final Flashcards
Charles Borromeo: (1538–1584)
Milan reforming Bishop. He established three seminaries, including one devoted to rural clergy, and personally ministered to the poor and sick. The Barnabites order established the church of St. Barnabas in Milan in 1530. They believed in the clerical state and to ministering to the poor and the sick, paved the way for Carlo Borromeo and to assist him. Borromeo, in turn, would spur them to rewrite their rule in the 1570s to bring it more closely in line with the Tridentine decrees. His clergy resisted him (shot him in back story).
Ignatius Loyola:
the founder of the Jesuit order.
He was originally a Basque noble, but was injured at a 1521 battle in Pamplona during the (French-Spain) Hapsburg-Valois Wars (1494–1559).
He would perfect his introspective meditations and turn his method of discerning God’s will into a detailed process and into a written manual, The Spiritual Exercises.
It repudiated Protestantism: Forget about a human will that can do nothing to earn its salvation, or about justification by faith alone or grace alone. Forget predestination.
He was persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition so he fled to France, Began the Jesuits in 1540. Unlike other orders, the Jesuits had no uniform garb, no fixed prayer times, no communal prayer. They did not engage in extreme fasts or self-mortification. This allowed Jesuits as much flexibility as possible within the world. The Jesuit curriculum taught Renaissance humanism. The Jesuit schools trained civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and functionaries. For Jesuits, distinguishing between “worldly” and “spiritual” subjects was unnecessary. For them, circumstances determined the seriousness of the sin (casuistry). Hospitals ranked high on the Jesuits’ list of priorities—also, ministering to prostitutes. They wrote counter-Protestant texts. In England, Jesuits entered the fray as subversives and as foreign agents, since they had all received their training abroad and had to slip into Elizabeth’s realm in disguise.
“Rules for Thinking with the Church”
ST IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA
“We should praise all works of penance, not only those that are interior but also those that are exterior.”
“If we wish to proceed securely in all things, we must hold fast to the following principle: What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines.”
St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582).
She reformed the Carmelites, an order founded in the twelfth century.
A nun at a convent in Ávila, Spain, Teresa became close with Peter of Alcántara, the leader of the Franciscan Discalced reform. Despite heavy opposition from civil and church authorities, Teresa managed to establish a convent, St. Joseph’s, which was to subsist entirely by begging, and in which the sisters would devote themselves to silent, interior prayer, rather than to vocal or sung prayer on behalf of patrons. Teresa established seventeen new Discalced convents for women in Spain, and a parallel reform among the male Carmelites.
She was a mystic given over to visions and spiritual ecstasies. And it was due to Peter that Teresa began to gain acceptance as a genuine mystic rather than a demonically deceived or insane nun. After Teresa’s death, the female Discalced Carmelites continued growing, expanding into Italy, France, and Flanders.
Francis Xavier: (1506–1552)
was one of the first Jesuits.
Xavier’s time in Japan was brief, but he planted the seeds for a much larger enterprise. Xavier figured out that the emperor was in a weak position, and he cultivated the support of the local lords, or daimyos.
Despite his limited knowledge of Japanese, he also figured out that the translation of certain basic terms, including God, was highly problematic, and settled on the use of Latin words, such as Deus for “God,” in place of Japanese equivalents. Xavier also figured out that the Japanese had such great admiration for China, and it would be best first to convert the Chinese.
While he was still alive, his letters on mission work, thanks to printing, made missions in general and the Asian missions in particular a significant component of Catholic culture.
Fumi-e:
After Xavier left Japan Catholicism grew with the conversion of several local lords (daimyos) in the 1560s and the arrival of even more missionaries. Had the emperor remained weak and the state decentralized, it is highly likely that this growth would have continued.
But in the 1580s Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a daimyo, began to reunify Japan and to centralize power once again. Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian missionaries began to arrive, and to promote the Christian faith much less tactfully than the Jesuits, especially among the lower classes. The Spanish presence in the Philippines worried Hideyoshi, who knew that the Spanish were into conquering and ruling, and that all the missionaries on Japanese soil were now subjects of the king of Spain, due to Philip II’s takeover of the Portuguese throne in 1580. He then persecuted and executed a lot of Christians, continued in 1614 by Tokugawa Ieyasu.
In addition to destroying churches and driving missionaries away, Ieyasu’s forces began a brutal process of de-Christianization, He asked everyone to trample on images of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Those who refused to dishonor these icons, known as fumie, would be identified as Christians and subjected to torture, and eventually to execution if they refused to convert. Japanese Catholics survived by becoming “hidden Christians” passing on their faith at home, disguising their rituals as traditional Japanese ceremonies.
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610)
Jesuit Italian (1552–1610) who went on a mission to China. He was very proficient in mathematics, geography, and astronomy, and would also quickly master classical and colloquial Mandarin Chinese. convinced that if they won over the elites, then the conversion of the masses would eventually follow. They sought to impress the Chinese with Western advances in science and mathematics, so they might drop their prejudice against all things non-Chinese as worthless. Committed to the creation of a native Catholic church in China, they dressed as Buddhist monks. Ricci looked for ways of convincing the Chinese that their most cherished beliefs were not antithetical to Christianity, but rather highly compatible, even brought to perfection by Christian theology, ethics, and philosophy. Such a deliberately slow approach was incompatible with the methods employed by most Catholic missionaries at that time, which were designed to win converts quickly. He wrote The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven which sought to prove the conformity of natural reason with the law of the Christian God and with the ancient sages of China. Ricci made it possible for Christian missions to be tolerated.
In 1705, Rome proclaimed all rites concerning ancestors incompatible with the Catholic faith and therefore forbidden. This decision eventually led the Chinese emperor to outlaw Christianity everywhere but Beijing and to ban all Christian missions from the provinces in 1721.
Laws of Burgos
The Dominicans convinced King Ferdinand to enact a new set of regulations for the colonists, in 1512. The Laws of Burgos set strict guidelines for the treatment of the natives of the Indies, seeking to protect them from abuse and ensure their conversion to Christianity. It outlawed the direct punishment of natives by anyone other than an appointed official, set limits on the amount of work they could do, required they be provided with adequate food and housing, and ordered that all of them be instructed in the Christian faith.
It enacted the encomienda, a land-grant system that gave colonists the right to exploit a limited number of natives (no fewer than 40 and no more than 150), according to the size of the property allotted to them. In exchange for their labor, the encomendero who owned the land was made responsible for their well-being and their catechization.
Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566)
a Dominican friar, he wrote a Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. an early settler of Hispaniola, the embodiment of the Christian conscience in the early Spanish colonial enterprise. He showed the negative effect the violence had on mission efforts. His pressure helped bring about the Law of Burgos, and was against the Requerimiento, which, while it promised that no one would be compelled to convert, simultaneously required that all be subjected to religious instruction in the Christian faith.
Valladolid, Spain, in 1550 debate: On the side of the natives, Dominicans defended their full humanity. Bartolomé de Las Casas was backed by some formidable theologians known collectively as “the school of Salamanca.”
On the side of those colonists who thought the natives were a race apart, Juan Ginés de Sepúlved argued that the natives of the Indies were “natural slaves.” Out of Aristotle’s Politics, which proposed that there were indeed human beings whose intellect was so limited that they could do “nothing better” than “to use their body.”
The natives were fully human, yes, argued Las Casas, but their culture was at a far lower stage of development than that of their conquerors. The crown should defend their full human rights, but at the very same time govern them for their own good. Because of this the Church decided there would be no native priests.
María de Jesús de Ágreda: (1602–1665)
another noncanonized mystic—claimed not only to have constant contact with the Virgin Mary, but also to have served as her scribe, for the Mother of God supposedly dictated her biography to her. There was a renewed emphasis on the unwavering constancy of the miraculous in the Catholic Church. Sister Maria de Ágreda was reported to have levitated. Even more remarkable was the claim that this same nun had visited North America many times without ever leaving her convent in Ágreda, Spain, and that she had evangelized the natives of West Texas and New Mexico.
Holy people were expected to have intimate contact with the divine, through apparitions of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or other saints in heaven, who sometimes had messages they wanted delivered.
Peter Canisius (1521–1597)
Dutch Jesuit.
His catechism, Summa Doctrinae Christianae (1555), was intended for advanced students. It was later revised and appeared in two shorter versions, one of intermediate length for less advanced students and an even shorter version for young children. The intermediate Catechismus Minor was rapidly translated into every major European vernacular and reprinted constantly for generations, its polemical use earned Canisius the title “Hammer of Heretics.”
Piarists and Ursulines
Founded in 1535 by St. Angela de Merici (1474–1540) in Italy, the Ursulines were the very first religious order for women dedicated to teaching. Eventually, they would also reach some of its overseas colonies. In 1639, for instance, the first convent for women in North America would be established, in New France. The Ursulines excelled at their teaching ministry, because they fulfilled a very modern need: that of educating the daughters of the rising urban bourgeoisie and of ensuring that they were properly instructed in Christian doctrine and morals. The Council of Trent had declared it preferable for religious women to be cloistered and given over to a contemplative life, but the Ursulines excelled at the active life amid the harsh realities of the “world,”
Joseph (José) de Calasanz (1556–1648), founded an order dedicated to educating disadvantaged children known as Piarists, the priests took an additional vow, committing themselves to a teaching ministry. This school aimed the uplifting of an entire social class. Joseph’s pupils also were taught all the basic academic subjects in their own language, rather than in Latin, with an emphasis on pragmatic skills that could prepare them for work. the Piarists made many powerful enemies by supporting Galileo Galilei and by teaching his radically new heliocentric theory in their schools. Then, in 1646, their superior general was exposed as a sexual predator who also created a network of pederasts. Then all of its priests were placed under the authority of their local bishops. But the Piarists and their schools were too useful to discard. They would reemerge again full of vigor, ready to conquer new mission fields. The schools spread all over the world, helped keep Poland Catholic.
Eudists
a dynamic French reformer was Jean Eudes (1601– 1680). He established a seminary at Caen. Following the Oratorian paradigm, those who joined this congregation took no vows and remained under the jurisdiction of their bishops. They also devoted themselves to the training of secular priests. Some of these seminaries concentrated on training poor students for rural ministries. The Eudists focused on creating a more devout laity, placing great emphasis on reaching out to the fallen and downtrodden.
An indefatigable preacher, Jean Eudes led the way by conducting more than a hundred preaching missions himself, and publishing several devotional texts. Eudes also played an instrumental role in the founding of other religious communities devoted to serving the needy.
Augsburg Interim:
After the defeat of the Lutheran princes by Emperor Charles V in 1547, Charles V attempted to impose the Augsburg Interim on their lands in 1548.
Convinced that he could effect a reconciliation between Rome and Lutheran Germany, Charles V tried to work out a compromise that would allow his Lutheran subjects to return to the Catholic fold without abandoning their religious convictions. The Augsburg Interim required Luterans to accept the authority of the pope, to reinstate bishops, to accept seven sacraments, and to return to Catholic rituals and practices. They also had to accept Catholic teachings they had rejected, such as transubstantiation and saintly intercession, and to abandon sola scriptura and sola fide.
Pope Paul III viewed the interim as a challenge to his own authority and at first refused to approve it. Catholic princes tended to reject it too, on the grounds that it served only to give the emperor more authority over them. On the Lutheran side, many rulers and pastors rejected the interim outright and refused to obey it. Melanchthon produced his own “interim”; the Leipzig Interim held firm on theological issues, but allowing for concessions on issues of ritual and practice, arguing that some rites were “indifferent” or nonessential (termed adiaphora). The who sided with Melanchthon, who came to be known as Philippists, and those who opposed him called themselves Gnesio-Lutherans, or “genuine” Lutherans. Nothing came of the accord because of the Rebellion of the Princes against Charles V that ended in 1552 when Charles lost.
Adiaphora
Melanchthon’s Leipzig Interim defended core Lutheran beliefs, but allowing for concessions on issues of ritual and practice, arguing that some rites were “indifferent” or nonessential (termed adiaphora), that is, insufficiently significant to stand in the way of union between Lutherans and Catholics. Adiaphora was the reinstatement of bishops, or the sacraments of confirmation.
Magdeburg Confession:
A Lutheran statement of faith designed by Gnesio-Lutherans as an alternative to the Leipzig Interim and Augsburg Interim. It said that Lutherans were opposed to following Charles V’s imperial law and were prepared to resist its implementation with force if necessary. They justified this by saying that when subordinate powers within a state (religious institutions) were faced with the situation where the “supreme power” is working to destroy true religion, they may go further than non-cooperation with the supreme power and assist the faithful to resist. The Calvinist tradition also mirrored this justification of violent resistance theory when Beza wrote “On the Rights of Magistrates.”
Peace of Augsburg:
In April 1552, the inconstant Moritz of Saxony switched sides again, allied himself with King Henry II of France, secretly assembled a large army, and pounced on Charles V, who was once again busy preparing to fight France. The Lutherans won this Rebellion of the Princes. The 1555 peace treaty marked the end of religious warfare in Germany, for the following sixty years or so. The question of religion was left entirely in the hands of local rulers. The Latin formula devised to describe the new status quo was simple enough: cuius regio, eius religio., “Religion belongs to the ruler.” Ultimately, the Peace of Augsburg diminished the emperor’s power and augmented the independence of each of the three hundred states within the empire’s chaotic map. This created an uneasy truce that rested on a political and military stalemate, which would cost them dearly during the Thirty Years’ War,
The Peace of Augsburg, also called the Augsburg Settlement, was a treaty between Charles V and the forces of the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Lutheran princes, on September 25, 1555, at the imperial city of Augsburg, in present-day Bavaria, Germany. It officially ended the religious struggle between the two groups and made the legal division of Christendom permanent within the Holy Roman Empire.
Formula of Concord:
While the Philippists tended to favor a political solution in which the princes and civil magistrates would impose a settlement on all Lutherans, the Gnesio Lutherans insisted on arriving at a very detailed list of true beliefs and specific condemnations of the the Philippists. In 1580 the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord agreement was widely circulated and eventually accepted by principalities and imperial free cities, and enforced through the principle of cuius regio, eius religio. The Philippists thus lost. All twelve articles affirmed Gnesio-Lutheran positions: the total depravity of human nature, salvation by grace alone, the real presence of Christ in the eucharist, the necessity of shunning certain Catholic rites. Because of their desire to compromise, the Philippists could be more easily worn down. Though the Formula was widely accepted, the growing presence of Calvinists in Germany made eucharistic controversies continue. The Scandinavian kingdoms did not accept it either.
Edict of Nantes:
After Francis I persecution of Protestants, Huguenot churches grew in the 1550s, under Henry II. By 1560, thanks in large measure to the efforts of John Calvin and the exile community in Geneva, France had been flooded with Protestant texts and with well-trained missionaries. Huguenots, were very well organized, and disproportionately composed the professional elites and nobility. There were nine separate wars between 1562 and 1598 between the two sides. There was a collapse of central authority in France in which a succession of powerful nobles financed their armies with tax revenues. It ended when King Henry IV abjured his Huguenot faith and joined the Catholic Church to become the undisputed king of France. In April 1598 he proclaimed the Edict of Nantes, which granted legal toleration to the Huguenots, restored their civil rights, including the right to establish their own church and worship as they saw fit, and the right to work for the state or in any profession. It also gave them the right to petition the king directly.
The edict was a limited compromise. It reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church as the official religion of France, and made no mention of any other religious minorities. It also required everyone in the realm to pay a tithe to the Catholic Church, placed restrictions on intermarriage, and placed geographical boundaries on the Reformed Church. Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) however revoked the edict in 1685 and renewed persecution.
