A SHORT HISTORY OF THE CHURCH

by Fr. Robert C. Hogan, S.J.

The article that follows briefly outlines the different ages in the history of the Church in a
chronological order: the Apostolic Age (30 C.E. - 64 C.E.), the Age of Martyrs (64 C.E. - 311 C.E.),
the Age of Christendom (311 C.E. - 1500 C.E.), Age of Protestant Reformation (1540 C.E. - 1565
C.E.), the Age of the Council of Trent and the Counter Reformation (1545 - 1565 C.E.), Age of the
Modern World (17th-19th centuries), Development of Sciences (20th century) and Age of Vatican II
(1962-1965).
In the previous material we looked at what could be called, more or less, the ideal of what,
in the light of Scripture, the Church should be. But seeing that the Church is a Mystery composed
of two fundamental realities wed together in a form of "Incarnation" --the Kingdom of God and an
institutionalized community of Christian believers --the concrete reality of the Church as it appears
amongst us is often far from the ideal. Hence, we have the often used image of the Church as a
"Pilgrim". As a radical transcendent reality immanent in the realities of this world, the Church acts
upon the world. And, therefore, we can truly talk of the History of the Church. In the Church as a
historical reality, we witness its moments of glory and shame as it struggles to be faithful to the
three-fold mission of Priest, Prophet and King bequeathed to it by its Risen Lord and empowered
by His Spirit to undertake. In the process it is faced with a very difficult challenge of being in the
world and for the world but not of the world --a very difficult challenge, indeed.
I. PRE-VATICAN II PERIOD
A. APOSTOLIC AGE
Because of limits of time and space, we will here attempt to do a little more than highlight
such aspect of the Church's History as will enable us to understand the why's and wherefore's of
the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (1962-1965). We will therefore call our First Stage the
Pre-Vatican II stage and Second Stage the Post-Vatican II stage. But before going into the more
previously relevant historical issues of the Pre-Vatican II stage let us first pause a moment to reflect
on one significant aspect of the Apostolic church that will have some definite relevance for the
Post-Vatican II period of our study. The particular issue we shall look at briefly is that of Judaizers
which brought into conflict Paul, the Great Apostle to the Gentiles, and Peter, the Rock, on whom
Jesus built his Church.
The matter discussed in Chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles is introduced there with the
observation that there were some Jewish-Christian converts who were insisting that the Gentiles
should be circumcised and accept the Law of Moses before being accepted into the Christian
community. In the beginning Peter seemed to have sympathized with them while Paul definitely
did not. The issue was finally solved at the First Ecumenical Council at Jerusalem where Peter
presided over the Church. The basis of the final solution, which Peter finally accepted, was the
experience of those who preached the Gospel to the Gentiles and observed that the Spirit of the
Lord was poured out on them as readily as it was on the Jews in response to their faith-response
to the Good News. The Spirit made no distinction, so why should the Church? This experience
made it clear that, henceforth, the only thing required for acceptance into the community was
repentance, faith and eventually baptism by laying on of hands.
The importance of this event would seem to lie in the following two points: first, the fact that
Paul freely opposed the position of Peter in the matter of the Judaizers and that Peter listened to
him before making the decision that would be binding on all. Here we see both Paul's respect for

Peter's authority and Peter's openness to the experience of other sectors of the Church beyond his
own. The second important point would seem to be that here we see the foundation being laid for
later discussions on the matter of "inculturation" which calls for respect for the local cultural
tradition and beliefs of various communities when they are brought face-to-face with the message
of the Gospel. This issue has had a very stormy history and, although much more clearly and
authoritatively affirmed by Vatican II, its application had proven to be extremely difficult and tricky.
But more about that later.
B. AGE OF MARTYRS
For the first 30 years or so after the Ascension of the Lord, the community he left behind
enjoyed a period of more or less peaceful co-existence with both its Jewish and Roman neighbors.
Shortly after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem the dividing line between Christianity and
Judaism became more clearly defined and a period of more intense conflict developed between
them. In 65 C.E., Rome also began its open persecution of the Church, beginning with the
Emperor Nero's false accusation that the Christians had been responsible for the burning of Rome.
With the beginning of open persecution of Christians for their Christian Faith, the Christian
community found themselves face-to-face with the reality of the cross as a radical part of their
following Christ. Those who remained faithful to the Lord in the midst of persecution became the
first "saints" or model heroes of the church and were known as "martyrs" --from the Greek "bearing
witness" to their faith in Jesus. Those of their contemporaries who broke under pressure and
abandoned their faith were known as "apostates". The overall effects of this situation on the
Church in general was that it purified and intensified the lives of those who remained faithful to the
extent that their heroism attracted many of the Romans and other pagans to share their faith. So
powerful was their witness that it has frequently been claimed that "the blood of martyrs was a
seed of Christians". This positive effect overshadowed the fact that the growing hostility to the
Church also hampered the Church's missionary activity to a large extent. We can call this period
the "Church vs. State" period of the Church's history.
C. AGE OF CHRISTENDOM
The period of open persecution by the Roman Emperors, though not equally intense in
each one's reign, lasted more or less until the year 321 C.E. when the Emperor Constantine
"became a Christian" and made Christianity the "official religion of the empire". This event marked
the beginning of what has come to be known as the period of "marriage between Church and
State". This "Age", which lasted from 311 C.E. to about 1300 C.E. and the demise of the Roman
Empire, was a time of peace and prosperity for the Church. This, however, proved to be a mixed
blessing. For while during the period of persecution people freely lived a very intense Christian life,
once the persecution ended and they were more or less "obliged" by the State to become
Christians, there was gradual adulteration of the faith-as-lived by many Christian believers. For
they were no longer really challenged in their beliefs and soon joined by people who became
Christian not so much of conviction but because of fear of persecution which soon broke out in the
opposite direction, i.e., against non-Christians. Thus, while the Church grew numerically by leaps
and bounds, the quality of Christian living deteriorated rapidly. With the end of persecution, the
Christian ideas of martyrdom were replaced by the example of those who sought perfection and
holiness by withdrawal from the world and who thus popularized the monastic way of life. The
"monks" thus became the new models of "saints" with the Christian community and monastic
spirituality became the ideal path to holiness.

One of the more radical negative effects within the life of the Church during this period of
excessive intimacy between the Church and State was the gradual blurring of distinction between
affairs proper to the Church and those of the State. Then, the Emperors and their government
officials began to influence decisions and policies of the Church and vice-versa. As the mutual
interests of both became more intimately intertwined, Church offices became the objects of worldly
ambition on the part of men with little or no interest in genuine Church affairs.
The end-product of this state of affairs was that the hierarchical Church took on the
trappings and mentality of secular authorities and was soon overrun by worldly men who brought
much scandal and corruption to higher levels of the Church leadership. Thus, positions of
leadership in the Church became the objects of fierce inter-family conflicts and political intrigues,
especially with the breakdown of the empire into nation-states. Countries fought and killed to get
control of the Papacy and of Bishoprics which carried with them great political and economic
benefits. The events little by little set the stage for the next period of the Church history --the
period of the Reformation.
D. AGE OF REFORMATION
D.1 PROTESTANT REFORMATION
Early in the 16th century, a young Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther found in
the writing of St. Paul the personal answer to long years of intense religious struggles with the
reality of God's justice and his own sinfulness which the traditional religious practices of the Church
had failed to provide him. The realization that salvation comes by "faith alone and not by good
works" --as St. Paul so eloquently insists in his letter to the Romans and Galatians --filled his mind
and heart with peace and soon led him into open conflicts with the hierarchy of the Church. He
eventually began to openly criticize the abuses that had crept into many Church teachings and
practices as a result of the corruption that had invaded the very leadership of the Church in a very
large scale. The hostile reaction of the Church hierarchy, coupled with his own earlier experience
of "salvation by faith alone," stimulated as it was by "scripture alone", forced him into a corner
where he felt he had no other choice but to leave the Church. With his departure from the Church,
and the considerable influence his charismatic personality had on his contemporaries, he was able
to give some focus and direction to several streams of revolt against traditional Church teaching
and practice that had already begun to appear in various parts of the post-imperial Western
Europe. He has thus come to be known as the "Father of Protestant Reformation."
By breaking with hierarchical Church and eventually denying its divine foundation, Martin
Luther provided the long-sought-for theological basis for the authorities of the new nation-states to
break the hold of Roman authority over many of the economic and political strongholds within their
territory which were still under the control of the hierarchical remnants of the Age of Christendom.
By making the Scriptures and personal faith the main elements of achieving salvation the stage
was set for breaking with Rome and the door was opened for national religions to replace Roman
Catholicism in lands that fell under the influence of one or other Protestant Reformers.
D.2 CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Even before the Reformation proper, however, there had been many converts of reform
within the Church itself, undertaken by individuals and groups who were aware of the great need
for such reform. Amongst these individuals was Inigo de Loyola, the founder of the Society of
Jesus, who, along with his followers and by means of the Spiritual Exercises, made a significant
contribution to the task of the Church reform from within. The fact that he was a layman when he

went through the profound religious experience documented in the Exercises has made them a
very powerful tool for the formation of men and women who must "work out their salvation in fear
and trembling" --to use a Pauline expression within the context of life in the world. St. Ignatius as
he eventually came to be known, thus gave the Church the basis for a new type of Christian
Spirituality to supplement the Monastic approach already mentioned earlier. As a result, the
dedicated apostle, both lay and religious, working intensely to transform the world became a new
type of model of Christian discipleship and sanctity, thereby complementing the ideal provided by
the martyrs and the monks of earlier periods.
On the part of the institutionalized Church the most significant response came in the form of
the Council of Trent which convened intermittently between 1545 and 1563 to constitute much
needed reforms in all areas of Catholic life, especially in the training of good leaders. The latter
was achieved mainly by the founding of seminaries, separate from the major universities of the
time and more or less withdrawn from the secular world. In addition to this and other institutional
reforms the council also set about clarifying official Church teaching and rectifying many Church
practices that had been distorted earlier during the Age of Christendom. In so doing, there was a
distinct tendency to de-emphasize those aspects of Christian life that the reformers had stressed
and to stress, instead those aspects of Christian life which the reformers had rejected outright. As
a result, the orientation of Church life that flowed from the council tended to be overly sacramental
and devotional (to the detriment of the vital role of conscience in authentic Christian living) and
doctrinal (at the expense of the fundamental role of Scripture in the development of our faith-life).
The institutional aspects of the Church became even more prominent than the community aspect.
The confrontational atmosphere of the times led, in many respects, to an unfortunate "distortion", if
we may call them such, were even more deeply reinforced by the First Vatican Council several
hundreds of years later.
E. AGE OF THE MODERN WORLD
Once again, at the risk of over-simplifying, but due to limits of space and time and to the
basic objective of this "brief historical study of the Church" as a backgrounder to Vatican II, we shall
now try to give a general overview of what we have chosen to call the influence of the "Modern
World" on the life of the Church before 1963. We will treat of the three basic phenomena that
contributed more or less to a further alienation and isolation of the Catholic Church from the world
around it. The Scientific Revolution (16th century), the Industrial Revolution (19th century) and
French Revolution (18th century).
E.1 SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
The Scientific Revolution refers to that period in Western history when the so-called
Scientific method of attaining knowledge about all aspects of human life. In such a culture only
that which can be observed and proven to be true is seen to be of real value. It does not take
much reflection to see how such a mentality would eventually lead to a weakening of respect for
religious knowledge which depends primarily on revealed truth to be accepted in faith. Eventually,
scientific data actually led to affirmations about the universe which were in open conflict with beliefs
that had come to be accepted as a matter of faith based on the Bible. The "Heliocentrism" of
Copernicus and Galileo and the "Evolutionism" of Darwin would be two specific cases in point. The
immediate reaction of Church authorities was to condemn these theories as heretical and to
deepen the Church's feelings of suspicion with regard to Science and its role in human life. These
feelings were further antagonized by the gradual deterioration of the legitimate value of
"secularization" (a gradual realization on the part of man that he had the resources to solve many
of the problems and challenges of life by means of his own intelligence without resorting to God)

into a more radical form of "secularism" (a radical denial of any need for God in human life) and
eventual wide-spread of "atheism".
E.2 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
As the discoveries of Science became more and more influential in human life and in the
creation of "modern" Western culture, it was not long before scientific discoveries were applied to
the process of manufacturing material goods to expand our human capacity to provide for our
material needs and desires. Science, coupled with the economic system called "capitalism", led to
the phenomenon of "Industrialization". While many concrete benefits derived from this new reality,
there were also many evils that accompanied it. Among these various forms of abuse of the men,
women and children who were hired to labour in the factories which industrialization gave birth to.
Although the hierarchical Church recognized and condemned these abuses in its social teachings
(e.g., Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno), it was not in a position to have any significant
impact by way of providing concrete solutions to the problem. It was left to the social doctrine and
political revolutionary movements spawned by the ideal of Karl Marx to "rescue" the working man
from the clutches of his capitalist exploiters. The subsequent spread of Marxist-Communism, with
its open attack on religion as the "opium of the people", eventually led to the loss of the working
class in Europe from the ranks of the Church.
E.3 FRENCH REVOLUTION
The next crisis to strike at the Church and its relationship with the "modern world" was the
democratic, anti-authoritarian spirit of the French Revolution. Widespread abuses on the part of
many monarchical rulers in various nation-states led to a re-awakening of the classical ideas and
spirit of "democracy" with its vision of "authority from below." As these ideas spread throughout
Western Europe, popular peasant revolutions spread rapidly along with them. The Church with its
basic view of its own authority as radically and essentially "God-given", i.e., from above, and its
historically conditioned entanglement with the political and economic realities of the monarchical
forms of government now under attack, soon became a victim in its own right of these revolutionary
ideas. Strong sentiments on anti-clericalism eventually spread throughout areas influenced by this
particular revolution and another barrier was created between the church and the world it had been
founded to save. In the process, however, a clarification began to take place to a more healthy
and authentic understanding of the true nature of relationship between Church and State.
Basically, this period could be characterized as a period of "divorce" between the two, with each
recognizing that it had no right to seek any special privilege from the State. It would maintain,
however, a prophetic role in society by speaking out against any form of immoral behavior or abuse
on the part of the State in the areas of its responsibility: politics, economics, science and
technology and the like.
Thus, in brief, was the state set for the convening of the Second Vatican Council which we
will now proceed to discuss.
II.

POST-VATICAN II PERIOD

SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

As noted at the beginning of this brief historical study, limitations of time and space and a
very limited objective account for the obviously oversimplified and somewhat "caricaturish"
presentation of very complex historical realities. In the light of these limitations we might venture to
describe the Catholic Church at the end of the Pre-Vatican II period as being excessively selfcentered, highly over institutionalized, clerical and authoritarian and in large measure isolated from

the world that Jesus, its founder, loved and lived and died for and which it has been founded to and
help save.
It should not be surprising, however, to note here that along-side the basic characteristics
used above to describe the "Pre-Vatican II Church" there were also very intense efforts going on
both officially and un-officially --to do something about that situation. Thus, there were many
activities going on, in theological circles especially, to present a more holistic and balanced view of
Christian doctrine and life in such areas as Morality, Liturgy, Scriptures, Ecclesiology and
Christology to name but a few. One general by-product of this activity, however, was the presence
of a significant degree of tension within the Church between what had come to be known as
"conservative" and "progressive" blocks. The presence of these blocks was perhaps nowhere
more in evidence than at the consistory convened in 1958 to elect the successor of the recently
deceased Pope Pius XII. So, we will start out discussion of Vatican II there.
As is their wont, many forms of mass media took advantage of their trade to publicize the
existence of the growing tension within the Church and reflected this reality in their detailed
discussion of likely candidates to the Papal Throne and their own "educated conjecture" as to who
would prevail in the election. Within the consistory itself, this tension manifested itself as an
apparently insoluble deadlock led to the agreement between both sides to choose a "middle-of-theroad" alternative, a sort of an "interim pope", who could supposedly rule uneventfully over the
Church until such time as one of the blocks could muster sufficient support for one or other of its
own real candidates. The man they agreed on to fulfill this task was the unheralded Cardinal
Angelo Roncalli, an ordinary man whom God used in such extraordinary way that He reconfirmed
what we have all experienced so often and what the prophet Isaiah has reminded us of in no
uncertain terms: "His ways are not our ways nor are His thoughts our thoughts".
Not long after his election, Pope John XXIII, as he called himself, shocked those who had
elected him as a merely transitional Pope by announcing his intention to call an Ecumenical
Council. Once again, the existence of growing tension within the Church at that particular time led
to the fear that the "warring factions" would be even further alienated from each other and the
Church torn apart. But Pope John was convinced that this was what God was asking him and
since he was now the Pope, those who elected him would simply have to go along with his
decision. His own deep love for the world and the pain he felt at the sight of the world, so full of
potential and yet rushing headlong to what appeared to most to be its own destruction with little or
no help from the Church, brought him to envision as the main goal of his pontificate to bring about
deep renewal within the Church and a healing of historical wounds of alienation, with the world and
other religions that have been discussed above. He called this process "aggiornamento", an Italian
word meaning "bringing something up to date" which is what he dreamt of doing for the Church.
Thus began one of the most revolutionary events in the history of the Catholic Church, an event
after which the Church and the world would never be the same. For it literally turned the Church
upside down (cf. Lumen Gentium with its stress on the church as primarily the community of the
People of God) and inside out (cf. Gaudium et spes or "The Church in the Modern World", as it
came to be known in English). Unfortunately, most of our attention will be focused on the former
document though the latter should also be studied for a more balanced and holistic view of what
the Council actually achieved.