The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450-1700 : A Reassessment of the Counter Reformation

Throughout its history, Christianity has adapted to contemporary society and culture in order to reach people effectively and have an impact on the world. This process often evokes controversy. Certainly this is the case in the current century, and so it was in the sixteenth. Robert Bireley argues that early modern Catholicism, the period known more traditionally as the Counter Reformation, was both shaped by and an active response to the profound changes of the sixteenth century--the growth of the state; economic expansion and social dislocation; European colonialism across the seas; the Renaissance; and, of course, the Protestant Reformation. Bireley finds that there were two fundamental, contrasting desires that helped shape early modern Catholicism: the desire especially of a lay elite to lead a full Christian life in the world and the widespread desire for order and discipline after the upheavals of the long sixteenth century. He devotes particular attention to new methods of evangelization in the Old World and the New, education at the elementary, secondary, and university levels, the new active religious orders of women as well as men, and the effort to create a spirituality for the Christian living in the world. This book will be of great value to all those studying the political, social, religious, and cultural history of the period. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Bireley, S.J., is professor of history at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of three books including The Counter-Reformation Prince: Antimachiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe and Politics and Religion in the Age of the Counterreformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S.J., and the Formation of Imperial Policy as well as a number of articles on early modern European History. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: ""Bireley has produced a fine new survey of the history of Catholicism in the early modern period. He targets his reassessment of the ""Counter Reformation"" at adv