German Catholics Research Articles

Catholicism and Judaism in the Catholic Defence against Alfred Rosenberg, 1934—1938: Anti-Jewish Images in an Age of Race Science

This article examines the images of Jews and Judaism in the popular Catholic defence against Alfred Rosenberg’s anticlericalism and ‘neo-paganism’ between 1934 and 1938. It contributes to the debate on Catholic attitudes to Jews, and National Socialist anti-Semitism and racism during the Third Reich. Looking at the grassroots level of this defence, the article demonstrates how the hierarchy communicated traditional religious views on Jews and Judaism to a Catholic public, taking into account the restrictions imposed by a dictatorial regime as well as long-held anti-Jewish attitudes in German Catholicism. The article suggests that the popular literature clung to traditional creeds and values of the Catholic Church and defended biblical Jewry. Yet, at the same time, the defence was clad in the language of the time and consequently used images of Jews closer to National Socialist racial rhetoric. Taking the restrictions of the dictatorship into account, the article argues that this is to a considerable extent the result of the authors of the popular Church literature and the German bishops who failed to acknowledge that it was no longer possible to distinguish between a ‘good’ Jew and a ‘degenerate’ Jew in the face of the Third Reich’s sweeping anti-Semitism and its core ideology that made no distinction between racial and religious Jewishness.

West German Miracles. Catholic Mystics, Church Hierarchy, and Postwar Popular Culture

After the Second World War, West German Catholics placed more faith in religious miracles than they did at almost any other period in the modern era. West German congregations reported eleven apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Church officials be-tween 1945 and 1954, as well as Europe’s most prominent twentieth century case of stigmata. Existing scholarship links the popularity of these alleged miracles to the ways in which Marian symbolism articulated anxieties about war trauma and the Cold War. This article illustrates how an interconnected movement of rural women, provincial priests, concentration camp survivors, and former prisoners of war based around Marian visions and stigmata emerged as a reaction not only to the Cold War, but also to Americanisation, consumerism, and the Nazi past. To frame the bitter conflicts between Marian pilgrims and Church hierarchy about the recognition of religious miracles, the article utilises Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘religious field’. It also takes into account the gendered character of the conflicts.

Kirchengeschichte. Alte und neue Wege. Festschrift für Christoph Weber (review)

Reviewed by: Kirchengeschichte. Alte und neue Wege. Festschrift für Christoph Weber Paul Misner Kirchengeschichte. Alte und neue Wege. Festschrift für Christoph Weber. Edited by Gisela Fleckenstein, Michael Klöcker and Norbert Schloßmacher. 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 2008. Pp. viii, 1009. $141.95. ISBN 978-3-631-57712-7.) Thirty-nine essays by as many authors deal with five broad overlapping fields in which the honoree, Christoph Weber, has labored over the years. The largest number of contributions comes under the heading “History of the Papacy, the Roman Curia, and the College of Cardinals,” covering episodes from AD 530 to 1933. There follow five chapters on mostly nineteenth- century ultramontanism and liberal Catholicism, including also one treatment of celibacy among Italian clerical composers (Vivaldi et al.) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nine essays focus mainly on local history in the Catholic Rhineland in early-modern and modern times. Under the heading “history of historiography” come investigations dealing with Bernhard Jansen, S.J. (1877–1942); Johannes Jørgenson (1866–1956); and one Heinrich Schnee (1895–1968), as well as Erwin Gatz’s contextualization of the project he is leading for a new atlas of church history. Five concluding essays range from Thomas Mergel’s inaugural lecture on assuming his professorship at the University of Basel in 2007 (on the interrelationship of religious and national identity in the period before and after World War I) to Gerhard Menzel on ecclesiastical developments vis-à-vis Vodoun practices in Haiti. There is no index. Many of the essays reflect the approaches characteristic of Weber, born in 1943 and for many years university professor in Düsseldorf. The bibliography of his publications and of the dissertations presented under his direction (pp. 991–1009) gives evidence of these orientations. For example, the prosopographical element of Weber’s two-volume work, Kardinäle und Prälaten in [End Page 571] den letzten Jahrzehnten des Kirchenstaates (Stuttgart, 1978) and his Genealogien zur Papstgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1999, 2001–04) is also prominent in the essays by Georg Denzler, Georg Schwaiger, Herman H. Schwedt, and Norbert Schloßmacher. Also notable is the careful exploitation of archives (Quellenforschung, to use the emphatic German expression) throughout the twenty-nine books he has written or edited. Combining this archival emphasis with the biographical one, four noted researchers contribute studies of modern figures. Otto Weiss has discovered the personal papers of Constantin von Schaezler (1827–80), which reveal this convert’s development into a proponent before the Holy Office in Rome of the posthumous condemnation of an enlightened Catholic bishop, Johann Michael Sailer (1751–1832). Similarly, Claus Arnold turns up new sources for the drafting of the 1907 antimodernist encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis by Joseph Lemius. Hubert Wolf (on Eugenio Pacelli as nuncio in Munich) and Thomas Brechenmacher (on a conversation between Pacelli and Pope Pius XI in early 1933 à propos of Nazi antisemitism), take soundings of newly accessible Vatican sources. The copious notes are highly informative of the latest researches and publications on the current controversies regarding Pius XII. Weber edited and annotated some works by Franz Xaver Kraus (Liberaler Katholizismus [Tübingen, 1983]) and the letters of Heinrich Brüning to Henricus Poels in the Netherlands (Zwischen Hitler und Pius XII [Hamburg, 2007]). Here one may see indirect American connections. Poels was the Scripture professor at The Catholic University of America from 1904 to 1910, who was fired on suspicions of modernism, but on his return to the Netherlands was a very prominent instigator of social Catholicism. An essay that links Kraus and the Catholic University is by Robert Ayers, which reveals that when Kraus (1840–1901) wrote on affairs at the Catholic University in his famous “Spectator-Briefe” in the Allgemeine Zeitung, his chief informant was Charles P. Grannan (1846–1924), also a Scripture scholar and professor at the Catholic University. The vicissitudes of German Catholicism claim more attention, naturally. The Kulturkampf and more generally the issue of Catholic-Protestant relations loom large in essays by Jörg Engelbrecht, Karl Joseph Rivinius, and Ernst Heinen. Cologne was a center of Catholic culture, but in modern times had to depend on Bonn for a local university. In the...

Integrating Religion into the Historical Mainstream: Recent Literature on Religion in the Federal Republic of Germany

Those discovering the growing number of writings on the religious history of the Federal Republic of Germany might be forgiven for thinking that they had entered a parallel universe. To use the terminology popularized by M. Rainer Lepsius, Christian milieus have largely disintegrated and their members been integrated into the mainstream of political and economic life. Yet until recently, research on German Catholicism and Protestantism has remained confined to confessional ghettos that many members of these religious subcultures once sought to escape. The dozens of monographs that have appeared in the last five years have yet to be incorporated into the central narratives that dominate the secular histories of the postwar era. Many have still to be reviewed in non-religious journals. Edited volumes that purport to analyze the many facets of the Federal Republic include few if any chapters on religion.

From Catholic Milieu to Lived Religion: The Social and Cultural History of Modern German Catholicism1

AbstractThe ‘milieu’ concept, first introduced to German history during the 1960s, experienced a revival during the last twenty years. It became especially influential as a model for modern German Catholic social history. Scholarship based on this notion of an insular religious subculture deserves much praise for its analysis of how Catholics remained relevant as a minority in a modernizing country and for shedding new light on the relationship between Catholicism and National Socialism. However, future work on the Catholic community in Germany requires greater methodological flexibility. The purposes of this article are to review the recent historiography of the German Catholic milieu after World War I, discuss existing critiques of this literature, and suggest ways to better integrate cultural and gender history into narratives about twentieth‐century German Catholicism.

Misunderstood Civic Duty: The Center Party and the Enabling Act

In the late nineteenth century, Pope Leo XIII cautiously abandoned the reactionary positions of Pius IX and defined teachings with which to begin engaging the evolving modern secular state. While Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum famously provided a foundation for modern Catholic social teaching, two other encyclicals, Diuturnum Illud of 1881 and Immortale Dei of 1885, defined Catholic teaching about the state and the role of Catholics as subjects and citizens of the state. This teaching sought mostly to insulate the life of the Church from the political world and by doing so, weakened the ability of the Church, both hierarchy and faithful, successfully to influence the secular state on the basis of Catholic values. The German Catholic Center Party's tortuous decision to support the Enabling Act of 1933 which provided the constitutional basis for the Nazi regime is a case in point.1 In Diuturnum Illud, Leo XIII defined as Catholic teaching a principle that became known as accidentalism. Two primary tenets characterized accidentalism. First, the modern state was a secular contrivance to meet secular needs without any particular relevance for the life of the Church. Conversely, the Church did not prefer one form of government over another as long as the life of the Church—largely defined as the sacramental life of the Church but also the communal life—remained unaffected. Governments were accidents of history, the Church was eternal. Second, Catholics should accept any existing authority as legitimate and deserving of Catholics' loyalty and service as long as the life of the Church remained intact. After World War I, this accidentalism proved quite useful, for it permitted some Catholics and forced more reluctant Catholics to adapt to the new political realities.

“Deeper Down in the Domain of Human Hearts”: Hope in Isak Dinesen’s Babette’s Feast

ISAK DINESEN'S BABETTE'S FEAST was first published 1950 Ladies' Home Journal. Dinesen, Danish writer, had heard that Americans were interested stories about food. So when she wrote short piece for an American audience, she centered transformative action of story on splendid meal. (1) About twenty years before Babette's Feast was published, German Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper wrote work titled Meaning of Courage. He was encouraged by publisher to write treatises on seven virtues, to which he responded with great enthusiasm, publishing On Hope 1935. (2) How much I, basically unsuspecting, had fallen into simply inexhaustible theme, which had been capable of sketching only outline at best, became clear to me quite soon, Pieper notes. (3) Nevertheless, theme of hope has not been focus of much philosophical inquiry aside from Kant; as Bernard N. Schumacher notes, history of philosophy, hope has never been dominant theme; it was generally treated, if at all, 'incidentally,' just as it continues to be treated today among majority of philosophers. (4) Yet experience of hope is fundamental to human condition; loss of hope for an individual or for community can be devastating. In an insightful essay on Pieper's work, Gilbert Meilaender notes that what is right requires being good, but we can become good only by doing what is ... [Pieper's] discussion leaves us to wrestle with problem: how to hand on moral society which often fails to inculcate doing of what is right. (5) This is crux of tension and discord Dinesen's Babette's Feast: moral has not permeated community. Their religious leader, known narrative as Dean, has died, and his disciples were becoming fewer number every year, whiter or balder and harder of hearing. (6) The congregation remembers Dean's message but individual members have trouble living it out. They sing hymns, study Dean's writings, and gather for worship services, but nevertheless sad little schisms would arise (BF, 3-4). The Dean's daughters, although they live virtuous lives, have been unsuccessful hand[ing] on moral knowledge to community. The example of their lives--selfless, giving, and nurturing--is not enough to provide spiritual transformative direction. This is community adrift, group of professed believers who have lost their way. In Babette's Feast, Dinesen offers fictional example of ways which individuals and communities can recover hope. (7) The dramatic restoration of hope to this community occurs at end of story during an elegant feast that servant/artist/chef, Babette, prepares and serves. (8) Babette is an outsider. She is French, she is political exile, and she is Roman Catholic. The narrator tells us that it is indeed strange thing for a couple of Puritan women small Norwegian to have French maid-of-all-work (BF, 22). The people this small mountain town of Berlevaag, Norway, find explanation for Babette's presence in sisters' piety and kindness of heart (ibid.). This is partially true; sisters had taken Babette when she threw herself on their doorstep twelve years ago, cold, wet, and penniless, a friendless fugitive, almost mad with grief and fear (ibid.). However, narrator tells us early story that the true reason for Babette's presence two sisters' house was to be found further back time and deeper down domain of human hearts (ibid.), statement that resonates and echoes throughout story, and further reveals Dinesen's approach. Speaking of her narrative technique general, she writes, I know whole story before writing first word. actually carry my stories my head for long time, before write them. tell them and retell them to myself. (9) Babette's Feast moves back and forth time so that feast can be understood as an elaborate palimpsest for participants, chef, and readers. …

Catholic Germany from the Reformation to the Enlightenment

Acknowledgements Map Introduction Catholic Germany Before Trent The Counter-Reformation Episode: 1570s to 1620s The Thirty Years' War The German Church after 1650 Baroque Catholicism German Catholicism in the late Eighteenth Century Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Sacramental Realism: Gertrud von le Fort and German Catholic Literature in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich (1924–46). (MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 68; Bithell Series of Dissertations, 31) by Helena Tomko

604 Reviews git Haas), Veza Canetti (Julian Preece), Rudolf Brunngraber (JiirgenHeizmann), Hans Carossa (Erich Unglaub), and the newly rediscovered novelist Friedo Lampe (Carsten Lange). There isdiscussion of how dramatists presented the abortion issue (Karin Theesfeld) and the naval mutinies at the end of the FirstWorld War (Sascha Kiefer). There is testimony to the ethnic diversity of Weimar culture in contributions on the?predominantly nostalgic?writings ofRussian exiles (Artem Lyssenko) and on socio-cultural tensions between Jewishauthors (Carsten Schapkow). Specific di mensions of thedebate about realism in the period are also explored with reference tophotography (Steve Giles), to the cultural significance of interiors and accessories (Sabine Kyora), to the practice of satire (Stefan Riegl), and tomythic constructions in the sense associated with Roland Barthes (Stefan Neuhaus). The volume also contains the speeches thatwere made on the occasion of the award of the Ernst Toller Prize to the young novelist JuliZeh in 2003. St John's College, Cambridge David Midgley Sacramental Realism: Gertrud von le Fort and German Catholic Literature in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich (1924-46). By Helena Tomko. (MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 68; Bithell Series ofDissertations, 31) London: Maney for theMHRA. 2007. xv+226 pp. ?35. ISBN 978-1-904350-36-1. In theAnglo-American world, the fieldof literature and theology has proven to be very fruitful.Some British and American institutions, including non-religious uni versities such as Boston University or theUniversity of Glasgow, have established highly visible and vital centres in order to foster the interdisciplinary dialogue. Scholars working on the intersections of religion and literature even have their own venues, including high-quality academic journals such as Literature and Theology and Religion and Literature. Unlike Britain and North America, Catholic theologians spearhead theproject inGermany, while literaryscholars tend toview this emerging fieldwith scepticism. Not surprisingly, theGerman theologian Georg Langenhorst recently lamented the dearth of a true dialogue between German literature profes sors and theologians. One of the reasons why many German scholars avoid tackling religious themes is their lack of theological literacy.And even though interdisci plinary research has been greatly emphasized inGerman higher education in recent years, literatureprofessors seem to be at odds with religious texts. Helena Tomko's impressive dissertation on Gertrud von le Fort may very well inspire at least a younger generation of German literature scholars to investigate religious themes and motifs, as well as important but often unjustly overlooked texts by authors, such as le Fort, whose works were influenced by their religious beliefs. In contrast tomany previous studies on this author, Tomko's monograph succeeds inaddressing the complexity of leFort's works by illuminating thepolitical, cultural, and religious contexts. By highlighting the broad spectrum of intellectual Catholicism during the Weimar Republic, ranging from progressive to reactionary, Tomko's book generates new insights, as Catholic thinkers of that era have often been viewed as being monolithically anti-modernist. Clearly, one of the strengths MLR, 104.2, 2009 605 of this study is the fact thatTomko is conversant with both the secondary literature on the author and her period, as well as with Catholic theology and thought during the Weimar Republic. By drawing on le Fort's intellectual and spiritual biography, Tomko offerscareful interpretations ofworks spanning fromHymnen an die Kirche (1924), her firstbook afterconversion toCatholicism, toDerKranz derEngel (1946), the authors most important publication of her inner emigration period. Interwoven with her analyses of le Fort's counter-cultural Catholic texts are autobiographical accounts aswell as excerpts from correspondences, which provide important details, especially regarding thepoetics of le Fort's works. The titleof thebook, Sacramental Realism, adequately conveys the paradoxical nature of leFort's poetological project, as it indicates the authors sacramental perception of reality,as well as her aesthetic Catholicism' (Wolfgang Braungart). In addition to providing balanced and some times critical readings of fivemajor works, Tomko provides a thorough discussion of theCatholic Reich debate during the 1920s and 1930s which is indispensable if one wants to understand le Fort's complicated view of national identity. Although this book mainly focuses on le Fort's textswhich emerged during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, readers interested in le Fort's literarypro duction after the Second World War will also benefit from Sacramental...

Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence, and the Holocaust (review)

Reviewed by: Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence, and the Holocaust Zev Garber Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence, and the Holocaust, edited by Kevin P. Spicer. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007. 329 pp. $29. 95. Shortly after his election as Reichkanzler in 1933, Hitler spoke to a group of Methodist women meeting in Obersalzburg about his admiration for Frederick the Great, Otto von Bismarck, and Martin Luther. When asked, “Where do you get the courage to undertake the great changes in the whole Reich?,” Hitler responded, with Luther’s New Testament commentary in hand, “From God’s word” (cited from Joseph B. Tyson, “Anti-Judaism and Biblical Authority: The Case of Luke-Acts,” unpublished paper, no date). Whether or not Hitler’s mandate for the drittes Reich (politically, “Third Empire” but theologically, “Third Kingdom”) is rooted in German Trinitarian pietism, it cannot be denied that centuries of Church teachings of alienation from and contempt for the Jewish people contributed to the Führer’s policy of lethal antisemitism. Why, how, and who in the Christian support of the Nazi demonizing of the Jews, and what we can learn about Christian culpability (Catholic, Evangelical, Lutheran, Orthodox) in the near total destruction of European Jewry, are the focus of this anthology. The twelve essays in this volume were originally presented at a workshop on the Holocaust and antisemitism in Christian Europe sponsored by the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States (summer 2004). The goal was to evaluate the contributing factors in scriptural Christianity and historical Christendom that impeded the ability of European Christian clergy and laity in 1920s–1940s to proclaim and to condemn National Socialism as evil. Following the Introduction (“Love Thy Neighbor?”), by John T Pawlikowsky and Kevin P. Spicer (pp. xiii– xxi), which acknowledges that “Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon” (p. xx, cited from the text of Dabru Emet, Hebrew, “Speak the Truth,” a statement on Christians and Christianity signed by more than 170 rabbis and scholars, September 7, 2000) but strongly objects to depicting as equal antisemitism and anti-Christianity in Nazi ideology, the book is parsed into four sections. Section One, “Theological Antisemitism,” discusses the legacy of Christian anti-Judaism and establishes its link to [End Page 149] modern racial antisemitism within Europe’s Catholic and Lutheran churches. The essays are “Belated Heroism: the Danish Lutheran Church and the Jews,” by Thorston Wagner (pp. 3–25); “Rabbinic Judaism in the Writings of Polish Catholic Theologians, 1918–1939,” by Anna Lysiak (pp. 26– 49); “German Catholic Views on Jesus and Judaism 1918–1945,” by Robert A. Krieg (pp. 50–75); and “Catholic Theology and the Challenge of Nazism,” by Donald J. Dietrich (pp. 76–101). Section Two, “Christian Clergy and the Extreme Right Wing,” demonstrates the embrace of antisemitism in the pastoral activity and ecclesiastical outlook by some of the clergy from Roman Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, and Romanian Orthodox churches. The essays are “Working for the Führer: Father Dr. Philip Haeuser and the Third Reich,” by Kevin P. Spicer (pp. 105–120); “The Impact of the Spanish Civil War upon Roman Catholic Clergy in Nazi Germany,” by Beth A. Griech-Polelle (pp. 121–135); and “Faith, Murder, Resurrection: The Iron Guard and the Romanian Orthodox Church,” by Paul A. Shapiro (pp. 136–170). Section Three, “Postwar Jewish-Christian Encounters,” assesses the detrimental impact of Hitlerian Judeocide on the “Body of Christ” and the transformational steps taken by post-Shoah Catholic and Protestant authorities to reconsider traditional negative teachings about the Jews and Judaism in Christian Heilsgeschichte (e.g., deicide, misanthropy, conversion, etc.) in order to reconcile with the Jewish People. The essays are “The German Protestant Church and its Judenmission, 1945–1950,” by Matthew D. Hockenos (pp. 173–200); and “Shock, Renewal, Crisis: Catholic Reflections on the Shoah,” by Elias H. Füllenbach (pp. 201–234). Finally, Section Four, “Viewing Each Other,” underscores the dynamics of Synagogue and Church scriptural and theological traditions and language bias, which have polarized acceptance and recognition between two monotheistic Abrahamic faiths, sometimes despite the best intention of bearing witness and reconciliation. The essays are “Wartime Jewish Orthodoxy’s Encounter with Holocaust Christianity,” by Gershon Greenberg (pp. 237–269); “Confronting Antisemitism...

Sacramental Realism: Gertrud von le Fort and German Catholic Literature in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich (1924-46)

Sacramental Realism: Gertrud von le Fort and German Catholic Literature in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich (1924-46)

Threatened Protestants: Confessional Conflict in the Rhine Province and Westphalia during the Nineteenth Century

Hostilities between Catholics and Protestants abounded in Germany during the nineteenth century, and historical scholarship on religion has provided numerous examples. Likewise, the unequal distribution of power and status between German Catholics and Protestants that commonly factored into these conflicts has long been recognized and researched by historians. Catholics faced disadvantages in the German lands, and this situation only worsened with the foundation of the empire in 1871 under the leadership of Protestant Prussia. At the same time, several scholars have pointed out that Protestants, like Catholics, also experienced varying degrees of anxiety over confessional relations. Yet, compared to the Catholic case, historians have given far less attention to this topic. Looking at cases from the Rhine Province and Westphalia, this article attempts to flesh out the picture of Protestant anxiety by examining fears expressed in communal conflicts that were quite legitimate given the threatening confessional circumstances that existed in certain regions and locales. Examples are drawn from both rural and urban settings. The conflicts range from burial disputes to disagreements about access to adequate health care. The emphasis on the particular contexts of these cases allows for a better understanding of the multiplicity of factors that fuelled confessional conflicts.

Heidegger und die christliche Tradition: Annäherung an ein schwierwiges Thema ed. by Norbert Fischer and F.-W. von Herrmann

340 BOOK REVIEWS Heidegger und die christliche Tradition: Annaherungan ein schwierwiges Thema. Edited by NORBERT FISCHER and F.-W. VON HERRMANN. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 2007. Pp. 288. 18.80 €.ISBN 978-3-7873-1816-2. In May 2006, Germany celebrated the seventieth birthday of Karl Kardinal Lehmann, the president of the German Catholic Bishop's conference for more than twenty years. During the state-ecclesiastical celebration, Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel spoke and former Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl gave the laudatio. The academic celebration, which I had the pleasure of attending, was organized by F.-W. von Herrmann, professor emeritus ofUniversitat Freiburg and Norbert Fischer, ordentliche professor fiir philosophische Grundfragen at Universitat Eichstatt. Karl Kardinal Lehmann's Habilitationschrift dealt with the relation of Heidegger to Augustine of Hippo. Naturally then the conference theme was the relation of Martin Heidegger to the Christian tradition. May 26, 2006, was the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Martin Heidegger. Former assistants or students are now reaching, or have already reached, retirement age. Many wish to share their memories, their correspondence , and their versions of Heidegger's thought and the events in his life. During the 1940-1970, in the German universities, Heidegger was "ganz einfach in der Luft": Heidegger interpretation has become a "cottage industry" in contemporary Germany. The papers from this conference have now been edited and published in one volume, entitled Heidegger und die christliche Tradition. The volume consists of eleven articles with an introduction by the editors, N. Fischer and F-.W. von Herrmann. The articles are of the high quality, though the articles dealing with the poets Holderlin and Rilke are of another genre than the others. In the first article, entitled "Faktische Lebenserfahurng und christliche Religiositat. Heideggers phanomenologische Auslegung Paulinischer Briefe," F.-W. von Herrmann, the editor of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe for the past forty years and the world's leading scholar on Heidegger, writes on Heidegger's exegesis of Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians. Heidegger's exegesis is neither dogmatic nor theological-exegetical but rather phenomenological, from the point of view of his own phenomenology of Faktizitat des Lebens. The second article is authored by M. Roesner and is entitled "Logos und Anfang. ZurJohanneischen Dimension in Heidegger's Denken." Roesner treats the place of the Heraclitean and Johannine (Philonian) Logos in Heidegger's thought and notes the differences between them. N. Fischer, a leading light in Augustinian, Kantian, and Heideggerian research in Eichstatt, writes of "Selbstsein und Gottesuche. Zur Aufgabe des Denkens in Augustins 'Confessiones' und Martin Heideggers 'Sein und Zeit.' " The search for God has become a veritable topos in Fischer's writings. J. Greisch of Institut Catholique examines "Warum denn das Warum. Heidegger und Meister Eckhart von der Phanomenologie zum Ereigneisdenken." Meister Eckhart's mysticism and its place in Heidegger's thought has now and again occurred as a scholarly theme. Karl Kardinal Lehmann, the honoree of the conference, contributed" 'Sagen was Sagen ist': Der Blick auf die Wahrheit der BOOK REVIEWS 341 Existenz. Heideggers Beziehung zu Luther." As familiarity with Heidegger's works increases, it becomes ever more evident that Luther had a profound influence on his thought, especially with regard to the inaccessibility of God to human reason. In his contribution entitled "Heidegger und Pascal-eine verwischte Spur," A. Raffelt, from Universitiit Freiburg im Breisgau, attempts to show that Pascal might have been an intermediary for Heidegger's knowledge of the Augustinian tradition. But Heidegger knew Augustine directly. Entia non multiplicentur sine necessitate. P. Coriando, a much respected Privatdozent in Freiburg, adds "Sprachen des Heiligen, Heidegger und Holderlin." The "holy" is a theme, of course, in German literature since R. Otto. Kierkegaard and Schelling are the subject of ]. Ringleben's piece entitled "Freiheit und Angst. Heidegger zwischen Schelling und Kierkegaard." Heidegger may well have become familiar with Angst from the reading Kierkegaard, but his ultimate source, at least indirectly, is Augustine's timor castus and timor servilis. Finally, "Dichten und Denken: Bemerkungen zu Rilke und Heidegger" from the pen of U. Fiilleborn examines Heidegger's relation to the poet Rilke. The article, though probably of interest to Rilke scholars, has more to do with the nature of poetic speech than with Heidegger. Two other essays...

Noble Patronage and Jesuit Missions: Maria Theresia von Fugger-Wellenburg (1690-1762) and Jesuit Missionaries in China and Vietnam (review)

Reviewed by: Noble Patronage and Jesuit Missions: Maria Theresia von Fugger-Wellenburg (1690-1762) and Jesuit Missionaries in China and Vietnam Liam Matthew Brockey Noble Patronage and Jesuit Missions: Maria Theresia von Fugger-Wellenburg (1690-1762) and Jesuit Missionaries in China and Vietnam. Edited by Ronnie Po-chia Hsia. [Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, Series Nova, Volume 2.] (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu. 2006. Pp. 365.) The history of the overseas missions conducted by the Catholic religious orders in the early modern period has been fertile terrain for scholars during the past two decades. New analyses of evangelization efforts in the Americas, Africa, and Asia have enriched a field which had long been the province of chroniclers from the orders involved, or other participants in missionary efforts. As the study of the mission churches has expanded, however, the history of the European networks which supported the enterprises has largely been eclipsed. Noble Patronage and Jesuit Missions, a volume that combines an introductory essay with transcriptions of correspondence between Europe and China in German, French, and Latin, is a highly useful contribution toward helping to balance out this burgeoning field of study. In addition to examining the global flow of information in the 1700s, this book gives valuable insights into the little-studied (albeit crucially important) subject of mission finance. Moreover, R. Po-Chia Hsia has skillfully edited and annotated the correspondence between one patroness and a set of Jesuits in Asia for the benefit of other scholars to examine. The documents found in this volume come from the Fugger-Archiv in Dillingen and were primarily written by Maria Theresia von Fugger-Wellenburg, Florian Bahr, and Johann Siebert. Hsia's introductory essay places [End Page 188] these three individuals in the context of Catholic Germany in the mid-eighteenth century, showing how the Countess von Fugger-Wellenburg encountered the two Jesuits during the early stage of their voyage to Asia (Bahr eventually arrived in China and Siebert worked in Cochinchina). He examines the patterns of female devotional life of Southern German Catholics and explains why Maria Theresia sustained her correspondence with these distant friends over the course of more than two decades. Hsia also explains the mechanics of global finance in the eighteenth century, showing how it was possible—though never easy—for a patron to offer material support to clients on the other side of the globe. After tracing the history of the relationship between Maria Theresia and her correspondents, especially Bahr, he presents transcriptions of her letters and their responses (with intervals of months or years), as well as related documents such as Annual Letters and other reports from the Asian missions. The figure that emerges most clearly from this volume is Maria Theresia, whose letters reveal a great deal about her character and personal piety. We learn that she was especially moved by reports from China about the plight of abandoned infants at the imperial capital, perhaps as a result of her personal misfortune of losing a child. With the help of Bahr in Beijing and other Jesuit agents in Paris, Maria Theresia sent funds to China to help support of a corps of lay assistants organized by the missionaries who visited the city's gates in search of children to deliver to orphanages (or at least to baptize). Yet the countess also showed concern for the well-being of the missionaries and the dignity of the divine cult and Jesuit enterprise in far-off China. She inquires after boxes of European objects that she sent to Asia and seeks to defend the good name of the Society of Jesus among her peers at the courts of Munich and Paris. Maria Theresia also reveals herself as an avid reader of devotional books, as well as reports of the global missionary efforts printed in works such as the Welt-Bott and the Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses. In sum, Hsia paints a portrait of her that is far more complex and textured than one would have imagined. How many other such scenes of patronage lie hidden in the archives, waiting to be discovered? Liam Matthew Brockey Princeton University Copyright © 2008 The Catholic University of America Press

A New Burden on Christian-Jewish Relations: Statement of the Discussion Group 'Jews and Christians' of the Central Committee of German Catholics on the Good Friday Prayer 'for the Jews' in the Extraordinary Rite Version of 2008

Following its April 2007 statement on the extended permission to use the Tridentine rite, the discussion group again considered the different versions of the Good Friday prayer at its meeting in February 2008 and adopted the following statement.

Children in Colonial America

Foreword by Philip J. GrevenAcknowledgmentsIntroductionJames MartenPart Race and Colonization1 Indian Children in Early Mexico Dorothy Tanck de Estrada2 Colonizing ChildhoodR. Todd Romero3 Imperial Ideas, Colonial RealitiesAudra Abbe DipteePart II Family and Society4 Sibling Relations in Early American ChildhoodsC. Dallett Hemphill5 I Shall Beat You, So That the Devil Shall Laugh at ItMariah Adin6 Improved and Very Promising ChildrenDarcy FryerPart III Cares and Tribulations7 Decrepit in Their Early YouthJohn J. Navin8 Idiocy and the Construction of Competence in Colonial Massachusetts Parnel Wickham9 Constant Attension on My Sick ChildHelena M. WallPart IV Becoming Americans10 From German Catholic Girls to Colonial American WomenLauren Ann Kattner11 Let Both Sexes Be Carefully InstructedKeith Pacholl12 From Saucy Boys to Sons of LibertyJ. L. BellIn Search of the Historical Child: Questions for Consideration Suggested ReadingsAbout the ContributorsIndex

Infallibility and Intentionality: Franz Brentano's Diagnosis of German Catholicism

This article explores Franz Brentano's opposition to papal infallibility, and sets this in the context of his development as a Catholic scholar. An active participant in the Catholic revival of the nineteenth century, Brentano contributed to the emergence of neoscholasticism through his philosophical rehabilitation of Aristotle. Brentano ultimately left the Church however as the result of intensive scrutiny of his faith occasioned by his analysis of infallibility. This article explores this crisis of faith by analyzing, for the first time, Brentano's position on papal infallibility, and suggesting ways that it informed his philosophical development.

Humphrey J. Desmond, the Catholic Citizen , and Americanism

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, known as one of the three points that form the triangle of the Midwestern United States, is usually considered in its German-American context. Indeed, the archbishops of Milwaukee in the lead-up to and during the heart of the Americanist controversy were immigrants from German-speaking areas of Europe.1 Humphrey J. Desmond, however, was an Irish-American.2 Desmond's family emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland in the early nineteenth century, and in 1842 relocated to Wisconsin.3 The family had established themselves in Wisconsin prior to the emigration to the U.S. associated with the Irish potato famine, which began in the mid-1840s and peaked in the 1850s. The audience Desmond wrote for was, at least in his early years as a writer, mostly of Irish ances try. Therefore, the preconceived Germanic context of Milwaukee must expand to con sider both Desmond's ancestry and the predominately Irish-American readership of the Catholic Citizen (hereafter cited as the Citizen), the Milwaukee-based newspaper of which he was the editor and publisher at the time of the Americanist controversy. A major trigger for the Germanic emigration was the series of economic, political and religious disruptions throughout the Germanic areas of Europe during the midto late-nineteenth century. Many German Catholics in the 1870s emigrated to escape from the German Kulturkampf a political and religious campaign directed against Catholics. By the 1880s, Wisconsin had more German-Americans than any other state, and many of them were Catholic. The challenges of dealing with anti Catholicism in their homeland had impressed upon German-American Catholics the necessity of defending their faith. That, and the challenges of learning a new Ian

The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience: Cardinal Aloisius Muench and the Guilt Question in Germany (review)

The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience: Cardinal Aloisius Muench and the Guilt Question in Germany, by Suzanne Brown-Fleming. Notre Dame, Indiana: Universiry of Notre Dame Press, 2006. 240 pp. $20.00. In The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience: Cardinal Aloisius Muench and the Guilt Question in Germany, author Suzanne Brown-Fleming has made a critical contribution to the growing research on the question of the Roman Catholic Church's policies and actions with regard to the Holocaust during World War II. Brown-Fleming's research concentrates specifically on the post-war diaries, personal and pastoral letters, and papers of a very influential but somewhat forgotten American-born Cardinal, Aloisius Joseph Muench. Through the author's socio-historical, contextual analysis of these documents, the reader is brought into this shocking narrative of German Catholicism's post-war discourse on the issue of Germany's and the Church's own guilt and/or responsibility for the antisemitic horror inflicted on European Jews thtoughout the war. From 1935 to 1959, Muench was the Bishop of the diocese of Fargo, North Dakota, one of several Sees - including that of Milwaukee, where he was born, raised, and consecrated as a priest - that had a large German American Catholic population. As the author explains, although it became more socially minded in the early 20th century, German American Catholicism still remained highly conservative and nationalistic in its world-view. This conservative ethnic influence along with the teachings and encyclicals of Roman Catholicism, particularly in its rejection of socialism and communism, were the foundational elements of Muench's theory of the world. During this same period of time, 1946-1959, Muench also held five important ecclesiastical-political positions in Germany, ultimately being named Archbishop by Pope Pius XII and becoming the Vatican nuncio to Germany in 1951. In 1959, Muench was made a Cardinal by Pope John XXIII. Based on her research, Brown-Fleming gives a blistering analysis of the failure of the Roman Catholic Church for not taking a strong and public position of resistance against the Third Reich and its systematic policy of persecution and extermination of Jews. According to the author, this all too little effort if not silence by the Body of Christ in its Roman Catholic - and I would also add its Protestant/ Evangelical - form in the face of the destruction of European Jews was due in part to the Church's political strategic rationality and maneuvering to procure its own institutional survival as expressed in Muench's writings. As the author points out, another essential part of this story is the Roman Catholic Church's own theological and practical history of antisemitism that remained intact after the war and is expressed in the writings of Muench. Through these writings, Muench and the Roman Catholic Church are seen as being primarily concerned about the welfare of German Catholic church members, no matter what their position or involvement was with Nazis, be it victim or convicted war criminal. It was in this context of post-war Germany that Muench's 1946 Lenten five-sectioned Pastoral letter, One World in Charity, which was composed in December 1945 and thus prior to his appointment to Germany, takes on increasing political import. In this letter, Muench powerfully criticized the notion of German guilt and responsibility for the war and particularly for Nazi crimes against humanity. This remained Muench's position and policy on this issue throughout his life. As Brown-Fleming explains, the important distinction between collective guilt, in which all Germans share the blame for the Holocaust, and collective responsibility, in which all Germans share the obligation to assist the living victims of Nazi crimes, was repudiated and denied by Muench fot Germans as a people and particularly for German Catholics. …

From a weak letter of intent to prevalence: the toy industries' code of conduct

Abstract In 2003, the global toy industry started a new attempt to implement common standards on working conditions in the notorious ‘sweatshop‐factories’ especially in China, where up to three million people from rural provinces produce toys for Western brand name companies. This article explores, why and how the common industry code of conduct (CoC) of the International Council of the Toy Industries (ICTI) gathered momentum and who will benefit from this dynamic. One reason for this harmonization is the uncontrolled growth of unilateral CoC in the industry, that makes it impossible for suppliers to comply with all the requirements, particularly when they deliver to many different brand name companies. Credibility gaps of‐ and critical reports about the CoC‐record of major brand name companies like Disney, Mattel and Hasbro were continuously issued by Nongovernmental Organisations (NGOs) from Hong Kong (the Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee, HKCIC), its Northern network partner, the German Catholic Organization Misereor under the umbrella of the ‘fair‐play’ campaign and, by several media reports in reputable newspapers in the USA. Since 2004, even Mattel as a widely acknowledged ambitious company on codes of conduct, supports the less ambitious sector code. Moreover, the ICTI CoC enjoys support from some big retailers like Karstadt‐Quelle, Argos and Woolworth, that give the industry code real authority within the industry. ICTI negotiates with the biggest toy retailers Toys'R'Us and Walmart to accept the code like their own. The coordination between the big retailers and the brand name companies can potentially end current weaknesses of single codes of conduct, that leaves the managerial thesis about ‘first‐mover‐advantages’ or reputation effects for the brand name companies as a myth. In the long run, the major brand companies may benefit of a better reputation of the whole industry, due to the fact that the image of a brand is strongly connected with the image of the whole sector. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.