Piety and Nationalism: Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850-1895 (McGill-Queen’s Studies in the Hist of Re) (Volume 12) - Hardcover

Clarke, Brian P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 077351130X ISBN 13: 9780773511309

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993

Synopsis

While the role of the laity in the nationalist awakening is commonly recognized, their part in the movement for religious renewal is usually minimized. Initiative on the part of the laity has been thought to have existed only outside the church, where it remained a troubling and at times insurgent force. Clarke revises this picture of the role of the laity in church and community. He examines the rich associational life of the laity, which ranged from nationalist and fraternal associations independent of the church to devotional and philanthropic associations affiliated with the church. Associations both inside and outside the church fostered ethnic consciousness in different but complementary ways that resulted in a cultural consensus based on denominational loyalty. Through these associations, lay men and women developed an institutional base for the activism and initiative that shaped both their church and their community. Clarke demonstrates that lay activists played a pivotal role in transforming the religious life of the community.

About this title

About the Author

Brian P. Clarke is an instructor in the Division of Humanities, York University, and a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Religion in Canada at Emmanuel College.

From the Back Cover

Volumes in this series have been supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto.

Series One: G.A. Rawlyk, Editor

Series Two In memory of George Rawlyk
Donald Harman Akenson, Editor

This series, founded in 1988 by the late George Rawlyk with the advice of Fr. Edward Jackman and the generous support of the Jackman Foundation, presents front-edge material on all aspects of religious history. It is limited to work done by profesionally trained historians and does not publish devotional or apologetic studies.

Roughly one-half of the books published thus far have dealt with some aspects of Canadian religious history (the works of Canadian Methodism are particularly significant), but the series is not limited to Canadian topics. There have been volumes on such diverse topics as the history of the Oral Torah, women in the church in seventeenth-century France, and German Anabaptism.

The long-term goal of the series is to help the history of religion escape from two ghettos that held it in thrall in the past: one of these was the definition of the field as dealing only with the more exotic religious foliage of the Ancient Near East. In contrast, we focus mostly on modern topics. We also wish to hasten the escape from the period when religious history of more modern times was mostly confessional: Catholic history was being written by Catholics, Jewish history by Jews, Protestant history by Protestants. Our belief is that the history of religion is too important not to be shared as part of our society's cultural commons.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 077351130X
• ISBN 13: 9780773511309
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352