‘Praying hearts, praying minds: enclosed orders and online religion‘

Wednesday 13th December at 6pm (QUB – Meredith Room, 23 University Square and online via Zoom)

In 2018 Pope Francis issued the instruction, Cor Orans (‘Praying Heart’), which gave official sanction for the use of digital media by cloistered nuns. The publication of Cor Orans was a major step-change in Vatican directives regulating religious life for enclosed nuns since it was the first time that use of digital media by cloistered communities of women was given official sanction. But the pontiff’s authorisation was not unqualified since it urged the women to use technology with ‘sobriety and discretion not only with regard to the contents but also to the quantity of information and the type’. To date, we lack any critical assessment of how communities of nuns themselves have responded to the pontiff’s instruction at a local level (if in fact they have responded at all). This paper begins an initial assessment of this subject by presenting a case study of the Order of St Clare (OSC), established in 1221 by St Clare of Assisi (1194-1253). How do women for whom strict removal from the outside world is at the very heart of their identity, contend with the vast opportunities for outside communication offered by digital media? What tensions arise between ‘online’ presence and ‘offline’ communal and individual religious identities and affiliations and how can these tensions be mediated? As one of the most austere religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church, the order is an ideal case study for investigating the acute tensions that can arise between the religious ideal of enclosure and withdrawal from the world and the potential for infinite engagement offered by digital and social media.

Dr Bronagh McShane is a Lecturer in History at the University of Limerick.

You can sign up to the online event here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/proni/1067648