Seminary Reform and Theological Method on the Eve of the Modernist Crisis: Transatlantic Reception of J. B. Hogan's Clerical Studies (1898)

Abstract

Seminary Reform and Theological Method on the Eve of the Modernist Crisis: Transatlantic Reception of J. B. Hogan's Clerical Studies (1898) C. J. T. Talar "It is safe to say that someone writing after 1910 what Hogan wrote in the 1890s would have come under great suspicion and probably condemnation."1 At several points in his series of studies on the education of Catholic clergy written over the course of the 1890s the Sulpician John Hogan emphasized that the time was one of transition. And a theology that would be of its times could not be immune to development. Nor could the institutional settings in which priests received their intellectual formation. The period 1884 to 1910 was also a transitional one for American seminaries. Its beginnings reside in the decree of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884), De Clericorum Educatione et Instructione,2 while the articles that were eventually published in book form in Clerical Studies (1898)3 were written during the developing crisis over [End Page 1] Americanism, and its latter part was marked by the condemnation of Modernism and its aftermath. By 1910 there were not only severe restrictions on theological inquiry but also greater Vatican control of the seminary curriculum.4 Hogan's survey of the various areas of clerical learning, his historical contextualization of those areas and his prescriptions for fruitful methods of their transmission thus reflect a sense of optimism regarding what was thought possible in the way of reform, antedating the backlash of the antimodernist sanctions of 1907 and the Oath against Modernism imposed in 1910. The council's decree on the education of priests gave an impetus to a number of suggestions for its implementation. In what follows, Hogan's contribution will be set, briefly, within this context. As a moderate progressive, Hogan has been characterized as more of an incrementalist than a revolutionary.5 Three areas in particular may be singled out as reflecting an attempt to broaden theological education on his part: the teaching of dogmatic theology, the manner of doing apologetics, and the overall approach to biblical studies as exemplified in the treatment of inspiration and inerrancy. Lastly, his writing on clerical studies soon found its way into French translation. The reception of those ideas in France provides a glimpse of the perceived significance of seminary reform in the minds of French clergy. "It is a book altogether different from any we have had thus far, as opening the mind to the importance of theological studies whilst showing a way in which to master them. It is modern, yet safe."6 Prior to his coming to the United States to become the founding rector of Saint John's Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts in 1884, John Baptist Hogan (1829-1901) had already enjoyed a distinguished career in seminary formation at Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Irish by birth, he chose to study for the priesthood in France, following the example of an uncle who had responded to an appeal for Irish priests to serve in France to meet the deficit of priests following the French Revolution. Ordained in 1852, Hogan entered the Society of Saint Sulpice and occupied the chair of fundamental dogma in Paris from 1852 to 1863, the year he became Professor of Senior Moral, until his assignment to the United States in 1884.7 While teaching at Saint-Sulpice, Hogan exercised a notable influence on many of those who would figure prominently in the movement for the reform of Catholicism that developed into the Modernist crisis. Among his students may be counted Eudoxe-Irénée [End Page 2] Mignot (1842-1918),8 later bishop of Fréjus and archbishop of Albi; Louis Birot (1863-1936),9 later Mignot's vicar general and close collaborator; Maurice d'Hulst (1841-1896)10 and Pierre Batiffol (1861-1929),11 who became rectors of the Instituts catholiques of Paris and Toulouse, respectively; Félix Klein (1862-1953),12 who achieved notoriety as a result of his involvement in the Americanist controversy in France; Marcel Hébert (1851-1916),13 who assumed the directorship of the École Fénelon in Paris; and Georges Frémont (1852-1912), later a speaker and...