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History of the church in Malawi dates way back to the colonial times, when many missionaries arrived in the country with the aim of introducing Christianity. Since then, efforts have always been made by both the state and the church to build a good working relationship and to create an environment of peaceful co-existence. While this is the case, the relations have, in some cases, been sour. The church and state are often on a collision course following the former's use of the pulpit to intrude in politics. The church has been accused of meddling in politics instead of leading "the flock" and the state often has argued that such an interference has led to civil wars in other parts of the world, including in Africa itself. Nonetheless, the church has not been swayed in its role of "speaking for the voiceless" taking a swipe at the government on the need to embark on political as well as on social reforms. The church, as the paper shows, argues that it is within its rights to comment on national issues and that the state does not have a right to "dictate" what the church should and should not do. The Catholic Church is used in this paper as an example of how a church's influence can lead to a political reform. In March 1992, the Catholic bishops released a pastoral letter which was an open criticism of the Banda regime. The letter changed forever Malawi's political landscape. While other factors might have contributed to the political reform in the country, this paper argues that without the Roman Catholic Church and the role it played, it is not certain whether such reforms would have happened at the time and in the manner they did. Hence, the Roman Catholic Church should be seen as an important agent in Malawi's political reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an analysis of archival documents and the published writings of experts, this paper explores the relationships between the emerging field of sexology, the state, and the Catholic Church in post-1956 Poland, as these relationships play an important role in the history of sexuality under state socialism. In the period in question, experts in sexuality, mainly medical doctors, focused on how to improve sexual relations within marriage. They developed a notion known as the 'culture of sexuality' based on progressive values such as equality, rationality, and psychological health. Experts drew a connection between an improvement in people's marital sex lives and the health and welfare of both society and the nation. The Party-State supported these developments and also used them to their advantage in their political struggle with the Catholic Church. However, the experts' proposal to restrict access to abortion (in 1961) was met with decisive resistance on the part of the Party-State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies concerned with historical Germanisms have shown that public discourses in other languages often appropriate German loanwords as frames of reference to interpret political realities and influence collective attitudes. This paper intends to contribute to this new strand of research by investigating discursive transpositions of the historical Germanism Kulturkampf in the donor language, German, and two host languages, Polish and English. Originally used mainly in reference to government attempts to reduce the influence of the Catholic Church in Prussia/Germany in the 1870s, this term has come to be used in German and other languages to signify conflicts in various political and cultural contexts. Adopting a triangulated and trilateral approach and the method of corpus-assisted discourse study (CADS), this paper examines the use of Kulturkampf in large collections of Internet and newspaper data in German, English and Polish. The results show how the meaning of Kulturkampf has been discursively re-contextualised and appropriated to perform local ideological work in public discourses in the three different cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Czech Republic is often said to be one of the most secular countries in Europe, or even in the world. For this, in accord with the secularization thesis, the modernization is often mentioned, where it was supposed that it automatically leads to the decline of religion in society. In my paper, I recapitulate the basic points of the secularization thesis and dissect its criticism which seems to be aimed at the idea, that secularization represents just an unintended effect of modernization. Based on this criticism, I deduce resources for analysis of the religious situation in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, I prove that Czech society is not so much atheist, but more dechristianised, and I focus on reasons of this dechristianization in political, social and class conflicts, which had, according to my opinion, a great impact on Czech church's religionism. In this paper, I address the conflicts between socialist movement and the Catholic Church, which as a result had a substantial effect on the dechristianization of the czech working class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past 10 to 15 years there has been a renewed interest in the place of religion, religious education and religious schools in different parts of the world. This began in the USA and Europe with the development of private Christian schools. It was later followed by the resurgence of religious schools in the former parts of the Soviet Empire. Given that Christianity is still the world's largest and most widespread religion, this paper explores different government approaches and policies towards Church-state relations in selected national contexts. Where necessary, reference will also be made to the place of education in other religions. While most examples are drawn from the industrialised countries of the west, and the position of Christianity in those countries, some references are made to certain developing countries. The paper also argues that because of policies of inclusion, equality and multiculturalism within western democracies, their governments are in danger of destroying their religious educational roots. The result is that those with a deep religious faith believe that they can only guarantee that their faith can be conveyed to their children through the pursuance of independent, private religious schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the emerging bioethical debate on assisted reproductive technology (ART) in Ireland, which is shaped by the long-standing contentious issue of abortion and the constitutional protection afforded to the ‘unborn’. The focus of the paper is on the way in which the terms of this debate are shaped and constrained by the historical relations of power between church, state and medicine. Since the representation of Ireland as a post-Catholic, plural republic is becoming increasingly mainstream to cultural and political discourse, we pay particular attention to how the Catholic Church embraces bioethics as a meta frame or code for refocusing questions of values, beliefs and meanings to sustain the ideal of Ireland as a ‘pro-life’ and essentially Catholic nation. The Catholic Church is not simply asserting its voice of dissent in the context of public debate as one voice amongst a plurality of other voices, but to shape the emerging debate as a powerful, institutional actor. The opportunity to do so is afforded by the lack of public debate on bioethical issues and the exceedingly slow pace at which bioethics is moving towards an institutionalised framework in Ireland. These events can be explained by the legacy of the social power of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the direct and indirect influence it has long exercised over public policy vis-à-vis the state and its institutions, including medicine. There are two interconnected threads to the contextual analysis presented in our case study: first, the legacy of the social power wielded by the Catholic Church, and its slow and incremental demise reflected in the pace of secularisation in Ireland and the privatisation of morality; second, the emergence of a bioethical regulatory debate on ART, which is mired in the abortion controversy. Our analysis focuses on a number of key contradictions and tensions in the way in which the key institutions of church, state and medicine navigate their own positions vis-à-vis a bioethics debate, and how this constrains public participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A conference paper reflecting on the legislative bill for a secularism charter in Québec initiated by the political party Parti Québécois (PQ) is presented. It offers four reasons speaking against the need for such as charter. Further discussions include political philosophy, the separation between the State and the Catholic Church, the PQ's argument for such a charter, the concern over a hierarchy of fundamental rights, and the wearing of religious symbols by public employees.

Divorce legislation was enacted in Malta in 2011 following a consultative referendum. Until then the biggest barrier to divorce had been the perceived influence of the Catholic Church, expressed not just in its presence in many spheres of public life, but in historical reminders of the political costs of challenging its status and doctrines. The process leading to the introduction of divorce showed: that the political parties still feared confronting the Church; that the Church itself had been losing ground as a politically coercive or persuasive force; and that the biggest challenge to its status and relevance was coming from below, as a result of people's changing attitudes and lifestyle. This contrasts starkly with the history of Church–State relations and its landmark political–religious conflicts, involving the ecclesiastical establishment on the one hand, and secularising political forces on the other. Retracing the history of political–religious strife, this paper seeks to evaluate the changing quantity and quality of ecclesiastical power in Malta, up to the point when the divorce question exposed its limits, though not its end. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Historia Mexicana is the property of El Colegio de Mexico AC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 1784 King Stanisław August Poniatowski undertook a splendid progress across the south-western parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The official account of the journey prompts the reflection that even in this linguistically and confessionally mixed part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the precedence over other confessions of the Catholic Church of both rites, Latin and Ruthenian, was axiomatic. By the mid-eighteenth century, about five-sixths of the Commonwealth's population, the vast majority of the noble citizenry, and the entire legislature were Catholic. However, Catholics of the Latin rite constituted only about half of the population. Most Catholics of the Ruthenian rite (Uniates) were in only nominal obedience to Rome; they were the object of a struggle for the allegiance and salvation of souls, conducted between an advancing Catholic Church and a retreating Orthodox Church. The fault line between Eastern and Western Christendom ran through both the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Orthodoxy retained strongholds in both parts of the Commonwealth. However, the position of the 'Latin' Church was, in most ways, significantly weaker in the Grand Duchy, where the majority of the inhabitants were Uniates. Adapting recent mutations in 'confessionalization theory', this paper first reviews the confessional balance, and the privileges, structures, educational institutions, and missionary work of the Catholic Church (of both rites) in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the second half of the eighteenth century. It then asks how the dramatic events of Stanisław August's reign (1764-95) affected Catholic supremacy. These changes included the enforced removal of the Catholic monopoly of the legislature in 1768, the impact of the first partition of the Commonwealth in 1772, the Orthodox revivals under Bishops Georgii Konisskii and Viktor Sadkovskii, as well as the formulation of new policies intended to promote loyalty to the Commonwealth and social cohesion during the Four Years' Sejm (1788-92). It concludes that the partial 'deconfessionalization' of the polity had (or might have had) a proportionately greater impact on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania than on the Polish Crown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the political activity of the Catholic Church in Poland in the years 1990-2009 in terms of categories of political strategies. I argue that the church as an institution applied varied strategies with the aim of influencing the politics of the day. These took on three forms, in which the church acted as (1) a political principal, (2) a creator of political values and (3) an interest group. In the period between 1990 and 1997 the church attempted to exert a direct influence on the political scene by supporting the Catholic national parties. In the period between 1997 and 2004 the church focused on the second of the above-mentioned strategies by supporting the establishment of Christian Democratic parties. In the years 2004-2009 we can observe a more varied strategy consisting of a formal withdrawal from political activity with a simultaneous acceptance of political engagement on the part of the Catholic national Radio Maryja. During the whole period under analysis the church effectively acted as an interest group. This has resulted in a growing dependence of the church on the state, which - in connection with symptoms of institutional crisis - may lead to a particular kind of 'cartelisation of the church'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects upon the "life issues" of population growth and reproductive health in the Philippines in the context of the ongoing congressional deliberation of House Bill 5043. Specific attention is paid to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church upon this process, through an analysis of the institutional pronouncements and edicts made by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). It still remains to be seen whether HB5043 will be passed into law. What can be observed even at this stage, however, is that there may well be a discordance between Church proclamations regarding faith-based sexual morality on the one hand, and popular opinion and actual practices under difficult economic and social circumstances on the other. In this respect, sustainable population control in the Philippines continues to be an uphill battle, given the Church's persistent association of artificial contraception with a pernicious "culture of death". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last four centuries, under the policy of the Portuguese Padroado1454, the Macau Catholic Church has been closely associated with the Portuguese rulers of Macau in governing this 'Chinese territory under the Portuguese rule'. This church-state relationship in Macau before the Chinese takeover (1999) and after has become a client-patron relationship under the shadow of the Portuguese appeasement policy. In the context of the appeasement policy, this paper aims at discussing: (1) the close alliance between the Portuguese government and the Catholic Church in Macau, offering special privileges and convenience to the Church but weakening church capacity in evangelization and spiritual leadership; and (2) the interactions of the three actors in the triangular relationship among the Vatican, China and Macau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the issue of church-state separation by looking at the experience of the hierarchical Catholic Church, specifically the cardinals and bishops, in engaging various societal issues. Utilizing the work of religious studies scholars on power distribution and ideological structure in a religious context as well as privatized and deprivatized religion, this study focuses on the experience of Philippine bishops from 1946 to 2000 to address the broader research question of how the role of the Catholic Church in a colonized country affects the Catholic hierarchy's ability to take a progressive stance on political, economic, and social problems once the nation has gained independence. In line with this, the study also examines a number of "themes" relating to the Catholic Church's role in the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. The Philippine case has been chosen over comparable Latin American cases because of the fairly long period of Spanish colonization undergone by the country, its experience with other colonizing powers such as the United States and Japan, as well as its relatively late attainment of political independence in 1946. The paper finds that this protracted period of colonization would have a profound effect on the public pronouncements to be made by the Philippine Catholic episcopate. Content analysis of the Philippine bishops' pastoral statements from the period of 1946 to 2000 show that until the early 1960's, these statements reflected a restorationist agenda of unbridled Church influence in the public domain. Only later would the bishops become more sensitive to the decline of Catholic Church influence and the autonomy of the secular sphere, with the Catholic Church advocating issues relating to social justice and equality as a "deprivatized" institution. The paper concludes with some remarks on the unique trajectory taken by the Philippine Catholic hierarchy in confronting societal problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of religion and social-political action in the United States is presented. A few years ago the sociologist Alan Wolfe summarized his observations of the current debates surrounding the American welfare state as follows: 'With the left on the defensive and unions in decline, the Catholic Church has emerged as one of the most powerful forces promoting economic equality in the United States, How has a conservative immigrant church, subject to longstanding hostility from Protestants, developed into a public social actor that defends social justice issues and criticizes American free market liberalism? This paper addresses the question of how the hierarchy of the Catholic Church as well as Catholic Charities USA became publicly active collective actors on a national level, involved in societal and political discourses and not hesitating to oppose the American conservative and liberal mainstream, especially in the field of social policy. Arguing also that Catholicism has made a distinct religious and cultural contribution to American society, this article aims to reconstruct the way this special 'counter-cultural' contribution in the field of social policy has evolved. The Catholic Church and Catholic Charities are deeply committed to the notion of social rights and resist an individualizing approach to fighting poverty. What requires explanation is the fact that, until the 1970s, the Church was politically very reluctant to oppose government policies. It is only since the 1980s that it has entered into the discourse of national social policy as a public religion.

Editorial. Presents the dialogue between christians and people of other faiths on the relationship between church and state. Papers on christian scholars and leaders of the west and third world countries; Circumstances influencing christian conceptions of religious freedom; Contributors to the issue.

The article discusses Professor Patrick McKinley Brennan's paper entitled "The Liberty of the Church" in the same journal, focusing on Church-State relations and the Roman Catholic Church as of April 2013. The "Declaration of Religious Liberty" (Dignitatis humanae) Catholic Church doctrine is examined, along with information on several religious leaders such as Pope Leo XIII and Pope Paul VI. The author argues that mainstream Protestantism has modernized itself almost out of existence.

With the reorganisation of chaplaincy in the British army which followed the experience gained in the First World War, the post of Chaplain General assumed a special importance as administrative head of all chaplains other than Roman Catholic. It quickly became the norm for the holder to be an Anglican. This article looks at how this came to be the case, and then considers how this policy came to be changed in the 1980s when a chaplain from the Church of Scotland was proposed by the army as the next Chaplain General. By then the churches had allowed the structure for discussing policy with the state to atrophy, and the decision was made by the army alone. An attempt by the archbishop of Canterbury to intervene was rejected. The last 20 years have seen further integration of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department (RAChD) into the army, with the selection of Chaplain General only notified to the churches once it has been made. This change of policy is seen to have implications for the command and control of the chaplains: they are now effectively owned by the army rather than the churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Educacao & Sociedade is the property of Centro de Estudos de Educacao e Sociedade and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article provides contributions from four theologians that discusses ethical issues in the 21st century relating to the relationship between church and state. Observations regarding the political and moral situation in Germany, Kenya, the U.S. and Venezuela are provided. Subjects under discussion include the influence of the church as a moral agent in the broader society, social justice efforts by churches in the U.S., and the church's role in causing and preventing violence in Kenya.

American Catholics witnessed a wave of radical Catholic action during the Vietnam War. Many Catholics protested the war by burning draft cards and destroying draft files. Radical Catholic action continued into the 1980s with the Plowshares actions, protests in which religious activists attempted to damage nuclear weapons and facilities. The response of ordinary Catholics to such protests, gleaned from Catholic editorial letters, was mixed. Some Catholics drew on a tradition in American Catholicism that emphasized patriotism and sought to keep religious and secular matters separate. Others supported the protests on biblical grounds and found justification in church tradition and teaching. Response to Vietnam-era Catholic protests tended to focus on the propriety of Catholic protests and the changes wrought by the Second Vatican Council, rather than the war itself. By the 1980s, however, American Catholics had become more comfortable with Catholic public protest and focused their editorial debate on the morality of nuclear weapons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Church related agencies are major providers of community services in Australia (Lyons, 2001:34-35). While the history of church related welfare service provision is not well known in Australia it is asserted that many have a long tradition of outreach and service provision to marginalised groups regardless of the government social policy of the day (ACSWC, 2000; Mendes, 2003). This paper examines the current environment of human services restructuring and the impact of the shift to contractualism on one church related provider: Catholic social welfare provision in Australia. It explores the significance of the church's social teachings and history on concerns that service innovation, diversity and advocacy are currently under threat. Finally it calls for greater appreciation of the distinctive contribution of church related agencies and what they have to offer in service delivery and as contributors to the social policy discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historical Studies is the property of Canadian Catholic Historical Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores how the Roman Catholic Church in France re-evaluated its traditional condemnation of conscientious objection in the closing years of the Algerian War. In contrast to the French Protestant Churches after 1948, the Catholic Church continued to proclaim objection to be detrimental to the principles of state sovereignty and obedience to legitimate authority. Despite this, cases of Catholic conscientious objectors like Jean le Meur and Jean Pezet brought contentious Church debates into the public sphere, dramatized in the press and the courtroom. The article traces how the moral dilemmas of the Algerian War created a space for new theological ideas that challenged the hierarchical, corporatist structure of the French Catholic Church and opened the way for a new emphasis on individual conscience that came to fruition with Vatican II. By focusing on Catholic activism during the war itself, the article also challenges the idea that support for conscientious objection emerged spontaneously after the end of the Algerian War. More broadly, the article addresses the wider narrative of the emergence of human rights by illustrating how the Algerian War proved to be a turning point in the relationship between individuals and authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's opinion on American Jesuit priest and theologian John Courtney Murray's work on the relationship between grace and nature. It examines Murray's intellectual development in three phases namely his early work in developing his characteristic position on nature and grace, his engagement with atheism and secularism and his role in the debates on religious freedom.

An essay is presented that discusses the status of the Roman Catholic Church in the People's Republic of China, noting the division between the official government-recognized church and the unofficial Vatican-affiliated church. Topics include the Christian notion of enculturation, or inculturation, Chinese government influence on the appointment of bishops in the official church, and statements from Catholic Pope Benedict XVI regarding the Chinese church.

The world we live in is characterized by violence since it exists. Violence is a consequence of original sin. Christian Church was faced with violence in the early days of its existence. Church as a seen institution is born and develops in a world torn by hatred and rivalry. By interpreting Christ's words from Mt 10:34 literaly, some Christian confessions ended up in using violence. Violence is a constant presence in the history of Christianity. Religious justification of violence is false because the arguments used disguise in fact the human passions which rage and want to be dressed in the clothes of virtue. Faith in God led people to too many actions and extreme events over time. The relationship between man and divinity has always been tumultuous and the human actions were not always according to the will of God. And here comes religious extremism, an event that led to unimaginable actions committed by people in the name of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that state (re)construction and functioning involves negotiated governance between both state and non-state actors, in which power relations between local actors are not just implicitly present or co-influencing policies but are of uttermost importance to the formation of policy and state. One of the main non-state actors in African service delivery is the church. State and church are two major poles of power which determine – through negotiation – large domains of service delivery, such as education. We discuss a major attempt by the Catholic Church to reform the school-fee system in Kinshasa (DRC). The attempt largely failed, but its analysis reveals the political capabilities of different actors involved. The arrangements of state and non-state actors largely evolve in a roundabout way, not at all along the lines of an explicit negotiation process, and are very much determined by local-level governance instead of higher-level policies. [Dieu et César dans la République Démocratique du Congo : les négociations des relations entre l'église et l'état à travers l'administration des frais de scolarité dans les écoles Catholiques de Kinshasa.] Cet article soutient que la (re)construction de l'État et son fonctionnement impliquent une gouvernance négociée tant entre les acteurs étatiques et non-étatiques, et dans laquelle les relations de pouvoir ne sont pas seulement présentes implicitement ou ne font pas qu'influencer conjointement les politiques, mais sont d'importance capitale à la formation de la politique et de l'État. Un des acteurs non-étatiques principaux dans la fourniture de service en Afrique est l'Église. L'État et l'Église sont deux pôles importants de pouvoir qui déterminent - par la négociation - les grands domaines de fourniture de services, comme l'éducation. Cette étude examine une tentative de réforme majeure du système des frais scolaires à Kinshasa (RDC) par l'Église catholique. La tentative a échoué en grande partie, mais son analyse révèle les capacités politiques des différents acteurs impliqués. Les accords des acteurs étatiques et non-étatiques se développent majoritairement d'une manière détournée, pas du tout dans le sens d'un processus de négociation explicite, et sont très largement déterminées par la gouvernance au niveau local à défaut de politiques d'un niveau supérieur. Mots-clés: République Démocratique du Congo ; l'État ; l'Église ; gouvernance ; secteur éducatif   [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues that the Vatican’s teaching on family, sexuality and human life is best understood within the frame of Foucault’s concept of biopolitics. His hypothesis is based on two major claims: first, that in the 20th century the Pope took on a new role, that of manager of populations of believers; and second, that a number of essential functions for the Church as an organization, such as the recruitment of members and of clergy, the maintaining of a distinctive Catholic identity, competition with other faiths and competition with nation states, have increasingly revolved around biopolitical issues, particularly around contraception and human life. Therefore, religious teaching on these topics should be read as a discourse where power and morals intertwine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many observers voiced hopes that Pope Benedict’s March 2012 trip to Cuba would encourage a shift towards more democracy on the island. Pope John Paul II’s 1998 visit had already generated expectations of change similar to those brought about by his trips to Poland in the 1980s, which some credit with having led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. While Cuba did not turn into a democracy in the wake of the Polish pontiff ’s trip, the Catholic Church did become the regime’s main interlocutor and managed to carve a space for survival. Since the political changes that have occurred at the helm of power in Cuba in 2006, the United States has been relentlessly pressing the Vatican to act as a catalyst to boost the emergence of a strong civil society that would serve as a basis for democratic change. Yet, American diplomats have to face the fact that like any institution, the Vatican looks after its own interests. This means that it deems the political situation in Cuba acceptable, provided the regime guarantees it sufficient space for operations, notwithstanding the role the United States would have it play. To the contrary, unlike the United States, the Vatican does not appear keen on immediate political transition in Cuba, which it sees as potentially detrimental to its survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An article on the relationship between church and state in Spain is presented. The author discusses the comments made by Pope Benedict XVI in Spain on the alleged increasing secularism in that traditionally Catholic country, examines the influence of religion on the legislation of Spanish politician José Luiz Rodrìguez Zapatero, and discusses the history of Catholic influence on the laws of Spain. Other topics of discussion include the Spanish welfare state and the religious education of children in Spanish public schools.

This essay reviews insights and actions that were prompted by a contemporary crisis of American development that was not entirely unlike the earlier crisis of growth that inspired Henry George's diagnosis and prescription for relief, reform, and renewal. It traces Catholic underpinnings of social, economic, and political thought and action and their applications to American urban life. It highlights new themes of a developing Catholic tradition that engages new problematic conditions and situations. These new themes and practices became imperatives related to current dynamics of urban and metropolitan growth. Thus this essay addresses the sources of this approach to the crisis of development found in the neighborhood movement and locates the particularly pivotal participation the Monsignor Geno C. Baroni and his vision and action regarding people and places in our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Twelfth of July is the unofficial ‘national day’ of Northern Irish Protestantism, and has often been characterised as highly sectarian and divisive. Research on the Twelfth has concentrated on the parades and on the Troubles period; assertions about the Twelfth and its rhetoric in the post-war, pre-Troubles era have often been based on little more than assumption. This article attempts to fill this gap by examining speeches made at Twelfth of July gatherings in Northern Ireland from 1954 to 1962. It will show that the dominant theme of the speeches was the threat to Ulster Protestants and their state from the Irish Republic, republicans such as the IRA and Sinn Féin, and from the Catholic Church. Orange and Unionist leaders used this sense of threat to discourage division and dissent within Ulster Protestantism. Although Irish nationalism and Catholicism were consistently presented as threatening, the amount of blatant sectarianism was much less than might be assumed. Northern Catholics were rarely attacked directly, and some Twelfth speakers argued specifically for better relations with Catholics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aims of this article are to explore the diversity of Catholic reactions facing state terror in Córdoba, Argentina, during the 1970s and to analyse how different Catholic groups redefined their relations with the State in the public sphere. To do that, I will use case study methodology applied to the kidnapping of an American priest and five seminarians. I will show how religious beliefs shape to some extent how Catholic social actors respond to political events. Different understandings of Catholicism produced different responses to state terror. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gambling is fantastically popular among Ngadha people on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia. The White Coupon lottery, cards, cockfights and board games are ubiquitous, providing a socially acceptable medium through which to use and circulate cash. However, gambling as an economic activity does not sit well with development paradigms of the Indonesian State, Catholic Church or foreign-aid agencies. Cast as greedy and wasteful, gambling evokes images of lazy and nefarious characters. Yet for Flores players who oscillate between agricultural subsistence, sporadic wage labour and a market economy, gambling is a viable economic strategy. This was eloquently explained to me by a Ngadha gambler, who said 'plant one seed and you may get ten beans, bet Rp1000 you may get Rp10 000 back.' This enticing logic articulates the rationale for framing gambling as one of a raft of economic activities, albeit illegal, in this relatively remote rural location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Compass is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The early attempts to secure Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon saw a conflict in approach between the king and Thomas Wolsey, cardinal of York. The king went behind his minister's back and dispatched his own secretary, William Knight, to Rome, seeking a direct channel of communication with Clement VII in order to secure papal permission to marry Anne Boleyn. Wolsey interpreted the king's actions not only as a direct threat to his own connections with the Roman curia as legate a latere, but also as potentially disastrous for the divorce campaign. Knight's ultimate failure enabled Wolsey to regain control of the Great Matter and made abundantly clear to him the fragility of his own position as intermediary between king and pope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many assume the United States has a fixed number of jobs that are there to be 'taken.' Such static, zero-sum thinking is profoundly at odds with reality. Throughout US history, immigration has been closely correlated with economic growth. Immigrants and native-born Americans play complementary roles in the American economy, rather than directly competing for the same jobs. The Christian church is a transnational community of believers, and the National Association of Evangelicals believes the church should show respect and mercy to immigrants. Christians' exemplary treatment of immigrants can serve as its moral basis to call for government attitudes and legislation to reflect the same virtues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on doctrinal issues between democracy and the church, which includes the general relation of a state to religion, freedom of religion and belief, and the origin and connotation of temporal power. It explores the Catholic philosophy on civil authority and provides an explanation of democracy particularly the Christian democracy, which began following the French Revolution. Moreover, it claims that democracy is exposed to the threats of masked anarchy.

This article is based on a comparison between Bishop Alexander Macdonell's autobiographical writing about his work as a Scottish priest and his involvement in the politics of the day, and information obtainable from the Blairs and Preshome Letters. Taken together, they show that his bold and enterprising approach achieved much for his fellow-Catholics but that his superiors, the bishops of the two Scottish vicariates, had good reason to fear that his individualist approach might actually undermine their own patient and cautious efforts to extract concessions for Catholics from the authorities. The developments described take place against the background of the Highland Clearances as well as the spread of French revolutionary ideas all over western Europe. Macdonell's views were to have considerable influence on British imperial policies in Canada and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardinal Patrick Moran, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney 1884–1911, believed that Australian Catholicism would flourish with the emergence of the new nation through Federation in 1901, provided that Australians turned away from foreign influences, including anarchism and nihilism. Moran also sought to use Australia to “Christianise” the enormous population of China, and believed that Chinese immigration could make a useful contribution to nation building. As the nineteenth century closed, Moran's aims were also complicated by the more insidious threats represented by a challenge to religious faith by fin de siècle ideas — a modernism manifesting as both a general challenge and a specific doctrinal relativism that might erode the Church's authority, and the threat Moran felt was posed to the development of the liberal Australian state and the Catholic Church by radical political alternatives. Concern that a mood of religious apostasy and secularisation might spread to the Catholic community also influenced Moran's support for the fledgling Australian Labor Party, which Moran believed could develop as an instrument to reinforce a moral and inclusive sense of Australian identity for the Catholic working class. Like his pro-Chinese views, Moran's advocacy of “the rights and duties of labour” was defined by an imagined alliance of evangelism and nation building, stimulated by the fear, as he expressed in 1891, of “an unchristianized world.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Catholic Church is a religious tradition with a highly centralised organisational structure which operates worldwide but that must adjust itself to and effectively operate in local and world-regional contexts that can often challenge and threaten to subvert its central doctrines, operational principles, and political compromises with secular authorities. The Church has long provided the source and model, with its base in the sacred origins of sovereignty, for a quintessentially Western statehood. In this context, I wish to raise three points for further discussion using the significant example of the Catholic Church that future research on the contemporary confluence between religion and geopolitics should address. The first is whether a church can have “geopolitics.” I answer in the affirmative with a number of arguments for doing so. The second is the idea, made in writing and in his practice by Pope Benedict, that Western civilisation is in crisis and that only a restoration of a historic Christendom (Europe) based on a reinvigorated Catholic Church can save it. I dispute the strategy of “hard” or coercive power and the focus on Europe he has apparently chosen as departing from what has often best served the Church in the past. Third, and finally, in the global struggle for souls, numbers matter. Somewhat akin to the struggle for primacy between states in the modern geopolitical imagination, the struggle for souls between faiths (Catholics and Protestants, Moslems and Christians, etc.) is once more in ascendance. But doesn't this quantitative emphasis risk subverting the Church's post-Vatican II emphasis on Christian practice in everyday life? The overall purpose of the article is to introduce religious organisation and associated theological claims into the problematic of geopolitics using the case of the world's largest Christian denomination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I'm sending out a cry of love to you, old Europe: find yourself again, be yourself, discover your origins, revive your roots, revive those authentic values which make your history glorious and your presence beneficent on other continents. (John Paul II, 1982) 'Europe' has been treated in a number of different ways in papal thought in the twentieth century. At first, under Benedict XV and Pius XI, European unity was presented as the only means to avoid wars and to tame aggressive nationalisms. With Pius XII, Europe became a vision, founded on a sacred past where 'Faith' and 'Truth' had been given by Christ (and the Catholic Church) to the peoples of Europe. The pope's role was unceasingly to defend federalism, and to condemn communism and Cold War politics. The popes of the 1960s and 1970s recast Catholic doctrine on Europe as a new utopia, imbuing Europe with a new concern for the situation of Eastern Europe. They aimed to revive the opportunity for all European peoples to live in a secure, democratic and developed continent thanks to the protective cultivation of Christian values. John Paul II took the view that a common Christian identity pre-existed de facto and was outside any institutional union. Europe had always lived as a 'spiritual miracle'. The Christian heritage of Europe had to be heard, transmitted and respected both by individual European states and by the Union; otherwise the risk was that the unity project would fail and Europe would disappear, falling into decadence and permissiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that the study of western democracies benefits from a conceptualisation of Christian churches as societal veto players characterised by three features: their power, which depends on their potential for mobilisation; their preferences, which can be deduced from churches' official statements and which are often outside the political spectrum; and their coherence, which determines the size of their indifference curve. Conceptualised as societal veto players, churches can be included in actor-centred theories of policy-making. Particular attention should be paid to veto points, church-state relations and religious parties, as these are the features of the political system that affect churches' behaviours. A comparative study of churches' roles in stem-cell policies illustrates the use of the concept. The study shows that the Catholic Church is a 'stronger' veto player than protestant churches, but that this stronger role can have paradoxical effects on the resulting policies and the policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of the Catholic church in the 2006 Mexican presidential election. Statistics relating to citizen confidence in Mexican institutions including the Church, the Media, and Political Parties are presented. The article also discusses the religious denominations and church attendance rates of Mexican voters. Particular focus is given to the influence of church teachings on the political and social beliefs of Mexican Catholics.

The article discusses the significance of political Catholicism to the New State of Catholic dictator Antó de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal. The authors note that the ground for the institutional framework of this New State may attribute to the agreement between the Roman Catholic Church and the Portuguese government. Apart from this, the influence of Catholic tradition affecting the constitution and implementation of corporatist principles also molds the dictator's New State.

The article discusses the forms of abuses done on children and how the churches directed their efforts to minimize or eradicate these abuses in Southern Nigeria. Child abuse practices includes child labor due to poverty, corporal punishment, child trafficking to engage in prostitution, outright abandonment to avoid the cost of child rearing, and sexual molestation. The Catholic churches promotes the welfare of these children by establishing schools and providing hospital facilities..