While the book adopts a broader approach to Catholic pain practices by exploring the writing, remembering, and conserving of pain, this introduction focuses on practices intended to induce or cultivate pain, whether physical or emotional. By examining such practices (e.g. the meditation on the suffering Christ, religious weeping, and martyrdom) in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, the chapter sets the scene for the pain practices of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a period in which dolorist ideals were seemingly challenged by medical advances. Stressing the need to nuance this narrative of opposition, the chapter introduces the book’s praxeological approach and shows how attention to more ‘everyday’ practices allows for a more diverse understanding of the Catholic way of engaging with pain in this period.
University of Antwerp, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0002-7623-2292
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-0026-4036
KU Leuven, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0003-0037-0661
University of Innsbruck, Austria - ORCID: 0000-0001-8671-6349
Titolo del capitolo
Pain fragments: from cultivation to more everyday Catholic pain practices
Autori
Tine Van Osselaer, Leonardo Rossi, Kristof Smeyers, Maria Heidegger
Lingua
Inglese
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-1072-0.02
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2026
Copyright
© 2026 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Pain fragments
Sottotitolo del libro
Practising Catholicism in the 19th and 20th centuries
Curatori
Tine Van Osselaer, Leonardo Rossi, Kristof Smeyers, Maria Heidegger
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
184
Anno di pubblicazione
2026
Copyright
© 2026 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-1072-0
ISBN Print
979-12-215-1071-3
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-1072-0
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-1073-7
Collana
Fragmentaria. Studi di storia culturale e antropologia religiosa
ISSN della collana
2975-1217
e-ISSN della collana
2975-1225