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Penitenza e Penitenzieria tra Rivoluzioni e Restaurazioni ( 1789 - 1903 )
978-88-266-0764-1

Data sheet

Year of publication2022
Pages nr.368
LanguageItalian
Book coverBrossura con sovraccoperta
Size17 x 24

Penitenza e Penitenzieria tra Rivoluzioni e Restaurazioni ( 1789 - 1903 )

This volume collects the contributions offered on the occasion of the VII Symposium of the Apostolic Penitentiary (21-22 October 2021). The authors’ reflections revolve focus on two thematic cores: the sacrament of Penance and the Apostolic Penitentiary, both considered within the chronological span between the French Revolution and the end of Leo XIII’s pontificate.
Within the framework of this period, marked by profound transformations and violent contrasts, the importance assumed by the sacrament of Confession as a privileged place of religious expression in the 19th century is examined. In this regard, the essays note the rise of Liguorian morality. The practice of the sacrament is reconstructed in the light of theological treatises and the decrees of ecclesiastical councils. The forms of a more general penitential spirituality, which permeates, albeit with different nuances, the entire century, are also exemplified through the figures of great saints (the Curé d’Ars, John Henry Newman, etc.) and by dwelling on the revival of penitential pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
Ample space is devoted, secondly, to the Apostolic Penitentiary, whose institutional profile, work and relations with other curial dicasteries are illustrated. Above all, the fundamental contribution made by the Tribunal during the moments of greatest crisis for the Church, especially during the Napoleonic era or in the various phases of the process of Italian national unification, is noted. The activity of the Dicastery is reconstructed from an “inside” perspective, thanks in particular to the possibility of examining the papers of the Theologians of the Penitentiary, made accessible for the first time by the Historical Archive of the Tribunal.