Search

This article is a brief response to the claim by Christopher Crocker that English Baptists in the twentieth century were post-confessionalism. The article argues that the Baptist Union's Declaration of Principle of 1904 (revised in 1906 and 1938) is a theological and confessional text, which while it is brief, is in alignment with catholic and evangelical faith. In addition to the Declaration of Principle, the article provides further evidence in reciting the creed, statements of belief, denominational documents, and resources for worship to claim that Baptists remained a confessing people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process tracing of the relationship between Christianity and politics in Korea versus Kenya led to the discovery of similar trajectories that are based on two underlying conditions: a) a large portion of the country's population is Christian, and b) religious groups have historically invested in the democratization processes. These two conditions led to: 1) government or political parties' desire to co-opt the religious group or leaders to increase its voting power or political influence, 2) religious leaders or churches proposing to provide stewardship or governance to the government, and 3) some mainstream churches trying to stay neutral upholding separation between the church and state in the aftermath of democratization. After democratization, a trend of church partisan political polarization has intensified. Kenya's polarization has aggregated along interethnic/tribal fault lines. The partisan polarization of the South Korean church has intensified with left-oriented social change advocacy condemned by right-wing actors as threatening South Korean sovereignty in the face of the North Korean continuing threat. South Korean political actors utilize sectarian movements to mobilize activists and voters, while South Korean sectarian leaders in turn utilize this political relationship to legitimize their civil society existence and activity. The Kenyan and South Korean cases provide further evidence of the global resurgence of religious identity as a vehicle for political activism to direct the governance capacities of the sovereign state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bruce Springsteen has repeatedly reinvented himself through a long process of vocational discernment that often draws on a distinctly Catholic imagination. In this process, he has repeatedly explored complex relationships between religious faith, American identity, older traditions of popular music, and race. At pivotal moments in his career, his vocational discernment has led him to the work of musicians raised in Pentecostal and Holiness churches. From this perspective, this essay explores the relationship between Springsteen's "Land of Hope and Dreams" and Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "This Train," the gospel-inspired song that she first recorded in 1938. Both of these songs arise from Christian imaginations nurtured in local communities of faith—in Tharpe's case, a congregation of the Church of God in Christ in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, and in Springsteen's case, an immigrant Catholic parish in Freehold, New Jersey. Tharpe draws directly from Holiness traditions, combining her belief in a distinctly embodied version of sanctification with the religious practice of tongues speaking, most powerfully in her guitar improvisations. Like Springsteen, Tharpe brings to contemporary music the performance dynamics of Holiness and Pentecostal preachers, possessed by the Holy Spirit, accompanied by a choir, before an enraptured congregation. In these respects, the resemblances between these two songs are not a matter of "direct influence." Rather, these resemblances provide a critical test case in a kind of artistic influence that is multi-directional, unpredictable, and often subversive. They arise from shared sources, particularly a long tradition of train songs that find their way into country and gospel music. Even more important, they arise from similarities in the faith traditions—and the religious imaginations—of the two musicians. From this perspective, Tharpe and Springsteen both belong to a larger tradition of "gospel redemption" in American popular music, which becomes particularly evident when "Land of Hope and Dreams" ends with a cover of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready," invoking the ideals of the early civil rights movement and, at the same time, our repeated failures to achieve these ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historiography of the Great War in Australia tends to emphasise the ostracisation of the Irish Australian Catholic community from the dominant discourse of imperial loyalty espoused by Australia’s Anglo-Protestant majority. Such readings have neglected the Catholic elite, whose support for the war, and later conscription, aligned with the higher-status Protestant elite. It was from the latter group that established Catholics sought acceptance and in whose ranks they sought inclusion. The navigation between those ambitions and the loyalty demanded by the church and its working-class following effectively bifurcated the Catholic community along class lines during the Great War in Australia. This article examines the attitudes of the Catholic professional and commercial elite to the war and conscription to determine the extent to which those attitudes were shaped by the cultural hegemony of Protestant elites in wartime Australia. It argues that Catholic elites adhered to Protestant norms of Britishness and imperial loyalty to combat the perceptions of Irish and Catholic treachery and to secure their positions within elite society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text explores the significant role of religion in shaping the urban development of Cincinnati and Brooklyn in the nineteenth century. Historians Stuart Blumin, Glenn Atschuler, and Matthew Smith delve into how Protestant Christianity influenced community organization, trade, and intergroup relationships in both cities. The authors highlight the complexities of urban growth, the impact of diverse migrants, and the challenges and alliances that arose among different religious groups, including Catholics and immigrants. The text emphasizes how religion played a pivotal role in shaping the character and culture of American cities during this period, ultimately paving the way for the emergence of diverse, tolerant, and pluralistic urban environments. [Extracted from the article]

Abstract Introduction Vaccine hesitancy poses a complex global challenge. Our study investigates correlations between COVID-19 vaccination rates, religious demographics, and educational performance. Materials and methods Using cross-sectional analysis, data from reputable sources were analyzed for correlations using Pearson’s correlation and linear regression. Results We found statistically significant positive correlations between COVID-19 vaccination rates and PISA scores, Catholic populations, non-religious, and atheist populations. Conversely, negative correlations were observed with Muslim and Eastern Orthodox populations. Our findings suggest potential influences of religious beliefs and educational attainment on vaccination rates. Conclusion The data reveals a positive correlation between COVID-19 vaccination rates and the percentages of Catholic, Non-Religious, and Atheist populations, while indicating a negative correlation between COVID-19 vaccination rates and the percentages of Muslim and Eastern Orthodox populations. These findings underscore the potential significance of engaging religious leaders in promoting vaccinations as a strategy to address vaccine hesitancy.

The focus of this paper is a suite of Latin papers from 1685, some of which are still unpublished, in which Leibniz writes in the guise of a Catholic in order to defend Catholicism and counter Protestant objections, and this despite him being a lifelong Lutheran. After providing an overview of these writings (which I refer to as Leibniz's "Catholic" writings) and the grounds for dating them to May–June 1685, I consider their purpose, arguing against the claim that they were intended to support Church reunion and suggesting instead that they were apologetic in nature, intended as a reactivation or reimagining of Leibniz's earlier "Catholic Demonstrations" project. I identify the patron Leibniz had in mind for these writings as Landgrave Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels and support this by a detailed comparison of the "Catholic" writings with the Leibniz-Landgrave correspondence and the Landgrave's still-unpublished essays. This reveals that the Protestant arguments Leibniz uses in the "Catholic" writings are the very ones that he himself used when writing to the Landgrave, and that the responses Leibniz gives to these arguments are the very ones that the Landgrave used. I also consider the context of the writings, suggesting they were crafted during a period of personal uncertainty for Leibniz and possibly aimed at securing a position under the Landgrave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Death and Disaster series, Andy Warhol's Byzantine Catholic upbringing and beliefs take shape in his portraits of celebrities and unnamed disaster victims alike. While previous scholarship on the series describes Warhol's representation of death as consumerist, callous, and contributing to spectacle culture driven by mass media, my work instead focuses on Warhol's adoption and transformation of the Byzantine iconic tradition. In choosing to appropriate tabloid images of otherwise anonymous fatalities in the Disaster series, Warhol dignifies disaster victims as the secular martyrs of a rapidly modernizing world, where we are often mere casualties sacrificed in the name of industrial progress. Through his utilization of Byzantine visual language, Warhol's Death and Disaster works venerate victims of tragedy, moving them away from their former lives as tabloid spectacles and instead positioning them as secular icons of the twentieth century—their images memorialized as the saints and martyrs of our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the region's strong historic connection to Christianity, little research exists on Christian universities in the Caribbean. To complicate matters, the Caribbean is also little studied in higher education literature generally. Thus, this study examines how Christian universities in this region operationalize their faith identities in their administrative decisions. Examining 15 institutions, this article presents the national higher education trends for the five Caribbean countries or territories with Christian universities: the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Following an overview of Christian influences and the state of higher education in the Caribbean in general, Christian higher education is examined within each country specifically. Regional trends point to the prominence of Seventh-day Adventist universities, even on traditionally Catholic-dominant islands. Furthermore, using the Operationalizing Christian Identity Guide, Seventh-day Adventist institutions operationalize their faith identity the most visibly in comparison with Catholic and other Protestant institutions. Finally, as a general trend, these universities appear to merge a model of private higher education designed to meet excess demand with their Christian identities, distinguishing them from their secular peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alphonse Desjardins, a devout Quebecois Catholic, established North America's first cooperative bank in 1900. The first English-language attempt to grapple with Desjardins' faith, this article is an important addition to the many new studies of North American Christians and economics in Desjardins' period, nearly all of which focus on Protestants. More particularly, it contributes to this historical conversation through conceptual models drawn from anthropologies of religion related to sacrifice, credibility, and monetary circulation. Ultimately, this case study prompts us to ask anew: how do people of faith shape, and redefine, capitalist structures? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an autoethnographic account of the creation of my drag persona, Mary Magdelish. I argue that Magdelish is a rhetorically embodied text created by the intertwining queer and religious strains of my life in response to a traumatic moment in the Catholic Church. This article explores how embodiment, performance, and haunting come together through the art of drag to revise and reclaim the experience of coming out to my parish pastor. Framing haunting as a strategy of refusal, this article positions Magdelish as a rhetorical response to haunting that becomes its own haunting. As ghosts unbury violences of the past, Magdelish makes present the history of religious violence against queer communities. Simultaneously, she demonstrates a synergy between religious and queer performances that forces viewers to confront their own conceptions of religiosity and queerness. Ultimately, I argue that Magdelish's performance creates a counternarrative in the Church that disrupts majoritarian stories surrounding queerness and Catholicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the purpose of universities and the way they are articulated offer the opportunity to be relevant in an uncertain educational context. The connection between purpose, mission, identity and culture is the primary concern of university governance. This chapter explores the role of communication in conveying the purpose of the Christian university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catholic universities, like all universities, face a challenge in the form of the rapidly changing higher education industry. This paper offers a framework based on entrepreneurial principles to help Catholic universities think strategically about how to confront these changes. By assessing some aspects of the current moment in which such universities find themselves, this study proposes that the departure of secular academies away from the concept of the university as a center of truth-seeking oriented to the unity of knowledge and the good life, and the corresponding crisis of purpose plaguing the higher education industry offers Catholic institutions a new opportunity to position themselves as a return to the original university paradigm, a model that is suddenly rare. This paper will then consider the specific comparative advantage held by universities possessing a Catholic identity as compared to their non-Catholic counterparts. We will end by considering a few of the many ways in which this advantage can (and should) be reflected in certain aspects of the university, particularly in fundraising and allocating resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Vaccine hesitancy poses a complex global challenge. Our study investigates correlations between COVID-19 vaccination rates, religious demographics, and educational performance. Materials and methods: Using cross-sectional analysis, data from reputable sources were analyzed for correlations using Pearson's correlation and linear regression. Results: We found statistically significant positive correlations between COVID-19 vaccination rates and PISA scores, Catholic populations, non-religious, and atheist populations. Conversely, negative correlations were observed with Muslim and Eastern Orthodox populations. Our findings suggest potential influences of religious beliefs and educational attainment on vaccination rates. Conclusion: The data reveals a positive correlation between COVID-19 vaccination rates and the percentages of Catholic, Non-Religious, and Atheist populations, while indicating a negative correlation between COVID-19 vaccination rates and the percentages of Muslim and Eastern Orthodox populations. These findings underscore the potential significance of engaging religious leaders in promoting vaccinations as a strategy to address vaccine hesitancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article begins by analysing the principles at the heart of Stephen R. Holmes' vision of Baptist theology and ecclesiology. It then examines Holmes' work on the authority of theological Tradition. It is demonstrated that Holmes argues for a pneumatologically rooted and consensual understanding of Tradition that locates its authority in the testimony of the whole church to the voice and will of the Spirit interpreting the texts he inspired. In the final third of the argument, these two areas of Holmes' work are brought into dialogue to generate an authentically Baptist conception of the authority of Tradition to bind the local church. It is suggested that this can help Baptists and others holding to some form of congregational church government resolve issues in their commitment to the catholicity and unity of the Church, provide a more secure ground for theological discernment, and enable more fruitful ecumenical dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the socio-political history of the discrimination suffered by the group called Burakumin (部落民) in the city of Nagasaki in early modern and modern Japan (1600–present). More specifically, it looks into, first, the emergence and evolvement of hostility and antagonism between Burakumin and Catholics in Nagasaki, and second, how discrimination against Burakumin became socially invisible in post-1945 Nagasaki when post-atomic bomb reconstruction transformed the urban landscape of Nagasaki and representations of the city came to be dominated by the Catholic imagery of prayer. The paper argues that, on the one hand, the modern nation-state, established on the principles of the freedom and equality of citizens, did not eradicate discrimination, but instead concealed it, resulting in discrimination continuing in changed forms, and on the other hand, Catholics in Nagasaki, while having themselves suffered political persecution in Japanese history, have been involved in practices of discrimination against the Burakumin. There is, however, not an innate relationship between religion and discrimination, but rather the relationship is historically contingent. Understanding its contingent nature requires us to address the historical conditions contributing to discrimination. By so doing, we can start imagining new ways to tackle and eliminate discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on one part of a larger longitudinal empirical study (2021–2023) that responds to the call for Religious Education (RE) to address religious plurality in the context of senior Catholic schooling within an Australian Archdiocese where students represent multiple faith traditions or no traditions. The research focuses on the level of satisfaction by students across Topics, Pedagogies, and Outcomes within a new and innovative senior school curriculum, Religion Meaning and Life (RML) based on national RE guidelines. Participants included 276 students across 17 schools who completed an online survey with 32 of these students participating in focus group interviews. Data analysis of quantitative data was both descriptive and inferential, and qualitative data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Topics of most interest were Ethics and Other World Religions; pedagogies entailing dialogue and use of media and technologies were rated highly; and learning outcomes entailed awareness of school mission, the religious dimension of the school, and pastoral care. Inferential statistical analyses confirm four core topics, pedagogies, and outcomes as significant to levels of satisfaction and in combination accounted for 42% of the variance of satisfaction with RML. Theoretical propositions for what matters most in senior secondary RE were advanced through four integrating principles (educational, formative, social, communitarian) and practice implications that preference Catholic tradition, and reference religious plurality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious education (RE) in Australia is challenged to support the religious and spiritual needs of Australia's religiously plural student population. Within a national colloquium, practitioners and scholars (N = 57) gathered to discern ways forward in RE. Data were collected from small and whole group discussions reported across three days of integrated reflection on themes of Awaken, Celebrate, and Imagine. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and Leximancer were used to analyse the respective data which confirmed domains of focus on Day 1 of Formation, Curriculum, Pedagogy, Partnerships, and Research. Day 2 (Celebrate) explored these domains and identified Themes and Theoretical Propositions that advanced each domain. Day 3 (Imagine) underlined foundations in faith for each domain and detailed generic propositions and themes. Propositions included advancing RE through Formation (being attentive to personal readiness, curriculum intention, and school identity), Pedagogy (engaging practices of inquiry, experiential learning, and encounter-based opportunities), Curriculum (characterised as inclusive, relevant, and life-giving), Partnerships (strengthening inclusion and engagement with family, parish, and community), and Research (integrating evidence-based practice). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the persecution and religious oppression William Byrd faced, his compositional process was forced to be more intricate, innovative, and creative. Consequently, he penned some of the greatest music England has ever seen. Elizabethan England's history shows how the tenor of Byrd's relationship with Elizabeth I is deeply ironic, as Elizabeth protected Byrd from the persecution that she afflicted upon him. Even though many of Byrd's works appear docilely Anglican upon first glance, a deeper analysis reveals many hidden allusions to his Catholic beliefs, developing a masterful level of complexity to his compositions. Many of his motets had double meanings inherent in their composition. Byrd's most exquisite music achieved that status because of his underlying expression of his non-compliant beliefs and spiritual character of musical inspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 3 August 1581, the Lancashire gentleman Alexander Hoghton made a will which mentions a servant named 'William Shakeshafte'. Many biographies of Shakespeare, including Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World, believe that this record refers to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon Avon in Warwickshire, then aged 17, while other biographies flatly disagree. Defining questions of Shakespeare's religious, geographical, and dramatic affiliations, it is perhaps the most important crux of Shakespeare's early biography. This essay reconsiders a rival candidate to be Shakeshafte, the William Shakeshaft of Preston and Cadley (fl.1562–1609) who is recorded in Preston at the date of the will. First reviewing the current state of the debate around the Shakeshafte theory, it then offers biographical sketches of the ten annuitants other than Shakeshafte, putting them into the context of the list of servants given by the will. It describes the William Shakeshaft, or rather William Shakeshafts, recorded in Preston in 1582, and their multiple possible links to the will. Building on work by Glyn Parry, it argues that the Shakeshafts have multiple links to the Hoghtons; and to some of the other annuitants; and also have themselves a possible involvement in drama. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inside and outside of a Christian worldview, bioethicists have discussed ectopic pregnancy at some length as a maternal-fetal vital conflict. Most bioethicists agree that methotrexate and salpingostomy are low-risk, successful interventions for this life-threatening pathology, and are thus beneficent, just, and wholly acceptable. A small cohort of Christian, largely Catholic, bioethicists have reservations about methotrexate and salpingostomy, but cannot resolve their internal disputes about these because of flawed casuistry. This paper aims to settle the issue about whether methotrexate and salpingostomy are acceptable within a Catholic worldview: despite the best arguments in favor of methotrexate as a moral option, it is morally unacceptable, and despite hesitation about salpingostomy related to analogies with previable delivery, it is the optimal procedure for ectopic pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades the papal tradition has renounced the term 'war' as something around which to build an ethical approach. One can sympathize with this: resort to war seems the consequence of ethical failure and brings in its train a host of brutalities including rape, torture, and murder that harm both victims and perpetrators. But that view of 'war' is an incomplete representation of the possibilities of the uses of force to secure legitimate political goods. Thus the popes have struggled to maintain a clear voice in the face of abject tragedies like the Russian invasion of Ukraine: on the one hand, Pope Francis condemns war in an almost absolute manner; on the other, he recognizes the legitimacy of Ukrainian defensive uses of force. In so doing, of course, he merely abides the so-called 'just war theory' he seems to have discarded. My contribution will focus on the current state of the just war in Catholic teaching. I will maintain the state remains where it has been since at least the middle of the twentieth century: skeptical about the capacity of states to judge in terms of international law, but cognizant of their right to defend themselves against ongoing aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pope Francis' visit to Indonesia was crucial in strengthening Indonesia-Vatican diplomatic relations and religious harmony. This study examines the impact of the visit on pluralism and interfaith dialogue, particularly between Muslim and Catholic communities. Through an inter theological approach, this study explores theological messages related to love and human dignity and their relevance in strengthening interfaith relations. The results of the study are expected to contribute to encouraging closer and more harmonious cooperation in Indonesia. This research uses a qualitative approach with a literature review method. Data collection techniques were used to identify and collect relevant literature sources, including journal articles, books, and reports. The data analysis technique was conducted by exploring Indonesia's social and cultural context to understand the dynamics that occur. Pope Francis affirmed the importance of interfaith dialogue, especially between Catholics and Muslims, to strengthen religious harmony. By promoting love and respect for human dignity, the Pope encourages cooperation in facing social challenges such as poverty and radicalism. The dialogue should go beyond tolerance, creating closer and more peaceful relationships. This initiative is expected to strengthen interfaith brotherhood and encourage a more harmonious and inclusive life amid Indonesia's religious diversity.

Catholic universities, like all universities, face a challenge in the form of the rapidly changing higher education industry. This paper offers a framework based on entrepreneurial principles to help Catholic universities think strategically about how to confront these changes. By assessing some aspects of the current moment in which such universities find themselves, this study proposes that the departure of secular academies away from the concept of the university as a center of truth-seeking oriented to the unity of knowledge and the good life, and the corresponding crisis of purpose plaguing the higher education industry offers Catholic institutions a new opportunity to position themselves as a return to the original university paradigm, a model that is suddenly rare. This paper will then consider the specific comparative advantage held by universities possessing a Catholic identity as compared to their non-Catholic counterparts. We will end by considering a few of the many ways in which this advantage can (and should) be reflected in certain aspects of the university, particularly in fundraising and allocating resources.

This article argues that the purpose of universities and the way they are articulated offer the opportunity to be relevant in an uncertain educational context. The connection between purpose, mission, identity and culture is the primary concern of university governance. This chapter explores the role of communication in conveying the purpose of the Christian university.

This comparative study explores the significance of Catholic material religion of the Tamils in India and Malaysia in the celebration of Our Lady of Vēlānkaṉṉi feast which involves a complex interplay of materiality, religious beliefs, and embodied practices. Employing Plate and Bruland's understandings of material religion, and based on ethnographic study, this essay seeks to unravel the power of material objects and embodied practices to replicate sacred spaces in new locales and to deliver the pilgrims new experiences of religious sensibilities and personal fulfilment in the sphere of divine and human relations. The findings reveal that material religion functions as a tangible, religious and nostalgic link to the original shrine of Vēlānkaṉṉi and as a symbol of filial piety to the motherhood of Mary for the Tamil community in both sites. This paper highlights the role of material Catholicism in fostering Marian devotion and in shaping and displaying people's personal, religious and cultural identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the Anointing of the Sick (AOS), one of the Roman Catholic Church's sacraments, administered when individuals are in poor health, facing a major medical procedure, and/or facing death. As recovery is unknown at the time tie of AOS, we studied AOS as a final conversation (FC; Keeley, 2004, 2007, Keeley & Generous, 2017). Based on surveys from US Priests, primarily located in the Northeast, we identified the FC topics discussed between Priests, families, and the sick/dying during AOS. Findings underscore the significance of studying EOL communication in the Catholic Church and its applicability in Priestly formation. This work informs Keeley's FC theme of messages of religious faith/spiritual beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent global reconnaissance of Christian higher education found a number of key themes that shaped current developments, such as the pressing challenges of secularization and nationalization but also the advantages of privatization and massification. This article provides an update to this older analysis by taking a birds-eye view of trends within the past 70 years of global Christian higher education. It reveals that privatization and massification trends do not predict new developments in countries and outliers always exist. Furthermore, it highlights some findings missed in previous analyses related to the importance of indigenous Christian groups and Christian general education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the fall of 1810, two young Acadian women exhibited signs interpreted by their predominantly Catholic community as a possession or enchantment by threatening spiritual forces. Family and neighbours banded together and performed unorthodox rituals that offer historians of religion and of Acadia the opportunity to analyze several Atlantic influences on this rural parish. It is an intriguing case in the religious and social history of Nova Scotia that demonstrates multiple cultural aspects in convergence. The Acadian community's history and its location on a colonial fringe connected its members with diverse ritual knowledges. This article argues that the nature of the girls' symptoms and the methods that the Acadian community used to bring healing reached beyond lay Roman Catholicism. The Acadians were influenced by New Light evangelical theology and baptismal spirituality from New England, as well as African diaspora spiritual elements from a nearby Black Loyalist settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological evaluations and testing using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) among other instruments have been used to screen clerical and religious life applicants for decades. While much research has been conducted and published regarding these evaluations, the newer MMPI-3 has not been examined among this population. This study reviewed MMPI-3 results from 18 applicants to seminary and religious life from the Roman Catholic and Episcopal faith traditions to determine if the participants are generally psychological healthy and if they have any consistent elevations in their MMPI-3 testing scores. Additionally, we examined MMPI-3 differences among Catholics versus Episcopal applicants. Our preliminary results using a small sample suggest that applicants to seminary and religious life are generally psychologically healthy but tend to be defensive, presenting themselves in a favorable and virtuous manner. Additionally, Catholics tend to score higher on inconsistent responses but lower on psychoticism than Episcopalians. Further research should use larger and more diverse sample sizes to better understand how the MMPI-3 performs among this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peter Green (Salford) and Charles Jenkinson (Leeds) were Anglo-Catholic parsons who devotedly worked in northern England either side of the Second World War. Are they models for today? Green prioritized 'intentional evangelism'. Jenkinson was a Christian socialist and Modernist who 'meddled in politics' as a city councillor: his priority was housing reform. Green remained a parish priest; Jenkinson moved into new town development. Despite their shortcomings, each cleric distinctively represents a relevant kind of priesthood: the parish missionary sharing the archbishops' commitment to 'mission-shaped' church (Green), and the activist intent on building the kingdom by transforming his parishioners' built environment (Jenkinson). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Catholic Church was born out of the European culture in terms of rite and language. This makes the African Catholic feel somehow culturally removed from the liturgical life of the Church. The Catholic Church knowing how culture plays an integral role in the propagation of the Gospel, has given room for the adaptation of peoples’ culture into most especially the liturgical life of the participating community. The Church allows any form of adaptation, insofar as they are in conformity with the universal teachings of the Church. Many scholars and clergy have sought to make good use of this provision to inculturate their culture into Catholicism. In Ghana, Most Rev. Peter Kwasi Sarpong is a household name when it comes to the inculturation of the Asante culture into Catholicism for the liturgy to be at home for his people. Sarpong prefers the term “inculturation” to “adaptation” for the latter smacks of imposition. The article thus articulated Sarpong’s attempt to inculturate the Asante dance, music, gestures, symbols and the chieftaincy institution into the Catholic liturgy. This article used ethnographical sources like interviews and observations in gathering data. It also used a literary approach to elucidate the inculturation of the Asante culture into Catholicism from Peter Kwasi Sarpong’s perspectives. The paper thus celebrates the contributions of Most Rev. Peter Kwasi Sarpong to the Asante culture and Catholicism. It also affirms the notion that there could be the inculturation of peoples’ culture to make the liturgy meaningful to them.

The liturgical professional development project for pastoral workers and clergy in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart has been developed in collaboration with the Department of Liturgical Studies at the University of Tübingen. The concept of biographical learning is the innovative element that explores a new type of liturgical formation (Bildung) where the learning content explores the participant's unique biography of learning, faith development, and theological education and the impact of these on their understanding of the liturgy and their liturgical practice. The learning process aims to equip professional pastoral theologians to reflect on and be responsive to the liturgical–pastoral contexts in which they work. The Department of Liturgical Studies provides the learning structure and context, while the diocese provides the teaching space and enables the participants to attend. The learning outcomes are unrelated to a specific professional or employment structure or associated with a points system, management, or career progression process. The project provides a learning process rather than a program of learning, distinguishing itself from many traditional approaches to liturgical formation. The challenge for the teaching team is to provide the participants with conceptual or theoretical material to reflect on their biographical narrative of theology and then apply this concept of biographical learning in their specific and diverse pastoral contexts. As part of the biographical learning process, participants contribute to "feedback loops" to the diocese and the teaching team. This paper does not address the competency framework for career development, employment assessment, or learning comprehension. All evaluations of professionalism, role attainment, career development, and competency are employment matters and are the purview of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. However, the learning process provides participants with frameworks for self-assessment and feedback loops to evaluate the teaching team, the process, and the content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article charts some of the conversations around psychedelics, mysticism, Catholicism, and the Catholic mystics. I provide a context for the current "psychedelic renaissance" and bring the focus to psychedelics and Catholicism. The literature's frequent comparisons of psychedelic mystical trips with Catholic mysticism raises questions about the legitimacy of religious ways of knowing, the status of the discipline of theology in Western academic cultures, and how Catholicism is often depicted in the psychedelic literature. The first part closes with a survey of the challenges of defining mysticism and some of the patterns perennial to the Catholic mystical experience. I look at the problem of methodological displacement, that is, how a researcher comes to conclusions with material that is formally outside of their discipline's boundaries. This is a challenge for scholars of every stripe when they countenance subject matter that is beyond their expertise—and the lure to still read that material through their known methodology and worldview—but the problem of displacement is conspicuously compounded when the sciences countenance theological and religious themes. I provide concrete examples of displacement with psychedelic and Catholic mysticism, how it can be corrected, and how this would benefit dialogue. In the Conclusions, I outline persistent concerns and theological objections about some of the claims of psychedelic mysticism but hold onto the hope for further dialogue. My sustained attention is to the comparisons that are frequently made between the psychedelic and Catholic mystical experiences and whether these correlations are critically warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1903 and 1952, there was a Jesuit and French university in Shanghai called l'Aurore. This article focuses on its medical faculty, which operated from 1912 to 1952. It shows that, in a precarious political and military context, l'Aurore simultaneously benefited from Jesuit missionary activity and the French quest for imperial influence, without fully identifying with either. The faculty was not an official missionary institution, and most of its hundreds of students were not Christians. However, the Jesuit administration kept a record of baptisms among the students and, based on Catholic principles, encouraged opposition to birth control through courses on 'medical ethics' and a special oath that medical graduates had to take. Nor was the medical faculty an overtly imperial institution. It was part of a concession and the result of an alliance between Jesuit missionaries and anti-clerical diplomats of the French Third Republic. Yet, the faculty was key to a French policy of imperial influence designed to compete with other imperial, religious, and private foreign powers active in medical education in China. During the years of war between China and Japan (1937–1945), the faculty consolidated its influence by increasing student numbers and building new infrastructure, whereas its Chinese staff assumed a more prominent role, reinforcing the importance of Chinese medicine in teaching and research. Doctors trained at l'Aurore who stayed in China remained active in public health until well into the second half of the twentieth century, even after the medical faculty was abolished by the Communist regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What follows is a book review of Eros Crucified: Death, Desire, and the Divine in Psychoanalysis and Philosophy of Religion, by Matthew Clemente. "Eros Crucified" was published by Routledge in 2020 as part of the "Psychology and the Other" series. The review focuses on thematic summarizations of each chapter, with a short set of notes analyzing the form, function, and forthgoing scholarly conversations that the book is likely to offer/invite. This space allocation is in part, due to the considerable prose, non-traditional writing style, and significant scholarly traditions drawn into dialogue with one another (philosophy, psychoanalysis, religious studies) that required further explication. "Eros Crucified" is a considerable text for those seeking a psychoanalytic description of reoccurring religious cultural phenomena, and the implications therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The renewal of Thomism and the birth of Filipino nationalism were pivotal events of the 19th century, yet most accounts of them seem to be indifferent to their synchronicity. Rather than interface, what is often read is a re-enactment of the proverbial chasm separating the two. For the most part, historians depict their simultaneous occurrence as an outright clash of civilizations between the sacred and the secular or the medieval and the modern. The decolonial trend of Philippine scholarship further exacerbates this divide and leads to the exclusion of St. Thomas's thought as a potential resource of an enriched local philosophic discourse. This paper seeks to supply the missing link between Thomism and the birth of Filipino nationalism by identifying the intersecting lines as well as the divergent points of their separate yet closely parallel itineraries. The aim is to render a prospective rendition of the renewal of Thomism in the Philippines without glossing over the social and political traumas underlying our local intellectual history. I argue that an agonistic interaction between Thomism and philosophy in the Philippines is possible as it is necessary, and its pursuit is crucial if a sustained engagement between Aquinas's thought and the Filipino mind must be attained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jesuit Examen is a form of prayerful reflection on daily experiences that was introduced five centuries ago by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (better known as the Jesuits). The Examen may be utilized by diverse populations when adapted and secularized, which can be completed by substituting the language of God in the original Examen for more inclusive terms such as "love." Although five centuries old, the 10–15-min daily reflective practice has not been subject to empirical research. Furthermore, research has not explored the effects of the Examen on psychological health and well-being in a workplace setting. Other religious practices, including mindfulness and yoga, are important and religiously derived but now secularized interventions that can be utilized in multiple work and other settings. The present pilot study focused on the potential effectiveness of using a secularized version of the Examen in the workplace to determine whether this practice can produce psychological and well-being health benefits, such as stress reduction and improvement in one's satisfaction with life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the persecution and religious oppression William Byrd faced, his compositional process was forced to be more intricate, innovative, and creative. Consequently, he penned some of the greatest music England has ever seen. Elizabethan England’s history shows how the tenor of Byrd’s relationship with Elizabeth I is deeply ironic, as Elizabeth protected Byrd from the persecution that she afflicted upon him. Even though many of Byrd’s works appear docilely Anglican upon first glance, a deeper analysis reveals many hidden allusions to his Catholic beliefs, developing a masterful level of complexity to his compositions. Many of his motets had double meanings inherent in their composition. Byrd’s most exquisite music achieved that status because of his underlying expression of his non-compliant beliefs and spiritual character of musical inspiration.

Slavist and Polish Slavophil M.E. Zdzekhovsky came to the attention of Russian scientists relatively recently and has not yet taken its due place in domestic research. 2023 marks the 85th anniversary of his death. A Pole by origin, baptized in the Catholic faith, he remained a representative of a single space of the Slavic world and was close to that part of the Polish and Russian intelligentsia, which at the beginning of the 20th century began to be called "religious", since it put the question at the center of its worldview. about the necessity for the social development of states - religious consciousness. At the end of the XIX century. Zdzekhovsky became an admirer of L.N. Tolstoy, and then imbued with his teaching on the moral essence of Christianity. Having taken the post of professor at the University of Krakow and having moved to Austria-Hungary, Zdziechovsky continued his epistolary communication with the Russian intelligentsia and with L.N. Tolstoy, whom he called his teacher. He carried a respectful attitude towards the writer through the years of his passion for modernism (1890-1914) in the Roman Catholic Church, contact with which he found in Tolstoy's moralism. The article, based on letters and books (1890–1914) by Zdziechowski, analyzes the evolution of the attitude of the Polish “neo-Catholic” towards Tolstoy as a thinker. Not accepting Tolstoy's "Christian anarchism", Zdziechowski did not condemn his apostasy from the Church, putting the moral aspect of his search, based on epistemological pessimism, at the center of his understanding of Tolstoy's phenomenon. The author concludes that M.E. Zdziechowski's work of the writer and the moral apology of Christianity in modernism, played a leading role in Zdziechowski's attitude towards Tolstoy.