Felicite de Lamennais 1782 – 1854
Hugues-Felicite Robert de Lamennais was a French Catholic priest, philosopher, and journalist who moved across his career from ardent ultramontane defense of the Church to a radical Catholic liberalism and finally to a religious socialism that placed him among the foremost European democrats of his generation. With Lacordaire and Montalembert he founded the journal L'Avenir, calling for the alliance of the Catholic Church with civil liberty and the separation of Church and State. After the papal condemnation of his views in 1832, he broke with Rome, and his Words of a Believer, Of the Past and Future of the People, and Le Pays et le Gouvernement made him a prophet of nineteenth-century democracy.
Key facts
- Nationality
- French
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Political, Christian
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Felicite de Lamennais:
“What you wish for yourself, ask first for all.”
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Attributed to Felicite de Lamennais:
“God and freedom: these alone are worth the struggle of nations.”
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Attributed to Felicite de Lamennais:
“The Church must walk with the people, not behind kings.”
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Attributed to Felicite de Lamennais:
“Universal suffrage is the political form of the Christian gospel.”
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Attributed to Felicite de Lamennais:
“Tyranny is the older brother of indifference.”