Catholic Milieu Research Articles

Inculturation at Home: The Belgian Catholic Project for Chinese Students (1920–1930s)

Initiated by Vincent Lebbe in 1920, the Belgian Catholic project for Chinese students was a harbinger of inculturation. Contrary to the impression that the Catholic Church reacted slowly to the demand of indigenisation in the early twentieth century, this article demonstrates that a project specifically designed for Chinese students had already been prepared for this purpose back in Belgium. In other words, through the fostering of intercultural understanding and personal contacts between students abroad and home communities, the Belgian Catholic project became part of the Leuven school’s missiological initiative, which was meant to realise Church implantation in mission countries. In order to maximise the contacts between young Chinese intellectuals and the Belgian Catholic milieu, Lebbe and his associates strategically anchored their cause into the allocation of the Sino-Belgian Indemnity Scholarship, despite stiff competition. The Catholic efforts to encourage a sense of unity evoked sympathy in Belgian society towards China, and in time contributed to charitable support for war victims at the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War. Though originally driven by evangelical purposes and ideological challenges, the spirit of inculturation gave rise to an awareness of human solidarity, a legacy worthy of a true apostolate.

Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction and Politics in West Germany, 1949–1957

Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction and Politics in West Germany, 1949–1957

Reading through the Other’s Eyes: The Mystical Foundations of Interreligious Dialogue in Chiara Lubich’s Paradise ‘49

The life and spirituality of Chiara Lubich (1920–2008), the founder of the Focolare Movement, is marked by a particular mystical experience in the years 1949 and 1950, which found expression in a text entitled Paradise ‘49. In this mystical imprint—according to the thesis of the following paper—the explanation can be found for the fact that Lubich, starting from a traditionally Catholic milieu, followed a path that brought her into dialogue with representatives of all world religions. In particular, phrases with “to live” and “to be” are examined, which point to an existential understanding of religious truth. Dialogue does not mean relativizing one’s own truth, but leads to a deeper understanding.

Kontakte des Apostolischen Nuntius in Prag zum tschechischen katholischen Milieu während des Pontifikates von Papst Pius XI.

This study deals with the contacts between the Apostolic Nuncio in Prague and the Czech Catholic milieu during the pontificate of Pope Pius XI (1922–1939). The tensions in the diplomatic relationships between Czechoslovakia and the Vatican reflect the dynamics of the political-religious relationships in Central Europe and the frequent conflicts that accompanied the actions of both sides. The study is primarily based on materials from the Vatican Apostolic Archives in Rome, the Austrian State Archives in Vienna, the Political Archives of the Foreign Office in Berlin, the Masaryk Archives in Prague and the archives of the Foreign Office of the Czech Republic, also in Prague. At the heart of the investigation are the Apostolic Nuncios in Prague, Clemente Micara, Francesco Marmaggi, Pietro Ciriaci and Saverio Ritter The dramatic end of their diplomatic mission affected the mutual relationship between the Vatican and Czechoslovakia and also had an effect on the political and religious milieu in the first Czech Republic.

Traditionalism and the Far Right in Argentina

ABSTRACT The Traditionalism of the French esoteric philosopher René Guénon and the Italian esoteric philosopher Julius Evola is important for the Far Right. Guénon’s Traditionalism is primarily religious, but has significant political implications, while Evola’s Traditionalism is primarily political, though retaining its religious grounding. It has been important for the Far Right in Europe, Russia, and North America. As this article shows, Traditionalism has also been important in Argentina, but in ways that differ from patterns observed elsewhere. This article distinguishes three phases in the Argentinian reception of Traditionalism, starting in the 1920s. Guénon was first received in the Argentinian ‘integralist’ Catholic milieu along with other anti-modernists like Jacques Maritain and Nikolai Berdyaev, and then at the Seminary of Paraná in the aftermath of the Tacuara movement. This is remarkable, as elsewhere it is Evola who has a political impact, not Guénon, and Guénon, who dismissed the Catholic Church, is generally ignored by Catholics. During a third phase, following global trends, Evola replaced Guénon, but in more marginal circles. These three phases show the importance of the interaction between transnational influences and national conditions, in this case the unusual position of the Catholic Church in Argentinian political life.

National, Regional, or Just Catholic?—Dilemmas of Church Art in a German–Polish Borderland. Upper Silesia, 1903–1953

The rise of nationalism threatened the integrity of the Catholic milieu in borderlands such as Prussian Upper Silesia. Facing this challenge, the ecclesiastical elite developed various strategies. This article presents interpretations of sacred art works from the first half of the 20th century, which reveal different approaches to national discourses expressed in iconographic programs. The spectrum of attitudes includes indifference, active counteraction to the progress of nationalism by promoting a different paradigm of building temporal imagined communities, acceptance of nationalistic metaphysics, which assumes the division of humanity into nations endowed with a unique personality, and a synthesis of Catholicism and nationalism, in which national loyalties are considered a Christian duty. The last position proved particularly expansive. Based on the primordialist concept of the nation and the historiosophical concept of Poland as a bulwark of Christianity, the Catholic-national ideology gained popularity among the pro-Polish clergy in the inter-war period. This was reflected in Church art works, which were to present Catholicism as the unchanging essence of the nation and the destiny of the latter resulting from God’s will. This strategy was designed to incorporate Catholic Slavophones into the national community. The adoption of a different concept of the nation by the pro-German priests associated with the Centre Party—with a stronger emphasis on the subjective criteria of national belonging—resulted in greater restraint in expressing national contents in sacred spaces.

Engines of Tyranny

This article considers the sermons preached by royal chaplains at the court of James II and the organisation of the chapel royal by James as a Catholic organisation. In doing so, it addresses the question of where James’s assurance and certainty came from that he was ruling as God wished him to do. The evidence presented here is that James organised his Catholic chapel royal to be a conscious source of guidance and support. His chaplains reciprocated by addressing him as a Catholic king whose duty was to bring to heel a recalcitrant and stubborn people. His chaplains used historical precedent and theological argument to press on James his determination to bring his Protestant subjects to obedience. This is a study of the Catholic milieu of James’s court and of the theological impetus behind his rule.

German Catholicism at War, 1939–1945 by Thomas Brodie

Reviewed by: German Catholicism at War, 1939–1945 by Thomas Brodie Michael E. O'Sullivan German Catholicism at War, 1939–1945. By Thomas Brodie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xiii + 275. Cloth $85.00. ISBN 978-0198827023. Thomas Brodie's German Catholicism at War, 1939-1945 contributes admirably to the voluminous literature about the relationship between National Socialism and Catholicism. The book establishes its originality through a commitment to social history and a chronological focus on the war years, which have surprisingly been left out of most other academic studies on the theme. Applying a similar approach to that of Thomas Breuer in Verordneter Wandel? (1992), a study of Bavarian Catholics, Brodie shares evidence about how the Catholic community responded to the important events of the war in the church strongholds of the Rhineland and Westphalia. This monograph advances three major arguments. First, Brodie contends that fractures emerged during the war between bishops, priests, and the laity in a region with a previously cohesive confessional subculture. Furthermore, he shows that despite examples of regime disapproval, no significant element of the church offered [End Page 422] extended opposition to Nazism despite the growing rift between congregants and their spiritual leaders about how to react to the war. Finally, Brodie demonstrates how the Catholic milieu possessed very fluid boundaries, especially regarding National Socialist ideology. Many Catholics mixed their religious identity with the symbols, rhetoric, and ideology of the Third Reich. Throughout most of the book, Brodie examines the attitudes of bishops in western Germany, including Joseph Schulte of Cologne, Clemens August von Galen of Münster, and Josef Frings of Cologne, and then analyzes the sometimes cacophonous public reaction to them. Schulte, like many clergy, greeted the outbreak of war with much more apprehension than had been the case in 1914. Church leadership remained particularly unenthusiastic about the Non-Aggression Pact that preceded the invasion of Poland, given their anticommunism. Although this stance created discord with their followers, bishops and clergy aligned with their coreligionists in passivity about German brutality toward Polish Catholics, in largely accepting the National Socialist othering of eastern Europeans, and in harboring excitement about the fall of France. Despite these points of convergence, Rhineland and Westphalian Catholics reacted positively to Karl Adam's theological writings that attacked the hierarchy and called for more coherence between Nazi racial ideology and religious teaching. Here, Brodie adds to our understanding of how younger Catholics, including some clergy, viewed the traditional nationalism of their religious shepherds as outdated in comparison with that of their fascist political leaders. One of Brodie's contributions includes his treatment of von Galen's famous sermons of protest in the summer of 1941. While reliant on document collections by von Galen defender Joachim Kuropka and conversely Beth A. Griech-Polelle's critical Bishop von Galen (2002), Brodie adds to this debate by exploring public responsiveness with the objective distance needed for the emotional debate about the churchman's legacy. Confirming that these sermons indeed disrupted the regime at a sensitive time, the book also shows how von Galen's popularity emanated from the rhetoric of German nationalism in his critique. The limited scope of this protest enhanced its appeal with those who agreed with the criticism without questioning the dictatorship's legitimacy. Nonetheless, the response became "contested and divided" (85) because even this constrained dissent threatened the morale of the home front. In the end, von Galen accommodated the regime and aligned himself with the more cautious Frings in silence about the resumption of the T-4 killings and the mass murder of the Jews on the eastern front. The latter chapters of the book argue that the chasm between church leaders and the laity grew due to the abstract neoscholasticism that influenced formal public declarations about the impact of war. Frings particularly seemed out of touch in his concern about threats to hierarchical authority caused by the Allied bombing campaigns, even encouraging housekeepers not to eat with priests in the midst of disorder [End Page 423] caused by war destruction (124). While bishops warned followers that bombs were punishment for the sins of secular modernity and threatened class structures and sexual mores, many people young...

THE CONTRIBUTION OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION TO THE PROMOTION OF (INTERRELIGIOUS) DIALOGUE

In the introduction the author of the article (lecture) revives the issue of the importance of dialogue and points to the growing complexity of challenges facing dialogue, and in particular interreligious dialogue, in the contemporary society. The article focuses on several important issues underlying interreligious dialogue. Thus, in the introductory part, the author emphasizes some important features of dialogue and outlines important assumptions for its functioning. She observes dialogue from the anthropological, theological and religious point of view. Further on, she identifies the specificity of religious dialogue and describes the important levels at which interreligious dialogue is realized. As the author comes from the Catholic milieu, she analyzes the starting points of interreligious dialogue from the perspective of Catholic Church. In doing so, she particularly appreciates the views and teachings on dialogue of the previous few popes: from Pope Paul VI to the current Pope Francis. The author considers culture as a place for dialogue. Therefore, she points to some of the challenges of contemporary culture in relation to dialogue. In a cultural environment, school and education in general play an important role in terms of dialogue promotion. In regard to interreligious dialogue, the privileged role in its promoting is certainly performed by religious education. She sees religious education as a link or bridge between culture and religious tradition. The last section of the article lists some areas that can and should be promoted in religious education, regardless of which religion in taught. It is first and foremost a commitment to a holistic vision of a person, promotion of the meaning of human life, the responsibility for others, and promotion of dialogue between religion and mind. When it comes to interreligious dialogue, the author believes that it should not be reduced to an optional choice but should be perceived as an imperative obliging all people.

Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918–1965

The study of grassroots religious life in modern German history is flourishing. The long-hegemonic ‘milieu’ model, which emphasized social structures and institutions, often to the neglect of lay religious cultures and experiences, has begun to yield to studies foregrounding everyday life, vernacular ritual and belief, gender, sexuality and lived faith. Michael E. O’Sullivan’s wonderful study of early-twentieth-century German Catholic miracles, Disruptive Power, keeps social structures, clerical and lay leadership and institutions in view while also illuminating forms of popular piety and their political impact both within the Catholic community and at regional and national levels. Robert Orsi, whose revelatory scholarship on American Catholics accents the intimate coexistence (or ‘braidedness’, to use Orsi’s metaphor) of religion and modern life, is an important conceptual resource for O’Sullivan. Orsi’s perspective refuses to relegate the religious to its own sphere, isolated from the totality of human behaviour and thought and set apart in time. For all of its centuries-old symbolism—rapturous, bleeding bodies and heaven-turned gazes—the religiosity O’Sullivan uncovers was a resolutely modern one that, as he has written elsewhere, created ‘new meanings out of old traditions’ (‘From Catholic Milieu to Lived Religion,’ History Compass, 2009).

„Thomas Mann – langweilig und ohne dramaturgische Spannung“. Deutschsprachige Literatur in Nikodem Cieszyńskis Zeitschrift Roczniki Katolickie

The periodical Roczniki Katolickie, published in the 1920s and 1930s, was part of an anti-modernist project created in European Catholic circles. The information about German literature, which can be found in the magazine, on the one hand, served as a means of reinforcing feelings of belonging to a borderless confessional community and, on the other hand, constituted an element of German-Polish cultural transfer. Analyzing its content helps determine the extent of influence of the forms and aesthetic and literary categories disseminated within the Catholic milieu as well as the transformations of the image of the stereotypical German that was dominant in Poland at that time.

A MOCIDADE TRABALHISTA DO PTB. AS ORIGENS DO ATIVISMO RADICAL EM BELO HORIZONTE (1957 – 1961)

O presente artigo tem por objetivo discutir a formação da Mocidade Trabalhista do PTB, com foco em sua seção de Belo Horizonte. Desta seção surgiu uma geração de ativistas que posteriormente iria se engajar em organizações como a ORM-POLOP e a AP. Os ativistas da MT de Belo Horizonte estavam alinhados a correntes brizolistas do PTB. Em finais da década de 1950, aproximaram-se do pensamento marxista e de setores mais combativos ligados ao meio católico. Deste grupo fez parte Theotônio dos Santos, Vânia Bambirra e Herbert de Souza (Betinho), ativistas que ganhariam destaque na esquerda nacional no decênio seguinte.

Tuned out? A Study of RTÉ radio 1 programmes Dear Frankie/Women Today and BBC 4’s Woman’s Hour

In the conservative, Catholic milieu of 1920s and 1930s Ireland, it should come as no surprise that women’s issues were not addressed on the national broadcaster, Radió Éireann. Women’s voices were effectively ‘tuned out’ and it would not be until 1963 that some attempts were made to publicly address, however benignly, issues on female sexuality. This came in the form of Ireland’s first radio agony aunt, Frankie Byrne and her programme Dear Frankie. However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that Irish radio really began to give women’s concerns the attention they fully deserved. It began in earnest in the form of Women Today, a pioneering radio programme, broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 from 1979 to 1984. The fact that it lasted just four years and did not enjoy the longevity of the BBC 4’s flagship radio programme, Woman’s Hour, serves as a useful comparator for the issue addressed in this article; namely the differing cultures experienced by women, both on and off-air, at the BBC and RTÉ between 1926 and 1984.

Campaigning Against Bolshevism: Catholic Action in Late Weimar Germany

Under the banner of ‘Catholic Action’, Pius XI called the laity during the interwar period to struggle for a worldwide ‘re-Christianization of society’. Whatever this meant in detail, a religious frontline against communism was an essential part of the papal programme. Catholic anti-communism was not just a reaction to anticlerical communist ideas, however; rather, it accompanied the development of communist and socialist parties in Europe from the very beginning. As I will show in this article through the example of the diocese of Berlin, this papal anti-communism fell on fertile soil in the Catholic milieu of the Weimar Republic, and especially so within Catholic Action. At the head of Catholic Action in Berlin was Erich Klausener, who would later become a prominent victim of the so-called Night of the Long Knives (30 June 1934), when Hitler had a number of his political opponents on both the right and left executed. As we shall see, though, the activists of Catholic Action saw their political enemy less in the ascendant Nazi Party and more in communist propaganda, which they tried to defeat with all the means at their disposal.

A Catholic Pyramid?

The pyramid of Merkinė, constructed by Povilas Žėkas in the southern part of Lithuania in 2002, began within the Lithuanian Roman Catholic milieu only to develop years later into an independent religious movement. In this article, I analyze the history and development of the pyramid in light of changes affecting religions in Lithuania during the last twenty-five years of religious liberty. I will examine the binding relationship of religion, nationalism, and resistance in Lithuania as the Pyramid of Merkinė became a place of spiritual pilgrimage, connecting the religious life of Communist and post-Communist Lithuanian society.

Preachers, Sermons, and State Authorities in late Baroque Dubrovnik

In order to keep its traditional neutrality in foreign policy and to preserve inner stability after the disastrous earthquake of 1667, the state authorities of the Republic of Dubrovnik controlled the entire public life in this city-state, which was clamped between Ottoman and Venetian possessions on the coast of the south Adriatic. They managed to impose their will on archbishops of the local Church in various aspects of religious life, including the election of public preachers in the city cathedral. Treated as simple officials in service of the government, these clerics (mostly members of various religious orders who came from Italy) played their role according to their employers’ desires, with only formal concern for their flock. However, sermons by their local counterparts, who preached mostly in smaller city churches, left a deeper mark in this highly conservative Catholic milieu. An analysis of their experiences and preserved texts of their sermons offers a new perception of the political, social, linguistic, and even theological culture of late Baroque Dubrovnik, a city whose importance remained incomparable within the Slavonic world in the Mediterranean.

Kritika tzv. moderního člověka u Carla Schmitta a její přesahy

ČlĂĄnek se zabĂ˝vĂĄ Schmittovou kritikou modernity a jejĂ­mi antisemitskĂ˝mi přesahy, a to na pozadĂ­ zpĹŻsobu, jimĹž Schmitt konstruoval centrĂĄlnĂ­ pojem svĂŠ teorie politična  nepřítele. Koncept nepřítele se tak v Schmittově dĂ­le postupně vyvĂ­jĂ­. V předvĂ˝marskĂŠm obdobĂ­, v němĹž vznikajĂ­ předevĹĄĂ­m vĂ˝znamnĂŠ texty Der Wert des Staates und die Bedeutung des Einzelnen a Theodor Däublers "Nordlicht", je nepřítelem předevĹĄĂ­m modernĂ­, individualistickĂ˝ člověk či modernĂ­ duch. V obdobĂ­ vĂ˝marskĂŠm se pak z nepřítele stĂĄvĂĄ jiĹž nepřítel politična, kterĂŠho Schmitt bohuĹžel a velmi odpudivĂ˝m zpĹŻsobem identifikuje v textech nacistickĂŠ diktatury s ĹžidovskĂ˝m myĹĄlenĂ­m příliĹĄ vĂĄzanĂ˝m na abstraktnĂ­ zĂĄkon. ZĂĄvěr člĂĄnku je nĂĄsledujĂ­cĂ­: politickĂĄ teorie Carla Schmitta je zaloĹžena na antiindividualistickĂŠ a tĂŠměř Ăşplně negativnĂ­ antropologii, kterĂĄ je doprovĂĄzenĂĄ teoriĂ­ sekularizace popisujĂ­cĂ­ proces neutralizace a depolitizace lidskĂŠho Ĺživota, kterĂ˝ tak ztrĂĄcĂ­ na vĂĄĹžnosti. Tento zpĹŻsob Ĺživota postrĂĄdajĂ­cĂ­m jakoukoliv transcendenci a utĂĄpějĂ­cĂ­ se pouze v obstarĂĄvĂĄnĂ­ je pak pro Schmitta Ĺživotem velmi bĂ­dnĂ˝m a neautentickĂ˝m. Celou tuto komplexnĂ­ problematiku pak člĂĄnek hodnotĂ­ na pozadĂ­ vĂ˝voje německĂŠho katolicismu v 19. stoletĂ­, do jehoĹž kontextu Schmitt nĂĄleĹžel.

Parlamentswahl in der Diktatur: Eine Analyse des Wählerverhaltens auf Ebene der Land- und Stadtkreise bei der Reichstagswahl vom 12 . November 1933

ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen , Seite 693 - 708

Freie Anerkennung übergeschichtlicher Bindungen. Katholische Geschichtswahrnehmung im deutschsprachigen Raum des 20. Jahrhunderts. Beiträge des Dresdener Kolloquiums vom 10. bis 13. Mai 2007 ed. by Thomas Pittrof and Walter Schmitz (review)

Reviewed by: Freie Anerkennung übergeschichtlicher Bindungen. Katholische Geschichtswahrnehmung im deutschsprachigen Raum des 20. Jahrhunderts. Beiträge des Dresdener Kolloquiums vom 10. bis 13. Mai 2007 ed. by Thomas Pittrof and Walter Schmitz Mark Edward Ruff Freie Anerkennung übergeschichtlicher Bindungen. Katholische Geschichtswahrnehmung im deutschsprachigen Raum des 20. Jahrhunderts. Beiträge des Dresdener Kolloquiums vom 10. bis 13. Mai 2007. Edited by Thomas Pittrof and Walter Schmitz. [Catholica, Band 2.] ( Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach Verlag. 2010. Pp. 531. €68,00. ISBN 978-3-7930-9600-9.) This edited, interdisciplinary, 500+-page volume about how Catholic intellectuals perceived history in the German-speaking world of the twentieth century represents one of those works impossible to summarize. The fruits of a conference in Dresden from 2007, its twenty-five chapters were penned not just by historians but also by theologians, political scientists, and literature experts. Their diverse array of chapters accordingly focuses on not just the narrow world of professional Catholic historians but also how leading intellectuals in the Catholic milieu reflected on history. Making the editors’ task more difficult was the reality that, as they admit, at the turn of the twentieth century, there had yet to exist a coherent subculture of professional Catholic historians—or even a specific Catholic “culture of history.” Professional Catholic profane historians were few and far between in a Protestant-dominated university system, and even these were forced by necessity to adopt the professional standards and methodologies of their Protestant colleagues. Hence this volume’s focus on Catholic intellectuals who were not trained historians is understandable. For writers such as Reinhold Schneider, Gertrud von le Fort, Stefan Andres, Enrica van Handel-Mazzetti, Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Karl Ottens, Elisabeth Langgässer, and Theoder Haecker, as well as converts like Ilse von Stach and Alfred Döblin, the past became an inevitable part of their reflections. To what extent, the book queries, were these intellectuals constructing counter-narratives to dominant Protestant narratives? How did they reconcile their historical understandings with the tropes of salvation history, which argued that God remains active in history? To what extent did they buck tides of ultramontanism and establish discourses that ran contrary to those of ecclesiastical leaders? And more broadly: where were the intellectual roots of their historical interpretations, visions, and narratives? What aesthetic forms did they use in reconstructing the past? To what extent did many of these writers articulate a “resistance against the dissolution of reality into a total immanence of the earthly and the historical?” Understandably, in light of the tremendous range of subjects and perspectives, neither editors nor authors offer uniform answers to these questions. The responses of some like the poet Schneider evolved. Known for his literary resistance to the Third Reich, Schneider underwent a transformation between the 1930s and 1950s as a result of what he perceived to be restorative tendencies in Konrad Adenauer’s Germany and attacks against him from the Catholic press. His work became melancholic and focused on the suffering Christ, whose kingdom was not of this world. On occasion, this volume lapses into internal inconsistencies. The editors claim that an “aversion to history” had made itself manifest, particularly by the end of the 1950s. But this observation is belied by the powerful chapter offered at the [End Page 671] close by Olaf Blaschke on the network of Catholic historians assembled beginning in 1962 in the Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, a historical organization based first in Munich and then in Bonn. The dozens of professional historians who became members in this nexus for historical research that Blaschke describes are proof that there was anything but an aversion to history within its ranks. This was true not just in the decade preceding its founding in 1962 as well. Seminal events like the fight before Germany’s Constitutional Court in 1956 over the validity of the Reichskonkordat and historical controversies launched in 1961 by the young jurist and historian, Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, forced intellectuals to engage with the Catholic past in both its alleged glory and ignominy. Blaschke’s analysis of the interwoven networks undergirding the Kommission für Zeitgeschichte is, in many ways, an anomaly. The majority of the chapters focus on Catholic literati...

From Pentecost to 'inner healing': religious change and Pentecostal developments in the post-socialist Lithuanian Catholic milieu

In this article the author describes the religious change that took place in the Catholic milieu of post-Soviet Lithuania. Following the arrival of global Pentecostal trends to the country a Catholic form of Pentecostalism, known as Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) also arrived. The author describes what changes the CCR brought and how the Pentecostal developments paved the way for this other movement to emerge. Dynamic developments of the CCR unexpectedly took a turn towards the discourse and practice of healing, which triggered the emergence of another movement, known as the Inner Healing Movement (IHM). Being inseparable from its Pentecostal roots the movement, nevertheless, has become a vernacular, specifically Catholic, practice which no longer seeks for the signs of Pentecostal authenticity but redefines the Pentecostal message, directing it towards healing discourses and practices.