Aims

The course objective is to allow students to acquire basic knowledge of Church history during the 19th and 20th centuries, the ideological movements and currents of these two centuries having constituted the principal chronological references and challenges for the Church.

Main themes

At the heart of the religious history of the 19th and 20th centuries lies the problem of the Catholic Church's relations with the modern world issuing from the Revolutions at the end of the18th century. The dominant themes of the course concern the Church's attitude toward liberalism, socialism, rationalism and, later, toward nationalism and secularisation.

Content and teaching methods

This lecture tackles the consequences of the French Revolution and on the Church, the Concordate of Napoleon, the liberal current of Lamennais, the Council Vatican I, the social movement with Leo XIII, the modernism, the birth of the Catholic Action, the communist, fascist and Nazi nationalisms, the theological and pastoral renewal which leads to Vatican II, and the characteristics of the Pontificate of John-Paul II.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Prerequisite :
candidature in religious sciences