“Being Scorned by One’s Own is Perfect Joy”: The Strange Case of Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day has long been seen as an enigma in understandings of twentieth-century American Catholicism. With the publication of Dorothy Day's extensive letters and diaries in 2008, the enigmatic character of Day's relation to various fault lines of Catholic identity has been made even more apparent. Day's ability to sidestep received opinion, in order to disclose (arguably) something of an inner resonance between apparently differing viewpoints, often left her sitting uneasily with the proponents of different positions across the spectrum of Catholic thinking, causing her to quote St Francis, saying that “being scorned by one's own is perfect joy.” This review article gives a summary of the contributions made by these volumes to understandings of Day's life and work, before discussing three particular fault lines, where Day's ability to straddle differing positions is most perceptible: her practice of pre-Conciliar spirituality, her attitude to ecclesiastical authority, and her position on matters pertaining to gender and sexuality.
Quelle: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2F1467-9809.12110
Theology, Practice, and Policy at the Turn of the Thirteenth Century: the Papacy and Peter Lombard
Famously, the Fourth Lateran Council took place in 1215 and offered a bold new wave of papal legislation. Importantly, the Council confessed cum petro, with Peter Lombard. This was an unprecedented endorsement of a scholastic theologian. By confessing cum petro, the papacy placed Peter Lombard's Sentences at the heart of its bold reforming agenda. There has been very little historical analysis of the meanings of this endorsement. This article will attempt to situate the logic of this endorsement within the larger context of the Council, as well as the increasing formalisation of the Schools of Paris, which culminated in the founding of the University of Paris in that same year.
Quelle: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2F1467-9809.12083
The Reception of Gratian’s Tractatus de penitentia and the Relationship between Canon Law and Theology in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century
Canon law and theology were not distinct, well-developed fields in the twelfth century. In theory, many if not all scholars recognise this, and yet, in practice, much scholarship on the intellectual and institutional history of the century operates as if the contrary were true. Often labeled as canonists or theologians, the intellectual figures of the century frequently devoted attention to the church's law and to the Bible, to issues of ecclesiastical structure and discipline as well to theological questions. One way of gauging the scholarly world of the century is to examine the reception of a particular text by various intellectual figures. This article surveys the historiographical problem, explores the reception of Gratian's Tractatus de penitentia from ca 1150 to ca 1200, and attempts to reformulate the nature of the intellectual climate in the period.
Quelle: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2F1467-9809.12081
Law, Theology, and Morality: Conceptions of the Rights to Relief of the Poor in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
This article presents an analysis of certain ways of thinking about law and its relationship to the poor, in particular the rights and entitlements of the poor to the basic necessities of life and the obligations of society to provide those necessities. It focuses on the works of Peter the Chanter and his “circle” at Paris in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Significant in their writings on the quandary between respect for private property and the need to allow those in need to take a share of this private property in order to survive is their negotiation of the intellectual boundaries and understandings between law, theology, and morality. In addition, an understanding of their discussions in light of canonistic and theological works of the time reveal a hitherto under-appreciated contribution to the “subjective rights” language in Peter the Chanter.
Quelle: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2F1467-9809.12084