Catholic Religious Communities Research Articles

Tourism objects and development of Armenian ethnographic excursion route in polyethnic Chernivtsi

Retrospective-chorological specificities of the appearance of Armenian ethnic element on the territory of Bukovyna and the City of Chernivtsi were disclosed. Population dynamics within the Armenian ethnic community of Chernivtsi based on the censuses held within 1774 – 2001 and said community’s participation in economic, public and political life of the city, as well as in cultural and educational activity were analyzed. Armenians for the first time appeared in Bukovyna as far back as in times of the Kiev Rus and the Principality of Galicia and Volyn as international traders. The first Armenian settlers lived in Chernivtsi beginning from the «pre-Austrian» time, and their community was always compact usually covering areas around and praying in the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Cross that had the Armenian St George’s Altar until they built their own cathedral. It was in 1783 that the Armenian catholic religious community for the first time appeared in Chernivtsi. The first Armenian residents of Chernivtsi were predominantly engaged in trade, or were doctors, engineers, landowners, manufacturers and highly ranked state officers. With time, the houses of the Chernivtsi Armenians concentrated in a new «Armenian block», that is, in the area of present-day Armenian Street, Jacob von Petrovich Street, Ukrainian Street and the Armenian Lane. The block had the Armenian Catholic Church built in its center in 1869-1875 to become a focus of the spiritual life of Bukovynian Armenians, and later the center was added by the parochial house and the Armenian bursa for school goers. The Register of Objects of Cultural Heritage and the Present of Armenian Community of Chernivtsi was developed and the point-based assessment of their tourism attractiveness was introduced. The quantitative relative assessment of tourism attractiveness of 26 objects of cultural heritage totally made 78 points, while the mapping of the same allowed for disclosure of specificities of their territorial disposition and development of optimal Armenian excursion route. Following the significance, spatial distribution and territorial structure, we distinguished between localized (items and centers), linear and spatial elements of the Armenian ethnographic space. The items are represented by tourism objects of aesthetic, scientific and historical value, e.g., buildings where outstanding persons either lived, studied or worked; Roman Catholic Church of Exaltation of the Holy Cross with the Armenian St George’s Altar; social maintenance establishments (former Armenian bursa); monuments (Jacob von Petrovich) and the sites of memory. The centers are tourism objects of Armenian culture represented by functioning institutions and establishments, such as Armenian Church, Sunday school, national/cultural associations. The linear elements are the city streets (Armenian Street, personalized Jacob von Petrovich Street and Karol Mikuli Street), and the spatial (area) elements are conditioned by the fact of ethnic groups’ compact settlement. The hugest concentration of the Armenian ethnic tourism objects is found in the area around the Armenian Church (13 objects possessing 33 points of total attractiveness). Keywords: Armenian ethnic community; cultural heritage; ethno-tourism objects; excursion route; city of Chernivtsi.

Sexuality beyond Chastity: Negotiating Gender Intimacy and Sexuality within Roman Catholic Religious Communities in Poland

In late modernity both religion and sexuality are being elaborated in terms of reflexivity. In this article, we present findings from our research on the topic of constructions of gender, intimacy and sexuality by sisters and brothers in Catholic monasteries in Poland. The findings are based on the mixed-method transformative connection between qualitative (n = 92) and representative sample quantitative research (n = 1543) conducted in 2020. We studied reflexivity on gender, intimacy and sexuality within Catholic religious communities in Poland in order to understand how gender, intimacy and sexuality are presented in the institutionalized framework of religious life. Our study demonstrates that reflexivity on gender, intimacy and sexuality is highly institutionalised and deeply privatized within Catholic religious communities. The article shows that reflexivity of consecrated persons in Poland on gender, intimacy and sexuality is strongly shaped by religious norms (chastity) and subordinated to their religious roles.

Arquitectura moderna: puente para la dignidad de la vivienda popular en Colombia

El presente artículo es resultado de la investigación adelantada como alternativa de grado como aporte al semillero de APQUA del grupo de investigación PAME de la Universidad de Boyacá.
 La arquitectura moderna tuvo una valiosa participación dentro del proceso de dignificación de la vivienda popular en Colombia. A raíz de la industrialización del país entre las décadas de 1830 y 1850 (Mayor Mora, 2002), el problema de escasez y baja calidad de la vivienda para el sector popular se intensificó debido a la migración de campesinos a la ciudad en busca de oportunidades laborales y a la alta demanda de mano de obra. Hasta antes de 1918, el Estado colombiano no prestó la atención requerida a esta situación; las condiciones precarias de las viviendas y la carencia de higiene afectaban directamente a las familias y a la ciudad
 En el transcurso de la investigación, al indagar sobre la arquitectura moderna en Colombia y sobre el desarrollo y evolución de la vivienda popular, se encontró que, inicialmente, fueron las comunidades religiosas católicas y las entidades de beneficencia las que se preocuparon ante el desalentador panorama, por lo que comenzaron las construcción de viviendas con un esquema social participativo, de manera conjunta con los beneficiados, con diseños que respondían a los parámetros básicos de la arquitectura moderna en cuanto a iluminación, ventilación, amplitud y flexibilidad de los espacios; estas fueron las primeras viviendas dignas para clases populares en el país.
 A inicios de la década de 1920, el Gobierno expidió leyes tendientes a promover la construcción de vivienda popular bajo lineamientos que aplicaban los parámetros básicos modernos, los cuales garantizaban el bienestar de las familias de ingresos bajos. Estos nuevos proyectos de vivienda fueron diseñados por arquitectos colombianos llegados al país desde Europa después de terminar allí sus estudios, influenciados por las nuevas tendencias de la arquitectura moderna. Fue un momento en el que el arquitecto comenzó a tener un rol fundamental en el desarrollo de las ciudades colombianas.
 La aplicación de los conceptos de la arquitectura moderna en construcciones populares dio como resultado espacios higiénicos, confortables, flexibles y progresivos, brindando una vivienda digna a la clase obrera, víctima hasta entonces del olvido del Estado, que por mucho tiempo pasó por alto sus necesidades y derechos. La vivienda popular, construida con materiales económicos y aplicando los principios de iluminación, ventilación y amplitud de espacios, dio nueva esperanza y mejoró las condiciones de una clase social afectada por el déficit de vivienda; esto da un giro de 180° a la situación, pues a partir de este momento, la arquitectura moderna ya no es exclusivamente para clases altas, sino que se convierte en una solución para diversas problemáticas de las clases media y baja.
 A finales de la década de 1960, el Estado empezó a involucrar compañías inmobiliarias en estos proyectos de vivienda popular, al resultarle costoso su diseño por parte de arquitectos reconocidos, que cobraban altas sumas de dinero por su trabajo. Adicionalmente, los presupuestos para estas viviendas disminuyeron, lo cual desalentó a muchos arquitectos que querían generar calidad, pero para ello se requería de una inversión justa. En conclusión, aquella calidad de las viviendas populares que se había alcanzado gracias a la aplicación de los parámetros de la arquitectura moderna durante la primera mitad del siglo XX, comenzó a disminuir progresivamente, perdiéndose poco a poco los logros alcanzados.
 Lo que ocurrió en años posteriores fue el camino a la crítica situación actual que presenta la vivienda de interés social. A partir de la creación del Sistema Nacional de Vivienda de Interés Social en 1991, integrado por entidades públicas y privadas, se estableció el subsidio familiar de vivienda, lo que significó un cambio sustancial en el papel del Estado en la solución de la problemática de vivienda popular, pues pasó de ser promotor, a ser simplemente un facilitador del mercado.
 La investigación contempla una comparación entre la vivienda popular influida por la arquitectura moderna y la vivienda de interés social de hoy. Actualmente, las normativas sobre vivienda de interés social se centran en la exigencia de dimensiones mínimas de los espacios con una destinación definida; dado que la norma no contempla aspectos fundamentales de una vivienda digna como la espacialidad y las áreas libres interiores, la iluminación y ventilación, el tratamiento paisajístico en las urbanizaciones, los equipamientos comunales, el acceso a transporte público, entre otros, estos aspectos no son ya tenidos en cuenta en los diseños. Lo que debería ser un derecho, ahora es un privilegio que, lamentablemente, la mayoría de las personas “beneficiadas” con Viviendas de Interés Social, no tienen.

An Evaluation and Comparison of American Buddhist and Catholic Racial Projects through the Lens of Critical Race Theory

In this paper, I explore how American Buddhist and Catholic religious communities are dealing with racism both within and outside of their communities by analyzing two projects through the lens of critical race theory (CRT). The Buddhist project is Making the Invisible Visible: Healing Racism in Our Buddhist Communities, which aims to promote racial diversity in American Buddhist sanghas. The Catholic project is Open Wide Our Hearts, The Enduring Call to Love: A Pastoral Letter Against Racism, which aims toward spiritual conversion and social activism. I analyze how each project defines racism, how they approach the problem, and how they envision the role of tradition and the community in perpetuating and ameliorating racism. By analyzing these two projects, I demonstrate how religious communities could benefit from CRT as a critical theoretical framework for their racial projects.

Porównanie doświadczeń religijnych w okresie wczesnej, średniej i późnej dorosłości

Comparison between Religious Experiences in Early, Middle and Late Adulthood The aim of the study was to examine the differences in religious experience in early, middle and late adulthood. The study examined 608 people who were a part of catholic religious communities. Religious Experience Scale, which includes five dimensions: Importance rating, Negative experiences, God’s support, Entrusting in God and Openness to God, was used. Statistical analyzes showed that the level of religious experience was significantly differentiated by the age of the respondents for four out of five dimensions of Religious Experience: Importance rating, God’s support, Entrusting in God and Negative experiences. People in late adulthood were characterized by the highest level of Importance rating, God’s support, Entrusting in God and the lowest level of Negative experiences compared to people in early and middle adulthood. The nature of late adulthood – i.e., the ability to discover the specificity of religious experience to understand and interpret the signs of God’s presence and action in everyday events – may account for the observed effects. The results of the study add to the knowledge on religious experience depending on the developmental stage of the person. They could be used to adjust the character of pastoral counseling to the needs of specific age groups of adult clients.

Mosques, Churches, and Civic Skill Opportunities in Indonesia

AbstractThis article examines the role of houses of worship as institutions where individuals acquire civic skills that can be deployed for political participation in the world's largest Muslim‐majority democracy: Indonesia. Drawing on participant observation and interviews in Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic religious communities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, this article investigates three questions: (1) What opportunities exist for individuals worshipping in Indonesian churches and mosques to develop and practice civic skills as part of their religious engagement? (2) Does civic skill opportunity vary across religious denominations? and (3) What factors might explain variation across different religious settings? The study shows that mosques offer fewer prospects for their worshippers to develop civic skills than do churches. These denominational differences can be explained by a house of worship's management practices, which are shaped by its degree of autonomy, style of worship, and the relative size of the religious denomination.

Escala de Forças e Estilos Parentais: estudo correlacional

Esta pesquisa buscou evidências de validade para a Escala de Forças de Caráter (EFC) baseadas na relação com outras variáveis, verificando correlações entre a Escala de Responsividade e Exigência Parental (EREP) e os estilos parentais. Participaram da pesquisa 24 casais (n= 48) pertencentes a uma comunidade religiosa católica do estado de São Paulo. Qualidades que criam conexão com o universo em busca de sentido e as que implicam cuidado com o outro prevaleceram na amostra. As correlações de Pearson significativas entre estilos parentais e forças variaram de 0,32 a 0,64. Curiosidade, Bondade e Gratidão apresentaram correlações com três índices da EREP. A Responsividade apresentou mais relações com as forças do que a Exigência. Como implicações práticas do estudo, tem-se que orientações de pais e de famílias podem ser baseadas na compreensão de clima psicológico-emocional saudável, uma vez que os pais podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento de pontos fortes dos filhos.

Jewish question in Eastern Galicia XIII-XXI centuries - current historical and cultural view

We consider the causes of the Jewish ethnic group in Galicia. These facts first written mention of the presence of Jews in Lvov. Listed best known former and current Jewish historians and researchers. Described Lviv ghetto areas where Jews on the street Jewish and Krakow suburb. Characterized relations with the Jewish community in the Polish population and Roman Catholic religious communities, with the royal and local authorities. The list of restrictions concerning the Jews. These large and small towns, inhabited by Jews. Austrian period considered (1772-1918). During which the Jewish people received the constitutional rights and started active social and political activities, establishing the first party organization and the socialist Zionist trends. The attention to improving the educational attainment of Jewish children and young people in schools and universities, the first appearance of the Austrian army mobilized, to limit the influence of the Jewish rabbi and kahal on implementing germanic names that passed through heredity. Characterized religious and philosophical currents that divided the Jewish community to traditionalists (Hasidim) and modernist (Orthodox, educator). These earliest most popular socio-political and religious journals that are printed to Jewish communities and NGOs pro-Polish and pro-German assimilation direction. An specific figures on the number of members of Jews in different historical periods. Shown position of the Jews in the Ukrainian-Polish war of 1918-1919 and the wars 1919-1939. The characteristic of the surviving sacred architectural monuments Lviv, Drohobych, Brody, Zhovkva.

Catholic nuns in transnational mission, 1528–2015

AbstractFrom the Counter-Reformation to the present, women in a variety of contexts of colonization, decolonization, and slavery crossed the threshold from missionary congregation to missionary workforce to live in Catholic religious community. Comparative, transnational analysis provides insights from a variety of angles into the myriad local factors that fashioned their understandings of the relationship between the spiritual and material benefits so gained. Their experiences were uneven, shaped by the race, gender, and status politics of each ecclesiastical and secular context, by their usefulness to the wider missionary project and the state, and by shifts in ecclesiastical rulings that were prompted by changes in the Vatican’s temporal status. In the later twentieth century, some became activists and advocates, using their symbolic power to work in the interests of women and poor people, and to reform the patriarchy at the core of the church.

Novas comunidades religiosas e o feminino – mudanças em curso e retradicionalização

As novas comunidades religiosas católicas no Brasil têm desafiado as congregaçõesreligiosas tradicionais na medida em que produzem formas inovadoras de adesão à vidareligiosa (VR). Essas formas conjugam tradicionalismo e flexibilidade e possuem maiorcapacidade de atração do segmento juvenil feminino. Analisa-se, neste texto, a Toca deAssis, uma nova comunidade que logrou o estatuto de instituto religioso, mas queconsegue, em razão de sua juventude, estabelecer relações de gênero menos assimétricas.A pesquisa, realizada no período de 2009 a 2011, comparou algumas congregaçõesreligiosas de origem franciscana com a Toca de Assis, que, embora contemporânea,conjuga aspectos do medievo com a modernidade, sobretudo no que se refere ao uso denovas mídias e tecnologias de comunicação.

How a multiple orientation of control reduces governance failures: a focus on monastic auditing

This paper considers multiple control systems at the organizational level and argues for a nuanced and multifaceted approach for internal governance. For this undertaking, we look at a little-examined control and auditing instrument, the formalized audit procedures of Roman Catholic orders. These so-called visitations are one important pillar in the monastic governance system to counter aberrations. Utilizing surveys and interviews, we examine 96 Roman Catholic religious communities in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and connect these visitations procedures with rule violations and sexual abuse cases. We argue that communities unaffected by scandals and rule violations rely strongly on process and clan control to address inefficiency and misconduct; whereas, affected communities focus more on business issues. We caution against the trend of relying predominantly on output-based processes while suggesting a balance between different types of control systems. Furthermore, we enhance the current discourse by considering implementation procedures of control. The religious orders attach great importance to the way control measures are carried out. To steer the behavior of their members, many successful orders even complement controls with personal support and identity strengthening.

Education and Transformation: Marianist Ministries in America since 1849 (review)

Education and Transformation:Marianist Ministries in America since 1849. By Christopher J. Kauffman. (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company. 1999. Pp. xvii, 366. $29.95.) Since the publication of Tamers of Death: The History of the Alexian Brothers (1973), Professor Christopher J. Kauffman of the Catholic University of America has demonstrated a wonderful excellence in relating the histories of American Catholic religious communities and their service the Church. This most recent book addition with its focus on the Marianist ministries in this country since 1849 reveals his most robust and full-fledged demonstration of, what may be called, the emerging integrative pattern for American Catholic institutional historiography. Building on eleven archival visits here and in Rome, Kauffman powerfully integrates appropriate thematic discussions of the national context, the founder of the community and his spirituality the growth of community, various apostolic directions and episcopal negotiating, the broadening ecclesial contextualism relating the community's assimilation of American customs and ever increasing interest by Vatican authorities, and most recent responses the Second Vatican Council. In other words, this work is an excellent interpretive model for the very demanding task of appropriately accounting for the external and internal forces that shape the history of a religious community. The Reverend Joseph P. Chinnici, O.F.M., in his praiseworthy foreword puts this task for the historian very well: a project that points an understanding of a religious group as a mediating institution in the context of church and society (p. xv). Echoing Cardinal Newman's famous ecciesiological realpolitik on the university's role as a way station between the Church and the world, Chinnici's historical clarity of the community's journey and Kauffman's superb retelling offer the knowledgeable reader a delightful intellectual treatise. Similar his 1997 entry on the Marianists for The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History, Kauffman's organizational structure here follows the major transformations of the community: its founding, developments in France, missionary work in the United States, national expansion, internal conflicts between the apostolic and religious piety at the turn of the twentieth century, Americanization pressures on its German-speaking members, struggles in adopting the American high school model, international missionary activities, and adapting the norms of the Second Vatican Council. In his other works, especially on the Sulpicians, and in this one, he knowledgeably explains initially the seventeenth-century French and Spanish spiritual roots of this lay sodality, as derived from the pieties of Ignatius Loyola and later of Jean Jacques Offer and Cardinal Pierre de Berulle in the prologue. Founded by William Joseph Chaminade (1761-1850), a sodality began with five lay in 1817, devoted Mary Immaculate and the Sacred Heart. This group was transformed eventually into the religious Society of Mary, dedicated ministering young people (pp. 6-8). The laity, brothers, and priests formed this apostolic community to evangelize `from below' (p. 18) through education in parish churches initially and later in Catholic schools in postrevolutionary Enlightenment France. While dressed in secular clothing, thereby not inciting the then prevalent anticlericalism among the populace, its members sought their own perfection and encouraged others to lead a Christian life (p. 23). They became a major educational force in the country by 1850 with sixty-two mostly elementary schools. Had the thirty-three year old founder lived beyond that year, he would have subsequently witnessed how the new liberte d'enseignement with the French lot Falloux allowed Catholic religious communities establish their own secondary schools. Taking advantage of this law, the Marianist community established rapidly fifteen secondary schools with some 2,200 students. …

The interposition of personal life stories and community narratives in a roman catholic religious community

This study investigates the interplay of community narratives and individual stories in a Roman Catholic religious community. Catholic sisters were asked about their personal life stories and the community narrative of their religious order. Links were found between the values and actions conveyed in the community narrative and those reported in the individual life stories. The community narrative acted as a vessel for the preservation of the principles on which the community was founded. This narrative is central to the life of the sisters, being taught to new sisters, told at community events, and used during times of renewal. New sisters choose to interpose their own life story with the community narrative in the face of attractive alternatives. After a period of formation, they develop a sense of communal identity. In this study, the number of stories members generated about each other reflected their strong sense of community. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Metric properties of nurses' ratings of parkinsonian signs with a modified Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale.

We evaluated the ability of nurse clinicians to assess parkinsonian signs in older persons with a modified version of the motor section of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). After completing a structured training protocol, three nurse clinicians and a neurologist with expertise in movement disorders administered a modified UPDRS to 75 older persons. The nurses repeated the assessment about 3 weeks later. Inter-rater agreement and short-term temporal stability were estimated for each item, the total modified UPDRS score, and for summary measures of bradykinesia, postural reflex impairment, rigidity, and tremor, and a global parkinsonian sign score. We performed our assessment in Catholic religious communities in the Chicago area, using consecutive subjects at four communities participating in the Religious Orders Study, a longitudinal, clinical-pathologic study of older persons. Our results showed that nurses were not a significant source of variability, with intraclass correlations exceeding 0.97 for all items, and they showed good to excellent agreement with the neurologist for most modified UPDRS items. Correlations between nurses and neurologist exceeded 0.90 for the total modified UPDRS, ranged from 0.76 to 0.95 for the four parkinsonian domain scores, and exceeded 0.90 for the global parkinsonian sign score. Nurses showed fair to good agreement with themselves over the 3-week interval for most modified UPDRS items. Correlations over the 3-week interval exceeded 0.90 for the total modified UPDRS score, ranged from 0.70 to 0.95 for the four domain scores, and exceeded 0.90 for the global parkinsonian sign score. Ratings of parkinsonian signs by nurse clinicians corresponded closely to those of a neurologist with expertise in movement disorders and showed good inter-rater agreement and temporal stability. With appropriate training, nurse clinicians can reliably administer the modified UPDRS.

Deep Structure in Community Cultures: The Revival of Religious Orders in Roman Catholicism

Recent research in organizational culture has emphasized in-depth analyses of the underlying processes of cultural sensemaking' and, especially, of the influence of an organization's larger sociocultural environment in these processes. The present study investigates the 'deep structure of the ideologies adopted by newly-fownded Roman Catholic religious communities - groups which have self-consciously attempted to revive the long-standing tradition of relgious virtuosity in that church. Despite their avowedly revivalistic goals, the groups' reconstructed cultures differ from that of their traditional models in subtle but important ways. In the past decade, a new school of organizational theory has been developed in sociology, one which focuses on organizational culture. Influenced by anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz (1973) and Anthony Wallace (1956), researchers in this tradition have moved from thin description of specific organizational practices to thick description of the meanings which underlie these practices (Geertz 1973: 7). An organization's culture serves as its root metaphor, the mutually-constructed cognitive patterns and taken-for-granted values which its members create to define and give meaning to their activities together (Weick 1995). Recently, critics have pointed out a key defect of the literature on organizational culture. Insufficient attention has been paid to the interaction between the organization's specific cultural elements and those of the larger environment in which it is embedded (Alvesson 1993: 78-79; Friedland and Alford 1991). Such an omission is especially deleterious when there are fundamental conflicts between the organization's professed norms or beliefs and those of the surrounding society (Martin 1992: 86). No organization can long ignore such discrepancies. It may react to them by constructing totally new cultural elements, but it may also subtly modify its longstanding and traditional beliefs or practices. Previous organizational literature, to the extent that it considered environmental influences at all, has primarily described the new elements within an organization's culture, rather than studying the more subtle changes in it changes of which the organization's members may not even be aware (Alvesson 1993: 79).

Getting the Job Done Well: African American Students and Catholic Schools

African Americans have affiliated with Catholicism and Catholic schools in the United States since the beginning of the colonial era. Records document that some of the earliest African-Caribbean settlers in the colonies professed Catholicism in the very early 1500s (Davis, 1990). One factor which enhanced this relationship during the 18th century was the Code Noir (1724-1803), which prescribed the more liberal treatment of free African Americans, mulattos, and slaves in the French and Spanish Catholic Louisiana Territory. As a result of the Territory's laws, several African American girls were educated at Ursuline Academy in New Orleans in 1727 (McDermott & Hunt, 1991). Two thousand African Americans, freed under Code Noir, migrated to Louisiana following Santo Domingo's slave revolt in 1791 (Williams, 1983). They were generally characterized as wealthy, educated, French-speaking, and Roman Catholic. One of the oldest Catholic schools founded specifically for African American children is St. Augustine's School in Washington, D.C. The school opened in 1858 to provide a Catholic education for the children of freed slaves. Catholic religious communities opened an impressive number of 76 schools for African American children at the turn of the century between 1890 and 1917 (Benson, Yeager, Wood, Guerra, & Manno, 1986). The First Colored Catholic Congress elucidated the purpose and distinction of Catholic schools for African American youths in its 1889 general statement to the assembly:

Feminist consciousness among American nuns: Patterns of ideological diffusion

Recent research in Women's Studies has begun to focus on groups of women who are not connected with the mainstream women's movement. One group of women which has been neglected in this new focus are members of Roman Catholic religious orders in the United States. The present article examines the feminist beliefs and values of several groups of American nuns. While the opinions of these women conform to those of mainstream feminism with regard to the Equal Rights Amendment and the ordination of women, they differ on other issues. Some beliefs appear to depend upon the individual nun's personal experience of discrimination in church-related jobs. The concluding section considers some implications of the research, both for women in Roman Catholic religious communities and for Women's Studies researchers who may study them in the future.