Post-Napoleonic Catholicism, between developments and deposits

Scholars have reappraised the ‘enlightenment’ profoundly in recent decades, it is no longer perceived as inimical to Christianity with a radical secularising mission. Some like Sorkin, Lehner and van Kley, argue that its intellectual energy was harnessed by ecclesiastical reform movements, led by theologians and clergymen during the eighteenth century. Subsequent collaboration by clergymen and prelates with revolutionary authorities and the Napoleonic Empire compromised the credibility and reputation of this version of Catholicism open to reform. A period of reaction was followed, Pius VII’s return from captivity to Rome, in 1814. Despite this apparent atmosphere of counter-revolution and reaction, a liberal and social Catholic movement did emerge. At its heart was the notion of ‘development,’ a complex though creative concept, that was to prove deeply influential during next hundred years. Even Pius IX’s proclamation of the ‘deposit of faith’ and ‘infallibility’ in 1870 did not eliminate those Catholics who believed that understanding religious doctrine and the church’s pastoral role was an evolutionary rather than a static project.