Gott mit uns! of their counterparts beyond the Rhine. Although signed by Mgr Chapon it is fundamentally the product of Laberthonnière’s pen.
Laberthonnière experienced rather directly the grimmest effects brought about by the war. Beginning in April 1915, he was designated Catholic chaplain for blind soldiers in a branch of the Parisian Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts.
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Notes
On this see Paul Beillevert (1972) ‘Le film d’une vie’ in Laberthonnière, l’homme et l’oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne), pp. 11–42, especially 31–2.
To obtain a synoptic view of French Catholic attitudes during the war of 1914–18, see J.-M. Mayeur, ‘La vie religieuse en France pendant la Première Guerre Mondiale’ in J. Delameau (ed.) Histoire vécue du peuple chrétien, Vol. II, pp. 179–93
and J. Fontana (1990) Les catholiques français pendant la Grande Guerre ( Paris: Editions du Cerf).
The relationship with Maurice Blondel (1861–1949) certainly impacted Laberthonnière’s life, from his precocious reading of L’Action in 1894 up until the complete rupture of relations that occurred in 1928. L. Pazzaglia (1973) Educazione religiosa e libertà umana in Laberthonnière, 1880–1903 (Bologna: il Mulino) and
G. Losito (1990) Cristianesimo e modernità. Studio sulla formazione del personalismo di Laberthonnière, 1879–1895 ( Naples: Città del Sole) are in agreement that one commits a serious error in naively accepting the judgment of Alfred Loisy that Laberthonnière was the ‘translator’ of Blondel ‘into French’.
See A. Vidler (1970) A Variety of Catholic Modernists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 88. The circumstances that led to the appearance of the texts signed by Mgr Chapon are reconstructed accurately from the correspondence that the latter and Edouard Lecanuet addressed to Laberthonnière (filed in BNFL, 189) in Louis Canet, ‘Avertissement de l’éditeur’ in Oeuvres de Laberthonnière. Pangermanisme et Christianisme, pp. vii–xix.
On this subject see J. Prévotat (2001) Les Catholiques et l’Action française: histoire d’une condemnation 189—1939 ( Paris: Fayard ), p. 139.
See G. Losito (2009) ‘Gratry et Laberthonnière’ in E. Poulat (ed.) Alphonse Gratry (1805–1872), prophète marginal ou précurseur? ( Paris: Editions du Cerf ), pp. 81–116.
See Paul Christophe (ed.) (1994) Les Carnets du Cardinal Baudrillart, 1914–1918 (Paris: Cerf), p. 274.
See P. Trotignon (1994) ‘Bergson et la propagande de la guerre’ in J. Quillien (ed.) La Réception de la philosophie allemande en France au XIXe et XX siècles (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion), pp. 207–15
and D. Losurdo (1987) La catastrofe della Germania e l’immagine di Hegel ( Milan: Guerini ), pp. 91–9.
Blondel expressed his opinions more or less openly in the note that he inserted in a chapter devoted to Kant in V. Delbos (1918) Figures et doctrines des philosophes (Paris: Plon), pp. 258–9.
See the letters from Blondel to Laberthonnière from Aix, dated February 20, 1916. BNFL, 142. See also Les Carnets du Cardinal Baudrillart, 1919–1921 ( Cerf: Paris, 2000 ), p. 155. And R. Aubert (1983) ‘Le Cardinal Mercier et Père Laberthonnière’ in Revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris, pp. 8, 201–23, notably at 213–17.
See D. Menozzi (2008) Chiesa, pace e Guerra nel Novecento. Verso una delegittimazione religiosa dei conflitti ( Bologne: Il Mulino ), pp. 16, 20–1.
M. Boegner (1972) ‘Une incomparable amitié’ in Laberthonnière l’homme et l’oeuvre ( Paris: Beauschesne ), pp. 51–7.
See A. Becker (2006) ‘Mgr Baudrillart en Grande Guerre, de Paris à New York’ in P. Christophe (ed.) Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart ( Paris: Cerf ), pp. 17–43.
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Losito, G. (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. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137527363_3
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