Bérulle, Pierre de

BÉRULLE, PIERRE de. - Cardinal, founder of the Oratory of France, b. 4 Feb. 1575 in the castle of Serilly (near Troyes), d. in Paris 2 Oct. 1629.

He completed his studies with the Jesuits of Paris. At the Sorbonne he studied rhetoric under Giovanni Morel, logic under Fr. Eustachio di S. Paolo. In the ways of the spirit, until about 1610, he was guided by Dom Beaucousin. "At 17 he already seemed a consummate doctor in the science of salvation" (Caraccioli); at 22 he wrote the Traité de l'abnégation intérieure. On 5 June 1599 he ascended the altar, and began his work of spiritual direction and controversy. He assisted Card. Du Perron in the dispute with Du Plessis, in the presence of Henry IV. From the Ménorial de direction we discern the characteristic notes of his ministry: tact and perspicacity; from the controversial pamphlets on the Eucharist and the Mass, especially from the Discours against the Calvinist minister Pierre Du Moulin (1609), his substantial dialectic, rich in comparisons, ample in deductions, effective and courteous. In the Retraite de monsieur le card. de B., there is preserved for us the long reasoning that in 1600, on the point of embracing the religious state, he held with himself, and the motives that induced him to preserve his freedom.

Remaining in the world he was made "aumônier" of the king; but he abandoned neither the spiritual direction of a great number of souls, especially in convents and female communities, nor polemical activity against heretics. Among the souls directed by him was Mme Acarie. Convinced that such was the will of God, he went to Spain (1604) and, after laborious negotiation, transplanted the reformed Carmel to France. From the Lettres aux Carmélites de France it emerges that B. by no means intended to found a Carmel different from that of Teresa. Appointed by Paul V, together with Gallimand and Duval, superior of the French Carmelites, he had to face lively opposition.

He declined the task of educating the Dauphin offered to him by Henry IV. He received into the Carmel (1605) his own mother (Louise Ségnier). Confessor of Marie de' Medici, he remained at her side with Fr. Cotton when, upon the death of Henry IV (1610), the queen assumed the regency. Meanwhile Mme Acarie told him that God destined him to found in the Church a new Congregation, and she wrote of it to Fr. Cotton, who was then directing B. Other most devout souls, such as the abbess of Notre-Dame-de-Xaintes, asked him to give holy priests to the Church. Card. de Retz intervened, moved by his sister, the marquise de Maignelay, and, at the request of both, the archbishop of Paris. Having already the design of forming a society of priests dedicated to prayer and instruction, B. consulted Fr. Cesare de Bus, turned to St. Francis de Sales that he might wish to place himself at its head, and then to Fr. Romillon; he asked Rome in vain for some Filippini to begin the work.

Finally on 11 Nov. 1611, in Paris, with five companions, he gave life to the Congregation of the Oratory of Jesus. Paul V promptly granted the bull of approval and the new Congregation spread rapidly in France. "The same God who has re-established, in several Orders, the spirit and fervor of their first institution, seems now to wish to procure the same grace for ecclesiastics by renewing them in the perfection that befits them; to welcome this heavenly grace, in order to live and work under the guidance of Jesus Christ himself, we are gathered here" (Discorso ai Padri dell'Oratorio, in Ouvres complètes, col. 29). Around 1612 B. composed his threefold Élévation (à Jésus sur ses principaux états et mystères à la T. S. Trinité sur le mystère de l'Incarnation, à Dieu en l'honneur de la part qu'il a voulu donner à la V. Marie dans le mystère de l'Incarnation). Bitter theological controversies followed. With his masterpiece, Discours de l'état et des grandeurs de Jésus par l'union ineffable de la divinité avec l'humanité... (1623), B. won wide approval.

At the Oratory, studies, both theological and secular, were much cultivated. Having come into possession of numerous Platonic codices, B. began their study and publication. In 1628, he summoned to himself Descartes, whom he had heard at the nuncio's, in Paris, and obliged him to continue and publish his studies, which were attacked from many quarters. The Berullian colleges are, like those of the time, of humanistic stamp; nevertheless in the first classes the national language is prescribed in the teaching of religion and of national history. They enjoyed great prosperity, despite lively opposition from the university and from other colleges.

Around 1616, B. began to occupy himself actively with politics; until the advent of Richelieu he had been more a confidant than a counselor of Marie de' Medici in the struggle between the queen and Concini on one side, and the great families of the Condé, the Bouillon, the Nevers who had made common cause with the Huguenots against the "foreigner," on the other. In these events, B. saw the religious side rather than the political, limiting his action to doctrinal controversy and to the defense of the religious unity of his country. Richelieu found B. already at the queen's side and made use of him.

B. was grateful to Marie de' Medici for the constant protection of the Carmel and of the Oratory, and to her he dedicated his translation of the Life of St. Charles Borromeo. In 1617, the queen mother was relegated to Blois, while Richelieu withdrew to Avignon, preferring not to fall out with Luynes: B. remained in Paris and worked to reconcile the son (Louis XIII) with the mother; which came about in 1620.

Richelieu sent B. to Rome to obtain the dispensation for the marriage of Henrietta of France with the prince of Wales (the future Charles I), which was celebrated in 1625. B. accompanied the unhappy princess to England, and, as head of her ecclesiastical household, remained at her side until the duke of Buckingham, under the accusation of plotting against her life and her goods, forced him to cross the Channel again. To comfort Henrietta, B. wrote his Elévations sur ste Marie Madeleine.

In the same year 1625, by order of Louis XIII he negotiated with Card. Barberini, legate of Urban VIII, over the question of the Valtellina and of the Grisons; but his proposals were not accepted. B. was displeased by Richelieu's policy, which seemed to make common cause with the Protestants and harmed the Catholic cause, but he followed it for reasons of national interest: better the Protestants with France, than the Catholics with Austria. Richelieu would falsely accuse him, in his Testament politique of various years later, of having, to please the Pope, against the orders received, negotiated in 1627 the peace with Spain.

In 1627, right after the negotiations with Spain, B. was created cardinal. In 1629 he was named head of the queen's council. During the king's absence, intervening in the queen's name, B. had Maria of Gonzaga of Mantua, mistress of the king's brother, arrested, after having admonished her in vain. Returning from Casale, Louis XIII found the struggle against B., in dissension with Richelieu, rekindled. B. refused to sign the peace treaty with England and opposed the treaty of alliance with the Dutch, desired by Richelieu. Marie de' Medici tried once again to favor B. and took from Richelieu the superintendence of her household: Richelieu presented his resignation to the king who, bewildered, confirmed Richelieu as his first minister and superintendent of the queen's household. Wishing to remove B. from the queen, Richelieu entrusted him with an embassy to Rome. B. declined the invitation and withdrew from the court.

Shortly afterward, Louis XIII drew him from his solitude so that he might confer again with his brother. B. set out on the journey, but was forced by fever to stop in Paris, and died among his fathers of St-Magloire, while celebrating Holy Mass. Calumnious is the report of poisoning on the part of his enemies.

Despite so divided a life, B. composed many works of the highest spirituality.

Some of them were published in various forms during his lifetime; the manuscripts were collected together with the previous ones by Fr. Bourgoing, Bérulle's successor, enriched with summaries and some notes by Fr. Gibieuf, and printed in Paris in 1644 and again in 1657.

Bérulle is commonly regarded as the founder of the great French spiritual school of the 17th century; to him are variously linked, besides the Oratory, St. Vincent de Paul, Olier and St. Sulpice, St. John Eudes, St. Louis Grignion de Montfort, and St. John Baptist de La Salle. His doctrine later inspired, among many others, the venerable Libermann and the Fathers of the Holy Spirit, de Renty, de Bernières, Boudon, and Msgr. Gay. The oblivion that covered his works is due in part to the very worth of his disciples, such as Condren and Olier, who expounded his doctrine in a more facile and accessible manner.

Bérulle's doctrine, into which flow all the earlier forms of Catholic spirituality, from the Fathers to St. Francis de Sales, is founded on the dogma of our incorporation into Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit who reproduces in us His interior virtues, establishing us in a state of mystical adherence to the Incarnate Word, in that of those of His mysteries which He wills to be communicated and, as it were, continued in each of His faithful, who form His Mystical Body. By Urban VIII Bérulle was called "the apostle of the Incarnate Word."

The form of his prayer is called "elevation." We have conspicuous examples of it in Bossuet's Elévations sur les mystères: supernaturally dialectical, it begins from the act of faith in a scriptural fact or maxim, in order to rise up to God.

Bérulle had a brother who was a councillor of state, from a younger son of whom descends the abbé de Bérulle, prior of St-Romand-Puy, near Lyon, who died in 1704.

Fratel Emiliano