What was the Enlightenment? The term is notoriously vague in many respects, but overall, it can be identified as a cultural process which stressed the sovereignty of reason and questioned authority and tradition. It was a diverse phenomenon, and had its roots in the Renaissance in the 14th and 15th centuries, reaching its height between the 17th and 18th centuries. Oftentimes, familiar with names such as Voltaire, Spinoza, Hume, d'Holbach, Toland and others, we may be inclined to think that the Enlightenment was a necessarily atheistic or deistic movement, but in truth, the Enlightenment was a much broader cultural phenomenon. Contrary to common supposition, only a small fraction of Enlightenment thinkers were anti-religious. The overwhelming majority were concerned with finding a balance between faith and reason, and a conviction that the new discoveries of science and philosophy should inform the Christian faith. Within this broad intellectual movement, there was an identifiable strand which could be labeled as the Catholic Enlightenment. What was the agenda of the Catholic Enlighteners? Primarily, according to scholars such as Ulrich Lehner, the agenda of these writers and clergymen were to use the newest achievements of philosophy and science to defend Catholicism in new language, and to reconcile Catholicism with modern culture. Often these same writers were critics of superstition, fanatical religious zeal and prejudice. Doubtlessly this may already sound somewhat familiar to attentive readers, for such notions were also at the forefront of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). A brief citation from St. John XXIII's opening address to the council in 1962, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia will most easily demonstrate this:
What is needed is that this certain and unchangeable doctrine, to which loyal submission is due, be investigated and presented in the way demanded by our times. For the deposit of faith, the truths contained in our venerable doctrine, are one thing; the fashion in which they are expressed, but with the same meaning and the same judgement, is another thing. This way of speaking will require a great deal of work and, it may be, much patience: types of presentation must be introduced which are more in accord with a teaching authority which is primarily pastoral in character"
The deposit of faith, once and for all delivered unto the saints (Jude 3) is preserved, yet meaning, delivery and style are not identical things. How do we explain such connections, however? It is the supposition of writers such as Lehner that the Catholic Enlightenment in its own day never really bore fruit as much as it could have in the life of the Church, and the main reason for this comes down to the French Revolution (1789). Needless to say, the French Revolution was a tragedy for the Church. Catholics were violently persecuted by the regime, as one can see in the genocide in the Vendée, or with the sixteen martyrs of Compiègne, not to mention ecclesial ramifications such as the formation of a schismatic Constitutional Church, and the capture, deposition and imprisonment of Pope Pius VI in 1796. As Fr. John O'Malley summed up the situation "The humiliation of the papacy was complete. Its end, long predicted, had finally arrived" (O’Malley, Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church 43). The aftermath of the deeply-Enlightenment influenced French Revolution and its effects on the Church was the beginning of a period of deep suspicion towards the ideas of the Enlightenment within the Catholic Church, one which viewed such ideas as inherently un-Catholic or anti-Christian. Thus, Catholic Enlighteners were increasingly sidelined or viewed with suspicion.
The Catholic Enlightenment was also in many cases closely tied with state reform. There was a common interest at work here, and the lack of renewal emanating from Rome led many Catholic Enlighteners to work with state sovereigns in pursuit of their agendas, viewing papal influences as harmful. Ideologies such as Febronianism in Germany, Josephinism in Austria, and Richerism, all sought to minimalize the effective power of the papacy in favor of some form of episcopalism, effectively strengthening the national character of the Church. Such ideas flourished in the 18th century, and were not effectively discredited until the late 19th century with the triumph of Ultramonantism at the First Vatican Council (1869-1870). The conquests of Napoleon, as well, meant the beginning of the end of the traditionally close relationship between altar and throne that had dominated the European continent for centuries prior, and since the Catholic Enlighteners, as said above, worked often closely with the state, this too was harmful for their cause. The occupation of the Rhineland in 1802-1803 enabled the German princes to dissolve all of the monasteries and all of the institutions of higher learning, which were veritable bulwarks of the Catholic Enlightenment. Essentially, "the church lost its intellectual bastions, its charity organizations, its religious orders, and its bishoprics. Catholicism was stripped naked" (Lehner 11). In light of this, as I have already written about in our review of O'Malley's book on the First Vatican Council, more and more Catholics began to look to Rome as their lodestar, as more and more local hierarchies folded and failed in the turmoil.
This linkage between the Catholic Enlightenment and the post-Conciliar Church, however, was not really acknowledged until the 1960s, despite the fact that many hot topics within the Church such as the role of the papacy, the preferential option for the poor, married priests, divorce and remarriage, etc. were all first debated within the 1700s!
What was Enlightened Catholicism like in practice? We will get a good idea if look briefly at the intellectual movement known as Jansenism. The term Jansenism is somewhat amorphous, but it originated as a term to refer to the theology of Cornelius Jansen (1585-1683), the bishop of Ypres. While closely tied with debates on grace and predestination, Jansenism in time came to denote a Catholic position which maintained various combinations of reformist ideas, pastoral tendencies and theological, or even political orientations and aversions (Blanchard 68). By the time between 1765-1800, however, what Shaun Blanchard refers to as 'Late Jansenism' had come to denote something rather different, namely:
[Political Jansenism] had its morally rigorous aspects but its real distinguishing features might be listed as follows: co-operation with Christian princes in purifying the Church (a fatal trend once princes ceased being Christians at the end of the century) and reorganizing it according to what actually were or were believed to practices of the Primitive Church; an attempt to restore to bishops the rights and duties which had been eroded by centralization of ecclesial power in the Roman Curia since the Council of Trent; a tendency to consider monastic orders corrupt, inefficient, too wealthy, and too privileged and as bad and inefficient educators. All of this was coupled with a desire to see secular clergy better educated, better paid, and wholly capable of leading Christians along the path of salvation without the prayers and good works of the regulars. Jansenism could also assume characteristics which are lumped together in our day as aggiornamento: the use of vernacular in the liturgy, emphasis on the rites and duties of priests as co-sharers in episcopal power (Richerism) and an effort to education the laity in a practical, non-mystical Chrisitanity" (77)
Along with what is laid out here, Jansenists were typically opposed to the ostentatious excesses of Baroque piety, excessive processions, self-flagellations, and excessive veneration of the saints, etc., instead favoring simplicity in worship. Once example of someone deeply influenced by Jansenism was the German emperor Joseph II, who reigned between 1765 – 1790. The policies towards the Church under this Hapsburg realm have been referred to as 'Josephinism', an Erastian manifestation of the Catholic Enlightenment. Common with such ideas of Enlightenment despotism, the state was seen as responsible for the welfare of the people, and it was thought that it should have broad authority over nearly all areas of life, including religious matters. Blanchard describes it well when he says that "Josephinism was enlightened, philo-Jansenist, and anti-ultramontane; it opposed "superstition" and monastic vocations that were deemed "useless". Josephinism promoted a simplified liturgy, practical preaching and moral education, better education for clergy and laity, and strong state-control of the church." (Blanchard 67).
Under Joseph II's reign, religious tolerance was granted to Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, Calvinists and Jews within his domain, partially under the influence of an Illuminati figurehead named Joseph von Sonnenfels, child of Jewish converts, who exerted enormous influence on the sovereign (Lehner 56). Likewise, a 1781 decree dissolved all religious houses devoted exclusively to contemplation and prayer, preserving those dedicated to more 'useful' and 'practical' concerns. The pope was not consulted (Duffy 249). A whole host of other state-enforced changes could be listed, such as centralizing the seminary system and promoting Jansenist works and works downplaying papal authority within them, special permission being needed for processions, the prohibition of kissing icons or relics, and many other deeply unpopular measures (Duffy 251). The Toleration Edict of October 1781 suppressed certain religious orders and transferred monasteries from the jurisdiction of the pope to that of the diocesan bishops. Pius VI even journeyed to Vienna amidst cheering crowds in 1782 to dissuade Joseph, but to no avail whatsoever (Kelly 305). Several years later, in 1785, at the invitation of the Elector of Bavaria, when Pius VI established a nuncio at Munich, the heads of the German hierarchy, the archbishops of Trier, Mainz, Cologne and Strasbourg, appealed to the Emperor to curtail the powers of the nuncios in Germany. The Congress of Ems in 1786 voted that there should be no appeals from the Church courts to the nuncios, that the power to give marriage and other dispensations belonged to every bishop by divine right, so there was no need to apply to Rome, and that fees to Rome for the pallium and annates on the income of episcopal sees could be abolished" (Duffy 247-248).
Clearly Febronian ideas were widespread. I think this is a good example of what non-ultramontane Catholicism looked like - I am not talking about the measures taken by Joseph II regarding religious toleration, or the micromanaging of popular piety, but we can see here the entrenched power of the local hierarchies, their assertiveness, and their awareness that they too are fully successors of the Apostles just as the pope is. Even though aspects of their ecclesiology would of course be condemned at the First Vatican Council (such as the more Gallican-esque ideas about ecumenical councils and the reformability of papal decrees, etc), the bishops of Germany provide an interesting example against extreme and historically illiterate ultramontane claims that we still see in our own times. Claims that, as I have often said, are damaging to Catholic apologetics, especially regarding the Church in the first millennium where, though it is absolutely true that we see the papacy asserting its unique status and authority by divine right above the other bishops, we do not see the sort of Ultramontantism that came fully to fruition in the 19th century. This is not, of course, to say that the path of the 19th century was completely lamentable, but it is vital for Catholics to have a broader historical understanding of the papacy and its relationships with its brother bishops. Anything less will allow Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans to get the upper hand on Catholics in apologetics.
Also as part of the Josephinist reform movement, Joseph II ordered Ludovico Muratori's (1672-1750) Della regolata devozione dei cristiani, or On the Regulated Devotion of Christians to be published, a "handbook of enlightened and Christocentric piety" (Blanchard 67). Muratori was famous for the discovery of the "Muratorian Fragment", the oldest known list of canonical Scriptures. Muratori himself received a Jesuit education, and took decrees in civil and canon law, also being ordained as a priest, spending his days as a librarian-scholar. He was perhaps the most famous Catholic historian of his day, and is a fine example of the moderate Catholic Enlightenment. He was defended in his day by Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758), who himself bore a strong mark of Muratorian influence. When it comes to the divide between the Jansenists we have already covered, and the traditionalist-minded zelanti "Muratori should be understood as representing the best of the Catholic Enlightenment tradition, and perhaps scholars so unanimously cite him as such because he rather avoided the damaging binaries that became increasingly common as the eighteenth century wore on" (Lehner & Blanchard, 22). Muratori was a great advocate of the Mass as the "devotion of devotions" and center of the Christian life, downplaying other devotions in favor of participation in the Mass, something that would be influential in the later Liturgical Movement in the 19th and 20th centuries up to the Second Vatican Council. He was also critical of excessive Marian veneration and private devotions that strayed, in his mind, from solid Christocentric foundations. He cites the authority of St. Augustine in his position on this, quoting: "But the Church of God, established among much straw and much chaff, tolerates many things; and nonetheless those that are against the Faith, and against the Morals of life, THE HONEST MAN SHOULD NOT APPROVE OF THEM, NOT BE SILENT ABOUT THEM, AND NOT PARTICIPATE IN THEM" (Lehner & Blanchard, 35). The example of Muratori is interesting, as it shows the cross-pollination of many of these movements within the 18th century Church. Muratori was certainly influenced by the Enlightenment, though he cannot be put into the Jansenist camp, though there are similarities which one cannot help notice, and it is thus no surprise that Jansenist-influenced reform movements such as that of Joseph II were able to take the works of such a man, and employ them to advocate for a certain vision of Catholicism.
It would be a mistake, however, to see movements like Josephinism as confined to the Holy Roman Empire. Joseph II's brother Leopold, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, also aspired to dominate the Church within his realm. In 1786, the Synod of Pistoia was held on the initiative of Leopold, in anticipation of a larger Tuscan synod that would eliminate various abuses and carry out reforms similar to those in the the Hapsburg dominions. Responding most favorably to this initiative was Scipione de' Ricci, Jansenist bishop of Pistoia and Prato. The acts of the synod would denounce the Sacred Heart (a favorite thing to attack for Jansenists), the Stations of the Cross, indulgences and excessive Marian veneration. Bible-reading was encouraged for all, feast days were reduced, there was a push for the vernacular in worship, and the anti-ultramontane Gallican Articles were adopted by the synod (Duffy 250). And all of this was right next door to the Papal States! However, though Ricci received support from the clergy at the synod, the laity were enraged, and rioting erupted, the bishop's chair was dragged into the piazza and burned, and his palace looted. Leopold sent in troops, and Ricci was forced to flee, resigned later the same year, and the government revoked many of the reforms. The Synod of Pistoia's reforms were dead in the water, and many of its propositions would be condemned as heretical in the Constitution Auctorem fidei in 1794. which condemned eighty-five propositions, labeling seven as heretical (Carroll 23). I have recently came across a book (already cited in this essay) which talks about how the Synod of Pistoia in some senses influenced Vatican II, and as we have seen in some aspects of the Catholic Enlightenment already, it is not hard to see a small degree of influence even from my very brief overview.
Shifting slightly, another interesting aspect of the Church during this period was the work of the Jesuits in China and India during the 16th century. While in China, the Jesuits came to dress as Confucian scholars, learned the local language, and absorbed the Chinese classics in their effort to deepen their knowledge of Chinese culture. The Jesuits strove for the accommodation of Christianity to Chinese circumstances. From 1615, the Mass was even allowed to be celebrated in Chinese. The most important proponent of this movement was Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), who tried to accommodate ancestor veneration and the veneration of Confucius, arguing that it was a merely civil rite, and not one that was religious (idolatrous) in nature. Originally, in 1656, the Chinese Rites were approved, condoning ancestor veneration, but the Jesuits were vigorously opposed in this matter by the Franciscans and Dominicans, who condemned it as a form of idolatry. Thus the papacy ordered the end to it in 1704, and it was reiterated in 1715, causing the Chinese Emperor Kangxi to become furious and outlawed Christianity in 1724 as an "evil sect" (Lehner 114-119)
The Jesuits attempted similar blending of Catholicism and local cultures in their missionary work in India. Roberto de Nobili (1577-1656) suggested that priests abandon their traditional cassocks and hairstyles and instead adopt the traditional dress of those of the Brahmin caste, the priests and scholars of Indian culture. Some Jesuits even adopted a Brahmin diet, wore sandalwood paste on their foreheads, and studied the Vedas in order to understand Indian culture better, also presenting the New Testament as a 'lost Veda' which explained all of the others (Lehner 119). However, the Holy See would condemn these Jesuit accommodations in 1744 as well under Pope Benedict XIV (Lehner 119).
In the Chinese context specifically, it is interesting to read about the intellectual movement known as 'Figurism'. The idea behind Figurism was that other religions contain 'seeds of truth'. Events and doctrines of the New Testament were prefigured and foreshadowed in ancient Chinese texts such as the I Ching. This idea, unfortunately, was aggressively criticized by many Catholic theologians, however, despite it being eminently reasonable in many ways if not taken too far. For example, even in the 2nd century, we can find St. Justin Martyr articulating the idea that anyone who follows the Logos is in a sense a Christian, thus, in his argument, Plato and Heraclitus themselves, even though they lived before Christ, were in some sense authentically Christian:
We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious. So that even they who lived before Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked and hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived reasonably.
Such are the ideas that influence the Second Vatican Council's controversial document Nostra aetate:
The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.
Indeed, the idea of the spermatikos logos has immense apologetic potential, and is an apt way of dealing with the similarities with different religions that Catholicism inevitably will run into in any sort of honest comparative analysis. There is nothing to fear. Likewise, some degree of accommodation is commendable, in my view, if it does not compromise the faith or allow for idolatry to persist. Such accommodation has once again become more common again in the post-Conciliar Church, as one can see with liturgical rites such as the Zaire Use, and I have recently heard of a putative 'Amazonian Rite' being considered as another possible effort at accommodation, but considering the debacle that resulted from visit of Amazonian Catholics to the Vatican in 2019 which resulted in a statue (dubbed 'Our Lady of the Amazon') being thrown in the Tiber River, and the relentless and undying criticism of traditionalists that this image was an 'idol', it seems as if accommodation to non-European cultures remains just as contentious in the Church today as it did during the time of the Jesuit missions to India and China in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The issue of slavery and the Catholic Church is an interesting one, directly tied to the Catholic Church and the Enlightenment. Needless to say, both the Old and New Testaments both permit slavery, and don't seem too concerned with its abolition. In fact, it is part of the Law given by God to Moses. In the New Testament, Paul deals with the issue of slavery, listing 'enslavers' along with the sexually immoral, homosexuals, liars, perjurers, etc. as among things "contrary to sound doctrine" (1 Tim. 1:10), and the Epistle to Philemon is of course an interesting case, which may have a tacitly abolitionist sentiment to it. In the history of the Church, however, the record is rather ambiguous. The popes resisted the enslavement of the Indians of North and South America, but condoned slavery as an institution. They were influenced by the ideas of natural law, but, unlike we would see later in the United States, they resisted the notion of descent from Ham to justify enslavement. These natural law ideas were linked with Dominicans of the University of Salamanca in Spain. For example, according to the thought of Francisco de Vitoria, one could be a 'natural slave' (in the Aristotelian sense) if they lacked reason, but such a case could not be made for the Amerindians, who were rational human beings just like Europeans. Bartolomeo de las Casas, widely known as a passionate defender of the natives, also believed that slavery was not inhuman as such, at least so long as they were captives from a just war, or purchased in a proper transaction (Lehner 185)
During the 18th century, French priest (and later bishop) Henri Grégoire was a prominent critic of the slave trade, and slavery itself, also criticizing the idea of a hierarchy of races. Grégoire was a member of the National Assembly convoked after the French Revolution, and was involved with a 1794 bill which established equal constitutional rights for Africans in the French colonies, and abolished slavery. In 1795, as a bishop of the schismatic French Constitutional Church, Grégoire would gather priests to go to Haiti and rebuild the country and the Church. Grégoire would go on to establish dioceses and appoint bishops without papal approval (Lehner 184-185)
Also in the 18th century, the Lisbon-born priest and lawyer, Ribeiro Rocha, also called for the end of slavery with his 1758 book The Ethiopian Ransomed, Indentured, Sustained, Corrected, Educated and Liberated. In his book, Rocha always viewed slavery as an act of theft or piracy, and it was necessary to restore to them their freedom and compensate them for their sufferings. He likewise proclaimed the womb "free" and said that every human being was born in liberty. Human dignity, too, called for the equal treatment of all people, and an end to human trafficking (Lehner 194-195).
Though the Jesuits certainly kept slaves themselves in some areas, the Jesuits in Paraguay were also notable for their efforts to prevent the native population from being enslaved. Natives were enlisted in "reductions" or self-sufficient farming communities that were virtually autonomous. The Jesuits worked to keep foreigners and European settlers out of these areas, in order to keep them independent from colonial power (Lehner 110). By 1767, there were thirty reductions with a population of some ~110,000 natives, especially among the Guarani, in the territory of present-day Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil, and were overseen by a small number of Jesuits. The settlements were originally unarmed, and thus could not resist the attacks of slavers. In 1637, Jesuit Antonio Ruiz de Montoya went to Madrid and successfully obtained royal permission to arm the reductions so that they were able to defend themselves, thus virtually ending the raids. This was not to last however, as government fears led to Philip V to demand that the the reductions be disarmed in 1661. The Jesuits obeyed the crown, but following more devastating raids, the permission was re-granted. In an era of much suspicion and hatred of Jesuits, rumors spread of secret Jesuit gold mines and gunpowder plants, and the pressure for the government to intervene steadily increased. The economic competition produced by the sale of products emanating from the reductions, and the feeling that they were under-taxed also produced resentment. The reductions came to an end in 1750 with the Treaty of Madrid between Spain and Portugal, which led to "the complete destruction of Jesuit achievement in Latin America." Territories containing reductions were ceded to Portugal, home to about 30,000 natives, according to the treaty, they were forced to abandon their homes and move to Spanish territory. The Indians reacted bitterly to attempts to force them to migrate, and when in 1754, Spanish and Portuguese troops attempted to seize the reductions, Indians reacted violently, leading to the so-called 'War of the Seven Reductions’, which ended in 1756 with the seizure and dissolution of the seven reductions, resulting in some 1,500 native deaths. Tragically ending as it did, it is an interesting chapter in the Catholic response against abuse of colonial power and enslavement (O’Malley 73-75)
The position of the Catholic Magisterium would gradually shift over the centuries. In 1537, Pope Paul III condemned in the document Sublimis Deus the idea that Indians (in Asia) were incapable of receiving the Catholic faith, saying that they should not be enslaved, nor should their property be taken, even though they are unbelievers. Indians, said the pope, should be converted by preaching of the word, and by the example of good and holy living by Catholics.
In 1741, Benedict XIV would condemn the enslavement of Indians in Portuguese territories, mainly in an effort to protect Jesuit missions, denouncing the behavior of colonists as "inhuman", blaming them for the native aversion to the faith (Lehner 186).
It was not until 1831, however, that slavery was abolished in the Papal States. Most slaves in the Papal States were galley slaves, mainly criminals and captives from wars. In 1611, there were 1,300 men who rowed on ships, with some 300 of them being slaves. In 1720, there were 257 slaves, and in 1812, only some 86 slaves. These slaves were sometimes directly captured in combat against Muslim pirates, or from the Turkish fleet, or were bought in the market of Livorno in Tuscany, or in Malta. The Papal States did not only hold slaves though, it also sold them. For example, Benedict XIV in 1758 allowed 158 Turkish slaves to be sold, allocating the revenue obtained for the redemption of Christian slaves in North Africa. The papacy had long supported Catholic religious orders (Trinitarians, Mercedarians, etc) which made efforts to free Christians from Muslim slavery, fearing for their souls, lest they convert to Islam. It is estimated that some ~80,000 Christians were freed from slavery by the Trinitarians alone between 1500-1800 (Lehner 186-188)
Interestingly, according to Lehner, non-Christian papal galley slaves were allowed to elect their own religious ministers, and could practice their faith on the ships and in slave houses on shore in relative freedom. This is an interesting example of religious freedom, and it ought to be investigated more deeply in light of the history of the Church involving non-Catholic religion, and the document Dignitatis humanae from the Second Vatican Council.
The international slave trade itself was condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839 in the document In supremo apostolatus, which reviews the work of the previous pontiffs, and condemns treating blacks as if they were animals and not men. Gregory also condemns despoiling people of their possessions, reducing them to servitude, and lending any sort of aid or favor to slavers, as well as buying or selling slaves, mentioning St. Gregory of Nyssa in his arguments, a father of the Church who provided a rare anti-slavery argument in the 4th century.
I wish I could give this section on slavery a more rigorous coverage. Most of this is derivative of Lehner's chapter in his book The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement - the issue of slavery and the Catholic Church is one that I find very interesting, because it is certain that there is some level of radical development on this issue, one that I feel needs to be investigated to a greater extent, as does the issue of religious liberty, as discussed above in connection with slaves in the Papal States. I have not yet researched this topic in enough detail though, I must admit. As it seems now, Pope Gregory XVI's final condemnation of slavery and the slave trade in 1839 is the culmination of a gradual process of criticism of the slave trade, combined with a degree of ressourcement from a 4th century source, i.e. St. Gregory of Nyssa. What this shows, however, is that the issue was at one time an ongoing thing of debate within the Church, as were other issues, as can be seen with the position of icons in some patristic sources, or later in Church history, the struggles between varying schemes of ecclesiology such as Gallicanism versus Ultramonantism (note that I am not saying that this issue is relativistic or accidental in how it has come to be today, but that there are indisputably periods of pluralism and sifting through various positions on the part of the Church).
The period of the Catholic Enlightenment is one that is very interesting, and is relevant to the history of the modern post-Conciliar Church. Some of the ideas enshrined in Vatican II were already there in some circles even prior to the First Vatican Council, as we have seen, but this was also an era of transition from a close alliance between altar and throne, to a more unstable era, where the position of the Church in society was now questioned. Studying this era of Church history allows us to get a broader perspective on the last two ecumenical councils, the relations between the pope and his brother bishops, as well as a fascinating insight into the development of doctrine, and its closely-tied notions of ressourcement and aggiornamento.
Sources
Blanchard, Shaun, The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansenism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform
Carroll, Michael P., Veiled Threats: The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy
Duffy, Eamon, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes
Kelly, J.N.D. and Walsh, M.J., Oxford Dictionary of Popes
Lehner, Ulrich L., The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement
Lehner, Ulrich L. and Blanchard, Shaun, The Catholic Enlightenment: A Global Anthology
O’Malley, John W., The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present
O’Malley, John W., Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church
Links
Gaudet Mater Ecclesia: https://jakomonchak.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/john-xxiii-opening-speech.pdf
Nostra aetate: https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html
The First Apology: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm