The Church Cannot Be Bound to any Single Culture: Pius XII on History and the Mission of Historical Sciences Cover Image

Církev se nemůže vázat na žádnou konkrétní kulturu: Pius XII. o dějinách a poslání historické vědy
The Church Cannot Be Bound to any Single Culture: Pius XII on History and the Mission of Historical Sciences

Author(s): Tomáš Petráček
Subject(s): Theology and Religion
Published by: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci
Keywords: Pope Pius XII; Historical Sciences; Church History; Enculturation; Continuity and Discontinuity

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses an interesting document from the pontificate of Pope Pius XII in this study. The International Committee of Historical Sciences organized the Tenth International Congress of ICSH in the very city of Rome in 1955. Pope Pius XII was invited to deliver a speech to this assembly of renowned historians from all over the world. In the first part, the author analyses the complicated story of the relationship between the papacy, history and historical sciences from the very beginning up to the twentieth century. In the second part, he explores the historical context of this kind of papal teaching and the situation of Pope Pius XII in the middle of the 1950s. He consequently analyses and comments on the text of the speech. Surprisingly, the Pope thematizes much more on the topic of historical change and continuity and the role of the Church in history and the modern world as opposed to the topic of historical sciences as such. In the last part, the author provides several reflections concerning the connections between the ideas of the Pope expressed in this speech and the concepts of Vatican II.

  • Issue Year: XIX/2017
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 303-317
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: Czech