Scholarship
These topics are bigger than the CMRI.
The Fatima Cult
Apparitions of the Virgin Mary form an important element of popular Catholic apocalypticism. The popularity of The Fatima Cult of the 1940s and 1950s became the foundation traditionalist Catholicism, including the TLRC and CMRI.
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Pope Pius XII & Nazis
Concluding his dense, convincing, and deeply disturbing book, Kertzer laments the postwar construction of a “well-scrubbed historical narrative” aimed at rewriting the Vatican’s actions during the war, with Pius XII “presented as the heroic champion of the oppressed.”
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Pope Pius XI & Mussolini
One of the many virtues of David Kertzer’s The Pope and Mussolini is that it reframes the discussion by shifting attention away from World War II and looking closely at the papacy of Pius XII’s predecessor, Pius XI, who became pope in 1922, the year that Benito Mussolini came to power, and died in early 1939, several months before Hitler invaded Poland. Taking advantage of the gradual opening of Vatican archives, Kertzer offers us a much more detailed portrait of the inner workings of the Vatican in this period.
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Marianism
Millennial dreams of a new world arise when the old rules and the old dreams become meaningless. It is in these situations that people pin all their hopes on the drawing of a new age and the prophets who will bring it about. In the modern era, popular Catholic millennialism has been expressed through devotion to apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
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Joachism
Joachism was a highly influential medieval system of prophecy, based upon the interpretation of the Bible, which was devised by the Calabrian abbot Joachim of Fiore. His influence was largely unknown to the English speaking world until the research of Marjorie E. Reeves in the 1950s and 60s. Joachism has heavily influenced much of Christianity, including the CMRI and TLRC.
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Year of the Flagellants (1260)
The Flagellants were participants in a popular men’s mass movement of penitential self-flagellation. Schuckardt and the TLRC continued flagellation, blending beliefs of flagellants with the Cult of Fatima and anti-Communism.
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Children in Minority Religions
As the Western World becomes increasingly secularized, a corresponding concern for the well-being of children in fundamentalist and alternative religions has followed.
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