How Does the Catholic Clergy Influence What Poles in the UK Know and Think about Brexit?

Religion can determine how people perceive socio-political reality, especially in a cultural context in which religious affiliation is an important part of national identity. This has a special significance in the Polish cultural context, in which Catholicism is considered the national religion, and its institutional dimension plays an important role in the Polish socio-political domain. The purpose of this study is to analyse how religion affects the socio-political attitudes of Poles abroad. This analysis focuses directly on evaluating the influence of the spiritual leaders of Polish community organisations in the UK on the knowledge and opinions of Brexit among Polish post-accession emigrants to the UK. The study was conducted on a sample of 620 Poles living in the UK (62.6% male) using a group-administered questionnaire. The study found that the Polish Catholic clergy did not play an important role in opinion-forming, i.e., in shaping what Polish emigrants to the UK know and think about Brexit. What proved to be the most powerful factor in terms of opinion-making was the British mass media. The influence of the Catholic clergy on the knowledge of—and opinions on—Brexit among Polish emigrants was only evident among elderly people who did not know English very well, and who regularly participated in religious activities.

THE SITUATION OF ORTHODOX AND ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY IN THE SOVIET UKRAINE IN THE 1920s – 1930s: SOURCE REVIEW

Анотація. Мета дослідження – проаналізувати джерельну базу означеної проблеми, здійснити класифікацію джерел з проблеми, з’ясувати їх інформативну цінність. Методологія дослідження спирається на принципи історизму, системності, науковості, об’єктивності, а також на використання загальнонаукових (аналіз, синтез, узагальнення) та спеціально-історичних (історико-типологічний, історико-системний) методів. Наукова новизна одержаних результатів визначається тим, що вперше здійснено узагальнювальний аналіз джерельної бази становища християнського духовенства (православного та римо-католицького) в Радянській Україні в 20–30-ті рр. ХХ ст. Висновки. Досліджено винятково писемні історичні джерела. Вони, зі свого боку, поділяються на опубліковані та неопубліковані (архівні) матеріали. Серед вивчених опублікованих джерел є офіційно-нормативні (актові) документи, справочинні, статистичні джерела, джерела особового походження, періодика. Чимало опублікованих документів уміщено у збірниках документів, наукових працях з різних проблем історії християнства та в інших археографічних виданнях. Репрезентативність джерельної бази з означеної проблеми забезпечує комплекс архівних документів двох центральних та кількох обласних державних архівів України. Цей комплекс матеріалів є різноманітним, строкатим, більшість з них становлять законодавчі, статистичні, справочинні матеріали та інші. Джерельна база даної проблеми є достатньо репрезентативною, всі групи джерел характеризуються високою фактографічною і науковою цінністю.

Aggravation of interfaith relations in the Belarusian provinces of the Russian Empire (late 19th – early 20th century) in the light of archival documents

The article analyzes various aspects of the relationship between the largest confessional groups of the Belarusian provinces of the Russian Empire (Orthodox and Catholics) in the late 19th – early 20th centuries in the context of the implementation of the models of self-identification «our – other» and «our – alien». Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of the activities of Catholic clergy and fanatical parishioners to incite interfaith hostility (insults to representatives of another confession, unfounded calls for conversion to Catholicism, erroneous interpretation of the Decree «On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance» and the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, and etc.). The authority that Catholic priests had among the parishioners often caused the latter to be hostile to their neighbors of other faiths. The article provides many examples of the fact that the appearance of fanatical priests in a certain area often disrupted the peaceful, conflict-free course of religious life. At the same time, there were cases when the erroneous actions of Orthodox priests and ordinary parishioners became a catalyst for the exacerbation of interfaith relations. The article provides factual evidence of the propaganda activities of Catholic priests in the Polish national spirit, analyzes the reaction of the authorities to it. The most resonant conflict between Catholics and Orthodox at the beginning of the twentieth century is described in detail – an episode in the town of Zelva, Volkovysk district, Grodno province. The basis of the source base of the article was made up of documents of the National Historical Archives of Belarus and the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno. This article can be useful for specialists in history, students, everyone interested in the problems of religious and national relations in European countries. We see prospects for further research in this area in a comparative analysis of the situation in Belarus and other regions of Central and Eastern Europe of the 20th – 21th centuries, mixed in confessional and ethnic terms.

THE ROLE OF THE HIERARCHES OF THE UGCC IN THE SOCIO-POLITICAL LIFE OF EASTERN GALICIA (1921-1939)

The purpose of the article is to highlight the features of socio-political activities of the Greek Catholic hierarchs of Eastern Galicia and their role in socio-political processes that took place in the region during the 20-30s of the twentieth century. The use of descriptive heuristic research methods made it possible to reproduce the main topics related to the political views of the hierarchs. The article clarifies the peculiarities of the sociopolitical activities of the Greek Catholic hierarchs of Eastern Galicia as part of Poland. The set of archival documents used in the work makes it possible to objectively assess the activities of Greek Catholic clergy in the interwar period. It is determined that the statechurch relations in interwar Poland were conditioned by a complex dialectic of internal and external factors caused by both the government's policy in the field of religion, in particular towards Ukrainians, and the UGCC itself with its historical and traditional features.The activity of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy, which was aimed at creating political parties and organizations, is considered.

Spiritual trauma as a manifestation of religious and spiritual struggles in female victims of sexual abuse in adolescence or young adulthood in the Catholic Church in Poland

Specialists on issues of sexual abuse in religious institutions unanimously stress that this kind of experience significantly affects the victims’ spirituality. Particularly devastating and distorting for their spirituality is sexual abuse committed by clergy. In order to explore this issue for the first time in Poland, the authors conducted a qualitative study in the form of semi-structured interviews with five women who had experienced sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and/or religious in adolescence and young adulthood. The interviews were analyzed using the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and narrative methodology. The results showed that four respondents experienced or had experienced religious struggles in three areas: interpersonal, intrapsychic, and relationship with God. These struggles are complex and intense enough to be referred to as “spiritual trauma” (Doyle, 2009, 2011; Kusner & Pargament, 2015), “religious trauma” (Panchuk, 2018), or “spiritual violence” (Tobin, 2019). The results of the study may be of importance for people helping or having any other kind of contact with victims of clergy sexual abuse.

TRUMP, CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM, AND ISSUE POLARIZATION: THE ATTITUDES AND ACTIVISM OF IOWA CLERGY IN THE 2020 CAUCUSES

Prior research has investigated the differences between evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, and Catholic clergy in American general elections. We know less about attitudes and activism of clergy in presidential nomination campaigns. This research highlights results from a survey of 480 clergy on candidate support, issues, and political activism in the 2020 Iowa caucuses. A strong Iowa caucus showing often fuels momentum for candidates in the rest of the nomination race, as with Barack Obama in 2008. This 2020 survey covers issues such as immigration, racial justice, health care, and more. I also explore how Iowa clergy think about political activism and views on Christian nationalism. I find that most Democratic-leaning clergy supported center-left candidates in Iowa in 2020. Among Iowa clergy of all parties (including independents), most disapproved of the job Donald Trump was doing as President. A comparison with a 2012 survey reveals increasing polarization of the three clergy groups on political ideology, church-state issues, and racial justice.

Writing in Franco's Spain: Censorship, gender and social criticism in the postwar novel

<p>Following the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), General Francisco Franco’s authoritarian regime ruled Spain in a dictatorship that lasted almost forty years. In order to preserve the dominance of the regime and its ideology in Spain, all cultural activity was strictly censored, with censorship being particularly severe in the immediate postwar years. The regime’s censorship board, often with the involvement of Catholic clergy, had to approve all types of public communication, from poetry to television, before it could be published or broadcast. The censor was to ensure that the material in question was not critical of the regime or its ideology and that it did not challenge Catholic morals and traditional Spanish family values. Despite the regime’s efforts, however, writers who wished to convey their opposition to the dictatorship turned to a realist, objective narrative style that would allow them to denounce Francoist society without causing concern for the censors. In this thesis, I examine five Spanish postwar novels, published between 1945 and 1961, that provide a critique of Francoism and its associated values: Carmen Laforet’s Nada (1945), Luis Romero’s La noria (1952), Ignacio Aldecoa’s El fulgor y la sangre (1954), Juan García Hortelano’s Nuevas amistades (1959) and Dolores Medio’s Diario de una maestra (1961). This particular combination of novels has been selected in order to examine social and political criticism in the postwar novel from a wider perspective than that which is traditionally assigned to the Spanish novela social. In each case study, I identify which aspects of the Franco regime and postwar society the author sought to denounce and discuss how the author manages to convey these critical views despite the constraints of censorship. Themes include the misery and hunger that plagued Spain in the 1940s, the harsh repression suffered by the losers of the war, class and wealth inequality, the subversion of the regime’s ‘official’ historiography and the adoption of the Catholic Church’s ultra-conservative moral values. There is a particular focus on the critique of social themes that most affected women, such as the strict moral code assigned to women by the regime and the double moral standards with regard to issues such as premarital sex, prostitution and abortion; these themes are prominent in all of the selected novels, regardless of the gender of the author. In the first chapter, I outline the historical background that led to the Civil War and the establishment of the dictatorship and describe the literary context of the early Franco era. The following five chapters consist of my case studies which are examined in chronological order: each novel is examined separately in the context of social and political history, although I will draw parallels where suitable. The analyses are framed by theories of political and social commitment in literature; I draw also on gender and memory studies, and critics who discuss the relationship between literature and censorship. I have consulted the official censor’s report for each novel and discuss how each novel was received and altered, if at all, by the censor, as well as speculating as to how each author may have tailored his or her work in order to avoid such censorial intervention.</p>

Writing in Franco's Spain: Censorship, gender and social criticism in the postwar novel

<p>Following the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), General Francisco Franco’s authoritarian regime ruled Spain in a dictatorship that lasted almost forty years. In order to preserve the dominance of the regime and its ideology in Spain, all cultural activity was strictly censored, with censorship being particularly severe in the immediate postwar years. The regime’s censorship board, often with the involvement of Catholic clergy, had to approve all types of public communication, from poetry to television, before it could be published or broadcast. The censor was to ensure that the material in question was not critical of the regime or its ideology and that it did not challenge Catholic morals and traditional Spanish family values. Despite the regime’s efforts, however, writers who wished to convey their opposition to the dictatorship turned to a realist, objective narrative style that would allow them to denounce Francoist society without causing concern for the censors. In this thesis, I examine five Spanish postwar novels, published between 1945 and 1961, that provide a critique of Francoism and its associated values: Carmen Laforet’s Nada (1945), Luis Romero’s La noria (1952), Ignacio Aldecoa’s El fulgor y la sangre (1954), Juan García Hortelano’s Nuevas amistades (1959) and Dolores Medio’s Diario de una maestra (1961). This particular combination of novels has been selected in order to examine social and political criticism in the postwar novel from a wider perspective than that which is traditionally assigned to the Spanish novela social. In each case study, I identify which aspects of the Franco regime and postwar society the author sought to denounce and discuss how the author manages to convey these critical views despite the constraints of censorship. Themes include the misery and hunger that plagued Spain in the 1940s, the harsh repression suffered by the losers of the war, class and wealth inequality, the subversion of the regime’s ‘official’ historiography and the adoption of the Catholic Church’s ultra-conservative moral values. There is a particular focus on the critique of social themes that most affected women, such as the strict moral code assigned to women by the regime and the double moral standards with regard to issues such as premarital sex, prostitution and abortion; these themes are prominent in all of the selected novels, regardless of the gender of the author. In the first chapter, I outline the historical background that led to the Civil War and the establishment of the dictatorship and describe the literary context of the early Franco era. The following five chapters consist of my case studies which are examined in chronological order: each novel is examined separately in the context of social and political history, although I will draw parallels where suitable. The analyses are framed by theories of political and social commitment in literature; I draw also on gender and memory studies, and critics who discuss the relationship between literature and censorship. I have consulted the official censor’s report for each novel and discuss how each novel was received and altered, if at all, by the censor, as well as speculating as to how each author may have tailored his or her work in order to avoid such censorial intervention.</p>

A Marginalized Laity

For the period 1922–1967 the Catholic Church opposed any notion of joint responsibility between laity and clergy for primary and secondary schooling. It did so in order to be able to pursue unhindered its major interest in schooling, which was ‘the salvation of souls’ and the production of priests, brothers, nuns, and a loyal middle class. Further, the State cooperated with the Church because in doing so it was able to pursue its own aim of producing a literate and numerate citizenry, pursuing nation building, and preparing an adequate number of secondary school graduates to address the requirements of the public service and the professions without having to provide schools. The Church legitimated the involvement of the teaching religious in associated practices with parents, school inspectors, and lay teachers. Relatedly, it worked to try to ensure that the voices of educationists who were not religious received little hearing in relation to education policy-making. A small number of secondary schools run largely by lay Catholics were able to operate. The individuals in question, in establishing these schools, quietly contested the hegemony of the Catholic clergy and religious in the provision of education, and indicated what might be possible in the future.

Catholic Clergy at Home and in Rome: Intersocial Processes in French Counterrevolution (1848–52)

Sociological scholarship on political revolution has recently begun to embrace a process-based understanding of revolutions. Such a processual ontology opens up for understanding hitherto unaddressed processes of counterrevolution. Historians of the Spring of Nations, and The Second French Republic (1848–52) in particular, have failed to address the international aspects of the revolutions, and above all of counterrevolution in the period. This paper addresses this gap through a historical case study of the French Catholic clergy in the Second French Republic. The study applies an amalgamation of recent theoretical developments from revolution scholarship in order to dissect the empirical material and births a new framework in the process. The results demonstrate the important intersocial work of Catholic clergy on the triumph of the counterrevolution in France. The political concerns of the Papal States and Pope Pius IX spilled over into French politics and cemented the legitimacy of the counterrevolutionary turn and fuelled the rise of Louis Napoleon. From these results a new theoretical framework that addresses the intersocial nature of political agency and moves beyond a domestic understanding of political processes is developed. Further studies applying this approach across cases are encouraged in order to better understand how these processes unfold and how multiple intersocial influences can interplay.