Abstract: Saints' cults, with their focus on miraculous healings and pilgrimages, were not only a distinctive feature of Christian religion in fifth-and sixth-century Gaul but also a vital force in political and social life. Here Raymond Van Dam uses accounts of miracles performed by SS. Martin, Julian, and Hilary to provide a vivid and comprehensive depiction of some of the most influential saints' cults. Viewed within the context of ongoing tensions between paganism and Christianity and between Frankish kings and bishops, these cults tell much about the struggle for authority, the forming of communities, and the concept of sin and redemption in late Roman Gaul.Van Dam begins by describing the origins of the three cults, and discusses the career of Bishop Gregory of Tours, who benefited from the support of various patron saints and in turn promoted their cults. He then treats the political and religious dimensions of healing miracles--including their relation to Catholic theology and their use by bishops to challenge royal authority--and of pilgrimages to saints' shrines. The miracle stories, collected mainly by Gregory of Tours, appear in their first complete English translations.

Abstract: One of the most dramatic expressions of Christian charity in late antiquity was the practice of ransoming captives taken in brigandage, piracy, or war. Involving, as it did, the collection and disbursement of large sums of money, and delicate negotiations with hostile parties, the redemption of captives eventually came to be included in the duties of local bishops. Bishops, in turn, not only accepted, but actively solicited this responsibility, for, like other charitable activities, the liberation of captives enabled them to reinforce or expand ties of clientela, enhance their own status as local patrons, and publicly enact, and so promote and validate, the Christian ideal of caritas.

Abstract: Editor's note 1. The study of dispute: anthropological perspectives Simon Roberts 2. Beati pacifici: bishops and the law in sixth-century Gaul Edward James 3. Law and love in the Middle Ages Michael Clanchy 4. Sumptuary law and social relations in Renaissance Italy Diane Owen Hughes 5. The blood feud in Early Modern Scotland Jenny Wormald 6. A golden age of litigation: Castile, 1500-1700 Richard L. Kagan 7. 'Such disagreement betwyx neighbours': litigation and human relations in Early Modern England J. A. Sharpe 8. Household disputes and the law in Early Modern Andalusia James Casey 9. The arbitration of disputes under the Ancien Regime Nicole Castan 10. Conjugal settlements: resort to Clandestine and common law marriage in England and Wales, 1650-1850 John R. Gillis 11. Postscript John Bossy Index.

Abstract: This widely-heralded collection of remarkable documents offers a view of African American religious history from Africa and early America through Reconstruction to the rise of black nationalism, civil rights, and black theology of today. The documents—many of them rare, out-of-print, or difficult to find—include personal narratives, sermons, letters, protest pamphlets, early denominational histories, journalistic accounts, and theological statements. In this volume Olaudah Equiano describes Ibo religion. Lemuel Haynes gives a black Puritan’s farewell. Nat Turner confesses. Jarena Lee becomes a female preacher among the African Methodists. Frederick Douglass discusses Christianity and slavery. Isaac Lane preaches among the freedmen. Nannie Helen Burroughs reports on the work of Baptist women. African Methodist bishops deliberate on the Great Migration. Bishop C. H. Mason tells of the Pentecostal experience. Mahalia Jackson recalls the glory of singing at the 1963 March on Washington. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes from the Birmingham jail. Originally published in 1985, this expanded second edition includes new sources on women, African missions, and the Great Migration. Milton C. Sernett provides a general introduction as well as historical context and comment for each document.

Abstract: Ammianus Marcellinus, by common consent the last great historian of Rome, rounds off his obituary notice of the emperor Constantius II (d. 361) with the following observation:The plain simplicity of Christianity he obscured by an old woman's superstition; by intricate investigation instead of seriously trying to reconcile, he stirred up very many disputes, and as these spread widely he nourished them with arguments about words; with the result that crowds of bishops rushed hither and thither by means of public mounts on their way to synods (as they call them), and while he tried to make all their worship conform to his own will, he cut the sinews of the public transport service.This is a perceptive judgement of the ecclesiastical politics of the reign of Constantius, remarkable in a pagan writer, and of exceptional significance in that it lies outside those very ‘arguments about words’ which contaminate all the Christian assessments of this emperor. Although Ammianus is unsympathetic to Constantius, he manages succinctly to grasp the basic drift of imperial policy, inherited from Constantine himself, of trying to enforce the emperor's view of doctrinal and ecclesiastical unity by the summoning of repeated episcopal councils and browbeating the bishops into agreement — thus paying lip-service to the independence of the church's judgements. To the observant outsider, this process was notable above all for the burden it placed on the cursus publicus, as the bishops went about their business around the empire now provided with official evectiones; and Ammianus' comment finds confirmation in the letter issued by eastern bishops attending one of the many councils of Constantius' reign, that at Sardica in 343, who complained of the ‘attrition’ of the transport service caused by the imperial summons.

Abstract: The involvement of Christians in the Nicaraguan Revolution is a clear manifestation of the profound changes taking place within the Nicaraguan Church as a whole. While a clear majority of the clergy took a stand against the injustices of the Somoza regime, a smaller group of priests and religious demonstrated a more profound commitment to radical structural transformation of society. Although their efforts to organize and concientizar1 rural and urban poor had serious political implications – in fact, many joined the guerrilla as a result of the ‘radicalization of their faith’ – to these priests and religious the political solutions available to counter growing social injustices and government abuses were few: either fight or capitulate. The bishops, on the other hand, were cautious about the pace of change and rejected the violent option, choosing instead an intermediate path. Unfortunately, such an option proved futile in the case of Nicaragua, and finally the bishops justified armed revolution as a viable alternative to systematic repression.

Abstract: Both before and after the 1959 revolution, the Catholic Church in Cuba deviated from the norm in Latin America. This is in large measure due to the unique historical and social experience of Cuba, as well as to the fact that the church remained until the early 1960s largely a missionary outpost of Spain. When the revolution occurred, the Catholic Church was frozen in a pre-Vatican II mold which was reinforced by an exodus of clergy, religious and laity. The economic and diplomatic embargo of Cuba further isolated the church from progressive trends within the international church. Thus, the ferment unleashed by Vatican II (1962–5) and the Latin American Bishops Conference at Medellin, Colombia (1968) had less impact than changes resulting from the Cuban Revolution. As a consequence, the Catholic Church in Cuba entered the 1970s with limited theological and pastoral resources to meet the challenge of a consolidated Marxist/Leninist revolution. As an institution, the Catholic Church in Cuba is, as it was in 1959, the weakest in all of Latin America.

Abstract: Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, an organisation responsible to the Australian Catholic Bishops, has proposed some radical changes to Australia's foreign policy. These have been made in the name of a more peaceful world. The CCJP has proposed that Australia.

Abstract: The sixth-century Gallic episcopacy contained within its ranks three distinct groups of men. The first group comprised those who had come to the episcopacy from a monastic background; the tradition of the monk-bishop, nurtured in the fifth century by the monastery of Lerins, was still strong, particularly in southern Gaul. The second group consisted of men who, although celibate, were not monks. The third group was composed of married clerics who at the time of ordination had taken a vow of sexual continence. Since source material for this period is comparatively scanty and many bishops are little more than names to us, we have no means by which to establish the proportion of men in the Gallic episcopacy who fit in this third category. 1 The most we can say is that the married bishop was a familiar figure in the Merovingian church.

Abstract: The simple statistics of a growing Catholic population requiring the ministry of a declining number of aging priests portray a critical shortage. Kenneth Woodward (1983) predicted that "the Catholic priesthood threatens to become a geriatric society." Father Robert Sherry, director of the Bishops' Committee on Vocations, put it simply: The American Catholic Church is "running out of priests" (1983: 472). The dilemma becomes more acute as the younger clergy abandon the priesthood and the older clergy accept the invitation to retire.

Abstract: This series is designed to meet the needs of students of ancient and medieval history and others who wish to broaden their study by reading source material, but whose Latin and Greek is not sufficent to allow them to do so in the original language. "Life of the Fathers" consists of a collection of 20 lives of saints, mostly clerics who belonged to Gregory of Tours' own family or to the dioceses of Clermont and Tours. These bishops, abbots, and hermits present a cross-section of the Gallic Church, a counterpart to the secular society described in the "History of the Franks".

Abstract: The preferential option for the poor, which is becoming increasingly evident in the Catholic Church in Latin America, has led to the encouragement of grassroots movements for social change, as well as to conflict between the Church and military governments. Although the institutionalization of this new ecclesial position occurred at the Second General Conference of the Latin American Bishops in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968, signs of its development had already appeared several years earlier in Brazil. The present study utilizes a Gramscian approach to investigate the politicaleconomic and religious-institutional conditions in that country that provided the context for the emergence of the option for the poor. Documentation is drawn both from published sources and from this author's field research, which included participant observation in basic ecclesial communities and sixty-four interviews with lay people, sisters, priests, and bishops. In recent years there has been a growing body of theory and research related to the role of the Latin American Catholic Church in promoting social change (see Vallier, 1970; Bruneau, 1974, 1982; De Souza, 1978, 1982; Lima, 1979; Maduro, 1979; Levine, 1981). This role, which represents a departure from the hierarchy's traditional alliance with social elites, is visible in the strong statements on human rights made by conferences of bishops, the development of liberation theology, and the convergence between basic ecclesial communities (CEBs) and popular movements. The term used within the Church to include all these patterns is the preferential option for the poor. This new ecclesial position is leading to questioning of social structures that perpetuate poverty and repression, as well as to the questioning of the traditional structures of religious authority. Among social scientists and religious writers, there are a number of explanations as

Abstract: In May 1983 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States issued its comprehensive Pastoral Letter on War and Peace, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response. The main purpose of this essay is to apply a world order perspective in critically evaluating three sets of key issues. First, which tradition of Christian thinking on war and peace did the bishops follow and how relevant is this tradition as the dominant pa radigm for charting an alternative, effective response to the nuclear crisis? Second, what kind of moral assessment did the bishops make of the nuclear crisis, in particular on the legitimacy of nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence, and the use of nuclear weapons? And third — and by way of conclusion — the paper assesses the impact of the Pastoral on the current nuclear debate, on public policy, and on long-term system transformation.

Abstract: The pronouncements and regulations put forth by the late medieval Church, including those of English bishops, suggest that the religious establishment was quite opposed to theatrical performance The tradition established by Tertullian and other early Christian Fathers provided a foundation for the Church's viewsl But the decree of Pope Innocent III in 1207 shows that the hierarchy was responding to contemporary conditions, not just voicing traditional resistance to mimetic performance:

Abstract: John P appas : The pursuit of Protestants in the second half of the century in the «registers » of the old regime. The unpublished letters and dispatches to and from the King's ministers reveal royal policy towards French Protestants between 1750 and 1785. In the 1750s Louis XV developed a plan to crush Protestantism ; to encourage them to perform their marriages and baptisms in the Catholic Church, the Minister, Saint-Florentin, pressured bishops in Protestant areas to relax restrictions against them and omit derogatory remarks on baptismal certificates and parish records. This was to be accompanied by stiffer sanctions against disobedience. Wars deprived the campaign of troops needed to implement the plan and necessitated humouring Protestants to avoid defection. War again interrupted Louis XVI's attempt to revive the policy and by by 1785 there existed ' a tacit toleration ' of Protestants.

Abstract: This thesis investigates the theory and practice of episcopal government in the English Church between 1603 and 1625. The source material consists of the records of seventeen diocesan archives in the province of Canterbury, in conjunction with primary printed and manuscript sources, such as sermons, theological treatises and polemics, and, where appropriate, the records of central ecclesiastical and secular government. It is proposed that the dominant image and practice was of the bishop as preaching pastor. The exemplar of the Apostolic bishop, which was set out in Pauline writings, could not be easily adapted to the realities of seventeenth century church government. Not merely had the episcopal office accumulated a series of non-pastoral functions, but its government also had a primarily judicial character. Nevertheless it is argued that, as a group the Jacobean episcopate managed to incorporate many aspects of the Pastoral ideal of St. Paul into their diocesan rule. Most bishops resided in their sees, attended their visitations in person, took a part in the running of their consistory courts, preached fairly regularly and supervised the clergy entrusted to their care. Extraneous circumstances helped to provide the right conditions in which this pastoral government could flourish. The divisive issue of ceremonial nonconformity, which could so easily sour relations between the bishop and his flock was largely stilled by James I's accommodating attitude to 'moderate' nonconformists and the consequent de facto toleration of occasional conformity. The King also supported the proselytising mission of the Church, and he restrained the hostility of Arminian prelates both to excessive preaching and to ceremonial nonconformity. This thesis, in short, seeks to demonstrate the strength and vitality of the Pastoral ideal among the Jacobean episcopate.

Abstract: The American peace movement has witnessed several significant developments in recent years. The active, vigorous participation of women in leadership positions as well as in grass roots activities, although not unprecedented, is impressive and noteworthy; Greenham Common, the Seneca Falls Peace Encampment, Peacelinks, Women's Pentagon Action; Helen Caldicott, Frances Farley, Randall Forsberg, and numerous other individuals and groups -all are evidence of the involvement of women in war and peace issues. And the adoption in 1983 of a pastoral letter on war and peace by the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States marks a new development in the American peace movement. Two years after publication, it is clear that the life of this pastoral statement has only begun. Catholics and others are using it as a basis for further statements and sometimes for public demonstrations against nuclear escalation. I propose in this essay to discuss the Catholic bishops' pastoral letter from a feminist perspective. A feminist perspective in this context means a consideration of the role of women in the consultative process that produced this letter and a content analysis of the letter itself to assess its impact, where appropriate, on questions of justice and equality of the sexes. Because women have been so prominent in the peace movement at both grass roots and leadership levels, one is naturally inclined to inquire about the participation of women in the formulation of the bishops' statement. Those familiar with the institutional church will not be surprised to learn that women's involvement was minimal. It would appear that, from a feminist perspective, the customary perception of the Roman Catholic church as a patriarchal,

Abstract: The Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on nuclear weapons should be praised for its introducing into the debate over nuclear issues the traditional just war standard. However, by deemphasizing the importance of just cause in just war theory and by wrongly separating deterrence and defense, the Bishops fail to satisfy the requirement of rational analysis. A study of the Pastoral Letter finds the Bishops in the position of rejecting any method of limit or control in nuclear warfare. These methods may be available and could, if employed successfully, lead to a nuclear strategy for the free world that satisfies just war criteria.

Abstract: For English Catholics the eighteenth century has justifiably been termed ‘the age of Challoner’, because Richard Challoner, vicar apostolic of the London District between 1758 and 1781, left a distinctive mark on the character of the English Catholic Church through his long period in office at a formative period and through his many popular spiritual books and pamphlets. Challoner's pre-eminence has tended to diminish the stature of all other bishops appointed as vicars apostolic to the four districts in England and Wales during the course of the century. The only other vicar apostolic who came close to Challoner was the Benedictine monk, Charles Walmesley, a near-contemporary and coadjutor in the Western District from 1756 to 1764, when he became vicar apostolic of that district until his death in 1797. Although Walmesley's published works were far fewer than Challoner's, they demonstrated a wider range of interests and a more original mind. For, while Challoner has often been taken as the representative eighteenth-century English Catholic clergyman, the main feature of his mind, a dread of innovation, prevented him from tuning his theology to the new world of eighteenthcentury scientific and philosophical enquiry.

Abstract: Th e military putsch of April 1964 apparently "resolved" the crisis of the populist1 regime, which had deeply shaken the Brazilian polity in the early sixties. This crisis raised several issues of great importance about the "political development" of the country. Particularly, it questioned the role of several institutions of the state and civil society in either securing or undermining political stability and democratic participation. One such institution was the Roman Catholic Church, whose political role has been debated both by analysts and protagonists of the crisis. Social scientists have proposed divergent interpretations about the political role of the Church in Brazil, during the crisis of the early sixties. The supportive role of the Brazilian Bishops' Conference (Conferencia National dos Bispos do Brasil, CNBB) to the military coup has been especially debated, because of the previous support of the Bishops to the populist regime, since at least 1956. These events were interpreted in different ways by various scholars. It is therefore necessary to consider some basic features of these authors' approaches, in order to understand their different interpretations. A review of the literature has already been done,2 emphasizing the main theoretical and methodological