Barnabite Origins 1. Historical-Religious Context: Catholic Reform 2. The Church in a State of Crisis

St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria [by Cristina Bellazzi]

In Medieval Europe the Catholic Church long labored under the feudal system, even though the damage it caused found some relief in the 11th century Gregorian reform. Later on, further damage was inflicted by the Avignon Papacy (1308-1378), which was immediately followed by the Great Schism (1378-1449), when two, and eventually three, popes fought each other for the control of the Church. The progressive decay at every level of Church life throughout the centuries must be attributed to a multiplicity of factors, to wit: clerical ignorance and immorality; laxity of religious orders; Church careers which were undertaken, not as a response to God’s call but as a pursuit of self-interest, either on a personal level (desire for gain, prestige, and power) or on a family level (need of keeping a patrimony intact); accumulation of benefices divorced from their respective Church offices and, therefore, conducive to widespread absenteeism; worldly lifestyle of churchmen who were more often living at courts than shepherding souls; the mixing of spiritual authority with temporal power which led popes, bishop-princes and abbots to entertain political, rather than spiritual, concerns; papal nepotism; the voracious fiscal policy of the Roman Curia, which alienated from the papacy vast areas of Christendom; secular governments’ interference which gravely limited Church’s freedom; the crisis in theology and the deterioration of preaching which resulted in an impoverished popular piety, ever more a prey of superstition. The very Renaissance, instead of remedying this disastrous situation, aggravated it. It worsened the secularization of Church hierarchies and it seconded the paganization of society.

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