Class 34: Leo XIII and Late 19 th C Catholicism

1. Class 34: Leo XIII and Late 19th C Catholicism 17 April 2019 Dr. Ann T. Orlando

2. Introduction • German, American, English Romanticism • Henry Cardinal Newman • Pope Leo XIII • Catholic Modernism at end of 19th C

3. American Romanticism: Second Great Awakening • Second Great Awakening • First half 19th C (pre-Civil War) • Effected all Protestant denominations • Specialty was revival camp meetings led by itinerant preachers • Blacks welcomed at most meetings, but not well treated afterwards • Founding of A.M.E. Church, 1815 • Shakers 1800, Mormons 1830 • Transcendentalism • The beauty of nature; man’s ability to appreciate the beauty of nature • Man in beautiful because he is part of nature • God in nature; not as scientific truth but as beauty • Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Brownson, Dickinson (?) • Dissident voices: Hawthorne, Melville

4. German Romanticism • Hegel (1770-1831) • Christianity moves man beyond the law; Speculative Idealism • Jesus brings love that restores mankind to wholeness, a holy innocence The Spirit of Christianity • The Incarnation makes explicit the implicit unity of God and man; Jesus not like Socrates • Christianity as revelation of Spirit • Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) • Influenced by Pietism in early years • Religion not founded on calculating reason; nor even so much on Scripture • Experience of piety is the key • Does not defend relation based on moral needs of society • Rejects Deist’s God of Intelligent Design • Jesus Christ as the arch-type for humanity; importance of community is understanding and transmitting this spirit (truth) • Immanence of God in nature

5. English Romanticism • Poets • Keats (1795-1821); Shelley (1792-1822); Blake (1757-1827); Coleridge (1772-1834), Wordsworth (1770-1850) • Romantic view of nature and human history • Oxford Movement • Anglican; rooted in a reaction to political and economic liberalism • Recognized the pretensions of science and reason to solve all problems • Opposed to Bentham and utilitarianism • Opposed to Latitudinarians • Opposed to Church’s increasing acceptance of secularism

6. John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) • Born into a family with Huguenot background; taught to read Bible as a child, but no religious training otherwise • Went to Oxford in 1816 as an undergraduate; • Became the most important Tractarian for Oxford movement • Trip to Italy and North Africa put him in touch with the ancient Church which he felt must be restored in England • “Lead, kindly light” • Initially, Newman sees Church of England as middle way between Catholicism and Calvinism • Received into Catholic Church 1845, ordained 1847 • Writes Apologia Pro Vita Sua to explain his conversion • Founds an Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England • Rector of Catholic University of Dublin, 1851 (Idea of a University, 1873) • Made a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII 1879

7. LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom          Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home— Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene—one step enough for me. I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou          Shouldst lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path, but now          Lead Thou me on! I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will: remember not past years. So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still          Will lead me on, O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till          The night is gone; And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. The Pillar of the Cloud, At Sea.June 16, 1833. www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse90.html

8. Newman’s Thought • Ecclesiology • Augustine’s arguments against Donatists; importance of Catholic Church • Tract 90 (1841) on Thirty Nine Articles: “It is our duty … to the Catholic Church and our own to take our reformed confession in the most Catholic sense. We have no duties toward their framers” • Papal Infallibility • Acknowledged and accepted primacy of Pope and unwritten tradition of infallibility • Had some concerns about written definition • History and Dogma, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine • Opposed to liberal belief in progress and that there are no permanent supernatural truths • Importance of apostolic Church as vessel of revealed truth • Time is necessary for human mind to fully grasp the Truth; but Truth itself does not change • Develops criteria for changed perspective in grasping truth opposed to heterodox developments • Science

9. Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and Dreyfus Affair • France lost the Franco Prussian War of 1870 in a disastrous series of battles; • Paris captured by Germans • France forced to relinquish Rhine valley, Alsace-Loraine to Prussia • Defeat created social and political tensions within France and the military: who was to blame • French military had been very open to Jewish officers • In 1880s the Panama Canal Company went bankrupt, causing one of the first capitalist depressions in France • Owners of company were Jews • Cries of ‘France for the French’ were raised • ‘Scientific’ definition and stereotyping of races • Dreyfus arrest as a spy for Germans in 1890; convicted and spent 12 years on penal colony; exonerated in 1906

10. Franco-Prussian War and Loss of Papal States • The French government had protected the Papal States after Congress of Vienna (1815) • But defeat of Napoleon III by Prussians, led to military vacuum in Italy • Allowed Papal States to be captured by Italian Nationalists

11. Bismarck and Kulturkampf (War of Civilization) • Bismarck (1815-1898) • Believed in Prussian monarchy; and unification of German Confederation under Prussia, including southern Catholic German states • Franco-Prussian War impetus for strong confederated Germany • Bismarck made Chancellor of Germany in 1870; agenda to unify in laws, customs and national spirit Germany • Kulturkampf (1871-1879) • Concern about a country within a country • Relations with Papacy broken in 1870; Bismarck supports Italian nationalists • German state passes laws against Church education; expels Jesuits; seizes Church property • All clergy had to be German; educated in Germany • End of Kulturkampf • Formation of German Catholic political party • Bismarck wanted to impose tariffs on grain and industrial goods entering Germany; in this he was opposed by economic liberals; needed Catholic support to pass economic agenda

12. Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) • Countered Bismarck’s anti-Catholic movement, Kulturkampf • Strong support for southern (Catholic) labor and political unions • Known as the encyclical pontiff • Rerum Novarum • Providentissimus Deus • Created Pontifical Biblical Commission

13. Rerum Novarum, 1891 • Uphold rights of laborers to a fair wage, but also upholds right to private property • Concern about poor • Emphasis on common good • State has the right to intervene in economy on behalf of individual and society • Cornerstone of modern Catholic social teaching

14. Catholic Social Justice Movements • In late 19th C and early 20th C, Church responds to increasing economic and social problems with organizations that • Often rely on laity • Work with but outside typical clerical diocesan hierarchies • Often explicit political agenda • Forged bonds with labor unions • Salesians • Founded by Don Bosco (1815-1888) • Care for poor urban boys • By 1900 there were 300 Salesian Houses • Knights of Columbus, 1882 • Boys Town 1917 • Catholic Action, 1923 • Catholic Medical Mission Board, 1928 • Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day, 1933 • Catholic Relief Services 1943

15. Fr. John Ryan (1865-1945) • American Catholic moral theologian • Also a background in economics • Deeply concerned about poor laborers and economic justice • Return to natural law arguments on social issues • Rerum Novarum as theoretical model for his work • STD Dissertation, A Living Wage and Redistributive Justice • Proposed a minimum wage set by government for all workers • Suggested how to compute such a minimum wage • Very influential in early days of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal

16. Modernist “Americanist Heresy” Controversy • The issue: the ‘Americanization’ of religion, especially Catholicism • Progressive American Catholics; embraced separation of Church and State; American democracy • Isaac Hecker, founder of Paulists, emphasis on social action; French translation of his biography was modernist • Archbishop John Ireland (St. Paul) , a rare Catholic Republican who identified American civic virtues with Gospel • Bishop Bernard John McQuaid, Bishop of Rochester; opposed definition of Papal infallibility at Vatican I • Opposition, ‘traditionalists’: American governmental system may be best for America, but not necessarily universally; Catholics in America should not see themselves as part of a national church • Leo XIII Longinqua Oceani, 1895; apostolic letter addressed to American bishops

17. Assignments • Leo XIII, RerumNovarum, www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html