The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450-1700: A Reassessment of the Counter Reformation - Hardcover

Bireley, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813209501 ISBN 13: 9780813209500

Publisher: Catholic Univ of Amer Pr, 1999

Synopsis

Throughout its history, Christianity has adapted to contemporary society and culture in order to reach people effectively and have an impact on the world. This process often evokes controversy. Certainly this is the case in the current century, and so it was in the sixteenth. Robert Bireley argues that early modern Catholicism, the period known more traditionally as the Counter Reformation, was both shaped by and an active response to the profound changes of the sixteenth century-the growth of the state; economic expansion and social dislocation; European colonialism across the seas; the Renaissance; and, of course, the Protestant Reformation. Bireley finds that there were two fundamental, contrasting desires that helped shape early modern Catholicism: the desire especially of a lay elite to lead a full Christian life in the world and the widespread desire for order and discipline after the upheavals of the long sixteenth century. He devotes particular attention to new methods of evangelization in the Old World and the New, education at the elementary, secondary, and university levels, the new active religious orders of women as well as men, and the effort to create a spirituality for the Christian living in the world.

This book will be of great value to all those studying the political, social, religious, and cultural history of the period.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Bireley, S.J., is professor of history at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of three books including The Counter-Reformation Prince: Antimachiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe and Politics and Religion in the Age of the Counterreformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S.J., and the Formation of Imperial Policy as well as a number of articles on early modern European History.

Review:

'In summary, this book transcends linguistic and cultural boundaries to synthesise extremely well the best of recent writing on the history of modern Catholicism (the bibliography provides the proof of this).' - Marc Venard, Revue d'Histoire de l'Eglise de France 'The emphasis throughout on the centrality of the lay piety is an excellent corrective to versions of confessionalization theory which remain too institutionally concerned with the state's direction of its subjects. Instead both casuistry and Jansenism are admirably apporached with a proper Jesuit sensitivity.' - A.D. Wright, Catholic Historical Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Catholic Univ of Amer Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0813209501
• ISBN 13: 9780813209500
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 231