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The fifth volume of
The Oxford History of British & Irish Catholicism, which assembles synoptic chapters from leading historians of modern Catholicism, offers a comprehensive and accessible overview of the changing contours of the Church on two islands (and with connections across the world) throughout the twentieth century.
List of contents
- Series Introduction
- Volume Introduction
- 1: Mary E. Daly: Ireland Before and After the Second Vatican Council
- 2: Stephen Bullivant: The Church in England and Wales: An Historical Overview
- 3: Paul Gilfillan: Twentieth-Century Scottish Catholicism: Poverty, Affluence, Freedom
- 4: Michael Snape: Catholics, War and Britain's Armed Forces
- 5: David Geiringer and Laura Kelly: Marriage, the Family, and Sexual Ethics
- 6: Stephen G. Parker: Catholic Education in Britain and Ireland
- 7: Mary Heimann and Cara Delay: Saints and Devotional Cultures
- 8: Robert Proctor: The Architecture and Art of British and Irish Catholicism
- 9: Christopher McElroy: Liturgy and Music
- 10: Bonnie Lander Johnson and Julia Mezaros: British and Irish Novels and the Catholic Imagination
- 11: Maria Power: Ecumenism and Inter-Faith Relations
- 12: Fiona Bateman: Ireland's Missions and Missionaries in the Twentieth Century
- 13: Carmen M. Mangion: Women Religious, Charitable Ministries and the Welfare State
- 14: Breda Gray and Louise Ryan: Migration, Migrant Chaplaincy, and Multi-ethnic Britain
- 15: Mary E. Daly and Marcus Pound: Clerical Abuse
- 16: Daithí Ó Corráin: The Travails of Contemporary Irish Catholicism from John Paul II to Pope Francis
- Statistical Appendices
About the author
Alana Harris is Director of the Liberal Arts programme and a Reader in Modern British Social, Cultural and Gender History at King's College London, having previously taught at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. Her books include Faith in the Family: A Lived Religious History of English Catholicism 1945-1982 (Manchester, 2013), Love and Romance in Britain, 1918-1970 (London 2014, edited with Timothy W. Jones), and The Schism of '68: Catholics, Contraception and Humanae Vitae in Europe, 1945-75 (London, 2018). Her research specialisms, explored in numerous journal articles, encompass the histories of gender and sexuality; ethnicity, race and migration; devotional cultures and material religion.
Summary
The fifth volume of The Oxford History of British & Irish Catholicism—covering the period from the Great War, through the Second World War and the Second Vatican Council—surveys the transformed ecclesial landscape between the papacies of Benedict XV and Pope Francis. It explores the efforts of bishops, priests and people in Ireland and Scotland, Wales and England to respond to modern challenges and reintegrate the experiences and expertise of the laity into the ministry of the Church.
Alongside the twentieth century's designation as an era of technological innovation, war, peace, globalization, decolonization and liberation, this period has also been designated 'the People's Century'. Viewed through the lens of the Catholic church in Britain and Ireland, these same dynamics are explored within thematic, synoptic chapters by leading scholars.
As a century characterized by the rise, or better renewal of the apostolate of the laity, this edited collection traces the struggles to reconcile tradition, re-evaluate hierarchical authority, adapt to social and educational mobility, as well as to adjudicate serious challenges from outside and within—including inflammatory biopolitics and clerical sexual abuse—to religious belief and the legitimacy of the Church as an institution.
Additional text
One of the great strengths of this volume is both the widespread thematical coverage and the different paths of research opened up for others to continue exploring together British and Irish Catholic experiences and identities.
