This section looks at the history of the Catholic Church from the time of the Reformation through the modern era.
The growing need for reform
During the Middle Ages, Greek philosophy (as epitomized by Plato and Aristotle) was used to help develop a Christian one, which became partner with sacred theology. The Latin language was known and used — mostly in religious and legal contexts. The liberal arts and religious sciences were the main staples of university education, and Christendom was the term given to a unified Christian culture, religion, and empire that predominated Medieval Western and Central Europe.
At the end of the 15th century, however, people witnessed the gradual disintegration of that unity. They saw the appearance of modern nations and languages; the discovery of the New World by Columbus in 1492; and a revival of classical art, architecture, and literature. Greek and Roman classics from Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and Cicero eclipsed the former staples of Plato and Aristotle. Humanism arose as a system of thought that bridged the sacred world of heavenly faith and the secular world of earthly wisdom (at least that was its original intent). This classical resurgence became the impetus of what we call the Renaissance.
Witnessing the Renaissance
The Renaissance was born in Florence, Italy, which gave the world poets Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarch, artists Michelangelo Buonarroti and Leonardo da Vinci, and thinkers Vittorino da Feltre and Giovanni Boccaccio. And that city is also associated with such famous names as Medici, Machiavelli, and Borgia. From Italy, the ideals of the Renaissance flowed, crossing the Alps into France, Germany, and finally, England.
The Church encouraged the Renaissance and became a great patron of the sciences, literature, and art. However, a great deal of secularism (worldliness) crept in, and people lost much of their respect for their spiritual leaders. Many abuses in the Church weren’t dealt with in a timely manner. Ignorant clergy and a greedy episcopacy eventually gave rise to reformers, people determined to bring about reform. Unfortunately, some of it wasn’t really reform (change made within the Church structure) but revolt, which led to division.
Corruption in the Church
Pope Julius II (1503–13) decided to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica, which was in desperate need of repair. He communicated to the faithful that anyone who went to confession and Holy Communion and then donated according to their means (called almsgiving) toward the restoration of the historic Church could receive a plenary indulgence if all the conditions were met. Thus began a descent into corruption that would ultimately lead to the Reformation.
Some background: A plenary indulgence is a total remission of the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven in confession. Simply put, it’s an application of God’s divine mercy to remove the effects of past sin. An indulgence isn’t forgiveness itself nor is it absolution; it presupposes both before it can happen. Sin can have two consequences, eternal punishment (hell) and temporal punishment (purgatory). Unrepentant and un-forgiven mortal sins result in eternal punishment. Forgiven sins are free from eternal punishment, but they retain a temporal punishment. God’s mercy forgives sin, and God’s justice rewards good and punishes evil.
Of course, no one can buy an indulgence. To gain an indulgence, the person has to be in the state of grace — not conscious of any mortal sins — and free of all attachment to sin, even venial ones. By attachment, we mean any fond memories of past but forgiven sins. So no amount of money could automatically guarantee someone an indulgence. Only someone who had sorrow for his sins, confessed them, was absolved of them, and then performed a charitable work, such as giving alms or some other act of mercy, could be eligible for an indulgence.
The problem was that after Pope Julius’s statement, a few avaricious and greedy bishops and priests, along with some like-minded princes, literally sold indulgences, which was a violation of canon law then and now and is also a mortal sin called simony. Telling people, “If you donate some silver pieces for this project, you can use the indulgence to get grandma out of purgatory,” is a mortal sin. Indulgences don’t work that way, but some unscrupulous people saw an opportunity to exploit others. Pope Julius’s successor, Leo X (son of Lorenzo de Medici), was just such an unscrupulous man. In Germany as well, this practice was encouraged, and preachers went from town to town to encourage the rebuilding of St. Peter’s. Pope Julius II’s original message became distorted, and it began to look like the Church was indeed selling spiritual favors for money.
The rise of the middle class
After the fall of the Roman Empire, people belonged to one of three groups — the peasants, the nobility, or the Church — for most if not all of their lives. The Church (especially bishops, abbots, and cardinals) along with the nobility (kings, queens, lords, dukes, barons, counts, and so on) were the educated members of society and held power and authority. Things changed, however, when a middle class emerged and moderate wealth was achieved not by noble birth or by entrance into religious life or by ordination. Merchants became a middle ground between the poverty of peasants and the affluence of the aristocracy.
Before the Reformation, the last three significant events of the Middle Ages were The Black Death, The Babylonian Captivity, and The Great Schism. (See the earlier section “The downward spiral” for the lowdown on each of these.) All of these events contributed to the need for reform.
The reformers
The corruption of some of the clergy and hierarchy was inexcusable, which aroused the righteous anger of the reformers.
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (1483–1546), a Catholic Augustinian priest, challenged John Tetzel, another Catholic priest, for selling indulgences. On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a document he wrote, “The Ninety-Five Theses,” to the door of a Wittenberg church, a kind of university bulletin board. (Posting on the church door in and of itself was no revolutionary act because all announcements and news items — be they public debates or requests for bake sale items — were tacked to the door of the church where people could look at them every day when they entered.) Those 95 theses became the cornerstone of the Reformation.
Luther had many valid points and good intentions, but his famous doctrine that “Only by faith alone can man be saved. Good works are useless” (a reinterpretation of St. Paul’s citation in Romans 3:28) put him directly at odds with the Catholic Church.
St. Augustine (354–430), whose religious order Luther joined, was a foe of Pelagius, a heretic who claimed that humans could earn their way to heaven and that humans were in no need of God’s assistance. This heresy was condemned, and the Church solemnly taught that every good work depended on divine grace; alone, humans could do nothing but sin, but with grace, they could do great things. Augustine rightly condemned Pelagius’s idea that good works alone, without faith, could make a person holy. Luther, an Augustinian, went to the other end of the spectrum, however, saying that faith alone without works was all a person needed. The phrase “faith alone” is never used by St. Paul in the Bible but is used by St. James when he says “man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).
Gutenberg’s invention of the moveable type printing press earlier in the 15th century revolutionized religious and political debate, and Luther was keenly adept at using this technological innovation. With mass printings, pamphlets could be disseminated to more people quickly and thus influence public opinion greatly.
Luther found an ally in Elector Frederick (who founded the University of Wittenberg, where Luther taught). For Frederick, Luther and the Reformation were catalysts to separate from the empire and begin an autonomous German kingdom. For Luther, Frederick offered protection (like being a bodyguard) and a guarantee that he could dissent from papal teaching and authority. Luther’s followers and subsequent Reformers became known as Protestants because they were protesting against the Church of Rome. After the formal split from Catholicism, adherents of Luther’s theology became known as Lutherans.
Henry VIII
At first, Henry VIII, King of England, opposed Luther and the Protestant Reformation. But when his wife, Catherine of Aragon, couldn’t give him a male heir, Henry wanted an annulment so he could marry Anne Boleyn. (Catherine did give him a daughter, Mary I, who would later be Queen after Edward VI succeeded Henry.)
The pope refused to grant the annulment, no matter how much money or how many threats were sent. So in 1533, Henry declared himself Supreme Head of the Church in England and dissolved the allegiance that the clergy in England had to Rome. He broke from Rome, starting the Anglican Church, and divorced Catherine to marry Anne. As it happens, she couldn’t give him a son either, but she did give him a daughter, Elizabeth I, the half-sister of Mary. The king had Anne executed.
The English hierarchy and aristocracy went along with Henry’s split from Rome except for a few loyal Catholics, such as St. John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, and St. Thomas More, the Chancellor of England. The movie A Man For All Seasons (1966; Columbia Pictures), based on the play by Robert Bolt, depicts the life and martyrdom of St. Thomas More, who sacrificed his life rather than compromise his Catholic faith and accept Henry as the Supreme Head of the Church in England.
Henry VIII went through a total of six wives and fathered just one sickly son, Edward VI. Edward finally took his father’s throne, but his reign was short due to his bad health. Mary Tudor, the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine, a staunch Catholic, took the throne after her half-brother Edward died as a young man. Her Catholicism and marriage to Spanish royalty made her unpopular with the nobility. After Henry had broken from Rome, he’d seized all the lands owned by the Church, dissolved the monasteries, and sold their property or given it away to his court and other aristocrats. It’s no wonder that the nobility didn’t want a restoration of Catholicism under Queen Mary. Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth, followed Mary to the throne, re-impressing her dominion with the Anglican faith during her long reign from 1558 to 1603.
John Calvin
John Calvin, an austere Catholic layman of Switzerland, followed the ideals of Luther and established a new Calvinist church in Geneva in 1541. Calvinism frowned on most forms of entertainment and pleasure because they were presumed sinful. Calvin believed in an absolute predestination — that is, that a soul was damned for eternity in hell or was saved for heaven solely by an act of God’s will. Being successful in business and having good health were signs of being one of the Elect or Predestined.
These ideas disseminated into parts of France, where followers were called Huguenots. Scotland also took a form of Calvin’s new religion, with the aid of John Knox, which developed into the Presbyterian Church.
The good and bad effects of the Reformation
Martin Luther taught that Scripture alone (sola scriptura) and faith alone (sola fide) were the cornerstones of Christian religion and that the Church wasn’t a necessary institution for the believer’s salvation. This teaching had a domino effect, with others dissenting from Catholic doctrine and starting their own religions.
But Luther and the Protestant Reformation did compel the Catholic Church to spell out its teachings on grace, salvation, and the sacraments more clearly. It also prompted internal reforms, such as the establishment of seminaries to give unified and thorough priestly training. The Reformation instigated an internal reevaluation, not of doctrine or worship, but of how to rid the Church of abuse and to delineate exactly and precisely what differentiated Catholic Christianity from Protestant Christianity.
The Catholic Church’s response: The Counter Reformation
In 1545, the Church called the general Council of Trent, which lasted more than 18 years due to wars and other interruptions, such as the death of a pope. During this age, known as the Counter Reformation, men and women who were considered outstanding in their holiness combated the attacks.
Using the printing press now to its own advantage, the Church was able to counterattack its opponents, mass-producing its catechisms, canon law, the Catholic Bible, and the lives of the saints so that many new religious communities could evangelize through their schools and parishes. Parts of Germany, Switzerland, and France that had become Protestant then returned back to the Catholic religion. The Catholic monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, colonized the New World, and religious orders, such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits, went to that vast new area, evangelizing native peoples and establishing churches, missions, and schools.
The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) gave rise to some of the best colleges and universities in the world. A Jesuit priest often received a doctoral degree in a secular science, such as math, chemistry, biology, or law, along with his religious background of philosophy and theology. Jesuits were considered the best answer to the Reformation by using positive means to show the advantages, logical rationale, beauty, and history of Catholicism without having to resort to bitter or personal attacks against their Protestant counterparts. Jesuit missionaries preached and taught where no European had gone before: Japan, China, India, and the New World.
The Counter Reformation also gave rise to a new style of art and architecture, known as Baroque. And whereas the new Protestant faith emphasized the written Word of Scripture, Catholicism continued its ancient tradition of appealing to the symbolism used by the sacraments: tangible signs to the physical body (via the human senses) of the invisible work and presence of divine grace.
The Age of Reason
The latter half of the 16th century through the middle of the 18th century brought even more changes to the world’s way of thinking — and to the Catholic Church.
Science and religion
Some people believe that Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was ahead of his time and that the Catholic Church held back science for centuries. Actually, quite the opposite is true. Modern science and the scientific method of experimentation and observation came from Catholic monks, such as St. Albert the Great and Gregor Mendel. Albert, for example, bridged the gap between alchemy and chemistry; otherwise, science wouldn’t have been taught in the medieval universities. The science being taught may have been primitive, but it was still science.
Galileo wasn’t the first person to propose a heliocentric solar system — the idea that the sun is the center of the solar system and the earth is just one of many planets in orbit around it. The Polish monk and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) had already disproved the erroneous Ptolemaic system: the idea that the earth is the center of the universe and the sun and other planets revolve in orbit around it.
Galileo wasn’t arrested, excommunicated, or mistreated for his scientific theory. He was ridiculed, however, because back then his theories lacked overwhelming and conclusive evidence. Only later did advances in astronomy and telescopes bring the needed proof.
To say that Galileo was imprisoned to keep him quiet on his heliocentric ideas is false. He was under house arrest (comfortable, mind you) only because he crossed a line by asserting that the Bible was in error when it said that the sun rose and set. He maintained that the sun was stationary and that the earth moved. His science was correct, but the Church believes his biblical theology was wrong. Those figures of speech — the sun sets and the sun rises or even just sunrise and sunset — are still used today even though everyone believes in a heliocentric, not a geocentric, universe. The Bible contains many types of literature, genres, and forms of speech, such as analogy, metaphor, and simile. Had Galileo stuck to science, he would have been okay, but he chose to publicly attack what the Church believes is the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. That’s what got him into hot water.
Faith and reason
During the middle of the 18th century, lukewarm attitudes became evident in the French Church. Religious practices and morals were in decline. Then came the view that the Church wasn’t necessary and that the human mind didn’t need any guidance from divine grace. Reason alone was sufficient, and faith was nonsensical. This way of thinking was called rationalism.
Philosophy and empirical science sought truths that the human mind could attain. Theology wasn’t treated as a science but as superstition. The rationalists saw religion as a myth, and they had no respect for divine revelation. The Church taught that revelation was the divine communication of truths that human minds could never achieve — or at least not everyone in the same way. And only faith could embrace revelation.
Yet the Church believed that faith and reason could coexist — because the Church believed that God created both. Catholic theologians didn’t see philosophers or scientists as the enemy. Theologians believed that theological truths known by revelation and accepted on faith didn’t contradict philosophical truths known by reason or scientific truths known by observation and experimentation. Instead, they saw it all as looking at the same universe from different perspectives.
The rationalists were confident in the world, human nature, and its power. Voltaire was the famous philosopher who incorporated rationalist ideas. Through the development of his philosophy, the Enlightenment movement became an anti-Christian war machine. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, another philosopher of the period, claimed that the world could be saved through education instead of Jesus Christ.
The Age of Revolution
The 18th century witnessed the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in England. The American and French Revolutions also occurred during this time. Many new ideas and concepts were being introduced into philosophy, religion, and society, and these ideals were embodied in a movement called the Enlightenment. The age of revolution had begun.
The French Revolution’s effect on the Church
Freemasons, rationalists, and philosophers supported the extremes of the Enlightenment, laying the cornerstone for the French Revolution. In addition, many of the French aristocracy and some corrupt monarchs had oppressed the common people for too long. Unfortunately, the Church in France had become too closely bound with the state. A pronounced division existed between the upper clergy (bishops and cardinals) and the lower clergy (priests).
In 1789, the atmosphere began to change in France. Church land was taken over by the government with the understanding that the state would take care of the clergy. The following year, all monasteries and convents were suppressed. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was enacted, and one-third of the dioceses were done away with.
In 1793, the Reign of Terror began, resulting in the execution of many (often innocent) people during the French Revolution. King Louis XVI was deposed and put to death. Hatred for the Church reached the point of insanity. Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites (1957), a famous opera, highlights the ill effects of the French Revolution. Based on a true story, the opera portrays cloistered Carmelite nuns who refused to take the new oath and submit to the laws of suppression. It finally led them to the guillotine. This was all too common in France during that time. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, a bastion of French Catholicism, was reduced to a barracks for animals, and a statue of the goddess of reason replaced the one of the Virgin Mary.
Napoleon came to power in France and saw that the French people were basically Catholic at heart. He tried to win them to his side by making pseudo and bogus overtures to the Catholic Church. In 1801, he signed a concordat (Vatican treaty) with Pope Pius VII giving back Church property seized during the French Revolution and the infamous Reign of Terror. He went so far as to have the pope come to Paris and crown him emperor in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. With audacious pride, he grabbed the crown from the aged pope and literally crowned himself and then his Empress Josephine.
The Revolution drastically changed Catholicism forever — not only in France but also throughout Europe. The people of France were able to declare themselves non-Catholic or non-Christian. By the creation of a civil state, divorce became acceptable. Anti-clericalism and atheism later flourished in a country that was once called the Eldest Daughter of the Church.
The restoration of the monarchy and Church to France
The 19th century saw the restoration of the monarchy to France after the fall of the Emperor Napoleon and the chaos of the Reign of Terror. Absolute monarchies in Europe were being replaced with Constitutional ones that preserved tradition while maintaining some form of representative government, like Parliament.
Catholic schools, convents, monasteries, and seminaries were reopened. Great attention was given to clerical formation. As a result of the new freedom, the Church enjoyed a sense of renewed optimism. New religious communities were established, and new parishes and new dioceses were created. A revival in devotion commenced, and the Church believes that two great spiritual events occurred:
- In 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared 18 times to a poor peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes. Even now, hundreds of thousands of people flock to Lourdes for spiritual renewal or a miracle. (See Chapters 21 and 22 for more on St. Bernadette and Lourdes, respectively.)
- The little town of Ars, France, became the home of one the holiest parish priests, St. John Vianney (1786–1859). He didn’t belong to any religious order, like the Dominicans or Franciscans. Rather, he was a diocesan priest (see Chapter 6), the first diocesan priest to be canonized. Today, he’s the patron saint of all parish priests. His work and evangelization became a hallmark to be studied and copied by every priest.
The Oxford Movement in England
In England, with the Act of Emancipation in 1829, the Catholic Church was allowed freedom of worship — something that had been denied since the Reign of Henry VIII. As a result, a great renaissance in the faith occurred. Religious communities were able to come from Italy and preach, teach, and commence devotions.
At this time, a great revival also occurred in the Anglican Church, the official Church of England. It was known as the Oxford Movement (1833–1845), and it attempted to recapture many Catholic doctrines and to introduce many of the customs, traditions, rituals, pageantry, and color of the Catholic Church. Up until then, the Anglican Church had leaned toward the Puritan style: few vestments and little use of liturgical colors, statues, candles, and so on. In other words, the Oxford Movement attempted to Romanize belief and worship while retaining the Anglican identity.
One of the great supporters of this movement was Blessed John Henry Newman. An Anglican minister and professor at Oxford, he became influenced by the Catholic Church and later converted to Catholicism. He then became a cardinal and joined the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.
A revival of Catholicism was beginning in England.
Catholicism in the New World
In the New World, the Catholic Church was firmly planted in French Canada and Spanish Central and South America, but in the Protestant colonies of England that would eventually become the United States, the Catholic Church grew slowly in the face of anti-Catholic prejudice and bias.
In 1792, Fr. John Carroll became the first bishop of the United States in Baltimore, Maryland, which had been colonized by Lord Calvert, a Catholic. From this colony, the Catholic faith spread by a priest who celebrated Mass secretly in Catholic homes during this time of persecution. Fr. Ferdinand Farmer provided for the spiritual and sacramental needs of Catholics already living in the colonies up to New York. By his hard work and effort, many converts were made, and by 1808, a new diocese was established in New York, Philadelphia, Bardstown (KY), and Boston.
The conversion of St. Elizabeth Ann Bailey Seton, a wealthy Episcopalian, to Catholicism saw the establishment of a new religious community devoted to education: the Sisters of Charity. The Episcopalian Church is the American — post revolution — version of the Anglican Church in England. In 1791, the first American seminary and Catholic college were established: St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The early 19th century saw an increase in many orders dedicated to education, such as the Christian Brothers, Brothers of the Holy Cross, the Religious Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of St. Joseph of Chestnut Hill, Sisters of St. Francis, and the Xaverian Brothers.
Nuns and brothers of the immigrants’ own nationality followed the different waves of immigration. These nuns and brothers were able to speak the immigrants’ own language, making it possible for their children to enter into the life of the New World without losing their faith. The New World was a new continent on which to reestablish the Catholic Church.
But during the 19th century, with the increase of immigration from Catholic countries of eastern, southern, and central Europe, as well as Ireland, bigotry against Catholics increased. In New York, the Know Nothing party was established, and it provoked riots and the burning of Catholic churches. In Boston, convents were burned down. The Ku Klux Klan, which became very powerful in the 1920s, included Catholics and Catholic churches on its list of targets, along with Jews and African Americans.
However, by the end of the 19th century, the Church was firmly planted and rooted in the American soil. And in the early part of the 20th century, the United States wasn’t considered missionary territory anymore.
The Modern Era
Roughly at the same time as the First Vatican Council (1869–1870), which defined the doctrine of Papal Infallibility (see Chapter 6), the Italian unification process took shape under Victor Emmanuel, threatening the Papal States. Back in the 8th century, the Carolingian Frankish King Pepin the Short, who was the father of Charlemagne, had given the Papal States (Patrimonium Petri) to the pope for his secular rule. The temporal powers of the pope were threatened by the unification of Italy, especially because Rome was the center of the Papal States and the future capital of a unified Italy. Indeed, the pope lost his temporal power in 1870. However, he would later be recognized as the head of state of the smallest independent nation of the world: 0.44 square miles. (To accomplish this, Vatican City and the Republic of Italy signed the Lateran Treaty in 1929.)
In the late 19th century, Europe was undergoing many changes. Areas that were parts of empires became separate countries. This era defined France, Germany, and Italy as countries. Germany formed a nation and saw the pope as a threat to its unification. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) passed laws that persecuted the Catholic Church in Germany. This conflict between the Catholic and German government was called the kulturkampf (literally, “conflict of cultures”). This environment led to a vast emigration of German Catholics fleeing persecution in the fatherland to the United States.
In this setting, Leo XIII (1878–1903) became pope. The Industrial Revolution was also in full swing in England, Germany, and the United States at this time. The common rights of workers were threatened and denied. As a result, Pope Leo wrote the magnificent papal encyclical Rerum Novarum on the sanctity of human work, dignity of workers, and the justice that’s owed to them. He condemned all sorts of radical stances, such as extreme capitalism and atheistic communism, while defending the rights of private property and the right to form guilds or trade unions. This social encyclical gave the impetus for Catholic unions in the United States.
Pope St. Pius X (1903–1914) followed the reign of Leo XIII. He was known as the pope of the children. He extended the right to receive Holy Communion to all Catholic children who had reached the age of reason — 7 years old. Also, he composed a syllabus of errors. In it he condemned certain tenets of modernism, a heresy that denied aspects of the faith and accepted all sorts of progressivism to the point that it damaged the integrity of the faith. To be a modernist didn’t mean that you were a modern thinker and able to communicate to your contemporaries. Rather, to get its message across, modernism used falsehoods to prove its point. If anything, modernism was nothing more than elaborate academic skepticism run rampant.
World wars, communism, and fascism
World War I (1914–18), the war that was supposed to end all wars, was truly bloody. Many lives were lost on both sides, and in the end, the Austrian Hungarian Empire was divided up. People in the old empire who hated Austria saw that the Church was in line with the old regime; therefore, the Church was persecuted in these areas. Otto von Bismarck and his Germany were defeated, going into deep economic depression.
When a worldwide depression hit in 1929, fascism gained power. Europe was in turmoil. In Spain, anti-Catholic communists combated royalists in a terrible civil war. As in the French Revolution, many Catholic priests and sisters were martyred. However, under General Francisco Franco (1892–1975), the communists were defeated in 1939. Though the Church was able to flourish, Spain remained under Franco’s dictatorship until the 1970s.
Italy, ruled by the House of Savoy after its unification in 1870, came under the influence of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) in 1928. Later, he teamed up with Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) during World War II (1939–1945). It was in Nazi Germany that fascism reached the depth of depravity and evil.
The Church was unanimously against the evils of communism on the one hand and fascism on the other. With the onslaught of World War II, Pope Pius XII (1939–1958) diplomatically tried to help those affected by the diabolical evil of Adolf Hitler. Though maligned terribly by some in the secular press today, Pius XII actively worked for the safety of the Jewish people. Shortly after his election as pope (March 2, 1939), the Nazi newspaper Berliner Morganpost blasted the news that his papal election wasn’t popular in Germany because he was well known as a Nazi opponent.
At one point during the war, the Vatican, considered neutral territory by the Geneva Conference, hid and cared for up to 3,500 Jews. Through its nuncios (ambassadors), the Church falsified documents to aid Jews by providing fictitious baptismal certificates that identified them as Catholic Christians. Many priests, nuns, and Catholic laymen lost their lives rescuing and sheltering their brother and sister Jews. Recently released Vatican records indicate that the Catholic Church operated an underground railroad that rescued 800,000 European Jews from the Holocaust.
Pope Pius XII accomplished a lot to help the Jews during World War II, but the most eloquent testimony to his efforts is the conversion of the chief Rabbi of Rome, Israele Anton Zolli, to Roman Catholicism in 1945 in appreciation. He even took the baptismal name Eugenio because it was Pius XII’s baptismal name. When Pius XII died, Prime Minister Golda Meir sent a eulogy praising him for his efforts during the war to help Jews.
The Church’s rocky road in Eastern Europe
Czarist Russia fell to the Communists in 1917 during World War I, resulting in a godless government coming into being that proved to be a nemesis for the Orthodox Church, as well as the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe. After World War II, many of the Eastern countries were occupied by the U.S.S.R., which actively persecuted the Church and anyone who belonged to it. Bishops couldn’t be appointed to their diocese. Seminaries were illegal. The Catholic faith stayed alive in Eastern Europe because of the underground Church.
Let the sun shine in
Not all was gloom and doom after World War II. The Catholic Church greatly expanded in the United States. From 1910 to 1930, the population of the country grew tremendously as a result of a vast emigration from Southern and Eastern Europe — mainly Catholic countries. By the 1950s, these emigrant groups grew financially, politically, and socially. The 1950s saw a rise in vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Churches, seminaries, schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, and other institutions grew tremendously.
With the death of Pius XII, a new era in the Church began with the reign of Pope John XXIII (1958–1963). Some of the man-made customs that had crept into the Church since the Council of Trent were archaic and needed reform. John XXIII called for a new council, the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), also known as Vatican II. One year into the Council, John XXIII died. Paul VI (1963–1978) was elected after him and concluded the council. The council didn’t define any new doctrines, nor did it substantially alter any. It didn’t abolish any Catholic traditions or devotions but asked that they be kept in proper perspective to the revealed truths of the faith and subservient to the Sacred Liturgy of the Church. Vatican II didn’t create new teaching but explained the ancient faith in new ways to address new issues and concerns. (See Chapter 10 for more on Vatican II.)
Paul VI wrote many encyclicals (letters from the pope addressed to the world), his most famous one being titled Humanae Vitae or On Human Life. It challenged modern-day society, which had given in to the contraceptive mentality. He predicted in 1968 that if people didn’t respect human life from the beginning, they wouldn’t respect it in the end. He claimed that artificial contraception would lead to an increase in abortions, divorce, broken families, and other social troubles. Twenty-five years later on the anniversary of the encyclical, Pope John Paul II wrote another encyclical, titled Gospel of Life. In it, he stated that the warnings of Paul VI had come true. (See Chapter 14 for more on the controversial issues addressed by the Church.)
Paul VI died on August 6, 1978, and John Paul I was elected his successor 20 days later. He chose to take the names of his two most immediate predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI, the two popes of the Second Vatican Council. Unfortunately, he lived only one month as pope and died mysteriously in his sleep on September 28, 1978. Rumors abound about the circumstances of his untimely demise, but nothing credible has ever been established or demonstrated.
John Paul II
On October 16, 1978, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla was elected pope and became Pope John Paul II. (See Chapter 21 for details on his life.) During his pontificate, the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and much of the world went to war in the Persian Gulf. Though the Church faces new problems at the beginning of the 21st century, the encouraging words of John Paul II as he began his reign re-echo: “Be not afraid.”
The Polish Pope reigned for 26 years until his death on April 2, 2005. John Paul II was the first pope to visit a Jewish Synagogue since St. Peter and the first pope ever to visit an Islamic Mosque. Prior to the papacy of John Paul II, most people had to go to Rome to see the pope. His papal visits to other countries and World Youth Day (a bi-annual international gathering of young people in different countries each time) made the Bishop of Rome a familiar face even to non-Catholics in many parts of the world. Accessibility via the travels and modern media made the papacy itself a more international player.
Back home in Rome, Pope John Paul II accomplished two historic milestones. First was the revision of the Code of Canon Law in 1983. Second was the implementation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992. Canon Law is the set of rules and regulations that govern the Catholic Church around the world, at the Vatican, in the local diocese, and even in the neighborhood parish. It affects cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, religious men and women, and the largest group in the church, the lay faithful. Canon Law had not been revised since 1917 and desperately needed an overhaul to keep up with the changes in the modern world.
The previous universal Catechism was from the Council of Trent in the 16th century. A Catechism is a collection of official church dogmas and doctrines that all Catholics are obliged to know and believe. They are based on teachings rooted in Sacred Scripture and/or Sacred Tradition. All religion books for children and adults are to be based on doctrines in the Catechism.
Pope John Paul II was credited with a significant role in the demise of the Soviet Union, along with U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Great Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His frequent visits and communications with Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa helped promote hope and encouragement that human rights, especially religious freedom, could be achieved even behind the Iron Curtain. John Paul II was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 1993 at the age of 73. Although plagued with health problems, he stayed active until his death in 2005.
Pope Benedict XVI
Josef Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to succeed John Paul II at the papal conclave that took place on April 18 and 19, 2005. Pope John Paul II had named him the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1981. He held this post until his election as pope. During his tenure in the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger was known for his staunch orthodoxy and for being totally loyal and obedient to the Magisterium and the pope.
In April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI (or B16, as he’s sometimes called) made his first visit to the United States since becoming pope. Two years later, he made the first state visit of the Vatican to Great Britain and was officially received by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Benedict XVI issued the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, which granted universal usage of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (formerly known as the Traditional Latin Mass, TLM, or the Tridentine Mass). It had been replaced with the Novus Ordo Mass of Pope Paul VI, issued in 1969 in response to the Second Vatican Council. The Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite remains the Mass of Paul VI used in most parishes around the world in the Latin Rite.
On February 11, 2013, Pope Benedict announced his resignation from the papacy effective February 28 of that year. He cited advanced age and loss of physical stamina as reasons for giving up the throne of Saint Peter. The last pontiff to abdicate was 600 years ago (Pope Gregory XII) and Benedict became only the fifth of 265 bishops of Rome to step down from office. He assumed the title Pope Emeritus and moved from the Vatican Apostolic Palace to live in the papal summer residence of Castel Gondolfo. A few months later he permanently took residence in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery located in the Vatican gardens.
Pope Francis
Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergolio was the son of Italian immigrants Mario Bergolio and Regina Maria Sivori. Born on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the first of five children, he would become the first South American pope in history. Mr. and Mrs. Bergolio fled northern Italy in 1929 to escape the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.
Earning a degree in Chemistry, Bergolio joined the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits) in 1958. He was ordained a priest on December 13, 1969, and four years later was elected Provincial of the Jesuit order in Argentina. He taught for many years and was ordained an Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1992. Six years later he was made Archbishop of the same diocese. Pope John Paul II elevated him to Cardinal in 2001.
Cardinal Bergolio participated in the papal conclaves of 2005, which elected Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), and of 2013, in which he was chosen pope and took the name Francis. He was the first non-European pope since the eighth century. Pope Francis began with a casual style. He chose not to live in the Apostolic Palace where his predecessors had resided for centuries. Instead, he wanted to live in the same Vatican hotel built by Pope St. John Paul II to house the cardinal electors during a papal conclave. He rode the bus along with his former Cardinal colleagues after his election to pay his hotel bill. Unlike Pope Benedict, Pope Francis prefers less formality and does not always follow the customary etiquette. But he has great respect for his predecessor and speaks well of him. His style is different, but the substantial content of his teachings continues that taught by JP2 and B16.
A Pope of surprises, Francis likes to make his own phone calls and speak to people directly rather than through his secretary. Where Pope John Paul was a philosopher and Pope Benedict a theologian, Pope Francis is more a pastor — he uses familiar language and talks like a priest would his parishioners.
“WHO AM I TO JUDGE?”
Famous for his off-the-cuff remarks, Francis made headlines when he spoke to some reporters on the papal plane. While on a trip to Buenos Aires for World Youth Day in 2013, a reporter asked him about a Monsignor at the Vatican who was identified as being homosexual. His response was, “If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?” He then reiterated what the Catechism teaches, that human persons who have a homosexual orientation or inclination are still to be treated with the same human respect and dignity worthy of all human persons. The Catechism differentiates between the sexual orientation and sexual activity. The former is a disorder while the latter is a sin. The Church teaches that all sex outside of marriage, homosexual or heterosexual, is a mortal sin.
Pope Francis did not change Catholic doctrine on sexuality. He expressed compassion to those who are struggling to do and to be good. The context of the priest in question is that no evidence was found that he committed any crime. All people regardless of sexual inclination are called to live a chaste life, respect the sanctity of married love, and avoid illicit sexual activity.
All Francis was saying is that people should not jump to conclusions and to presume everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Being judgmental is an act of injustice. That someone has a certain inclination or orientation does not mean they will act on it. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is what he was advocating, not gay rights or same-sex marriage as some said in the press.
COMING TO THE USA
Pope Francis made his first papal visit to the United States from September 19–27, 2015, ending with the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, and scheduled an official visit as head of state (Vatican City) to the UN. The Holy Father met with the president, members of Congress, the American Catholic Bishops, and seminarians and religious from all over the country.
Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has become one of the most popular popes in modern history, especially among non-Catholics. His pastoral approach and humble demeanor defy historical biases and prejudices handed down over time that wrongly portray the pope as some Church despot. Pope Emeritus Benedict was not more aristocratic, rather, he was more like the elderly university professor who loved both his subject and his pupils. John Paul was a true public figure who made the papacy visible and approachable. Benedict taught with clarity, conviction, and concern. Francis is like the parish priest who must stay close to his flock.