Catholic Clerics Research Articles

Corresponding the “Agenda” of Zamość Council (1715–1720): Apostolic Nuncio, Catholic Clerics, and Uniate Hierarchs

The paper studies the correspondence from the papal archives on the eve of the Zamość Council 1720. Research on corresponding raises the question of tensions between Latin and Uniates hierarchs on the eve of the council and in which way these debates were “moderated” from Rome by the apostolic nuncio. The article concentrates on the so-called Memorial of Apostolic Nuncio Girolamo Grimaldi prepared already in 1716. After that research analysed a “campaign” in May-June 1720 organized by Apostolic Nuncio to gather information about the affairs of the Ruthenian Uniates to update the council’s agenda. The group of informants included the rector of Papal College in Lviv, Stefano Trombetti, and Latin Archbishop of Lviv Jan Skarbek. Girolamo Grimaldi also sent letters to the Uniate bishops (Yosyf Levytskyi and Atanasiy Sheptytskyi) each of them responded to the apostolic nuncio, sharing their propositions regarding the agenda of the planned council of the Kyivan Uniate Metropolitanate.

Unions, Strikes, Shaw (Unions, Strikes, Shaw: “The Capitalism of the Proletariat.”)

Unions, Strikes, Shaw (Unions, Strikes, Shaw: “The Capitalism of the Proletariat.”)

The Polish adaptation of the Francis Psychological Type and Emotional Temperament Scales (FPTETS): an overview of recent research

ABSTRACT The present paper makes accessible to an English-speaking readership recent research published in Polish designed to provide and to test a Polish adaptation of the Francis Psychological Type Scales (FPTS) and the Francis Psychological Type and Emotional Temperament Scales (FPTETS). The process of development involved studies reported among 53 Catholic clerics, 87 Catholic clerics, 119 university students, 134 university students, 240 final grade secondary school students, 133 university students, and 75 university students. The four-factor structure of the FPTS was recovered by confirmatory factor analysis, with 10 items loading on each factor, and producing the following Cronbach alpha coefficients: .81 for Extraversion vs. Introversion, .66 for Sensing vs. Intuition, .77 for Thinking vs. Feeling, and .80 for Judging vs. Perceiving. For the additional ten-item scale of Emotional Temperament (Volatile vs. Calm), α = .75.

Une approche anthropologique de l’histoire des Juifs d’Alsace et de Lorraine : entretien avec Freddy Raphael

The Alsatian sociologist Freddy Raphael gave an interview in November 2020 to two Master’s students as part of a collective investigation into the institutionalization of Jewish studies in France under the direction of Laura Hobson Faure at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. Born in 1936 in Colmar, Alsace, Freddy Raphael came from a Jewish family of modest means. During the Second World War, when his father was imprisoned in a camp for prisoners of war in Upper Silesia, he fled Alsace with his mother and went to the center of France, where he was hidden, at times, by Catholic clerics. Trained in English language studies, he became a professor of sociology at the Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg in 1967. He was the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences for fifteen years and, in addition, the scientific director of the Revue des Sciences sociales until 2016. He also directed the Sociology of European Culture laboratory. He has published numerous research works, mainly on the history and sociology of Judaism. In this interview, he discusses his biographical and academic career and his vision of transmission through teaching and research.

Profaning the Sacred: The Unorthodox Financial Activities of Catholic Clerics During the Napoleonic Period, 1796–1814

This article reveals for the first time how Catholic clerics survived financially during the Napoleonic period in Italy (1796–1814). Despite the very rich, 200-year historiography on one of the Church's most critical periods, there is almost nothing on how religious clerics coped at this time. Their institutions had been despoiled by the French, often in collaboration with locals, negating traditional forms of clerical income, such as alms or rental income from non-ecclesiastical properties. This caused clerics to search out unorthodox – at times, non-canonical – ways of eking out a living, either for themselves, their religious communities or both, as such distinctions were often blurred. Masses were monetized and traded; ecclesiastical paraphernalia composed of precious metals were smelted and commodified, and relics were sold for profit. The uncovering of these controversial acts by men who in normal times were upstanding reveals the desperation of the times and provides insight into the rich discussion on determining the degrees of separation (and overlap) between the sacred and profane.

The Making of a Marian Geography of Grace for Greek Catholics in the Polish Crownlands of the 17th–18th Centuries

This article explores the ways in which the newly founded and highly contested Christian confession of the Greek Catholics or Uniates employed strategies of mass mobilization to establish and maintain their position within a contested confessional terrain. The Greek Catholic clerics, above all monks of the Basilian order fostered an active policy of acquiring, founding and promoting Marian places of grace in order to create and invigorate a sense of belonging among their flock. The article argues that folk ideological notions concerning the spatial and physical conditions for the working of miracles were seized upon by the Greek Catholic faithful to establish a mental map of grace of their own. Especially, the Basilian order took particular care to organize mass events (annual pilgrimages, coronation celebrations for miraculous images) and promote Marian devotion through miracle reports and icon songs in an attempt to define what it means to be a Greek Catholic in terms of sacred territoriality.

Sexual Abuse of Minors in the Area of Responsibility of the Catholic Church: Institutional Specifics

From 2014 to 2018, an interdisciplinary consortium of scientists investigated the extent and possible causes of the sexual abuse of children in the area of responsibility of the Catholic Church in Germany. The study bears the acronym MHG (Mannheim / Heidelberg/Gießen) after the locations of the participating universities. The personnel file analysis identified 1670 Catholic clerics accused of sexual abuse of minors for the period from 1946 to 2014. For the Catholic Church specific conditions that favour the sexual abuse of minors could be identified. A comparison of criminal records of accused clerics and perpetrators from other institutional contexts has been carried out. Sexual offenses of priests are severe and the number of persons affected per convicted person is not less than that of perpetrators in other institutions; the duration of abuse by Catholic clerics is even significantly longer. Persons affected by sexual abuse in the context of the Catholic Church are significantly more often male. The Catholic Church has tried more extensively than other institutions to cover up accusations of sexual abuse of children or young people by clerics. Prevention concepts must take greater account of the specific conditions of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Clericalism Contributes to Religious, Spiritual, and Behavioral Struggles among Catholic Priests

The Roman Catholic Church has received a remarkable amount of press attention regarding clerical perpetrated sexual abuse with child victims as well as other clerical behavioral scandals in recent years. Much has been reported in both the popular and professional press about the various aspects and elements of priestly formation and ministry that might contribute to behavioral problems among clerics. Additionally, much has also been written and discussed about the challenging religious, spiritual, and behavioral struggles among clerics when clerical misbehavior significantly contradicts expected behavior in terms of sexual, behavioral, and relational ethics. Since Catholic priests are dedicated to chastity, obedience, and, among religious order clerics, poverty, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike expect and demand highly virtuous behavior from these men that they believe should be beyond reproach. Clericalism contributes to the gap between expected and actual behavior and creates an environment and culture where problem behavior and struggles are too often ignored. This article seeks to unpack some of the challenging dynamics of clericalism and demonstrate how it negatively contributes to religious, spiritual, moral, and behavioral struggles among Catholic clerics.

Indecent Theology: Sex and Female Heresy in Counter-Reformation Spain

In 1636, the Spanish Inquisition tried María de la Cruz for heresy and having made a pact with the devil. Examination of her trial in light of information about sexual misconduct on the part of Catholic clerics, however, reveals that what drove María to the emotional and behavioral extremes that her accusers described was neither heresy nor the devil the authorities had in mind. Theologians who evaluated her case and also met with María discerned what those who only read the accusations against her were unable to know: María's devils were human men taking advantage of a poor, illiterate woman for sex.

Un tentativo fallito di pacificazione religiosa. Alcuni aspetti della trasmissione dell’invito al Concilio Vaticano I ai vescovi greco-ortodossi dell’Impero Ottomano e del Regno Ellenico

In this paper we present the invitation to participate in the First Vatican Council, addressed to the Greek Orthodox bishops of the Ottoman Empire (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Thrace, Bulgaria, Romania, Anatolia, Cyprus and Crete, Middle East, Egypt) and the Kingdom of Greece. The study focuses specially on the Orthodox bishops reached by the invitation, through visits by Catholic clerics or through postal expeditions. The sources used are the correspondence between the Catholic bishops and apostolic vicars of these areas and the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, which are found in the archive of this Congregation and partly in the historical work on the First Vatican Council by Eugenio Cecconi (published between 1872 and 1879). We try to identify the reasons of the failure of this initiative, as well as the attitudes and reactions of the Catholic prelates in charge of the operation with regard to the Roman directives.

The Witch-cleric Stereotype in a Seventeenth-Century Lutheran Context*

Abstract This article enhances our understanding of the development and dynamism of early modern witch stereotypes by focusing on the stereotype of the witch-cleric, the Christian minister imagined by early modern people as working for the devil instead of God, baptizing people into witchcraft, working harmful magic and even officiating at witches’ gatherings. I show how this stereotype first developed in relation to Catholic clerics in demonology, print culture and witch-trials, then examine its emergence in relation to Protestant clerics in Germany and beyond, using case studies of pastors from the Lutheran territory of Rothenburg ob der Tauber from 1639 and 1692 to explore these ideas in detail. I also offer a broader comparison of beliefs about Protestant witch-clerics and their susceptibility to formal prosecution with their Catholic counterparts in early modern Germany, showing that cases involving Protestant witch-clerics were part of a cross-confessional phenomenon that is best understood in a comparative, Europe-wide perspective. In addition to showing how the witch-cleric stereotype changed over time and spread geographically, I conclude by arguing that three distinct variants of this stereotype had emerged by the seventeenth century: the Catholic ‘witch-priest’ and Protestant ‘witch-pastor’ (who were supposedly witches themselves) and the overzealous clerical ‘witch-master’, who was thought to do the devil’s work by helping persecute innocent people for witchcraft. Despite these stereotypes, however, relatively few clerics of either confession were tried and executed as witches; overall, patriarchy worked to protect men of the cloth from the worst excesses of witch persecution.

DURRES CONGRESS EXPRESSION OF ALBANIA'S POLITICAL MATURITY

DURRES CONGRESS EXPRESSION OF ALBANIA'S POLITICAL MATURITY

Visionary Spenser and the Poetics of Early Modern Platonism. Kenneth Borris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. viii+250.

<i>Visionary Spenser and the Poetics of Early Modern Platonism</i>. Kenneth Borris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. viii+250.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Beliefs of Catholic Clerics' Regarding Mental Health in Lebanon.

Arabic speakers rarely seek the help of professional mental health providers while they heavily rely on religious leaders. However, little is known about the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of clerics regarding mental illness. A standardized questionnaire was administered to 115 Christian religious men. Clerics appeared to have an informed, scientifically based understanding of the causes of mental disorders and of the importance of medications in effective treatment. However, several stigmatizing attitudes were identified. Contact with the patients significantly reduced the discrimination. Fear of the unpredictable highlights the need to develop and implement targeted approaches that outreach clergy.

The Politics of Prayer: White American Catholicism and “Negro” Sainthood

ABSTRACTThis article interrogates the way in which Western European and American Catholic clerics, theologians, and writers sought to use both prayer and the memory of an Afro-Hispanic holy man, Saint Martín de Porres, as a resource for converting African Americans to Catholicism in the twentieth century. It demonstrates how intellectuals and organizers within the Catholic Church appealed to traditional notions of the sacred and popular ideas about race in the formation of religious ritual.

Ailing of AIDS and unaided: a critical-historical review of HIV testing and “spaces” of disclosure for Catholic clerics and religious in South Africa during the 1990s

As was the case with the larger South African society during the 1990s, the Catholic Church was not without error in the manner in which it dealt with HIV and AIDS. Whereas the church was involved in activism for the rights of People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) on the outside, it ironically ignored, arguably even muted, voices of PLWHA within its inner ranks, especially the priests, religious, and candidates for spiritual formation and vocation at the seminaries. Sadly, HIV testing is intricately connected to the disclosure of HIV positive status for Catholic clerics and religious on account of the vow to celibacy. An HIV positive test result presents both a health and a moral dilemma for the church. So sensitive was the issue that the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops’ Conference debated on it in the entire 1990s, and abandoned it inconclusively. Meanwhile, HIV positive priests agonised in silence and the religious in convents would only confess their status on death beds due to foreseen hostilities by their peers and superiors. Based on oral interviews and archival materials, such as correspondence letters and minutes, the article is a critical-historical review of how the Catholic Church handled HIV testing and disclosure within its inner ranks during the 1990s. It is argued that, as was the case of condom use in HIV prevention, the Catholic Church struggled throughout the 1990s to accept that priesthood and religious life was not immune to the social challenge of HIV and AIDS and thereby failed to accept and care for HIV positive priests and religious.

AIDS PROPHETS IN A WOUNDED COUNTRY: A MEMOIR OF TWO CATHOLIC CLERICS INVOLVED IN RESPONDING TO AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA (1984–1990)

The alliance between faith and health in responding to a looming AIDS crisis in South Africa was exemplified in the collaborative work of two Catholic clerics and three nurses. Whereas their work was often eclipsed by the struggle for independence, Archbishop Denis Hurley and Father Ted Rogers envisioned a looming AIDS catastrophe and started warning, training and supporting societies with relevant strategies to minimise its impact as early as 1984. This article analyses their response to the AIDS crisis as witnessed by these nurses and two other contemporary clerics. Archival materials such as the Southern Cross magazine, plenary minutes of the South African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC), and correspondence letters shed more light on their difficult operating context.

Staatsgewalt und religiöse Gemeinschaften im Kaliningrader Gebiet in der Phase des Spätstalinismus (1945–1953)

Summary After 1945, more than 100,000 Germans remained in the Kaliningrad region, in the north of Eastern Prussia under Soviet rule. The new authorities allowed the Evangelical and Catholic clerics to continue their work and accepted them as intermediaries between the authorities and the German population. Finally, in 1947, pressure was placed on them to register their communities on the basis of the Soviet legislation. This article, which mainly relies upon unpublished documents from Russian archives, complements the memoirs of Pastor Hugo Linck. The documents confirm how some individuals within the authorities at Kaliningrad and Moscow supported the desire of believers among the new settlers to register Orthodox communities in the Kaliningrad Region. However, under pressure from the Communist Party, such plans were soon strictly suppressed. Following the end of Evangelical and Catholic Church life in the Kaliningrad Region, due to the deportation of the last Germans in 1948, this was the only Soviet territory without any legal religious communities for a long period. In 1967, the Evangelical Christians-Baptists were the first to succeed in registering their community. The first Orthodox community was only legalized in the Perestroika era.

Shining the Spotlight on Child Sexual Abuse

Earlier this year, the film Spotlight won the Academy Award (Oscars) for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Spotlight tells the story of a group of journalists at The Boston Globe who break the story of the clerical abuse of hundreds of children by over 200 Catholic priests in the Boston area in 2002. It was the first major reporting of abuse by Catholic clerics in the US and shocked the nation, indeed the world, with the breadth of abuse and the silencing of victims and their families by the Church and their lawyers. I saw the film in Australia at a local cinema in Newcastle, New South Wales. As a social researcher writing on the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission and the NSW Special Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, I wasn’t surprised that I recognised in the small audience a number of survivors, families and supporters of victims and Catholic community members. I wasn’t surprised that it was a small number; this is a difficult film to watch about a subject most people do not want to think about. The Royal Commission into institutional child abuse was set up in 2013 after years of work by survivors and supporters to uncover abuse across institutions including the Catholic Church. Despite knowing much of the literature in the field and having attended many sessions at the Royal Commission, it came as a shock when the last screen shots listed the number of American cities affected by clerical abuse and cities around the world. The list runs into the hundreds and in Australia includes Newcastle, Wollongong, Adelaide, Ballarat and Melbourne. People around me gasped as we recognised Newcastle on the list: somehow seeing our small city on the big screen bought home the reality of this crisis. Clerical sexual abuse is not a small issue on the periphery of social maladjustment. It’s a major crisis of institutional abuse of power that has affected millions of people across the globe.

The Lives of Priests

The Lives of Priests John C. Seitz15 One of the lamentations that inevitably and justifiably arises when instances of clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up are exposed is some version of the question “what kind of person could do such a thing?!” There is more than mourning and protest in this question; there is also deep historical wisdom in it. In this brief essay, I want to suggest different ways that the question “what kind of person?” can become a spur to a specific line of historical inquiry, one that includes studies of sexual abuse and cover-up (which will continue to call out for historical investigation), but also reaches beyond that topic and into other questions about the Catholic past. No longer rhetorical lament or protest, and no longer the sole province of psychologists, the question in historians’ hands can be literal and specific: how are priestly lives made and unmade in particular places and times? The crisis – which brought Catholic clerics to our attention in a particularly intense way – alerts us to certain gaps in our understanding, in particular about the everyday lives and the emotional and moral worlds of parish priests. For sure priests have been in our histories, but they have been there with less texture and full humanity than ideal. This has been a gap in some of my own scholarship, and so I feel this challenge acutely. In addition to scores of priestly biographies and autobiographies, Leslie Tentler, James Fisher, Michael Pasquier and others have produced recent cultural and social histories of priests. These stand as refreshing exceptions to a tendency toward flattening or even ignoring priests, especially priests’ daily lives.16 In part with the inspiration (and also heeding the warnings) of these scholarly forerunners, the crisis has prompted me to turn my [End Page 18] attention to priests, and in particular the contexts and contours of their “formation.” Over the past few years I have been spending much of my research time (such as it is) with priests and former priests from the Archdiocese of Boston. My conversations with these men, all of whom were in the seminary during the mid-twentieth century, have pressed upon me the urgency of moving from the simple observation (which has not always been as obvious as it might seem) that “priests are people” toward a posture of historical responsiveness to that affirmation. That means discovering what priestly personhood looked like in different places and times. There will be several challenges along the way. Perhaps the most serious difficulty has to do with sources and methods. Archives orient us quite often toward institutional and away from personal narratives. They offer wonderful avenues for “following the money” but frequently only rough side roads and dead ends in the pursuit of stories about everyday life and the emotional contours of priestly experience. And our discipline too may unwittingly discourage us from braving those rough historical paths: as an editor of a book series on Catholic practice in the U.S. I have learned that biographies – one kind of writing that might help us see the textures of everyday priestly experience – are a tough sell. I agree that narrow biographies are not the answer, but I am enthusiastic about the possibility of works that combine intimate portraits of priests with broader attentiveness to the social, theological, and cultural forces that produce the emotional communities in which priests of various eras and geographies have traveled. The idea of discerning and mapping “emotional communities,” a phrase I borrow from medieval historian Barbara Rosenswein, strikes the right balance between intimate personal stories that can shed light on things like desire, joy, fear, love, and anger and inquiries into the ways the various worlds people live in both shape and respond to those feelings.17 This may mean more focused studies precede broader synthetic evaluations. We may need to find ways creatively to pair less traditional historical sources – novels, spaces, objects – with more traditional sources such as parish records and diocesan correspondence. We may also want to open the pathway to more creative uses of comparison: can conversations and ethnography with contemporary priests shed light on the history of the priesthood...