Protest kobiet. Wizerunek katolicyzmu w wytwórczości współczesnych polskich reżyserek

In the second decade of the 20th century (especially in the years 2016-2020), a significant number of films by Polish female directors were released in which Catholicism and the Catholic Church were attacked. They were: W imię… [In the Name of…], Body/ciało [Body], Twarz (Mug) and Córka boga [The Other Lamb] – all directed by Małgorzata Szumowska; Dzikie róże [Wild Roses] by Anna Jadowska, Pokot [Spoor] by Agnieszka Holland and Kasia Adamik, Wieża. Jasny dzień [Tower. A Bright Day] by Jagoda Szelc, Powrót, [Back Home] by Magdalena Łazarkiewicz, Maryjki [Marygoround] by Daria Woszek, as well as a documentary Komunia [Communion] by Anna Zamecka. The polemic related to the above-mentioned movies commented on the religiosity of Catholics and the quality of the institutional church (priests, hierarchies, methods of ministering and teaching), religious control and repression of corporeality and sexuality (including female sexuality), and Catholicism as the foundation of the patriarchal system. These films also feature elements of the "positive program", a proposal for a new cultural paradigm (new spirituality), organized around Nature, with the suggestion of matriarchy. From the point of view of social communication, the content and poetics of above-mentioned the films were similar, according to the author, to the content of the protests of the Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet (Polish Women's Strike), which demonstrated in 2016 and 2020 against the tightening of abortion laws.

Determinants for the Development of the Activity of the Catholic Church in Poland in the Field of Social Communication

In recent years, the Catholic Church has been forced to change its attitude towards social communication and mass media. It has had to face not only religious but image challenges. Worldview matters, contemporary problems regarding the institution of marriage or pedophilia in the Church are constantly being debated in mass media, thus creating dangers in terms of critical public reception. This situation has also been occurring in Poland in recent years. The observed progress regarding opening the Church to media relations and the use of rich instruments of social communication have their reasons rooted not only in the history of the social and political events of the past several decades but also in the changes in the sphere of mass media and social communication. This article is an attempt to generate a peculiar typology of determinants regarding the development of social communication within the institutional church in Poland. Within our framework of methodological conditions, a literature query with available statistical analyses and observations of current events was applied. Our conclusions show the current attitude of the Catholic Church in Poland regarding issues related to the marketization of faith and the medialization of religion.

April 5, 2005—Living in Mortal Time

The central theme of this dialogue is exploration of extended mortal time. Early in her breast cancer treatment, one of Nell’s physicians had estimated a much shorter lifespan; she expected the prediction to come true. She is prepared to die and is frustrated when she learns it is not time. Nell is finding comfort in the rituals of Catholic Church in which she was raised, even though she describes herself as “a fitfully practicing Catholic” with Buddhist leanings. She appreciates the opportunity for the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick while at the same time questioning the many problems of the institutional church, including patriarchy. She contends with the practical problems of managing her deteriorating body as well as contemplating “pure love as the reward on the other side” when she dies. Nell is making peace with her time on earth. She is not lying passively but actively engaging her life as it comes to an end. A profound insight is finding herself feeling at home in the world for the first time in her entire life.

Pointing to Transcendence: Reflections from an Anglican Context

After a critical examination of western master narratives of modernization and secularization, David Martin focuses, first, on one of the variants of Christian modernity, Anglican modernity. The Anglican Church provides a simulacrum of the universal church as it ranges from the Catholic to the Evangelical and Pentecostal and is, hence, rigged also by many of the problems confronting the church in the contemporary world. Next, Martin considers some examples of unanchored spirituality and free-floating faith that have, in his opinion, no serious future as major expressions of Christianity—he discusses, in particular, Schumann’s paradigm of Romantic music. Though inevitably fallible, churches are to be regarded as pointers to transcendence, opening, in the words of William Blake, “the doors of perception.” Without the institutional church to protect and perpetuate the Christian language of transcendence and provide ritual re-enactment of the Christian story of ruin and restoration, the Anglican/Christian vision would be as vulnerable and ephemeral as most contemporary forms of non-institutional, un-anchored “spirituality” [the editors].

Radical Historiography

This chapter argues that the currency of Higden’s Polychronicon in later medieval England attests to the profound historiographical investments of a spectrum of polemicists, preachers, translators, and poets. English writers discovered in the Polychronicon a master genre for broad and diverse political engagement and an innovative form with which to theorize a range of issues, especially those pertaining to the institutional Church. The hot topics that modern scholars tend to associate with Wycliffism were given a discursive heft and complexity through the literary appropriation of Higden’s universal history, as we see in Trevisa’s commentary on the Polychronicon, as well as in Langland’s Piers Plowman. In this view, radical historiography leads to radical ecclesiology when compendious genres become loci for the political imaginary.

Dignity, justice and community as a baseline for re-interpreting being church in a Corona-defined world

This article is written as a reflection on the relevance of being church in a world defined by the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). The reflections are done by listening to the stories and experiences of vulnerable men and women who were displaced from their areas of living on the streets into (mostly) temporary shelters. Different organisations, state entities, universities and churches collaborated to serve vulnerable people with dignity. Wonderful and tragic stories played out during this time. Corruption and misuse of power played out alongside passionate and sacrificial work being done by professionals and volunteers alike. This mixed package of care helped the author to reflect on the embodiment of faith and on being church. The value of collaboration is unpacked, and parts of a visual journal are used to bring the stories of people closer. Lessons learned include a growing understanding of the context of homeless people, the contributions they made to the learning experience, and the re-interpretation of critical elements of being church and what can contribute to becoming church in a just and dignified way. The re-interpretation of prayer, discipleship, missional focus, stewardship and leadership, and liturgy is used in re-interpreting being church. The conclusion brings us to the understanding that true community, as expressed in sharing in communion, is critical in becoming a transformative church. Where people from different walks of life connect in an honest way, the transformation of individuals and communities happens and can still happen.Contribution: This article links to the focus and scope of the HTS journal in the way it connects the practical environment of people who are homeless to the experience of and thinking about church. The article reflects on being church and how to interpret faith in a Corona-defined world. From a theological reflection point of view, the understanding of liturgy and faith are re-imagined in the context of the lives of vulnerable people living in shelters. Key insights of the article poses to help the reader understand how dignity, justice and community help us all to re-imagine how to be church. It challenges the institutional church to become more of the community that embraces and welcomes vulnerable people to experience God and church in their spaces.

On the Personhood of Sacred Objects: Agency, Materiality and Popular Devotion in the Roman Catholic Philippines

This paper is an analysis of the Santo Niño de Cebu, a statue of the child Jesus that is the object of widespread popular devotion among Roman Catholics in the Philippines. The central hypothesis is that a continuing challenge of Roman Catholicism in the Philippines, at least from the perspective of the institutional Church, lies not in the extra liturgical performance of its rituals, but rather in the popular belief that sacred objects possess agency and personhood. The discussion of this theme unfolds over three analytical movements. The focus of the initial section is on the historical context in which the Santo Niño became established as the preeminent religious and cultural icon of the Philippines, going as far back as the sixteenth century. The discussion shifts to the topic of the agency of material objects, as cultivated in the performance of three embodied rituals conducted by thousands of Santo Niño devotees. A third analytical movement is the examination of how popular belief in the Santo Niño’s agency intersects with the institutional reforms of the Second Vatican Council, particularly as locally contextualized and enacted in the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) in 1991.

A Church ‘without stain or wrinkle’: The Reception and Application of Donatist Arguments in Debates Over Priestly Purity

This article examines the reception and application of arguments developed during the Donatist controversy in later debates over clerical celibacy, marriage and continence in the medieval and early modern church. It explores the collision of inspiration and institution in this context, arguing that the debates over sacerdotal celibacy in the medieval Latin church and Reformation controversy over clerical marriage and continence both appropriated and polemicized the history of Donatism. The way in which the spectre and lexicon of Donatism permeated the law and practice of the medieval and early modern church, particularly when it came to the discipline of clerical celibacy, is a prime example of the process of imbrication by which the history of heresy and the history of the church were constructed. As such, it exemplifies the ways in which forms of religious inspiration that manifested as dissent, such as Donatism, became embedded in the histories and self-fashioning of the institutional church.