Jansenism: Holier Than Thou

 

Outline:

A.  Jansen’s life and writings.  Human nature is radically corrupted by Original Sin.  Man cannot resist concupiscence.  Christ died only for those predestined to be saved.  The sacraments require very severe preparation.  Communion is a reward, not a remedy.

B.  Jansenism catches on in Paris.  Molina argues that natural gifts can bring us to a good, moral life.  Original Sin does not deprave man, but it deprives him.  In the confessional, penance is lax.

C. W. H. Lewis:  “In the Jansenist quarrel, Protestant sympathies were engaged;  Protestants, however erroneously, saw Jansenism as a crypto-Protestant movement within the Roman Catholic Church which might ultimately lead to a reunion of Christendom on Protestant terms.”

D.  Walter Dorn,  Competition for Empire … “orthodox Catholic dogma presented not merely a system of religious metaphysics and a code of ethics, but an elaborate cosmology that was equivalent to a complete interpretation of geology, of ethnography, of world history, of the origins of mankind.”

E.  Catholic pious mysticism of the Eighteenth Century:  a loving God will catch us when we fall.   An age of devotion to the Child Jesus, Sacred Heart, The Virgin’s “nuptial relationship with God,” Corpus Christi processions, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.  To catch a glimpse of heaven while still on earth.

F.  New congregations:  Trappists (1664),  Brothers of the Christian Schools (1680), Passionists (1725), Redemptorists (1732).

G.  New movements.  Jean-Jacques Olier (1608 – 1657)