Approaching Sacred Pregnancy : The Cult of the Visitation and Narrative Altarpieces in Late Fifteenth-Century Florence

The study focuses on the Visitation as a narrative subject of altarpieces in late fifteenth-century Florence. Although the Visitation was a well-known story in both verbal and visual representations since the early medieval period, it became a popular subject of altarpieces only towards the end of the fifteenth century. In this study, the first part provides an overview of the complex religious and historical background to an emerging cult of the Visitation. Devotional practices focusing on the Visitation belong in a context of late medieval Marian devotion and in 1389 a new feast of the Visitation was introduced into the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. Because of the ongoing schism within the Catholic Church, the feast was not unanimously accepted across Western Europe until the later part of the fifteenth century. Contrary to a widely disseminated view, the feast of the Visitation cannot be associated with Franciscan spirituality, but was rather a clearly defined Dominican project that primarily emphasised the importance of peace and unity within the Christian Church. Simultaneously with the gradual acceptance of the new feast, visual representations of the Visitation began to appear at the centre of altarpieces. The Visitation exemplifies an increasing preference for narrative subjects within the genre of the altarpiece. The second part of the study presents an analysis of the concept of the narrative altarpiece and highlights the complexities involved in combining a narrative content with the traditional devotional function of the altarpiece. In detailed case studies some prominent art works produced in Florence between 1490 and 1503 are discussed within a framework of contextual analysis, narrative theory and iconography. Altarpieces by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Piero di Cosimo and Mariotto Albertinelli represent visual manifestations of a cult of the Visitation with roots in late medieval devotional practices. At the same time, the altarpieces highlight the multiple functions of altarpieces in a culture where art works responded to a variety of social and religious needs. Building on earlier studies, each case study presents new insights and evidence not considered in previous art historical research.

The great errand 1939-1955

The novel was written in 2001. Description of post-war Germany from the viewpoint of a German, Fritz Meyer, who was a member of a local Nazi Youth organization in Sonneborn. He fought as a soldier and fell into the hands of the English in Northern France. He was taken to Canada as a prisoner of war. He escaped the camp and found refuge at a German family. Description of erotic encounters. Reflection on Nazi ideology. At the request of the family he returns to Germany for something subscribed as "the great errand", taking up the identity of a former American G.I. Desolation of post-war Germany. Confrontation with British emigre soldiers. Identifying with the anger of his German countrymen. Reflection on the Bible and the denial of the Jewish roots of Christianity. Creating an underground network of conspiracy with former Nazi leaders and high members of the Catholic church in order to continue the ideals of National Socialism. Donations from secret supporters abroad. Connections with the political leaders in the newly established German Republic. Revisionist history.

Tila tilassa : Liturgian ja tilan dialogi alttarin äärellä

This study examines the organisation and transformation of altar space in the modern Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland in liturgical and architectural perspective. The research data consists of 65 altar spaces in The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran church buildings. All of these were characterised in Church Government records as churches , built 1962 1999 and had been consecrated. The main data was collected by means of observation, photographing, and drawing sketches of altar spaces. The focus of this study concerns the organisation of modern Finnish Evangelical Lutheran altar spaces and, in particular, their changes also in relation to the liturgical movement. The challenge of this approach was especially in discovering the spatial identity of an altar space in terms of unequivocal boundaries. The analysis was realised in three stages. Interiors, the organisation of altar space, as well as architectonic qualities of altar spaces in terms of floor elevations, shapes of ceilings, lighting, and openings in the altar space were analysed. Moreover, attention was focused on furnishing and fixed versus movable pieces of furniture (such as the altar, altar rail, the pulpit, the baptismal font, and lectern). Finally, the potential qualitative and quantitative changes in altar space were examined. All in all, the majority of churches in the data featured elongated church halls with an altar at the end of the nave. To look at the data in chronological perspective, increasingly wide church halls had been built since the 1980s (yet there was only one central hall in which the altar was placed at the middle point of the church). Every third church altar was movable. As for the focal point of this study and the altar in particular, it was my aim to pay attention to the versus populum altar and its development in relation to the (Lutheran) liturgy. Hence, it was meaningful to determine, in terms of interior design, whether liturgists were able to celebrate facing the people attending the service. In the 1960s and 70s, a versus orientem altar featured in more than half of all new Finnish Lutheran churches, yet in 2000 two out of three churches featured a versus populum altar. For architectural and esthetic reasons (and not primarily due to liturgical ideas), also altars standing freely off the walls had been constructed. In terms of the liturgy, versus populum altars had been realised in expectation of increased communication between liturgist and worshippers. However, the analysis indicated that the altar could also become a divider of space. This aspect is a novel finding in relation to earlier and concurrent discussions concerning the liturgical movement. This study concluded, all in all, that altars had been increasingly constructed closer and closer to the worshiping parish and, accordingly, used increasingly often in the versus populum manner. Lecterns were often movable until the millennium this was the case in most altar spaces. Baptismal fonts did not have a permanent place in this data, and the data even included altar spaces with no baptismal fonts in the choir, nor the church hall. The position and status of fonts was generally weakened even if baptism in the Lutheran Church was regarded as one of the two sacraments together with the eucharist. The study concluded that even if baptism is regarded as a sacrament in the church, the position and status of baptismal fonts had weakened overall in newer church architecture. In other words, the tendency of the liturgical movement to emphasise the service and its celebration had obviously had its effect on the placement of baptismal fonts in the church hall. This research indicated that the pieces of furniture that mostly involved (many kinds of) visual and spatial changes included the altar and the lectern. In certain instances, fixed furnishings had been substituted by movable pieces or, moreover, new pieces of furniture and paraphernalia such as music instruments, pieces of art, tables, chairs and plants were brought in. In the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, liturgical changes were principally inspired by the Catholic Church, in which liturgical changes are essentially based on Canon Law. Unlike Finnish Lutheranism, Catholicism provides detailed rules and principles even regarding the design of an altar space. According to this study, in the Finnish Lutheran Church, the primarily functional nature of given guidelines and instructions characterises several practical solutions in furnishing.

State Agent, Identity and the "New World Order" : Reconstructing Polish Defence Identity after the Cold War Era

National identity signifies and makes state s defence- and foreign policy behaviour meaningful. National consciousness is narrated into existence by narratives upon one s own exceptionalism and Otherness of the other nations. While national identity may be understood merely as a self-image of a nation, defence identity refers to the borders of Otherness and issues that have been considered as worth defending for. As national identities and all the world order models are human constructions, they may be changed by the human efforts as well; states and nations may deliberately promote communitarian or even cosmopolitan equality and tolerance without borders of Otherness. The main research question of the thesis is: How does Poland constitute herself as a nation and a state agent in the current world order and to what extent have contextual foreign and defence policy interactions changed the Polish defence identity during the post-Cold War era? The main empirical argument of the thesis is: Poland is a narrated idea of a Christian Catholic nation-state, which the Polish State, the Catholic Church of Poland, the Armed Forces of Poland as well as a majority of the Polish nation share. Polish defence identity has been almost impenetrable to contextual foreign and defence policy interactions during the post-Cold War era. While Christian religious ontology binds corporate Poland together, allowing her to survive any number of military and political catastrophes, it simultaneously brings her closer to the USA, raises tensions in the infidel EU-context, and restrains corporate Poland s pursuit of communitarian, or even cosmopolitan, global equality and tolerance. It is not the case that corporate Poland s foreign and defence policy orientation is instinctively Atlanticist by nature, as has been argued. Rather, it has been the State s rational project to overcome a habituated and reified fear of becoming geopolitically sandwiched between Russian and German Others by leaning on the USA; among the Polish nation, support for the USA has been declining since 2004. It is not corporate Poland either that has turned into a constructive European , as has been argued, but rather the Polish nation that has, at least partly, managed to emancipate itself from its habituation to a betrayal by Europe narrative, since it favours the EU as much as it favours NATO. It seems that in the Polish case a truly common European CFSP vis-à-vis Russia may offer a solution that will emancipate the Polish State from its habituated EU-sceptic role identity and corporate Poland from its narrated borders of Otherness towards Russia and Germany, but even then one cannot be sure whether any other perspective than the Polish one on a common stand towards Russia would satisfy the Poles themselves.

Food biotechnologies in Italy: a social psychological study

This dissertation presents an analysis of the representations of food biotechnologies in Italy. The thesis uses the analysis of discourse to illustrate the articulated ways in which representations are instantiated in different contexts. The theoretical thrust of the work resides in its discussion of the basic tenets of both Social Representations Theory and Discursive Psychology. The thesis offers a detailed description of the two frameworks; affinities and difference are highlighted, and a serious effort is made to develop an integrated set of theoretical resources to answer the research questions. The thesis proposes to combine a discursive methodology with Social Representations Theory. After a description of the relevant legislative framework follows an illustration of the categories used for the textual analysis. The study proposes the textual analysis of the following data: the first declaration issued by a small Italian council rejecting biotechnologies; four texts which focus on positions taken by the Catholic Church in the matter of food biotechnologies; several transcripts from a public debate in a small community of the north west of Italy. The latter study, which included an ethnographic dimension, focuses on recordings from interviews, a focus group, a public meeting and newspaper articles. Particular attention is paid to ideological representations and to the relevance of citizenship and governance to debates about food biotechnologies.

Política y religión en la ayuda social del peronismo

Resumen: La laicidad de las instituciones de ayuda social durante el peronismo, pretende ser revisada, a partir de las características de los hogares de tránsito de la Fundación Eva Perón. Se ha hecho hincapié en la entrega o facilitación de bienes materiales pero poco o nada se ha dicho, de la labor netamente religiosa que se llevó adelante en ellos y de la impronta moral que tuvieron estas instituciones. Este trabajo propone repensar algunos aspectos y capturar algunos matices de la relación entre el peronismo y la Iglesia Católica. También, describir y analizar la manera en que se impartió la actividad religiosa en la institución benefactora por excelencia del gobierno, la FEP.

Sobre el embrión humano y la cuestión de la personeidad : un argumento de Luigi Ferrajoli y su discusión

Resumen: El texto analiza las afirmaciones defendidas sobre el estatuto entitativo del embrión y de la solución ética a la cuestión de la legitimidad del aborto provocado, en un trabajo del jurista y pensador italiano, Luigi Ferrajoli, defensor de lo que puede denominarse el bioderecho “liberal”, con una posición decisivamente tomada en favor de la eticidad del aborto. Se advierte que cada uno de sus argumentos parte de una premisa: considerar las afirmaciones de la Iglesia Católica como inexorablemente erróneas, especialmente en lo atinente a la relación entre moral y derecho. La consecuencia más grave de este tipo de argumentación es la deriva anti-humanista del pensamiento contemporáneo con la consiguiente pérdida de toda racionalidad lógica.

La historia de la Iglesia en Uruguay : balance historiográfico y estado de la cuestión

Resumen: La historia de la Iglesia Católica en Uruguay ha sido un tema controversial. Los cultores de la “historia oficial” y la gran mayoría de los historiadores profesionales lo relativizaron considerándolo un asunto menor, con relevancia exclusivamente en el ámbito de la historia de la cultura o de las ideas. Las iniciativas de la propia institución en pro del conocimiento de su pasado han sido exiguas. En este artículo ensayamos un revisión crítico-descriptiva de la producción sobre el tema, con los objetivos de: a) dar cuenta del estado de la cuestión a partir de un relevamiento exhaustivo y representativo de las publicaciones realizadas especialmente por religiosos uruguayos y extranjeros; y b) esbozar algunas explicaciones en torno al escaso interés que el asunto ha generado

Rafael Pividal y Alberto Duhau : aportes y debates en torno a la idea de democracia en el pensamiento político de intelectuales católicos

Resumen: A finales de la década del treinta, especialmente luego de la visita de Maritain en 1936 a la Argentina, surgieron con mucha fuerza una serie de debates dentro de los círculos intelectuales católicos argentinos. Uno de los temas tratados, entre otros, fue el valor de la democracia y, especialmente, su posible justificación como sistema político y su concordancia con las enseñanzas de la Iglesia. Sin embargo, aun aquellos que defendían la democracia no representaban un grupo homogéneo: tanto las fuentes intelectuales a las que recurrían como los fundamentos antropológicos de sus argumentaciones eran diversas. El presente artículo se propone desarrollar la defensa de la democracia que hicieron R. Pividal y A. Duhau, dos de estos intelectuales católicos. Como intentaré demostrar, aun cuando coinciden en resaltar el valor de la democracia y su plena concordancia con el catolicismo, la recurrencia a autores diversos (Maritain y a través de él la oposición a Maurras y Rousseau en un caso y Adam Smith y el Liberalismo escocés en el otro) generan que las argumentaciones de uno y otro difícilmente coincidan en mucho más que en esa positiva valoración que hacen del sistema democrático.

La política en la actualidad : ¿más cerca de la virtud o del vicio?

Resumen: En este artículo se expone en forma sucinta dos formas muy diferentes de concebir la política, a saber: la de algunos autores denominados clásicos, cuyos principales representantes son Platón, Aristóteles, Cicerón y Tomás de Aquino, y la forma moderna representada por Maquiavelo. Los primeros, salvando algunas diferencias, entienden la política como un saber moral práctico, como una noble actividad que debe ser ejercida por los mejores en vistas al bien de todos. Maquiavelo, por su parte, la entiende como una técnica, totalmente desarraigada de la moral, cuyo fin es obtener, mantener y acrecentar el poder. Al parecer, y es lo que se intentará demostrar en la exposición, hay indicios suficientes para afirmar que el maquiavelismo se ha «impuesto» a los clásicos. La perspectiva desde la cual se abordara esta pregunta, es la del Magisterio reciente de la Iglesia Católica

Una presencia que conoce : mensajes de Juan Pablo II para la Jornada Mundial del Enfermo

El artículo “Una presencia que conoce” presenta una parte del trabajo que el autor realizó sobre los mensajes del papa Juan Pablo II para la Jornada Mundial del Enfermo y que próximamente se podrá conocer con el título “El amor de los que sufren” publicado por Ed. San Benito con prólogo de la Dra. Beatriz Balián de Tagtachian. El profundo estudio de los trece Mensajes del Santo Padre para la Jornada Mundial del Enfermo analiza qué concepto de enfermo tiene el papa Juan Pablo II, cuáles son sus presupuestos antropológicos y qué sentido tiene la enfermedad en el plan de Dios sobre cada uno de los hombres; cuál es la misión de la Iglesia, y qué tipo de acompañamiento necesitan los enfermos para que podamos imitar la solicitud de la Virgen María. En estas páginas se aborda el significado y la finalidad de la Jornada Mundial del Enfermo, la importancia que el Papa atribuye a ésta para la misión de la Iglesia en el mundo, los objetivos que él ha determinado para esta jornada y el modo de celebrarla que ha sugerido.

La Iglesia y el movimiento independentista rioplatense: incertidumbres, aceptación y acompañamiento (1810-1816)

En torno al sexenio comprendido entre las dos fechas distintivas del Bicentenario argentino, 1810 y 1816, el autor se propone una lectura histórica sobre los hombres y las ideas que rodearon a la Primera Junta de gobierno, la función propagandista del clero, el cuestionamiento por parte de dos obispos de la legitimidad de la revolución y el apoyo de un obispo patriota, el período de “interregno episcopal” y la continuidad religiosa, la obra cultural de la Junta y la celebración del Congreso de la Independencia en Tucumán. Se afirma, a partir de las fuentes, el lugar de aceptación que tuvo la IglesiaCatólica en esta época.

Mons. Enrique Angelelli, obispo de La Rioja (1968-1976) : recepción diocesana de su muerte: testimonios y valoraciones

Resumen: Este aporte intenta lograr una mirada sincrónica de la tragedia que se llevó de este mundo a Mons. Enrique Angelelli. La trama humana en su conjunto se desarrolla entre tristezas y alegrías y, también, lógicamente, la historia de la Iglesia posee los mismos condimentos. Pero, la clave está en la luz con la cual miramos estos acontecimientos que, en este caso, no sólo será científica o meramente sociológica sino, fundamentalmente, teológica. Así, al recoger los testimonios del pueblo de Dios, presentamos un hecho histórico reflejado a través del prisma de la fe.

"A casa dos ímpios se desfará, mas a tenda dos retos florescerá" : a participação da Frente Parlamentar Evangélica no legislativo brasileiro

Analisa, a partir do trabalho de campo empreendido nas atividades da Frente Parlamentar Evangélica do Congresso Nacional, como estes parlamentares participam de tempos e espaços do legislativo. Deste modo, trago a descrição etnográfica os discursos destes deputados religiosos que denotam, mormente, uma "guerra santa" entre os "ungidos" e o Inimigo que ocupa o mundo da política e o espaço público brasileiro. Assim, suspeito que presenciamos contemporaneamente uma maior dessectarização de grupos evangélicos na política quando estes agentes procuram não apenas se tornar a Igreja do amanhã (concorrendo com a Igreja Católica pela posição de religião civil). Mas, sobretudo, tornar, através da participação na política, o mundo dos ímpios o mundo dos justos. Ora, considero, por isso mesmo, as formas particulares de aquisição de sutilezas e de competências necessárias a fim de profissionalizar o político e as relações políticas nas quais estes políticos se engajam. Deste modo, os evangélicos também têm que aprender tais habilidades especialmente por que estão no processo de construção de uma herança histórica na política. Por fim, analiso como os evangélicos, enquanto políticos profissionais, agenciam uma forma de representação e participação políticas que considera tanto o exercício cotidiano da fé quanto uma espécie de investimento nas atividades do século, reinterpretando, assim, o histórico processo de secularização do Estado.

Familia eredu berriak haur hezkuntzan. Ikastetxe konfesional baten analisia.

[eus] Gradu Amaierako Lan honek Haur Hezkuntzako etapan familia aniztasunari ematen zaion trataera aztertzea du helburu. Horretarako Bilboko Elizbarrutiko ikastetxe zehatz batean kasu ikerketa bat egitea erabaki da. Azterketaren ardatza ikastetxearen izaera konfesionala familia eredu berrien aniztasuna lantzeko zenbateraino traba izan litekeen frogatzea izan da. Ikerketarako erabilitako metodologia kualitatiboa izan da, eztabaida taldea, elkarrizketa sakonak, behaketak eta edukien analisien bidezko teknikak nagusiak izanik. Teknika horien bitartez lortutako informazioaren inguruan zenbait ondorio atera dira eta, azkenik, horiek guztiak kontuan harturik hobekuntzarako proposamena planteatu da.