Between the "Already" and the "Not Yet": A Peace Perspective and a Catholic Theological Viewpoint on Religion and Politics

Abstract

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article questions the mainstream idea about the relationship between religion and politics that associates the church and state separation with a strict private—public division. Agreeing with the former distinction, we criticize the latter from the perspectives of both Catholic theology and peace and conflict studies. Both fields offer adequate reasons to challenge this narrow dualism, envisioning the spheres of religion and politics as complementary and mutually enriching. In response to increased violence involving religions across the globe, "religious peacebuilding" is currently developing approaches to explain such conflicts and inform peacebuilding methods and strategies. Additionally, the theological-emphasis on the eschatological presence of the "already" appeals to Catholic faith to pertinently reflect upon and frame public life. Consequently, we plead for the critical and beneficial engagement of religions in the public sphere as "not yet" sufficiently acknowledged.     

German First World War Memorials in Transylvania

Abstract

In 1784 King Stanis?aw August Poniatowski undertook a splendid progress across the south-western parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The official account of the journey prompts the reflection that even in this linguistically and confessionally mixed part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the precedence over other confessions of the Catholic Church of both rites, Latin and Ruthenian, was axiomatic. By the mid-eighteenth century, about five-sixths of the Commonwealth’s population, the vast majority of the noble citizenry, and the entire legislature were Catholic. However, Catholics of the Latin rite constituted only about half of the population. Most Catholics of the Ruthenian rite (Uniates) were in only nominal obedience to Rome; they were the object of a struggle for the allegiance and salvation of souls, conducted between an advancing Catholic Church and a retreating Orthodox Church. The fault line between Eastern and Western Christendom ran through both the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Orthodoxy retained strongholds in both parts of the Commonwealth. However, the position of the ‘Latin’ Church was, in most ways, significantly weaker in the Grand Duchy, where the majority of the inhabitants were Uniates. Adapting recent mutations in ‘confessionalization theory’, this paper first reviews the confessional balance, and the privileges, structures, educational institutions, and missionary work of the Catholic Church (of both rites) in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the second half of the eighteenth century. It then asks how the dramatic events of Stanis?aw August’s reign (1764–95) affected Catholic supremacy. These changes included the enforced removal of the Catholic monopoly of the legislature in 1768, the impact of the first partition of the Commonwealth in 1772, the Orthodox revivals under Bishops Georgii Konisskii and Viktor Sadkovskii, as well as the formulation of new policies intended to promote loyalty to the Commonwealth and social cohesion during the Four Years’ Sejm (1788–92). It concludes that the partial ‘deconfessionalization’ of the polity had (or might have had) a proportionately greater impact on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania than on the Polish Crown.     

History,tradition, and memory among the Basques

This article explores the historical commemoration, the Alarde of the Spanish-Basque town of Hondarribia, re-enacted for almost 400 years. It is a social account of the past portrayed through a history of local militarism and a history of commemorative performance. Since 1996, controversy has divided local inhabitants concerning wider female-inclusion in the male-dominated event, separating the town into factions, traditionalists (asserting traditions remain the same) and feminists (advocating broader female involvement). Theoretical concerns include examining traditions and their gradual transformations over time, rather than as episodic change; that interpreting the past can be competitive over rights of belonging; that history may be influenced by different agencies of gender, kin ties, memory, politics, and social experience; that people do not purposefully ignore the passage of time but may be protecting communal harmony; that commemorative rites are more than embodied performances; and that history can be a multiple, contested, and lived experience.     

The politics of rebirth in Colm Tóibín's ‘Three Friends’ and ‘A Long Winter’

This paper explores the compatibility of Catholic and homosexual identities. Because the language of Catholicism is so deeply entrenched in the popular imagination, I aim to show that not only does it provide a vocabulary for oppression but also for change. For the contemporary Irish novelist, the latter means conferring new meaning onto formerly oppressive language. In ‘Three Friends’ and ‘A Long Winter’, two short stories from Tóibín's Mothers and Sons (2007), the protagonists undergo a ‘baptism’ that signals their emergence into a new world, one tolerant of homosexual desire. Fergus, in the ocean, and Miquel, in the bathtub, experience moments at once erotic and cleansing. I outline their participation in the traditional world – the time before their bathing rites – in contradistinction to a re-imagined, modern, ‘queer’ world. I argue that Tóibín appropriates a Catholic, and therefore heteronormative, rite in a way that includes homosexuals. Thus, he reworks an oppressive framework in order to allow for the formerly excluded to participate and celebrate their non-heteronormativity, or queerness.     

We Know Not God's Designs in Permitting a Separation: Women Religious,the Consolidation Controversies,and the Nineteenth-Century American Catholic Church*

This article bridges the fields of Catholic history, Women's history, and American religious history to propose a new perspective for studying the development of the American Catholic Church, termed by me as the consolidation controversies. Previous historians have focused on the development of the local parishes and the dioceses, focusing on the power conflicts between the lay trustees and the local bishops that accompanied this institutional growth. However, an often-forgotten aspect of Catholic history is the simultaneous rise of religious congregations and orders. As these communities developed, their leaders clashed with the local bishops over questions of property and authority over members of the communities. Often at the centre of these power struggles were the women religious. Rather than allowing themselves to be manipulated, women religioudemonstrated their own autonomy, navigating larger institutional politics. Should these women fail, they faced losing their place in the diocese as well as their position and vocation as women religious.     

东周时期车马祭祀探论

车马祭祀可以上溯至殷商时期。西周时期,车马用于周王室的重大祀典。东周时期,祭祀礼制逐渐被破坏,各诸侯国僭越周礼规定,车马被广泛用于郊祀、宗庙祭祖、社祀、山川望祭、盟誓、方神等各种祭祀,祭法多采用沉和瘗埋的方式。随着社会的发展及祭祀观念的变化,最迟到战国中期,木偶车马被用于祭祀,成为秦汉以后车马祭祀的发展趋势。     

Mapping contemporary Catholic politics in Italy

This editors’ introduction opens a special issue of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies on the topic of ‘Mapping Contemporary Catholic Politics in Italy’. It briefly identifies the political, sociological and ideational changes that have occurred in Catholic politics since the collapse of the Democrazia Cristiana party, and introduces the contributions to the special issue, highlighting the common threads and the important divergences in their analyses.     

The disillusionment of Robert Dell: the intellectual journey of a Catholic socialist

ABSTRACT

This article considers attempts in the late nineteenth century to bring about a confluence of Catholicism and Socialism in Britain by examining the writing and correspondence of one man, the art critic and Fabian socialist Robert Dell. Beginning with Dell’s involvement as a young man in London-based radical politics, the article examines his efforts to bring his socialist politics and Catholic faith together. Dell attempted this through stressing a narrative of Catholic collectivism, under the aegis of a benevolent Church, contrasted with a post-Reformation Protestant individualism leading to the inequities of capitalism. The appeal of Catholicism in a Victorian Britain undergoing a collective crisis of faith is addressed. The second part of the article documents the failure of these attempts and Dell’s disillusionment with the Catholic hierarchy that by 1908 had led to a complete break on Dell’s part with the Catholic establishment. The catalyst for this break was the brutal treatment of Catholic Modernists such as George Tyrrell, Maude Petre and St George Mivart by the Vatican and the English Catholic leadership. Dell’s final rejection of organised Catholicism is charted through pamphlets, newspaper articles and personal correspondence. Ultimately, the article considers how Dell’s early political and theological career reflects on the relative positions of Catholicism and socialism at the turn of the twentieth century, and more broadly the dynamics of personal belief and political allegiances.     

Negative Freedom,Catholic Social Doctrine,and the Conciliar Challenge of the Free Society

The idea of “negative freedom” has been at the heart of modern democratic politics; it has also been an idea regarded warily by Catholic social doctrine. To be sure, Catholic social doctrine now embraces the classic negative political freedoms like freedom of religion and freedom of speech. But the hierarchical magisterium of the Church was slow to arrive at such an embrace. And in the last decades the hierarchical magisterium has renewed its skepticism of the idea, seeing it as both important and often misused. This article considers current criticisms of negative freedom by Catholic social doctrine and seeks to respond to such criticisms by appealing to personalist conceptions of freedom in the philosophy of Charles Taylor and in the theology of Walter Kasper. Overall, the aim of the article is to establish a more sure conceptual basis for negative freedom as an essential component of the commitment by the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council to the free society.     

New idols: Catholicism in the face of Fascist totalitarianism

Abstract

This article explores the attitudes of the Vatican and Catholic culture towards Fascism and Fascism's political religion during the pontificate of Pius XI, in the context of the Catholic church's rejection of modernity as a new epoch of paganism that took the form of political mysticism. It shows that despite the Concordat of 1929, the papacy reacted with growing alarm to the Fascist regime's ‘sacralization of politics’ that threatened to make Catholic religion a handmaid of the totalitarian state.     

20世纪20年代"不平等条约"口号之检讨

“不平等条约”一词的语言风格、内涵及使用,在民国早期竞争而动荡的政治观念、价值及其策略的形成上具有中心地位。1924—1927年是一个充满戏剧变幻的年代,在此期间,国共两党共同地创造了中国语言中一个新词“不平等条约”。作为中国屈服于洋人控制的象征,“不平等条约”这一简洁名词唤醒并继续唤醒着中国人对于自己民族的过去和将来的集体情结。自从其在20年代诞生。“不平等条约”成为理解中国对外关系的关键词。     

On the current absence and future improbability of political Catholicism in Italy

Clerical ‘non-negotiable values’ were actively promoted by right-wing governments in the 2000s, the Monti government that replaced them was strongly supported by the Vatican and the Italian bishops, and the current left-wing government is led by a former member of the Catholic popolari who attends Mass every Sunday. But this article argues that, rather than a new golden age of political Catholicism, the return of Catholicism to Italian politics has taken a ‘low intensity’ form which lacks the robust combination of ideas, leaders, organizations, and interests that informed earlier, genuinely political forms of Catholic engagement. The article demonstrates this by focusing on the ‘Todi movement’, which played a crucial role in the Monti government, and on Matteo Renzi’s current leadership of the Partito democratico and the national government. It also proposes a theoretical framework to explain the apparent contradiction between the high visibility and the low political relevance of Catholicism in Italian politics.     

略论商周时期射牲礼

由花东甲骨文和作册般鼋铭文的记载可知,射牲礼起源不晚于商代中晚期,最初其举行的地点通常在自然形成的河流沼泽等水边,射牲结束后多伴随有祭祀活动。之后射牲礼逐渐发展完善,由麦尊和伯唐父鼎等青铜器铭文记载可以推定,至晚到西周早期,天子在辟雍乘舟射牲的仪式已明显区别于习射及以"择士"为目的的大射,其不仅与祭祀相关,且已具有象征天子亲自射猎以"示亲杀"的特点。     

The Discourse of Fengsu in the Song Literati’s Writing: The Example of Boat Racing

The category of “customs,” or fengsu, was important for the literati of the Song dynasty in writing local histories. It covers local practices of festival rituals, weddings and funerals, rites for passage into adulthood, sacrificial rites, and the like. The main purpose behind the literati’s efforts to record fengsu was not to acknowledge local variations but to censor local customs and transform society. This paper looks at these type of texts as a discourse that is meant to promote the correct, standard performance of rites and suppress those deemed improper. It uses boat racing in Song records of fengsu as a case study to illustrate how the imperial spectacle of boat racing in spring was propagated and how the linkage between the death anniversary of Qu Yuan and Duanwu were reinforced. Meanwhile, the popular ritual of boat racing during the summer, which bore distinct violent and shamanic attributes, was strongly criticised. Through these efforts by the literati, a normative discourse of the boat-racing ritual was repeated and reinforced in the fengsu recording.     

Gendered Structures of Local Politics in Turkey

Indicators offered by available international statistical data and observations of many researchers point out that women's formal political involvement at the local level is stronger than that at the national level for the majority of states. However, gendered political patterns in Turkey have been following a rather different path. One and the most significant contradictory aspect is that women's representation at local elected organs is weaker than the national parliament. This article, first, investigates the reasons for this relatively weak existence in formal local politics. The references of this relativity are both national formal politics of Turkey, and the dominant worldwide model. Secondly, the article tries to establish country‐specific links between formal and informal local politics concerning women's participation. The experience in Turkey has proven that women's local engagement does not necessarily propel decision‐making power and women's empowerment. Women's local mobilization in Turkey has been mostly limited to socio‐cultural and charity activities instead of central decisions on the settlement, and of efforts for establishing women's local political agendas. Moreover, as a very prominent factor concerning the maintenance of asymmetric gendered structures of local politics, women's movement at the national level has been lacking in systematic political interest in the issue until very recently. In this article, these pretensions and future prospects are discussed in terms of the actual global‐national circumstances affecting local politics as well as women's local conditions. To these ends, existing quantitative‐qualitative research, data and analysis, and relevant findings of the author's recent (2000–2003) original research, as well as her observations through participation in recent feminist activism targeting local politics are being evaluated.     

Ritual and Politics: An Examination of the 1072 Primal Ancestor Debate in the Northern Song

In considering the vital role played by imperial rites in claiming political legitimacy and maintaining social stability, Chinese emperors endeavored to present themselves as the perfect model for their subjects in terms of ritual performance. Focusing on a Northern Song (960–1127) ritual debate over the placement of imperial ancestors’ spirit tablets and ancestral chambers, especially that of the Primal Ancestor, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of discussions on ancestral rituals and how they were intensified during the implementation of Wang Anshi’s New Policies. More importantly, this study reveals the differences between Song scholar-officials’ political positions and intellectual interests, thus providing a new interpretation of Song factionalism from the perspective of ritual politics.     

Ruinismo: the Catholic Church in Italy from ‘mediation culture’ to the Cultural Project

It is only seven years since Monsignor Camillo Ruini resigned from his role as President of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), yet it feels much longer. The tempestuous events that marked Silvio Berlusconi's decline, on one hand, and the election of Pope Francis to the Holy See, on the other, have made such an impression on recent Italian history that seems to leave no time for reflection on what has happened over the last twenty years. This article explores how, during this time, Cardinal Ruini has re-fashioned the relations between the Catholic Church and Italian politics, following a pattern that has come to be known as ‘ruinismo’. The essay follows the development of the theological-political line of the Conference, from the “mediation” of the “Catholic Party”, the Christian Democrats (DC), to the “policy of presence” of politically committed Catholics, defined in these terms by the ecclesiastical congress in Loreto in 1985 and fully carried out under Ruini's management, with the backing of Berlusconi's governments. The aim is to establish whether and to what extent the “Ruinian” rule may be regarded as the consequence of mainstream Catholic politics of the 1980s and, equally, as a response to the cultural and political transformation brought about by the upheavals of the corruption scandals of 1989–91. Only from this long-term perspective is it possible to determine whether Ruini's exit has brought an end to ruinismo.     

The Role of "Sibling Rivalry" in the "(Re)discovery of America Controversy"

French Louisiana is Catholic country. Because of the association between the Louisiana French and the Roman Catholic Church, the Church's role in French ethnic persistence has always been taken for granted. However, from a paternalistic colonial Church, the Louisiana Catholic Church has become an American one very much out of touch with the cultural character of the population it has served. In the racial field the Church's conformity to American values has impaired the unity of the Louisiana French. In the matter of language the Church has helped to undermine the position of French in French Louisiana society. The assertion of one's Catholicism in French Louisiana at a time of increasing Anglo-American contacts may simply be a reliable way of saying “we are us—not them.”     

"Child of the Clan" or "Child of the Priests": Life Stories of Two Fipa Catholic Sisters

This paper analyses some of the consequences of Christian conversion and the process of assimilating Catholicism in an area of southwestern Tanzania known as Ufipa during the middle of the twentieth century. It is based on several conversations with two Fipa Catholic Sisters, Edwina and Ocilia. Their reflections highlight the way in which the Fipa people understood conversion. The period covered is not that of initial mission contact but after substantial conversion to Catholicism had taken place. The paper considers the way in which the conversion process was utilized by different families or lineages or, as Sister Edwina states, one "clan" and another. In the life stories of Edwina and Ocilia, control over their biological and social fertility lies at the heart of the conflict over their futures. In effect, the sisters struggled to determine their own place as "child of the clan," or "child of the priests."