Catholic Church

The 19th century began on 1 January 1801 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 (MCM). It was the 9th century of the 2nd millennium. It was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolished in much of Europe and the Americas. The First Industrial Revolution, though it began in the late 18th century, expanded beyond its British homeland for the first time during the 19th century, particularly remaking the economies and societies of the Low Countries, France, the Rhineland, Northern Italy, and the Northeastern United States. A few decades later, the Second Industrial Revolution led to ever more massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit, and prosperity, a pattern that continued into the 20th century. The Catholic Church, in response to the growing influence and power of modernism, secularism and materialism, formed the First Vatican Council in the late 19th century to deal with such problems and confirm certain Catholic doctrines as dogma. Religious missionaries were sent from the Americas and Europe to Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

In the Middle East, it was an era of change and reform. The Islamic gunpowder empires fell into decline and European imperialism brought much of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and almost all of Africa under colonial rule. Reformers were opposed at every turn by conservatives who strove to maintain the centuries-old Islamic laws and social order. The 19th century also saw the collapse of the large Spanish, Portuguese, French and Mughal empires, which paved the way for the growing influence of the British, French, German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Italian, and Japanese empires along with the United States.

The Republic of Geneva was an independent city-state that emerged in the early 16th century following its break with both the Catholic Church, the political authority of the Bishop of Geneva, and the political influence of the House of Savoy. Strongly influenced by the Protestant Reformation, and particularly by the work of Guillaume Farel and later John Calvin, the city became a leading center of Calvinism and a refuge for Protestants from across Europe. Politically, Geneva developed republican institutions modeled on some of the Swiss cities, asserting its sovereignty against the Duchy of Savoy and navigating a precarious position between powerful neighbors such as France and the Swiss cantons. From its declaration of independence in 1534 until its annexation by revolutionary France in 1798, Geneva evolved into a prosperous hub of trade, finance, watchmaking, and publishing, while maintaining a distinctive identity as both a fortified “Protestant Rome” and a cosmopolitan republic. The republic was restored in 1813, and briefly existed again before joining the Swiss Confederation as a canton in 1815.

Emile, or On Education (French: Émile, ou De l’éducation) is a treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered it to be the "best and most important" of all his writings. Due to a section of the book entitled "Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar", Emile was banned in Paris and Geneva and was publicly burned in 1762, the year of its first publication. It was forbidden by the Church being listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. During the French Revolution, Emile served as the inspiration for what became a new national system of education. After the American Revolution, Noah Webster used content from Emile in his best-selling schoolbooks and he also used it to argue for the civic necessity of broad-based female education.

A cathedral is a church that contains the cathedra (Greek for 'seat') of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches. Church buildings embodying the functions of a cathedral first appeared in Italy, Gaul, Spain, and North Africa in the 4th century, but cathedrals did not become universal within the Western Catholic Church until the 12th century, by which time they had developed architectural forms, institutional structures, and legal identities distinct from parish churches, monastic churches, and episcopal residences. The cathedral is more important in the hierarchy than the church because it is from the cathedral that the bishop governs the area under his or her administrative authority.

Following the Protestant Reformation, the Christian church in several parts of Western Europe, such as Scotland, the Netherlands, certain Swiss Cantons and parts of Germany, adopted a presbyterian polity that did away with bishops altogether. Where ancient cathedral buildings in these lands are still in use for congregational worship, they generally retain the title and dignity of "cathedral", maintaining and developing distinct cathedral functions, but void of hierarchical supremacy. From the 16th century onwards, but especially since the 19th century, churches originating in Western Europe have undertaken vigorous programmes of missionary activity, leading to the founding of large numbers of new dioceses with associated cathedral establishments of varying forms in Asia, Africa, Australasia, Oceania and the Americas. In addition, both the Catholic Church and Orthodox churches have formed new dioceses within formerly Protestant lands for converts and migrant co-religionists. Consequently, it is not uncommon to find Christians in a single city being served by three or more cathedrals of differing denominations. For example, London is home to the Anglican St Paul’s Cathedral, the Catholic Westminster Cathedral & St George's Cathedral, and several Eastern Orthodox cathedrals serving different national communities.[1]

The Archdiocese of Florence (Latin: Archidioecesis Florentina) is a Latin Church metropolitan see of the Catholic Church in Italy. It was traditionally founded in the 1st century, according to the 14th century chronicler Giovanni Villani. The diocese was directly subordinate to the Holy See (Papacy) until 1420.

Florence was elevated to the dignity of an archdiocese on 10 May 1419, by Pope Martin V. The ecclesiastical province of Florence, of which the Archbishop of Florence in the metropolitan, includes the suffragan dioceses of Arezzo-Cortona-Sansepolcro, Fiesole, Pistoia, Prato, and San Miniato.

The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in common English usage priest refers only to presbyters and pastors (parish priests). The church's doctrine also sometimes refers to all baptised members (inclusive of the laity) as the "common priesthood", which can be confused with the ministerial priesthood of the ordained clergy.

The church has different rules for priests in the Latin Church–the largest Catholic particular church–and in the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. Notably, priests in the Latin Church must take a vow of celibacy, whereas most Eastern Catholic Churches permit married men to be ordained. Deacons are male and usually belong to the diocesan clergy, but, unlike almost all Latin Church (Western Catholic) priests and all bishops from Eastern or Western Catholicism, they may marry as laymen before their ordination as clergy. The priesthood is a vocation for men; a similar but distinct vocation for women is the sisterhood. The Catholic Church teaches that when a man participates in priesthood after the Sacrament of Holy Orders, he acts in persona Christi Capitis, representing the person of Christ.

The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican (Italian: Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply St. Peter's Basilica (Latin: Basilica Sancti Petri; Italian: Basilica di San Pietro [baˈziːlika di sam ˈpjɛːtro]), is a church of the Italian High Renaissance located in Vatican City, an independent microstate enclaved within the city of Rome, Italy. It was initially planned in the 15th century by Pope Nicholas V and then Pope Julius II to replace the ageing Old St. Peter's Basilica, which was built in the fourth century by Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Construction of the present basilica began on 18 April 1506 and was completed on 18 November 1626.

Designed principally by Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, and Carlo Maderno, with piazza and fittings by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Saint Peter's is one of the most renowned works of Italian Renaissance architecture and is the largest church in the world by interior measure. While it is neither the mother church of the Catholic Church nor the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome (these equivalent titles being held by the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome), Saint Peter's is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic shrines. It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world", and as "the greatest of all churches of Christendom".

In the Catholic Church, a titular church (Italian: titolo cardinalizio) is a church in Rome that is assigned to a member of the clergy who is created a cardinal. These are Catholic churches in the city, within the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Rome, that serve as honorary designations symbolising the relationship of cardinals to the pope, the bishop of Rome. According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, a cardinal may assist his titular church through counsel or through patronage, although "he has no power of governance over it, and he should not for any reason interfere in matters concerning the administration of its good, or its discipline, or the service of the church".

There are two ranks of titular churches: titles and deaconries. A title (Latin: titulus) is a titular church that is assigned to a cardinal priest (a member of the second order of the College of Cardinals), whereas a deaconry (Latin: diaconia) is normally assigned to a cardinal deacon (a member of the third order of the college). If a cardinal priest or a cardinal deacon is later appointed a cardinal bishop (a member of the first order of the college), he is typically transferred from his titular church to the vacant title of a suburbicarian diocese in the vicinity of Rome. Patriarchs of Eastern Catholic Churches who are created cardinal bishops are not assigned titles of suburbicarian dioceses.

Basilicas are Catholic church buildings that have a designation, conferring special privileges, given by the Pope. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular building with a central nave flanked by two or more longitudinal aisles). Basilicas are either major basilicas, of which there are four, all in the Diocese of Rome, or minor basilicas, of which there were 1,924 worldwide as of 2023.

Numerous basilicas are notable shrines, often even receiving significant pilgrimages, especially among the many that were built above a confessio or the burial place of a martyr; although this term now usually designates a space before the high altar that is sunk lower than the main floor level (as in the case in St. Peter's and St. John Lateran in Rome) and that offer more immediate access to the burial places below. Some Catholic basilicas are Catholic pilgrimage sites, receiving tens of millions of visitors per year.

A pope is the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the Catholic Church. Approximately 100 papal tombs are at least partially extant, representing fewer than half of the 266 deceased popes, from Saint Peter to Pope Francis.

For the first few centuries in particular, little is known of the popes and their tombs, and available information is often contradictory. As with other religious relics, multiple sites claim to house the same tomb. Furthermore, many papal tombs that recycled sarcophagi and other materials from earlier tombs were later recycled for their valuable materials or combined with other monuments. For example, the tomb of Pope Leo I was combined with Leos II, III, and IV circa 855, and then removed in the seventeenth century and placed under his own altar, below Alessandro Algardi's relief, Fuga d'Attila. The style of papal tombs has evolved considerably throughout history, tracking trends in the development of church monuments. Notable papal tombs have been commissioned from sculptors such as Michelangelo and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.