Catholic Clergymen Research Articles

Vital event of servise of Vicentas Sladkevičius in 1956-1959

The article analyses in detail and gives a factual account of the particularly important period of ministry of the famous Lithuanian Catholic clergyman Sladkevičius, i.e. 1956–1959. The atheistic secular government exercised strict control and dictatorship over the most important affairs of the religious communities, dealt with the appointment of the clergy, and tried to turn the hierarchs into obedient followers of the government. The perseverance and efforts of Bishop Teofilius Matulionis, who survived the repression, made it possible for Father Sladkevičius, who was devoted to the Catholic Church, to become a bishop against the government’s wishes. The dissatisfied government tried to ignore the new bishop, and later to force him to cooperate. Not yielding to the pressure and temptations of the Red security agents and the Commissioner for Religious Cults, Sladkevičius, the Auxiliary Bishop of Kaišiadorys, remained faithful to the autonomy of the Catholic Church, and was therefore exiled to the periphery of another diocese, Panevėžys, as undesirable and dangerous. A full disclosure of these events is important for understanding the recent history of the Catholic Church in Lithuania and the Lithuanian unarmed resistance during the Soviet period.

Enlightened and Counter-Revolutionary: Revisiting the Origins of Galician Ruthenian Nation-Building

Abstract This article offers an alternative focus for the study of the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) nation-building in early Austrian Galicia. It portrays elite Greek Catholic churchmen who made political claims about a self-standing Ruthenian nation already in the first decade of the nineteenth century. It argues that their political innovations were enabled by the ambitious state-building projects implemented in the second half of the eighteenth century by the Austrian government, most importantly new seminaries that cultivated an ethos of state service among Catholic clergymen. The early Ruthenian nationalism espoused by Greek Catholic prelates neither aspired to mobilize masses nor ascribed much importance to language rights, the kernel of nationalist struggles in later periods. It was rather a polemical device deployed to legitimize their rejection of the Polish national allegiance, associated with dynamically evolving republican traditions. By locating the Galician Ruthenian case in a regional comparative perspective, the article outlines the broader significance of this interpretation, interrogating some received wisdoms about the so-called non-historical nationalisms of Central and Eastern Europe.

Cutting Bodies, Reaping Souls: Catholic Medical Missionaries between Rome and East Africa around 1700

Summary Research on medical missions has largely focused on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries paying comparatively little attention to earlier periods. The Roman Catholic Church in particular was seen as a latecomer in medical missionary work because canon law supposedly forbade clergymen to engage too closely with the human body. This article offers a different view of medicine and law in early modern conversion efforts and argues that some Catholic missionaries can be called ‘medical missionaries’. Looking at Franciscan friars sent to Ethiopia around 1700, the article analyses the legal negotiations surrounding the use of surgery by Catholic clergymen, healing practices they used during the missions and the relationship between medicine and conversion. It shows that missionaries received systematic medical and surgical training in Rome, that they used the acquired skills during their travels and that medicine was crucial to Catholic strategies of spiritual conquest.

Podróż wokół pstrągów: Put na Plitvice Adolfa Vebera Tkalčevicia. Tekstotwórcza rola motywów kulinarnych

Adolfo Veber Tkalčević (1825–1889) a Croatian philologist, writer, passionate traveler and a Catholic clergyman is the author of the first Croatian account of the travel to the Croatian “Lake District” Put na Plitvice (Road to Plitvice, 1860). As a travel narrative, this book has a “worldbuilding” potential, introducing the Plitvice Lakes to Croatian culture, to the national landscape. In this article,Ifocus on the culinary theme of the trip. One of its side goals was savouring the trouts, but throughout the entire trip the tables of wanderers did not want to fill with them, offering the text-forming abundance instead. The journey “around theempty table” is a kind of self-portrait of “explorers” ready for a “heroic” attitude for the common good. Bearing in mind the specificity of Croatian Romanticism, which this work represents, I read the text in a cultural, anthropological and identity context, referring to the classics of discourse, and devoting less attention to travel studies.

Vývoj vzťahu Andreja Cvinčeka k episkopátu vo svetle jeho politickej činnosti pred prvou svetovou vojnou, v medzivojnovom období a v rokoch 1945 – 1948

Andrej Cvinček was a politically active priest. His involvement in politics was also noticed by the episcopate, especially by his superiors, the bishops of Nitra, who were authorised to control and approve his political activity in the light of canon law and the doctrine of the Church. In the present paper we want to analyse both Cvinček’s relations with the bishops and the influence of the episcopate on his views and actions in politics. For the sake of comparison, we have chosen three periods of Cvinček’s life that had different parameters in his political and ecclesiastical position. Before 1918, Cvincek was a young enthusiast of popular politics, but also a poor chaplain interspersed among Slovak village parishes. In the interwar period he became a canon, but found himself in the minority in Slovak political Catholicism. After the Second World War, Cvinček experienced a remarkable return to politics, in which he achieved a much more important position than in previous periods, and so his political importance also increased in the eyes of Slovak bishops. The aim of this paper is thus to examine Cvinček’s political career in the light of the fact that he was a Catholic clergyman. The priestly component of Andrej Cvinček’s personality is as essential to our research as the political one. Against this background, we can also observe the development of the ideas that were promoted in the ecclesiastical milieu. Therefore, our study intends to be a contribution not only to the knowledge of Cvincek in the light of political changes, but also to place his personality in the context of ecclesiastical development.

Endo Šusaku - pisac inkulturacije

Endo Shusaku's oeuvre is a fascinating literary attempt at reconciliation of (Western) Christianity and Japanese culture. As a Christian and a Japanese, Endo was a living embodiment of this religious and cultural struggle, but he was also a writer and thus in a fitting position to express the agonies of identity crisis that he and his Christian compatriots had to endure for centuries. Endo was, in other words, interested in the mission process known as inculturation, which signifies specific ways in which Christianity becomes a natural part of any given culture. The success of this process depends on the identification of the most important causes of conflict between Christianity and culture, while the solutions usually tend to produce something new. In most cases of successful inculturation, new images of Christ were produced in accordance with the religious mentality of the baptized community. Throughout his writings, Endo has managed to offer several such images. His Christ is a Suffering Servant of God, similar to the one described by Isaiah, a companion figure (dohansha), and a merciful God full of motherly love. While based on the Bible, these images are, at the same time, inspired by Japanese religious traditions, specifically Buddhist notions of merciful buddhas and bodhisattvas. Several controversial details in Endo's novels have aroused suspicions among Catholic clergymen, such as the presumed justification of apostasy in Silence and the pluralist tone of Deep River, but Endo was not trying to justify Asian religious mentality to Westerners. On the contrary, he was trying to present Christianity to the Japanese audience using the religious motifs they were familiar with. Thus, one might interpret Endo's images of Christ as an "experimental" inculturation - theologically imperfect but nevertheless valuable for pointing out the most significant issues in the evangelization of Japan.

The Catholic Church Sex Abuse Crisis The Rhetoric of Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis

Recent developments in the field of sexual abuses perpetrated by Catholic clergymen have heightened the need to address and analyze the issue from different points of view. The concept of modernity is key to understand the internal but also the external debates on child sexual abuses within the Church. While the roots of the problem are old, the issue represents a new social challenge that generates a firestorm both inside and outside the ecclesiastical world. The purpose of this article is to analyze and comprehend the rhetoric and approach adopted by John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis toward clergy abuse around the world. Therefore, this article explores some of the official speeches delivered by them on various occasions, paying attention to the context and the terminology used to talk about abuses. The final goal is to understand the position of the three pontiffs mentioned on the issue and to figure out if there is a common thread between the appearance (public speeches) and the concrete measures taken (e.g., reforms of canon law, summits on abuse, removal of guilty priests).

Empathy and Cognitive Processing as Factors Determining the Consequences of Secondary Exposure to Trauma Among Roman Catholic Clergymen

By helping individuals after traumatic experiences, the helper is also exposed to the consequences of trauma. The aim of this study was to determine the predictors of consequences of secondary exposure to trauma among clergymen and therapists (N = 140) helping victims of trauma in Poland. Symptoms of secondary traumatic stress (STS) were identified in 22.9% of the clergymen and 8.6% of therapists, and secondary posttraumatic growth (SPTG) in 61.4% of the clergymen and 42.9% of therapists. STS and SPTG predictors were identified based on regression models. In the case of clergymen, regret is a determinant of STS, and positive cognitive restructuring of SPTG. Research findings highlight the need to increase awareness of exposure to secondary trauma among the clergy, and for them to acquire greater skills for coping with stress.

The Affair before the Affair: Zola, Dreyfus and the Lourdes scandal

Abstract This article examines the legacy of the scandal wrought by Zola’s novel Lourdes (1894) for future controversy over the writer’s pivotal involvement in the Dreyfus Affair. Zola’s fictional account of the Pyrenean shrine—its founding apparitions, and its miracle cures— provoked a deluge of refutations from Catholic clergymen, doctors and writers. The Lourdes scandal has been understood as a flashpoint for Catholic indignation in the ongoing ‘culture wars’ of the Third Republic—one readily reignited with Zola’s intervention in the judicial handling of Dreyfus’ case. This article offers a precise understanding of the Lourdes debates as a dress-rehearsal for the Affair that followed. It reads Catholic attacks on Zola’s naturalist novel for their shared preoccupation with proofs, expertise, authority and the status of truth and evidence, which anticipated the very terms on which his defence of the Jewish captain would be denounced. Both scandals, then, appear bound together by fundamentally literary concerns; and this article shows how quarrels over aesthetics lay at the heart of the ideological differences they described.

"Where the Cult is in the Hands of the People": Enlightened Catholicism and Colonization on the Texas Frontier

"Where the Cult is in the Hands of the People"Enlightened Catholicism and Colonization on the Texas Frontier Brian Stauffer (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Catholic diocese map of Mexico, early nineteenth century. Courtesy of the Mapoteca "Manuel Orozco y Berra" del Servicio de Información Agroalimentaria y Pesquera. [End Page 242] In November 1828, Father Miguel Ramos Arizpe, precentor in the cathedral of Puebla, wrote to the vice president of Mexico requesting permission to colonize a strip of vacant land on the Rio Grande in the state of Coahuila y Texas. Ramos Arizpe proposed to settle two hundred families, which he hoped would be mostly Mexican nationals, "since it is my aim to encourage retired and injured soldiers and so many poor families from [Coahuila y Texas], Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to leave behind their misery while also preventing our best lands from being taken by foreigners." This was far from the first time the enlightened priest involved himself in the matter of northern colonization. Ramos Arizpe had called for the planting of colonies in the frontier provinces as Coahuila's delegate at the Cortes of Cádiz (1810–12), where the native of Saltillo served on the colonization committee; he also authored New Spain's colonization law of 1821, under auspices of which Moses Austin received his empresario contract.1 [End Page 243] Ramos Arizpe was neither the first nor last Catholic clergyman to take an interest in northern colonization. The bishop of Linares, Primo Feliciano Marín de Porras, whose diocese included Coahuila and Texas, had pitched his own colonization scheme to royal officials in 1806.2 Father José Antonio Gutiérrez de Lara, a Tamaulipas native and brother of the insurgent Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, sat on the colonization committee of Emperor Iturbide's Junta Instituyente, helping draft the Imperial Colonization Law of 1823. Later, he played a key role in designing Tamaulipas's state colonization program.3 San Antonio's parish priest, Refugio de la Garza, made his own plea for colonization of Texas as a delegate to the Constituent Congress of 1822, where he served on the colonization committee.4 In his efforts, he received vocal support from the Monterreybased Dominican insurgent, Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, who served on the same committee and proved an ardent colonization booster.5 What explains the decisive influence of Catholic clergymen in the advent of the colonization programs that reshaped Mexican Texas and ultimately the U.S.–Mexico borderlands? The question becomes more significant when one considers the common historiographical charge that the Mexican Church essentially abandoned Texas to the Protestant masses that came after 1820. Indeed, in the works of historians such as William Stuart Red, David Weber, and Howard Miller, Mexican Texas appears as a spiritual wilderness—an unchurched frontier forgotten by the diocesan hierarchy and mostly aloof from the crippling debates about Catholicism and nationhood then taking place in Mexico City.6 Even Carlos [End Page 244] E. Castañeda, whose monumental, Knights of Columbus-sponsored work Our Catholic Heritage in Texas concerns itself principally with writing the Catholic Church back into the familiar Texas narrative of "civilizing" conquerors taming a "savage" land, imagines the Mexican period as a garden of Gethsemane, where the Church "agonized" before rising again (albeit in frenchified form) under the Texas and U.S. flags.7 More recent scholars of Texas, when they are not actively reproducing this image of decline, tend to minimize the role of Catholicism in shaping the region's nineteenth-century trajectory.8 In the far northeast of Mexico, these accounts argue, regional priorities of shoring up the Comanche frontier and developing a cotton economy relegated spiritual concerns to the backseat and Anglo colonization was an essentially secular business; legal provisions for Catholic exclusivity were ignored by winking Mexican alcaldes and scheming Protestant newcomers alike. When historians have paid attention to the religious ramifications of colonization in northeastern Mexico, moreover, they have tended to see the latter as roughly synonymous with Protestantization—the issuing of colonization contracts to Anglo empresarios appears as either an act of divine providence or a devil's bargain, depending...

The French Church of Maastricht

Abstract The French Reformed church of Maastricht, founded in 1632 following the Dutch takeover of the city, was a geographically isolated institution within the Dutch Republic. This isolation was reinforced by the city’s unique status, which allowed the public exercise of Catholicism. Within this context, and situated next to the hostile Principality of Liège, the French church had to develop survival strategies and establish relations not only with the States-General and the Walloon synod, but also with the urban authorities and the Dutch Reformed church, in order to withstand the influence of Catholicism. Yet even though Maastricht was on the confessional and military front line—a place of passage for merchants, refugees, and Catholic clergymen—the French Protestant community survived the French occupation of 1673–1678 and managed to absorb the massive influx of Huguenot refugees from 1686 onwards.

Ethnolinguistic Nationalism and Other Political Contexts of Maironis

Widely acclaimed as the Lithuanian national poet, the Catholic clergyman Jonas Mačiulis-Maironis (1862–1932) in his canonical poems of the epoch of national revival expressed his romantic primordialist point of view that every nation has an inherent right to its independence that had been given by divine institution. Linguistic factors determined national identity in Eastern Europe of the late 19th century. Maironis as a follower of linguocentric nationalism modelled the conditions for the elite Lithuanian culture which would be significant at the European level. The longing for the so-called European virtues (universally based on Christian ethics) penetrated through all the poet’s world-view, therefore he was impressed by the diligence and activism of Western nations but did not support the ideas of social activism and individual liberties, opposed the ideas of secular philosophical trends, especially socialism and scientism. Eurocentrist motives in his rhetoric did not mean any challenge to the governing conservative Russian regime because they did not invoke opposition to the ideology of Pan-Slavism which was supported by the Tsarist ideologues. The poetical archetype of springtime awakening was related to the youthful activism of the “new” political nations of Eastern and Central Europe. Maironis was one of the first Lithuanian authors who openly criticized ideas of socialism and positivism; on the other hand, he provoked discussions of the enlightened group of the developing Lithuanian-speaking elite. He regarded the slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity as deceptive justification of populism and collective violence. Sceptically regarding parliamentary democracy, he emphasized the principles of Classical-Christian law and justice and the need for solidarity, consciousness and creativity. Maironis related the ideological dispute of conservative and radical trends to the decisive struggle of Christianity and atheism. He was a consistent and orthodox Catholic thinker, the opponent of any revolutionary upheavals; discussing social questions he emphasized that politicians should take into account doctrine of the Holy See on the obligations of Christians and principles of charity.

Decolonizing the Church/Decolonizing Language: Postcolonial Christianity, Language Ideologies, and the Morality of Teaching Vernacular Arabic (Darija) in Algeria

ABSTRACTIn the mid-20th century, as the global colonial order collapsed, language and education were two of the most affectively, politically, and economically challenging domains of decolonization efforts. Parler Algérien (Speak Algerian), an experimental method for the teaching and learning of Darija (Algerian vernacular Arabic), created by Catholic clergymen and women in the early 1970s, provides an illustration of an attempt to decolonize language learning in postcolonial Algeria. The Catholic creators of Parler Algérien assumed a stance of solidarity with the independent nation, an alignment that translated into the entextualization of a number of linguistic and non-linguistic features in the textbook. This ethnography of a Darija classroom examines the shifting language ideologies that mediate the text’s interpretation in the 21st century. I argue that the interdiscursive residues of Parler Algérien’s postcolonial context of production shape its uptake in the 21st century classroom, but not in the ways that the authors intended.

Fürstliche Prachtentfaltung in Abwesenheit des Herrschers. Bedeutung von Schloss und Hofstaat im Fürstbistum Osnabrück zur Regierungszeit Friedrichs von York (1764–1802) by Heinrich Schepers

Reviewed by: Fürstliche Prachtentfaltung in Abwesenheit des Herrschers. Bedeutung von Schloss und Hofstaat im Fürstbistum Osnabrück zur Regierungszeit Friedrichs von York (1764–1802)by Heinrich Schepers Andreas Oberdorf Fürstliche Prachtentfaltung in Abwesenheit des Herrschers. Bedeutung von Schloss und Hofstaat im Fürstbistum Osnabrück zur Regierungszeit Friedrichs von York (1764–1802). By Heinrich Schepers. [ Westfalen in der Vormoderne: Studien zur mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Landesgeschichte, Vol. 30.] (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2018. Pp. 348. €51,00 paperback. ISBN 978-3-402-15075-7.) The Peace of Westphalia not only ensured the consolidation of the state order, but also proved to be strong and sustainable for the future, strengthening the religious-political principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity in early-modern Europe. In this context, the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück in northwest Germany has played a remarkable role, also apart from the fact that it was the capital and seat of residence and became one of the two venues (besides Münster) for this peacemaking negotiation process in 1648. Since the Reformation era and in the long eighteenth century, the population of Osnabrück consisted of Catholics and Lutherans and was, already for that reason alone, a bi-denominational prince-bishopric. [End Page 579]Even more significantly, this confessional dualism had also a specific effect on the principles of princely succession. In order to ensure the religious-political balance of power, the prince-bishopric was ruled alternately, either by appointment of a Lutheran prince from the House of Hanover or by election of a Catholic clergyman through the Catholic members of the cathedral chapter. In both cases, however, the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück certainly underwent the same fate of being controlled in 'personal union' with other principalities and, as a result, in total absence of the respective ruler. This is precisely the point where historian Heinrich Schepers questions what strategies were used to maintain the dominance and power of an absent prince-bishop. Schepers specifically focuses on the reign of Frederick August, Duke of York and Albany (1764–1802), who was appointed as the prince-bishop of Osnabrück as an infant by his father George III, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, King of Great Britain and Ireland. Under the rule of Frederick, as Scheper explains and illustrates in detail, the display of princely splendor reached its climax with the reconstruction and redesign of the residence and garden as well as with the establishment of a princely court in Osnabrück. Fürstliche Prachtentfaltung in Abwesenheit des Herrschersprovides a well-researched manuscript collection and in-depth descriptions of the substantial changes between 1764 and 1791, offering also rich insights into the practices of representation and symbolic communication (ritual, ceremonial). However, Scheper's detailed interpretation of his findings sometimes appears as too superficial. Further questions need to be addressed when asking about the symbolic dimensions of princely splendor in the Age of Enlightenment: How did the residence, garden, and court represent Frederick's self-image as a "princeps" as well as an "episcopus"? 1Did Frederick even identify himself as a noble and Enlightened ruler? What was the role of religious tolerance in the visual and ceremonial culture, particularly against the bi-denominational constitutional background of the prince-bishopric? As Gerd Dethlefs has recently demonstrated in his concise study on the construction of the residence palace at Münster, an entirely Catholic prince-bishopric, analyzing the architecture, design, and decoration of Münster's residential palace allows historians to better understand the exercise and representation of politico-ecclesiastical rule. 2Despite these weaknesses, Schepers' explanations will certainly have several implications for research, especially into the cultural history of political thought and practice in early-modern Germany. [End Page 580] Andreas Oberdorf University of Münster Footnotes 1. Bettina Braun, Princeps und episcopus. Studien zur Funktion und zum Selbstverständnis der nordwestdeutschen Fürstbischöfe nach dem Westfälischen Frieden(Göttingen, 2013). 2. Gerd Dethlefs, "Sinnbild milder Herrschaft. Politische Ikonographie an der fürstbischöflichen Residenz zu Münster," in Katholische Aufklärung in Europa und Nordamerika, ed. Jürgen Overhoff and Andreas Oberdorf (Göttingen, 2019), 500–15. Copyright © 2019 The Catholic University...

Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania: Allies on the Home Front, 1944–1945 by Flavio G. Conti and Alan R. Perry

Reviewed by: Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania: Allies on the Home Front, 1944–1945 by Flavio G. Conti and Alan R. Perry Maddalena Marinari Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania: Allies on the Home Front, 1944–1945. By Flavio G. Conti and Alan R. Perry. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016. 312 pp. $95.00. Drawing on a rich body of memoirs, letters, diaries, and oral histories in the United States and Italy, Flavio G. Conti and Alan R. Perry tell the story of a group of Italian prisoners of war at the Letterkenny Army Depot near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania during World War II. The book not only uncovers the little-known history behind the relocation of prisoners of war to the United States during the conflict, but it also focuses on an even more neglected aspect of this history. The 1,200 Italian POWs at the center of the book pledged allegiance to the United States after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943 and collaborated with U.S. authorities. While the post-fascist Italian government only offered the POWs ambiguous directives, which left them on their own to decide whether to collaborate, the U.S. government gladly accepted the POWs’ collaboration as it helped alleviate the chronic manpower shortage the country faced during the war. The book opens with a detailed overview of how U.S. troops captured many of the Italian POWs during the Tunisian Campaign in the spring of 1943 and why they decided to send around fifty thousand of them to the United States. Weaved throughout this first section of the book are the personal stories of some of the POWs who would eventually end up at Letterkenny. Built, ironically, by two Italian American construction firms, Letterkenny came to host the largest number of Italian POWs in the United States. Once there, they ordered, stocked, repaired, and shipped military goods, munitions, and equipment to U.S. troops on the warfront. Despite the meager salary they received and the psychological struggles many of them faced, Italian collaborators at Letterkenny enjoyed a fairly comfortable life. Indeed, according to the authors, they experienced living conditions that were far better than in the Italian army and “more generally than in Italian society itself” (99). Italian POWs at Letterkenny received visits from Italian American relatives, acquaintances, or members of the community who wanted to [End Page 73] show support, regularly saw Catholic clergymen who took care of their spiritual needs, and had several opportunities to leave the camp to visit places nearby or go to the movies. Their life at the camp took a turn for the worse only when locals found out about their presence, which the War Department had intentionally hid from the public, and complained that authorities treated them too well for being prisoners of war. Luckily for them, many of the resulting changes arrived shortly before they returned to Italy. The last section of the book focuses on the challenges Italian collaborators faced when that occured. In addition to the shock of adjusting to a country devastated by the war, many of them struggled to deal with the animosity they received from other Italians who considered them traitors. These challenges amplified their positive memories of their experience in the United States and motivated many of them to try to return to the United States. While Conti and Perry offer an important contribution to our understanding of a critical facet of the American experience during World War II, the authors could have engaged more systematically with the broader historiography on POWs and the home front during the war. It would have been helpful, for example, to place the story of Italian POWs turned collaborators within the broader experience of POWs to discuss what factors accounted for the similarities and differences. For example, what role did race or assumptions about Italians play into how they were treated? On the eve of lifting restrictions on Italian Americans in the United States as enemy aliens, for example, President Roosevelt famously said that Italian Americans were harmless because “they were a bunch of opera singers.” Moreover, Italian Americans, marked as undesirable in the 1924 Immigration Act, were...

Le dictionnaire comme champ de lutte idéologique : les idées de religion naturelle et de religion universelle dans les dictionnaires du siècle des lumières 1764–1775

THE DICTIONARY AS AN IDEOLOGICAL BATTLEFIELD: NATURAL RELIGION AND UNIVERSAL RELIGION IDEAS IN THE DICTIONARIES OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 1764–1775 The article is a reflection on the dictionary as an ideological battleground illustrated with the example of thematic dictionaries or encyclopedias of the Age of Enlightenment. The perspective of the study is philosophical and religious, centred on the ideas of natural and universal religion as elements of conflicting worldviews. We will discuss the controversy surrounding the Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire, who was attacked by Catholic clergymen such as Chaudon, Paulian, François or Nonnotte.

Retoryczny aspekt polemiki religijnej z perspektywy listu Stanisława Hozjusza do Marcina Kromera z 15 kwietnia 1551 roku

The aim of this paper is to show how a 16th-century Catholic clergyman would polemicize in the matter of religion with a Lutheran, whom he tried to convince to abandon erroneous (in his opinion) teachings. The author attempts to demonstrate the means and devices which Hozjusz employed for that purpose, and show the image of a heretic and a defender of faith conveyed in the letter to Marcin Kromer dated 15 of April 1551.

Revolutionary Priest: Pascal Mardel of Grenada

Fédon’s Rebellion in Grenada (1795–96) was the most spectacular antislavery, anticolonial, proto-nationalist struggle in the British Caribbean during the “Age of Revolution” (1770–1830). Although most published works cite the Roman Catholic-Protestant rivalry as a major underlying cause of the rebellion, the relationship of its religious leadership to the uprising has been neglected. This article discusses the role of Pascal Mardel, the only known Roman Catholic clergyman to take active part in the rebellion led by Julien Fédon and face execution for his activities.

The Black Mass as Play: Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out

The Black Mass as Play: Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out

Legal conflicts of lay nobles with catholic clergymen in 18th century Vilnius

Tiriant teisinius bajorų pasauliečių ir katalikų dvasininkų bei vienuolių konfliktus XVII a. Vilniuje aiškėja, kad tokių bylų būta nemažai. Vilniaus pavieto pilies ir žemės teismų, Lietuvos metrikos asesorių teismo, Lietuvos iždo tribunolo bylų medžiaga suteikia nemažai informacijos apie ekonominius finansinius ir smurtinius konfliktus Vilniaus erdvėje. Ekonominiai finansiniai konfliktai dažniausiai kildavo dėl mokesčių, prekybos, muitų Vilniuje tarp bajorų pasauliečių ir dvasininkų bei vienuolių. Kita nemaža bylų grupė – konfliktai dėl skolų negrąžinimo. Buvo konfliktų ir dėl nuosavybės, dėl statant padarytų nuostolių, testamentų, bet jie nebuvo dažni. Iš smurtinių konfliktų galima išskirti kūno sužalojimo, nelegalaus įkalinimo, miesto namų užpuolimo ir plėšimo. Nors gausiausi buvo kūno sužalojimo nusikaltimai, proporcingai (palyginti su kitais Vilniaus paviete įvykusiais bajorų nusikaltimais) aiškėja, kad jie buvo retesni nei tokie mažai paplitę nusikaltimai kaip miesto namų užpuolimai. Straipsnyje analizuojama medžiaga neleidžia spręsti apie kažkokius sisteminius konfliktus tarp dviejų visuomenės sluoksnių, tai buvo daugiau tik asmeniniai, kai kada instituciniai konfliktai. Vertinant bylų informaciją galima teigti, kad sprendžiant smurtinius ir nesmurtinius konfliktus tarp bajorų pasauliečių bei katalikų dvasininkų Vilniuje juntamas tam tikras lygiavertiškumas. Bajorai pasauliečiai bei dvasininkai buvo iš esmės vieno luomo atstovai. Nors jų statusas ir priklausymas institucijoms buvo skirtingas, bet interesai, erdvė, padėtis visuomenėje, galimybės per teisminį procesą, net gyvenimo būdas buvo iš esmės tapatūs. Dažnai dvasininkai atstovavo būtent savo giminės, o ne savo visuomeninio sluoksnio interesams.