Notes and Comments

Association News

The president of the American Catholic Historical Association, Bernard McGinn, has appointed Augustine Thompson, O.P., of the University of Virginia, to the Committee on the John Gilmary Shea Prize for a three-year term. The committee now consists of Francis J. Murphy of Boston College, Margaret Susan Thompson of Syracuse University (chairman), and Father Thompson.

Professor McGinn has also appointed John T. McGreevy of the University of Notre Dame to the Committee on the John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award. The committee now consists of Constance B. Bouchard of the University of Akron, Ralph Keen of the University of Iowa (chairman), and Dr. McGreevy.

In preparation for the Association's eighty-fourth annual meeting, which will be held in Washington, D.C., on January 8-11, 2004, the president has also appointed the following members to the Committee on Program, of which he is chairman: Robert L. Bireley, S.J., of Loyola University Chicago, Kathleen N. Conzen of the University of Chicago, Jay P. Dolan, emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, Dennis D. Martin of Loyola University Chicago, and Robin Darling Young of the Catholic University of America. The program, consisting of thirteen sessions and the other usual functions, is now complete and will be printed and sent to all the members of the Association in the autumn. The presidential address that Professor McGinn will deliver at the luncheon on Saturday, January 10, is entitled "'Evil-Sounding, Rash, and Suspect of Heresy': Tensions between Mysticism and Magisterium in the History of the Church."

The next spring meeting will be held on April 16-18, 2004, at St. Thomas University in Miami. Proposals for papers or, preferably, complete sessions should be submitted by December 1 to the chairman of the organizing committee, Dr. Frank Sicius, in care of the Department of History, St. Thomas University, 16400 NW 32nd Avenue, Miami, Florida 33054; e-mail: fsicius@stu.edu.

The first vice-president of the Association, Christopher J. Kauffman, will be chairman of the Committee on Program for the eighty-fifth annual meeting, which will be held in Seattle, Washington, on January 6-9, 2005. Proposals for papers or, preferably, complete sessions, should be submitted by January 15, 2004, to Professor Kauffman at Caldwell Hall, the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064; e-mail: kauffman@cua.edu.

The Spring Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association

The University of Scranton in Pennsylvania hosted the spring meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association on March 28 and 29, 2003. Fifty-nine papers were presented at twenty-three sessions which took place in the University's McGurrin Hall.

The panels illustrated a wide array of themes, some of which crossed geographic boundaries of academia. A panel on "Aspects of Sainthood," for example, examined "'The Brightest Jewel in Their Crown': St. John Neumann and the Establishment of the Forty Hours Devotion in Philadelphia" by Joseph Linck of the Diocese of Bridgeport (Connecticut), and "The Several Lives of St. John Nepomuk" by Paul Shore of Saint Louis University. Chair/discussant for the session was Joseph F. Chorpenning of St. Joseph's University Press. Another such session considered "The Legacy of Luther and Trent" and included the following papers: "Martin Luther and Italian Prophecy" by Emily Michelson of Yale University; "The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification: Newman, Luther, Trent, and the Anglican Tradition" by Edward J. Enright of Villanova University; and "The Rise and Collapse of a Global System: Trent and Vatican II" by Raymond F. Bulman of St. John's University. The session was chaired by William C. Schrader of Tennessee Technological University, who also acted as discussant. Another panel considered "Trent and Vatican II: Interpretations, Perceptions, Implications," in which John J. O'Malley (Weston Jesuit School of Theology) examined "Two Styles of Church," and Christopher Bellitto (Paulist Press) discussed "Do the Caricatures Persist?" Louis Pascoe of Fordham University acted as chair/discussant.

Trans-Atlantic problems were raised in "Eugenics and Birth Control," a panel that included the following papers: "Catholics and...