VINEAM DOMINI. — This is the bull issued by Clement XI on 15 July 1705 confirming the constitutions of Innocent X and Alexander VII concerning the controversies over the condemnation of Giansenio’s Augustinus, in which the Jansenist sophism of “respectful silence” is rejected as
insufficient.
In 1702 a pamphlet entitled Un caso di coscienza was widely circulated. Among other matters, it proposed the following question: can an ecclesiastic who does not accept the five propositions condemned by Innocent X, but who, as regards the “fact” of whether they are contained in Giansenio’s book, maintains a respectful silence, be absolved? The Sorbonne, to which the question was submitted, answered affirmatively through forty doctors; Fénelon, however, disapproved the response, and Clement XI himself condemned respectful silence. Almost all the doctors of the Sorbonne withdrew their approval, but the position found broad support in France. To restore order, Clement XI issued the bull V. D. The Pope declared that “in order to remove from the future every and any pretext for error... respectful silence did not satisfy the obedience due to the preceding papal constitutions, but all the faithful had to repudiate, with their lips and in their hearts, as heretical, the meaning of Giansenio’s book, which was contained in those five condemned propositions and was expressed by the very tenor of the text.” The Jansenists had in fact falsified the decisions of Clement XI and Innocent XII in their own favor, interpreting the Clementine peace as a limitation of the preceding papal decrees. The five propositions extracted from Giansenio’s Augustinus were said to have been condemned in their natural and literal sense, but that sense was allegedly different from the meaning that the five propositions had in Giansenio’s book. Therefore, they maintained, obedience to the papal decisions did not require that the five propositions be inwardly rejected as heretical, but that respectful silence was sufficient. It was even asserted that one could sign the formula of condemnation without being inwardly convinced that Giansenio’s book contained heretical doctrine. In the bull, Clement XI expressly declared that the five propositions reproduced the essential content of the Augustinus, that the preceding Popes had condemned them in Giansenio’s sense, and that this sense, as well as the meaning of the entire book, was heretical. The exegetical controversy and its interpretation now seemed to have been definitively settled, but the Jansenists objected that this definition had not been issued as a proposition of faith, and introduced other captious distinctions concerning respectful silence, considering themselves free in conscience. New difficulties arose, aggravated by the Gallicans over its acceptance, but it was finally accepted by the French Church. Only the bishop of St-Pons, Percin de Montgaillard, resisted, engaging in controversy with Fénelon and compelling first the Congregation of the Index and then the Pope himself to intervene. Port-Royal also opposed it, together with the surviving nuns, and this opposition prompted the destruction ordered by Louis XIV on 22 January 1710.