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An encyclical is the result of an immense amount of prayer, study, thought, reflection and consultation over a long period of time. Catholics – and many others – find them of great value in shedding light on and summarising issues of great complexity. Many return to encyclicals time and again to reflect on the insights which they contain.

These index pages include a listing of each Pope’s Encyclicals, Apostolic Letters, and other documents. An English translation of the Latin titles is also provided.

Catholic Social Teaching touches upon many different aspects of life, from the family to international development, how we think of those who are homeless to how we care for the environment, and from how we shop and consume to the rights of workers and the dignity of work. All the different areas that Catholic Social Teaching touches upon have developed from practical reflection on the realities of modern life in the light of the principles and themes of Catholic Social Teaching.

In this section, you can find a more detailed study of the six central themes of Catholic social teaching that are focused on in the website.

Catholic Social Teaching covers all spheres of life – the economic, political, personal and spiritual. With human dignity at its centre, a holistic approach to development founded on the principles of CST, is what Pope Paul VI called ‘authentic development’. Explore the Catholic Social Teaching principles and how they guide the work of Caritas Australia.

For a two-century period between 1095 and 1270, a succession of European armies set out to recover the Holy Land from occupying Muslims. These expeditions took place at the height of the period famous for European chivalry, and succeeded in establishing "Crusader kingdoms" in the area where Israel and Lebanon are now. These kingdoms came under periodic attack by Muslims who dominated the area, and eventually the last Crusade leader, King Louis IX of France, died en route to the eighth and final Crusade.

From 1096 until the end of the Middle Ages, Christian warriors from Europe undertook a series of military campaigns, or Crusades, designed to take back from the Muslims control of the Holy Land (in the region of Palestine). After centuries of wars of expansion, Muslim powers had conquered some two-thirds of the ancient Christian world, including Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Anatolia. Christian Crusading expeditions were also undertaken against Muslims in Spain, pagans in eastern Europe, and perceived enemies of the church in Christian Europe.

IF THERE is one thing that everybody knows about the Crusades, it is that they were a Bad Thing. In the eyes even of most Christians, let alone others, the Crusades were a crime against humanity, one for which apologies are due, especially to Muslims.

It was the fall of 1187, and an emissary from the besieged city of Jerusalem had come to beg Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, for mercy. After barely four days of assaults, the Christian defenders saw that Saladin had them hopelessly outmatched. Waiting in his tent outside the city's walls, the Muslim ruler knew both sides had a lot riding on the outcome of this battle.

The crusades of the 11th to 15th century CE have become one of the defining events of the Middle Ages in both Europe and the Middle East. The campaigns brought significant consequences wherever they occurred but also pushed changes within the states that organised and fought them. Even when the crusades had ended, their influence continued through literature and other cultural means and, resurrected as an idea in more modern times, they continue today to colour international relations.

Out of his own personal struggle and his conflict with the Church, Luther developed a theology and a religious movement that rejuvenated the Christian faith and had a profound impact on the social, political, and religious thought of Western society.

The Protestant Reformation is traditionally traced to Martin Luther's "Ninety-five Theses," or debating points, which he is said to have posted on the door of the parish church at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. The theses were Luther's first public expression of his developing theology; they were put forth in reaction to a church campaign to sell Indulgences throughout Germany.

By his 1517 appeal for debate on a set of issues faced by the Roman Catholic community in Germany, Augustinian monk Martin Luther inadvertently launched what would become Protestantism. His polemical and organizational talents enabled him to defy the powerful Roman Catholic Church and revolutionize the religious life of Europe and later on, the lives of millions of people around the world.

The Protestant Reformation in Germany was inaugurated by Martin Luther in 1517. It was his intent to reform the medieval Roman Catholic church, but the firm resistance of the church to Luther’s challenge led instead to permanent divisions in the structure of Western Christianity

German religious leader and church reformer. Martin Luther (LEW-thur) was born to Hans and Margarethe Luther. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Mansfield, where his father worked in the copper mines, prospering sufficiently to become one of the town’s councillors in 1491. Possessing a strong, forceful character, Hans Luther had a great impact on his son. He could be exceptionally stern; years later, Luther stated that his father gave him a sense of inferiority that took years to overcome. Yet, recognizing that his son had a promising intellect, his father sent Luther to Latin school at Mansfield. At age twelve, Luther spent a year at a school in Magdeburg operated by the Brethren for the Common Life and in 1498 attended a school at Eisenach. In 1501, he entered the University of Erfurt, one of the best universities in Germany, obtaining his bachelor’s degree in 1502 and his master’s degree in 1505.

The article discusses life, controversies, and accomplishments of theologian Martin Luther particularly in the Protestant Reformation. Topics explored include the honor and veneration earned by Luther in history compared to his contemporaries, the academic debate between Luther and the Catholic Church, and the Catholic religious beliefs which may have contributed to the Protestant schism.

The story we tell of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago is a window on how the past speaks to the present, and how the present imposes itself on the past.

On October 31, 1517, German scholar Martin Luther is said to have nailed his argument against the Catholic Church's sale of better treatment after death to a church door in Wittenberg. Whether this actually happened is disputed, but what's not disputed is that his "95 Theses" quickly spread debate through Europe and led to an irrevocable split in Western Christianity.

John Green teaches you about the Protestant Reformation. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, pretty much everyone in Europe was a Roman Catholic. Not to get all great man, but Martin Luther changed all that. Martin Luther didn't like the corruption he saw in the church, especially the sale of indulgences, so he left the church and started his own. And it caught on! And it really did kind of change the world. The changes increased literacy and education, and some even say the Protestant Reformation was the beginning of Capitalism in Europe.

The Protestant Reformation was a major sixteenth-century European movement, which in its inception intended to reform the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church and some of its practices deemed as obsolete and corrupt. The conflict divided European Christians into Protestants and Roman Catholics. Many scholars consider it the catalyst for the modern age.

Reformation, religious revolution that took place in Western Europe in the 16th cent. It arose from objections to doctrines and practices in the medieval church and ultimately led to the freedom of dissent.

One of the greatest of all revolutions was the 16th-century religious revolt known as the Reformation. This stormy, often brutal, conflict separated the Christians of western Europe into Protestants and Roman Catholics. So far-reaching were the results of the separation that the Reformation has been called a turning point in history. It ushered in the Modern Age because, once the people’s religious unity was destroyed, they began to think in terms of their own regional interests. From the diversity of those interests arose new political, social, and economic problems and beliefs.

In the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic church considered all the Christians of Europe to be within its fold. That unity and inclusiveness were shattered by the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. In response to the Reformation, the church launched a major effort to reform itself, to combat the Protestant movement and reclaim lost territories, and to expand its missionary endeavors around the world. This reform is usually called Counter-Reformation.

The article looks at the significance of the Protestant Reformation in terms of its impact on European civilization and on British politics and history, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of German monk Martin Luther initiating the Reformation. It describes the Reformation as the key event in Europe moving from the Middle Ages into the modern world, citing a fall in the influence of religion, an increase in scientific inquiry, and the shift to capitalism.

Of the many traumas endured by the Catholic Church, only the Great Schism that divided it from Eastern Orthodoxy can compare with the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century for its continentwide impact. Most of northern and western Europe (Upper Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Great Britain, etc.) were severed from the church, and the great power that soon arose in North America was dominated by non-Catholics from the start. All around the world Catholic and Protestant forces have been and often remain in competition for the hearts of the public.

Today there are many types of Protestant Churches. For example, Baptist is currently the largest denomination in the United States but there are many dozens more. How did this happen? Where did they all begin? To understand the Protestant Reform movement, we need to go back in history to the early 16th century when there was only one church in Western Europe - what we would now call the Roman Catholic Church - under the leadership of the Pope in Rome. Today, we call this "Roman Catholic" because there are so many other types of churches (for example, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican.

The Reformation was a culmination of events and circumstances, both here and abroad, which led to a seismic shift in the religious framework of this country. So what exactly happened, and what lasting impact did the Reformation have?

The sustained onslaught of plague on English population and society over a period of more than 300 years inevitably affected society and the economy. Evidence of the effects can be measured and responses traced not only in social and economic, political and religious terms, but also in changes in art and architecture. The effects of the Black Death in all these matters were disputed by contemporaries and are still hotly disputed today, which makes the topic so endlessly fascinating.

With so many dead and dying, patterns that had kept medieval society stable were replaced by hostility, confusion, greed, remorse, abuse—and, at times, genuine caring.

The Black Death – as it is commonly called – especially ravaged Europe, which was halfway through a century already marked by war, famine and scandal in the church, which had moved its headquarters from Rome to Avignon, France, to escape infighting among the cardinals.In the end, some 75 million people succumbed, it is estimated. It took several centuries for the world's population to recover from the devastation of the plague, but some social changes, borne by watching corpses pile up in the streets, were permanent.