scholarly journals I, Elena de la Cruz: Heresy and Gender in Mexico City, 1568

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-160
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Holler
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Religious Crisis

Abstract In July 1568, a nun was denounced to the episcopal inquisition of Mexico City. Elena de Ia Cruz, was a professed nun in the prestigious Nuestra Senora de la Concepción and a member of one of Mexico's most important families. She was charged with heretical propositions: namely, that she proposed limits to the powers of the papacy and church hierarchy, including Alonso de Montúfar, the archbishop of Mexico. Elena's heretical words also took added meaning from contemporary religious crisis and reform. Some of the nun's conceptions vaguely suggested Lutheranism. More importantly, she seemed to deny the ability of the Council of Trent to carry out its programme of reform. Tridentine reformers were attempting to bring monasteries of women under the control of male religious leaders — and Montúfar was trying to bring regular clergy in general under episcopal governance. Elena's views threatened these efforts. The essay argues that Elena's daring to speak on matters of doctrine was a form of gender treason; she also read forbidden books and attempted to find her own path to salvation. In the late sixteenth century, a woman who took this path was immediately suspect. Beatas, nuns, and laywomen had paid dearly for this error in Spain. Unlike many heretic nuns, though, Elena renounced her beliefs almost immediately when challenged by her abbess, and she showed no courage of conviction before the male inquisitors. Nonetheless, formal charges were prepared and followed through in meticulous detail. In charging Elena, Montúfar was nipping womanly insubordination in the bud, before it could infect the entire convent. But if gender was part of what made Elena so dangerous, it was also what saved her skin. Elena's lawyers were able to use the topos of the weak, ignorant, misled woman to explain their client's deviation from the path of order and obedience. Hispanic gender ideologies made it possible to frame Elena's crime in terms of treason and disorder, but also provided an opportunity for the nun's reincorporation into society. The paper argues that Elena's trial provides an opportunity to examine the ambiguities of gender prescription and what we might call "rôle enforcement". The tension between corporate protection of women and fear of their potential for disorder is played out throughout the trial. Elena's triumph, if such it can be called, is to appeal to the former.

Negotiating Sanctity: Holy Women in Sixteenth-Century Spain

1995 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian T. W. Ahlgren
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Spanish Inquisition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Many ◽  
Religious Landscape

The past ten years have seen great strides in our understanding of the many forces at work in Counter-Reformation Spain. Historians and hispanists have demonstrated clearly that the Spanish religious landscape was complex and have elucidated several problems of interpretation. How readily did Spanish monarchs, religious leaders, and laity follow the decrees of the Council of Trent? How influential was the Spanish Inquisition in enforcing religious beliefs and behaviors? In what ways did religious reform involve assumptions about gender and differing religious roles for men and women? Finally, and more to my point, how did men and women respond to such assumptions and roles?

An Extraordinary Confession

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Jewish Ancestry ◽  
The Church

If the church decides to seize the wheel, to speak the directly political word, Bonhoeffer writes, then the church will find itself in statu confessionis. This chapter examines the phrase status confessionis to shed further light on Bonhoeffer’s idea of the church’s directly political word (the concern of Chapter 7). The phrase originates in a sixteenth-century episode where the emperor, with help from accommodating religious leaders, forced changes in order and rites on the Lutheran churches. The phrase status confessionis came to be seen as the battle cry of those who resisted these changes, the gnesio-Lutherans. In adopting this language, Bonhoeffer identifies a parallel between the sixteenth century and 1933, when Hitler and the Nazi regime threatened to force changes in church order (especially concerning church members of Jewish ancestry) on the church with accommodation from church leaders.

Latina/o Religious Studies Since the 1970s

2020 ◽  
pp. 218-235
Author(s):  
Felipe Hinojosa
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Community Formation ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
Faith Practices ◽  
The Times

This article provides an overview of the field of Latina/o religious studies since the 1970s. Motivated by the political tenor of the times, Latina/o religious studies began as a political project committed to contextualizing theological studies by stressing racial identity, resistance to church hierarchy, and economic inequality. Rooted in a robust interdisciplinary approach, Latina/o religious studies pulls from multiple fields of study. This article, however, focuses on the field’s engagements with ethnic studies in the last fifty years, from the 1970s to the contemporary period. It argues that while the field began as a way to tell the stories, faith practices, and theologies of religious insiders (i.e., clergy and religious leaders), recent scholarship has expanded the field to include the broader themes of community formation, labor, social movements, immigrant activism, and an intentional focus on the relationships with non-religious communities.

scholarly journals Exploring Gender Differences in Support for Rightist Parties: The Role of Party and Gender Ideology

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 80-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosie Campbell ◽  
Silvia Erzeel
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Right

This contribution to the Special Issue on Gender and Conservatism uses expert and election surveys to explore the extent to which the feminist or traditional gender ideology of parties of the right relates to their economic and liberal/authoritarian ideology. We show that although parties of the left generally espouse more feminist ideologies than parties of the right, there are a significant number of rightist parties in Western Europe that combine laissez-faire economic values with liberal feminist ideals. That said, there is more homogeneity among parties of the populist radical right than rightist parties more generally. We find that despite some variation in their gender ideology, parties of the populist radical right overwhelmingly—with the exception of one party in the Netherlands—continue to adopt traditional or antifeminist gender ideologies. In terms of attracting women voters, we find that rightist parties who adopt a feminist gender ideology are able to attract more women voters than other parties of the right. We detect several examples of center-right parties that include feminist elements in their gender ideologies and are able to win over larger proportions of women voters than rightist parties that fail to adopt feminist positions.

Imperial Policy and Church Income: The Sixteenth Century Mexican Church

1986 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Hennessey Cummins
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Church Finance ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
New Research

The long-traditional view of the Roman Catholic Church in Spanish America as a monolithic, wealthy, and all powerful institution has been gradually modified by successive studies over the last thirty years. From these examinations emerges the picture of a complex institution characterized by diversity, and internal conflict. New research continues to enlarge and clarify understanding of the Church's role as an institution of the Spanish empire.What follows will, in highlighting the colonial Church's relationship to the Spanish crown, add to this view of it as a complex and diverse institution. An examination of crown policy with regard to Church finance in the sixteenth century shows that the episcopal hierarchy of the Mexican colonial Church had a subordinate relationship to the crown in the era of the Counter Reformation. Rather than a strong Church influencing the crown, what emerges is the portrait of a relatively weak, dependent institution, supported by the king. The secular church hierarchy had only enough power to carry out its function and serve as a counterpoint to the religious orders, not enough to achieve financial independence on its own. The basis for this relationship lies in the patrimonial nature of Castilian government and its dominant position over the Church hierarchy because of the Patronato Real.

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