The consensus of the church and papal infallibility: a study in the background of Vatican I

8. Alfonso Muzzarelli

   Alfonso Muzzarelli ‒ AWriter in Exile 23 Born of an aristocratic family in Ferrara,Alfonso Muzzarelli attended a Jesuit school in Prato and entered the Society of Jesus in Bologna in .1 His professors there included several fine scholars, such as Giambattista Roberti in literature and Ferdinando Calini in Church history. When the Jesuit order was suppressed in  by Pope Clement XIV, he continued studies for the priesthood and was ordained for the diocese of Ferrara in . For many years he was occupied in education, both in his own further studies and in teaching, and soon began writing the books and articles for which he is mainly known. In  he was invited to Rome by Pope Pius VII and appointed a theologian of the Sacred Penitentiary, which is the Church’s tribunal for internal forum cases. When Napoleon’s military forces took over the Papal States and the city of Rome in , Muzzarelli was one  . Our best source for the life of Alfonso Muzzarelli are two articles by Giuseppe Mellinato, S.J.: “Muzzarelli,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité : – (), and “Alfonso Muzzarelli, teologo tra fine Settecento e Restaurazione,” Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa  (): –. Also still useful is J. Carreyre,“Muzzarelli,” DTC, .:–. of those who refused to take oaths demanded by the French occupying power. For this he was arrested on August ,  and imprisoned . Pius VII had already been taken prisoner on July , and was held captive for three years at Savona in northern Italy and then from June of  in France at Fontainebleau until the fall of Napoleon in . (It may be recalled that PiusVI was also taken prisoner by the French, in February , and died in captivity in August .) Muzzarelli also was taken to France, and after a forced stay in Reims, was allowed to take up residence at a convent of the nuns of St. Michael in Paris. It was during his several years in exile in Paris that he wrote the essays in ecclesiology that proved to be significant in the Ultramontane Movement. He died on May , , without ever being able to return to his homeland. In his own lifetime Muzzarelli was most known for many writings on spiritual subjects and some apologetic works. His most popular book surely was one on Marian devotion focused on the month of May, Il mese di Maria (Ferrara, ). In saying that it was printed an infinite number of times (“stampato infinite volte”), the Encyclopedia italiana is only slightly exaggerating,2 for it was printed some  times and was translated into a number of languages.3 One of his interesting books was L’Emilio disingannato (Emile Disillusioned), a critical study of Rousseau ( vols., Siena, –). He also wrote a substantial book criticizing the Histoire ecclésiastique of Claude Fleury, a well-known Gallican history of the Church.4 The work that his contemporaries tended to consider his most important was Il buon uso di logica in materia di religione. This was a collection of articles on very diverse subjects, totaling some thirty-seven pieces.5 Some topics  Alfonso Muzzarelli . Encyclopedia italiana (Rome, ), :. . Mellinato,“Muzzarelli,” . . Concerning Claude Fleury and his history of the Church, see Richard F. Costigan , S.J., Rohrbacher and the Ecclesiology of Ultramontanism (Rome: Università Gregoriana Editrice, ), –. Rohrbacher wrote his huge history of the Church in order to rectify Fleury’s Gallican version of history. .The first edition of this work appeared in three volumes (Ferrara, ); others ranged up to ten volumes (Rome, ). included the religion of the philosophers, the method to be observed in writing on religion, marriage as a sacrament, the Inquisition, and the temporal domain of the pope. In each of these essays he undertook to deal with the subject in what he considered a reasoned way. One essay in Il buon uso concerned papal authority:“Primato e infallibilit à del Papa,” but most of Muzzarelli’s works in ecclesiology were published only after his death.The one most often cited as influential in the Ultramontane Movement is De auctoritate romani pontificis in conciliis generalibus ( vols., Ghent, ).Aubert says that this book was “destined to serve as an arsenal of arguments for later Ultramontanes .”6 Yves Congar states that it “exercised great influence,” and together with works of Ballerini, Zaccaria, and Capellari “served the papal cause against Gallican and Febronian theses.”7 Hermann Pottmeyer notes that Muzzarelli, “though no independent thinker,” was “an important mediator of the arguments of Italian apologists to French and German Ultramontanes.”8 He traces...