Pope Leo XIII Research Articles

(326) Intrauterine Insemination: A Story of Husbandry and Husbands

Abstract Introduction Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is one of the most common methods of reproductive assistance in the modern era. As most female mammals have an estrous cycle, IUI as a procedure can be broadly applied to a wide array of species. Objective We sought to explore the history of IUI from its origins to modern application in assisted human reproduction. Methods We reviewed articles from Google Scholar, PubMed, and MedLine. Results Unverified accounts of the artificial insemination of an Arabian Mare can be traced back to the French translation of a 14th century equine veterinary textbook. A century later, King Henry IV of Castile, given the unfortunate nickname the Impotent, holds the first unsubstantiated claim of successfully using IUI. However, subsequent accounts dispute the paternity of the princess. It was not until the 18th century that Italian scientist Lazzaro Spallanzani would successfully conduct canine IUI with the birth of three puppies. Concurrently, famed surgeon John Hunter advised an impotent hypospadias patient to collect his post-coital semen. Hunter would subsequently instill it into the wife’s vaginal vault with reported successful pregnancy. Jumping forward to the mid 1800s J. Marion Sims, the so-called Father of Gynecology, instilled semen in six enslaved African American women, unfortunately time with their menstrual cycles, resulting in one pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage. In 1884 Dr. William Pancoast successfully performed IUI using a medical student’s semen, unbeknownst to the husband and wife. The results were published 25 years after the procedure. Human artificial reproduction had gained enough notoriety at the time to attract the attention of the Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIII condemned the practice as illicit. The majority of IUI research would then be largely conducted in Europe for the purpose of superior dairy cattle and stallions. In 1938 New Jersey dairy farm operator EJ Perry was the first American to institute cattle artificial insemination using Danish practices. Just one year later Gregory Pincus at Harvard University would remove and fertilize the egg of a female rabbit. Implantation into a second donor female resulted in a successful litter. Vast improvements in sperm preservation were made utilizing bull semen, egg yolks, sodium citrate, and glycerol. Contamination rates were reduced with the invention of the reputed Cornell Extender, and by 1953 Dr. Jerome Sherman was able to freeze, thaw, and successfully fertilize a human oocyte. Although the first successful pregnancy using frozen spermatozoa was reported in 1953, a conception rate of 3.4% reported by Mastriani et al led them to conclude the practice should be abandoned if no improvements made. The introduction of in-vitro fertilization in 1978 by Steptoe and Edwards effected subsequent improvements in sperm washing techniques, sperm selection and use of adjunctive hormones for induction of ovulation. IUI would go on to become one of the most common assisted reproduction techniques world-wide. Conclusions IUI has undergone numerous, major breakthroughs across several species with, at times, questionable ethical practices. Nonetheless, it provides an additional option to couples globally and appears here to stay Disclosure No.

Multidimensional Relations Between Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II and Pope Leo XIII and the Reflections of These Relations in the Ottoman Empire and Rome

The last quarter of the 19th century was a period of good relations between Rome and Istanbul, with the Ottoman Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II (1876-1909) on the one side and the Roman Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) on the other. The many Catholics living in the Ottoman Empire were an important factor in their cooperation. The correspondence between the Pope and the Sultan intensified during this period. The two parties were not indifferent to each other’s important days and provided mutual gifts. This study predominantly references the Ottoman Archive Documents and news from Istanbul and the European press at that time in addition to basic sources. Methodologically, descriptive and comparative approaches are extensively used.

Kościół pw. Zmartwychwstania Pańskiego w Rzymie jako świątynia Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów

The paper examines the primary iconography of the interior design of the Church of the Resurrection in Rome, located in via San Sebastianello 11, reconstructed thanks to the archival materials. The interior of the church of the Resurrectionists in Rome was consecrated on November 5th, 1889, during the time of partitions and the lack of representation of the temple of the Polish nation in the Eternal City. The church until the 1979 renovation had a homogeneous decoration in the historicizing trend, which was bound together by polychromy in the type of “carpet polychromy” (Tapisseriemalerei), capturing the most semantically significant elements of decoration – stained glass windows and historical paintings. Iconography in the chancel referred to the Resurrection and the role of the Church in delivering this message. On the axis of the apse there was a stained-glass window with an image of the Risen Christ, flanked by two stained glass windows with representations of Immaculata and St. Joseph, whose cults were promoted in the Church by Pope Pius IX. The stained-glass windows also included the coats of arms of Pope Leo XIII and the founders. The main altar: a mensa from 1775, from the former church of St. Paul the First Hermit of the Pauline Fathers (formerly the Polish temple), over a wall-mounted canopy whose founder was Father Władysław Czartoryski, with an image of Our Lady of Częstochowa. The triumphal arch on the pillars framing the altar featured painted figures of St. Stanislaus and St. Sebastian, and on top of the chancel arch was an image of the Vernicle. Above the stalls there were figural paintings relating to the handing down the mission in the Church during various historical moments: The Ascension by Henryk Siemiradzki (on the south side) and The First Vows of the Resurrectionists and the Approval of the Congregation by Pius IX by Józef Unierzyski, enframed in a wooden frame with the coats of arms of Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX. In the window area above it, there was the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Poland, while in the successive spans of the nave there were the coats of arms of Cardinal Mieczysław Ledóchowski and the Lithuanian Pogoń. Across the nave, there were two figural paintings by Franciszek Krudowski, depicting encounters with the Risen Christ on earth: Infidel Thomas and Noli me tangere. Therefore, the southern wall of the presbytery and nave depicted the presence of the Risen Christ on earth, while the northern wall pointed to the Church of Poland, from the formation of the Resurrectionists to the symbols of the state and the primate-interrex. The symbolism of the connection between the Universal Church and the Polish Church was developed on the choir wall, divided by the organ emporium into two tiers, in which stained glass windows were placed, in the lower one were the figures of the three Archangels and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Annunciation scene, in the upper one were Saints Casimir and Josaphat, all stained glass windows were accompanied by coats of arms, whether of the Polish State or the founders. The Church of the Resurrection thus merged the iconography of the cult of the Resurrection of Christ with national representation, which was expressed both by the depicted saints and the extensive heraldic program. The emphasis on the cult of Christ and the saints of the Polish church has a reference to the first temple of the Polish nation of St. Stanislaus, whose main patron was the Blessed Savior; the image of St. Stanislaus also referred to the name of this temple. The presence of St. Josaphat, on the other hand, refers to the tradition of the Uniate hospice of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, representing the Ruthenian nation. The iconography with images of St. Casimir, St. Josaphat, the Eagle and Pogoń coats of arms indicated that this was the temple of the First Republic, a buried state, which was represented in Rome by the Resurrectionists, the informal Polish ambassadors to the apostolic capital, who also protected and spread the Uniate rite. The saints present in the temple’s iconography and the emphasis on the relationship between the Polish Church and the Universal Church were also reflected in the Resurrectionists’ apostolic mission. The union of Church and state – altar and throne in the iconographic program of the Resurrection temple emphatically indicated that there would be no resurrection of the homeland without the Church, which was also confirmed in the political and social program of the Resurrectionist congregation.

The legal personality of foreign states in civil law: l’affaire Zappa and the bequest of the Marquise du Plessis-Bellière

Summary This article traces the doctrinal debate on the civil legal personality of foreign states occasioned by two famous legal cases during the closing decade of the nineteenth century: the protracted conflict between Greece and Romania following Evangelis Zappa’s bequest of immovable property located in Romania to the Greek state for the purpose of resurrecting the Olympic Games, and the contested will of the Marquise du Plessis-Bellière which named Pope Leo xiii as legatee of real estate located in France. As Ernst Rabel and others have thought, the debate confirmed the scholarly consensus that the recognition given to a foreign state according to the rules of public international law, implies recognition of its capacity in private law matters. The objective of this article is to reconstruct the considerations that led to this apparent consensus, thus helping to facilitate an assessment of the persuasiveness of those considerations.

The Catholic Church's point of view on priority of labor over capital

AbstractIn the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed Western civilization in dramatic ways. Simultaneously, the market economy converted human labor into “merchandise”. Also in the 19th century, the reality of workers forced Pope Leo XIII to publish Rerum Novarum, the first encyclical of the Catholic Church's social doctrine. In 1981, Pope John Paul II, in Laborem Exercens, will affirm that the conversion of human labor into “merchandise” was generated by an anthropological inversion in the order of concepts: the priority of capital over labor. The value of labor cannot be fixed solely by the market law of supply and demand. The value of labor is measured, mainly, by the standard of dignity conferred on those who perform it. The great challenge is to rescue human labor as an activity of humanization and social fraternity. Human life and the common good are more valuable than capital.

Jadwiga Zamoyska née Działyńska’s way to holiness

Jadwiga Zamoyska was born on 4th July 1831 in Warsaw. As a married noble layperson she elaborated a very original educational system based on the Gospel and Catholic catechism, which was approved by the Popes Leo XIII and Pius X. In 1882 this system was successfully introduced into practice in her famous school for young women. Thousands of them graduated from the school being very well prepared for housework and family life. The school functioned first in Kórnik and then in Zakopane till 1948. Jadwiga Zamoyska died on 4th November 1923 in Kórnik with the reputation of holiness. In 1931 the process of her beatification was inquired by the Archdiocese of Poznań, however it was interrupted in 1939. After decades the process was resumed in 2012 by the Poznań Archbishop, Stanisław Gądecki.

Education for the Great Socio-Ecological Transition

Abstract In this paper I explore some of the roles that education can and needs to play in supporting “the great socio-ecological transition”, with particular emphasis on adult and vocational education and training. After briefly outlining some of the facets of the current pluricrisis, I examine a set of intersecting debates about transformation and transition(s) towards a more sustainable future, which is necessarily also more just. In this analysis, I build beyond the social science traditions usually evoked in these debates to draw on Catholic analyses of the nature of the problem. Catholic Social Teaching began with a concern about the effects of the transition to industrialisation, with Rerum Novarum (published by Pope Leo XIII in 1891), and increasingly has sought to address the need for the next transition beyond the Capitalocene, especially in Laudato Si’ (published by Pope Francis in 2015). It has always placed workers, work and learning at its core. Thus, there is much potentially to be gained from bringing together conventional educational research perspectives on education for sustainable development and education for human development with a Catholic Social Teaching lens in thinking about the possible roles for education in supporting just transitions.

Social and moral accountability in action: the religious roots of corporate social responsibility in an Italian entrepreneurial family (1900–1950)

ABSTRACT A company’s most valuable asset is its employees. Since the 1970s, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a topic of increasing interest in terms of performance and disclosure. However, little attention has been paid to the history of CSR practices, which should be studied within historical and cultural contexts. Based on archival material and secondary sources, and using arguments from moral economics and Catholic Social Theory, this study uniquely investigates the role of religious and ethical beliefs in influencing CSR actions and accountability. We focus on the case of Vaccari, an entrepreneurial Italian Catholic family in the early-twentieth century, which was clearly inspired by upward accountability (to God) and not just economic returns. The family took CSR actions to improve the welfare and living conditions of its workers (downward accountability). Vaccari’s religious value system was strongly based on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) contained in the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII, addressed to ‘all men of good will’. Our historical analysis informs modern CSR practices, revealing that management’s commitment to ethics and sound values is the correct starting point for developing good and sustainable business practices.

Catholic Republicanism in America

Recently, so-called Catholic “postliberal” conservatives have condemned the American regime as fundamentally liberal and, hence, parasitic on pre-liberal institutions. I argue that this view unduly conflates liberalism and republicanism and thereby confuses an ideology with the principles of the regime. American Catholic clergy have historically condemned liberalism in favor of a Catholic republicanism. This trend began with the political thought of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Bishop John Carroll who advocated for republican government in conjunction with “conciliarism” in the Church. Archbishop “Dagger” John Hughes of New York condemned “nothingarianism,” an early form of liberalism, while also arguing that Irish minorities were capable of republican self-rule during the School Controversy of 1840–43. Later, during the 1880s and 1890s, Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota, condemned liberalism, but also provided an alternative vision of post-Civil War racial reconciliation and of Catholic patriotism. Even as he disparaged liberalism, Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen rescued the “Americanism” condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1899 to argue against totalitarian states of the twentieth century, while, at the same time, Fr. John Courtney Murray, no liberal, sought a religious truce in America in favor of common political action in areas of agreement. In short, these clergy opposed liberalism, but they couched their opposition in terms of support of the American Republic, often arguing that the Catholic Church, especially in parochial schooling, provided the best foundation for good government. However, the recent decline of hierarchical support of Catholic republicanism has led to the present disillusionment of American Catholics, who are at risk of turning to reactionary politics to their own peril.

“Until Dignity Becomes Ordinary”: The Grammar of Dignity in Catholic Social Teaching

This article explores the theme of dignity as it emerges in Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum (1891) and develops within mainstream Catholic social teaching. In expositing the grammar of dignity, I argue that, while the tradition certainly affirms dignity as an equal status pertaining to all people as created in God’s image, dignity is not just a status. In a world damaged by sin, the real drama of dignity is its defense—the practical acknowledgement of dignity and human equality in the midst of our lived experience. Given how conditions in our world so often deny this truth about the human creature, dignity is, therefore, something we must have faith in, as well as constantly fight to make ordinary.

Місіонерська діяльність Товариства Ісуса в Станиславові (1883-1914 рр.)

The purpose of the research is to highlight, on the basis of documents from the archives of the Society of Jesus and periodicals of the time, the missionary activity of the order in Stanyslaviv from 1883 until the beginning of the First World War. In addition, to analyze the social work of the Society of Jesus, particularly the latter’s establishment of religious societies and Marian sodalities. Th e research methodology. Th e article uses general scientifi c methods, particularly the analysis, and synthesis of various sources, induction, and deduction. Th e principles of historicism, objectivity, comprehensiveness, integrity, and systematicity are applied. Th e text uses the approp- riate terminological apparatus, which substantiates the author’s vision of the essence and historical assessment of the missionary initiatives of the Society of Jesus in Stanyslaviv. Th e scientifi c novelty lies in a comprehensive review of the pastoral activities of the Society of Jesus in Stanyslaviv in 1883-1914. Based on the annual reports of the Jesuits, statistical data on various areas of their missionary service are presented. Th ere’s an opinion put forward that the history of the Society of Jesus in Ukrainian lands at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries is sporadi- cally presented in Ukrainian historiography, which strengthens the relevance of the study of the history of Roman Catholic orders in Halychyna. Conclusions. In 1883, the Jesuits had the op- portunity to start a mission in Stanyslaviv, where the Lviv Archbishop of the Armenian Catholic Church Isaac Mykolay Isakovych invited them. At fi rst, the Jesuits were engaged in pastoral care at the Armenian church. Later, they organized the construction of the church of St. Stanislav Kostka and the residence, which became the mission house of the order. It was noted that the scope of the spiritual work of the Society of Jesus unfolded over time. It was indicated that the social activity of the Jesuits, connected with the establishment of Marian sodalities and religious congregations, was carried out in the context of the social policy of Pope Leo XIII.

Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces: Transforming Catholicism through the Music of Third-Republic Paris, by Jennifer Walker

<i>Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces: Transforming Catholicism through the Music of Third-Republic Paris</i>, by Jennifer Walker

On the History of Venerable Onuphrius Honouring on the Lands of Ruthenia-Ukraine at the Late 18th – Throughout the 19th Century

The article highlights the general circumstances of the existence and transformation of the cult of the venerable hermit-ascetic Onufrii the Great in the national territory during the end of the 18th – 19th centuries. This historical period is characterized by the curtailment and certain changes in the forms of veneration of the named saint, and later, almost a century later, by the revitalization of the cult. The process of collapse was conditioned and triggered by both internal and external factors. Among the first, the main role was played by the administrative and organizational measures of the leadership of the national Churches (Orthodox and Union) in the first – third quarters of the 18th century, aimed at streamlining monastic service, as well as at consolidating monasteries in order to support their financial situation. As a result of these measures, a considerable number of small and medium-sized monastic settlements ceased to exist. Among the others are general church reforms introduced by the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, which included Ukrainian lands; reforms that caused, in particular, the mass closure of such monastic settlements. One of the specific consequences of the reduction of the monastic form of asceticism and veneration of Onufrii the Great (monasticism was the first and for a long time the only, at least the main, medium of veneration of the holy hermit) was the «exit» of the investigated cult outside the monastery walls and its spread among a much larger number of local believers, including the common people. The latter process led, on the one hand, to its stabilization, and on the other, to a certain popularisation (folklorization). The noticeable rise of the cult fell on the last two decades of the 19th century and concerned mainly the western lands of Ukraine. These processes were initiated by the reform of the Order of Saint Basil the Great, initiated by Pope Leo XIII and supported (mainly for political reasons) by the Austrian government of that time.

Celebrating Saint Bonaventure Eight Hundred Years after His Birth

Celebrating Saint Bonaventure Eight Hundred Years after His Birth Joshua C. Benson ONCE IN CONVERSATION with a colleague (a Thomist, who shall remain nameless), he remarked with surprise that scholarship on Bonaventure, like scholarship on Aquinas, seemed to constitute its own world. Scholarship on great figures like Bonaventure does form a world, even a universe, one that includes both the scholarly universe of the moment and that same universe extended backwards in time. In 2020, The Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University published Saint Bonaventure: Friar, Teacher, Minister, Bishop. A Celebration of the Eighth Centenary of His Birth1—but in order better to assess this work, a brief overview of some major celebratory volumes published in Bonaventure’s honor may be helpful. In 1874, the sixth centenary of Bonaventure’s death, Fidelis a Fanna published Ratio novae collectionis operum omnium . . . S. Bonaventurae (Turin, 1874). This volume provided a fore-taste of and rationale for the edition of Bonaventure’s Opera omnia published between 1882 and 1902 at Quaracchi (outside of Florence). A new appreciation for Bonaventure arose from that edition since it included texts, such as his three sets of [End Page 663] disputed questions, that had been forgotten since perhaps the fourteenth century, and it eliminated from Bonaventure’s corpus many other texts (especially of “spirituality”) with which he had long been associated. As that edition and a new Bonaventure emerged into print, medieval studies emerged more fully as a discipline, infused with energy by Pope Leo XIII’s Aeterni Patris (1879). The twentieth century’s greatest scholars began a close study of Bonaventure with the new edition in hand, among them Etienne Gilson and a Franciscan friar he helped establish at St. Bonaventure College near Olean, New York, Philotheus Boehner. These two men helped found the two most important intellectual centers in North America for the study of medieval thought: the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto and The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure College (later University). While Gilson is famous to many, Boehner is better known to students of Franciscana, since he helped establish the critical edition of William of Ockham’s works and a series to translate the works of Bonaventure at The Franciscan Institute. Both series are still in print and are still essential to teaching and research in the Franciscan tradition. From 1874 and the foretaste of a new Bonaventure, we must leap to 1974, when a series of celebrations for the seventh centenary of Bonaventure’s death resulted in two great collections of scholarly essays. A five-volume collection entitled S. Bonaventura 1274–1974, published by the same college that edited Bonaventure’s Opera omnia, includes contributions by an incredibly distinguished list of scholars. The first volume opens with a citation from Étienne Gilson; the fourth volume with a previously unpublished note of Philotheus Boehner, who had died suddenly on May 22, 1955. The five volumes were arranged topically, covering Bonaventure’s portrayal in art, his life and writings, philosophy, theology, and a final volume that provides a massive bibliography. The volumes are still an essential reference point for scholars, given the exceptional quality of the participants: among them Louis Jacques Bataillon, Jacques Guy Bougerol, Palémon Glorieux, James McEvoy, Bernard McGinn, Anton Pegis, Walter Principe, Michael Schmaus, [End Page 664] Fernand Van Steenberghen, Paul Vignaux, and Grover Zinn. The volumes seemed to be a who’s who, not just of the Bonaventurean world, but of the medieval scholarly world. Another collection, entitled San Bonaventura maestro di vita francescana e di sapienza christiana, published in 1976, arose from a major gathering in Rome for the seventh centenary of Bonaventure’s death. Paul VI gave the initial address. Published in three volumes, the first volume includes nearly one thousand pages on Bonaventure’s life and general issues in his thought. Volumes 2 and 3 are briefer and contain essays focused on specific theological and philosophical themes. These volumes also include a distinguished international list of scholars (some of whom also contributed to S. Bonaventura): Camille Bérubé, Ignatius Brady, Jean Châttilon, Ewert Cousins, Luigi Pellegrini, and Wayne Hellmann—a friar who sought to work with a theologian named Joseph Ratzinger...

Vetera Novis Augere et Perficere: Thomas Aquinas and Christian-Muslim Dialogue

Vetera Novis Augere et Perficere:Thomas Aquinas and Christian-Muslim Dialogue Joseph Ellul, O.P. Pope Leo XIII's encyclical letter Aeterni Patris, issued on August 4, 1879, sought to address many issues that were challenging nineteenth-century Catholic scholarship and academic life. In proposing the thought of Thomas Aquinas as a model of Catholic teaching, the Pope intended, in his own words, "to strengthen and complete the old by aid of the new,"1 not only by reviving the study of the works and teachings of the Angelic Doctor, especially in the realm of philosophy, but also to uphold as perennial his method of engaging with his contemporaries within and without the Catholic faith.2 It is within this context that we are called upon to reflect upon this appeal: "vetera novis augere et perficere." The thirteenth century was indeed a time of intellectual upheaval, following the introduction of Aristotle and, later on, the translations into Latin of the Arabic commentaries on Aristotle by Ibn Rušd (Lat. Averröes; d. 1198). This event was met within the ecclesiastical world with apprehension, if not outright fear. Neo-Platonic philosophy and its interpretation by Ibn Sina (Lat. Avicenna; d. 1037) was already perfectly acceptable to Mediaeval Christian scholars. The latter was in fact considered an essential tool for understanding the illuminationist thought of St. Augustine. Étienne Gilson even spoke of Augustinisme avicennisant (Avicennized [End Page 1231] Augustinianism).3 The problem was Aristotle and his renowned commentator Ibn Rušd: a pagan commented on by an infidel. One must also note, however, that mediaeval Western intellectuals and institutions were able to encounter and adapt the Islamic legacy, because they already possessed a sufficient scientific base (with of course the contribution of translations of Greek together with Latin works) with which to understand, assimilate, and build upon this new knowledge that appeared from the East. In sum, mediaeval Christendom created living, vibrant societies, constantly searching, always discovering something new. In dealing with the specific (and delicate) subject of Aquinas's dialogue with Islamic thought, it would be necessary to reflect in particular upon two key works of his: the Liber de Veritate Catholicae Fidei contra Errores Infidelium (A Book on the Truth of the Catholic Faith against the Errors of Unbelievers),4 popularly known as the Summa contra gentiles [SCG], together with his De rationibus fidei contra Saracenos, Gnæcos et Armenos ad Cantorem Antiochenum, better known simply as De rationibus fidei. At this point it would be necessary to articulate the term "Islamic thought." Of itself it should not be identified with Islam as a religion. Rather, it should be considered as embracing classical Greek philosophy as interpreted by the Neo-Platonic movement and disseminated through Oriental Christian and Jewish schools of thought. Islamic civilization absorbed these teachings and built its own proper ediice upon these foundations. A Model for Interreligious Dialogue? Proposing Thomas Aquinas as a model for engagement with Islamic thought may also raise a few eyebrows. Hence, it would be appropriate to pose an essential question: "What type of dialogue existed in mediaeval times?" One should begin with an a priori exclusion of dialogue as it is understood today, given the fact that there existed neither the motive nor the means to implement it. In fact mediaeval society was aware of only three religions: the pagan, which had been replaced by Christianity; the Jewish, founded upon the precepts of the First Covenant which "Christ fulilled by his actions and [End Page 1232] by his teaching"5 and which was also believed to prefigure the everlasting New Covenant sealed by Jesus on the Cross; and finally, the Christian, which believed in Jesus as the final revelation of God to humanity.6 With such a vision in mind it is obvious that any doctrine that is not situated within these parameters, or which proposes some form of belief or conduct which was different from, if not contrary to, the Christian vision of God, the cosmos, and society, would be considered as heretical and its promoter an impostor.7 When Islam made its appearance in the Christian world, it carried with it a book that it considered of divine provenance, and...

Converts to the Real. Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy by Edward Baring

Reviewed by: Converts to the Real. Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy by Edward Baring Stephen Schloesser and S.J. Converts to the Real. Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy. By Edward Baring. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. Pp. 504. $49.95, £39.95, €45.00. ISBN 978-0-674988-37-8). In this monumental work of transnational intellectual and institutional history, Edward Baring maps the Catholic network that made possible the diffusion of phenomenological thought and hence the making of Continental philosophy. This network of schools, scholars, conferences, and publications grew in response to Pope Leo XIII’s mandate for an international neoscholastic revival in Aeterni Patris (1879). The Catholic quest for the “real,” both epistemological and ontological, soon led to exchanges far beyond creedal boundaries. Neoscholastics (and later, Christian existentialists) made common cause with similar quests by German thinkers. As a result, argues Baring, “The Catholic reception of phenomenology was a subterranean but massive structure, linking many of the most important developments in the history of twentieth-century philosophy”—“the first continental philosophy of the twentieth century was Catholic. (p. 20). Baring’s archeological and genealogical method meticulously excavates innumerable places, persons, and events. In the 1880s, new establishments included the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (1887), the Theological Faculty in Swiss Fribourg (1889), and the Institut Supérieur de Philosophie in Louvain (1889). The “topology of Catholic intellectual networks made Louvain a model for progressive neo-scholastics around the world,” including the United States, Brazil, Spain, Bohemia, Germany, and especially Milan’s Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. (p. 36) National compositions of student bodies grew increasingly diverse. At the Great War’s outbreak in 1914, foreign students in Louvain made up one-sixth of those taking the baccalaureate, and a third of doctoral students. By 1930, fifty-seven of Louvain’s 160 students came from abroad, including those from Bengal, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia. [End Page 816] As institutional establishments catalyzed publishing ventures, neoscholastic reviews arose in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Spain. These journals formed a transnational network in various ways, including publications (frequently translated) by foreign authors. (Baring’s study required an impressive linguistic diversity of primary sources.) For example: Léon Noël’s Francophone work on the German Edmund Husserl traveled from Louvain to neoscholastic centers in Milan and Madrid before arriving in German speaking Vienna, capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Multilingual migration “suggests that the transnational bonds linking one neo-scholastic to another were often more robust than those linking them to secular philosophers writing in the same language” (p. 53). The exchange was also transatlantic. The Modern Schoolman, founded in 1925 by Jesuit philosophy students at Saint Louis University, reached out to Munich for a contribution from fellow Jesuit Erich Przywara, editor of Stimmen der Zeit. Przywara’s essay appeared in 1934 (in English) as “Edmund Husserl.” In 1937, another article on Husserl appeared in The New Scholasticism founded ten years earlier by the American Catholic Philosophical Association. Its author, Kurt F. Reinhardt, a German-born student of Husserl and a Catholic convert, had emigrated to the U.S. and started teaching at Stanford University in 1930. In 1939, Alberto Wagner de Reyna, having earned his doctorate at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and become one of Latin America’s most prominent Christian existentialists, published La Ontología fundamental de Heidegger in Buenos Aires. Neoscholastic networks also provided venues for women scholars. In 1916, Edith Stein completed her doctoral dissertation under Husserl, joined the faculty at Freiburg and served as his teaching assistant until 1918. In 1922, Stein was baptized Catholic, having been drawn by phenomenology and scholastic thought to conversion. Her 1929 contribution to Husserl’s seventieth birthday Festschrift (edited by Martin Heidegger) became the “most famous and influential confrontation between Husserl and scholasticism” (pp. 74–75). In 1932, at Milan’s Cattolica, Sofia Vanni Rovighi reviewed the international Société Thomiste meeting held outside Paris in Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica, Six years later, she published La Filosofia di Edmund Husserl. In 1933–34, the German Hedwig Conrad-Martius— Edith Stein’s baptismal godmother—published her argument connecting Heidegger...

The University of Santo Tomas and the 19th Century Revival of Thomism

The paper tells of the circumstances surrounding the University of Santo Tomas during the 19th century Philippines that positioned the University to adequately respond to the call of Pope Leo XIII in Aeterni Patris for the restoration in Catholic schools and Universities of Christian philosophy according to the mind of Thomas Aquinas. It argues that the times, the thought, and the thinkers were all favorably prepared so that Thomism could take deep roots in the University of Santo Tomas even if most of the Catholic Universities in Europe suffered from the attacks against the Church brought by the political and intellectual upheavals that occasioned the 19th century rationalist humanism. It was not then difficult to pursue in the University of Santo Tomas the aims of Aeterni Patris because Thomism was already a dominant paradigm in its academic activities.

What Is Man? A Journey through Biblical Anthropology by Fearghus Ó Fearghail and Adrian Graffy

Reviewed by: What Is Man? A Journey through Biblical Anthropologyby Fearghus Ó Fearghail and Adrian Graffy Donald Senior the pontifical biblical commission What Is Man? A Journey through Biblical Anthropology(trans. Fearghus Ó Fearghail and Adrian Graffy; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2021). Pp. 366. £19.99. This is the latest document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC) and may be its longest to date. For those less acquainted with the role of the PBC, it is a commission of some twenty biblical scholars from all over the world intended to serve as a resource on biblical matters for the Vatican Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and, through the Congregation, for the pope himself. First established under Pope Leo XIII, it evolved under Pius X as a monitor for Catholic biblical scholarship at a time when the church was highly suspicious of the reductionist spirit associated with historical biblical criticism. Over time, particularly under Pius XII, the monitoring role gave way to a more constructive approach. After the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI placed the PBC under the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith and confirmed its purpose as a Vatican resource on biblical interpretation. In recent years, the PBC has produced a series of expansive statements on such topics as various methods of biblical interpretation, on the key role of the Jewish Scriptures in the Christian Bible, on the moral horizons of the Bible, and on biblical inspiration. Several of these topics were expressly requested by the reigning pope (e.g., on the Jewish Scriptures by John Paul II, on inspiration by Benedict XVI); this latest presentation on biblical anthropology was requested by Pope Francis. These documents derive from the intertwined contributions of the PBC's members. Typically, the work of producing the document takes two or three years, beginning with an agreement on the overall format, and then various members producing papers on specific aspects of the topic, and finally the weaving together of this disparate material into a coherent text. The end result is that the PBC's statements are thorough, more like a state of the question than innovative, and, at times, their style reflects the somewhat patchwork nature of the production. [End Page 506] In this instance, however, the PBC's study of biblical anthropology has a unique and rich format. As stated at the outset, the document takes its cue from the account of human origins in Genesis, particularly chaps. 2–3, but with substantial reference to Genesis 1–11. The focus is, therefore, primarily on OT texts. Basic motifs from the Genesis account that reflect fundamental descriptions of what it means to be human, and the essential relationships that define the human, are described across the major components of the Bible: the Torah, the prophetic literature, and the wisdom traditions (often with particular attention to Psalms). Each segment, however, ends with the exemplification of the motif in the Gospels and in the letters attributed to Paul. The document states that its overriding methodology is that of "narrative theology"; however, this term should be taken in a very broad sense—distinguishing the document's thematic approach from a more systematic or philosophical analysis. The contents of the document are rich and accessible to the broad audience it has in mind: "members of theological faculties, catechists, students of the sacred sciences." Broad expositions of biblical motifs are bolstered (in smaller type) by incisive technical analyses of key texts (e.g., a thorough discussion of the nuance of the term "image" of God in Gen 1:26). The document is arranged in four "chapters" or major sections: (1) The Human Being as Created by God (both frail and of the earth but also in the image of God); (2) The Human Being in the Garden (taking up topics of food, work, and relationship with animals); (3) The Human Family (love between husband and wife, between parents and children, and between "brothers and sisters" understood broadly); (4) The Human Being in History (God's commands; human obedience and transgression; God's intervention in history and ultimate salvation in Christ). The opening "chapter," taking its cue from Genesis 1–11, sets the tone for the entire document and...

Catholic Republicanism in America

Recently, so-called Catholic “postliberal” conservatives have condemned the American regime as fundamentally liberal and, hence, parasitic on pre-liberal institutions. I argue that this view unduly conflates liberalism and republicanism and thereby confuses an ideology with the principles of the regime. American Catholic clergy have historically condemned liberalism in favor of a Catholic republicanism. This trend began with the political thought of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Bishop John Carroll who advocated for republican government in conjunction with “conciliarism” in the Church. Archbishop “Dagger” John Hughes of New York condemned “nothingarianism,” an early form of liberalism, while also arguing that Irish minorities were capable of republican self-rule during the School Controversy of 1840-43. Later, during the 1880 s and 1890 s, Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota, condemned liberalism, but also provided an alternative vision of post-Civil War racial reconciliation and of Catholic patriotism. Even as he disparaged liberalism, Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen rescued the “Americanism” condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1899 to argue against totalitarian states of the twentieth century, while, at the same time, Fr. John Courtney Murray, no liberal, sought a religious truce in America in favor of common political action in areas of agreement. In short, these clergy opposed liberalism, but they couched their opposition in terms of support of the American Republic, often arguing that the Catholic Church, especially in parochial schooling, provided the best foundation for good government. However, the recent decline of hierarchical support of Catholic republicanism has led to the present disillusionment of American Catholics, who are at risk of turning to reactionary politics to their own peril.

Pope Leo XIII's Hymns for the Feast of the Holy Family

The three hymns that Pope Leo XIII wrote for the Office of the newly established feast of the Holy Family are especially worthy of attention by Catholics. Far from being sterile or pretentious, they are the fruits of decades of meditation by a life-long poet who was entirely at home with the Latin language. They are imbued with profound sentiment, and they illustrate key themes of Leo's teachings, especially with regard to labor.