Febronianism

[2] The name is derived from the pseudonym Justinus Febronius adopted by Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, coadjutor bishop of Trier, in publishing his book De statu ecclesiae et legitima potestae Romani pontificis.

Louis Saltet, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, wrote that the forgeries bear some of the blame for the distorted view of ecclesiastical antiquity in the Middle Ages, and they blurred the whole historical perspective.

In addition to Judicium academicum from the University of Cologne (1765), refutations appeared from a large number of Catholic authors, Lauchert lists titles by Pietro Ballerini, Tommaso Maria Mamachi, and Francesco Antonio Zaccaria.

[2][b] This book was purported to be a proof that his submission had been made of his own free will; it carefully avoided all the most burning questions, rather tended to show — as his correspondence proves — that Hontheim had not essentially shifted his standpoint; but Rome, from that time forward, left him in peace and removal of the censure followed that year.

The German bishops were at this time great secular princes rather than Catholic prelates; with rare exceptions, they made no pretense of carrying out their spiritual duties; they shared to the full in the somewhat shallow Enlightenment of the age.

Even so devout a sovereign as Maria Theresa of Austria refused to allow Febronius to be forbidden in the Habsburg dominions; her son, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, applied the Febronian principles with remorseless thoroughness.

In Venice, in Tuscany, in Naples, in Portugal, they inspired the vigorous efforts of enlightened despots to reform the Church from above; and they gave a fresh impetus to the movement against the Jesuits, which, under pressure of the secular governments, culminated in the Suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV in 1773.

[1] An attempt was made to realize the principles of the "Febronius" on a large scale in Austria, where under Joseph II a national Church was established according to the plan outlined.

[2] Febronius inspired the proceedings of two ecclesiastical assemblies, both held in the year 1786: the resolutions adopted along these lines at the reforming Synod of Pistoia, under Bishop Scipione de' Ricci were repudiated by the majority of the bishops of the country; more significant was the Congress of Ems, at which the three ecclesiastic prince-electors — of Cologne, of Mainz and of Trier — and the Prince-Bishop of the Archbishopric of Salzburg and in conformity with the basic principles of the "Febronius", made a fresh attempt to readjust the relations of the German Church with Rome, with a view to securing for the former a greater measure of independence; they also had their representatives draw up twenty-three articles of the celebrated Punctation of Ems, subsequently ratified and issued by the archbishops.

Bishops have, in virtue of their God-given powers, full authority within their dioceses in all matters of dispensation, patronage and the like; papal bulls, briefs, etc., and the decrees of the Roman Congregations are only of binding force in each diocese when sanctioned by the bishop; nunciatures, as hitherto conceived, are to cease; the oath of allegiance to the pope demanded of bishops since Pope Gregory VII's time is to be altered so as to bring it into conformity with episcopal rights; annates and the fees payable for the pallium and confirmation are to be lowered and, in the event of the pallium or confirmation being refused, German archbishops and bishops are to be free to exercise their office under the protection of the emperor; with the Church tribunals of first and second instance (episcopal and metropolitan) the Apostolic Nuncio to Cologne is not to interfere, and, though appeal to Rome is allowed under certain national safe-guards, the opinion is expressed that it would be better to set up in each archdiocese a final court of appeal representing the provincial synod; finally the emperor is prayed to use his influence with the pope to secure the assembly of a national council in order to remove the grievances left unredressed by the Council of Trent.

The French Revolution intervened; the German Church went down in the storm; and in 1803 the secularizations carried out by order of the First Consul put an end to the temporal ambitions of its prelates.

Karl Theodor von Dalberg, prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine, upheld its principles throughout the Napoleonic epoch and hoped to establish them in the new Germany to be created by the Congress of Vienna.

The tide of reaction after the Revolutionary turmoil was setting strongly in the direction of traditional authority, in religion as in politics; and that ultramontane movement which, before the century was ended, was to dominate the Church, was already showing signs of vigorous life.

As such it survived strongly, especially in the universities (Bonn especially had been, from its foundation in 1774, very Febronian), and it reasserted itself vigorously in the attitude of many of the most learned German prelates and professors towards the question of the definition of the Catholic dogma of Papal infallibility in 1870.

The latter, however, since Otto von Bismarck "went to Canossa," have sunk into a respectable but comparatively obscure sect, and Febronianism, though it still has some hold on opinion within the Church in the chapters and universities of the Rhine provinces, is practically extinct in Germany.