scholarly journals The NN’s souls-cult: a case study of catholicism and popular religion in Colombia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Bastidas Meneses ◽  
Tom Kaden ◽  
Bernt Schnettler
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
Relative Independence ◽  
Symbolic Structure ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

AbstractThis article analyzes the cult of the souls in Purgatory in Puerto Berrío, Colombia, and its relationship with the Catholic Church. Through empirical evidence, it identifies three characteristics of this cult, namely, its relative independence from the Catholic Church, its heterogeneity and its utilitarian character, and compares them with other cases of Latin American popular Catholicism. The particularities of the cult enable an analysis of how popular religion, rather than generating a conflict with the Catholic Church, maintains an ambiguous relationship with it. The case shows that popular religion not only incorporates the symbolic structure of the Catholic Church to legitimize itself, but also that the church tolerates it, contributing to the peaceful coexistence of the popular and the institutionalized. Consequently, this leads believers, instead of adhering to a supposed binary opposition, to shift between popular and institutionalized religion.

The Awakening of a New Form of Christianity? Catholicism in the Cariri Region (Brazil)

Exchange ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-397
Author(s):  
Jan Joris Rietveld
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
Rural Zone ◽  
New Form ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

AbstractThe Cariri region is the most isolated and poor part of the rural zone of the diocese of Campina Grande in the Paraiba state of Brazil. The Catholic Church has been present here for a relatively short time: 335 years. Moreover the region has an isolated context and this favors conservatism so that only fundamental changes have an impact. These facts make the Cariri an interesting region for a case study about how Catholicism develops. I distinguish five periods, which are described with religious key words and situated in the socio-cultural context. This classification is a schematization: different types of Catholicism often exist together. It is obvious that the dominant features of Catholicism change with time, but in the mainstream of the fifth period we see a small revolution. Now there are not only influences in the socio cultural context and factors in the Church itself that cause changes, but there are also influences of powerful newcomers, the evangelical churches. Their main impact is that many people have left the Catholic Church and are going to live their old faith in a new form. The Catholic Church is searching for adequate ways to respond to this phenomenon.

The Catholic Church at Puebla

Worldview ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 13-15
Author(s):  
Renato Poblete
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Human Life ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

The Third General Assembly of the Latin American Episcopate took place last February in the Mexican city of Puebla. Without doubt it will make a profound impact upon the evangelizing action of the Church in Latin America. The documents produced at Puebla, like those produced in Medellin ten years earlier, will give rise to reflections that will find their way into the diverse pastoral plans of each nation.Neither Medellin nor Puebla can be considered isolated phenomenon. On the contrary, each should be seen as fruits of a maturing process in which Christian people, together with their pastors, express both the depths of their anguish and their high hopes and visions. That vision encompasses raising people from subhuman situations to a fuller experience of human life. Such experience should be expected to bring people together in brotherly love and lead naturally to a greater openness to God.

scholarly journals Defending Human Rights Through Social Action: The Role of the Catholic Church in Latin America in the 1960s–1980s

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madelyn Evans
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Social Mission ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Since the earliest days of colonization, religion – in particular, the Roman Catholic Church – has been a driving force in the Latin American politics, economics, and society. As the region underwent frequent political instability and high levels of violence, the Church remained a steady, powerful force in society. This paper will explore the relationship between the Catholic Church and the struggle to defend human rights during the particularly oppressive era of bureaucratic-authoritarianism in Latin America throughout the 1960s–1980s. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the Church undertook the struggle to protect human rights because its modernized social mission sought to support the oppressed suffering from the political, economic, and social status quo. In challenging the legitimacy of the ruling national security ideology and illuminating the moral dimensions of violence, the Catholic Church became a crucial constructive agent in spurring social change, mitigating the effects of violence, and setting a democratic framework for the future.

Strategic interaction: The PRL Government, Solidarity, the Church, and the problem of political prisoners

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-225
Author(s):  
Andrzej Friszke
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

This study of the struggle between the government of the Polish People’s Republic and Solidarity in the years 1981-1984 discerns three key actors in Polish politics: the Communist party leadership and security apparatus, the arrested leaders of Solidarity, and the bishops and advisers of the Catholic Church. The PRL government made strategic decisions in this period regarding repression and liberalization. Following initial advanced preparation for the trial of eleven arrested leaders of Solidarity and KSS KOR, the government attempted to coerce the arrestees into leaving Poland, thus weakening the movement’s legitimacy. The article demonstrates how the interaction between the leaders of the two sides – mediated by bishops and advisers – produced a new dynamic and a shift in the existing political mechanism. What was once a mass movement transformed into a more regular, staffed organization with a greater role played by leaders, who symbolized the continuity of the movement and enabled Solidarity to weather the period of repression. The article shows the changes and tensions in the Solidarity movement, along with the changes that were occurring in parallel on the side of the government and the mediating third actor, i.e., the Catholic Church. This case study of the strategic clash that occurred at the beginning of the 1980s illustrates the transformations that took place within the government and Solidarity – transformations that would prove crucial to the transition process in 1988-1989.

The Political Transformation of the Brazilian Catholic Church

1975 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-144
Author(s):  
Mathias C. Kiemen
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Present Author ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Church Development ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Historians studying the Church in Latin American have recently been receiving excellent assistance from political scientists and sociologists such as Ivan Vallier and François Houtart, and now the present author, Thomas C. Bruneau. There certainly is a place for sociology in the study of the Catholic Church. Bruneau’s theses concerning Church development in Brazil are, therefore, vitally interesting to professional historians of this country.

The Modernized Church in Peru: Two Aspects

1964 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-318
Author(s):  
Fredrick B. Pike
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Throughout Latin America the Catholic Church has embarked upon a process of modernization. The key element in modernization has been the assumption of an active role in the quest for economic betterment of the conditions in which a majority of the population lives. Realizing that a modern nation is an integrated nation, the Church seems to have adopted as its motto: A Modem Church in a Modern Nation. Consequently, it has begun to help Latin American republics become nations through the integration of previously excluded groups into society.

The Catholic Church, “Politics,” and Violence: The Colombian Case

1977 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel H. Levine ◽  
Alexander W. Wilde
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

The issue of politics and the Catholic Church in Latin America, relegated until recently to nineteenth-century historians, is very much alive today. On the one hand, the church as an institution is enmeshed in public controversy over human rights with repressive regimes from Paraguay to Panama, from Brazil to Chile. When it serves as a shelter for political and social dissent, it is accused by secular authorities of engaging in a “new clericalism.” On the other hand, it has been assailed by critics within for being wed to existing political powers. These radical clergy and lay people believe that the church's social presence is inevitably political, but want to change its alliances to benefit the poor and dispossessed. Furthermore, they believe that the existing order in given situations is aform of “institutionalized violence” against which the Christian response must be “counterviolence.” Such attacks from right and left occur, paradoxically, just at a time when the Latin American church has turned with unprecedented resolve to fundamental pastoral tasks. Politics has thus become a problem just as the hierarchy can claim, with considerable justification, to have eschewedthe practice of partisanship and the pursuit of power.

The Evolution of a Mission Policy: A Case Study

1986 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-145
Author(s):  
Gerald A. Arbuckle
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Congregation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Vatican 11 introduced into the Catholic Church major theological, administrative, and pastoral changes relating to its view of mission. Since the council, these changes have been further refined. This article is about how one missionary religious congregation, the Society of Mary (Marist Fathers), reacted to these changes. Prior to the council, the congregation accepted the Euro-centric superiority view of the church with unfortunate consequences for all concerned. Today the congregation has absorbed at least in theory the new changes. Internalization of the new mission emphases is slower. The case study illustrates inter alia the importance of leadership being fully aware of theological and anthropological insights for the development of a mission policy.

Apparitional Movements as Sites of Religious Experimentation

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Halemba
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Marian Apparitions ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Based on an analysis of existing literature on Marian apparitions and field research-based case study from contemporary Transcarpathian Ukraine, this article asserts that an interpretation of Marian apparitional movements as a form of acquiescence to the authoritarian and conservative vision of the Catholic Church is too simplistic. The Virgin Mary appears in moments of crisis that are often caused or exacerbated by conflicts, especially ecclesiastical ones and it is also true that the sites of apparitions often do give a voice to those critical of modern changes. However, they are not always instrumentalized in support of conservative ideas. To the contrary, Marian apparitions are often sites of religious experimentation and innovation. On the one hand the Church can be extremely skeptical of or even hostile to apparitional events, still on the other hand the Church makes use of them as places of religious modernization with an aim to revitalize religious adherence.

Projectification of a global organization – case study of the Roman Catholic Church

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beata Jałocha ◽  
Anna Góral ◽  
Ewa Bogacz-Wojtanowska
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Organization ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand projectification processes of the global organization, based on the example of the Catholic Church’s activities. The Catholic Church is the oldest and the largest international organisation to be assessed also from the longue durée perspective. The Church as both a large and supranational organisation and a religious community has carried out a lot of social tasks. A part of its activity relating to the Church’s basic mission is carried out in these days in the form of various projects. In this paper, the authors demonstrate that seemingly unchanging structure, such as the Catholic Church, based on a determined hierarchy, strict principles and rules of conduct, is affected by the projectification processes. Design/methodology/approach The authors chose the method of a single case study. To analyse the projectification processes in the Church, the authors focussed on flagship mega-events of WYD programme, from which the following were selected: Rome (1985), Manila (1995), Sydney (2008), Rio de Janeiro (2013) and Krakow (2016). Findings The study demonstrates that organisational projectification processes can have a real impact on the strategic changes in the global organisation. Under the influence of significant projects, organisations can change internally and also redefine their way of interacting with the stakeholders. Projectification at the same time is a change and leads to it. The research also shows that projectification of a global organisation can intensify internal learning processes. On the one hand, “projectification agents” transfer project practices to various regions of the world, and, on the other, draw on local practices. Therefore, the projectification process is not simply transplanting the project “virus” into new places, but also a process of change and adaptation to the stimuli flowing from the environment. Originality/value The particularities, the distinctiveness of the projects of the Catholic Church can be an inspiration for others realizing projects. The experience of the Catholic Church in the implementation of WYD can be valuable for organisations implementing other projects that require involvement and activation of many, diverse stakeholders, for example, charitable projects or the so-called community engagement projects implemented by large international organisations, such as the World Bank, UNICEF, the UN, the Red Cross or humanitarian projects organised by NGOs in different parts of the world.

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