Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Erin Michael Salius
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
The Political ◽  
Slave Narrative ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Narrative Approaches ◽  
National Conversation ◽  
African American Authors ◽  
American Authors

This introduction considers why African American authors would engage Catholicism in their efforts to revise the national discourse on slavery during the civil rights and Black Power movements, a period characterized by a deep suspicion of the cultural institutions that historically supported the rise of slave societies in the Americas. Contemporary narratives of slavery, from the earliest to the most recent, devote significant aesthetic attention to Catholic rituals and mysteries—even as they remain sharply critical of the political and social policies of the Catholic Church. The introduction charts this tension by locating the genre’s emergence during a time when heightened public attention to Catholicism following the Vatican II proceedings on race coincided with the rise of a broader national conversation on the legacy of slavery. It argues that this confluence is reflected in the ambivalence with which the contemporary slave narrative approaches Catholicism.

Generations

2019 ◽  
pp. 51-71
Author(s):  
Lisa Woolfork
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Lost Cause ◽  
African American Authors ◽  
Black Life ◽  
A Site ◽  
Post Civil Rights ◽  
American Authors

This essay explores the ways in which African American authors of that era reclaim the slave past as a site of memory for a nation eager to forget. Lucille Clifton’s Generations (1976), Alex Haley’s Roots (1976), Ishmael Reed’s Flight to Canada (1976), and Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979) are the chapter’s main focus. These works resist the tide of historical amnesia and “lost cause” mythology that would minimize or relegate the enslaved to mere props in the larger Civil War drama of rupture and reconciliation. By centering the stories of the enslaved as ancestral foundations of post-civil rights black life, these authors promote a model for historical memory and genealogy that elevates black resilience.

Beyond Parish Boundaries: Black Catholics and the Quest for Racial Justice

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 264-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen J. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
Black Catholics ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
Black Equality ◽  
National Networks

Abstract According to most historians, the majority of northern urban Catholics before Vatican II (1962–1965) were ensconced in their parish boundaries, viewing their existence through the lens of the parish and focusing the majority of their attention on matters within their particular geographic location. As African Americans moved north during the Great Migration (1910s–1960s) and the racial dynamics of cities changed, some black Catholics began to organize for what they called “interracial justice,” a term that reflected their belief that black equality would benefit African Americans and whites. This article argues that the parish boundaries paradigm for understanding Catholicism prior to the reforms of Vatican II fails to account for the efforts of black Catholics working for interracial justice. This article considers four ways black Catholic interracialists moved beyond their parish boundaries: (a) the national networks they cultivated with white priests; (b) the theological doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ they used to support their work; (c) the local relationships they developed with non-Catholics; and (d) the connections they made with young white Catholics. By advancing this argument, this essay highlights the relationship between race and religion—both how the institutional Catholic church reinforced racial hierarchies and how black Catholics leveraged their faith to tear them down. Finally, this article reorients the history of Catholic interracialism by focusing on black laypeople and connects two bodies of literature that rarely comment on one another: that of Catholicism and the long civil rights movement.

On the Authority of Papal Encyclicals

2020 ◽  
pp. 288-306
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
The Political ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

In this article Böckenförde connects two of the most important concerns throughout his life: the freedom of man and the constitution of the Catholic Church. Böckenförde shows that papal encyclicals are inherently fallible, demonstrated historically for example with reference to magisterial statements on religious freedom, which as late as the nineteenth century condemned religious freedom as leading to the dissolution of the divinely given order of truth. Böckenförde shows that this position is based on a perceived unity of morality and juridical law, which fails to distinguish their respective functions. Böckenförde then discusses the ‘Declaration on Religious Freedom’ by Vatican II as an epochal shift from the right of truth to the right of the person, endorsed with a theological legitimation, namely the dignity of the human person arising from the likeness of God. Böckenförde also proposes that the authority of encyclicals is dependent on the question of how far encyclicals are open to internal criticism, which does not signal a lack of faith, but rather an important corrective that needs to be taken into account by the magisterium based on the concept of sensus fidelium. Without such engagement, the connection between the authority of the teaching staff, which traditionally provides meaningful orientation, and the faithful’s willingness to follow, is in danger of dissolution. As Böckenförde elucidates with reference to the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1983, the political practice inside the Church is far from permitting such engagement. Böckenförde’s concluding remarks are dedicated to the need for canon law reform.

God is Not Dead or Violent: The Catholic Church, Just War, and the “Resurgence” of Religion

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lan T. Chu
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Hard Power ◽  
Politics And Religion

AbstractWhile scholars have recognized a resurgence of religion, their focus mainly has been on religion's more violent aspects, overlooking its peaceful capacities and effects. This oversight is due in part to the lack of theoretical rigor when it comes to the study of politics and religion. Using the Catholic Church's opposition to the United States’ 2003 war in Iraq, this article highlights the political significance of religion's moral, symbolic voice, which is as important as the hard power that has traditionally dominated international relations. The post-Vatican II Catholic Church's modern articulation of human dignity and interpretation of just war theory challenges both scholars and policymakers to utilize the peaceful, diplomatic methods that international relations theory and practitioners have made available. Religion's role in politics, therefore, can be one that is supportive of modern political societies and it need not be violent.

Arrest and Сonviction of Cardinal József Mindszenty 1948–1949. Part 2. “Most pitiful prisoner of the country”

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Margit Balogh
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Historical Archives ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Second World

As a result of the political struggle that unfolded in Hungary after the Second World War, the only independent institution remaining in the country was the Catholic Church headed by the Archbishop of Esztergom, Cardinal József Mindszenty. Part One of the article reconstructs the investigation and political process against the primate, who was arrested on charges of high treason, preparing a coup aimed at overthrowing the republican system, espionage, and currency speculation. Part Two deals with the political process and show trial of Mindszenty. The hearings began on 3 February 1949 at the Budapest People’s Court, and, on 8 February 1949, the guilty verdict was announced. The facts were so cleverly manipulated that Mindszenty’s hopes for a change in the political system in the country were qualified as a political conspiracy. The cardinal was sentenced to life imprisonment, deprivation of civil rights, and complete confiscation of property. While preparing for the court of second instance, Mindszenty put forward new projects aimed at reconciling the state and the Church. Deeply disappointed, the cardinal signed his letters “condemned”, “prisoner”, and “condemned archbishop”. The show-trial and long prison confinement only strengthened the cardinal’s faith. This article is based on documents held by the Hungarian National Archives, the Historical Archives of the State Security Services, the Esztergom Primate Archives, the Archives of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the National Archives and Records Administration (USA), and others.

scholarly journals Roman Catholicism in the United States

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Abortion Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Catholic ◽  
Film And Literature

This book takes the reader beyond the traditional ways through which scholars have viewed and recounted the story of the Catholic Church in America. It covers unfamiliar topics such as anti-Catholicism, rural Catholicism, Latino Catholics, and issues related to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the U.S. government. It continues with fascinating discussions on popular culture (film and literature), women religious, and the work of U.S. missionaries in other countries. The final section of the book is devoted to Catholic social teaching, tackling challenging and sometimes controversial subjects such as the relationship between African American Catholics and the Communist Party, Catholics in the civil rights movement, the abortion debate, issues of war and peace, and Vatican II and the American Catholic Church. The book examines the history of U.S. Catholicism from a variety of perspectives that transcend the familiar account of the immigrant, urban parish, which served as the focus for so many American Catholics during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries.

Political risks of recovering and discovering meanings in the collective memory of a perverse religious organisation

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
Eduardo Acuña Aguirre
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Influences ◽  
Conversion Event ◽  
Political Risks ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
The Catholic Church

This article refers to the political risks that a group of five parishioners, members of an aristocratic Catholic parish located in Santiago, Chile, had to face when they recovered and discovered unconscious meanings about the hard and persistent psychological and sexual abuse they suffered in that religious organisation. Recovering and discovering meanings, from the collective memory of that parish, was a sort of conversion event in the five parishioners that determined their decision to bring to the surface of Chilean society the knowledge that the parish, led by the priest Fernando Karadima, functioned as a perverse organisation. That determination implied that the five individuals had to struggle against powerful forces in society, including the dominant Catholic Church in Chile and the political influences from the conservative Catholic elite that attempted to ignore the existence of the abuses that were denounced. The result of this article explains how the five parishioners, through their concerted political actions and courage, forced the Catholic Church to recognise, in an ambivalent way, the abuses committed by Karadima. The theoretical basis of this presentation is based on a socioanalytical approach that mainly considers the understanding of perversion in organisations and their consequences in the control of anxieties.

II. Modernization of the Papacy and Catholicism in the Postmodern: Legacy and Challenges to Vatican I

Horizons ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-119
Author(s):  
Massimo Faggioli
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Vatican I ◽  
The One ◽  
Pius Ix ◽  
The Way

In the ongoing aggiornamento of the aggiornamento of Vatican II by Pope Francis, it would be easy to forget or dismiss the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Vatican I (1869–1870). The council planned (since at least the Syllabus of Errors of 1864), shaped, and influenced by Pius IX was the most important ecclesial event in the lives of those who made Vatican II: almost a thousand of the council fathers of Vatican II were born between 1871 and 1900. Vatican I was in itself also a kind of ultramontanist “modernization” of the Roman Catholic Church, which paved the way for the aggiornamento of Vatican II and still shapes the post–Vatican II church especially for what concerns the Petrine ministry.

scholarly journals Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Sharrow
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Legislative Proposals ◽  
Gendered Bodies ◽  
Political Right

Between 2020 and 2021, one hundred and ten bills in state legislatures across the United States suggested banning the participation of transgender athletes on sports teams for girls and women. As of July 2021, ten such bills have become state law. This paper tracks the political shift towards targeting transgender athletes. Conservative political interests now seek laws that suture biological determinist arguments to civil rights of bodies. Although narrow binary definitions of sex have long operated in the background as a means for policy implementation under Title IX, Republican lawmakers now aim to reframe sex non-discrimination policies as means of gendered exclusion. The content of proposals reveal the centrality of ideas about bodily immutability, and body politics more generally, in shaping the future of American gender politics. My analysis of bills from 2021 argues that legislative proposals advance a logic of “cisgender supremacy” inhering in political claims about normatively gendered bodies. Political institutions are another site for advancing, enshrining, and normalizing cis-supremacist gender orders, explicitly joining cause with medical authorities as arbiters of gender normativity. Characteristics of bodies and their alleged role in evidencing sex itself have fueled the tactics of anti-transgender activists on the political Right. However, the target of their aims is not mere policy change but a state-sanctioned return to a narrowly cis- and heteropatriarchal gender order.

Before Reagan: The Development of Abortion’s Partisan Divide

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031-1047
Author(s):  
Neil A. O’Brian
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Pro Life ◽  
Pro Choice

What explains the alignment of antiabortion positions within the Republican party? I explore this development among voters, activists, and elites before 1980. By 1970, antiabortion attitudes among ordinary voters correlated with conservative views on a range of noneconomic issues including civil rights, Vietnam, feminism and, by 1972, with Republican presidential vote choice. These attitudes predated the parties taking divergent abortion positions. I argue that because racial conservatives and military hawks entered the Republican coalition before abortion became politically activated, issue overlap among ordinary voters incentivized Republicans to oppose abortion rights once the issue gained salience. Likewise, because proabortion voters generally supported civil rights, once the GOP adopted a Southern strategy, this predisposed pro-choice groups to align with the Democratic party. A core argument is that preexisting public opinion enabled activist leaders to embed the anti (pro) abortion movement in a web of conservative (liberal) causes. A key finding is that the white evangelical laity’s support for conservative abortion policies preceded the political mobilization of evangelical leaders into the pro-life movement. I contend the pro-life movement’s alignment with conservatism and the Republican party was less contingent on elite bargaining, and more rooted in the mass public, than existing scholarship suggests.

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