Th e Catholic priestly vocation and normative expectations in the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

In the 18th century, the academic quality of the education of priests steadily increased, and in the last decades of the century the practical application of the acquired knowledge became more and more important. The optimisation of theory and practice led to a strong professionalisation of the vocation of preists. Th e basic concept of this paper is that by the early 19th century, the Catholic clergy, through its internal development and the expectations of secular power, had a vocational identity, the formulation of which was shaped by everyday challenges and feedback.