title: Renaissance

text: The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) in his "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" (1860), by contrast, defined the Renaissance as the period between Giotto and Michelangelo in Italy, that is, the 14th to mid-16th centuries. He saw in the Renaissance the emergence of the modern spirit of individuality, which the Middle Ages had stifled. His book was widely read and became influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. However, Buckhardt has been accused of setting forth a linear Whiggish view of history in seeing the Renaissance as the origin of the modern world.


title: Renaissance

text: More recently, some historians have been much less keen to define the Renaissance as a historical age, or even as a coherent cultural movement. The historian Randolph Starn, of the University of California Berkeley, stated in 1998:


title: Renaissance

text: There is debate about the extent to which the Renaissance improved on the culture of the Middle Ages. Both Michelet and Burckhardt were keen to describe the progress made in the Renaissance towards the modern age. Burckhardt likened the change to a veil being removed from man's eyes, allowing him to see clearly.


title: Renaissance

text: On the other hand, many historians now point out that most of the negative social factors popularly associated with the medieval period—poverty, warfare, religious and political persecution, for example—seem to have worsened in this era, which saw the rise of Machiavellian politics, the Wars of Religion, the corrupt Borgia Popes, and the intensified witch hunts of the 16th century. Many people who lived during the Renaissance did not view it as the "golden age" imagined by certain 19th-century authors, but were concerned by these social maladies. Significantly, though, the artists, writers, and patrons involved in the cultural movements in question believed they were living in a new era that was a clean break from the Middle Ages. Some Marxist historians prefer to describe the Renaissance in material terms, holding the view that the changes in art, literature, and philosophy were part of a general economic trend from feudalism towards capitalism, resulting in a bourgeois class with leisure time to devote to the arts.


title: Renaissance

text: Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) acknowledged the existence of the Renaissance but questioned whether it was a positive change. In his book "The Autumn of the Middle Ages", he argued that the Renaissance was a period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was important. The Latin language, for instance, had evolved greatly from the classical period and was still a living language used in the church and elsewhere. The Renaissance obsession with classical purity halted its further evolution and saw Latin revert to its classical form. Robert S. Lopez has contended that it was a period of deep economic recession. Meanwhile, George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike have both argued that scientific progress was perhaps less original than has traditionally been supposed. Finally, Joan Kelly argued that the Renaissance led to greater gender dichotomy, lessening the agency women had had during the Middle Ages.


title: Renaissance

text: Some historians have begun to consider the word "Renaissance" to be unnecessarily loaded, implying an unambiguously positive rebirth from the supposedly more primitive "Dark Ages", the Middle Ages. Most historians now prefer to use the term "early modern" for this period, a more neutral designation that highlights the period as a transitional one between the Middle Ages and the modern era. Others such as Roger Osborne have come to consider the Italian Renaissance as a repository of the myths and ideals of western history in general, and instead of rebirth of ancient ideas as a period of great innovation.


title: Renaissance

text: It is perhaps no accident that the factuality of the Italian Renaissance has been most vigorously questioned by those who are not obliged to take a professional interest in the aesthetic aspects of civilization – historians of economic and social developments, political and religious situations, and, most particularly, natural science – but only exceptionally by students of literature and hardly ever by historians of Art.


title: Renaissance

text: The term "Renaissance" has also been used to define periods outside of the 15th and 16th centuries. Charles H. Haskins (1870–1937), for example, made a case for a Renaissance of the 12th century. Other historians have argued for a Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th and 9th centuries, Ottonian Renaissance in the 10th century and for the Timurid Renaissance of the 14th century. The Islamic Golden Age has been also sometimes termed with the Islamic Renaissance.


title: Renaissance

text: Other periods of cultural rebirth have also been termed "renaissances", such as the Bengal Renaissance, Tamil Renaissance, Nepal Bhasa renaissance, al-Nahda or the Harlem Renaissance. The term can also be used in cinema. In animation, the Disney Renaissance is a period that spanned the years from 1989 to 1999 which saw the studio return to the level of quality not witnessed since their Golden Age of Animation. The San Francisco Renaissance was a vibrant period of exploratory poetry and fiction writing in that city in the mid-20th century.


title: Donald Glover

text: Donald McKinley Glover Jr. (; born September 25, 1983), also known by his stage name Childish Gambino (), is an American actor, rapper, singer, writer, comedian, director, and producer. After working in Derrick Comedy while studying at New York University, Glover was hired at age 23 by Tina Fey as a writer for the NBC sitcom "30 Rock". He later rose to fame for portraying college student Troy Barnes on the NBC sitcom "Community" from 2009 to 2014. From 2016 to 2022, Glover starred in the FX series "Atlanta", which he created and occasionally directed. For his work on "Atlanta", Glover won various accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover has starred in several successful films including the supernatural horror "The Lazarus Effect" (2015), the comedy-drama "Magic Mike XXL" (2015), and science fiction film "The Martian" (2015). He played Aaron Davis in the superhero film "" (2017), and played Lando Calrissian in the space western "" (2018). He also provided the voice of adult Simba in "The Lion King" (2019). Glover is also a filmmaker, and starred in and produced the short film "Guava Island" (2019).


title: Donald Glover

text: Following independently released albums and mixtapes, Glover signed with Glassnote Records in 2011, and released his first studio album, "Camp", that year. In 2013, he followed this with his second album, "Because the Internet". Glover's third album, ""Awaken, My Love!"" (2016), spawned the single "Redbone", which peaked at number twelve on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and eventually earned him his first Grammy Award. In 2018, Glover released "This Is America", which debuted at number-one on the Hot 100, and won four Grammy Awards, including for Song and Record of the Year. Glover's fourth album, "3.15.20", was released in 2020.


title: Donald Glover

text: Donald McKinley Glover Jr. was born at Edwards Air Force Base in Edwards, California, on September 25, 1983, and was raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where his father was stationed. His mother, Beverly (née Smith), is a retired daycare provider, and his father, Donald Glover Sr., was a postal worker. His parents served as foster parents for 14 years. Glover was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, but he is no longer religious. His younger brother, Stephen, would later become a writer and producer who collaborates with him. He has a sister named Brianne.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover attended Avondale High School and DeKalb School of the Arts, and was voted "Most Likely to Write for "The Simpsons"" in his high school yearbook. In 2006, he graduated from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Dramatic Writing. While at Tisch, he self-produced the independent mixtape "The Younger I Get", which has not been released and has been disowned by Glover for being the "too-raw ramblings" of what he calls a "decrepit Drake". He began DJing and producing electronic music under the moniker MC DJ (later as mcDJ) remixing Sufjan Stevens' album "Illinois" (2005).


title: Donald Glover

text: In 2006 Glover caught the attention of producer David Miner after Glover sent writing samples including a spec script that he had written for "The Simpsons". Miner and Tina Fey were impressed by Glover's work and hired him to become a writer for the NBC sitcom "30 Rock". From 2006 to 2009 Glover wrote for "30 Rock", in which he also had occasional appearances. He and his co-writers were presented with the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Series in 2008 for his work on the third season. In 2008, Glover unsuccessfully auditioned to play President Barack Obama on the sketch comedy program "Saturday Night Live"; the role went to cast member Fred Armisen. While attending NYU, Glover became a member of the sketch comedy group Derrick Comedy, having appeared in their sketches on YouTube since 2006, along with Dominic Dierkes, Meggie McFadden, DC Pierson, and Dan Eckman. The group wrote and starred in a feature-length film, "Mystery Team", a comedy about amateur teenage detectives; it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. With a limited release, the fans requested the film in their local theaters.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover starred as former high school jock Troy Barnes on Dan Harmon's NBC sitcom "Community", which premiered in September 2009. Glover did not return as a full-time cast member for the show's fifth season, appearing only in the first five episodes. Despite speculation that he was leaving to pursue his music career, a series of hand-written notes that Glover posted to Instagram revealed that his reasons were more personal, citing a need for projects that offered him more independence as he worked through some personal issues. Although Harmon approached Glover about returning to the show for its sixth season, Glover declined, feeling that his character's return would not serve the show, the audience, or himself as an actor.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover's stage name, Childish Gambino, which he used to start his musical career, came from a Wu-Tang Clan name generator. In June 2008, he released the independent mixtape "Sick Boi". In September 2009, he released his second mixtape "Poindexter". A pair of mixtapes titled "I Am Just a Rapper" and "I Am Just A Rapper 2", were released in close succession in 2010, and "Culdesac", his third mixtape, was released in July of that year. In March 2010, Glover performed a 30-minute set on the stand-up showcase program "Comedy Central Presents".


title: Donald Glover

text: In May 2010, a fan suggested Glover for the role of Peter Parker in "The Amazing Spider-Man" film, encouraging his supporters to retweet the hashtag "#donald4spiderman". The campaign sparked a viral response on Twitter. The call for Glover to audition for the role was supported by Spider-Man creator Stan Lee. However, Glover did not audition, and the role went to Andrew Garfield. He later revealed that he was never contacted by Sony Pictures. Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis, who announced Miles Morales, an African-American version of Spider-Man, a year later, said he had conceived of the character before Glover's campaign went viral. Bendis gave credit to Glover for influencing the new hero's looks for Spider-Man; Bendis said, "I saw him in the costume [on "Community"] and thought, 'I would like to read that book. Glover later voiced this incarnation of Spider-Man on the "Ultimate Spider-Man" animated series.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover received the Rising Comedy Star award at the Just for Laughs festival in July 2010, and was featured in Gap's 2010 holiday advertising campaign.


title: Donald Glover

text: His first extended play, titled "EP", was released as a free digital download in March 2011. A music video for the song "Freaks and Geeks" was released in that month and Glover hosted the MTVU Woodie Awards at South By Southwest. Glover commenced his nationwide IAMDONALD Tour in April. The tour was a one-man live show that consisted of rap, comedy, and video segments. Glover appeared at the 2011 Bonnaroo Music Festival as both Childish Gambino and as a comedian, performing a set with Bill Bailey. His one-hour stand-up special, "Weirdo", aired on Comedy Central in November 2011.


title: Donald Glover

text: For his 2011 debut studio album, Glover approached "Community" score composer, Ludwig Göransson for production assistance; Göransson has become his most frequent collaborator. Prior to its release, Glover signed with Glassnote Records and embarked on The Sign-Up Tour. The album titled "Camp", was released on November 15, 2011, backed by his debut single "Bonfire" and "Heartbeat", which peaked at number eighteen on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles and number fifty-four on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. "Camp" debuted at number eleven on the "Billboard" 200, selling 52,000 copies in the first week, and was generally well received by critics, with "PopMatters" writer Steve Lepore finding it to be "undoubtedly one of the best records of any genre to come out in 2011". His Camp Gambino tour was scheduled to commence in March 2012, but was postponed to April after he fractured his foot.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover released the songs "Eat Your Vegetables" and "Fuck Your Blog" through his website in April and May 2012. Throughout May and June, he premiered tracks from his sixth mixtape, "Royalty", which was released as a free digital download in July. The album featured several artists, including his brother Stephen, under the alias Steve G. Lover III. The single "Trouble" by British artist Leona Lewis from her album "Glassheart" (2012) featured Gambino with a guest rap performance. The song peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart, making it his first UK Top 10 single. In November 2012, Göransson stated that he and Glover were in the studio generating new ideas for the next album which was to be "bigger" and "with more people involved". In 2013, Glover signed a deal to create a music-themed show for FX titled "Atlanta", in which he would star, write, and serve as an executive producer. Although several networks were interested in picking up his half-hour comedy, he chose FX due to their willingness to work around his touring schedule. Glover had a supporting role in the romantic comedy "The To Do List" (2013), which performed below expectations, and guest starred in two episodes of the comedy-drama television series "Girls" in early 2013, as a Republican who is the brief love interest to Lena Dunham's character.


title: Donald Glover

text: His second studio album, "Because the Internet", finished recording in October 2013 and was released in December, debuting at number seven on the "Billboard" 200 chart. "Because the Internet" yielded the singles "3005", "Crawl" and "Sweatpants". "3005" peaked at number eight on the UK R&B Chart and sixty-four on the "Billboard" Hot 100. To promote the album, Glover wrote a short film "Clapping for the Wrong Reasons" which stars himself, Chance the Rapper, and Danielle Fishel among others. Directed by Hiro Murai, it was released prior the album's release and serves as its prelude. Additionally, a 72-page screenplay designed to sync up with the album was also released. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified "Heartbeat" Gold for shipping 500,000 copies in June 2014 – making it Glover's first Gold certification. "Because The Internet" was also certified Gold. From February to May 2014, he embarked on The Deep Web Tour.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover directed the music video for the song "The Pressure" by Jhené Aiko, whose previous single, "Bed Peace", had featured a guest appearance by him. On October 2, he released a mixtape titled "STN MTN" and the following day an EP titled "Kauai", which spawned the single "Sober". While "STN MTN" was a free download, the proceeds of "Kauai" went to law enforcement policies, maintenance and preservation of Kauai island. Glover described them as a joint project and the "first concept mixtape ever" that continues the story told in "Camp" and "Because the Internet". At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, Glover received his first Grammy nominations in Best Rap Album for "Because the Internet" and Best Rap Performance for "3005".


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover appeared in three films in 2015. In "The Lazarus Effect", he played a scientist working with a team of researchers who bring dead people back to life with disastrous consequences. Next, Glover played a singer in the comedy-drama "Magic Mike XXL" and performed a cover of the Bruno Mars song "Marry You" in the film, which was included in the soundtrack. His third release that year was Ridley Scott's science fiction adaptation "The Martian", featuring Glover as a Jet Propulsion Laboratory astrodynamicist who helps rescue an astronaut, played by Matt Damon, stranded on Mars. Glover contributed to the soundtrack of "Creed" (2015), a film in the "Rocky" film series, providing vocals to the song "Waiting For My Moment" and co-writing another titled "Breathe".


title: Donald Glover

text: After being in development since August 2013, FX ordered the "Atlanta" series in December 2014, announcing a 10-episode season in October 2015, which premiered on September 6, 2016, to widespread critical acclaim. Glover writes, occasionally directs, executive produces, and stars in the series as Earnest "Earn" Marks, a Princeton dropout who manages his rapper cousin as they navigate through the Atlanta hip hop scene. For his work on the show, Glover has earned various accolades, including Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy and Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, making him the first black person to win an Emmy for the latter category. Due to the success of the series, FX signed Glover to an exclusive deal to write and produce more shows for the network. The first of these shows was an animated series featuring the Marvel Comics character Deadpool, which was set to premiere in 2018 but was later canceled due to creative differences. Glover later posted an unofficial and unproduced script to his Twitter account, stating he was not "too busy to work on Deadpool", ending media speculation.


title: Donald Glover

text: In September 2016, Glover held three musical performances, known as the "Pharos Experience", in Joshua Tree, California, where he debuted songs from his third studio album ""Awaken, My Love!"". The album was released in December, charting at number five on the "Billboard" 200 and was later certified platinum accumulating 1,000,000 certified units. It was considered a bold departure from his usual hip hop style as it primarily featured Glover singing rather than rapping, and saw him draw influences from psychedelic soul, funk and R&B music, particularly of the funk band Funkadelic. ""Awaken, My Love!"" produced the singles "Me and Your Mama", "Redbone" (which peaked at number twelve on the "Billboard" Hot 100), and "Terrified". Its vinyl release featured a virtual reality headset and an accompanying app that allowed owners to access virtual reality live performances from the Pharos Experience. The album was positively received by music critics and was nominated for both the 2018 Grammy Award for Album of the Year and Best Urban Contemporary Album, while "Redbone" won Best Traditional R&B Performance and received nominations for Record of the Year and Best R&B Song. Glover performed "Terrified" at the award show's 60th ceremony.


title: Donald Glover

text: In 2017, Glover appeared as criminal Aaron Davis in the superhero film "" (2017). Davis is the uncle of the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man, whom Glover had voiced in the "Ultimate Spider-Man" animated series. The casting was described as "a surprise treat for fans" by the film's director Jon Watts, aware of his 2010 campaign to portray the superhero. In April 2017, "Time" named Glover in its annual "100 Most Influential People in the World". Tina Fey wrote the entry for Glover, stating that he "embodies his generation's belief that people can be whatever they want and change what it is they want, at any time".


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover announced his intention to retire the Childish Gambino stage name in June 2017, telling the audience at Governors Ball Music Festival, "I'll see you for the last Gambino album" before walking off stage. He further explained his decision in an interview, feeling his musical career was no longer "necessary" and added "There's nothing worse than like a third sequel" and "I like it when something's good and when it comes back there's a reason to come back, there's a reason to do that."


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover signed with RCA Records in January 2018, which Glover called "a necessary change of pace". In May 2018, he released a single titled "This Is America" while performing as both host and musical guest on "Saturday Night Live". The song debuted at number one, becoming both Glover's first number one and top ten single in the United States. It features him singing and rapping, drawing influence from trap music. The lyrics addressed a variety of topics including gun violence and being black in the United States, while its controversial video, directed by Japanese filmmaker and frequent collaborator Hiro Murai, showed Glover with a firearm shooting at a choir. "This is America" won the Grammy for Song of the Year, Best Music Video, Best Rap/Sung Performance and Record of the Year, becoming the first rap song to win the latter.


title: Donald Glover

text: While filming "Atlanta" second season, Glover portrayed a young version of Lando Calrissian in "" (2018), causing him to miss appearances in some episodes; Calrissian was previously played by Billy Dee Williams in two films in the original "Star Wars" trilogy. Despite the film's turbulent production and poor box office returns, Glover's performance was praised, particularly by critic Stephanie Zacharek for his "unruly, charismatic elegance". In July 2018, Glover released the "Summer Pack" extended play containing the songs "Summertime Magic" and "Feels Like Summer", the former of which was originally meant to be the lead single from Glover's forthcoming fourth studio album. "Summertime Magic" debuted at forty-four on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Glover began his fifth concert tour, This Is America Tour in September, announcing it would be his last during its opening show in Atlanta. Two previously unreleased songs, "Algorhythm" and "All Night", were made available to people who bought tickets to the tour.


title: Donald Glover

text: In February 2018, Glover approached New Regency, without a script, about a project he would like to work on while he had free time between "Solo" promotional duties and his This Is America Tour. Due to his previous success, they accepted his offer quickly and Amazon Studios agreed to distribute the film. "Guava Island", the resulting film written by Stephen Glover and directed by Hiro Murai, was filmed in Cuba. It stars Glover as a musician who decides to throw a festival on his homeland, with Rihanna co-starring as his partner and muse. It was released in 2019 through Amazon Prime Video to generally favorable critical appraisal after premiering at Coachella. Glover provided guest vocals to the track "Monster" on 21 Savage's 2018 album "I Am > I Was", reflecting on his negative feelings toward the music industry and why he wants to retire from music. He partnered with Adidas Originals to reimagine three pairs of classic Adidas sneakers, which were launched in April 2019 under the "Donald Glover Presents" line and were promoted by a series of advertisements starring comedian Mo'Nique.


title: Donald Glover

text: Days after headlining Coachella in April 2019, Glover premiered a new song, "Algorythm", through the mobile app Pharos AR. The augmented reality application allows users to open the virtual Pharos world with other players. During his headlining performance at the 2019 Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, Glover drew "the biggest crowd that Outside Lands has ever had" and also announced that it was "the second to last show that we'll be doing" before retiring the Childish Gambino pseudonym. When asked on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" about the status of retiring, Glover said he was unsure and may continue to perform after the "This Is America Tour". Glover was expected to release another album per the RCA Records contract he signed in January 2018.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover provided the voice for adult Simba, the titular protagonist and lion prince turned king in "The Lion King" (2019), a remake of the 1994 Disney film of the same name. Glover praised the director, Jon Favreau, for the way he constructed the timeless story and asked him to re-record his lines as he connected to the film's story line more personally after his father's death. Glover sang on the film's soundtrack and on the curated album "", featuring songs inspired by the film. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the film grossed $1.6 billion worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing films of all time. In December 2019, Glover endorsed 2020 Democratic candidate Andrew Yang and joined his campaign as a creative consultant.


title: Donald Glover

text: On March 15, 2020, Glover streamed his surprise fourth album on his website Donald Glover Presents, where it played on a loop for twelve hours until it was taken down. 21 Savage and Ariana Grande feature on the album. The album was released on digital services the following week under the name "3.15.20". It was well received by music critics and debuted at number 13 on the "Billboard "200. In November 2020, in a rare appearance on his Twitter account, Glover opined that seasons 3 and 4 of "Atlanta" would be on the caliber of "The Sopranos" and that his next musical project would be his "biggest by far".


title: Donald Glover

text: In 2021, Donald Glover signed an overall deal with Amazon Studios. It was announced that he would be producing and starring in a television reboot of Doug Liman's 2005 film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", with Maya Erskine co-starring. In April 2021, Glover tweeted that he was in the midst of writing a trilogy of feature films.


title: Donald Glover

text: In February 2022, both seasons 3 and 4 of "Atlanta" had completed filming, with season 3 premiering on March 24 and the final season set to premiere in the fall. In March, Glover announced that he was working on a Disney+ Star Wars series based on Lando Calrissian. He also began directing a television series, tentatively titled "Hive", starring Dominique Fishback, Damson Idris, and Chloe Bailey, about a Beyoncé-esque character.


title: Donald Glover

text: In December 2022, it was announced that Glover would star and produce a feature set in Sony Pictures’ Spider-Man universe. The film currently has no title but is said to revolve around the Hypno-Hustler.


title: Donald Glover

text: In an interview with "The Guardian", Glover stated, "I'm influenced by LCD Soundsystem as much as Ghostface Killah. A lot of the rap shows I saw as a kid were boring, but if you went to a Rage Against the Machine show or a Justice show, the kids were losing their minds. Kids just want to go nuts, Odd Future know that. People want to experience something physical." Glover also cites hip-hop duo Outkast and trio Migos, and funk band Funkadelic as being influences.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover has influenced a number of younger musicians and actors. Rapper Vince Staples has praised Glover's ability to "[do] something different every time".


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover began dating Michelle White in 2015. They have three sons, born in early 2016, January 2018, and 2020.


title: Donald Glover

text: Glover is known as a private person and rarely posts on social media or does interviews unless for promotional work. In an interview with "The New Yorker", he stated that social media made him feel "less human" and that he only visits online discussion pages in which he can stay anonymous and communicate with people who understand what he is saying.


title: Donald Glover

text: On December 17, 2018, during the final stop for the This Is America Tour, Glover announced that his father had died. He said, "I lost my father a couple weeks ago and I wanted to play him some of the new songs but he didn't want to hear them, because he was like, 'I know they're going to be great.


title: Paul Bettany

text: Paul Bettany (born 27 May 1971) is an English actor. He is mostly known for his roles as J.A.R.V.I.S. and Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, recently starring in the Disney+ miniseries "WandaVision" (2021), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.


title: Paul Bettany

text: Bettany first came to the attention of mainstream audiences when he starred in the films "Gangster No. 1" (2000), "A Knight's Tale" (2001) and "A Beautiful Mind" (2001). He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing Stephen Maturin in the film "" (2003). Bettany's other films include "Dogville" (2003), "Wimbledon" (2004), "The Da Vinci Code" (2006), "The Tourist" (2010), "Margin Call" (2011), "Legend" (2015) and "" (2018). He made his directorial debut with the film "Shelter" (2014), which he also wrote and co-produced.


title: Paul Bettany

text: In television and theatre, Bettany has portrayed Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll in the series "A Very British Scandal" and played Andy Warhol in the play "The Collaboration" in the West End, which is set to transfer to Broadway.


title: Paul Bettany

text: Bettany was born on 27 May 1971 in London, to Anne (), a stage singer, theatre teacher, and stage manager, and Thane Bettany, a dancer, actor, drama teacher and godfather to Sophie, Countess of Wessex. Bettany was raised Roman Catholic, although his church attendance drifted after his confirmation. Bettany then experimented with other Christian denominations among which were Methodist and Church of England congregations with his father. Bettany is now an atheist. While his father taught at the all-girls boarding school Queenswood School, near Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the family lived on the school grounds.


title: Paul Bettany

text: When Bettany was 16, his brother Matthew died at age 8 after falling onto concrete from a tennis pavilion roof at Queenswood. Soon after, Bettany dropped out of school, left home, and became a street performer in London. He lived in a small flat and earned money by playing his guitar in the streets as a busker. His parents later divorced. After two years, he found a new job in a home for the elderly. After working there for a year, Bettany enrolled at the Drama Centre in London. He had dyslexia prior to it being recognised as a learning difficulty.


title: Paul Bettany

text: In 1990, at the age of 19, Bettany began a three-year course at the Drama Centre London in Chalk Farm. He made his stage debut in Stephen Daldry's acclaimed West End revival of "An Inspector Calls" at the Aldwych Theatre, playing the part of Eric Birling. He also appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of "Richard III", "Romeo and Juliet", and "Julius Caesar" (for which he received a Charleson Award nomination). When Bettany was 21, he appeared in a BBC production of "Oliver Twist", playing Bill Sikes.


title: Paul Bettany

text: After appearing in the finale of Sean Bean's series "Sharpe" as William II of the Netherlands at the Battle of Waterloo, he made his film debut with a small part in "Bent", a Holocaust drama which also featured Clive Owen, Jude Law, and Ian McKellen. He continued doing work in stage and television: these included Joe Penhall's "Love and Understanding", which played at London's Bush Theatre and then ran in Connecticut. He had roles in the television productions "Killer Net" and "Coming Home", during which he met and dated Emily Mortimer. His last stage work was in "One More Wasted Year" and "Stranger's House" at the Royal Court Theatre. He filmed several more movies, including his first leading role in "Gangster No. 1". The British Independent Film Awards nominated him for Best Actor, and the London Film Critics' Circle nominated him for British Newcomer of the Year.


title: Paul Bettany

text: Back in Hollywood, writer/director Brian Helgeland ("L.A. Confidential") was planning a new film called "The Sin Eater" (also known as "The Order"). He was impressed by Bettany's audition tape, though Helgeland eventually decided to film "A Knight's Tale" instead. The studio executives were not impressed, but Helgeland was determined to cast him, even writing the part of Chaucer for him. "A Knight's Tale" would be Bettany's first big Hollywood production. He received critical acclaim for "A Knight's Tale", including winning the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best British Supporting Actor. After the movie wrapped, Helgeland, determined that Hollywood should recognize Bettany's talent, showed the audition tape to many of his peers, including Ron Howard, who promptly cast Bettany in "A Beautiful Mind" alongside Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly. After "A Beautiful Mind", Bettany was offered the role of serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in "Red Dragon", opposite Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins. He turned down the role due to his commitment to a role in Lars von Trier's "Dogville".


title: Paul Bettany

text: Bettany's next major project saw him starring again alongside "A Beautiful Mind" costar Russell Crowe in Peter Weir's "". His portrayal of surgeon and naturalist Stephen Maturin brought him a BAFTA nomination, and he was named British Actor of the Year (London Film Critics' Circle), and Best Actor ("Evening Standard").


title: Paul Bettany

text: On 28 June 2004, Bettany and 13 other actors were included in the 2004 invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "Dogville" and "The Reckoning" were released in limited cinemas in 2004. In September of that year, Bettany made his leading-man debut in "Wimbledon", a romantic comedy with Kirsten Dunst. The film's cast would also introduce him to Jon Favreau, playing his manager, a relationship that would return when Favreau cast him as the voice of J.A.R.V.I.S. in "Iron Man". In mid-2005, Bettany filmed "Firewall" in Vancouver, Canada, a thriller also starring Harrison Ford and Virginia Madsen, which reunited him with "Wimbledon" director Richard Loncraine. He spent the autumn of 2005 filming "The Da Vinci Code", based on Dan Brown's best-selling novel and starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and Ian McKellen. In the film, he played an Opus Dei monk named Silas.


title: Paul Bettany

text: In 2007, Bettany went to London to star in "There For Me", written by his friends Dan Fredenburgh and Doraly Rosen. In 2008, he appeared in the New Line Cinema family fantasy "Inkheart", playing the part of a fire-eater named Dustfinger. In 2009, he appeared as Charles Darwin in ""Creation"", starring opposite his own wife Jennifer Connelly. In 2010, Bettany appeared alongside Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in "The Tourist" and portrayed the archangel Michael in "Legion", a film depicting divine vengeance upon humanity. He starred in the films "Priest and Margin Call", both released in 2011.


title: Paul Bettany

text: Bettany reprised his voice role as J.A.R.V.I.S. in 2010's "Iron Man 2", 2012's "The Avengers", 2013's "Iron Man 3", and Disneyland's Innoventions attraction. In 2014, Bettany starred alongside Johnny Depp and fellow British actor Rebecca Hall in the feature film "Transcendence". He was once again paired with Depp in "Mortdecai", a 2015 motion picture also starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor. After voicing J.A.R.V.I.S. for five years, Bettany made his first onscreen appearance in a Marvel Cinematic Universe film in the 2015 film "", playing Vision. He reprised the role in the sequels "" (2016) and "" (2018).


title: Paul Bettany

text: Bettany portrayed Ted Kaczynski in the Discovery Channel television show, "". Bettany replaced Michael K. Williams in "", after Williams was removed from the final film, as he was unable to return to set during the film's reshoots. Bettany was cast in his place, with the character being reworked from a motion-capture alien to a human. On 20 January 2018, it was reported that Bettany was nearing a deal to play Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on the Netflix series "The Crown", succeeding Matt Smith. Days later, on 25 January, it was reported by TVLine that Bettany was ultimately unable to sign on due to scheduling conflicts.


title: Paul Bettany

text: Bettany starred alongside Elizabeth Olsen in the Marvel television miniseries "WandaVision", portraying a new version of his Marvel Cinematic Universe character, Vision, with Olsen portraying the titular Wanda. It premiered on Disney+ in January 2021, garnering praise from critics. Reviewing the series, Matt Purslow of "IGN" wrote Bettany "effortlessly takes to the comedic skits" and that he and Olsen "provide a fantastic amount of life, wit, and emotion". For his performance, Bettany received nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film.


title: Paul Bettany

text: Bettany starred in the 2021 miniseries "A Very British Scandal". He played artist Andy Warhol in a production of the play "The Collaboration" by Anthony McCarten at the Young Vic in London from February to April 2022. He is slated to reprise the role in a film adaptation of the play. Bettany is attached to portray businessman Alexander Nix in a film about the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal as well as co-write and star in the dramedy film "Harvest Moon".


title: Paul Bettany

text: On 1 January 2003, Bettany married American actress Jennifer Connelly in Scotland; they met when they starred together in the 2001 film "A Beautiful Mind". They did not become a couple until some time after filming, as both were in other relationships at the time. As a teenager, he had developed a crush on her after seeing her in the 1986 film "Labyrinth". The September 11 attacks motivated him to act on his feelings for her, and after two days of attempting to contact her, he proposed, despite the fact that they were not in a relationship. Soon after their marriage, they moved to Brooklyn Heights after having lived together in Tribeca. The couple has two children together, a son, born 2003, and a daughter, born 2011. Bettany is the stepfather to Connelly's son from a previous relationship.


title: Paul Bettany

text: Bettany is close friends with actor Johnny Depp. Text messages between Bettany and Depp from 2013 were used as evidence in 2020 during Depp's defamation trial against "The Sun" and in 2022 as part of Depp's defamation trial against his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Jonathan Daniel Hamm (born March 10, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Don Draper in the period drama television series "Mad Men" (2007–2015), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama in 2008 and 2016, two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama Series, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2015. He received 16 Primetime Emmy Award nominations for acting in and producing "Mad Men" and for his guest appearances on "30 Rock" and "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt".


title: Jon Hamm

text: He has appeared in the Sky Arts series "A Young Doctor's Notebook", the Channel 4 dystopian anthology series "Black Mirror", the Amazon Prime fantasy series "Good Omens," and the FX superhero series "Legion" (2018). He guest starred in the sitcoms "30 Rock", "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", "Parks and Recreation", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and in the Netflix comedy series "".


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm is also known for his leading film roles in "Stolen" (2010), "Million Dollar Arm" (2014), "Keeping Up with the Joneses" (2016), "Beirut" (2018), and "Confess, Fletch" (2022), as well as his supporting roles in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (2008), "The Town" (2010), "Sucker Punch" (2011), "Bridesmaids" (2011), "Friends with Kids" (2012), "Baby Driver" (2017), "Tag" (2018), "Bad Times at the El Royale" (2018), "Lucy in the Sky" (2019), "The Report" (2019), "Richard Jewell" (2019), "No Sudden Move" (2021), and "" (2022). He also voiced roles in the animated films "Shrek Forever After" (2010) and "Minions" (2015).


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm was born on March 10, 1971, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Deborah ( Garner) Hamm, a secretary, and Daniel Hamm, who managed a family trucking company. He is of German, English and Irish descent; his surname came from German immigrants.


title: Jon Hamm

text: His parents divorced when he was two years old, and he lived in the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur with his mother until her death from colon cancer when he was ten. He then lived with his father and grandmother in nearby Normandy.


title: Jon Hamm

text: His first acting role was as Winnie-the-Pooh in first grade. At 16, he was cast as Judas in the play "Godspell" and enjoyed the experience, though he did not take acting seriously. He attended John Burroughs School, a private school in Ladue, where he was a member of the football, baseball, and swim teams. During this time he dated Sarah Clarke, who became an actress. His father died when he was 20.


title: Jon Hamm

text: After graduation in 1989, Hamm enrolled at the University of Texas. He was a member of the Upsilon chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity, and was arrested for participating in a violent hazing incident during his third year.


title: Jon Hamm

text: He later transferred to the University of Missouri. He answered an advertisement from a theater company seeking players for a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was cast in the production. Other roles followed, such as Leon Czolgosz in "Assassins".


title: Jon Hamm

text: While a member of Sigma Nu fraternity at the University of Texas, Hamm was arrested for participating in a violent hazing incident in November 1990. He lit a pledge's jeans on fire, shoved his face in the dirt, and struck him with a paddle over his right kidney, before leading the pledge around the fraternity house with a hammer claw around the pledge's testicles. The incident resulted in the fraternity being shut down. The pledge ended up needing medical care, and ultimately withdrew from school. Hamm made a plea deal and completed probation under the terms of a deferred adjudication, allowing him to avoid being convicted of a crime. The charges were dismissed in August 1995 following the completion of his probation.


title: Jon Hamm

text: After graduating in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Hamm returned to his high school to teach eighth-grade acting. One of his students was Ellie Kemper, who became an actress. Years later, Hamm appeared in Kemper's Netflix series "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt".


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm, who didn't wish to pursue a "normal career", moved to Los Angeles permanently in 1995. He moved into a house with four other aspiring actors and began working as a waiter while attending auditions. He acted in theater, including as Flavius in a production of Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" with the Sacred Fools Theater Company.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Looking older than his age, he found it difficult to find work as an actor, despite representation by the William Morris Agency. In 1998, after he failed to get any acting work for three years, William Morris dropped him as a client.


title: Jon Hamm

text: He continued working as a waiter and, briefly, worked as a set designer for a softcore pornography movie. He decided that his 30th birthday would be his deadline to succeed in Hollywood, and has said:


title: Jon Hamm

text: In 2000, Hamm landed the role of romantic firefighter Burt Ridley on NBC's drama series "Providence". His one-episode contract grew to 19 and allowed him to quit waiting tables. He made his feature movie debut with one line in Clint Eastwood's adventure film "Space Cowboys" (2000). More substantial roles followed in the independent comedy "Kissing Jessica Stein" (2001) and the war film "We Were Soldiers" (2002), during which he turned 30.


title: Jon Hamm

text: His career was bolstered by his recurring role of police inspector Nate Basso on Lifetime's television series "The Division" from 2002 to 2004. Other minor roles followed on the television series "What About Brian", "", "Related", "Numb3rs", "The Unit", and "The Sarah Silverman Program". Hamm's "Mad Men" castmate Eric Ladin said in an interview that he admired Hamm because he was persistent until he became successful as an actor.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm landed his breakthrough role in 2007, when he was chosen from over 80 candidates to play the protagonist character Don Draper in AMC's drama series "Mad Men". In the series, set in a fictional 1960s Madison Avenue ad agency, he played a suave, married, philandering executive with an obscure past. He recalled, "I read the script for "Mad Men" and I loved it... I never thought they'd cast me—I mean, I thought they'd go with one of the five guys who look like me but are movie stars". He believes that an actor with a "proven track record" would likely have been chosen if another network had produced the show. He went through numerous auditions; each time he explained to the casting directors what he could bring to the character, if given the part. Alan Taylor and "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner initially thought he was "too handsome" for the role, but ultimately decided, "it was perfect to cast sort of the perfect male in this part". Weiner also sensed that Hamm had suffered the early loss of his parents, similarly to Draper's backstory. Hamm says that he used memories of his father to portray Draper, a well-dressed, influential man of business and society hiding great inner turmoil and experiencing changes in the world beyond his control.


title: Jon Hamm

text: "Mad Men" debuted on July 19, 2007, with almost 1.4 million viewers. It developed a loyal audience, with Hamm receiving strong reviews. Robert Bianco of "USA Today" described Hamm's portrayal of Draper as "a starmaking performance", and "The Boston Globe"s Matthew Gilbert called Hamm a "brilliant lead".


title: Jon Hamm

text: In 2008, Hamm won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama and was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. In 2009, he was again nominated for the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award in the same category, and received another Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. In 2010, he received his third Golden Globe Award nomination. "Mad Men" concluded its seven-season run on May 17, 2015. Hamm received his first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series on September 20, 2015, after receiving 12 nominations for acting in and producing the series.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm's next film role was in the 2008 science fiction movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still", a remake of the classic 1951 film of the same name. It received mixed reviews but was financially successful, earning $230 million worldwide. Hamm hosted "Saturday Night Live", season 34, episode 6, on October 25, 2008, and played various roles, including Don Draper in two sketches. He returned as host again on January 30 and October 30, 2010. In 2009, he guest-starred in three episodes of the NBC television sitcom "30 Rock" as Drew Baird, a doctor who is a neighbor and love interest of Liz Lemon (Tina Fey). For these performances, he received three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm's first leading film role came with the independent mystery thriller "Stolen" in 2009, in which he played a police officer whose son has been missing for eight years. In 2010 he had a minor voice role in the animated feature "Shrek Forever After" as an ogre leader named Brogan, and appeared as an FBI agent in the crime drama "The Town" with Ben Affleck. After receiving "about 40 scripts that were all set in the 60s, or had me playing advertising guys", Hamm was pleased that "The Town" offered him a role that was "the opposite to Don Draper". It received generally favorable reviews and earned $144 million worldwide.


title: Jon Hamm

text: His next acting role was as defense attorney Jake Ehrlich in the independent film "Howl", based on Allen Ginsberg's eponymous 1956 poem. On December 12, 2010, he made a guest appearance as an FBI supervisor on Fox's animated series "The Simpsons". He was featured in Zack Snyder's action-fantasy film "Sucker Punch" (2011) as the character High Roller and the doctor. He also had a supporting role in the comedy "Bridesmaids" as Kristen Wiig's "rude and arrogant sex buddy". He was next seen in the independent feature "Friends with Kids" (2011), which he produced with his then-partner Jennifer Westfeldt. The story concerns a group of friends whose lives are changed as the couples in the group begin to have children.


title: Jon Hamm

text: He had a recurring role in the sitcom "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" in 2012, as the servant of sociopathic billionaire Dave Mountford (Blake Harrison). He hosted the 21st ESPYS Awards on July 17, 2013. He played sports agent J.B. Bernstein in Disney's sports drama "Million Dollar Arm" (2014). He appeared with Daniel Radcliffe in "A Young Doctor's Notebook", playing an older version of Radcliffe's character, from December 2012 to December 2013. In December 2014, he guest-starred in a special Christmas episode of the British science fiction anthology series "Black Mirror", titled "White Christmas". He had a number of roles in 2015, including the comedy show "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" and "". He was featured in the animated comedy "Minions" as the voice of Herb Overkill. Despite mixed reviews, the film was a major success, grossing over $1 billion worldwide.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm featured in the Greg Mottola comedy "Keeping Up with the Joneses", alongside Zach Galifianakis and Gal Gadot; the film was filmed during the spring of 2015 and was released in October 2016 (after being delayed seven months). In 2017, he appeared in the science fiction film "Marjorie Prime", which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, and subsequently appeared in Edgar Wright's comedy crime film "Baby Driver" and the drama "Aardvark", which premiered at the 2017 South by Southwest Festival and the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, respectively. In 2018, Hamm appeared in the drama "Nostalgia" and the political thriller "Beirut".


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm appeared in the BBC and Amazon's 2019 television adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's "Good Omens" as the Archangel Gabriel.


title: Jon Hamm

text: In 2022, Hamm appeared in "", the sequel to 1986's "Top Gun". The same year Hamm reunited with Greg Mottola on their second collaboration and his "Mad Men" co-star John Slattery for "Confess, Fletch". It is the first installment in the "Fletch" series to not star Chevy Chase in the titular role. Hamm plays Fletch in the film and received positive reviews for his performance and comedic timing. It was released theatrically on September 16, 2022 and will land on Showtime on October 28, 2022. Also in 2022, Hamm was cast in a lead role as Roy in the upcoming fifth season of the FX black comedy crime drama anthology series "Fargo", reuniting him with series creator/showrunner Noah Hawley, whom he'd previously worked with on "Legion" (2018) and "Lucy in the Sky" (2019).


title: Jon Hamm

text: In 2010, Mercedes-Benz hired Hamm (replacing actor Richard Thomas) as the new voiceover of their commercials, beginning with a commercial for the S400 Hybrid campaign. In 2013, American Airlines debuted a television commercial titled "Change is in the Air", featuring Hamm's voice-over. Hamm is an American Airlines frequent flier and his "Mad Men" character Don Draper often spoke of aspiring to win such accounts as American Airlines. Hamm has also appeared in several commercials in an ongoing ad campaign for H&R Block income tax services. He also appears in ongoing ads in Canada for SkipTheDishes. In January 2022 he appeared on an Apple TV+ ad titled "Everyone but Jon Hamm" showcasing the streaming service's wide array of A-list actresses and actors participating in original Apple productions. Also in 2022, Hamm was featured in a series of TV commercials for Progressive Insurance as having an off-and-on relationship with spokesperson Flo.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Internationally considered to be a sex symbol, Hamm was named one of "Salon.com"s Sexiest Man Living in 2007 and one of "People" magazine's Sexiest Men Alive in 2008. "Entertainment Weekly" named him one of their Entertainers of the Year in both 2008 and 2010. Hamm also won "GQ"s "International Man" award in September 2010.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm quit smoking at age 24, but his role as Don Draper required Hamm to smoke. On set he did not smoke actual cigarettes, but rather herbal cigarettes that do not contain tobacco or nicotine.


title: Jon Hamm

text: In March 2015, Hamm's representative confirmed that Hamm had recently completed in-patient treatment for alcoholism. Additionally, Hamm reported developing vitiligo during the filming of "Mad Men".


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm was in a long-term relationship with actress and screenwriter Jennifer Westfeldt from 1997 to 2015. Of their relationship, he said in 2008: "We may not have a piece of paper that says we're husband and wife, but after 10 years, Jennifer is more than just a girlfriend. What we have is much deeper and we both know that. To me, people get married when they're ready to have kids, which I'm not ruling out." Along with Westfeldt, Hamm appeared in Gap-related campaign advertisements. In April 2009, Hamm and Westfeldt formed their own production company, Points West Pictures.


title: Jon Hamm

text: Hamm is a devoted fan of the St. Louis Blues National Hockey League (NHL) team and has appeared in two television advertisements for the team. He is also a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball (MLB) team and narrated the official highlight movie for the 2011 World Series, won by the Cardinals. Hamm also narrates the Amazon NFL documentary series "All or Nothing", as of 2015. In 2012, he played in the MLB Legend and Celebrity All Star Softball game as a member of the National League. He represented the Cardinals and hit a home run during the game. In 2018, he narrated the video "The Saint Louis Browns: The Team That Baseball Forgot", presented by the Saint Louis Browns Historical Society.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. The church consists of 24 "sui iuris" churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies located around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The bishopric of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small enclave of the Italian city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state.


title: Catholic Church

text: The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the pope is the successor to Saint Peter, upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith taught by the apostles, preserving the faith infallibly through scripture and sacred tradition as authentically interpreted through the magisterium of the church. The Roman Rite and others of the Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic liturgies, and institutes such as mendicant orders, enclosed monastic orders and third orders reflect a variety of theological and spiritual emphases in the church.


title: Catholic Church

text: Of its seven sacraments, the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Virgin Mary is venerated as the Perpetual Virgin, Mother of God, and Queen of Heaven; she is honoured in dogmas and devotions. Catholic social teaching emphasizes voluntary support for the sick, the poor, and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church operates thousands of Catholic schools, universities and colleges, hospitals, and orphanages around the world, and is the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world. Among its other social services are numerous charitable and humanitarian organizations.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Catholic Church has profoundly influenced Western philosophy, culture, art, music and science. Catholics live all over the world through missions, diaspora, and conversions. Since the 20th century, the majority have resided in the Southern Hemisphere, partially due to secularization in Europe and increased persecution in the Middle East. The Catholic Church shared communion with the Eastern Orthodox Church until the East–West Schism in 1054, disputing particularly the authority of the pope. Before the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, the Church of the East also shared in this communion, as did the Oriental Orthodox Churches before the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451; all separated primarily over differences in Christology. The Eastern Catholic Churches, who have a combined membership of approximately 18 million, represent a body of Eastern Christians who returned or remained in communion with the pope during or following these schisms for a variety of historical circumstances. In the 16th century, the Reformation led to Protestantism also breaking away. From the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticized for its teachings on sexuality, its doctrine against ordaining women, and its handling of sexual abuse cases involving clergy.


title: Catholic Church

text: Catholic (from ) was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century. The first known use of the phrase "the catholic church" () occurred in the letter written about 110 AD from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans.): "Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal [katholike] Church." In the "Catechetical Lectures" () of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name "Catholic Church" was used to distinguish it from other groups that also called themselves "the church". The "Catholic" notion was further stressed in the edict "De fide Catolica" issued 380 by Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire, when establishing the state church of the Roman Empire.


title: Catholic Church

text: Since the East–West Schism of 1054, the Eastern Church has taken the adjective "Orthodox" as its distinctive epithet (however, its official name continues to be the "Orthodox Catholic Church") and the Western Church in communion with the Holy See has similarly taken "Catholic", keeping that description also after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, when those who ceased to be in communion became known as "Protestants".


title: Catholic Church

text: While the "Roman Church" has been used to describe the pope's Diocese of Rome since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages (6th–10th century), the "Roman Catholic Church" has been applied to the whole church in the English language since the Protestant Reformation in the late 16th century. Further, some will refer to the Latin Church as "Roman Catholic" in distinction from the Eastern Catholic churches. "Roman Catholic" has occasionally appeared also in documents produced both by the Holy See, and notably used by certain national episcopal conferences and local dioceses.


title: Catholic Church

text: The name "Catholic Church" for the whole church is used in the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" (1990) and the Code of Canon Law (1983). The name "Catholic Church" is also used in the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the First Vatican Council (1869–1870), the Council of Trent (1545–1563), and numerous other official documents.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Christian religion is based on the reported teachings of Jesus, who lived and preached in the 1st century AD in the province of Judea of the Roman Empire. Catholic theology teaches that the contemporary Catholic Church is the continuation of this early Christian community established by Jesus Christ. Christianity spread throughout the early Roman Empire, despite persecutions due to conflicts with the pagan state religion. Emperor Constantine legalized the practice of Christianity in 313, and it became the state religion in 380. Germanic invaders of Roman territory in the 5th and 6th centuries, many of whom had previously adopted Arian Christianity, eventually adopted Catholicism to ally themselves with the papacy and the monasteries.


title: Catholic Church

text: In the 7th and 8th centuries, expanding Muslim conquests following the advent of Islam led to an Arab domination of the Mediterranean that severed political connections between that area and northern Europe, and weakened cultural connections between Rome and the Byzantine Empire. Conflicts involving authority in the church, particularly the authority of the bishop of Rome finally culminated in the East–West Schism in the 11th century, splitting the church into the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Earlier splits within the church occurred after the Council of Ephesus (431) and the Council of Chalcedon (451). However, a few Eastern Churches remained in communion with Rome, and portions of some others established communion in the 15th century and later, forming what are called the Eastern Catholic Churches.


title: Catholic Church

text: Early monasteries throughout Europe helped preserve Greek and Roman classical civilization. The church eventually became the dominant influence in Western civilization into the modern age. Many Renaissance figures were sponsored by the church. The 16th century, however, began to see challenges to the church, in particular to its religious authority, by figures in the Protestant Reformation, as well as in the 17th century by secular intellectuals in the Enlightenment. Concurrently, Spanish and Portuguese explorers and missionaries spread the church's influence through Africa, Asia, and the New World.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 1870, the First Vatican Council declared the dogma of papal infallibility and the Kingdom of Italy annexed the city of Rome, the last portion of the Papal States to be incorporated into the new nation. In the 20th century, anti-clerical governments around the world, including Mexico and Spain, persecuted or executed thousands of clerics and laypersons. In the Second World War, the church condemned Nazism, and protected hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust; its efforts, however, have been criticized as inadequate. After the war, freedom of religion was severely restricted in the communist countries newly aligned with the Soviet Union, several of which had large Catholic populations.


title: Catholic Church

text: In the 1960s, the Second Vatican Council led to reforms of the church's liturgy and practices, described as "opening the windows" by defenders, but criticized by traditionalist Catholics. In the face of increased criticism from both within and without, the church has upheld or reaffirmed at various times controversial doctrinal positions regarding sexuality and gender, including limiting clergy to males, and moral exhortations against abortion, contraception, sexual activity outside of marriage, remarriage following divorce without annulment, and against same-sex marriage.


title: Catholic Church

text: The New Testament, in particular the Gospels, records Jesus' activities and teaching, his appointment of the Twelve Apostles and his Great Commission of the apostles, instructing them to continue his work. The book Acts of Apostles, tells of the founding of the Christian church and the spread of its message to the Roman empire. The Catholic Church teaches that its public ministry began on Pentecost, occurring fifty days following the date Christ is believed to have resurrected. At Pentecost, the apostles are believed to have received the Holy Spirit, preparing them for their mission in leading the church. The Catholic Church teaches that the college of bishops, led by the bishop of Rome are the successors to the Apostles.


title: Catholic Church

text: In the account of the Confession of Peter found in the Gospel of Matthew, Christ designates Peter as the "rock" upon which Christ's church will be built. The Catholic Church considers the bishop of Rome, the pope, to be the successor to Saint Peter. Some scholars state Peter was the first bishop of Rome. Others say that the institution of the papacy is not dependent on the idea that Peter was bishop of Rome or even on his ever having been in Rome. Many scholars hold that a church structure of plural presbyters/bishops persisted in Rome until the mid-2nd century, when the structure of a single bishop and plural presbyters was adopted, and that later writers retrospectively applied the term "bishop of Rome" to the most prominent members of the clergy in the earlier period and also to Peter himself. On this basis, Oscar Cullmann, Henry Chadwick, and Bart D. Ehrman question whether there was a formal link between Peter and the modern papacy. Raymond E. Brown also says that it is anachronistic to speak of Peter in terms of local bishop of Rome, but that Christians of that period would have looked on Peter as having "roles that would contribute in an essential way to the development of the role of the papacy in the subsequent church". These roles, Brown says, "contributed enormously to seeing the bishop of Rome, the bishop of the city where Peter died and where Paul witnessed the truth of Christ, as the successor of Peter in care for the church universal".


title: Catholic Church

text: Conditions in the Roman Empire facilitated the spread of new ideas. The empire's network of roads and waterways facilitated travel, and the "Pax Romana" made travelling safe. The empire encouraged the spread of a common culture with Greek roots, which allowed ideas to be more easily expressed and understood.


title: Catholic Church

text: Unlike most religions in the Roman Empire, however, Christianity required its adherents to renounce all other gods, a practice adopted from Judaism (see Idolatry). The Christians' refusal to join pagan celebrations meant they were unable to participate in much of public life, which caused non-Christians—including government authorities—to fear that the Christians were angering the gods and thereby threatening the peace and prosperity of the Empire. The resulting persecutions were a defining feature of Christian self-understanding until Christianity was legalized in the 4th century.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 313, Emperor Constantine I's Edict of Milan legalized Christianity, and in 330 Constantine moved the imperial capital to Constantinople, modern Istanbul, Turkey. In 380 the Edict of Thessalonica made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire, a position that within the diminishing territory of the Byzantine Empire would persist until the empire itself ended in the fall of Constantinople in 1453, while elsewhere the church was independent of the empire, as became particularly clear with the East–West Schism. During the period of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, five primary sees emerged, an arrangement formalized in the mid-6th century by Emperor Justinian I as the pentarchy of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. In 451 the Council of Chalcedon, in a canon of disputed validity, elevated the see of Constantinople to a position "second in eminence and power to the bishop of Rome". From c. 350 to c. 500, the bishops, or popes, of Rome, steadily increased in authority through their consistent intervening in support of orthodox leaders in theological disputes, which encouraged appeals to them. Emperor Justinian, who in the areas under his control definitively established a form of caesaropapism, in which "he had the right and duty of regulating by his laws the minutest details of worship and discipline, and also of dictating the theological opinions to be held in the Church", re-established imperial power over Rome and other parts of the West, initiating the period termed the Byzantine Papacy (537–752), during which the bishops of Rome, or popes, required approval from the emperor in Constantinople or from his representative in Ravenna for consecration, and most were selected by the emperor from his Greek-speaking subjects, resulting in a "melting pot" of Western and Eastern Christian traditions in art as well as liturgy.


title: Catholic Church

text: Most of the Germanic tribes who in the following centuries invaded the Roman Empire had adopted Christianity in its Arian form, which the Catholic Church declared heretical. The resulting religious discord between Germanic rulers and Catholic subjects was avoided when, in 497, Clovis I, the Frankish ruler, converted to orthodox Catholicism, allying himself with the papacy and the monasteries. The Visigoths in Spain followed his lead in 589, and the Lombards in Italy in the course of the 7th century.


title: Catholic Church

text: Western Christianity, particularly through its monasteries, was a major factor in preserving classical civilization, with its art (see Illuminated manuscript) and literacy. Through his Rule, Benedict of Nursia (–543), one of the founders of Western monasticism, exerted an enormous influence on European culture through the appropriation of the monastic spiritual heritage of the early Catholic Church and, with the spread of the Benedictine tradition, through the preservation and transmission of ancient culture. During this period, monastic Ireland became a centre of learning and early Irish missionaries such as Columbanus and Columba spread Christianity and established monasteries across continental Europe.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Catholic Church was the dominant influence on Western civilization from Late Antiquity to the dawn of the modern age. It was the primary sponsor of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque styles in art, architecture and music. Renaissance figures such as Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Tintoretto, Titian, Bernini and Caravaggio are examples of the numerous visual artists sponsored by the church. Historian Paul Legutko of Stanford University said the Catholic Church is "at the center of the development of the values, ideas, science, laws, and institutions which constitute what we call Western civilization".


title: Catholic Church

text: The massive Islamic invasions of the mid-7th century began a long struggle between Christianity and Islam throughout the Mediterranean Basin. The Byzantine Empire soon lost the lands of the eastern patriarchates of Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch and was reduced to that of Constantinople, the empire's capital. As a result of Islamic domination of the Mediterranean, the Frankish state, centred away from that sea, was able to evolve as the dominant power that shaped the Western Europe of the Middle Ages. The battles of Toulouse and Poitiers halted the Islamic advance in the West and the failed siege of Constantinople halted it in the East. Two or three decades later, in 751, the Byzantine Empire lost to the Lombards the city of Ravenna from which it governed the small fragments of Italy, including Rome, that acknowledged its sovereignty. The fall of Ravenna meant that confirmation by a no longer existent exarch was not asked for during the election in 752 of Pope Stephen II and that the papacy was forced to look elsewhere for a civil power to protect it. In 754, at the urgent request of Pope Stephen, the Frankish king Pepin the Short conquered the Lombards. He then gifted the lands of the former exarchate to the pope, thus initiating the Papal States. Rome and the Byzantine East would delve into further conflict during the Photian schism of the 860s, when Photius criticized the Latin west of adding of the "filioque" clause after being excommunicated by Nicholas I. Though the schism was reconciled, unresolved issues would lead to further division.


title: Catholic Church

text: In the 11th century, the efforts of Hildebrand of Sovana led to the creation of the College of Cardinals to elect new popes, starting with Pope Alexander II in the papal election of 1061. When Alexander II died, Hildebrand was elected to succeed him, as Pope Gregory VII. The basic election system of the College of Cardinals which Gregory VII helped establish has continued to function into the 21st century. Pope Gregory VII further initiated the Gregorian Reforms regarding the independence of the clergy from secular authority. This led to the Investiture Controversy between the church and the Holy Roman Emperors, over which had the authority to appoint bishops and popes.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 1095, Byzantine emperor Alexius I appealed to Pope Urban II for help against renewed Muslim invasions in the Byzantine–Seljuk Wars, which caused Urban to launch the First Crusade aimed at aiding the Byzantine Empire and returning the Holy Land to Christian control. In the 11th century, strained relations between the primarily Greek church and the Latin Church separated them in the East–West Schism, partially due to conflicts over papal authority. The Fourth Crusade and the sacking of Constantinople by renegade crusaders proved the final breach. In this age great gothic cathedrals in France were an expression of popular pride in the Christian faith.


title: Catholic Church

text: In the early 13th century mendicant orders were founded by Francis of Assisi and Dominic de Guzmán. The "studia conventualia" and "studia generalia" of the mendicant orders played a large role in the transformation of Church-sponsored cathedral schools and palace schools, such as that of Charlemagne at Aachen, into the prominent universities of Europe. Scholastic theologians and philosophers such as the Dominican priest Thomas Aquinas studied and taught at these studia. Aquinas' "Summa Theologica" was an intellectual milestone in its synthesis of the legacy of ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle with the content of Christian revelation.


title: Catholic Church

text: A growing sense of church-state conflicts marked the 14th century. To escape instability in Rome, Clement V in 1309 became the first of seven popes to reside in the fortified city of Avignon in southern France during a period known as the Avignon Papacy. The Avignon Papacy ended in 1376 when the pope returned to Rome, but was followed in 1378 by the 38-year-long Western schism, with claimants to the papacy in Rome, Avignon and (after 1409) Pisa. The matter was largely resolved in 1415–17 at the Council of Constance, with the claimants in Rome and Pisa agreeing to resign and the third claimant excommunicated by the cardinals, who held a new election naming Martin V pope.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 1438, the Council of Florence convened, which featured a strong dialogue focussed on understanding the theological differences between the East and West, with the hope of reuniting the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Several eastern churches reunited, forming the majority of the Eastern Catholic Churches.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Age of Discovery beginning in the 15th century saw the expansion of Western Europe's political and cultural influence worldwide. Because of the prominent role the strongly Catholic nations of Spain and Portugal played in Western colonialism, Catholicism was spread to the Americas, Asia and Oceania by explorers, conquistadors, and missionaries, as well as by the transformation of societies through the socio-political mechanisms of colonial rule. Pope Alexander VI had awarded colonial rights over most of the newly discovered lands to Spain and Portugal and the ensuing "patronato" system allowed state authorities, not the Vatican, to control all clerical appointments in the new colonies. In 1521 the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan made the first Catholic converts in the Philippines. Elsewhere, Portuguese missionaries under the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier evangelized in India, China, and Japan. The French colonization of the Americas beginning in the 16th century established a Catholic francophone population and forbade non-Catholics to settle in Quebec.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 1415, Jan Hus was burned at the stake for heresy, but his reform efforts encouraged Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk in modern-day Germany, who sent his "Ninety-five Theses" to several bishops in 1517. His theses protested key points of Catholic doctrine as well as the sale of indulgences, and along with the Leipzig Debate this led to his excommunication in 1521. In Switzerland, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin and other Protestant Reformers further criticized Catholic teachings. These challenges developed into the Reformation, which gave birth to the great majority of Protestant denominations and also crypto-Protestantism within the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, Henry VIII petitioned Pope Clement VII for a declaration of nullity concerning his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. When this was denied, he had the Acts of Supremacy passed to make himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, spurring the English Reformation and the eventual development of Anglicanism.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Reformation contributed to clashes between the Protestant Schmalkaldic League and the Catholic Emperor Charles V and his allies. The first nine-year war ended in 1555 with the Peace of Augsburg but continued tensions produced a far graver conflict—the Thirty Years' War—which broke out in 1618. In France, a series of conflicts termed the French Wars of Religion was fought from 1562 to 1598 between the Huguenots (French Calvinists) and the forces of the French Catholic League, which were backed and funded by a series of popes. This ended under Pope Clement VIII, who hesitantly accepted King Henry IV's 1598 Edict of Nantes granting civil and religious toleration to French Protestants.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Council of Trent (1545–1563) became the driving force behind the Counter-Reformation in response to the Protestant movement. Doctrinally, it reaffirmed central Catholic teachings such as transubstantiation and the requirement for love and hope as well as faith to attain salvation. In subsequent centuries, Catholicism spread widely across the world, in part through missionaries and imperialism, although its hold on European populations declined due to the growth of religious scepticism during and after the Enlightenment.


title: Catholic Church

text: From the 17th century onward, the Enlightenment questioned the power and influence of the Catholic Church over Western society. In the 18th century, writers such as Voltaire and the "Encyclopédistes" wrote biting critiques of both religion and the Catholic Church. One target of their criticism was the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King Louis XIV of France, which ended a century-long policy of religious toleration of Protestant Huguenots. As the papacy resisted pushes for Gallicanism, the French Revolution of 1789 shifted power to the state, caused the destruction of churches, the establishment of a Cult of Reason, and the martyrdom of nuns during the "Reign of Terror". In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte's General Louis-Alexandre Berthier invaded the Italian Peninsula, imprisoning Pope Pius VI, who died in captivity. Napoleon later re-established the Catholic Church in France through the Concordat of 1801. The end of the Napoleonic Wars brought Catholic revival and the return of the Papal States.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 1854, Pope Pius IX, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Catholic bishops, whom he had consulted from 1851 to 1853, proclaimed the Immaculate Conception as a dogma in the Catholic Church. In 1870, the First Vatican Council affirmed the doctrine of papal infallibility when exercised in specifically defined pronouncements, striking a blow to the rival position of conciliarism. Controversy over this and other issues resulted in a breakaway movement called the ,


title: Catholic Church

text: The Italian unification of the 1860s incorporated the Papal States, including Rome itself from 1870, into the Kingdom of Italy, thus ending the papacy's temporal power. In response, Pope Pius IX excommunicated King Victor Emmanuel II, refused payment for the land, and rejected the Italian Law of Guarantees, which granted him special privileges. To avoid placing himself in visible subjection to the Italian authorities, he remained a "prisoner in the Vatican". This stand-off, which was spoken of as the "Roman Question", was resolved by the 1929 Lateran Treaties, whereby the Holy See acknowledged Italian sovereignty over the former Papal States in return for payment and Italy's recognition of papal sovereignty over Vatican City as a new sovereign and independent state.


title: Catholic Church

text: Catholic missionaries generally supported, and sought to facilitate, the European imperial powers' conquest of Africa during the late nineteenth century. According to the historian of religion Adrian Hastings, Catholic missionaries were generally unwilling to defend African rights or encourage Africans to see themselves as equals to Europeans, in contrast to Protestant missionaries, who were more willing to oppose colonial injustices.


title: Catholic Church

text: During the 20th century, the Church's global reach continued to grow, despite the rise of anti-Catholic authoritarian regimes and the collapse of European Empires, accompanied by a general decline in religious observance in the West. Under Popes Benedict XV, and Pius XII, the Holy See sought to maintain public neutrality through the World Wars, acting as peace broker and delivering aid to the victims of the conflicts. In the 1960s, Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, which ushered in radical change to Church ritual and practice, and in the later 20th century, the long reign of Pope John Paul II contributed to the fall of communism in Europe, and a new public and international role for the papacy.


title: Catholic Church

text: Pope Pius X (1903–1914) renewed the independence of papal office by abolishing the veto of Catholic powers in papal elections, and his successors Benedict XV (1914–1922) and Pius XI (1922–1939) concluded the modern independence of the Vatican State within Italy. Benedict XV was elected at the outbreak of the First World War. He attempted to mediate between the powers and established a Vatican relief office, to assist victims of the war and reunite families. He offered numerous appeals for peace. His "Dès le début" initiative of 1 August 1917 was rejected by the warring parties.


title: Catholic Church

text: A number of anti-clerical governments emerged in the 20th century. The 1926 Calles Law separating church and state in Mexico led to the Cristero War in which more than 3,000 priests were exiled or assassinated, churches desecrated, services mocked, nuns raped, and captured priests shot. Following the 1917 October Revolution, persecution of the church and Catholics in the Soviet Union continued into the 1930s, with the execution and exiling of clerics, monks and laymen, the confiscation of religious implements, and closure of churches. In the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War, the Catholic hierarchy allied with Franco's Nationalists against the Popular Front government, citing as justification Republican violence against the church. Pope Pius XI referred to these three countries as a "terrible triangle".


title: Catholic Church

text: The interwar Pope Pius XI modernized the papacy by appearing in St Peter's Square, founding Vatican Radio and the Papal Academy of Sciences, appointing 40 indigenous bishops and concluding fifteen concordats, including the Lateran Treaty with Italy which founded the Vatican City State. After violations of the 1933 Reichskonkordat between the church and Nazi Germany, Pius XI issued the 1937 encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge", which publicly condemned the Nazis' persecution of the church and their ideology of neopaganism and racial superiority.


title: Catholic Church

text: His successor Pope Pius XII led the Church through the Second World War and early Cold War. Like his predecessors, Pius XII sought to publicly maintain Vatican neutrality in the War, and established aid networks to help victims, but he secretly assisted the anti-Hitler resistance and shared intelligence with the Allies. His first encyclical "Summi Pontificatus" (1939) expressed dismay at the 1939 Invasion of Poland and reiterated Catholic teaching against racism. He expressed concern against race killings on Vatican Radio, and intervened diplomatically to attempt to block Nazi deportations of Jews in various countries from 1942 to 1944. But the Pope's insistence on public neutrality and diplomatic language has become a source of much criticism and debate. Nevertheless, in every country under German occupation, priests played a major part in rescuing Jews. Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide estimated that Catholic rescue of Jews amounted to somewhere between 700,000 and 860,000 people.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church was at its most intense in Poland, and Catholic resistance to Nazism took various forms. Some 2,579 Catholic clergy were sent to the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp, including 400 Germans. Thousands of priests, nuns and brothers were imprisoned, taken to a concentration camp, tortured and murdered, including Saints Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein. Catholics fought on both sides in the conflict. Catholic clergy played a leading role in the government of the fascist Slovak State, which collaborated with the Nazis, copied their anti-Semitic policies, and helped them carry out the Holocaust in Slovakia. Jozef Tiso, the President of the Slovak State and a Catholic priest, supported his government's deportation of Slovakian Jews to extermination camps. The Vatican protested against these Jewish deportations in Slovakia and in other Nazi puppet regimes including Vichy France, Croatia, Bulgaria, Italy and Hungary.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Catholic resistance group around the priest Heinrich Maier passed on plans and production facilities for V-1 flying bombs, V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet and other aircraft to the Allies, with which they could target German production facilities. Much of the information was important to Operation Hydra and Operation Crossbow, both critical operations to Operation Overlord. He and his group informed the American Office of Strategic Services early on about the mass murder of Jews in Auschwitz. Maier supported the war against the Nazis on the principle "every bomb that falls on armaments factories shortens the war and spares the civilian population."


title: Catholic Church

text: Around 1943, Adolf Hitler planned the kidnapping of the Pope and his internment in Germany. He gave SS General Wolff a corresponding order to prepare for the action. While Pope Pius XII has been credited with helping to save hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, the church has also been accused of having encouraged centuries of antisemitism by its teachings and not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities. Many Nazi criminals escaped overseas after the Second World War, also because they had powerful supporters from the Vatican. The judgment of Pius XII. is made more difficult by the sources, because the church archives for his tenure as nuncio, cardinal secretary of state and pope are in part closed or not yet processed.


title: Catholic Church

text: In dismembered Yugoslavia, the Church favored the Nazi-installed Croatian Catholic fascist Ustaše regime due to its anti-communist ideology and for the potential to reinstate Catholic influence in the region following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. It did not however formally recognize the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Despite being informed of the regime's genocide against Orthodox Serbs, Jews and other non-Croats, the Church did not publicly speak out against it, preferring to exert pressure through diplomacy. In assessing the Vatican's position, historian Jozo Tomasevich writes that "it seems the Catholic Church fully supported the [Ustaše] regime and its policies."


title: Catholic Church

text: During the post-war period, communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe severely restricted religious freedoms. Although some priests and religious people collaborated with communist regimes, many others were imprisoned, deported, or executed. The church was an important player in the fall of communism in Europe, particularly in the Polish People's Republic.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 1949, the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War led to the expulsion of all foreign missionaries. The new government also created the Patriotic Church and appointed its bishops. These appointments were initially rejected by Rome before many of them were accepted. In the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communists closed all religious establishments. When Chinese churches eventually reopened, they remained under the control of the Patriotic Church. Many Catholic priests continued to be sent to prison for refusing to renounce allegiance to Rome.


title: Catholic Church

text: The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) introduced the most significant changes to Catholic practices since the Council of Trent, four centuries before. Initiated by Pope John XXIII, this ecumenical council modernized the practices of the Catholic Church, allowing the Mass to be said in the vernacular (local language) and encouraging "fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations". It intended to engage the Church more closely with the present world ("aggiornamento"), which was described by its advocates as an "opening of the windows". In addition to changes in the liturgy, it led to changes to the church's approach to ecumenism, and a call to improved relations with non-Christian religions, especially Judaism, in its document "Nostra aetate".


title: Catholic Church

text: The council, however, generated significant controversy in implementing its reforms: proponents of the "Spirit of Vatican II" such as Swiss theologian Hans Küng said that Vatican II had "not gone far enough" to change church policies. Traditionalist Catholics, such as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, however, strongly criticized the council, arguing that its liturgical reforms led "to the destruction of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacraments", among other issues.


title: Catholic Church

text: Several teachings of the Catholic Church came under increased scrutiny both concurrent with and following the council; among those teachings was the church's teaching regarding the immorality of contraception. The recent introduction of hormonal contraception (including "the pill"), which were believed by some to be morally different from previous methods, prompted John XXIII to form a committee to advise him of the moral and theological issues with the new method. Pope Paul VI later expanded the committee's scope to freely examine all methods, and the committee's unreleased final report was rumoured to suggest permitting at least some methods of contraception. Paul did not agree with the arguments presented, and eventually issued "Humanae vitae", saying that it upheld the constant teaching of the church against contraception. It expressly included hormonal methods as prohibited. This document generated a largely negative response from many Catholics.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 1978, Pope John Paul II, formerly Archbishop of Kraków in the Polish People's Republic, became the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. His 26 1/2-year pontificate was one of the longest in history. Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, credited the Polish pope with hastening the fall of communism in Europe.


title: Catholic Church

text: John Paul II sought to evangelize an increasingly secular world. He instituted World Youth Day as a "worldwide encounter with the pope" for young people; it is now held every two to three years. He travelled more than any other pope, visiting 129 countries, and used television and radio as means of spreading the church's teachings. He also emphasized the dignity of work and natural rights of labourers to have fair wages and safe conditions in "Laborem exercens". He emphasized several church teachings, including moral exhortations against abortion, euthanasia, and against widespread use of the death penalty, in "Evangelium Vitae".


title: Catholic Church

text: From the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticized for its doctrines on sexuality, its inability to ordain women, and its handling of sexual abuse cases.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 1992, the Vatican acknowledged its error in persecuting Galileo 359 years earlier for proving the Earth revolved around the Sun.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 2005, following the death of John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under John Paul II, was elected. He was known for upholding traditional Christian values against secularization, and for increasing use of the Tridentine Mass as found in the Roman Missal of 1962, which he titled the "Extraordinary Form". In 2012, the 50th anniversary of Vatican II, an assembly of the Synod of Bishops discussed re-evangelising lapsed Catholics in the developed world. Citing the frailties of advanced age, Benedict resigned in 2013, becoming the first pope to do so in nearly 600 years. His resignation has caused controversy among a minority of Catholics who say Benedict did not fully resign the papacy.


title: Catholic Church

text: Pope Francis, the current pope of the Catholic Church, succeeded Pope Benedict XVI in 2013 as the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first Pope from outside Europe since the Syrian Gregory III, who reigned in the 8th century. Pope Francis has been noted for his humility, emphasis on God's mercy, concern for the poor and the environment, as well as his commitment to interfaith dialogue. Media commentators Rachel Donadio of "The Atlantic" and Brandon Ambrosino of "Vox" credit Pope Francis with having a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors.


title: Catholic Church

text: Pope Francis is recognized for his efforts "to further close the nearly 1,000-year estrangement with the Orthodox Churches". His installation was attended by Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the first time since the Great Schism of 1054 that the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has attended a papal installation. On 12 February 2016, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the largest Eastern Orthodox church, met in Havana, Cuba, issuing a joint declaration calling for restored Christian unity between the two churches. This was reported as the first such high-level meeting between the two churches since the Great Schism of 1054.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 2014, the Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops addressed the church's ministry towards families and marriages and to Catholics in "irregular" relationships, such as those who divorced and remarried outside of the church without a declaration of nullity. While welcomed by some, it was criticized by some for perceived ambiguity, provoking controversies among individual representatives of differing perspectives.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 2017 during a visit in Egypt, Pope Francis reestablished mutual recognition of baptism with the Coptic Orthodox Church.


title: Catholic Church

text: In 2021, Pope Francis issued the apostolic letter "Traditionis Custodes", which reversed some of permissions his predecessor had afforded to celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and emphasized Pope Francis's preference for the Ordinary Form.


title: Catholic Church

text: On April 1, 2022, during a meeting between a delegation of Canadian First Nations representatives and Pope Francis at the Vatican, the pope apologized for the conduct of some members of the Roman Catholic Church in the Canadian Indian residential school system.