The article examines the Catholic answer to modern challenges such as industrialization, urban sprawl and the accelerated growth of the working class based on the case study of Krompachy workers revolt in 1921. From this point the study analyses the development and limits of Social Catholicism on the former territory of Austro-Hungarian monarchy at the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century. The Social Catholicism, which is seen primarily as a collective social practice present in society in various forms, offers the possibilities to better understanding of multi-layered relationship between Catholic Church and modern society. The study investigates the adaptation process of Social Catholic movement and creation of the network of social catholic associations and trade unions. Based on Krompachy's case as well as on the Social Catholic activities among workers. Text draws attention to possible limits and weaknesses of the secularization approach.
This paper looks at the changes in Catholic rites of passage as they faced pressure from modernization and the secularization of society in the second half of the 19th century. It focuses on the transformation of three key rituals – christenings, weddings and funerals – and charts changes in them during the second half of the 19th century. These changes were noted in Catholic journals and pastoral guides for clergymen in the parishes, which provide a series of testimonies to the transformation of these rituals. These sources show a clearly observable struggle between the Catholic Church and the faithful, whose devotion was gradually weakened under secularization. This put pressure on clergymen to adapt rituals to the congregation's needs and ideas, and in so doing started the journey towards the privatization and individualization of rites of passage.
The study "Vojta Náprstek and Antonín Dignowity : the ideal world of two freethinkers in the begining of Czech community in the USA" deals with comparision of religious, national, social and political ideas of two representatives of Czech immigration in the USA in the mid-nineteenth century.