Lisa R. McClain

Troubled Consciences: New Understandings and Performances of Penance Among Catholics in Protestant England

Lisa McClain — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:10:20 PDT

Prior to Protestant reforms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Catholic clerics frequently preached about the necessity of confessing one's sins to a priest through the sacrament of penance. After the passage of laws in the 1570s making it a criminal offense to be a Catholic priest in England, Catholics residing in Protestant England possessed limited opportunities to make confession to a priest. Many laypersons feared for their souls. This article examines literature written by English Catholic clerics to comfort such laypersons. These authors re-interpreted traditional Catholic understandings of how sacramental penance delivers grace to allow English Catholics to confess when priests were not present. These authors—clerics themselves—used the printed word to stand in for the usual parish priest to whom a Catholic would confess. They legitimized their efforts by appealing to the church's modus operandi of allowing alternative means to receive grace in cases of extreme emergency. Although suggestions to confess without a priest's mediation sound similar to Protestant views on penitence, these authors' prescriptions differ from Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, and post-Tridentine Catholic positions on penance in the Reformation era. Diverse understandings of penitence lay at the heart of confessional divisions, and this article sheds new light on heretofore unexamined English Catholic contributions to these debates, broadening scholars' conceptions of what it meant to be Catholic in Reformation England and Europe.

Catholicism, Gender and the English Mission: New Models of Piety and Gender Among Jesuits and Mary Ward’s English Ladies

Lisa R. McClain — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 09:01:06 PST

Swing State Women Speak Out on Election Eve

Linda Basch — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:18:30 PST

With the election only a day away, we asked members of our network based in states like Ohio, Michigan, and Idaho to weigh in on the key issues facing women in their region as they get ready to vote. We asked them to tell us the most critical policy issues currently at stake. And we asked them to share any special fears about voting fraud, what's being done to address it, and whether there are initiatives underway which others might support.

Women, Disability and Violence: Strategies to Increase Physical and Programmatic Access to Victims’ Services for Women with Disabilities

Lisa R. McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:52 PST

Penance, the Body and the Believer

Lisa R. McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:49 PST

Re-Negotiating the Rules: Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland, and Intersections of Religion and Gender in Early Modern England

Lisa R. McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:47 PST

Women, Disability and Violence: Strategies to Increase Physical and Programmatic Access to Victims’ Services for Women with Disabilities

Lisa R. McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:44 PST

Many studies conducted in the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom corroborate a high occurrence of physical, emotional, sexual, and disability-specific abuse among women with disabilities. As this staff member’s observation reflects, however, there exists little evidence that large numbers of women with disabilities attempt to access shelters and other domestic violence/sexual assault programs and services when they are victimized. Why don’t the majority of women with disabilities who experience such abuse show up, seeking services? What might be done to encourage them to do so in greater numbers?

"They Have Taken Away My Lord": Mary Magdalene, Christ's Missing Body, and the Mass in Reformation England

Lisa McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:41 PST

In early modern Protestant England, traditional Catholic worship and sacraments, particularly the Mass, declined, and many Catholics feared for their salvation. At the same time, an increased veneration of Mary Magdalene focused no longer on penance and redemption but on Mary's discovery of Christ's empty tomb. Magdalene's distress at losing the corporeal body of Christ mirrored English Catholic anxiety over losing the body of Christ as contained in the Eucharist in the absence of regular Mass. English Catholics chose to revive and adapt this form of Magdalene symbolism to best meet their spiritual needs, thus emphasizing the many uses and flexibility of such a familiar symbol as Mary Magdalene and suggesting types and nuances of Magdalene worship that have yet to be fully investigated by scholars.

Changing Understandings and Interpretations of European Christianity

Lisa McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:38 PST

We tend to think of contemporary European society as having moved beyond the scenario of religion as a dominant force permeating every aspect of daily life. Westerners are secular, rational, tolerant, modern. Yet as events of the last decade have revealed, issues of religious belief can be as mobilizing in the twenty-first century as they were hundreds of years ago. As Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, secular humanists, and others live side by side in European neighborhoods, religion continues to play a staggeringly important role in many individuals’ lives, from political and economic issues to moral and ethical ones. Religion (and the particular ways one chooses to understand it) matters just as it did centuries and millennia ago.

Lest We Be Damned : Practical Innovation and Lived Experience Among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559-1642

Lisa McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:35 PST

Through compelling personal stories and in rich detail, McClain reveals the give-and-take interaction between the institutional church in Rome and the needs of believers and the hands-on clergy who provided their pastoral care within England. In doing so, she illuminates larger issues of how believers and low-level clergy push the limits of official orthodoxy in order to meet devotional needs.

Using What's at Hand: English Catholic Reinterpretations of the Rosary, 1559–1642

Lisa McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:32 PST

This article investigates changes in rosary worship in England after Elizabeth I's insistence on Protestant conformity in 1559. It addresses how Catholics, faced with Protestant restrictions on traditional forms of worship, might have re-conceptualized religious rituals, symbols, and objects to satisfy their devotional needs. The rosary — understood as both a material object and a set of prayers — was (and is) the Catholic Church's most popular Marian devotion. Examining the prayers attached to the rosary offers insight into how English Catholics — often lacking access to priests and sacraments — understood their appeals to Mary, now portrayed as a strong, warrior-like advocate for believers’ souls. Since material objects such as rosaries have long played an integral part in Catholic religious culture, examining the evolving roles of such objects opens a window through which to view the new experiences in piety available within European Catholicism, in general, and within English Catholicism, in particular, during the Reformation era.

Improving Campus Climate for Faculty from Underrepresented Groups

Lisa McClain et al. — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:29 PST

A continuing challenge in engineering in higher education is that of professional equity regarding opportunity for advancement and job satisfaction due to differences in gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability and other factors. Because there are more women and persons of color visible within engineering faculties and administrations than ever before, casual observers might conclude that significant progress has been made in creating an equitable climate in academia. A preponderance of recent studies, however, demonstrate that while women and individuals from other underrepresented groups have gained access to some faculty and administrative positions, this has not necessarily translated into consistent patterns of success through all levels of academic hierarchies and leadership positions. For example, some universities do a good job of recruiting and hiring women faculty and faculty of color, yet beyond this, both groups are consistently underrepresented at certain levels of faculty administration, such as department chair, dean, and endowed chairs.^1-7

In 2005, Boise State University, a mid-sized, metropolitan university, administered a Campus Climate Survey to gain an understanding of how these national trends presented themselves on a particular campus, with the long-term goal of transforming campus climate and culture to enhance opportunities for underrepresented groups. In general, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the faculty who responded to the survey reported that they have been treated fairly and equitably while at the university. The following analysis sheds light on the approximately one-quarter to one-third of faculty members who did not feel that they had been equitably treated while also focusing on responses from the science and engineering faculty in particular. Additionally, this paper explores ways in which engineering and science departments and universities can use climate data to inform strategic plans of action.

Without Church, Cathedral, or Shrine: The Search for Religious Space Among Catholics in England, 1559-1625

Lisa McClain — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:03:25 PST

This article explores how Catholics in England reconceptualized traditional ideas about religious space and found new places to practice their faith after Elizabeth I's insistence upon Protestant conformity in 1559. Excluded from churches and other traditional holy sites, how might both English clergy and laity have reinterpreted the space around them to turn ordinary or even Protestant-controlled places into locations for Catholic devotion? The article investigates the processes by which places become sacred and how English Catholics created new options for piety and fellowship using the spaces within ordinary homes, prisons, execution sites, and even the bodies of believers. Examining the various ways in which English Catholics found new locations for worship and community and exploring how they created, understood, and experienced them is at the core of understanding how the clash of religious orthodoxy affected the day-to-day piety of individuals during the Europe wide age of reform.