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The text explores the educational activities of French Roman Catholic missions in the nineteenth century, as they evolved from serving local Catholic needs to becoming crucial assets in advancing France's religious–cultural influences and the Holy See's efforts to unify Eastern Christian Churches under Rome. Focused on the Mission d'Orient, initiated during Pius IX's papacy, this study delves into the Assumptionists' educational activities in the Ottoman Empire (1863–1914), which aimed to inculturate the Christian communities of the Ottoman Empire, achieve union with Rome, and build a bridge of knowledge between the Ottoman Orient and Europe. Employing a transnational historical approach, this research utilizes primary sources from the Holy See and the Assumptionist Order, examining religious and educational interactions with Ottoman millets. This article argues that Assumptionist institutions succeeded in inculturation and acted as bridges for cultural exchange. The context includes the French protectorate of the Ottoman Empire, the protégé system, and the Capitulations of 1740, demonstrating the Holy See's use of political and religious alliances. The Assumptionists, influential in advancing the Holy See's interests, are studied regarding their engagement in France and the Orient. Despite valuable insights from existing research, this article seeks to fill gaps by using Assumptionists as a case study, exploring the specific impacts of their education on various religious groups within the context of France's religious–cultural imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Assumptionists' mission, known as the Mission d'Orient, initiated in 1862 with the aim of uniting the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches against the backdrop of a changing political and religious landscape. Despite their aspirations, the mission encountered numerous challenges and obstacles, leading to its ultimate failure. The paper focuses on the Ottoman response to Roman Catholic missions, using the Assumptionists as a case study. It explores the factors contributing to the Mission d'Orient's failure and scrutinizes the Assumptionists' efforts to foster unity between the two churches. The study argues that the failure can be attributed to complex power dynamics between the Ottoman Empire and Western powers, resulting in a hostile environment for Christian communities. The Ottoman response encompassed state-level actions driven by political conflicts and the direct targeting of Catholic missions as symbols of Western imperialism. The paper examines historical sources and primary documents to shed light on the challenges faced by the Assumptionists and their impact on interfaith relations and diplomacy during this significant chapter in Christian missions' history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the changes that took place after World War I in the life of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Alba Iulia led by Bishop Gusztáv Károly Mailáth. This was the only new diocese in Romania to retain all the historical territory it had previously held in the AustroHungarian Monarchy, whereas all others that have suffered significant territorial losses. The Roman Catholic Church in Transylvania was largely ethnically Hungarian. The diocese was thus faced with the challenge of integrating in the Romanian ecclesiastical-administrative structures, while preserving its religious and ethnic characteristics. We are witnessing here the beginning of a “diplomatic game” between the Romanian Government, the Holy See and Bishop Mailáth. The issue at stake for the Roman Catholic Church in Transylvania was the preservation of confessional and ethnic identity in a new political framework. The integration culminated with the signing of the Concordat between Romania and the Holy See in 1927, but the road to the completion of this document is marked by many interesting developments, which provide an insight in the challenges of preserving confessional and ethnic identity while accommodating to new political circumstances and redefining the mission of a Catholic Church belonging to an ethnic minority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the state and nation-building process in Southeast Ecuador (in what is now the Morona-Santiago province) during the first half of the XXth century. This territory -which was originally settled by the Achuar and Shuar peoples-remained in dispute between Ecuador and Peru since the day Ecuador became an independent country in 1830, and until 1998, when the two nations reached a final agreement on their common borders. Given the fledgling condition of the Ecuadorian state in the period under study, the information that can be obtained from bureaucratic and official sources is scanty. Thus, a different approach to data gathering had to be undertaken. It is argued that in those remote frontier territories, the Salesian missionaries became the actual and real proxy of the central government as well as of other external powers: the House of Don Bosco and the Vatican. Specific attention is given to the ways in which authority is endowed with meaning as a result of the efforts of actors to make sense of affections and disaffections, hopes, emotions, violence, disappointments and fear, which are to be seen as the founding components of colonialist domination processes. The arguments are supported in documentary sources, and -crucially- on the versions provided the participants in some of the recounted events. In this scene, the Shuar people is not seen as a passive actor. Instead, it displays its ability to negotiate with the power-originated messages of domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to show that digital technology now lies at the heart of the evangelizing mission of the Catholic Church. In view of the profound changes brought by the rise of digital communication technologies, the Vatican justifies this goal through a desire to reach believers in the remotest areas of the world. While at first glance this strategy gives the Catholic Church a modern image, the current research work brings it closer to the importance the Church attaches to global health interventions. Given the healthcare system failure in some African countries, this article which is based on Foucault's concerns about surveillance foresees a form of paternalism capable of fostering a mode of governance that subtly promotes the influence of individual behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1925 the Vatican Missionary Exhibition took place, presenting thousands of objects sent by Catholic missions around the world. Resulting from substantial efforts by the Church, the exhibition had a significant public impact, with an estimated one million visitors. It marked a critical moment in the international affirmation of the Church, as well as the reformulation and expansion of its missionary policy in the aftermath of the Great War. Catholic missions and congregations in the Portuguese colonial empire participated in the exhibition. This article focuses on the Angolan case, where the Congregation of the Holy Spirit was the main protagonist of Catholic missionisation. I examine the organisation process, the circulation of norms and objects across imperial borders, and their exhibition at the Vatican. I discuss the tensions between the pontifical message and Portuguese missionary politics, as well as the intermediary position that the Spiritans occupied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a result of a post-doctoral research based on primary sources of historical archives of the Brazilian Itamaraty, the Vatican Archives and the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. It also used publications available at the platform Hemeroteca Digital at the Biblioteca Nacional. The article intended to show the appropriation of the Catholic Just War thought by the Greater Japanese Empire as part of justification of its imperialism and of its war propaganda throughout Catholic countries that also arrived in Brazil in 1938. The expansionist projects had forced Japanese authorities to rethink their understanding of religion before an ideological alignment with the Vatican motivated by the same fight against communism. Japanese Officials had soon realized that besides the collaboration in the occupied territories, the Catholic Church would be also useful in the propaganda in favor of Japanese occupation. This resulted in the dispatch of "Japanese catholic missions" to several countries in the following years. The historical documentation shows how the Catholic discourse was incorporated as part of the Japanese external politic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]