The Catholic Church Essay

Research on Martin Luther was chosen to demonstrate the importance of his works, and decisions that not only fueled his purpose, but changed the church for generations to come. Martin Luther propelled himself into his work and was not afraid of voicing his often strong opinion of the Catholic Church. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses provides readers his opinion of the church, calling out failures, and known corruption of leaders within.

During the period of the Renaissance, the Church was seen as the supreme power and ruler of the land. It was a machine, generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and serving as the ultimate authority for all things regarding life. Throughout the duration of this course, we have witnessed society shift farther and farther from the Church. During periods like the Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and the French Revolution, the previously uncontested and unrivaled Church received opposition and resistance. These movements are imperative to see the spirit of the period and to see groups rise out of their apprehensiveness and timidity and take a stand for what

In 1864, Pope Pius IX wrote the Syllabus of Errors for the laity. This condemned about 80 different reforms which were occurring in Europe, including the three already mentioned. The church followed this document until the second Vatican Council.

The contemporary Catholic Church continues to be faced with the challenges of modernity. Often do members of the laity feel that the Church has become too rigid and dogmatic in its practice of spirituality. People in and out of the Catholic religion see the Church as a

With the rise of the 20th century, the Roman Catholic Church faced the issue of Modernity. As a result of this, the stability of the Catholic Christian Tradition was threatened due to the church’s message of faith being not as relevant to the rapidly

From the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, many Popes before John XXIII continued and upheld the tradition of the Trento Convention and criticized the modern trend of thought and the secular social system. They stood on a conservative standpoint, viewed their era in a pessimistic manner, and denounced modern society as a "scourge". “When Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council in1962, in one dramatic gesture he sought to reverse the more than four centuries of church attempts to reject the emerging modern world.” As a result, the second Vatican Council’s meetings has made a new orientation to the Catholic Church, that is, from a multi-angle perspective on man's position in the changing times and the various difficulties that people face in the modern world. Finally, the second Vatican Council’s meetings has enabled the Catholic Church to fully intervene in the modern world in an open manner. This meeting provided the theoretical basis for the church to care for the worldly affairs.

The Church’s significant change known as the Counter-Reformation spanned 100 years and was a drastic challenge to the Church, which has highly shaped the modern day Catholic Religion. It is said to be one of the most defying moments in Church history that changed how thousands of Catholics viewed their religion. However, in order to understand how this event has both positively and negatively impacted the Church, it’s necessary to know why exactly the Counter-Reformation occurred.

After the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church showed herself as a “perfect society”, which is visible by the profession of faith while Protestant is not. Subsequently, retrieving the biblical and patristic evidence, Pius XII’s encyclical letter introduced the image of “mystical body of Christ” for the Church. Overcoming the impersonality the image of “perfect society” has, this idea was still criticized for the exclusiveness and also a lack of historical Christ. After that, the Church began to consider the Eucharistic ecclesiology. Supported by the theology in the RCIA, which elucidates the significance and the Baptism and the Eucharist, the ecclesiology regained its dynamism.

A lot has changed the past couple years with the Church, by adding the new Pope Francis. Pope Francis has warned the Catholic Church about focusing way too much on abortion, gay marriage, and other social issues when they should be focusing on the Catholic Church and how to make Catholics better in life and in the Church. People has said that the Catholic Church has risks of overshadowing their pastoral mission which means that it’s threatening the church to bring it down “ like a house of cards”. Pope Francis doesn’t like how the church is going in this direction, he wants to keep the church the same as it has been. But people want the change in the church they don’t want it the same. So Pope Francis needs to change as well and he is willing to change the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has been distant between him and his two predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II.

Similar to that of the rise of classical liberal theology and Protestantism, the Roman Catholic Church experienced a change in theological thought. “Modernism” led to increased biblical criticism and called for Catholic theologies to adapt to the surrounding modern world. Just like those who opposed liberalism, this new way of thinking was also faced with many within the church who opposed it. In 1959 however, John XXIII was elected as the new pope who would set out to bring the church up to speed with the modern world. The result was the formation of the Second Vatican Council also commonly referred to as the “Vatican II.” Theologians Karl Rahner and Hans Küng’s attendance to the council had a major impact because their ideas helped to advance a Catholic theology which focused on bridging the gap between the church and contemporary culture.

The Catholic Church began with the birth of Jesus Christ in the first century A.D. and remained virtually intact until people felt that its teachings and practices were focused on tradition and monetary values, rather than religious values (“The Reformation”). The Reformation sought to amend the corrupted practices of the church by empowering peasants with the hope of achieving priesthood, which was forbidden by the Catholic Church. In the span of three years, Luther’s reform, Protestantism, quickly became the state religion in three separate regions. Luther and his “95 Theses” were not only successful, but also able to utilize a protest’s most potent weapon- the promise of

This curriculum is designed to familiarize church members with leaders of the Protestant Reformation who sought to reform the church, by promoting religious, intellectual, political and cultural upheaval that splintered the Catholic Church, setting in place structures and beliefs that would define the Church in the modern era. The decline and corruption of the papacy convinced many thoughtful Christians that the teachings of the church had gone astray, therefore, reformers like Luther, Calvin, Wesley and others sought to reform the old church from within, while others lost all hope for suck reformation, and openly broke with the papacy.

Inglis (2007) believed that the Catholic Church was once the backbone of strong cohesive family networks and community structures that created a sense of belonging and identity in Ireland . It provided the Irish people with a certain comfort and solace and its teachings were central to the way Irish people thought. Irish Catholics were deeply spiritual people who once devoted their lives to the Church (inglis 2007).

During the course of Foundations of Reflection: God, my mission is to appreciate and learn the history and advances of the Christian Church. As students, we analyze cultural texts and describe meaningful events to develop an answer to “who,” “what,” and “why” there is a transcendent God. This composition will focus the historical-social context, ecclesial context, and modifications to the Church that occurred from three critical events; Fall of the Roman Empire, World War II, and the Celebration of the Holy Year by Pope John Paul II. The selected episodes are key in the history of the development of the church and provide insights of the church- politically, socially, and more importantly, religiously.

In the beginning of the tenth century the Church was in search of a spiritual revival. “Church reform began as a way to free the church from the world, but in the end the church was thoroughly involved in the new world it had helped create” (Hunt 321). The church attempted to free itself from secular entanglements. Since the beginning people believed that rulers were given the right to govern and control the churches from God himself. However, by the mid eleventh century the people preferred the church reform to be led by the papacy instead of secular power. This reform movement aimed to transform the structure of the church during the middle age and in turn influencing the history of religion and