Editing Jansenism (section)

=== The Spanish Netherlands—Leuven ===
As noted by [[Jonathan Israel]]<ref name="Israel-1995">{{Cite book |last=Israel |first=Jonathan |title=The Dutch Republic |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1995 |isbn=0198730721 |location=Oxford}}</ref>{{Rp|page=|pages=649–653}} Jansenism initially had strong support in the [[Spanish Netherlands]], where Jansen himself had been active, supported by such major figures of the church hierarchy as [[Jacobus Boon]], [[archbishop of Mechelen]] and [[Antonie Triest]], [[bishop of Ghent]]. Though the Church in the Spanish Netherlands eventually took up the persecution of Jansenism, with Jansenist clergy being replaced by their opponents and the monument to Jansen in the [[St Martin's Cathedral, Ypres|Cathedral of Ypres]] being symbolically demolished in 1656. Nevertheless the Spanish authorities were less zealous in this persecution than the French.

[[File:Cornelius Jansen.jpg|thumb|Portrait of [[Cornelius Jansen]] (1585–1638). Jansen's alma mater, the [[Old University of Leuven|(Old) University of Leuven]], became a major centre of Jansenist theology.]]

The [[Old University of Leuven|(Old) University of Leuven]], which published [[Augustinus (Jansenist book)|''Augustinus'']], remained Augustinian in orientation since the time of Jansen. The popes were less demanding to the university, undoubtedly because they did not have a close political relationship with it as they did with [[Louis XIV]] in France. In 1677, a Baianist faction from the theological faculty submitted 116 propositions of moral laxity for censure to [[Pope Innocent XI]]. They were textually drawn from the letter of accusation of the professors of Leuven, and thus the Roman authorities suppressed dissertations dealing with the question of the true origin of the propositions, which was regarded as ambiguous.<ref name="von Pastor-1940">{{Cite book |last=von Pastor |first=Ludwig |title=The History of the Popes |publisher=Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., LTD. |year=1940 |volume=XXXII |location=London |pages=432 |translator-last=Graf |translator-first=Ernest}}</ref> Innocent XI selected 65 propositions from the submission and "limited himself to condemning the deviations of moral doctrine",<ref name="DH2012" />{{rp|at=p. 466}} avoiding a revival of the controversy on grace.<ref name="von Pastor-1940" /> The 65 propositions were described as "at the very least scandalous and pernicious in practice", leading the Pope to censure them through a decree of the [[Inquisition]] in March 1679,<ref name="von Pastor-1940" /><ref name="DH2012" />{{rp|at=nn. 2101–2167}} yet "without naming the [[Catholic probabilism|probabilism]] prevalent in Jesuit circles."<ref name="KellyWalsh2010">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2010 |title=Innocent XI, Bl |encyclopedia=A dictionary of popes |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford [u.a.] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uVmcAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA290 |edition=2nd |series=Oxford paperback reference |pages=290–291 |isbn=9780199295814 |author-last2=Walsh |author-first2=Michael J. |author-last1=Kelly |author-first1=John N. D.}}</ref> The Holy Office previously censured 45 propositions of moral doctrine between two decrees dated to 24 September 1665, and 18 March 1666. According to [[Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger|Denzinger]], the propositions submitted, by both the University of Leuven and the [[University of Paris]], were "frequently taken out of context and sometimes expanded by elements that are not found in the original, so that most often one must speak of fictitious authors."

Until the 1690s, it was possible to sign [[Regiminis Apostolici|Formula of Pope Alexander VII]] without specifying one's interpretation of it regarding matters ''de jure'' and ''de facto''. Twice the archbishop of [[Mechelen]], [[Humbertus Guilielmus de Precipiano]], tried to toughen the signing conditions, but he lost a lawsuit against the university. It was not until 1710 that the absolute and unqualified signing of the Formula was made compulsory.

''Unigenitus'' was accepted without question from 1715, but the letters ''Pastoralis officii'' of [[Pope Clement XI]] provoked fierce conflict between the archbishop of Mechelen and the university. After legal proceedings, episodes of refusal of the sacraments similar to what occurred in France in the 1740s and an exile of professors to the [[Dutch Republic]], the university appeared to submit to the bull and its papal interpretation in 1730.<ref name="Gazier-1924" />{{Rp|pages=26–29}}

The University of Leuven was, due to its alumni [[Michael Baius|Baius]] and Jansen, the cradle of Jansenism and remained, during the 17th and 18th centuries until its suppression, the bastion<ref>{{Cite book |last=Levillain |first=Philippe |title=Dictionnaire historique de la Papauté |date=1994 |publisher=Fayard |pages=Innocent XII Pignatelli 1691–1700 |language=fr |trans-title=Historical dictionary of the Papacy}}</ref> and the hub<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tollet1 Chaunu2 |first=Daniel1 Pierre2 |title=Le jansénisme et la franc-maçonnerie en Europe centrale aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles |pages=143 |language=fr |trans-title=Jansenism and Freemasonry in Central Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries}}</ref> of Jansenist Augustinian theology<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Lorme |first=J. Louis |title=Histoire genérale du Jansénisme, Tome III |date=1700 |location=Amsterdam |pages=343–344 |language=fr |trans-title=General history of Jansenism, vol. 3}}</ref> in Europe, with professors such as Jansen, [[Petrus Stockmans]], [[Johannes van Neercassel]], [[Josse Le Plat]] and especially the famous [[Zeger Bernhard van Espen]] and his students [[Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim]] or [[Charles Joseph Mathieu Lambrechts]], professor of canon law, rector of the university in 1786, [[Freemasonry|Freemason]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Duchaine |first=Paul |title=La franc-maçonnerie belge au XVIIIe siècle |date=1911 |location=Brussels |pages=103 |language=fr |trans-title=Belgian freemasonry in the 18th century}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Cordier |first=Adolphe |title=Histoire de l'ordre maçonnique en Belgique |date=1854 |location=Mons |pages=337 |language=fr |trans-title=History of the Masonic Order in Belgium}}</ref> and Minister of Justice in the [[French Directory]] under [[Napoleon]]. As Henri Francotte says, "Jansenism reigned supreme at the University of Leuven".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Francotte |first=Henri |title=La Propagande des encyclopédistes français au pays de Liège (1750-1790) |date=1880 |publisher=Hayez |pages=28 |language=fr |trans-title=The Propaganda of French Encyclopaedists in the country of Liège (1750-1790)}}</ref>

As late as 1818, Charles Lambrechts, former rector of the university, ex-senator and minister of Napoleon, recalled the 'vexations' of the [[Roman Catholic Church]] against his predecessor van Espen.<blockquote>The encroachments of the Catholic clergy and their pretentions were so vexatious, that, in a time when their religion was dominant, no other remedy had been found for their abuse of power, other than the appeals in question. This is what prompted the famous van Espen to write, at the age of eighty, his treatise ''De recursu ad Principem'', in order to put a barrier up against the ever-resurgent abuses of clerical jurisdictions; but this virtuous clergyman, who distributed to the poor all the income from the chair of canon law which he occupied at the University of Leuven, was soon obliged to resort to [[Appeal as from an abuse|appeal for himself as from an abuse]]; still, this remedy could not entirely save him from persecution by intolerant priests. Burdened with years, glory and infirmities, he was forced to seek in Holland shelter from their vexations; he soon died in Amsterdam amid feelings of piety and resignation, after having spent his life defending the discipline and customs of the Early Church, of which he was the most zealous.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lambrechts |first=Charles |title=Quelques réflexions à l'occasion du livre de M. l'abbé Frayssinous, intitulé Des vrais principes de l'Église gallicane |date=1818 |publisher=A. Eymery et Delaunay |location=Paris |language=fr |trans-title=Some reflections on the occasion of the book by Father Frayssinous, entitled 'True Principles of the Gallican Church'}}</ref></blockquote>