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4. Giuseppe-Agostino Orsi, O.P.1692-1761
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Giuseppe-Agostino Orsi, O.P. ‒ Orsi and His Objectives 23 A major comprehensive reply to Bossuet was offered in by Giuseppe-Agostino Orsi, O.P., a learned and prolific theologian and author of books on a number of theological subjects. Orsi, a native of Florence, had studied literature at a Jesuit school there, as well as law in Pisa, before joining the Dominicans at the convent of San Marco in Florence in . He became known for his extensive knowledge of Church and doctrinal history and was assigned to be a professor at Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome in .Three successive popes gave him very important honors. Clement XII in made him secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, Benedict XIV appointed him master of the Sacred Palace in , and Clement XIII made him a cardinal in .1 .The main and best source for both the life and work of GiuseppeAgostino Orsi remains the DTC article by M. M. Gorce: DTC, .:–.There is a thirteen-page “Vita” of Orsi by an unidentified author at the beginning of the first volume of his De irreformabili romani pontificis. In addition, a brief article on him is given in Gaetano Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastico (Venice: Emiliana, –), :–; and a longer account in Angelo Fabroni, Vitae italorum doctrina excellentiorum qui saeculis XVII et XVIII floruerunt (Pisa, ), :–. It was Orsi’s works in ecclesiology that gained him a measure of recognition beyond his own lifetime, particularly the book that we will mainly study in this chapter, De irreformabili romani pontificis in definiendis controversiis fidei judicio.2 His books on the papacy were admired and recommended by several leading Ultramontane authors in the nineteenth century. In particular, both Joseph de Maistre and Félicité Lamennais referred their readers to Orsi’s work. De Maistre cites Orsi in both Du pape and De l’Eglise gallicane.3 In the latter work especially, he considers Orsi’s comments about Bossuet apt and effective —for example, when he says that Bossuet resembles the Protestants in his approach and methods.4 In other places he notes with satisfaction how Orsi puts Bossuet in his place on certain topics.5 Lamennais, in his De la religion considérée dans ses rapports avec l’ordre politique et civile, recommends Orsi’s work on papal authority as a good complete presentation of Catholic tradition on papal supremacy .6 Hermann Josef Pottmeyer notes the influence of Orsi, whom he terms “a sharp enemy of Gallicanism,” on two other nineteenthcentury Roman authors, Clemens Schrader and, especially, Carlo Passaglia.7 Both his confreres and his own statements indicate that gratitude to Clement XII for making him the secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Index gave him the keen desire to defend the honor Giuseppe-Agostino Orsi, O.P . . De irreformabili romani pontificis in definiendis fidei controversiis judicio, vols. (Rome: Paulus Junchius, ).A briefer version in Italian was entitled Dell’infallibilità e del autorità del romano pontefice sopra concilii ecumenici, vols. (Rome: Pagliarini, ). . Joseph de Maistre, Du pape, suivi de l’Eglise gallicane dans son rapport avec le souverain pontife (Brussels: H. Goemaere, ). Du pape is volume of this edition. In it he cites Orsi on and . . De l’Eglise gallicane (volume in this edition), . . Ibid., –, . . Félicité Lamennais, De la religion considérée dans ses rapports avec l’ordre politique et civile, in Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Paul Daubrée et Cailleux, –; Frankfurt: Minerva , ), :n; Lamennais cites the Italian résumé of Orsi, De infallibilità, et dell ’autorità del romano pontefice sopra concilii ecumenici (Rome, ). . Hermann Josef Pottmeyer, Unfehlbarkeit und Souveränität: Die päpstliche Unfehlbarkeit im System der ultramontanen Ekklesiologie des . Jahrhunderts (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, ), (Schrader), (Passaglia). [18.223.134.29] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 10:26 GMT) and authority of the Holy Father against all his many adversaries.8 It would be hard not to sympathize with Clement. Even when, as Cardinal Lorenzo Corsini, he became pope in , concluding an acrimonious four-month conclave, he was an old man of seventy-eight, in poor health and losing his eyesight. For the last eight years of his ten-year pontificate he was completely blind and frequently bedridden . In addition, the papacy during these years was singularly ineffective in both ecclesiastical and political matters.9 As has been noted elsewhere, papal decrees even on doctrinal and other Church matters were not accepted in the Catholic countries unless they received the placet from the royal governments. For example, even...
