Nineteenth-century female congregation founders could achieve levels of autonomy, power and prestige that were beyond reach for most women of their time. With a subject hidden for a long time behind a curtain of modesty and mystery, this book recounts the fascinating but ambiguous life stories of four Belgian religious women. A close reading of their personal writings unveils their conflicted existence: ambitious, engaged, and bold on the one hand, suffering and isolated on the other, they were both victims and promotors of a nineteenth-century ideal of female submission. As religious and social entrepreneurs these women played an influential role in the revival of the church and the development of education, health care and social provisions in modern Belgium. But, equally well, they were bound to rigid gender patterns and adherents of an ultramontane church ideology that fundamentally distrusted modern society.

Discalced Carmelite convents are among the most influential wellsprings of female spirituality in the Catholic tradition, as the names of Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux and Edith Stein attest. Behind these ‘great Carmelites’ stood communities of women who developed discourses on their relationship with God and their identity as a spiritual elite in the church and society. This book looks at these discourses as formulated by Carmelites in the Netherlands, from their arrival there in 1872 up to the recent past, providing an in-depth case study of the spiritualities of modern women contemplatives. The female religious life was a transnational phenomenon, and the book draws on sources and scholarship in English, Dutch, French and German to provide insights on gendered spirituality, memory and the post-conciliar renewal of the religious life.

Medical histories of Belgium reshapes Belgian history of medicine by bringing together a new generation of scholars. Going beyond a chronological narrative, the book offers new insights by questioning classic themes of the history of medicine: physicians, institutions and the nation state. While retracing specific Belgian characteristics, it also engages with broader European developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Medical histories of Belgium will appeal to Historians of Belgium in various subfields, especially cultural history and political history and medical historians and medical practitioners seeking the historical context of their activities.

How the Jesuits re-emerged after forty years of suppression In 1773, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus. For the 823 Jesuits living in the Low Countries, it meant the end of their institutional religious life. In the Austrian Netherlands, the Jesuits were put under strict surveillance, but in the Dutch Republic they were able to continue their missionary work. It is this regional contrast and the opportunities it offered for the Order to survive that make the Low Countries an exceptional and interesting case in Jesuit history. Just as in White Russia, former Jesuits and new Jesuits in the Low Countries prepared for the restoration of the Order, with the help of other religious, priests, and lay benefactors. In 1814, eight days before the restoration of the Society by Pope Pius VII, the novitiate near Ghent opened with eleven candidates from all over the United Netherlands. Barely twenty years later, the Order in the Low Countries – by then counting one hundred members – formed an independent Belgian Province. A separate Dutch Province followed in 1850. Obviously, the reestablishment, with new churches and new colleges, carried a heavy survival burden: in the face of their old enemies and the black legends they revived, the Jesuits had to retrieve their true identity, which had been suppressed for forty years. Contributors: Peter van Dael, SJ (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam & Pontifical Gregorian University Rome) Pierre Antoine Fabre (École des hautes études en sciences sociales Paris); Joep van Gennip (Tilburg School of Catholic Theology), Michel Hermans, SJ (University of Namur), Marek Inglot, SJ (Pontifical Gregorian University Rome), Frank Judo (lawyer Brussels), Leo Kenis (KU Leuven) Marc Lindeijer, SJ (Bollandist Society Brussels), Jo Luyten (KADOC-KU Leuven), Kristien Suenens (KADOC-KU Leuven), Vincent Verbrugge (historian)

During the past 50 years, theological libraries have confronted secularisation and religious pluralism, along with revolutionary technological developments that brought not only significant challenges but also unexpected opportunities to adopt new instruments for the transfer of knowledge through the automation and computerisation of libraries. This book shows how European theological libraries tackled these challenges; how they survived by redefining their task, by participating in the renewal of scholarly librarianship, and by networking internationally. Since 1972, BETH, the Association of European Theological Libraries, has stimulated this process by enabling contacts among a growing number of national library associations all over Europe.

History has, until recently, minimized the role of nuns over the centuries. In this volume, their rich lives, their work, and their importance to the Church are finally acknowledged. Jo Ann Kay McNamara introduces us to women scholars, mystics, artists, political activists, healers, and teachers - individuals whose religious vocation enabled them to pursue goals beyond traditional gender roles.