Power Play in the Norbertine Order and the Roman Curia: J. Nouwens O.Praem., Cardinal van Rossum, and the modernization of Vatican bureaucracy 1910-1922

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Roman curia tried to strengthen its hold on the increasing number of religious. Uniformization and centralization of orders and congregations simplified Roman control. Regulations of the Congregation of Religious (1908) and the Codex Iuris Canonici (1917) helped to reach this goal. At the same time, religious institutes tried to pursue their own policies. As a matter of fact, the relationship between religious institutes and the Vatican was not always without strains. As an illustration, in this case study, we focus on the quite mysterious removal from Rome of J. Nouwens O.Praem., the procurator generalis or representative of the Norbertine Order at the Roman curia. Recent investigations in several archives show that the Dutch Cardinal W.M. van Rossum C.Ss.R., cardinal protector of the Norbertines, was involved in the career of Nouwens. The two men worked close together, until Nouwens was condemned by the Holy Office in January 1920 and was dismissed as procurator. Since Nouwens’s behaviour became a liability to Van Rossum’s position at the Roman curia, the cardinal made every effort to get Nouwens removed from the Norbertine order. At last, in September 1922, Nouwens requested for dispensation of his solemn vows and for dismissal from the priesthood

A Stranger in the Sacred College of Cardinals: contextual and heuristic problems in investigating Cardinal van Rossum

In the first decades of the last century, non-Italian curia cardinals were rare. In our paper, we look at some of the problems historians encounter when dealing with their life and work. Our example is the Dutch cardinal Willem van Rossum CSsR (1854-1932), president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission since 1914 and prefect of Propaganda Fide since 1918. As such, he was an influential member of the curia, responsible for an important turn in the Vatican mission policy, but he is almost absent in the historiography. Several factors seem to account for that, both of a contextual and heuristic nature. The fact that he was a non-Italian made him an outsider, as well as being a religious and stemming from a humble social background. He did not easily move in the elitist circles and networks in Rome, nor did he clearly belong to one of the factions inside the curia. Unlike other foreign curia cardinals, he was ill-disposed toward politics and lacked the support of his national government and episcopate. Moreover, his personality and strong principles made him less than pliable, while on the other hand he liked to keep in the background. He was never granted access to some of the most influential bodies inside the curia. All this seems to have kept him in the shadows, while the official archival papers are unclear about his personal actions and influence. At the same time many informal documents are written in Dutch and therefore out of reach of most historians. Finally, several important Vatican sources proved to be untraceable or inaccessible.Dans les premières décennies du XXe siècle, les cardinaux de Curie non Italiens étaient rares. Cette contribution s’intéresse aux problèmes que les historiens peuvent rencontrer en travaillant sur ces personnages. Notre cas d’étude est le cardinal hollandais Willem van Rossum CSsR (1854-1932), président de la Commission biblique pontificale depuis 1914 et préfet de la Propaganda Fide depuis 1918. Dans cette fonction, il a été un membre influent de la Curie et responsable d’un tournant important dans la politique missionnaire du Vatican : il est pourtant resté presque totalement absent de l’historiographie. Plusieurs facteurs, contextuels et heuristiques, expliquent cette situation. Tout d’abord, il était un outsider, comme non-Italien bien sûr, mais aussi du fait de son statut de religieux et de son origine sociale modeste. Il n’appartenait pas à des cercles d’élite ou à d’autres réseaux romains, on ne peut également pas le rattacher clairement à l’une des factions de la Curie. À la différence d’autres cardinaux étrangers de Curie, ses dispositions à l’égard de la politique n’étaient pas très bonnes et il n’était soutenu ni par son gouvernement ni par l’épiscopat de son pays d’origine. Plus profondément, sa personnalité et ses principes avaient fait de lui un personnage intransigeant, qui aimait par ailleurs rester dans les coulisses. Il n’accéda jamais à quelques-uns des corps les plus influents de la Curie. Il semble être resté dans l’ombre et les archives officielles ne donnent pas d’informations claires sur ses actions personnelles et ses réseaux d’influence. Enfin, les sources, souvent rédigées en néerlandais, restent inaccessibles à de nombreux historiens, alors que plusieurs documents importants des archives vaticanes n’ont pas pu être retrouvés ou ne peuvent être consultés

Nuns and Sisters in the Nordic Countries after the Reformation. A Female Counter-Culture in Modern Society.

Female religious communities, and later also convents, accompanied the return of the Roman Catholic Church to the Nordic countries in the middle of the nineteenth century. These religious communities were mostly so-called active orders or congregations, who helped in parishes or ran private schools, orphanages or nursing homes. In the 1930s there were nearly 1,400 Catholic sisters working in Scandinavia. At the same time, there was a growing interest for regulated religious life within the established Lutheran Churches, and small communities – mostly female – were founded. In Finland, there was an unbroken tradition of orthodox monasticism. Until recently, however, monasticism was rejected as "Catholic" and thereby foreign to Nordic national identity. Religious communities were regarded as a tool of Roman Catholic propaganda, especially insidious to Nordic women. According to the mainstream Nordic tradition at the time, women’s calling was to marry and bear children. The female religious communities thus represented not only an alternative form of life but also a counter-culture in the Lutheran Nordic society. In the present book, we meet this female counter-culture in its various forms and expressions. The articles focus partly on Nordic Christian women, Catholic converts as well as members of the established Lutheran churches who were attracted to regulated religious life, and partly on sisters in Catholic religious congregations working in the Nordic countries. A common trait is that these women, although in various ways, traversed contemporary social and religious boundaries. By studying a variety of female religious orders and congregations, the authors have highlighted the frequently tense relation between "Catholic" and "Nordic" values, between tradition and modernity, and between Nordic and foreign. The long time period studied allows for the making of diachronic comparisons and to record transitions and changes in attitude and behaviour