Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Format of Original

13 p.

Publication Date

2-2010

Publisher

Wiley

Source Publication

History Compass

Source ISSN

1478-0542

Original Item ID

doi: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00661.x

Abstract

Recent research has demonstrated not only the existence of a variety of Enlightenments, but also the importance of the religious aspect to this worldwide process. In particular, special interest has been paid to the long-neglected Catholic Enlightenment, which entailed many strands of thought by Catholic intellectuals and political leaders who attempted to renew and reform Catholicism from the middle of the 18th to the early 19th century. This renewal was an apologetic endeavor designed to defend the essential dogmas of Catholic Christianity by explaining their rationality in modern terminology and by reconciling Catholicism with modern culture. The Catholic Enlightenment was in dialog with contemporary culture, not only by developing new hermeneutical approaches to the Council of Trent or to Jansenist ideas, but also by implementing some of the core values of the overall European Enlightenment process that tried to ‘renew’ and ‘reform’ the whole of society, and thus truly deserves the label Enlightenment.

Comments

Accepted version. History Compass, Vol. 8, No. 2 (February 2010): 166-178. DOI. © 2010 Blackwell. Used with permission.

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