The devastating outbreak of rinderpest in the British Isles in 1865–66 — the so-called “cattle plague” — was a significant event in Victorian Britain, one that did much to shape British agriculture, animal disease control, and veterinary medicine. This article argues that the cattle plague also had long-term significance for the relationship between the Church of England and non-human animals. During eighteenth-century rinderpest outbreaks, Anglican clergy had rarely considered the suffering animals. In 1865–66 and afterwards, services in Anglican churches increasingly involved animal themes, issues, and presences. From this time, it became usual for Anglicans to mark moments of severe animal disease with special prayers and services. The crisis also encouraged changes in how Church of England clergy, and ministers in other Christian denominations, spoke about animals in sermons. During the outbreak of rinderpest, there was a sharpened awareness of the extent to which cows and humans had common interests and inhabited a shared community. A heightened appreciation of the bonds and interdependencies between people and farmed animals, the article suggests, had much significance for ecological thinking among nineteenth-century ministers of religion. The article argues for the distinctive status of cattle in modern Christianity.
This article examines the role played by Dominican missions in Ecuador's Amazonian territory from approximately 1930–1970. In the Dominicans' own monthly magazine, they claimed not only the roles of infrastructural development, “civilisation” of indigenous peoples, and nationalisation of territory, as did Catholic missions elsewhere; but also the roles of mediator of competing interests and redeemer of the entire country. The central Pastaza River region and important cities like Mera and Puyo were administered and developed chiefly by the Dominican missions ahead of massive colonisation and economic development linked to agriculture and oil drilling. This research contributes to our understanding of the role of Catholic missions in Ecuador's twentieth century by demonstrating that print media allowed them to be more than just frontier institutions. It also illustrates how Ecuador's “Oriente” came to be more fully integrated into the nation prior to the oil boom of the 1970s.
Can people of different skin colours become Catholic priests? What may seem self-evident from today's perspective, Catholic theologians and canon lawyers controversially debated in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. While most authors agreed that colour per se was not a problematic factor, an increasing number argued that non-white individuals should not serve as priests in white communities because of the negative reactions they would provoke there. This article argues that by taking this “perspectivist view” the Catholic Church could claim universality and flexibility in its admission policy whereas, in fact, it incorporated and reinforced anti-Blackness. The article analyses the hitherto unexplored history of this debate, situates it within broader thinking about bodily differences in an increasingly global Catholic world and shows how it intersected with practical issues surrounding the establishment of an indigenous clergy throughout the Catholic empires and missionary zones.