Explores the changing aspirations, attitudes and identities of English Catholics in the late eighteenth century This book explores the changing aspirations, attitudes and identities of English Catholics in the late eighteenth century, a period which marked a critical moment of transition in their spiritual, political and intellectual culture. It is based on the experiences of the English Catholic baronet, Grand Tourist and politician Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745-1810). Gascoigne was born on the Continent into a devout Catholic family based in Yorkshire; however, following an unusual Continental upbringing and extensive series of Grand Tours to the courts of Catholic Europe, he would abjure his faith for a seat in Parliament. Throughout his life, he was an important advocate of agricultural reform, a considerable coal owner interested in mining engineering, as well as a keen developer of spa culture. By examining the experiences of Gascoigne and his milieu, this book explores English Catholic attitudes towards continental Catholicism, the influence of the European Enlightenment upon their education and outlook, and how this affected their Christianity, their estates and their conception of national identity. It demonstrates how increased toleration entailed a gradual rejection amongst English Catholics of a pious separatism for a more ecumenical and, ultimately, Enlightened approach to religion. Although this risked the loss of English Catholics to Anglicanism, many - like Gascoigne - remained crypto-Catholic in sympathy. They adapted their faith to the Enlightenment and regarded it as a matter of personal conviction and private choice. ALEXANDER LOCK is Curator of Modern Historical Manuscripts at the British Library.

"Whoever needs an act of faith to elucidate an event that can be explained by reason is a fool, and unworthy of reasonable thought." This line, spoken by the notorious 18th-century libertine Giacomo Casanova, illustrates a deeply entrenched perception of religion, as prevalent today as it was hundreds of years ago. It is the sentiment behind the narrative that Catholic beliefs were incompatible with the Enlightenment ideals. Catholics, many claim, are superstitious and traditional, opposed to democracy and gender equality, and hostile to science. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Casanova himself was a Catholic. In The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich L. Lehner points to such figures as representatives of a long-overlooked thread of a reform-minded Catholicism, which engaged Enlightenment ideals with as much fervor and intellectual gravity as anyone. Their story opens new pathways for understanding how faith and modernity can interact in our own time. Lehner begins two hundred years before the Enlightenment, when the Protestant Reformation destroyed the hegemony Catholicism had enjoyed for centuries. During this time the Catholic Church instituted several reforms, such as better education for pastors, more liberal ideas about the roles of women, and an emphasis on human freedom as a critical feature of theology. These actions formed the foundation of the Enlightenment's belief in individual freedom. While giants like Spinoza, Locke, and Voltaire became some of the most influential voices of the time, Catholic Enlighteners were right alongside them. They denounced fanaticism, superstition, and prejudice as irreconcilable with the Enlightenment agenda. In 1789, the French Revolution dealt a devastating blow to their cause, disillusioning many Catholics against the idea of modernization. Popes accumulated ever more power and the Catholic Enlightenment was snuffed out. It was not until the Second Vatican Council in 1962 that questions of Catholicism's compatibility with modernity would be broached again. Ulrich L. Lehner tells, for the first time, the forgotten story of these reform-minded Catholics. As Pope Francis pushes the boundaries of Catholicism even further, and Catholics once again grapple with these questions, this book will prove to be required reading.

The Catholic Enlightenment: A Global Anthology presents readers with accessible, translated selections from the writings of fifteen major Catholic Enlightenment authors. These early modern authors include women, priests, lay intellectuals, and bishops. Twelve of these figures are being brought into English for the first time. The purpose of the volume is to provide students, scholars, and interested non-specialists with a single point of departure to delve into the primary sources of the Catholic Enlightenment. This anthology shows the geographical and intellectual diversity of the Catholic Enlightenment, while also demonstrating significant threads of commonality in intellectual orientation. One strength of this volume is the geographical spread of the figures considered. Included are Catholic thinkers from England, the United States, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, France, Portugal, and the Italian and German-speaking lands. Another strength of this volume is the breadth of subject matter treated – it features pastoral letters, mystical tracts, pedagogical treatises, political manifestos, and theological works. These texts elucidate Catholic Enlightenment views on topics such as the history of women’s education, liturgy and devotions, and the relationship between church and state. The co-editors, Ulrich Lehner and Shaun Blanchard, have assembled a team of international scholars from Europe and the Americas for this exciting project. Lehner is one of the central scholars behind the renewed interest in the Catholic Enlightenment. He co-edits the volume, contributes to the introduction, and introduces and translates two significant German-speaking figures. Shaun Blanchard, who has recently published a monograph on radical Catholic Enlightenment figures, also co-edits, contributes selections from two English-speaking figures and has completed the first English translation of a section of Lodovico Muratori’s landmark On the Regulated Devotion of a Christian since 1789.

The first account of the German Catholic Enlightenment, this book explores the ways in which 18th-century Germans reconceived the relationship between religion, society, and the state.

The French Jesuit Isaac-Joseph Berruyer's Histoire du peuple de Dieu was an ambitious attempt to connect the ideas of the Enlightenment with the theology of the Catholic Church. A paraphrase of the Bible written in vernacular French, the Histoire promoted progress, the pursuit of happiness, the fundamental goodness of humanity, and the capacity of nature to shape moral human beings. Berruyer aimed to update the Bible for a new age, but his work unleashed a furor that ended with the expulsion of the Jesuits from France. Berruyer's Bible offers a fresh perspective on the history of the Catholic Enlightenment. By exploring the rise and fall of Berruyer's Histoire, Daniel Watkins reveals how Catholic attempts to assimilate Enlightenment ideas caused conflicts within the church and between the church and the French state. Berruyer's Bible flips the traditional narrative of the Enlightenment on its head by showing that the secularization of French society and the political decline of the Catholic Church were due not solely to the external assaults of anti-clerical philosophes but also to the internal discord caused by Catholic theologians themselves. Built upon extensive research in archives across Western Europe and the United States, Berruyer's Bible paints a vivid picture of the tumultuous intellectual world of the Catholic Church and the power of radical ideas that shaped the church throughout the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and beyond.

Catholics—both religious and the laity—made significant contributions to science, the arts, and the betterment of human life during the Enlightenment, the period between the Reformations and the modern world. Scholar Dominic A. Aquila writes that it is not uncommon for historical accounts of the time to conclude that the Church stood in the way of the scientific revolution and that faith and reason could not coexist. In The Church and the Age of Enlightenment (1648–1848), Aquila outlines Catholic contributions in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, the arts, and politics, and highlights key figures of the era including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, St. Vincent de Paul, Queen Christina of Sweden, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Aquila begins by looking back at the work of important figures such as Copernicus, Francis Bacon, and Galileo, all of whom died before the 1648. Aquila bookends the Enlightenment era by wars due to dynastic rivalries and social change—beginning with Europe’s Thirty Years War, which prompted a rethinking of religious and political practices, and ending with the Napoleonic Wars. Aquila also highlights key works of visual arts and music from the period, including Giovanni Bellini’s Frari Triptych, the world-renowned Oberammergau Passion Play, and George Fredric Handel’s Messiah. In this book, you will learn: the Church has been western civilization’s primary patron of art and science for centuries; Blaise Pascal believed that the Biblical revelation of God is the story of God’s action in human history; Isaac Newton was unique among the Enlightenment elite because he believed in God; the separation of Church and state was influenced by Catholic thinkers; Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson embodied Enlightenment ideals in the American colonies; and one of the most enduring outcomes of the Enlightenment is the heart-felt desire for continual improvement of life for more people. Books in the Reclaiming Catholic History series, edited by Mike Aquilina and written by leading authors and historians, bring Church history to life, debunking the myths one era at a time.

Examines the experiences of Catholics during the period when England was ruled by Puritan Protestants.