Notes and Comments

Meetings

The executive bureau of the Commission Internationale d’Histoire et d’Etude du Christianisme/International Commission for the History and Study of Christianity (CIHEC) held its annual meeting at the University of Tartu, Estonia, on June 13, 2012. The American Catholic Historical Association is one of the three constituent American societies (along with the American Society of Church History and the Society for Reformation Research). Raymond Mentzer (University of Iowa) represents the American commission, email: raymond-mentzer@uiowa.edu.

The CIHEC is a subunit of the Commission Internationale des Sciences Historiques/International Commission of Historical Sciences, which meets every five years. Jinan, China, will host the twenty-second congress of the International Commission of Historical Sciences in August 2015. Traditionally, the CIHEC has sponsored three sessions at the International Commission of Historical Sciences and has requested to hold three sessions at the congress on the following themes: indigenization of Christianity, migration of religious ideas, and religion and science. If there is a positive decision, the American commission will announce a call for proposals later this year.

For further details on the CIHEC, its activities, and the various national commissions, visit the Web site http://www.history.ac.uk/cihec. For additional information regarding the CISH-ICHS, visit http://www.cish.org.

A panel discussion on “The Roman Catholic Church and the Holocaust: New Studies, New Sources, New Questions” was held at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, on August 24, 2012. It was designed to identify new and emerging areas of research in some of the most important topics related to church history and the Holocaust. The participants examined the relationship between the Holy See and Zionism, European clerico-fascism and its importation to North America, Vatican diplomacy, and the concept of brotherhood as transformational in post–Holocaust Christian-Jewish relations. The nine presenters came from five countries; the Americans were Charles R. Gallagher, S.J. (Boston College); Jonathan Lewy (Harvard University); Robert Maryks (Bronx Community College, City University of New York); Mark Ruff (Saint Louis University); and James Mace Ward (DePauw University).

A symposium on St. Gregory the Great will be held on November 14, 2012, at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome in memory of Vincenzo Recchia, S.D.B., and on the occasion of the publication of the Concordantia del Sacramentarium Gregorianum (published by LAS [Libreria dell’Ateneo Salesiano], Rome, in the series Veterum et Coaevorum Sapientia). In the first session of the program, three professors from Bari will present papers: Domenico Lassandro on “Gregorio Magno e la società agricola”; Grazia Distaso on “Gregorio Magno e Patrarca”; Luigi Piacenti on “L’Epistolario di Gregorio Magno”; and Aldo Luisi on “Vincenzo Recchia ‘grammaticus atque rhetor.’” In the second session, three professors from Rome will speak: Roberto Spataro on Recchia as a student of Gregory the Great, and Manlio Sodi and Alesssandro Toniolo on the new book. In two musical intermissions, the chorus of the Accademia “Vivarium Novum” will perform. In the afternoon, there will be a visit to the “Fondo Recchia” in the library of the university; papers then will be read by Umberto Roberto on “Il coraggio del Papa Gregorio Magno e la difesa di Roma,” by Mario Iadanza on “Gregorio Magno e i Lombardi,” by Rocco Ronzani on “La ricerca filologica sui Dialogi gregoriani,” and by Luigi Miraglia on “Per un uso didattico dei Dialogi.”

The spring meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association will be held April 5–6, 2013, at Stonehill College in North Easton, MA. A welcoming reception will take place on April 4.

Proposals for papers and panels will be accepted until January 15, 2013. Proposals should be sent via email to the program chair, Richard Gribble, C.S.C., at rgribble@stonehill.edu.

Causes of Saints

Pope Benedict XVI authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on June 28 to promulgate several decrees, one of which concerns the “heroic virtues” of nine Servants of God. Among them are Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and Mother Marie of the Sacred Heart (née Marie Josephe Fitzbach, 1806...