‘An Amazing Want of Christianity’: Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and John Henry Newman’s Tense Relationship

This paper will examine the relationship between Samuel Wilberforce and John Henry Newman. The two priests had a common cause in their wish to see the Church of England rediscover its Catholic identity – which led them to work alongside one another at the beginning of the Oxford Movement – but quickly drifted apart because of their strong divergences on the nature of the Church and the place of Tradition, as well as Samuel Wilberforce’s strong hostility to Rome. The paper also examines the place of Samuel Wilberforce’s young brother in this relationship.

Professionalization Abroad

Chapter 1 analyzes the profound importance of continental education in shaping the clerical leadership of Irish Catholicism in the Early Modern period. While not all clergy were educated abroad, formation in continental seminaries emerged as a key aspect of both the Catholic hierarchy and the guardians and preachers of the regular clergy. This system of clerical provision was based on the evolution of a somewhat haphazard network of continental colleges, but the decentralized nature of the system may in fact have conferred significant advantages. While impossible to determine the precise influence of this development, the evidence suggest that it was of profound importance in confirming the nature of the Catholic identity of most of the population.

Migrant Consciousness and Catholic Confessional Identity Texts

Chapter 8 argues that migrants and exiles played a critical role in the elaboration of notions of Catholic identity in Ireland. It concentrates in particular on three authors from the early seventeenth-century—Peter Lombard, David Rothe, and Philip O’Sullivan Beare—who helped develop the notion that the Irish population was inherently Catholic and inscribed this idea in a particular delineation of history in which St Patrick and medieval Irish saints figured prominently. Close analysis of these texts reveal the profound influence of exilic experience on the writing of these various authors, and the ideas which they put forward came to exert an enduring influence on the self-understanding of Irish Catholics.

Religious Renewal in the Context of Secularism

When public identity focuses on the convergence between Catholicism and the American way of life, markers of Catholic identity migrate to unique religious practices: popular devotions, sacramental attendance, obedience to disciplinary laws. Episcopal statements and the reflections of clerical and lay leaders note the growing split between religion and daily life. “Secularism” within the Church is identified in the analysis of John Courtney Murray, the Grail Movement, and in the pages of Catholic Action. In response to this “schizoid culture,” significant leaders network with affinity movements throughout the world. International congresses of the laity set the stage for the Council. Movements of Specialized Catholic Action join with the mainstreaming of scripture reading, catechetical reform, participative political processes, and the liturgical movement to foster a reconfiguration of clergy-lay relations. The bishops themselves begin to sponsor both liturgical change and Specialized Catholic Action even before the Council begins.

Epilogue

Immediately after Vatican Council II, Spirit joined with Letter as the people of God, collegiality, access to the Scriptures, the role of the laity, religious freedom, and service to the world entered into Catholic identity. Cold War Catholic identity ceded primacy of place to a new politics of history that shaped the Church’s participative processes, commitment to ecumenism, practices of inculturation, and social vision. “Pastoral” adaptation dominated the initial phase of reception. Trends of internationality yoked to papal geopolitics exponentially increased and made the practices of the domestic Church problematic for other local churches. Within this politics, the post-conciliar world mirrored the debates of the Council itself. Differences of opinions quickly emerged and eventually coalesced into oppositional groups. Flashpoints of discord presaged the culture wars of the 1980s. American Catholicism’s transformation has led to a pluriform public identity that now calls for a new joining of Spirit with Letter.

Catholic religious identity, prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors, and connectedness to nature in Chile

Prosociality (caring for one another) has been identified as a correlate of pro-environmental behavior. While our study affirmed the role of the Catholic Church in teaching prosociality, it did not reveal any direct link between Catholic identity and pro-environmental behavior. By incorporating environmental education into its teaching, the Catholic Church might promote environmentalism and inspire followers to take a leap towards their “ecological conversion”.Catholic religious groups have historically been underrepresented in environ mental movements. On the other hand, researchers have sought for decades to understand the factors that determine pro-environmental behavior. In this paper, data were obtained from two studies capturing different sample populations in Chile. The objective of the first study was to explore the interconnection of the Catholic religious identity, prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors. The objective of the second study was to explore the interconnection of the Catholic religious identity, pro-environmental behavior and connectedness to nature. Participants were students at a Catholic university and members of the general public. The findings demonstrate that Catholic identity positively correlated with prosocial behavior, which in turn positively correlated with pro-environmental behavior. However, we found no direct link between Catholic identity and pro-environmental behavior. Likewise, self-reporting Catholic individuals scored significantly lower on the scale of connectedness to nature, in comparison with nonreligious persons. Finally, the surveys revealed that connectedness to nature positively correlated with pro-environmental behavior.