Hulst, Maurice d'

HULST, MAURICE d'. - Apologist and orator, b. in Paris on 10 Oct. 1841, d. there on 6 Nov. 1896. Of a noble family, connected with the courts of Paris and Brussels, he received a fine education, completed at the Collège Stanislas, where under the guidance of Msgr. de Ségur he matured his vocation to the priesthood. At the Seminaries of Issy (1859) and of St. Sulpice (1861) he distinguished himself so greatly that he was sent to Rome to perfect his theological studies at the school of Franzelin at the Gregorian University and his legal studies at the Apollinare, where he followed De Angelis. Ordained a priest at Chartres (1865), he returned to Rome. From 1866 to 1872 he exercised his ministry in Paris. On the morrow of the Commune he was called by the archbishop to work in the Curia. This was the moment in which d'H.'s spirit, tried externally (death of his brother, burning of the family castle) and above all interiorly, was refined: God was preparing him for a great work. In 1875 the National Assembly passed the law granting freedom of teaching: the French bishops decided on the foundation of a Catholic university in Paris: d'H. was chosen as its executor, and in three months he gathered a substantial teaching body (L. Duchesne, J. De Broglie, A. De Lapparent, etc.) and arranged everything for the prompt functioning of the three faculties of letters, sciences and law. He was immediately appointed rector of the Institute and held this office until his death. From that moment, present at all the social, political and intellectual debates of the fruitful Leonine age, which closes the 19th century, d'H. takes his place in the religious history of France.

Basing himself on the classic distinction of a Catholic thesis within the hypothesis of an anti-Catholic world, still always orthodox in its principles, in practice he indulged liberal tendencies, rendering open homage to Montalembert (v.). A corrective to this tendency was his constant concern to show, even amid accidental divergences, the substantial doctrinal unity of the Syllabus (v.) with the Leonine encyclicals. In this he succeeded in being pleasing to the Pope, with whom however he could never come to an agreement (on a purely theoretical level and in a disputed matter) over the question of the ralliement. A convinced monarchist and confidant of the count of Paris (the heir to the throne), he never adhered to the Leonine policy, which advised Catholics to accept the Republic. In any case, his sincere devotion to the Holy See made him overcome the harsh trial and he showed his obedience by accepting to become a deputy in the abhorred regime: he entered the Chamber to deal there with the "affairs of God." He demonstrated his attachment to the Church on another occasion: in an article in the Correspondant (25 Jan. 1893), which became famous, he sought to summarize the various tendencies regarding the biblical question; with upright intention (he aimed at the concord of minds) but with little prudence he made concessions to criticism, which saw in the Bible true and proper errors, though limiting them to the historical sphere. A heated polemic immediately flared up: Leo XIII intervened with the encyclical Providentissimus Deus, in which d'H.'s position was clearly rejected. He, despite the urgings of d'H. Loyson to the contrary, made a solemn and sincere act of adherence to the pontifical directives.

More fortunate and more effective was his influence in the philosophical and apologetic field. Particularly versed in philosophy, to the two dominant currents of metaphysical idealism of a Hegelian tint and of positivistic monism of a Darwinian tendency, he opposed the principles of Christian spiritualism. Faithful to the directive of the encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879), in teaching as in cultural lectures, he set himself the goal of educating minds to tradition harmonized with progress and of offering them, with the doctrine of St. Thomas, the key to true metaphysics, capable of opening the treasures of modern science enslaved to an anti-Catholic conception. Ideas finely developed in the Mélanges oratoires (2 vols., Paris 1891) and above all in the Mélanges philosophiques (ibid. 1892) and in many articles of the Annales de philosophie chrétienne. Having succeeded J. Monsabré (v.) in the chair of Notre-Dame, he wished to complete the dogmatic work of the celebrated Dominican by treating of Catholic morality. Thus Monsabré and d'H. form, as it were, a complete doctrinal diptych. D'H. developed in succession: the foundations of morality (1891), the duties toward God (1892-93), domestic morality (1894), the morality of the citizen (1895), social morality (1896). To the conferences of the individual Lents he added the sermons of the Easter retreat (except in the year 1893). The orator still counted on two more Lents, but premature death prevented the completion of the vast design. Though incomplete, it is the most powerfully thought-out work of all those that came from Notre-Dame in the 19th century; perhaps it is not the most popular, because, written in a French of classical perfection, it can be savored only by highly cultured minds, all the more so since d'H. lacks oratory and external warmth; yet whoever reads and meditates finds in it a latent, inextinguishable inner flame, fed by a sincere faith and a singular force of reasoning. Nobility of lineage and of spirit, refinement of style and of thought, a deeply felt and lived priestly piety united with a merciful generosity toward the poor and sinners, make d'H., as L. Baunard defined him, the first priest of France at the end of the 19th century.

Antonio Piolanti