From Jacobite to Loyalist: The Career and Political Theology of Bishop George Hay

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-293
Author(s):  
Gregory Tirenin
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Public Involvement ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Age Of Revolution ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Revolutionary Ideology ◽  
Full Force ◽  
George Iii

Although Catholics were marginalized and strongly associated with Jacobitism under the early Hanoverians, the reign of George III saw a gradual assimilation of Catholics into mainstream political culture. The Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain played a key role in this process by emphasizing passivity and loyalty. The bishop who most strongly personified this Jacobite to loyalist transition was George Hay (1729-1811). A convert to Catholicism from the Scottish Episcopalian faith, Hay served the Jacobite Army as a medic in 1745 and was imprisoned following that conflict. After his conversion and subsequent ordination, Hay became coadjutor of the Lowland District of Scotland in 1769 and was promoted to the Apostolic Vicarate in 1778. Hay actively engaged with many high-profile statesmen and political thinkers, including Edmund Burke. Most notably, he constructively utilized Jacobite political theology to criticise revolutionary ideology. His public involvement in politics was most remarkable during the American and French Revolutions, when he confidently deployed the full force of counterrevolutionary doctrines that formerly alienated Catholics from the Hanoverian state. However, since the Age of Revolution presented a stark duality between monarchy and republicanism, Hay’s expressions of passive obedience and non-resistance endeared him and the Catholic Church to the British establishment.

Defaming and Defining ‘Bloody Mary’ in Nineteenth-Century England

2014 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 287-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Richards
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
John Foxe ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Papal Authority ◽  
Mary Tudor

Although the reputation of Englands first queen regnant, Mary Tudor (died 1558) had remained substantially unchanged in the intervening centuries, there were always some defenders of that Catholic queen among the historians of Victorian England. It is worth noting, however, that such revisionism made little if any impact on the schoolroom history textbooks, where Marys reputation remained much as John Foxe had defined it. Such anxiety as there was about attempts to restore something of Marys reputation were made more problematic by the increasing number and increasingly visible presence of a comprehensive Catholic hierarchy in the nineteenth century, and by high-profile converts to the Catholic faith and papal authority. The pre-eminent historians of the later Victorian era consistently remained more favourable to the reign of Elizabeth, seen as the destroyer,of an effective Catholic church in England.

The Never-Ending Story? Or, Does the Roman Catholic Church Remain Vulnerable to Charges of Improper Handling of Clergy Child Sex Abuse?

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick S Nash
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Sex Abuse ◽  
Organizational Settings ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Child Sex Abuse

Abstract This article explores whether the Roman Catholic Church’s response to the clergy child sex abuse scandal shields it from further charges of improper handling of cases. It begins by noting the current topicality of institutionalized abuse and how several high-profile public inquiries have recently been established to investigate child sex abuse across a range of secular and religious organizational settings. Although numerous religious institutions have become embroiled in clergy child abuse crises, the Catholic Church has come in for particular scrutiny and condemnation on account of its distinctive institutional characteristics which have exacerbated its own abuse scandal in a uniquely severe way. The Church’s own understanding of this issue is that a culture of antinomianism has taken root within the clerical hierarchy and that, were canon law to be applied properly, the crisis would be resolved. This contrasts quite dramatically with the typical external understanding of the crisis which sees the canonical legal system as part of the problem, namely the Church’s refusal to cooperate fully with the secular criminal justice system and effective assumption of a criminal jurisdiction of its own. The article concludes with a final prognosis of the prospects of fundamental legal and cultural change.

National-European Theology

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Smolenski
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Cultural Influence ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Catholic Clergy ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
Building Project ◽  
The Eu

An influential contingent of Catholic clergy in Poland reacted to Poland’s entry into the European Union by developing a narrative positing the Catholic foundation and ownership of Europe and all its constituent “nations.” This narrative, which I call national-European theology, identifies the Catholic Church as the progenitor of both European and Polish existence and guarantor of their continuity of identity. In this way, it remedies some Catholics’ anxieties about both the integrity of Poland’s national sovereignty and the allegedly secularizing and liberalizing cultural influence of other EU member countries. I argue that national-European theology can be fruitfully conceived as a hereditary ownership narrative, framed by moments of spiritual foundation and subsequent inheritance from spiritual founders, and that this narrative structure characterizes both nationalism writ large and Europeanization as an analogous modern identitarian project. I suggest that taking heredity as a lens through which to understand nationalism and its attendant notions of legitimation allows us to move past debates about the “content” of nationalist claims (ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc.) and toward the mechanism by which group reproduction is culturally defined and sanctioned. To do this, I first sketch a theory of nationalism as a hereditary ownership narrative, drawing upon the Polish case, and liken it to the “Europe-building” project of the EU. Second, I present a brief historical outline of Poland’s accession to the EU and the anxieties generated thereby. Finally, I turn to the rhetoric of the Polish clergy who best represent the national-European current in contemporary Catholic political theology.

scholarly journals An inconvenient truth: barriers to truth recovery in the aftermath of institutional child abuse in Ireland

Legal Studies ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie McAlinden
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
An Inconvenient Truth ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Republic

Contemporary settled democracies, including the USA, England and Wales and Ireland, have witnessed a string of high-profile cases of institutional child abuse in both Church and State settings. Set against the broader literature on transitional justice, this analysis argues that there are significant barriers to truth recovery within the particular context of historical institutional abuse by the clergy in the Republic of Ireland. In the main, it argues that the frameworks of the inquiries and commissions into historical institutional child abuse are not conducive to truth recovery or the search for justice in dealing with the legacy of an abusive past. It is the Church–State relationship which makes the Irish situation noteworthy and unique. The Catholic Church and child care institutions are especially self-protective, secretive and closed by nature, and strongly discourage the drawing of attention to any deficiencies in organisational procedures. The nature of the public inquiry process also means that there is often a rather linear focus on accountability and apportioning blame. Collectively, such difficulties inhibit fuller systemic investigation of the veracity of what actually happened and, in turn, meaningful modification of child care policies. The paper concludes by offering some thoughts on the implications for transitional justice discourses more broadly as well as the residual issues for Ireland and other settled democracies in terms of moving on from the legacy of institutional child abuse.

scholarly journals Between the old and the new : Friedrich Gentz, 1764-1832

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ardis Travis Eakin
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Revolutionary Ideology ◽  
The 19Th Century

This dissertation reviews the life and political impact of Friedrich Gentz, who was born in Breslau, Prussia, in 1764, and died in Vienna, Austria, in 1832. Though remembered today as only a second- (or even third)- tier statesman alongside such luminaries of his day as Napoleon, Metternich, Wellington, and others, Gentz was nonetheless of importance in the shifting tides of late 18th and early 19th-century politics in Europe. The German translator of Edmund Burke, he was instrumental in bringing the conservative thinker's ideas into the conversations of Central Europe, while his writings against first the French Revolution, then Napoleon, marked him as one of the leading opponents of revolutionary ideology, and led the French emperor to dub him "that miserable scribe." But Gentz was important even beyond his anti-revolutionary polemics. As a product of the Enlightenment, he had some sympathy with the forces of modernity, and his career reflected the struggle to combine an openness to reform with hostility to revolution. In his later collaboration with Metternich to forge what became known as the Restoration, we can see just how much the post-Napoleonic conservative order in Europe was built upon a specific vision, one that rejected the quasi-feudal patterns of the ancien regime just as firmly as it did the democratic radicalism of its own day. Though it ultimately did not last, Gentz's work is clearly visible in the political contours of the 19th century. From the Enlightenment salons of Berlin to the dazzling Congress of Vienna and beyond, Between the Old and the New traces the eventful career of one of the most interesting men of letters in Revolutionary-era Europe.

scholarly journals Re-imagining Petitioning in Spain (1808–1823)

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Palacios Cerezales
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Age Of Revolution ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
The Right

This article examines collective petitioning in metropolitan Spain during the Age of Revolution, focusing on the practices and discourses that framed petitioning as a meaningful form of action. There was a deeply rooted tradition of petitioning in old regime Spain, which was part of the ordinary bureaucratic workings of the crown and also provided a legitimizing framework for rioting in specific contexts. The collective experimentation in popular participation after the 1808 Napoleonic invasion transformed petitioning. Petitioning was first reconceptualized in accordance with the emerging language of rights and popular sovereignty. Activists and commentators had some awareness of the use of public petitioning in Britain, and once the representative Cortes met in Cadiz in 1810, public petition drives on public issues became part of the political culture. At the same time, the need to legitimate unconventional forms of action in the context of a crisis in the state converted petitioning into an all-embracing right. The right to petition, not only encompassed signed protest texts but also legitimated the old tradition of petitioning by riot and further was used to justify provincial rebellions, juntas, and military pronunciamientos. In comparative terms, this article highlights the elasticity of the language of petitioning during the Age of Revolution and cautions against narrowly associating it with one particular form of collective action or historical trajectory.

The Idea of a Political Theology, I.

Worldview ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
J. Bryan Hehir
Keyword(s):  
Long Range ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Modem World ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

There is a dimension of Catholic thought rooted in the Vatican Council that extends beyond it in a way that could have significant implications for the Church's role in the political order. The basis for a political theology lies in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modem World; the purpose of this document was to reformulate the perspective in which the Church understood and evaluated contemporary culture and defined her rote in it. Many observers have singled out this document as the one with the greatest potential for shaping the long-range development of the Catholic Church.

Limited Liberties: Catholics and the Policies of the Pitt Ministry in an Early Modern Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-763
Author(s):  
Mary Louise Sanderson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Age Of Revolution ◽  
British Atlantic ◽  
Modern Context ◽  
The Common ◽  
British Atlantic World ◽  
Role Of Religion

AbstractThis article contributes to current debates about the role of religion in governance in the late eighteenth century British Atlantic world by examining the Pitt ministry's policies regarding Catholic subjects in England, Quebec, and Ireland in an early modern context. Starting with an overview of early modern attempts to find a compromise between Catholic subjects and their Protestant rulers, this article shows how the Pitt ministry reused these earlier approaches in its efforts to respond to Catholic subjects during of the age of revolution. Focusing on the English Catholic Relief Act of 1791, the Canada Constitutional Act, and the ministry's unimplemented plans for Catholic emancipation, the article argues that these policies were all shaped in part around the idea that Catholic subjects could be allowed greater freedoms, and even access to political influence in some cases, if their faith was contained through Gallican-style restrictions. These restrictions varied from requiring new oaths to attempting to establish the government's right to select Catholic bishops. Each policy resulted in notably different outcomes based on the location and potential power of the Catholic subjects that they affected. The common goal, however, was to attenuate the Catholics’ connection to the papacy and increase government influence over the Catholic Church in British territory while also upholding the ultimate supremacy of the Anglican Church.

Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, and Eschatology

KronoScope ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Ostovich
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Theological Concept

Abstract"Political Theology" is the rubric under which Carl Schmitt constructed his critique of liberalism and modern political culture. This critique remains influential even given the taint attached to Schmitt's name by his Nazi involvement. Schmitt's presupposition was that political concepts are secularized theological concepts, and his "political theology of the mortal god" was an attempt to formulate a political theological reason that could think through the paradox of sovereignty. This attempt founders on his inadequate understanding of the theological concept of time as eschatological. Reflecting on his failure provides a way to think anew about time as well as politics.

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