Quietism (from the Latin quies, “repose,” “stillness,” “inaction”) was originally the polemical name given in Italy to a theological and spiritual religious tendency within Roman Catholicism in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the most spectacular feature of which was the wordless “prayer of quiet” (Italian orazione di quiete). Deriving from this, any religious or philosophical attitude of ethical or political passivity has tended to incur the accusation of quietism.