This article investigates clerical child sexual abuse in the first decades of the French Third Republic. Thanks in large part to the difficulty of accessing relevant archival records, we know very ...little about this crime or how it was investigated by judicial officials. This study addresses this gap by drawing on a rich and untapped collection of correspondence between local prosecutors and the Ministry of Justice in Paris. The files reveal the process for investigating and prosecuting abusive priests, as well as the reverberations within local communities. Though generated by the state rather than the church, they offer an insight as well into the response of ecclesiastical authorities. Finally, they shed light on the relationship between clerical crime and the culture wars pitting French republicans against Catholics, a conflict that was reaching a peak of intensity in this period. What emerges from this study is an appreciation of the personal toll and political impact of clerical sexual abuse, as well as a new perspective on the recent scandals which have engulfed the Catholic church in a range of nations.
This article investigates a campaign by the French Catholic Church to bring men to Mass in the first decades of the Third Republic. Historians have long noted the gender imbalance in religious ...practice in France in this era. Less attention has been paid, however, to the mobilization on the part of leading clerics to tackle the problem of male religious indifference. This response took the form of a range of initiatives – pastoral visits, male-only Masses, study circles, missions and more. But the Church went further in order to overcome the obstacle of the ‘respect humain’, the fear of public mockery that kept so many men away from the Church doors. In order to inspire courage in laymen, it published narratives of Catholic heroes. Another means of encouraging piety was an association dedicated to the Sacred Heart which organized a male-only pilgrimage to Lourdes. An understanding of this campaign to evangelize men throws light on a neglected area of religious history, the relationship between religion and masculinity. It also offers a new dimension on the War of Two Frances which reached such a peak of intensity in the decade after 1900.
Abstract
This article investigates grassroots mobilization around the 1964 Becker Amendment, which aimed to guarantee the constitutionality of religious exercises in American public schools. The ...proposed amendment was at the heart of a bitter public debate that followed two landmark Supreme Court rulings banning mandated prayer and Bible-reading. Yet in line with church/state scholarship more broadly, scholars of the Becker Amendment have privileged the voices of the elite, from church leaders to journalists and politicians. This article focuses instead on an extraordinary archive of some 13,000 letters for and against the amendment that were written by ordinary Americans. These letters, which have been overlooked by historians, offer a revealing window into popular opinion concerning religion in schools and the relationship between faith and government. Focusing on the letters shifts our understanding of the school prayer controversy in several ways. It brings to light the central role of women as activists. It shows the kinds of issues that resonated at the community level. The letters also demonstrate the complex role of emotion in driving and shaping the public debate. Finally, close scrutiny of the letters offers a grassroots view of the shifting alliances within the American religious landscape that would help power the rise of the Religious Right.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
This article investigates a sexual scandal that rocked the English Catholic Church in the Victorian era. Though forgotten today, Monsignor Thomas John Capel was one of the most famous ...clerics in the Victorian Church. His career fell into turmoil when, in 1879, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning launched a diocesan commission to investigate charges of sexual misconduct involving three women. Drawing on a series of rich and as yet unexplored archival sources, the article charts the career of Thomas Capel and assesses the nature, aims and outcomes of the Church-run inquiry into his conduct. Through an analysis of the actions not just of Capel but of Church authorities both in Westminster and in Rome, we gain a revealing window onto sexual scandal and the Church’s response to it in the nineteenth century.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, a group of doctors under the banner of the social hygiene movement set out on what seemed an improbable mission: to convince American men that they did ...not need sex. This was in part a response to venereal disease. Persuading young men to adopt the standard of sexual discipline demanded of women was the key to preserving the health of the nation from the ravages of syphilis and gonorrhoea. But their campaign ran up against the doctrine of male sexual necessity, a doctrine well established in medical thought and an article of faith for many patients. Initially, social hygienists succeeded in rallying much of the medical community. But this success was followed by a series of setbacks. Significant dissent remained within the profession. Even more alarmingly, behavioural studies proved that many men simply were not listening. The attempt to repudiate the doctrine of male sexual necessity showed the ambition of Progressive-era doctors, but also their powerlessness in the face of entrenched beliefs about the linkage in men between sex, health and success.
This article explores American stereotypes of France in the Progressive era by analysing the little-known visit of Count Robert de Montesquiou. The most famous dandy in fin-de-siècle Paris, ...Montesquiou arrived in 1903 to give a series of talks on literature. His visit, however, sparked a wave of hostility which reveals the role of gender, and particularly masculinity, in driving francophobia. At the same time, his ability to win an admiring audience attests to the appeal of France. The response to Montesquiou thus illuminates the negative and positive stereotypes which together made up American perspectives of France in this era.
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