Laudato Si’: Care for Creation at the Center of a New Social Issue

This essay reviews the documents of the pontifical magisterium of the Church from the encyclical Mater et magistra ( 1961 ) to the exhortation Evangelii gaudium (2013), in order to show the Church’s historical commitment to the defense of the environment. It then argues that Laudato si’ elevates the theological status of the environmental crisis to that of a new social issue, much as Leo XIII did for the industrial crisis with his encyclical letter Rerum novarum ( 1891 ).     

“Our Sister,Mother Earth”: Solidarity and Familial Ecology in Laudato Si’

Laudato si’, with its articulation of a familial ecology reflecting Francis’s Latin American context, expands the subject of solidarity in Catholic social teaching and thought. Yet, this ecological vision of family fails to attend to the problem of gender subordination latent in Catholic social teaching, including in its approaches to ecology. A vision of solidarity that eradicates gender and ecological subordination must elaborate a familial ecology characterized by both mercy and equality.     

Loving the World We Are: Anthropology and Relationality in Laudato si’

There is a tension between Laudato si's consistent emphasis on relationships and interconnectedness and its acceptance of anthropocentrism. While Laudato si’ does reject certain problematic forms of anthropocentrism, the encyclical does not assert an alternative to this traditional framework. This article contends that “relatiocentrism” provides the best avenue for developing the convictions expressed within Laudato si’ while moving beyond the limitations of the encyclical itself. In so doing, this essay explores the use of narrative as a means of shaping identity by mapping significant relationships and points of meaning. It examines the central anthropological claims of the encyclical and the tensions these create with anthropocentric narratives. And it examines relatiocentrism in light of the biblical creation accounts, the eschatological perspective of Laudato si’, and virtue ethics. The essay concludes by suggesting further theological and moral implications of this shift in perspective.     

Mercy as the essence of the Gospel: key themes in Walter Kasper and in the ministry of Pope Francis

This article explores two books by Walter, Cardinal Kasper, who brings to the task wisdom and experience drawn from his ministries as Professor of Theology, Bishop and President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. His major study explores mercy as the essence of the divine, engaging with biblical studies, philosophy, and systematic theology as he lays the foundation for this radical focus. In the second volume, Cardinal Kasper offers a perceptive account of the theological and pastoral perspectives of the ministry of Pope Francis. He characterises the theological approach as kerygmatic, an identification which applies also to his own approach to theology. There is a coincidence of themes and concerns evident in the two studies. Pope Francis has designated 2016 as a Year of Mercy. This article emphasises the importance of this focus on mercy for ecumenical discussion, explores the ecclesiology which results from it and examines the ecumenical implications and opportunities afforded by the Year of Mercy and the 2017 celebration of Martin Luther’s 95 theses with their focus on the question, ‘How may we find a merciful God?’     

All on the Same Side: Reflections on the Dialogue Between Science and Religion

The 'war' between religion and science is winding down, creating new opportunities for fruitful dialogue. The foundations of indirect religion-science dialogue, where the perspectives of the two disciplines illuminate some third subject, are not well established. A detailed comparison of the Roman Catholic bishops' dialogues and a similar program within the American Association for the Advancement of Science illustrates the variety in formalscience-religion interactions and reveals much about the promise, achievements, and limitations of different approaches. Success depends in large part on controlling the diversity of the dialogue group, choosing topics carefully, and adopting positive and cooperative attitudes.     

Still Opting for the Poor: The Brazilian Catholic Church and the National Movement of the Street Population

Have rumors of the demise of liberation theology been greatly exaggerated? There is a prevailing belief among scholars and other observers that the Latin American Catholic Church has withdrawn from the preferential option for the poor, which had encouraged a combination of faith and activism for social justice. This article challenges that belief by means of qualitative data gathered during 8 months in Brazil that provide evidence of close connections between the Pastoral of the Street, a church program that mobilizes homeless people, and the National Movement of the Street Population (MNPR). The principal data came from 42 interviews with homeless or formerly homeless people, movement leaders, and religious sisters and lay workers in the pastoral program. Participant observation and documentary research supplemented the interviews. The findings demonstrate that the Pastoral of the Street helped to create the MNPR and continues to provide it with material and ideological support.     

Pentheus rather than Oedipus: On perversion,survival and analytic ‘presencing’1

Following an introductory review of the main developments in the psychoanalytic thinking on perversion, the author focuses on her own understanding of perversion and its treatment, based on the psychoanalytic treatment of patients with severe sexual perversions. This paper uses the term ‘autotomy’ (borrowed from the fi eld of biology) to describe perversion formation as an ‘autotomous’ defence solution involving massive dissociative splitting in the service of psychic survival within a violent, traumatic early childhood situation; thus, a compulsively enacted ‘desire for ritualised trauma’ ensues. The specifi c nature of the perverse scenario embodies the specifi c experiential core quality of the traumatic situation. It is an actual repetition in the present of the imprint of a past destructive experience which is pre‐arranged and stage‐managed; it thus encounters haunting scenes of dread or psychic annihilation while, at the same time, controlling, sanitising and disavowing them. Hence, the world of severe perversion is no longer oedipal, but rather the world of Pentheus, Euripides's most tragic hero‐a world dominated by a mixture of a mother's madness, devourment, destruction and rituals of desire. According to this view, the (diffi cult) psychoanalytic treatment of perversion focuses on patient‐analyst interconnectedness‐brought about by the analyst's ‘givenness to being present’ or ‘presencing’‐at a deep, primary level of contact and impact (the emphasis being on the ontological dimension of experience). This evolving therapeutic entity creates and actualises a new, alternative experiential‐emotional reality within the pervert's alienated world, eventually generating a change in the perverse essence. The author illustrate this approach with three clinical vignettes.     

The ‘uncanny’, the sacred and the narcissism of culture: The development of the ego and the progress of civilization1

The report by a member of the Brazilian parliament that the rejection of physical deformity is natural and instinctive, and the Muslim reaction to the publication in the Western press of cartoons considered to be offensive to their religion, serve as an introduction to the examination of conflicts in human relations. The two episodes may be classified as representing the sense of the ‘uncanny’, attributed by Freud to the narcissism that remained from primitive cultures, in which the shadow cast by the body and the mirrored reflection of the latter probably generated the idea of soul‐which would be the narcissistic phenomenon causing the illusion of immortality. The presence of this illusion as a support for the beliefs of present‐day civilized peoples makes clear the inopportune influence of primitive mental states in areas where more developed ones should prevail. The persistence of the omnipotent thinking derived from these states provides the possibility of drawing a parallel between the development of the ego‐evolution from narcissism to object relation‐and the progress of civilization. In this context, the majority of social conflicts can be attributed to the deficient object relation resulting from the strength of primary narcissism, which generates a tendency to reject that which is different and to facilitate the emergence of destructive aggressiveness. The progress of civilization would then occur by means of a development of the ego compatible with object relations that lead to a drastic reduction in destructiveness.     

Bion’s discovery of alpha function: Thinking under fire on the battlefield and in the consulting room

This paper has traced Bion’s discovery of alpha function and its subsequent elaboration. His traumatic experiences as a young tank commander in World War I (overlaid on, and intertwined with, childhood conflicts) gave him firsthand exposure to very painful emotions that tested his capacity to manage. Later, in the 1950s, after his analysis with Melanie Klein and marriage to Francesca Bion, he undertook the analysis of psychotic patients and learned how they disassembled their ability to know reality as a defense against unbearable emotional truths in their lives. This led Bion to identify an aspect of dreaming that was necessary in order for reality experience to be given personal meaning so that one may learn from experience. Simultaneous with working out this new theory of dreaming, Bion also revisited his World War I experiences that had remained undigested and all these elements coalesced into a selected fact – his discovery of alpha function. In subsequent writings, Bion explored the constituent factors of alpha function, including the container/contained relationship, the PS?D balance, reverie, tolerated doubt and other factors which I have termed the ‘Constellation for Thinking’.     

Let's pretend: The role of motoric imagery in memory for sentences and words

A number of theories suggest that for young children, concepts should have an important motoric (or sensory-motor) component. A levels-of-processing theory is proposed which predicts that processing on motoric imagery should facilitate memory for both isolated words and for sentences. Experiment 1 examined the effects of motoric enactment (viz., pretend play) of sentences on memory for the sentences. Motoric imagery facilitated memory for both children (5 to 7 years of age) and adults, though, contrary to expectations, the effects were weaker for the children than for the adults. Further, it was found that motoric imagery affected the initial acquisition, but was not important as a retreival cue. Experiment 2 examined the effects of motoric imagery on free recall of lists of unrelated words. Under these conditions, motoric imagery facilitated memory for both children (7 to 9 years of age) and adults equally; in contrast, visual imagery instructions had no effect on memory. These results indicate that motoric imagery may facilitate memory under conditions in which visual imagery has no effect. Theoretical implications are explored for previous experiments on pretend play which suggest that training for pretent enactment can facilitate cognitive development.     

幽明之故与天人之际--从船山易学的视域看

易学具有一个言幽明而不言有无的视域,明清之际的思想家王夫之的研究表明,从这个视域可以更为深入地理解中国哲学的基本问题:天人之际.天人之际的根本回答不在于流俗所理解的"天人合一",而在于天人相继.通过天人相继,确立的是人的自由以及人道的基本依据.而且,在幽明之故的视野中,还可以生发出中国古典思想对原善问题的基本理解,善不是别的,正是在人道的畛域内发生的对天人之间的存在连续性的努力.     

Acting on one's attitudes: Procedures for linking attitude and behavior

Two investigations examined the determinants of correspondence between attitudes and behaviors. The first investigation examined the relationship between previously measured attitudes toward affirmative action and subsequent behavioral verdicts in a sex discrimination court case. In this basic situation, correspondence between measured attitudes and judicial decision-making behavior was minimal, for both low-self-monitoring individuals and high-self-monitoring individuals. Increasing the availability of attitudes generated substantial correspondence between attitudes and behavior for low-self-monitoring individuals, but not for high-self-monitoring individuals. Increasing the relevance of attitudes generated substantial correspondence between attitudes and behavior for both low-self-monitoring individuals and high-self-monitoring individuals. The second investigation examined the decisions of individuals with favorable attitudes toward psychological research to volunteer to participate in extra sessions of a psychology experiment. Once again, increasing the relevance of attitudes was an effective procedure for inducing individuals to translate existing attitudes into corresponding behaviors. These empirical outcomes are interpreted within a theoretical framework that specifies the interactive contributions of availability, relevance, and self-monitoring to the creation of “action structures” that link attitudes and behavior. Practical implications of this viewpoint are discussed.     

Corporate Capitalism and the Common Good: A Framework for Addressing the Challenges of a Global Economy

This article ventures a framework for assessing the contributions capitalism might make to the common good. Capitalism has manifest strengths—efficiency, growth, support for human freedoms, encouragement for collaboration among nations that are not natural allies. Processes that generate these goods have negative consequences as well—the exploitation of labor, environmental harm, the marginalization of the "least advantaged," the reduction of politics to strategies for advancing special interests. To constrain the negative consequences, public oversight is necessary. The challenge is to devise policies that will limit the harms while protecting conditions that enable free markets to flourish. The paper concludes with an illustrative sketch of policy proposals that exemplify this goal.     

Generation Identity and the Reminiscence Bump: Memory for Public and Private Events

Participants ranging in age from 30 to 70 years free-recalled when they had learned public and private items of news. When responses were plotted in terms of age of participant at time of encoding, it was found that peak recall for public items of news was in the period when participants were aged 10 to 19 years whereas peak recall of private items of news occurred in the period when participants were aged 20 to 29 years. A second study confirmed this pattern of an early reminiscence bump for public news. It is proposed that these two components of the reminiscence bump reflect, respectively, a period of formation of generation identity in the second decade of life and a period of formation of intimate relationships in the third decade.     

Effects of another person’s fair treatment on one’s own emotions and behaviors: The moderating role of how much the other cares for you

This research examined whether the extent of fair treatment of another affects one’s own reactions and whether helpful and supportive behavior from this other towards oneself moderates this impact. We predicted fair treatment of the other would affect the participant’s own emotions and behaviors with respect to a common task, but only if this other was willing to give help and support. In addition, we expected that positive or negative emotions would underlie, respectively, a participant’s willingness to cooperate or their willingness to leave the task. Results from a scenario experiment, a cross-sectional survey, and a laboratory experiment supported our predictions. We conclude that how fairly another is treated matters in its effects on one’s emotional and behavioral reactions and that procedural justice for others can also be considered important organizational information in shaping one’s own feelings and actions for employees.     

Protest Against Waste Contamination in the ‘Land of Fires’: Psychological Antecedents for Activists and Non‐activists

The ‘Land of Fires’ is a district in Italy characterized by illegal waste disposal, waste burning, and citizen protests over contamination. This study investigates the relevance of several psycho‐social factors that predict citizens' intention to protest, taking into account different research traditions. In addition, we hypothesize the effect of protest antecedents to be moderated by past participation behaviour (i.e. the level of activism). Hence, our study is a first attempt to explore the effect of protest antecedents as a function of the individual level of activism through a cross‐sectional survey study (N = 306). The results show significant effects of collective identity, sense of injustice, costs of protest, and perceived risk (cognitive dimension) on intention to protest. The effects of collective efficacy and perceived risk (affective dimension) are moderated by participants' level of activism, and these effects are significant only for non‐activists. The relevance of this new approach is discussed, as well as practical implications and possible further developments. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Resisting and Conforming to the ‘Lesbian Look’: The Importance of Appearance Norms for Lesbian and Bisexual Women

Appearance is one way in which lesbian and bisexual identities and affiliation to lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) subculture can be demonstrated. ‘Butch’ and ‘androgynous’ styles have been used by lesbian women to communicate a non‐heterosexual identity. However, some LGB appearance researchers have argued that there has been a mainstreaming and diversification of lesbian style in the last couple of decades, which has resulted in less distinction between lesbian and straight looks. This research draws on the Social Identity approach to explore contemporary style in lesbian and bisexual communities. Fifteen lesbian and bisexual women took part in semi‐structured interviews which were analysed using thematic analysis. Although some participants reported a diversification of lesbian style, most used the term ‘butch’ to describe lesbian style, and a ‘boyish’ look was viewed as the most common contemporary lesbian style. By contrast, most participants could not identify distinct bisexual appearance norms. The data provide evidence of conflicting desires (and expectations) to visibly project social identity by conforming to specific lesbian styles, and to be an authentic, unique individual by resisting these subcultural styles. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Primo Levi’s bearing witness and the reinterpreted past: post‐truth and the authoritarian other

The stark realism of Primo Levi’s experiences of the Shoah is considered in light of the current political climate in which the authoritarian other induces a divergence between reality, a state of things as they actually exist or existed, and truth, that which to some extent accords to reality. In this paper I will consider how truth becomes divorced from reality by considering Giegerich’s interpretation of Plato’s Parable of the Cave, arguing that truth is affected by perception and belief. After addressing ‘truth’ in justice, analytic work and the family, the post‐truth phenomenon is discussed and defined as a force erosive to reason and sensibility; its general purpose is to avoid doubt and anxiety. The past is interpreted and re‐interpreted to advance multiple geopolitical interests. Levi warned, in 1976, that the authoritarian state considers it quite permissible to alter the perception of what is true.