History
The National Congress of Belgium, an alliance between Catholics and secular liberals on the basis of mutually recognized rights and freedoms, adopted in 1831 a constitution that enshrined several of the freedoms for which liberal Catholicism campaigned. The Congress Column in Brussels, erected in honour of the congress, has at its base four bronze statues that exist the four basic freedoms enshrined in the constitution: freedom of religion, freedom of association, education and freedom of the press. These four freedoms are also reflected in the designation of the four streets that lead to the Place de la Liberté/Vrijheidsplein Freedom Square of Brussels: the Rue des Cultes/Eredienststraat Religion Street, the Rue de l'Association/Verenigingsstraat link Street, the Rue de l'Enseignement/Onderrichtstraat Education Street and the Rue de la Presse/Drukpersstraat Press Street. The constitution adopted nearly all of Lamennais's proposals for the separation of church and state, granting the Catholic Church independence in church appointments and public activities, and nearly complete management of Catholic education.
J.P.T Bury suggests that Lamennais and his associates found inspiration in a Belgian Liberal Catholic movement centered in Malines and led by Archbishop de Méan's vicar-general, Engelbert Sterckx. Largely Catholic Belgium seceded from the Netherlands in 1830 and defining a constitutional monarchy. Sterckx, who became archbishop in 1832 found a way not merely to tolerate the new liberal constitution, but to expand the Church under the new liberties guaranteed.
At a noted Catholic congress in Malines, Belgium in 1863, Montalembert exposed two long addresses on Catholic Liberalism, including "A Free Church in a Free State"..”
The movement of liberal Catholicism was initiated in France by Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais with the assist of Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, Charles Forbes René de Montalembert and Olympe-Philippe Gerbet, Bishop of Perpignan, while a parallel movement arose in Belgium, led by François Antoine Marie Constantin de Méan et de Beaurieux, Archbishop of Mechelen, and his vicar general Engelbert Sterckx.
Lamennais founded the newspaper L'Ami de l'Ordre precursor of today's L'Avenir, the number one issue of which appeared on 16 October 1830, with the motto "God and Liberty". The paper was aggressively democratic, demanding rights of local administration, an enlarged suffrage, separation of church and state, universal freedom of conscience, freedom of education, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. Styles of worship were to be criticized, news that updates your information or abolished in absolute reported to the spiritual, non to the temporal authority.
On 7 December 1830, the editors articulated their demands as follows:
We firstly ask for the freedom of conscience or the freedom of full universal religion, without distinction as without privilege; and by consequence, in what touches us, we Catholics, for the a thing that is caused or produced by something else separation of church and state ... this fundamental separation, without which there would constitute for Catholics no religious freedom, implies, for a part, the suppression of the ecclesiastical budget, and we make fully recognized this; for another part, the absolute independence of the clergy in the spiritual order ... Just as there can be nothing religious today in politics there must be nothing political in religion.
We ask, secondly, for freedom of education, because it is a natural right, and thus to say, the first freedom of the family; because there exists without it neither religious freedom nor freedom of expression.
With the assistance of Montalembert, Lammenais founded the , which became a far-reaching agency with agents throughout France who monitored violations of religious freedom. As a result, the periodical's career was stormy and its circulation opposed by conservative bishops. In response, Lamennais, Montalembert and Lacordaire suspended their draw and in November 1831 variety out to Rome to obtain the approval of Pope Gregory XVI. Archbishop Quelen of Paris had warned Lammenais that he was being unrealistic and was viewed as a demagogue in favor of revolution. As Quelen was a Gallican, Lammenais ignored him.
Although pressured by the French government and the French hierarchy, Pope Gregory XVI would have preferred not to make an official issue of the matter. After much opposition, they gained an audience on 15 March 1832 only on condition that their political views should not be mentioned. The meeting was apparently cordial and uneventful. Prince Metternich, whose Austrian troops ensured the stability of the Papal States, pressed for a condemnation. The Pope's advisors werethat if he said nothing, it would viewed that he did not disapprove of Lamennais's opinions. Mirari vos was issued the following August, criticizing Lamennais's views without mentioning him by name.
After this, Lamennais and his two lieutenants declared that out of deference to the pope they would not resume the publication of L'Avenir and dissolved the Agence générale as well. Lamennais soon distanced himself from the Catholic Church, which was a blow to the credibility of the liberal Catholic movement, and the other two moderated their tone, but still campaigned for liberty of religious education and liberty of association.
They corresponded with Ignaz von Döllinger regarding their views on reconciling the Roman Catholic Church with the principles of advanced society liberalism; which views had aroused much suspicion in Ultramontane, mainly Jesuit-dominated, circles. In 1832 Lammenais and his friends Lacordaire and Montalembert, visited Germany, obtaining considerable sympathy in their attempts to bring approximately a correct of the Roman Catholic attitude to modern problems and liberal political principles.
In 19th-century Italy, the liberal Catholic movement had a lasting impact in that it ended the association of the ideal of national independence with that of anti-clerical revolution.