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ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



authority in our congregation, or that it shares in 

 your opinions and course of action. I do not cer- 

 tainly regret the course 1 have followed up to the 

 present in regard to you, but matters are arrived 

 at such a point that I would compromise my con- 

 science and the entire order if I do not take more 

 efficacious measures in this matter than I have done 

 in the past. 



Meditate in solitude on the great truths of religion, 

 not to preach them, but for the profit of your soul. 

 Ask lignt from Heaven, with a contrite and humble 

 heart. Address yourself to the Holy Virgin, to our 

 father, St. Joseph, and to our seraphic mother, St. 

 Theresa. A father can well address these words to his 

 son, although he be a great orator. It is a very seri- 

 ous question for you and for us all. I pray to the 

 Saviour that He may deign to accord you His light 

 ami grace. I recommend myself to your prayers, 

 and give you my benediction, and I am your very 

 humble servant, 



FE. DOMINIQUE DE SAINT JOSEPH, 

 Superior-General. 



The reply of Father Hyacinthe was as fol- 

 lows: 



PARIS, Passy, September 20, 1869. 

 MY VERY EEVEREND FATHER: During the five 

 years of my ministry at Notre-Dame de Paris, 

 and notwithstanding the open attacks and secret 

 accusations of which I have been the object, your 

 esteem and your confidence have never failed 

 me. I preserve numerous proofs of them, written 

 in your own hand, which apply to my preaching, 

 quite as much as to my person. Whatever may 

 happen, I shall always retain a grateful recollection 

 of them. Now, however, by a sudden change, the 

 cause of which I do not seek in your heart, but in 

 the intrigues of an all-powerful party at Eome, you 

 accuse what you encouraged, you blame what you 

 approyedj and you command me to speak a language, 

 or maintain a silence, which would no longer be the 

 full and faithful expression of my conscience. I do 

 not hesitate an instant. I could not reascend the 

 pulpit of Notre-Dame with language perverted by a 

 command, or mutilated by reticence. I express my 

 regret to the intelligent and courageous archbishop 

 who opened the pulpit to me, and who has main- 

 tained me in it against the ill-will of the men of 

 whom I have just spoken. I express my regret to the 

 imposing auditory which bestowed upon me its at- 

 tention, its sympathy, I had almost said, its friend- 

 ship. I should not be worthy of that auditory, of 

 the bishop, of my conscience, or of God, could I 

 consent to enact such a part before them. I with- 

 draw at the same time from the monastery I live in, 

 and which, under the new circumstances in which I am 

 placed, is changed for me into a prison of the soul. 

 In acting thus I am not unfaithful to my vows ; I 

 promised monastical obedience, but within the limits 

 of the honesty of my conscience, and the dignity of 



my person and ministry. I promised it, subject to 

 that higher law of justice and " royal liberty," which, 

 according to St. James the Apostle, is the proper law 



of the Christian. It was the most perfect practice 

 of that holy liberty which I went to ask in the 

 cloister more than ten years ago, in the ardor of an 

 enthusiasm free from all human calculation I cannot 

 add free from all the illusions of youth. If, in ex- 

 change for my sacrifices, I am now offered chains, it 

 is not merely my right, it is my duty to reiect them. 

 The present moment is a solemn one. The Church 

 is passing through one of the most violent, the most 

 obscure, and the most decisive crises of its existence 

 here below. For the first time in three hundred 

 years, an (Ecumenical Council is not only convoked, 

 but declared necessary. These are the expressions 

 of the Holy Father. It is not at such a moment that 

 a preacher of the Gospel, even the humblest, can 

 consent to keep silence, like those mute dogs of 

 Israel, faithless guardians, which the prophet re- 



proaches because unable to bark- canes muti, non 

 valentes latrare. The saints never kept silent. I am 

 not one of them ; but, nevertheless, I am of their 

 rucQJlln sanctorum sumits and I have always loxiged 

 to leave my footsteps, my tears, and, if need be, my 

 blood, in the traces where they have left theirs. I 

 raise, therefore, before the Holy Father and the Coun- 

 cil, my protest as a Christian and a priest, against 

 those doctrines and those practices which are called 

 Eoman, but which are not Christian, and which, by 

 their encroachments, always more audacious and 

 more baneful, tend to change the constitution of the 

 Church, the basis and the form of its teaching, and 

 even the spirit of its piety. I protest against the di- 

 vorce, as impious as it is insensate, sought to be 

 effected between the Church, which is our Eternal 

 Mother, and the society of the nineteenth century, 

 of which wo are the temporal children, and toward 

 which we have also duties and regards. I protest 

 against that opposition, more radical and more fright- 

 ful still, to human nature, attacked and outraged by 

 these false doctors, in its most indestructible and 

 most holy aspirations. I protest, above all, against 

 the sacrilegious perversion of the Gospel of the Son 

 of God Himself, the spirit and the letter of which are 

 alike trampled under foot by the Pharisaism of the 

 new law. it is my most profound conviction that, if 

 France in particular, and the Latin races in general, 

 are given up to social, moral, and religious anarchy, 

 the principal cause undoubtedly is not Catholicism 

 itseli, but the manner in which Catholicism has for a 

 long time been understood and practised. I appeal 

 to the Council which is about to assemble to seek 

 remedies for the excess of our ills, and to apply them 

 with as much force as gentleness. But if fears which 

 I will not share were to be realized if the august 

 assembly had no more liberty in its deliberations 

 than it already has in its preparations in a word, if 

 it were to be deprived of the essential character ol an 

 (Ecumenical Council, I would cry aloud to God and 

 man to claim another, really assembled in the Holy 

 Spirit, not in the spirit of party ; really representing 

 the Universal Church, not the silence of some, and 

 the oppression of others. "For the hurt of the 

 daughter of my people am I hurt. I am black ; as- 

 tonishment hath taken hold of me. Is there no 

 balm in Gilead ? is there no physician there 2 Why, 

 then, is not the health of the daughter of my people 

 recovered?" (Jeremiah viii.). And finally, I appeal 

 to your tribunal. O Lord Jesus ! ad tuum Domine 

 Jesu tribunal appello. It is in your presence that I 

 write these lines; it is at your feet, after much 

 prayer, much reflection, much suffering, much wait- 

 ing, it is at your feet that I sign them. I feel that, if 

 men condemn them upon the earth, you will approve 

 them in heaven. To live or to die that is sufficient 

 for me. FB. HYACINTHE. 



The response of the General of the Carmel- 

 ite Order to Father Hyacinthe was as follows : 



EOMB, September 26, 1869. 



EEVEREND FATHER : Your letter of the 20th only 

 reached me yesterday. You will easily imagine how 

 deeply it afflicted me, and with what bitterness it 

 filled my soul. I was far from expecting you to fall 

 to such a depth. Therefore my heart bleeds with 

 grief, and is filled with an immense pity for you. 

 and I raise my humble supplications to the God 

 of all mercies that He may enlighten you, pardon 

 you, and lead you back from that deplorable and fatal 

 path on which you have entered. It is very true, 

 my reverend father, that, during the last five years, 

 in spite of my personal opinions, which are in gen- 

 eral contrary to yours on many religious questions 

 as I have more than once expressed to you in spite 

 of the counsels I have given to you on several occa- 

 sions relative to your preachings, and to which, ex- 

 cepting in the case of your Lent sermons at Eome, 

 you paid but little attention, so long as you did not 

 openly depart from the limits imposed by Christian 



