Conflicts in Religious Life in Csongrád in the Early 19th Century – Reactions and Attempted Solutions

The article examines the conflict-fraught tenure of János Mátyus as parish priest of Csongrád (1802-1827), and evaluates the consequences and the reactions of the parishioners. Above all, it seeks an answer to the question of the qualities on which a person was judged to be a “good priest”, who and what were regarded as incompatible with the ideal priest. How did the faithful express their disapproval of the priest who violated norms and how did the atypical behaviour of the Csongrád parish priest create what could be regarded as a collective “spiritual crisis situation”

Testimonies

Part of the work of the Members of the EEC during the Congress of Celje consisted in reading and studying narrations of conversions to the faith today. In the months prior to the Congress, 4 testimonies of conversion were gathered. These 4 testimonies are by Alessandro, Monia, Florence and Octavia. The four persons from whom the testimonies were gathered asked EEC to remain anonymous. This is the reason why only the first names are used here.peer-reviewe

Robert Grosseteste and the simple benefice: a novel solution to the complexities of lay presentation

That pastoral care was the main focus of Robert Grosseteste’s theological work and correspondence is well-established: Grosseteste is often characterised as the vehement, uncompromising promoter of the pastoral ideal in the face of strong opposition, ecclesiastical and lay. Less close attention has been paid to whether the records of his diocesan administration demonstrate the practical outworking of his pastoral theories. Although narrow in compass, his administrative rolls are not entirely sterile. They show Grosseteste experimenting with a novel form of parish organisation, using grants of simple benefices (simplex beneficium) to ensure appropriate provision of parochial priestly function whilst offering a constructive compromise to the laity who had the right to nominate clergy for churches (the patrons) when their candidates were deemed inadmissible. The practical outworking of these proposals reveals that they had both educational benefits, particularly for potential clergy, and allowed Grosseteste to focus his educational and pastoral efforts directly within the parishes

Whose body? A study of attitudes towards the dead body in early modern Paris

This chapter examines attitudes towards the dead body, as exemplified by arrangements for funerals and burials, in Paris between around 1550 and 1670. It seeks to establish, not so much what people said should happen to the bodies of the dead, but what happened in practice - the care, or lack of it, which the living accorded to the corpses of their contemporaries and predecessors - and to use this to further our understanding of the mentality of early modern urban dwellers. It is part of a wider enquiry, to explore the attitudes of the living to the dead in Paris and London, and to consider the ways in which this can illuminate the nature of these two metropolitan societies, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Looking at the treatment of the corpse can also take discussion of the body, and the ways in which it is apprehended and understood, a stage further than the predominant focus on the living; dead bodies were as variably constructed, as liable to objectification (even commodification), as exposed to contest and competition over meaning as living ones. This particular study highlights the issues of control and ownership, among the complexity of reactions to the materiality of bodies, and offers an insight into power relations in a wider social and spatial environment

Group Formation in the Long Tenth Century: a View from Trier and its Region

Unpaginated version of book chapter published in Christine Kleinjung and Stefan Albrecht (eds.), Das lange 10. Jahrhundert – Struktureller Wandel zwischen Zentralisierung und Fragmentierung, äußerem Druck und innerer Krise (Mainz, 2015), pp. 49–5

The Reformasi of Ayu Utami; Attacking the Monopoly of the Great Religions

In eight novels, Ayu Utami has presented critical attacks on doctrines and practices of the major religions in Indonesia. The two books, that describe the spiritual struggle of the Catholic priest Saman (1998–2002), call for a religion that is more active in the political arena, but leaves sexual rules to the individual people. The novel Bilangan Fu (2008) condemns the monopoly of the great religions in favour of local and individual spirituality. This is developed in a series of novels of which two more have already appeared. A third cycle of three more or less autobiographic novels (2003–2013) sketch her personal quest from atheism towards a critical but positive spirituality condemning a clerical and monopolist trend in Catholicism. Utami's criticism of the great religions is external (more players in the field should be recognised) and internal (religious leaders should have more modest claims towards their faithful and leave more space for personal choice)

Losers, food, and sex: clerical masculinity in the BBC sitcom Rev

Clerical masculinities, much like their lay/secular counterparts, often appear unchanging because they are the products of naturalization processes. Clerical masculinities, however, are far from being stable but the live and breathe the dynamics of both their socio-religious context and their secular ‘others’. The BBC sitcom Rev. (2010-2011) is a refreshing take on the everyday life and problems of a vicar in the Church of England trying to avoid stereotypes that often come with clerical roles. Rev. can be interpreted as an attempt to explore the negotiation processes of masculinity within an institution that is involved in the “production” of religion and gender roles. It shows that being a man in an institutional setting is as much a performance as it is a more or less successful negotiation of other people’s expectations and one’s own world view. In particular, the main male clerical characters in Rev. inhabit a position of power but all have their flaws. They can best be understood as losers who clash with masculine systems rendering them more human