Renaissance & Reformation 1453 - 1800
The Reformation is discussed in more detail in a separate chapter.
The Reformation began in 1453, the year that the Turks captured Constantinople. It was a time of discovery and discontent, new ideas and worlds, persecution and oppression.
After Constantinople fell, Christian scholars from the East came to the West bringing with them biblical manuscripts, which revealed variations in the ancient texts. A new biblical scholarship emerged as academics returned to the original sources. Western scholars, like Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), began to compare the Latin Vulgate version of Bible with the original Greek texts. Erasmus published a complete Greek New Testament in 1516 at a time when most scholars had access to only portions of the Greek scriptures.
In 1456, Gutenberg published the first book with a printing press -- the Latin Vulgate. The invention of the printing press that used movable type created a revolution in communications, Books now could be published more quickly and cheaply than hand-made books created in monastic scriptoria and therefore become accessible to the public.
Discovery and Discontent
By the end of the 15th century, Columbus discovered the Americas while sailing on behalf of Spain and Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, for Portugal. Of course, these lands had been there since the beginning of the world, it was just that they were new to Europeans. Colonialism began.
In 1494, Pope Alexander VI divided up the New World between Spain and Portugal, both of which were claiming it for themselves, despite the presence of other peoples who already inhabited these areas. The pope gave Spain all of the Americas, except Brazil, and gave Portugal all of the Far East, except the Philippines and Japan. Spain and Portugal established new churches at the same time as they conquered by the sword. A few persons, such as the Dominican priests, Antonio de Montesinos and Bartolomé de Las Casas, spoke out against the European church's and government's racist policies and practices.
In 1521, through the leadership and preaching of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the first Catholics were baptized in what became the first Christian nation in Southeast Asia, the Philippines. The following year, Franciscan missionaries arrived in what is now Mexico, and sought to convert the Indians and to provide for their well-being by establishing schools and hospitals. They taught the Indians better farming methods, and easier ways of weaving and making pottery. Because some people questioned whether the Indians were truly human and deserved baptism, Pope Paul III in the papal bull Veritas Ipsa or Sublimis Deus (1537) confirmed that the Indians were deserving people.
Afterward, the conversion effort gained momentum. Over the next 150 years, the missions expanded into southwestern North America. The native people were legally defined as children, and priests took on a paternalistic role, often enforced with corporal punishment. Elsewhere, in India, Portuguese missionaries and the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier evangelized among non-Christians and a Christian community which claimed to have been established by Thomas the Apostle.
Reformation
The Protestant Reformation emerged out of conflicts within Roman Catholicism. One factor was a growing anti-papal feeling in reaction to the abuse of power by some of the popes, including Rome's penchant for spending more money than it had, which resulted in its creating more taxes, fees, and fines. The morality of religious leadership in general was being questioned, including parish priests.
Some of the key theological figures in the Protestant and Roman Catholic Reformations were Erasmus, Martin Luther, Thomas Münzer, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Menno Simons, Ignatius Loyola, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Thomas Cramner, and John and Charles Wesley.
Persecutions for Witchcraft Increase
The persecution of people for being witches, which began in the Medieval period, increased during this time. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull declaring that Germany was full of witches. Two German inquisitors, Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Krämer, published the now infamous Malleus maleficarum (The Hammer of the Evildoers) in 1489. It became the authoritative guidebook for three centuries, followed by judges and church authorities alike.
Anti-witch endeavors continued into the 1600s and 1700s, and were carried out by the Protestant authorities as vigorously as Catholic ones, in both the Old World and the New World. In New England in 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft by the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts, were hanged. One man, who was more eighty years old, was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to be tried for witchcraft. Hundreds were accused of witchcraft, dozens jailed for months without trials, including children.
Authority and the Bible
A religious awakening began in fifteenth century, one that was to threaten authority of the institutional church and the pope in particular. This threat emerged from people who wanted a religion that depended more on the authority of the Bible. To be sure, medieval Christians also accepted the Bible as an authority. However their understanding of the Bible was given to them through the church's teaching tradition and pronouncements.
Among those looking for "reformation by restoration" were Christian humanists like Erasmus. They envisioned a new Roman church, one which would turn back to the Christian and classical sources. Sources included the Greek philosopher Aristotle, the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, especially Augustine. The humanists undercut the interpretive authority of the Scholastics and rejected the dominant Medievel interpretive style of allegorizing the Bible, one of the earliest forms of biblical criticism.
The Bible and the Common People
In the Middle Ages, the Latin Vulgate was not read by many people. For one thing, not a lot of copies were available because manuscripts were transcribed by hand and therefore were expensive. Although laity were not forbidden to read the Bible, often they were discouraged from doing so. Parish priests seldom had access to a Bible either.
One result of Gutenberg's invention of the printing press (1456) was that more Bibles were made distributed at less expense. At least 92 editions of the Vulgate were printed before 1500. The following translations also appeared:
• first complete German Bible (1466), 22 editions by 1522
• a Spanish Bible (1478) was forbidden and burned, another translation appeared (1492)
• two different Italian Bibles (1471)
• Dutch Bible minus the Psalms (1477), complete (1477)
• two Czech Bibles (1488 and 1489)
The growing availability of scriptures and the biblical preaching of the Reformers enabled people in the pews to begin to compare their church with the one described in the New Testament and to see how it measured up. By the 1520s, the "rediscovered" Bible had become a revolutionary force.
Council of Trent
The council became the driving-force of the Counter-Reformation, and reaffirmed central Catholic doctrines such as transubstantiation, and the requirement for love and hope as well as faith to attain salvation. It also reformed many other areas of importance to the Church, most importantly by improving the education of the clergy and consolidating the central jurisdiction of the Roman Curia.
The criticisms of the Reformation were among factors that sparked new religious orders including the Theatines, Barnabites and Jesuits, some of which became the great missionary orders of later years.
Spiritual renewal and reform were inspired by many new saints like Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales and Philip Neri whose writings spawned distinct schools of spirituality within the Church (Oratorians, Carmelites, Salesian), etc. Improvement to the education of the laity was another positive effect of the era, with a proliferation of secondary schools reinvigorating higher studies such as history, philosophy and theology.
To popularize Counter-Reformation teachings, the Church encouraged the Baroque style in art, music and architecture. Baroque religious expression was stirring and emotional, created to stimulate religious fervor.
Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier introduced Christianity to Japan, and by the end of the 16th century tens of thousands of Japanese followed Roman Catholicism. Church growth came to a halt in 1597 under the Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi who, in an effort to isolate the country from foreign influences, launched a severe persecution of Christians. Japanese were forbidden to leave the country and Europeans were forbidden to enter. Despite this, a minority Christian population survived into the 19th century.
Marian Devotions
The Council of Trent generated a revival of religious life and Marian devotions in the Roman Catholic Church. During the Reformation, the Church had defended its Marian beliefs against Protestant views. At the same time, the Catholic world was engaged in ongoing Ottoman Wars in Europe against Turkey which were fought and won under the auspices of the Virgin Mary.
The victory at Battle of Lepanto (1571) was accredited to her "and signified the beginning of a strong resurgence of Marian devotions, focusing especially on Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth and her powerful role as mediatrix of many graces".
Pope Paul V and Gregory XV ruled in 1617 and 1622 to be inadmissible to state, that the virgin was conceived non-immaculate. Alexander VII declared in 1661, that the soul of Mary was free from original sin. Pope Clement XI ordered the feast of the Immaculata for the whole Church in 1708. The feast of the Rosary was introduced in 1716, the feast of the Seven Sorrows in 1727.
The Angelus prayer was strongly supported by Pope Benedict XIII in 1724 and by Pope Benedict XIV in 1742. Popular Marian piety was even more colourful and varied than ever before: Numerous Marian pilgrimages, Marian Salve devotions, new Marian litanies, Marian theatre plays, Marian hymns, Marian processions. Marian fraternities, today mostly defunct, had millions of members.
16th & 17th Century
Toward the latter part of the 17th century, Pope Innocent XI viewed the increasing Turkish attacks against Europe, which were supported by France, as the major threat for the Church. He built a Polish-Austrian coalition for the Turkish defeat at Vienna in 1683. Scholars have called him a saintly pope because he reformed abuses by the Church, including simony, nepotism and the lavish papal expenditures that had caused him to inherit a papal debt of 50,000,000 scudi. By eliminating certain honorary posts and introducing new fiscal policies, Innocent XI was able to regain control of the church's finances.
In France, the Church battled Jansenism and Gallicanism, which supported Councilarism, and rejected papal primacy, demanding special concessions for the Church in France. This weakened the Church's ability to respond to gallicanist thinkers such as Denis Diderot, who challenged fundamental doctrines of the Church.
In 1685 gallicanist King Louis XIV of France issued the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, ending a century of religious toleration. France forced Catholic theologians to support councilarism and deny Papal infallibility. The king threatened Pope Innocent XI with a general council and a military take-over of the Papal state.
The absolute French State used Gallicanism* to gain control of virtually all major Church appointments as well as many of the Church's properties. State authority over the Church became popular in other countries as well.
*Gallicanism is a group of religious opinions that was for some time peculiar to the Church in France. These opinions were in opposition to the ideas which were called ultramontane, which means "across the mountains" (the Alps). Ultramontanism affirmed the authority of the Pope over the temporal kingdoms of the rest of Europe, particularly emphasizing a supreme episcopate for the Bishop of Rome holding universal immediate jurisdiction. This eventually led to the definition by the Roman Catholic Church of the dogma of Papal Infallibility at the First Vatican Council. Gallicanism tended to restrain the Pope's authority in favor of that of bishops and the people's representatives in the State, or the monarch. But the most respected proponents of Gallican ideas did not contest the Pope's primacy in the Church, merely his supremacy and infallibility.
In Belgium and Germany, Gallicanism appeared in the form of Febronianism, which rejected papal prerogatives in an equal fashion. Emperor Joseph II of Austria (1780–1790) practiced Josephinism by regulating Church life, appointments and massive confiscation of Church properties.
Church in North America
In what is now the Western United States, the Catholic Church expanded its missionary activity but, until the 19th century, had to work in conjunction with the Spanish crown and military. Junípero Serra, the Franciscan priest in charge of this effort, founded a series of missions and presidios in California which became important economic, political, and religious institutions.
These missions brought grain, cattle and a new political and religious order to the Indian tribes of California. Coastal and overland routes were established from Mexico City and mission outposts in Texas and New Mexico that resulted 13 major California missions by 1781. European visitors brought new diseases that killed off a third of the native population, primarily through disease.
Mexico shut down the missions in the 1820s and sold off the lands. Only in the 19th century, after the breakdown of most Spanish and Portuguese colonies, was the Vatican able to take charge of Catholic missionary activities through its Propaganda Fide organization.
Church in South America
During this period the Church faced colonial abuses from the Portuguese and Spanish governments. In South America, the Jesuits protected native peoples from enslavement by establishing semi-independent settlements called reductions. Pope Gregory XVI, challenging Spanish and Portuguese sovereignty, appointed his own candidates as bishops in the colonies, condemned slavery and the slave trade in 1839 (papal bull In Supremo Apostolatus), and approved the ordination of native clergy in spite of government racism.
Jesuits in India
Christianity in India has a tradition of Thomas establishing the faith in Kerala. The community was very small until the Jesuit Francis Xavier (1502–1552) began missionary work. Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), a Tuscan Jesuit missionary to Southern India followed in his path. He pioneered (inculturation), adopting many Brahmin customs which were not, in his opinion, contrary to Christianity.
He lived like a Brahmin, learned Sanskrit, and presented Christianity as a part of Indian beliefs, not identical with the Portuguese culture of the colonialists. He permitted the use of all customs, which in his view did not directly contradict Christian teachings. By 1640 there were 40 000 Christians in Madurai alone. In 1632, Pope Gregory XV gave permission for this approach. But strong anti-Jesuit sentiments in Portugal, France even in Rome resulted in a reversal, which signalled the end of the successful Catholic missions in India.
On September 12, 1744, Benedict XIV forbade the so-called Malabar rites in India, with the result, that leading Indian casts who wanted to adhere to their traditional cultures, turned away from the Catholic Church.
Jesuits in China
Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci, Adam Schall von Bell and others successfully introduced Christianity to China via inculturation. Ricci and Schall were appointed by the Chinese Emperor as court mathematicians and astronomers and even Mandarins.
The first Catholic Church was built in Peking in 1650. The emperor granted freedom of religion to Catholics. Ricci adopted the Catholic faith to Chinese thinking, permitting the veneration of the dead. The Vatican disagreed and forbade any adaptation in the so-called Chinese Rites controversy in 1692 and 1742. The Bull "Ex Quo Singulari" of Pope Benedict XIV of 1742 stressed the purity of Christian teachings and traditions, which must be uphold against all heresies.
This bull virtually destroyed the Jesuit goal of Christianizing the influential upper classes in China. The Church experienced missionary setbacks in 1721 when the Chinese Rites controversy led the Kangxi Emperor to outlaw Christian missions.
In 1939 Pope Pius XII reverted the 250 year old Vatican policy and permitted the veneration of dead family members. The Church began to flourish again with twenty new arch-dioceses, seventy-nine dioceses and thirty-eight apostolic prefects, but only until 1949, when the Communist revolution took over the country.
French Revolution
The anti-clericalism of the French Revolution saw direct attacks on the wealth of the Church and associated grievances led to the wholesale nationalisation of church property and attempts to establish a state-run church. Large numbers of priests refused to take an oath of compliance to the National Assembly, leading to the Church being outlawed and replaced by a new religion of the worship of "Reason". In this period, all monasteries were destroyed, 30,000 priests were exiled and hundreds more were killed.
When Pope Pius VI sided against the revolution in the First Coalition, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy. The 82 year old pope was taken as a prisoner to France in February 1799 and died in Valence August 29, 1799 after six months of captivity. To win popular support for his rule, Napoleon re-established the Catholic Church in France through the Concordat of 1801. The end of the Napoleonic wars, signaled by the Congress of Vienna, brought Catholic revival and the return of the Papal States.
19th century France
France remained basically Catholic. The 1872 census of 1872, counted 36 million people, of whom 35.4 million were listed as Catholics, 600,000 as Protestants, 50,000 as Jews and 80,000 as freethinkers The Revolution failed to destroy the Catholic Church, and Napoleon's concordat of 1801 restored its status. The return of the Bourbons in 1814 brought back many rich nobles and landowners who supported the Church, seeing it as a bastion of conservatism and monarchism. However the monasteries with their vast land holdings and political power were gone. Much of the land had been sold to urban entrepreneurs who lacked historic connections to the land and the peasants.
Few new priests were trained in the 1790-1814 period, and many left the church. The result was that the number of parish clergy plunged from 60,000 in 1790 to 25,000 in 1815, many of them elderly. Entire regions, especially around Paris, were left with few priests. On the other hand some traditional regions held fast to the faith, led by local nobles and historic families. The comeback was slow, very slow in the larger cities and industrial areas.
With systematic missionary work and a new emphasis on liturgy and devotions to the Virgin Mary, plus support from Napoleon III, there was a comeback. In 1870 there were 56,500 priests, representing a much younger and more dynamic force in the villages and towns, with a thick network of schools, charities and lay organizations.
Conservative Catholics held control of the national government, 1820-1830, but most often played secondary political roles or had to fight the assault from republicans, liberals, socialists and seculars.
Third Republic 1870-1940
Throughout the lifetime of the Third Republic there were battles over the status of the Catholic Church. The French clergy and bishops were closely associated with the Monarchists and many of its hierarchy were from noble families. Republicans were based in the anticlerical middle class who saw the Church's alliance with the monarchists as a political threat to republicanism, and a threat to the modern spirit of progress.
The Republicans detested the church for its political and class affiliations. For them, the church represented outmoded traditions, superstition and monarchism. The Republicans were strengthened by Protestant and Jewish support. Numerous laws were passed to weaken the Catholic Church in France. In 1879, priests were excluded from the administrative committees of hospitals and of boards of charity. In 1880, new measures were directed against the religious congregations. From 1880 to 1890 came the substitution of lay women for nuns in many hospitals. Napoleon's 1801 Concordat continued in operation but in 1881, the government cut off salaries to priests it disliked.
The 1882 school laws of Republican Jules Ferry set up a national system of public schools that taught strict puritanincal morality but no religion. For awhile privately funded Catholic schools were tolerated. Civil marriage became compulsory, divorce was introduced and chaplains were removed from the army.
When Leo XIII became pope in 1878 he tried to calm Church-State relations. In 1884 he told French bishops not to act in a hostile manner to the State. In 1892 he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in Republican politics. This attempt at improving the relationship failed. Deep-rooted suspicions remained on both sides.
The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry (1899–1902) and the Combes Ministry (1902–05) fought with the Vatican over the appointment of bishops. Chaplains were removed from naval and military hospitals (1903–04), and soldiers were ordered not to frequent Catholic clubs (1904). Combes as Prime Minister in 1902, was determined to thoroughly defeat Catholicism. He closed down all parochial schools in France. Then he had parliament reject authorisation of all religious orders. This meant that all fifty four orders were dissolved and about 20,000 members immediately left France, many for Spain.
In 1805, the 1801 Concordat was abrogated (abolished). Church and State were finally separated. All Church property was confiscated. Public worship was given over to associations of Catholic laymen who controlled access to churches. In practice, Masses and rituals continued. The Church was badly hurt and lost half its priests. In the long run, however, it gained autonomy for the State no longer had a voice in choosing bishops and Gallicanism was dead.
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