Controversies in Church History

Our eighth installment of Catholic Lives is a two for one deal! We look at the lives of two men loyal to the Confederacy during the American Civil War, one of whom entered the Catholic Church after the war was over. Father Abram Ryan (1838-1886) was a priest and poet, know both for his poetry eulogizing the fallen South but also for his great preaching and love for the Catholic faith. James Longstreet (1821-1904) was the second in command to Robert E. Lee during the war, and afterwards became a pariah in the South for criticizing Lee's decision making at Gettysburg.

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*Recorded on May 27, 2020*

In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical on the regulation of birth, which reaffirmed Catholic teaching on the nature of human sexuality. The ensuing controversy led to open defiance of the encyclical by both clergy and laity alike, and so great was the outcry against it that Paul VI never issued another encyclical during his reign as pope. This episode discusses the origins of the encyclical as well as the widespread conflict that followed its promulgation, and grapples with enduring impact of that conflict.

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In 1858, a scandal rocked Europe. The Vatican removed an eight year old Jewish boy from his family and pope Pius IX raised him as a Catholic. The boy's name was Edgaro Mortara, and he would eventually become a Catholic priest. The Vatican based its decision on the claims that the boy's nurse had baptized him during a serious illness when he was one year old, and that therefore he had a right to a Christian upbringing. In an era of revolutionary change throughout Europe and the world, non-Catholics were incensed, Jewish organizations mounted a campaign in the press to have the boy returned to his family, and even Catholic governments in France, Italy and Austria issued protests for Pius IX to relent, but he refused. In this episode, we delve into why Pius IX refused to return the child Edgaro Mortara to his parents, and its lasting impact on the Church today.

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In recent years, the existence of a "pontiff emeritus" has caused some confusion for faithful Catholics, with two living popes at the same time. But imagine if there were THREE living popes, none of them "retired," all with their own rival supporters among the cardinals of the Church--what would this be like? How would we know whom to follow as Catholics?

In this episode, Controversies in Church History details the Great Western Schism (1378-1417), when just such a scenario took place in the Church, and examines how the Church became divided between rival popes, how this was resolved, how people at the time experienced it, and what we can learn from this messy episode in the Church's long history.

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He has been called "The Morning Star of the Reformation" by Protestants, and is sometimes regarded as the last great scholastic theologian of the Middle Ages. He denied the doctrine of transubstantiation, translated parts of the bible from Latin to English, and sent lay preachers out into the English countryside to teach poor people. His followers were condemned by the Church and persecuted by English authorities, but a scattered few remained in existence at the time of the Reformation in England. In this episode, Controversies in Church History retails the exploits of the medieval theologian John Wyclif, why the Church condemned his teachings, and what we can learn from his challenge to the Church's faith.

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In 1077, the Emperor Henry IV did homage to pope Gregory VII at Canossa in northern Italy, who in return absolved him of the excommunication he had pronounced upon the Emperor. The most powerful man in Europe submitted himself to the bishop of Rome, who not only excommunicated him but even declared him deposed as emperor and absolved his subjects from their allegiance to him.

The Gregorian reform movement saw popes clash with kings, church reformers impose celibacy upon the clergy and enjoin their vision of a purified Church on medieval society, lay and clerical alike. In the next lecture, we will explain why and how reforming clergy like Gregory VII reshaped the life of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, in ways that affect us as Catholics directly to this day.

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The First Council of Nicaea (325) proclaimed the doctrine that Jesus was one with the Father, and condemned the idea that he was a mere creature. Yet with a few years, that belief--that Christ could not be truly God and man--gained the acceptance of nearly every bishop in the Christian world, and the support of numerous Roman emperors. How did a belief condemned by an ecumenical council dominate the Church's hierarchy for so long, and how did it fail to successfully perpetuate itself in the end? The second episode of Controversies in Church History for the 2019-2020 season investigates the history of how Nicene orthodoxy eventually overcame the opposition of the various Arian theologies.

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"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty..." Each week, Catholics recite the Nicene Creed in the liturgy. Why do we do this?

The first lecture of Controversies in Church History for the 2019-2020 academic year will be on the First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical (or general) council in the history of the Christian Church. In 325, the bishops assembled promulgated a creed which is the basis of the one we recite today. Critics in the past have asserted that the Council corrupted Christianity's original message, and that the council invented the canon of Scripture, among other accusations. Come learn the history of this momentous event, which for the first time bound all Christians to believe doctrines as a test of orthodoxy, on pain of excommunication from the Church.

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