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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Solidarity And Ecumenism, John A. Radano Aug 2023

Solidarity And Ecumenism, John A. Radano

The Journal of Social Encounters

This article illustrates ways in which the modern ecumenical movement promotes solidarity among formerly divided Christian churches through ecumenical dialogue. It begins by recalling divisions which took place in the fifth, the eleventh, and the sixteenth centuries, breaking down unity and solidarity among Christians, and continuing since those times. It then shows the way in which the modern Ecumenical Movement, working to restore Christian unity, began early in the twentieth century through movements promoting cooperation in mission, in efforts of the churches to better society, and in resolving doctrinal divisions which have kept churches separated. It later became established in …


Our Lady Of La Vang Journeys With The Nation: Marian Devotion And Pilgrimage In Vietnam, Dung Trang Ph.D., Lhc Khiet Tam Jun 2023

Our Lady Of La Vang Journeys With The Nation: Marian Devotion And Pilgrimage In Vietnam, Dung Trang Ph.D., Lhc Khiet Tam

Journal of Global Catholicism

The sanctuary of Our Lady of La Vang (OLLV) reveals the role of popular devotion in Vietnamese Catholicism. It manifests the recent strategy from Vietnamese Church leaders to maintain a public presence with an emphasis on reinforcing a sense of Catholic identity through popular devotion and liturgy. Devotion to OLLV then reflects the interaction of several factors: the promotion of the clergy, political influence, and the collaboration of the Vietnamese Catholic laity. Building on existing scholarship that focuses on the cultural inheritance and collective identity of Vietnamese Catholics around the world, this paper explores the case study of the basilica …


Theological Implications Of The Symbols And Signs In The Sacrament Of Matrimony Of The Syro-Malabar Church, Nelson Mathew O. Carm. Jun 2023

Theological Implications Of The Symbols And Signs In The Sacrament Of Matrimony Of The Syro-Malabar Church, Nelson Mathew O. Carm.

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article discusses the significance of the signs and symbols used in the sacrament of the marriage of the Syro-Malabar Church and the adaptations from different cultures, particularly the Hindu culture of India. It concentrates on the specific elements found in the marriage celebration of the St. Thomas Christians. The rituals that are unique to the Sacrament of Matrimony of the Syro-Malabar Church, mainly expressed through symbols and signs, remain a significant contribution to the liturgy, spirituality, and theology of the Sacrament of Matrimony, and to the theology of inculturation. In the Syro-Malabar liturgy, marriage rituals, and signs and symbols …


Rethinking The Panata To The Nazareno Of Quiapo, Wilson Espiritu Ph.D. Jun 2023

Rethinking The Panata To The Nazareno Of Quiapo, Wilson Espiritu Ph.D.

Journal of Global Catholicism

Filipino Catholicism’s hallmark is its festive and colorful celebrations of popular piety, which exhibit the Catholic faith’s embeddedness in people’s lives and culture. One of the most renowned Filipino devotions is rendered to Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno of Quiapo, Manila. The devotion of making a pledge to the Nazareno, known as panata, is commonly understood as a sacred promise that must be kept in return for a request that is granted. In this paper, I propose a theological reading of panata performance that unites devotion to the Nazareno and commitment to the wellbeing of others. This interpretation aims to …


Overview & Acknowledgments, Marc R. Loustau Ph.D. Jun 2023

Overview & Acknowledgments, Marc R. Loustau Ph.D.

Journal of Global Catholicism

An introduction to the current issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism.


Strong Church, Weak Catholicism: Transformations In Brazilian Catholicism, Carlos Alberto Steil, Rodrigo Toniol May 2021

Strong Church, Weak Catholicism: Transformations In Brazilian Catholicism, Carlos Alberto Steil, Rodrigo Toniol

Journal of Global Catholicism

In this paper we explore data on Catholicism from the 2010 census in Brazil, as well as other data from the Center for Religious Statistics and Social Investigation. Using these statistics, we question those arguments that explain the reduction in the number of Catholics in Brazilian society as a problem in the institution’s adaptation in response to the challenges of evangelization, or as a lack of ministerial vocations to meet the religious demands of the people. Pursuing an alternative argument, we consider the weakening of the relationship between the Catholic institution and traditional popular Catholicism to be a fundamental aspect …


A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht Mar 2021

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …


The Interwoven Existences Of Official Catholicism And Magical Practice In The Lived Religiosity Of A Transylvanian Hungarian Village, Cecília Sándor Mar 2020

The Interwoven Existences Of Official Catholicism And Magical Practice In The Lived Religiosity Of A Transylvanian Hungarian Village, Cecília Sándor

Journal of Global Catholicism

During the last five years I have been doing field research in a Transylvanian Hungarian village, Sânsimion (Hu: Csíkszentsimon). I present my research on this religiously homogenous, Catholic community’s worldview. Based on interviews conducted with members of the village’s various age groups, I map religious and magical knowledge passed down through the generations, using the theoretical frame of collective memory and religious transmission. Second, I highlight two different but coexisting “constructions of reality” in this rural community. By “constructions of reality,” I mean interpretations of reality expressed in narrative discourses and local magical practices that are closely and inextricably interwoven …


Introduction: Consumer Contexts And Divine Presences In Hungarian Catholicism, Marc Roscoe Loustau Mar 2020

Introduction: Consumer Contexts And Divine Presences In Hungarian Catholicism, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

Introduction to Hungarian Catholicism: Living Faith Across Diverse Social and Intellectual Contexts, highlighting both the specific contributions of the articles to the study of Hungarian Catholicism and situating them within the broad sweep of Hungarian and Catholic Studies.


Overview And Acknowledgements, Mathew Schmalz Mar 2020

Overview And Acknowledgements, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

Overview of Hungarian Catholicism: Living Faith Across Diverse Social and Intellectual Context, highlighting the articles' contribution to the study of Global Catholicism.


Natura Sanat: On Ecological Aspects Of Healing Miracles In Kalwaria Pacławska, Poland, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska Jun 2018

Natura Sanat: On Ecological Aspects Of Healing Miracles In Kalwaria Pacławska, Poland, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska

Journal of Global Catholicism

The subject-matter of my article is a change affecting the discourse on miraculous healings in a Catholic Marian sanctuary – Kalwaria Pacławska – run by Franciscan friars in the South-Eastern Poland and a way in which those changes affect pilgrims’ bodies. In Kalwaria Pacławska there meet, intersect and compete various religious and secular discourses and they all influence emotions and bodily sensations accompanying pilgrimage to this sacred site. One of those discourses has been introduced to Kalwaria just recently. The central element of the sanctuary is the miraculous image of Virgin Mary which is the goal of numerous pilgrimages from …


Authors' Introduction, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska, Magdalena Lubanska Jun 2018

Authors' Introduction, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska, Magdalena Lubanska

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.


Seeing Witchcraft, Bernhard Udelhoven Dec 2017

Seeing Witchcraft, Bernhard Udelhoven

Journal of Global Catholicism

When Christians in Zambia struggle with witchcraft, they also struggle with African cultural and religious concepts that deal with life’s ambiguities and that require discernment. It is not by working against the cultural and religious heritage, but by working with it, as far as possible, that the pastor can identify the broken relationships towards which many witchcraft discourses point. However, before we place the concepts of witchcraft into the realm of superstition (as are the trends of mission Christianity) or the demonic (as are the trends of charismatic Christianity), the Church has the duty to look at the concepts, stay …


Allocutio: Articulating The Task For The Future Of African Catholicism, Mary Sylvia Nwachukwu Dec 2017

Allocutio: Articulating The Task For The Future Of African Catholicism, Mary Sylvia Nwachukwu

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay charts how Catholicism can become more indigenously African and respond better to African needs and concerns.


The Devil Of The Missionary Church: The White Fathers And Catholic Evangelization In Zambia, Bernhard Udelhoven Dec 2017

The Devil Of The Missionary Church: The White Fathers And Catholic Evangelization In Zambia, Bernhard Udelhoven

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines how Western Catholic missionaries in Zambia dealt with claims of witchcraft and Satanism. Within an analytic frame that draws upon cultural history, theology, and anthropology the article also considers how African Christians appropriated missionary notions of the devil.


The Ecclesiology Of Pope Francis And The Future Of The Church In Africa, Bradford E. Hinze Dec 2017

The Ecclesiology Of Pope Francis And The Future Of The Church In Africa, Bradford E. Hinze

Journal of Global Catholicism

A consideration of the future of African Catholicism in light of the ecclesiology of Pope Francis. The article explores how themes in Francis's ecclesiology work together to challenge centralization, clericalism, and triumphalism in the church by promoting practices of synodality and how these elements support the church’s mission to work against forms of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and the most fundamental matrix of colonial power by advancing radical democracy in society


Inculturation Of Liturgical Music In The Roman Catholic Church Of Igbo Land: A Compositional Study, Benedict Nwabugwu Agbo Jul 2017

Inculturation Of Liturgical Music In The Roman Catholic Church Of Igbo Land: A Compositional Study, Benedict Nwabugwu Agbo

Journal of Global Catholicism

A study of inculturation, composition and music among Catholics in Igboland, Nigeria. The article insects with contemporary discussions of inculturation/enculturation after Vatican II and the recommendation of St. John Paul II in his Ecclesia in Africa.


Political Agendas In The Letters Of Hildegard Of Bingen, Anna Sweeney Aug 2014

Political Agendas In The Letters Of Hildegard Of Bingen, Anna Sweeney

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Hildegard of Bingen is mentioned only briefly in historical accounts of musicology, religious philosophy, and biographical studies of various monarchs from the twelfth century; however, she played a crucial role in maintaining the Catholic Church's influence as a political institution. In her correspondences, Bingen used enormous amounts of prophetic language to refer to many current events that were happening throughout Western Europe. In her letters to churchmen, bishops, popes and kings, she counseled against rampant heresies and political behavior contradicting the will of the Church. The sickly tenth daughter of a German aristocratic family, Hildegard was born 44 years after …