DECHAMPS, VICTOR-AUGUSTE-ISIDORE. - Cardinal, born at Melle near Ghent on 6 December 1810, died at Mechelen on 28 September 1883. In October 1832 he entered the major seminary of Tournai, completed his higher theological studies at Mechelen, and was ordained priest in 1834. On 21 August 1835 he entered the novitiate of the Redemptorists at St-Trond. Among them he became professor of Sacred Scripture; later he served as rector at Liège and Tournai, as provincial superior of the Belgian province, and as a celebrated preacher and instructor of the royal princes. Among his converts was General de Lamoricière.
He declined the see of Liège and the rectorship of the University of Louvain, but accepted the see of Namur in September 1865; from there he was transferred to the archbishopric of Mechelen in December 1867.
He is the most characteristic and prolific apologist of Belgium. His *Oeuvres complètes*, published at Mechelen (1874–84), comprise eighteen volumes. Dechamps, however, was more a thinker, an ascetic, and an orator than a scholar, and drew his inspiration especially from St Alphonsus and de Maistre, relying on meditation and experience. In apologetics he departed sharply from contemporary manuals by developing traditional elements into new syntheses. He maintained that only the verification of two facts—one internal, the other external—was needed to lead man to accept the supernatural order proposed to the world by the Catholic Church. These two facts are easily ascertainable by everyone. The internal fact consists in the “expiration” (appeal) to faith and charity, “a kind of imagination of God in man” and the sole solution to the great problems of human origins and destiny. The external fact is “a kind of transcendence of God in His Church or of the Church in God.” If the Church in its origins proved its mission “by divine works,” now that it has grown great and strong, it proves itself by the divine work that it is, in the holiness of its doctrine, its worship, its activities, and in the miracles of faith of entire peoples prostrate before the Eucharist or in the confessional, and so forth. The Church itself, therefore, is a motive of credibility, distinct from all others, because it is present, alive, and speaking in a way that manifests and explains itself.
Dechamps, however, did not deny the other motives of credibility, which are likewise sanctioned by the Vatican Council (Session III, chap. 3 and canons 3 and 4, Denz.-U., 1790, 1812 ff.), even though he made almost exclusive use of his preferred motive, prompted by his apostolic practice, particularly by his experiences with converts from Protestantism.
Criticisms by the Duke of Broglie, Fr E. Matignon (*Correspondant*, 25 April 1857; *Études religieuses*, April 1864), as well as posthumous critiques by Mallet (*Annales de philosophie chrétienne*, 1905, 1906, 1907) and more recent studies, have emphasized the need not to interpret Dechamps’s apologetics as favourable to an exigency of the supernatural or as a method of immanence divorced from rational preambles, the historical foundations of Catholicism, or the teaching authority that transmits divine truth.
At the Vatican Council Dechamps was “one of the principal luminaries” (J. Brugerette and E. Amann, *Vatican [Concile du]*, in *Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique*, XV, col. 2562), a member of the Deputation of the Faith, and within it of the smaller commission of the three most influential members. He also belonged to the Deputation of Postulates, of which he was to report to Pius IX. On 8 January 1870 he spoke on *Dei Filius*, which enshrined one of the fundamental ideas of his apologetics (Session III, chap. 3, Denz.-U., 1794). As regards papal infallibility, Dechamps had already engaged in celebrated controversies with Dupanloup, Maret, and Gratry. In June 1869 he had published the pamphlet *L’infallibilité et les conciles généraux*, a study in religious science for the use of laypeople. The German bishops gathered at Fulda had even felt obliged to refute him indirectly in their collective letter. At the Council he also took part in drafting *Dei Filius* (though the final revision of G. B. Franzelin’s draft was by C. Martin and G. Kleutgen) and *Pastor aeternus*, and he engaged in firm but courteous polemics with Dupanloup, whose reply, however, was denied the *imprimatur* by the Master of the Sacred Palace. Dechamps regarded Dupanloup as defending a Gallicanism that had once been tolerated as an opinion but was now so rash as to claim certainty for its doctrine. On 17 May 1870 Dechamps replied, on behalf of the Deputation of the Faith, to the objections raised against the definition of infallibility.
On his return from the Council, he took a particular interest in the *Kulturkampf*, addressing even Emperor William (October 1873), in the liberal controversy, and in the struggle against the school legislation of 1870. In March 1875 he was created cardinal, and in February 1878 he took part in the conclave that elected Leo XIII. The last years of Dechamps were embittered by unjust accusations and indiscreet revelations.