The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal (52 page)

But it was no coincidence that, when she reached Tivoli, her cousin Hohenlohe sought out the Benedictine Maurus Wolter to be her new confessor. Wolter was an outspoken opponent of the Jesuits. Hohenlohe had a long-standing connection with the Benedictines of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, and had been good friends with its abbot, Pappalettere, since at least 1853. He was also “firmly opposed” to the adversaries of Anton Günther.
⁷³
When Johann Baptist Baltzer,
⁷⁴
who was Günther’s student and a professor of dogmatic theology in Breslau, made a trip to Rome in 1853, he wrote to his ally Franz Peter Knoodt
⁷⁵
that Hohenlohe was entirely on the Güntherians’ side, if only “out of opposition to the Jesuits.”
⁷⁶

Anton Günther was born in northern Bohemia in 1783. He broke off his novitiate with the Jesuits and became a secular priest in 1821. A fundamental estrangement ensued between the Society of Jesus and its onetime protégé. Günther rejected various offers of professorships, and moved to Vienna in 1824, where he became an independent scholar.
⁷⁷
Starting from Descartes’ maxim “I think, therefore I
am,” Günther arrived at a “revised theory of spiritual self-awareness,” rejecting the scholastic principle that faith came before thought.
⁷⁸
For him, faith came both “before and after thought.”
⁷⁹
In modern parlance, Günther propagated something like an anthropological turn in theology.
⁸⁰
His thought had huge appeal for educated Catholics, who wanted to link modern philosophy and Catholic belief, and proceed from self-awareness to religious awareness.

Günther’s main opponents were the new scholastics, whom he attacked ferociously, accusing them of flagrant pantheism. Aristotelianism and Christianity were, he said, as irreconcilable as inimical brothers in Rebecca’s womb.
⁸¹
Philosophy was reduced to the status of a “stable girl”: this was “thin science” versus “fat faith.”
⁸²
In Günther’s view, the world was created as a complete counterimage of God. He worked from the principle that God was different from, but not superior to, the world. “But scholasticism insists on the superiority of God, and thus accepts
mysteries
as truths that are above reason, and the concept of the
supernatural
as a reality that is above nature, and the concept of the
miracle
as an event that breaks through the laws of nature.”
⁸³
Günther argued against the central categories of new scholastic philosophy, which his pupil Knoodt described as “reheated sauerkraut with no new sausage.”
⁸⁴
Günther saw mysticism as the logical consequence of these new scholastic errors. They led to a deification of humans. But mysticism, the “wayward daughter of scholasticism,” was far worse than its mother, festooning itself all the more “with the heathen jewels of nature” and ending “in madness.”
⁸⁵

From a political perspective, Günther had some quite liberal leanings. In 1848, for example, he declared himself in favor of a constitutional monarchy for Austria—though admittedly without actually calling for a revolution. This gave Kleutgen and his movement several reasons to act against him: Günther despised new scholasticism, mysticism, and the Jesuits, but he also espoused ideas of liberty, which made him an enemy of the pope.

Cardinal Johannes von Geissel from Cologne
⁸⁶
denounced Günther to the Roman authorities, supported by Cardinal Othmar von Rauscher from Vienna,
⁸⁷
much to the delight of Rome’s hard-liners. The Congregation of the Index then tasked Joseph Kleutgen, of all people, with working up the case.
⁸⁸
The Jesuit had been a consultor for the Index since July 1850.
⁸⁹
On April 26, 1853, he provided them
with a 130-page extract from Günther’s works, printed in secret by the congregation, on the basis of which he made an unequivocal plea for the Viennese philosopher to be condemned.
⁹⁰

The networks of those defending and accusing Anton Günther then began to take shape, both in Germany and in the Curia. The Viennese philosopher was backed by Cardinal Friedrich, prince of Schwarzenburg,
⁹¹
who had been prince-archbishop of Prague since 1850, and Cardinal Melchior von Diepenbrock, prince-bishop of Breslau since 1845, who both came to Rome to speak in Günther’s favor. They received a great deal of support from Gustav zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, who, as papal chamberlain, had a hotline to Pius IX. The Benedictine monks of Saint Paul Outside the Walls—among them a whole series of Günther’s pupils—also supported their teacher.

Alongside Geissel and Rauscher, Günther’s opponents included the archbishop of Munich: August, Count Reisach. He was particularly keen for Günther to be indexed. Not content with a simple ban on his books, Günther’s adversaries pushed for an official condemnation of his erroneous teachings in the form of a papal brief. The prefect of the Congregation of the Index, Cardinal Giacomo Luigi Brignole,
⁹²
and the cardinal secretary of state, Luigi Lambruschini,
⁹³
were also members of this anti-Güntherian, Jesuit-inspired network, for which Kleutgen supplied the theology.

In the face of this fearsome opposition, Günther’s Roman supporters, Hohenlohe and Pappalettere, told the Viennese theologian that the only way for him to escape being indexed was to come to Rome at once, and clear things up with the pope in person. They thought Pius IX might be won over face-to-face, on account of his “emotional, sanguine” personality. But under no circumstances should Günther hope for a positive outcome to the Index trial. It was impossible to avoid a ban via this official route, following a “maneuver by the Jesuit faction.”
⁹⁴
He therefore had to bypass the usual trial process, and resolve things as people had done in early modern times. He must seek an audience with the ruler—in this case, the pope—and prostrate himself at his feet.

Günther didn’t follow the advice of his Roman advocates. He was in poor health, and didn’t feel able to make the trip to Rome. He left the decision to the Congregation of the Index, which had chosen a new, surprisingly liberal prefect, Cardinal Girolamo D’Andrea,
⁹⁵
on
July 4, 1853. D’Andrea would save numerous modern thinkers and writers from the Index.
⁹⁶
And at first, Günther wasn’t indexed; the matter seemed to have been shelved. Pius IX had clearly been receptive to the arguments of the Viennese philosopher’s Roman friends.

But then the mood in Rome became increasingly unfavorable toward the liberals. In an address on December 9, 1854, Pius IX outlined his intentions for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which he had announced the previous day: “The Blessed Virgin, who overcame and destroyed all heresies, grant that this pernicious error of rationalism, which so troubles and plagues not only civil society, but also the Church in these sad times, may be torn out by the root and disappear.” Unfortunately there were “certain men pre-eminent in learning, who … hold human reason at so high a value, exalt it so much, that they very foolishly think it is to be held equal to religion itself. Hence, according to the rash opinion of these men, theological studies should be treated in the same manner as philosophical studies.”
⁹⁷
This was a reference to Anton Günther and others like him. The pope also promoted two of Günther’s principal accusers, Rauscher and Reisach, to the rank of cardinal on December 17, 1855. And just three days later, Pius IX made Reisach a member of the Congregation of the Index. The Viennese theologian’s most forceful opponent had now become one of his judges.

This unleashed a spate of votums within the Congregation of the Index. Following on from his excerpts from Günther’s works, Kleutgen authored many more detailed votums of the Viennese philosopher and his pupils. On April 23, 1854, there was a censor’s report on the first five volumes of
Lydia
, the yearbook of the Vienna School of philosophy. Four more detailed votums, totaling over three hundred printed pages, were produced for the conclusive meeting on January 8, 1857.
⁹⁸
In the Congregation of the Index, the hard-liners around Kleutgen and Cardinal Reisach called for a papal brief formally condemning Günther. Abbot Pappalettere, who had been a consultor of the Congregation of the Index since August 1856, and the Tyrolean Alois Flir,
⁹⁹
who had also been a consultor since February 1856, sided with the Index prefect, Cardinal D’Andrea, in calling for an acquittal.

In the end, the two sides reached a typical Roman compromise. There was no ceremonial condemnation via a papal brief—but nor was there an acquittal. Nine of Günther’s works were banned in a
simple Index decree on January 8, 1857.
¹⁰⁰
But the decree was only publicized on February 17, once Günther had submitted to it. Cardinal D’Andrea may have lost the battle, having failed to prevent the indexing, but he published the judgment with an “addendum unique in the 400-year history of the Index.” This said that on February 10, Günther had “submitted uprightly, piously and laudably.”
¹⁰¹
The usual wording was simply “He submitted laudably.”
¹⁰²

Kleutgen immediately informed like-minded comrades in Germany of the judgment. He was deeply dissatisfied with the lenient Index decree, and wanted to see a condemnation of Günther himself, rather than just his works. The things Günther had written, he said, were “injurious to the dogma.”
¹⁰³
With the help of Cardinal Geissel, who visited Rome in the spring of 1857, Reisach and Kleutgen managed to bypass the Congregation of the Index and its head, D’Andrea, and persuade the pope to produce a formal condemnation of Günther, ignoring the judgment that had already been enacted in the case. Hohenlohe could do nothing to stop Geissel from convincing Pius IX in an audience to publish the brief
Eximiam Tuam
. This appeared on June 15, 1857, and solemnly condemned Anton Günther’s teachings.
¹⁰⁴
It was also a personal attack on the Viennese philosopher, and called his Catholicism into question.

Kleutgen and Reisach had scored a total victory. Having failed to get their way through a proper court procedure, they persuaded Pius IX to revise his own judgment. This shows just how tractable this pope was, and how erratic in his decisions, which depended in each case on who had the pontiff’s ear. Since 1854, the liberals in Rome had hardly any access to Pius IX. He now trusted only the hard-liners and those with a Jesuit education.

Günther’s pupils in Germany and Rome knew who was to blame for their defeat: the new scholastics, and Kleutgen in particular. Günther spoke of the Jesuits as “rotten Aristotelians, who deserve to be slaughtered.” Sadly, they were still blithely going about their business in Rome, without having “scraped the old muck from their shoes.”
¹⁰⁵

There was now very little Günther’s pupils and friends could achieve for their mentor through Pope Pius IX. A resumption of the censorship trial with the aim of a revision was impossible: the Congregation of the Index couldn’t call a papal brief into question. But the defeated Güntherians in Rome wanted some kind of revenge.
They even considered denouncing their adversaries, in particular the Jesuits’ chief thinkers, Kleutgen and Perrone, and getting them added to the
Index of Forbidden Books
as well. But this was a hopeless undertaking from the start: the new scholastics had a majority within the Congregation, and enjoyed the highest protection from the pope.

But with Kleutgen’s involvement in the Sant’Ambrogio case, the Güntherians had a unique opportunity to teach the movement’s chief ideologue a lesson, after all. This was much better than getting his books banned by the minor Congregation of the Index. It was a chance to get Kleutgen himself condemned by the Inquisition, and make it impossible for him to exert his influence again in Rome, or anywhere else. Once he had been convicted of heresy, complicity in an attempted murder, and seduction in the confessional—and with his notorious disregard for the verdicts of the highest Catholic authority exposed—he would be silenced once and for all. Or so Hohenlohe, Wolter, and Pappalettere hoped. At the very least, his days of damaging the liberal cause in the Catholic Church would be over: after this, he could no longer be a censor for the Congregation of the Index and the Inquisition, or provide advice and inspiration to the pope.

CHAPTER NINE