To Serve the Nation

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-518
Author(s):  
Christine Ehrick

This article looks at the construction and evolution of Latin America’s first “welfare state” through the lens of social assistance. What one sees in Uruguay during these years is a modernization of paternalism, whereby the state assumed some of the roles previously played by the elite and, to a lesser extent, the Catholic Church, protecting and assisting society’s “weak” without fundamentally challenging or altering class or gender inequalities or hierarchies. The article focuses on the Asociación La Bonne Garde, a state-subsidized, ostensibly private organization that housed pregnant juveniles and placed them as domestic servants in the homes of the more well-to-do. Exploring the relationships between the elite women who ran this organization, their poor juvenile wards, and state bureaucrats and other reformers illustrates the establishment and evolution of this state-sponsored paternalism as well as the ways in which the young female wards attempted to manipulate this system to their own ends.

2001 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Ehrick

In 1910, the Uruguayan Public Assistance Law established the concept of universal poor relief, declaring that “anyone … indigent or lacking resources has the right to free assistance at the expense of the state.” Nothing better than this law qualifies Uruguay for its distinction as the ‘first welfare state’ in Latin America. As in other countries, much of the first social assistance legislation targeted poor women and children and relied on elite women for much of its implementation. In the Uruguayan case, the primary intersections between public assistance and private philanthropy were the secular “ladies’ committees” (comités de damas), charitable organizations without direct ties to the Catholic Church. These organizations were also an important catalyst for liberal feminism in Uruguay, whose chronology—from the foundation of the National Women's Council in 1916 through the women's suffrage law of 1932—closely parallels the history of the early Uruguayan welfare state. Following a discussion of the formation of the National Public Assistance and its significance for class and gender politics in Uruguay, this article will summarize the evolving relationship between the Uruguayan social assistance bureaucracy and one of these groups, theSociedad“La Bonne Garde,” an organization that worked with young unmarried mothers. It then discusses how a formal and direct relationship with the state helped make the Bonne Garde and other groups like it a principal point of entry for many elite women in the early phases of Uruguayan liberal feminism. Finally, this article shows how processes set in motion in the 1910s resulted in a relative marginalization of elite women from both state welfare and organized liberal feminism in the 1920s. Through an examination of the history of these ladies’ committees, we gain new insight into both welfare state formation in its earliest Latin American example as well as some of the elements and circumstances which helped shape liberal feminism in Uruguay.


Author(s):  
Breandán Mac Suibhne

Observing the abandonment of traditional beliefs and practices in the 1830s, the scholar John O’Donovan remarked that ‘a different era—the era of infidelity—is fast approaching!’ In west Donegal, that era finally arrived c.1880, when, over much of the district, English replaced Irish as the language of the home. Yet it had been coming into view since the mid-1700s, as the district came to be fitted—through the cattle trade, seasonal migration, and protoindustrialization—into regional and global economic systems. In addition to the market, an expansion of the administrative and coercive capacity of the state and an improvement in the plant and personnel of the Catholic Church—processes that intensified in the mid-1800s—proved vital factors, as the population dwindled after the Famine, in the people breaking faith with the old and familiar and adopting the new.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 188
Author(s):  
Rafał Śpiewak ◽  
Wiktor Widera

The essence of the Catholic Church implemented in the modern world is of crucial importance for the understanding its mission towards the state, especially when developing appropriate civil attitudes. One sources of cognition is the historical reflection made on an analytical basis of Catholic media content. This article presents the discourse analysis of Gość Niedzielny (i.e., Sunday Guest), which was one of the most important Catholic publications in Poland, during the reconstruction of the Polish statehood. The pro-state mission of the Catholic Church was an expression of responsibility for common good, was nonpartisan and was connected with the promotion of values that condition the social order. It was believed that the condition of the state is determined by the moral form of its citizens and their level of involvement in social life. Christian values were though to secure and protect also the good of non-Catholic citizens. Here, the research and discourse analysis allows us to define the conclusions regarding contemporary relations between Church and the state in Poland. The key thoughts included in the publications of Sunday Guest, have contemporary application and their message is extremely up-to-date.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-176
Author(s):  
Mária Csatlós

With the available archival resources and through exploring the life, work and political actions of Endre Ágotha, the dean and parish priest of Nyárádselye I trace the unfolding and failing of the schismatic catholic peace movement legitimated in Marosvásárhely in the period 1950-1956. The state backed “Catholic Action” did not succeed in severing the Catholic Church in Romania from Rome by settling the “pending cases” between the church and the state and only a small portion of the clergy joined the movement, yet it has made significant moral damages by dividing the believers and the clergy. The Holy See condemned the movement and it’s key figure Endre Ágotha has brought upon himself the harshest punishment of the Catholic Church: excommunicates vitandus. He received absolution only on his deathbed.


Author(s):  
Mykhailo Shumylo

The social doctrine of the Catholic Church is an indication of the active involvement of the Church in disseminating the ideas ofthe welfare state and it reflects its attempts to establish ideals of the welfare state through an external influence on the ideology of countriesthat belong to Christendom.Furthermore, one cannot ignore the fact that encyclicals had a direct or indirect influence on the adoption of the first social protectionacts in Catholic Europe where encyclicals played an important role.As a result, the Holy See aligned itself with the labour movement.Considering the fact that papal encyclicals covered the entire Catholic World, these documents can be viewed as an example ofinternational soft law.The first social rights, principles, and values in the area of social protection were enshrined in the encyclicals.Social rights belong to second-generation human rights the legal basis for which comprises international instruments adoptedafter the Second World War (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Convention for the Protection of Human Rightsand Fundamental Freedoms (1950), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), the European SocialCharter (Revised) (1965–1996), the European Code of Social Security (1964), meaning 50 years after these rights were enshrined inpapal encyclicals.There is an indisputable fact that has still not been discussed in scientific research on social protection and according to whichthe social doctrine of the Catholic Church can be viewed as an inherent part of the process of occurrence, formation, and developmentof social protection, and it can be regarded as an ideological framework, a source of social rights and principles of social protection.Considering the above-mentioned findings, the social doctrine of the Catholic Church can be defined as the body of legislationadopted by the Holy See regarding the status and development of social and labour rights, their place in a person’s life and in publiclife. Papal encyclicals form the basis of that legislation and they are addressed to believers, bishops, and archbishops.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-119
Author(s):  
Bartosz Kapuściak

The primary task of the military intelligence in the People’s Republic of Poland was to acquire materials on the armament and stationing of NATO troops. However, due to the demand of the communist authorities, it also conducted political activities aimed at, among others, the Catholic Church. The interest of the state authorities increased especially during the pontificate of John Paul II. According to the assessment of military intelligence, the election of Karol Wojtyła as Bishop of Rome stimulated the Catholic Church both in Poland and in the Vatican. In this way, the activities of the Second Directorate of the General Staff of the Polish Army were within the scope of civil intelligence interests. The article aims to show the role played by intelligence officers and informers operating in Rome undercover as military attachés or in civilian institutions. Their actions resulted in the establishment of contacts with the church environment and acquisition of voluntary and involuntary informants. In this way, the Second Directorate of the General Staff of the Polish Army provided the party and political apparatus with interesting news and materials. Following the introduction of martial law in Poland, the church from the Rome area started sending parcels of food, clothes and medicines to Poland. This aid for the country was used to establish contact with the Polish clergy thanks to the initiative of Colonel Franciszek Mazurek.


2017 ◽  
pp. 80-94
Author(s):  
Petro Yarotskiy

The 500th anniversary of theReformation (1517 - 2017), which is celebrated in Ukraine at the state level, gives an opportunity to evaluate this event in various dimensions of its foundation, development and transformation in the context of the European transition from feudal relations and their citadel - the Catholic Church to the establishment of protestantism as an innovation faith and ideologiy of a new social formation. The process of the spread of early protestantism in Ukraine an its perception by the Ukrainian mentality and modern functionality in independent Ukraine are researched


2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renate Dürr

“All, therefore, who consider themselves Christians may be absolutely certain that we are all equally priests.”1 With this declaration Martin Luther categorically repudiated the Catholic understanding of priesthood as a holy estate with indelible marks bestowed at consecration. According to the reformers all Christians, in principle, have the same authority in word and sacrament, but only those authorized by the respective community of believers may wield it. This assessment not only reflected certain irregularities within the clergy but also signified a completely new definition of the priesthood. It cannot be understood outside the context of existing contemporary criticism—not only from reformatory circles—of the state of numerous parishes who suffered under poorly educated, morally unacceptable (from a contemporary point of view) or indeed absent clergymen. The Catholic Church's answer to this challenge, therefore, had two aims: plans for far-reaching reforms were intended to renew the image of priests and, primarily, to provide effective pastoral care. Polemical theological debates against Protestants and discussions within the Catholic Church were intended not only to strengthen the certainty of the fundamental essence of priestly identity but also to facilitate a differentiation of Catholic from Protestant understanding. The decisions of the Council of Trent also touched both areas. At the 23rd session both the theological basis of the sacrament of consecration and the plans to reform the rules concerning the bishops' obligatory residence in their parishes were debated.2


Author(s):  
Gavin D'Costa

Chapter 6 systematically draws together all doctrinal teachings developed in this book related to Jewish cultic rituals, the land, and mission. Regarding Jewish cultic rituals it summarizes why the Catholic Church is not going against earlier magisterial teachings that apparently teach that Jewish rituals are dead and deadly. Those very documents provide a counter current which suggests the opposite reading. Regarding the land it summarizes why the Catholic Church can support a minimalist Zionism that interprets the Jewish return as biblical, while refusing to endorse the state government or its various decisions, while also affirming the rights of Palestinians to a homeland and to justice. Regarding mission, it argues that a grass roots Hebrew Catholic community can offer witness to the reality that Judaism is not eradicated and superseded were a Jewish person to accept Christ and the truth of the Catholic Church. This is a form of mission.


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