Beginning of Catholicism and its Spread Around the World - Essay Example

? The Beginning of Catholicism and its Spread around the World From its humble beginnings in Israel to the established Roman Catholic societies today, Catholicism has undergone many difficulties throughout several centuries but has remained united and strong against all these challenges. The story of how Catholicism began and eventually spread around the world is not only a story of Jesus, Peter, Paul, the first Christians, the Popes and even Martin Luther. In fact, it is a story of how one religious institution – the largest in the world – has proven over and over again that nothing could ever destroy its unity under Christ. The Birth of Christianity in Jerusalem The birth of Christianity was practically the beginning of Christ’s preaching in Jerusalem (“How the Catholic Church”). In Chapter 16 of the Gospel of Matthew, it is believed that Jesus established the Catholic Church when He asked the disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13, New American Standard Bible). Although the disciples have several answers, only Simon Peter’s sufficed when he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16). Through this statement, one can see that Peter declared and affirmed Jesus Christ’s divinity. Jesus then formally established the Church by assigning Peter the equivalent role of Pope: “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven…you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church” (Mt. 16:17-18). Jesus’ divine declaration of Peter’s important role in the Christian Church happened in around 33 AD in Jerusalem (“How the Catholic Church”). It was actually Peter who eventually brought Christianity to Rome, where the religion became Roman Catholicism. The Emergence of Christianity in Rome Before Peter went to Rome to spread Christ’s church, he and the other disciples preached the gospel in Jerusalem first until around 45 AD (“How the Catholic Church”). Their accomplishments are all found in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, where Peter declared once more the authority that Jesus conferred upon Him before the latter’s death: “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe” (Acts 15:7). This authority of Peter was important in the early beginnings of the Catholic Church when there were no established doctrines yet except the teachings of Christ. Through Peter’s authority and as stated in the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles preached in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Syria, Asia Minor, Europe and finally Rome (Darby). The joint efforts of Peter and the other disciples in spreading the gospel in the aforementioned places approximately lasted until the year 44 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius, although some sources say it was during the time of the succeeding emperor, Nero (Robinson). The missionary activities of the 12 disciples of Jesus including Peter happened simultaneously with those of Paul, who arrived in Jerusalem in around 57 AD, and preached in Greece and Rome until his arrest and death sometime between 64 and 68 AD also during the time of Nero (“Paul’s Work”). The joint efforts of Peter, Paul and the other disciples of Christ in spreading the word of God in the Middle East, Europe and Rome may have caused their eventual deaths, but these efforts served as the seed from which Roman Catholicism would be born. The Formal Beginnings of Roman Catholicism Between 100 AD and 200 AD, the need arose for the specifications of Catholic Christianity, especially on the subject of apostolic authority. There was a need to put into writing what it really meant to be a Christian and, thus, there was a need to organize the New Testament Scriptures, writings of the apostles, the Episcopal centers that the apostles established, in order to formulate a standard of Christian conduct (Guisepi). It was Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon in France, who made a formal effort to formulate the rules behind the system of apostolic authority and succession in order to formally establish who should be the leaders of the church. The term “Roman Catholicism” has been used because of the idea that Peter, who was the head of the Christian Church, was identified with Rome, which was the capital of the Roman Empire and where Peter was arrested and crucified (Guisepi). The first Catholic Church leaders in Rome after Peter were known to bear the title “supreme priest” and often, they had a similar prerogative as the Emperor and even until now, as the Pope, these Church leaders were given the highest reverence (Guisepi). From the conversion of Emperor Constantine in 330 AD until around 800 AD, the Roman Catholic Church spread to the various provinces of the Roman Empire. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD served as the major agent in effecting the early spread of Catholicism after the death of Peter. The Council of Chalcedon and the Centralization of the Roman Catholic Church The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD was a part of the plan of the early Roman Catholic Church to spread Catholicism to remote areas like Spain, Gaul and North Africa. Through the Council of Chalcedon and the efforts of Pope Gregory I, the foundations for the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages were laid (Guisepi). Thus, through Pope Gregory I, the Roman Catholic Church greatly expanded in the Middle Ages. Around 500 years after Pope Gregory I had expanded the Roman Catholic Church, Gregory VII became the pontiff. During Gregory VII’s governance of the Church from 1073 to 1085, the Pope pushed for the centralization of the Catholic Church. This meant that Rome had to exercise full jurisdiction over all diocesan bishops, the clergy, the Roman and local synods as well as canonical elections and all publications related to the Roman Catholic Church. Because of this, the members of the clergy had to seek allegiance to the Pope in Rome and all decisions had to proceed from Rome and nowhere else. One good and immediate consequence of this centralization was the transformation of the clergy into a distinct class of their own (Guisepi). Without the centralization instituted by Pope Gregory VII, the expansion initiated by the previous pontiffs would have been halted and the Catholic Church would have disintegrated into several denominations with differing doctrines. The Rise of the Papacy and Scholasticism As the Catholic Church expanded and centralized, the power of the papacy rose and the Popes as well as the Bishops eventually participated in political decision making, especially with the institution of certain national reforms or the declaration of wars. In the late 11th century, the Popes and their allied political leaders declared war against the Seljuk Turks that attacked the Byzantine Empire at around that time. Pope Urban II led the first Crusade that succeeded in capturing Jerusalem and reclaiming the Holy Land from the Turks in 1099. This success definitely added to the prestige of the papacy at that time and to the further expansion and influence of the Church in the whole Roman Empire and in neighboring lands (Guisepi). At the same time that the papacy was rising in power, there was a revival of Aristotle’s rationalistic philosophy and logic in the field of education. This was incorporated into the philosophy and theology of the times. Moreover, the Scriptures were taught alongside philosophical thought. The first universities were instituted and famous theologians like Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas strived hard to make philosophy a method of expanding the influence of Catholic faith. During this so-called Scholastic Age of the Age of Faith in the 12th century BC, “all men, good or bad, pious or worldly, were fundamentally believers” (Guisepi). The problems began at the beginning of the 14th century during Pope Boniface VIII’s reign when church authorities were accused of extravagance, corruption and pagan immorality. This caused a rapid decline of the papal authority and eventually the Reformation. The Reformation When former Augustinian monk Martin Luther denounced the whole Roman Catholic Church in his 1520 treatise entitled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, the Reformation began. Luther questioned the giving of indulgences and the system of belief concerning salvation. In 1521, he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X. Luther’s teachings may have given birth to the various non-Catholic denominations that still exist today, but they clearly led to the Council of Trent and the period of Roman Catholic Reformation in the 16th century, when the Church clarified and reaffirmed its principles and eventually expanded into the whole world. The Council of Trent and the Roman Catholic Reformation The 25 sessions of the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563 successfully answered the issues presented by the Protestant Church against Catholic dogma. The Council of Trent defined the modern Roman Catholic Church and provided guidelines on how to instill discipline in the clergy and the papacy and to maintain this discipline throughout the existence of the Church (Guisepi). Included in the new changes that the Council of Trent imposed upon the Roman Catholic Church was the institution of religious orders such as the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. The task of the Jesuits was to reform and rebuild the Church after the Reformation through education and foreign missions. The foreign missions were directed to regain the territories that the Roman Catholic Church lost due to the Protestant Reformation. The Jesuits and the other newly established religious orders like the Capuchin friars furthered the expansion of the Roman Catholic Church to several parts of the world like Asia and South America. These colonial conquests were heavily financed by Roman Catholic monarchs, especially those of Spain and Portugal (Guisepi). Top of Form Bottom of Form Works Cited Acts of the Apostles. 1995. BibleGateway.com. 11 Feb 2011. Darby, John Nelson. “The Acts of the Apostles.” 1998. Christian Classics Electronic Library. 14 Feb 2012. Guisepi, Robert A. “A History of Christianity from Its Beginning to the End of the Sixteenth Century.” 2007. History World International. 14 Feb 2012. “How the Catholic Church Started.” 2003. Our Catholic Faith. 12 Feb 2011. Matthew. 1995. BibleGateway.com. 11 Feb 2011. “Paul’s Work as an Apostle of Christ.” 2012. Crandall University Religious Studies. 12 Feb 2012. Robinson, Donald Fay. “Where and When Did Peter Die?” Journal of Biblical Literature 64:2 (Jun 1945): 255-267. Web. 11 Feb 2012. Read More