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The author examines the ability of Catholics in the American South to utilize the language of honor, a major facet of Southern political culture. The 1843 newspaper clash on the Apocrypha between Patrick Lynch (future bishop of Charleston, South Carolina) and James Henley Thornwell (influential Old School Presbyterian minister) demonstrated that Catholics in the South had adapted well to republican politics. The debate transcended doctrine and became an "affair of honor ." Catholics in the antebellum South learned to use the tools of Southern political discourse to demonstrate their sectional loyalty while rigorously defending Catholic doctrinal positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scandals are momentous events with far-reaching consequences for organizations and society, but we still know relatively little about the contextual conditions that enable them. In this paper, we develop and test a theory of the publicization of organizational misconduct—that is, of how an act of wrongdoing by an organization becomes widely publicized, thereby giving rise to a scandal; or receives little coverage, with little or no consequence for the offending organization. We argue that communities have structural features that affect the social cost of making information public as well as its dissemination, shaping the likelihood of organizational misconduct being publicized in the process. We test and find evidence in support of our arguments using data on sex abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church between 1980 and 2010, and exploring the heterogeneity in the publicization of patterns of misconduct by Catholic clergy across dioceses and over time. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the scholarly understanding of organizational misconduct and scandals across settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares three ecumenical dialogues on the role of the Virgin Mary in Christian faith. Comparison between the stance of the American Lutheran and Catholic Church on the devotion to Mary as a saint; Details on the dialogue of the British Roman Catholic-Methodist Committee in their report `Mary, Sign of Grace, Faith and Holiness'; Challenges set by the Groupe des Dombes dialogue on the conversion of the attitude of Catholics and Protestants toward Marian devotion and doctrine.

Religion is a salient part of cultural competence for mental health clinicians. This paper describes rationales for clinicians to work with a less well-known Catholic clergy: permanent deacons. Demographic, personality structure and religious commitment data from nearly 2,000 deacons support collaboration with clinicians to improve the continuity of mental health care. Guidelines for this work are provided by the Clergy Outreach & Professional Engagement (COPE) model: clergy first support mental health without clinicians, then clergy may need to reach out to clinicians, then clinicians may need to reach out to clergy to provide care salient to persons of religious faith and to help sustain recovery. Deacon examples are provided throughout the paper. Future research is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a Western States Jewish Studies Association Conference in Tempe, Arizona a small group of Jewish and Christian scholars came together to discuss the implications of the release of the Vatican's "Statement, Dominus Iesus" in the year 2000. The first paper, written by Samuel Edelman, Director of Modern Jewish and Israel Studies at the California State University, Chico, was meant to offer the context of Christian/Catholic discussion over the last 60 plus years. This paper, "Supersessionism Rears Its Ugly Head," categorizes the Jewish-Catholic dialogue as one centered around ambiguity and ambivalence, pitting right-wing Catholic against left-wing Catholic in a behind-the-scene conflict in spite of the current Pope's public and positive embrace of Jews and Judaism in ways few in the Catholic Church have done since Pope John XXIII.

The US newspaper the Catholic Worker (CW) is an instructive example for developing a key concept in communitarian journalism theory: the common good. The principal question to be examined in this article is: how can communitarian journalists make constructive use of the inherent tension between particular common goods and the common good? To answer this question, I will refer to the experience of the CW in negotiating two particular tensions: the tensions between spiritual/temporal and between Catholic/American. A secondary question to be explored is: how can communitarian journalism move beyond liberal tolerance in responding to difference in pluralistic societies? To answer this question, I will elaborate on the CW’s practices of hospitality, which have allowed staffers to remain faithful to the paper’s particular conception of the common good while actively engaging with, and learning from, their non-Catholic neighbors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proselytism is the sine qua non of the Roman Catholic Church. Americans, wrote minister George Higgins in the June 1944 issue of the journal "Catholic Action," the official organ of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, "would be foolish indeed, however, to think that this nation, or any other nation, can continue to escape the horrors of internal class warfare unless the full body of Catholic social teaching is given practical, concrete application as quickly as possible." In spite of an attempt to Catholicize the United States as a patriotic duty, the Catholic Church, according to the 1946 "National Catholic Almanac," is not making "satisfactory progress in winning non-members to the true faith. Though in the year 1944 almost 85,000 converts were recorded, this number is an insignificant proportion of the 110 million outside the fold." Moreover, there is a considerable Catholic "leakage." Birth control, intermarriage, the disintegrating effects of urban life on the family, about eighty per cent of American Catholics live in cities, and higher education in public schools, have been important factors in desertions from the Catholic Church.

Does the ability of some brain dead bodies to maintain homeostasis with the help of artificial life support actually imply that those bodies are living human organisms? Or might it be possible that a brain dead body on life support is a mere collection of still-living cells, organs and tissues which can coordinate with one another, but which lack the genuine integration that is the hallmark of a unified human organism as a whole? To foster further study of these difficult and timely questions, a Symposium on the Definition of Death was held at The Catholic University of America in June 2014. The Symposium brought together scholars from a variety of disciplines-law, medicine, biology, philosophy and theology-who all share a commitment to the dead donor rule and to a biological definition of death, but who have differing opinions regarding the validity of neurological criteria for human death. The papers found in this special issue are among the fruits of this Symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When U.S. respondents to soda surveys are asked to report their attendance at religious services, approximately 40% of Protestants and 50% of Catholics claim to attend church in any given week. These survey findings have been widely disseminated. They are prominently and broadly cited though out scholarly, popular and textbook writing on American religion. Such extensive interest makes it all the more important to investigate whether these rates give a true or a distorted picture of religious practice in the United States. A recent paper has shaken confidence in the self-reported church attendance rates. Using counts of actual attendees at religious services rather than self-reports, the study has argued that the true weekly U.S. church attendance rate is approximately half the rate implied by the self-reports. The line of investigation is continued by collecting count-based church attendance data from an additional 31 Catholic dioceses. Including 17 dioceses reported on in the original paper, one is able to calculate count-based church attendance rates in 48 U.S. Catholic dioceses.

This paper interrogates the socio‐political role of Christianity in the forced migration experiences of southern Sudanese refugees living in the United States. Religion is implicated in the conflict in Sudan; faith‐based organizations broker these refugees' resettlement in the United States; and engagement with US Christian Churches eases the transition to a new society. Based on ethnographic research with Sudanese refugees and American service providers, this paper probes the ways in which cultural constructions of Christians influence the incorporation of these newcomers into US congregations. In addition, the paper highlights the need for more scholarly attention to the study of Nuer Christianity as an indigenized belief system that enables this population to cope with radical change in their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the major criticisms of contemporary capitalist society which the bishops' pastoral letter raises is the increasing economic, political and social marginalization resulting from the concentration of wealth and power in the form of monopoly capital. The bishops condemn these contemporary inequalities as unjust, undemocratic and antithetical to the teachings of the Church and Catholic humanism. Given this criticism, we can better understand the bishops' policy prescriptions as intended to show how monopoly "capital can be reconciled with the common good", the problem as explicitly posed in section 281 of their pastoral. Hence, their proposal for economic democracy and economic planning can be seen as one possible solution to this general problem of monopoly concentration and marginalization. However, as I criticize in my paper, the bishops' policy prescriptions are undermined by contradictions in their position as well as questionable assumptions implicit to their model for economic democracy. On the one hand and as motivated by the bishops' desire to promote greater democracy and social justice for marginalized groups, the bishops' propose greater state intervention in the economy, particularly in areas concerning the planning and control over investment decisions. On the other hand and on behalf of the rights and liberties of private property owners, the bishops' want to preserve a measure of laissez-faire and private initiative in the market place. In short, the bishops' seem undecided about which of their social sentiments should have priority - their egalitarian or libertarian sentiments. Apparently, and as I demonstrate in my paper, the bishops fear more the imagined threats of social democracy to the status quo of private property than the actual marginalizing effects of private monopoly capital. In the latter part of my paper, my class analysis of liberal democracy and the antagonistic interests of capital and labor is intended to challenge... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. Catholicism spawned hundreds of national ("personal") parishes, most serving early European immigrants. Hispanics' later population growth, by contrast, coincided with Church leaders' emphasis on integrated, territorial parishes. This paper examines more recent practice around personal parishes with explicit, named service to Hispanic Catholics. One in six new personal parishes serves Hispanics. Hispanic personal parishes' minimal presence among American dioceses, however, does not mirror Hispanics' larger presence among Catholics overall. Findings from an original National Study of Personal Parishes reveal commonalities in diocesan explanations for establishing - or not establishing - Hispanic personal parishes. Personal parishes operate as an alternative, non-assimilative parish structure alongside the "ideal" of an integrated, territorial parish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the role of accounting? Typically, accounting is viewed as a technology to inform business decisions, such as allocation of economic resources within the marketplace. In contrast, public interest scholars emphasize the social role of accounting. For example, accounting mediates relationships among various parties, impacts social outcomes, and justifies the distribution of economic rewards. This paper contributes to the public interest perspective by exploring the origin of double-entry accounting (DEA) as a form of personal apologia. To develop the thesis that DEA originated as a form of personal apology, this paper draws from modern and medieval scholars. During the medieval period, profit seeking and markets were deeply suspect and, thus, medieval merchants occupied a precarious social and moral position. The Catholic Church was active in determining the "just price" for goods. Personal morality and just, balanced relationships were primary factors in the development of DEA. Confession and penance, sacraments of the Catholic Church, may have provided the model. The thesis that DEA originated as a form of personal apology is plausible. The contemporary, widespread use personal carbon-offset accounting (PCOA) illustrates that accounting retains the power to help construct the moral self and to mediate the individual's status within the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Roman Catholic newspapers and their alleged influence on the opinions of Catholics in Pennsylvania during the U.S. Civil War. The article focuses upon the weekly newspapers the "Catholic Herald and Visitor" and the "Catholic." The article argues that the newspapers are good sources for Civil War historians and provide perspective on the differences and similarities between Catholics and Protestants during the war, as well as among Northern Catholics alone. According to the author, both newspapers celebrated Union military victories and supported the administration of former U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, but were ambivalent and sometimes hostile toward the idea of the emancipation of African American slaves and what is termed radical abolitionism.

The article focuses on the role of American Catholic Church in immigration attempting to assist immigrants, both at the point of origin and upon arrival, combating xenophobic attitudes based primarily on anti-Catholicism. It mentions role of church and state with religious element of the Progressive era was the Social Gospel movement. It also mentions historical realities as slavery and the contemporary problems of poverty and racism as sins.

This paper examines the experiences of Chinese international students from East Coast University (a pseudonym) in the United States through their participation in a Chinese ethnic-based Christian church (CCC). Employing ethnographic-based fieldwork, the study highlights how Chinese international students see their experiences in CCC as a source of acculturation to U.S. society. However, the students evidence little understanding of the reality that they are in fact being acculturated to a subculture within U.S. society that at times embraces values contradictory to those of progressive-oriented East Coast University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of religious art and architecture for building community among immigrant communities in the United States is a well-documented phenomenon. But how is the use of religious culture adapted for a multinational, multi-ethnic and multiracial immigrant enclave that witnesses high levels of change and turnover? This paper draws from ethnographic work in the Catholic Church that serves the neighborhoods of Wynwood and Allapattah in Miami, Florida, to demonstrate how one religious community has used religious art and architecture to unite in the face of difference. As ‘landing neighborhoods’, these neighborhoods have historically received immigrants from a host of nations in Latin America before they move on to other areas of the city. Through the use of colonial art and architecture, in particular, Corpus Christi Catholic Church was able to build community in these diverse, low-income, and transient neighborhoods. By emphasising commonality of history and practice, faith leaders were able to use this colonial culture as a ‘strategy of action’ for creating unity amidst difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that American organized crime is composed of atavistic cultural groups who organize themselves according to an antiquated social structure emphasizing ethnicity. La Cosa Nostra: U. S. Families (i.e., the Maia), for example, is composed only of men who are of Italian and Sicilian descent. Catholicism is the only allowed religion. Other criminal groups are united solely by their ethnicity whether they are Irish, Jewish, African-American, Cuban, Chinese or Russian. Other criminal groups such as prison gangs and motorcycle gangs follow a similar pattern. This paper also argues that organized criminal groups historically are the chief providers of hedonistic cultural services including, but not limited to sex, gambling, and narcotics. Since the colonial period in the eighteenth century, organized criminal groups indulged in and/or provided illegal goods and services, especially those of a hedonistic nature. These atavistic and hedonistic characteristics recast American organized crime in a new light. Instead of identifying this phenomenon as organized hierarchy and corruption (Cressey, 1969), illicit enterprise (Smith, 1975), syndicated crime (Albini, 1976), ethnic succession (Ianni and Reuss-Iannni, 1976), or as an eclectic ongoing criminal activity (Abadinsky 1985), this definition focuses on the motivations of organized criminals who at one and the same time seek to maintain a past social structure while also pursuing futuristic hedonistic goals. In effect, American organized crime is like a two-headed eagle, facing both the past as well as the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Catholic Church in America is deeply divided, and gender issues (especially reproductive choice and women's ordination) have become a symptom of this division. This paper examines the language used by liberal and conservative Catholic women to talk about gender. It is argued that although similar divisions over gender exist within Protestantism and Judaism, Catholic women are in a unique position to confront them, Unlike conservative Protestants and Jews who have separated themselves from their more liberal counterparts by forming independent Evangelical and Orthodox denominations, conservative Catholics co-exist with liberals in the mine church. The paper shows that being forced to confront those divisions has resulted in a tendency towards polarization on the one hand, and towards moderation on the other, both of which have important implications for the future of the Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the prevaling ideology of "acquisitive materialism" and shows that it values work only as a means for acquiring material goods. This is contrasted to the view of work in the traditional "Protestant Ethic" and in Catholic social teaching. The Pastoral argues that work is good in itself when the worker is aware of participating in and contributing to the life of the community. While Catholic social thought in the past has emphasized distribution, the Pastoral points out that active participation in production by all is essential to a just economic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a study of Santeria, a religion that developed in Cuba from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries as a syncretism of African religions, Roman Catholicism, and French spiritism. Still an important religious influence in Cuba today, its beliefs and practices have diffused to many other countries including the United States. The argument presented in the paper is that Santeria can be understood as a "textual" rewriting and rereading of the biographies, the histories, and the social contexts of its adherents. Using the oppositional, revisionary, and subversive hermeneutical principles inherited as part of their West African cultural heritage, the creators and followers of Santeria developed their religion as a counterhegemonic challenge to the social, economic, and political order that controlled their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study of relationships among the Protestants and Catholics in the U.S. There is a current impression that this relationship is shifting in the direction of conflict. Bases for such impression is a best-seller book potraying the Catholic hierarchy as a threat to American freedom. This paper attempts to discover what empirical evidence exists to warrant such impression, if tensions do exists then in which area they are strongest and what factors appear to underlie such tensions. The term protestant in this paper refers to persons who are members of those religious bodies such as Episcopalian and Methodist. Catholics include members of the body known officially as the Roman Catholic Church. The term tension is of psychological origin and refers to degree of disharmony.

Over the last twenty-five years, the rural U.S. Midwest has undergone dramatic demographic changes as the population of white people decreased in many areas and the number of Latinos surged. These shifts are especially noteworthy in areas that had stable, relatively homogeneous populations over at least the last half-century. Many Christian churches, both Protestant and Catholic, are responding by reaching out to new residents. Such efforts have sometimes led to tension as Anglo Christians seek to reconcile the moral claims of their faith communities with the prejudices and fears they have of Latino immigrants. This article describes how Anglo-majority mainline Protestant congregations and Catholic parishes are responding to these demographic changes, notes key differences between the two groups' responses, and then sketches several possible explanations for the differences, including the underlying theology of their efforts, the prior religious affiliation of Latino newcomers, the organizational structure of church bodies, and varying impetuses for action. The paper concludes with observations about the future of Christian communities in the rural Midwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching” Patrick Deneen identified and elaborated upon an important division within “conservative“ American Catholicism. That division turns on competing conceptions and evaluations of liberalism, and, by extension, America. A parallel division exists within American conservatism more generally. On the one hand are what can be called “Front Porch Republicans” (named after the website around which these conservatives are organized). Front Porch Republicans regard liberalism of any kind as inherently corrosive, and because liberalism is written into the genetic code of the American political order, they are also critical of the American regime. On the other hand are what can be called “Natural Law Liberals” (a term coined by Christopher Wolfe). Natural Law Liberals distinguish between a positive form of classical liberalism that is continuous with the natural law tradition, and a form of modern liberalism that is not. For Natural Law Liberals, the principles of the American founding embody a form of Natural Law Liberalism. Whereas Front Porch Republicans often appeal to Alasdair MacIntyre in defense of their arguments, Natural Law Liberals often appeal to John Finnis. That such a division exists between MacIntyre and Finnis is often taken for granted. But a close examination of their writings suggests more common ground between them than either Front Porch Republicans or Natural Law Liberals usually acknowledge. In this paper I attempt to identify that common ground by exploring MacIntyre and Finnis's conceptions of morality, politics and the common good. I also attempt to indicate places where there is disagreement, and where further clarification is required. This essay is intended to be the first word, and not the last word, on this subject. It is a call to conversation, rather than a showdown, between Front Porch Republicans and Natural Law Liberals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the erosion of the conditions of American civic education and engagement described by Tocqueville, the connection between Tocqueville's understanding of democracy and the teachings of the Catholic Church, and the contribution of both civic and religious decline to the threat of democratic despotism as discussed by Gary Glenn and Kenneth Grasso in their symposium papers. It concludes by asking what students of Tocqueville and of Catholic social doctrine can learn from one another about questions of God, human nature, and the proper influence of the social state on our understanding of moral and political duties and rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the religious dimension of the Sicilian mafia. The Sicilian mafia, known as Cosa Nostra, has consistently demonstrated the capacity to combine tradition with innovation. It adapts to changing circumstances, modifying its modus operandi accordingly, while maintaining seemingly consistent 'moral' codes, ritual practices and a strong reified collective identity. Religion, in particular, appears to be a central component of mafia identity. Instances of this apparently paradoxical phenomenon range from the altars frequently found in the hideouts of mafiosi, to the mafia's ambiguous relationship with clergymen, and to the religious symbols utilised during the ceremony of initiation. Applying theories of ritual and performance to the study of the mafia role in religious festivals, this article examines the effects of the role played by mafiosi in local religious festivals on their individual and collective identity, as well as on the social structure of the group as a whole. Specific attention will be dedicated to how --and whether--these practices have been affected by the recent significant successes in judicial investigations into the mafia, the hardening in the civil society's attitude toward organized crime syndicates, and the progressively firmer stand by the Church against the mafia. The data for analysis are derived from judicial papers, police reports and video footage, together with relevant secondary literature on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documentary investigation has particular strengths to offer the study of the historical emergence of sociological research. Here two documents relating to a Muintir na Tire initiative of the late 1950s to secure US scholarship funding for Irish students of sociology are introduced and reproduced. The reasons why the scheme did not get off the ground, even though financial support appeared to be on offer, are discussed. Here a combination of Muintir na Tire's limited support within the Catholic Church and a modest, but significant, expansion of Irish social science educational capacity brought about by the use of Archbishop McQuaid's power within University College Dublin are emphasised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil disobedience actions designated as "Plowshares actions" were first committed by Philip and Daniel Berrigan and others in 1980, in response to nuclear proliferation and as a way to galvanize the Catholic Left following the Vietnam War era, during which the Berrigans had risen to national prominence for their anti-war demonstrations. Still active today, the Plowshares perform ritualized "symbolic disarmaments" that are accompanied by a rhetoric characterizing the actions as successful even though they do not bring about the political change for which the activists seem to aim. This paper examines the rhetoric of marginality that the Plowshares construct by analyzing four accusations that are routinely leveled against them-bad parent, criminaVprisoner, martyr, and ineffective fool-to show how Plowshares activists, through the lens of theology and via metaphor, refashion these accusations into adornments. The activists recode and claim "marginality" because it is understood as necessary to authentic Christian witness and political efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Rev. Pierce Connelly denounced Protestantism and converted to Catholicism in 1835, he inadvertently started a small newspaper war among the burgeoning religious press in America. While Catholic periodicals celebrated their newest addition in print, Protestant newspapermen were scandalized. They worried about how the clerical husband's conversion might affect his marital life should he pursue ordination in the Catholic Church. Soon, the Connellys dissolved their marriage in Rome and moved to England, where Pierce became a priest, and his wife Cornelia entered a convent. When, thirteen years later, Pierce reconverted and sued Cornelia "for the restoration of conjugal rights" in an English court, the case became an international sensation – with both British and American newspapers covering the developments and using the saga to comment on larger religious and political issues of their time. The two scandals demonstrate how the transatlantic press debated contested global concerns about the limits of religious freedom, the changing nature of marriage, church–state relations, and international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Catholic Church in the United States remained politically neutral about slavery and abolition in the decades before the Civil War, partly because of the influence of John England, bishop of the diocese of Charleston. In a much publicized defense of slavery, England argued that slavery was a political issue, not a moral one. Clergy and laity, however, wrote repeatedly to Rome and criticized their leaders for neglecting to promote a ministry to free and enslaved African Americans. Roman authorities, particularly those of Propaganda Fide, were reluctant to take a stand on this important issue until near the end of the Civil War. This paper explains why John England defended slavery and why Propaganda did not issue guidance on one of the greatest moral dilemmas in American history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three years having passed since the Redemptorist Archives moved from Brooklyn, New York, to a new facility in Philadelphia, the time seems right for a review. This archive houses many interesting artifacts and documents important for American Catholic history, as well as a large research library with a focus on the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists). These priests and brothers, founded in Italy in 1732 by St. Alphonsus Liguori, arrived in the United States in 1832. The Redemptorist Archives are the repository for the records of the American provinces (Baltimore and Denver), together with their vice-provinces past and present, and overseas and Canadian missions. In addition to paper documents, the collections consist of three-dimensional objects, photographs, films, slides, art works, and textiles. Redemptorists have worked primarily with German Catholics in the nineteenth century and multitudes of ethnic groups in the twentieth century. While their tradition has been to serve the church as missionaries, they have also had pastoral control of parishes in nearly every major American city for at least a portion of the last 180 years. The records housed in the archive in Philadelphia reflect how a group of consecrated religious helped build the church in the United States and established churches and chapels in mission territories in Canada, the Caribbean, Brazil, Paraguay, Thailand, and Nigeria. The records show how this community adapted to changing circumstances, retrenched, and found themselves in new moments by which to bring the promise of plentiful redemption to those most in need. After a short exposition of the collections found in the Redemptorist Archives, I chart the course of the last three years in three areas: principal accessions, local impact, and the work of the archivist. When it moved to Philadelphia in December 2015, the archive entered a Smithsonian-grade, climate-controlled environment, with a state-ofthe- art fire suppression system and ample security. Given the rich body of material found there, the archive has been valuable for a wide array of historical research, cinematic adaptations, genealogy, exhibitions, and educational programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of HIV-positive Latinas of child-bearing age living on the US-Mexico border is a growing concern. Little is known about how religious beliefs influence the reproductive health decisions of these women in light of disease demands and cultural and religious norms that support high fertility rates and childbearing. Such decisions may be further complicated by the stigma of HIV/AIDS and structural issues related to immigration status and trans-border lives. This paper analyzes extant literature and supports the need for further research so that policy makers and heath and social service providers can develop meaningful and comprehensive reproductive-health related interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates anticommunism in Ireland during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It focuses in particular on the campaigns waged by the right-wing Catholic organisations, Maria Duce and the Catholic Cinema and Theatre Patrons’ Association, opposing the influence of American cinema, which it was alleged was dominated by Communists. The central argument is that Ireland's ‘red scare’ was an ephemeral phenomenon, fuelled by American anticommunism, which was then at its height, and the cultural Cold War in Europe. Combined with these broader fears it reveal how anticommunism was shaped by domestic political and cultural contexts, especially concerns about the impact of external influences on Irish minds, in the omnipresent form of American cinema. Hollywood films offered visions of modernity that undermined traditional Irish nationalist values of simple living, an innate distaste of materialism, and an unflinching moral code, informed by Catholic teachings. In independent Ireland, far from the front line of confrontation with the red menace, the ideological dimensions made themselves felt, but were not perceived to be a sufficient threat as to dominate public life, as was the case in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last 30 years, conservative power in the United States, financed and organized by Christian fundamentalist sects, the Catholic Church, and conservative corporate and political leadership, has become more threatening and potentially destabilizing of progressive democratic principles and practices. Powerful interlocking political, financial and social forces are arrayed against women in many Southern and Western states. They are having destructive effects on women's ability to control their fertility and maintain bodily integrity and health. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately affected by restrictions on abortion services. Strategically developed interventions must be initiated and managed at every level in these localities. It is urgent to coordinate and empower individuals, multiple organizations and communities to engender effective changes in attitudes, norms, behavior and policies that will enable women to obtain reproductive health services, including abortion care. This paper describes contextual factors that continue to decimate U.S. women's right to health and, then, describes a community organizing-social action project in a number of US' states aimed at reversing the erosion of women's right to have or not to have children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]