Social Catholicism in Europe: From the Onset of Industrialization to the First World War

by Paul Misner

Social Catholicism

Genres: History

376 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour]

A mildly interesting look at social Catholic/Christian democratic preceding the "Rerum novarum" and beyond. How did the Church deal with industrialization, the rise of class-ification, and poverty? The Church walked a delicate path in the wake of the French Revolution and whatnot, but, with the contribution of some pseudo-Catholic intellectuals and clergy meeting new social challenges head-on, one finds the Church inexplicably bound up with the workers' protests of 1848. Even Engels thought this was zany, and he was probably high from smoking Marx's beard. The supreme irony here is how the Church throughout industrializing Europe tackled the problem of social individualism and class consciousness destroying the necessity of religion. Misner points out the Church painfully dealt blows to its own staid paternalism by focusing on class-based needs and charitable works to deal with social shit.

[Mir]

Misner tries to argue against the idea of Catholicism is necessarily royalist, authoritarian, and conservative, by studying attempts to reconcile socialism with Catholicism in a period when the RCC did become more open to moral reform and labor movements.
Contains some interesting soure material one doesn't often see.

[graceofgod]

Outstanding.