Negotiating Darwin: The Vatican Confronts Evolution, 1877–1902

3. Retraction in Paris

b The Leroy affair is very well documented in the Vatican archives and can be reconstructed in fine detail. Early on, it looked as though the denunciation of Leroy’s book, The Evolution of Organic Species, would lead nowhere. But then the book was examined in greater detail, and four written reports, some very long, were produced. The final decision was to condemn the book but, out of consideration for the author—a Dominican—and for his order, the prohibition was never made public. Rather, Leroy was asked to write a letter of retraction, which he did in 1895. The first report proposed that no action be taken against Leroy’s book. At this point in time, the secretary of the Congregation simply assumed that no measure would be adopted. The second report proposed that the book not be prohibited but that the author be warned. The third proposed to prohibit the book or to warn the author, inviting him to retract, but he personally favored the second, more benign option, again out of consideration of the author and his order. Still to come was a fourth report, very critical of Leroy. Finally it was decided to condemn the book but without publishing the decree. Instead, Leroy was asked to retract publicly. After the retraction, Leroy tried to get permission to publish a revised version of the book, which triggered two additional written reports. It was not permitted. Although a long and complex case, it was little known until the opening of the archives of the Holy Office. The Holy Office published no document pertaining to this case. Leroy’s Career Dalmace Leroy was born in Marseilles in January 1828,1 with baptismal name François Marie. Upon being ordained a priest, he received the habit of the Order of Saint Dominic on August 28, 1851, feast day of Saint Augustine, around 11:30 a.m., and took the religious name Dalmace (in French; Dalmacius or DalDalmace Leroy Retraction in Paris 3 Title page of Dalmace Leroy’s L’évolution restreinte aux espèces organiques (1891). Courtesy of the Biblioteca de la Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. 54 | negotiating darwin matius in Latin). Exactly one year later, on August 28, 1852, he made his profession as a Dominican. In the Dominican Archive in Paris the relevant documents are preserved, drawn up in Latin. The profession is an entire page handwritten by Leroy and signed “Fr. Marie Dalmace Leroy, of the Order of Preachers”—thus he is usually referred to as M. D. Leroy.2 For the Dominicans these had not been easy years, especially in France, where the order had been suppressed as a result of the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. In France the Dominicans almost disappeared. It was Henri Lacordaire (1802–61), a priest famous for his preaching in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, who undertook the task of restoring the Order of the Dominicans in France. Upon entering the order, he underwent his novitiate in Italy, returned to France in 1840, restarted his preaching in Paris, attracted many followers , and in the 1840s opened a novitiate and several religious houses, having been named provincial when the Dominican Province of France was restored on September 15, 1850.3 Leroy took the Dominican habit several months after the restoration of the province. He was one of the eighty-two first to profess as Dominicans of this province between 1840 and 1854.4 Leroy was a tidy, methodical person. After he professed as a Dominican, he was named assistant teacher of novitiates and exercised his ministry in Paris. Later, he was elected prior of Flavigny, a post he held from 1864 till 1867. He then returned to Paris and for years worked as assistant to the provincials of the Dominicans and held other posts, such as chaplain, in accord with whatever the political circumstances permitted, inasmuch as there were further decrees against the religious orders, one of them in 1880. Leroy had chronic bronchitis, and he experienced a serious deterioration when he was around eighty years old. He was living in the outskirts of Paris at the time. He was taken to a hospital in Paris, where he died a much beloved figure, on May 19, 1905. In an obituary printed in the Annals of the Dominicans it says that, whatever else were his duties, Leroy never abandoned his studies...