Questions for Final Exam

In the exam, three questions will be taken from the following nine and you will be requested to answer one of these.

1. Give an account of the doctrine on infallibility (18), Maximum Illud (12), and the doctrine on the Assumption (20).
2. Beginning with Rerum Novarum, present the principal points of Catholic Social Teaching, as expressed in papal teaching.
3. What events precipitated the renewal of the missionary movement in the nineteenth century? (20) Why was Bishop Shanahan effective as a missionary? (12) Give a brief account of the development of the Catholic Church in Kenya up to the inauguration of the Second Republic in Kenya in 2010 (18).
4. Explain succinctly the development of the Catholic Church in India, China, Japan, Uganda, Senegal, Nigeria and Sierra Leone (7 each).
5. Give an account of the Modernist Crisis in the Church (30) and of the promulgation of the dogmatic decree on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (20).
6. Describe concisely the Pontificates of the following Popes: Leo XIII, Pius X, (13 each) Benedict XV and Pius XI (12 each).
7. Write on the main events of Pius XII (20), giving special consideration to the renewal movements that were a preparation for Vatican II (30).
8. Give an account of the each session of Vatican II
9. Write about the important incidents in the Pontificates of Paul VI and John Paul II (25 each).

Assumption

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The mystery of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary has no explicit biblical witness. In tradition there are two distinct types of testimony. First the Assumption Apocrypha, first in time, not intrinsic importance: these are the different versions of a basic legend coming down from ancient times on Mary's death and assumption into heaven. Until recently these stories were not accorded very much status in early Christian literature. They are more highly valued now for two reasons: there have been more documentary discoveries and the dating has been pushed back to very near the actual event, possibly as early as the second century.
Secondly, there is the testimony of the Church Fathers. Some believed that the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed while still alive, others that she was assumed after she had died. St. John of Damascus (d. AD 755) relates a tradition where, during the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), the emperor Marcian and his wife wished to find the body of Mary. He tells how all the apostles had seen her death, but her tomb was empty upon inspection. This is not viewed as a resurrection like her Son's, but as the first fruits of our own bodily resurrection. Theodosius understood Mary to have died before being assumed, and according to the feast dates in Egypt at the time, she was assumed 206 days after her death.
In AD 600, the emperor Mauricius decreed that the Assumption (Latin: assūmptiō, "taken up") was to be celebrated on August 15. Soon, the Church in Ireland adopted this date, and it was later introduced in Rome. By the eighth century the doctrine was firmly and fully accepted in the East. Development was slower in the West. Eastern Greek homilies defending the Assumption were available as was a patchwork piece of oratory made up from all of them. The result of this and of liturgical practice was that from the thirteenth century every important western writer held the doctrine. As the cult of Mary grew in the West, there was more pressure for the Catholic Church to define the exact nature of the Assumption.
Although various popes since Pius IX have mentioned Mary in their official pronouncements, no pope did more to emphasise the importance of Marian devotion than Pius XII, who was particularly devoted to Our Lady of Fatima. He consecrated the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942, and on the occasion spoke in Portuguese as if to underline the connection between this act of consecration and the events at Fatima. Though conscious of a very widespread demand for a definition of the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, he consulted the entire hierarchy of the Church and got a very favourable response. He set up a drafting committee to secure a good text: two of the members were eminent for scholarly works on the Assumption, the French Augustinian, Fr Martin Jugie, and the Croatian Franciscan, Fr Karl Balic.
In the course of the deliberations of this group two things emerged. One committee member, Fr Lennerz of the Gregorian University did not think that the doctrine could be defined as a dogma, as he thought it necessary to show a clear historical tradition going back to the event of the Assumption and, at the time, he knew that this was impossible. This historical link does not seem beyond the bounds of research now. An archaeological expert in the Holy Land, Fr Bellarmino Bagatti, OFM, for a while thought that he might show a connection between the legend and the results of his research into Our Lady's grave which he has located in Gethsemane.
The second point brought to the Pope's notice by Fr Jugie was the impossibility of declaring infallibly that Our Lady died. Pius XII accepted this advice and used a non-committal formula in regard to the end of Mary's life "when the course of her earthly life was completed". The same phrase is used in the brief reference to the Assumption by Vatican II (LG 59). There was no agreement in the committee on the scriptural, i.e. implicit scriptural, warrant for the dogma. The Pope appealed to the close union between Mary and Christ and to their identity in the victory over sin and death. Though he spoke of Sacred Scripture as the ultimate basis, he really based his definition on the faith of the Church.


Pius XII published the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus on the 1st of November, 1950. The central part of the text states: “From all eternity and by one and the same decree of predestination the august Mother of God is united in a sublime way with Jesus Christ; immaculate in her conception, a spotless virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble companion of the divine Redeemer who won a complete triumph over sin and Its consequences, she finally obtained as the crowning glory of her privileges to be preserved from the corruption of the tomb and like her Son before her, to conquer death and to be raised body and soul to the glory of heaven, to shine refulgent as Queen at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of ages (cf. 1 Tim 1:17).
The universal Church, in which the Spirit of truth actively dwells, and which is infallibly guided by him to an ever more perfect knowledge of revealed truths, has down the centuries manifested her belief in many ways; the bishops from all over the world ask almost unanimously that the truth of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven be defined as a dogma of divine and catholic faith; this truth is based on Sacred Scripture and deeply embedded in the minds of the faithful; it has received the approval of liturgical worship from the earliest times; it is perfectly in keeping with the rest of revealed truth, and has been lucidly developed and explained by the studies, the knowledge and wisdom of theologians. Considering all these reasons we deem that the moment pre-ordained in the plan of divine providence has now arrived for us to proclaim solemnly this extraordinary privilege of the Virgin Mary.[ ... ]
Therefore, having directed humble and repeated prayers to God, and having invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth; to the glory of almighty God who has bestowed his special bounty on the Virgin Mary, for the honour of his Son the immortal King of ages and victor over sin and death, for the greater glory of his august mother, and for the joy and exultation of the whole Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we proclaim, declare and define as a dogma revealed by God: the Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, when the course of her earthly life was ended, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven.”
Pius XII did not mention the Apocrypha in the historical review which precedes the dogmatic formula. He quotes some of the Fathers of the Church: St John of Damascus (d.c. 749-753), an early sermon, attributed to Modestus of Jerusalem, a seventh century writer, others notably St Germanus of Constantinople. Since the definition a very important testimony, a hitherto unknown homily on the Assumption by Theoteknos of Livias, dating from the sixth century, was discovered by a great Byzantine scholar, Fr Antoine Wenger, AA.
There were, however, many in the Catholic Church who questioned the opportuneness of such a definition. It seemed to them unnecessarily provocative at a time when ecumenical relations among the churches were just gaining strength because Protestants have generally rejected the Assumption of Mary theologically and devotionally, probably because it is not explicitly biblical. Still, it was argued that the human race had just witnessed two world wars and the horrors of concentration camps, and that this was an appropriate moment to reaffirm the dignity of the human body and to rekindle faith in the resurrection of the body. Many, therefore, welcomed the definition. Moreover, the terms of the definition are open to legitimate difference of interpretation. It is not clear whether the pope intended to teach that Mary died at all, and nothing is said about the manner or time of her assumption. Among Orthodox Christians the Assumption is not a dogma, but it is a commonly accepted belief. In this pronouncement, Pope Pius was simply stating dogmatically what the Church, East and West, had believed for many years.
The Catholic Catechism further explains: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians (966). As such, the dogma of Mary's Assumption is firmly rooted in the actions and person of Christ, and in the virtue of Christian hope. The dogma of the Assumption asserts something about human existence in asserting something about Mary: that human existence is bodily existence, and that we are destined for glory not only in the realm of the spiritual but in the realm of the material as well. The Church looks on high and greets in Mary her own type and model, her own future in the resurrection of the body.

Class Notes Part Two

Chapter 5

THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT

The revival of missionary activity in the nineteenth century

The deplorable state of the missions
At the end of the eighteenth centuries in all the mission territories there were about 300 missionaries left.
The major cause for this were the suppression of the Society of Jesus, a move prepared by the Enlightenment and by the political influence of Jansenists and Gallicans. Pressure was put on Clement XIV by Catholic monarchs to such an extent that he suppressed the Society in 1773. This blow deprived the church of 3,000 of its most experienced and respected missionaries.
The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire unleashed an unprecedented anti-clericalism. The early missionary societies in France were dissolved. By 1820 the missions in Africa had the same number of missionaries as in the fifteenth century.
Renewal of the missionary spirit among laity
In 1802 F.R. Chateaubriand, published The Genius of Christianity, part of which was completely dedicated to missions to distant lands. Its influence was tremendous. The missionary was depicted as a romantic figure, an adventurer for the faith. People started again to take an interest in reports on mission.
In 1817 J. de Maistre published On the Pope, one chapter of which was treating the subject of missions.
Participation of the laity in missions was stimulated by the foundation of the Associations to support the missionary activities. The most important of these was the Association of the Propagation of the Faith which was established by Pauline Jaricot in Lyons in 1822. It supported the missions with prayer and money. The Association spread rapidly through Europe and America through its missionary magazine, the Annals of the Association of the Propagation of the Faith. Thus the Association of the Propagation of the Faith and the Annals contributed a lot to bring about a missionary awareness among the Catholic faithful.

The foundation of missionary societies
During the Restoration in Europe many missionary societies were founded in the context of the Catholic missionary revival. The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Picpus Fathers) was founded in 1805 to serve Oceania. In 1817 the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny began ministry in Africa and Asia. Anne-Marie Javouhey, the foundress of this congregation, visited the mission in Senegal in 1822 and was instrumental in having the first three Senegalese priests ordained in 1840. In 1836 large areas in the South Seas were entrusted to the pastoral care of the Marists. The Jesuits were restored in 1814 to resume their role as missionaries. The missionary reorientation of some other old orders followed such as Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans and Vincentians.
After 1850, a great number of exclusively missionary societies were established. Since the 17th century (1664) there was the Paris Foreign Mission Society. In 1703 the Holy Ghost Fathers were founded. In 1848 F. Libermann renewed this congregation by joining it with his own community founded in 1841 by him for the conversion of Africans. Also founded were the Society of African Missions of Lyons (1856), the Scheut Fathers (1862), the Mill Hill Fathers (1866), the Comboni Fathers (1867), the Missionaries of Africa (1868), the Society of Divine Word (1875) and the Consolata Fathers (1901).
Various Teaching Brothers’ Institutes were also active in the missions, for example the Brothers of Christian Instruction.
The most important of the Sister’s congregations were established by the founders of the Fathers’ Societies. But there were also others such as the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny whom we mentioned already earlier, the Daughters of St. Paul of Charters, the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary and the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary.

The Popes and the missions
After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire it was clear to everyone that the role of royal patronage in evangelization was finished.
In 1817 the Propaganda Fide was reorganized. But it was only in 1826 when Cardinal Capellari was appointed Prefect of the Propaganda Fide that Rome began to play a crucial role not only in the shaping of the missionary policy but also in the restructuring of the mission territories. In 1831 Capellari became Pope under the name of Gregory XVI and reigned until 1846.
Gregory brought the evil of the slave trade to the attention of the Catholic world. In supremo apostolatus he declared that the Popes had condemned the slave trade and slavery. The emancipation of the slaves became for many missionary congregations their priority when they started evangelizing in Africa.
In 1845 the Propaganda Fide issued the instruction Neminem profecto, which stated that mission territories had to be transformed in normal dioceses as soon as possible. Indigenous clergy had to be trained and seminaries had to be founded. Native priests should be treated equally. Missionaries should abstain from politics. Indigenous cultures, customs and arts had to be respected and integrated in the Christian message. Finally it advised the holding of synods.
Gregory created more than seventy new missionary ecclesiastical circumscriptions. He introduced for these territories the system of jus commissionis whereby a specific mission territory to be evangelized was entrusted to a particular missionary society.
With Cardinal Barnabo as Prefect of the Propaganda Fide for twenty years (1854-1874) and with Pius IX in 1862 canonizing 23 Japanese martyrs and beatified 205 others, the missions got a tremendous boost.
Pius IX convoked Vatican I (1869-1870). For the first time in church history the missions were represented at a general council by missionary bishops. A schema was prepared by a commission of the Propaganda Fide. The need for indigenous clergy, priests and bishops, was again stressed.
Leo XIII (1878-1903) issued the mission encyclical Sancta Dei Civitas (1880) in which he outlined and stressed the duty of all the faithful to have the missions very close to their heart. Cardinal Simeoni (1878-1892) and later Cardinal Leochowski (1892-1902) were the prefects of Propaganda Fide. Neminem profecto encouraged the training of indigenous clergy and the creation of new churches with dioceses and bishops was of utmost importance.
The Berlin Conference was held in 1884-1885. In less than two decades Africa was divided among the European powers. European colonial expansion was considered providential for the proclamation of the gospel and the promotion of civilization.
Leo showed great interest in the anti-slavery movement. He wrote a letter to Cardinal Lavigerie asking him to stir up world opinion on African slavery. Lavigerie started a resounding campaign throughout Europe. In 1890 an antislavery Congress of the European powers was held in Brussels.

Protestant missionary societies
The Protestant mission effort was characterized by the founding of a great number of volunteer societies, based as they were on popular support. Christian mission became an enterprise of the rank and file of church members. In time many missionary societies became in various ways more and more closely linked with the official bodies of churches. In 1792, William Carey set up what would become the Baptist Missionary Society. The London Missionary Society (Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists) was founded in 1795, the Church Missionary Society (Evangelical Anglicans) in 1799 and the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804.

Asia
Christian missionary work in Asia faced enormous challenges: huge geographical distances, massive populations and deeply entrenched religio-cultural traditions, for example, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Confucian, Shinto, and Taoist. Christianity had begun in Asia, but from the outset it had experienced greater success in the Mediterranean world. There were, however, Christian foundations in West and Central Asia.
During the 13th century, Dominican and Franciscan friars preached the gospel in East Asia. In the 16th century the work of missionaries, especially Franciscans and Jesuits, implanted the church in India, Japan and China. The 19th century revival of missionary activity in both Protestant and Catholic Churches brought renewed interest in Asia.

India
The evangelical revival in England had given birth to the Baptist Missionary Society. One of its leaders, William Carey (1761-1834) sailed for India where he began a remarkable career as an expatriate missionary. With Joshua Marshman and William Ward, he established a chain of mission stations near Bengal. He translated the New Testament into Bengali, published grammars and dictionaries, built schools, promoted agricultural advances, and let a campaign to outlaw "widow-burning."

The Anglican Church and the Baptists established schools and institutions of higher learning. These churches also addressed social needs, as well as disseminating the word of God through various translations of the bible. Still, Christianity remained but a small minority of the population, and Christianity was most successful among the poor, lower castes, for example, the untouchables. Hindu influence was at its weakest among the disenfranchised
The Roman Catholic Church in India had deep roots. Some Catholics traced their ancestral faith back to Saint Thomas, the Apostle, others to Saint Francis Xavier in the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century, Roman Catholic missionaries ministered to Indian Catholics and to the Irish.
Gregory XVI nominated four vicars apostolic to supervise the new missionary effort. By Leo XIII's pontificate there were 20 bishops in India. The Jesuits founded numerous colleges and began the preparation of an intellectual elite.
By 1962 Catholics numbered some six million, with the large majority of them concentrated south of an imaginary line drawn between Goa and Madras. Mother Theresa (1910-1997), founder of the Missionaries of Charity, won worldwide renown for her work in the slums of Calcutta. There are about 15,891,000 Catholics in India or 1.5 per cent of the total population of 1,059,429,000, and the church is sending out missionaries to various parts of the world.

China
Matteo Ricci s.j. (1552-1610) and others made considerable headway in the 17th century, but most of the gains were lost during the 18th century. But a revival of missionary activity in the 19th century, and by 1890 some 500,000 baptized Catholics could be counted, including 369 Chinese priests.

A period of great turmoil began with the invasion of China by the colonial powers and her humiliating defeat by the Japanese in the 1890s and the Boxer Rebellion (1900). The fabric of the old Chinese tradition was torn apart, and the Confucian monarchy, which had ruled China for centuries, was replaced by a Western-style republican form of government.
Now a unique opportunity seemed at hand for Christianity. And rapid advances were made by both Catholics and Protestants. The Catholics numbered nearly 2 million by 1922.
But after 1922 a strong anti-Christian movement began to take hold. Christianity was denounced as a tool of imperialism and religion itself depicted as obsolete by the militant communists, who under Mao Tse-Tung were becoming a powerful force.
Nevertheless, the Church continued to grow and reached nearly 3 million members. There was a growing awareness of the need to develop a native clergy, thanks in particular to the efforts of Père Lebbe (d. 1940), who was shocked by the attitudes of the missionaries. European and Chinese priests ate at separate tables; few of his colleagues knew Chinese well, and some could not even read it. The faithful had to kneel when greeting a missionary and were not permitted to sit in his presence. Lebbe had remarkable success in the country missions and strove for widespread conversions by public lectures for intellectuals, by forming lay associations of Catholic laymen for the propagation of the faith, and by establishing a Catholic press. Benedict XV's mission encyclical Maximum Illud (1919) laid down three fundamental principles: promotion of native clergy, renunciation of all nationalistic attitudes and respect for the civilization of the mission country. In 1926, six Chinese priests, suggested by Lebbe, were consecrated bishops.
At the end of World War II, there were now 20 archdioceses and 79 dioceses. The archbishop of Peking, Thomas Tien, was made a cardinal. Though Christians still did not constitute even 1 percent of the population, Christianity was beginning to exert a significant influence.
The Communist conquest of China was completed by 1950 and brought a tremendous trial for all Christians. They were accused of being tools of Western imperialism. All foreign missionaries were either expelled or imprisoned.
The Communist strategy was to completely detach the Chinese Catholics from any foreign ties. A Catholic Patriotic Church, completely independent of Rome, was set up, and its hierarchy was initiated with the consecration of 2 Chinese bishops in 1958 by four legitimate Roman Catholic bishops. By 1962 some forty-two bishops were illicitly consecrated. The Vatican does not recognize the authority of these bishops and there is continued friction between the Catholic Patriotic Church and the Church loyal to Rome. A great resurgence of Christianity has taken place since the Cultural Revolution in 1966. A solution of the question of the Patriotic Church seems nearer, now the Vatican approves beforehand the episcopal candidates whom Beijing proposes. Pope Benedict XVI declares himself fully available and open to a serene and constructive dialogue with the civic authorities to reach the desired normalization of relations between the Holy See and the Government of the People’s Republic of China.
By recent estimates reckon that there are now up to 80 million Christians in China, of which 10 are Catholic divided between the Patriotic Church and the Church which is loyal to Rome.

Japan
The gospel was first preached in Japan by Francis Xavier in 1549. For nearly a century the church made great progress through the work of the Franciscans and Jesuits, in spite of sporadic persecutions, the most notable being the one of Shogun (military ruler) Hideyoshi, who in 1597 had St Paul Miki and his companions (06/02) executed for their faith on a hill outside Nagasaki. In 1638, because the Christians were implicated in the Shimabara rebellion against tax, Christianity became a proscribed religion. Japan was sealed off from all foreign contacts for two centuries.
The United States commodore Perry signed a treaty of commerce and friendship with the Shogun in 1854. A year later, Catholic missionaries from Paris entered Japan and began evangelizing anew. At Nagasaki, Fr Petitjean was dumbfounded to meet a group of Japanese who were believing Christians. They had secretly managed to hold unto the essentials of the Christian faith for two centuries. Their organisation was almost everywhere the same: usually there were two male leaders who conducted the prayers every Sunday, baptized, and ministered consolation to the dying.
But the Japanese authorities they reacted in fury and meted out cruel punishment to these heroic believers.
World opinion brought an end to the persecution, and in 1889 complete freedom of worship was granted. By 1891, when Leo XIII set up a Japanese hierarchy with the metropolis at Tokyo, there were some 45,000 Catholics.
The first Japanese bishop was consecrated by Pius XI in 1927 and placed over the diocese of Nagasaki. A Japanese was appointed archbishop of Tokyo in 1937. The Jesuit College, Sophia, became a full-fledged university. In 1940 the entire episcopate was handed over to native Japanese. World War II brought many difficulties. All foreign missionaries were interned. Many churches were destroyed by the air raids, and in Nagasaki alone about 8,500 Catholics perished in the nuclear holocaust.
An estimate in 1973 counted some 359,000 Catholics. There has been a big increase in the number of schools, hospitals and charitable institutions run by Catholic sisters and lay brothers, the majority of whom were Japanese, thus giving the church a much wider influence than its numbers might indicate. There are about 1,236,000 Catholics in Japan or 0.9 per cent of the total population.

Some other countries in Asia
In Korea, Christianity has experienced a phenomenal growth in the decade immediately following the Korean war (1950-1953). One of the most prominent Catholic spokesmen for social justice has been the bishop of Won Ju, Tji Hak Soun, who was arrested in connection with a demonstration of dissent. There are about 2,547,900 Catholics in South Korea or 4.9 per cent of the total population of 51,998,000.
Remarkable success has also attended missionary efforts in Indonesia, where a recent figure has 13,300,000 Protestants and 7,363,000 Catholics - nearly 10 per cent of the country's total population. The Catholic Church has considerable strength among the intellectual and economic elite, and the largest daily newspaper is run by Catholics.
There are also communities of at least 100,000 to 200,000 Catholics in Pakistan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Ceylon, Malaysia, Burma, and Thailand. In Vietnam Catholics constitute 2,810,000 out of a total population of 75,8002,000.
The only country in Asia with a Catholic majority of the population is the Philippines. There are around 70 million Catholics out of a total population of 80 million. In sum, the Catholic Church in Asia is hardly more than a presence and constitutes only 2.5 per cent of the total Asian population.

Africa
Portugal provided missionaries for their traders, some of whom also ministered to indigenous peoples. The Roman Catholic Church got thus its second start in Africa. The strong presence of the Church during the first six centuries of the Christian era in Africa had ended with Mohammed and the spread of Islam.

Mission and colonization
A number of European countries sought African colonies. The broad limits of expansion for these powers – Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain – were defined at the Berlin colonial conference of 1884-1885. The African colonial period continued after World War II and lasted for most colonies until the 1950s and 1960s when they became independent.
Christian missionaries preceded or accompanied colonization. Because human development of the new African converts was an integral part of the preaching of the gospel, missionary compounds included schools, dispensaries, and hospitals as well as churches.
White missionaries of the nineteenth century brought their European culture to Africa. For some, preaching the gospel meant preaching the superiority of white European values. Many missionaries, however, were acutely aware of the importance of respecting indigenous cultures. The concern for justice was preached in churches and taught in schools. A number of African nationalist leaders and subsequently leaders of the independence movement came out of this Christian formation. One of the first African Church leaders was Samuel Crowther, the first black Anglican bishop in Africa (1864), who sought to bring the message of the gospel to the area around the Niger River in West Africa.
Most missionaries were evangelical and fiercely opposed to the slave trade. Thus was born the doctrine: "Christianity, commerce, and civilization," which became a missionary strategy that meant simply that commerce would replace the slave trade.
The greatest of them, Dr. David Livingstone (1813-1873) walked across Africa from west to east, exploring the Zambezi River. He also walked across what is now South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and Eastern Congo (Kinshasa) and recorded these journeys. At one time he disappeared for some time and was eventually found by Henry Morton Stanley, who uttered the famous understatement: "Dr Livingstone, I presume," when they met. The great explorer's heart was buried in Africa, while his body lies in Westminster Abbey.

Charles Lavigerie
The most important missionary on the Catholic side was Charles Lavigerie (1825-1892). He founded the Society of Missionaries of Africa in 1868 and in 1879 sent his missionaries into Uganda. Along with the White Fathers, Lavigerie founded the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (1869).
Leo XIII made him a cardinal in 1882 and two years later gave him the title of archbishop of Carthage and primate of Africa. From Leo he received a mission to stir up world opinion on the subject of African slavery. In compliance with the Pope's wish Lavigerie began a resounding campaign and an international conference of the great powers at Brussels in 1890 adopted proposals which were in large part in conformity with suggestions Lavigerie had made.

Uganda
Uganda was the fertile ground for the spread of the faith. Mutesa whose only concern was to keep the foreigners at bay, played Protestants, Catholics, and Moslems against each other in a subtle game of intrigue. His successor, Mwanga, proved to be a bloodthirsty tyrant and burned alive twenty-two Catholics and eleven Protestants, among whom were Lwanga and Kizito. The Uganda martyrs were canonized by Pope Paul VI. By the time of the First World War the White Fathers and their Mill Hill colleagues could count nearly 150,000 converts. At present time there are 12,804,000 Catholics or 53 per cent of the total population of 24,160,000.

Democratic Republic of Congo
In 1865 the Holy Ghost Fathers assumed responsibility for the Lower Congo region and established a mission at Boma in 1875. The White Fathers penetrated the Eastern sections from the side of the Great Lakes region. After Leopold II was given control of the Congo Free State most of the country was confided to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scheut Fathers), of Belgian origin. Their efforts were hampered by the slave traders and some atheistic colonisers, who treated Christians very poorly, and one of whom murdered Isidore Bakanja in 1909 (Beatified in 1994). Still the Church grew.
The number of Catholics in 1964 was given as 6 million (40 per cent of the population). At the present time there are 24,551,000 Catholics or 49.6 per cent of the population of 49,450,000.

Senegal
The Spiritans sent some missionaries to Senegal in 1763 to St. Louis and Gorée. Anne Marie Javouhey, foundress of the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny, sent her sisters there and came herself also. She was instrumental in having the first three Senegalese priests ordained (1840). In 1848 Fr. Bessieux was named vicar apostolic of the Two Guineas and Senegambia which was erected in 1842. He resided, however, in Libreville (Gabon). For the north he received a coadjutor who resided in Dakar, Senegal. In 1848 the fusion of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost with that of the Holy Heart of Mary, founded by Libermann, infused new life in the old congregation and invigorated it. In 1872 the mission contained 6 Senegalese priests and a congregation of native religious women.
After carrying the gospel to Casamance, the Holy Ghost Fathers approached the population of the interior. In Upper Senegal they were relieved (1895) by the White Fathers who advanced towards Segou, Bamako, and Timbouctou (Mali). The progress in the missions of Senegal and the Western Sudan was hampered by the anti-clericalism of the French administrators who were always pro-Moslem. Yet viable Catholic communities were founded among the Mossi people in Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and elsewhere.

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia
The evangelization of Sierra Leone was confided (1858) to Melchior De Marion-Bresillac, and the Society of the African Missions. Six weeks after his arrival he and his companions contacted the yellow fever. The vicariate of Sierra Leone was then entrusted to the Holy Ghost Fathers, who settled in Freetown (1864). In 1897 the prefecture of French Guinea was detached and in 1903 that of Liberia. In these countries Catholicism was implanted rather quickly in the coastal or forest regions, but in the interior it was hindered by tenacious traditional religions or submerged almost entirely by Islam. In Guinea, after winning its independence (1958), political difficulties for a time hindered the apostolate. In 1967 president Sékou Touré expelled all the missionaries. In 1971 Archbishop R. Tchidimbo was sentenced to life imprisonment and released in 1978 due to the intervention of Leopold Senghor, the Catholic president of Senegal.

Nigeria
Both Catholic and Protestant missionaries appeared along the coast of Nigeria around 1840. Nigeria became then part of the vast vicariate apostolic of the Two Guineas which was created in 1842. Priests from the Society of African Missions (SMA) arrived in 1861. In 1870 a Vicariate was erected for the coast of Benin. Prefectures apostolic were later formed for Upper Niger (1884) and Lower Niger (1889). The Holy Ghost Fathers shared the labour with the SMA.
They arrived in Onitsha in December 1885, led by Fr. Lutz. They saw that progress could be made through the education of the youth. Fr. Joseph Shanahan arrived in Onitsha as a young priest in 1902 and took over the prefecture from the dying Fr. Lejeune in 1905. He was made a vicar apostolic in 1920, resigned for health reasons in 1931, died in Nairobi in 1943 and was reburied in Onitsha in 1956. In 1997 the canonical process for his beatification was started in Onitsha. As new prefect he decided to move from the Niger to the interior and to make the schools almost the exclusive means of evangelization, arguing that through the schools the whole country would be won for Christ; the school children would be "tiny apostles" gradually converting their parents.
Two priests and two brothers were placed in the schools of Onitsha. From 1907- 1917 he was on safari from village to village during the greater part of the year, first on foot, later by bicycle, finally on a motorbike. Everywhere he made a great impression through his humanity and his deep spirituality. He never attacked fetishes but proceeded from Igbo religious ideas which were "not so much incorrect as incomplete”: they needed transformation rather than destruction. Professor Ayandale calls him "the greatest evangelist the Igbo have ever seen." Today the Igbo heartlands of former Onitsha and Owerri Provinces are a Christian country: about one third Catholic and one fifth to one sixth Anglican.
In 1919 he had to carry out an official visitation of Western Cameroon. The 1,000 mile trek broke his health. He desperately tried to get personnel for his understaffed mission appealing to the bishops of Ireland for volunteer priests. Altogether he got about a dozen and this enterprise resulted in the foundation of St. Patrick Society in Ireland in 1932. They were entrusted with the eastern part of the vicariate in 1934, as prefecture apostolic of Calabar. Shanahan began the expansion to the North in 1930, resulting in the prefecture apostolic of Benue (Makurdi).
To get education for girls, he founded the sisters of the Holy Rosary, at Kileshandra in Ireland in 1924. He also encouraged the lay missionaries in this work, and one of them Mary Martin was later to found the Medical Missionaries of Mary.
His record of seeking and training indigenous vocations is less striking. Only in 1924 a seminary was opened and in 1930 John Cross Anyogu was ordained the first priest east of the Niger, followed by three more in 1937. But Shanahan's education policy provided the fertile ground of innumerable Christian families out of which came so many priestly and religious vocations from the 1960's onwards.

Kenya
Early attempts of evangelization.
The Christian faith first came to Kenya in 1498 - Vasco da Gama - Malindi. By the end of the 16th century there were Augustinians at Lamu, Zanzibar and Mombasa. In 1601 they had registered 1200 baptisms in Mombasa. In 1631 Yusuf bin Hasan, the sultan of Mombasa, who had been converted from Islam and baptized as Jeronimo Chingulia, changed his religious allegiance again, attacked Fort Jesus and killed the Portuguese and the Christians, all of them could have saved their lives by embracing Islam. In total some 300 persons, half of them Portuguese (among them 3 Augustinians), half Africans died for their faith in Christ.
In the 19th century, Anglican missionary activity began in Mombasa with the arrival of CMS missionary J. L. Krapf in 1844. In 1862 British Methodist appeared on the scene and established a mission station in Golbanti at the Tana River among the Galla. The Holy Ghost Fathers came from Tanzania and started missionary work in Mombasa in 1889. The Africa Inland Mission arrived in the country in 1895.
Evangelization in the twentieth century. In the 20th century Christianity centred on the two focal points of Nairobi and Kisumu, the central and western regions respectively. The western Luo and Luhya were the first to accept Christianity in great numbers and they were followed by the Gusii after their war against the British. The central group Gikuyu, Embu, Meru and the eastward extending Kamba were more attached to their ancestral religion and they had suffered more from the colonial occupation. In 1921 the Salvation Army came to Kenya and in 1952 the Kiltegan Fathers. The first spread among the Luhya and the second took the Rift Valley (diocese of Eldoret) and north-eastern Ukambani (diocese of Kitui). The great impetus leading to mass conversions came once more from the school boom. It began with the Alliance High School in Kikuyu (1926), fruit of the joint efforts of the government and the Alliance of Protestant Missions. The Catholics started their secondary education in Kabaa (Ukambani) with Fr. Michael Witte C.S.Sp. as headmaster, which became later Mangu High School and St. Mary's School in Yala under the Mill Hill Fathers, which was developed by the Brothers of the Christian Instruction.
Nomadic peoples. The semi-arid land of Kenya is inhabited by Nilo-Cushitic and Cushitic nomads.
Since 1970 more and more members of the Maasai tribe that numbers 200,000 in total, have become sedentary. In 1959 a special Maasai missionary territory was erected, the prefecture apostolic of Ngong under the Mill Hill Fathers. The sixteen mission stations were in as many places as where the Maasai began to settle down.
In the northern region and in Turkana land the progress of evangelization was slow. Heroic work has been done by the Consolata Fathers, the Kiltegan Fathers and the Medical Missionaries of Mary but the difficulty continues of finding a solution to how the encounter between the traditional church life, bound up with settled communities, can be joined to the traditional free moving communities of these areas.
The land question and Mau Mau. The land of the Gikuyu attracted the settlers and missionaries in great number. The missionaries received permission to build on land that was part of the tribal reserves and they were given very large tracks of land. The Presbyterians at Kikuyu and the Consolata at Nyeri each received 3,000 acres. Later some of this land was given back and much of it was used to establish communal services such as schools and hospitals. This was of little consolation to the small farmers who felt they had paid too high a price for the new religion.
After World War I, when ex-service men were invited to settle in the highlands, much more land was given away and the recruitment of forced labour started. The newly formed Alliance of Protestant Missions stood against this policy and got the government prohibited any recruitment of labour by officials and chiefs.
The labour grievances brought about the beginning of political movements in Kenya. In 1921 Harry Thuku founded the Young Kikuyu Association. In the same year he changed the name of this organization in the East African Association (EAA). The EAA organized a general strike in Nairobi in 1922 in retaliation for the arrest of Thuku. Thuku was deported to Kismayu Island in the Indian Ocean. He remained in detention until 1930. The EAA was suppressed. In 1924, the Kikuyu Central Association was founded which was to lead Kenya to independence. Jomo Kenyatta took the first steps in his political career in the KCA, of which he became secretary in 1928.
The dissatisfaction over the alienation of land and alien rule continued to be nurtured in the independent schools and churches. This led to the Mau Mau, the anti-colonial revolt (1952-1956). It was basically of political character, a call for "Uhuru.” The mainline churches saw the movement as pagan and anti-Christian. The freedom fighters did pray to the high god Ngai, facing Mount Kenya, and consulted diviners before their attacks, but they also consoled themselves as they read the newly translated Kikuyu Old Testament and felt identical with Israel, lamenting to the same Ngai: "Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to aliens" (Lam. 5:1-5).
The Mau Mau administered two oaths: the oath of unity and the warrior’s oath.
For Christians to take the oath was just apostasy. The Christians of the Kikuyu Independent Churches felt justified to take both oaths. A significant number of the Revivalists bravely died the martyr’s death for their Christian conviction.
The two vicars apostolic (Mgr. C. Cavallera, IMC, and Mgr. J. McCarthy, CSSp) condemned the Mau Mau
The Mau Mau had a devastating effect on the church. The more influential and convinced Catholics attracted the hatred and revenge of the Mau Mau. In the Nyeri diocese 30 Catholics, among them 3 indigenous religious, died for the faith and the process for their beatification has been introduced. In their memory and in memory of the unknown who shared their fate a church was erected in Mugoiri.
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” came true after the Mau Mau because an unexpected influx to the Catholic Church took place; Catholic membership doubled within five years. Meanwhile the Christian Council of Kenya (1966: NCCK) received from Britain funds for such enterprises as urban industrial ministry, community centres and village polytechnics.

Independence came to Kenya in 1963. The British government bought the land from its repatriating settlers and twice gave one million acres to the Kenyan government for free distribution.
The settler problem solved, the Kenyan religious atmosphere improved greatly. The Christian share of the population rose from roughly 50 % to 75 %. The dominant role was still played by the Protestant Churches represented in the NCCK but the Catholic Church exercised a growing influence through its episcopal conference and the Kenya Catholic Secretariat (KCS).
The 1980s could perhaps be described as a time of political conscientization for the churches. The Anglican and Presbyterian clergy became more outspoken politically in the 1980s. The courageous statements of NCCK leaders resulted in their fortnightly Target being suppressed by the government and the outspoken Anglican Bishop Muge suffered a suspicious death.
The Catholic Church gradually shed its minority complex, and was helped by the papal visit of John Paul II in 1980, the celebration of the Eucharistic World Congress in 1985, and the Centenary Celebration of the Catholic Church in Kenya 1989-1990. In was in these last years that the diocesan Peace and Justice Commissions began to work. Catholic opinion is expressed in and supported by Mwananchi (Citizen) (now The National Mirror); The Seed and the New People. The 1991-1992 multi-party campaign was a great occasion for the Churches to exercise their prophetic role of guiding and advising. In the 2002 elections the Moi regime was removed from power and a coalition of opposition parties NARC (National Rainbow Coalition) took over under the leadership of Mwai Kibaki as president. In the 2007 elections, Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner, but his election was contested by Raila Odinga. Two months of civil disturbances followed in which around 1300 people were killed and 350,000 displaced. Finally a solution was found when a deal was struck between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga with the assistance of the mediation of the Kofi Anan to introduce a new position of Prime Minister. The role of the Protestant Churches as well as the Catholic Church came under fierce attack because they were seen as being partisan in the elections and in the violent aftermath. On August 27th, 2010 a new constitution was promulgated in Kenya and the Second Republic began.

Chapter 6

THE MODERNIST CRISIS

The Modernists were ready to call into question the very meaning of dogma and traditional understanding of the Church's authority.

Intellectual life of the Church
Pius IX succeeded in putting down the liberal Catholic movement. At his death in 1878 the church had the look of a well-organized fortress, prepared for a fight to the finish with the main cultural and political movements of the day.
In Leo XIII’s time (1878-1903), it became evident how formidable were the intellectual challenges confronting Christian doctrine by reason of scientific developments, in particular, those dealing with the historical study of the bible, the origins of Christianity and the evolutionary view of man's origins. Moreover, there existed then an influential philosophy of materialism, a significant minority repudiating Christianity and a large number drifting away from Christianity.
Pope Leo was anxious to reconcile the Church with modern life and culture as far as possible. But Leo was conservative in his outlook toward purely intellectual and theological issues. With his help the Neo-Scholastic movement triumphed completely, and he exalted St. Thomas and proposed his teachings as the very essence of Catholic orthodoxy.

Origin, leaders and programme

The Neo-Thomist synthesis was simply not broad enough to deal with the manifold problems raised for the Catholic faith with the development of modern culture. Because of the general ignorance that the neo-Thomists had of the historical method, Catholic scholars searched for ways of expressing their Catholic faith that would make sense to the modern mind. They were all later to be lumped under the epithet "Modernist," but they were actually a loose group linked only by their aspiration of narrowing the gap between Catholicism and modern culture.

They were encouraged by the general impression of openness that Pope Leo gave to modern culture and by a number of his actions.
They included scholars active in many fields: Duchesne, Loisy, Laberthonnière, Gennochi, Minocchi, Semeria, Tyrrell, Blondel, Fagazzaro, Von Hugel, Archbishop Mignot of Albi and Bishop Lacroix of Tarentaise.
These men shared a deep commitment to historical and critical methods, an aversion to Scholasticism and Neo-Thomism and an extreme sensitivity to authoritarianism. They were excessively influenced by the prevailing positivism and they did not reckon either with the deeply entrenched conservatism of their fellow Catholics as regards traditional religious forms.
Their opponents were Scholastics who put no faith in the conclusions of modern science. The idea of a personal conquest of the truth was to them mere pride and folly. One's only salvation, they held, lay in absolute obedience to the Church. Even some of their best representatives, such as Louis Billot, Orazio Mazella, and Salvatore Talamo, were hindered by grave limitations in their methods, by arid formalism, abuse of the argument from authority, an inadequate knowledge of modern philosophy, and almost complete lack of historical sense.

Conflict between dogma and modern biblical studies
The real focus of the controversy was in the field of biblical studies. Tremendous strides were made by the critico-historical study of the bible. Julius Wellhausen definitely proved that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, as tradition claimed. Studies like his challenged the traditional Christian concept of biblical infallibility.
Alfred Loisy claimed: “All the historical books of the bible, including those of the New Testament were composed in a looser manner than modern historical writings, and certain freedom of interpretation follows. We have to concede a real development in the religious doctrine contained in scripture."
In 1903 he published L'Evangile et l'Eglise which asserted the following: The Chalcedonian Christ who was God and man must be discarded and replaced by a Jesus who was only a prophet with a unique consciousness of being God's Messiah. The founder of the church would have to be replaced by a historical figure, who died with no thought of a church succeeding him. Her hierarchical structure, centred on the Roman Primacy, did not come from Jesus, but was invented under pressure of historical circumstances. In summary, its dogmas must be regarded not as fixed, unchangeable truths, but as attempts to summarize its experience.

Reaction of the hierarchy
We need to keep in mind the importance and the number of the problems being raised; the haste, lack of wisdom, and imprudence of many of the modernists; the mere urge to destroy on the part of some; and the fear the bishops felt of the impact of all this. A decree of the Biblical Commission of 1906 affirmed that Catholics must hold that Moses was the author of the entire Pentateuch.
The decree Lamentabili of the Holy Office appeared on July 3, 1907, condemning a list of sixty-five errors and it was followed shortly afterward, on September 8, 1907, by the encyclical Pascendi.
Among the errors condemned in Lamentabili were: that the Jesus of history was much inferior to the Christ of faith; that his knowledge was limited; that he could have been in error; that he did not institute the Church and the sacraments; that his resurrection was not a fact of the historical order; that the Roman primacy was not of divine origin and that modern Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true science unless it is transformed into some kind of non-dogmatic Christianity.
Pascendi represents an attempt to systematize the inherently unsystematic thought of the Modernists under certain false philosophical premises that they supposedly held in common: immanentism, agnosticism, symbolism and evolutionism.
The wording of the encyclical seem regrettable. It presumes bad faith and imputes evil motives to zealous Catholic scholars and it presents a sad spectacle of the highest authority in the church resorting to sarcasm and invective; it abounds in such harsh phrases as "poisonous doctrines; most pernicious of all the adversaries of the church; the root of their folly and error; boundless effrontery".

Measures to crush Modernism
To wipe out Modernism, the pope called for measures that smacked of the worst features of the medieval Inquisition. All priests and teachers were required to take an oath against Modernism.
Tyrrell denounced Pascendi and was excommunicated; he died the following year. Loisy suffered a like fate, but died peacefully thirty years later outside the church. Other leaders left the church.
The trust of the encyclical was so vague and broad that almost anyone could be accused of Modernism except authors of Scholastic textbooks. Most notorious of these integralists was Monsignor Umberto Benigni; he set up a society (the Sodalitum Pianum), which eventually included a network of spies who kept their activities covert. They regularly engaged in personal attacks on suspect Modernists. Any Catholic who showed lukewarmness toward Scholasticism or favoured such initiatives as Christian democracy or ecumenism might suddenly find himself the target of their venom. The excesses of Benigni and his ilk were only brought to an end when Benedict XV became Pope in 1914.
Modernism was indeed successfully stamped out, but at a tremendous price; the Catholic intelligence was inoculated against error, but the dosage was almost fatal. Many of the church's most brilliant thinkers were silenced or driven out of theology.
One might justify the severity of the hierarchy by admitting that their primary responsibility was to the millions of the baptised members of the Church.
Still, the Modernist crisis was a catastrophe for the church. It led to an intellectual sterility that still weighs heavily on its life and caused a cultural gap setting the church off from the intellectual flow of life in many countries.

Chapter 7

POPES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Pius X (1903-1914)

Life
Giuseppe Sarto or Pius X was the son of poor peasants. In 1884 he was made bishop of Mantua, where he showed great zeal for reform. Finally, in 1893, he was transferred to Venice as patriarch and cardinal. Even as pope he retained the heart of a simple parish priest and manifested a warmth, humor, affability, and gentleness that won the hearts of pilgrims from all corners of the world.

Reform of liturgy and codification of canon law
His desire to have the Mass performed in the most dignified manner was embodied in his decree on the reform of sacred music (1903). Of similar inspiration was his decree urging all the faithful to frequent communion and admitting children to this sacrament at the earliest possible age (six years).
His great project was the codification of Canon Law, which was only promulgated in 1917, under Benedict XV. It reflected Pius X's own highly authoritarian and conservative concept of church structure.

Negative attitude towards modern world and rejection of financial ties with France
His general attitude toward the cultural and political trends of the day was negative and in line with a general pessimism about temporal progress. He had little love of the new trend toward democracy that was sweeping the world; he thought it violated the natural hierarchical order of society.
When France tried to reduce the church to financial dependence on the state by getting it to accept a system of state subsidies, the pope ordered the French bishops to reject any financial ties with the state. The wisdom of this seems to have been vindicated by the subsequent history of the French church, which has been foremost in the current movement of renewal.

Benedict XV (1914-1922)

Benedict XV came from a Genoan patrician family, the Della Chiesa.

Peacemaker
They were looking for a peacemaker, and Benedict did not disappoint their hopes.
Peace - first in the church; he called a halt to the witch hunt after "Modernists".
His opposition to the war was absolute; intellectually and morally, he stood with those who found the war unjustifiable. For him it was the "darkest tragedy of human hatred and human madness."
He made general appeals to both sides to end the war. And finally he issued his celebrated but futile "Note to the Heads of State at War" in August 1917. His proposals were realistic, calling for the suspension of hostilities, systematic and regulated disarmament, and the establishment of arbitration, including international sanctions.
Benedict’s refusal to take sides were widely misinterpreted by both sides. He was vilified in the press and even excluded from the Versailles Peace Conference. As time passes, however, there is a growing recognition of the prophetic role he played.

Resumption of diplomatic ties with France
The resumption of diplomatic relations with the French occurred in 1920.
He also made the first official approaches to the Italian government for the settlement of the Roman Question.

Missionary encyclical Maximum Illud
This encyclical was called the charter of the Catholic missionary movement of the century.
Benedict XV was a man of great charity: he literally emptied the Vatican coffers to help others.

Pius XI (1922-1939)
Life
Achilles Ratti, Pius XI (1922-1939), spent the first thirty years of his priestly life as a librarian. In 1918 he was sent as apostolic visitor and then nuncio to Poland. On his return in 1921 he was appointed archbishop of Milan and made a cardinal.

Lateran Treaty
He immediately worked on reconciliation with Italy and succeeded when Mussolini signed the Lateran Concordat and Treaty with the Vatican in 1929. The treaty granted the Pope a large sum of money and complete sovereignty over Vatican City. In addition the Concordat accorded to the Catholic religion a privileged status in Italy and imposed Catholic teaching as the norm for religious instructions in the state schools.

Hitler and the Third Reich
In Hitler declared that he regarded the churches as "the most important factors in the preservation of our national heritage." Promising full respect for church rights, he demanded from the churches an immediate choice between co-operation and open conflict. The Catholic Centre Party decided it could reject the offer and gave Hitler the crucial votes he needed for emergency powers. Within days the German bishops withdrew their previous condemnation. Later the Vatican gave its assent to a Concordat, but only signed when it became evident that there was no way church rights in Germany could be defended save through a Concordat.
Leading Vatican officials had few illusions but probably hoped to have some way to defend the liberty of German Catholics and on paper the provisions of the Concordat were very favourable to the church. Only five days later, the Pope condemned the Nazi law on sterilization as contrary to Christian morals and within months Vatican officials were protesting against the repeated and frequent violations of the Concordat. Catholic Deputies were arrested and civil servants dismissed, priests and religious were imprisoned or exiled, ecclesiastical correspondence was opened and confiscated, Catholic organisations and periodicals suppressed, Catholic property was confiscated, episcopal palaces were sacked and meetings banned, religious education was restricted and Catholic schools closed.
The German bishops, especially Cardinal Michael Faulhaber, repeatedly protested against those Nazi policies incompatible with Christian teaching as well as against violations of the Concordat. Cardinal Karl Josef Schulte of Cologne personally protested to Hitler against Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century. In 1936 Pius XI describes Nazism and Communism as "enemies of all truth and all justice."

The encyclical Mit brennender Sorge
This encyclical was secretly distributed throughout the country and read from every catholic pulpit on Palm Sunday before it had been seen by any member of the Nazi Party. This encyclical was one of the strongest condemnations of a national regime ever published by the Holy See. The German government retaliated by censorship at home and intensifying propaganda abroad. But Hitler did not want to go too far. Apart from military considerations, the "Anschluss" of Austria was to greatly increase the number of Catholics in the Third Reich.

Pius XII (1939-1958)

Second World War and the holocaust
Only two weeks after Eugene Pacelli’s coronation as Pope Pius XII, Hitler sent his tanks rumbling into Czechoslovakia - bringing the world closer to global war. When war did break out, Pius made the most strenuous efforts to ward off the catastrophe by acting as an intermediary between the Allies and the underground German resistance movement in 1940.
Italy's declaration of war, on the side of Hitler, placed the Vatican in a most delicate position.
The Pope made every effort to maintain the appearance of impartiality between the opposing blocks. But his hatred of Nazism was second to his hatred of communism. Towards the end of the war, he was frightened by the prospect of a Communist victory and worked for a negotiated peace.
Did Pius carry neutrality too far in refusing to publicly denounce the Nazi atrocities against the Jews, the Poles, the Serbs, and others? Reasons for silence: fear of even more savage measures if he protested; an unwillingness to jeopardize his official neutrality; the threat of terrible reprisals against the church; and a realization that nothing would deter Hitler from his "final solution" joined to the hope of being able to do more for the victims behind the backs of the Nazis.
Behind the scenes the pope did his best to help the Jews: in Rome alone 5,000 Jews were given asylum. Pinchas Lapide, former Israeli consul in Italy, credited the Holy See and the church with saving some four hundred thousand Jews from certain death.
Yet for many, his duty as Vicar of Christ was to voice the abhorrence of the human conscience at such incalculably monstrous evil.
His decision to remain silent caused him deep anguish. If indeed he erred, it was probably due to excessive preoccupation with diplomatic considerations.
While Vatican relief efforts were very expensive and time consuming, the results were rather insignificant and disappointing. Nevertheless, food, clothing, and medical supplies were dispatched on a large scale. The Holy See also exerted great efforts to save Rome from destruction.
The end of the war saw the prestige of the papacy at an all-time high. Many nations had ambassadors accredited to the Vatican. The number of Catholic dioceses increased during his reign from 1,696 to 2,048. The Vatican's newly created bank, the Institute for the Works of Religion, did a brisk business.

Communism
The upsurge of anti-religious communism in the West after the war caused him to align the church more and more with the Western democracies. Instead of trying to foster détente with the Iron Curtain countries, the pope, in fact, helped to make relations worse by using every means to mobilize world opinion against the Communists.

Universal Pastor of the Church
Pius XII served as bishop of Rome for nearly twenty years (March 2, 1939, to October 9, 1958). He wrote forty encyclicals and gave over one thousand major addresses. As pastor and teacher the pope:
1) championed the rights and values of the human person and the family;
2) taught that the state always was to serve the good of the person;
3) condemned communism;
4) encouraged liturgical renewal.
In Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) Pius XII approved the use of modern critical approaches to the study of the bible. In Mystici Corporis Christi, the pope used St. Paul's metaphor of "the body of Christ" to describe the church. The Catholic Church was the "mystical body of Christ."
In 1950 Pope Pius XII exercised his papal infallibility by declaring it to be the belief of the Catholic Church that the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed bodily into heaven after her death. In Humani Generis he reasserted certain Catholic theological positions; it was a reaction by the Pope in the face of la nouvelle theologie (Chenu, Congar, Daniélou and de Lubac).

The Liturgical Movement
France
Trent (1545-1563) had set down the standards for liturgy which remained in effect for more than four hundred years. The Benedictines of the monastery of Solesmes under Abbot Prosper Gueranger (1805-1875) had studied and promoted the use of Gregorian chant. Pope Pius X in 1903 had called for a reform of church music. In 1905 he called for frequent reception of the eucharist and the reception of first holy communion at the age of discretion (usually about seven years of age).

Belgium
Father Lambert Beauduin (1873-1960) was shocked at the ignorance of people in regard to the liturgy. In 1909, he insisted that people be given vernacular translations of the mass and vespers.

Germany
In the Abbey of Maria Laach the first "community mass" or "dialogue mass" was celebrated in which the laity recited together the responses to the prayers of the priest. Father Romano Guardini developed an authentic, meaningful and pastoral liturgy in his work and scholarship. His book Der Herr (The Lord), in 1937 also promoted the reading of scripture as well as Christian involvement in the world. Pius Parsch (1884-1954) brought the mass in the vernacular to the ordinary faithful by publishing the liturgical texts for Sundays.

Liturgical reform by Pope Pius XII
In 1947 Pope Pius XII published Mater Dei, inviting a renewal of the worship life of the church and urging all members to participate actively in liturgy. In 1951 he revised the rites of the Easter Vigil, and then in 1955 all the celebrations of Holy Week. In 1953 the rules of fasting before receiving Holy Communion were modified.

Vatican II and the liturgical reform
In 1963, Sacrosanctum Concilium was promulgated and taught that the liturgy was the ultimate goal of all church activity as well as the source of that activity. Therefore, Christian people should actively participate and be effectively nourished by the public prayer life of the community. For this to happen the liturgy needed to be renewed.

The Ecumenical Movement
Ecumenism denotes the process whereby Christian churches attempt to overcome differences and move toward unity. The movement has produced institutions to foster unity, like the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for promoting Christian Unity.

The World Council of Churches
In 1910 at the World Mission Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, Protestant missionaries shared their unhappiness at the scandal of division within Christianity and its harmful effects for the missionary effort. The International Missionary Council was formed to promote collaboration among missionary groups and societies. In 1925 the Life and Work Conference at Stockholm brought together different Protestant representatives, who claimed that "service unites, but doctrine divides." Others felt that Christians needed to dialogue among themselves about what they believed. Thus the Faith and Order movement began officially in 1927 at Lausanne. These three organisations came together to form the World Council of Churches.
Meeting at Amsterdam in 1948, members of the World Council of Churches stated clearly that they were not forming some super church but rather a community of autonomous churches. At the third plenary meeting in 1961 at New Delhi, the Orthodox patriarchs became members. By the time of the fifth plenary meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1975, two hundred and seventy-one churches had become members.
It has been realized that compromise on doctrine and identity would be a false unity. One effect of this has been the movement toward greater unity within denominations themselves, exemplified in the formation of world associations by Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Disciples of Christ. The ecumenical patriarch, Athenagoras I (1886-1972), promoted Pan-Orthodox conferences, for example, in 1961 at Rhodes. Some churches have indeed united: Anglicans, Congregationalists, Methodists and Presbyterians became the Church of South India in 1949, while in the United States, Congregationalists and Reformed became the United Church of Christ.

Catholic participation
Catholic participation in the ecumenical movement took place on popular, scholarly and official levels.
Scholarship contributed to new understandings about the origins of church divisions and the factors that continue to divide the churches. Joseph Lortz (1887-1975) gave credit to the religious motives of the Reformation. Max Joseph Metzger in 1938 founded Una Sancta, dedicated to serious intellectual study and prayer for church unity.
Yves Congar, O.P. (1904-1995) laid the theological foundation for Catholic ecumenism. Lambert Beauduin, O.S.B. began the publication of Irénikon, a Catholic journal dedicated to ecumenism. Fr Paul Couturier (1881-1953) promoted and spread the World Octave of Prayer for the unity of Christians, January 18-25.
The official response was one of prudent support. Pius XI often reached out to the Orthodox and established the Pontifical Oriental Institute.
In 1949 the Holy Office issued an instruction which officially encouraged Catholic participation in the ecumenical movement. Pope John XXIII established the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (June 5, 1960) under the leadership Augustine Bea and later Johannes Willebrands.

Vatican II
In 1964, the Council promulgated Unitatis Redintegratio. It stated:
"The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only (no. 1)."
The document went on to teach:
1) True unity consists in unity of faith (doctrine), worship (liturgy) and order (structure).
2) Division was not the will of Christ.
3) Christian churches already share much in common.
4) Other Christian churches are, therefore, in communion with the Catholic Church to varying degrees.
5) It is in the Catholic Church alone that the fullness of the means of salvation are obtained (no.3).
6) Nevertheless, the Catholic Church's membership needs daily purification and renewal to truly witness to Christ (no.4).
7) Special bonds of unity exist between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches which both possess true sacraments, above all the eucharist and the priesthood by apostolic succession, and thereby, they are still joined in a very close relationship (no. 15).
8) Christians, to overcome separation, must have a spirit of mutual forgiveness, honesty and patience.
In a variety of ways - prayer, personal contacts, national and international meetings, joint studies, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity - the Catholic Church today is in contact with other Christian churches and ecumenical dialogue goes forward.

Catholic Action
Specialized movements of the Catholic Action
From the 1930s onward pastoral ministers called the laity to participate in the life of the Church by reason of the priesthood of the faithful.
Catholic Action took a variety of forms. At times it was realized through general service and programs at the parish or diocesan level. It was also actualized in specialized movements such as Jeunesse Oeuvrière Chrétienne (JOC) and Jeunesse Etudiante Chrétienne (JEC). Founded by Fr Joseph Cardijn in Belgium in 1924-1925, with the aim of ministering to young people by enabling them to come to terms with their Christian commitment in the situations in which they found themselves. Small groups of young people would meet on a regular basis to 1) see, 2) judge and 3) act.
In Italy Catholic Action was highly organized and promoted the rights of Catholics. Later many of the leaders of Catholic Action became members of the Christian Democratic Party.

Cursillo de Cristianidad
The peer ministry movement Cursillo de Cristianidad began in Spain in 1949. This "little course in Christianity" begins with a three day retreat conducted by teams of lay men and women, as well as priests, brothers and sisters. Generally it becomes a profound experience of conversion that is to continue on the "fourth day," that is, for the rest of life. The Cursillo movement has spawned a number of similar kinds of events for youth in high school, as well as university students. By 1977 there were over two and one-half million Cursillistas.

Family movements
Patrick and Patricia Crowley played key roles in the development of the Christian Family Movement (CFM), which began in Chicago in 1947. Five or six couples, usually from the same parish, would meet in homes for discussion and action in family, political, and economic land social life. At their meetings these couples reflected on scripture, analyzed their situations and planned action, following the model of JOC (i.e., see, judge, act).
The Cana Conference is a retreat movement for married couples begun in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1944 by Fr Edward Dowling (1898-1960). Couples meet in an informal atmosphere with the retreat director to reflect on the reality, problems and spirituality of marriage.
In Spain Fr Gabriel Calvo founded Marriage Encounter in 1953 to help married couples "rediscover" or "meet again." In a weekend retreat couples explore their lives and their relationships as husband and wife and examine God's presence in their marriage. A key for a happy and holy marriage is open communication.

Legion of Mary
The Legion of Mary was an earlier lay apostolic movement developed in Dublin, Ireland, in 1921. This highly organized movement emphasized personal spiritual development that would then lead to action on behalf of the gospel.

Secular Institutes
In 1947 Pope Pius XII gave official church approval to secular institutes. These were communities whose members as individuals or in small groups tried to lead a life of deep holiness in the midst of the world through their secular calling. Opus Dei was founded in Madrid in 1928 by Monsignor José María Escrivá de Balaguer (1902-1975). Opus Dei became the personal prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei in 1982. Well-educated professional lay women and men work to transform the world by witnessing to the gospel in a variety of ways. By 1990 there were more than seventy thousand members throughout the world. Some suggest that its operation is too secretive and others that its theology is too conservative.
The Schonstatt Werk is a movement for lay women and men which began in Germany in 1914.

New Lay Movements
In 1943, Chiara Lubich began a spiritual movement in Trent, where young people came together to form communities and to reflect on the scriptures. The Focolari include single women and men, as well as families, dedicated to following Christ in a variety of lifestyles and occupations.
The Neo-Catechumenate begun in Madrid in 1962 introduces a candidate to the experience of community life, scripture and eucharist. At the end of a two year period the catechumens renew their baptismal promises and assume their Christian responsibility in the world as committed mature Catholics.
The Comunione e Liberatione movement in Italy promotes the experience of Christian community and the lay apostolate among youth and young adults.
Some other important lay movements are L’Arche and Sant’Egidio.
Catholic Action or the lay apostolate in the twentieth century has evolved practically and theologically. Women and men, married and single, young and old, individuals and families, have come to assume their proper place in the ministry and mission of the church. All the baptized and confirmed share in the priesthood of Christ through their call to worship, proclaim the gospel and serve others in union with their pastors. The diverse experiences of many movements, groups and communities have made significant contributions toward the new understanding of church which was officially promoted at the Second Vatican Council.

Chapter 8

VATICAN II AND BEYOND

Pope John XXIII (1958-1963)
Angelo Roncalli, the 76 year old patriarch of Venice, became Pope John XXIII and he was to be a man of surprises. He was a totally new kind of pope: a simple, spontaneous person who reached out to all, who loved life and loved people and was not afraid to show it.
His pontificate really amounted to a revolution that brought to an end the Tridentine Era of the Church.

Convocation of Vatican II and first session
Pope John called the Second Vatican Council in spite of his advisors. Then he was prepared for this conservative, reactionary agenda. He encouraged the bishops to take seriously the task of updating the church so as to bring it into the mainstream of what was happening all over the world.
Of the 70 proposed drafts, 69 were rejected by the bishops. The only one worthy of immediate attention was the document on the liturgy. This was prophetic because it was liturgical renewal that underscored the real meaning of the Council for so many ordinary Catholics. The idea of using the vernacular language in the liturgy may have signalled the beginning of a new world perspective on the church, one that would replace the European-centred view of the church.
For the previous 200 years the popes had tried to shield the faithful from the prevailing winds of change. Now Pope John had unleashed a new spirit of openness. But by June 1963, Pope John was dead. In Pacem in Terris John appealed to all persons of good will to build a better world by working together. It was also John, who, in Mater et Magistra, declared that the church was in favour of democracy. John moved the church from local Italian politics to a consideration of the rest of the world.

The second session
Giovanni Battista Montini, as Pope Paul VI, continued the Council.
The second session of discussion centred on the church as the people of God, collegiality and the renewal of the deaconate. The bishops aimed at balancing Vatican I's extreme emphasis on papal authority by pointing out that the pope ordinarily should act as a leader and a member of the college of bishops.
In Unitatis Redintegratio the bishops called for a new orientation towards those who were now recognized as "separated Brethren." Recognizing the Protestant people as "separated Churches and communities"(UR no.3), the Council recommended common prayer, and called for dialogue to take place between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches, the Anglican Communion and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. While warning against a compromise of belief, the decree recalled that there exists a 'hierarchy' of truths (UR 11). Now the church offered a way to distinguish between these teachings that are basic to Christian faith and those that are subject to different interpretation.
The recognition that the Church of Christ is broader than the Roman Catholic Church (LG 8) coupled with the concept of the Catholic Church as a communion of local churches, opened up a new way of envisioning the future unity between the Catholic Church and the other churches. As a communion of churches herself, the Catholic Church could join with the Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox Churches to form a communion of Christian communions.
The third session
This session saw an important discussion on the Constitution on the Divine Revelation, which led to a strong assertion of the primacy of Scripture as a source of Christian faith. During these sessions the bishops began to search for compromised formulas which would express the results of their discussions in a mildly progressive form, but one temperate enough to win the allegiance of the overwhelming majority of the bishops.
When the document on the church was presented in a reworked form, which supposedly reflected earlier discussions, a number of bishops were irritated that the pope himself, under pressure from the conservatives, had made changes. Changes had also been made in the proposed document on ecumenism which had the effects of weakening it, and this also annoyed the many bishops of France. Paul VI removed the question of artificial birth control from the agenda and announced that he would appoint a commission to examine the question. The Catholic Church was still a papal church, and the bishops at the Council had too deep a sense of their common responsibility for the unity of the Church to take any action which might comprise that unity.

The fourth session
The bishops gave their approval to a strong statement on religious liberty. In the final document on the church less emphasis was given to the church as the people of God, and more to the church as sacrament - that is the effective sign of the presence of God in the world. A new era of international cooperation among Catholic theologians had dawned. For the first time, theologians began to feel that they constituted a body with a recognized task in the church.
The first two sessions had given the bishops a deep sense of their own collegiality, and of their common responsibility, with the bishop of Rome, for the universal church. But it became evident in the later sessions of the Council that without the proper format and forum, and when papal encouragement was withdrawn, the bishops were unable to act as a body.

The pontificate of Paul VI (1963-1978) after the Council
Cardinal Montini, the Archbishop of Milan succeeded John XIII. Paul continued the Council begun by his predecessor. For twelve years after the Council he shepherded a church in which tremendous changes were taking place as a direct result of the Council. Paul VI often agonized over a divided church, polarized by conservatives, who tried to do whatever they could to resist the conciliar developments, and by liberals who wanted to take the new conciliar directions to their logical destination as fast as possible.
In 1965 he created the Bishops' Synod, but Paul was ill at ease with the concept of a Synod and he saw it as a consultative body. It seems that the Bishops' Synod has not fulfilled the hopes of those at the Council who urged it formation.

Humanae Vitae
The issue of the artificial birth control was another question in which Paul vacillated. The encyclical Humanae Vitae, promulgated in July 1968, dealt with this difficult problem. Eleven members of the committee recommended that the church's teaching against artificial birth control be modified, while four theologians urged the pope to hold the line of the traditional teaching. Paul upheld the traditional teaching for the sake of these Catholics who saw the church changing at such a rate as to leave them feeling bewildered and abandoned. In the final section, Paul VI bequeathed to the church a sensitivity to the personal conscience of the faithful and a trust in the action of the Holy Spirit in their lives. For a sizable majority of Catholics have rejected the conclusions of Humanae Vitae.

Various acts of Paul VI
In May 1967, Paul received the Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople in St. Peters, the first meeting of the bishops of Rome and Constantinople for 900 years. In 1966 he wrote the encyclical Populorum Progressio declaring that "development is the new name for peace" and anticipating some themes that would soon be taken up by the advocates of "Liberation Theology".
The 1968 meeting of the Latin American Bishops in Medelin, Columbia, the church of Latin America to an "effective preference to the poorest and most needy sectors of society." The Latin America hierarchy advocated the process of "concientization" of the poor.
In 1971, in Octogesimo Adveniens Paul took up many of the themes of Medelin, pointing out that economic problems call for political solutions.
Also in 1971, Gustavo Gutierrez in A Theology of Liberation contended that one's place in the world and one's attempts to change it should be the starting point of theology. All these converged in the theme that the poor should take action in helping themselves, instead of waiting for help from outside. The Latin American "base Christian communities" are a direct outcome of the stress on concientization and the idea of the poor taking the initiative in their own situation.
Pope Paul VI responded to the 1975 Synod on Evangelization in his encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi, which included his continuing reflection on the theological meaning of liberation.
At Puebla in 1979, the bishops affirmed their previous commitment, declaring "we affirm the need for conversion on the part of the whole church to a preferential option for the poor, an option aimed at their integral liberation."
In March 1979, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, protector of the poor and advocate of justice, was assassinated while celebrating the Eucharist.
As the ongoing interpretation and implementation of the conciliar documents continued, a certain polarization of the church resulted. In the 1960s and 1970s the fresh biblical image of the church as the People of God was favoured The traditionalist, like Archbishop Lefèbvre, would have nothing to do with the populist, democratic perspective of the church. The progressives promoted the new role of the laity in the decision-making processes of the church, and pushed for greater pluralism, more ecumenical openness, and greater autonomy for episcopal conferences.

Pope John Paul II (1978-2005)
Alberto Luciani was elected Pope in 1978 and as Pope John Paul I he had endeared himself to many in a pontificate that lasted only 34 days.
The next conclave chose Karol Josef Wojtyla, the first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Adrian VI, 450 years earlier.
The balance between the two poles of the Catholic Church, the local and the universal, had begun to be restored with Vatican II. The international Synod of Bishops and national Episcopal Councils were recognized as practical expressions of the doctrine of collegiality as stated in Lumen Gentium.
Pope John Paul II seems to have had a different mind and spoke for the whole church, and he wants the universal church to take its lead from Rome. Under John Paul II dissent was not tolerated and theological diversity was hardly acceptable.
John Paul has been fully committed to proclaim the dignity of the human person. His encyclicals, from Redemptor Hominis (1979) to Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987) and Centesimus Annus (1991), champion the rights of human beings and speak out on the necessity of social justice and offer a sharp critique of the social justice shortcomings, of both the capitalist and communist system. Still Pope John Paul II and his Curia have been suspicious of certain aspects of the Liberation Theology.

Risorgimento or Aggiornamento
Pope John Paul II announced the convocation of an Extraordinary Synod in 1985 to examine the direction of the Catholic Church 20 years after Vatican II. There was a shift in perspective, viewing the Council not so much in terms of originality or innovations, but in the context of the entire history of the Church. The renewal the Council brought to the church was affirmed and principles of interpretation worked out.
There has been a Vatican strategy to downgrade the national episcopal conferences since the Extraordinary Synod. John Paul II had great difficulty in walking the line that separates Roman authoritarianism from legitimate diversity in the local church in the world.
Pope John Paul II has also gone back on the council's actions in calling for a revised Eucharistic Liturgy, allowing for the re-emergence of the Latin Mass. The Pope did not want to admit shadows of grey in his efforts to give a black and white statement of Catholic faith and morals. The universal Roman Catechism published in 1992 has tended to reinforce this agenda of order, organization and orthodoxy.
The Vatican Nuncio now seems to be the key person involved in the nomination of bishops spearheading the Roman Curia's strategy of unilaterally appointing 'safe' men to the vacant episcopal sees. The beginning of certain democratic procedures that started during the Council has been replaced by more secretive procedures. Some that Rome perceives that clear lines of authority and clear expression of belief are essential to the preservation of unity in a global church.
The hope for the church's future lies in a balance; between both the pope and individual conscience; both the universal church and the local church; both mystery and institution; both law and freedom; both Rome's oversight and local initiatives.

Benedict XVI (2005- )

CAT Exam 2010

CAT Exam, September 2010

From the following questions, three questions will be selected for the exam. From these questions, you will be required to complete one question.



1. Elaborate on the chief aspects of the Enlightenment.
2. Write about the main events of the French Revolution that had an impact on Catholic Church in France.
3. Give an account of Napoleon’s relationship with the Catholic Church.
4. Write about the Restoration Period in Europe.
5. Describe the main tenets of the following: Gallicanism, Ultramontanism, 19th Century Catholic Liberalism.
6. Describe the main events that happened during the papacy of Pius IX.
7. Give an account of the First Vatican Council.

Class Notes Part One

CHURCH HISTORY IV: THE MODERN PERIOD

CONTENTS

1. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The Enlightenment. France immediately before the Revolution. Phase I: An ill-fated experiment in Civil Religion. Phase II: The Radicals. Phase III: Separation of Church and State. Napoleon and the Church. Aftermath.

2. RESTORATION AND LIBERALISM
Introduction. Restoration in France. Restoration in Italy. Restoration in Germany. The Church in England and Ireland.

3. THE PONTIFICATE OF PIUS IX
Introduction. Loss of the Papal States. Catholic Piety. The Syllabus of Errors. The First Vatican Council: Ultramontanism; Preliminary planning; Proceedings. The closing years of the Pontificate of Pius IX: The Kulturkampf.

4. THE CHURCH AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION
Introduction. Industrial Revolution and the emergence of impoverished masses. The social question and initial Catholic responses. Rerum Novarum. The further development of the social doctrine of the Church.

5. THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT
Introduction. The revival of missionary activity in the nineteenth century: The deplorable state of the Catholic Missions; Renewal of the missionary spirit among the laity; The foundation of missionary societies; The Popes and the missions; Protestant Missionary Societies. Asia: India; China; Japan; Some other countries in Asia. Africa: Mission and colonization; Charles Lavigerie; Uganda; Democratic Republic of Congo; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Nigeria; Kenya.

6. THE MODERNIST CRISIS
Intellectual life of the Church. Origin, leaders and programme. Discrepancy between dogma and modern biblical studies. Reaction of the hierarchy. Measures to crush Modernism.

7. POPES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Pius X (1903-1914). Benedict XV (1914-1922). Pius XI (1922-1939). Pius XII (1939-1958). The Liturgical Movement. The Ecumenical Movement. Catholic Action.

8. VATICAN II AND BEYOND
Pope John XXIII (1958-1963). Convocation of Vatican II and first session. The second session. The third session. The fourth session. The pontificate of Paul VI (1963-1978) after the Council. Pope John Paul II (1978-2005). Risorgimento or aggiornamento. Benedict XVI (2005- ).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Textbooks
Baur, J., 2000 Years of Christianity in Africa, Nairobi 1994.
Bokenkotter, T., A Concise History of the Catholic Church, New York 1990 rev. and exp. ed.
Comby, J. and MacCullock, D., How to Read Church History, Vol. 2, London 1994.
Daniel-Rops, H., The Church in an Age of Revolution, London 1965.
Daniel-Rops, H., A Fight for God, London 1966.
Dwyer, J.C., Church History. Twenty Centuries of Catholic Christianity, New York 1985.
Gilles, A.E., The People of Hope. The Story behind the Modern Church, Cincinnati 1988.
Holmes, D. and Bickers, B.W., A Short History of The Catholic Church, Turnbridge Wells 1992 rev. ed.
Jedin, H. and Dolan, J. (eds.), History of the Church, vol. 7: The Church between Revolution and Restoration, by R. Aubert et al., London 1981.
Jedin, H. and Dolan, J. (eds.), History of the Church, vol. 8: The Church in the Age of Liberalism, by R. Aubert et al., London 1981.
Jedin, H. and Dolan, J. (eds.), History of the Church, vol. 9: The Church in the Industrial Age, by R. Aubert et al., London 1981.
Jedin, H. and Dolan, J. (eds.), History of the Church, vol. 10: The Church in the Modern Age, by G. Adrányi et al., London 1981.
Latourette, J.L.S., A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vols. 4-7, Exeter 1971.
Morris, J., The Church in the Modern Age, London 2007.
Rogier, L.J., Aubert, R. and Knowles, M.D. (eds.), The Christian Centuries. A New History of the Catholic Church, vol. 5: The Church in a Secularized Society, by R. Aubert, P.E. Crunican, J.T. Ellis, F.B. Pike, J. Bruls and T. Hajjar, London - New York 1978.
Vidler, A.R., The Church in an Age of Revolution, Harmondsworth 1965.

Literature
Alberigo, G., A Brief History of Vatican II, Maryknoll 2006.
Asten, N., Christianity and Revolutionary Europe, 1750-1830, Cambridge 2002.
Barrett, D.B.(ed.), World Christian Encyclopedia. A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World AD 1900-2000, Nairobi 1982.
Baur, J., The Catholic Church in Kenya. A Centenary History, Nairobi 1990.
Blanning, T.C.W., The French Revolution. Class War or Culture Clash?, London 1998.
Bokenkotter, T., Church and Revolution. Catholics in the Struggle for Democracy and Social Justice, New York 1998.
Bunson, M., Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Catholic History, Huntington 1995.
Burton, K., Leo XIII. The First Modern Pope, New York 1962.
Butler, C., The Vatican Council 1869-1870, London 1962.
Carroll, W.H., The Guillotine and the Cross, Manassas, Virginia 1986.
Chadwick, O., The Spirit of the Oxford Movement, Cambridge 1990.
Chadwick, O., The Popes and European Revolution, Oxford 1981.
Chadwick, O., A History of the Popes 1830-1914, Oxford 2003.
Combi, J, How to Understand the History of Christian Mission, London 1996.
Confalanieri, C., Pius XI. A Close-up, Altadena, California 1975.
Coppa, F.J., The Modern Papacy since 1789, London 1998.
Dietrich, D.J., Catholic Citizens in the Third Reich, Oxford 1988.
Dolan, J.P., The Catholic American Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present, London 1992.
Gargan, E.T., Leo XIII and the Modern World, New York 1961.
Gilley, S. and Stanley, B. (eds.), World Christianities, c. 1815-c. 1914, Cambridge 2006.
Gough, A., Paris and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontane Campaign, Oxford 1986.
Hales, E.E., Pio Nono. A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century, London 1954.
Hales, E.E., Revolution and Papacy 1769-1846, Garden City, N.Y. 1960.
Hales, E.E., The Catholic Church in the Modern World, Garden City, N.Y. 1960.
Hasler, A.B., How the Pope Became Infallible, New York 1981.
Hebblethwaite, P., Paul VI: The First Modern Pope, London 1993.
Helmreich, E. (ed.), The Church and State in Europe 1864-1914, St. Louis, Missouri 1979.
Heyer, F., The Catholic Church from 1648 to 1870, London 1969.
Himes, K.R., Modern Catholic Social Teaching, Washington 2004.
Holmes, J.D., The Triumph of the Holy See. A Short History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century, London 1978.
Jong, A. de, Mission and Politics in Eastern Africa. Dutch Missionaries and African Nationalism in Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi 1945-1965, Nairobi 2000.
Jong, A. de, “Africans Viewed in the Missionary Mirror. Shifts in the ‘Black-white’ Thinking of Dutch Missionaries on Africans and Their Culture in East Africa 1945-1965,” in: Exchange 30 (2001) no. 1, pp. 49-77.
Jong, A. de, The Challenge of Vatican II in East Africa, Nairobi 2004.
Kelly, J.F.(ed.), American Catholics, Wilmington, Delaware 1989.
Kerr, I., John Henry Newmann: A Biography, Oxford 1988.
McBrien, R.P., Lives of the Popes, New York 2000.
McCarthy, T.G., The Catholic Tradition. The Church in the Twentieth Century, Chicago 1998 rev. and exp. 2d. ed.
McManners, J., The French Revolution and the Church, London 1969.
Miller, J.M., The Shepherd and the Rock. Origins, Development and Mission of the Papacy, Huntington 1995.
Molony, J., The Worker Question. A New Historical Perspective on Rerum Novarum, Dublin 1991.
Moynihan, R., Let God’s Light Shine Forth. The Spiritual Vision of Pope Benedict XVI, New York 2005.
Neill, S., A History of Christian Missions, London 1990 rev. 2d. ed.
O'Dwyer, M.M., The Papacy in the Age of Napoleon and the Restoration, Lanham 1985.
Outram, D., The Enlightenment, Cambridge 1995.
Ross, R.J., The Failure of Bismarck’s Kultur Kampf, Washington 1998.
Sullivan, M., 101 Questions and Answers on Vatican II, New York-Mahwah 2002.
Tanner, N., The Councils of the Church. A Short History, New York 2001.
Tanner, N., The Church and the World. Gaudium et Spes, Inter Mirifica, New York-Mahwah 2005.
Williams, D., The Enlightenment, Cambridge 1999.
Worall, B.G., The Making of the Modern Church, London 1991.

1

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

The Enlightenment
The reign of Louis XV of France, 1715-1774, saw the crystallization of ideas and attitudes that created the anti-Christian Enlightenment of the 18th century. 200 years earlier, the Protestant crisis had broken the spiritual unity of Europe; but for all that it was a Christian and religious revolt. The Roman Catholic version of that view had its roots in the Aristotelian-Thomistic synthesis of the Middle Ages. There, a person was understood to be created in the image of God, capable of doing good and empowered to do so by grace. Christ was the universal saviour, leading all persons of good will to salvation. In a word, such a view was upbeat and optimistic.
The various Protestant versions of the Christian world view generally emphasized the terrible, corrupting effects of original sin on the human person. This view leaned heavily on the Platonic influenced theology of St. Augustine. Salvation was by no means guaranteed and, in fact, probably would not be the destiny for the majority of persons. A Christian life was test, trial and dependence totally on the gratuitous action of God.
Both world views, whether optimistic or not, were thoroughly religious. The human person was created by God, and hopefully would share everlasting life with God in heaven. With the Enlightenment, a new world view was born, competing with a religious world view.

Definition of Enlightenment
The Enlightenment is a term used to describe the scientific, philosophical, religious and political developments of the 18th century. Stress was placed on:
1) confidence in human reason;
2) a demand for freedom of thought and speech;
3) the scientific approach as ways of knowing reality;
4) an enlarged vision of the world;
5) a criticism of religious dogmatism and political authoritarianism;
6) the uniqueness of the individual and the importance of the subjective;
7) a mistrust of any form of knowledge that cannot be measured or quantified.

Deists
Many of the thinkers of the Enlightenment rejected miracles and the supernatural order, putting them on the same plane as legends and superstition. Thus the replacing of revealed religion with a merely natural religion was what they aimed at. They pushed God away into the background. The thinkers who adhered to this idea about religion are called Deists. The Deists were philosophers who emphasized belief in what could be known about God by reason. They maintained that all human beings had an innate knowledge of God and basic moral principles. Deism taught that the basic purpose of the bible was to present a moral message that emphasized the virtuous life and the loving service of others.

Some philosophers of the Enlightenment
John Locke, (1632-1704), believed that knowledge was based upon experience and that religious faith, because it flowed from revelation, did not have the same certainty as conclusions drawn from reason. Locke emphasized the work of God in creation and the exemplary modelling of human life given by Jesus Christ.
David Hume (1711-1776), maintained that reason was much more limited than some thought. Hume maintained that religion pertained to the domain of faith and was not something that could be based upon reason.
René Descartes (1596-1650), felt that he could prove the existence of God by philosophizing from a position of universal doubt. Since the idea of a perfect being could not be produced by the mind itself, it must have a basis in reality outside the mind, and therefore, for Descartes, God exists. As a profoundly religious man, he saw no opposition between faith and reason, religion and science.
While the Enlightenment was primarily an intellectual movement in England, it had political, social and religious overtones for the philosophes of France led by Voltaire (1694-1778). Voltaire was a severe critic of l'ancien régime. He constantly attacked the political, economic, social and religious systems created by the absolutist monarchs, Louis XIV (1643-1715) and Louis XV (1715-1774).
Voltaire had disdain for the Roman Catholic Church in France. As a deist he believed in a God who had created an orderly and harmonious universe in which rational and free beings were meant to be agents of social progress and the abolition of evil where possible. Voltaire saw Catholicism as a participant in maintaining oppressive social and political structures.
Denis Diderot (1713-1784) thought that belief in God was not necessary for preserving the moral fabric of society. In his opinion, atheists could certainly be good citizens.
Rousseau (1712-1778) taught that God had created humankind in a state of natural innocence and that Christianity undermined an appreciation of the goodness of human nature by its overemphasis on original sin. Rousseau maintained that humankind had fallen from its first innocence through the corrupting influence of societal structures, but that innocence could be restored by the creation of a just and free society based upon reason. The ideas of Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau would come to full flowering in the thought and action of their disciples during the French Revolution.
In Protestant Germany, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) published the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and the Critique of Practical Reason (1788). In the latter work he challenged the deists by arguing that pure reason cannot prove the existence of God or immortality. Kant taught that it is through practical reason, which has to do with the moral life, that a person can know both the existence of God as the judge of all action and that immortality is the ultimate reward of a life of integrity.

Effects of the Enlightenment on Christianity
Emphasis on reason improved religious instruction and catechesis by challenging anything that implied superstition, magic or the miraculous. The liturgy also benefited when the Enlightenment thinkers critiqued sentimentalism and formalism in Christian worship. However, essential elements of the faith were undermined such as revelation, tradition, and church authority. Rationalism attacked the heart of the Christian message when it taught that faith manifested an infantile stage in the development of humanity and that human progress required that the world move beyond religion.

France immediately before the Revolution
Roman Catholicism was the only official religion of France. The Church was a stronghold of privilege and formed an essential pillar of the ancient regime, which was characterized as a political and social system founded on privilege by service. The Church, through its institutions, offered the population many services. Yet, some of the clergy or “the first estate” lorded it over people. As a class they enjoyed privileges. They possessed or controlled at least 10% of the land in France. Parish priests or curés generally came from poorer backgrounds, worked hard to serve their people and were thus respected. Bishops and abbots enjoyed power and wealth, and were often resented by both people and parish clergy. Religious orders, for example, the Benedictines and Dominicans, were often not respected. The parochial clergy were supportive of the aims of the middle classes. There was a loyalty on the part of many people to the Catholic Church, and there were serious criticisms by them of sectors of the church which needed reform and renewal. Catholic practice often lacked enthusiasm and fervour.

Phase I: An ill-fated experiment in civil religion
King Louis XVI convened a meeting of the Estates-General [parliament], which opened on May 5, 1789. Representatives of the various classes had chosen delegates to the Estates-General. There was a strong antagonism to the aristocratic church leaders and religious as well as a real appreciation for the hard-working, committed parish clergy. These lower class clerical representatives shared the grievances of the third estate against the upper classes. The deputies of the third estate declared themselves to be the National Constituent Assembly and the clergy voted to join them. The clergy’s decision effectively “made” the Revolution.

Laws affecting the church
In July the king dismissed a popular minister, and with high food prices and widespread unemployment, the people attacked the Bastille. Both king and Assembly were prisoners of the Parisian mob. The destruction of the Bastille symbolised the destruction of privilege and the old regime. The Assembly abolished feudalism. Bishops joined with nobles in renouncing feudal dues, tithes and privileges. On 26 August the Assembly voted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the fundamental principles of the new regime. Freedom, equality, and the right of ownership were the inalienable rights.
Many members of the Constituent Assembly were sincere believers who regularly practised their religion.
On 2 November 1789, at the suggestion of Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, in an effort to solve the financial crisis, all ecclesiastical property was placed “at the disposal of the nation.
If there were to be no Church property, how could there be religious orders? It was an easy step to their dissolution, for not even the parish clergy were interested in saving them. On 13 February 1790, the Constituent Assembly moved against religious orders.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy
Those who were behind the Civil Constitution of the Clergy were influenced by Gallicanism and the spirit of Enlightenment. Gallicanism was the tendency to think of the Church of France as a national institution. (The Four Articles of 1682 constitute the classic statement of Gallicanism. They declared that neither the Pope nor the church had any power over temporal rulers; that papal power is limited by general councils; that the exercise of papal power is limited by the customs and privileges of the Gallican Church; that, although the Pope "has the chief voice in questions of faith ... yet his decision is not unalterable unless the consent of the Church is given").

The geography of the church in France was now completely re-shaped. Dioceses and parish boundaries were redrawn. The dioceses were reduced from 135 to 85 one per department, of which 10 were archdioceses. There was to be one parish for every 6000 inhabitants. A bishop would write to the pope only to inform him of his appointment and to assure him that he was in communion with him. Bishops could not act independently of their episcopal vicars and were to be advised by councils whose decisions were binding. Appeals from bishops were to be heard by metropolitans or their councils, not by the Roman authorities. Papal primacy of honour, not of authority or jurisdiction was recognized. Clergy became, in effect, civil servants. When this constitution was passed, it was reluctantly proclaimed by the king on 24 August 1790. What was created, therefore, was a national civil religion within a schismatic church.
Most of the bishops and clergy were in favour of finding ways to make the Constitution acceptable, though there were obvious difficulties. The electoral system meant that ecclesiastical appointments might be in the hands of voters who did not include a single cleric or episcopal representative but did include atheists and heretics, anti-clericals and public sinners. The French clergy did not intend to sacrifice their own religious liberties to the state while bishops did not welcome new restrictions imposed on them. Gallican bishops began to appreciate the value of support of Rome against the dangers of state control
In October Archbishop Boisgelin claimed that it was neither permissible nor constitutional to reform the church without consultation and merely requested that the Pope should give his approval to remove any canonical difficulties before the decree was enforced. Several historians would now argue that in substance the first ultramontane act in modern ecclesiastical history occurred when this exposition was sent to Pius VI (1775-1799) with the request that he would dispense from any canonical objections to the Constitution. Tension within France increased as sales of ecclesiastical property drew near. On 27 November 1790, the Constituent Assembly directed that all practising members of the clergy should take an oath of allegiance to the nation and the king and swear to uphold the constitution.

Constitutional Church and Refractory Church
The imposition of the oath marked the end of national unity and the beginning of civil war; Roman Catholicism became the religion of the counter-revolution. Still, about half the clergy in the country, including many devout priests, were willing to take the oath because of the genuine reforms in the Constitution.
The measures against the church turned king Louis XVI against the movement. On 10 March 1791, Pope Pius VI condemned the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the principles of the Revolution and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The condemnation of enlightened ideas did enormous harm to the French Church, because it confused loyalty to the Catholic Church with loyalty to the ancien régime.
There was schism. On the one hand there was the constitutional church, the only one recognised by the state, which had taken over the places of worship; on the other hand there was a resisting church which remained faithful to Rome. In 1791 a new and more anti-clerical Legislative Assembly came to power and adopted measures which effectively ended the liberty of the non-juring clergy and suppressed the freedom of the Catholic worship.

Phase II: The Radicals
When the French declared war on Austria in 1792, the Legislative Assembly decreed the deportation of the non-juring priest. The Pope gave moral support to the plans of the Austro- Prussian alliance to rescue the French king and queen. The French monarch tried to reach the invading forces. This flight marked the beginning of the persecution of the non-juring clergy and subsequently led to the king’s own execution in January 1793.
Between two and five thousand priests as well as many nuns were executed while many more priests were imprisoned throughout the country. More than 30,000 French priests fled abroad
Anti-clerical hostility then began to extend to the constitutional clergy. The Legislative Assembly confiscated ecclesiastical property and secularised the registration of births, marriages and deaths. French towns or villages were allowed to close churches within their boundaries. These were attempts to “de- Christianise” the country. The “cult of reason” was set up as a new civil religion, and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was declared the "temple of reason." Hatred against Catholicism raged out of control during this Reign of Terror (September 1793 to July 1794). Robespierre opposed the excesses of terror by promoting the need for deism and the concomitant morality it promoted. Deism had become the official religion of France.

Phase III: Separation of Church and State
In 1794, the French republican army met military success. The French even abducted Pope Pius VI (1775-1799) from Rome and held him prisoner until the 81 years old pontiff died at Valence on August 24, 1799.
Catholicism, nevertheless, did not die in France nor in French occupied territory (Brittany and the Vendée). The resistance of whole sectors of the population to “de-Christianisation” eventually won the day. In 1795, a ruling council of five was inaugurated. In practice, the government’s approach to religion was inconsistent. For instance, it moved from toleration, to accommodation and then to renewed persecution of the Catholic Church. In 1799, General Bonaparte in a coup d'état seized power as first consul and within two years religious peace returned to France.

Napoleon and the Church
Napoleon was named a general of the army at the age of 22. He refused the Directory’s order to crush the papacy, thus winning for himself Catholic support in Italy as well as in France. He was convinced of the wisdom of a rapprochement with the Catholic Church. In 1799, Bonaparte restored religious freedom to France. “Society cannot exist without inequality of wealth, and inequality of wealth cannot exist without religion.”

Concordat
Napoleon realised that an alliance with Rome would make it easier for him to rule a heavily Catholic empire. In 1801, he entered into a concordat or treaty with Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) restoring the Catholic Church in France. The main provisions were the following:
- The Catholic religion was recognised as a religion.
- The Catholic religion will be freely exercised in France.
- The Pope will request the resignation of all the bishops from before the revolution.
- Napoleon will nominate the archbishops and bishops of the new circumscriptions.
- Bishops to take the oath of fidelity.
- The bishops will appoint the parish priests.
- The Pope accepted the secularization of church property.
- The government supported the bishops and curés with a salary.
The concordat of 1801 remained in force until 1905.

Organic Articles
Bonaparte then added to it 77 Organic Articles. They placed the French Church more securely under the thumb of the government.
- No Roman documents or decrees issued without the government’s permission.
- Seminaries required the approval of Napoleon, now the First Consul.
- The civil contract was given precedence over the religious in marriage.
- Clerics could appeal from ecclesiastical to civil courts.
- Protestantism was put on the same level as Catholicism.
- All synods, catechisms and religious feasts except Sundays required government approval.
- Public prayers were to be offered for the consuls and the Republic.
- Numerous provisions were given regulating the manner of worship, such as those dealing with the ringing of church bells and with clerical dress.

The significance of the concordat
On 10 April 1802, Easter Day, the re-establishment of Catholic worship in France was celebrated in the Notre Dame, Paris. It became a model for other treaties defining relations between church and state. It did considerably strengthen the position of the Holy See. It contributed to the religious revival and ultimately authority fell into the hands of the Pope who was also given the power of deposing bishops. It helped to discredit Gallicanism and strengthen Ultramontanism.

Napoleon and Pius VII
In 1804 Napoleon was proclaimed emperor of the French and he invited the Pope to come and anoint him. The Pope first tried to secure modifications of the Organic Articles. At the actual ceremony, Napoleon kept the Pope waiting for almost two hours before putting the crown on his own head. During the journey the pope had received popular demonstrations of support from the French people, the first signs of a new attitude towards the papacy: the development of a new spirit of Ultramontanism.
In 1806 Napoleon demanded that the Pope oppose the enemies of France. Pius VII formally rejected these demands. Two years later Napoleon ordered the occupation of Rome and decreed that the Papal States should become part of the empire, whereupon he was excommunicated. The pope was then taken to France where for almost five years he was isolated in an effort to break him. Pius VII retaliated by refusing to institute the bishops nominated by Napoleon. When Napoleon returned from Russia in 1813 he was determined to reach a settlement with the pope. Pius VII horrified his ultramontane supporters by implicitly surrendering papal authority over episcopal investiture. Napoleon had provisional proposals published as the “Concordat of Fontainebleau.” But the Pope declared that his conscience revolted against the proposals which he had only signed out of human weakness. However Pius refused to negotiate until he had returned to Rome and enjoyed his complete freedom. The Pope’s return to Rome was accompanied by those triumphant demonstrations which marked the rise of Ultramontanism, while Napoleon himself was on his way to Elba. Napoleon died in exile on St. Helena 5 May 1821 reconciled with the church.

Aftermath
The French Revolution signalled the collapse of l’ancien régime in France where the Catholic Church was identified with the ruling class. What Constantine began, would come to an end with the modern experience of separation of church and state. The Revolution liberated the Church from its feudal and medieval accretions, thereby freeing it to expend more effort on its mission to preach the gospel, but it also destroyed some of the Church's greatest assets.
Roman Catholicism survived the radical attempts to destroy it during the Revolution. Rank and file Catholic laity and many good religious and priests fiercely maintained their faith commitment. The church emerged from the reign of terror stronger, purified, freer, and better able to meet the modern age. However a fundamental cleavage between a considerable body of Frenchmen and the church was final: anticlericalism remained as its permanent vestige. The process of secularization introduced by the laws of the Revolution opened a new chapter, and the secular spirit continued to spread. Civil divorce, civil marriage, and the secular school system were its most visible expressions.
It helped to create the more powerful papacy of the nineteenth century. The Revolution liberated the church from the servitude to Gallican monarchs. Rome was once more the vital centre of Catholicism. In crushing Gallicanism, the French Revolution actually made the surviving French clergy more dependent than ever on Rome and generated an extreme counter reaction among Catholic laity known as Romanticism and later Integralism. So the clergy would become more and more ultramontane, while the overseas missions were to revive under Roman command.
Some espoused the ideas and ethos of the Revolution - liberty, equality, fraternity - the rights of individuals. Others saw the liberal agenda as pernicious. The three-pronged agenda of the Revolution-liberty, equality, and fraternity-was later equated with that of Vatican II by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (d. 1991), the founder of the only major schismatic movement after the Council (the Priestly Society of St. Pius X). Yves Congar: Ecclesiology concerned with organization of Church as a society and the exercise of its hierarchical powers.

Chapter 2

RESTORATION AND LIBERALISM

Introduction
The time from 1815-1830 is often referred to as the Restoration in European history.
There was great division among people over the central ideas proposed during the Revolution. The so called reactionaries, who wanted to return or go back to l’ancien régime or the old order with its values of hierarchy, morality and authority, and its unity between throne and altar, experienced a temporary victory in 1815. On the other hand, liberalism promoted freedom, liberty, natural rights, parliamentary and constitutional governments, rights of conscience, tolerance and the rule of law. The dark side of liberalism promoted the absolute autonomy of human reason versus revelation, nature versus the supernatural, individual freedom versus the common good, unlimited choice versus moral responsibility, rights versus duties. The church’s experience of this dark side was anti-clericalism, loss of property, persecution, and a constant effort to make religion irrelevant in the major areas of life.
In the Europe of 1815, there were 100 million Catholics, 40 million Orthodox, 30 million Protestants, and 9 million Anglicans.

Restoration in France
King Louis XVIII made Roman Catholicism once again the official state religion. Many intellectuals and younger urban professionals saw the church as opposing liberty and equality and bent on regaining its privileged, landed status. Liberals grew increasingly anti-clerical.
Religion and Catholicism seemed to come to life again after the Revolution. People sought more comfort, focus, direction and personal meaning for daily living from religion. Even intellectuals were caught up in an appreciation for the romanticism of religious faith. Francois Chateaubriand produced his famous work: The Genius of Christianity, which claimed that the church had, in fact, saved civilisation.
The restoration agenda heavily promoted the recruitment and education of clergy, sisters and brothers. New groups, such as the Marist Brothers, the Brothers of Charity and the Brothers of Christian Instruction, were founded. In 1814 Pope Pius VII restored the Jesuits.
Charles X was crowned at Rheims Cathedral in September 1824. He was zealous for Catholicism; this promoted the reactionaries and alienated the liberals. The pastoral goal was to rechristianise the population with great stress put on Catholic education.
King Charles’ reactionary rule provoked an uprising in Paris in July 27-29, 1830 and he had to flee to England, a new king, Louis Philippe d’Orleans (1830-1848) was crowned.
Ultramontanism was in vogue in the French Church at this time. Joseph de Maistre wrote his book Du Pape, which helped popularise the importance of the position and the authority in the church of the bishop of Rome. De Maistre saw the Pope as destined by God to be the sovereign lord of all earthly monarchs, and his authority was guaranteed by the divine gift of infallibility.
The ultramontane cause got support from an unexpected corner the priest Felicité de Lamennais, the founder of liberal Catholicism. Lamennais urged Catholics to accept the positive ideals of the Revolution, but he argued that it was only when the local church was firmly linked to the papacy and drew from it inspiration and life that the church could be truly independent and could fulfil its role in society. Lamennais envisaged the alliance of the Pope with a free people who accepted the Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man. In 1830, he and some liberal Catholic friends (Lacordaire and de Montalembert) began the publication of L’Avenir (The Future).
But Lamennais and his friends were too forward-looking for the arch-conservatives who formed the overwhelming majority of the French episcopacy. These bishops forbade Catholics to read the journal and prohibited its publication. Then Gregory XVI issued the encyclical Mirari Vos which condemned L’Avenir and the whole liberal Catholic movement. “Official” Catholicism in France retreated into a royalist, anti-republican, pietistic ghetto, which led to the defection from the church of almost two-thirds of the population.
In 1833, some of those who had been associated with l’Avenir joined with others and began to live according to the Benedictine rule at the abbey of Solesmes. It quickly became the centre of a new liturgical movement.
In February 1848, revolution broke out again in France and a republic was proclaimed. By December 1848, Napoleon’s nephew, Louis Napoleon (1808-1873) had become president of the republic. He soon dissolved the legislature, and by 1852, he had named himself emperor.

Restoration in Italy
What is today modern Italy was for centuries a group of independent cities and kingdoms. Across the middle of the peninsula lay the Papal States, land given originally by the father of Charlemagne, Pepin the Short, in 754 to the Pope. The idea was to guarantee the sovereignty and independence of the Pope as leader of the church. The geographical position of the Papal States was an obstacle to a united Italy.
When he returned to Rome in 1814, Pius VII worked to restore the importance and authority of the Papacy. Consalvi, his secretary of state, established concordats or written treaties with various governments promoting the interests of the church and Catholic people as well as the interests of the Papal States.
Pope Leo XII (1823-1829) was a good man with genuinely religious concerns, but hopelessly out of touch with the political realities of his day, and totally committed to the union of throne and altar as the final solution of all problems of church and state. Pius VIII (1829-1830) lived only 20 months as pope. Then Gregory XVI (1831-1846) was chosen bishop of Rome.

The Congress of Vienna had restored the Papal States to the control of the pope. Under Pope Leo XII, Jewish people were required to live in ghettos. Criticism from any quarter was discouraged. Those with Enlightenment ideas were confirmed in their view that the church was oppressive.
Pope Gregory XVI had been a camoldolese monk, scholar and theologian most of his life. He had been prefect of the Propaganda Fide. He opposed revolution, promoted the rights of the church, supported missionary outreach, and energetically defended religion against rationalism. This pope was pastoral and spiritual rather than political. Because he feared the liberal threat against the independence of the church, he kept a firm control of the Papal States.
The papal regime under Gregory XVI was backward in the extreme, refusing the introduction either of gas lighting or of the railroad lines into the Papal States. In 1831 Italian nationalists rose in revolt in Bologna; the police-state tactics of the government gained adverse attention. After 1843 the revolts were constant, and they were just as constantly suppressed, often with the support of the Austrian troops.
So, the Risorgimento was firmly in the hands of the anti-clericals well into the 1840’s. But some Italians proposed a new Italy, united in loyalty to the church and the Pope. The election of Pius IX in 1846 and his apparent initial sympathy for these ideals led some to propose a confederation of Italian states under the presidency of the Pope. They were rudely disillusioned in 1848.

Restoration in Germany
The great Secularization took place in Germany in 1803. The Decree of the Imperial Electors provided for the seizure of virtually all of the property of the prince bishops, all monasteries, and all church buildings and institutions, and the immediate closing of eighteen Catholic universities.
Several factors worked to strengthen the hold of the papacy on the church in this German League. First, the kings and chancellors of the various states preferred to deal with the Pope. Second, the papacy itself had had enough of the independence of German churchmen and theologians ever since the Reformation. The Curia entered into concordats with the various German states, which regulated the position of the church within each and which recognized the rights of Pope and Curia to exercise a certain control over church affairs there.
In Germany, the style of the nineteenth century was Romanticism, in music, in literature, and in church life. The movement emphasised mystery over reason, community over the individual and tradition over progress.
The Romantic revival in the Catholic Church in Germany received powerful impulses from the so-called Circles – groups of committed Catholics who met regularly for discussion and mutual encouragement. These Circles were ecumenical.
Romanticism’s esteem for the “organic,” for the vital principle in things, for life, sometimes led to a vague and gushy piety, and it had a picture of the medieval world which was highly idealized. But still, the Romantic movement prepared the way for a new understanding of church, and for the liturgical movement.

Theologians at Tübingen turned away from the juridical categories and rediscovered Paul’s image of church as the body of Christ and as an organism in and through which the living Christ is present throughout time. Johann Adam Möhler wrote Unity of the Church (1825), under the influence of Frederick Schleiermacher’s understanding of the church and patristic sources. His Symbolism argued that Christ established a visible society, the church, which corresponded to human needs and aspirations. The church must have a head, instituted by Christ, the successor of Peter, in order to preserve its unity.
The revolution of 1848 did bring more liberal constitutions. Catholic parties now began to appear. In 1858 Catholic deputies in the Prussian Chamber formed the Centre Party. But it became clear that only a church, independent and protected from the state, could function properly.

The Church in England and Ireland
Catholics were still not allowed as of 1815 to vote or hold office. Finally, England agreed to pass the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1839. The number of Catholics in England grew and the Anglican Church weakened and was in need of reform. Over time, it had fractured into a number of other churches, for example, Methodists, Baptists and Quakers. There were also the so-called high church and low church liturgies.
Reformers, many of them clerics and associated with Oxford University, joined together to form the Oxford Movement. Some of them eventually converted to Roman Catholicism.
John Newman became convinced that the truth of faith and revelation required an authentic teaching authority, guided by the Holy Spirit. Newman was received in the Catholic Church on October 9, 1848. Later in 1879, Pope Leo XIII named him a cardinal.
Another great challenge facing the Catholic Church in England at this time was the large wave of immigration from Ireland after the great famine (1846-1848). Also many clergy and some bishops supported the call for Irish independence. Pope Gregory XVI and his advisors in Rome feared revolution and violence and requested the clergy to stay out of politics. Throughout their struggle, the Irish remained fiercely united both in their Roman Catholic faith and in their opposition to English occupation.


3

THE PONTIFICATE OF PIUS IX (1846-1878)

Introduction
The cardinals chose Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, the cardinal bishop of Imola in Italy, as pope with the name Pius IX. He would become the longest reigning pontiff in the history of the Church (1846-1878). Pius was less obviously but no less deeply estranged from the modern world than his predecessor, Gregory XVI. And yet, the image which the Catholic Church had of itself has been largely determined by the developments in the church in his time.
At the very moment at which democratic movements were far advanced, the Catholic Church turned against the tide, and created a kind of papal absolutism which, paradoxically, rested on a broad consensus of the worldwide church.
This can be explained if we see it as a late and continuing reaction to the French Revolution. In France churchmen quickly learned how vulnerable they were to the new popular regimes which rapidly became both anti-clerical and anti-Christian. They realized that their only support was a strong papacy, which enjoyed a high prestige, even in non-Catholic States.

Loss of the Papal States
There still were some people who thought of Italian unity in terms of a confederation over which the pope would preside.
When Pius IX was elected, he seemed initially to support the patriots who were in favour of the Risorgimento. One of his first acts was to free the political prisoners who had been jailed. However, at this time the liberals there were afraid of an Austrian takeover of the papal territories. Then Pius IX at the end of a speech said: “Almighty God, bless Italy and preserve its most precious gift, the faith,” and from this they concluded that the Pope was ready to lead them in a holy war against Austria. Of course the Pope was ready to do nothing of the kind. The Pope was aware that his office was supranational. Some of Italian patriots began to suggest that if the Pope wanted to be international rather than Italian, then he should have the decency to let the Papal States take their place in a united Italy.
The Prime Minister of the Papal States was murdered on November 15, 1848. The Pope thought that revolution was around the corner, and fled to Naples. By the end of 1870 the papal States were taken from him – a loss which was finally accepted by Pius XI some fifty years later.
In Piedmont, in 1855 all monasteries were suppressed and all religious houses, whose members were not immediately involved in hospital work or in teaching, were closed. The Pope excommunicated everyone connected with the takeover, but it had lost its effectiveness.

Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont, was not really pleased with these developments. The French Emperor, Louis Napoleon, offered his help to Cavour if Piedmont wanted to drive the Austrians from north Italy. The war broke out in 1859, and the combined French and Piedmontese forces succeeded in driving the Austrians from most of north Italy, with the exception of south Tyrol. This victory was the signal for revolt throughout Italy, and the Papal States was kept in existence only by the presence of French troops in Rome. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the French troops left for home and the Piedmontese forces entered the city. Pius IX became a voluntary “prisoner of the Vatican.” The so-called “Roman Question” was born. Pius IX steadfastly refused to accept and recognize the new order of things, even though the Italian government issued the so-called Law of Guarantees (November1870) which gave the Pope the rights of a sovereign which can best be termed “honorary sovereignty,” immunity from Italian law, his own postal, telegraphic, and diplomatic services, an annual remuneration of $650,000 and the exclusive use (but not ownership) of the Vatican, St. John Lateran, and Castel Gandolfo. Moreover he was allowed to keep his own guard. The Pope saw himself as a custodian of the lands of the church. But the territorial loss freed the bishop of Rome from secular responsibility, giving the papal office increased moral prestige. This crisis continued until the Lateran Treaty of 1929 by which Vatican City was created and a concordat between the Vatican and the Italian government was concluded.
Catholic Piety
Pius promoted devotions to Mary, the mother of God, throughout the Catholic world. In 1830, St. Catherine Labouré, believed that she had experienced a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary in which she had identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception." These apparitions gave rise to the Catholic practice of wearing the "miraculous medal" in honour of Mary. On December 8, 1854, Pius IX officially proclaimed the Immaculate Conception to be a dogma of faith for Roman Catholics. In 1858, St Bernadette Soubirous also experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary in which she again identified herself as the Immaculate Conception. Lourdes has since become one of the most popular sites of pilgrimage in the world.
Devotion to Mary had been a constant in Catholic life from the earliest days of the Church. The Church believed that Mary was a symbol or an ideal for human possibilities because she had reached a perfection and completeness that all Christians were called to attain. She represented as well the "feminine" and "mother" in Christian spirituality.
Renewed Marian devotion and other devotions encouraged a warmer, more emotional and demonstrative spirituality. Pilgrimages came back into vogue.
A great appreciation for the eucharist as a source of grace for the individual led to encouraging frequent reception of Holy Communion and first communion of children at a younger age. Perpetual adoration of the real presence of Christ in the blessed sacrament was promoted. Many embraced the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. However, when Margaret Mary Alacoque linked “promises” made to her to practices such as the “nine first Fridays” it tended to degenerate into superstition.
This piety and spirituality was tinged with romanticism, and at times certain abuses and a lack of taste were evident.

The Syllabus of Errors
Now, more and more did the person and office of the pope come to become revered and appreciated as central to Catholic life. The concerns of Pius about the dangers of liberalism led him to isolate the church from the modern world.
He was convinced that this liberalism had sprung from the rationalism of the Enlightenment, and that this in turn, had been a consequence of the individualism which Europe had learned at the time of the Protestant Reformation.
In 1863, a speech by Montalembert in Belgium, in which he gave a stirring defence of the liberal Catholicism of Lamennais, under the title of "The Free Church in the Free State" and later a talk by Ignaz Döllinger, in Munich, in which he demanded that Rome respect the right of the Catholic theological faculties in the German universities to free research and discussion caused Pius in 1864 to issue the encyclical Quanta Cura. To this encyclical was attached the Syllabus of Errors. It listed eighty errors, including a socialism that would subject the family totally to the state, and liberal capitalism that had no other end than material gain. For most people, however, the most startling thing was the condemnation of freedom of religion, progress, and liberalism.
The public commotion that resulted was without parallel until our own day. The Syllabus struck against the broad mainstream of public opinion. But the formulations of the Syllabus lent themselves readily to misinterpretations, since they consisted largely of verbatim extracts lifted out of their context in previous papal documents. For example, the Roman Pontiff does not have to reconcile himself with progress and modern civilization "if by the word 'civilization' must be understood a system invented on purpose to weaken, and perhaps to overthrow, the Church ..."
To forestall such a disaster, a French bishop, Felix Dupanloup of Orleans, came to the rescue. He was able quickly to publish a skilful commentary that placed the prepositions of the Syllabus in their original context. He explained the denunciations of the Syllabus in terms of what was called the “thesis” and the “hypothesis.” So he gave an acceptable meaning to the papal texts. The pope accepted the interpretation and Catholic opposition to the Syllabus faded very quickly.

The First Vatican Council
One of the most remarkable trends in nineteenth century Catholicism was the tremendous increase in power and influence of the papacy.

Ultramontanism
Ultramontanism can be described as the theological movement which placed a strong emphasis on the authority of the papacy in matters of doctrine and ecclesiastical government and was particularly strong as a movement in the Roman Catholic Church in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was largely a reaction against the teachings of Gallicanism and Jansenism.
The nineteenth century began with a renewed respect for the pope after Pius VII’s defiance of Napoleon. Even, a call for a strong papal authority came from liberal French Catholics who saw a clear acceptance of liberal ideas as the most fruitful means of promoting a Catholic revival. The leaders of this group were Felicité de Lamennais, Count Charles Montalembert, and the Dominican Henri Lacordaire. A similar call for a strong papacy came from those who looked to Rome as the principal bulwark against the liberal forces.

The scholastic revival looked to Roman authority as the most effective means of combating the secularism and rationalism of the day. Ultramontane ideas found strong if not universal support among English Roman Catholics under the leadership of Nicholas Wiseman and Henry Edward Manning.
Many factors at Rome also served to promote the advance of ultramontane views. The personal appeal of the pope and his lengthy pontificate, the appointment of bishops of ultramontane outlook, the establishment of national seminaries in Rome, the support of religious, the proclamation by the pope of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854), and the re-establishment of the Jesuits; all these factors served to advance the ultramontane spirit and doctrine.
Vatican I (1869-1870) represents the victorious climax of the nineteenth century ultramontane movement. The efforts of the minority had a moderating effect on the council’s final statement, the constitution Pastor Aeternus.

Preliminary planning
The First Vatican Council was solemnly convened on December 8, 1869, by Pope Pius IX.

Preliminary planning for the council began in 1865 with the appointment of a Central Preparatory Commission. Afterwards five subordinate commissions were established: Faith and Dogma, Ecclesiastical Discipline, Religious Communities, Eastern Churches and Missions, and Politico-ecclesiastical Affairs. Although fifty-one documents on a wide range of topics were prepared by these commissions, only six were actually considered on the floor of the council, and only two of these were eventually adopted and then only after extensive revision.
The public announcement of the forthcoming council created considerable discussion, particularly on the question of papal infallibility. A Civiltà Cattolica article calling for the doctrine of papal infallibility to be defined quickly became a sign of controversy in two important respects. First, the impression was given that the council was supposed to rubberstamp the documents drafted by the preparatory commissions which were largely staffed by members of the Roman Curia. Secondly, the Civiltà article antagonized European governments.

During the early days of the council it became evident that the pro-infallibilists, numbering approximately three-fourths of the bishops, constituted a majority; the anti-infallibilists, consisting of approximately one-fifth of the bishops, formed a minority. Attempting to mediate between these two groupings was a small “third party” whose efforts at compromise ultimately proved ineffective.
However, the views of the prelates were more nuanced than a simple polarization suggests.
The majority-bishops differed in their interpretation of it. The minority was not so much an “opposition party,” as a group of individuals who opposed the proclamation of papal infallibility for a variety of reasons.
Among the concerns was the fear that the proposed doctrine would harm delicately balanced church-state relations. Also, it may place the Church in the position of championing autocratic absolutism and of rejecting the rising tide of democracy. Many bishops felt that this doctrine would jeopardize their relationships with non-Catholics.
Theological objections: Many felt that the doctrine could not be defined with sufficient precision and clarity, and so wanted to leave the issue a matter of theological opinion. Papal infallibility was being treated as an isolated issue without adequate connection with the infallibility of the Church. The proposed definition seemed irreconcilable with a number of historical incidents when previous popes had been mistaken in their official teaching. It could be tantamount to a whitewashing of past papal abuses and a carte blanche for future papal absolutism, thus preventing the Church from undertaking needed reforms. Newman: “a grave dogmatic question was being treated like a move in ecclesiastical politics.”

Proceedings
The constitution Dei Filius approved on 24 April 1870. This constitution consisted of four chapters: Creation, Revelation, Faith, Relationship between Faith and Reason. Faced with the errors of rationalism, pantheism, and fideism, the council defined the existence of a personal God who could be attained by reason, while at the same time affirming the necessity of revelation. There could be no conflict between reason and faith.
In January 1870 some five hundred bishops signed petitions requesting that the topic of papal infallibility be placed on the council’s agenda (Cardinal Manning & Beckx SJ). The most prominent antagonist was bishop Dupanloup of Orleans and Ignaz von Döllinger of the University of Munich.
The Council fathers discussed the proposed constitution called Pastor Aeternus. It consisted of four chapters: the Petrine institution of the primacy, its perpetuity and continuation through the bishops of Rome, the nature and powers of the primacy, and the infallible magisterium of the Roman Pontiff. The anti-infallibilist speeches emphasized the definition’s inopportuneness. The pro-infallibilist speeches in response considered infallibility as a matter of biblical revelation and apostolic tradition, and advocated the definition as a necessary defence of the spiritual power of the Petrine primacy.
Cardinal Guidi proposed that the issue be the infallibility of the pope’s doctrinal decisions. Guidi suggested that when the pope acted with other bishops and not independently of them, always respecting the tradition of the Church, he taught infallibly. Pius IX reminded him in public that “La Tradizione Son’ Io (I am the tradition).”
Some sixty of the minority-bishops left Rome under protest rather than attend the fourth solemn session of July 18, 1870, at which Pastor Aeternus was approved by 533 votes in favour and 2 in opposition. The two bishops casting negative votes immediately indicated their acceptance. The council then adjourned. The Franco-Prussian war broke out before the next session of the council could begin. King Victor Emmanuel marched on Rome (20 September) and annexed it as part of the united kingdom of Italy.
Some of those who rejected the decision broke away in schism to form the Old Catholic Church. They soon joined up with the schismatic, Jansenist Church of Utrecht.
In Pastor Aeternus, the council described “the infallible magisterium of the Roman Pontiff” as follows: “It is a divinely revealed dogma that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when he discharges his office as pastor and teacher of all Christians, and, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals that is to be held by the universal Church, possesses through the divine assistance promised him in St. Peter, the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed in defining the doctrine concerning faith and morals; and that such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are therefore irreformable of themselves, and not because of the consent of the Church (ex sese, non autem ex consensu ecclesiae).”
a) The council did not teach that “the pope is infallible.”
b) The council did not speak of “papal infallibility.”
c) The council insisted that the pope, prior to issuing any definition, is morally obliged to consult the Church to determine the belief of its members.
d) The pope must speak, not as a private theologian, but ex cathedra, “as pastor and teacher of all Christians.” Thus the pope must employ “his supreme apostolic authority” with the intention of definitely teaching in a way that is universally obligatory.
e) The council was deliberately ambiguous about the subject-matter, which it described as “doctrine concerning faith or morals that is to be held.”
f) The council’s statement that these “definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, not by the consent of the Church,” implicitly rejected the position advocated by the Gallican Articles of 1682, which asserted that papal definitions are binding only if they are subsequently ratified by the churches.
Vatican I left a feeling of imbalance, though the time was not yet ripe for a theology of the episcopate. In the end the definition of infallibility had fewer consequences than those of primacy. Strictly speaking, the pope exercised infallibility only in the definition of the Assumption in 1950. On the other hand, in affirming his primacy the Council accorded the pope “ordinary, immediate and episcopal jurisdiction over the whole Church.”
The primacy favoured the centralization on Rome and increased the prestige and strength of the papacy.
The definitions of Vatican I sometimes increased the tension between political society and the Church. This was the excuse for anti-clerical measures in various countries.

The closing years of the pontificate of Pius IX: The Kulturkampf
Prussia negotiated a concordat with the papacy which recognized and regulated the Catholic Church within its domains. However, the loyalty of German Catholics to Rome and their tendency to look to the Pope for support when they felt they were being discriminated against by the Prussian state and their seeming not to develop a truly German national consciousness irritated the absolutist rulers of Prussia.
In January 1871 the proclamation of the German Empire set the seal on the unity of Germany.
The Catholics organized themselves to defend their traditions and religious freedom. In 1858 they also formed a political party, the Centre Party.
Otto von Bismarck decided to “Germanize” the Catholic Church in Germany by separating it from Rome, in an attack known as Kulturkampf, that is the struggle for civilization or the battle for culture.
1) eliminated the role of the Catholic Church in education;
2) expelled the Jesuits and other religious orders from the empire;
3) punished preachers who were critical of the government;
4) limited the power of bishops and required candidates for the priesthood to pursue some of their education in German universities;
5) left dioceses without bishops and parishes without priests for long periods of time.
While the Kulturkampf took its toll on the German Catholic Church, it was not of long duration. Pius IX had confronted Bismarck by condemning the "May laws" and the entire anti-Catholic movement. Bismarck had no room to negotiate and so held firm. The election of Leo XIII favoured détente. By 1887 the whole thing was at all intents and purposes at an end.


4

THE CHURCH AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION

Introduction
Leo XIII (1878-1903) saw the necessity for the Church to break out of its defensive attitude towards the modern world.
He wanted the French Catholics to side with the existing republican régime so that they could safeguard the spiritual interests of the Church of France. Leo XIII restored good relations with Germany. He tried to update the Church intellectually. The motto of Leo XIII for every church historian was: ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat (he may not dare to say what is false, he may not dare not to say what is true).
His encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) was the Magna Carta of social Catholicism, responding to the problems created by the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the impoverished masses (proletariat)
The 19th century witnessed the emergence of impoverished masses and their growing political and social consciousness. Several factors were involved in this: industrialization; better modes of travel and communication, especially the railroads; people being herded into congested areas of smoky factories and dingy streets in a way that made the average person peculiarly susceptible to mass suggestion and mass action; the unprecedented growth in population and growth of literacy; popular journalism, the daily newspaper fed the masses need for information; and the vote was extended to all adult males. The leaders of the Church gradually realized that if it was to have any influence on the masses it would have to adapt; it would have to accept many of the liberal principles: freedom of the press, democratic forms of government, separation of church and state, and civil liberties including freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and trade unions. Leo XIII made it possible for Catholics to accept the liberal principles, without necessarily subscribing to its philosophy. He pointed out in his encyclical Libertas in 1888 that it was a vain and baseless calumny to accuse the Church of looking unfavourably on most modern political systems and rejecting all the discoveries of contemporary man.
The social question and initial Catholic responses
The problem generated by the new industrialized mass society was the social question: the problem of the exploited and oppressed factory workers. Statistics show that whereas in the 16th century the lowest class, the poor numbered one fifth of the population, in the 19th century they had increased to a third or more.
Conditions in the new factories and slums were abominable.
Lamennais anticipated later developments in the Church by his perceptive analysis of the workers' problems, and his attempt to stir up Catholic interest in the social question. In order for social Catholicism to emerge, Catholics had first to recognize the real gravity of the situation and the need to talk no longer of the poor but of poverty.
Wilhelm Ketteler (1811-1877), Bishop of Mainz, was the chief representative of German social Catholicism. His main work is: The Problem of Work and Christianity (1864), in which he outlined structural reforms. "The rich", he said, "steal what God has intended for all humankind." He sketched out a Catholic solution that he marked off from both socialism and liberalism; he defended the right of state intervention against the unlimited competition of liberal capitalism and the right of private property against the exaggerated state control of the socialists. He insisted on the right of workers to form their own associations and he called for a whole series of reforms, including profit sharing, reasonable working hours, sufficient rest days, factory inspection and the regulation of female and child labour.
Another German priest, Adolph Kolping (1814-1865), organized societies consisting of master workmen and young journeymen directed by a chaplain who tried to assist the moral and intellectual development as well as to improve the economic conditions of their members. When the founder died in 1865 there were more than 100,000 members.

In Vienna, Baron von Vogelsang founded a review by which Austrian Catholic socialists expressed themselves.
In Switzerland, Mgr Gaspar Mermillod held annually a weekly conference of socially-minded Catholics who formed the Catholic Union of Social Studies in Fribourg. They agreed on the need for state-intervention, and the need for workers to have separate unions; they also affirmed every person's right to work and to a living wage and called for insurance against sickness, accidents and unemployment.
In Italy, a Catholic Congress was held in 1877 which devoted itself to the social question.
In America Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore saved the Knights of Labour from condemnation by Rome in 1887; they were the most powerful American labour union of the time. Such an act would be disastrous and might permanently alienate the working class from the church.
In England Cardinal Manning successfully identified the English Catholic Church with the cause of labour. In 1889 he was an official mediator in the London dock strike and played a most important role in bringing about a settlement satisfactory to the workers.
Finally in Australia Cardinal Moran of Sydney invited Catholics to join trade unions.

Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891)
This progressive Catholic social thought was summarized and presented by Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum. The Pope rejected the inevitability of class warfare and attacked the socialism proposed by thinkers such as Karl Marx by insisting on private property as a natural right and the family as the primary social unit prior to the state. However, the Pope refused to support the greed and presuppositions of economic liberalism by upholding the need of some state intervention to safeguard the spiritual and material interests of the worker. Rerum Novarum taught:
1) Recognition of the Disparity of Wealth & Poverty
2) Capital and labour, both have rights and duties.
3) There is a need for the state and law to protect the rights of the poor.
4) Labourers have a right to a just salary that will allow them to support themselves and their families.
5) Trade unions protect the legitimate rights of workers.
6) The right to private property is essential; it is divinely willed.
7) Workers should never resort to violence.
8) The wealthy should be charitable and concerned for the poor.
9) The wealthy should exhibit such charity by giving to the poor what is superfluous after their own needs have been met.
10) Religion is important to foster relations of justice and charity among all peoples.
It also challenged the Catholics to get involved in the struggle for social justice and reform of the social order. This Catholic social teaching has been opposed by many as either too radical or as too weak.

The further development of the social doctrine of the Church
Pius XI (1922-1939), issued in 1931 his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, and indicated how social Catholicism since Leo XIII had developed in a coherent social philosophy.
Pius XI recognized private property as a natural right but hedged it around with further limitations, condemning its arbitrary use and all superfluous accumulation. He also developed the notion of a salary not governed simply by economic laws, but what he called a "living wage."
Leo felt it necessary to call for more state intervention. But Pius XI, aware of the growing totalitarianism of his time, proposed as a safeguard against tyranny, the principle of subsidiarity - meaning that the state or higher authority should leave to the lesser authority whatever it can competently handle.
Pius foresaw a social order pervaded by the spirit of justice and charity, one in which each person's rights would be recognized and safeguarded by structures built on "social justice", a term he introduced into the Catholic vocabulary.
John XXIII in Mater et Magistra (1961) noted the important developments in Catholic social thought since the days of Leo XIII. In Pacem in Terris (1963) he outlined the basic conditions for peace among the nations.
Paul VI in Populorum Progressio (1967) focussed attention on the underdeveloped countries. It claimed the concept of development as a new name for peace. In Octogesima Adveniens, he stresses the importance of human desires to equality and participation. John Paul II in Laborem Excercens sees the first principle of the whole ethical and social order as the principle of the common use of the goods of creation. He stresses the importance of solidarity and human rights as the core of his social teaching. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis deals with the emerging world of the south and criticises the opposing blocks of liberal capitalism in the west and Marxist collectivism in the east. John Paul II underlines solidarity and integrates two important concepts of theology of liberation: fight against structural sin and the preferential option for the poor. In Centesimus Annus, the Pope addresses in a special way the newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe. He insists on the universal destiny of the goods of creation to serve the needs of all people. He argues for a market economy if it is within a strong juridical framework to protect the rights of all people, especially the poor and the needy.
These papal teachings are noteworthy for their increasingly critical attitude to capitalism, their increasing tendency to limit the right of private property in the light of its social function, their concern with the causes of poverty, their awareness of the oppressive social structures that perpetuate exploitation, their insistence on the right of the worker to bargain collectively, and their recognition of the need for government intervention. They have consistently reminded Catholics of their duty to engage in social action. Also they have urged Catholics to give their support to international agencies that are working for a just world community, and they have called on all men to devote their best efforts to bring about total disarmament.
These documents show a gradual recognition of democracy as the form of government most in harmony with the dignity of humankind and the best guarantee of basic human rights. Their conceptual framework has been the basic moral norms and principles of the Catholic tradition: God as the foundation of the moral law and of all human authority, the obligation of authority to serve the common good, the family as the basis unity of society, the dignity of the human person, and the importance of truth, justice, and love as the basic norms of all human and social endeavour.