By Laura Calnan, an undergraduate student in History from the University of Edinburgh
A Catholic revival would hardly be the first thing to come to anyone’s mind in a discussion concerning the European landscape between 1850 and 1900. More obvious issues are the maturing of an industrial society, the birth of new state systems and Bismarckian political strategy, or perhaps even the irrevocably impactful works of Marx or Darwin. A revitalisation of Catholic culture might in fact seem completely at odds with the aggressively modern theme that binds these images together. It certainly appeared so to some bemused contemporaries – and yet it is this strange pattern of contrast that renders such a revival so striking upon discovery.
The situation at the beginning of our period was without a doubt far from favourable. For example, assessing the spiritual state of their parishioners in 1848, the curés of Marseille came to similar, damning conclusions. One priest complained that the members of his congregation seemed “to fulfil their religious duties more through habit than from conviction”, whilst another noted their ignorance of religious principles, lamenting their contentment with even a flaccid following of liturgical rites. Tepidity, they saw, was a critical weakness, and one that could easily be turned into hostility within the contentious political environment of the time. After all, they were writing sixty years after the beginning of the French Revolution: what was known as the process of dechristianisation had been going on for decades.
The Catholic Church of the 1800s stood against the current of liberalism, secularism, and increasingly, nationalism. Its stance, however, was not to conform to these movements, but rather to further entrench itself in its traditions and doctrines. In the Syllabus of Errors of 1864, Pius IX affirmed that it was impossible for any pope to “reconcile himself with progress, liberalism, and with modern civilisation”.
The combination of these issues is one that we might feel somewhat familiar with in the present day. Although history never repeats itself exactly, it does appear to unfold in recurring patterns: analysing how such problems were dealt with by our predecessors can therefore be an illuminating exercise.
The approach taken by the Church from the mid-nineteenth century through to the early twentieth was firmly rooted in a revitalisation of the past. The spirit of popular piety was reignited through a return to the vibrancy of Medieval forms of devotion. Pilgrimages, for instance, which had formed a key part of the expression of lay piety in the Middle Ages, saw an unprecedented increase in popularity and practicality through the advent of steam engines and ships. Those that led to Lourdes illustrated the strengths of this approach especially well, as the shrine attracted pilgrims with miracles through which even the most hopeless of medical cases were healed. Although the Church showed itself to be averse to modern politics, it made effective use of these new technologies of transportation to fight against secular ideas and in fact, quite paradoxically, to give hope to the laity in areas where science could not.
In a similar manner the Church harnessed the press, which expanded massively after 1848, to further its aims. Pius IX emphasised the importance of actively engaging in public discourse: he went so far as to issue a motu proprio urging his bishops to use it to defend the truth, and he became the first pope to have his addresses amended for publication. Catholic journals proliferated across Europe, and whilst on the one hand these did enflame adversities in the same way as internet and media debates do today, they played a fundamental role in strengthening faith and demonstrating its continued relevance in the modern world.
Another core aspect of the Catholic revival was its focus on education. In Belgium alone, a bishops’ campaign in the 1880s raised enough support from the laity for nearly 3400 schools to have been set up within a five-year timeframe1. Schools for the wealthy and the deprived flourished across Europe. Colleges run by religious prepared young men for positions of political and military influence, and establishments for the poor were only one example of the engagement of devout and energetic women in social action during this period. By the turn of the century, popular engagement in the life of the Church had prospered and religious vocations were blossoming. Although the stance of the papacy in 1864 had reminded many of King Canute attempting to turn back the tide, the success of this Catholic revival serves as a reminder that the teachings and traditions of the Church are at the heart of its endurance.
Article first published in Dowry No53, Spring 2022
- Els Witte, ‘The battle for monasteries, cemeteries and schools: Belgium’ in Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe, eds. Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 120-1. ↩︎