Images of the Priesthood: An Analysis of Catholic Sermons from the Late Seventeenth Century

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renate Dürr

“All, therefore, who consider themselves Christians may be absolutely certain that we are all equally priests.”1 With this declaration Martin Luther categorically repudiated the Catholic understanding of priesthood as a holy estate with indelible marks bestowed at consecration. According to the reformers all Christians, in principle, have the same authority in word and sacrament, but only those authorized by the respective community of believers may wield it. This assessment not only reflected certain irregularities within the clergy but also signified a completely new definition of the priesthood. It cannot be understood outside the context of existing contemporary criticism—not only from reformatory circles—of the state of numerous parishes who suffered under poorly educated, morally unacceptable (from a contemporary point of view) or indeed absent clergymen. The Catholic Church's answer to this challenge, therefore, had two aims: plans for far-reaching reforms were intended to renew the image of priests and, primarily, to provide effective pastoral care. Polemical theological debates against Protestants and discussions within the Catholic Church were intended not only to strengthen the certainty of the fundamental essence of priestly identity but also to facilitate a differentiation of Catholic from Protestant understanding. The decisions of the Council of Trent also touched both areas. At the 23rd session both the theological basis of the sacrament of consecration and the plans to reform the rules concerning the bishops' obligatory residence in their parishes were debated.2

1948 ◽  
Vol 6 (22) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Corish

Europe in the seventeenth century was a land of mar and confusion because the great political problems raised by the religious disruption of the preceding century had not yet been solved. Chief among these was the problem of the relations between the Roman catholic church and a protestant state. The teaching of the pope's indirect power in temporal matters in any problem involving a breach of the moral order (ratione peccati) had been strongly re-stated by Bellarmine, and was the official attitude of the church. A protestant prince had committed a grave sin, that of heresy, and so it was the pope's right and duty to depose him and absolve his Catholic subjects from their allegiance. But this political theory was becoming impractical as the seventeenth century progressively demonstrated that Europe was permanently divided. As might be expected, juridical forms lagged behind the development of events; but by the middle of the century the Roman curia, while not prepared to give antecedent approval to a peace with protestants, might be said to be ready to acquiesce once it had been concluded, if the position and rights of the Catholic church could be assured. Yet this assurance was, in the circumstances, almost impossible. The Catholic church could not rest satisfied with toleration as a sect, but demanded recognition as an organised society with a source of jurisdiction illdependent of the state.


Perichoresis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 41-72
Author(s):  
Matthew T. Gaetano

AbstractCatholic theologians after Trent saw the Protestant teaching about the remnants of original sin in the justified as one of the ‘chief ’ errors of Protestant soteriology. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Martin Chemnitz, and many Protestant theologians believed that a view of concupiscence as sinful, strictly speaking, did away with any reliance on good works. This conviction also clarified the Christian’s dependence on the imputed righteousness of Christ. Catholic theologians condemned this position as detracting from the work of Christ who takes away the sins of the world. The rejection of this teaching—and the affirmation of Trent’s statement that original sin is taken away and that the justified at baptism is without stain or ‘immaculate’ before God—is essential for understanding Catholic opposition to Protestant soteriology. Two Spanish Dominican Thomists, Domingo de Soto and Bartolomé de Medina, rejected the Protestant teaching on imputation in part because of its connection with the view on the remnants of original sin in the justified. Adrian and Peter van Walenburch, brothers who served as auxiliary bishops of Cologne in the second half of the seventeenth century, argued that the Protestants of their time now agreed with the Catholic Church on a number of soteriological points. They also drew upon some of their post–Tridentine predecessors to offer a Catholic account of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Nonetheless, the issue of sin in the justified remained a point of serious controversy.


Author(s):  
Anne Régent-Susini ◽  
Laurent Susini

Preaching in the baroque period, though often neglected by researchers, is a literary field that assumed renewed importance in the Catholic Church following the Council of Trent. Looking carefully at examples from the French repertory of sermons, this chapter describes several stylistic variants, ranging from austere simplicity to vivid appeals to the hearers’ imagination. The pulpit borrowed from the theater as well as from recently rediscovered Greek novels, but the florid style of the early seventeenth century was followed by a simpler one that is sometimes described as neoclassical.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 012
Author(s):  
Marcos Sarmiento Pérez

Within the context of the history of interpreting and focusing on Catholic Europe, with special attention to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain, this paper looks at linguistic mediation between a penitent and his confessor who do not speak the same language. After outlining the evolution of the sacrament of penance up to the regulations arising from the Council of Trent, the ecclesiastical provisions that established the degree of intervention of interpreters in the sacramental confession are presented. Evidence of its implementation in several multilingual groups (pilgrims and crusaders, Spanish soldiers, the Moriscos, Euskera speakers, Europeans living in Spanish territory, and indigenous Canary islanders), as well as in the concurrence of sacramental confession and the making of the will is then provided. This is an initial approach to an area of traductology still to be explored, which opens new lines of research.


Author(s):  
Marina Aleksandrovna Kalievskaya

In this article, a model of the mechanism of ensuring public security and orderliness in accordance with the principles and tasks of the relevant institu- tions in public administration, taking into account resources, technologies, mea- sures for the state policy implementation in the spheres of ensuring the protection of human rights and freedoms, the interests of society and the state, combating crime, maintaining public security and order. It was found that ensuring public security and order in Ukraine is a mechanism for the implementation of national goals of state policy in the areas of ensuring the protection of human rights and freedoms, the interests of society and the state, combating crime, maintaining public security and order, by defining tasks according to certain principles. The idea is that if one considers the state policy in the spheres of ensuring the protec- tion of human rights and freedoms, the interests of society and the state, combat- ing crime, maintaining public security and order as a national priority (purpose, task), then the mechanism of ensuring public security and order in Ukraine needs coordination with the state development strategy. From the point of view of the implementation of the state policy in the areas of ensuring the protection of hu- man rights and freedoms, the interests of society and the state, combating crime, maintaining public security and order, the mechanism of ensuring public security and order in Ukraine can be considered as the main system providing intercon- nection such elements as institutions (implementing the specified state policy), resources (human resources, logistical, natural and so on, with the help of which it is possible to implement state policy), technologies (skills, knowledge, means and so on the implementation of state policy), measures (action plans), as well as external (internal) threats.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (`1) ◽  
pp. 49-68
Author(s):  
Piotr Wojnicz

The Catholic Church is naturally associated with migrants and its history and doctrine areinextricably linked with the migration of people. Many of the documents of the Catholic Church referto the history of human migration. The responsibility of the Catholic Church for migrants has deephistorical and theological roots. The Catholic Church sees both the positive and the negative sidesof this phenomenon The pastoral care of migrants is a response to the needs of these people. It doesnot replace the territorial structures. They both work closely together and complement each other.The primary objective of the pastoral care of migrants is to enable migrants to integrate with thelocal community. An important element of these structures are religious orders of men and women.The most important thing for migrants is the Christian attitude of the local community tothem. Church repeatedly stressed the importance of hospitality to migrants. Both human andChristian attitude towards migrants expresses itself in a good reception, which is the main factorin overcoming the inevitable difficulties, preventing opposites and solving various problems. Thisattitude helps to alleviate the problems associated with the process of social integration.


Author(s):  
Breandán Mac Suibhne

Observing the abandonment of traditional beliefs and practices in the 1830s, the scholar John O’Donovan remarked that ‘a different era—the era of infidelity—is fast approaching!’ In west Donegal, that era finally arrived c.1880, when, over much of the district, English replaced Irish as the language of the home. Yet it had been coming into view since the mid-1700s, as the district came to be fitted—through the cattle trade, seasonal migration, and protoindustrialization—into regional and global economic systems. In addition to the market, an expansion of the administrative and coercive capacity of the state and an improvement in the plant and personnel of the Catholic Church—processes that intensified in the mid-1800s—proved vital factors, as the population dwindled after the Famine, in the people breaking faith with the old and familiar and adopting the new.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 188
Author(s):  
Rafał Śpiewak ◽  
Wiktor Widera

The essence of the Catholic Church implemented in the modern world is of crucial importance for the understanding its mission towards the state, especially when developing appropriate civil attitudes. One sources of cognition is the historical reflection made on an analytical basis of Catholic media content. This article presents the discourse analysis of Gość Niedzielny (i.e., Sunday Guest), which was one of the most important Catholic publications in Poland, during the reconstruction of the Polish statehood. The pro-state mission of the Catholic Church was an expression of responsibility for common good, was nonpartisan and was connected with the promotion of values that condition the social order. It was believed that the condition of the state is determined by the moral form of its citizens and their level of involvement in social life. Christian values were though to secure and protect also the good of non-Catholic citizens. Here, the research and discourse analysis allows us to define the conclusions regarding contemporary relations between Church and the state in Poland. The key thoughts included in the publications of Sunday Guest, have contemporary application and their message is extremely up-to-date.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-176
Author(s):  
Mária Csatlós

With the available archival resources and through exploring the life, work and political actions of Endre Ágotha, the dean and parish priest of Nyárádselye I trace the unfolding and failing of the schismatic catholic peace movement legitimated in Marosvásárhely in the period 1950-1956. The state backed “Catholic Action” did not succeed in severing the Catholic Church in Romania from Rome by settling the “pending cases” between the church and the state and only a small portion of the clergy joined the movement, yet it has made significant moral damages by dividing the believers and the clergy. The Holy See condemned the movement and it’s key figure Endre Ágotha has brought upon himself the harshest punishment of the Catholic Church: excommunicates vitandus. He received absolution only on his deathbed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-119
Author(s):  
Bartosz Kapuściak

The primary task of the military intelligence in the People’s Republic of Poland was to acquire materials on the armament and stationing of NATO troops. However, due to the demand of the communist authorities, it also conducted political activities aimed at, among others, the Catholic Church. The interest of the state authorities increased especially during the pontificate of John Paul II. According to the assessment of military intelligence, the election of Karol Wojtyła as Bishop of Rome stimulated the Catholic Church both in Poland and in the Vatican. In this way, the activities of the Second Directorate of the General Staff of the Polish Army were within the scope of civil intelligence interests. The article aims to show the role played by intelligence officers and informers operating in Rome undercover as military attachés or in civilian institutions. Their actions resulted in the establishment of contacts with the church environment and acquisition of voluntary and involuntary informants. In this way, the Second Directorate of the General Staff of the Polish Army provided the party and political apparatus with interesting news and materials. Following the introduction of martial law in Poland, the church from the Rome area started sending parcels of food, clothes and medicines to Poland. This aid for the country was used to establish contact with the Polish clergy thanks to the initiative of Colonel Franciszek Mazurek.


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