The Enlightenment period from 1650-1780s promoted reason and individualism over traditional authority, challenging institutions like the Catholic Church. From 1500-1700, the Catholic Church expanded greatly through colonization and missionary work, becoming a global religion, though faced criticism. In the late 1700s, the Jesuit order was temporarily dissolved under pressure from European rulers. During the French Revolution in the late 1700s, the Catholic Church was outlawed in France and clergy were exiled or killed, though the Church rebounded later. In the 1800s, the Papacy defined new doctrines like infallibility and the Immaculate Conception amid this period of change.

1. Enlightenment Church
1700-1900
Modern Church 1900-2000+
Early Church ~30-500
Emerging Church 500-1000 A.D.
Medieval Church 1000-1500
Renaissance Church 1500-1700

2. “Enlightenment”?
• Age of Enlightenment 1650s-1780s
• cultural and intellectual forces in Western Europe emphasized
• reason,
• analysis, and
• individualism
• rather than traditional lines of authority
• promoted by philosophes and local thinkers in urban
coffeehouses, salons, and masonic lodges.
• challenged the authority of institutions that were deeply
rooted in society, such as the Catholic Church;
• talk of ways to reform society with toleration, science and
skepticism.

3. • Catholic Portuguese and Spanish Empires expand
• Christianization of indigenous peoples
• such as the Aztecs and Incas
• Dutch, England, France, Germany and Russia
colonize Africa, India, China, & other countries
• Largest expansion of Christianity in history
• Becomes a truly global religion.

4. Sidebar: Ignatius’s Jesuits
• Jesuits under attack in Portugal, Spain, France, and Sicily
• Jesuit support for the indigenous Americans added to growing
criticism of the order
• symbolized the strength and independence of the Church.
• Defending the rights of native peoples in South America
hindered the efforts of European powers to maintain absolute
rule over their domains
• In 1773, European rulers forced Pope to dissolve the order
• 1814 pope restores Jesuits

5. • violent anti-clericalism
• church property taken by the state
• priests refused an oath of compliance to the National Assembly
• Catholic Church is outlawed
• replaced by a new religion of the worship of "Reason“
• all monasteries were destroyed,
• 30,000 priests were exiled and hundreds more were killed
• (some went to New World… Quebec, then West)
• Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy and took pope, 82, prisoner
• To get popular, Napoleon re-established the Catholic Church, 1801
• After war, Catholicism ‘bounced back’ in Europe
• but anti-clericalism remained

6. Unity?
Or, Meanwhile, back in Rome…
Here’s what the Popes did in the 19th century (1800s)
• Papal Infallibility
• Council of Vatican I
• When the pope defines doctrine concerning faith or morals to be
held by the whole Church – then his teaching leads to heaven
• Weather forecasts not included
• (Orthodox Church is not a fan)
• Immaculate Conception
• Mary was conceived without Original Sin – God had a plan for her
• (Protestants are not fans)
• Rerum Novarum
• Rejects socialism BUT
• Demanded regulation of working conditions, a living wage and the
right of workers to form trade unions
• (capitalists and socialists are not fans)

7. Person: Blessed Cardinal John
Henry Newman 1801-1890
• Anglican priest who was a leader in the Oxford Movement –
Anglicans moving closer to Catholicism
• Left Anglican Church to become Catholic
• Pope made him a Cardinal
• Wrote in defense of Catholic teaching with a new perspective
• "something true and divinely revealed in every religion”
• "Logic is loose at both ends"
• Founded universities, schools and “Newman Associations”
• (got a nerdy English major married)
• Wrote “Lead Kindly Light”

8. Event: Revivalism
• Age of Enlightenment: dampened spiritual movements
• countered by Methodist revival and Great Awakening in
America
• A new fervor spread within the Anglican Church
• combat social ills at home and slavery abroad, and
founded Bible and missionary societies.
• Great Awakening
• widespread revivals led
by evangelical Protestant ministers,
• a sharp increase of interest in religion,
• a profound sense of conviction and redemption in those
affected
• an increase in evangelical church membership,
• the formation of new religious
movements and denominations

9. Person: St. Bernadette of
Lourdes 1844-1879
• Peasant daughter of a miller in France
• At 14 years old, saw 18 visions of
Mary
• Initially mocked and punished,
• eventually believed
• Mary asked her to dig for a spring,
• the water caused miraculous
healings – lots
• At 22, became a Sister, died at 35
• Body remained incorrupt until 1925
(mostly)