Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Chappel, James, 1983- author.

Title Catholic modern : the challenge of totalitarianism and the remaking of the Church / James Chappel
Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2018

Copies

Description 1 online resource (342 pages)
Contents Catholic antimodern, 1920-1929 -- Anti-communism and paternal Catholicism, 1929-1944 -- Anti-fascism and fraternal Catholicism, 1929-1944 -- Rebuilding Christian Europe, 1944-1950 -- Christian democracy and Catholic innovation in the long 1950s -- The return of heresy in the global 1960s
Summary In 1900 the Catholic Church stood staunchly against human rights, religious freedom, and the secular state. According to the Catholic view, modern concepts like these, unleashed by the French Revolution, had been a disaster. Yet by the 1960s, those positions were reversed. How did this happen? Why, and when, did the world's largest religious organization become modern? James Chappel finds an answer in the shattering experiences of the 1930s. Faced with the rise of Nazism and Communism, European Catholics scrambled to rethink their Church and their faith. Simple opposition to modernity was no longer an option. The question was how to be modern. These were life and death questions, as Catholics struggled to keep Church doors open without compromising their core values. Although many Catholics collaborated with fascism, a few collaborated with Communists in the Resistance. Both strategies required novel approaches to race, sex, the family, the economy, and the state. Catholic Modern tells the story of how these radical ideas emerged in the 1930s and exercised enormous influence after World War II. Most remarkably, a group of modern Catholics planned and led a new political movement called Christian Democracy, which transformed European culture, social policy, and integration. Others emerged as left-wing dissidents, while yet others began to organize around issues of abortion and gay marriage. Catholics had come to accept modernity, but they still disagreed over its proper form. The debates on this question have shaped Europe's recent past--and will shape its future.-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed February 12, 2018)
Subject Catholic Church -- Political activity -- Europe
Catholic Church -- History -- 20th century.
SUBJECT Catholic Church fast
Subject Modernism (Christian theology) -- Catholic Church.
Modernism (Christian theology) -- Europe
Modernist-fundamentalist controversy.
Church and social problems -- Catholic Church.
Church and social problems -- Europe
RELIGION -- Christian Life -- Social Issues.
RELIGION -- Christianity -- General.
RELIGION -- Christianity -- Catholic.
Church and social problems
Church and social problems -- Catholic Church
Modernism (Christian theology)
Modernism (Christian theology) -- Catholic Church
Modernist-fundamentalist controversy
Political participation
Europe
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674985872
0674985877