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.