Counter Reformation: Diocesan reform and new orders
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 24-05-18 12:28
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- Counter Reformation: Diocesan reform and new orders
- Reform initiatives originated at Trent
- would redefine and rejuvenate Catholic doctrine and practice
- Reform at level of diocese
- new breed of reforming bishops aimed to raise moral and educational standards
- achieve this whilst tightening ecclesiastical discipline and regulating forms of lay piety which had been allowed freer rein in later Middle Ages
- According to Headley and Tomaro
- Model was Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan (1564-84)
- His Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (Acts of the Church of Milan) set out an ambitious reform programme
- Model was Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan (1564-84)
- Due to Charles Borromeo
- In Milan and elsewhere, traditionally strong quasi-independent bodies such as Fraternities and lay devotional groups were subsumed within revitalised diocese
- Religious education
- Trent deemed it parental duty to send children to parish priest for catechism classes on Sundays and holy days
- Previously lax
- Stronger expectation all laity should attend mass on Sundays and holy days and receive sacraments - only from their parish priest - at least once a year at Easter
- Practice of confession in particular became stricter
- especially with invention (attributed to Borromeo) and rapid diffusion of secret and secure confessional box
- Secular uses of churches and churchyards
- Were discouraged
- Local religious celebrations banned if they contained 'superstitious' elements of which reforming clergy disapproved
- Bossy argues
- Trent's regulation of lay participation in devotional practices served to extinguish much of vitality of medieval Christianity
- Sheer exuberance and emotional intensity of much of religious art and architecture of Catholic reform period points to new possibilities for lay experience of the sacred
- new breed of reforming bishops aimed to raise moral and educational standards
- New Orders
- Required to promulgate the Tridentine canons across Europe
- New religious orders proved invaluable for this
- Not enough people in dioceses or parishes to achieve this
- Included:
- Reformed branch of Franciscans known as Capuchins
- Lazarists
- founded by Frenchman, Vincent de Paul (1581-1660)
- Missions to rural France and Italy (according to Hsia)
- Regularly undertaken throughout C17th
- Undertaken by Lazarists and other orders
- Descended into groups on villages to rouse religious sensibilities of the inhabitants with:
- dramatic processions
- religious plays
- emotional preaching
- female orders revived
- new orders of nuns
- e.g. Ursulines and Visitandines
- founded to nurse poor and sick
- ecclesiastical authorities became uneasy with concept of public female ministry
- strict enclosure was forced on female orders in course of C17th
- new orders of nuns
- Jesuits
- Society of Jesus
- By far most influential of new orders
- Founded by Spaniard Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) in 1534
- Key figure in emergence of militant Catholic Reformation
- His 'Spiritual Exercises' (1548) both taught a technique of meditative prayer and instilled an unquestioning obedience to authority of Church
- Sanctioned by Paul III in 1540
- Combining discipline of traditional religious orders with commitment to itinerant activism in world
- Jesuits excelled in preaching, teaching and missionary activity
- Particularly influential in education
- First school opened in 1548, and by 1615 there were 370 such institutions
- Jesuits provided free education to poor
- Also served as educators in elite
- e.g. philosophers, Justus Lipsius and Rene Descartes were graduates of their college
- Linked to Pope by special oath of loyalty
- Jesuits would serve as confessors to monarchs and emperors
- often arousing jealousy and resentment from fellow Catholics as well as hatred of Protestants
- Jesuits would serve as confessors to monarchs and emperors
- Required to promulgate the Tridentine canons across Europe
- Reform initiatives originated at Trent
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