Local Parish Research Articles

Devotion, Discontent, and the Henrician Reformation: The Evidence of the Robin Hood Stories

The relationship between popular religious attitudes and the English Reformation has long been the subject of a fierce historical debate. The older “Whig-Protestant” view, championed most notably by A. G. Dickens, draws on evidence for clerical corruption and the spread of Lollardy to show that large numbers of English people were dissatisfied with the state of Catholicism, eager for religious change, and on the whole receptive to Protestant ideas. According to this version of events, Henry VIII and the Reformation Parliament rode a wave of popular discontent in breaking from Rome and dissolving the monasteries. If there was a split between the king and the masses, it came only later when Henry's conservative religious beliefs caused him to attempt to retain much of the substance of Catholicism in the face of popular clamor for more thoroughgoing reform. On the other hand, the “revisionist” camp, which includes such well-known names as J. J. Scarisbrick, Christopher Haigh, and Eamon Duffy, prefers to cite evidence from wills, local parish records, liturgical books, and devotional texts to show that “the Church was a lively and relevant social institution, and the Reformation was not the product of a long-term decay of medieval religion.” In this view, Henry VIII and his advisors pushed through a personally advantageous but widely disliked and resisted Reformation.An examination of the religious content of the tales men and women told about Robin Hood in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries offers a fresh perspective on this long-running dispute.

Catholic Charitable Endeavour in London, 1810–1840. Part I

The primary focus of this article centres on the two decades that form the prelude to Catholic Emancipation although reference is made to activity outside this time frame and to cities other than London. Charitable endeavour is taken to include all individual voluntary effort to sustain and support Catholic churches, schools and other Catholic organisations in need of assistance. It also relates to assistance given to individuals in need of help. Such ‘endeavour’ also encompasses group and community-based voluntary activity. While it may seem unnecessary to define charitable endeavour, Mary J. Oates in a recent study on the Catholic philanthropic tradition in America heavily circumscribes what she means by the term, and excludes a number of subjects from her examination, thus:Not all contributions to the Church are philanthropic. For example, contributions to support the local pastor, Church, and parish programs which chiefly benefit the congregation itself, do not qualify as charitable giving. Nor do gifts by individual Catholics to extra-ecclesial philanthropic causes.

Late mortality in severe depression.

To assess late mortality among psychiatric in-patients with severe depression/melancholia. 1,206 in-patients rated at discharge on a multidimensional diagnostic schedule had received the diagnosis severe depression/ melancholia between 1956 and 1969. A first follow-up was made in 1984. The present follow-up constitutes 675 survivors 15-42 years after the first admission. They were followed-up by means of the general population register and local parish registers to January 1st 1998. At this second follow-up another 279 patients were deceased, standardized mortality ratio 1.3, indicating a continuous increased mortality late in the course of depression. Eleven suicides (4%) were included, eight men and three women, which was less than the 22% found in the first investigation. Male patients showed a higher suicide rate than female patients late in the course. The general mortality and suicide rate remain increased late in the course.

Meanings of movement, place and home at Walsingham

This paper examines the revival, over the past 100 years, of the Catholic pilgrimage site of Walsingham. It argues that, for some habitual pilgrims, the site is akin to a second ‘home’, constituting a place for ‘dwelling in movement’. Contemporary pilgrimage practices not only establish links between local parishes and the Walsingham shrines, but also incorporate specific forms of mobility that express connections with personal, collective and institutional representations of the past. An examination of the site encourages the blurring of analytical distinctions between ‘local’ and ‘visitor’, and also poses questions concerning the relationship between culture, place and forms of belonging.

BUILD INTERNALLY TO REACH OUT EXTERNALLY

MARIANNE EJDERSTEN [*] AN INFORMATION STRATEGY FOR A PARISH IN ONE OF THE MOST SECULARIZED AREAS OF THE WORLD Churches all over the world today are faced with the same problem, viz. how to reach Out to people who suffer from stress. No matter where, in the north, south, east or west, demands are increasing all the time. Time is precious to people. It is important that churches reach out with their message, offer appropriate activities, and use all the media opportunities that now exist in order to communicate with people. If you are not seen, you do not exist. However, in communicating it is important to be honest and reliable, and not to compromise one's essential identity. Most research shows that churches in the poor part of the world are growing, while churches in the richer part are diminishing. Churches in the north of Europe are working increasingly consciously to come to terms with spreading secularization. Sweden is probably one of the most secularized countries in the world, although it is not that people are uninterested in religion. The introduction of a new translation of the Bible, with 700,000 [1] copies sold during the first three weeks after publication, proves the opposite. Swedish people have a spiritual desire in their mind, and one could even say that a spiritual wind seems to be sweeping over the country, yet the divine service on a Sunday is not the obvious meeting place for those interested in spiritual matters. The church has undergone a large reorganization at the turn of the new millennium. Church and state have followed different paths. Nowadays, the Church of Sweden is no longer a state church but a freestanding evangelical Lutheran community with its own autonomy. It is a positive challenge for the Church of Sweden to be entirely free of state control. [2] 1. Local example in Sollentuna An example of how it is possible to work with communication and information in order to reach out with the Christian message in a local parish can be seen in the parish of Sollentuna, a suburb of the capital Stockholm in the middle of Sweden. An information department of its own For the last fifteen years, the parish of Sollentuna has endeavoured to work professionally with information, communication and marketing. Some forty years ago, the church magazine Kyrkporten was established [3] and its editor always has had a journalistic education. Today, the parish has an information department consisting of one information manager, one person responsible for advertising and internal communication, and an editor responsible for the parish magazine and the graphic profile of the parish. It is quite unusual for a parish to have its own information department. The number of professional communicators within the Church of Sweden has increased during the last ten years. Today, there are 120 throughout Sweden, of whom three work in Sollentuna. The information department in Sollentuna is responsible for providing information to the public, media, employees and elected representatives, as well as other organizations, churches and authorities. The primary work is to give advice, educate, be a sounding board, coordinate and, of course, produce information material. The parish earmarks just over 2 million Swedish crowns per year for information activities (approx. US$ 230,000). [4] The most important strategy is that it is not only the responsibility of the information department staff to inform, but all employees, elected representatives and active church members are seen as ambassadors for the parish. [5] In order for them to carry out their assignment, they continuously receive information and education. The most important thing to strengthen is a person's inner core. Build internally in order to reach out externally! A successful communicator needs to have a sensitive ear, be careful and flexible, and possess a high degree of patience. …

Inventing Polonia: Notions of Polish American Identity, 1870–1990

In the last quarter of the 19th century, the American Polish-language press began using the termPoloniato describe the imagined community of all Polish-speaking immigrants in the United States. Local Polish American settlements already bore neighborhood names. Where the Roman Catholic hierarchy permitted an ethnic Polish parish to form, Poles often designated the surrounding area — not only the parish buildings, but the whole network of neighborhood institutions and businesses — by the parish name followed by the suffixowo. By 1895, Poles in Chicago, for example, could read about news in different parts of the city nicknamed for local Polish-language parishes located there: Stanislawowo, Wojciechowo, Jadwigowo, Jackowo, and Michalowo. When speaking of all the Poles living in a single American city,Poloniacould be used with a qualifier such as Chicago Polonia, Buffalo Polonia, or Milwaukee Polonia. But Polonia by itself referred to all Polish immigrants who were bound — or should have been, the writers insisted — by a shared notion of Polishness.

Reaching out without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for the Turn-of-the-Century Culture

Why do churches fight Worship Wars? Why do discussions about how to conduct worship often split into two vitriolic polarities over traditional versus contemporary styles or into two opposing camps, such as organists/ guitarists, baby boomers/elders, returnees/loyalists or clergy/musicians? These worship wars prevent us from being the Church. In Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, Marva Dawn writes to help local parishes and denominations think more thoroughly about worship and culture so that they can function effectively in contemporary society. She roots her discussion of worship issues in a careful assessment of significant aspects of the present technological, boomer, post-modern society and names criteria by which to judge the various cultural influences. She then sketches essential attributes of worship. Dawn recognizes that the vitality and faithfulness of our personal and corporate Christian lives and the effectiveness of our outreach to the world depend on the character that is formed in individuals and communities. How can churches best reach out to society without dumbing down this essential character formation? Dawn discusses music, preaching, and all the accouterments of worship and offers practical suggestions for choosing the best tools and forms to deepen worship life, nurture faith development, and increase believers outreach throughout the universal church and to the world.

Evangelisation and ecumenism: Contradiction or challenge?*

The greatest stumbling-block to ecumenism is not the World Council of Churches in Geneva, nor the Moscow Patriarchate, nor the Vatican, as many still believe, but the concept of ecumenism itself. For according to the frequently-cited statement issued by the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in Rolle in 1951 ecumenism is 'the whole task of the whole church to bring the Gospel to the whole world'.' Ecumenism is thus an attribute of the church; namely, the catholicity with which it addresses the whole world with the full Gospel. Without this attribute there can be no church, nor can there ever have been. It is thus articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae: a nonecumenical church in this sense would not be a true church, but a sect. Ecumenism and mission, evangelisation and church community converge in a common witness to the same God and Father of Israel and Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, for no church can claim God exclusively for its own, and all churches can be traced back through the ages to the same Christ. However, from the very beginning this task of universal evangelisation and ecumenism took shape in separate, local communities: Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome. Similarly, the four Gospels emerged from different cultural contexts, but they all bring the same message from and about Jesus Christ. Within the ecumenical movement inculturation of local groups and parishes and their orientation towards universal catholicity and complete faithfulness to the Gospel takes the form of brotherly, conciliar consultation (c.f. Acts 15, the council of the Apostles in Jerusalem). Throughout history the one church of Jesus Christ has been formed from all nations according to 'the great commission' in Matthew 28: 19-20:

Villagization in a Growing Ethiopian Town: Kossoge, 1963-1998

Vülagization in a Growing Ethiopian Town: Kossoge, 1963-1998 Andrew J. Carlson and Dennis G. Carlson Capital University In 1963, Kossoge was a village of 23 extended households and 125 individuals. By 1994, it had become a town with 192 families and 1,008 persons. This article brings together studies from several disciplines conducted over a period of more than 30 years to analyze this transformation from village to town in northern Ethiopia. The thesis is that although population growth and educational opportunities contributed to Kossoge's development, the national government 's vülagization policy of 1986 and 1987 accelerated the process of urbanization far more than all other policies. Moreover, this study suggests that despite many negative and even tragic ramifications ofvülagization, it has been generally a positive experience in Kossoge.1 For in addition to improved living conditions, educational opportunities, commerce, and security, urbanization has fostered the emergence of a pluralistic culture which holds new possibilities for inter-ethnic cooperation and harmony. In the middle of the 1960s, it was easy to imagine that life in Kossoge was much as it had been for centuries. For more than 300 years, people had worshiped at the nearby Ba'ta church, 9,700 feet above sea level, on the edge of an escarpment overlooking the Simien Mountains, 20 miles north of the ancient city of Gondar. The place took its name from its kosso trees, a flowering tree with small berries widely known as an effective traditional medicinal remedy for tape worm infestation and syphilis.2 Several springs flowed throughout the year. A network of long-established trails connected the Lake Tana plateau— the headwaters of the Blue Nile—with the remote and forbidding lowlands,®Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 5, No. 2 (New Series) 1998, pp. 117-133 117 118 AndrewJ. Carlson and Dennis G. Carlson 6,000 feet below. (See Map 1.) And, after 1937, when the Italians built a road connecting Gondar and Asmara (the two largest cities in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea) soldiers and civilians from Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Italy, England, and the United States, as well as Ethiopians from dozens of ethnic and subnational groups, passed by the village. Despite long-held hopes that their village might one day be a town which rivaled Gondar, the national capital from 1632 through the 1850s, in 1964 there was little evidence ofurban development or commerce.3 With the exception of a small hamlet ofFalashas (also known as EthiopianJews or Beta Israel [literally, House of Israel]), all the people in the area made their livelihoods as farmers, pastoralists, or some combination of the two. There were no public buildings, except for the three Ethiopian Orthodox churches of the local parish—which extended over an area of approximately twenty square kilometers. There were no modern rectangular homes with corrugated iron roofs—only round thatchedroof , wattle and daub tukuls. Political representation for the village was limited to a chika shunt, a middleman between the village and regional government whose primary task was to collect taxes, and an atbia dagna, a localjudge.4 Both were appointed positions, but the selection process was informal and consensual rather than formal and anonymous. Kossoge was isolated. Despite the Gondar-Asmara road and the trails connecting the lowlands and the highlands, most villagers had never been to Gondar, 20 miles south by all-season road. Although Kossoge was accessible to the Lake Tana highlands—the homeland of the Amhara—it also abutted the lowlands, an area that remained beyond their reach. This isolation was reinforced by the Simien mountains, some of which stand more than 14,000 feet above the Red Sea, two hundred miles east. (See Map 1.) To outsiders, Kossoge seemed to be a rather typical Amhara village. While other languages were spoken, the primary tongue in all public places was Amharic, the Ethiopian national language. The churches in the parish, many of them located in groves considered sacred by the Hebraic-pagan Kimant, were now the dominant religious presence. If asked, virtually everyone except for the Beta Israel said they were Amhara—signifying their membership in the Orthodox Church as well as their primary language.5 Vülagization...

MISSION 2000 — PERSPECTIVES AND CHALLENGES

Psalm 24 in general and the first verse specifically, earth is the Lord's, and everything in the world, and all who live in it, can become an ecumenical starting point the stimulation of further discussion as we renew and reaffirm our commitment to mission and evangelism and unfold our common agenda of the visions and challenges that the universal church is facing on the threshold of the twenty-first century. The title added for the first day of the week to Psalm 24 is an indication that it was dedicated to the creator and the creation, and the Jewish festival of the New Year. In the Armenian Apostolic Church, Psalm 24:7-10 is recited by the celebrant and the deacon as the responsory of the great entrance of the holy liturgy. Therefore, by confirming the fact of the universal authority of our creator, venturing to enter and to bring many others into God's presence and reinstating the importance of eucharistic fellowship as the visible sign of our unity, I would like to offer the following eight short statements in contribution to our common concerns, visions and challenges: 1. The church universal is called to evangelize. Its main mission is to reach out to others. Renewal in mission is imperative because the Christian mission to evangelize the whole world is not a human ambition nor a humanitarian enterprise but the vocation of the church. Hence it should become the extension of the Pentecost (Acts 2:1-39) accentuated by the Apostle Peter's invitation: Repent, and be baptized every of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Spirit. For the promise is you, your children, and all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him (Acts 2:38-39). The urgency of bringing the gospel, the good news, to all humanity is based on our relationship with the creator and not only his creation. This relationship is reflected in prayer, witness, service and accountability to God. We are carrying Christ and not our own mission to the world by drawing out the gifts of the Spirit in all members of the church. 2. The mission of the church is marked by Christian love (John 13:34). We have to affirm once again that power must be subordinate to love. The power of love and the necessity unity is reflected in this prayer of Jesus his disciples, Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one (John 17:11). When we have love then we can become the sign of the kingdom of God in the world and heighten our relationships in mission with mutual respect, tolerance, understanding, acceptance and appreciation. Most of the time this Christian love is associated with the image of the suffering church bearing the sign of the cross as the most vivid expression of martyrdom (Luke 14:27; I Cor. 1:18; Gal. 6:14). 3. The mission of the church is carried out by the active participation of the laity. Missionary engagement should be reflected on a local level as much as on a global one. Religious life and missionary calling are not isolated from our daily life. To bridge the gap separating the milieu of Sunday worship from everyday demands of life, to get the involvement of all the members of the local parish, to fulfil the social needs of the marginalized people of the community and to establish a strong bond between the family nucleus and the church unit should be on the agenda of developing the strategy of our mission and evangelism. 4. The mission of the church is entrusted to the missionaries by the triune God. Thus, the people who are spreading the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:13; II Tim. 2:10, 3:15), engaging in local and global mission, proclaiming the kingdom of God (Mark 1:15), converting individuals and nations must live as genuine Christians and become credible witnesses, trustworthy disciples and commissioned apostles of their calling (John 20:21; Acts 20:17-38; I Peter 5:2-4; John 1: 2-3). …

:Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna

This 1995 book analyses the social, political and religious roles of the confraternities - the lay groups through which Italians of the Renaissance expressed their individual and collective religious beliefs - in Bologna in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These confraternities shaped the civic religious cult through charitable activities, public shrines and processions. This civic religious role expanded as the confraternities became politicised: patricians used the confraternities increasingly in order to control the civic religious cult, civic charity, and the city itself. The book examines in detail how confraternities initially provided laypeople of the artisanal and merchant classes with a means of expressing a religious life separate from, but not in opposition to, the local parish or mendicant house. By the mid-sixteenth century, artisans and merchants had few options beyond parochial confraternities which were controlled by parish priests.

Catholic-Marxist Competition in the Working-Class Parishes of Cologne During the Weimar Republic

Catholic-Marxist competition for the political and spiritual loyalties of Catholic workers constitutes one of the central themes of German labor and religious history before 1933. Since 1884, when Franz Hitze charged the Catholic labor movement to organize our Christian workers before it is too late. . before the enemy is within out walls, church leaders struggled to isolate their working-class followers from socialist and, after 1918, communist influences. To retain workers' loyalties to the Church and the larger confessional community, Catholic labor leaders established clerically led workers' clubs (katholische Arbettervereine), which aimed to immerse members into a wholly Catholic cultural milieu through a mixture of religious, social, and material services. Including the nominally interconfessional Christian Trade Unions, the Catholic labor movement represented the single largest alternative to the Marxist movements, and was even able to mount a challenge for primacy in key industrial districts in the Ruhr and the Rhineland.2 Even before World War I, however, the limits of Catholic hegemony were apparent. The walls of religious identity and clerical authority failed to prevent an estimated 800,000 Catholic workers from joining the Social Democratic Party (SPD) or the allied Free Unions by 1914, enabling the SPD to capture the Catholic strongholds of Cologne, Dusseldorf, and Munich by the last prewar elections of 1912.3 Under the Weimar Republic, this trend accelerated and took a still more radical course with the advent of the German Communist Party (KPD). By the mid-1920's, the deterioration of personal and institutional religious loyalty among workers was so pronounced that Catholic labor leaders warned openly of an impending crisis in workers' commitment to the larger confessional community in its religious, political, and cultural dimensions. This article explores Catholic workers' growing ambivalence toward the confessional community in the 1920's, their rising tolerance or active support for Social Democracy and Communism, and the fears and frustrations that troubled the clergy forced to confront this situation. Specifically, the study will focus on conditions in working-class parishes in and around Cologne as described by local pastors in ecclesiastical visitation reports. Previous work on Catholic workers' troubled role in the confessional community under the republic has concentrated on institutional studies of the Center Party and the various elements of the Catholic labor movement.4 Little effort has been made to reconstruct the relationship between workers and the Church at the level of the local parish. This was, however, the most crucial setting of all in the battle for labor's loyalty, for it was here where workers formed the social relationships based upon work, neighborhood, class, and confession that their sense of social and political identity was decisively shaped. Cologne was a singularly appropriate site for an initial case study: the metropolis of the Rhineland was the seat for both one of Germany's most important archdioceses and a powerful regional branch of the Center Party. Given Cologne's religious and political importance for German Catholicism, the evidence of strong socialist and communist penetration among the local Catholic working-class population is especially striking. The Cologne visitation reports contain a wealth of material that allow a detailed reconstruction of the quality of religious life in working-class parishes, the tactics employed by the clergy in their desperate struggle to maintain, or rather to regain, a degree of influence among workers, and the Church's long-term prospects to overcome broad popular indifference joined with fierce competition from the Marxist parties. Fundamental to understanding the clergy's difficulties in the battle for Catholic labor is the realization that developments in the 1920's were essentially an intensification of a pattern of deteriorating trust between workers and the religious and political institutions of German Catholicism dating from the turn of the century. …

POLICY AS PRACTICE

This article addresses the processes of change that were put into motion by the Second Vatican Council. Our focus is on the central liturgical Vatican II principle of the “full, active, conscious participation of the faithful.” This tenet changed the terms through which community was to be enacted. Our inquiry focuses on the consequences of this policy, and we approach our concern with the Weberian and Pragmatist assumptions that all human affairs must be worked out in processes of social action. We specifically follow Hall and Estes and Edmonds in conceptualizing policy as a set of intentions. We present observational and interview data from a local parish that show how parish members and officials interpreted the policy of active participation as it pertained to the ritual celebration of first holy communion. We then discuss issues of segmentation and the changing church in contemporary America.

The Search for an American Catholicism

JAY P. DOLAN President of the American Catholic Historical Association 1995 The Catholic Historical Review VOL. LXXXII APRIL, 1996 Ñ072 THE SEARCH FOR AN AMERICAN CATHOLICISM BY Jay P. Dolan* Vetera novis augere etperficere From the very first moment Europeans set foot on America's shores they have sought to adapt their culture and customs to the environment of the New World. This was very evident in the area of religion. For more than one hundred and fifty years Jews in America had to learn how to survive without a rabbi to lead them in prayer. This meant that throughout the colonial period lay men became the dominant religious leaders in the local synagogue. In Virginia the first English settlers wanted to fashion a church that would be in conformity with the Church of England "as neere as may be." Since no bishop was willing to settle in Virginia, this pioneer generation was forced to establish "an Episcopal church without bishops."1 Because of this situation lay vestrymen took control of church affairs. The first generation of Catholic settlers in Maryland had to learn how to govern a colony in which Protestants outnumbered Catholics. For Cecil Calvert, the founder of *Mr. Dolan is a professor ofhistory in the University of Notre Dame. He read this paper as his presidential address at a luncheon held in the Atlanta Hilton Hotel on Saturday,January 6, 1996,during the seventy-sixth annual meeting ofthe American Catholic Historical Association. He wishes to thank Martin Marty, Walter Nugent, Scott Appleby, John McGreevy , and Kathleen Sprows for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this address . The Latin epigraph may be translated,"To enlarge and enrich the old with the new." 'William H. Seiler, "The Anglican Parish in Virginia," in James Morton Smith (ed.), Seventeenth Century America: Essays in Colonial History (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1959), p. 123, and DanielJ. Boorstin, TheAmericans: The Colonial Experience (NewYork, 1958), p. 123. 169 170 THE SEARCH FOR AN AMERICAN CATHOLICISM the Maryland colony, this meant that civil harmony was of primary importance ; for this reason religion was to remain a private affair, neither shaping the destiny of the colony nor impeding its progress. The first Jesuits in Maryland were not pleased with this idea. They wanted the Catholic Church and its clergy to enjoy a special place in the new colony, a privileged status that was commonplace at that time in Europe . Calvert would not give in to their demands. If the Jesuits were to remain in Maryland, they would have to do so without any special privileges . The Jesuits stayed, and Catholicism in America became a church free and independent of state control. Each of these three stories suggests that new models of church and denomination were to emerge in the NewWorld. The first generation of European settlers was compelled to adapt its ways to the challenges posed by the New Worlds geographical, social, and political environment . Thus, the history of religion in America has been a history of the adaptation of the ancient religious traditions, be they Christian,Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu, to the challenges posed by the New World environment . For Catholics their history has been a continuous search for an American Catholicism, a Catholicism rooted in the ancient Catholic tradition but always seeking to adapt itself to the culture of what we now call the United States. In 1966 1 began my graduate studies in the history ofAmerican Christianity at the University of Chicago. During these past thirty years the historical study of religion in the United States, and of Catholicism in particular, has undergone substantial change. Many of us have lived through these changes and they have been truly remarkable. The emergence of the new social history in the 1960s sparked an interest in intensive studies of individual communities. With this focus on community studies the local parish became a concern of historians, and this has remained true to the present. For this new generation of historians the religion of the people rather than the activities of the prelates has become a primary focus of study. The growth and development of immigration history sparked an interest in the study of immigrant groups; the...

A Nation of Beggars?: priests, people, and politics in famine Ireland, 1846-1852

This book concerns Lord John Russell's efforts to improve the lot and status of Irish Catholics by changes in the landlord and tenant system and particualarly by improving the status of the Catholic Church. It is the first full scholarly account of the role of the Catholic Church in the Great Famine of 1846 and its aftermath. Donal Kerr shows how the Famine and consequent evictions led to rural violence and assassination, culminating in the notorious murder of Major Mahon, which the local parish priest was accused of inciting and blessing. A savage campaign of denuciation in press and parliament, and the belief that Pope Pius IX had blessed the struggle of oppressed nationalities, led many priests to become involved in the lead-up to the Young Ireland Rebellion. These years, too, saw a sharpening of religious tensions as Professor Kerr's scholarly and incisive analysis charts the souring of relations between Church and State and the destruction of Lord John Russell's dream of bringing a golden age to Ireland.

Does God want orphans?

It takes courage to interrupt a sermon in full flight. This was not a quality that Jenny Geddes lacked when, in 1637, she flung her stool at the dean of St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh screaming “Daur ye say mass in my lug,” as he attempted to read from the English Book of Common Prayer. The good lady went on to make a decent living by selling cabbages outside the cathedral door. More recently, and probably a good deal more politely, a doctor and a community worker in Swaziland courgeously interrupted the sermon of a local parish priest. In a country where 23% of the population between 15 and 19 years are estimated to be …

Indigent Misfits or Shrewd Operators? Government-assisted Emigrants from the United Kingdom to Australia, 1831–1860

Passages funded by Australia's colonial governments accounted for 56 per cent of all arrivals from the United Kingdom between 1831 and 1860. In concert with a range of private, Colonial Office, and Poor Law sources in the UK, analysis of data on the emigrants' age, sex, occupation, county of origin, literacy, and religious persuasion, collected by colonial Immigration Agents, challenges the traditional view of Australia's government immigrants. Rather than indigent misfits, shovelled out by a system anxious to rid the UK of its poor, they were primarily well-informed, self-selecting, literate individuals who often sought help from philanthropic agencies or their local parish to enable them to finance their passage deposit, mandatory clothing, and travel to the port of embarkation. Comparative analysis of data on occupation and county of origin, which suggests that they were not the spillover of the North America-bound streams, further challenges the prevailing view.

God in La Mancha: Religious Reform and the People of Cuenca, 1500-1650.

This title is the winner of the Roland H. Bainton Prize, Sixteenth Century Society and Conference.Even as the Protestant Reformation became a permanent feature of European culture, a Catholic reformation was under way in Spain. In this acclaimed social history of the Spanish Counter Reformation, Sara Nalle uses the records of local religious courts, parishes, and notarial archives to explore in striking detail how the people and clergy of Cuenca learned to conform to the new standards of modern Catholicism.

‘Die Bewustheid Van Armoed'; the ACVV and the construction of Afrikaner identity, 1904–1928

This article is a case study of the Afrikaanse Christelike Vroue Vereniging, from its inception in 1904 to the late 1920s. Did the grass‐roots activities of this women's organisation contribute significantly to the making of ‘Afrikaner’ subjects? Here, it is argued that women were active participants in the construction of Afrikaner nationalism. The ACVV's leaders proclaimed the organisation's support for Afrikaner nationalism, and identified poor ‘Afrikaners’ as recipients of their welfare efforts. However, middle‐class women from the Cape Town and larger platteland towns, and poorer women from isolated rural areas jointed the ACVV for different reasons. The extent to which ACVV members identified with Afrikaner nationalism also varied considerably. By the late 1920s, the ACVV executive's nationalist message had failed to reach significant numbers of its own members on the platteland. Branches in the Cape's industrialising centres actively supported Afrikaner nationalism, and consistently applied ethnic criteria to their welfare work. However, the ‘imagined community’ of many rural members was still the local parish rather than the volk. Even so, it is argued that this women's organisation played an important role in the construction of Afrikaner nationalism. Urban as well as rural ACVVs drew dislocated Afrikaans‐speakers into support networks and church community structures, and so rendered them more accessible to nationalist discourse.

Saints and Sites: The Interrelationship Between Church Dedications and Placenames in England

AbstractA personal name in an English placename may be that of the saint to whom the local parish church is dedicated, as notably in Cornwall. Some church dedications, however, evolved from a misinterpretation of the placename. Conversely, some placenames apparently preserving a saint's name are actually based on a secular personal name, even when prefixed by St.