Abstract

During the past decades the historiographical concept of modernisation has been discussed with regard to Catholicism mainly in two respects: on the one hand concerning the Council of Trent and the so-called process of confessionalisation, on the other hand concerning papal anti-liberalism and anti- modernism and their surmounting until Vatican II. Both fields of research are characterised by analogous constellations, where a more sociologically inspired view of modernisation conflicts with views that are influenced by an emphatic understanding of modernity.