Page:Guettée papacy.djvu/22

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
xviii
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.

iastical rights. These appeals, firm in their language and unanswerable in their facts and arguments, were not published with any hope of answer or justice, but for the purpose of exposing clearly the outrageous violation by his adversary of the ancient liberties of the Gallican Church, and the arbitrary and despotic character of the whole proceeding. He did not imagine that the Pope would ever be permitted to hear of his wrongs, or if he were, that he would listen to them at the expense of his own friends and of the principles upon which the power of the Papacy is built. Nor was it to be expected that the State would embroil itself with an individual conflict with the Church upon a question of canon law. Thus M. l'Abbé Guettée, innocent of the smallest offense against good morals, and with a character free from all taint, without any ecclesiastical censure resting upon him, or any proceedings directed against him, was deprived of the exercise of his ministry, with the evident purpose of driving him from Paris, where his enlightened views caused too much inconvenience to the ultramontane party.

It is unnecessary to say that the scheme failed, or to follow the controversy that ensued upon this open rupture. It had the natural result of disclosing more clearly than ever to M. Guettée the principles of the Church of Rome and the despotic usurpation of the Papacy. The energy and industry with which he answered the attacks upon him developed his views, defined his objections and thoroughly awakened the latent protest of his enlightened conscience against the pretensions of Rome. He became finally the watchful and open antagonist of the Papacy, and shortly after found himself the editor of the Review called l'Observateur Catholique, which had, and still has, for its object the resistance of Papal usurpations and corruptions in the Church by the principles of primitive truth and a pure Catholicity. He has published successively a History of the Jesuits, in three volumes; the Memoirs et Journal de l'Abbé Le Dieu sur la Vie et les Outrages de Bossuet, in four volumes; also a refutation of Renan's Vie de Jesus. His latest and most important work is the Papauté Schismatique, now presented in English. Six years ago he founded, in conjunction with the Rev.