Showing papers on "Jansenism published in 2005"
TL;DR: For example, the authors describes the intellectual context of the eighteenth-century revolution in Catholic moral theology that enabled the institutional Church to align itself with the practices of popular Catholicism and demonstrate that the intellectual components of popular Roman Catholicism must be understood on their own terms, and not merely reduced to social or political factors.
Abstract: I. Introduction: Catholic Enlightenment and Popular Catholicism One of the greatest paradoxes of modern Catholic history is that a seemingly moribund Old Regime Church gave way to a broad-based popular Catholic revival in the nineteenth century. How can this reinvigoration be accounted for? Miracles, of course, are always a possibility, but historians are required to look for more prosaic explanations. The Catholic revival has received a fair share of scholarly attention. As a multi-faceted phenomenon, scholars have focused on questions ranging from diocesan organization and clerical training, to in-depth studies on religious experience of the common people. For all this interest in nineteenth-century Catholicism at the local and popular level, however, it remains to be explained how the Old Regime Church could accommodate its traditional distrust-when not outright repression-of popular religious practices, enabling popular Catholicism in fact to become one of the key aspects of the Church's political and social power. For all the emphasis on nineteenth-century developments, then, it remains to be shown how Roman Catholicism in the eighteenth century underwent a fundamental revision in its approach to popular religion. While it is certain that social, economic, and institutional factors had an important role in the shaping of popular Catholicism, can it also be said that there were intellectual roots as well? The remainder of this article addresses this question by describing the intellectual context of the eighteenth-century revolution in Catholic moral theology that enabled the institutional Church to align itself with the practices of popular Catholicism. This essay also hopes to demonstrate that the intellectual components of popular Catholicism must be understood on their own terms, and not merely reduced to social or political factors. I propose to demonstrate that the new moral system outlined below overcame certain intellectual barriers that would otherwise have stood in the way of the Church's enthusiastic embrace of popular religious practices and attitudes.1 The central question of this essay, therefore, is how the aristocratic-minded Church of the Counter-Reformation adapted to the social transformations of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to become, in the words of Louis Châtellier, "the religion of the poor."2 Rather than seeing this new identity as a late reaction to the changes of the revolutionary era, I will suggest how its roots extend back into the early eighteenth century, specifically to disputes over laxism, probabilism, and rigorism. Social historians like Châtellier have shown how, around the eighteenth century, missionaries in Europe shifted their efforts away from trying to force peasants to completely abandon their so-called superstitious beliefs. Instead, the missionaries embraced what they now accepted as genuine piety, and sought instead only to strengthen the connections between popular piety and the institutional Catholic Church. In my view, this shift in pastoral practice should be seen in concert with the revolution in moral theology that-while not abandoning the concept of original sin-downplayed the strongly negative Augustinian condemnation of human nature and embraced a generally more optimistic view of human moral capability. The figure of the Neapolitan moral theologian and founder of the popular Redemptorist Congregation Alphonsus Maria di Liguori (1696-1787) stands at the center of this transformation. Liguori not only authored one of the most widely circulated tracts on the Marian devotion-the queen of superstition to Enlightenment Christians and rational skeptics alike-the Glories of Mary. He also succeeded in elaborating a system of moral theology which postulated that in cases of doubt about the existence of a moral law, human "liberty" was anterior to the law.3 More clearly than others, Liguori overcame the negative Augustinian view of human nature that had led Jansenists to follow their rigorist tendencies in moral theology. …
9 citations
TL;DR: Many texts and visual images produced in France from the later seventeenth century through the mid-eighteenth century displayed a concern with idolatry as mentioned in this paper, and several public political and religious monuments appear to have been created partly in reaction to their charges.
Abstract: Many texts and visual images produced in France from the later seventeenth century through the mid-eighteenth displayed a concern with idolatry. Literary figures from La Fontaine to Voltaire, ecclesiastics including Bossuet and Jurieu, and antiquarians and theorists of art such as Charles Perrault, La Font de Saint-Yenne and Antoine Le Mierre also associated the worship of false gods with sculpture. Bound up with interest in ancient and non- European mores and forms of worship, the idolatry-sculpture linkage also fed into contemporary political and religious debates. Huguenots, Jansenists, and philosophes utilized the connection to assist in promoting their views. Several public political and religious monuments appear to have been created partly in reaction to their charges.
4 citations
1 citations
TL;DR: In the second half of the eighteenth century, debates on school reform were recurrent and the parlements, and particularly the Paris parlement, took part in them and became involved in school issues, notably at the time of the ban placed on the Jesuits.
Abstract: SUMMARY In the second half of the eighteenth century, debates on school reform were recurrent. The parlements, and particularly the Paris parlement, took part in them and became involved in school issues, notably at the time of the ban placed on the Jesuits. This parliamentary intervention can be explained by a Gallican attitude and a Jansenist bias. The members of the parlements favoured a system of education that would be national, moral and dual. La Chalotais, Guyton de Morveau and Rolland d'Erceville were the theorists of these proposed reforms. The involvement of the parlements did not upset the traditional cursus studiorum, but it betokened both a political and a social ambition. It also amounted to an intervention by lay authorities in an area hitherto reserved to Church authorities, and thus to a moment in the process of separation between Church and State that would expand during the French Revolution.
1 citations
TL;DR: Dieudonne and Peeters as mentioned in this paper reconstructed the "Clementine Peace" of 1667-1669, which put an end to the twenty-year dispute between Catholics about Jansenism.
Abstract: La Paix Clementine Defaite et victoire du premier jansenisme francais sous le pontificat de Clement IX (1667-1669) By PhOippe Dieudonne [Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium, 167] (Leuven: Leuven University Press, Uitgeverij Peeters 2003 Pp xxxix, 302 Paperback) The "Clementine Peace" was the name given at the time to the unexpected truce that put an end to the twenty-year dispute between Catholics about Jansenism The dispute was centered on five "propositions," first condemned by Urban VIII (1653) "on the occasion" of the publication of Cornelius Jansenius's Augustinus, that were declared extracted from that book by Alexander VII (1656) Along with Antoine Arnauld, the renowned Sorbonne theologian, the Jansenist party accepted the condemnation but denied the connection with the Augustinus This was the famed distinction between right and fact, a classical one in theology Claiming church authority to define "dogmatic facts," the French episcopate, soon followed by the Pope, imposed on all the clergy a formulary or oath acknowledging this connection (1665) However, in their diocesan publication oiRegiminis apostolici, the papal pronouncement, four French bishops allowed for the distinction of fact, thus voiding the document's objective As, at Louis XIV's request, Alexander VII had appointed an episcopal tribunal to judge the four bishops, nineteen of their colleagues offered their support It was to resolve this perilous situation that the new pope, Clement IX, was approached After secret negotiations, the "Peace of Church" was suddenly proclaimed (1668) A Arnauld was presented to the king by Nuncio Bargellini, and the Jansenists were no longer a dangerous party What had been negotiated and how? No explanation was given, but calculated leaks suggested a two-level agreement: officially the four bishops had given a "pure and simple" assent, but in a secret document they had nuanced it by maintaining the distinction Clement IX was said to have condoned this face-saving stratagem on the principle of "respectful" or "obsequious silence," that is, that he would not prosecute the dissenters against a promise that they would not express openly their objections The Jesuits, who had been kept out of the negotiation, cried foul, but as no formal rebuttal was ever issued, the interpretation was generally accepted and has been repeated by historians since For the first time, a precise and complete reconstruction of this mysterious episode is given in Philippe Dieudonne's work, begun as a doctoral dissertation (1996) Short of accessing the archives of the Holy Office, which were unavailable at that time, he has found documents that support a very different interpretation …
1 citations