Un católico en Nueva York: Lorca’s Tragic Vision of the United States

This article discusses the role of Spanish Catholic tradition in the poetry of Federico García Lorca, especially in Poeta en Nueva York. Beginning with key concepts from Miguel de Unamuno’s Tragic Sense of Life to elucidate this tradition of irrationality, suffering, and spiritual vitality, we see that Lorca uses similar ideas as resistance to a “Protestant” modernity that, according to Lorca, favored materialist progress while eschewing human suffering. This article also demonstrates how the use of Spanish religious tradition complicates long-standing stereotypes of Spain’s supposed lack of modernization.

Sincerity and the Limits of Symbolism

Whereas some religiously themed puppet or otherwise “popular” productions were overwhelmingly successful with Parisian critics and audiences, Maurice Bouchor and Ernest Chausson’s La Légende de Sainte-Cécile and, later, the Théâtre du Vaudeville’s unsuccessful production of Armand Silvestre and Eugène Morand’s Les Drames sacrés (with music by Charles Gounod) were colossal failures both with the critics and with the public by virtue of their dependence on editorial intervention as a means through which to modernize ancient stories. In these cases, critics indicted the works as insincere—a fatal flaw when it came to the representation of sacred subjects on secular stages. Through analyses of these short works, this chapter examines how each work navigated the slippage between avant-garde aesthetics and Catholic tradition and reveals two opposite but closely related processes of critical success and failure: while successful works eschewed the intellectual aura of Symbolism in favor of traditional and “sincere” engagements with Catholic heritage, these failed productions embraced the complexities of modern music and drama—authorial decisions that, in the end, rendered them insincere for Parisian audiences and thus incapable of being perceived as truly religious.

Why did Pope John Paul II visit Ireland? The 1979 papal visit in context

Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ireland in 1979 was an iconic moment in the history of twentieth-century Irish Catholicism. It has, however, received little detailed historical scrutiny. Based on state archival and hitherto unavailable diocesan material, this article contextualizes the visit by explaining the pastoral and leadership challenges that confronted the Irish hierarchy. Second, this article discusses how close the pope came to visiting Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. This was of concern not just to the hierarchy but to the Irish and British governments. Third, the organization of the visit, which was closely tied to the pastoral concerns of the Irish bishops, is surveyed. Lastly, the pastoral impact of the visit is considered. If the Catholic hierarchy hoped that the papal visit might arrest the declining institutional influence of the Catholic Church, reverse a quiet but growing faith crisis, or hasten a cessation of violence in Northern Ireland, then those expectations were misplaced. Ultimately, the pastoral impulse of the 1979 papal visit to Ireland was to preserve rather than renew the Irish Catholic tradition at a time when Irish Catholics were fixed on future material advancement rather than fidelity to their spiritual past.

Teaching the Unteachable or Why Too Much Good Is Bad. Religious Education in Catholic Schools Today

This article deals with the strong disaffiliation of Church and Catholic faith we see in the Western world, especially when students go from primary to secondary school, and when leaving the Catholic educational system. Based on empirical data, the hypothesis is formulated that Catholic schools use a pedagogy that is too much concerned with positive theology and psychology, an approach that does not stand the test when life shows its complexities and vulnerabilities. The article presents theologies and pedagogies of responsibility and vulnerability as a complimentary approach, rooted in the Catholic tradition, as a possible way to form more resilient believers and citizens for the future.

Reading the Church of England’s Response to the Covid-19 Crisis: The Diverging Views of Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Clergy

Within the one Church, the Church of England holds together in tension two distinctive streams, one rooted in the Catholic tradition (shaping Anglo-Catholic clergy) and one rooted in the Reformed tradition (shaping Evangelical clergy). Comparing the responses of 263 Anglo-Catholic clergy with the responses of 140 Evangelical clergy (all engaged in full-time stipendiary parish ministry) to the Coronavirus, Church & You Survey, the present analyses tested the thesis that these two groups would read the Church of England’s response to the Covid-19 crisis differently. The data demonstrated that, although Anglo-Catholic clergy were as willing as Evangelical clergy to embrace the digital age to assist with pastoral care, they were significantly less enthusiastic about the provision of online worship, about the closure of churches, and about the notion of virtual rather than geographical communities. The centrality of sacred space (parish church) and local place (parish system) remain more important in the Catholic tradition than in the Reformed tradition. As a consequence, Anglo-Catholic clergy have felt more disadvantaged and marginalized by the Church of England’s response to the Covid-19 crisis.

Revelation in the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Traditions: A Critical Analysis of Muhammad Abduh’s Notion of Revelation through the Lens of Joseph Ratzinger and Benedict De Spinoza

This research investigated one of the foundational notions of religion, i.e., revelation, as presented by Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) in Risālatal-Tawḥīd and Risālatal-Wāridāt, through a comparison with the understanding of revelation in the Catholic tradition, as elucidated by Pope Ratzinger (b. 1927), and in Judaism, as presented by the Jewish scholar B. D. Spinoza (d. 1677). This research closely considered Abduh’s works to reveal whether the notion of revelation in the Islamic tradition is different from or analogous to its counterparts in Catholicism and Judaism. Although these authors’ religious backgrounds are diverse, their understandings of revelation are analogous in the sense that revelation is understood as beyond the linguistic realm. However, they each have different religious and intellectual stances regarding the valid interpretation and knowledge of revelation; where Ratzinger relies on the Church’s authority, Spinoza believes in the efficacy of holy scripture, and Abduh has more confidence in the use of reason in understanding revelation. By delineating the commonalities and differences of the ideas of these three scholars from different religious backgrounds, a more open and fruitful interreligious conversation can be further cultivated.

Representations of secularism in the modern confessional theology

The subject of this research is comprehension of the concept of secularism by theologians of the Abrahamic religious tradition (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) in the late XX – early XXI centuries. The object of this research is secularism as the phenomenon of modernity. Leaning on the methodology of contextualism, comparative and content analysis, in terms of civilizational approach, the author studies the interpretation of the concept of secularism within the framework of confessional theological discourse. The author has examined the corresponding representations of theologians of the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christian traditions, including the inter-Christian movement of radical Orthodoxy. Analysis is also conducted on the concept of secularism in modern classical Islam and moderate Orthodox Judaism. The main conclusions are as follows: the theologians of all indicated denominations trace the origins of secularism in the West; Islamic theologians agree upon the fact that radical Orthodoxy takes roots in Christianity itself; the representatives of Catholic tradition see secularism as the ideology similar to fundamentalism, however, they deny its universality, and thereby supporting the Orthodox interpretation of secularism. A number of Orthodox theologians view secularism not just as the ideology aimed at achieving the complete elimination religions from public life to purely private life, but also as quasi-religion, which is extraneous to the principles of secularism. Islamic theology believes that secularism, which is alien to the Muslim world, is a serious but not critical challenge brought from the West. Islamic theology tends to see secularism only as ideology, which at times is irrational. Jewish moderate Orthodoxy views secularism as the challenge to traditional meanings that are fundamental to human community. In this regard, they advocate for the so-called ideological consensus between religious belief and secular modernity.

Music: Sacred Genres From the Renaissance to Modern

Prior to the 16th-century Reformation, sacred music was defined by its role in Catholic liturgical and devotional practice. The liturgy of the Renaissance and early modern Mass and canonical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline) was delivered largely in plainchant but was ornamented with improvised and composed polyphony. Although such polyphony took a variety of forms, the dominant genres comprised polyphonic settings of liturgical texts from the Mass, as well as other liturgical, paraliturgical, and biblical texts, many of them taken from the canonical hours. In these compositions, both musical and extramusical devices were appropriated for their symbolic or rhetorical potential to convey meaning, resulting in a complex intersection of the sacred and secular in terms of not only content, but also performance venue. Efforts to educate the laity, especially during the post-Tridentine era, resulted in the development of repertoire associated with the Triduum, including Lamentation cycles and dramatic music, as well new genres for performance at Vespers and in private devotions. They further led to the proliferation of simple, easily memorized songs that served to reinforce the teaching of doctrine. Although polyphony associated with the Catholic tradition and the practice of psalm singing traversed confessional boundaries, the Calvinist emphasis on the metrical psalm, the Lutheran reliance on congregational singing, and the Anglican adoption of the Book of Common Prayer gave rise to the distinctive repertoire of the Reformation. With the advent of the public concert in the 18th century, sacred genres that had dominated the Renaissance and early modern era were adapted to the concert hall and stage. There they were received within the theoretical, philosophical, and political contexts of the Cecilian movement, the Tudor revival, the French Schola Cantorum tradition, and 19th-century nationalist strains. Catholic and Protestant religious music, including cathedral music in the New Spain and psalm singing in New England, was redefined through transatlantic interaction during the European colonization of the Americas. It further was defined by musical genres such as the spiritual and gospel that emerged through the worship of Black communities.