Catholic Church in the 20th century
The Roman Catholic Church in the 20th century entered into a period of renewal, responding to the challenge of increasing secularization of Western society and persecution resulting from great social unrest and revolutions in several countries.
It advocates for fair labor conditions, living wages, and the right to form trade unions, establishing a framework that balances the rejection of socialism with a critique of unchecked capitalism.
Subsequent teachings, like Quadragesimo anno and the works of Pius XII, expand these principles, emphasizing solidarity, subsidiarity, and the moral dimensions of economic life.
This body of teaching continues to evolve, addressing modern social, economic, and technological issues while advocating for justice and the dignity of all individuals.
In this period, Catholic missionaries in the Far East worked to improve education and health care, while evangelizing peoples and attracting followers in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.
Influenced by the German Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr von Ketteler, in 1891 Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Rerum novarum, titled "On Capital and Labor".
If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice.
Released on 15 May 1931, this encyclical expanded on Rerum novarum, noting the positive effect of the earlier document but pointing out that the world had changed significantly since Pope Leo's time.
Unlike Leo, who addressed mainly the condition of workers, Pius XI concentrated on the ethical implications of the social and economic order.
Prior to Quadragesimo anno, some Catholics had wondered whether Leo XIII's condemnation of radical left-wing politics in Rerum novarum extended only to outright communism or whether it included milder forms of socialism as well.
Pacelli negotiated food shipments for Russia, and met with Soviet representatives including Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, who rejected any kind of religious education, or the ordination of priests and bishops, but offered agreements without the points vital to the Vatican.
"[26] In an effort to further isolate Chinese Catholics, the new government created the Patriotic Church whose unilaterally appointed bishops were initially rejected by Rome but subsequently many were accepted.
[29] Cuba, under atheist Fidel Castro, succeeded in reducing the Church's ability to work by deporting the archbishop and 150 Spanish priests, discriminating against Catholics in public life and education and refusing to accept them as members of the Communist Party.
[32] Read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches, it described Hitler as an insane and arrogant prophet and was the first official denunciation of Nazism made by any major organization.
[34] After the war, Pius XII's efforts to protect their people were recognised by prominent Jews including Albert Einstein and Rabbi Isaac Herzog.
[54] The Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide interviewed war survivors and concluded that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands".
[58] The papal letter We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, urged Catholics to repent "of past errors and infidelities" and "renew the awareness of the Hebrew roots of their faith.
[34] After World War II historians such as David Kertzer accused the Church of encouraging centuries of anti-Semitism, and Pope Pius XII of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.
[70] Regarding the matter, historian Derek Holmes wrote, "There is no doubt that the Catholic districts, resisted the lure of National Socialism Nazism far better than the Protestant ones.
[80] South America, historically Catholic, has experienced a large Evangelical and Pentecostal infusion in the 20th century due to the influx of Christian missionaries from abroad.
The council was "pastoral" in nature, emphasising and clarifying already defined dogma, revising liturgical practices, and providing guidance for articulating traditional Church teaching amid the "opportunities" presented by contemporary times.
Chapter 3 of the dogmatic constitution on the Church of Vatican Council I (Pastor aeternus) is the principal document of the Magisterium about the content and nature of the primatial power of the Roman Pontiff.
The Peruvian priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, became a primary theorist and, in 1979, the bishops' conference in Mexico officially declared the Latin American Church's "preferential option for the poor".
[97] Archbishop Óscar Romero, a supporter of the movement, became the region's most famous contemporary martyr in 1980, when he was murdered by forces allied with the government of El Salvador while saying Mass.
[97] Pope John Paul II was criticized for his severity in dealing with proponents of the movement, but he maintained that the Church, in its efforts to champion the poor, should not do so by advocating violence or engaging in partisan politics.
Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae reaffirmed the Catholic Church's traditional view of marriage and marital relations and asserted a continued proscription of artificial birth control.
In addition, the encyclical reaffirmed the sanctity of life from conception to natural death and asserted a continued condemnation of both abortion and euthanasia as grave sins which were equivalent to murder.
[105][106][107] The sexual revolution of the 1960s precipitated Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae (On Human Life), which rejected the use of contraception, including sterilization, claiming these work against the intimate relationship and moral order of husband and wife by directly opposing God's will.
[109] This encyclical condemned the "culture of death" which the pope often used to describe the societal embrace of contraception, abortion, euthanasia, suicide, capital punishment, and genocide.
Pope John Paul II and the Patriarch explicitly stated their mutual "desire to relegate the excommunications of the past to oblivion and to set out on the way to re-establishing full communion.
