Historical Views
Church Politics in Mid-Victorian Britain: The London Union on Church Matters, 1848-1865 View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michael Turner
The Church of England faced increasing external challenges in the Victorian period. It also suffered serious internal divisions. How did it seek to contend with these problems? This core question can be usefully addressed through a study of the London Union on Church Matters. The LUCM represents an effort by High Church laity to uphold Church interests and promote a particular idea of what the Church should be. Historians have not previously paid it much attention. There is no Union archive, but the opinions and activities of the body can be recovered through contemporary books and periodicals, the correspondence, speeches, and writings of its leaders, parliamentary proceedings, and various Church records (such as those relating to Church Congresses and other deliberative meetings). The LUCM placed itself at the head of a wider church union movement, which from the 1840s into the 1860s campaigned on such issues as education, marriage, and burials, as well as doctrine and ritual in the Church. Unions condemned unwelcome legislative interference in Church concerns and rejected the claims of Liberal politicians and militant Nonconformists. They resisted attempts by the Low Church party and Evangelicals to guide the Church in a direction that was unacceptable to High Churchmen. The union movement could not remain united, however, for another body was formed in London, the Metropolitan Church Union, and it refused to acknowledge the LUCM’s directing and coordinating role. This had implications both for Church defense and for the High Church agenda within the Church of England.
The Abbey of Saint-André as a Center for Global Chinese Catholic Networks (1927-1949)
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jin Lu
From the time Lu Zhengxiang entered Saint-André in 1927 until his death in 1949, Lu Zhengxiang was directly or indirectly involved with nearly all important global initiatives by Chinese Catholics. A home away from home with a direct line of communication to Rome, the Abbey of Saint-André became a global center and a sacred space for Chinese Catholicism, a destination for nearly all Chinese Catholic figures who visited or resided in Europe. As a well-informed statesman, Lu Zhengxiang’s choice of the Abbey of Saint-André was intentional, as he knew that he would have the efficient collaboration of Dom Edouard Neut and the support of Abbot Nève who shared his view on the mutually beneficial relationship between Catholicism and Chinese culture. With the indefatigable collaboration of Dom Edouard Neut, Lu maintained a massive web of connections with Catholics and non-Catholic Chinese residing in various parts of the world as well as with Vatican officials and notable Catholic figures in Europe. Weaving together archival resources (letters, manuscripts, notebooks, drafts, interviews, newspaper clips) and printed primary as well as secondary materials in Chinese, English and French, this paper examines Lu Zhengxiang’s role as a link between the Vatican and China before the establishment of official diplomatic relations in 1942 and the context in which his intellectual apostolate was inscribed between 1942 and 1949. The archives preserved by Saint-André also include documents that shed light on the important role played by such overlooked Catholic figures as Wang Changzhi who wrote to Lu Zhengxiang.
“Estamos Rodeados de Precipicios en lo Físico y lo Moral” : The Bourbon Reforms in the Spanish Realms and the Institution of a New Type of Catholic Masculinity (1746-1792) View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alfonso Gómez-Rossi
The policies put forth by Charles III and his ministers in the second half of the eighteenth century attempted to modernize the Spanish realms. One of the main desires of the Bourbon regime was to transform the Catholic Church and make it an effective instrument of the State. This also entailed that an idealized model of masculinity was promoted, one that would benefit both the State and the Catholic Church. The Bourbon reforms particularly impacted the spirituality religious orders promoted and who had up to that point influenced the laity in different regions of Spain and the colonies: the Jesuits were expelled for posing a threat to the Spanish monarchy’s interests, the cloistered orders were either abolished or their properties expropriated. The diocesan clergy became the reliable bureaucracy for the Spanish monarchy and through the supposed control over the bishops and their sees, the monarchy attempted to shape a particular type of lay masculinity that eschewed the past and looked to modernity. This paper analyzes three aspects of the Carlist reforms that impacted the construction of different masculinity: the first one is how Spaniards began to make distinctions between the correct practice and understanding of religion by distinguishing how it differed from superstition. Secondly the importance of propaganda through the newspapers to impart the knowledge to its subjects that the monarchy was the nearest institution to God and thirdly by looking into the dissolution of cloisters for their representation of lazy masculinity.
