Class 27: Leo XIII and Late 19th C Catholicism

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Class 27 Leo XIII and Late 19th C Catholicism

• 29 March 2006

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Introduction

• German, American, English Romanticism
• Henry Cardinal Newman
• Pope Leo XIII
• Catholic Modernism at end of 19th C
• Protestant Biblical Scholarship

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American Romanticism Second Great Awakening

• Second Great Awakening
• First half 19th C (pre-Civil War)
• Effected all Protestant denominations
• Specialty was revival camp meetings led by
  itinerant preachers
• Blacks welcomed at most meetings, but not well
  treated afterwards
• Founding of A.M.E. Church, 1815
• Shakers 1800, Mormons 1830
• Transcendentalism
• The beauty of nature mans ability to appreciate
  the beauty of nature
• Man in beautiful because he is part of nature
• God in nature not as scientific truth but as
  beauty
• Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Brownson, Dickinson (?)
• Dissident voices Hawthorne, Melville

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German Romanticism

• Hegel (1770-1831)
• Christianity moves man beyond the law
  Speculative Idealism
• Jesus brings love that restores mankind to
  wholeness, a holy innocence The Spirit of
  Christianity
• The Incarnation makes explicit the implicit unity
  of God and man Jesus not like Socrates
• Christianity as revelation of Spirit
• Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
• Influenced by Pietism in early years
• Religion not founded on calculating reason nor
  even so much on Scripture
• Experience of piety is the key
• Does not defend relation based on moral needs of
  society
• Rejects Deists God of Intelligent Design
• Jesus Christ as the arch-type for humanity
  importance of community is understanding and
  transmitting this spirit (truth)
• Immanence of God in nature

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English Romanticism

• Poets
• Keats (1795-1821) Shelley (1792-1822) Blake
  (1757-1827) Coleridge (1772-1834), Wordsworth
  (1770-1850)
• Romantic view of nature and human history
• Oxford Movement
• Anglican rooted in a reaction to political and
  economic liberalism
• Recognized the pretensions of science and reason
  to solve all problems
• Opposed to Bentham and utilitarianism
• Opposed to Latitudinarians
• Opposed to Churchs increasing acceptance of
  secularism

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John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890)

• Born into a family with Huguenot background
  taught to read Bible as a child, but no religious
  training otherwise
• Went to Oxford in 186 as an undergraduate
• Became the most important Tractarian for Oxford
  movement
• Trip to Italy and North Africa put him in touch
  with the ancient Church which he felt must be
  restored in England
• Lead, kindly light
• Initially, Newman sees Church of England as
  middle way between Catholicism and Calvinism
• Received into Catholic Church 1845, ordained 1847
• Writes Apologia Pro Vita Sua to explain his
  conversion
• Founds an Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England
• Rector of Catholic University of Dublin, 1851
  (Idea of a University, 1873)
• Made a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII 1879

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The Pillar of the Cloud, At Sea.June 16, 1833.
www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse90.html

• LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling
  gloom         
• Lead Thou me on!
• The night is dark, and I am far from home
• Lead Thou me on!
• Keep Thou my feet I do not ask to see
• The distant sceneone step enough for me.
• I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that
  Thou         
• Shouldst lead me on.
• I loved to choose and see my path, but
  now         
• Lead Thou me on!
• I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
• Pride ruled my will remember not past years.
  So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it
  still         
• Will lead me on,
• O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent,
  till         
• The night is gone
• And with the morn those angel faces smile
• Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

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Newmans Thought

• Ecclesiology
• Augustines arguments against Donatists
  importance of Catholic Church
• Tract 90 (1841) on Thirty Nine Articles It is
  our duty to the Catholic Church and our own to
  take our reformed confession in the most Catholic
  sense. We have no duties toward their framers
• Papal Infallibility
• Acknowledged and accepted primacy of Pope and
  unwritten tradition of infallibility
• Had some concerns about written definition
• History and Dogma, Essay on the Development of
  Christian Doctrine
• Opposed to liberal belief in progress and that
  there are no permanent supernatural truths
• Importance of apostolic Church as vessel of
  revealed truth
• Time is necessary for human mind to fully grasp
  the Truth but Truth itself does not change
• Develops criteria for changed perspective in
  grasping truth opposed to heterodox developments
• Science

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Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903)

• Countered Bismarcks anti-Catholic movement,
  Kulturkampf
• Known as the encyclical pontiff
• Rerum Novarum
• Providentissimus Deus
• Created Pontifical Biblical Commission

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Bismarck and Kulturkampf (War of Civilization)

• Bismarck (1815-1898)
• Believed in Prussian monarchy and unification of
  German Confederation under Prussia
• Franco-Prussian War impetus for strong
  confederated Germany
• Bismarck made Chancellor of Germany un 1870
  agenda to unify in laws, customs and national
  spirit Germany
• Kulturkampf
• Concern about a country within a country
• Relations with Papacy broken in 1870
• German state passes laws against Church
  education expels Jesuits seizes Church property
• All clergy had to be German educated in Germany
• End of Kulturkampf
• Formation of German Catholic political party
• Bismarck wanted to impose tariffs on grain and
  industrial goods entering Germany in this he was
  opposed by economic liberals needed Catholic
  support to pass economic agenda

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Rerum Novarum, 1891

• Uphold rights of laborers to a fair wage, but
  also upholds right to private property
• Concern about poor
• Emphasis on common good
• State has the right to intervene in economy on
  behalf of individual and society
• Cornerstone of modern Catholic social teaching

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19th C Biblical Scholarship

• Beginning of Historical Critical Method roots in
  the Enlightenment
• Reimarus (1694-1768) Deist, roots of historical
  Jesus resurrection a fraud failure of eschaton
  led to Christian theology opposed to Jewish
  Jesus as an apocalyptic Jewish prophet
• Lessing (1729-1781) Published Reimaruss work
  tries to reconcile Reimarus with Christian faith
  teachings not true because book is sacred book
  is sacred because teachings are true
• David Strauss (1808-1874)
• Life of Jesus
• Test historical accuracy of New Testament claims
  about Jesus
• Much mythical material in New Testament
• Developed rules of historical critical method
• Albert Schweitzer Quest for Historical Jesus 1906

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Catholic Modernist Controversy

• Late 19th C controversy focused on relation of
  Biblical criticism to Catholic theology
• Alfred Loisy (1857-1940) The Gospel and the
  Church (1902)
• Very influential biblical Scholar
• Questioned authorship of Old and New Testament
  works
• Jesus as a radical eschatological Jewish prophet
  part of 1st C apocalypticism
• Christian dogma develops to meet new challenges
  in each age dogmatic definitions are always
  relative and variable
• Eventually Loisy became very skeptical about
  Church as bearer of truth
• Ecclesial Reaction
• Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, 1893,
  admitted some value to historical critical
  method, but not if weakened authority of Bible or
  Church
• Pope Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907,
  condemned historical method altogether
• Alfred Loisy excommunicated 1907

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Assignments

• Bokenkotter, Chapter 28 (skim only)
• First Vatican Council, First Dogmatic
  Constitution on Church of Christ, available at
• www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM
• Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, www.vatican.va/holy_fathe
  r/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_150
  51891_rerum-novarum_en.html