Das Bollwerk des Katholizismus wankt

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinhold Vetter
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Abortion Legislation ◽  
Sharp Criticism ◽  
The Church ◽  
Deep Crisis ◽  
The Middle Ages

Even in Poland, the Catholic Church is in deep crisis - in a country that used to be considered one of the last bastions of Catholicism in Europe. Women are demonstrating by the tens of thousands against abortion legislation and combining this with sharp criticism of the Church. Polish cardinals are being reprimanded by Pope Francis, even the late Polish Pope John Paul II has been caught in the maelstrom of criticism from his countrymen. Reinhold Vetter analyses the historical, political, and social background for the belated onset of secularisation in this country: from Christianisation in the Middle Ages to the special path under communism, to current developments.

Anti-Semitism and Communication

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amos Kiewe
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Root Cause ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

Anti-Semitism is the systematic hatred, discrimination, and attack on Jews. Anti-Semitism often manifests itself in hateful speech that functions as the precursor to hostile actions against Jews. Anti-Semitism is a subject matter that has occupied scholars dating back from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and more intensely in modern times. Different perspectives have been employed to explain this scourge, covering the terrains of historical, political, psychological, and even pathological perspectives but rarely in rhetorical studies. Considering anti-Semitism as hateful speech enables a rhetorical explanation whereby suasive forces are employed to strategically find faults with one group functioning as a scapegoat for the action of others. From this perspective, anti-Semitism is a form of victimization that scapegoats Jews for causes not of their doing, yet their existence is argued time and again as the reason for various societal ills. Ostensibly, Jews have been targeted throughout history and faulted for events not linked to them. From charges of conspiring with the Devil in antiquity, to poisoning wells in the Middle Ages, to causing Germany’s defeat in World War I, and many more, anti-Semitism has consistently been employed at critical historical junctures as a convenient explanation for complicated and troubling events. The Holocaust and the systematic plan to decimate Europe’s Jewry was perhaps the most overt and egregious case of anti-Semitism. It was based on a powerful propaganda machine that dehumanized Jews first, blamed them for all that befell Germany, and readied the grounds for the mass murder of some six million of them. One root cause stands at the center of anti-Semitism: the death of Christ on the cross, and with it the charge that Jews are forever guilty of this crime. With religious interpretation and theological dogmas of the early Christian Church, the charge of Jews as Christ killer would establish the theology that Jews are forever guilty of this crime and fault every Jew at any time, even those not yet born, of this crime. This foundational charge has allowed other charges, including social, racial, and economic explanations, to be piled up against Jews, eventually identifying them as permanent pariahs. From a rhetorical perspective, an inherent guilt is the motivating force that has allowed anti-Semitism to survive through millennia. Hatred of Jews and hateful speech directed at them has never been erased, though one significant exception to the charge of eternal guilt was advanced by the Vatican II Council in 1965 in its document Nostra Aetate, and in it, the Church repudiated the charge of the eternal guilt of the Jew. The horrors of the Holocaust, more than any other cause, has brought the Catholic Church to change a century-old dogma, seeking an end to anti-Semitism. The Church correctly identified the charge of eternal guilt of the Jew as the root cause of anti-Semitism and stated its rejection of the faulty reasoning associated with the charge of eternal deicide. This significant move has done much to improve Christian–Jewish relations but it has not erased anti-Semitism. Recent incidents in various parts of the world have increased concerns that a new wave of anti-Semitism is under way. Anti-Semitism appeals to people’s base instincts and is often rationalized as the fear of the “other” and the preservation of the self and the dominant community. Anti-Semitism flourishes because the rhetorical process therein is simple: It absolves culprits of answering tough questions by scapegoating an other who has already been accepted as the pariah and whose “responsibility” for past iniquities has long been established. Anti-Semitism is processed through a tried and true persuasive formula that is manifested rhetorically in speech and in images. Anti-Semitism succeeds where people do not employ basic critical skills when confronting messages, preferring instead to accept convenient, if spurious, explanations.

Religion and Latin Western Europe, 600–1500

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-59
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Koziol
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Articles Of Faith ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

The medieval Catholic Church evolved. That is, over the course of the Middle Ages everything about the religion changed, yet the changes occurred within well-established patterns and principles that remained constant. Among those patterns were: oscillations between episcopal and papal ideologies of ecclesiastical unity; a papacy whose theoretical claims to authority never matched its actual power; and a commitment to pastoral care. The Church also insisted on doctrinal and institutional conformity, manifested especially in its reliance on creeds that presented non-logical propositions as articles of faith. The result was to generate heresies, but in responding to heresies the Church also educated the laity in matters of faith, while allowing considerable latitude in matters of private and lay devotions. Among such devotions, the ‘bridal mysticism’ of devout women stands as an example of both the limitations and intellectual depth of the religion.

La secolarizzazione č moderna?

2009 ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
Rémi Brague
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The Other ◽  
Medieval History ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

- The paper is focused on the connections between secularization and modernity, and calls into question an almost unanimously accepted and largely undisputed thesis, according to which it would be possible to explain one term (secularization) through the other (modernity). Drawing from medieval history and philosophy, the author challenges the validity of such a connection between secularization and modernity. While the term "secularization" is a modern coinage and has unfolded its effects only in the modern era, the circumstances that made the process of secularization possible took shape in the Middle Ages. The epicentre of the modern earthquake is located in the Middle Ages. More precisely, the author underscores the secularizing role of the Medieval Church and proves the counter-intuitive thesis that the defence of secularization was not promoted by the Empire, nor was the defence of the sacred championed by the Church. Things went exactly the other way around.Keywords: secularization, saeculum, catholic church, state, middle ages

The genesis of the idea of freedom of religious conscience in the Middle Ages

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mykhailo Babii
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The State ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Freedom Of Conscience ◽  
Complete Control ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abstract. The article is devoted to the idea of freedom of conscience, the processes of developing its understanding in the Middle Ages, the opposition of various approaches, which are represented by thinkers of the Western and Eastern Christian tradition. These traditions were formed and developed within the framework of interpretive assessments of the relationship between the state and the church, known as Caesaropapism and Papоcaesarism. The peculiarities of Western Christian and Eastern Christian approaches to issues of freedom of conscience, which were formed by the nature of state power and its relations with the church, are analyzed. The Catholic understanding of relations was based on the independence of the church from the state, on its freedom, on the opposition of the spiritual and the earthly, on the supremacy of the former over the latter. It is claimed that the Roman Catholic Church has always claimed complete control over the secular state. According to the Orthodox view, the "spiritual and secular" should be integrated into one "symphonic" system with the leading role of the state. The church "gave its freedom" to the Caesars. The mechanism of the emergence of religious alternatives to the official teachings of the church, in particular heresies, sectarianism, schism, which served as a breeding ground for the emergence of religious freedom, freedom in the church. The role of the rationalist and anti-church component, philosophical and theological concepts, which were determined by a significant increase in scientific knowledge and the development of philosophical teachings, which also led to ideas of freedom of conscience, is emphasized. During this period, the genesis of the idea of freedom of conscience was played by the substantiation of the idea of human rights, in particular, the right to freedom of conscience and religion. The Middle Ages are presented as a specific era, which is associated with previous periods in the intellectual - philosophical and theological - understanding of freedom of conscience, in which despite all the negative socio-political, religious processes, persecution of freethinkers, formed principles of freedom of conscience and theoretical justification future paradigm. During this period, it was mainly about freedom of religious conscience, about the freedom of the church, about conscience, freedom of will, and not about freedom of conscience. It was important to substantiate the idea of the right of the autonomous mind, the doctrine of "natural light", the distinction between the concepts of "sacred" and "secular". At the same time, freedom of religious conscience can be said only for Christian believers, all others - infidels, "schismatics", heretics - were outlawed, society considered them as enemies of the state and the church. Heretical movements, which originated in the bosom of the Christian church and were determined by the context and events of the Middle Ages, became the environment where the ideas of freedom of conscience, including freedom of religious conscience, religious tolerance received "energy" for their development and manifestation as a public demand.

Poland

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
National Values ◽  
The Impact ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
The Church

The chapter on Poland focuses on two questions. Why, in contrast to all other state-socialist countries, did the church’s capacity for integration actually increase rather than decrease despite persecution and discrimination during the communist period? And why has this capacity also remained more or less constant (albeit to a lesser extent) in the period since the end of communist rule? The authors have identified four key factors in the remarkable resistance of the Polish Catholic Church during the period of communist persecution: the fusion of religious and national values, the specific conflict dynamics of the church’s struggle with the state, the structural conservatism of agricultural production in Poland, and the actions of Pope John Paul II. Explanations for the surprising stability of religiosity in Poland after 1990 point to the behaviour of the Church itself, to the internal pluralization of Catholicism, and to the impact of a homogeneous religious culture.

Stages in Diplomatic Production

2020 ◽  
pp. 610-618
Author(s):  
Olivier Guyotjeannin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter examines administrative documents of the Middle Ages and the major scholarly studies of them. It surveys the number of preserved documents and the problems surrounding the lack of documents in different periods and places. The author discusses the role and influence of the Church in the increased production and preservation of documents beginning in the eleventh century, leading to an enormous increase in the production of documents during the last three centuries of the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Polish Catholic Bishops, Nationalism and Liberal Democracy

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Madalena Meyer Resende ◽  
Anja Hennig
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Church Leadership ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
National Catholicism ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Church

The alliance of the Polish Catholic Church with the Law and Justice (PiS) government has been widely reported and resulted in significant benefits for the Church. However, beginning in mid-2016, the top church leadership, including the Episcopal Conference, has distanced itself from the government and condemned its use of National Catholicism as legitimation rhetoric for the government’s malpractices in the fields of human rights and democracy. How to account for this behavior? The article proposes two explanations. The first is that the alliance of the PiS with the nationalist wing of the Church, while legitimating its illiberal refugee policy and attacks on democratic institutions of the government, further radicalized the National Catholic faction of the Polish Church and motivated a reaction of the liberal and mainstream conservative prelates. The leaders of the Episcopate, facing an empowered and radical National Catholic faction, pushed back with a doctrinal clarification of Catholic orthodoxy. The second explanatory path considers the transnational influence of Catholicism, in particular of Pope Francis’ intervention in favor of refugee rights as prompting the mainstream bishops to reestablish the Catholic orthodoxy. The article starts by tracing the opposition of the Bishops Conference and liberal prelates to the government’s refugee and autocratizing policies. Second, it describes the dynamics of the Church’s internal polarization during the PiS government. Third, it traces and contextualizes the intervention of Pope Francis during the asylum political crisis (2015–2016). Fourth, it portrays their respective impact: while the Pope’s intervention triggered the bishops’ response, the deepening rifts between liberal and nationalist factions of Polish Catholicism are the ground cause for the reaction.

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