Catholic missions

Cross-national empirical research consistently suggests that, on average, former British colonies are both more democratic and have more stable democratic transitions. I argue that former British colonies are distinct not because Great Britain was a democracyso were France and Belgium during the late 19 th and early 20 th century. Nor were the British more altruistic. However, British colonial elites were more divided and thus more constrained. In particular, religious groups were more independent from state control in British colonies than in historically-Catholic colonies (i.e., colonies of France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Italy). Initially the British restricted missions in their colonies, but Evangelical Protestants forced the British to allow religious liberty in 1813. Protestants were not able to win religious liberty in most other European colonizers during the entire period of colonization.

... I want to divert briefly to Cairo. There is a scene in Tahani Rashid's excep-tional documentary “El Banat Dol” (Those Girls) where a little girl whispers through her tears: “People are not all the same. ... The girls have names: Touta, Maryam, Reda, Abeer, Donya and Iman. ...

CITATION
Paolo Aranha, "Vulgaris seu Universalis: Early Modern Missionary Representations of an Indian Cosmopolitan Space", in "Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud: Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles)", eds. Corinne Lefèvre, Ines G. Županov, Jorge Flores, Collection Puruṣārtha 33 (Paris: Éditions de l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2015): 331-360.

ABSTRACT
Missionary history has been acknowledged in recent years as a fundamental context for the emergence of European Orientalism. In particular, it is becoming clearer the specific cultural relevance of the Catholic missionaries to India, working under the Portuguese Royal Patronage (Padroado Real),  depending from  the Roman Congregation De Propaganda Fide or relying on the support of the French Crown. This chapter analyzes the efforts of the French Capuchin François-Marie de Tours († 1709), essential both in the explosion of the Malabar Rites controversy and for the emergence of a corpus of linguistic knowledge on Hindustānī. I argue that these two aspects are expression of a single and consistent effort at building up a “cosmopolitan” Indian Christianity, characterized by social fluidity across caste divisions, physical mobility along the subcontinental coastlines and an avowed openness towards European influences. On the contrary, the Jesuit missions in India (in particular the ones of Madurai, Mysore and the Carnatic) appear as characterized by an extensive adaptation of Christianity to the local social hierarchies and articulated in the South Asian regional languages, many of which boasting a tradition more prestigious than the one of Hindustānī. However, this chapter hints also at a hitherto almost unknown specific Jesuit engagement with Hindustānī, developed in the Mughal mission according to a project distinct from the one unsuccessfully proposed by François-Marie de Tours.

L’Exposition Missionnaire Vaticane de 1925 fut sans doute la plus grande exposition jamais organisée par l’Église catholique. Pourquoi un tel événement dans un contexte d’après guerre et de sécularisation ? C’est la principale question que pose cet article. Derrière le projet d’exhibition d’objets des pays de mission se dessine une stratégie bien orchestrée que le terme romanita  résume. Ce terme convoque tour à tour les notions d’universalité et de centralité qui vont gouverner l’action de Pie XI vis-à-vis des missions. À travers sa principale visée -la propagande-, l’exposition missionnaire de 1925 se révèle un véritable instrument scientifique et politique d’affirmation de la grandeur de l’Église.

Au début du mandat français en Syrie et au Liban, le Saint-Siège renouvelle ses objectifs et ses moyens d’action dans la région. J’ai étudié ce mouvement à travers les lettres adressées à Rome par Mgr Frediano Giannini, vicaire apostolique d’Alep et délégué apostolique en Syrie de 1905 à 1936. Les rapports de Giannini constituent un bon exemple de la manière dont les missionnaires participent à la production de connaissances sur les communautés chrétiennes orientales. En rendant compte des épreuves et des migrations qui leur sont imposées, Giannini participe au développement d’une nouvelle perception de ces communautés, vues comme des minorités persécutées. Giannini sollicite les autorités françaises pour défendre les intérêts des chrétiens (à la fois les catholiques et les orthodoxes). Sa position est ambiguë : alors qu’il exprime sa nostalgie au sujet du fonctionnement traditionnel du protectorat français, Giannini s’implique lui-même dans le domaine politique (en particulier au moment de l’élaboration de constitutions pour le Liban puis la Syrie) et prend en charge une partie de l’ancien rôle des Français qu’il interprète comme une mise sous tutelle des communautés orientales. Cette ambivalence révèle l’émergence d’une nouvelle politique pontificale, fondée sur un double mouvement d’autonomisation et de centralisation.

At the beginning of the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, the Holy See developed new aims and means of action. We have studied them through the letters written to Rome by Arch. Frediano Giannini, Vicar Apostolic of Aleppo and Apostolic Delegate to Syria from 1905 to 1936. Giannini’s reports provide a good example of the way missionaries produce knowledge about Eastern Christian communities. He tells about the trials and migrations endured by them, thus taking part in the development of a new perception of Christian communities as persecuted minorities. Giannini turns to French authorities in order to defend Christians’ interests (both Catholics’ and Orthodox’). His position is ambiguous: he feels nostalgic about the traditional French protectorate, and in the same time involves himself in political matters, taking on part of the French former role. This ambivalence reveals the rise of a new pontifical policy, based on increasing autonomy and centralization.

Sommaire :
Giannini et l’expérience fondamentale des violences intercommunautaires: les chrétiens menacés au Moyen-Orient
Giannini critique de la politique mandataire: l’absurdité d’une «politique musulmane»
Giannini prend en charge la défense des chrétiens aux dépens des patriarches
Giannini, Rome et les chrétiens du Proche-Orient: perceptions croisées

Many scholars note the exceptional economic and political performance of Botswana relative to other Sub-Saharan African Countries (e.g., Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson 2003; Lange 2009). Since independence Botswana has had one of the highest average growth rates in the world, plus high rule of law, political rights, and social rights relative to other African countries- despite the fact that the same party has won every election since independence. In addition, Botswana is the leading producer of diamonds in the world (in terms of value), yet has not suffered from the “resource curse” that plagues so many major exporters of mineral resources.
In this article I compare the history and development of Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe (three landlocked, former British colonies, with limited post-colonial ethnic diversity) to try to understand why Botswana has done so much better than other similar countries. These matched cases studies undermining arguments for post-colonial economic and political development based on greater exposure to British colonialism, European settlement, healthy climates, British common law, state capacity and diversified economies. Instead the relative influence of Protestant missions relative to European settlers seems crucial for understanding rule of law, protection of indigenous land rights, and the independence of local rules from outside interference. Although the choices of local elites were also important, Protestant missionaries helped create conditions that enabled better institutions.
I completed these case studies as part of the review process for Robert D. Woodberry. 2012. “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy” American Political Science Review. Among many other things reviewers asked me to complete case studies of India and China and matched case studies from somewhere else in the world. If picked these cases because I knew they had very different political outcomes, but knew almost nothing about their missionary and colonial history. Thus, I thought they would serve as a good test of my theory about Protestant missions and democracy. However, because I wrote them as part of the review process, this article still has the form of an online appendix to the previous article.

The Catholic danger’: Anti-Catholicism and Swedish national identity in a Nordic perspective

In Sweden, as in other Protestant countries, the gradual dismantling of the legislation on com-pulsory religious adherence saw the politicization of religious issues. In this situation, the im-agery of the old enemy took on new functions. This was very much the case with the notion of the ‘Catholic danger’, which time and again surfaced in the Swedish media and in parlia-mentary debate. In the 1860s and 1870s, Sweden’s harsh religious legislation was liberalized. The Dissenter Act of 1860 legalized conversions to other Christian denominations, but it put in place many obstacles to leaving the Established Church, and many of the legal restrictions were obviously anti-Catholic in intent. Anti-Catholic sentiment was also expressed in con-junction with the legislative proposals and parliamentary debates on the question of religious freedom that preceded the Act concerning Freedom of Religion of 1951. The fact that full re-ligious freedom was introduced so late stemmed largely from fears that the Catholic Church would grow strong under the protection of a more liberal religious legislation. The article ad-dresses anti-Catholic rhetoric in Sweden from the mid nineteenth century to the early 1960s, with a focus on the debates in the media and in parliament. It is shown that there was a shift in the perception of the ‘Catholic danger’. At the beginning of the period, anti-Catholicism was prompted by a desire to shield Protestant religious unity; later the objective became progressively more secular. Even if the Lutheran heritage still played an important role for Swedish cultural identity, common values were no longer motivated by religion, but purely by politics and ideology. Today it is Islam that is portrayed as a threat to the Nordic community of values, and the current anti-Islamic rhetoric is closely allied to that used until the 1960s against Catholicism.

La sédentarisation des Indiens nomades et semi-nomades des Etats-Unis n'est pas au XIX e siècle l'apanage des seules réserves gouvernementales. Les missionnaires jésuites qui s'établissent dans le nord des Montagnes Rocheuses à partir de 1840 s'inspirent de l'exemple des réductions du Paraguay, ces "républiques" où on tenta de réduire 1 les Indiens Guaranis sur le chemin de la foi chrétienne aux XVII e et XVIII e siècles. Cependant au-delà des objectifs communs aux réserves et aux réductions qui sont de promouvoir la civilisation européenne et d'éviter les affrontements, l'Etat américain et la Compagnie de Jésus divergent