Pilgrim's Journey Research Articles

Ecumenism: Gospel imperative, harsh reality, and pilgrim journey

This paper offers a series of reflections on ecumenism today, first delivered on the occasion of the Shaw Lecture in St Andrews in February 2023. It begins with the gospel imperative of ecumenism, exploring its substance and its history. In a second section, it considers the harsh reality of ecumenism, and reflects upon its persistent challenges. In a third section, it proposes that present-day ecumenism might be conceived as a particular kind of pilgrim journey – as a difficult peregrinatio that seeks the place of resurrection but that has no clear destination. And by way of conclusion, it offers some observations on the specific ecclesiastical context of Scotland.

Die Seidenstraße. Konnektivität als Motor von „Grobalization“ und „Glocalization“ am Beispiel des chinesischen Buddhismus

The following paper deals with the connectivity of the Silk Roads and how these networks function as a driving force of globalizing phenomena, especially of Grobalization and Glocalization, demonstrated by the example of Chinese Buddhism. It will examine the advent of Buddhism and its spread via the Silk Roads, the Chinese response to this new religion, the pilgrim journeys of Chinese monks to India, and the case study of Dunhuang. As will be shown, the networks of the Silk Roads formed a stable basis for the spread of Buddhism to China, amongst other things due to their continuity and the support of official and private institutions.

Towards an Ecological Catholicism: Marian Pilgrimage in the Anthropocene

This article analyzes how the author and environmental activist Carl Amery draws together the topics of Catholicism and ecological criticism in the pilgrimage novel Die Wallfahrer, or The Pilgrims (1986). The novel depicts the journeys of four pilgrims to the Marian shrine at Tuntenhausen in Bavaria. In their journeys towards the surprising and unorthodox Virgin Mary of Tuntenhausen, the pilgrims anticipate their ultimate journey towards Gaia, the earth goddess in Greek mythology, and the inspiration for the Gaia Hypothesis, which proposes that the Earth evolves as a system in which organisms are an active, fundamental component. This article explores how the novel recasts the pilgrim journey as a journey towards an ecological consciousness of humans’ creatureliness and increasingly detrimental impact on the web of life. Particular focus is placed on the way Amery dramatizes the connection between salvation history and the Gaia theory that has lately received renewed interest in the context of the Anthropocene debate.

A Pilgrim's Journey-When Parkinson's Disease Comes to an End in Nursing Homes.

Our interdisciplinary mixed-methods exploratory study was aimed at gaining empirical data on the medical and nursing demands of residents who are in a late stage of Parkinson Disease (PD) and are cared for in residential homes in Salzburg (Austria). In earlier studies it has been concluded that symptom burden of late stage PD patients is similar to or even higher compared with oncological patients. However, although all nine residents who took part in our study had severe limitations in performing their daily activities and experienced enormous restrictions in their mobility, they were quite content with their present living situations and did not show significant symptom burden. From the ethnographic family interviews that we conducted the following features emerged: a strong closeness in the family, an improved quality of life when the patients lived in the nursing home and fears about the future. Therefore, we concluded that living in a nursing home that provides for the needs of these patients is the best option for PD patients in the final stages of their disease as well as for their relatives.

Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life by Gerard Kilroy

Reviewed by: Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life by Gerard Kilroy Anne Dillon Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life. By Gerard Kilroy. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2015. Pp. xxii, 458. $135.99. ISBN: 978-1-4094-0151-3.) This is an outstanding book, a biography of the young Jesuit Edmund Cam-pion, who was executed for treason at Tyburn on December 1, 1581. Thomas Alfield, in his eyewitness account written for publication shortly after the events of Campion’s trial and death memorably described him as “The flower of Oxford … and an honour to our country.” Gerard Kilroy’s intention, discussed in his introduction, is to re-imagine through the documentary evidence available Campion’s scholarly and priestly life. And he succeeds in doing so impressively and without a hint of hagiography. Kilroy’s meticulous scholarship, careful reading of a vast range of historical, literary, and visual sources—including several previously unknown, recently discovered manuscripts—his perceptive analysis and interpretation of these, bring to life on the page the boy, the scholar, the Jesuit priest, the missionary, and the martyr; the man who as a young scholar, had been earmarked for preferment by Queen Elizabeth herself and whose death scandalised the whole of Europe. His findings, however, go much further. They notably clarify, add to, and in some cases change our understanding of the Elizabethan settlement at this critical point as the Queen and her counsellors negotiated the matter of the Anjou suit and the succession within the immediate consequences of the bull, Regnans in excelsis, of Pius V and the intentions of Nicholas Sander, the King of Spain, William Allen, Sir Francis Englefield, and others in promoting rebellion in Ireland. In addition, they provide new insight into the internal politics and factionalism of the Catholic community at home and in exile. Kilroy’s detailed re-creation of Campion’s early years provides clues to the man. The son of a radical Protestant stationer, Campion was brought up among the tight-knit print community who lived and worked in and around St. Paul’s churchyard. This upbringing, he shows, exercised a potent influence throughout his life. Campion’s intuitive understanding of the power of print characterised his scholarly and missionary work. So too, this upbringing exposed him from an early age to the culture of the spoken word: in sermons, most notably at Paul’s Cross, in dialectic, and in oratory. It nurtured in him a lifelong devotion to disputation, “a belief that intellectual argument was the only solution to the theological differences of the period” (p. 15). Campion’s inherently sweet nature, combined with his wonderfully receptive intellect, Kilroy shows, singled him out early for patronage by the city elders who ensured his education in its own schools: St Paul’s, Christ’s Hospital—and later St. John’s, Oxford. The chapter on Campion’s Oxford career is outstanding. Kilroy’s identification and use of previously unknown material in his reconstruction of the Queen’s visit in 1566 throws new light on this event. Campion’s skills in oratory and disputation famously so impressed Elizabeth on this occasion that she instructed Leicester to offer him “preferment and patronage on an unlimited scale” (p. 43). Kilroy’s findings contextualize and clarify the anxieties, tensions, and factionalism in the [End Page 136] regime during these days as the matter of the Queen’s marriage and the succession became the fulcrum around which a series of complex diplomatic shifts and personal manoeuvres were executed. He shows too the consequences of Leicester’s appointment as Chancellor of the university as, with the transfer of power from a Catholic majority to a Calvinist minority, large numbers of Catholic scholars swiftly migrated from Oxford to Louvain. Campion’s formative time in Ireland, his scholarly work there, conversion, and departure for Douai in 1571 are particularly well brought out. It is not possible in a short review to do justice to Kilroy’s expert reconstruction of Campion’s career which then followed. His use of known, and previously unknown archival sources to reconstruct Campion’s pilgrim journey to Rome, entry into the Society, his novitiate in Brno, ordination and the six happy and fulfilled years spent in...

Cognition and Transfer of Contagious Substance in Hindu Himalayan Pilgrim Journeys

Abstract Ideas and practices about the transfer of substances believed to be charged with positive or negative properties are significant features of pilgrimages. Oftenneglected features of pilgrimages can be addressed by adopting concepts from the Cognitive Science of Religion. Religious pilgrimages are popular phenomena that are based on ritual interaction with culturally-postulated counterintuitive supernatural agents. This article partly refers to and analyses ethnographic data gathered during fieldwork among Hindu pilgrims in Nepal and Tibet. The pilgrims received items to take home from the pilgrimage site but they also left other items there. This constituted a transfer of contagious substances that carried blessings and supernatural agency/power and it enabled the discharging of defilement, sin or evil. The aim of this article is to show how the beliefs about substance transfer are shaped by cultural institutions and by cognitive selection pressures related to psychological essentialism and concepts of agency and contagion relating to counterintuitive agents.

Arkivyskupas Mečislovas Reinys tautų atmintyje : piligrimų kelias

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama Vladimiro (prie Kliazmos) Švč. Mergelės Marijos Rožinio Karalienės bažnyčios pa­rapijiečių grupelės, vadovaujamos klebono t. Sergejaus Zujevo, piligrimystė Lietuvoje arkivyskupo Mečislovo Reinio (1884 02 03 – 1907 06 10 – 1926 04 05 – 1953 11 08) vardo įamžinimo keliais. Pristatomi lietuvių atlikti darbai Vladimire, garsinant M. Reinio vardą, jie tapo svarbia paskata piligrimystei. Straipsnyje apžvelgiama informacijos apie piligrimystę sklaida (spaudoje, per radiją ir pranešimus konferencijose), pasakojama apie Skapiškyje pastatytą rūpintojėlį, aptariami kiti renginiai. Piligrimystė liudija trijų tautų – lietuvių, ukrainiečių ir rusų – atstovų dėmesį M. Reiniui. Viena svarbiausių jungiamųjų grandžių – Skapiškis. Atskleidžiamas ukrai­niečių (dvasininkų bei pasauliečių) domėjimasis Skapiškyje kaupiama su Ukraina susijusia medžiaga, aptaria­ma, kaip puoselėjamas Klementijaus Šeptyckio (1869 11 17 – 1915 08 28 – 1951 05 01) – ukrainiečio, Studitų ordino (graikų apeigų katalikų) archimandrito, 2001 m. paskelbto palamintuoju – atminimas.

The Achilles Simile in Purgatorio 9

The Achilles Simile in Purgatorio 9 Thomas E. Mussio The comparison between the pilgrim's disorientation and fear upon awaking at the threshold of Purgatory and the young Achilles' reaction as he awakes in unfamiliar Skyros intimates the pilgrim's continued attachment to the secular values of glory and honor, as well as his doubts about the success of his spiritual journey. This simile at the opening of Canto 9 and the narrative that surrounds it mark this point before the door of Purgatory as a crucial moment in the process of conversion, in which the pilgrim struggles at a deep level against the forward momentum of the journey. While most commentators and critics have focused only on the primary point of the comparison, there are compelling reasons for considering the wider effects of linking the two characters here.1 First, the poet hints strongly that he is interested in describing more than mere disorientation, as he reminds the reader in the course of the comparison that Achilles' journey will not end in Skyros, as his mother had hoped, but rather with the Greek army on the plains before Troy: "... quando la madre da Chiron a Schiro/ trafuggò lui dormendo in le sue braccia,/ là onde poi li Greci dipartiro" (Purg. 9, 37-39, emphasis mine).2 Second, the projection of Achilles' tragic future within the simile also recalls all the ambivalence of the pilgrim toward the figure of Ulysses, who, as the pilgrim hears in Inferno 26, was instrumental in Achilles' destruction, even as he led him to glory (Inf. 26, 61-63). Here Ulysses continues to figure in the pilgrim's imagination throughout much of the journey as a temptation to an experience that opposes that [End Page 79] of the journey toward conversion. Third, Dante's redaction of the scene from Statius' Achilleid intensifies the emotion of the waking protagonist. Singleton suggests that the language of intense fear here echoes other points of crisis in the pilgrim's journey, such as the pilgrim's utter sense of loss before the horror of Lucifer's image (Singleton, 185). Given these aspects of the figure of Achilles, the timing of the comparison seems particularly peculiar and purposeful, as it occurs just after the pilgrim has received the grace to lift him to the threshold of Purgatory proper. Finally, the Achilles simile is tied to the complex of signs woven into the first part of Purgatorio 9, and is inextricably linked to the pilgrim's dream that precedes it. It is impossible to read the anxiety of the pilgrim without recalling the image of Ganymede snatched violently from his familiar surroundings. The comparison to Achilles here provokes questions about the pilgrim's susceptibility to the rhetorical power of Ulysses intimated in Inferno 26 and the temptation to value worldly glory over heavenly grace. Compared to other mythological figures evoked in the Commedia as negative exempla for the pilgrim, such as Phaethon, Achilles' direct connection to Ulysses points to the danger not only of obvious pride and presumption but also of the more subtle parts of one's character upon which a master rhetorician could work. If, as many commentators believe, Ulysses is a constant reminder for the pilgrim/poet of his potential for transgression, Achilles is a figure of the hero tempted, a hero who could not restrain himself.3 In this specific passage, Dante's highly condensed account of the story of Statius' Achilles here reduces it to two essential movements: the movement away from danger and tragedy and a subsequent counter-movement toward it, Thetis' attempt to save her son by hiding him in Skyros and the Greeks taking him away from there. Dante's terse description of the counter-movement of the Greeks away from the island ("là onde poi...") suggests the strong, nearly inevitable pull of Ulysses' manipulation of Achilles' will, as he thoroughly [End Page 80] erases the moment of Achilles' initial resistance to the call to war. This double movement, the second of which "undoes" the first, has strong implications for the pilgrim. Although he is lifted by Lucia to the "salvific" steps of Purgatory, Dante suggests that, as with Achilles, this progress could...

Religious representations for Christian adult education

This article aims to explore the key concept of religious representations that reflect an individual's relational world and indicates the individual's religious maturity. While the term ‘representations’ is originally used in psychodynamic studies, the article discusses the idea that religious representations provide important indications of an individual's relational and spiritual health. The concepts and patterns of religious representations are discussed based on attachment theoretical studies. This brings some implications for Christian adult education. Variety of God‐language, imaginative pilgrim journey and mentoring relationship are suggested for refining religious representations. Alongside these suggestions, the article reminds us that the images in the biblical materials and in the Christian tradition are important for an imaginative pilgrim journey.

Ritual Agency, Substance Transfer and the Making of Supernatural Immediacy in Pilgrim Journeys

AbstractPilgrim journeys are popular religious phenomena that are based on ritual interaction with culturally postulated counterintuitive supernatural agents. This article uses results taken from an anthropological Ph. D. thesis on cognitive aspects of Hindu pilgrimage in Nepal and Tibet. Cognitive theories have been neglected in pilgrimage studies but they offer new perspectives on belief structures and ritual action and call into question some of the current assumptions in this research field. Pilgrim journeys often involve flows of substance of anthropomorphic character. Transferring substance in pilgrimage means leaving material at the pilgrimage site and then receiving other materials to take home. Pilgrim journeys imply ritual interaction, intuitions and ideas regarding the management of sin, impurity and evil. They also imply reception of blessings along with divine agency. This paper investigates how assumptions about agency, psychological essentialism and contagion connected to supernatural agents provides an important selective pressure in formation of beliefs related to pilgrimage. This paper shows that the transfer of substances is an operation on ritual instruments. It creates a supernatural immediacy effect in pilgrims, in the sense suggested by Lawson and McCauley.

“Beyond a Boundary”: Life, Death, and Cricket in Trinidadian Conceptions of the Afterlife

This article examines the place of life, death, and cricket in Trinidadian ideas concerning the afterlife. In his book Beyond a Boundary, C. L. R. James uses West Indian cricket as an analogy to reveal a number of central ideas concerning life, its purposes, and goals. It also gives vivid expression to the ambivalent—and often contradictory—attitudes Trinidadians hold concerning death and dying. Despite the prevalence of some common principles and practices, Trinidadians hold a wide array of beliefs concerning the afterlife. Trinidadian beliefs concerning the afterlife are shaped by the fact that many Trinidadians die in their homes and are buried by local religious leaders, rather than by commercial funeral homes, except for those living in major cities like Port of Spain and San Fernando. This article mainly focuses on members of one religion—the Spiritual Baptists, who see life as a “'pilgrim journey”—and contrasts their ideas about death with those of the followers of the Orisa and Kabalists, who see the transition between death and the afterlife as a more gradual process that takes place over many years.

The Cross That Dante Bears: Pilgrimage, Crusade, and the Cruciform Church in the Divine Comedy by Mary Alexander Watt (review)

MARY ALEXANDER WATT, The Cross That Dante Bears: Pilgrimage, Crusade, and the Cruciform Church in the Divine Comedy. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005. Pp. xii, 225. ISBN: 0-8130-2876-0. In preliterate societies the cross often represented a conjunction of dualities. The horizontal arm was associated with the terrestrial, worldly, feminine, temporal, destructive, negative, passive, and death, while the vertical arm connoted the celestial, spiritual, masculine, eternal, creative, positive, active, and life. Often symbolic of the four astrological elements of earth, water, fire, and air, a cross was also perceived as the cosmic axis from which radiated the spatial dimensions of height, length, width, and breadth, as well as the directions of north, east, south, and west. The vertical pole and crossbar used to crucify Jesus Christ became the principal symbol of Christianity. In the introduction to her book, Watt reminds us that by the thirteenth century the potency and polysemous capacity of the cross was so prevalent as to inform the work of cartographers, architects, and artists alike. Its symbolic potential continued to expand well into the fourteenth century when it was all-pervasive. Maps of Christendom, the known world, and those of Jerusalem, the world in microcosm, were laid out, like church architecture with an eastward orientation, in a cruciform shape. Those maps and churches were united in a nexus of meaning that included pilgrimage. To move toward the altar or to travel to Jerusalem was to take up the cross in imitation of Christ's suffering. Itinerary, map, and church are, thus, typologically related, and each is a manifestation of the same significance, both literal and allegorical-the event of the crucifixion and the promise of spiritual redemption. Watt's book traces the cultural presence of the cross as it lends form and meaning to the medieval representation of the multi-dimensional universe, the journey, and the church in order to reveal how all three not only pervade the imagery of The Divine Comedy, but most importantly to her argument, structure the poem, serve to define it in terms of genre, and buttress its spiritual authority. The title of the book alludes to the pilgrim's journey as both the cross that Dante bears, the suffering that will redeem him, and the cross that he wields in his crusade against those who have defiled him. Both his pilgrimage and his crusade serve a pseudo-autobiographical purpose. In a strategy similar to the inclusion of references to the cruciform church and the road to Jerusalem, Dante includes a series of references that evoke the places of his own wandering. The journey of his actual life is presented, then, as typologically equivalent to progress in a cruciform church and to the journey to Jerusalem. As such, Dante's own life is revealed as the allegorical fulfillment of the figura that comprises the literal narrative...the poem and the journey, it describes, or rather foretells, are therefore are also cross-shaped...(5). Pilgrimage in the poem, as Watt explains, furnishes both a spiritual itinerary to guide the Christian wanderer and a travelogue of Dante's own purgatorial journey in exile away from the hell of Florentine political intrigue and the corruption of papal Rome to the reward of paradise, rehearsed and promised by his poem. The poet presents himself as an exemplum, a Christ figure, a new Paul, and his poem becomes the record of his wanderings, a guidebook to those seeking a new pilgrimage. …

A Pilgrim's Journey

Abstract For Toke and Barbara, who posed the question: “Where have you been with your writing in the past twenty years?” (1978–1998)

A Pilgrim's Journey

For Toke and Barbara, who posed the question: “Where have you been with your writing in the past twenty years?” (1978–1998)

A Pilgrim's Journey

Abstract “A Pilgrim's Journey” is the initial article for a continuing column in this journal titled “The Librarian Abroad.” The column will describe various libraries, especially community and junior college libraries, and include the visits and journeys of librarians. This first article by the column editor, Dr. Luella Teuton, reflects on a librarian following the path of the Pilgrims.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:Renate Egger‐Wenzel, Ben Sira's GodPaul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green and Marianne Meye Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, Its Literature and TheologyI. Boxall, Revelation: Vision and Insight. An Introduction to the ApocalypseS. Moyise, Studies in the Book of RevelationG. R. Osborne, Revelation: The Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New TestamentN. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of GodGillian Clark and T. Rajak, Philosophy and Power in the Graeco‐Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam GriffinRichard Paul Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene RevolutionStephen T. Davies, Daniel Kendall S. J. and Gerald O'Collins, The Incarnation. An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of GodRichard Cross, The Metaphysics of the IncarnationHugh Connolly, SinAnthony W. Bartlett, Cross Purposes: The Violent Grammar of Christian AtonementStanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural TheologySarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and GenderChristopher Cocksworth and Rosalind Brown, Being a Priest Today: Exploring priestly identityRandall Balmer, Encyclopedia of EvangelicalismKate Armstrong, Crisis and RepetitionAnthony A. Barrett, Livia: First Lady of Imperial RomeGerhard Podskalsky, Von Photios zu Bessarion: Der Vorrang humanistisch geprägter Theologie in Byzanz und deren bleibende BedeutungNicola Coldstream, Medieval ArchitectureW. J. Armstrong, J. A. W. Hellmann and W. Short, Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, IIIEllen E. Kittell and Thomas F. Madden, Medieval and Renaissance VeniceTheodor Dieter, Der junge Luther und Aristoteles: Eine historisch‐systematische Untersuchung zum Verhältnis von Theologie und PhilosophieAndrew Brown, Church and Society in England, 1000–1500Renate Blumenfeld‐Kosinski, Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren, The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious LiteratureBarry Collett, Female Monastic Life in Early Tudor England, with an Edition of Richard Fox's Translation of the Benedictine Rule for Women, 1517Marc R. Forster, The Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque. Religious Identity in Southwest Germany, 1550–1750W. R. Ward, Christianity under the Ancien Régime 1648–1789Nigel Aston, Religion and Revolution in France 1780–1804Catharine Edwards, Roman Presences: Receptions of Rome in European Culture, 1789–1945Bruce L. Kinzer, England's Disgrace? J. S. Mill and the Irish QuestionJohn Corrigan, Business of the Heart: Religion and Emotion in the Nineteenth CenturyPeter M. Chisnall, John Henry Cardinal Newman: A Man of Courage, Conflict and ConvictionVincent Ferrer Blehl, Pilgrim Journey: John Henry Newman 1801–1845Kester Aspden, Fortress Church. The English Roman Catholic Bishops and Politics 1903–63David Alvarez, Spies In The Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue From Napoleon to the HolocaustPeter McDonough and Eugene C. Bianchi, Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American JesuitsRuby Blondell, The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues

John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion (review)

Late Modern European John Henry Newman: Challenge to Evangelical Religion. By Frank M. Turner. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2002. Pp. xii, 740. $35.00.) continued interest in life of John Henry Newman (1801-1890) is remarkable. One wonders why a nineteenth-century author should continue to attract so many biographers, who sometimes seem obsessive about investigating and interpreting even most minor details of his life. Such microscopic interest has not been evident in case of other leaders of Oxford Movement: John Keble (1792-1866), Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), or Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-1836). Nor has comparable attention been given to lives of other Anglicans, who like Newman became Roman Catholics: Frederick Faber (1814-1863), William George Ward (1812-1882), and Newman's fellow cardinal, Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892). Yet in centuryplus since Newman's death (1890), dozens and dozens of biographers have drawn portraits of him-portraits varying from one biographer to next. One biography that is still very engaging is two-volume work of Meriol Trevor (Newman: Pillar of Cloud, 1962; Newman: Light in Winter, 1963; and a one-volume condensation, Newman's Journey, 1974), whose fascination with faith-journey of a fellow convert produced a compellingly readable narrative, though one lacking scholarly apparatus and critique. latter lacuna has recently been supplied by late Vincent Ferrer Blehl (Pilgrim Journey:John Henry Newman, 1801-1845,2001), an editor of Newman's letters and a vice-postulator of his cause for beatification. In a more popular vein, Brian Martin (John Henry Newman: His Life and Work, 1982) has provided a short well-written biography, whose attractive narrative is enhanced by ample illustrations. Yet, if there is a definitive biography, it is probably that of Ian Ker (John Henry Newman: A Biography, 1988), who used Newman's own writings, especially his letters and diaries, to piece together a remarkable portrait of Newman as he would have wanted to be painted. Nonetheless, Newman continues to attract biographers, who wish to portray him from new and changing perspectives and so to continually expanding list of Newman biographies is now added that of Frank M.Turner. As a scholarly work, Turner's extensive endnotes (pp. 645-724) are exceptionally impressive in citing historical material of all types: both published and archival, both rare and well known, both nineteenth-century and recent. While regretting absence of a bibliography, Newmanists will find a wealth of useful references in these notes. Nonetheless, there are some slips; for example: Lawrence Joseph Henry, whose dissertation at University of Texas is described as the most extensive discussion of reception of Newman's Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), is misidentified as Henry Lawrence Joseph (p.718,fn.89).Also,the opinion that. . . Newman's theology similarly led certain Roman Catholic clergy toward condemnation [as Modernists] by highest authorities of their church (p. 716, n. 61) is certainly debatable; rather, so-called Roman Catholic Modernists seem to have elaborated their innovative theologies first and only then appealed to Newman's writings for support. A similar problematic appeal is detectable in Turner's work, whose citations sometimes do not really substantiate interpretations in text; but such flaws are part of a more substantial fault that ultimately undermines scholarship of this volume. At first sight, Turner's subtitle, The Challenge to Evangelical Religion, seemingly promises a revisionist approach to study of Newman's Anglican years (1801-1845); accordingly, readers may anticipate an elucidation of Newman's early espousal of evangelicalism, from which he later parted company, even though separation was never total; readers may also expect an analysis of different evangelical reactions to Newman and Oxford Movement and vice versa, attitudes of Newman and his fellow Tractarians toward various evangelicals. …

Steps on the Pilgrim Journey: Memories and Reflections, by Cardinal Cahal B. Daly

Steps on the Pilgrim Journey: Memories and Reflections, by Cardinal Cahal B. Daly

Pilgrim Journey: John Henry Newman 1801–1845. By Vincent Ferrer BlehlS.J., New York: Paulist, 2001. xii + 452 pages. $24.95. - Rise and Progress of Universities and Benedictine Essays. By John Henry Newman. Introduction and Notes by Mary Katherine Tillman. The Works of Cardinal John Henry Newman: Birmingham Oratory Millennium Edition, 3. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press; Leominster,

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The integration of the palaeopathology and medical history of the crusades

The concurrent use of the techniques of palaeopathology and medical history allows a more thorough assessment of disease in a past community than if just one discipline is used. The crusades to the Medieval eastern Mediterranean have left many manuscripts providing written evidence of disease and its treatment, but it is only in recent years that any palaeopathological assessment of Crusader Period settlements have been undertaken. Human skeletal remains from the 12th century Templar site of Le Petit Gerin are discussed in the context of contemporary accounts of disease in historical records, legal documents, pilgrim journeys and medical texts. Cases of weapon injuries to the shoulder and skull and also osteomyelitis in the sacrum and ulna in association with dental disease are presented here. Both of these are areas of particular relevance to the crusades due to the violent nature of the period and the widespread cultivation of sugar cane, a crop known to cause dental disease when eaten in large amounts. Treatment of recent weapon injuries to the shoulder involved cleaning the wound with wine or vinegar and then bringing the soft tissues together with bandages and sometimes stitching. Skull wounds were cleaned, the scalp retracted and ink applied to show any fractures, and bone fragments removed with forceps, chisel or trephine to prevent them damaging the brain. Osteomyelitis could be treated with modification of diet, topical application of ointments, washing the wound with vinegar, or surgery to remove the infected bone or amputate the diseased part of a limb. Anaesthetics such as the ‘soporific sponge’ could be used to relieve pain during an operation, but great care had to be taken not to give the patient too much of the drugs, which could cause death from a respiratory arrest. The laws in the Crusader States were strict regarding malpractice and if a citizen died as a result of poor medical skill, the doctor would have been hung. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.