Transcript The Catholic Church through the Ages

The Catholic Church
through the Ages
The Modern Age 1789-Present
Larry Fraher
For Discussion
 What do you know about the ‘enlightenment’?
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What is positive?
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What is negative?
The Enlightenment
 Reason becomes the measure of all
 Science and Scientific Method
 The blend of theology and philosophy is
rejected
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Mathematics and Natural Science become the
“New Gospel”
And become the measuring stick for the
Gospel
 Ecclesiastical influence decays as the
“Secular Age” dawns
The Enlightenment
 Enlightenment Philosophy
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Throws off Christianity
Moves into Empiricism
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Individualistic
Experience
 Enlightenment Politics
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Church seen as an enemy
Human Person/Reason
The French Revolution
 “Straw that Breaks the Camel’s Back”
 European Catholicism loses influence in Northern
European politics
 State begins running the Church
 Civil Constitution of the Clergy (CCC)
 Reign of Terror – Martyrdom of French Clergy 1792
 Capture of Pius VI by French Army (1798)
 Pius VII elected
 Napoleon’s Use of the Church
 Restores tolerance of the church in France
 State continues to influence the church
 Concordant
The French Revolution
 The Effects on the Church
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“Liberal Catholicism”
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“Ultramontanism”
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Embrace the Revolutionary Ideals
Rely on Rome
The effects on the Church
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Fear of Modernism
“Circle the Wagons”
 Syllabus of Errors
 Vatican I
Out of the French Revolution
 The 19th century
 Rationalism
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Focus on the Scientific Method
Human Ability to Reason can Replace Religion
Pope Pius IX: Bunker Mentality (Ultramontanism)
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Last Bastion of Christianity was Catholicism
Focus on Authority, Obedience and Identity
Papacy
Devotionalism
 Immaculate Conception
 Sacred Heart/First Fridays
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1864: Syllabus of Errors
 Condemns Rationalism
 Condemns Freedom of Theological Thought
Vatican I (1869-1870)
 Syllabus of Errors set Stage for Vatican I
 Pius IX calls council
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Ultramontanist Bishops and Theologians
 Doctrine of Infallibility
 Formally opens on December 8, 1869
 Dei Filius: The Dogmatic Constitution of the Roman
Catholic Church
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Revelation and Faith (Repeats Trent)
Pastor Aeternus
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Papal Infallibility
 Council recesses in the summer of 1870
 War breaks out in Europe
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Subsequent loss of Papal States
Council is Never Reconvened
The Industrial Revolution
 Major shift from rural and trade social
order/economy to manufacturing economy
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Lower cost of production = higher profit margin
Factories assist in raising the profit margin
 “Station in Life”
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Factory owners = rich (often protestant)
Factory workers = poor (often Catholic)
Catholicism and the Industrial
Revolution
 Church Response: Pope Leo XIII
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“Rerum Novarum”
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Human Dignity
Just Wages
Right of workers to form unions
Start of “Catholic Social Teaching”
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Emphasis on the creation of a just social order.
First time in the ‘secular age’ where the Church
speaks to the world.
Protestantism & The Enlightenment
 Liberal Protestantism’s Quest for the Historical
Jesus
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Attempt to Prove Jesus using the Scientific Method…
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Many Argue this Fails
Jesus becomes “Just another star on the Prophetic
Horizon”
 Conservative Protestantism’s Response
 Every thing in the Scriptures is Written as it
happened...
 Early 20th Century
 Historical/Critical Method of Biblical Interp.
 Scripture within the Faith of the Writers
 Use & Study of Scripture: Hermeneutics
The Hermeneutical Circle
The Historical & Faith
Situation of the Writer of
Scripture
Drawing the message’
As it was written
The situation in life
Of the interpreter
Interpretation and
Understanding for
Our time
For Discussion…
 Can you be “Catholic” and “American”?
 In an age of immigration, can we trust the
loyalties of the immigrant?
Catholicism in the United States
 Catholics in the USA have always been
“suspect”
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Most Colonies and early states had antiCatholic laws
Not until early 19th c. are these taken off of the
books
Typical Question, “Can a Catholic be a patriot
and a papist?”
 1800’s Influx of Catholic Immigrants
Catholicism in the United States
 1829: Catholic Emancipation in England
 Episcopal Bishops of US warn against
Catholics rising in Political Stature in the US
 Nativist (anti-Catholic) Movement
Publications
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New York Observer
The Protestant
The Protestant Vindicator
The American Society to Promote the
Principles of the Protestant Reformation
Maria Monk’s Books
Catholicism in the United States
 Late 1800’s & “The Americanism Crises”
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Vatican I concluding while Italian armies are
taking the Papal States.
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Further separations between church and state
French are more anti-clerical
 The American Church
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Can American ideals be assimilated into
Catholicism? Is Catholicism juxtaposed
against American Ideals?
Catholicism in the United States
 The Americanism Crisis
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Americanists (The Irish)
 Catholics need to integrate more deeply into the
American mainstream
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Gibbons (Baltimore)
Ireland (Minneapolis/St. Paul)
Keane (Richmond)
O’Connell (CUA/Richmond)
The “Papists” (Bavarian Germans)
 Bavarian Catholic Benedictines in the USA
 Self-Governing Monastic Communities
 St. Vincent (PA), St. John’s (MN)
Catholicism in the United States
 The Americanist Crisis
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Americanists: There is no discord between
being a Catholic and an American.
Germans: Church and State must influence
each other…
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Catholicism must influence the society in which it
exists
 Pope Leo XIII’s Letter
Catholicism in the United States
“it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that
in America is to be sought the type of the most
desirable status of the Church, or that it would be
universally lawful or expedient for state and Church
to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The
fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay
is even enjoying prosperous growth, is by all means
to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has
endowed his Church, in virtue of which unless men or
circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands
and propagates herself; but she would bring forth
more fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the
favor of the laws and the patronage of public
authority.”
Catholicism in the United States
 Americanist Crisis Resolved.
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American values -- trust the bishops.
No consolidation between American dogma and
practice
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Be Catholic AND be an American (Often separated)
 Effects on American Catholic Theology
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Do, not think…
Great Pragmatism
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Uneducated laity
Setting the Stage for Vatican II
 Prior to 1963 how did you, within your particular
upbringing, understand “Catholicism”, or, for
younger members, what was your
understanding of Catholicism?
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What was the Cultural Impression or
understanding of Catholicism?
20th Century
 Neo-scholasticism
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Through these 80 years (1860-1940) the
Church sought to re-establish itself in the
Scholastic tradition of theology.
Each pope from Pius IX to Pius XII facilitates
and furthers this
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Adds to Papal Isolation
Firms up a sense of the Church as out of touch
with the realities of a progressing world
20th Century Movements that Influence
Vatican II
 The Liturgical Movement
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Dom Guarenger, Lambert Beauduin, Romano
Guardini, Virgil Michel
Believed the Liturgical Life of the Church to be
the most important aspects of Christian life
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Especially the Eucharist
Introduction of the ‘Dialogue Mass’
Advocacy for laity to understand the mass
From and to the liturgy all Christian life flows
20th Century Movements that Influence
Vatican II
 The Liturgical Movement in the US
 Centered at St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
 The Liturgical Press
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Latin/English Missals
Participation of the Laity
Worship Magazine
Collegeville Credit Union
Advocacy of vernacular in liturgy
 Resourcemont (Return to the Sources) or New
Theology
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Scholarship focusing in the Patristic Era (1st 3 Centuries)
Ability to see doctrine as evolutionary and dynamic
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As opposed to fixed and static in neo-scholasticism
Recovery of the Spirit of the Early Church
20th Century Movements that Influence
Vatican II
 Liturgical Movement and Resourcemont
Combine to Move the Church Forward
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DeLubac, VonBalthasar, Rahner, Metz,
Ratzinger
 Lay Education
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Increasing Knowledge of the Laity
Church in Europe
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Once culturally bound to the people and society
Becoming irrelevant to the daily lives of the
people
World War II
 Events of WWII Force the Church to Question
itself…
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Reign of Pius XII is last stand of ‘Imperial Papacy’
Nations are no longer Catholic
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Governments no longer ‘report’ to the Papacy
 Christian Nation vs. Christian Nation
 Neo-Scholasticism: Personal Piety
 Resourcemont: Social Responsibility
 Pius XII can no longer deny that the Church is in
need of “updating”
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Considered calling a council shortly before his
death
Vatican II
 1958 Pius XII Dies
 Angelo Roncalli elected
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Takes John XXIII
 January 25, 1959
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Calls for the Second Vatican Council
1959, Preparatory Commissions begin Work
1960: Official closing of Vatican I
 October 11, 1962
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Council Opens
Goals of the Council
 Re-invigorate the Church
 Principal Duties of the Council
 Defend, Advance, and Transmit the Truth faithfully and
fearlessly
 Assist Humanity to live as Citizens of Earth and Heaven
 Seek the Kingdom of God
 Contribute to the Building of Society
 Engage science as a means to know God’s designs
 Develop new ways to present and offer the Faith in the
modern World
 More prudently and mercifully address theological error
 Repudiate Atheism
 Promote the Unity of the Christian and Human Family
The Second Vatican Council
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1st Major Hurdle
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Death of John XXIII, June 1963, after only 1
session of the Council.
Election of Paul VI, who agrees to continue
the Council.
The Second Vatican Council
“This was the first fully ecumenical council since the
Council of Jerusalem. All the world’s bishops were
present. All the Christian Denominations were
invited, and most were present as ‘observers’.
Jewish leaders were invited as observers. The
whole Church was represented!”
-Fr. Godfrey Diekmann, OSB
Expert on the Liturgy, Vatican II
The Second Vatican Council
 Five Major Documents that Lead to Five
Major ‘Paradigm Shifts’
Constitution on the Liturgy (1963)
2. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1963)
3. Decree on Ecumenism (1965)
4. Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (1965)
5. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World (1965)
1.
5 Paradigm Shfts
1.
From Universal Language (Latin) to Particular
Language (Vernacular) in the Liturgy…
1.
2.
3.
4.
Liturgy is the Work of the People.
People must understand as they worship.
1.
Full, Conscious and Active participation
Eucharist as “source and summit”.
Restoration of “catechumenate” & Paschal Triduum
(3 days)
1.
Church revolves around Easter.
From The Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 12/63)
48. “The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that
Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith,
should not be there as strangers or silent spectators.
On the contrary, through a good understanding of the
rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred
action, conscious of what they are doing, with
devotion and full collaboration… They should give
thanks to God. Offering the immaculate victim, not
only through the hands of the priest but also together
with him, they should learn to offer themselves.
Through Christ, the Mediator, they should be drawn
day by day into ever more perfect union with God and
each other, so that finally, God may be all in all.”
5 Paradigm Shfts
2.
From ‘People Arrived’ to a ‘Pilgrim People’
1.
2.
Church (All of us) are the “People of God”
Share a Universal Call to Holiness, rooted in
Baptism.
1.
3.
The Church as Moving Toward the Kingdom
of God
1.
4.
Hierarchy as Gift not Dignity Based…
Communal vs. Individual
Knowledge as “Full” vs. “Partial”
1.
Reception of the Gospel connotes responsibility
to it.
From the Dogmatic Constitution on
the Church (Lumen Gentium, 11/64)
17. “…Thus the Church prays and likewise
labors so that into the people of God, the
Body of the Lord and the Temple of the Holy
Spirit, may pass the fullness of the whole
world, and that in Christ, the head of all
things, all honor and glory may be rendered
to the Creator, the Father of the universe.”
5 Paradigm Shfts
3.
From ‘Either you are in the Boat or your not’, to ‘We
see the elephant, you may only see the trunk.’
1.
2.
3.
Conception of Universal Truth
Belief in Revelation as Revelation of Objective Truth
1.
Previously we said, “If you aren’t in my boat,
you’re gonna drown.”
2.
Now we say, “The fullness of the Boat is here,
and you may have a part of it, but we’ve got the
fullness”.
This Shift applies to World Religions as well.
1.
Catholics and Main-stream denominations have
led the way in ecumenism and inter-faith
dialogue.
From the Decree on Ecumenism
(Unitatis Redintegratio, 11/64)
3. Those “who believe in Christ and have been
properly baptized are put in some, though
imperfect, communion with the Catholic
Church… But even in spite of them [obstacles
which prevent unity of all Christians] it
remains true that all who have been justified
by faith in baptism are incorporated into
Christ; they therefore have the right to be
called Christians, and with good reason are
accepted as brothers [and sisters] by the
children of the Catholic Church.”
5 Paradigm Shfts
4.
From PPO Catholic to Catholic Engaged in the
World
1.
2.
PPO = Pray, Pay and Obey
Vatican II Calls the Laity to Christian Responsibility in
the World
1.
Not enough to be Christian on Sunday
Be a Christian Plumber, a Christian CEO, etc.
Unique Ministerial Character of the Laity is the
Advancement of Christ’s work in the World
1.
Later the mission of the Church –
Evangelization.
2.
3.
From the Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World (Gadium et Spes, 12/65)
43. “Let there, then, be no such pernicious
opposition between professional and social
activity on the one hand and religious life on
the other… Let Christians follow the example
of Christ who worked as a craftsman; let them
be proud of the opportunity to carry out their
earthly activity in such a way as to integrate
human, domestic, professional, scientific and
technical enterprises with religious values,
under whose supreme direction all things are
ordered to the Glory of God.”
5 Paradigm Shfts
5.
From internal society awaiting the end, to Christian
Society serving the World.
1.
2.
3.
Revealed Eschatology or Realizing Eschatology
1.
The work of the church
Only through our attachment to Grace
Human Solidarity requires action on behalf of all
humanity.
1.
“I came that they may have life, and life to the
full.” (Jn. 10:10)
2.
The work of the church in the world,
empowered by the Grace of Christ, is to bring
humanity to it’s fullness.
From the Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World (Gadium et Spes, 12/65)
43. “The laity are called to participate actively in
the whole life of the Church; not only are they
to animate the world with the spirit of
Christianity, but they are to be witnesses to
Christ in all circumstances and at the very
heart of the community of mankind.”
Catholicism Today
 60’s – 80’s
 Vatican II Generation Gap
 Change without education
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From the Baltimore Catechism to Warm Fuzzies
 Baltimore Catechism: The ‘What’s’ of Faith…
 Feelings, Nothing More than Feelings…
 Crisis = Ministry Becomes about Personal
Relationships and Personal Attachments
 “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger.”
Catholicism Today
 90’s
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Re-emerging Piety & Devotions
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Desire for Black and White in a Gray World
Rise in Laity serving as professionals in the
Church
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Challenge – Formation
Job Qualification for a Coordinator of Youth
Ministry ca. 1990: “Degree in Psychology or
social service, ability to relate well with teens…”
 Theology not emphasized!!!!
Catholicism Today
 21st Century
 Vatican II shifted paradigms, it didn’t create a
new church.
 Tuning the Hybrid Engine
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Balance between Engine of Tradition and
Engine of Reform
 Cannot convert the Gospel to the Culture, we must
transform the culture to the Gospel.
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While keeping both in the best working order
Re-discovering the intellectual tradition of
faith, not apart from the experience of faith,
but as essential to it.
Conclusions
 “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to
repeat it.” – George Santayana
 See the church in history, and its doctrine through
history as ‘developing’.

What we know today we could not have known
yesterday
 The Church is human!
 Guided by the Holy Spirit, united to Christ Jesus
 The Church is human.
 Descendent of Adam, In Possession of Original Sin
Conclusions: Where to From Here?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Dialogue. Honest Dialogue.
Unity is not Uniformity, in fact, unity is only
truly found in diversity.
Rooting in the Tradition beyond the “what”
and into the “why”.
Moving from “Experiential Faith” to
“Experienced, Reasoned and True Faith”
Seeking Truth as the Objective Reality it is.