With God as my Witness: A Discourse II Analysis and Audience Study of the Catholic Church
"And upon this rock you shall build my church." The
words of the Jesus Christ, the Son of God, spoken to his disciple Peter, who would
later establish the Catholic church, and eventually become the first Pope. Despite its
historical presence and influence for nearly 2000 years, the Catholic church has
represented varying ideals for multiple people. To some it is merely a misogynistic,
over-glamorized, overrated institution, for others a symbol of conspiracy,
manipulation, over-indulgence and sin, and for the devout a beacon of hope, faith, and
promise in the next life. Despite the angle one may take in analyzing the Catholic
Church, one thing remains the same-its historically uncanny ability to maintain power
and influence over millions of people. However, the historical fictions imposed by
institutions such as the Catholic Church present a bit of an issue in their methods of
obtaining power and gaining knowledge. In referencing the works of philosopher Michel
Foucault, Barabara Biesecker states, "the subject of history is but the product of
apparatuses of power/knowledge." (Biesecker 351). Thus, it is through the historical
structure of the Catholic church, both physically and institutionally, along with its
infamously strict edicts, which have essentially consumed and controlled its followers
for centuries, making them not only practitioners of the faith, but subjects of the
culture that is Catholicism.
Gillian Rose asserts that "...the second form of
discourse analysis [discourse II] often works with similar sorts of materials, but is
much more concerned with their production by, and their reiteration of particular
institutions and their practices, and their production of particular human subjects."
(227). Rose references philosopher Michel Foucault, who's theories largely "focus on
the display of common cultural values," for a concrete example of a discourse II
analysis and the ways in which the institutional apparatuses and its technologies meld
together to establish both a unique culture, and even more so, members of that
culture. (Danisch 291).
Danielle De Los Santos
email: delossas@southwestern.edu