Diaspora by Design? Multiple Allegiances and Belonging in Contemporary Global Catholicism

Abstract

The article explores the semantic and experiential meanings of diaspora within the context of global Catholicism. Drawing from research conducted in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Turkey with the reformist movement known as the Neocatechumenal Way (NCW), the analysis delves into the broader question of how the refashioning of global religions is transforming the relation between people, places, and belonging and is contributing to the emotional, practical, and organizational dimensions of diaspora. The discussion first delves into the role of new missionary subjects in cementing a new proximity between the world Catholic population and Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern holy centers of Catholicism. Second, it draws from current definitions of diaspora to consider how a diasporic identity is constructed by dispersed NCW communities in daily lives and rituals. The analysis goes beyond the dimensions of ethnicity and migration, and claims the need to reassert the importance of religious case studies in our understanding of contemporary diaspora. The case of the NCW holds relevance here, insofar as it unravels how a reformist movement, by gaining progressive institutionalization within the Catholic Church, is also undermining some of its consolidated features by creating renewed cartographies of religious belonging. The article argues that the traditional semantics of diaspora-those developed in religious paradigms-deserve renewed attention in the social sciences in order to map ongoing transformations in world religions, and the attendant shifting identifications that characterize even more institutionalized religions like Catholicism.

In search of the Solemn with Sri Lankan migrant priests

“…My work draws lines of connection between the historical, theological and pedagogical underpinnings of Sri Lankan Catholicism and the affective responses that South Asian priests elicit in Europe.The flow of missionaries from the northern hemisphere into Asia and Africa diminished drastically with the start of decolonisation processes in the second half of the 20th century. This slowing down became so prevalent that the flow itself has nearly halted and even started to reverse, as homegrown missionary movements in the southern hemisphere embark on evangelising projects in neighbouring countries (Zehner 2005;Vogel 2014), as well as in Europe and the United States (Napolitano 2007(Napolitano , 2015Hanciles 2013;Gallo 2016). In the case of Sri Lanka, half a century after independence, Catholic religious workers appear to move in the opposite direction of their predecessors, with a relatively small but steady trickle of chaplains, nuns, young clergy pursuing graduate studies, and others working for the Vatican or religious congregations, who travel to and sometimes settle in Europe for several years at a time.…”