The practice of the church year, which has developed over centuries in the Roman Catholic tradition, underwent major revision as a result of the Second Vatican Council. The changes were designed to recover the primacy of the “paschal mystery” of Christ’s death and resurrection in both of the major cycles, the Christological and the sanctoral.
Almost at once the Jesuits leaped to a position of leadership in the councils of the Church. As missionaries and as heresy hunters they were absolutely devoted to their purpose. They did much to save southern Europe for the Catholic Church. Yet the Jesuits were also charged with encouraging superstition and the order became so distrusted and disliked that it was suppressed in one country after another until Pope Clement XIV abolished the order in 1773 – a decision later reversed by Pope Pius VII.
Much of the history of the Reformation depends on the ideas of Martin Luther. Because of him, the revolt was more ecclesiastical than theological, except in the fundamental difference of Protestant dependence on faith for salvation and Catholic dependence on the sacraments of the Church. The basic principle on which Luther based his reconstruction of theology was that individual salvation from sin and its punishment was to be obtained by personal faith in Christ as a sufficient Savior rather than faith in the priest, the sacraments, and the whole system of Catholicism.
Adelaide Anne Proctor was born in London in 1825 and died there in 1864. Her hymns were published in her book Legends and Lyrics, 1858. In 1851 she became a member of the Roman Catholic Church. She was highly regarded for her skills as a linguist.
John Henry Newman, a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, was born in London in 1801. He graduated from Oxford in 1820 and for several years was a tutor at that college. He was a leader of the High Church party in the Church of England and had great influence among the young men at Oxford.