François Fénelon

Life

Fénelon was born in 1651 at the Château de Fénelon in the Périgord region of southwestern France. He studied at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1676. He was then placed in charge of the Nouvelles Catholiques, an institution that instructed women who had converted from Protestantism (the Huguenot faith) to Catholicism.

With the patronage of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, he came into close contact with the royal court. In 1686 Louis XIV assigned him to bring the Huguenots of Saintonge and Poitou back to Catholicism, though he is reported to have opposed forced conversion. In 1689 he became tutor to the Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV and a potential heir to the throne, and in 1693 he was elected to the Académie française. In 1695 he was appointed Archbishop of Cambrai.

During the same period he became close to the mystic Jeanne Guyon and was drawn into what became known as the Quietist controversy. In 1699 he was banished from the court as a result of a papal condemnation and of his novel The Adventures of Telemachus, which was regarded as a criticism of the monarchy. He remained in the Diocese of Cambrai, continuing his pastoral work and writing, until his death in 1715.

Ministry and Achievements

• Education: His Treatise on the Education of Girls attracted attention both in France and abroad. While tutoring the Duke of Burgundy, he wrote the novel The Adventures of Telemachus, which portrays the ideal of a wise king. Part of the novel was published in 1699 without his knowledge.
• Spiritual writings: He emphasized "pure love"—loving God for His own sake, without regard to reward or punishment—and self-abandonment. In 1697 he published Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints on the Interior Life (commonly known as Maxims of the Saints).
• The Quietist controversy: Quietism is a movement of prayer that stresses the cessation of human effort and complete passivity before God. In 1695 the Conferences of Issy produced thirty-four articles cautioning against Quietism, which Bossuet, Fénelon, and Guyon all signed. After the publication of Maxims of the Saints, however, Fénelon and Bossuet engaged in a public dispute. On March 12, 1699, Pope Innocent XII condemned the book in a papal brief, and Fénelon promptly submitted to the decision.

Assessment

Those who regard Fénelon highly point to his choice of persuasion over coercion in dealing with the Huguenots and to his spiritual direction, which sees through pride and self-love. The Catholic authorities of his day, however, judged that his teaching on "pure love" carried the danger of Quietism. Bossuet was his leading critic, and the Holy See ultimately condemned his book. Some Catholic scholars hold that Bossuet failed to distinguish properly between Guyon's extreme claims and Fénelon's teaching. Within Protestantism, views of the mystical tradition and of contemplative prayer vary by denomination and theological position, and the degree to which his writings are accepted varies accordingly.