Search Results (29)

The Catholic publishing undertaking in China experienced significant growth in the first half of the twentieth century, both in the scale and in the form of organization. This effort’s importance is twofold: for the Church in China back then, publications facilitated communications both inside and outside the Church; for researchers today, these files contain a vast amount of information on Catholic life, valuable for the enrichment of historical understanding. This paper uncovers the internal driving mechanism of this process through three Shanghai general meetings: the Plenary Council in 1924, the All-China General Congress of Catholic Action in 1935 and the Catholic Press Convention in 1947. The co-ordination fostered by these meetings generated resilience and efficiency for publishing activities in order from them to be sustained and prosper during an unsettling period. The Council heralded cross-congregational and cross-national co-operation by standardizing publishing practices and forming designated central organizations. Inheriting these guidelines, Catholic journalist delegates of the Catholic Action Congress in 1935 gathered to discuss practical methods, leading to a proliferation of Catholic publications. Despite setbacks during the Sino-Japanese War, Catholic publishing quickly resumed following the Press Convention held in 1947, which reinforced collaboration regardless of affiliations through a central organization. The three general meetings not only showcase the historical trajectory of Catholic publishing, but also the constant endeavor to bridge gaps between communities. Full article

In 1606 Henry Garnet, provincial of the English Jesuits and purported co-conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot against James I, was executed at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Following his death, accounts of miracles occurring at his execution began to spread throughout England, including an account of a relic bearing his miraculous image. While Catholic writers promoted these accounts as evidence of Garnet’s innocence, Protestant contemporaries argued that Garnet was an illegitimate martyr and that his commemoration was evidence of Catholic support for regicide. This article demonstrates how London Protestant writers and publishers utilized anti-hagiographical arguments to intervene in attempts to promote Garnet’s sainthood, counter claims about the veracity of his relic, and shape his legacy in the decades following his execution. Full article

As a result of a close relationship established between Romanticism and Catholicism in the struggle against modernity in the early 19th century, a significant number of mystical phenomena, especially involving visionary women, spread throughout Europe during the 19th century. The works of Anna Katharina Emmerick stand as one of the earliest and primary influencers in this regard. Her mystical visions were transcribed and published by a romantic intellectual who had converted to Catholicism in that same context: Clemens Brentano. However, despite inspiring various mystical phenomena in the Catholic milieu, Emmerich’s visions raised suspicion within the Catholic Church due to the presence of supposed pagan and superstitious elements from Brentano’s Romanticism in her descriptions. This suspicion has resulted in ongoing difficulty in advancing her canonization process. In light of this debate, this article discusses the impacts of the union between Romanticism and Catholicism in early 19th-century Germany. It focuses on the case of Anna Katharina Emmerich and Clemens Brentano. Full article

No published studies have investigated the correlation between religiosity, spirituality, mental health, and idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IIM) or systemic autoimmune myopathy. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the association between religiosity/spirituality, sociodemographic factors, and the mental health of IIM patients. This is a multicenter case–control study that included 151 patients with IIMs and 95 individuals without autoimmune diseases (controls), held between August 2022 and April 2023. This study used a semi-structured questionnaire that included sociodemographic information and the juxtaposition of the following questionnaires: the Attitudes Related to Spirituality Scale (ARES); the Duke University Religion Index (DUKE), which is composed of the organizational religious affiliation (ORA), non-organizational religious affiliation (NORA), and intrinsic religiosity (IR) domains; and the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12). Data were analyzed using Epi Info software 7.2.5 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA). A comparison between the mean values of the ARES, DUKE, and GHQ-12 scales was made using the Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests. A logistic regression test was used with the variables whose difference was statistically significant in the univariate analysis. Correlation analysis was performed using the Spearman rho coefficient. A higher prevalence of evangelicals and a lower prevalence of Catholics (p < 0.050) were seen in the IIM group compared to controls. Positive association was demonstrated between IIMs and the pardo ethnicity (OR = 2.26, 95% CI = 1.20–4.25, p = 0.011), highest ORA (OR = 2.81, 95% CI = 1.53–5.15, p < 0.001), NORA (OR = 3.99, 95% CI = 1.94–8·18, p < 0.001), IR (OR = 5.27, 95% CI = 2.32–11.97, p < 0.001), and ARES values (OR = 1.08, 95% CI = 1.04–1.13, p < 0.001). Mental health levels were compared between the groups (p > 0.999). Therefore, higher levels of religiosity and spirituality were observed in the IIM group than in the control group, but there was a similar distribution of mental health levels. The following can be cited as advantages of the present study: (i) the large sample for a rare disease with the presence of a control group; (ii) the multicenter characteristic with participation from three regions of Brazil; (iii) being the first study to map aspects of religiosity, spirituality, and mental health in IIMs. Full article

The pontificate of Pope Francis is proving to be one of the most controversial within the Catholic world, particularly because of the several objections and protests it has raised in the most traditional currents of Catholicism. This theological and political opposition to Bergoglio’s pontificate has been the subject of many studies, which have focused, in particular, on the growing harshness of this debate in North American Catholic circles. Following these studies, the present contribution aims to study how this polarization spreads and is amplified through the online communication of these groups by providing an analysis of a specific case study: a tweet published by the account of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAL). The PAL is a Vatican institution founded by John Paul II and renewed by Pope Francis in its membership and purpose (Global Bioethics). The Academy is perceived as the cutting edge of Pope Francis’ “progressivism”, especially regarding sensitive issues such as marriage, family, and euthanasia. For this reason, the Twitter account of PAL is considered the ideal platform to observe the languages, expressions, and content that characterize the opposition to Bergoglio’s pontificate today. Full article

Topic: This review explores the important issue of the ‘institutional sustainability’ (IS) of faith-based development organizations (FBDOs) providing microfinance services to the poor in the developing world. IS has often been equated with the financial self-reliance of microfinance service providers, with income from credit charged on loans as well as other fees being used to pay for the service. While the approaches and tensions inherent in the attainment of IS by microfinance providers seeking to help the poorest in society have been well explored in the literature, there has been no specific analysis of FBDO providers and the special challenges they may face. Methodology: This paper is based on a review of the literature using a combination of search terms such as ‘microfinance’, ‘development’, ‘institutional sustainability’, ‘financial self-reliance’ and ‘faith’, with a special emphasis on the literature published between the 1990s and 2023. Results: One of the main findings is that Christian and Hindu FBDOs providing microfinance largely follow the financial self-reliance conceptualization of IS applied by secular providers and apply much the same set of responses regarding the setting of interest rates and other charges and the management of repayment amongst their client base. However, FBDOs of the Islamic faith take a broader perspective on IS and include the need for spirituality and religious development amongst their clients. Future directions: This paper makes a number of suggestions for future research, including (1) the reasons why religious development and spirituality do not appear to be strong issues for Christian and Hindu FBDOs relative to their Islamic counterparts; (2) the potential for inter-faith collaboration between FBDOs and secular providers, between FBDOs of different faiths as well as FBDOs from versions of the same faith (e.g., Protestant and Catholic); and (3) whether FBDOs are more naturally predisposed and able to engage and collaborate with the informal microfinance sector than secular microfinance providers. Full article

Various modern large-scale mapping techniques have already been introduced in earth sciences, cadastral mapping, and the agricultural sector. These methodologies often use remotely sensed data to compile various analogue or digital cartographic products as well as spatial databases. However, the mapping of cemeteries and standards for establishing a spatial database for them have rarely been published, and there is no definite method for this purpose in Hungary yet. We have compiled a methodology based on mapping experiences in three sample areas in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Eger in Hungary that are church properties. The initial UAV-based fieldwork orthomosaics were processed with a CV (computer vision)-based script that vectorised grave contours. After fieldwork, which included the recording of the deceased people’s names and their dates of birth and death in the case of all graves, a spatial database was created pairing each polygon with the corresponding personal data. A map was also generated from the results of the survey. The cartographic product and the database fulfil legal requirements and give hints for cemeteries regarding further planning. The developed method is capable of making mapping and database building easier—not just in the case of graves, but with other rectangular objects, too. Full article

For historical reasons, the vast majority of primary schools in the Republic of Ireland are under the patronage of the Catholic church. Patronage involves a number of responsibilities, including the provision of a Patron’s Programme. Traditionally in the form of Religious Education (RE), such programmes should satisfy the curricular requirement for religious/ethical education and act as an expression of school ethos. In order to meet this responsibility, the Irish Episcopal conference in 2015 published its first curriculum in Religious Education, which forms the basis for the Grow in Love programme for pupils from Junior Infants to Sixth Class in all Catholic primary schools. However, effective teaching and learning of RE is dependent on the ‘buy in’ of those teaching it. The religious beliefs, understandings, and practices of those teaching RE are influential in this regard. Drawing from the data of a large-scale, multi-phase study, this paper describes the religious identity and beliefs of first-year students entering an Initial Teacher Education programme in Ireland—in this case, the Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree—to qualify as primary-level teachers. It situates the data in the wider context of religious identity and beliefs in Ireland and goes on to explore how the religious profiles of these students fit with the required understanding, knowledge and ability to teach Religious Education in Catholic schools. Findings indicate that the majority of these students identify as Catholic and believe in God. For most, God is important in their lives. However, there is a complexity to these beliefs, with a significant number who do not know what to think. This paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the teaching of Religious Education and for the patrons of Catholic schools. Full article

The aim of the study is to present the online processes related to religious phenomena appearing on digital platforms, primarily the practice of content filtering (gatekeeping, echo chamber, filter bubble), and a critical review of the scientific literature on the field. At the same time, the goal is to create a theoretical introduction to the special issue and a comprehensive examination of the scientific context. For the first time, the study shows that, in terms of media content, filtering can appear from two directions. One is the selections from different events by professional journalists during content creation. The media theoretical literature refers to this aspect as the phenomenon of gatekeeping. Filtering in the other direction takes place on the part of the receivers, who choose from among the available media contents. This phenomenon has already been described by several media scholars, with the concept of selective exposure (Klapper), Daily Me (Negroponte), echo chamber (Sunstein) or filter bubble (Pariser). Focusing on the phenomenon of the filter bubble, the study presents this theory, its criticism and its relevance to religious content and religious communities. The second part of the study focuses on religious filter bubbles and presents the related investigations so far. It analyses in detail the document published by the Catholic Church on 28 May 2023, entitled Towards Full Presence, Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media. During the detailed analytical presentation of the text, the study covers how the opportunities and dangers of network communication and the use of social media appear (including the filter bubble) and what solutions the Catholic Church proposes in this regard. Full article

The author was approached by the Passionists in the United Kingdom, a Roman Catholic order in which the ecological theologian Thomas Berry had been a priest, to seek an opinion on the continuing significance of his book, Befriending the Earth. Published in 1991, it was written in dialogue with a Jesuit colleague, Thomas Clarke. This article shares that opinion with a wider readership. Parts of it are written in a first-person manner, illustratively journeying on from where Berry left off. Thirty-three years (counted inclusively) is a generous generational span; symbolically, it is equivalent to the life of Christ, a kairos time of transition. Most notably, what has changed over that period is that climate change has landed firmly onto the environmental agenda. Significantly, Berry hardly mentioned it in this work, but in an era of Laudato Si his message of “befriending the Earth” speaks louder than ever, with prophetic poignancy. Full article

In this article, I sketch, both in broad outlines and in selected details, the new, richer picture of von Hildebrand’s account of moral evil as it emerges from my discovery of extensive materials in von Hildebrand´s Nachlass at the Bavarian State Library in Munich dealing with the “roots of moral evil”. These manuscripts and typescripts, the critical edition of which will be published at the same time as this article or shortly thereafter, show that von Hildebrand´s account of moral evil is much richer, more nuanced, and complex than the one we can glean from the final section of Ethics, his magnum opus in moral philosophy. In this article, I also aim to situate von Hildebrand´s analysis of the roots of moral evil in the context of both Christian religious thought and the Western philosophical tradition. Von Hildebrand was, to be sure, an heir to both of these traditions, despite the thrust of his phenomenological method to “bracket” all extant theories and turn “back to the things themselves”. The mind-boggling feature of the tension between von Hildebrand´s existential rootedness in the Catholic tradition and his methodological distance to it, including the Aristotelian–Thomist philosophy, is the following: On one hand, he claims that the two ultimate roots of moral evil are pride and concupiscence, which sounds perfectly traditionally Christian. On the other hand, however, he strips these concepts of most of their traditional connotations and endows them with the meaning they acquire in the context of his phenomenological analyses. The intriguing result of this approach is the transformation of religious or moral theological concepts of pride and concupiscence into descriptive phenomenological categories which encompass an almost inexhaustible wealth of various subspecies and subordinate forms of moral evil. Full article

This article examines how antiquarians in Rome used archaeological evidence—a site excavated from under the church of San Martino in Monti in 1636—to argue that Pope Sylvester (314–335) exercised spiritual and temporal authority over the Roman Empire. The document which had formed the bedrock of papal sovereignty, the Donation of Constantine, was shown to be a forgery in the early modern period. Protestant reformers pointed to the document’s contradictions to dismantle the Catholic Church’s claims that its preeminence originated in the privileges bestowed on Sylvester by the Emperor Constantine. I use archival materials and a history of the site published in 1639 to describe how antiquarians claimed that they found the house church of Sylvester, which he converted into a church after Constantine’s baptism and then used to host a Roman Council in 324 (before Nicaea). I offer a new perspective on Catholic confessional historiography by observing how antiquarians used material evidence to provide a foundation for early papal power in the Roman Empire, thereby bypassing the need for spurious documents such as the Donation. This new tradition, which lives on today despite modern archaeological critiques, illustrates the malleability of Catholic epistemologies and historiography in the wake of textual criticism. Full article

Almost twenty years have passed since the end of John Paul II’s pontificate. The Roman Catholic Church in Poland faces a serious crisis, stimulated not only by secularisation processes, which are characteristic for Western Europe, but also by a whole series of adverse events that unfolded at the end of the year 2020; they resembled a disaster marathon and had a considerable potential to attract media attention. A wide spectrum of Polish opinion-forming weeklies, ranging from left-liberal to ultra-conservative and far-right ones, as well as those associated with the Polish Episcopate, published accounts of the situation within the Catholic Church. In this manner, press discourse shaped the public perception of Catholicism in Poland. An analysis of the periodicals’ content disclosed a strong polarisation of opinions and a variety of interpretations. Differences between the particular weeklies were identified at the level of agenda-setting and prioritisation, framing, persuasion techniques employed, and additional contexts that were evoked, including the legal, moral, historical, philosophical, and religious ones. Full article

The Catholic Church arrogates a long tradition of protecting and using heritage to complement its evangelisation ministry from the medieval ecclesiastical treasures included in museology proto-history. While these treasures have adopted museographic features, other typologies of ecclesiastical museums have appeared, demanding regulations that could orient their activities. After the Second Vatican Council, the Church became increasingly focused on guaranteeing a worthy destination for the objects left over from worship. In 2001, the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church published the Circular Letter The pastoral function of ecclesiastical museums, establishing that the ecclesiastical museum is an adequate solution for these objects, keeping them close to the cultural group of origin and providing continuity to its original catechetical function. Two decades later, a critical analysis of the Letter is proposed in the theoretical frame of museum studies. Considering the recovery object’s original meaning in the museum discourse, the connection to territory, and the interaction with the plural and heterogeneous audience, the conformity of the Letter with the museum theory is underlined. With a focus on its general accuracy, the aim of this study is to evaluate how the Letter remains actualised and adapted to contemporaneity in addition to the challenges and transformations now faced by museums. Full article

Church education boasts a rich history of achievements. European church education (referred to as Catholic) was already present at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries and in Poland at the end of the 11th (schools educating future members of the clergy). In Poland, the collapse of church education was marked by the communist system (1945–1989), and a dynamic revival was possible thanks to the democratic change in 1989. At present, Catholic schools, i.e., schools run by church legal entities and schools run by other legal or natural persons recognized as Catholic by decree of the diocesan bishop, entertain the same possibilities with respect to setup and operations on equal rights. Their number and proportion of the overall student population remain relatively stable. As the results published by District Examination Boards and rankings of Catholic schools show, the teaching efficiency of Catholic elementary schools is higher than average. High schools reach a very good level of education as well, although in their case, the dominance of Catholic schools is not in place. Teaching efficiency is one of many factors that influence the well-established position of Catholic schools. Full article