The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansenism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform by Shaun Blanchard

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansenism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform by Shaun Blanchard Kenneth L. Parker The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansenism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform BY SHAUN BLANCHARD Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020. 346 pages. Hardcover: $99.00. ISBN: 9780190947798. This book takes as its point of departure Pope Benedict XVI's articulation of the "hermeneutic of reform," found in that pope's 2005 Christmas speech to the Roman Curia. Shaun Blanchard seriously engages Benedict's point that "reform" must be understood to include "continuity and discontinuity on different levels."1 The twinning, in a single study, of the Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II at first glance might appear to be a work motivated by harsh reactions to the post-Vatican II era, or an enthusiastic embrace of changes that have occurred, particularly in the era of Pope Francis. However, true to Dr. Blanchard's stated intentions in the introduction, he takes the historical theological project seriously, and teases out the historical threads that demonstrate decisively the important connections between the teachings of Vatican II and the contested legacy of the Synod of Pistoia. This volume is a striking contribution to the field of historical theology, an important contextual study for a wide range of subdisciplines in Catholic theology, and a reminder that responsible historical research is an enterprise that Roman Catholics need not fear.2 The Synod of Pistoia (1786) is remembered, if remembered at all, as a routed effort by leaders of the Catholic Enlightenment in Italy to introduce significant reforms through synodal deliberations. The list of reforms Blanchard provides is long: "ecclesiology, grace and predestination, theologies of the seven sacraments, the place of religious orders, relations between church and state, Bible reading, the veneration of Mary and the saints, and the celebration of the liturgy" (5). Resolutions included regulation of processions, indulgences, images, relics, feast days, devotional [End Page 173] life, and stipulations regarding marriage. The bishop of Pistoia-Prato, Scipione de' Ricci (1741–1810, bishop from 1780–1791), hoped to provide a model for a "national council" of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany (5–6). Instead, he experienced rejection at an episcopal assembly in Florence (1787), and by the people of Pistoia and Prato, in the form of two riots against his liturgical and devotional changes. By the time Ricci resigned his bishopric in 1791, the Pistoian reform was decisively in retreat (7–8). Pope Pius VI condemned many propositions of Pistoia in 1794 (11–12). Yet, if the Synod of Pistoia and its reform agenda receded to the margins of historical consciousness, the parallels between what was attempted in the 1780s and what was accomplished in the 1960s were not lost on advocates and critics of Vatican II, as attested by Jose Maria Fuentes (12) and leaders of the Society of St. Pius X (8–9). The former conciliar paritus, Joseph Ratzinger, found the parallels between Pistoia and the early years of the post-conciliar era "eerily familiar" (11). A Butterfieldian critique of this book might be that it is whiggish—a study of the past for the sake of the present. However, this is not a "subordination of the past to the present," but rather "making the past our present and attempting to see life with the eyes of another century than our own."3 While one might hesitate to apply twentieth and twenty-first century terms retrospectively to eighteenth-century developments, like ressourcement and aggiornamento, Blanchard has the skill to use them in ways that does not suggest an anachronistic imposition of a "presentist" agenda. Much of the reason for this is that the author patiently guides the reader through the tangle of words that have taken on a myriad of meanings—Gallicanism, Richerism, Febronianism, Josephinism, and the varied mutations of Jansenism—reviewing the literature on these subjects in multiple languages, which enables one to move clear-eyed into his account of the eighteenth century events he explores, and how they came to impact the developments leading up to, and during, the Second Vatican Council. I found his reading of Lodovico Muratori particularly helpful...