The Seventy-ninth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association

MISCELLANY THE SEVENTY-NINTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Report of the Co-Chairmen ofthe Committee on Program The Association met along with the American Historical Association at the Marriott Wardman Park and Omni Shoreham Hotels in Washington, D.C., between January 8 and 10, 1999. Despite the inclement wintry weather in the Midwest and a brief period of snow and ice in the nation's capital on Saturday, registration for the meeting was not adversely affected. Only two participants in the program were prevented from attending the meeting because of the season 's snow. The generous sunlight during the weekend was emblematic of the generally enlightened presentations at each of the Association's nine sessions. The first session on Friday,January 8, was entitled: "Inculturation Three Historical Perspectives." Edmundo Flores of the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress spoke on "Religious Conversion and Syncretism in Mesoamerica During the Sixteenth Century." Using works of sixteenth-century Spanish missionaries (e.g., Diego Duran, Diego de Landa, Bernabé Cobo), Flores compared the missionaries' Spanish Catholicism with Aztec,Inca, and Mayan religions in seven categories: afterlife, devils and demons, sin and forgiveness, communion, feast days, commandments and sermons, and priests. The striking similarities facilitated conversion and the "Building of a new religion."The question arose as to whether the missionaries read their own categories into the behaviors they observed . Marie Thérèse Archambault, O.S.E, a Lakota woman religious who teaches at Standing Rock College, presented a paper on "Eugene Beuchel, S.J., among the Lakota:An Historical Reflection on a Process ofInculturation."Archambault presented Beuchel (1874-1954) as a generous missionary who worked to preserve "secular" aspects of Lakota culture, especially the language. His opposition to traditional religion, however, resulted ironically in his contributing to the destruction and identity confusion of the people he served for almost fifty years. Questions arose about the extent of Beuchel's opposition to traditional religion and the state of contemporary Indian Catholicism which Archambault portrayed as confused. Takako Frances Takagi, S.N.D., of Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama, Japan, spoke on "From Europe toJapan: Inculturation During a Challenging Cen233 234MISCELLANY tury of the Church."Takagi emphasized the role ofArchbishop Paolo Marella as a "prophet of inculturation." Marella came to Japan as apostolic delegate in 1933. He urged European and American missionaries to a deep adaptation to Japanese culture on the intellectual, affective, and spiritual levels. By the time of World War IIJapanese Catholicism was largely in the hands ofJapanese leaders illustrating the transition of Catholicism from its Western forms to a full-blown world religion. Discussion raised a number of questions about Marella's approach . Was it part of the Vatican's general policy toward the Axis countries? Did Marella have any role in the approval of the Chinese rites in 1939? It was pointed out that he had previously been posted in Washington. William L. Portier of Mt. St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, chairman and commentator, commented on inculturation as involving both a moment of translation on the part of missionaries and a moment of creating new forms on the part of new indigenous Christians. Inculturation might be complemented by I^min Sanneh's notion of the "translatability of the Gospel." He raised the question of the extent to which inculturation, with its Christ-centered theological presuppositions, could be used fruitfully in the historical enterprise. The afternoon session focused on "Myth, Folklore, Film, and the American Catholic Experienced Pop Culture Review." Unfortunately, Susan Kalcik of the Heritage Resource Center in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was unable to attend; those in attendance at that session were disappointed not to witness her presentation , "Whoopie Goldberg and the Boxing Nun: Women Religious in Myth and Folklore." However, there was a positive response to Mary AnnJanosik's exploration of "The Crisis of Faith: Spiritual Dilemmas, Moral Conflict, and the Catholic Church in the Hollywood Film." ProfessorJanosik of Lake Erie College, Painesville, Ohio, discussed the role of Catholicism in several well-known Hollywood films ranging over several decades, from Michael Curtiz'Angels with Dirty Faces toJohn Gregory Dunne's True Confessions and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Using video clips from the latter...