Episode 14: Paris When It Sizzles

About this Episode

Jansenism was a religious movement in Seventeenth-Century France that threatened Church and State.  Its apologists, including Blaise Pascal and Jean Racine, thought their movement, based on its re-discovery of the teachings of St. Augustine,  could save Christianity from the Protestants.

Its detractors thought Jansenism WAS Protestantism, but a Fifth Column of it, burrowing away within the Catholic Church. The two positions were irreconcilable.
The Jansenists lost, and lost catastrophically.
What an interesting lesson here in 'Church', and State.