title: Ed Koch

text: Koch experienced some health problems, including heart issues, after his mayoralty, and was frequently hospitalized in the final months of his life. On January 31, 2013, he was admitted to Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan due to fatigue, where he died from heart failure at 2 a.m. the next day, aged 88. His funeral took place on February 4, 2013, at Temple Emanu-El, a Reform Jewish congregation in Manhattan. Because of Koch's fierce loyalty to Israel, the Israeli Consul-General to New York City spoke. Former president Bill Clinton also addressed the congregation, serving as President Obama's representative. New York City Police Department helicopters gave a fly-over at the service.


title: Ed Koch

text: Koch purchased a burial plot in Trinity Church Cemetery in April 2008 so that he could be buried in Manhattan. It is the only graveyard in the borough that accepts new burials. He chose to put the last words of the late journalist Daniel Pearl on his tombstone: "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish."


title: Ed Koch

text: A practiced public speaker since his days stumping for Adlai Stevenson, Koch was well known for his quips and one-liners. A few include:


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Phoolan Devi (10August 196325July 2001), popularly known as "Bandit Queen", was a bandit who later became a female rights activist and politician from the Samajwadi Party who served as Member of Parliament.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Devi was born into the Mallah (boatmen) caste, in the small village of Ghura Ka Purwa in Jalaun District, Uttar Pradesh. She was the fourth and youngest child of Moola Devi and her father Devi Din Mallah. Besides Devi, only one older sister survived to adulthood.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Devi's family was poor. The major asset owned by them was around of farmland with a large but very old neem tree on it. When Devi was eleven years old, her paternal grandparents' death led to her cousin, Maya Din Mallah, proposing to cut down the neem tree to cultivate that patch of land with more profitable crops. Devi’s father agreed to it with mild protest. However, the teenage Devi was enraged and protested, publicly taunting and verbally abusing her cousin for several weeks, going on to physically assault him. She then gathered a few village girls and staged a "Dharna" (sit-in) on the land, and did not budge even when the family elders tried to use force to drag them home. She was eventually beaten unconscious with a brick.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: A few months after this incident, her family arranged for her to marry a man named Puttilal Mallah, who lived far away and was in his 30s, three times her age. She was physically and sexually abused by her husband and, after several attempts at running away, was returned to her family in 'disgrace'.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: In retaliation for being humiliated by Devi, Maya Din went to the local police and accused Devi of stealing from him. The police kept her locked up for three days, physically abused her, and then let her off with a warning.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: After Devi was released from jail, at the age of 16, her parents once again wanted to send her to her husband. After Devi's family offered generous gifts, her in-laws finally agreed to take her back. Devi’s parents performed the ceremony of "gauna" (after which a married woman begins to cohabit with her husband), took Devi to her husband's house, and left her there.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Within a few months, Devi, again returned to her parents. Shortly afterwards, her in-laws returned the gifts that Devi's parents had given them and sent word that under no circumstances would they accept Devi back again. This was in 1979, and Devi was only a few months past her 16th birthday. She later claimed in her autobiography that her husband was a man of "very bad character". A wife leaving her husband, or being abandoned by her husband, is a serious taboo in rural India, and Devi was marked as a social outcast.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: The region where Phoolan lived, Bundelkhand, is even today extremely poor, arid and devoid of industry; most of the able-bodied men migrated to large cities in search of work. During the period in question, industry was at a low even in the large cities, and daily life was a grim engagement with subsistence farming in a dry region with poor soil. It was not unusual for young men to seek escape from fruitless labour in the fields by running away to the nearby ravines (the main geographical feature of the region), forming groups of bandits, and plundering their more prosperous neighbours in the villages or passing townspeople on the highways.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Shortly after her final sojourn in her husband's house, and in the same year (1979), Phoolan fell in the company of a gang of dacoits. How exactly this happened is unclear; some say that she was kidnapped by them because of her "spirited temperament," estrangement from her own family and outspoken rejection of her husband had attracted the attention of the bandits, while others say that she "walked away from her life." In her autobiography, she merely says ""kismet ko yehi manzoor tha"" ("it was the dictate of fate") that she became part of a gang of bandits.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: The gang leader, Babu Gujjar, tried to rape her one evening after getting her to his tent. At this juncture, Phoolan was saved from rape by Vikram Mallah, the second-in-command of the gang, who belonged to Phoolan's own Mallah caste. In the altercation, Vikram Mallah killed Babu Gujjar. The next morning, he assumed leadership of the gang.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Undaunted by the fact that Vikram already had a wife and that she likewise had a husband, Phoolan and Vikram began cohabiting together. A few weeks later, the gang attacked the village where Phoolan's husband Puttilal Mallah lived. Phoolan herself dragged him out of his house and stabbed him in front of the villagers. The gang left him lying almost dead by the road, with a note warning older men not to marry young girls. The man survived, but carried a scar running down his abdomen for the rest of his life. He lived his life as a recluse because most people in the village began avoiding his company out of fear of the bandits.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Phoolan learned how to use a rifle from Vikram, and participated in the gang's activities across Bundelkhand, which straddles the border between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. This included attacking and looting villages where upper-caste people lived, kidnapping relatively prosperous people for ransom, and committing occasional highway robberies which targeted flashy cars. Phoolan was the only woman member of that gang of dacoits. After every crime, she would visit a Durga temple and thank the Goddess for her protection. The gang's main hideouts were in the ravines of the Chambal River. According to legend, Vikram taught Phoolan, "If you are going to kill, kill twenty, not just one. For if you kill twenty, your fame will spread; if you kill only one, they will hang you as a murderess."


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Sometime later, Shri Ram and Lalla Ram, two middle caste brothers who had been caught by the police, were released from jail and came back to the gang. They were outraged to hear of the murder of Babu Gujjar, their former leader, and held Phoolan responsible for inciting the act. A scuffle then ensued between Shri Ram and Phoolan. The brothers' resentment was exacerbated by the fact that Phoolan and Vikram both belonged to the Mallaah caste of boatmen, lower than the land-owning caste to which they themselves belonged.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Over a period of time, the brothers recruited more middle caste in the gang and began abusing the Mallahs of the villages they ransacked, leading to the anger and subsequent exit of the Mallahs of the gang. Vikram Mallah then suggested that the gang be divided into two, one comprising mainly upper and the other mainly Mallahs. Shri Ram and Lalla Ram refused this suggestion stating that the gang had always included a mixture of castes. Meanwhile, the other Mallahs were also not happy with Vikram Mallah. The fact that he alone had a woman cohabiting with him incited jealousy; some of the other Mallahs had bonds of kinship with Vikram's actual wife; and Phoolan's abuses made them dislike her.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: A few days after the proposal for division had been floated, a quarrel ensued between Shri Ram and Vikram Mallah, resulting in a gunfight. Vikram and Phoolan escaped in the dark. However, they were tracked down and Vikram Mallah was killed. Phoolan was taken by the victorious faction to the middle caste dominated village of Behmai, home to Shri Ram, Lalla Ram and several of the new recruits.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Phoolan was locked up in a room in one of the houses in Behmai village. She was beaten, raped and humiliated by several upper caste Thakur men over a period of three weeks. In a final indignity, they paraded her naked around the village. She then managed to escape, after three weeks of captivity, with the help of a low-caste villager of Behmai and two Mallah members from Vikram's gang, including Man Singh Mallah.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Phoolan and Man Singh soon became leaders of a gang composed solely of Mallahs. The gang carried out a series of violent raids and robberies across Bundelkhand, usually (but not always) targeting upper-caste people. Some say that Phoolan targeted only the upper-caste people and shared the loot with the lower-caste people, but the Indian authorities paint this as a picture of myth; and they claim that there is no evidence of Phoolan or her partners in crime sharing money with anyone, whether low-caste or otherwise.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Several months after her escape from Behmai, Phoolan returned to the village to seek revenge. On the evening of 14 February 1981, Phoolan marched into Behmai with her gang and demanded that her tormentors be produced before her. The two men could not be found. She then rounded up twenty-two young men from the village and ordered them killed.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: The Behmai massacre provoked outrage across the country. V. P. Singh, the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, resigned. A massive police manhunt was launched but soon failed. It began to be said that the manhunt was not successful because Phoolan had the support of poor people in the region; stories on the Robin Hood model began circulating in the media. Phoolan began to be called the Bandit Queen, and she was glorified by sections of the Indian media as an intrepid and undaunted woman, the underdog struggling to survive in the world.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Two years after the Behmai massacre, the police had still not captured Phoolan. The Indira Gandhi Government decided to negotiate a surrender. By this time, Phoolan was in poor health and most of her gang members were dead, some having died at the hands of the police, others at the hands of rival gangs. In February 1983, she agreed to surrender to the authorities. However, she said that she did not trust the Uttar Pradesh Police and insisted that she would only surrender to the Madhya Pradesh Police. She also insisted that she would lay down her arms only before the pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and the Hindu goddess Durga, not to the police. She laid down four further conditions:


title: Phoolan Devi

text: An unarmed police chief met her at a rendezvous in the Chambal ravines. They travelled to Bhind in Madhya Pradesh, where she laid down her rifle before the portraits of Gandhi and Goddess Durga. The onlookers included a crowd of around 10,000 people and 300 policemen, apart from the then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Arjun Singh. Other members of her gang also surrendered with her.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Phoolan was charged with as many as forty-eight crimes, including thirty charges of dacoity (banditry) and kidnapping. Her trial was delayed for eleven years, during which time she remained in prison as an undertrial. During this period, she was operated on for ovarian cysts and underwent a hysterectomy. The doctor of the hospital reportedly joked that "We don't want Phoolan Devi breeding more Phoolan Devis". This statement alone would indicate a disrespect of her reproductive rights. Forced sterilization is a common abuse against socially outcast women or those branded criminals. She was finally released on parole in 1994 after intercession by Vishambhar Prasad Nishad, the leader of the Nishadha community (another name for the "Mallah" community of boatmen and fisherfolk). The Government of Uttar Pradesh, led by Mulayam Singh Yadav, withdrew all cases against her. This move shocked the country and became a matter of public discussion and controversy.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Phoolan later married Ummed Singh. Ummed Singh contested the 2004 and 2009 elections on Indian National Congress's ticket. In 2014 he contested election on Bahujan Samaj Party's ticket. Phoolan's sister Munni Devi later accused him of being involved in Phoolan's murder.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: On 15 February 1995, Phoolan Devi and her husband Ummed Singh embraced Buddhism at the famous Buddhist site Deekshabhoomi.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Phoolan stood for election to the 11th Lok Sabha from the Mirzapur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. She contested the election as a member of the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose government had withdrawn all cases against her and summarily released her from prison. She won the election and served as an MP during the term of the 11th Lok Sabha (1996–98). She lost her seat in the 1998 election but was re-elected in the 1999 election and was the sitting member of parliament for Mirzapur when she was assassinated.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: At 1:30 p.m. IST (08:30 UTC) on 25 July 2001, Devi was shot dead by three masked gunmen outside of her Delhi bungalow. She was hit nine times, variously in the head, chest, shoulder and right arm. Her personal security guard, Balinder Singh, was shot in his right chest and right arm, and returned fire with a 9-mm service pistol when the gunmen fled the scene in a Maruti 800 car. They abandoned the car mid-way and boarded an auto rickshaw. The police recovered a Webley & Scott pistol and an improvised firearm, an IOF .32 Revolver from the spot, along with nine empty and 15 live rounds, from the car.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Devi was taken to Ram Manohar Lohia hospital but was declared dead. The prime suspect, Sher Singh Rana, later surrendered to the police. Rana allegedly claimed to have murdered Devi in revenge for the upper-caste men she gunned down in the Behmai massacre. In the latest ruling, on 14 August 2014, the court sentenced Rana to life in prison and a fine.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: In the immediate aftermath of the murder, the police were accused of incompetence in their handling of the case. It was alleged that a party worker picked up revolvers that had been dumped by the killers and hid them. Three other people staying in her house were accused of knowing about the revolvers. The revolvers then disappeared before the police could conduct forensic tests on them.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Sher Singh Rana, the main accused, was convicted by a Delhi court on 8 August 2014. However, the other ten accused were acquitted. Rana was convicted of the offences under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 34 (common intention) under the IPC. On 14 August 2014 Rana was sentenced to a life term by a Delhi court. He was subsequently granted bail in October 2016.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Shekhar Kapur made a movie "Bandit Queen" (1994) about Phoolan Devi's life up to her 1983 surrender, based on Mala Sen's 1993 book "India's Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi". Although Phoolan Devi is a heroine in the film, she fiercely disputed its accuracy and fought to get it banned in India. She even threatened to immolate herself outside a theater if the film was not withdrawn. Eventually, she withdrew her objections after the producer Channel 4 paid her £40,000. The film brought her international recognition. Author-activist Arundhati Roy in her film review entitled, "The Great Indian Rape Trick", questioned the right to "restage the rape of a living woman without her permission", and accused Shekhar Kapur of exploiting Phoolan Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: In 1985, another low budget Bengali movie "Phoolan Devi" was released, loosely based on Phoolan's life. This film was directed by Ashok Roy and starred by Suresh Oberoi, Rita Bhaduri and Joy Banerjee. "Phoolan Bai", a 2001 Indian film by V. Menon was also inspired by her life.


title: Phoolan Devi

text: Although she was illiterate, Phoolan composed her autobiography entitled "The Bandit Queen of India: An Indian Woman's Amazing Journey From Peasant to International Legend", with the help of international authors Marie-Therese Cuny and Paul Rambali.


title: Yankee Doodle

text: "Yankee Doodle" is a traditional American song and a nursery rhyme, the early versions of which predate the Seven Years' War and American Revolution. It is often sung patriotically in the United States today. It is the state anthem of Connecticut. Its Roud Folk Song Index number is 4501. The melody is thought to be much older than both the lyrics and the subject, going back to folk songs of Medieval Europe.


title: Yankee Doodle

text: The tune of "Yankee Doodle" is thought to be much older than the lyrics, being well known across western Europe, including England, France, Netherlands, Hungary, and Spain. The melody of the song may have originated from an Irish tune "All the way to Galway" in which the second strain is identical to Yankee Doodle. The earliest words of "Yankee Doodle" came from a Middle Dutch harvest song which is thought to have followed the same tune, possibly dating back as far as 15th-century Holland. It contained mostly nonsensical words in English and Dutch: "Yanker, didel, doodle down, Diddle, dudel, lanther, Yanke viver, voover vown, "Botermilk" und "tanther"." Farm laborers in Holland were paid "as much buttermilk ("Botermelk") as they could drink, and a tenth ("tanther") of the grain".


title: Yankee Doodle

text: The term "Doodle" first appeared in English in the early 17th century and is thought to be derived from the Low German "dudel," meaning "playing music badly", or "Dödel", meaning "fool" or "simpleton". The "Macaroni" wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became slang for being a fop. Dandies were men who placed particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisure hobbies. A self-made dandy was a British middle-class man who impersonated an aristocratic lifestyle. They notably wore silk strip cloth, stuck feathers in their hats, and carried two pocket watches with chains—"one to tell what time it was and the other to tell what time it was not".


title: Yankee Doodle

text: The macaroni wig was an example of such Rococo dandy fashion, popular in elite circles in Western Europe and much mocked in the London press. The term "macaroni" was used to describe a fashionable man who dressed and spoke in an outlandishly affected and effeminate manner. The term pejoratively referred to a man who "exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion" in terms of clothes, fastidious eating, and gambling.


title: Yankee Doodle

text: In British conversation, the term "Yankee doodle dandy" implied unsophisticated misappropriation of upper-class fashion, as though simply sticking a feather in one's cap would transform the wearer into a noble. Peter McNeil, a professor of fashion studies, claims that the British were insinuating that the colonists were lower-class men who lacked masculinity, emphasizing that the American men were womanly.


title: Yankee Doodle

text: The song was a pre-Revolutionary War song originally sung by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in the French and Indian War. It was written at Fort Crailo around 1755 by British Army surgeon Richard Shuckburgh while campaigning in Rensselaer, New York. The British troops sang it to make fun of their stereotype of the American soldier as a Yankee simpleton who thought that he was stylish if he simply stuck a feather in his cap. It was also popular among the Americans as a song of defiance, and they added verses to it that mocked the British troops and hailed George Washington as the Commander of the Continental army. By 1781, "Yankee Doodle" had turned from being an insult to being a song of national pride.


title: Yankee Doodle

text: According to one account, Shuckburgh wrote the original lyrics after seeing the appearance of Colonial troops under Colonel Thomas Fitch, the son of Connecticut Governor Thomas Fitch. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "the current version seems to have been written in 1776 by Edward Bangs, a Harvard sophomore who also was a Minuteman." He wrote a ballad with 15 verses which circulated in Boston and surrounding towns in 1775 or 1776.


title: Yankee Doodle

text: A bill was introduced to the House of Representatives on July 25, 1999, recognizing Billerica, Massachusetts, as "America's Yankee Doodle Town". After the Battle of Lexington and Concord, a Boston newspaper reported:


title: Yankee Doodle

text: The sheet music which accompanies these lyrics reads, "The Words to be Sung through the Nose, & in the West Country drawl & dialect." The tune also appeared in 1762 in one of America's first comic operas "The Disappointment", with bawdy lyrics about the search for Blackbeard's buried treasure by a team from Philadelphia. An alternate verse that the British are said to have marched to is attributed to an incident involving Thomas Ditson of Billerica, Massachusetts. British soldiers tarred and feathered Ditson because he attempted to buy a musket in Boston in March 1775; he evidently secured one eventually, because he fought at Concord. For this reason, the town of Billerica is called the home of "Yankee Doodle":


title: Yankee Doodle

text: Another pro-British set of lyrics believed to have used the tune was published in June 1775 following the Battle of Bunker Hill:


title: Yankee Doodle

text: "Yankee Doodle" was played at the British surrender at Saratoga in 1777. A variant is preserved in the 1810 edition of "Gammer Gurton's Garland: Or, The Nursery Parnassus", collected by Francis Douce:


title: Yankee Doodle

text: The tune shares with "Jack and Jill" and English language nursery rhyme "Lucy Locket". It also inspires the theme tune for the children's television series, "Barney & the Backyard Gang", "Barney & Friends", and the 1960s US cartoon series "Roger Ramjet".


title: Yankee Doodle

text: During the aftermath of the Siege of Yorktown, the surrendering British soldiers looked only at the French soldiers present, refusing to pay the American soldiers any heed. The Marquis de Lafayette was outraged and ordered his band to play "Yankee Doodle" in response to taunt the British. Upon doing so, the British soldiers at last looked upon the Americans.


title: Ouzo

text: Ouzo (, ) is a dry anise-flavored aperitif that is widely consumed in Greece. It is made from rectified spirits that have undergone a process of distillation and flavoring. Its taste is similar to other anise liquors like pastis, sambuca, rakı and arak.


title: Ouzo

text: Ouzo has its roots in "tsipouro", which is said to have been the work of a group of 14th-century monks on Mount Athos. One version of it was flavored with anise. This version eventually came to be called ouzo.


title: Ouzo

text: Modern ouzo distillation largely took off at the beginning of the 19th century following Greek independence. The first ouzo distillery was founded in Tyrnavos in 1856 by Nikolaos Katsaros, giving birth to the famous ouzo Tyrnavou. When absinthe fell into disfavor in the early 20th century, ouzo was one of the products whose popularity rose to fill the gap; it was once called "a substitute for absinthe without the wormwood". In 1932, ouzo producers developed a method of distillation using copper stills that is now the standard method of production. One of the largest producers of ouzo today is "Varvayanis" (Βαρβαγιάννης), located in the town of Plomari in the southeast portion of the island of Lesbos, while in the same town "Pitsiladi" (Πιτσιλαδή), a variety of high-quality ouzo, is also distilled.


title: Ouzo

text: Ouzo is usually mixed with water, becoming cloudy white, sometimes with a faint blue tinge, and served with ice cubes in a small glass. Ouzo can also be drunk straight from a shot glass.


title: Ouzo

text: Ouzo is often served with a small plate of a variety of appetizers called mezes, usually small fresh fish, fries, olives, and feta cheese. Ouzo can be described to have a similar taste to absinthe which is licorice-like, but smoother.


title: Ouzo

text: On October 25, 2006, Greece won the right to label ouzo as an exclusively Greek product. The European Union now recognizes ouzo, as well as the Greek drinks "tsipouro" and "tsikoudia", as products with a Protected Designation of Origin, which prohibits European makers other than Greece and Cyprus from using the name.


title: Ouzo

text: The origin of the name "ouzo" is disputed. A popular derivation is from the Italian "uso Marsiglia"—" for use in Marseille"—stamped on selected silkworm cocoons exported from Tyrnavos in the 19th century. According to anecdote, this designation came to stand for "superior quality", which the spirit distilled as ouzo was thought to possess.


title: Ouzo

text: During a visit to Thessaly in 1896, the late professor Alexander Philadelpheus delivered to us valuable information on the origins of the word "ouzo", which has come to replace the word "tsipouro". According to the professor, tsipouro gradually became ouzo after the following event: Thessaly exported fine cocoons to Marseilles during the 19th century, and in order to distinguish the product, outgoing crates would be stamped with the words "uso Marsiglia"—Italian for "to be used in Marseille". One day, the Ottoman Greek consulate physician, named Anastas (Anastasios) Bey, happened to be visiting the town of Tyrnavos and was asked to sample the local "tsipouro". Upon tasting the drink, the physician immediately exclaimed: "This is "uso Marsiglia", my friends"—referring to its high quality. The term subsequently spread by word of mouth, until "tsipouro" gradually became known as ouzo.


title: Ouzo

text: Ouzo production begins with distillation in copper stills of 96% alcohol by volume (ABV) rectified spirit. Anise is added, sometimes with other flavorings such as star anise, fennel, mastic, cardamom, coriander, cloves, and cinnamon. The flavoring ingredients are often closely guarded company "recipes", and distinguish one ouzo from another. The result is a flavored alcoholic solution known as "flavored ethyl alcohol", or more commonly as "ouzo yeast"—"μαγιά ούζου" in Greek—the term for "yeast" being used by Greeks metaphorically to denote that it serves as the starting point for ouzo production.


title: Ouzo

text: The "ouzo yeast" is then distilled. After several hours of distillation, a flavored distillate of approximately 80% ABV is produced. The spirit at the beginning of the distillation (heads) and end (tails) is usually removed to avoid light and heavy alcohols and aromatics. The heads and tails are usually mixed and distilled again. The product of this second distillation can be used to produce a different quality ouzo.


title: Ouzo

text: Makers of high-quality "100% from distillation" ouzo proceed at this stage with water dilution, bringing the ouzo to its final ABV. But most producers combine the "ouzo yeast" with less expensive ethyl alcohol flavored with 0.05 percent natural anethole, before water dilution. Greek law dictates that in this case the ouzo yeast cannot be less than 20 percent of the final product.


title: Ouzo

text: In modern Greece, "ouzeries" (the suffix -erie is imported from French, like in "Boulangerie" or "Pâtisserie") are common throughout Greece. These café-like establishments serve ouzo with "mezedes". It is traditionally slowly sipped (usually mixed with water or ice) together with "mezedes" shared with others over a period of several hours in the early evening.


title: Ouzo

text: In other countries, it is tradition to have ouzo in authentic Greek restaurants as an aperitif, served in a shot glass and deeply chilled before the meal is started. No water or ice is added but the drink is served very cold, enough to make some crystals form in the drink as it is served.


title: Ouzo

text: Ouzo can colloquially be referred to as a particularly strong drink, the cause of this being its sugar content. Sugar delays ethanol absorption in the stomach, and may thus mislead drinkers into thinking that they can drink more as they do not feel tipsy early on. Then the cumulative effect of ethanol appears and the drinker becomes inebriated rather quickly. This is why it is generally considered poor form to drink ouzo "dry hammer" ("ξεροσφύρι", "xerosfýri", an idiomatic expression that means "drinking alcohol without eating anything") in Greece. The presence of food, especially fats or oils, in the upper digestive system, prolongs the absorption of ethanol and ameliorates alcohol intoxication.


title: Ouzo

text: Ouzo is not used in many mainstream cocktail drinks, although in Cyprus it does form the basis of a cocktail called an Ouzini.


title: Ouzo

text: Ouzo is a clear liquid. However, when water or ice is added, ouzo turns a milky-white colour. This is because anethole, the essential oil of anise, is completely soluble in alcohol at approximately 38% ABV and above, but not in water. Diluting the spirit causes it to separate, creating an emulsion whose fine droplets scatter the light. This process is called louching and is also seen while preparing absinthe.


title: Ouzo

text: Similar aperitifs include sambuca from (Italy), pastis from (France), oghi (from Armenia), rakı from Turkey, and arak (from the Levant). Its aniseed flavour is also similar to the anise-flavoured liqueur of anís (Spain) and the stronger spirits of absinthe (France and Switzerland). Aguardiente (Latin America), made from sugar cane, is also similar. The Italian drink "Pallini Mistra," named after the Greek city of Mystras in the Peloponnese is a version of ouzo made in Rome that closely resembles Greek and Cypriot ouzo.


title: Ouzo

text: In Bulgaria and North Macedonia, the similar beverage is called "mastika" (), a name that is shared by the distinct Greek liquor "mastika" which is flavored with mastic crystals. Most commonly it is consumed as an aperitif, usually poured over ice to release its aroma and flavors, and enjoyed with meze. Containing 43–45% alcohol, it has a hot taste, not unlike that of brandy, and is usually made from grapes. In North Macedonia, mastika has traditionally been made in the Strumica area.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The history of the Catholic Church is the formation, events, and historical development of the Catholic Church through time.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The tradition of the Catholic Church claims the Catholic Church began with Jesus Christ and his teachings; the Catholic tradition considers that the Catholic Church is a continuation of the early Christian community established by the Disciples of Jesus. The Church considers its bishops to be the successors to Jesus's apostles and the Church's leader, the Bishop of Rome (also known as the Pope), to be the sole successor to Saint Peter who ministered in Rome in the first century AD after his appointment by Jesus as head of the Church. By the end of the 2nd century, bishops began congregating in regional synods to resolve doctrinal and policy issues. Historian Eamon Duffy claims that by the 3rd century, the church at Rome might even function as a court of appeal on doctrinal issues.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Christianity spread throughout the early Roman Empire, with persecutions due to conflicts with the polytheist state religion. In 313, the persecutions were lessened by the Edict of Milan with the legalization of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine I. In 380, under Emperor Theodosius, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire by the Edict of Thessalonica, a decree of the Emperor which would persist until the fall of the Western Roman Empire (Western Empire), and later, with the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), until the Fall of Constantinople. During this time, the period of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, there were considered five primary sees (jurisdictions within the Catholic Church) according to Eusebius: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, known as the Pentarchy.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The battles of Toulouse preserved the Christian west against the Umayyad Muslim army, even though Rome itself was ravaged in 850, and Constantinople besieged. In the 11th century, already strained relations between the primarily Greek church in the East, and the Latin church in the West, developed into 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. Prior to and during the 16th century, the Church engaged in a process of reform and renewal. Reform during the 16th century is known as the Counter-Reformation. In subsequent centuries, Catholicism spread widely across the world despite experiencing a reduction in its hold on European populations due to the growth of Protestantism and also because of religious skepticism during and after the Enlightenment. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s introduced the most significant changes to Catholic practices since the Council of Trent four centuries before.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: According to Catholic tradition, the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ. The New Testament records Jesus' activities and teaching, His appointment of the twelve Apostles, and His instructions to them to continue His work. The Catholic Church teaches that the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, in an event known as Pentecost, signaled the beginning of the public ministry of the Church. Catholics hold that Saint Peter was Rome's first bishop and the consecrator of Linus as its next bishop, thus starting the unbroken line which includes the current pontiff, Pope Francis. That is, the Catholic Church maintains the apostolic succession of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope – the successor to Saint Peter.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In the account of the Confession of Peter found in the Gospel of Matthew, it is believed that Christ designates Peter as the "rock" upon which Christ's church will be built. While some scholars do 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 and Henry Chadwick question whether there was a formal link between Peter and the modern papacy, and Raymond E. Brown says that, while it is anachronistic to speak of Peter in terms of a local bishop of Rome, 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 to the truth of Christ, as the successor of Peter in care for the church universal".


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Conditions in the Roman Empire facilitated the spread of new ideas. The empire's well-defined network of roads and waterways allowed easier travel, while the Pax Romana made it safe to travel from one region to another. The government had encouraged inhabitants, especially those in urban areas, to learn Greek, and the common language allowed ideas to be more easily expressed and understood. Jesus's apostles gained converts in Jewish communities around the Mediterranean Sea, and over 40 Christian communities had been established by 100. Although most of these were in the Roman Empire, notable Christian communities were also established in Armenia, Iran and along the Indian Malabar Coast. The new religion was most successful in urban areas, spreading first among slaves and people of low social standing, and then among aristocratic women.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: At first, Christians continued to worship alongside Jewish believers, which historians refer to as Jewish Christianity, but within twenty years of Jesus's death, Sunday was being regarded as the primary day of worship. As preachers such as Paul of Tarsus began converting Gentiles, Christianity began growing away from Jewish practices to establish itself as a separate religion, though the issue of Paul of Tarsus and Judaism is still debated today. To resolve doctrinal differences among the competing factions, sometime around the year 50 the apostles convened the first Church council, the Council of Jerusalem. This council affirmed that Gentiles could become Christians without adopting all of the Mosaic Law. Growing tensions soon led to a starker separation that was virtually complete by the time Christians refused to join in the Bar Kokhba Jewish revolt of 132, however some groups of Christians retained elements of Jewish practice.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: According to some historians and scholars, the early Christian Church was very loosely organized, resulting in diverse interpretations of Christian beliefs. In part to ensure a greater consistency in their teachings, by the end of the 2nd century Christian communities had evolved a more structured hierarchy, with a central bishop having authority over the clergy in his city, leading to the development of the Metropolitan bishop. The organization of the Church began to mimic that of the Empire; bishops in politically important cities exerted greater authority over bishops in nearby cities. The churches in Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome held the highest positions. Beginning in the 2nd century, bishops often congregated in regional synods to resolve doctrinal and policy issues. Duffy claims that by the 3rd century, the bishop of Rome began to act as a court of appeals for problems that other bishops could not resolve.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Doctrine was further refined by a series of influential theologians and teachers, known collectively as the Church Fathers. From the year 100 onward, proto-orthodox teachers like Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus defined Catholic teaching in stark opposition to other things, such as Gnosticism. Teachings and traditions were consolidated under the influence of theological apologists such as Pope Clement I, Justin Martyr, and Augustine of Hippo.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Unlike most religions in the Roman Empire, Christianity required its adherents to renounce all other gods, a practice adopted from Judaism. 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. In addition, the peculiar intimacy of Christian society and its secrecy about its religious practices spawned rumors that Christians were guilty of incest and cannibalism; the resulting persecutions, although usually local and sporadic, were a defining feature of Christian self-understanding until Christianity was legalized in the 4th century. A series of more centrally organized persecutions of Christians emerged in the late 3rd century, when emperors decreed that the Empire's military, political, and economic crises were caused by angry gods. All residents were ordered to give sacrifices or be punished. Jews were exempted as long as they paid the Jewish Tax. Estimates of the number of Christians who were executed ranges from a few hundred to 50,000. Many fled or renounced their beliefs. Disagreements over what role, if any, these apostates should have in the Church led to the Donatist and Novatianist schisms.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In spite of these persecutions, evangelization efforts persisted, leading to the Edict of Milan which legalized Christianity in 313. By 380, Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire. Religious philosopher Simone Weil wrote: "By the time of Constantine, the state of apocalyptic expectation must have worn rather thin. [The imminent coming of Christ, expectation of the Last Day – constituted 'a very great social danger']. Besides, the spirit of the old law, so widely separated from all mysticism, was not so very different from the Roman spirit itself. Rome could come to terms with the God of Hosts."


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: When Constantine became emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 312, he attributed his victory to the Christian God. Many soldiers in his army were Christians, and his army was his base of power. With Licinius, (Eastern Roman emperor), he issued the Edict of Milan which mandated toleration of all religions in the empire. The edict had little effect on the attitudes of the people. New laws were crafted to codify some Christian beliefs and practices. Constantine's biggest effect on Christianity was his patronage. He gave large gifts of land and money to the Church and offered tax exemptions and other special legal status to ecclesiastical property and personnel. These gifts and later ones combined to make the Church the largest landowner in the West by the 6th century. Many of these gifts were funded through severe taxation of pagan cults. Some pagan cults were forced to disband for lack of funds; when this happened the Church took over the cult's previous role of caring for the poor.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In a reflection of their increased standing in the Empire, clergy began to adopt the dress of the royal household, including the cope.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: During Constantine's reign, approximately half of those who identified themselves as Christian did not subscribe to the mainstream version of the faith. Constantine feared that disunity would displease God and lead to trouble for the Empire, so he took military and judicial measures to eliminate some sects. To resolve other disputes, Constantine began the practice of calling ecumenical councils to determine binding interpretations of Church doctrine.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Decisions made at the Council of Nicea (325) about the divinity of Christ led to a schism; the new religion, Arianism flourished outside the Roman Empire. Partially to distinguish themselves from Arians, Catholic devotion to Mary became more prominent. This led to further schisms.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In 380, mainstream Christianity–as opposed to Arianism–became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity became more associated with the Empire, resulting in persecution for Christians living outside of the empire, as their rulers feared Christians would revolt in favor of the Emperor. In 385, this new legal authority of the Church resulted in the first use of capital punishment being pronounced as a sentence upon a Christian 'heretic', namely Priscillian.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: During this period, the Bible as it has come down to the 21st century was first officially laid out in Church Councils or Synods through the process of official 'canonization'. Prior to these Councils or Synods, the Bible had already reached a form that was nearly identical to the form in which it is now found. According to some accounts, in 382 the Council of Rome first officially recognized the Biblical canon, listing the accepted books of the "Old" and "New Testament", and in 391 the Vulgate Latin translation of the Bible was made.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Other accounts list the Council of Carthage of 397 as the Council that finalized the Biblical canon as it is known today.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Council of Ephesus in 431 clarified the nature of Jesus' incarnation, declaring that he was both fully man and fully God.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Two decades later, the Council of Chalcedon solidified Roman papal primacy which added to continuing breakdown in relations between Rome and Constantinople, the seat of the Eastern Church.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Also sparked were the Monophysite disagreements over the precise nature of the incarnation of Jesus which led to the first of the various Oriental Orthodox Churches breaking away from the Catholic Church.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, trinitarian Christianity competed with Arian Christianity for the conversion of the barbarian tribes. The 496 conversion of Clovis I, pagan king of the Franks, saw the beginning of a steady rise of the faith in the West.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In 530, Saint Benedict wrote his "Rule of St Benedict" as a practical guide for monastic community life. Its message spread to monasteries throughout Europe. Monasteries became major conduits of civilization, preserving craft and artistic skills while maintaining intellectual culture within their schools, scriptoria and libraries. They functioned as agricultural, economic and production centers as well as a focus for spiritual life. During this period the Visigoths and Lombards moved away from Arianism for Catholicism. Pope Gregory the Great played a notable role in these conversions and dramatically reformed the ecclesiastical structures and administration which then launched renewed missionary efforts. Missionaries such as Augustine of Canterbury, who was sent from Rome to begin the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, and, coming the other way in the Hiberno-Scottish mission, Saints Colombanus, Boniface, Willibrord, Ansgar and many others took Christianity into northern Europe and spread Catholicism among the Germanic, and Slavic peoples, and reached the Vikings and other Scandinavians in later centuries. The Synod of Whitby of 664, though not as decisive as sometimes claimed, was an important moment in the reintegration of the Celtic Church of the British Isles into the Roman hierarchy, after having been effectively cut off from contact with Rome by the pagan invaders. And in Italy, the 728 Donation of Sutri and the 756 Donation of Pepin left the papacy in charge a sizable kingdom. Further consolidating the papal position over the western part of the former Roman Empire, the Donation of Constantine was probably forged during the 8th century.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In the early 8th century, Byzantine iconoclasm became a major source of conflict between the Eastern and Western parts of the Church. Byzantine emperors forbade the creation and veneration of religious images, as violations of the Ten Commandments. Other major religions in the East such as Judaism and Islam had similar prohibitions. Pope Gregory III vehemently disagreed. A new Empress Irene siding with the pope, called for an Ecumenical Council. In 787, the fathers of the Second Council of Nicaea "warmly received the papal delegates and his message". At the conclusion, 300 bishops, who were led by the representatives of Pope Hadrian I "adopted the Pope's teaching", in favor of icons.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: With the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in 800, his new title as "Patricius Romanorum," and the handing over of the keys to the Tomb of Saint Peter, the papacy had acquired a new protector in the West. This freed the pontiffs to some degree from the power of the emperor in Constantinople but also led to a schism, because the emperors and patriarchs of Constantinople interpreted themselves as the true descendants of the Roman Empire dating back to the beginnings of the Church. Pope Nicholas I had refused to recognize Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople, who in turn had attacked the pope as a heretic, because he kept the filioque in the creed, which referred to the Holy Spirit emanating from God the Father" and" the Son. The papacy was strengthened through this new alliance, which in the long term created a new problem for the Popes, when in the Investiture controversy succeeding emperors sought to appoint bishops and even future popes. After the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire and repeated incursions of Islamic forces into Italy, the papacy, without any protection, entered a phase of major weakness.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Cluniac reform of monasteries that began in 910 placed abbots under the direct control of the pope rather than the secular control of feudal lords, thus eliminating a major source of corruption. This sparked a great monastic renewal. Monasteries, convents and cathedrals still operated virtually all schools and libraries, and often functioned as credit establishments promoting economic growth. After 1100, some older cathedral schools split into lower grammar schools and higher schools for advanced learning. First in Bologna, then at Paris and Oxford, many of these higher schools developed into universities and became the direct ancestors of modern Western institutions of learning. It was here where notable theologians worked to explain the connection between human experience and faith. The most notable of these theologians, Thomas Aquinas, produced "Summa Theologica", a key intellectual achievement in its synthesis of Aristotelian thought and the Gospel. Monastic contributions to western society included the teaching of metallurgy, the introduction of new crops, the invention of musical notation and the creation and preservation of literature.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: During the 11th century, the East–West schism permanently divided Christianity. It arose over a dispute on whether Constantinople or Rome held jurisdiction over the church in Sicily and led to mutual excommunications in 1054. The Western (Latin) branch of Christianity has since become known as the Catholic Church, while the Eastern (Greek) branch became known as the Orthodox Church. The Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439) both failed to heal the schism. Some Eastern churches have since reunited with the Catholic Church, and others claim never to have been out of communion with the pope. Officially, the two churches remain in schism, although excommunications were mutually lifted in 1965.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The 11th century saw the Investiture controversy between Emperor and Pope over the right to make church appointments, the first major phase of the struggle between Church and state in medieval Europe. The Papacy were the initial victors, but as Italians divided between Guelphs and Ghibellines in factions that were often passed down through families or states until the end of the Middle Ages, the dispute gradually weakened the Papacy, not least by drawing it into politics. The Church also attempted to control, or exact a price for, most marriages among the great by prohibiting, in 1059, marriages involving consanguinity (blood kin) and affinity (kin by marriage) to the seventh degree of relationship. Under these rules, almost all great marriages required a dispensation. The rules were relaxed to the fourth degree in 1215 (now only the first degree is prohibited by the Church – a man cannot marry his stepdaughter, for example).


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in 1095 when he received an appeal from Byzantine emperor Alexius I to help ward off a Turkish invasion. Urban further believed that a Crusade might help bring about reconciliation with Eastern Christianity. Fueled by reports of Muslim atrocities against Christians, the series of military campaigns known as the Crusades began in 1096. They were intended to return the Holy Land to Christian control. The goal was not permanently realized, and episodes of brutality committed by the armies of both sides left a legacy of mutual distrust between Muslims and Western and Eastern Christians. The sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade left Eastern Christians embittered, despite the fact that Pope Innocent III had expressly forbidden any such attack. In 2001, Pope John Paul II apologized to the Orthodox Christians for the sins of Catholics including the sacking of Constantinople in 1204.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Two new orders of architecture emerged from the Church of this era. The earlier Romanesque style combined massive walls, rounded arches and ceilings of masonry. To compensate for the absence of large windows, interiors were brightly painted with scenes from the Bible and the lives of the saints. Later, the Basilique Saint-Denis marked a new trend in cathedral building when it utilized Gothic architecture. This style, with its large windows and high, pointed arches, improved lighting and geometric harmony in a manner that was intended to direct the worshiper's mind to God who "orders all things". In other developments, the 12th century saw the founding of eight new monastic orders, many of them functioning as Military Knights of the Crusades. Cistercian monk Bernard of Clairvaux exerted great influence over the new orders and produced reforms to ensure purity of purpose. His influence led Pope Alexander III to begin reforms that would lead to the establishment of canon law. In the following century, new mendicant orders were founded by Francis of Assisi and Dominic de Guzmán which brought consecrated religious life into urban settings.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: 12th-century France witnessed the growth of Catharism in Languedoc. It was in connection with the struggle against this heresy that the Inquisition originated. After the Cathars were accused of murdering a papal legate in 1208, Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade. Abuses committed during the crusade caused Innocent III to informally institute the first papal inquisition to prevent future massacres and root out the remaining Cathars. Formalized under Gregory IX, this Medieval inquisition executed an average of three people per year for heresy at its height. Over time, other inquisitions were launched by the Church or secular rulers to prosecute heretics, to respond to the threat of Moorish invasion or for political purposes. The accused were encouraged to recant their heresy and those who did not could be punished by penance, fines, imprisonment or execution by burning.


title: History of the 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 papacy returned to Rome in 1378 at the urging of Catherine of Siena and others who felt the See of Peter should be in the Roman church. With the death of Pope Gregory XI later that year, the papal election was disputed between supporters of Italian and French-backed candidates leading to the Western Schism. For 38 years, separate claimants to the papal throne sat in Rome and Avignon. Efforts at resolution further complicated the issue when a third compromise pope was elected in 1409. The matter was finally resolved in 1417 at the Council of Constance where the cardinals called upon all three claimants to the papal throne to resign, and held a new election naming Martin V pope.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Through the late 15th and early 16th centuries, European missionaries and explorers spread Catholicism to the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Pope Alexander VI, in the papal bull Inter caetera, awarded colonial rights over most of the newly discovered lands to Spain and Portugal. Under the "patronato" system, state authorities controlled clerical appointments and no direct contact was allowed with the Vatican. In December 1511, the Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos openly rebuked the Spanish authorities governing Hispaniola for their mistreatment of the American natives, telling them "... you are in mortal sin ... for the cruelty and tyranny you use in dealing with these innocent people". King Ferdinand enacted the "Laws of Burgos" and "Valladolid" in response. Enforcement was lax, and while some blame the Church for not doing enough to liberate the Indians, others point to the Church as the only voice raised on behalf of indigenous peoples. The issue resulted in a crisis of conscience in 16th-century Spain. An outpouring of self-criticism and philosophical reflection among Catholic theologians, most notably Francisco de Vitoria, led to debate on the nature of human rights and the birth of modern international law.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In 1521, through the leadership and preaching of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the first Catholics were baptized in what became the first Christian nation in Southeast Asia, the Philippines. The following year, Franciscan missionaries arrived in what is now Mexico, and sought to convert the Indians and to provide for their well-being by establishing schools and hospitals. They taught the Indians better farming methods, and easier ways of weaving and making pottery. Because some people questioned whether the Indians were truly human and deserved baptism, Pope Paul III in the papal bull Veritas Ipsa or Sublimis Deus (1537) confirmed that the Indians were deserving people. Afterward, the conversion effort gained momentum. Over the next 150 years, the missions expanded into southwestern North America. The native people were legally defined as children, and priests took on a paternalistic role, often enforced with corporal punishment. Elsewhere, in India, Portuguese missionaries and the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier evangelized among non-Christians and a Christian community which claimed to have been established by Thomas the Apostle.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In Europe, the Renaissance marked a period of renewed interest in ancient and classical learning. It also brought a re-examination of accepted beliefs. Cathedrals and churches had long served as picture books and art galleries for millions of the uneducated. The stained glass windows, frescoes, statues, paintings and panels retold the stories of the saints and of biblical characters. The Church sponsored great Renaissance artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, who created some of the world's most famous artworks. Although Church leaders were able to harness Renaissance humanism inspired arts into their overall effort, there were also conflicts between clerics and humanists, such as during the heresy trials of Johann Reuchlin. In 1509, a well known scholar of the age, Erasmus, wrote "The Praise of Folly," a work which captured a widely held unease about corruption in the Church. The Papacy itself was questioned by conciliarism expressed in the councils of Constance and the Basel. Real reforms during these ecumenical councils and the Fifth Lateran Council were attempted several times but thwarted. They were seen as necessary but did not succeed in large measure because of internal feuds, ongoing conflicts with the Ottoman Empire and Saracenes and the simony and nepotism practiced in the Renaissance Church of the 15th and early 16th centuries. As a result, rich, powerful and worldly men like Roderigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) were able to win election to the papacy.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Fifth Lateran Council issued some but only minor reforms in March 1517. A few months later, on 31 October 1517, Martin Luther posted his "Ninety-Five Theses" in public, hoping to spark debate. His theses protested key points of Catholic doctrine as well as the sale of indulgences. Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and others also criticized Catholic teachings. These challenges, supported by powerful political forces in the region, developed into the Protestant Reformation. During this era, many people emigrated from their homes to areas which tolerated or practiced their faith, although some lived as crypto-Protestants or Nicodemites.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In Germany, the Reformation led to war between the Protestant Schmalkaldic League and the Catholic Emperor Charles V. The first nine-year war ended in 1555 but continued tensions produced a far graver conflict, the Thirty Years' War, which broke out in 1618.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In the Netherlands, the wars of the Counter-Reformation were the Dutch Revolt and the Eighty Years' War, part of which was the War of the Jülich Succession also including northwestern Germany. The Cologne War (1583–89) was a conflict between Protestant and Catholic factions which devastated the Electorate of Cologne. After the archbishop ruling the area converted to Protestantism, Catholics elected another archbishop, Ernst of Bavaria, and successfully defeated him and his allies.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In France, a series of conflicts termed the French Wars of Religion was fought from 1562 to 1598 between the Huguenots and the forces of the French Catholic League. A series of popes sided with and became financial supporters of the Catholic League. This ended under Pope Clement VIII, who hesitantly accepted King Henry IV's 1598 Edict of Nantes, which granted civil and religious toleration to Protestants. In 1565, several hundred Huguenot shipwreck survivors surrendered to the Spanish in Florida, believing they would be treated well. Although a Catholic minority in their party was spared, all of the rest were executed for heresy, with active clerical participation.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The English Reformation was ostensibly based on Henry VIII's desire for annulment of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, and was initially more of a political, and later a theological dispute. The Acts of Supremacy made the English monarch head of the English church thereby establishing the Church of England. Then, beginning in 1536, some 825 monasteries throughout England, Wales and Ireland were dissolved and Catholic churches were confiscated. When he died in 1547 all monasteries, friaries, convents of nuns and shrines were destroyed or dissolved. Mary I of England reunited the Church of England with Rome and, against the advice of the Spanish ambassador, persecuted Protestants during the Marian Persecutions.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: After some provocation, the following monarch, Elizabeth I enforced the Act of Supremacy. This prevented Catholics from becoming members of professions, holding public office, voting or educating their children. Executions of Catholics and dissenting Protestants under Elizabeth I, who reigned much longer, then surpassed the Marian persecutions and persisted under subsequent English monarchs. Elizabeth I also executed other Penal laws were also enacted in Ireland but were less effective than in England. In part because the Irish people associated Catholicism with nationhood and national identity, they resisted persistent English efforts to eliminate the Catholic Church.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch, in his book "The Reformation, A History" noted that through all the slaughter of the Reformation era emerged the valuable concept of religious toleration and an improved Catholic Church which responded to doctrinal challenges and abuses highlighted by the Reformation at the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The council became the driving-force of the Counter-Reformation, and reaffirmed central Catholic doctrines such as transubstantiation, and the requirement for love and hope as well as faith to attain salvation. It also reformed many other areas of importance to the Church, most importantly by improving the education of the clergy and consolidating the central jurisdiction of the Roman Curia.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The decades after the council saw an intellectual dispute between the Lutheran Martin Chemnitz and the Catholic Diogo de Payva de Andrada over whether certain statements matched the teachings of the Church Fathers and Scripture or not. The criticisms of the Reformation were among factors that sparked new religious orders including the Theatines, Barnabites and Jesuits, some of which became the great missionary orders of later years. Spiritual renewal and reform were inspired by many new saints like Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales and Philip Neri whose writings spawned distinct schools of spirituality within the Church (Oratorians, Carmelites, Salesian), etc. Improvement to the education of the laity was another positive effect of the era, with a proliferation of secondary schools reinvigorating higher studies such as history, philosophy and theology. To popularize Counter-Reformation teachings, the Church encouraged the Baroque style in art, music and architecture. Baroque religious expression was stirring and emotional, created to stimulate religious fervor.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Elsewhere, Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier introduced the Catholic Church in Japan, and by the end of the 16th century tens of thousands of Japanese adhered. Church growth came to a halt in 1597 under the Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi who, in an effort to isolate the country from foreign influences, launched a severe persecution of Christians. Japanese were forbidden to leave the country and Europeans were forbidden to enter. Despite this, a minority Christian population survived into the 19th century when Japan opened more to outside influence, and they continue to the present day.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Council of Trent generated a revival of religious life and Marian devotions in the Catholic Church. During the Reformation, the Church had defended its Marian beliefs against Protestant views. At the same time, the Catholic world was engaged in ongoing Ottoman Wars in Europe against Turkey which were fought and won under the auspices of the Virgin Mary. The victory at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) was accredited to her "and signified the beginning of a strong resurgence of Marian devotions, focusing especially on Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth and her powerful role as mediatrix of many graces". The Colloquium Marianum, an elite group, and the Sodality of Our Lady based their activities on a virtuous life, free of cardinal sins.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Pope Paul V and Gregory XV ruled in 1617 and 1622 to be inadmissible to state, that the virgin was conceived non-immaculate. Supporting the belief that the virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception was preserved free from all stain of original sin (aka Immaculate Conception) Alexander VII declared in 1661, that the soul of Mary was free from original sin. Pope Clement XI ordered the feast of the Immaculata for the whole Church in 1708. The feast of the Rosary was introduced in 1716, the feast of the Seven Sorrows in 1727. The Angelus prayer was strongly supported by Pope Benedict XIII in 1724 and by Pope Benedict XIV in 1742. Popular Marian piety was even more colourful and varied than ever before: Numerous Marian pilgrimages, "Marian Salve" devotions, new Marian litanies, Marian theatre plays, Marian hymns, Marian processions. Marian fraternities, today mostly defunct, had millions of members.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Enlightenment constituted a new challenge of the Church. Unlike the Protestant Reformation, which questioned certain Christian doctrines, the enlightenment questioned Christianity as a whole. Generally, it elevated human reason above divine revelation and down-graded religious authorities such as the papacy based on it. Parallel the Church attempted to fend off Gallicanism and Councilarism, ideologies which threatened the papacy and structure of the Church.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Toward the latter part of the 17th century, Pope Innocent XI viewed the increasing Turkish attacks against Europe, which were supported by France, as the major threat for the Church. He built a Polish-Austrian coalition for the Turkish defeat at Vienna in 1683. Scholars have called him a saintly pope because he reformed abuses by the Church, including simony, nepotism and the lavish papal expenditures that had caused him to inherit a papal debt of 50,000,000 scudi. By eliminating certain honorary posts and introducing new fiscal policies, Innocent XI was able to regain control of the church's finances. Innocent X and Clement XI battled Jansenism and Gallicanism, which supported Conciliarism, and rejected papal primacy, demanding special concessions for the Church in France. This weakened the Church's ability to respond to gallicanist thinkers such as Denis Diderot, who challenged fundamental doctrines of the Church.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In 1685 gallicanist King Louis XIV of France issued the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, ending a century of religious toleration. France forced Catholic theologians to support conciliarism and deny Papal infallibility. The king threatened Pope Innocent XI with a general council and a military take-over of the Papal state. The absolute French State used Gallicanism to gain control of virtually all major Church appointments as well as many of the Church's properties. State authority over the Church became popular in other countries as well. In Belgium and Germany, Gallicanism appeared in the form of Febronianism, which rejected papal prerogatives in an equal fashion. Emperor Joseph II of Austria (1780–1790) practiced Josephinism by regulating Church life, appointments, and massive confiscation of Church properties. The 18th century is also the time of the Catholic Enlightenment, a multi-faceted reform movement.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In what is now the Western United States, the Catholic Church expanded its missionary activity but, until the 19th century, had to work in conjunction with the Spanish crown and military. Junípero Serra, the Franciscan priest in charge of this effort, founded a series of missions and presidios in California which became important economic, political, and religious institutions. These missions brought grain, cattle and a new political and religious order to the Indian tribes of California. Coastal and overland routes were established from Mexico City and mission outposts in Texas and New Mexico that resulted 13 major California missions by 1781. European visitors brought new diseases that killed off a third of the native population. Mexico shut down the missions in the 1820s and sold off the lands. Only in the 19th century, after the breakdown of most Spanish and Portuguese colonies, was the Vatican able to take charge of Catholic missionary activities through its Propaganda Fide organization.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: During this period the Church faced colonial abuses from the Portuguese and Spanish governments. In South America, the Jesuits protected native peoples from enslavement by establishing semi-independent settlements called reductions. Pope Gregory XVI, challenging Spanish and Portuguese sovereignty, appointed his own candidates as bishops in the colonies, condemned slavery and the slave trade in 1839 (papal bull "In supremo apostolatus"), and approved the ordination of native clergy in spite of government racism.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Christianity in India has a tradition of St. Thomas establishing the faith in Kerala. They are called St. Thomas Christians. The community was very small until the Jesuit Francis Xavier (1502–1552) began missionary work. Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), a Tuscan Jesuit missionary to Southern India followed in his path. He pioneered inculturation, adopting many Brahmin customs which were not, in his opinion, contrary to Christianity. He lived like a Brahmin, learned Sanskrit, and presented Christianity as a part of Indian beliefs, not identical with the Portuguese culture of the colonialists. He permitted the use of all customs, which in his view did not directly contradict Christian teachings. By 1640 there were 40 000 Christians in Madurai alone. In 1632, Pope Gregory XV gave permission for this approach. But strong anti-Jesuit sentiments in Portugal, France, and even in Rome, resulted in a reversal. This ended the successful Catholic missions in India. On 12 September 1744, Benedict XIV forbade the so-called Malabar rites in India, with the result that leading Indian castes, who wanted to adhere to their traditional cultures, turned away from the Catholic Church.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The anti-clericalism of the French Revolution saw the wholesale nationalisation of church property and attempts to establish a state-run church. Large numbers of priests refused to take an oath of compliance to the National Assembly, leading to the Church being outlawed and replaced by a new religion of the worship of "Reason" but it never gained popularity. In this period, all monasteries were destroyed, 30,000 priests were exiled and hundreds more were killed.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: When Pope Pius VI sided against the revolution in the First Coalition, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy. The 82-year-old pope was taken as a prisoner to France in February 1798 and soon died. To win popular support for his rule, Napoleon re-established the Catholic Church in France through the Concordat of 1801. The church lands were never returned, however the priests and other religious were given salaries by the government, which maintained church properties through tax revenues. Catholics were allowed to continue some of their schools. The end of the Napoleonic wars, signaled by the Congress of Vienna, brought Catholic revival and the return of the Papal States to the pope; the Jesuits were restored.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: France remained basically Catholic. The census of 1872 counted 36 million people, of whom 35.4 million were listed as Catholics, 600,000 as Protestants, 50,000 as Jews and 80,000 as freethinkers. The Revolution failed to destroy the Catholic Church, and Napoleon's concordat of 1801 restored its status. The return of the Bourbons in 1814 brought back many rich nobles and landowners who supported the Church, seeing it as a bastion of conservatism and monarchism. However the monasteries with their vast land holdings and political power were gone; much of the land had been sold to urban entrepreneurs who lacked historic connections to the land and the peasants. Few new priests were trained in the 1790–1814 period, and many left the church. The result was that the number of parish clergy plunged from 60,000 in 1790 to 25,000 in 1815, many of them elderly. Entire regions, especially around Paris, were left with few priests. On the other hand, some traditional regions held fast to the faith, led by local nobles and historic families. The comeback was slow—very slow in the larger cities and industrial areas. With systematic missionary work and a new emphasis on liturgy and devotions to the Virgin Mary, plus support from Napoleon III, there was a comeback. In 1870 there were 56,500 priests, representing a much younger and more dynamic force in the villages and towns, with a thick network of schools, charities and lay organizations. Conservative Catholics held control of the national government, 1820–1830, but most often played secondary political roles or had to fight the assault from republicans, liberals, socialists and seculars.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Throughout the lifetime of the Third Republic there were battles over the status of the Catholic Church. The French clergy and bishops were closely associated with the Monarchists and many of its hierarchy were from noble families. Republicans were based in the anticlerical middle class who saw the Church's alliance with the monarchists as a political threat to republicanism, and a threat to the modern spirit of progress. The Republicans detested the church for its political and class affiliations; for them, the church represented outmoded traditions, superstition and monarchism. The Republicans were strengthened by Protestant and Jewish support. Numerous laws were passed to weaken the Catholic Church. In 1879, priests were excluded from the administrative committees of hospitals and of boards of charity; in 1880, new measures were directed against the religious congregations; from 1880 to 1890 came the substitution of lay women for nuns in many hospitals. Napoleon's 1801 Concordat continued in operation but in 1881, the government cut off salaries to priests it disliked.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The 1882 school laws of Republican Jules Ferry set up a national system of public schools that taught strict puritanical morality but no religion. For a while privately funded Catholic schools were tolerated. Civil marriage became compulsory, divorce was introduced and chaplains were removed from the army.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: When Leo XIII became pope in 1878 he tried to calm Church-State relations. In 1884 he told French bishops not to act in a hostile manner to the State. In 1892 he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in Republican politics. This attempt at improving the relationship failed. Deep-rooted suspicions remained on both sides and were inflamed by the Dreyfus Affair. Catholics were for the most part anti-dreyfusard. The Assumptionists published anti-Semitic and anti-republican articles in their journal "La Croix". This infuriated Republican politicians, who were eager to take revenge. Often they worked in alliance with Masonic lodges. The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry (1899–1902) and the Combes Ministry (1902–05) fought with the Vatican over the appointment of bishops. Chaplains were removed from naval and military hospitals (1903–04), and soldiers were ordered not to frequent Catholic clubs (1904). Combes as Prime Minister in 1902, was determined to thoroughly defeat Catholicism. He closed down all parochial schools in France. Then he had parliament reject authorisation of all religious orders. This meant that all fifty four orders were dissolved and about 20,000 members immediately left France, many for Spain. In 1905 the 1801 Concordat was abrogated; Church and State were finally separated. All Church property was confiscated. Public worship was given over to associations of Catholic laymen who controlled access to churches. In practise, Masses and rituals continued. The Church was badly hurt and lost half its priests. In the long run, however, it gained autonomy—for the State no longer had a voice in choosing bishops and Gallicanism was dead.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: At the end of the 19th century, Catholic missionaries followed colonial governments into Africa and built schools, hospitals, monasteries and churches. They enthusiastically supported the colonial administration of the French Congo, which forced the native populations of both territories to engage in large-scale forced labour, enforced through summary execution and mutilation. Catholic missionaries in the French Congo tried to prevent the French central government from stopping these atrocities


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Before the council, in 1854 Pope Pius IX with the support of the overwhelming majority of Catholic Bishops, whom he had consulted between 1851 and 1853, proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Eight years earlier, in 1846, the Pope had granted the unanimous wish of the bishops from the United States, and declared the Immaculata the patron of the US.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: During First Vatican Council, some 108 council fathers requested to add the words "Immaculate Virgin" to the Hail Mary. Some fathers requested the dogma of the Immaculate Conception be included in the Creed of the Church, which was opposed by Pius IX


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Many French Catholics wished the dogmatization of Papal infallibility and the assumption of Mary by the ecumenical council. During Vatican One, nine mariological petitions favoured a possible assumption dogma, which however was strongly opposed by some council fathers, especially from Germany. In 1870, the First Vatican Council affirmed the doctrine of papal infallibility when exercised in specifically defined pronouncements. Controversy over this and other issues resulted in a very small breakaway movement called the Old Catholic Church.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Industrial Revolution brought many concerns about the deteriorating working and living conditions of urban workers. Influenced by the German Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr von Ketteler, in 1891 Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical "Rerum novarum", which set in context Catholic social teaching in terms that rejected socialism but advocated the regulation of working conditions. "Rerum novarum" argued for the establishment of a living wage and the right of workers to form trade unions.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: "Quadragesimo anno" was issued by Pope Pius XI, on 15 May 1931, 40 years after "Rerum novarum". Unlike Leo, who addressed mainly the condition of workers, Pius XI concentrated on the ethical implications of the social and economic order. He called for the reconstruction of the social order based on the principle of solidarity and subsidiarity. He noted major dangers for human freedom and dignity, arising from unrestrained capitalism and totalitarian communism.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The social teachings of Pope Pius XII repeat these teachings, and apply them in greater detail not only to workers and owners of capital, but also to other professions such as politicians, educators, house-wives, farmers, bookkeepers, international organizations, and all aspects of life including the military. Going beyond Pius XI, he also defined social teachings in the areas of medicine, psychology, sport, television, science, law and education. "There is virtually no social issue, which Pius XII did not address and relate to the Christian faith." He was called ""the Pope of Technology," for his willingness and ability to examine the social implications of technological advances. The dominant concern was the continued rights and dignity of the individual. With the beginning of the space age at the end of his pontificate, Pius XII explored the social implications of space exploration and satellites on the social fabric of humanity asking for a new sense of community and solidarity in light of existing papal teachings on subsidiarity.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Catholic women have played a prominent role in providing education and health services in keeping with Catholic social teaching. Ancient orders like the Carmelites had engaged in social work for centuries. The 19th century saw a new flowering of institutes for women, dedicated to the provision of health and education services – of these the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, Claretian Sisters and Franciscan Missionaries of Mary became among the largest Catholic women's religious institutes of all.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Sisters of Mercy was founded by Catherine McAuley in Ireland in 1831, and her nuns went on to establish hospitals and schools across the world. The Little Sisters of the Poor was founded in the mid-19th century by Saint Jeanne Jugan near Rennes, France, to care for the many impoverished elderly who lined the streets of French towns and cities. In Britain's Australian colonies, Australia's first canonized Saint, Mary MacKillop, co-founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart as an educative religious institute for the poor in 1866, going on to establish schools, orphanages and refuges for the needy. In 1872, the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco (also called Daughters of Mary Help of Christians) was founded by Maria Domenica Mazzarello. The teaching order was to become the modern world's largest institute for women, with around 14,000 members in 2012. Saint Marianne Cope opened and operated some of the first general hospitals in the United States, instituting cleanliness standards which influenced the development of America's modern hospital system. Also in the United States, Saint Katharine Drexel founded Xavier University of Louisiana to assist African and Native Americans.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Popes have always highlighted the inner link between the Virgin Mary as Mother of God and the full acceptance of Jesus Christ as Son of God.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Since the 19th century, they were highly important for the development of mariology to explain the veneration of Mary through their decisions not only in the area of Marian beliefs (Mariology) but also Marian practices and devotions. Before the 19th century, Popes promulgated Marian veneration by authorizing new Marian feast days, prayers, initiatives, the acceptance and support of Marian congregations. Since the 19th century, Popes begin to use encyclicals more frequently. Thus Leo XIII, the Rosary Pope issued eleven Marian encyclicals. Recent Popes promulgated the veneration of the Blessed Virgin with two dogmas, Pius IX the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and the Assumption of Mary in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. Pius XII also promulgated the new feast Queenship of Mary celebrating Mary as Queen of Heaven and he introduced the first ever Marian year in 1954, a second one was proclaimed by John Paul II. Pius IX, Pius XI and Pius XII facilitated the veneration of Marian apparitions such as in Lourdes and Fátima. Later Popes such from John XXIII to Benedict XVI promoted the visit to Marian shrines (Benedict XVI in 2007 and 2008). The Second Vatican Council highlighted the importance of Marian veneration in "Lumen gentium". During the Council, Paul VI proclaimed Mary to be the Mother of the Church.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The 20th century saw the rise of various politically radical and anti-clerical governments. The 1926 Calles Law separating church and state in Mexico led to the Cristero War in which over 3,000 priests were exiled or assassinated, churches desecrated, services mocked, nuns raped and captured priests shot. In the Soviet Union following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, persecution of the Church and Catholics continued well into the 1930s. In addition to the execution and exiling of clerics, monks and laymen, the confiscation of religious implements and closure of churches was common. During the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War, the Catholic hierarchy supported Francisco Franco's rebel Nationalist forces against the Popular Front government, citing Republican violence directed against the Church. The Church had been an active element in the polarising politics of the years preceding the Civil War. Pope Pius XI referred to these three countries as a "terrible triangle" and the failure to protest in Europe and the United States as a "conspiracy of silence".


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Pope Pius XI aimed to end the long breach between the papacy and the Italian government and to gain recognition once more of the sovereign independence of the Holy See. Most of the Papal States had been seized by the armies of King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy (1861–1878) in 1860 seeking Italian unification. Rome itself was seized by force in 1870 and the pope became the "prisoner in the Vatican." The Italian government's policies had always been anti-clerical until the First World War, when some compromises were reached.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: <section begin=Criticism of the historical Catholic Church transclusion/>To bolster his own dictatorial Fascist regime, Benito Mussolini was also eager for an agreement. Agreement was reached in 1929 with the Lateran Treaties, which helped both sides. According to the terms of the first treaty, Vatican City was given sovereignty as an independent nation in return for the Vatican relinquishing its claim to the former territories of the Papal States. Pius XI thus became a head of a tiny state with its own territory, army, radio station, and diplomatic representation. The Concordat of 1929 made Catholicism the sole religion of Italy (although other religions were tolerated), paid salaries to priests and bishops, recognized church marriages (previously couples had to have a civil ceremony), and brought religious instruction into the public schools. In turn the bishops swore allegiance to the Italian state, which had a veto power over their selection. The Church was not officially obligated to support the Fascist regime; the strong differences remained but the seething hostility ended. The Church especially endorsed foreign policies such as support for the anti-Communist side in the Spanish Civil War, and support for the conquest of Ethiopia. Friction continued over the Catholic Action youth network, which Mussolini wanted to merge into his Fascist youth group. A compromise was reached with only the Fascists allowed to sponsor sports teams.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Italy paid the Vatican 1750 million lira (about $100 million) for the seizures of church property since 1860. Pius XI invested the money in the stock markets and real estate. To manage these investments, the Pope appointed the lay-person Bernardino Nogara, who through shrewd investing in stocks, gold, and futures markets, significantly increased the Catholic Church's financial holdings. The income largely paid for the upkeep of the expensive-to-maintain stock of historic buildings in the Vatican which previously had been maintained through funds raised from the Papal States up until 1870.<section end=Criticism of the historical Catholic Church transclusion/>


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Vatican's relationship with Mussolini's government deteriorated drastically after 1930 as Mussolini's totalitarian ambitions began to impinge more and more on the autonomy of the Church. For example, the Fascists tried to absorb the Church's youth groups. In response Pius XI issued the encyclical "Non abbiamo bisogno" ("We Have No Need)") in 1931. It denounced the regime's persecution of the church in Italy and condemned "pagan worship of the State."


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Vatican supported the Christian Socialists in Austria, a country with a majority Catholic population but a powerful secular element. Pope Pius XI favored the regime of Engelbert Dollfuss (1932–34), who wanted to remold society based on papal encyclicals. Dollfuss suppressed the anti-clerical elements and the socialists, but was assassinated by the Austrian Nazis in 1934. His successor Kurt von Schuschnigg (1934–38) was also pro-Catholic and received Vatican support. Germany annexed Austria in 1938 and imposed its own policies.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Pius XI was prepared to negotiate concordats with any country that was willing to do so, thinking that written treaties were the best way to protect the Church's rights against governments increasingly inclined to interfere in such matters. Twelve concordats were signed during his reign with various types of governments, including some German state governments. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933 and asked for a concordat, Pius XI accepted. The Concordat of 1933 included guarantees of liberty for the Church in Nazi Germany, independence for Catholic organisations and youth groups, and religious teaching in schools.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Nazi ideology was spearheaded by Heinrich Himmler and the SS. In the struggle for total control over German minds and bodies, the SS developed an anti-religious agenda. No Catholic or Protestant chaplains were allowed in its units (although they were allowed in the regular army). Himmler established a special unit to identify and eliminate Catholic influences. The SS decided the German Catholic Church was a serious threat to its hegemony and while it was too strong to be abolished it was partly stripped of its influence, for example by closing its youth clubs and publications.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: After repeated violations of the Concordat, Pope 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: History of the Catholic Church

text: After the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland and subsequent 1940 Nazi invasions. In the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII directed the Church hierarchy to help protect Jews and Gypsies from the Nazis. While Pius XII has been credited with helping to save hundreds of thousands of Jews, the Church has also been accused of antisemitism. Albert Einstein, addressing the Catholic Church's role during the Holocaust, said the following: "Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks... Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." Other commentators have accused Pius of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities. Debate over the validity of these criticisms continues to this day.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: The Catholic Church engaged in a comprehensive process of reform following the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Intended as a continuation of Vatican I, under Pope John XXIII the council developed into an engine of modernisation. It was tasked with making the historical teachings of the Church clear to a modern world, and made pronouncements on topics including the nature of the church, the mission of the laity and religious freedom. The council approved a revision of the liturgy and permitted the Latin liturgical rites to use vernacular languages as well as Latin during mass and other sacraments. Efforts by the Church to improve Christian unity became a priority. In addition to finding common ground on certain issues with Protestant churches, the Catholic Church has discussed the possibility of unity with the Eastern Orthodox Church. And in 1966, Archbishop Andreas Rohracher expressed regret about the 18th century expulsions of the Salzburg Protestants from the Archbishopric of Salzburg.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: Changes to old rites and ceremonies following Vatican II produced a variety of responses. Some stopped going to church, while others tried to preserve the old liturgy with the help of sympathetic priests. These formed the basis of today's Traditionalist Catholic groups, which believe that the reforms of Vatican II have gone too far. Liberal Catholics form another dissenting group who feel that the Vatican II reforms did not go far enough. The liberal views of theologians such as Hans Küng and Charles Curran, led to Church withdrawal of their authorization to teach as Catholics. According to Professor Thomas Bokenkotter, most Catholics "accepted the changes more or less gracefully." In 2007, Benedict XVI eased permission for the optional old Mass to be celebrated upon request by the faithful.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: A new "Codex Iuris Canonici", called for by John XXIII, was promulgated by Pope John Paul II on 25 January 1983. This new Code of Canon Law includes numerous reforms and alterations in Church law and Church discipline for the Latin Church. It replaced the 1917 Code of Canon Law issued by Benedict XV.


title: History of the Catholic Church

text: In the 1960s, growing social awareness and politicization in the Latin American Church gave birth to liberation theology. The Peruvian priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, became its primary proponent and, in 1979, the bishops' conference in Mexico officially declared the Latin American Church's "preferential option for the poor". Archbishop Óscar Romero, a supporter of aspects of the movement, became the region's most famous contemporary martyr in 1980, when he was murdered while celebrating Mass by forces allied with the government. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Ratzinger) denounced the movement. The Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff was twice ordered to cease publishing and teaching. While Pope John Paul II was criticized for his severity in dealing with proponents of the movement, he maintained that the Church, in its efforts to champion the poor, should not do so by resorting to violence or partisan politics. The movement is still alive in Latin America today, though the Church now faces the challenge of Pentecostal revival in much of the region.