ABSTRACT
David Kertzer is Paul Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science at Brown University, where he is also professor of both anthropology and Italian studies. Among more than twenty books and other publications, he has written significantly about the Vatican's relations with Jews. The conflicts can take place within a political framework that is itself relatively unquestioned, as when many compete to fill a limited number of available positions of power. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, the rites surrounding the family events of British royalty were rather modest, and no one could seriously argue that they bound the entire population in political communion. Throughout Africa, South America, and Asia, missionaries face difficult decisions about how to handle traditional rites. If they try to suppress the rites, they risk the people's wrath and undermine their own efforts to win a place in the community.
