Józefinizm w teologii moralnej

Abstract

In his article the author discusses the influence of the Austrian emperor Joseph II's reforms on the history of the catholic moral theology. These reforms sprang up from the atmosphere and trends of the Enlightenment characterized by rationalism and critical judgement and they contributed to the naturalistic approach to moral questions. In the first part of his discussion the author presented general assumptions of josephinism, which was one of the kinds of regalism, existing side by side with gallicanism and febronianism. The josephinistic reforms aimed at renovation of ecclesiastical studies, both at the university and the seminary levels. What was meant here was acquiring the proper formation of the clergy which was supposed to be the educator of citizens completely loyal to the absolute state. The aim was to be achieved by imposing the same handbooks, which – although were on a higher level – contributed to spreading the spirit of the assumptions of the etatistic reform. In the second part of the paper the author presented the portraits of the outstanding theologians-moralists writing in the spirit of the josephinistic reform, the authors of commonly used handbooks on moral theology. Here belong the following: A. M. Oberrauch (zm. 1808), M. von Schenkl OSB (zm. 1816), J. A. Stapf (zm. 1844), B. Stattler TJ (zm. 1797), F. Pollaschek (zm. 1818), A. Reyberger (zm. 1818). Next the author sketched the influence of the josephinistic reforms on the organization of teaching moral theology on the Polish territory and showed, that the mentioned theologians' works were not only used there as handbooks, but also some of them were translated into Polish, as eg. A. Reyberger's An unambiguous appraisal of the moral theology in the period of josephinism is impossible: undoubtedly it had some positive achievements, as eg. the higher level of handbooks, but at the same time it still remained too little biblical, separated from the Revelation, unpositive, too much naturalized and too strongly separated from the living magisterium of the Church. Hence it soon saw criticism on the part of the followers of the so called cordial theology (theologia cordis) and the biblical revival.