History Commons^™

The Divine Comedy: A Work Of Medieval Mythology, Jamie Alexander

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Prior to The Divine Comedy (1308-1321), ideas about Purgatory were in the early stages of development. Purgatory had loose rituals surrounding its existence and it lacked depiction in written works. Yet in the following centuries, the fear of Purgatory and the practices of penance and indulgences reached a fever pitch, ultimately leading to the Protestant Reformation. Purgatory as a celestial location, and not just the “purgatorial fires” of the Bible, only began to develop in the twelfth century, but its fearful description and imagery in The Divine Comedy not only solidified previously nebulous understandings of Purgatory, but also increased anxiety …

God, Man, And Thirty-Six Barrels Of Gunpowder: A Historiographical Analysis Of The Gunpowder Plot, William M. Deloach

Tenor of Our Times

The Gunpowder Plot has remained, since its failure in November 1605, a topic of fierce debate until the present. While tensions surrounding the nature of its planning, motives, or even its authenticity as a plot organized by Catholics have settled comparably to where they were in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, discussion of the Gunpowder Plot and its legacy continues to pervade when talking of James I’s reign. The insight brought by the maturation of historical research methods disarmed the hitherto fierce discussion of the Gunpowder Plot. While the late 1800s brought scathing mutual criticism between Samuel Gardiner and …

Interviews In Global Catholic Studies: Dr. Judith Hahn, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

Interview with Judith Chair of Canon Law at the University of Bonn.

Gardner, Ed, Ethan Bent

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Ed Gardner is a 62 year old gay male currently living in Falmouth and working in Portland. He grew up in Lewiston Maine and moved to Portland as a young adult. Starting from scratch, Ed was able to buy and sell buildings and found tremendous success over his long career as a real estate agent. Over the course of his life, Ed has fundraised and donated to a variety of Maine’s LGBTQ organizations. He was involved directly with the establishment of the Equality Community Center by first hosting LGBTQ tenants in his office space, and then helping to raise money …

Brodack, Jason, Emily Cook

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jason Brodak is a 44 year old man of Polish heritage, currently working at the University of Southern Maine and living in Bath, Maine, with his husband. Brodak discusses living in Detroit Michigan, Chicago Illinois, and New York. He attended Michigan State University and later received his bachelor's degree in Interior Design from an arts school in Chicago. He discusses his childhood, coming out, briefly joining the Navy, the role of gay bars and gay chatrooms in his life, gay marriage, and the HIV AIDS epidemic.

Please cite as: Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection, Lesbian, Gay, …

Airplane Hangars And Triple Hills: Renovation, Demolition, And The Architectural Politics Of Local Belonging At The Our Lady Of Csíksomlyó Hungarian National Shrine, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

In 2019, Pope Francis, leader of the global Catholic Church, celebrated an outdoor Mass at the Our Lady of Csíksomlyó Hungarian national shrine in Romania. When the Franciscan Order that runs the shrine published renovation plans for the altar where the pope would appear, the Facebook post received over 800 outraged comments, including one man who asked, “How can such a beautiful Hungarian symbol, so perfectly integrated into the landscape, be humiliated like this?” By situating these expressions of outrage in the history of Eastern European material politics, I argue that the aesthetic value the commentators were defending – a …

The Parish Choir Movement And Generational Festivals In Romania’S Socialist Period: New Community Festivities In Transylvania’S Gheorgheni (Gyergyó) Region, Eszter Kovács

Journal of Global Catholicism

Among the post-1945 East European socialist regimes, Romania and Poland were the only countries where the Catholic Church—despite government interventions, controls, and bans—managed to play a significant social and political role in community life. This case study provides an ethnographic description of the parish choir movement and graduating class reunions, called “generational festivals” in Hungarian, in the Gheorgheni (Hu: Gyergyó) region in the 1970s and 1980s. The gatherings will be analyzed in the context of everyday life, the socialist system’s distinctive shortage economy, and official limits on religious activity that characterized the era. I will first describe the world of …

Reawakening Rochester: The Leadership Styles Of Bishop James E. Kearney, Maria G. Wild

Soaring: A Journal of Undergraduate Research

Throughout their vocation, Catholic priests are assigned to a parish within their diocese, oftentimes without their consultation, and are called to engage with that church to increase the liveliness and faithfulness of its parishioners and encounter others within the surrounding community. While the geographic location of priestly assignments will impact the immediate influence that one can have on a group of people, it is the inherent identity and leadership abilities of the priest that will dictate the trajectory of the lives of people that will proceed them. After being assigned to the Diocese of Rochester, NY in 1937, The Most …

Is Faith The Ultimate Divider?: The Intersections Between Religion And Political Behavior In The United States, Ryan Supple

Honors Projects

This thesis examines the complex relationship between religiosity and voting behavior in the United States. In a country where religion has diminished in importance over time, it seems rather fascinating that it still plays such a large role in the inner-workings of American politics. Chapter One analyzes the varying ways in which scholars have approached emergent political trends between religious groups, particularly with regards to political parties, voting behavior, and government representation. Chapter Two extends this analysis to the American National Election Studies (ANES), a national survey distributed to random samples of Americans during election seasons. The information from the …

“Monstrous Regiment Of Women”: Catholic Women’S Reactions To Reform In Sixteenth Century Scotland, Maeghan O'Conner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Reformation in Scotland brought with it a substantial theological shift in perspective toward the place of women in religion, society, and politics. Women under Catholicism had established a pseudo-realm of agency as religious heads of the household and religious guidance from leaders outside their husbands and fathers, which changed drastically in the wave of Protestantism. The contemporary theological arguments most relevant in Scotland from John Knox and John Leslie are discussed to establish the basis of thought with which society would adjust women's roles. This thesis will ultimately emphasize the reactions and negotiations of Catholic women to this new …

Remembering Drew Christiansen, S.J., Distinguished Advisor On Peacebuilding For The U.S. Catholic Bishops, Gerard Powers

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Essay: Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen: A Still And Quiet Conscience, William L. Portier

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Gardens, Religion And Clerical By-Employments: The Dual Careers Of Hugh Hall, Priest-Gardener Of The West Midlands, Susan M. Cogan

History Faculty Publications

Hugh Hall was a highly sought-after gardener in late sixteenth century England. He worked in the Midlands, specifically in Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Northamptonshire, and mostly for Catholic families. Hall was a Catholic priest who resigned his parish living after the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, but continued to perform clerical duties such as saying Mass and hearing confession alongside his second vocation as a gardener. Indeed, his esteem as a gardener and, later, surveyor of works was strong enough that he attracted Protestant clients like Lord Burghley and Sir Christopher Hatton despite his adherence to Catholicism. Hall's two vocations shaped his identity: …

Praying For The South: Catholics And The Confederacy, Thomas Richardson

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis examines the distinctiveness of Southern Catholic support of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, with a geographic emphasis on Virginian Catholics. During the antebellum decades, the Catholic Church in America thrived despite facing increasing hostility from the largely-Protestant United States. In response to these challenges, Catholics learned to support their state and federal governments whenever and wherever they could as a means to defuse anti-Catholic attacks. This led Catholics to condone (and involve themselves in) American racialized slavery, even after the Church itself condemned the practice. Seen in this light, Catholics who fought for and supported the …

Brigid Of Kildare: The Saint Who Got A Facelift, Aimee Hunt

Student Research

On the outskirts of Papal authority, early medieval Ireland created its own Christian identity separate from other European nations closer to Rome. Saint Brigid of Kildare, one of the patron saints of Ireland, played important yet problematic roles in that identity. After her death, the church began to alter her history. Being a female bishop, performing the first recorded abortion, and having both men and women within her monastery, Brigid had trodden on the male-dominated system in a way that few women had. Deemed unacceptable but having already been sainted, the Catholic church gave Brigid a holy facelift.

Accommodation And Coping In Medieval Catholic England: A Historical Dramaturgy Casebook For The Chester Mystery Cycle’S Play 14: Christ At The House Of Simon The Leper, Christ And The Moneylenders, And Judas’ Plot, Andrew J. Roberge

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In this historically focused dramaturgy casebook for the medieval Catholic Chester Mystery Cycle's Play 14, Christ at the House of Simon the Leper, Christ and the Moneylenders, and Judas’ Plot, I offer suggestions for Play 14's production as it might have appeared in the cycle's final year of performance, 1575. I contextualize and grapple with the play's antisemitisms, and also offer a brief history of antisemitism in medieval Europe. I also analyze Play 14 and the Chester Mystery Cycle for their rhetorical appeals to the medieval vernacular language, contexts, and events, as well as their anachronistic temporal and geographic …

Catholicism In Context: Religious Practice In Latin America, Gustavo Morello Sj

Journal of Global Catholicism

A critical problem to study Catholicism in the context of Latin American modernity, is that the conceptual tools we use to study religion were designed to understand the transformations that modernity provoked in European religiosity. Studies on the religion of Latin Americans have largely explored the religiosity of the population through surveys that measure attendance, adherence and affiliation. While some anthropologists have explored religious practices among particular groups, we do not know how ordinary, urban Latin Americans practice religion. To fill this gap, a group of researchers from Boston College, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Catholic University of Córdoba, and …

Ethnicity And “Women Religious”: How Irish-American And Other Ethnic Nuns Were Presented In American Newspapers From 1865 To 1915, Lydia Hursh

Honors Theses

While Catholicism in America has had a turbulent history of mixed rejection and acceptance, the American Catholic Church prior to World War One was not considered a monolithic institution by the American clergy or in certain contexts by the American press. Women religious, such as nuns, were considered unnatural and malevolent at the worst, although this characterization in popular opinion declined after the Civil War, to unusual but benevolent at the best. Moreover, ethnicity was a determining factor among male authors for where on the sliding-scale of social alienation a nun or her convent might fall, although the degree of …

The Dynamic Relationship Between Young Spanish Catholics And The Church, Caroline Cox

CMC Senior Theses

Research Question: How is the commitment of Spaniards to Catholicism changing with younger generations? And why is this relevant given Spain’s deep roots with the religion?

The Catholic Church and Spain have been highly involved with each other for centuries. It is possible that the Church’s controversies and conservative values are distancing young members from pursuing a stronger relationship with their faith. I predicted that more young Spanish Catholics’ commitment to the Church was wavering because of three potential reasons: increased security and education, child sex abuse scandals involving clergymen, and the institution’s outdated attitudes. I conducted a study …

Radical Renewal, The Sisters Of Loretto, Nouvelle Theologie, And The Second Vatican Council., Carol Bolton Easterly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the experiences of women who were members of the Sisters of Loretto, an American congregation of women religious, in the years around the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 65). It argues that the ideas of nouvelle théologie – a movement among progressive European Catholic scholars aimed at reconnecting faith with lived experience – had a profound impact on how the Sisters of Loretto interpreted the Council’s directives. The movement’s core ideas: ressourcement, a return to original sources of Christian inspiration; an overlapping relationship between natural and supernatural; and the importance of Church engagement with modern social …

Breaching Boundaries: Homogenizing The Dichotomy Between The Sacred And Profane In Csíksomlyó, Zsofia Lovei

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines how a Marian shrine in Csíksomlyó, Transylvania acts as a Foucauldian heterotopia for Magyar speaking individuals, residing in the Carpathian Basin, and beyond in the diaspora most especially during the annual Pentecost pilgrimage. Following introductory remarks on the site and my stance, I turn to methodology, and Hungarian scholarship on the topic. Afterwards, I provide a “thick description” of fieldwork I conducted on-site in May of 2015. I then turn to various theoretical ties, which I support with emic analysis. Lastly, I turn to ideas of heterotopias, and provide a brief formal analysis. My main incentive is …

Evangelizing A Nation: Catholic Priests In America, Christopher J. Wild

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

According to the most recent statistics provided by the American bishops, there are an astonishing seventy million Catholics who call the United States home. Five hundred years ago, there was not a single Roman Catholic to be found anywhere in this vast expanse of forests, prairies, and mountains. (Moreover, presumably no one living at that time in what is now the United States had any knowledge of Jesus Christ, for the episcopacy of Erik Gnupsson in twelfth century Greenland hardly resulted in any evangelization of the Christian faith in the western hemisphere.) As the European authorities competed to establish colonies …

Rockin' The Church: Vernacular Catholic Musical Practices, Kinga Povedak

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article focuses on the unique dimensions of lived or vernacular Catholicism through the analysis of contemporary congregational music in Hungary. Looking at the musical lives of Hungarian Roman Catholics from the late 1960s to contemporary times can provide us with new understandings of the theological contents and aesthetics, as well as the vernacular religiosity of the community. Christian popular music appeared behind the Iron Curtain relatively early, in 1967 when the first “beat mass” was created and introduced at Budapest. The early Christian popular music sounded astonishingly similar to the songs of the American Folk Mass Movement of the …

The History Of A Cemetery: An Italian Swiss Cultural Essay, Plinio Martini, Richard Hacken

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Years ago, there was no cemetery in my village. This absence,

which weighed heavily upon the people as a cruel stroke of

fate, was a result of our village having earlier been part of a neighboring

community, whose more favorable location—sunny and protected

from the north winds—had allowed it to prosper while our community

dwindled.3 After long discussions and arguments, the mountain pastures,

valley meadows and forests—formerly communal property—

were divided up into separate realms with precise boundaries: everything

was written down on parchment and sworn to in the name of

God.

Mara Pavlovic, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

Mara Dzolan, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

Marta Sarcevic & Mara Burecic, Maracic Marija, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

Luca Markesic, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

Ruza Ilicic, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

“I Have Prayed And Prayed: I Have Labored And Labored”: Ethnic Catholicism In Daviess Country Kentucky, 1850-1900., Edward A. Wilson Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the development of the German and Irish Catholic communities of Daviess County, Kentucky. The primary focus of the work is the church building process and the separation of Catholic ethnic communities. Although they shared the same faith, American Catholics were divided by nationalism and ethnic hostility. Already isolated in the United States, immigrant Catholics formed cultural communities that adapted their foreign identity to their new surroundings. Scholars often analyze Catholics in the United States during this period as a unified group, but this approach is flawed. Catholics developed hostilities against members of their own faith along ethnic …