Occidentes. Horizons and Projects of Civilization in the Church of Pius XII

  • Schelkens, Karim (Researcher)
  • Regoli, R. (Principal Investigator)
  • Valvo, Paolo (Principal Investigator)
  • Fontes, Paulo (Principal Investigator)
  • Pérez López, Pablo (Principal Investigator)

    Project: Research project

    Project Details

    Description

    At the beginning of the twentieth century the increasingly frequent recourse to the concept of “West” was functional to legitimize the symbolic passage of the torch from Europe to the United States as the moral guide of the so called “Western world. In contrast to this homologating vision, the Catholic Church in its various articulations distinguished itself during the pontificate of Pius XII for a significant plurality of approaches, in Europe as in the Americas, contributing to keeping alive the dialectic between different ideas and models of the “West”. In this regard, it is worth mentioning, for example, the insistence on an idea of substantial democracy and participation which, starting from the pontificate of Pius XII, began to characterize the reflection and action of the Catholic world, often in the wake of a personalist vision from which the openness to the dimension of religious freedom and human rights in the Second Vatican Council was later derived. From another point of view, one can underline the critical attitude towards the capitalist system, which still during the Pius XII’s pontificate – in continuity with the doctrinal elaboration of previous pontificates – led in some cases (especially in Latin America) to imagine a “third way” between capitalism and collectivism, destined to leave room for more realistic attempts to humanize the market economy.
    Short titleOccidentes
    StatusActive
    Effective start/end date10/12/21 → …

    Keywords

    • history
    • Cold War
    • Christianity

    Fingerprint

    Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.