Epidemie w dziejach Wadowic w okresie przedrozbiorowym – studium przypadku miasta małopolskiego

Epidemics in the history of Wadowice in the pre-partition period. A study of a town in Małopolska This article aims to analyze the traces of the pestilence in Wadowice in Małopolska up to 1772, when the town became part of the Austrian partition. Hitherto this topic has only been mentioned in the literature. Thanks to a use of sources from the period, and, above all, archives in, for example, the Archiwum Parafialnym Bazyliki Ofiarowania Najświętszej Marii Panny w Wadowicach and in the Archiwum Kurii Metropolitalnej w Krakowie, the author has discovered traces of the appearance of large-scale epidemics in Wadowice in 1585, 1601, 1652–1653, and probably in 1737, 1752, and 1758. In the Wadowice records of deaths (Liber Mortuorum), it has been possible to identify entries that would indicate the appearance of at least local epidemics in the period 1730–1772. In addition, a hitherto unknown note by the local pastor from 1756 has been found, which provides information about epidemics in the town in the XVIIth century and of their avoidance at the time of pestilence raging over large areas of the Polish Commonwealth and beyond its borders between 1708 and 1709. This source, published as an annex to the article, also shows the approaches of the inhabitants of Wadowice to the plague, which were typical of the period, and included: dedicating the town to the Mother of God, and the conviction that the misfortunes falling on the town, such as epidemics or fires, were a punishment for sins. The article ends with a recommendation in the future to carry out comparative research that makes it possible to compare the results from Wadowice with those from other towns in the western part of Małopolska.

Material and Moral Reassessments of the KZ Past

Chapter 6 assesses the fundamental changes that occurred at the three KZ locations at a time when the Holocaust became central to European understandings of the war and Nazism. It outlines the camps’ transformations from monuments to memorial institutions (KZ- Gedenkstätten), detailing the ways in which local communities were involved or were swept up into new presentations of camp history. Beyond the politics of memory and official memorialization at the new institutions, it goes on to evaluate how local communities found their own ways of reflecting on and acknowledging the burden of the past in personal, social, and municipal ways; in particular, Neuengamme’s aloofness in matters pertaining to KZ memorialization was reversed through the activities of the local pastor. It concludes by tracing through the sites’ memorial evolution into the new millennium which has seen narrative complexity embrace the specificities of local context and embed this in international and universal narratives.

So What? Some Experiences of Secularism in the Netherlands and My Own Way to Handle It as a Local Pastor

No i co? Doświadczenia sekularyzmu w Holandii i moja droga w zmierzaniu się z nim jako lokalnej pastorki Artykuł składa się z trzech części. We wprowadzeniu Autorka stwierdza, że istnieje wiele teorii i idei sekularyzmu, podaje również krótkie objaśnienia tego fenomenu zarówno pozytywne, jak i negatywne. Sekularyzm w Polsce jest odmienny od sekularyzmu w Holandii, która jest jednym z najbardziej zsekularyzowanych krajów Zachodniej Europy. W drugiej części Autorka ukazuje jak — jako lokalny pastor — doświadczała sekularyzmu w ostatnich pięciu dekadach: indyferentyzm, spadek zaangażowania i wiedzy biblijnej, spadek liczby ordynowanych, utrata poczucia życia sakramentalnego w Kościele, zamykanie Kościołów, zamykanie fakultetów teologicznych itd. Z drugiej strony pozytywna strona sekularyzmu objawiła się nie tylko w większej autentyczności i elastyczności w Kościele, ale również w zniesieniu niewolnictwa, większej wolności dla kobiet i dzieci oraz dla mniejszości. W trzeciej części Autorka pokazuje, jak staramy się odpowiedzieć na nowe wyzwania. W zakończeniu stawia kilka otwartych pytań, na które odpowiedzi są bardzo ważne dla całego ruchu ekumenicznego.

Contentious Issues

This chapter examines how perceptions of moral decline intersect with the reality of living in towns experiencing population declines and diminishing job opportunities. The specific moral issues of concern that residents of small towns most frequently mention are abortion, homosexuality, and education issues, such as teaching the Ten Commandments and creationism alongside evolution. Whole communities were sometimes divided between factions that supported or opposed a revision to the school curriculum, or because a local pastor declared themselves to be in favor of gay marriage. There are other moral issues that townspeople said were important enough that they should receive more attention than they do—problems such as drug use and alcoholism, job training, school improvement and consolidation, the gap between rich and poor, and protection of the environment.

A second Christian Rosencreuz? Jacob Böhme’s disciple Balthasar Walther (1558- c. 1630) and the Kabbalah. With a bibliography of Walther’s printed works

In the eighteenth chapter of his commentary on Genesis, entitled Mys­terium Magnum (completed 1624), the Lusatian theosopher Jakob Böhme (1575–1624) made a startling declaration concerning the reception of the Ten Commandments atop Mount Sinai. According to the account of Exodus, God had commanded Moses to hew two tables of stone upon which He would inscribe the text of the Decalogue for the instruction of His chosen people. This Moses did, ‘and it came to pass... Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony’ (Ex 34:29). Böhme’s account, however, differed significantly. For, according to the cobbler, the text of the new covenant was not recorded on ‘two tables of stone. Already during his lifetime, Böhme had been persecuted on several occasions by Lutheran authorities in his home-town of Görlitz on account of his enthusiastic tendencies. In 1613, following the distribution of manuscript copies of his first work, Aurora, Böhme was forbidden to record or further disseminate his ideas. In 1624, the local pastor Gregor Richter accused him of being the Antichrist.

Catholic Charitable Endeavour in London, 1810–1840. Part I

The primary focus of this article centres on the two decades that form the prelude to Catholic Emancipation although reference is made to activity outside this time frame and to cities other than London. Charitable endeavour is taken to include all individual voluntary effort to sustain and support Catholic churches, schools and other Catholic organisations in need of assistance. It also relates to assistance given to individuals in need of help. Such ‘endeavour’ also encompasses group and community-based voluntary activity. While it may seem unnecessary to define charitable endeavour, Mary J. Oates in a recent study on the Catholic philanthropic tradition in America heavily circumscribes what she means by the term, and excludes a number of subjects from her examination, thus:Not all contributions to the Church are philanthropic. For example, contributions to support the local pastor, Church, and parish programs which chiefly benefit the congregation itself, do not qualify as charitable giving. Nor do gifts by individual Catholics to extra-ecclesial philanthropic causes.

Families and Groups: Their Nature and Function from a Systems Perspective

Reviews briefly five books dealing with the pastoral care of families and then elaborates on the thesis that families are not groups and groups are not families. Differentiates between families and groups in terms of their structural basis, their ultimate tasks, and their primary dynamic. Offers implications for a local pastor working with families.