Vincent de Paul, the Lazarist Mission, and French Catholic Reform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Forrestal
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Rural Poor ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Congregation Of The Mission ◽  
Catholic Reform ◽  
The Church ◽  
And Training

This book offers a major reassessment of the thought and activities of the most famous figure of the seventeenth-century French Catholic Reformation, Vincent de Paul. Confronting traditional explanations for de Paul’s prominence in the dévot reform movement that emerged in the wake of the Wars of Religion, it explores how he turned a personal vocation to evangelize the rural poor of France into a congregation of secular missionaries, known as the Congregation of the Mission or the Lazarists, with three interrelated strands of pastoral responsibility: the delivery of missions, the formation and training of clergy, and the promotion of confraternal charity. It demonstrates that the structure, ethos, and works that de Paul devised for the Congregation placed it at the heart of a significant enterprise of reform that involved a broad set of associates in efforts to transform the character of devotional belief and practice within the church. The book’s central questions concern de Paul’s efforts to create, characterize, and articulate a distinctive and influential vision for missionary life and work, both for himself and for the Lazarist Congregation, and it argues that his prominence and achievements depended on his remarkable ability to exploit the potential for association and collaboration within the dévot environment of seventeenth-century France in enterprising and systematic ways. It is the first study to assess de Paul’s activities against the backdrop of religious reform and Bourbon rule, and to reconstruct the combination of ideas, practices, resources, and relationships that determined his ability to pursue his ambitions.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Forrestal
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Significant Research ◽  
Catholic Reform

For information on the life and work of Vincent de Paul, historians still depend mainly on the standard biography produced by the Vincentian Pierre Coste, the triple volume Le Grand Saint du grand siècle, even though it is close to a century since this was published. It is now widely recognized that while the disruption of the Wars of Religion (1562–98) meant that the drive for Catholic reform began later in France than elsewhere, once it was set in motion it reached levels of intensity and creativity over the first six decades of the seventeenth century which were unmatched in any other region. The Introduction locates de Paul within the historiography of the Catholic Reformation and French religious renewal, by offering a survey of the findings of the most significant research in these areas, and identifying the questions that these evoke for the assessment of de Paul’s activities.

Planting the Cross

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara B. Diefendorf
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Direct Path ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Monastic Life

This book examines how Catholic reformers envisioned and implemented changes to monastic life in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century France. Scholars of France’s Catholic Reformation have tended to focus on the movement’s later stages and, taking a top-down approach, view it from the perspective of activist clerics seeking to impose a fixed idea of religious life. This study focuses instead on the movement’s beginnings and explores the aims and tactics of proponents of reform from different but overlapping perspectives. The six case studies draw from three regions—Paris, Provence, and Languedoc. The first chapters tell the story of religious caught in the direct path of the Wars of Religion, which reduced France to near anarchy in the sixteenth century. Chapter 1 tells of the difficulty traditional women’s orders had surviving—much less reforming themselves—in Protestant-dominated Montpellier. Chapter 2 examines the rebellion of Paris’s Feuillants against both their ascetic abbot and the king during the Holy League revolt. Chapter 3 recounts the implantation of the militant Franciscans called Capuchins in the Protestant heartland, Languedoc. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the struggle to reform two old orders—the Dominicans and Trinitarians—that had fallen into decay. Chapter 6 explores conflicting interpretations of Teresa of Avila’s legacy at France’s first Carmelite convents. The book illuminates persistent debates about what constituted religious reform and how a reform’s success should be judged. It shows reform to have been lived as an ongoing process that was more diverse, experimental, and experiential than is often recognized.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Barbara B. Diefendorf
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
The Cross

The introduction first explains why “planting the cross” is an apt metaphor for the renewal of monastic life that took place in the wake of France’s Wars of Religion. It introduces the six case studies that make up the book and explains how each explores a particular question, or set of questions, about how Catholic reformers envisioned and implemented the changes commonly known as the “Catholic Reformation.” The cases show that “reform” was not simply imposed from above, nor was it fixed or completed with the adoption of a new constitution or rule. Arguments for a return to a religious order’s original purity or a life of greater austerity encouraged debate about how the order should best live out its rule. The introduction concludes with a summary of the circumstances that made religious reform so urgently needed and a brief overview of how the reform movement spread.

scholarly journals The Bishop’s Role in Two Non-Catholic States

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 245-255
Author(s):  
Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Crucial Aspect ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
The One ◽  
Catholic Reform

This paper contrasts the very different roles played by the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland, on the one hand, and Turkish-occupied Hungary, on the other, in the movement of early modern religious reform. It suggests that the decision of Propaganda Fide to adopt an episcopal model of organisation in Ireland after 1618, despite the obvious difficulties posed by the Protestant nature of the state, was a crucial aspect of the consolidation of a Catholic confessional identity within the island. The importance of the hierarchy in leadership terms was subsequently demonstrated in the short-lived period of de facto independence during the 1640s and after the repression of the Cromwellian period the episcopal model was successfully revived in the later seventeenth century. The paper also offers a parallel examination of the case of Turkish Hungary, where an effective episcopal model of reform could not be adopted, principally because of the jurisdictional jealousy of the Habsburg Kings of Hungary, who continued to claim rights of nomination to Turkish controlled dioceses but whose nominees were unable to reside in their sees. Consequently, the hierarchy of Turkish-occupied Hungary played little or no role in the movement of Catholic reform, prior to the Habsburg reconquest.

Catholic Reform from the Bottom Up

2019 ◽  
pp. 110-129
Author(s):  
Barbara B. Diefendorf
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Spiritual Climate ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Catholic Reform ◽  
Original Rule

The chapter examines efforts the Trinitarians of Provence made to reverse a long decline and to adapt their medieval order to reflect the new spiritual climate of the Catholic Reformation. The reform was made by ordinary members despite opposition from their superior general in Paris, who envisioned reform only as a return to the order’s original rule. Founded to ransom Christian slaves in the Mediterranean, the order had fallen away from its rule and experienced declining vocations and impoverishment in the Wars of Religion. The chapter argues that the Provençal monks took their model of religious life from the reformed congregations of Capuchins and Recollects and not from a desire to return to some imagined primitive purity. They wanted to govern their houses in a more collaborative way, to better educate their priests, and to create a more spiritualized community with the interiorized personal piety that characterized the Catholic Reformation.

Recent Narratives on Galileo and the Church: or The Three Dogmas of the Counter-Reformation

2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 489-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rivka Feldhay
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
Cultural Forces ◽  
Galileo Affair ◽  
Catholic Reform ◽  
The Church

The ArgumentThis article confronts an old-new orientation in the historiographical literature on the “Galileo affair.” It argues that a varied group of historians moved by different cultural forces in the last decade of the twentieth century tends to crystallize a consensus about the inevitability of the conflict between Galileo and the Church and its outcome in the trial of 1633. The “neo-conflictualists” — as I call them — have built their case by adhering to and developing the “three dogmas of the Counter-Reformation”: Church authoritarianism is portrayed by them as verging towards “totalitarianism.” A preference for a literal reading of the Scriptures is understood as a mode of “fundamentalism.” And mild skeptical positions in astronomy are read as expressions of “instrumentalism,” or “fictionalism.” The main thrust of the article lies in an attempt to historicize these three aspects of the Catholic reform movement. Finally, the lacunae in insufficiently explored historiographical landscape are delineated in order to tame the temptation to embrace the three dogmas, and to modify the radical conflictualist version of the story of Galileo and the Church.

scholarly journals recent narratives on galileo and the church: or the three dogmas of the counter-reformation

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (s1) ◽  
pp. 219-237
Author(s):  
rivka feldhay
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
Cultural Forces ◽  
Galileo Affair ◽  
Catholic Reform ◽  
The Church

this article confronts an old-new orientation in the historiographical literature on the “galileo affair.” it argues that a varied group of historians moved by different cultural forces in the last decade of the twentieth century tends to crystallize a consensus about the inevitability of the conflict between galileo and the church and its outcome in the trial of 1633. the “neo-conflictualists” — as i call them — have built their case by adhering to and developing the “three dogmas of the counter-reformation”: church authoritarianism is portrayed by them as verging towards “totalitarianism.” a preference for a literal reading of the scriptures is understood as a mode of “fundamentalism.” and mild skeptical positions in astronomy are read as expressions of “instrumentalism,” or “fictionalism.” the main thrust of the article lies in an attempt to historicize these three aspects of the catholic reform movement. finally, the lacunae in insufficiently explored historiographical landscape are delineated in order to tame the temptation to embrace the three dogmas, and to modify the radical conflictualist version of the story of galileo and the church.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Modern State ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

The conclusion explains why the English Reformation ended in the late eighteenth century. It discounts a secular and secularizing Enlightenment as an explanation. Rather, it offers three other reasons for the Reformation’s ending. Firstly, by the last quarter of the eighteenth century enough time had passed to make the seventeenth-century wars of religion less threatening than they had seemed earlier in the century. Secondly, the Reformation issues with which the eighteenth-century English dealt got supplanted by other, more urgent ones, often having to do with England’s expanding empire. Finally, and importantly, the Reformation ended because the polemical divines who are the subject of this book failed fully in their tasks of defining truth and of defending the autonomy of the established Church of England. In the end, the modern state took on the role as truth’s arbiter and made the Church a subordinate, dependent institution.

The Crisis of Episcopal Authority During the Reign of Elizabeth I

1971 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger B. Manning
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Spiritual Leadership ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Administrative System ◽  
Considerable Effort ◽  
Royal Authority ◽  
The Church ◽  
And Training ◽  
Episcopal Authority

The theory behind the Henrician religious settlement was that certain papal and episcopal powers of jurisdiction were vested in the Crown by parliamentary enactments because the Pope and the English bishops had failed to reform abuses in the Church. In the absence of an alternative administrative system, the bishops continued to govern the Church as agents of the royal ecclesiastical supremacy. Although some episcopal powers of jurisdiction were returned to the Elizabethan bishops, the actual authority allowed them did not suffice to effect a reformation or to enforce conformity to the established church. In order to resolve this crisis of episcopal authority the seventeenth-century prelates and divines elaborated theories of divine-right episcopacy, but the Elizabethan bishops found it more expedient to fall back upon extraordinary grants of royal authority contained in ecclesiastical commissions.IThe Henrician and Edwardian alienations of episcopal jurisdiction are spectacular and dramatic, yet the erosion of episcopal authority began long before the Henrician Reformation. For over two centuries English bishops had been primarily royal servants. They were, by temperament and training canonists and diplomats rather than pastors; like the Renaissance popes they had grown accustomed to compromise rather than providing spiritual leadership. Not only in England, but throughout Western Europe, bishops rarely sat as judges in their own courts. Much of their authority had been permanently delegated to commissaries, who tended to become independent agents. They were, moreover, hard put to resist encroachments upon their ordinary authority by archdeacons and cathedral chapters, while ecclesiastical corporations devoted considerable effort to securing exemption from episcopal visitations.

The Religious Scene in Early Modern England

2020 ◽  
pp. 10-20
Author(s):  
Francis J. Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Home Town ◽  
The Church

From the start of the English Reformation in the 1530s under Henry VIII through into the early seventeenth-century there was unceasing controversy over how the new church should be defined. Some wished much of Roman Catholic belief and practice to be retained. Other, labeled puritans, sought to follow the lead of more advanced continental reformers and purge the church of all Catholic remnants. William Brewster was a young puritan who had studied at Cambridge University, traveled to the continent with the English envoy William Davison, and then, following Davison’s fall from grace, returned to his home town of Scrooby. There he sought to further the cause of religious reform and gathered around himself men and women of similar beliefs.

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