User talk:Karanacs/CCDiscovery

Age of Discovery and the Enlightenment
By the mid-15th century, the Catholic Church had expanded throughout Europe but had few, if any, converts in the rest of the world. In the latter part of the century, as European explorers&mdash;primarily from Portugal and Spain&mdash;began exploring other continents, Pope Alexander VI awarded these countries civil and ecclesiastical rights over most of the newly-explored lands. The ensuing patronato system allowed secular rather than religious authorities to control all clerical appointments in the new colonies. Following the Council of Trent, Pope Innocent XI encouraged missionary activity, and missionary work began in earnest in Asia, the Americas, and Africa.

In Africa and the Americas, native peoples were often mistreated by colonists. In some cases, Catholic missionaries such as Bartolomé de Las Casas spoke out against the abuse. The controversy led to a debate among Catholic clergy, including Francisco de Vitoria, over the nature of human rights and the moral responsibilities of states in their interactions with each other. Spanish King Ferdinand proclaimed several laws to govern interactions between his colonial authorities and the natives; enforcement was generally lax. In some parts of the Americas, Jesuit missionaries established semi-autonomous settlements known as reductions, which allowed more freedoms to the natives. Over the next two centuries, missionaries established Catholic churches throughout South America, Latin America, and what is now the United States.

In the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries evangelized in the Philippines, India, China, and Japan. Although Japanese authorities were originally receptive to the presence of the missionaries, in an effort to isolate the country from foreign influences, Christianity was outlawed near the turn of the 17th century. A small Christian community remained in hiding for the next two hundred years. Chinese authorities had a similar reaction after the Chinese Rites controversy, leading the Kangxi Emperor to outlaw Christian missions in 1721. These events added fuel to growing criticism of the Jesuits, who were seen to symbolize the independent power of the Church, and in 1773 European rulers united to force Pope Clement XIV to dissolve the order.

From the 17th century onward, a philosophical and cultural movement known as the Enlightenment attacked the power and influence of the Church over Western society. Writers such as Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes wrote biting critiques of religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. One target of their criticism was the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King Louis XIV which ended a century-long policy of religious toleration of Protestant Huguenots.

In the French revolution of 1789, the Church was abolished, monasteries destroyed, 30,000 priests exiled and hundreds killed. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy, imprisoning Pope Pius VI, who died in captivity. Napoleon later re-established the Catholic Church in France through the Concordat of 1801. The end of the Napoleonic wars brought Catholic revival and the return of the Papal States.

Pope Gregory XVI challenged the power of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs by appointing his own candidates as colonial bishops. He also condemned slavery and the slave trade in the 1839 papal bull In Supremo Apostolatus, and approved the ordination of native clergy in the face of government racism.