Roman Catholic Nuns Research Articles

Resilience, Physical Performance Measures, and Self-Perceived Physical and Mental Health in Older Catholic Nuns

The importance of physical performance measures and their influence on predicting future disability has been suggested; however, the association between resilience and physical performance measures in older women needs further study. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the resilience level in a convenience sample of older women who happened to be Roman Catholic nuns. The relationships of resilience with specific physical performance measures, self-perceived physical and mental health status, and depressive symptoms were also explored. Descriptive correlational cross-sectional design was used. Data from 54 volunteer Roman Catholic nuns, aged 55-94 were collected beginning with self report questionnaires followed by physical performance tests. Self-report measures included the Resilience Scale, Short-Form revised (SF-12v2) Health Survey, and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). The 12-point Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) and fast gait speed were the physical performance tests measured. This sample of nuns had moderate levels of resilience. Those with fewer depressive symptoms and better health had higher resilience levels. Fast gait speed was positively associated with resilience. The positive relationship between resilience and gait speed is an important finding of this study because it reinforces the connection between physical and emotional health. Future studies should examine if resilience and gait speed can serve as predictors of disability in a broader sample of older adults or if resilience can be targeted as a means of improving physical performance. Maintaining functional ability and recovering when physical injury is experienced is of great importance in older adults. It is reasonable for physical therapists to consider both resilience and physical performance measures when attempting to identify older women at risk for poor outcomes. Resilience may play a role in helping older adults recover from a physical injury.

Beyond Original Sin: A Paradigm Shift for the Age of Neuroscience

In this article I explore the implications of Jesus’ location of the kingdom of heaven in the lived experience of the individual and of the findings of neuroscientific research for a paradigm shift in Christian theology, one that moves us beyond the Adamic myth and belief in original sin. Support for a theological paradigm shift based on lived experience is provided by Capps (1993) and for this particular paradigm shift by Pagels (1989) and Ricoeur (2004). I point out that the doctrine of original sin supports and fosters the negativity bias of the brain and inhibits the resculpting of the brain. Drawing on Hanson’s (2009) evidence in support of the brain’s neuroplasticity (i.e., its capacity to change itself) and on Brach’s (2003) critique of the “trance of unworthiness,” I make the case for meditative and mindful awareness practices in Christianity and other religious traditions as proven methods for the resculpting of the brain in order that individuals may experience greater joy, contentment, and awareness of the goodness of life and of God’s creation. A longitudinal neuroscientific research study of Roman Catholic nuns (Newberg and Waldman 2009) provides evidence in support of the role of contemplative prayer and meditation in generating the joy and serenity that Jesus’ allusion to the hidden treasure envisions.

Terminal decline in motor function.

The study aim was to test the hypothesis that motor function undergoes accelerated decline proximate to death. As part of a longitudinal clinical-pathologic study, 124 older Roman Catholic nuns, priests, and monks completed at least 7 annual clinical evaluations, died, and underwent brain autopsy and uniform neuropathologic examination. Each evaluation included administration of 11 motor tests and 19 cognitive tests from which global measures of motor and cognitive function were derived. The global motor measure (baseline M = 0.82, SD = 0.21) declined a mean 0.024 unit per year (95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.032, -0.016) until a mean of 2.46 years (95% CI: -2.870, -2.108) before death when rate of decline increased nearly fivefold to -0.117 unit per year (95% CI: -0.140, -0.097). The global cognitive measure (baseline M = 0.07, SD = 0.45) declined a mean of 0.027-unit per year (95% CI: -0.041, -0.014) until a mean of 2.76 years (95% CI: -3.157, -2.372) before death when rate of decline increased more than 13-fold to -0.371 unit per year (95% CI: -0.443, -0.306). Onset of terminal motor decline was highly correlated with onset of terminal cognitive decline (r = .94, 95% CI: 0.81, 0.99), but rates of motor and cognitive change were not strongly correlated (preterminal r = .20, 95% CI: -0.05, 0.38; terminal r = .34, 95% CI: 0.03, 0.62). Higher level of plaques and tangles was associated with earlier onset of terminal decline in motor function, but no pathologic measures were associated with rate of preterminal or terminal motor decline. The results demonstrate that motor and cognitive functions both undergo a period of accelerated decline in the last few years of life.

COGNITIVE RESERVE, HOMOCYSTEINE, AND COGNITION IN THE BAVARIAN SCHOOL SISTERS STUDY

COGNITIVE RESERVE, HOMOCYSTEINE, AND COGNITION IN THE BAVARIAN SCHOOL SISTERS STUDY

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Religious Environmentalism in the West

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Religious Environmentalism in the West

Shifting boundaries: religion, medicine, nursing and domestic service in mid‐nineteenth‐century Britain

The boundaries between medicine, religion, nursing and domestic service were fluid in mid-nineteenth-century England. The traditional religious understanding of illness conflicted with the newer understanding of anatomically based disease, the Anglican sisters were drawing a line between professional nursing and the traditional role of nurses as domestic servants who looked after sick people as one of their many duties, and doctors were looking for more knowledgeable nurses who could carry out their orders competently. This prosopographical study of the over 200 women who served as government nurses during the Crimean War 1854-56 describes the status of nursing and provides a picture of the religious and social structure of Britain in the 1850s. It also illustrates how religious, political and social factors affected the development of the new nursing. The Crimean War nurses can be divided into four major groups: volunteer secular ladies, Roman Catholic nuns, Anglican sisters and working-class hospital nurses. Of these four groups I conclude that it was the experienced working-class nurses who had the greatest influence on the organization of the new nursing.

The effect of personality pathology on treatment outcome for Axis I disorders in dysfunctional clergy

The relationship between Narcissistic, Compulsive, Dependent, and Antisocial personality traits, as measured by the MCMI-III, and the clinical presentation and the treatment outcome for Axis I disorders, as measured by the MMPI-II was investigated. The subjects were 86 Roman Catholic priests and nuns who participated in 6 to 8 months of residential treatment. Pretreatment evaluation of the patients included the MCMI-III and the MMPI-2. Clinical presentation of Axis I disorders was measured by pretreatment scores on MMPI scales 2 (Depression), 7 (Psychasthenia), content scale DEP (Depression), and content scale ANX (Anxiety). Treatment outcome was measured by posttreatment MMPI-2 scores on these four variables. The results of this study suggest that the level of personality traits a patient possesses can significantly impact the clinical presentation of an Axis I disorder. Although the 48 patients with MCMI-III base rate scores above 74 had significantly higher pretreatment MMPI-2 scores than the patients with lower MCMI-III scores, both groups obtained posttreatment MMPI scores well within normal limits. The intensive individual and group therapy, extended length of stay, and emphasis on community living that the residential program provides may account for these results.

“Their Lives are Little Known”: Nuns and American Reform

It is rare to see a Roman Catholic nun in a habit today, but old-fashioned nuns in full dress uniform are the darlings of the novelty business. The windup doll called nunzilla (she generates sparks), the puppet nun who boxes, and Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius, who explained it all, are just a few examples of nuns in contemporary popular culture. Like most other images of nuns, each of these, to different extents, perpetuates a stereotype of women who never think for themselves, are out of touch with the real world, and are petty and downright nasty. Is this just silly stuff or does it tap into something deeper in American culture? Certainly the fascination with nuns is nothing new. Americans have often expressed strong opinions about nuns, sometimes favorable but more often not.

Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales 1800-1937, a Social History

Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales 1800-1937, a Social History

Roman catholic nuns in england and wales 1800–1937, a social history by Barbara Walsh, 248 pages, Irish Academic Press, Dublin and Portland, Oregon, 2002, UK£32.50 cloth

Roman catholic nuns in england and wales 1800–1937, a social history by Barbara Walsh, 248 pages, Irish Academic Press, Dublin and Portland, Oregon, 2002, UK£32.50 cloth

The Role of Civil Disobedience in Drug Policy Reform: How an Illegal Safer Injection Room Led to a Sanctioned, ‘Medically Supervised Injection Center

In shooting galleries, drug users are able to illegally rent cubicles to inject drugs. Established in Kings Cross, Sydney in the early 1990s, police grudgingly tolerated several such galleries. In 1997, a royal commission recommended that a parliamentary inquiry consider establishing an official medically supervised injecting center (MSIC). Despite strong evidence supporting an MSIC, a majority of the committee voted against a trial facility. As an act of civil disobedience, a group of concerned citizens established an unsanctioned MSIC. However, police soon closed the facility. At a subsequent parliamentary drug summit, delegates voted to support an official trial of an MSIC and invited a congregation of Roman Catholic nuns to establish the facility. When the nuns were instructed to withdraw, the Uniting Church was invited to establish the project. The MSIC opened in May 2001. It can be concluded that public health practitioners wishing to improve appalling outcomes from drug policies sometimes have to resort to civil disobedience in order to achieve their goals.

Terminal decline in cognitive function.

Impending death is thought to be associated with age-related cognitive decline, but this association has not been well studied. Participants were 763 older Roman Catholic nuns, priests, and brothers without dementia at baseline. They completed an average of 5.6 annual evaluations (range 2 to 9), with >95% follow-up participation in survivors. Each evaluation included administration of 19 cognitive function tests from which previously established measures of global cognition (mean = 0.108, SD = 0.502) and specific cognitive functions were derived. In a series of change point random effects models, the average point before death when rate of cognitive decline changed was identified, and rates of cognitive decline before and after the optimal change point were estimated, controlling for the effects of age, sex, and education. There were 122 deaths during the observation period. Those who died had lower global cognitive function at baseline than survivors (by 0.103 unit; p = 0.03), and beginning about 43 months before death, their annual rate of global cognitive decline sharply accelerated from an annual loss of 0.026 to 0.173 unit, a more than sixfold increase. Results were comparable in analyses that controlled for baseline health and disability. Terminal cognitive decline was evident in nearly all of those who died, but at highly variable rates. Remarkably little cognitive decline was evident in survivors. Decline in episodic memory, semantic memory, working memory, perceptual speed, and visuospatial ability also greatly increased about 3 to 6 years prior to death. On average, cognitive decline sharply accelerates in the last years of life.

Review: Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales 1800–1937, a Social History

Review: Roman Catholic Nuns in England and Wales 1800–1937, a Social History

Say Little, Do Much: Nurses, Nuns, and Hospitals in the Nineteenth Century

In Say Little, Do Much, Sioban Nelson offers the first extensive critical account of the role of vowed religious women (Roman Catholic and Anglican nuns and Protestant deaconesses) in the development of nursing in the West. Nelson's impressive synthesis of primary and secondary literature on religion, gender, medicine, and politics ranges across three continents and four religious traditions, opening up significant new directions for scholarship on women and work in the modern world. Organized nursing by religious women began in seventeenth-century France, but Nelson's study rightly focuses on the nineteenth century, when vowed women—particularly Roman Catholic sisters—contributed significantly to the growth of institutional health care through their work in hospitals they owned and managed. Their work has been ignored or underappreciated by most historians, and Nelson offers a persuasive analysis of the scholarly biases that have discouraged attention to religious women. It is the failure of women's history to take serious notice of vowed women that most disturbs Nelson, and her own study has much in common with early work in that field. Her burden is to recover silenced voices and establish their relevance as historical actors. Although she works within a more sophisticated critical apparatus than did early historians engaged in similar recovery projects, Nelson is hobbled by some of the same constraints. Confronted with an overabundance of stories to tell, she takes an expansive approach that forces some sacrifice of detail and analytical depth. Her five case studies highlight the work of different religious communities in North America, Britain, and Australia, suggesting, quite fairly, that the geographical reach of their work is reason enough for scholars to take a closer look at vowed women.

Zona de guerra: España y la revolución cubana (1960-1962)

Relations between Cuba and Spain have long been complex and important to both. The good relations that would develop between the governments of Francisco Franco and Fidel Castro met that standard but, seen from the early 1960s, might also have seemed improbable. This book assesses the most contentious period in Spanish-Cuban relations after the Cuban revolutionary victory in 1959. It ranges from Cuba’s expulsion of the Spanish ambassador, Juan Pablo de Lojendio, in late January 1960 until the end of 1962, after the missile crisis. (In 1963, Spanish-Cuban relations would improve significantly; in the new three-year trade treaty, Spain agreed to pay a price for Cuban sugar well above the Soviet and prevailing world market prices.)Spanish-Cuban relations in the early 1960s operated at multiple levels. Relations between the two political regimes were poor. Franco had been an ally of Mussolini and Hitler; his government remained strongly anticommunist. Many Spanish republicans had found refuge in Cuba and worked to persuade the revolutionary government to support the Spanish republic. Relations between the two societies had been dynamic. Spanish immigrants to Cuba had created a network of significant associations; several featured high-quality health services akin to today’s health maintenance organizations. In 1961 they provided health care to about a half-million people (Cuba’s population was about six million). A majority of Roman Catholic priests and nuns in Cuba were Spaniards; in a legacy from the Spanish civil war, many of these clerics remained militantly loyal to Franco’s regime. The Cuban and Spanish states had to sort through this maze of engagements.Manuel de Paz Sánchez explores these themes well, working from documents in Spain’s diplomatic archives. He presents a full picture of the Spanish diaspora in Cuba as seen by Spanish diplomats. He demonstrates how the institutions of this diaspora were weakened first by expropriations of their members’ properties and ultimately by the government’s seizure of their associates’ assets, including the health services, and the subsequent emigration of many to the United States and Spain.He shows with subtlety the twin roles of Spanish diplomats who sought to preserve acceptable state-to-state relations but who also worried about defending the anticommunist and pro-clerical interests of the Spanish regime. He analyzes the politics of Spanish republicans in Cuba, including the split between communists and noncommunists that would make relations with the Cuban government difficult. The book’s best chapter is the account of the confrontation between the Roman Catholic Church and the revolutionary state, including the expulsion or emigration under duress of hundreds of priests and nuns. Most of the existing scholarship published in the United States has been critical or adverse to this church and its Spanish clerics; de Paz Sánchez presents their story well. It is a tribute to the efficacy of officials and diplomats from both states that diplomatic or economic relations were never broken.Two chapters explore the biographies of soldiers from the Spanish Republic who played significant roles in Cuban history. Alberto Bayo helped to train Fidel Castro’s guerrillas prior to their landing in Cuba in 1956 and, after 1959, sought to employ his fame to foster anti-Franco activities. Francisco Ciutat de Miguel, known as Angelito, became a high-ranking officer in Cuba’s armed forces, defending the revolutionary government in the early 1960s.The book is written in a narrative style. Except for a six-page epilogue, there is little interpretation. Readers must supply their own analysis, aided by de Paz Sánchez’s ample documentation and accessible style. The book would have been better, however, if the text between p. 209 and p. 309 had been cut. In these chapters, the author tells again the story of the confrontation between the United States and Cuba as seen through the eyes of Spanish diplomats. Indeed, the only point of these pages seems to be to demonstrate that Spanish diplomats were not asleep at the wheel. For the record, they were not—and that simple sentence would have sufficed. These hundred pages contribute little to our understanding of Cuba, U.S.-Cuban relations, or even Spain’s relations with the United States and Cuba.In this book, Manuel de Paz Sánchez sheds light on topics of great importance for Cuban social history and bilateral Spanish-Cuban relations. His information regarding the Spanish diaspora, church-state relations, the role of Spanish republicans in Cuba, and the behavior of key Spaniards, be they diplomats or revolutionary soldiers, breaks new ground in the study of Cuba and of its relations with Spain. He contributes ably to the historiography of a momentous period.

The State of Research on Pacific Northwest Women

The State of Research on Pacific Northwest Women Karen J. Blair (bio) I began my investigation of the scholarly literature on Pacific Northwest women's history when I moved to Seattle to teach local women's history in 1979 and immediately engaged in a search to locate secondary sources to bolster my students' and my own research. I was discouraged to learn that, compared to the American South, New England, or the Southwest, the studies in this region have been skimpy on all but a handful of topics. I decided to initiate a thorough search to review scholarly books and articles published throughout history that explored women's history in the Pacific Northwest for the years 1787–1970. I chose 1970 as an ending point because that is the year Washington State passed the Equal Rights Amendment. In the space of fifteen years, I perused over two thousand scholarly works, including textbooks, reference works, journals, edited memoirs, and university press monographs on Washington and Oregon history to scavenge material on Northwest women. Finally, I isolated seven hundred sources, including books and articles but oftentimes mere chapters or sections of chapters in larger studies of the Northwest's past. The result was published in 1997 as Northwest Women: An Annotated Bibliography of Sources on the History of Oregon and Washington Women, 1787–1970 (Pullman: Washington State University Press), which won the American Library Association prize for best bibliography in history that year. I expected my efforts to yield a treasure trove of neglected sources that documented a huge spectrum of women's lives and activities. Surely, the women alongside the well-documented male loggers, sailors, miners, homesteaders, ranchers, laborers, union activists, entrepreneurs, Indian chiefs, generals, and government officials had been studied by scholars. Surely, the accomplishments of busy wives, nurses, teachers, social workers, homemakers, club members, missionaries, cooks, prostitutes, seamstresses, piano teachers, farmers, actresses, entertainers, and cannery workers had already been documented. To my surprise and distress, my findings showed that historians [End Page 48] of the Pacific Northwest left us much to do. The bulk of attention had gone only to a few topics while enormous arenas had been left unexamined by historians. Which Pacific Northwest women in history have enjoyed the most attention from researchers? I discovered that four topics have absorbed the lion's share of attention—the Protestant missionaries, especially Narcissa Prentiss Whitman; pioneer homesteaders, with special affection for their overland trail experiences; Native Americans, but particularly Sacajawea, who accompanied Lewis and Clark on the exploratory expedition of the region of 1803–1806; and women's club activities. In all four categories, the bulk of the publications were descriptive more than analytical. If any perspective was offered, it was generally laudatory. Most often, the focus was on individual women and the strong character they demonstrated in the face of hardship. No one has enjoyed more and better press from researchers than Narcissa Whitman, the wife of Dr. Marcus Whitman. Together, they established a Protestant mission in the 1830s in the area now known as Walla Walla, Washington. Almost universally she is presented by researchers as selfless and well-meaning, devoted to the conversion of Northwest Indians to Christianity and a martyr in the Cayuse massacre of 1838. Similarly, the missionary efforts of Anna Pittman Lee, Mary Walker, Myra Eells, and French Canadian Roman Catholic nun Mother Joseph (Esther Pariseau) have also been widely noted and praised for fortitude in civilizing the heathen. Only one modern historian, Julie Roy Jeffrey, has rigorously dissected Narcissa Whitman's story in the context of imperialism, women's rights, and social control, which leads to a less than laudatory assessment of the missionary's role.1 The anonymous pioneer homesteading family, rooted by the ambitious, hardworking farmer and his tenacious wife, has been a tenet of Northwest mythology. The story of the young sturdy couple traversing the Great Plains by covered wagon to carve productive farms out of the wilderness is realized in numerous specific histories of nineteenth-century families. The biographies of ordinary farm women generously provide the domestic details of the endless cooking, sewing, cleaning, child-raising, nursing, teaching, offering of hospitality, creating of rituals for birthdays, weddings, and funerals...

Religious Freedom in Post-World War II Yugoslavia: The Case of Roman Catholic Nuns in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina 1945-1960

Religious Freedom in Post-World War II Yugoslavia: The Case of Roman Catholic Nuns in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina 1945-1960

Dietary protein and phosphorus do not affect calcium absorption

Variation in absorption efficiency explains more of the variability in calcium balance than does actual calcium intake. Several investigators have suggested that the relatively high phosphorus and protein intakes of the diets of industrialized nations reduce calcium absorption and thereby aggravate the problem of calcium deficiency. My objective was to test whether variation in phosphorus and protein intakes is associated with variation in calcium absorption. One hundred ninety-one Roman Catholic nuns aged 48.7 +/- 7.0 y were studied approximately 3 times each over a >20-y period with a full metabolic balance regimen; controlled, chemically analyzed diets; and double-tracer measurement of calcium absorption. Although the expected associations with absorption were found for age, calcium intake, and estrogen status, no association was observed for intakes of either phosphorus or protein. Phosphorus and protein intakes do not contribute to the wide variability in calcium absorption efficiency.

Voices from the silent world of doctor and patient.

Joann Starr, a Roman Catholic nun, and Bruce Zawacki, a burn surgeon, met 22 years ago in the Los Angeles County, University of Southern California Burn Center in the roles of a patient and her physician struggling over issues of autonomy and informed consent. After recovery, she remained a nun and has become a patient advocate and doctoral candidate in bioethics. He remained a burn surgeon and has become a bioethics teacher and author. Although they live in distant locations, they maintain their friendship and frequently discuss their shared experience. Recently they met to reflect on the events, lessons, and meanings of their original encounter.

Changing Old Habits: Dress of Women Religious and Its Relationship to Personal and Social Identity

Dress has played a critical and visible role in constructing social and personal identities of Roman Catholic nuns, or as those in noncloistered orders prefer to be called, women religious. This research utilizes symbolic interaction theory to examine how social identity, symbolized by the religious habit, communicated an image that was incompatible with the personal identities of the women religious who wore habits. To explore this issue, the author uses the concepts of identity distancing and embracing. During the 1960s and 1970s, following the mandates of Vatican II in 1962, the process of identity distancing was evidenced by relinquishing the habit. Identity embracing was at first symbolized by the ambivalence expressed in wearing the modified habit and more clearly conveyed through secular dress.