Gerhard Schündelen (1808–1876). Überssetzer Von Werken John Henry Newmans in Deutschland. Ein Beitrag Zur Newman-Rezeption by Johannes Sobotta

Abstract

Interest in John Henry Newman is world-wide. Being able to read Newman in English,however,is not as extensive. Hence,there must be translations.The history of Newman translations and their reception would be worthy of a study in itself. Johannes Sobotta, a German scholar who is active in the Internationalen Deutschen Newman Gesellschaft, has produced a small but very helpful volume on Gerhard Schündelen (1808–1876), whose interest in his great English contemporary led him to translate Newman’s novels, essays, sermons, the Apologia, and the Idea of a University. This volume is slim but practical since it introduces us to the era before Erich NEWMAN STUDIES JOURNAL 112 latter’s excommunication vitandus (to be avoided) posed a serious problem for would-be biographers for decades after Mignot’s death. It seemed a matter of alternatives: either Mignot was duped by Loisy (thus compromising the archbishop’s intellectual acumen) or Mignot understood the implications of the exegete’s positions more clearly than not (thus calling into question the quality of his own orthodoxy and acquiescence to Roman authority). Mignot indeed spent the last portion of his life under a cloud from the perspective of fellow bishops and Vatican authorities. Although Mignot intentionally published comparatively little, out of conviction that advanced views coming from an archbishop may well cause scandal, he did contribute essays on a number of topics then under discussion. In a third section of the biography, Sardella gives a more systematic treatment of Mignot’s positions on apologetics, ecclesiology, faith and reason (here Newman reappears), as well as the development of dogma (“a debate among Newmanians”). Mignot’s relations with principal and secondary figures involved with Modernism, his initiatives on behalf of their ideas and methods with Vatican authorities, as well as his own contributions to issues of the day afford valuable perspective on the history of that movement. The engagement of such progressive ideas with broader currents of thought render this biography useful for those interested in the larger contours of intellectual history of the period. Mignot’s ongoing interaction with Newman’s writings help to situate the latter in relation to both Modernism and its French context. C. J.T.Talar University of Saint Thomas, Houston Gerhard Schündelen (1808-1876). Überssetzer von Werken John Henry Newmans in Deutschland. Ein Beitrag zur Newman-Rezeption. Johannes Sobotta. Leutesdorf: Johannes-Verlag, 2004. Pages, 190. ISBN: 3779414988. GERHARD SCHÜNDELEN (1808-1876). ÜBERSSETZER VON WERKEN JOHN HENRY NEWMANS IN DEUTSCHLAND. EIN BEITRAG ZUR NEWMAN-REZEPTION BY JOHANNES SOBOTTA BOOK REVIEW 113 Przywara and Edith Stein began their translations.While one can get the impression that Newman sprang into German consciousness in the twentieth century, in fact, there was interest in him in the nineteenth century. German speakers were accustomed to their geniuses writing fiction and for their readers to take the fiction seriously. Therefore, Callista was among the first works of Newman to be presented to German readers. Gerhard Schündelen was a diocesan priest and a chaplain with light duties and enough freedom to pursue what must have seemed like odd interests in contemporary English speaking Catholicism:Newman,Lady Georgiana Fullerton,and Orestes Brownson. If Schündelen had been interested in something European and old, no matter how obscure, he would have been in the mainstream of German culture. But it was matters English and contemporary that helped him understand issues that were emerging in what would become modern Germany:the Church and culture, the Church and education, and relationships between Protestants and Catholics. Sobotta introduces us to these themes and the subsequent arrival of Newman as a factor in German theology. British and American readers of Newman have a different use for Newman than do German speakers in Europe. The mammoth presence of the Church of England did not have a parallel in European politics and theology or,should one say,that when it did, it was a smothering impact that might produce a Kierkegaard in reaction, but no one like a Newman. The American experience of pluralism was also something new to Europe, which seems to have gone from state churches to indifference without a healthy pluralism intervening. Sobotta’s interest is not...