Review article
The Parish during the Tridentine, Josephine and French Reforms
Stipe Nimac
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Abstract
This essay discusses parish reforms and changing tides from the time of the Council of Trent, spanning the period of the Josephine and French reforms up until the first half of the 19th century. The Council of Trent, aside from its apologetic-dogmatic resolutions (Justification, Sacraments), issued an array of pastoral-reformative decrees which have had long-term effects on ecclesial institutions and have given birth to a new era in parish pastoral work. For reasons of practicality, it seems, a number of Tridentine solutions and models have remained in use until today. In the mid-eighteenth century, for the first time in the history of Christianity, a reform was begun by means of which the state endeavoured to better the organization of parishes. It was initiated by Empress Maria Theresa and continued by Emperor Joseph II. Equally consequential was Napoleon's invasion of Europe which again had an impact upon parishes. The essay availed itself of relevant pastoral-historical sources dealing with this period in Church history and pastoral activity. An analysis of this era has demonstrated in how far the parish was always influenced not only by spiritual, but also socio-political circumstances; that is, in how far the parish of today is a product of numerous socio-political interactions, and as such displays remnants of the Tridentine form of the parish in particular, but also of later parish reforms. Also, how much of what to us today seems permanent and unchanging in the field of parish pastoral care is in fact a product of an adaptation of pastoral needs in specific social-historical circumstances at a concrete moment in history.
Keywords
Tridentine parish; Josephine parish; French parish reform; parish pastoral work; organization of parishes; parish church
Hrčak ID:
79584
URI
Publication date:
16.4.2012.
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