When college ends and she has no plan, Anna stumbles her way into a convent, the last place she expected to find herself for the rest of her life. But convent life is not the escape she thought it might be, and before long, Anna is harassed by her anxiety and by a mysterious voice that invades her thoughts. Less than a year later, she is back at her childhood home, a place she thought she’d left forever. As she takes a job at her local parish and tries to rebuild a life she thought she had buried for good, Anna must come to terms with abuse in her past, with a family who refuses to acknowledge reality, and—perhaps—with a demonic battle she never asked for.

This dissertation applies ethnographic research to answer a question in the field of religious studies: to what degree does the prevailing world religions paradigm illuminate the interpretation of religious material that cannot easily be fit into a single major religious tradition. Indian Catholicism generally and Tamil Catholicism in particular have been deeply neglected both by scholars of India (who generally assume that Christianity in India is a "foreign" religion more-or-less indistinguishable from the Christianity of European missionaries) and by theologians and historians of Christianity (who often treat non-Western expressions of Christianity as somehow "compromised" by influence from alien religions such as Hinduism). By interrogating the early modern origins of the world religions paradigm and questioning its applicability to the particular case of Tamil Popular Catholicism, I intend to bring about a shift within religious studies and allied theological fields that will allow popular Catholicism to take a more central place within scholarship. The major issue I pursue in this dissertation is the manner in which European expectations about the nature of Christianity as a world religion impede the understanding of non-conforming expressions of Christianity, such as Tamil Popular Catholicism. My primary research agenda is a matter of ethnographically surveying a representative Tamil Catholic site to determine the characteristics of Tamil Popular Catholicism which most differentiate it from European expectations, and later to integrate these these findings with the theological self-definition of Catholic Christianity. Methodologically, my approach combines ethnography with oral history, aiming at a "thick description" of Tamil Popular Catholicism in its various manifestations which can be later used as a basis for theological reflection. Drawing on extensive field research at the St. Antony Shrine at St. Mary's Co-Cathedral in Chennai, I argue that popular, non-Western expressions of Christianity in Tamil Nadu differ from elite interpretations primarily with respect to the questions of exclusivity, openness to other communities, and the place of "magical" or supernatural healing traditions. There are concrete social and political consequences to the proliferation of Western religious categories in India, namely, the unraveling of the previously integrated Tamil religious culture into separate "Catholic" and "Hindu" identities and the social and political marginalization of Tamil Catholics. At the St. Antony Shrine, the local expression of Tamil Popular Catholicism defies description in terms of the prevailing world religions paradigm, which differentiates absolutely between "Christianity" and "Hinduism" and posits the existence of two hermetically-sealed religious communities ("Catholic" and "Hindu") where I argue there is but one (the popular religion of the Tamil people, in which "Hindu" and "Catholic" differ primarily by virtue of caste rather than religious classification or practice). The usual strategy within the world religious paradigm for describing non-conforming Catholic sites is to appeal to the concept of "syncretism," which refers to the mixture of two or more of the world religions into an incoherent third. This term carries heavy pejorative overtones and marginalizes religious phenomena so described, redirecting scholarly attention to religious phenomena that can be described using existing categories. By demonstrating how Western religious categories impede the understanding of a typical, non-eccentric Asian site, I show that the prevailing categories used by Western scholars to analyze religions are Orientalist in origin and logic and in need of drastic redefinition, which I provide in my conclusions by taking recourse to a premodern, Augustinian construction of "religion" which rejects the pluralization of "religions" in favor of a singular definition, circumventing the theological charge of "syncretism" and the legitimization of nationalist or communalist factions formed on the basis of pluralized religious identities.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 307-319). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

In recent decades historians have documented the nature and impact of religious violence within French Catholicism during the French Wars of Religion (1562-1629). My dissertation introduces the question of religious nonviolence within French Catholicism in this era by examining the religiosity practiced and promoted by Francois de Sales (1567-1622). By interpreting the words, actions, and impact of this clergyman across three different contexts - the mission field of the Chablais, in lay spiritual counseling, and in the Order of the Visitation- this research presents a fresh perspective on the nature of Catholicism in early modern France and an important historical case study of the possibilities and limits of moderation in a society reeling from religious extremism.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 372-388).

Abstract Throughout the period of 1972-2022 and previously, Catholicism has been a robust aspect of Irish national culture and identity and the institutional Catholic church has enjoyed a degree of sociopolitical influence and extensive co-operation with the Irish state. This has led to characterisations of Ireland as an outlier amidst secularisation patterns worldwide, whilst the 2009 scandals following the publication of the Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne Reports into clerical sexual abuse have led to claims of the collapse of Irish Catholicism and the church.  Both the former and latter depictions of the Irish case appear to be rooted in the conflation of overlapping theoretical and practical issues. At the theoretical level, the cultural role of Catholicism as an aspect of individual and community identity appears most relevant to its longevity but has been frequently conflated with religiosity, as measured by churchgoing, belief in divinity and prayer and other forms of religious participation reported via flawed quantitative methods. This appears to have led to Ireland’s mischaracterisation as a highly religious state. The unsuccessful application of modernisation-based secularisation theory to Ireland therefore appears to have been flawed.  Re-examining the Irish case reveals that, whilst secularisation theory does not prove adequate, some of its predicted outcomes are observable via significant shifts in the sociopolitical outlook of Irish Catholics and their rejection of clerical authority prior to the scandals. However, the continued prevalence of Catholic practice and identity show that this does not represent the predicted rejection of religious affiliation, thus strengthening the case for the key significance of Catholicism’s social and cultural role and the inapplicability of secularisation theory.  The collapse of the church since 2009 also appears questionable, with legal and practical factors such as constitutional exemptions, ownership of schools and policy consultation via the Structured Church-State Dialogue Framework complicating the church-state dynamic. The state’s approach appears to be primarily rooted in pragmatism and a reluctance to meet the cost and workload of altering the status quo, rather than in the perceived views of the electorate, and has stagnated following a brief period of backlash after the Reports. As such, both Catholicism as an aspect of society and culture and the institutional church, as considered wholly separate from one another, are likely to remain robust in the near term.

Inspired by the Enlightenment’s principles of rationality, positivistic ideologies as well as the nascent modern-industrial state, sociology since its inception in Europe was conceived as a fundamentally secular enterprise. Whereas positivistic streams have been rather left aside, secularism in sociology still remains as a cornerstone of the discipline’s identity. However, is sociology in the 21st-century really ‘secular’? In this dissertation I present to the reader an empirical research about the epistemological influences of Catholicism upon sociology in Mexico, a constitutionally secular state since the 19th century. Theoretically, I draw from authors who have put forward the epistemological influences of Christianity upon western social science. I argue that these authors have unintentionally re-stated, with interesting additions, Durkheim’s rather neglected theses about the socio-religious origin of our ‘categories of thought’ –‘classification’ and ‘causality’ in particular. Although I will not attempt to trace the origins of sociological classifications and causalities back to Catholicism in Mexico, I will argue that it is possible to find salient similarities between both knowledge fields in terms of these categories and other discursive characteristics. By analysing these resemblances in a (neo)Durkheimian-Weberian frame, I will explain how Catholic discourses in Mexico, combined with the Mexican state’s teleological discourses on democracy, modernisation and progress, influence sociological discourses not through Durkheim’s ‘imitative rites’ and a priori ‘necessary connections’, but through a series of ‘bridge’ institutions and particular cultural-ideological structures. Individuals’ own religious beliefs and their deliberate and unintended interactions with these elements and their emergent properties turn apparently parochial Catholic discourses into a series of ‘discursive offensives’ which subtly yet pervasively shape common sense in society at large and also predispose sociology practitioners to adopt and develop i) ‘mono-causal’ and ‘power-over’ interpretations of social phenomena, ii) implicit and explicit dichotomistic logics as well as iii) normative-prescriptive sociological stances. In arguing this, I account for how Weberian authority models and Weberian-Mertonian religious values are not only key ‘background factors’, but also constitute actual cognitive devices in the production of sociological knowledge. I also offer empirical evidence about the role that individuals’ religious beliefs play in the conception of sociological models of power and causality and, by extension, in the construction of scientific reason or scientific beliefs. These accounts support the view of contemporary religions as plastic discourses whose ideological powers permeate, under certain historical conditions, the knowledge produced in scientific domains whose secularity has been mistakenly taken for granted. And this, I conclude, strongly suggests the need to revise the secularist foundations of sociologies of science and scientific knowledge, of sociology in general as well as current monolithic theories and paradigms of secularism and science-religion dualistic debates.

<p>"Imaging Church" examines the impact of visual practices on a religious community's ecclesiology. I argue that visual practices potentially encourage others to perceive the church differently and participate in the mission of a community to which they do not belong. Employing ethnographic research and material analysis, I investigate the visual practices of the Congregation of St. Joseph, a Roman Catholic women's religious community. Seven of communities of the Sisters of St. Joseph reconfigured in 2007 to form the Congregation of St. Joseph: the communities of LaGrange Park, Illinois; Tipton, Indiana; Wichita, Kansas; Nazareth, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Wheeling, West Virginia; and the Médaille community which includes sisters in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Ohio.</p><p>My ethnographic research consisted of interviews and participant observation. Between May 2011 and May 2013, I interviewed 107 sisters in the Congregation as well as 17 individuals who were Congregation of St. Joseph Associates (non-vowed members) and/or employees of the Congregation. Interviews attended to the sisters' personal prayer lives, ministerial activities, congregational life and worship, congregational space, and the commodification of images. To gain an understanding of their visual practices, I worshiped with the sisters and observed several ministries. I employ material analysis to examine the influence of images created by and used in the Congregation. Analysis of particular images and spaces employed by the Congregation reveals the messages they articulate and potentially share with those who engage them. </p><p>To assess the centrality of practices for examining the ecclesiology and justice commitments of religious communities, the first chapter argues that the Sisters of St. Joseph in seventeenth century France and nineteenth century America articulated and dispersed their vision of the church through their practices (ministries and the production of commodities). These practices provide the foundation for the sisters' contemporary practices and the means through which they work for justice. The second chapter explores the sisters' charism (spirituality and mission) and commitment to justice and how these concepts are articulated in their congregational spaces. I argue that the sisters promote their mission through a visual archive which emphasizes their history and unity as a community, their chapels which display their belief and charism, and their public spaces which attempt to unify the Congregation's visual practices and extend these practices outside of their religious community.</p><p>The third chapter argues that the sisters employ visual practices in their spiritual lives and ministries to manifest their mission and to promote engagement with society. I examine these practices in relation to John Fuellenbach's concept of a theology of transformation. Analysis of the sisters' individual and communal prayer lives reveals the way visual practices assist in discerning identity and relationships. I further argue that the sisters' train others in their visual practices through their ministries, including their publications, retreats, and artwork produced in the Congregation. The fourth chapter examines how the Congregation's production of religious commodities evangelizes viewers and encourages participation in the sisters' mission for social and ecological justice. Through their business, the Ministry of the Arts, the Congregation employs religious commodities to assert a new perception of the church and world and invite others to commit to this vision. Through these visual practices in their prayer lives, congregational life, and ministries, the Congregation demonstrates the transformative potentiality of visual practices and offers techniques through which the church can pursue justice.</p> / Dissertation

This PhD dissertation seeks to define the configuration and evolution of French women’s moral identity and social status, through works of art created during the first thirty years of the Third Republic (1870-1900). More specifically, my thesis investigates the artistic perception and visual recording of “traditional” female roles and analyses the socio-historical factors which contributed to the construction of the ideal woman. I focus on the representation of young girls’ education and First Communion and study the portrayal of maternity which was perceived both as a personal role and a republican ideal. Furthermore, I consider the institutions of marriage and family through portraits and scenes of everyday life. The woman’s relations to the Catholic Church within a secular state, as well as the notions of chastity and patriotism, are thoroughly explored. In my dissertation I prioritised nineteenth century texts, where French doctors, demographers and statesmen from different ideological backgrounds give moral guidelines concerning hygiene, breastfeeding and childcare, or analyse phenomena such as the birth rate decline. The writings of these authors who communicated major social anxieties served as an evaluative platform; more specifically, I ventured to see how French painters and illustrators participated to the most important debates of their time. Therefore, the criterion for the choice of images was not artistic excellence, but their engagement with the moral and social issues I decided to consider. Since in my thesis pictures are treated within a socio-historical context, I was challenged to achieve a balance between the visual and theoretical material, making them inter-relate effectively. Finally, my time-frame covers the three first decades of the French Third Republic and observes the succession of different governments. I investigate to what extent certain social attitudes which were developed during this period of thirty years shifted, and try to find out whether these alterations are conveyed in painting.

How is it that the Roman decadence, a derogatory term during the Enlightenment, became the fundamental aesthetic reference for a nineteenth century literary movement? Focusing on the intersections of literature, politics, religion, science and art history, this dissertation adopts a diachronic approach to decadence, read against a backdrop mobilizing twentieth century philosophers Vladimir Jankelevitch and Michel Serres. Decadence (Latin cadere, to fall) first designated the fall of the Roman Empire and a falling away from its political, moral and aesthetic norms. Drawing on Petronius and Baudelaire, I crystallize three ways in which philosophers, scholars (“érudits”), and poets faced the troubling notion of the fall : they observe its occurrence, restore its ruins, or praise its beauty. With this in mind, the dissertation closely analyzes eighteenth century topoi that conceive decadence as political instability (Montesquieu, Gibbon), moral corruption (Rousseau, de Maistre), and architectural imbalance (Diderot, Seroux d’Agincourt). The principal emphasis is on the semantic and stylistic value assigned to the term “decadence”. These interdiscursive readings disclose the displacement of decadent topoi : shifting from one context to another, they narrate the fall of the Roman Empire and remain inscribed in the literary production of Decadence. Whereas the Enlightenment underlines the edifying dimension of the Roman example, nineteenth century authors, lapsing into original sin and propelled by thermodynamic loss, salute the expression of the fall. Barbey d’Aurevilly’s writings reveal consistent historical, structural and textual references to Roman topoi, caught up in the arrested completion of political and mechanical cycles. Furthermore, his dandyism and ultramontanism conjure up the Roman conflict, while recurring fragments, maculae and lacunae destabilize the architectural balance of his texts. The Literature of Decadence emerges as an artificial intervention that suspends the irreparable fall, enlightening the political, moral and technological turmoil of the Second Empire with those of the Roman Empire. In returning Decadence back to its Roman origins, and tracing their configuration in the age of Enlightenment, this dissertation unravels a formative, yet frequently overlooked component of nineteenth century literature and aesthetics.