The Catholic Historical
Review
VOL. LXXXIVJULY, 1998No. 3

REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR

AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)
William Patrick Hyland*

Introduction

According to the decree Frequens of the Council of Constance, an ecumenical council was to be convoked by the pope five years following
the end of the Council of Constance. Thus Pope Martin V in due time
summoned a council to meet at Pavia, where a synod was inaugurated
April 23, 1423. An outbreak of plague forced the Council to move to
Siena, where it lasted from July until its dissolution in March, 1424. Most
of these months were filled up with disputes over administrative matters, as well as divisions among the various nations; and the antipathy of
Pope Martin to the conciliarist party made it difficult to get anything
done. Little or nothing in the way of reform was accomplished.1
Although often not numbered among the synods regarded as ecumenical by the Roman Catholic Church because of its relatively slight
attendance, the Council of Pavia-Siena was intended to continue the

work of Constance in matters of reform and to take measures against
*Dr. Hyland teaches history in Columbus State University, Columbus, Georgia.

'The most detailed and recent account of the Council of Pavia-Siena is Walter Brand-

muller's magisterial two-volume v/ork,Das Konzil von Pavia-Siena (1423-1424) (Münster, 1968). See also Karl Joseph von Hefele and Henri Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles,

Tom. VH", part 1 (Paris, 1916), pp. 610-645. Philip Hughes devotes barely a paragraph to
the council in his The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils, 325-1870
(New York, 1961), p. 274.

409

410REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

various heretical movements, and those who did attend took their tasks
seriously enough. One of those in attendance was a Camaldolese hermit
known as John-Jerome of Prague, who preached two sermons at the
Council. The first was on the first Sunday of Advent, which fell on November 28, 142 3. John-Jerome also preached on Septuagésima Sunday,
which fell on February 20, 1424. This second sermon must have been
one of the last to be preached at the Council, which was dissolved soon
after.2 Neither of these sermons has been noted by previous historians
of the council, a significant oversight in light of the fact that only four
other sermons are known to have survived from the council.3

John-Jerome was born ca. 1370 in Prague and attended the university
there as a contemporary ofJohn Hus. There John-Jerome became a master of arts and also studied law. After becoming a Premonstratensian
canon at Strahov near Prague, he went on to serve as a chaplain at the
court of the Polish king Wladislaus, where he preached and was a royal
confessor for a time. John-Jerome made a missionary journey into
Lithuania, and after serving as the first abbot of the new Premonstratensian house of Nowy Sacz outside of Krakow, in 14 12 he left
Poland and the Premonstratensian Order to take up the eremitical life at
Camaldoli.

As a Camaldolese he participated in the monastic reform movement,
and was quite critical of the state of the religious houses he visited in
the capacity of a visitator for the Venetian province of the Order. The
details of his day-to-day activity in this capacity are unknown, but a sermon which he gave as part of his role as visitator has survived. The sermon was probably repeated in each monastery on the visitation tour as
a prelude to the investigatory procedure, and it is the most detailed
statement on ecclesiastical reform John-Jerome produced before the
Council of Pavia-Siena.4

John-Jerome begins the sermon with an assertion of God's continuing benevolent guidance of creation and in particular of the ecclesia
fidelium. Making use of the frequently cited mystical work of PseudoDionysius,5 he asserts that people are drawn to God through the threeThese two sermons can be found in Annales Camaldulenses, edited by JoannesBenedictus Mittarelli and Anselmus Costadoni (Venice, 1755-1773), IX, 720-744. Henceforth referred to as Annal. Cam.

'Brandmüller, op. cit. , II, provides critical editions of these four sermons.
This sermon can be found in Annal. Cam. , LX, 860-868.
'For perhaps the most elaborate application to the problem of ecclesiastical reform of
the Pseudo-Dionysian categories in a conciliar context, see Jean Gerson's tract of 1417 en-

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYLAND411

fold scheme of purgation, illumination, and perfection. This task is entrusted by God to prelates and in a special way to those who like the
visitatores are required to be directly responsible for the upkeep of
moral norms.6 The visitator thus must be given the virga correctionis,

with full authority to punish transgressors and dispense justice. If the

visitator is negligent in the work of correction, he will be cursed by
God and damned.7 At the same time, the humble and obedient must be

blessed by the visitator, who must mix mercy with justice. If the
prelate does not strike the proper balance, he does not possess the appropriate form of Christ-like visitation (non habetformant visitationis
Christi}.

Throughout the sermon John-Jerome stresses the mutually beneficial
nature of the visitation process for both the monks and the visitator.
The monks are to be corrected in matters of chastity, dress, comportment, attitude, and liturgical observance. The worse sins are the possession of property, disobedience, and ensnarement in carnal pleasures.8
Their correction is intended to give monks the opportunity to reform
themselves and is in fact God's way of calling them to do so. The visitator for his part is called to help them in this process of repentance and
sanctification, and in doing so to conform himself to Christ, who is seen

as the embodiment of the balance of justice and mercy. Together, the
monks and the visitatores can help restore that human nature which
was once so good and fulfill Christ's command to all monks, that is, to

dwell together in unity and to meditate upon the divine law.

For many years John-Jerome occupied the office of major eremi at
Camaldoli, and in this post he would have been responsible for the spiritual formation and guidance of the other hermits, including the enforcement of discipline and the hearing of weekly confessions. In the
years following the Council of Pavia-Siena, John-Jerome produced sev-

eral works on the ascetical life, as well as polemical works against the

titled De potestate ecclesiastica, found in his Oeuvres Complètes, edited by R Glorieux
(Tournai, 1965), VI, 210-250.
6 Ideo committitur eis officium visitationis, ut corrigendo inferiores, purgent a malitia,
illuminent sapientia, perficiant moribus et vita." Annal. Cam. , LX, 860.
7". . . quia si visitatores negligentes fuerint ad corrigendum, maledicentur a Deo et
damnabuntur. Debet enim Visitator in sua visitatione faceré justitiam contra transgressores praecepti divini et Regulae, ac statutorum." Annal. Cam. , LX, 861 .
"John-Jerome cites Lactantius on the three furies that need to be repaired, namely, ira,

luxuria, and cupiditas. He then adds: "Magna abominatio est, quando in religiosis loco

paupertatis est proprietas; major, quando loco obedientiae est contumacia; sed maxima et
pessima, quando loco continentiae regnat luxuria.Mnnei. Cam. , LX, 867.

412REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIRAT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

Hussites and Greek Christians. He would also participate in the Council

of Basel as a vocal proponent of moral reform. He died in 1440.9

It is not clear in what capacity John-Jerome attended the Council of
Pavia-Siena, as he is not found in any of the lists of formal members. 10 He
had accompanied the Prior General of the Camaldolese Order, Raphael
de Bonciani, on visitations of various houses in 1422. Raphael died on
October 23, 1422, and John-Jerome preached at his funeral." Perhaps
John-Jerome's reputation as a reformer and orator, as well as a canonist,
was brought to the attention of the Council Fathers. John-Jerome, a Bohemian Czech, was also a well-known opponent of the Hussites, and
perhaps was summoned to the council because of his expertise in
these matters, as he would be several years later by the Council of
Basel.12 It is also unknown whether John-Jerome was present at the
Council as a member of the Italian "nation" or the German "nation,"

which included Bohemia. It is more likely that he was there representing the Camaldolese Order, and sat with the Italians."
John-Jerome's presence at the Council was noted by his contemporary John of Ragusa, who mentions him among those who preached
with great zeal against clerical abuses." The two sermons John-Jerome
'For a detailed biography of John-Jerome, as well as a bibligraphy of his many and varied writings, see William P. Hyland,"John-Jerome of Prague: Portrait of a Fifteenth-Century

Camaldolese," in TheAmerican Benedictine Review, 46 (September, 1995), 308-334.

'"He is not mentioned in Brandmüller, op. cit. , including the protocol of Guillermo Agramunt, nor is he among the list of participants compiled by Maureen C. Miller in "Participation in the Council of Pavia-Siena 1423-1424," Archivum Historiae Pontiflcae, 22
(1984), 389-406.
"This sermon is printed in A nnal. Cam., LX, 852-859·
l2See Annal. Cam. , LX, 94 1 , for the text of the letter summoning John-Jerome to Basel.
"The council participants were divided into five "nations": French, German, Italian,
Spanish, and eventually English. Place of birth did not necessarily determine a participant's nation. For example,John of Ragusa was a member of the French nation because he
represented the University of Paris. The Italian nation was on the more conservative side
as far as admitting members officially to its delegation, but it is surprising that JohnJerome is not listed among the procurators of the various religious orders. See Miller, op.
cit. , pp. 397 ff. Perhaps John-Jerome was known personally to one of the attending Italian
prelates, and was at the Council at his request.
""Fuerunt etiam alii, sed non sicut praedicti, notati a malis et ab his, qui volunt corrigi;
qui zelo dei praedicaverant in sermonibus suis in dicta synodo contra vitia cleri, modeste
tarnen et mansuete, prout in conciliis et synodis fieri consuevit. Inter quos praecipui fuerant: Magister Petrus de Anglia, satis notus in hoc sacro Basiliensi concilio, licet non ita hic
suum favorem ostenderit; magister Hieronymus de Praga, Camaldulensis ordinis, etiam hic
bene notus." John of Ragusa, Initium et Prosecutio Basiliensis Concilii, in Monumenta
Conciliorum Generalium Seculi Decimi Quinti (Vienna, 1857), I, 64. The Council of
Siena is discussed by John as background for the Council of Basel.

BY WIUJAM PATRICK HYLAND413

gave at the Council of Siena are indeed powerful indictments of contemporary clerical abuses and unequivocally present John-Jerome's
own ideas about the need for ecclesiastical reform. Beyond this, however, the sermons demonstrate the frustration felt by reformers such as
John-Jerome at the inability of the Council to move beyond administrative disputes, including the lack of co-operation between the Council

Fathers and the papacy, to deal with matters of reform. The importance

of John-Jerome's sermons can be understood only in the context of the
initial optimism and ultimate futility which so characterized the Council of Pavia-Siena.

John-Jerome's sermons on reform do not represent an isolated voice
at the Council, but are related to other documents that survive. These
include the four conciliar decrees issued on November 8, 1423, and the

subsequent memorandum and avisamentum of the French nation on
reform. Along with the contents of these documents, and against the
background of the Council's failure to secure the attendance of Pope
Martin V, John-Jerome's sermons also reflect concerns found in two sermons given at the Council by the Dominican theologian John of Ragusa. In a sense John-Jerome the preacher enters into a dialogue with
these documents, and they must be understood in order to appreciate
the peculiar place and significance of his own ideas about reform.
Unity and Reform
Given the facts of the immediately preceding years, including the
Great Schism and endemic warfare between Christian states throughout Europe, it is perhaps not surprising that the theme of harmony and
unity was a major concern of those participants at Pavia-Siena who
were genuinely interested in reforming the Church. Thus in his sermon

given at the opening of the Council in Pavia on April 23, 1423, John of
Ragusa took up this theme immediately.15 Taking as his text "There shall
be one fold and one shepherd" (John 10: 16), he stresses that reform of
the Church depends upon the unity of its head and members,16 and
uses various metaphors to make this point.
After extolling the unity and privileges of the papacy, however, John
proceeds to enumerate the divisions in Christendom. He mentions first
"This sermon can be found in Brandmüller, op. cit. , pt. 2, pp. 1 25- 1 57.
""Ex quibus ostenditur, quod totalis universalis Christi eclesie reformatio—quam-

obrem hie ad presens Christi universalis eclesia fidelium congregatur—dependet ex duplici unitate: membrorum videlicet et capitis." Brandmüller, op. cit. , pt. 2, p. 1 30.

414REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR ATTHE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

heretical groups such as the Greeks, Hussites, and Fraticelli, and then
the military threat posed by the Turks, Tartars, and Arabs. Finally he

brings up the warfare between Christians in France, eastern Europe, the

Baltic regions, Italy, and the Iberian peninsula, and laments the fact that
Catholic Christendom has virtually been reduced to nothing by these
external and internal struggles.17 John ends this sermon by exhorting
the Council Fathers to begin the work of reform by working for peace
among the Christian people.18
The Council was forced to relocate to Siena soon after this sermon

because of plague, and resumed its work there in July, 1423. On October
31 John of Ragusa preached another sermon before the Council, this
time taking as his text " [Jesus Christ] will reform the body of our lowli-

ness" (Philippians 3:21).19 In this sermon, which is essentially an exhor-

tation to reform, John employs a variety of distinctions and divisions, as
well as citations of Cicero and Seneca. After a long preamble, he makes
a strong statement on the necessity of a council for reform.2" He then
goes on to mention the violence of the Hussites and the urgent need to
deal with this problem, and the timidity of prelates who are afraid to act
on the pressing needs of the Church. He defines reformation as a rooting out of sins and a laying to rest of those things which divide Christians from God and one another,21 and he urges the Council Fathers to
fulfill the reform mandate of the Council of Constance. John ends his
sermon by urging the Council to initiate the work of reform by calling
for fasts and religious processions and by allowing free and frank
preaching about reform to commence.22
Although John claims there was a mixed reaction to his sermon,23 it is
clear that this sermon initiated a period of reform activity. On Novem17"Cor quoque et centrum huius exiguë christianitatis rotule sic exstinguitur et ad
nichilum redigitur, ut nulla iam sit persistendi fidutia, nisi deus ab alto perspexerit." Ibid. ,
p. 155.
"Ibid., p. 157.
"For the text of the sermon, see Brandmüller, op. cit. , pt. 2, pp. 1 57-190. For a partial Eng-

lish translation, see C. M. D. Crowder, Unity, Heresy and Reform, 13 78-1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism (New York, 1977), pp. 140-142.
2°John goes so far as to claim that between the end of the Council ofVienne (1312) and
the commencement of the Council of Pisa in 1409, the Church was without the visitation

and consolation of the Holy Spirit. Brandmüller, op. a'f.,pt. 2, p. 173.
"Ibid., p. 180.
"Ibid., pp. 185-190.
""De quo sermone praesidentes et alii adversarii multum fuerunt turbati."John goes on
to mention how many wished to have him expelled from the Council, and how he defended himself. John of Ragusa, Initium et Prosecutuio Basiliensis Concilii, p. 61 .

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYLAND415

ber 8 the Council promulgated four decrees.24 The first condemned the
beliefs and activities of the followers of John Wyclif and the Hussites
and called on Christian leaders to employ all means at their disposal to

crush these movements. The second decree renewed the condemna-

tions of the antipope Peter of Luna and his adherents issued by the
Council of Constance. The third decree recognized that reunion negotiations with the Greek Christians had reached an impasse, but that nevertheless reform work should proceed. The fourth and final decree
called for great vigilance against heresy and cited the negligence of ordinaries and inquisitorial deputies in these matters. Trials of heretics
should be held publicly and with solemn ritual, and should be conducted only by learned men.25 The civil and religious authorities are
open to condemnation and punishment if they do not enforce these decrees.

As Brandmüller has noted, it is not always easy to know what happened on a day-to-day basis at the Council.26 In a letter to a bishop dated
November 23, John of Ragusa noted that nothing had been formally enacted by the council since these four decrees of November 8, although
ideas about reform were discussed among the various nations.27 John

characterized this as a time when certain members of the council ex-

hibited hard work and zeal for reform.28 Two products of these discussions were the memorandum and avisamentum of the French nation

on reform. Another, and one that has been overlooked by historians of
the Council of Siena, was the sermon given by John-Jerome of Prague
on November 28, the first Sunday of Advent.
The first part of the memorandum is composed of twenty points.29
The first three points call for processions and Masses for the cause of re-

form, to be followed by fasts and confession. Thus the first step of re-

form is to acknowledge sin and confess it before God. Points four
through seven emphasize that no Christian is excluded from the need
2<The most recent edition of these decrees can be found in Brandmüller, op. cit., pt. 2,
pp. 20-28.

2'Ibid.,p.26.
xIbid.,pt.l,p.l40.

27As he states about the weeks following the solemn session of November 8:"Post praedictam sessionem usque ad praesens nihil actum est; tractatur tamen in nationibus de
modo procedendi in reformatione ecclesiae." John of Ragusa, Initium et Prosecutio
Basiliensis Concilii, p. 27.
28"Post praedictam vero sessionem per aliquot dies fuit exhibita quaedam cédula, per
quosdam zelantes reformationem ecclesiae "Ibid.

29The memorandum of the French nation can be found in John of Ragusa, Initium et
Prosecutio Basiliensis Concilii, pp. 27'-30.

416REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

of reform. At a council where the attendance of prelates was dismally
low,50 it is emphasized that all prelates need to come to the council. The
sixth and seventh points echo the call of John of Ragusa that all Christians be given the opportunity to speak out on reform issues.
The last thirteen points are procedural and reflect a real concern that
the reform-minded members of the Council will be unable effectively
to find a forum for their task. The memorandum calls for the selection

of four deputies from each nation to meet in private on a daily basis and
come up with a reform agenda, without the interruption of those who
would resist reform. All are to swear that they will not leave the Council before reform measures have been effected, and those who would

stall on reform are to be excommunicated. It is also asserted that the

presidents of the council can speak for the pope, a proposition that was
destined to cause trouble between the conciliarists and their opponents. The ninth item of the memorandum is of particular interest for
this study, as it calls on doctors of canon law (such as John-Jerome) to
aid in the Council's deliberations.31

This memorandum was followed by an avisamentum, in which the
French nation moved beyond procedural concerns and proposed specific matters for reform.32 The first five points reflect the decrees of November 8 and emphasize the need for unity as well as the advisability of
sending out special ambassadors from the Council to combat heresy.
The papacy is called upon to serve as a peacemaker between Christian
princes and not to interfere with the privileges of the nations in various
matters. There are also a number of points about the relative authority
of the Roman Curia and the Council in financial matters. Among the
points mentioned were prohibitions against plural benefices, as well as
statements against commendatory and secular possession of benefices.
The avisamentum is clearly aimed at the papacy33 and at the secular
and administrative preoccupations of many in the Roman Curia. Al10As Hughes points out, the number of bishops and abbots present never exceeded

twenty-five. See Hughes, op. cit. ,p. 260. See also Hefele-Leclercq, op. cit. , Tom. VII, Pt. 1 , pp.

614 ff.

""Item exhortentur singuli doctores, et praecipue juris canonici, ut solerti cura et diligenti studeant et intendant circa ea praecipue, quae juxta sanctorum patrum decreta et
decretales praesenti tempori et universali ecclesiae congrua videntur et necessaria, ut
videlicet innovanda innoventur, addenda addantur, et reparanda et reformanda reparentur, prout spiritus sanctus dictaverit." John of Ragusa, Initium et Prosecutio Basiliensis
Concilii, p. 2932The avisamentum is found ibid. , pp. 30 ff.
"It is indeed entitled:"Avisamentum pro inchoando reformationem ecclesiae in capite,
per nationem Gallicanam produxit." Ibid. , p. 30.

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYLAND417

though it may perhaps be true that nothing could be done in the way of
reform without a change in some of the abuses mentioned in these documents of the French nation, the tone of the documents was bound to
cause divisions within the Council itself and between the Council and

Pope Martin V This is exactly what did occur,54 and any discussion about
moral reform was soon overwhelmed by the procedural wrangling
which ultimately would prove to be the Council's undoing.

Penance and Hope
Despite the fact that the Council would end in futility, the months of
November and December witnessed a genuine activity with regard to
reform. In the midst of these discussions witnessed to by John of Ragusa, John-Jerome gave his sermon to the Council on November 28, the
first Sunday of Advent. Although his official status at the Council remains unclear, John-Jerome certainly was intimately involved in the
consultations about reform,35 and delivered his sermon as if in direct an-

swer to John of Ragusa's call for free and frank preaching about reform.
John-Jerome's sermon is important because it is the one sermon we
have from the period following the circulation of the reform agenda of
the French nation, and the only reform statement from another nation.36
John-Jerome was given the important task of expressing the reform
agenda in the context of a moral exhortation, and to do so on the first

Sunday of Advent, a time of symbolic importance as the beginning of
the ecclesiastical year and a time of preparation, self-examination, and
renewal. The fact that he was chosen to speak at such a time demonstrates the respect in which he was held at the Council, as both a
preacher and a proponent of reform.
In the prologue of the sermon John-Jerome notes the importance of
the occasion. The Council Fathers are gathered here to carry on the reform work initiated by the Council of Constance.37 Employing a stan54Brandmuller describes the divisions within the various nations. See Brandmüller, op.
cit., pt. ?,??. 169-188, et passim.
"As Brandmüller, ibid. , pt. 1, pp. 139 ff., notes, consultation of the bishops and abbots
with the theologians present was a normal part of the council's procedure. In his discus-

sion (pt. 1, pp. 175-176) of the various Italian bishops and representatives of religious

orders present at the Council, Brandmüller overlooks John-Jerome of Prague and the
Camaldolese.

"Brandmüller, ibid. , p. 1 50, laments the fact that all we have from these busy days are
the French suggestions about reform.
""Quia hoc Sacrosanctum Senarum Concilium reformare et supplere ea nititur, quae in
Sancta Constantiensi Synodo nondum completa fore cernuntur; ideo de reformatione sta-

418REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

dard rhetorical device, he stresses his own inadequacy to address such
an important assembly and hopes that the prestige of preaching before
an ecumenical council will not distract him from his task of exhorting
all to attend to the needs of the Church.38

John-Jerome is aware that he is addressing an audience made up
largely of clergymen, and from the beginning he places the burden of
reform squarely on their shoulders. He advances the opinion that the reform activities of the pastor do not originate in external activities, but
rather in the devotional life of the pastor himself. John-Jerome believes
that if the prelate truly feels the love of God in his own life, this theocentric outlook will eventually lead to self-esteem and love of neighbor.39 Without this first step of the prelate's own spiritual commitment,
there is no hope for the spiritual well-being of those entrusted to him:
the integrity of the overseers is the salvation of the subjects (Integritas
namque praesidentium est salus subditorurn).40
With these ideas as a premise, John-Jerome moves beyond the bureaucratic and administrative preoccupations of the memorandum

and avisamentum of the French nation and focuses on clerical behav-

ior as the root of the Church's widespread problems. The clergy claim
that they deserve universal respect for their role in the economy of salvation, yet by their scandalous behavior force the laity to despair and
even seem to justify the attacks of radicals and heretics on the ecclesiastical establishment:

And this is the cause of the destruction of the universal Church: the fre-

quent, continuous, and widespread pomp, vanity, and excesses of prelates.
This it is which excites the laity to envy; invites tyrants to plunder the
goods of the Church; and multiplies schisms and heresies. This is the pestif-

tus universalis Ecclesiae, ac de nobis ipsis hodiernus sermo reddendus est, super eo, quod
spectaculum facti sumus Mundo et Angelis et bomirabus!' Annal. Cam. , LX, 722.
""Quare ego in praesenti sermone totius adulationis cavens Vitium, et solius Dei postulans auxilium, si in sole mystico militantis Ecclesiae quaedam signa deformitatis reperire
potero, sub brevitate indulti temporis enarrare cumbo? Ibid. , pp. 722-723.
"Following closely in the footsteps of Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux, JohnJerome thus asserts: "Igitur omnis Episcopus, Sacerdos, Clericus, vel Praelatus in amore
Dei profundatus, in proprio profundatus, in proximo dilatatus, scientifice obtinet
veridice, ut in omni statu suo possit esse perfectus. Tenet consequentia, quia amor Dei,
sui, et proximi de necessitate requiritur ad perfectionem cujuslibet Episcopi, Sacerdotis,
Clerici,velPrelati."7iWrf.,p.722.

""Ibid., p. 724.

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYLAND419

erous stain, the deaf and mute demon, that will not be ejected unless by
prayer and fasting.41

In this passage John-Jerome alludes to the biblical episode in which
Christ cures the lunatic who is possessed by a demon. When the apostles ask Christ why they had been unable to cast out the demon, he responds that this particular sort of demon can be ejected only by prayer
and fasting.42 John-Jerome is thus openly comparing prelates to lunatics
and implying that their behavior is irrational. Only an irrational man
could reject the theocentric basis of Christian existence and the grace
of his ordination, and instead focus on the comforts of the material

world. The only way John-Jerome believes humans can regain the state
of grace, and hence their ability to avoid sin and act rationally, is through
the sacrament of penance.
Thus, following the advice of Christ, John-Jerome recommends public prayer and fasting as the first step of reformation. In this he provides
a theological and moral rationale in public for the first part of the memorandum of the French nation. This call for penance must be universally
heeded, because the harmony of Christendom, along with sincere penance, is an essential prerequisite for reform:
Applying this teaching to all those gathered in this sacred council, the first
remedy to be employed for the reformation of the holy universal Church is
to command and proclaim publicly, not only in Italy but throughout all the
orthodox lands, fasts, processions, and devout prayers, with the result that
the Lord himself, who hears the pleas of the poor, will see fit to bring about
from the arduous business of this council the intended result and aim.43

For John-Jerome, ecclesiastical reformation parallels the process of
personal reformation as expressed in the sacrament of penance. Pre-

411Et haec est causa destructionis Ecclesiae univeraslis, videlicet pompa, vanitas, et superfluitas Praelatorum, crebra, frequens, et generalis, quae mentes laicorum ad invidiam
suscitât; tyrannos ad diripiendum bona Ecclesiae invitât; Schismata et haereses multiplicat. Haec namque est labes pestífera, et Daemonium surdum et mutum, quod non ejicitur,
nisi in oratione et jejunio."7?nrf., p. 725.
42A clear reference to Matthew 17:14-20.

4í"Doctrinam tribuens omnibus in hoc Sacrosancto Concilio congregatis, illud primum
esse remedium pro reformatione Sanctae universalis Ecclesiae adhibendum, praecipere
ac indicere, non solum in Italia, sed etiam per omnes orthodoxe fidei provincias jejunia,
processiones, et devotas orationes, ut ipse Dominus, qui exaudit deprecationes pauperum, in tam arduo hujus Concilii negotio effectum et finem dignetur praestare optatum."
Annal. Cam., LX, 725-726.

420REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR ATTHE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

lates must first display genuine contrition on behalf of the faithful
through these public rituals of confession and satisfaction. This is to be
followed by the next phase of penance, which is the correction of previous bad behavior. Continuing with the double metaphor of Christ as
the Sun of Righteousness and the sinner as a benighted or irrational lunatic, John-Jerome identifies two things preventing the correction of
clerical behavior: carnal pleasures and clerical ignorance.
John-Jerome identifies voluptates carnales as the first impediment to

the work of reform. He criticizes those clerics who associate with

women and stresses the need for clerical celibacy. Those who do have
wives or concubines should be excommunicated and deprived of office. He also criticizes excessive eating and drinking among clerics.
John-Jerome's point is that if prelates expect to command the respect
and submission of the faithful as successors of the Apostles, then they
must also imitate their way of life.44 He does not claim any originality for
these ideas and cites St. Jerome's diatribes against Jovinian as the source
for his own critique of modern prelates.45
At least as harmful as sexual and gustatory desires in John-Jerome's
eyes was the seeking after possession of material comforts by the
clergy. The tendency to pursue secular power blinded the man of God
from his spiritual calling, but just as importantly it drove the laity to persecute the clergy:
What businesses and secular offices are not administered by priests and
clerics? For in modern times certain priests are usurers and merchants. Others are castellans and stewards, while still others run taverns and are gamblers and pimps. They are lacking in only one occupation: they are not
police agents and torturers of men.
This misbehavior is the cause of the destruction of the universal Church,
and of the persecution of the whole clerical establishment, because as
the populace is, so is the priest, but only much worse. For in modern times
clerics and priests are discharged by secular officials, churches are despoiled, and for financial debts priests are seized, bound, and imprisoned
through wickedness, to the dishonor and shame of the whole Church.
""Denique si Episcopi et prelati locum apostolorum tenent, quia tenent non solum dignitatem eorum, sed conversationem, et abstinentiam, ac vitae sanctitatem imitentur.'TWd. ,
p. 728.
"Jovinian, who died ca. 405, was an unorthodox monk who denied that virginity was a
higher state than marriage and that abstinence was preferable to moderate eating. He was
opposed fiercely by Jerome and Ambrose, and condemned by councils held at Milan and
Rome.

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYLAND421

Therefore this sacred council should proceed to the reformation of this behavior.46

The way to deal with these problems is to send out learned men of
good reputation with full authority as visitatores. These specially appointed commissioners will be able to enforce the canons with regard
to clerical behavior. When priests are thus forced to withdraw from secular pursuits, they will no longer be easy targets for those among the
laity who would presume to attack them and their possessions.47 It is
clear that John-Jerome is not merely voicing his puritanical sensibilities
here. His main concern seems to be that clerical immorality is used as a

justification for attacks on the clergy. How strongly he feels about this

point is evident in another sermon he will give at the Council in February, where he implies that the Catholic clergy of Bohemia brought the
assaults of the Hussites upon themselves because of their immorality48
The memorandum of the French nation had called on the Council to

send out commissioners to deal with heresy. John-Jerome is also concerned about heresy but emphasizes the moral rather than the intellectual foundation of reform. Moral reform serves as a preface to the
preservation of orthodoxy and the extirpation of heresy. He seems to
believe that heresy and anticlericalism would not be as threatening as
* "Quae namque sunt officia, aut saecularia negotia, quae Presbyteri et sacerdotes non
administrent? Nam modernis temporibus quidam Presbyteri sunt usurarii et mercatores;
alii sunt castellani et procuratores; alii tabernarum rectores et taxillorum lusores ac
lenones. Hoc solum deficit, quod non birri et tortores hominum; et haec est causa universalis Ecclesiae destructionis, et persecutionis totius Cleri. Quia sicut est populus, sic et
Sacerdos, immo pejus; nam modernis temporibus Clerici et sacerdotes per officiales saeculares exauctorantur, Ecclesiae spoliantur, et Sacerdotes pro pecuniarum debitis capiuntur, ligantur, et incarcerantur per nefas, in dedecus ac verecundiam totius Ecclesiae. Ergo
huic reformationi hoc Sacrosanctum Concilium debet intendere."/4wna/. Cam., LX, 728729.
47"Nam secundus modus reformationis est iste, videlicet ut Sacrum hoc Concilium eli-

gat viros doctos, bonae famae et vitae, quos per singulas provincias constituant, et ordinent plena auctoritate visitatores ac reformatores totius Cleri, exclusa omni appellatione;
et hoc usque ad futurum concilium celebrandum, ut et clerus honeste vivat, et laici manus
violentas in Clerum extendere non audeant, nec praesumant." Ibid. , p. 729"After mentioning various Old Testament examples where priests were punished for
their simoniacal activities, John-Jerome proceeds to mention the recent Hussite attacks
on priests in his homeland: "Et ut recentiora exempla proferam; Ecce infra hoc triennium
in regno Moraviae et Bohemiae plures quam XV mille sacerdotes ab Hussitis interfecti
sunt. Unde beatus Chrysostomus homilía XXXVII super Mattheum sic ait: Hü sunt Sacerdotes iniqui, qui fidem praedicant et infideliter agunt, pacem alus dant, et sibi non habent,
reformationem laudant, et reforman nolunt, avaritiam vitupérant, et simoniam exercent."
Ibid.,p.744.

422REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

they are if the clergy would maintain their standards and not lose the respect of the laity. In this sense, orthopraxis serves as the foundation for
respect of orthodoxy.
This being said, however, John-Jerome proceeds to blur the distinction between the intellectual and moral elements of contemporary
clerical decadence. Identifying clerical ignorance as the second impediment to ecclesiastical reform, John-Jerome criticizes those priests who

are either unwilling or unable to preach. He also stresses the impor-

tance of the priest in the role of confessor, but unfortunately does not
elaborate upon this. Approaching the end of the sermon, he instead
shifts back again to the moral sphere, and criticizes clerical greed and
avarice. He refers to the ambitio inexplicabilis of prelates who acquire
multiple benefices, again playing on the theme of the irrationality of the
sinner. Despite his harsh criticisms, John-Jerome ends on the optimistic note that the Council of Siena will now be attending to these problems.49

This first sermon of John-Jerome's illustrates the moral rationale be-

hind the agenda of the reform party at the Council of Siena. Implicitly

following the theology of the sacrament of penance, John-Jerome calls
for the Church as a whole, and in particular the clerical leadership, to
go through a process of contrition, confession, satisfaction, and a reform
of lifestyle. He brings to this task of moral exhortation both the critical
attitudes and expectant optimism of someone who believes in the realities of sin and the possibility of conversion. In this respect he stands
together with Vincent Ferrer, Bernardino of Siena, and other great
penitential preachers of the day.

Despair
The optimism for the work of the Council which John-Jerome displayed in his sermon given at the beginning of the season of Advent,
while the groundswell of reform activity was at its height, was gone by
the time he preached his second sermon before the Council Fathers in
February of 1424. The coming of winter had also witnessed a severe
chilling of the relations between the conciliarist party and Pope Martin
V as the implications of the procedural claims of the Council became
*"Quae tamen in hoc Sacratissimo Concilio sunt reformanda ad laudem et gloriam Domini nostri Jesu Christi, qui cum Patre et spiritu sancto est super omnia Deus benedictus
in saeculorum saecula. Amen." Ibid. , p. 73 1 .

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYLAND423

clear. With nothing beyond the original four decrees of November 8
being promulgated, the Council ground to a halt. On February 19 Basel

was selected as the site of the next ecumenical council, and the next

day the dissolution of the Council of Siena was drawn up, although it
was not published until March 7.
In what must have been an atmosphere of subdued hope and deep
frustration among the reformers who still remained at Siena, JohnJerome preached before the Council Fathers on Septuagésima Sunday,
February 20, 1424. In the liturgical cycle this feast marked a stage
toward the Lenten fast, and the purple vestments and penitential atmosphere provided the perfect backdrop for John-Jerome's message. As
in his previous sermon, John-Jerome will discuss the need for moral reform, but he then goes on in a striking fashion to develop his ideas
about the relationship of the prevalence of Aristotelian learning to discord and sin within the Church.

Employing the biblical text "Many are called but few are chosen"
(Matthew 20:16), John-Jerome engages in a powerful critique of the
contemporary clerical establishment. He begins by acknowledging and

lamenting the fact that Pope Martin V will clearly not be coming to the

Council. John-Jerome stresses that the pope is indeed the head of the
Church, and the source of unity for its members. He proves this by citing many of the same authorities cited by John of Ragusa in his sermons, and states that no one doubts that the pope and the Roman Curia
are the divinely appointed foundation of the Church.50 This being said,
however, John-Jerome attacks the papal court for neglecting its high responsibilities and abusing the privileges of its legitimate position:
But behold how this moves beyond measure, so that the exemplar of every
evil proceeds thence whence every norm of sanctity had proceeded. There
the sweet yoke of the Lord is cast off, and the Divine Law fractured. There
only Chrysostom is honored from the Greek word Crisis, which in Latin
means gold, and an infinite number of simonies are committed for the sake
of gold, because Canon law is spit out and held for nothing there, about
which all indeed murmur, but none cry out. And because we are now situated in the last days of evil, for what reason can I keep silent, when the Lord
'""Quia hoc Sacrosanctum Senarum Concilium pro reformatione universalis Ecclesiae
cernitur congregatum in hac egregia civitate, cum firma spe adventus Domini nostri
Papae Martini V, qui est caput totius Ecclesiae, sed quia spes adventus ejus non solum differtur, sed jam totaliter aufertur, ideo praefata reformatio Ecclesiae, jam non posse fieri a
multis desperatur. Quod enim filii absque patre, oves absque pastore, membra absque
capite efficere possunt? . . . Nemo autem est qui dubitet, Sedem Apostolicam, et Ro-

manam Curiam esse caput et fundamentum totius Ecclesiae "TWrf., pp. 734-735.

424REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

this very day in the Gospel calls workers into his vineyard, but in the final
words of this very same Gospel makes the following frightful conclusion:
"Many are called but few are chosen."51

This strong passage is indicative of John-Jerome's reform thought.
After an impressive rhetorical flourish on the need for the papacy, he
does not seek to undermine the scriptural and juridical basis of papal
authority at all, but rather criticizes the immorality of the Roman Curia.
It is clear that he does not believe that the reform of the Church in

capite was completely accomplished by the healing of the papal schism

at the Council of Constance. His main concern seems to be the viola-

tion of canon law in Rome, and in particular the problem of simony.
John-Jerome sees himself as a reformer among a group of men who are
unwilling to effect salutary changes in the situation, and he does not
blame only the papacy for the failure of the Council of Siena. In a stinging passage, he mocks the prelates present at the Council for their
inability to overcome their own immorality and to put the question of
reform ahead of their own constitutional relationship to the papacy:
But how many voluptuous bishops and prelates are there in the Church
today, Epicureans, but even worse than Epicurus, because they do not fill
their tables with fruits and vegetables, as Epicurus taught, but rather with
wild game, rabbits, thrushes, hens, and capons? Between these wines are
mixed with wines, and silver conches full of wine follow after gilded goblets. And then anyone who shall have emptied four or even five goblets or
rather conches of wine, immediately proposes a question concerning the
power of the lord pope and concerning a universal council. It is argued
back and forth. But any argument is followed by a conch full of wine, and
remarkably, he who empties more conches more cleverly disputes, according to that proverb: 'When I drink wine, then my tongue speaks Latin.'52
""Sed mira supra modum res agitur, ut inde exemplar omnis mali progediatur, unde
Sanctitatis processerat omnis norma. Illic jugum suave Domini abjicitur et frangitur lex
divina. Illic solus Chrysostomus colitur a Crisis Grèce, quod est aurum Latine, et pro auro
infinitae committuntur simoniae.quia jus Canonicum illic respuitur.et pro nihilo ducitur,
de quo omnes quidem murmurant, sed nullus clamât. Et quia in extremis malorum jam
positi sumus, qua ratione ego tacere valeo, cum Dominus in hodierno praecipiat Evange-

lio vocare operarios in vineam suam, sed in fine ejusdem Evangelii terribilem inferí conclusionem, dicens: Multi enim sunt vocati, pauci vero electi?" Ibid. , p. 734. The complete
Gospel reading for Septuagésima Sunday was Matthew 20: 1-16.
""Sed quanti hodie in Ecclesia Dei sunt Episcopi et Praelati voluptuosi, Epicurei, imo
supra Epicurum, quia mensas suas non replent pomis et oleribus, ut Epicurus docuit, sed
carnibus ferinis, et leporibus, turdis, gallinis et caponibus? Inter haec vina miscentur vinis,

et conchae argentae vino plenae succedunt scyphis deauratis; cumque unusquisque
quatuor, aut quinqué scyphos, immo conchas bibendo evacuaverit, statim de potestate
Domini Papae, et de Concilio unversali quaestionem proponit. Arguitur pro et contra. Sed

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYLAND425

It would be difficult to find a stronger expression of contempt for the
procedural wranglings that dominated the final two months of the
Council of Siena. Using a standard motif of the polemical discourse of
the Latin Fathers, and in particular of St. Jerome, John-Jerome dismisses
the Council Fathers as Epicureans.53 He reduces them and their debates
to drunken games. In his mind they are incapable of leading a moral reform. As he had done in his earlier sermon,John-Jerome implies that the
sins of prelates, in this case their gluttony and drunkenness, have left
them morally and intellectually incapacitated. They stumble about as
drunkards, completely at a loss on how to reform the Church. The papal
court is also intoxicated with a love of money, which causes it to take
the irrational step of abandoning the canons and divine law for a path
which leads nowhere.

John-Jerome provides additional severe criticisms of prelates in this
sermon and cites, besides patristic sources such as St.Jerome, recent figures such as Catherine of Siena and Bridget of Sweden to support his
views on the current state of the clergy.54 At one point he sarcastically
points out that he will use the authoritative words of St. Bernard verbatim, as he himself could not presume to criticize the prelates of the
quodlibet argumentum sequitur vino plena concha, et mirum in modum qui plures conchas bibendo évacuât, ille magis argute disputât, juxta illud proverbium: Dum bibo vinum,

tunc lingua mea loquitur Latinum." Ibid., p. 736.

"Richard Jungkuntz in his article "Fathers, Heretics and Epicureans," in TheJournal of

Ecclesiastical History, 17 (1966), 3-10, discusses the patristic tendency to impute epi-

cureanism or hedonistic motives to anyone who questions the ascetic life. The evidence
demonstrates that in certain polemical contexts, the term "Epicurean" could serve as a
label of disparagement to pin on any sort of opponent whatsoever. In this particular sermon, John-Jerome cites St. Jerome's use of this term in his writings against Jovinian.
54It is interesting to note the respect John-Jerome felt for famous female ascetics. In this
sermon he quotes at length a passage from the liber Revelationum of St. Bridget
(1303-1373) in which she was extremely critical of the prelates of her day. Likewise he
immediately follows this quotation with a similar one from the liber Revelationum Divi-

nae Doctrinae of St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380). John-Jerome fully accepts these
women and their visions as authentic expressions of divine disfavor about the state of the
Church, and quotes from them in the same breath in which he cites Jerome, Augustine,
Gregory the Great, and the Decretum. His interest in female ascetics, including Angela of

Foligno, went beyond the immediate polemical needs of this particular sermon. In 1425

he put together two works entitled Epilogus Domni Hieronymi de Praga Revelationum
Beatae Angelae de Fuligneo, and Epilogus Domni Hieronimi de Praga in Vita Beatae
Catharinae de Sena, which can be found in Annal. Cam., LX, 868-916. These works,
which are little more than abbreviated transcriptions, with an introduction, to standard
lives (although the work on Angela of Foligno also contains her visions) of these two
saints, nevertheless indicate the esteem in which these women ascetics were held by
John-Jerome.

426REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR ATTHE COUNCIL OF PAVU-SIENA (1423-1424)

Church so vociferously.55 He laments the state of the religious orders, including his own Camaldolese.56 In its thoroughness and rhetorical skill,
this sermon certainly is a tour deforce of reform polemic, and it is not
surprising that John of Ragusa remembered and was impressed with

John-Jerome's zeal.57

In addition to his concern with clerical immorality, John-Jerome crit-

icizes the pride and ambition of those who persist in erroneous ideas,

another impediment to personal reform. He provides a long list of ancient and more recent heretics and doctrines they espoused,58 and sees
this intellectual hindrance to personal reform as stemming from a lack
of caritas. Following the tradition of St. Paul, St. Augustine, and Peter
Lombard, John-Jerome asserts that learning will avail intellectuals noth-

ing, and will even hinder them, if they are not primarily motivated in

their quest for truth by love of God. The liberal arts themselves can be
properly understood and applied only when interpreted in terms of
Christian caritas:

Thus it is truly evident that charity alone is the art of arts and science of sci-

ences, possessing the way to all principles of method. For only charity

teaches useful Grammar, particularly how suitably to construe morals, and
control the senses well. It also teaches a useful Logic: namely, not to have a
false tongue, and always to tell the truth. And it teaches useful Rhetoric: that

is how to pray honestly and in an orderly way, and to make devout excla-

mations in prayer. Beyond this charity itself teaches useful Geometry: to

measure with due consideration earthly things, and because they are tran"Before quoting a passage from a sermon of St. Bernard concerning clerical abuses,
John-Jerome remarks: "Jamque beams Bernardus dicit (ego forsitan non dicam, ne Praelatorum indignationem incurram, quamquam nihil dico de bonis, sed de ambitiosis) dicit
itaque beatus Bernardus . . . etc?Annal. Cam., LX, 740.
56"Unde hodie in statu Ecclesiae, sive sit Episcopus, Abbas, vel praepositus, Decanus,

Prior, vel Capellanus, Canonicus, vel Monachus, Bernardita, sive Carmelita, Carthusiensis,
vel Praemonstratensis, Camaldulensis, vel Augustinensis, Ordinis Minorum, vel Praedicatorum, et breviter ab individuis usque ad generalissima." Ibid. , p. 737. These criticisms are a
classic example of the exaggeration so typical of the monastic reform tradition. For a discussion of this phenomenon, see Jean Leclercq, The Love ofLearning and the Desirefor
God, 3d ed. (New York, 1985), p. 132.
"See note 14 above. It should be noted that not all reformers present at the Council of
Siena felt that such acerbic attacks on the clergy were helpful. See the sermon given at the

council by the Dominican Girolamo of Florence on Epiphany, 1424, found in Brandmüller,
op. cit., pt. 2, pp. 193-199. For a partial English translation, see Crowder, op. cit., pp.
143-145.

"He mentions Apuleius, Epicurus, Virgilius, Naso, Seneca, Menander, Apellus, Cerdonus,
the Manicheans, Hermongenianus, Origen, Plato, Muhammad, Nicholas the Deacon, Valen-

tinian, the Angelici, John Wycliffe, John Hus, Jerome of Prague, Pelaguis, the Circumcellions, and many others.

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYLAND427

sitory, to spurn and condemn rather than esteem them. It teaches also useful Arithmetic: to add up each day the favors of God, and to thank God accordingly for them. Charity teaches useful Astrology, namely, how always to
contemplate heavenly things, and because they are eternal, to desire them
with our whole being. Charity also teaches useful Music: how to rejoice
with devout sounds and to always praise God."

In his previous sermon at the Council of Siena, John-Jerome had
made use of grammatical imagery to discuss the importance of the Incarnation and the need of ecclesiastical reform.60 These remarks on the

artes liberales seem at first to be an almost playful rhetorical device,
but they are in fact a prelude to a stinging criticism of the importance
attached to secular philosophy in contemporary Christian intellectual
culture. John-Jerome cites Augustine and Jerome to prove that philosophers are liars and demon-worshipers, and mocks those who claim that
Vergil and Plato were Christians because some of their statements bear
a superficial similarity to Christian beliefs.61 Furthermore, whatever
good can be found among the pagans is mixed with falsity (diabólica
falsitate miscuerunf), and it is safer for the Christian to prefer the pure
teachings of Christ and the apostles to the confused and half-diabolical
assertions of the pagans.62
John-Jerome then goes on to assert that secular learning has been the
specific cause of heresy and disunity throughout Christendom:
For in this matter I speak as an expert, because for the most part there
would not be so many heresies in the Church, if they did not shout in the
""Constat ergo verissime, quod sola caritas est ars artium et scientia scientiarum, ad
omnia Methodorum principia viam habens; nam sola caritas docet utilem Grammaticam,
videlict congrue mores construere, et sensus bene regere. Docet etiam utilem Logicam;
linguam falsam non habere, et semper veritatem dicere. Docet et utilem Rethoricam, honeste et composite orare, et devotas exclamationes in oratione faceré. Insuper ipsa caritas
docet utilem Geometriam, terrena debita consideratione mensurare, et quia sunt transitoria, ea non diligere, sed spernere et contemnere. Docet etiam utilem Arithmeticam, Dei
beneficia omni die computare, et pro hiis Deo grates referre. Docet et utilem Astrologiam,
coelestia semper contemplan, et quia sunt aeterna, toto ea affectu desiderare. Docet etiam
utilem Musicam, devotis sonis jubilare, et Deum semper laudare." Annal. Cam.,DÍ,742.
mIbid.,p. 725.
""Sic et Maro esset fidelis, quia in Bucolicis dicit: numero Deus impare gaudet. Hac ratione et Plato erit christianus, quia scripsit de Verbo, non pro una divina persona, sed pro
quadam ideali ratione." Annal. Cam., LX, 743.
',2"Ideo doctrina philosophorum non est praeferenda doctrinae Christi et Apostolorum. Ego namque secure praefero doctrinam Christi et Apostolorum doctrinae Mercurii,
Pythagorae, Socratis, Aristotelis, Platonis,Varronis, Tullii, Senecae, Prophyrii, et aliorum ethnicorum, quorum sunt portenta potiusquam nomina." Ibid.

428REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

schools and argue in the churches with secular philosophy. Why, behold
that the most opulent kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia never would have
been subjected to the perfidy of heretics, if the books of Aristotle and Plato
had not come to Prague. And today there are many other secret heresies in
the Church, and especially in Italy, which grow out from this same root,
such as the heretical Destini, who think and believe that all things happen
from necessity. Other heretics are called the Geneologi, who concede to
the stars the direction of human affairs. Other heretics are called Fatales,
who believe in the Fates and Fortune. Others are called heretical Fraticelli

de opinione who deny there is a true pope, while other heretics are called
Simoniacs because they sell or purchase ecclesiastical offices and the sacraments of the Church.63

In this passage John-Jerome provides us with some insights into his
personal feelings about the prevalence of heterodoxy and heresy in the
Europe of his day and their relationship to the problem of reform. As he
would do in his later works against the Hussites, John-Jerome stresses
that his opinions are based upon personal experience in these matters.
John-Jerome's remarks about the relationship of pagan philosophy to
the upheavals in Bohemia would indicate that he supported the view
that the authentic Bohemian reform tradition of the fourteenth century,
which had little to do with scholastic philosophy, was corrupted by
philosophical concerns based upon the teachings of John Wycliffe.
Thus, John-Jerome sees the Bohemian situation as a case where ideas of
reform were transformed into heresy because of the adoption of misguided secular philosophy. The violence in Bohemia had begun in
earnest in 1419 and would have been a frightful image to bring up to
his clerical audience.64

John-Jerome's examples of the dangers of secular philosophy are not
confined to Bohemia, however, as he goes on to criticize the situation in
Italy. It is clear that he is disillusioned with the atmosphere of Italian intellectual culture. He is genuinely alarmed at the irrelevance of orthodox Christianity for many, and the prevalence of heterodox Christian
65"Nam in hac causa tamquam expertus loquor, quod pro majori parte non essent tot
haereses in Ecclesia, si seculari philosophia non vociferarent in scholis, neque disputarent
in Ecclesiis. En ecce opulentissimum regnum Bohemiae et Moraviae nunquam perfidiae
haerticorum subjectum fuisset, si libri Aristotelis et Piatonis Pragam non venissent. Sunt et
hodie aliae multae haereses occultae in Ecclesia, et praecipue in Italia, quae ex hac radice
prodierunt. Sicut sunt Destini haeretici, qui putant et credunt omnia de necessitate
evenire. Alii vocantur Geneologi haeretici, qui gubernationem humanam syderibus concedunt. Alii vocantur Fatales haeretici, qui fatis et fortunae credunt. AHi dicuntur Fraticelli
de opinione haeretici, qui negant esse verum Papam. Alii vocantur Simoniaci haeretici,
quia beneficia et Ecclesiae Sacramenta vendunt aut emunx" Ibid.
"See note 48 above.

BY WILLIAM PATRICK HYIAND429

movements (such as the Fraticelli) as well as neo-pagan elements in
Italy. The fact that John-Jerome includes radical Franciscanism and simony as heresies that stem from secular philosophy is quite interesting:
the fanatic morality of the Fraticelli and the moral laxity of simoniacs
are part of the same problem for John-Jerome and would seem to
demonstrate how closely he identifies moral behavior with indifference
to orthodox Catholic theology. The most zealous are no better than the
morally lax if they set their own views above ecclesiastical orthodoxy.
His criticisms of secular philosophy are not as simple as they appear
in this passage. In this very same sermon he employs the logical categories of consequence and corollary in support of his own arguments,
and it is clear that he does not reject completely the use of dialectical
tools in his own work. John-Jerome also cites approvingly Aristotle,
Seneca, and Cicero in this sermon, and clearly feels that they are not valueless in the realm of moral theology. John-Jerome is content to deliver
a harsh polemical message in this sermon and leaves the more complex
questions about the appropriateness of secular learning unresolved. At
first glance it would seem that he himself undermines his polemics
against secular philosophy. In fact, these ambiguities about secular
learning place him in the tradition of Augustine, Peter Damián, and
Otloh of St. Emmeram, who despite their polemics recognize an important place for secular learning in the general scheme of things.65 It is in
his later work as a specifically monastic reformer, in which he enunciated the ideal of sancta rusticitas in direct opposition to both scholastic dialectic and the eloquence-based docta pietas of his contemporary
and fellow Camaldolese Ambrogio Traversari, that John-Jerome developed his views on these matters.66
Conclusion

This second sermon given by John-Jerome in the final days of the
Council of Siena can be seen as a melancholy exclamation point to the
sermon given by John of Ragusa at the opening of the Council. John of
Ragusa had stressed the internal and external threats posed by heresy,
war, and powerful rival civilizations poised beyond the borders of

Christendom. He had expressed the hope that the Council and papacy
6,See Irven M. Resnick, "Attitudes towards Philosophy and Dialectic During the Grego-

rian Reform"Journal ofReligious History, 16 (December, 1990), 115-125.
"See William R Hyland, "John-Jerome of Prague and Monastic Reform in the Fifteenth
Century," American Benedictine Review, 47 (March, 1996), 58-98.

430REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424)

could deal with these problems in a spirit of mutual co-operation, beginning with the almost universally acknowledged need for clerical
reform. Eight months later, the tone is very different. Although in November, 1423, John-Jerome was still optimistic about the chance to effect real reform, he emphasizes the increasingly elusive nature of a
united Christendom. Notions of Catholic unity are being subverted by
secular philosophy, heresy, greed, and the moral decadence of the
clergy. This latter problem in particular had been plaguing the monasteries he encountered as a visitator, and whether in the case of individ-

ual religious houses or the universal Church, John-Jerome placed the
burden of reform squarely on the shoulders of prelates.

By February, 1424, the failure of this council was apparent. Thus in his
second sermon given to the council John-Jerome expresses frustration
and disgust at the inability of the Council and Roman Curia to work together for reform. In these powerful sermons, the historian recognizes
the internal problems faced by traditional church reformers, as well as
the frustration and despair of reformers in the face of problems that the
fifteenth-century Church would never really be able to solve.

ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY
IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD:

A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DISPUTE
BY

Sabine Patricia Hyland*

Introduction

In 1624 Francisco Verdugo, newly appointed bishop of Huamanga in

Peru, stunned his diocese by declaring that most of the Catholic priests
in the rural regions of Huamanga had not been validly ordained and
must be removed permanently from office. The priests in question
were all of illegitimate birth who, Verdugo argued, could not be validly
ordained, despite two previous papal bulls empowering American bishops to raise illegitimate men to the priesthood.1
For Verdugo, the removal of illegitimately born men from the priesthood in his diocese was to be his final measure in a long struggle to ensure the racial purity of the priesthood in Peru. In Peru at this time,
illegitimacy was commonly equated with mestizos—children born to
European (or creóle) fathers and native mothers. Debate about the role
of illegitimate men within the priesthood was stated explicitly to concern the place of mestizos in the Church. After 1588, when the Spanish
Crown repealed legislation barring American bishops from ordaining
mestizos, those opposed to mestizo ordination tried to use the canonical prohibitions against ordaining illegitimate men to keep mestizos
from the priesthood. After years of bitter debate, the matter was finally
resolved in 1628. In that year the Council of the Indies decided in favor
of allowing bishops to grant dispensations for the ordination of illegitimate men, as had been provided for by two earlier papal bulls. In addition, the Council declared that all previous ordinations of illegitimate
men by American bishops had been valid, reversing Verdugo's attempts
*Dr. Hyland is an assistant professor of anthropology in Columbus State University,
Columbus, Georgia.
'See Pedro de Reina Maldonado, El norte claro del perfecto prelado (Madrid, 1653),
pp. 372-375.

431

432ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

to remove these illegitimately born men from the priesthood.2 Thus, the
final restrictions against investing mestizos with Holy Orders in the Indies were removed.

Although numerous scholars have addressed the controversy over
creating a native and a mestizo priesthood in colonial Spanish America,
the role of the question of illegitimacy in these debates has been overlooked.3 Yet studying the debate over illegitimacy is essential to understanding the complete history of the controversy over mestizos in the
Peruvian priesthood. The conflict over ordaining illegitimately born
men was a crucial part in the development of the priesthood in colonial
South America. Moreover, the analysis of this debate reveals that, con-

trary to current scholarly opinion, mestizos formed the substratum of
the Peruvian clergy in the seventeenth century. In this period mestizos
were customarily ordained to serve in rural Indian parishes (doctrinas)
from which there was virtually no chance of promotion. Until now it
generally has been believed that only Europeans and creóles were ordained as priests in seventeenth-century Peru. The fact that, as analysis
of this debate shows, mestizo priests were a common feature of Indian
parishes in seventeenth-century Peru, holds profound implications for
our understanding of the spread of Christianity in the Andes.
2Juan de Solórzano Pereyra, Política Indiana,\o\. 2 (Madrid, 1972), pp. 306-31 1.
'For discussions on the development of mestizo and native clergy in Latin America, see
Juan Alvarez Mejia, "La cuestión del Clero indígena en la época colonial," Revista Javeriana, 44 (1955), 193-197; 45 (1956), 56-57, 209-2 19; Xavier Albó,"Jesuítas y culturas indí-

genas, Perú 1568-1606; América indígena, 26 (1966), 249-308, 399-449; Fernando de
Armas Medina, Cristianización del Perú (1532-1600) (Seville, 1953), pp. 364-374; Constantino Bayle, "España y el clero indígena de América," Razón y Fe, 94 (February 10,
1931), 213-225; (March 25, 1931), 521-535;Guiüermo¥iguera,Laformación del clero in-

dígena en la historia eclesiástica de América 1500-1818 (Caracas, 1965); Antón
Hounder, Der einheimische Klerus in den Heidenländern (Freiburg, 1909); León
Lopetegui,"FJ Papa Gregorio XIII y la Ordenación de mestizos hispano-incáicos" in Xenia

Piaña SSmo Dno Nro Pió Papae XII . . . dicata (Rome, 1943); Juan Oleachea, "Como

abordaron la cuestión del clero indígena los primeros misioneros de México," Missionalia

Hispánica, 73 (1968), 95-124; Stafford Poole,"Church Law on the Ordination of Indians
and Castas in New Spain," Hispanic American Historical Review, 61 (1981), 637-650;
Robert Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico (Berkeley, 1974); John Frederick
Schwaller, The Church and Clergy in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Albuquerque, New

Mexico, 1987); Johannes Specker,"Der einheimische Klerus in Spanisch-America im 16.
Jahrhundert" in Der einheimische Klerus in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Johannes

Beckman, S.M.B. (Schöneck-Beckenried, 1950); Rubén Vargas Ugarte, Historia de la iglesia en el Perú (Burgos, 1959);Antonio Ybot León,ia iglesiay los eclesiásticos Españoles
en la empresa de Indias (Seville, 1954). Of all of these authors, Figuera is the only one to
note that the debate over mestizos became a debate over illegitimacy; however, he only
mentions this briefly and does not explore the issue at all.

BY SABINE P HYLAND433
Sources

The details of the Peruvian controversy over ordaining illegitimate
men can be found in several important seventeenth-century sources.
The fullest account of this dispute occurs in El norte claro delperfecto
prelado written by Pedro de Reina Maldonado and published in Madrid

in 1653. Reina Maldonado was a Lima-born creóle who was a canon of

the cathedral chapter in Trujillo in 1606; in 1659 he was named bishop

of Santiago de Cuba, where he remained until his death in I66I.4 As a
cathedral canon and later bishop, Reina Maldonado was intimately involved with the major issues facing the colonial episcopate in the first
half of the seventeenth century. El norte claro delperfecto prelado is a
two-volume treatise of the duties, rights, and responsibilities of bishops.
A major concern of the work is the effective Christianization of the native Andean peoples; it is in this context that Reina Maldonado discusses
the dispute over ordaining illegitimate men. Only two copies of El
norte claro delperfecto prelado are known still to exist: one in the Yale
University Library and one in the National Library in Santiago, Chile.

Another major primary source for this study is the Política indiana

by Juan de Solórzano Pereyra. Solórzano Pereyra was one of the most
important actors in this dispute. As the governor of Huamanga when
Verdugo became bishop and, later, as ?fiscal of the Council of the Indies
when the Council settled this controversy, Solórzano Pereyra vigorously
defended the right of American bishops to grant dispensations for illegitimacy. In his Política indiana, in the section on the ordination of
mestizos, he describes the debate over illegitimacy and explains in detail the legal reasoning behind the Council's final decision.
The case against raising illegitimate men to the priesthood is presented by the Jesuit theologian Esteban de Avila in De censuris ecclesi-

asticis tractatus . . . , published in 1609. It was Avila who first argued
that the papal bulls which allowed American bishops to grant dispen-

sations for irregularities were irrelevant in the case of illegitimacy in
seventeenth-century Peru. In De censuris . . . , now a very rare book,
Avila explains his reasons for doubting the relevancy of the two bulls.
Avila's arguments were central to the efforts of Verdugo and others to
exclude mestizos—who were virtually always illegitimate—from the
priesthood.

Although I have been unable to find any texts by Francisco Verdugo,
the dispute over illegitimacy is mentioned in a hagiographical work
'M. de Mendiburu, Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Perú (Lima, 1887), p. 56.

434ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

about him prepared shortly before his death. In 1637 N. Cordova Messia

published the Vida del Ilustríssimo Señor Don Francisco Verdugo, in
which the bishop's attempts to reform the clergy in Huamanga are discussed. This work is now extremely rare; no copies of it, for example,
are known to exist in the United States.

These four primary sources, in addition to the others used in this article, provide a variety of viewpoints concerning this dispute. These
multiple voices allow for the reconstruction of this important controversy, a debate which has been entirely unexamined by scholars until
now.

Sixteenth-Century Background to the Controversy
The creation of a mestizo clergy in Peru was a highly contentious
issue throughout the sixteenth century. However, the issue appears not
to have been as controversial in Mexico as it was in South America.

After an initial enthusiasm for forming native and mestizo priests,5 the
Mexican Church closed its doors to ordaining men of Indian descent.

The first Mexican Provincial Council in 1555 determined that no Indian
or mestizo could be admitted to orders. In the Third Provincial Council

of Mexico, which met in 1585, the bishops reiterated the absolute ban
on ordaining mestizos. However, after the conciliar legislation was sent
to Rome for approval, the Roman Curia altered the Mexican decree to
allow for mestizo ordination. The legislation of the Third Provincial
Council was published in 1622 in the form approved by Rome, and

would remain in force in most of Mexico until 1918.6 Because of the al-

teration of the text by the Curia, mestizos were legally allowed to be ordained as priests in Mexico, although the Mexican bishops in 1585 had
been unanimously opposed to doing so.
The religious orders in Mexico also harbored doubts about mestizos
as priests and religious. In their first provincial council in Mexico, the
'Information about the Franciscan seminary for training native priests can be found in
Ricard, op. cit. , pp. 2 17-238. For theJunta Apostólica of 1539, which allowed natives and
mestizos to be admitted to the minor Orders in preparation for the priesthood, see José A.
Llaguno, S.J., La personalidad jurídica del indio y el Ul Concilio Provincial Mexicano
(1585); Ensayo histórico-jurídico de los documentos originales (Biblioteca Porrua,Vol.

27 [Mexico City, 19631); Fernando Gil, "Las 'juntas eclesiásticas' durante el episcopado de
Fray Juan de Zumárraga (1 528- 1 548); algunas precisiones históricas," Teología, 26 (1989),
3-30; Cristóforo Gutiérrez Vega, Las primeras Juntas Eclesiásticas de México
(1524-1555) (Rome, 1991).

6Poole, op. cit. , pp. 64 1 -648.

BY SABINE R HYLAND435

Dominicans resolved against admitting Indians and mestizos into their
order as either priests or lay brothers. The Franciscans initially had built

a college for training natives and mestizos as priests. By the 1 540's, how-

ever, the college ceased to function as a seminary, and the friars became
opposed to allowing Indians and mestizos to make religious vows. Likewise, the Augustinians also appear to have refused to accept Indian and

mestizo youths into the order in Mexico.7 The Mexican bishops and re-

ligious orders refused to accept mestizos as priests out of the fear that the
latter had not been truly Christianized and were therefore ill-prepared
to spread the faith. It was believed that, until the natives were more solid
in their Christian faith, there should be no Indian or mestizo priests.8

The Peruvian bishops, influenced by the experience of the Church in

Mexico, refused to ordain Peruvian Indians as priests. The First Provin-

cial Council of Lima in 1551-52 forbade the ordination of Indians "until

[the Indians] are more instructed and settled in the faith and know better the mysteries and sacraments."9 The Second Provincial Council of
Lima in 1567 was even more explicit in refusing Indians the sacrament
of Holy Orders. The documents of the Council state "that Indians are
not to be ordained in any order of the Church."10 The first two Councils
of Lima stated nothing about the admission of mestizos to Holy Orders.
However, the Dominicans and Franciscans in Peru during this period officially refused to receive either mestizos or Indians. The Augustinians
likewise closed their doors in Peru to both mestizos and Indians.11

The Jesuits initially intended to allow numerous mestizos into the So-

ciety. Several mestizos, including the famous missionaries Bartolomé de

Santiago, Pedro de Añasco, and Blas Valera, were accepted into the Soci-

ety. However, native resistance to evangelization in the Andes caused

the Jesuits to doubt the sincerity of the Andeans' conversion to Christianity; these doubts extended to the faith of the Indians' mestizo descendants. In 1582 the Jesuits in Peru unanimously voted to exclude all
mestizos from the Society.12 To explain the Jesuit restrictions on mestiOleachea, op. cit., pp. 116-117.
"See Ricard, op. cit. , p. 226.
'"hasta que estén más instruidos y arraigados en la fee y conozcan mejor los misterios
y sacramentos." The original documents of the First Council of Lima can be found in
Rubén Vargas Ligarte, Concilios Limenses (1551-1772) (Lima, 1951).

""'que los indios no se ordenen de ningún orden de la yglesia."The original resolutions
from the Second Council of Lima can be found ibid. , p. 249.
"Juan Oleachea, "Los indios en las órdenes religiosas," Missionalia Hispánica, 86
(1972), 242.
'The original text of the decision to exclude mestizos can be found in the documents

edited by Antonio de Egaña, Monumenta Peruana,Vo\. 3 (Rome, 1961), pp. 205-206.

436ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

zos, José de Acosta argued that mestizos were too degraded by the customs of their mothers to make good Christians and, therefore, good
priests.13 The ruling against mestizos lasted until the Jesuits were forced

to leave Spanish America in 1767.

The only religious in Peru to accept mestizos into their order throughout the sixteenth century were the Mercedarians.14 For historical reasons, the Mercedarians possessed a more medieval idea of conversion
which emphasized the acceptance of baptism rather than the heartfelt
conversion and long catechesis demanded by the Jesuits and Dominicans. Possessing a greater faith in the objective power of baptism alone
to prevent the Indians' damnation, the Mercedarians' religious demands
on the Indians were relatively few. Thus, the friars of La Merced were

not as likely to be disappointed with their native converts.15 With confidence in the faith of the native converts, they felt secure in entrusting
Holy Orders to mestizo descendants of Indians.

Papal and Royal Legislation

In 1576 Pope Gregory XIII issued the bull Nuper ad nos, which gave

the American bishops the power to dispense with the irregularity of illegitimacy so that mestizos could be ordained for the priesthood. As
he stated in the bull, the Pope took this action to increase the number
of missionaries capable of preaching to the Indians in their native
tongues. Nuper ad nos reads:
"José de Acosta,üe Promulgando Evangelio apud Barbaros (Lyons, 1670), p. 287. For
a discussion of the Jesuit decision to exclude mestizos, which includes an analysis of
Acosta's changing views on mestizo priests, see Sabine Hyland, "Conversion, Custom and

Culture: Jesuit Racial Policy in 16th Century Peru" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1994).

This also includes a comparison of Jesuit policy toward mestizos to Jesuit legislation on
conversos—the descendants of converted Jews.
"The original texts which demonstrate this have been published in the collection of
documents edited by Victor Barriga, O. de M., Los mercedarios en elPerú en el siglo XVI,
Vol. 2 (Arequipa, 1939); see, for example, p. 232.
"The Franciscans in Peru had missionary theories similar to those of the Mercedarians.
Although the Franciscans ruled against admitting mestizos, at least one mestizo was accepted in the sixteenth century—Gerónimo Valera, who became the leading Franciscan
theologian in Peru in the seventeenth century (see G. Valera, Commentant ac Quaestiones . . . [Lima, 1610], preface). For a discussion of Mercedarian missionary ideals, see
Hyland, op. cit. , chap. 5.

BY SABINE E HYLAND437

. . . the archbishops and the bishops of the Indies can dispense with illegitimacy, spuriousness, and other defects of the Mestizos in [the Indies], so
that they can be ordained to all orders, so that there will be more Ministers
who can go to preach, instruct, and confess the Indians. . . . 1<s

Gregory XIII's bull, which specifically mentioned the ordination of
mestizos, reiterated the more general powers already granted to American bishops by Pope Pius V in 1571. In that year Pius V had issued the
bull Decens ac debitum, which conceded to the American bishops the
power to dispense with all irregularities, excepting homicide and simony, for the conferral of Holy Orders. His bull stated the following:
That [bishops] in the Indies can grant dispensations to all persons for any
kind of irregularity, except for voluntary homicide committed outside of
war and simony, such that [these persons] can be ordained to hold any office and ecclesiastical benefice, and that this dispensation will work the
same as if the Roman Pontiff had ordered and conceded it.1"

These two Papal bulls make it clear that the American bishops were empowered to grant dispensations for illegitimacy; the bull of Gregory XIII
additionally specifies that this power was given to encourage the creation of a mestizo priesthood.
However, on December 13, 1577, the Crown wrote to the Bishop of
Cusco, forbidding him to ordain mestizos. On December 2 of the following year, King Philip II sent a similar order to the Archbishop of
Lima to cease the ordination of mestizos.18 The Crown feared that mes-

tizo priests would cling to the beliefs of their Indian mothers, thereby
"". . . que concede á los Arzobispos y Obispos de las Indias que puedan dispensar en
la ilegitimidad, espuriedad y otros defectos de los Mestizos de ellas, para lo que es poder
ser ordenados de todas Ordenes, y esto porque huviese más Ministros que pudiesen
acudir á predicar, doctrinar y confesar á los Indios. . . ." Solórzano Pereyra, op. cit.,p. 307.
Nuper ad nos can be found in its original form in Josef Metzler (ed.), America Pontificia
Primi Saeculi Evangelizationis, 1493-1592: Documenta Pontificia ex registris et
minutispraesertim in Archivo Secreto Vaticano existentibus (2 vols.;Vatican City, 1991),

II, no. 320, and in Francisco Javier Hernáez, Colección de bulas, breves y otros documen-

tos relativos a la Iglesia de América y Filipinas (2 vols.; Brussels, 1895), 1, 222-223.
""Que puedan dispensar en ellas con todas personas en qualquier especie de irregularidad, fuera de la de homicidio voluntario cometido extra bellum y la de la simonía, asi
para poder ser ordenados como para tener qualesquier oficios y beneficios Eclesiásticos,
y que esta dispensación obrase lo mismo que si la huviere hecho y concedido el Romano

Pontífice." Solórzano Pereyra, op. cit. , p. 308. The Decens ac Debitum is in Metzler, op. cit. ,
no. 266 (where he has "et" instead of'ac") and in Hernáez, op. cit. , 1, 184-185.

"The original text of this document can be found in the collection of texts published

by Domingo Ángulo (ed.), "El cedulario arzobispal de la arquidiócesis de Lima 15331820," Revista del Archivo Nacional del Peru, 3 (1925), 327.

438ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

endangering the evangelization of the native Andeans. Bishops who ordained mestizos, as encouraged by Nuper ad nos, could be subject to
legal prosecution.19
Philip's orders sparked a series of letters to the government from
mestizo groups, aided by the Mercedarians, objecting to the new royal
policy. On December 12, 1582, a mestizo confraternity in Cusco sent a
petition to the Crown requesting that the order against mestizo ordination be revoked. This petition argued that mestizo priests who currently served in Indian parishes lived moral lives and were excellent
missionaries because of their fluency in Indian languages. Thus, denying

orders to mestizos would result in the loss of skilled and virtuous mis-

sionaries to the Andean pagans.20 Additionally, this petition also complained about the hardships inflicted by the bishops' adherence to the
Crown's 1578 decree. Those mestizos who were in the middle of their

training for the priesthood, and had been ordained up to the level of
deacon when the royal decree was published, were now unable to advance to the priesthood. Without a reversal of the royal policy, it would
be impossible for these men to earn a living.
Another petition on behalf of mestizo ordination was witnessed in
Lima on July 27, 158321 The mestizos Hernán González and Juan Ruiz
wrote to the Archbishop of Lima requesting a reconsideration of mestizo ordination at the Third Provincial Council of Lima. This petition repeated many of the same arguments made in the previous petition to
the Crown, emphasizing the soundness of the mestizos' Christian faith
and their great abilities as missionaries. In fact, the authors of this document claimed that only if mestizos were ordained would natives convert to Christianity and give up their pagan beliefs. The reason for the
lack of success of most missions, it was stated, was the moral and linguistic inadequacy of the Spanish priests.
At least one other letter on behalf of mestizo ordination was written

in Peru in the late 1 500's. On February 13,1 583, a group of mestizo students wrote to the Pope, requesting that the ban on mestizo priests be
"The issue of mestizo clergy in the context of the power struggle between the Spanish Crown and the Holy See is discussed at length in Figuera's (pp. cit.) monograph on the
subject.

20The original text of this petition can be found in Barriga, op. cit., Vol. 4 (Arequipa,
1953), p. 234.
21The original text of this petition is ibid. , pp. 254-261 .

BY SABINE E HYLAND439

lifted. As in the previous letters, the students emphasized that mestizos
were ideal missionaries because only they possessed the languages
needed to preach to the Indians.22 Common to all three letters is the argument that mestizo priests were absolutely essential in the Indian
doctrinas because of their language skills. Without the ability to communicate fluently with natives, as mestizos could do better than
Spaniards, there was no hope of Indian conversion. All three letters also
emphasized the great morality and love of the Church shown by mestizo priests already in doctrinas.
When the Archbishop of Lima, St. Toribio Alfonso de Mongrovejo, convened the Third Provincial Council in 1582, he assembled a committee

of three bishops to determine whether mestizos should be ordained as
priests. The bishops found in favor of mestizos,23 and their recommendations were incorporated into the decrees of the council, which permitted the elevation of mestizos to the priesthood, but only under very
restrictive circumstances. According to Solórzano Pereyra, the archbishop agreed that mestizos were to be ordained ad titulum indorum;
that is, they could be assigned only to Indian doctrinas.24
In 1588 the Spanish Crown repealed the legislation which banned
American bishops from investing mestizos with Holy Orders. On August 31 and September 28, 1588, the king declared, "Let Prelates ordain Mestizos as Priests, with information of the life and customs [of
each] ."25 Philip II revoked his former order because of pressure from the
Roman Curia, brought through the Papal Nuncio in Madrid.26 From
1588 onwards, there were no formal bans on mestizo ordination by the
Spanish government, or by the Mexican or Peruvian councils of bishops. The only bodies officially to exclude mestizos from religious life
were the religious orders.
However, in 1594 Philip II forbade American prelates to ordain illegitimates; this legislation was understood by contemporary commenta22The original text of this letter is to be found in Lopetegui, op. cit. , pp. 193-200.
23The diocese of Huamanga, which later would become a focal point of the debate over

mestizo priests, did not exist at this time. The Huamanga diocese was erected in 1609
from territory taken from the dioceses of Lima and Cusco. See Antonio de Egaña, Historia

de la Iglesia en la América Española (Madrid, 1966), p. 339"Solórzano Pereyra op. cit., p. 305.
"Lopetegui, op. cit. , p. 201 .
26IbId., pp. 200-203.

440ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

tors to be directed against mestizos.27 The famous seventeenth-century
Spanish jurist, Juan de Solórzano Pereyra, admitted that mestizos were

the primary subjects of this law because few were born in wedlock,

given the Spaniards' reluctance to marry Indians.28 Because of the
Pope's success in securing the repeal of Philip's ban on mestizo ordination in 1588, the Crown shifted to illegitimacy as grounds for not conferring Holy Orders on mestizos. Throughout the seventeenth century,
therefore, the dispute over mestizo priests would be argued in terms of
their presumed illegitimate birth.

Illegitimacy and Mestizo Ordination
At the time of the royal order of 1 594, the custom of dispensing with
illegitimacy to ordain mestizos had already been established in the
Archdiocese of Lima by the authority of the Papal bull Nuper ad nos.1''
The mestizos so ordained labored exclusively in the Indian doctrinas,
the lowest position in the Peruvian clericate. This practice would be
challenged in the seventeenth century by the bishop of Huamanga, who
tried to have all mestizo priests removed from doctrinas within his diocese, on the grounds that the mestizos' orders were invalid. The Peruvian Viceroy would be forced to intervene, and this crucial matter
would eventually be settled by the Council of the Indies.
In order to understand the course of the seventeenth-century debates on this issue, illegitimacy as an irregularity for ordination will first
be discussed. The multiple legal issues concerning illegitimacy and mestizo priests raised in this controversy will next be examined. Then the
course of action taken by the various Peruvian bishops, the Viceroy, the
Crown, and the Council of Indies will be reconstructed. Finally, the definitive decision by Juan de Solórzano Pereyra, principal attorney for
the Council of the Indies, on this question of race, legitimacy, and the
Peruvian priesthood will be addressed, along with the episcopal reactions to his ruling.
27See, for example, Reina Maldonado, op. cit., pp. 372-375, and Córdoba Messía, op. cit.
The Crown at this time was still as loathe to entrust the priesthood to mestizos as it was

to entrust it to conversos. See Albert Sicroff, Los estatutos de limpieza de sangre (Madrid,
1985).

28Solórzano Pereyra, op. cit. ,1,445.
29TWd., ?, 306.

BY SABINE E HYLAND441

Illegitimacy as an Impediment to the Priesthood30
Irregularities are canonical impediments which preclude the recep-

tion of Holy Orders or prevent the exercise of orders already received.

Canon law prescribes certain requirements for the valid reception of
orders. Among these requirements are moral soundness, proper age, le-

gitimate birth, appropriate knowledge, and integrity of body and mind.

A defect in any of the necessary qualities required by the Church for ordination is termed an irregularity; an irregular candidate may not licitly
receive Holy Orders without a papal dispensation.
There are two broad categories of irregularities—those that are ex
delicto,,''on account of crime," and those that are ex defectu,"on account
of defect." Irregularities ex delicto are incurred by wrongdoings; their
imposition is not intended as a punishment but rather as a means of
shielding the sanctuary from profanation. To incur an irregularity ex
delicto a man must have committed a crime which was external, con-

summated, and serious. Any crime, such as rape or high treason, which
forfeits the goodwill of the community results in an irregularity ex
delicto. Examples of such irregularities in seventeenth-century canon
law include voluntary homicide (this includes assistance in an abortion), willful self-mutilation, heresy, apostasy, and schism.
Irregularities ex defectu arise from certain defects which would be

indecorous in a sacred minister or which would make him unable to

function in his sacerdotal offices. Illegitimacy is an irregularity ex defectu. In the primitive Church illegitimacy did not impede ordination.
But by the later Middle Ages it was established that illegitimates could

not be ordained because the stain of birth was believed to be a stain on

the sacred ministry. Other irregularities ex defectu included age, physical defects, insanity, slavery, and the lack of knowledge required for each
order.

Certain irregularities, such as lack of knowledge, cease if the cause of
the irregularity ceases. According to the canons of the Council of Trent,

bishops could dispense with secret irregularities, except for voluntary

homicide, but only within their own diocese. All other irregularities, including illegitimacy, could be dispensed with only by the pope. Nonetheless, the pope could grant special faculties to bishops allowing the
3°For more information on irregularities in pre-1917 canon law, see Pietro Gasparri,
Tractatus Canónicas de Sacra Ordinatione (2 vols.;Paris, 1893), 1, 90-303-

442ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

latter to dispense with manifest irregularities. This is what was done by
the papal bulls of Pius V and Gregory XIII, which gave to American bishops the power to dispense with all irregularities except, in the case of
the bull of Pius V, for homicide and simony.

Legal Issues Concerning the Papal Dispensations
It would seem that the two bulls—Nuper ad nos and Decens ac debitum—cited above were unequivocal in granting to American bishops
the powers to dispense with illegitimacy in order to ordain mestizos.
However, the interpretation of these bulls varied greatly among American bishops in the seventeenth century. A balanced account of the diversity of opinion concerning these bulls can be found in El norte claro
del perfecto prelado en su pastoral gobierno, by Pedro de Reina Maldonado. Reina Maldonado outlined two main sources of contention

among the Peruvian bishops over the issue of granting dispensations
for illegitimacy. The first concerned the bull of Pius V; the second was
relevant to the bull of Gregory XIII. According to Reina Maldonado, it
was argued that the bull of Pius V referred only to irregularities caused

by crime (ex delicto), such as the two exceptions of homicide and sim-

ony. Illegitimacy, although founded in the crime of the parents, was an
irregularity ex defectu as it was passed on to the child. Therefore, it was
not covered by Decens ac debitum as interpreted by various theologians and bishops. This interpretation of the bull of Pius V first arose
during the Third Provincial Council of Lima in 1583- In the council,
those who were hostile to the ordination of mestizos had to abide by
the decision to elevate mestizos to the priesthood. However, the Jesuit
Father Esteban de Avila, an influential theologian in Lima, claimed that
bishops were not empowered to grant dispensations to ordain illegitimates because Decens ac debitum did not include irregularities ex de-

fectu, such as illegitimacy. Avila maintained that Decens ac debitum
only concerned irregularities ex delicto?1 Thus, he and his adherents at

the Council argued that virtually no mestizos could be validly ordained
in the Indies without a papal dispensation. The legislation of the Council did not address whether the bull of Pius V referred only to irregularities ex defectu. However, the contention of Avila—that Decens ac
"Esteban de Avila, De censuris ecclesiasticis tractatus . . . (Lyons, 1609), p. 7.

BY SABINE E HYLAND443

debitum did not cover illegitimacy—would be repeated throughout
the controversy over mestizo ordination.32
Those hostile to the ordination of mestizos also maintained that the

bull of Gregory XIII was no longer valid in the Indies. This papal bull
had allowed for bishops to dispense with illegitimacy specifically for
the purpose of creating mestizo priests "so that there will be more Ministers who can go to preach, instruct, and confess the Indians."33 It was
asserted that, because there was no longer a shortage of priests who
knew Indian languages, the bull no longer had any effect. "Once the
principal cause of the privilege ceases," Reina Maldonado wrote in explanation of this position, "the privilege itself ceases."34 In other words,
because there were now a sufficient number of priests able to instruct
the Indians in Christianity, the bishops' privilege of granting dispensations for manifest illegitimacy had ceased.
This argument would itself be challenged by those, such as Reina

Maldonado, who maintained that there was still a lack of sufficient

priests fluent in Indian tongues. In many dioceses, he wrote, there were
insufficient legitimate candidates for the priesthood. Therefore, bishops
had "to resort to illegitimate men, who generally know the language of
the Indians better, and are more fit [for the task of evangelization]."35
Moreover, he added, it cannot be denied that the work of illegitimate
priests in doctrinas clearly helps to advance the Gospel and benefit the
Indians.

An issue related to that of granting dispensations for ordination is
that of granting dispensations for benefices. A benefice is a sacred office
to which the Church has attached the perpetual right to gather revenues. In sixteenth-century canon law a man could not be ordained to
the priesthood without being assured a benefice for life; the benefice
was referred to as a titulus or title of ordination.36 Many legal scholars of
the time considered the granting of dispensations for benefices as a separate and additional privilege from the granting of dispensations for ordination. Nuper ad nos did not mention the conferral of benefices,
although Decens ac debitum did. Opinion was divided in the colonies
"Reina Maldonado, op. cit. , pp. 372-373; Avila, op. cit. , pp. 8- 10.
"Solórzano Pereyra, op. cit. , II, 307.
"Reina Maldonado, op. cit., p. 372.

wIbid.,p.374.
"For a discussion of the title of ordination in colonial Latin America see Schwaller, op.
cit.

444ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

as to whether American bishops legally could dispense with illegitimacy for the bestowal of benefices.

Controversy over the Ordination of Illegitimate Men
By the late sixteenth century, a racially polarized clericate had begun
to develop in Peru. The racial polarization of the Peruvian clergy was
maintained throughout the first half of the seventeenth century and
probably into the second half as well. On the bottom rung of the Peruvian priesthood were mestizos who were ordained ad titulum indorum. Legally, a man who was ordained ad titulum indorum could

serve as a priest only within an Indian doctrina, generally the least de-

sirable position in the Peruvian clericate. Indian parishes financed by
the encomenderos, doctrinas were usually the poorest, most isolated,
and least influential parishes in which a priest could serve in colonial
Peru. According to Solórzano Pereyra, the custom of dispensing with illegitimacy to ordain mestizos ad titulum indorum was practiced prior
to I56O and was well established in Peru by 1583· Although mestizo
priests legally could be promoted to other kinds of benefices, Solórzano
Pereyra, Reina Maldonado, and Esteban de Avila37 all state that the custom of Peru was to restrict mestizos to doctrinas. Creoles and Spaniards
also served in Indian doctrinas, but of course were eligible for ordination to any other benefice as well.
Although mestizo priests were restricted to doctrinas, some clerics
in Peru believed that mestizos should not be ordained under any circumstances. The man who led the opposition to mestizo priests in the
early seventeenth century was Francisco Verdugo, a native of Andalucía

who had been a leading inquisitor in Lima since 1601.38 In his first year

as inquisitor in Lima, Verdugo, a secular priest, was deeply influenced by
the thought of a fellow inquisitor, the Jesuit Esteban de Avila, a theologian from Castile. From the time of his arrival in Peru in 1578 until his
death in 1602, Avila was a professor of theology in the Jesuit college of
San Pablo in Lima. One of the leading Jesuit theologians in Lima, he enjoyed great influence in ecclesiastical circles in the colony. As a mark of
the esteem in which he was held, Avila was granted a place on the Tribunal of the Inquisition in Lima. For many years he was in charge of the
Inquisition's censorship of all of the books and printed matter in Peru.
"Solórzano Pereyra, op. cit. , II, 305; Reina Maldonado, op. cit. , p. 372; Avila, op. cit.

1"Egaña, Historia de la Iglesia, p. 340.

BY SABINE P. HYLAND445

He also served briefly as an "ordinary inquisitor," helping to determine
the guilt of prisoners charged with crimes against the faith.39
During the Third Provincial Council of Lima in 1 583, Avila was an unofficial advisor to the delegates. When it became clear that the Council
would allow the ordination of mestizos, he argued that American bish-

ops could not licitly grant dispensations to illegitimates.40 Avila claimed

at the time that Pius V had allowed only for the dispensation of irregularities ex delicto, not irregularities ex defectu such as illegitimacy41
Avilas concern over this issue sprang from his interpretation of
Thomist theories of "custom" and "habituation." The neo-Thomist school

of Francisco de Victoria and his followers at the University of Salamanca, where Avila had studied theology, viewed the force of irrational
native customs as the cause of the Indians' allegedly "unnatural" practices and resistance to Christianity. Customs learned in infancy were
considered to have a profound effect in molding the human soul and
could be eradicated only after many generations of education. Mestizos
were considered too close to the "corrupted" customs of their Indian
mothers to make good priests; not only was it believed that mestizo
priests would revert to paganism, but their supposed difficulties in accepting Christianity "into their hearts" was thought to make them more
prone to immorality and vice.42
Influenced by the arguments of Avila on this matter, Francisco Verdugo became increasingly concerned about the role that illegitimate
mestizo priests played in teaching Christianity to the native Andeans.
Between 1609 and 1619, Verdugo complained repeatedly to the Archbishop of Lima, Bartolomé Lobo Guerrero, about the ordination of illegitimate men in Peru. In his complaints,Verdugo argued that the bulls of
Pius V and of Gregory XIII did not permit dispensations for illegitimacy;
the former because it did not cover irregularities ex defectu, and the latter because there was no longer a lack of priests fluent in Indian languages to serve as missionaries.43
The second decade of the seventeenth century marked the beginning of a period of increased vigilance over pagan elements in Andean
3TWs information about Avila is taken from a Jesuit Provincial catalogue in which he is
mentioned and from his eulogy. Both original documents are printed in Antonio de Egaña,

Monumenta Peruana.Vol 7 (Rome, 1981), pp. 234; 680-686.

"Reina Maldonado, op. cit. , p. 372.
"Avila, op. cit. , p. 7.
"For a lengthier discussion of Spanish neo-Thomism and racism, see Anthony Pagden,

The Fall ofNatural Man (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 93-104,and Hyland, op. cit., pp. 266-293.
^Cordova Messia, op. cit. ; Reina Maldonado, op. cit. , pp. 372-373.

446ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

Christianity. In 1607 the secular priest Francisco de Avila began a campaign to extirpate idolatry in Huarochiri, and similar campaigns soon
occurred elsewhere in the highlands. These campaigns were organized

as episcopal visitations; the Holy Office had no jurisdiction over Chris-

tian Indians. These campaigns lasted throughout the seventeenth cen-

tury, becoming especially vigorous after 1650;44 this coincided with the
Inquisition's intense pursuit of Judaizing from 1650 to 1720 in both

Spain and Peru.45 It is not entirely surprising that as an inquisitor Verdugo should have become anxious over the Indian ancestry of some of
the Peruvian clergy at the same time that suspicion over native elements in Andean Christianity was growing.
Despite Verdugo's complaints about the ordination of illegitimate

men ad titulum indorum, Archbishop Lobo Guerrero defended the

practice. The Archbishop maintained that the ordination of illegitimates
was a licit custom of the Peruvian Church, instituted by papal decree
and necessary for evangelization.46 Verdugo then decided to take his

complaint before the Council of the Indies. In the winter of 1619 he

worked with the new bishop of Arequipa, an Augustinian friar named
Pedro Perea, to draft a petition requesting that American bishops be for-

bidden to grant dispensations for illegitimacy. On March 4, 1621, the
Council responded by stating that the Crown's decree of 1594, which
forbade American bishops to ordain illegitimates, must be upheld. The
Council's ruling of 1621 stated:

By no means may the Bishops of the Indies ordain any illegitimate man, nor

anyone lacking in some of the requirements, in conformity with the resolutions [made] by law and by the Sacred Tridentine Council; and neither may
[the Bishops] dispense [with illegitimacy] even if it is for Benefices as Curates of Indians [doctrinas] , because the dispensation of the one and of the
other can only be given by the Supreme Pontiff.47

With this ruling, Verdugo appeared to have won the battle over the ordination of illegitimates, making the priesthood an impossibility for virtually all mestizos. Although mestizo priests had been permitted to

work only in native doctrinas, seemingly even this would cease.
"See Sabine MacCormack, .Region in theAndes (Princeton, 1991), p. 406.
"See Edward Peters, Inquisition (Berkeley, 1988), p. 88.
"Solórzano Pereyra, op. cit. , II, 305.

"""Que por ninguna via los Obispos de las Indias ordenen ningún ilegítimo, ni defectu-

oso de alguno de los requisitos, conforme á lo dispuesto por derecho y Sacro Concilio Tridentino, y que tampoco dispensen con ellos, aunque sea para Beneficios Curados de

Indios, pues la dispensación de uno y otro sólo la puede dar el Sumo Pontífice" (ibid.).

BY SABINE E HYLAND447

At the heels of this triumph for the inquisitor Verdugo came yet another. On December 27, 1622, Verdugo was consecrated bishop of Hua-

manga (Ayacucho) at the hands of Luis Jerónimo de Oré, bishop of
Concepción. Verdugo entered his diocese late in the year 1623. Although he was seventy-two years old at this time, he was still in good
health and was intent upon making reforms. Before entering the city of
Huamanga as its new bishop, he spent some time in the cities of Cas-

trovirreyna and Huancavelica investigating the conditions of the natives

who lived there. Appalled at what he saw, he vowed to make these two
cities and their mines a cornerstone of his reform plan for his diocese.48
The silver mines of Castrovirreyna and the mercury mines of Huancavelica were two of the most terrible places in which Indians were
forced to labor in the colonial period. The extreme hardships of the

mines generally resulted in disease and short life spans for the miners
and their families, who also had to work in the mines. Those sent to the

Huancavelica mines suffered mercury poisoning from the mercury
vapor and mercury-rich dust. Miners afflicted with the mercury sickness did not die quickly, but underwent a long illness characterized by
ulcerated lungs and bouts of trembling, fever, and paralysis.49
Under these conditions, instruction in Christianity was minimal and
appears to have resulted in hostility, rather than loyalty, to the faith. In

1613, ten years before Verdugo entered his diocese, the Huachos and
Yauyos peoples of the Castrovirreyna-Huancavelica zone had staged a

bloody rebellion. Touched off by an epidemic among the native peoples, the revolt was directed explicitly against Christian priests and all
aspects of the Roman Catholic religion. The nativist movement was
quickly put down. One hundred and fifty pagan priests were captured,
forced to confess to their crimes, and punished. Thirty of the move-

ment's leaders refused to confess, preferring to kill themselves rather
than submit to colonial authority.50

In 1623 hostility to Christianity still lingered among the native members of Verdugo 's diocese. Bishop Verdugo, however, maintained that
the Andeans were not at fault for their failure to embrace the Christian

faith. Instead, he argued, the Indians' disaffection for Christianity re-

sulted from the natives' ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial au-

thorities, combined with the poor instruction and immoral examples
"Egaña, Historia de la Iglesia, p. 340.

49Steve Stern, Pera 's Indian People and the Challenge ofSpanish Conquest (Madison,
1982), pp. 84-85.

mIbid.,pA76.

448IUEGmMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

provided by doctrina priests.51 The primary focus of his reform program, therefore, was the reform of clergy in the Indian parishes. Given
Verdugo 's earlier efforts to halt the ordination of illegitimate men in
Peru, one can easily surmise how the bishop intended to reform the

doctrina clergy. In 1624 Bishop Verdugo declared that the orders given

to illegitimate men by his predecessors were invalid because the previous bishops had had no right to grant dispensations for illegitimacy.
Therefore, all priests of illegitimate birth—virtually all of whom would
have been mestizos — in his diocese were told to vacate their doctrinas.

Because their orders had been declared invalid, they were no longer
considered priests and could not accept any doctrinas elsewhere. With
this action, Verdugo was clearly attempting to create in his diocese a
racially pure priesthood, descended only from Old Christians.
Verdugo's attempts to reform his clergy did not go unopposed, however. The governor of Huancavelica in 1624 was Juan de Solórzano
Pereyra, a lawyer who possessed one of the most brilliant legal minds of
the seventeenth century. Solórzano Pereyra fully supported the creation
of a mestizo and even an Indian clergy. As he later wrote:
. . . not only Mestizos, but the Indians themselves, after [being] well converted and indoctrinated, have to be entrusted with this duty [of the

priesthood] , and even of the Episcopal [responsibilities] , for the greatest
persuasion and easier conversion of their companions, taking for this the
example of Titus, and of Timothy, and other places in the Holy Scripture,
and one very elegant [example] of Saint Ambrose. . . ."

Solórzano Pereyra was opposed to Verdugo's policy of declaring invalid
the orders of illegitimate men. Not only would Verdugo's actions deny
the priesthood to mestizos, who were considered necessary for evangelization because of their language skills, but the bishop's actions
would create chaos within the diocese. Moreover, Verdugo's denunciation of the treatment of the natives in Huancavelica was an implicit criticism of Solórzano Pereyra's administration of this region and must not
have been welcomed by the governor.
"Egaña, Historia de la Iglesia, p. 340.
"". . . no sólo á mestizos, sino á los mismos Indios, despues de bien convertidos y doctrinados se les havia de fiar este cargo, y aun el Episcopal, para la mayor persuasion, y más

fácil conversion de sus compañeros, trayendo para esto el egemplo de Tito, y Timoteo, y
otros lugares de la Sagrada Escritura, y uno muy elegante de San Ambrosio. . . ." Solórzano
Pereyra, op. cit., I, 446. Titus was a gentile convert to Christianity who ministered to the
Christian community in Crete. Timothy was of mixed gentile and Jewish descent who
was a leader of the Christians in Ephesus. St. Ambrose, one of the four traditional Doctors
of the Latin Church, was a Christian convert from paganism.

BY SABINE P. HYLAND449

Bishop Verdugo's removal of illegitimate mestizo priests from office
was soon brought to the attention of the Viceroy, Diego Fernández de

Cordova, the Marquis of Guadalcázar. Archbishop Lobo Guerrero had
supported the ordination of illegitimate men and presumably would
have protested his bishop's actions, but the Archbishop had died in
Lima on January 12, 1622. 53 His successor, Gonzalo de Campo, would

not arrive in Peru until February 28, 1626, and so was not available to

dissuade Bishop Verdugo from the latter's clerical reform.54 Therefore,
the Viceroy was called upon to act to prevent Verdugo from creating
such an upheaval in the Indian parishes of Huamanga.

The Viceroy held consultations with several of the "most prominent
and most learned men of this kingdom of Peru" to help him determine
how he should react to the bishop's purge of his clergy. Among those
with whom he consulted was Juan de Solórzano Pereyra, who believed

that the dispensations for illegitimacy granted by American bishops

were valid. Viceroy Fernández de Cordova then wrote a letter to the
bishop, telling him that, although he could do as he wished in the matter of ordaining illegitimates, he must respect the dispensations for illegitimacy customarily granted by "so many learned Bishops" before
him.55

Although the Viceroy told Verdugo to respect the orders given to illegitimates by other bishops, there was little that the marquis could actually do to prevent the bishop from removing illegitimate priests from

office within the Huamanga diocese. Armed with the 1621 decree of
the Council of the Indies forbidding bishops to ordain illegitimates, Ver-

dugo could continue his desired policy within his own diocese. In 1625

Verdugo erected the diocesan seminary of St. Francis in Huamanga to
train parish priests.56 These priests would be necessary because of doc-

trina vacancies created by the bishop's policies.

Final Decision by the Council of the Indies
Bishop Verdugo would not be allowed to enjoy his triumph indefi-

nitely, however. In 1626 Solórzano Pereyra was commanded by the

Crown to return to Spain, where he was made fiscal of the Consejo de

Hacienda y Contaduría. In 1628 he was namedfiscal of the Council of
"Egaña, Historia de la Iglesia, p. 286.
"14IbId.

"Reina Maldonado, op. cit., p. 373.

*Egaña, Historia de la Iglesia, p. 341.

450ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

the Indies, a position he held until 1630, when he was made consejero
of the Council. While Solórzano Pereyra wasfiscal of the Council of the

Indies the question of ordaining illegitimate men came before the
Council once again. It is not clear whether the issue was reopened by
an interested party in Peru, such as the Archbishop Gonzalo de Campo,

or whether Solórzano Pereyra himself brought this problem before the

Council. In any event, under Solórzano Pereyra's guidance, the Council
this time approved the ordination of illegitimates by American bishops,

reversing the earlier decision of 1621. In this complex interplay of au-

thority among the Holy See, the local bishops, and the Council of the Indies, it was the Council that had the power to make the final decision in
this purely ecclesiastical matter.

In his Política Indiana, Solórzano Pereyra presented three arguments in favor of allowing American bishops to grant dispensations for

illegitimacy. First, he stated that the 1576 bull of Gregory XIII, permit-

ting bishops to dispense with illegitimacy in order to ordain mestizos,

was still valid in the Indies. Presumably, he wrote, this papal bull had
been overlooked when the Council prohibited the ordination of illegit-

imates in 1594 and in 1621. Second, he stated that the 1571 bull of Pius
V granted to the American bishops broad powers of dispensation for irregularities, including illegitimacy. Solórzano Pereyra declared that the
bull referred to all kinds of irregularities, except for homicide and simony; it did not pertain only to irregularities ex delicto as had been

claimed. The great jurist also emphasized that those whose dispensa-

tions were uncertain because of doubt concerning the intentions of the
prelate who ordained them should not fear. The rights given by the
bulls of Gregory XIII and Pius V guaranteed the validity of their orders.
This last point appears to have been directed against Verdugo's attempts to declare invalid the dispensations for illegitimacy given by
previous bishops.57
Solórzano Pereyra also addressed the question of benefices. The bull
of Gregory XIII did not specify whether bishops were allowed to grant
dispensations for the conferral of benefices. Bishops, of course, could

not grant dispensations for conferring benefices without papal ap-

proval. However, following the arguments of the Archbishop of Lima,
Solórzano Pereyra found that doctrinas did not constitute benefices.
Benefices, he stated, must be given in perpetuity. But doctrinas, he continued, were given "en Encomienda"; that is, the doctrina was not perpetually established and, therefore, was not a benefice. Thus, local
"Solórzano Pereyra, op. cit. , II, 306-3 1 1 .

BY SABINE E HYLAND451

bishops did not need papal authority to grant dispensations for the conferral of doctrinas. However, the bull of Pius V, which granted very
broad powers of dispensation to bishops, did permit the bestowal of
benefices on illegitimately born priests. Those who disputed the validity of Pius Vs bull in this matter believed that mestizos could not be
granted benefices. But, since Solórzano Pereyra recognized that the bull
of Pius V referred to illegitimacy, legally, therefore, illegitimate men
could be granted benefices. Solórzano Pereyra is quite clear, however,
that the custom in Peru was to ordain mestizo men ad titulum indo-

rum only.58
The third reason, Solórzano Pereyra wrote, why the ordination of illegitimates must be accepted in the Indies was that it was a legitimate
custom of the Church. According to canon law, custom, or consuetude,
consists of the usages which have their origins in the acts of the people.
Custom is distinguished from law, or lex, by the origin of the practice. A
custom results from the consensus of a community, whereas a law proceeds from the decree of an authority figure. A practice evolving within
a particular ecclesial community, such as granting dispensations for ille-

gitimacy within an archdiocese, can be considered a custom. Church
law recognized the customs of a community as legally binding when
the customs conformed to certain conditions. This was true, under cer-

tain circumstances, even when a custom contradicted positive church

law.59

Since the thirteenth century, there have been three principal qualities required of a custom to be considered legitimate. These three principles were still regarded as the basis of legitimate custom in the
seventeenth century, although customary law itself had become much
more elaborate by this time. The first necessary quality was longevity.

Generally, a custom must have been practiced frequently for at least
forty years to possess longevity. The custom must also be reasonable
and true.60 When Solórzano Pereyra determined that granting dispensations for illegitimacy was a legitimate custom of the American Church,
he was implicitly stating that this custom possessed all of the abovementioned qualities. As he later wrote:
. . . being a fiscal of the Consejo, I defended that this custom, which the
Archbishop of Lima said was already introduced in the Indies, of ordaining
"Ibid, pp. 307-3 10.

"See Merlin Guilfoyle, Custom: An Historical Synopsis and Commentary (Washington, D.C., 1937), pp. 3-6.
mIbid., pp. 19-21.

452ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

[mestizos] and of placing them in doctrinas, although they were illegitimate, could be tolerated: First, because of the force that [custom] has in all

things, with which we are placed in obligation of following it, and of thinking that it had sufficient titles and reasons to be instituted and continued.61

He also noted that the practice of ordaining illegitimates to place them

in doctrinas had been practiced in Peru since the 1560's and was well
established by the turn of the century.62

The Council's decision in favor of ordaining illegitimates would have

been published sometime between 1628 and 1630. Bishop Verdugo

was forced to witness the legislation for which he had fought for so
long finally and definitively overturned. The orders which he had declared invalid were now to be restored. Those mestizo priests who had

been stripped of their livelihood and of their priestly character by Verdugo would finally be reinstated. Bishop Verdugo himself lived on until
I637, when he died in Huancavelica at the age of eighty-six.63
Conclusions

Understanding the controversy over ordaining illegitimately born
men in seventeenth-century Peru, a debate unexamined by other scholars, is essential to gaining a full history of the dispute over mestizo
priests. The contemporary commentators on this dispute, including
Solórzano Pereyra, Reina Maldonado, and Avila, all agreed that the concern over illegitimacy hid a deeper anxiety over mestizaje in the minds
of various churchmen.

The analysis of this issue demonstrates the extent to which decisions
concerning race within the colonial Church were far from unanimous.
On the one hand, there were some men, such as Solórzano Pereyra, who
believed that both mestizos and Indians should be ordained and even

consecrated as bishops. On the other side were priests such as Verdugo,
deeply troubled by clerical corruption, who tried to remedy this problem by removing mestizos from the priesthood. Actions against mestizo
priests were carried out despite the fact that there was no evidence
61 ". . . siendo fiscal del Consejo, defendí se podía tolerar la costumbre que el Arzobispo
de Lima decía estar yá introducida en las Indias de ordenarlos y tenerlos en doctrinas,
aunque fuesen iligítimos: Lo uno, por la fuerza que esa tiene en todas las cosas, con que
tuvo suficientes títulos y razones para fundarse y continuarse . . ." Solórzano Pereyra, op.
cit., II, 306.
'•'Ibid., p. 307.

"Egaña, Historia de la Iglesia, p. 342.

BY SABINE P HYLAND453

that mestizos were more corrupt than creóle or European priests. After
his death, Bishop Verdugo was popularly regarded as a saint for his asceticism and reforming zeal; this suggests that there was probably some
popular support for his efforts as an inquisitor and later as a bishop to
bar mestizos from the priesthood.
As we have seen, however, most of the Peruvian Church took a more
pragmatic view of the question of ordaining mestizos. There was, apparently, widespread agreement that mestizos should not be in a position to minister to Europeans or créoles. But they were considered
essential for evangelization because of their linguistic abilities and were
therefore sent to the doctrinas. Probably the most important finding
from studying this debate over illegitimacy is the revelation that mestizos were ordained in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Peru, and that
they served almost exclusively in Indian doctrinas. Granting dispensations for illegitimacy to ordain mestizos was clearly the frequent practice of many "grave and learned prelates."64 Along with this practice, of
course, came the restriction that mestizos were to be ordained ad titu-

lum indorum. Limiting mestizo priests to doctrinas was a custom, not
a positive law. But cases in which mestizos were granted a benefice
must have been, as Reina Maldonado asserted, quite rare. The custom
was clearly to allow mestizo priests to serve only in Indian doctrinas.
The existing literature on the topic of mestizo clergy in Latin America
pays scant attention to the seventeenth century beyond stating that this
was a period in which there was little interest in the ordination of mes-

tizos.65 The general assumption has been that only creóles and Euro-

peans received Holy Orders in Peru in the seventeenth century. For
example, Spalding has stated that, as far as she is aware, the colonial government in Peru never once allowed a man of Indian descent to serve

as a priest in an Indian province.66 The discussions of custom and episcopal practice in the illegitimacy controversy make it clear that mestizo
priests were a common feature of colonial Peruvian doctrinas; overlooking the illegitimacy debate has caused scholars to be unaware of
the existence of mestizo doctrineros in seventeenth-century Peru.
The presence of mestizo priests in Andean villages surely had a profound impact on the shaping ofAndean Christianity. Unlike the stereotype
of the ineffective Spanish doctrinero, preaching in garbled quechua
"Solórzano Pereyra, op. cit. , II, 307.
65See the references in footnote 3.

66KaTCn Spa\ding,Huarochiri:An Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford, 1984), p. 251.

454ILLEGITIMACY AND RACIAL HIERARCHY IN THE PERUVIAN PRIESTHOOD

and hearing confessions through an interpreter, mestizo priests would
have possessed the cultural and linguistic knowledge to translate Christian concepts into native terms. However, the actual consequences of
this racial division within the Peruvian priesthood on village religious
life are as yet unclear and require further study. Certainly there existed
mestizos such as the secular priest Francisco de Avila,67 who dedicated
his life to extirpating all forms of native religious practice from Andean
Christianity. Avila's knowledge of the language and customs of his
mother's people was invaluable in his efforts to destroy all remnants of
paganism in the Andes.
However, there also existed mestizo priests such as Francisco de Ribera and Blas Valera. Ribera was a Mercedarian doctrinero in Andahuaylas who argued that the many native "superstitions" still practiced by his
mother's people were compatible with the Christian faith. He therefore
allowed Don Felipe, the cacique of his doctrina, to perform many native rituals.68 The Jesuit Valera maintained that Andean religion had contained many inherently Christian truths. Native religious terms and

practices, therefore, had a place in Christianity, he believed, because

they supported, rather than hindered, the practice of Christianity.69 For
mestizos like Valera and Ribera, the highly syncretistic religion practiced in the colonial Andes was actually a desired goal and may in fact
represent the true legacy of the mestizo evangelists in seventeenthcentury Peru. Although it is likely that there was variation in the manner
in which mestizo priests fulfilled their duties, these men undoubtedly
had an important effect on the development of Christianity in the
Andes, one which deserves recognition.

67See Pierre Duviols,Za destrucción de las religiones andinas (Mexico, 1977).
68SeC Pedro Nolasco Pérez,"Historia de las misiones mercedarias in América," Estudios,
22 (1966), 706-710.
»See Hyland, op. cit. , pp. 107- 1 19.

AMERICAN CATHOLIC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE

IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC? FATHER JOHN THAYER
AND BISHOP JOHN CARROLL
Thomas W. Jodziewicz*

In his discussion of the religions of the generally tolerant Utopians, in
Book II of Utopia, St. Thomas More seems to have unintentionally anticipated the character and activities of a late eighteenth-century American priest, Father John Thayer.
While I was there, only one of the Christians got into trouble with the law.
As soon as he was baptized, he took on himself to preach the Christian religion publicly, with more zeal than discretion. We warned him not to do so,
but he soon worked himself up to a pitch where he not only preferred our
religion, but condemned all others as profane, leading their impious and
sacrilegious followers to the hell-fires they richly deserved. After he had
been going on in this style for a long time, they arrested him. He was tried
on a charge, not of despising their religion, but of creating a public disorder,
convicted, and sentenced to exile. For it is one of their oldest rules that no
one should suffer for his religion.1

If one recognizes Thayer's name at all, it is a name and person easily

connected "with more zeal than discretion," a Puritan convert to Roman

Catholicism who seemed surely to condemn Protestant Americans to
"hell-fires" and to promote much "public disorder." Thayer was himself
in effect "sentenced to exile," evidently for breaking one of the Utopians"Oldest rules," but a fairly new American reality, that regarding toleration. He did then appear to "suffer for his religion," for the evangelizing
of his countrymen, a bittersweet reality that did not escape the attention of Father Thayer.
Of course, there is usually more than one way to look at things, and
Father Thayer's eventful moment in the early American republic is no
*Dr. Jodziewicz is an associate professor of history in the University of Dallas.
'Thomas More, Utopia, edd. George M. Logan and Robert M.Adams (Cambridge, 1992),
p. 97.

455

456AMERICAN CATHOLIC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

exception. Despite the obvious displeasure of Bishop John Carroll with
his occasionally insubordinate subordinate, Thayer shared with his religious superior, and fellow apologist, a passion both for their common
faith and for their republican homeland. Neither Thayer nor his bishop
doubted the good things that might occur in a new nation founded in
religious freedom and, hence, open to evangelization. Neither under-

stood the American commitment to the separation of church and state,

and to religious liberty, then, to be a commitment to religious indifferentism or any other sort of modern relativism or agnosticism regarding
religion and morality. While both men were committed to the liberal
values of the new republic, indeed proud of those values, both were
also passionately aware of the timeless quality of Christ's commission to
his followers: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:
19-20). Each man was a willing participant in the continuing development in the early republic of what would later be deemed by many observers as the pre-eminent American Catholic contribution to the
universal Church, the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom. In many ways a distillation of and a reflection upon the
American Catholic experience, that document would affirm the validity
of religious freedom, but yet also reaffirm the fundamental and perennial evangelizing mission of the Church.2 The rub here is that, unburdened not only with episcopal responsibilities but also unburdened, or

rather not blessed, by Bishop Carroll's natural disposition toward peace

and lowered voices, Father Thayer seemed hardly a consistent model of
"love, prudence, and patience in his dealings with those who are in
error or in ignorance with regard to the faith," as the Declaration counseled. While Carroll was content to initiate a long-term building of the

Church in the United States, and to react as might be necessary to at-

tacks on the faith or the Church, Thayer was anxious to bring about the
immediate realization of the kingdom. Unfortunately, his zeal to defend
the faith and the Church against their detractors had the unintended effect of actually provoking more attacks. In these situations, of course,
Thayer felt duty-bound to return the fire which he had unwittingly
drawn down upon the Church. John Carroll's problems with John
Thayer did not turn upon ends, then, but rather upon means, and matters of prudence and perspective.
2For the text of the Declaration on Religious Freedom, see Norman R Tanner (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (2 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1990), II, 1001-1011.

BY THOMAS W. JODZIEWICZ457

John Thayer was born on May 15, 1758, into a Puritan household in
Boston, Massachusetts.3 After attending Yale College for several years,
he was awarded an honorary bachelor's degree in 1779, and soon obtained a license to preach as a Congregational minister. The highlight of
his ministry appears to have been a nine-month stint as chaplain at Castle William in Boston Harbor (1780- 1781), under the command of Governor John Hancock. By the autumn of 1781, Thayer was in Europe, a
serious young student intent on learning the languages and customs of
the old world. Meeting and arguing with several foreign Catholics,
whose learning and civility surprised him, Thayer ultimately found himself in Rome. Skeptical at first of the miracles allegedly occurring
through the intercession of the recently-deceased, and later canonized,
Benedict Joseph Labre, Thayer was finally convinced of the miracles' authenticity, as well as of the authenticity of the Catholic faith which his
new acquaintances defended and explained so ably. On May 25, 1783,
Thayer was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Shortly thereafter he enrolled in the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and on June 2,
1787, Thayer was ordained a Catholic priest. Along the way, he had offered an indication of his future calling, and difficulties, while paying his
respects to John Adams, the United States' minister to Great Britain, and
his wife Abigail, who were visiting Paris in 1785. The moment went
badly as an exasperated Adams finally replied in kind to a Thayer who
was pushing Adams hard with questions about the Revolutionary War
hero's faith and with quite critical comments about Martin Luther and

John Calvin.4

Thayer's celebrity status as a convert priest was markedly increased
by the publication in London in late 1787 of his An Account of the
Conversion of the ReverendJohn Thayer, Lately a Protestant Minister
at Boston in North America, a pamphlet which would soon go through
several reprintings in English as well as in French, Portuguese, Spanish,
German, and Italian.5 The first American edition was printed in BaltiThe biographical information in the next three paragraphs comes principally from the
following: Richard H. Clarke, "A Noted Pioneer Convert of New England: Rev. John Thayer,
1758-1815," American Catholic Quarterly Review, 29 (1904), 138-1 66; Percival Merritt,
"Sketches of the Three Earliest Roman Catholic Priests in Boston," The Colonial Society of
Massachusetts, Publications, XXV (Cambridge, 1923), 173-229; Richard J. Purcell, "Father
John Thayer of New England and Ireland," Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 31
(Dublin, 1942), 171-184.
'Abigail Adams to John Shaw, January 18, 1785, in Richard Alan Ryerson (ed.), Adams

Family Correspondence^ (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993), 63.

'The full title of the pamphlet is An Account of the Conversion of the Reverend Mr.

458AMERICAN CATHOUC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

more in 1 788. There was now even some talk in Europe of Thayer being

named the first American Catholic bishop, an honor which instead
went to John Carroll of Maryland, the choice of his fellow American

priests. After two years of missionary service in England, and with several important conversions to his credit, Thayer arrived in Boston on
January 2, 1790, an advent anticipated by Catholics and Protestants
alike, to begin "the only desire of my heart," as he had explained in An
Account of the Conversion, which was
to extend as much as lies in my power, the dominion of the true faith,
which is now my joy and comfort. I am ambitious of nothing more; for this
purpose I desire to return to my own country, in hopes, notwithstanding
my unworthiness, to be the instrument of the conversion of my country-

men; and such is my conviction of the truth of the Roman Catholick
Church, and my gratitude for the signal grace of my being called to the true
faith, that I would willingly seal it with my blood, if God would grant me
this favour, and I doubt not but he would enable me to do it.6

Unfortunately, soon after his arrival in Boston, Thayer became embroiled in an increasingly unpleasant jurisdictional, personal, and ethnic
dispute with the French priest, Louis de Rousselet, who had been ministering to the small Boston Catholic congregation for several months.
Despite a visit to Boston in mid-1791 by Bishop Carroll, and the formal
appointment of Thayer as pastor, the controversies continued in Boston
until the arrival of a new pastor, another Frenchman, Francis Anthony
Matignon, in August, 1792.7 During the embarrassing course of events in
Boston, Bishop Carroll had come to entertain certain misgivings about
Thayer and his ambitions, and his apparent penchant for challenging
John Thayer, Lately a Protestant Minister, at Boston in North-America, Who Embracd

the Roman Catholic Religion at Rome, on the 25" ofMay, 1 783; Written by HimselfTo

Which Are Annexed Several Extractsfrom a Letter Written to His Brother, in Answer to

Some Objections. Also, a Letter from a Young Lady Lately Received by Him into the

Church, Written after Making Her First Communion. See also Percival Merritt, "Bibliographical Notes on An Account of the Conversion oftheRev.John Thayer,"The Colonial
Society of Massachusetts, Publications, ibid., pp. 129-140. A complete copy of Thayer's
letter to his brother, as well as several other documents concerning Thayer's European
ministry in the 1780s, is found in Francis Nagot, Recueil de Conversions Remarquables:
Nouvellement Opérées dans Quelques Protestants (Lyon, 1829, [1789], pp. 1-139.

Thayer, op. cit. , p. 16.

'For an excellent discussion of the problems in the early Boston Catholic Church, see
Robert H. Lord, John E. Sexton, and Edward T. Harrington, History of the Archdiocese of
Boston: in the Various Stages ofIts Development, 1604-1943 (3 vols.; New York, 1944),
1, 326 ff.

BY THOMAS W. JODZIEWICZ459

episcopal authority, or any other authority that seemed to stand in the
way of his publicly announced mission in America, an evangelical mission that had easily taken a turn into interdenominational dialogue, and
contention.8

In the midst of his struggles with Rousselet regarding the pastoral
care of the Boston congregation, Thayer had announced his willingness
to preach in neighboring towns in order to explain Roman Catholic beliefs. A local Protestant minister, George Lesslie, soon responded to
Thayer's offer, specifically referring to it as a "gauntlet," and initiating a
brief newspaper exchange between the two in early 1791, which was
published late in the same year in Georgetown by Alexander Doyle:
Controversy Between the Reverend John Thayer, Church Missionary,
of Boston, and the Reverend George Lesslie, Pastor of a Church, in
Washington, New Hampshire. Two years later, the original volume was
republished, but now grown to over twice its original size with the addition of other selected letters to and from Thayer, as well as articles by
him, which had appeared in Boston and neighboring towns' newspapers.9
Thayer began his anticipated discussions with Lesslie by presenting a
ten-point expression of Catholic beliefs concerning the Trinity, the
sacraments, Scripture and tradition, the saints, purgatory, and justification. Thayer felt that such an exposition had been made necessary by
Protestant misstatements and/or misunderstandings of these Catholic
doctrines which, Thayer argued, were not always accurate, or faithful to
actual Catholic definition:

These true Catholic principles we are ready not only to sign with our
hands, but if called to it and assisted by divine grace, to seal with our blood.
"See Peter Guilday, The Life and Times ofJohn Carroll, Archbishop of Baltimore

(1735-1815) (New York, 1922), pp. 419-427; Annabelle M.MelvMe,/o£n Carroll ofBaltimore: Founder of the American Catholic Hierarchy (New York, 1955), pp. 197-203.
Thayer wanted to be appointed superior of the New England missions, but Carroll did not

agree: John Thayer to John Carroll, January 6, 1790,John Carroll Papers, Archives ofArch-

diocese of Baltimore, 8B-H-1 (microfilm), hereafter referred to as AAB. In answer to rumors of insubordination toward his bishop, Thayer affirmed Carroll's authority over him:
John Thayer to [unknown], June 13, 1791,AAB, 11B-0-3.
'Published in Boston in 1793, the new edition carried the subtitle: To Which Are
Added, Several Other Pieces. All further citations to Thayer, Controversy, will be from the
Boston imprint. For a brief apologetical exchange in early eighteenth-century Boston, see
Jodziewicz, "An Unexpected Coda for the Early American Captivity Narrative: ? Letter
from a Romish Priest, "' Catholic Historical Review, LXXXI (October, 1995), 568-587.

460AMERICAN CATHOUC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

We renounce, detest and anathematize all contrary doctrines imputed to us
by the father of lies, or by any of his agents, who are, and always have been
busy in misrepresenting and slandering the church of God—But what wonder? Christ our Lord, his apostles and the primitive Christians were thus
treated; and he has foretold (Mat. Lx [sic, x?] that his disciples should be
treated in the same manner.10

Throughout his published efforts in the Boston area in the early 1790's,
Thayer would probably be at his best when he attempted to proffer a
clear rendition of actual Catholic teaching and doctrine.
Lesslie s reply to Thayer took the form of a direct challenge to the
Catholic claim of infallibility in its Church: as Lesslie agreed, "if that
claim appears to be founded in truth, all disputes with her on other
points will be superseded; we have then nothing to do, but to receive
her infallible dictates as the rule of our faith and practice."11 Thayer's
lengthy answer was, as was Lesslie's contribution, calm and civil, and offered in a reasonable fashion. Arguing from Scripture, the Fathers of the
Church, and history, Thayer contended that Christ had established a
Church against which the gates of hell would not prevail, a Church
gifted through the Holy Spirit, while yet established on the rock of St.
Peter; a Church established with an enduring and infallible deposit of
faith, and a consequent infallibility given expression by the Church for
eighteen centuries.12 Especially pertinent, according to Thayer, was

"Thayer, Controversy, pp. 5-9. The quotation is found on p. 9. Inaccuracies as to actual
Catholic beliefs were a frequent complaint of Catholic apologists: see Robert Gorman,
Catholic Apologetical Literature in the United States, 1784-1858 (Washington, DC,
1939),pp.l-26.
¦'Thayer, Controversy, p. 10.
"Ibid. , pp. 12-40. Like John Carroll, Thayer described the Church's infallibility as resting "in the majority of the Bishops (the successors of the Apostles) united with their visible head the Pope, whether they be assembled in council or not" (ibid., pp. 13-14). In
publishing an answer in 1784 to a tract attacking Catholic beliefs, Carroll had written:
"Some divines indeed hold the pope, as Christ's vicar on earth, to be infallible, even without a council; but with this opinion faith has no concern, every one being at liberty to
adopt or reject it, as the reasons for or against may affect him": Thomas O'Brien Hanley

(ed.), TheJohn Carroll Papers (3 vols.; Notre Dame, Indiana, 1976), 1, 105-106; hereafter

referred to as Carroll Papers. Carroll also noted that doctrine did develop over time, particularly when a traditional or implicit truth needed to be defended from heretics: ibid. , I,
107-108, 120, 125, 138. The efforts of Vatican Council I (1869-1870) regarding papal infallibility would have been understood by Carroll, and presumably Thayer, as an instance

of such a doctrinal development. (For more about Carroll's 1784 response to Charles
Wharton, see below.)

BY THOMAS W JODZIEWICZ461

Lesslie's contention that Scripture is "a complete, a perfect rule both of
faith and practice." The Catholic belief, he replied, was "that the word of
God is the complete and perfect rule of our faith; which word we contend is not wholly contained in the scriptures, but is in part transmitted
to us in the tradition of the church." Further, according to Thayer,
Those who hold the Bible to be the sole rule of faith, must suppose that the
Christians had no rule of faith from the death ofJesus Christ until the Apostles wrote, which is a long time after the establishment of Christianity—
They must also suppose that everything which regards religion has been
written—These two suppositions cannot be supported. The first is destroyed by the commission given to the Apostles: "Go, teach all nations" —
the second formally contradicts the sacred writers who refer us to tradition
on several points. —Deut. xxxii. 7-2 Thess. ii 17-2 Thess. ii. 17—2 Tim.
ii.2."

Such a claim regarding Scripture and tradition was crucial to Thayer's
presentation of the authenticity of Catholic ecclesiology, and he fortified it by pointing out the fundamental and necessary testimony of the
Catholic Church as the initiatory and consistent witness to the Bible's
divine truth (as well as its compiler). In addition, specific examples
were offered not only of the incompleteness of Protestant Bibles and
the existence of variant and corrupted Protestant translations, but also
of Protestant practices and points of faith apparently not clearly visible
in Scripture (and in dispute among Protestants, each of whom claimed
Scripture to be clear and indisputable). Ironically, according to Thayer,
on several important points of the faith, many Protestants went along
with Catholic interpretations and conclusions regarding such beliefs as
infant baptism, celebration of Sunday as the Lord's Day, and dispensations from Mosaic rules, all of which were, again, disputed by certain
other Protestants. But, according to Thayer, the greater irony occurred
regarding Lesslie's foundational exposition of sola scriptum: where did
this assertion, the fundamental principle of Protestant exegesis, clearly
appear in Scripture? Indeed, by what authority, other than the early
apostolic Catholic Church, clearly connected in apostolic succession
and belief with the contemporary Catholic Church, did one offer proof
of Scripture's actual authenticity and integrity?14
I wish to know in what text of Scripture is contained the assertion, that the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the complete and perfect rule
¦'Thayer, Controversy, pp. 13, 28.
"Ibid., pp. 28-38.

462AMERICAN CATHOLIC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

of a Christian's faith? In what part of the Bible is it affirmed, that the books,
beginning with Genesis, and ending with Revelations, are divinely inspired?—Can any Protestant shew us, in the Bible, a catalogue of the books
which we are bound to revere as sacred? If they could even do this, we
should not be obliged to believe the testimony of the Bible in its own
favour, until we had proved its divine inspiration by some other medium—
And what could this medium be, but the authority of Christ's church, to
which the sacred oracles were committed?15

None of these points in contention were new, of course, and Thayer
was quick to admit his dependence on previous authors and standard
sources in his own apologetic. Thayer seems to have been quite conversant with several early modern Catholic apologists, such as the

seventeenth-century Englishman, Father John Gother (d. 1704), and his
French contemporary, Bishop Jacques Bossuet (1627-1704). In particular, Thayer made extensive use of Bishop Richard Challoner (1691-

1781), a prolific author who had been Vicar Apostolic in the London
District, with authority over the English colonies in America. For example, Thayer's ten-point creedal statement in his initial reply to Lesslie is
almost a verbatim copy of a similar list in a recently published, short
work attributed to Challoner, The True Principles of a Catholic. ?ß
Thayer's presentation of the Church's infallibility also bears the apparent imprint of Challoner.17 Again, Thayer was honest about his use of
other authors, but not specific, nor especially helpful in identifying
them. As he had explained at the beginning of his intended conversation with Lesslie:

Tb escape the stigma of plagiarism, I now declare that I have no pretensions
to originality, and that whenever I find my idea well expressed by another,
I shall use his words, without the formality of a quotation.18
"Ibid., p. 38.

"Challoner, True Principles (Philadelphia, 1789), pp. 3-6. For more about Challoner,
see Gorman, op. cit., pp. 13-14.
'Thayer, Controversy, pp. 14-28; cf. Challoner, The UnerringAuthority ofthe Catholic
Church in Matters ofFaith . . . (Philadelphia, 1 789), a much lengthier discussion of the infallibility question, but possibly a text Thayer was familiar with, and made use of in his own
efforts, given certain similarities in form and content. Challoner's works were also much
in evidence in a list of Catholic books Thayer had brought from Europe in early 1790, and
noticed by a Unitarian minister friend: The Diary of William Bentley, D.D. : Pastor of the
East Church, Salem,Massachusetts (4 vols.; Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1962 [1905]), 1, 166.
"Thayer, Controversy, p. 5. Thayer did footnote this statement:"It is presumed that the
above declaration will sufficiently apologize for all I have borrowed from the controversial writers of our communion" (ibid.). In the midst of his discussion of the Catholic

Church's infallibility, Thayer offered an additional explanation of his own bibliographical
method (and an example of his own sarcasm):

BY THOMAS W. JODZIEWICZ463

For whatever reason, and none was ever given, Lesslie had retired
from the dialogue after his initial offering, but others occasionally entered into the dispute during the next eighteen months, either for or
against Thayer, some calmly and civilly, some far more shrilly. An example of the latter occurred in a brief exchange between John Gardner, a
member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and Thayer. According to Gardner, Catholicism was full of absurdities and irrationalities, from belief in purgatory and transubstantiation, through claims of
miracles. Instead, "true religion is a plain, intelligible rule of right,
no ways contradictory to reason, and consists of two plain, intelligible
rules of conduct, teaching man his duty to God and his duty to his
neighbor."19 In his reply, Thayer first decried Gardner's sneering tones
and sarcasm. As to the seeming irrationalities of the faith, Thayer's response was fairly ecumenical (and even a bit philosophical):
What [is] more common, than to hear, from Protestant, as well as Catholic,
pulpits, the sublime incomprehensibility of some of the doctrines of Christianity adduced as a reason to prove the divinity of this religion? I will go
further, and say, that I see not why a sensible Deist, who, struck with admiration on examining into his own formation, or into the works of nature,
might not use a similar phrase. "I believe, would he say, there is some great
first cause, because it is impossible" that such stupendous works should be
the production of chance, or of any human being.20

Dubbing himself Barebones, and sarcastically referring to "His Holiness, Pope Thayer," Gardner countered Thayer's remarks in part with a
series of humorous anecdotes—Christ swallowing Himself at the Last
Supper, St. Jerome being whipped by angels for reading Virgil and Cicero, the miracle-working bones of Benedict J. Labre causing Thayer's
conversion—but begged off any further exchanges due to his own various legal responsibilities and Thayer's obvious incapacity to use human
reason. With a manifest irony, Gardner backhandedly dismissed Thayer
N.B. If any persons should wish to see the book and page whence I have taken

the passages which I have quoted, I am ready to satisfy them. The reason why I
have not marked them is, that I might not uselessly add to the bulk of my paper,
knowing that the works of the Fathers, especially the genuine editions, are
scarcely to be found in these States, (p. 28)
Late in Controversy, in his response to Dr. Lathrop (see below), he did notice Bishop Challoner's The Catholick Christian Instructed in the Sacraments, Sacrifice, Ceremonies
and Observances of the Church. By Way of Question and Answer. An American edition

of this work was published in Philadelphia in 1786.
'Thayer, Controversy, p. 105.
'-Ibid., p. 107.

464AMERICAN CATHOUC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

and "any other of the silly, superstitious, credulous Fathers of holy
church, whose curious head-pieces, in general, are full proof against
mathematical truth, and the clearest demonstrations of human rea-

son."21 Thayer's reply again noticed the name-calling, corrected some
factual errors in Gardner's diatribe, and even appealed to the authoritative witness to Catholic beliefs of such as Alfred the Great and the poets
John Dryden and Alexander Pope. Especially, however, Thayer expressed disappointment that Gardner would no longer continue in
their discussion. Thayer even pronounced himself willing, for sake of argument, to concede every factual point so far in dispute between them
as to who said what, who was impossible to understand, etc. And
Thayer's purpose in these concessions of particulars?
IfI mentioned these things, every reader must have seen, that they were by
the bye; but that my principal aim was to call on Mr. G. to substantiate his
calumnious charge, that the doctrines of "transubstantiation, purgatory,
etc." have been superadded to primitive Christianity, by "selfish, designing,
crafty and lying Priests," or that they have been added to it at all.22

John Gardner's refusal to continue his spirited colloquy with John
Thayer could be interpreted in several different ways. Depending perhaps on one's point of view, the exchange, and its abrupt end, could be
viewed as a victory of some sort for Thayer, or a dismissal of the priest
and his superstition-ridden faith as beneath the interest of a modern
man of cultivation and reason. Another instance in Thayer's Controversy with his Protestant neighbors testified to what might have been
in fact a mounting indifference toward Thayer by late 1793, or at least
testimony to the apparent indifferent results he was obtaining in his efforts "to be the instrument of the conversion of my country men." On
September 4, 1793, Dr. John Lathrop offered the tenth Dudleian Lecture
at Harvard University, a series inaugurated in the late 1750's,"to expose
the errors and wickedness of the Roman Catholic Church."23 Entitling
his lecture A Discourse on the Errors ofPopery, the pastor of Boston's
Second Church indicated that his purpose was to demonstrate that the
Catholic Church "hath usurped powers over the conscience, and over
the fortunes of men, which were never given to her by Jesus Christ:
and . . . her ministers, in many cases, have acted as lords over God's her21IbId., pp. 108-112, with the quotation on p. 112.
22Ibid.,pp. 112- 117, with the quotation on p. 117.
25For a discussion of the Harvard Dudleian Lectures, see Sister Mary Augustina Ray,

American Opinion ofRoman Catholicism in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1936),
pp. 126-138.

BY THOMAS W. JODZIEWICZ465

itage."24 The assault upon the human conscience came in the guise of
forced belief in unscriptural and irrational doctrines regarding such as
the position and authority of the pope and, for a specific example, the
real presence of Christ in the Eucharist: Christ had taught his disciples
"to depend on the evidence of our senses, in matters of serious importance" —the Eucharist tasted like bread, and therefore could only be
such.25 Further, according to Lathrop,
At this age of the world, I hope it may be taken for granted, that the Scriptures no where require us to receive any propositions whatever, as doctrines of faith, which are contrary to reason, and which our senses, at the
same time, declare to be false. We must therefore understand those passages of Scripture, which speak of the sacramental bread and wine, as the
body and blood of Christ, as we do many other passages, where we all agree
to give up the literal sense for the figurative. Peter was not a rock, nor was
Christ a lamb.26

The assault upon human fortune came in the form of taking the money
and sustenance of believers, especially in the matter of indulgences.27
And, as to lording it over God's heritage, Lathrop identified the fanciful
claims regarding Catholic worship and, not only the power exercised
by the Church over monarchs, but also the activities of the Inquisition.28
Yet, ecclesiastical Rome was about to fall, Lathrop confidently asserted,
and, even more to the point concerning the continuing failure of
Catholic evangelization efforts,
when people are solicited to make an essential alteration in their religion,
they will naturally inquire, cui bono? What advantage will it be to us? and I
believe it would be a hard matter to convince a serious and well-informed

protestant, that he would be at all the better, or more sure of happiness,
were he to exchange his humble form of religion for the parade and
pageantry of the Catholic worship; and the simple articles of his faith, for
the decrees of Lateran, of Constance, and Trent.29
24John Lathrop, A Discourse on the Errors of Popery: Delivered in the Chapel of the
University in Cambridge, September 4, 1 793, at the Lecture Founded by the Honorable
Paul Dudley, Esquire (Boston, 1793), P- 8.
"Ibid, pp. 11-12.
26Ibid, p. 12.
27Ibid., pp. 17-23.
23IbId, pp. 24-28.
29LbVd., pp. 30-3 1 ¦ Lathrop may have had Thayer in mind, and Lathrop's own response
to the priest, in one of his closing remarks:
The man who, at this age of the world, should offer himself as a champion to defend the doctrines of the church of Rome, would appear in the same light, to all

466AMERICAN CATHOUC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC?

Thayer was quick in his response: except regarding Catholic teaching
about transubstantiation, Lathrop was himself offering erroneous descriptions of Catholic beliefs, individuals did make mistakes, did do evil,
even popes, but the Church condemned such manifestations of human
nature, and personal human frailties were at fault, not the Church or its
doctrines. To accept the reality of individual, and not institutional, guilt,
Thayer challenged, was an act of charity:
Had this charity been your guide, Sir, we should not have seen you undertake, in these days of liberal sentiment, to rake together a few scattered
transactions, performed in different ages by individual Catholics, and
charge them to the whole church, of which they were members.

Moreover, according to a seemingly disappointed Thayer,
Instead of accepting the office, to which you were invited by the University, of blackening your fellow Christians, you would have solicited your
brethren to join their efforts to your's to abolish altogether a foundation,
whose object is to nourish animosity among American citizens. The Pope
no longer appears at the head of your Primer, to affright your children; his
effigy is no longer burnt on the fifth of November; no longer likewise
should he be held up as a bugbear to terrify our collegians.30

Calling for dispassionate dialogue, Thayer returned one more time to
the basic ecclesiological question so often in dispute between him and
his correspondents: authority and the exercise of power. Thayer contended that such a question was of course hardly an issue in itself in a
civilized yet human community. The question centered rather on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a particular institution's authority and exercise of power. Lathrop needed to demonstrate, then, that the Roman
Catholic Church's "lording over God's heritage" was "an usurpation of
authority which has not been lawfully conferred." Lathrop's announced
weapons were Scripture and reason; yet neither had been disposed to
effect the pastor's intention, especially Scripture, upon which Catholics
founded their claim "to regulate the faith of Christians":
true philosophers, as he who should undertake to prove, that the Ptolemean system must be the only true one, because the literal meaning of some passages of
Scripture seem to favor it, while the Copernican hath the support of physical

and mathematical demonstration: but should any such champion appear, after
blustering awhile, he probably would have the honour to retire, without notice.
No man, who regards his reputation, will engage with every partizan, in a field,

where victory hath been so often won, that the honour of a new conquest could
not be worth receiving, (p. 31)

"Thayer, Controversy, pp. 164, 165.

BY THOMAS W. JODZIEWICZ467

You know she pretends to prove, and from the Bible too, that she has a divine commission for this purpose. Perhaps you might have been more successful than your brother Lesslie in disproving this our fundamental tenet.
Until this is overturned, all attempts to show the usurpations of our church
are extremely ridiculous. But, having destroyed this our strong hold, you
might then, with propriety, have pleaded for the Scripture as the only rule
of faith, and have established the independency of conscience."

Thayer suggested that one question was deserving of interdenominational discussion: "Has the Catholic church ever taught, or does she
now teach, any errors dangerous to salvation? All the rest is nothing to
the purpose." Thayer, however, was to continue to be disappointed, as

his words provoked no response from Lathrop or any other person, at
least publicly. Thayer satisfied himself with the observation that his po-

tential adversaries could not readily defend their positions, but it may

be that the novelty of the convert priest had worn off, and his countrymen were no longer interested in his oft-pronounced mission and the

accompanying public agitation.32 Still, John Thayer's energetic missionary activities, his efforts to engage his Protestant neighbors in discussions on religious topics, were raising the serious question of the place
of Catholicism in the new republic. Would its advocates, such as John
Thayer, be easily welcomed into the public conversation, and taken seriously? Might Thayer's singular talent for conflict and confrontation actually work against the inclusion of Catholics and their faith, in the

public square? Might Thayer's chosen tactics undermine the acceptability of the ancient church in the new nation?

Of particular note, given these new circumstances of the Catholic

Church in the United States—tolerated, yet marked by a persistent suspicion of its alleged rejection of personal freedom and individual liberty
in favor of blind obedience and authoritarianism (and thus its unsuitability in republican America)—is the inclusion in Controversy of a
brief exchange in 1792 in which Thayer apparently did not directly par-

ticipate. Signing himself "Impartialis," a Thayer correspondent won"Ibid, pp. 161-162.
'Thayer's, Controversy ends with a brief, but rueful, editorial comment:
I suppose the Gentlemen, to whom I addressed the above Letters, instead of answering, intend to come off by affecting to treat me with silent contempt. This treatment may satisfy the ignorant, and perhaps a few partial friends; but men of sense ,
an impartial public, will impute their silence to the true reasons, viz. the badness

of their cause, and their incapacity to defend it. And this, so much the more, as I
have promised to answer every argument, when unaccompanied by scurrility
and personality, whether it be subscribed by the author's name or not. (p. 167)

468AMERICAN CATHOLIC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

dered aloud why no Protestant seemed willing to take on Thayer, a
Catholic priest who expressly coupled his passionate desire to bring
truth to his fellow Americans and glory to God, and so to promote "mutual confidence and brotherhood," with a "dispassionate coolness" in his
•writings and a belief that religious questions could be "canvassed with
as much good temper and manners, as those of a political nature." If no
minister was willing to dispute with Thayer, concluded Impartialis, "I
shall be among the many who think their cause incapable of a good defence, and that we have been for many years minister-ridden."33 This direct challenge was promptly taken up by an author representing
himself as "A Protestant." Referring to Thayer as "void of thought and
judgment," the -writer accused Thayer, as a convert to Catholicism, of
giving up his freedom, indeed, of surrendering the very basic and principal right of man to make up his own mind about matters of religion.
Logically, such a relinquishing of so essential a freedom as "private judgment" through subjugation, and self-abnegation to a pope, a foreign
ruler, and a Church arrogantly claiming infallibility, was an implicit renunciation of any right to be an acceptable and accepted citizen in the
new republic. Thayer in fact was seeking to take an undeserved advantage of "the surprising revolution in America," and consequent religious
liberty in the new nation, to fasten the chains of popery upon unsuspecting Americans, to evangelize his fellow Americans, and "to bring us
to abjure, as he had done, the essential right of examining for ourselves
in matters of faith, etc." Not to exercise this essential right of examination, this essential right of a free man, was to become one of "the abject
creatures of the Pope of Rome," and "a sworn slave" to him. Such individuals, in fact, could not claim constitutional protection against a
forced, legitimate exile from the United States to Rome:
And what has our constitution to do to protect such creatures, as citizens,
who disclaim the right of thinking and judging for themselves in religion? It

is certain that such persons, who have no right of private judgment, have
no conscience, and consequently no claim to liberty of conscience.34

The reply to A Protestant came several days later from "Another
Protestant," who offered a defense of the priest and his sincerity while
attacking the tone and arguments of his late detractor.35 In particular,
Another Protestant referred to an earlier Thayer piece, a reply to someone calling himself Simplex, who had confronted Thayer with eight
»Ibid., pp. 142-143.
HIbid., pp. 143-146.
"Ibid., pp. 146-148.

BY THOMAS W JODZIEWICZ469

specific points regarding Catholic beliefs and practices, including a
contention that the Church required "a blind, implicit belief of her doc-

trines."36 Thayer's response had included the Catholic proposition "that

every man's faith should be rational and enligthened." Yet, when one
was convinced of the doctrine of the Church's infallibility regarding
that faith, Thayer had continued, "it is not blindness, but the height of
reason, to submit to it." Indeed, given a belief in the Scriptural authority

for this doctrine of the Church's infallibility, not to submit would be in
fact "absurd and blind." According to Thayer,
If, as you say, the Apostles did not require an implicit belief of their doc-

trines and submission to their orders, what then means their conduct after

the decision of the council of Jerusalem?—They sent Paul, who, accompanied by Silas, "went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches;

commanding them to keep the precepts of the Apostles, and the ancients."
(Acts XV41) What means that extraordinary sentence of St. Paul: (Gal.i.8)
"Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that
which we have preached to you, let him be anathema?" (or accursed) You
must own, Sir, that the Roman church never required of her children a more
implicit belief than this. If St. Paul had been a Protestant, he would, on the
contrary, have advised the Galatians to examine any new doctrines which

might be preached to them, and to receive them if they appeared better

than his. So far is he from this, that he makes it a sufficient reason for rejecting them with contempt, if they varied in the least from what he had
taught.37

Another Protestant added that if Thayer could convince him of this doctrine of infallibility, he would join Thayer's church now as it would then
be "extremely absurd to refuse his submission." To counter Thayer, Another Protestant continued, it would be necessary to prove that God

had not revealed anything about submitting one's own judgment to the

decisions of God's church: when this could be done so too would

Thayer be done. Lesslie had tried and failed; he needed the help of his

fellow ministers. But in the meantime, "it would be unreasonable,

among rational sons of liberty, to require Mr. T. to renounce his present
system, while unconvinced that it is erroneous." And finally, according
to Another Protestant, to claim that Thayer had no constitutional protection for his beliefs was ridiculous and "must excite indignation in the
breast of every friend to the American constitution."38
"ibid., pp. 88-89.
11Ibid., pp. 90-91.

"Ibid, p. 147. This particular discussion was rounded out by two other letters, each
supporting one of the two sides: A Protestant (pp. 148-149); and a Philadelphian (pp.
150-153), who supported Thayer.

470AMERICAN CATHOUC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC?

To raise questions about religious liberty in the new republic, and the
situation of the Catholic Church, of course, was to grapple with the realities and challenges which were at the heart not only ofJohn Thayer's
mission to his countrymen, but also of his bishop's priestly, and episco-

pal, founding mission to his fellow American citizens, Catholics and

non-Catholics alike. To participate in such a public conversation, to answer attacks on the faith, to present accurately Catholic doctrine, to
seek to educate and in particular, to evangelize—none of these actions
was foreign to Carroll's hopes and designs. Quite the contrary. Before
John Thayer's return to the United States, John Carroll himself had entered the apologetical lists at least three times. The most celebrated in-

stance was his rejoinder to the ex-Jesuit Charles Wharton in 1784, a
lengthy pamphlet reply to Wharton's attacks upon Catholic doctrine
and the Church's suitability in the new republic.39 Admitting candidly

his own unease in such public disputation, Carroll offered a point-bypoint refutation of Wharton's charges, an exercise, -which, in itself, manifested a Catholic willingness to participate rationally and reasonably in

the public conversation of the new republic. In letters to the editors of
two leading American periodicals in 1787 and 1789 respectively, Carroll noted the willingness of America's Catholics to live in the new
regime, but on terms of religious toleration and civil equality, twin real-

ities yet foreign to many Americans, especially when Roman Catholics

were involved.40 This was a theme repeated in 1790 in Carroll's An Address from the Roman Catholics ofAmerica to George Washington,
Esq., President of the United States.41 Aside from any intellectual merits
that his published efforts may have had, Carroll's principal intention
was to insist that the new nation honor its own principles, and accept
the spectacle of figuratively breaking bread with all of one's neighbors

at the new republican table, even the heretofore generally despised
Catholics.42 Carroll was insistent and at least implicitly evangelical, yet

"See Thomas W. Jodziewicz, "The Wharton-Carroll Controversy and the Promise of
American Catholic Life," in Francis R. Swietek and John R. Sommerfeldt (eds.), Studioso-

rum Speculum: Studies in Honor of LouisJ. Lekai, O.Cist. (Kalamazoo, 1993), pp. 135154; and Joseph M. McShane,"John Carroll and the Appeal to Evidence: A Pragmatic De-

fense of Principle,'' Church History, 57 (1988), 298-309. Wharton's work was entitled A
Letter to the Roman Catholics of the City of Worcester (Philadelphia, 1784); Carroll's

reply was titled An Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States ofAmerica by
a Catholic Clergyman (Annapolis, 1784).

«'Carroll Papers, 1, 259-261 , 365-369.
"Ibid., 1, 409-411.

"For discussions of American anti-Catholicism, see Ray, op. cit. , and Stephen J. Vicchio,
"The Origins and Development of Anti-Catholicism in America," in Stephen J. Vicchio and

BY THOMAS W JODZIEWICZ471

never shrill, nor imprudent. As Carroll had written in 1784 in his reply
to Charles Wharton, seeking to encourage his fellow Catholics, but sensitive to the dangers of engaging in such public controversy:
But even this prospect [of"vindicating" Catholic beliefs] should not have induced me to engage in the controversy, if I could fear that it would disturb
the harmony now subsisting amongst all christians in this country, so
blessed with civil and religious liberty; which if we have the wisdom and
temper to preserve, America may come to exhibit a proof to the world, that
general and equal toleration, by giving a free circulation to fair argument, is
the most effectual method to bring all denominations of christians to an
unity of faith.43

The difficulties in Boston, however, and the immediate problem with
John Thayer, were in full public view. The apologetical exchange between the priest and his countrymen had come to be tainted at times
by personal attacks and ridicule, and perhaps worse yet, a growing indifference to the contentious spectacle. The concurrent antagonisms
and the outright lack of charity in a Boston congregation disfigured by
personal attacks and ridicule in the Thayer-Rousselet quarrel were troubling enough in their own right. All of this conflict would most likely
serve to undercut the establishment of the Church in America, as well

as its credibility and acceptability, even its integrity, but surely too its
evangelical mission.44 Truth, authority, liberty, faith, reason, salvation—
all these realities were of singular importance in any moment of the
human experience, but perhaps especially so in the New England heartland of this self-conscious American "novus ordo seclorum" being created in this self-conscious "new world." Or at least Americans of many
stripes and flavors liked to think so. And so too did John Carroll and
Sister Virginia Geiger (eds.), Perspectives on the American Catholic Church, 1789-1989
(Westminster, Maryland, 1989), pp. 85-103.
^Carroll Papers, 1, 140.
44Cf. Memorandum of Carroll to Thayer, February 22, 1791, Carroll Papers, 1, 494:"Tell

him he has forfeited all my confidence by publishing his contests in the Newspaper. Nothing can contribute more to vilify us in the eyes of our Protestant Brethren, or give more

pleasure to the enemies of our religion etc. . . . Blame him for advertising controversial
lectures & undertaking to answer publicly all objections. In a step of so much consequence, he should have advised first with his Bp." In a subsequent letter, Carroll again cautioned Thayer: "Indeed my confidence is much diminished by yr. late publications. I trust
that you will unite so much self-diffidence hereafter with your confidence in God, as not
to undertake things of so much consequence not to yrself only & to Religion at Boston,
but every where else without advising yr Ecc.Supr": March 10, 1791, ibid., 1,497. And in
his formal appointment of Thayer as Boston pastor, Carroll noted that Thayer should determine the authenticity of any "transient priests" in the city "in a prudent and charitable
manner":June 16, 1791, ibid., 1,507.

472AMERICAN CATHOUC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

John Thayer. Neither of them swallowed the principles of the Enlightenment whole, or uncritically, particularly its incipient rationalism and
secularism or its attractive naturalism. Rather, both accepted the age's
advocacy of the separation of church and state, religious liberty and religious toleration, and the efficacy of reason in public discussions of religion and religious truth. Neither believed in, nor approved of, religious
indifferentism, however, nor the long-term acceptability of religious
pluralism.45 To evangelize was to follow directly those words of the Savior to His apostles before His ascension. Timing, though, was important
in such an endeavor concerning "the life-giving Word -which must be
proclaimed," as was prudence and gentleness, and compassion and
charity. By the summer of 1792, Bishop Carroll had replaced Father

Thayer as pastor of the Boston congregation with the far more amiable,

and prudent, Father Matignon, a priest who would, in fact, bring peace
to the Boston church as well as establish an enduring friendship with
the replaced Father Thayer. As an insightful Bishop Carroll later explained to Cardinal Leonardo Antonelli in a letter in June, 1793:
Mr. Thayer never failed in proper obedience to me. He is a religious man,
and vigorous in resisting the assaults and calumnies of the heretics. Would
that he were less self-confident, allowed himself to be guided by the advice
of others, and strove to be "all things to all men." Would too that he were
more gentle in dealing with heretics, and with his own flock as well.46

During the next several years, Thayer's controversial and uneasy, but
unfailingly intense ministry continued as he moved about in the mission fields of New England, New York,Virginia, and even Canada, before
his departure for the Kentucky mission in 1799·47 The surviving ThayerCarroll correspondence testifies to the fact that the relationship between the tireless (albeit difficult) Thayer and the more judicious
Carroll was at times an uneasy one.48 Given the tempestuous, even disorderly public image of himself that Thayer was fashioning during these
"For more discussion of this point, see Jodziewicz, "Wharton-Carroll Controversy," and
accompanying documentation.
«•Carroll Papers, II, 94.
"The sources cited in note 3 are helpful for Thayer's post-Boston adventures. See also
John J. Dillon, The Historic Story of Saint Mary's, Albany, New York: First-Second-Third

Church (New York, 1933), pp. 68-75.

*As examples: Thayer describing his wish not to be in a settled parish and his unease
regarding slavery in Virginia (January 18, 1794,AAB, 8B-I-1) and a Carroll response to the
slavery issue (July 15, 1794, Carroll Papers, II, 122); Thayer seeking an exeat, or official
permission to leave Carroll's jurisdiction (March 29, 1795, AAB, 8B-I-1!4 and Carroll's

willingness, if only for his "own peace of mind" (August 12, 1794, and April 4, 1795, Carroll Papers, II, 127-128; 137); Thayer wishing to serve only in a large city, but soon on his

BY THOMAS W JODZIEWICZ473

years, mostly unintentionally, it is perhaps ironic that his final published
piece in the United States would be a lecture about proper order given
to the Boston Catholic congregation on May 9, 1798.
Occasioned by President John Adams' recommendation for a national
day of prayer in the midst of deteriorating relations with revolutionary
France, Thayer's effort argued urgently about the need for order, for appropriate obedience, and for due submission to civil and religious authority. He described in his talk a France literally gone wild in its attacks
upon religion, especially but not only Roman Catholicism, and upon its
own domestic as well as the international order. Thayer exhorted his listeners, particularly the Irish Catholics, to put aside understandable prejudices against Great Britain, and its oppression of their fellow Irishmen,
so as to come to the aid of authentic "rational liberty, which is supported
by law and order."49 True patriots, native-born or not, were needed to defend America's freedom against the atheistic, deistic tyranny of a France
which had slipped its own political, social, and religious moorings
and was now making war on lawfully-established liberty everywhere.
America, where government received its power from the people, and
where its new Constitution effectively balanced order and liberty, must
respond emphatically against France and any nation that followed
France's lead. Thayer reminded his listeners of the wonderful circumstances of their own lives, especially in light of the present chaos in
France, where all rights were being sacrificed to an inflamed license, especially those rights of established religion:
Under such a government as this [in the United States], every insurrection
against the constituted authorities, or opposition to them, is a revolt of a
part against the general will, by which those authorities exist, and is highly
criminal. Praised be God, that this happy constitution, under which persons
of all denominations enjoy entire security for their lives, property, and liberty, whether spiritual or political, is still unimpaired and in full operation. . . . ,0

way to the wilds of Canada (April 10, 1795, AAB, 8B-I-2; and September 30, 1796, ibid.,

8B-I-5); Thayer defending his actions in Albany (November 4, 1797, AAB, 8B-I-6).
4Thayer,/l Discourse Delivered at the Roman Catholic Church in Boston, on the 9"
of May, 1 798, a Day Recommended by the President, for Humiliation and Prayer
throughout the United States (Boston, 1798), p. 25. President Adams' proclamation for
such a day came in the midst of the furor created by the public knowledge of the XYZ af-

fair: see Page Smith,John Adams (2 vols.; Garden City, New York, 1962), II, 965.

"Thayer, Discourse, pp. 8-9. Thayer was sensitive about his entrance into partisan politics:

During the whole course of my ministry among you, my brethren, I have never
before entered into any details concerning political affairs; nor should I do it

474AMERICAN CATHOUC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

Thayer's declaration of American patriotism could surely be viewed as
at least partially utilitarian as he expressed publicly an American
Catholic opposition to the actions of lately Catholic France. In staunchly
Federalist (and anti-French) New England, such comments would serve
to prove the civil integrity and political correctness of American
Catholic citizens, many of whom were recent immigrants, and still, accordingly, suspect as to their politics and religion. His words, however,
did serve also to remind his Catholic listeners of the religious liberty

they now enjoyed in a predominantly Protestant republic, and thus

to encourage their appropriate response to any perceived attack upon
such a blessed republic's interests. While a Federalist in his own political principles, Bishop Carroll, given his history with Thayer, might
have been forgiven for a quick double-take, however, at the author's
heartfelt plea for order—and proper submission to constituted authority.
The final unhappy chapter of Thayer's American career was played
out in the Kentucky mission.51 Arriving in Scott County in 1799, amidst
the customary curiosity of the many about this celebrity priest, and the
eager anticipation of the few Catholics, including Father Stephen Badin,
Thayer was soon involved in monetary and disciplinary disputes with
his flock. His public antislavery views and public slurs on Protestants
were not entirely popular with either the many or the few.52 By early
1801, in the face of charges concerning Thayer and his alleged "indelicate conduct" toward a penitent, Bishop Carroll suspended him from
his priestly faculties.53 After remaining in Kentucky for two more often
disputatious years, Thayer left the United States in late 1804 via New Ornow, were it not to teach you to appreciate duly the government under which
you live, and to point out your duties towards it. (p. 8)
"See Ann Bolton Bevins and Rev. James R. O'Rourke, "That Troublesome Parish": St.
Francis/St. Pius Church of White Sulphur, Kentucky, Mother Church of the Diocese of
Covington (Georgetown, Kentucky, 1985), pp. 65-68, in which the chapter dealing with
Thayer is entitled "Turbulence Under Father Thayer"; Clyde F. Crews, An American Holy
Land: A History of the Archdiocese of Louisville (Wilmington, Delaware, 1987), chap. 2;

Sister Mary Ramona Mattingly, The Catholic Church on the Kentucky Frontier,

1785-1812 (Washington, D.C., 1936), chap. 3; and J. Herman Schauinger, Stephen T

Badin: Priest in the Wilderness (Milwaukee, 1956), chap. 4.

'Thayer's several letters to Bishop Carroll, while the priest was in Kentucky, are filled
with gossip and critical comments regarding Father Badin's conduct and strict standards:
examples include letters dated Trinity Sunday, 1799; February 9, 1800; May 19, 1800: AAB,
ll-S-13; ibid., 8B-J-5, ibid., 8B-J-6.
"See John Carroll to Stephen Badin: [January, 1801]; March 18, 1801; and August 5,
1802: Carroll Papers, II, 340-343, 349-351, 395.Thayer begged forgiveness of CarroU in a
letter of June 22, 1802: AAB, 8B-J-8.

BY THOMAS W. JODZIEWICZ475

leans. Reinstated in his priestly faculties, he worked for a time among
the poor of London before finally making his way to Limerick, Ireland,

where he came to enjoy an extraordinary reputation as an ascetic and a
holy priest.54 He died in Limerick on February 17, 1815. One final irony:

apparently in keeping with his own career in the United States, the
money he left for his oft-promoted project to found a convent in his native land was finally successful in 1819 with its establishment in Boston.
Seven years later, the Ursuline convent was moved across Boston Harbor to Charlestown, where, on August 11, 1834, it was attacked and
burned by an anti-Catholic mob in one of the more celebrated and lurid
instances of nineteenth-century American nativism.55
What then does one make of the story of Father John Thayer, "Catholic Missionary"? His career in the early republic was clearly marked by
"public disorder "; he was often himself marked by "more zeal than discretion," and he surely appeared to "suffer for his religion," sufferings

not entirely outside his own responsibility. In a way, too, he was ex-

iled—all of this, efforts, character, result, all of this in the same apparent
mode as the unfortunate fellow described in More's Utopia. In particular, the controversies sparked by Thayer's ministry were certainly not
encouraged, nor probably appreciated by his superior, Bishop John Carroll. Their official relations were accordingly touched with friction and
difficulties as Carroll sought to ease the once-persecuted Church into the
new republic's mainstream. At heart, however, both Thayer and Carroll
accepted the American commitment to religious freedom, but along
with a concurrent commitment to evangelize the new nation. Religious
freedom was not an end in itself, then, but a means; religious freedom
did not reduce itself into either an indifferentism toward religious truth
or a modish and superficial relativism which regarded religious 'truth' as
basically a private, personal affair. Both Thayer and Carroll would have
dismissed any celebration of a lowest-common-denominator American
Christianity as a vacuous, even silly, much less uncharitable and fearful
54See Thayer to Carroll, seeking permission to send missionaries to the United States,
March 10, 1805, AAB, 8B-J-9. See also Carroll to Anthony Garnier, October 15, 1805, Carroll Papers, II, 492; and Carroll to Charles Plowden, December 5, 1808, ibid, ??, 73, for
other notices of Thayer and his priestly duties. For Thayer's efforts in Ireland, see T. E. Bridgets New-England Convert: or The Story of the Rev.John Thayer (London, 1897), pp.
47-51; and John Begley, The Diocese of Limerick: from 1691 to the Present Time

(Dublin, 1938), pp. 276-279.
"Thayer was committed to his idea of creating some religious establishment in the
United States: see Purcell, op. cit. , pp. 182- 183; see also Carroll to Thayer, May 9, 1793, Carroll Papers, ?, 88; and Thayer to Carroll, February 9, 1800, and March 10, 1805: AAB,
8B-J-5,and iWd.,8B-J-9.

476AMERICAN CATHOLIC APOLOGETICAL DISSONANCE IN THE EARLY REPUBUC?

evasion of genuine Christian discipleship. Their differences, apologetical and otherwise, did not turn then on some sort of conflict between
an old-fashioned, out-of-date, and ungenerous fideism (Thayer) and a
more sophisticated, Enlightenment toleration (Carroll), but rather on
questions of prudence and the perspective, as -well as the actions, appropriate to the circumstances of the Church, and its perennial evangelical mission, in the new nation.

"FIELD FOUND!" ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL
MISSION ENTERPRISE IN THE UNITED STATES

AND CHINA, 1918-1928
BY

Paul R. Rivera*

After an exhausting transcontinental and trans-Pacific journey of
three and one-half months, the first group of American Catholic
missionaries to China reached the French Catholic mission station at

Yeungkong (Yangjiang) in Kwangtung (Guangdong) province on December 21, 1918 (see map).1 The four American priests were members
of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America or Maryknoll, and

their journey marked the beginning of the American Catholic mission

enterprise in China. The Maryknoll newcomers soon were joined by
contingents of priests, Sisters, and Brothers from fifteen American
Catholic mission organizations including the Passionists, the Vincentians, the Franciscans, and the Sisters of Charity. While never approaching the numbers of American Protestant missionaries in China, the total
of American Catholic missioners reached 240 in 1928 and 562 in 1946.

The Maryknollers' tenure in China spanned the tumultuous years of the
Nationalist Revolution of 1925-1927, the Nanking Decade, the SinoJapanese War, and the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. Soon after the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949,
*Dr. Rivera is adjunct professor of history in Florida Gulf Coast University and Edison
Community College in Fort Myers, Florida. This essay is based on research conducted at
the Maryknoll Mission Archives in Ossining, New York, the Mullen Library of the Catholic
University of America, and the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. The author is
grateful for the guidance of Ka-che Yip and Warren I. Cohen of the University of Maryland

Baltimore County and John Wltek, S.J., of Georgetown University, and the assistance of
Ellen Pierce and Charles Huegelmeyer of the Maryknoll Mission Archives and Jean-Paul
Wiest of the Center for Mission Research and Study.
'Yeungkong is the Chinese Postal Atlas place name for the city that is transcribed as
Yang-chiang in Wade-Giles and Yangjiang in Pinyin. During the 1920's Maryknoll diaries

and correspondence and Western newspapers and periodicals used the Chinese Postal

Atlas system for place names and the Wade-Giles system for names of individual Chinese.
To remain faithful to my primary sources, I have used the Maryknoll spelling for the Society's mission stations and for place names in China. Pinyin transcriptions for place names
are indicated in parentheses the initial time the term is used.
477

ó Maryknoll\in Kayj
:r"'"8'h'"«

«•«¦»"I

ti
5?"&

i

B

<Dp6M*

REFERENCH
AVlLY OUTLINED PORTION>KONCHOO« VlCMtIATC
ACSIbEHT MISSIONEN
PAILWAY

KONGMOO^ VlCARIATE

Kongmoon i» an overnight trip by tteamer from Hongkong. Oa the above map the Vicariate it defined by ? heavy black line.

The Kongmoon Vicariate in the 1920's. Source:"Kongmoon Vicariate," General Report, MFBA Kongmoon Reports, 1931.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA479

Maryknoll missioners left China, although Bishop James E. Walsh, one of
the original group sent to Yeungkong in 1918, chose to remain in
Shanghai. Arrested and tried in 1958, Walsh was sentenced to twenty
years imprisonment for espionage and conspiracy. Upon his release in
June of 1970, Walsh left China and brought to a close this chapter in
United States-China relations.2

While American Catholics had displayed limited interest in the foreign missions prior to 1900, American Protestant missionaries had long
been active in bringing Christianity to China. Banned from evangelizing
in China until 1844, Western Protestant and European Catholic mission
societies took advantage of the Sino-French treaties of the 1860s to
launch an invasion of the cities and countryside of imperial China.
Within thirty years, Western missionaries had established mission stations in all the provinces of imperial China except Hunan, and by 1918,

94 percent of the 1,704 counties of the Republic of China reported

Christian missionary activity.3 The Protestant presence in China was
part of the interrelated system of evangelistic activities, charitable and
humanitarian efforts, property and facilities, financial resources, and administrative infrastructure—called "the missionary enterprise" by John
Fairbank—which emerged from the endeavors of nineteenth-century
American Protestant mission groups to spread Christianity to Asia, the
Near East, and Africa. World-wide in scope, the Protestant mission enterprise, according to Fairbank, "became institutionalized as big business," and mission Boards constituted "the first large-scale transnational
corporations."4 To support this burgeoning enterprise, mission societies
developed elaborate strategies to generate financial contributions from
American Protestants including pledge campaigns, canvass teams, appeals to corporate stewardship, and mass meetings. The expanding
personnel needs of the Protestant mission enterprise led board admin2Jean-Paul Wiest, Maryknoll in China (Armonk, New York, 1988), pp. 52 and 402-403;

John J. Burke, General Secretary, National Catholic Welfare Conference, to S. K. Hornbeck,
Far Eastern Division, U.S. Department of State, June 18, 1928, National Archives, RG 59,

Consular Correspondence, 393.1 l63Am3/46; China Christian Yearbook 1928 (Shanghai, 1928), p. 160; and, "Missionary Personnel Overseas," National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1940-1949.

'Paul Cohen,"Christian Missions and Their Impact to 1900," in The Cambridge History
of China, Vol. 10, edd. Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank (Cambridge, 1978), p. 555:
and Albert A. Feuerwerker, "The Foreign Presence in China," in The Cambridge History of
China,Vol. 12, ed. John K. Fairbank (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 165-166.
4John K. Fairbank, "Introduction: The Many Faces of Protestant Missions in China and
the United States," in The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, ed. John K. Fair-

bank (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1974), pp. 6-8; and James A. Field,"Near East Notes and
Far East Queries," in Fairbank (ed.), The Missionary Enterprise, p. 34.

480"FIELD FOUND! " ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

istrators to recruit single women, laymen, and specialists in education
and medicine. Fund-raising efforts and the assignment of new missionaries to China reached their peak in 1919-1921 .The Protestant mission
enterprise, Valentin Rabe concludes, "had created a stronger, more effectively organized Protestant mission movement during the decades
before 1920 than during any previous period in the movement's history."5

While the Protestant foreign mission enterprise has attracted the
scrutiny of a host of influential scholars who have produced a plethora
of important monographs, journal articles, and conference reports, historians have focused limited attention on the emergence of the American Catholic mission enterprise in the United States and China.6
Though largely ignored, a small group of historians has authored more
than two dozen books, journal articles, and dissertations which deal
with the American Catholic mission enterprise in China.7 Of these, the
works of Thomas Breslin and Jean-Paul Wiest offer insights into the development of the Maryknoll mission enterprise in the 1920's. Drawing
upon archival materials of twelve mission organizations, Breslin argues
that the aggressive acquisition of land by the missioners, their support
of the status quo and resistance to change during a period of revolutionary turmoil made them tempting targets of Chinese anti-foreignism.
'Valentin H. Rabe, The Home Base ofAmerican China Missions, 1880-1920 (Cam-

bridge, Massachusetts, 1978),p.26l;and ¿dem,"Evangelical Logistics: Mission Support and
Resources to 1920," in Fairbank (ed.), The Missionary Enterprise, pp. 84-88, 69-73, and 9.
fSee Fairbank (ed.), The Missionary Enterprise; and, Christianity in China, edd.
Suzanne Wilson Barnett and John King Fairbank (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985).
'Thomas A. Breslin, China, American Catholicism, and the Missionary (University
Park, Pennsylvania, 1980); idem, "American Catholic China Missionaries, 1918-1941"
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1972); Wiest, op. cit.; idem,
"China As Portrayed to American Catholics by Maryknoll Missionaries, 1918-1953," in
United States Attitudes and Policies toward China: The Impact ofAmerican Missionaries, ed. Patricia Neils (Armonk, New York, 1990), pp. 171-192; Ann Colette WoM, Against
All Odds: Sisters of Providence Mission to the Chinese, 1920-1990 (St. Mary-of-theWoods, Indiana, 1990); Casper Caulfield, The Passionists in China, 1921-1931 (Union
City, New Jersey, 1990); Robert E. Carbonneau, "The Passionists in China, 1921-1929: An

Essay in Mission Experience," Catholic Historical Review, LXVI (July, 1980), 392-416;

idem,"Life, Death and Memory: Three Passionists in Hunan, China and the Shaping of an
American Mission Perspective in the 1920s" (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University,
1992); Peter J. Flemming, "Chosen for China. The California Province of Jesuits in China,
1928-1957: A Case Study in Mission and Culture" (Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate Theological Union, 1987); and Angelyn Dries, O.S.F., " 'The Whole Way into the Wilderness': The
Foreign Mission Impulse of the American Catholic Church, 1893-1925" (Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate Theological Union, 1989).

BY PAUL R. RIVERA481

Outbursts of violence and destruction of property during the Nationalist Revolution of 1925-1927 created serious financial problems and imperiled the future of the Catholic missions in China.8 Jean-Paul Wiest's
massive study of the Maryknoll efforts in China from 1918 to 1955 offers a detailed discussion of the emergence of the missionary organization in the United States and of the evangelistic activities and strategies
employed by the missioners in China. Though Wiest explores the role
of the Maryknoll magazine The Field Afar as an effective propaganda
device, he gives minimal attention to the impact of developments in
China on the mission enterprise in America.9
As a consequence of what Charles Hayford characterizes as an "im-

balance toward Protestantism" in American historical research on the

Christian missions in China, the American Catholic missions are viewed
as having played a minimal role in recent Chinese history and SinoAmerican relations.'" This point of view dominates assessments of the
experiences of the Christian missions in China during the years
1920- 1929, a watershed decade in modern Chinese history which saw
the explosive growth of nationalism and revolution together with the
beginning of important changes in the status of foreign nations and nationals in China. While historians recognize that the events of this crucial decade exerted a profound impact on the Protestant mission
enterprise in China and America, because the Catholic missions functioned mainly in the countryside and concentrated on primary education, Jessie Lutz argues, they did not share in the great difficulties
experienced by Protestant missionaries in China during the 1920's.
"Anti-Christian movements," Albert Feuerwerker concludes, "were directed almost exclusively against Protestants, an indication that Catholicism remained apart from the main currents that were shaping
twentieth-century China."11
Drawing upon corporation reports, financial records, mission diaries,
letters, and publications contained in the Maryknoll Mission Archives
together with dispatches, reports, and correspondence from the De"Breslin, China, American Catholicism, and the Missionary, pp. 42-47, 56-69, and
111.

"Wiest, Maryknoll in China, pp. ix-xi, 3-6, and 448-45 1 .
'"Charles W. Hayford, "The Open Door Raj: Chinese-American Cultural Relations

1900-1945," in Pacific Passage, ed. Warren I. Cohen (New York, 1996), p. 144.

"Jessie Gregory Lutz, Chinese Politics and Christian Missions: The Anti-Christian
Movements of 1920-1928 (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1988), pp. 9-10 and 41; and, Feuer-

werker, op. cit. , p. 168.

482"FIELD FOUND!"ESTABUSHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

partment of State Decimal File 1910-1929, this essay presents an analysis of the development of the Maryknoll mission enterprise in the
United States and China from 1912 to 1928 with special attention to the
roles played by Father James A. Walsh, co-founder and first Father Superior of Maryknoll, and Father James E. Walsh, superior of Maryknoll's
mission territory in Kwangtung province during the Society's first
decade in China. Maryknoll experienced impressive growth in physical
facilities and financial support, and erected a functioning mission enterprise in the United States, China, Manchuria, Korea, and the Philippines during the 1920's. Rather than marginalized and uninvolved
in events in China, the Maryknoll missions became the focus of antiChristian and anti-imperialist activities associated with the Chinese

Nationalist Revolution of 1925-1927. Major disturbances involved the

Maryknoll missions with Chinese nationalism and posed a significant
threat to the evangelistic activities and financial well-being of the Maryknoll mission enterprise in China and the United States.

Establishing the Maryknoll Mission Enterprise
in the United States

James Anthony Walsh was the architect of the Maryknoll mission enterprise in the United States and China. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1867, Walsh attended Boston public schools, Boston College,
Harvard University, and St. John's Seminary in Brighton. His lifelong
commitment to the foreign missions was stimulated by French Sulpician priests at St. John's who introduced Walsh to the letters and diaries of Théophane Vénard, a French missionary martyred in Indochina
in 1861. The Catholic Church in the United States was officially classified as a mission Church under the authority of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome until 1908. Unlike
American Protestants, American Catholics displayed little interest in the
overseas missions movement. Instead, the energies and resources committed by the American Catholic Church were focused on home mission activities among Indians, blacks, immigrants, and the rural poor. To
generate support for the foreign missions, James Cardinal Gibbons established an American branch of the Society for the Propagation of the
Faith in 1897. Ordained a priest in 1892, Walsh was appointed director
of the Boston branch of the Society in 1903- Walsh launched a campaign to educate the clergy and laity; drawing on world-wide contacts
with missioners, he spread information about their experiences and

BY PAUL R. RIVERA483

needs through correspondence with a network of Catholic priests and
lectures to church audiences and mission conferences. His efforts gen-

erated $41,239.47 in contributions to the Society for the Propagation of
the Faith in 1905, a sum which placed Boston second only to Lyons,
France, in foreign missions fund-raising.12 With the support of Cardinal
Gibbons, Walsh formed the Catholic Foreign Mission Bureau in 1906 to
orchestrate "a literary propaganda with a view to deepen and widen the
missionary spirit in the United States, having for its ultimate end the es-

tablishment of a Foreign Mission Seminary." To promote the missionary
spirit, he began publication in January, 1907, of The Field Afar, a bimonthly magazine containing photographs and reports from missioners designed to appeal to Catholic audiences.13

Walsh used the first issue of The Field Afar to editorialize for the establishment of an American Catholic mission presence in East Asia. Acknowledging the world-wide efforts of the Protestant missions, he
challenged American Catholics to compete with their Protestant countrymen: "Would that we Catholics of the United States could point to a
similar force of men and women, self-exiled for the spread of the true
faith!" "The time has surely come," Walsh concluded, "when we

Catholics should enter upon our task among people who are ours by

the inheritance of fesus Christ" (italics in original).14 In September,
1910, Walsh joined forces with Father Thomas Price, a North Carolina
missioner who published the mission magazine Truth and had founded
a seminary to evangelize non-Catholics in the rural American South.
Early in 191 1 Walsh and Price submitted to Cardinal Gibbons a proposal
to establish an American foreign mission society. With Gibbons' support, their plan was approved by the Catholic archbishops of the

United States and submitted to the papal authorities in Rome. Walsh

and Price envisioned the establishment of an American Catholic foreign
mission society supported by the financial contributions of American
Catholics. The society would open a seminary to train missioners to

evangelize non-Christians and would accept assignment by Rome to
any foreign mission territory, though the proposal noted, "a preference

is expressed for the missions in China."15 The Sacred Congregation of
Propaganda Fide approved the proposal, and the co-founders returned
12Wiest, Maryknoll in China,pp. 11 and 19-20; and "Bishop J.A.Walsh, Mission Head,

Dies," NewYork Times [hereafter cited as NYT] , April 15, 1936,p.21.
"Wiest, Maryknoll in China, pp. 16-17 and 23; and The FieldAfar [hereafter cited as
FA], 21 (January, 1927), 3-4.
,4FA, 1 (January, 1907), 2; and 5 (June-July, 1911), 2.
"Wiest, Maryknoll in China, p. 25.

484"FIELD FOUND! " ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

to the United States to launch the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of

America.16

Incorporated under the laws of the State of New York on April 30,
1912, the Society's board of incorporators included representatives
from the church hierarchy and Catholic professionals and businessmen.
Yearly Corporation Reports detailing receipts and expenditures, and assets and liabilities were submitted, and The Field Afar was adopted as
the official publication of the Society. Confirmed as president and treasurer, James A. Walsh provided uninterrupted leadership for the Society, serving as Father Superior or Superior General until his death in
1936. Building an infrastructure of property and facilities to serve the
Society's needs, establishing a seminary to train future missioners, securing a foreign mission territory for the Maryknollers, and enlisting the
financial support of American Catholics became Walsh's major occupations.17 In 1912 the Society purchased a ninety-three-acre site near
Ossining, New York. Named Maryknoll, the property became the
headquarters of the Society. Within the year, the Society established the
Foreign Mission Seminary of America at Ossining, and in October of

1914, ordained its first priest. Aided by Walsh, a group of Catholic lay

women, led by Mary Joseph Rogers, formed the Foreign Mission Sisters
of Saint Dominic or Maryknoll Sisters. Property for a preparatory college was purchased in Clark's Summit, Pennsylvania, and the Vénard
College was opened in 1919- Construction of a permanent major seminary at Maryknoll began in 1920, while buildings to serve as residences
for Maryknoll travelers were purchased in San Francisco (1920), Hong

Kong (I92O), New York City (1921), and Seattle (1923).18 By 1926, a second preparatory college in Los Altos, California, a convent for Maryknoll
Sisters in Hong Kong, and properties in Los Angeles and Honolulu had

"¦Ibid., pp. 13 and 16-17;FA, 5 (June-July, 191 1),2-3;EA, 5 (August-September, 1911),
2;FA, 15 (September, 1921), 268; and 754,20 (June, 1926), 1.
17Rabe, "Evangelical Logistics," pp. 62-69; Wiest, Maryknoll in China, pp. 42-43 and
442; FA, 5 (December, 1911), 2;FA, 10 (March, l9l6),42-4y,FA, 11 (January, 1917), 2;.E4,

12 (March, 1918), 42; and FA, 13 (April, 1919), 72-74.
18M, 15 (September, 1921), 268;FA, 21 (January, 1927), 18; FA, 15 (April, 1921), 98-99;
and FA , 20 (June, 1 926), 2 . Wiest regards Rogers as a co-founder of Maryknoll. A colleague
of Walsh's from 1906, she played a paramount role in the preparation and publication of
The FieldAfar. As Mother General of the Maryknoll Sisters, Rogers oversaw the transition
of the community from one composed of auxiliaries providing housekeeping and clerical
services for Maryknoll to one in which the Sisters were full participants in the evangelization process. See Wiest, Maryknoll in China, pp. 11-12, 27-30, 99-103, and 129; and
Sister Sue Bradshaw, O.S. E, "Religious Women in China: An Understanding of Indigenization," Catholic Historical Review, LXVIII (January, 1982), 28-45.

BY PAUL R. RTVERA485

been added to the Society's growing infrastructure. By the end of its
first decade in China, the Society had begun construction of a third
preparatory college in Cincinnati and added houses of study in Washington, D.C., and Rome to its extensive property holdings.19
Emphasizing the cultivation of mission zeal, Walsh shaped the education of future missioners through closely supervised programs of classroom study, spiritual lectures, and mealtime readings from the diaries of
Maryknoll missioners. The academic program stressed the study of
Thomistic philosophy for two years and dogmatic and moral theology
for four years. Daily exposure to accounts of charitable works, evangelistic activities, and struggles with "pagan" China was intended to foster
a deep spiritual commitment to the missions. According to Father
Robert Sheridan, a Maryknoller who served in China in the 1920's, seminarians were inculcated with a "great spirit of self-sacrifice, and we
were going to go to China and never come back. That was all in the air
we breathed in the beginning of Maryknoll."20 Manual labor was an important part of Maryknoll preparation. "A wonderful training of character," Father Thomas Brack reminisced, "[manual labor] led to our
being able to accept and handle responsibility and persevere in
work."21

Little time or effort, however, was devoted to the study of the history,
political affairs, and language of China. "We knew almost nothing," recalled Sheridan;"we got some superficial history of China, but there was
no life to it." Though missioners identified this as a deficiency of their

preparation, as late as the 1940's the Society's seminary education pro-

gram still did not provide missioners with knowledge of the East Asian
environment in which they would be evangelizing.22 Moreover, few
Maryknollers appear to have read extensively about China after their arrival. During the 1920's most missioners obtained information about developments in China from English-language treaty-port newspapers.
While some Maryknollers read Chinese newspapers from Hong Kong,
"we didn't believe anything we read," Father Thomas Kiernan recalled,

"FA, 20 (December, 1926), 272; FA, 21 (September, 1927), 228-229; and FA, 23 (December, 1929), 270.
2CWiest,Maryknoll in China, pp. 35-37; and Interviews of Missioners and Chinese People Conducted by Maryknoll China History Project, Transcript of Oral Interview with Father Robert Sheridan, TFOl , Maryknoll Mission Archives, Ossining, New York, p. 921Transcript of Oral Interview with Father Thomas Brack, TF58, p. 6; and, Wiest, Maryknoll in China, p. 34.
^Interview with Father Robert Sheridan.TFOl , pp. 19-20, 52, 56-57, and 63; and Wiest,
Maryknoll in China, pp. 31-32.

486"FIELD FOUND!" ESTABUSHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

"because they were more propaganda sheets than anything else."23
Though Maryknoll would develop intensive programs of residential
study in Cantonese and Hakka in the 1930's, encouraged to take immediate control of their mission territory by the Paris Foreign Mission Society, the first Maryknollers received little preparation in Chinese
language prior to assuming their assignment.24 Instead, instructed intermittently by Chinese tutors and confounded by the three different dialects spoken in their territory, Maryknollers struggled to communicate
with Chinese Christians throughout the 1920s.25
Walsh began to search for a mission territory in 1915. He was drawn
to China because he judged it to be the mission field in which Maryknoll efforts could rival those of American Protestant missions, arouse

the competitive spirit of American Catholics, and generate mission vocations and financial contributions.26 While supportive of American efforts, the bishops of the Catholic territories in China did not welcome
competitors. However, pressed by declining numbers of missioners
caused by the drafting of priests into the French army during World
"Interview with Father Robert Sheridan, TCOl, pp. 5-6, 22, and 62-63; and Transcript
of Oral Interview with Father Thomas Kiernan, TF03, pp. 84-87. That such inadequate
preparation could result in harmful stereotyping is illustrated by Maryknoll reactions to
Arthur Smith's influential work Chinese Characteristics. Critical and condescending
toward the Chinese, Smith's work received high marks from Father Bernard Meyer and Father James E. Walsh, two members of the original group assigned to China. "We think it is
the best thing we ever saw on the subject," wrote Walsh in July of 1919"If any of the boys
want to get a good idea of the Chinese," he concluded, "this is by far the best book to put
in their hands." See James E. Walsh to Father Superior, Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
Archives [hereafter cited as MFBA] China Materials, James E. Walsh Correspondence
[hereafter cited as JEWCORR]JuIy 23, 1919. Walsh's opinions were influential. He succeeded Price as superior of the Kwangtung missions, became the first Maryknoll bishop
in 1927, and served as Superior General from 1936 to 1946.
"Wiest, Maryknoll in China,pp. 270-271; and James E.Walsh to Father SuperiorJEW-

CORR, n.d. (1926). The Maryknoll experience with Chinese language instruction fol-

lowed the pattern set by American Protestant missionaries to China in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Initially, language instruction was undertaken on a piecemeal
basis at each Protestant mission station. After 1910 interdenominational language schools
were established and offered programs of intensive residential study to newly-arrived missionaries. See Feuerwerker, op. cit. , p. 1 73 ¦

"Raymond Kerrison, Bishop Walsh of Maryknoll (New York, 1962), pp. 76-77; and
John F. Donovan, M.M., The Pagoda and the Cross (New York, 1967), p. 30."They learned
to speak very little Chinese," observed Father Thomas Lau, a Chinese priest trained by
Maryknoll. "They could not master even very simple conversation," he recalled. "Their
[Sunday] sermons could last for only one or two minutes." See Transcript of Oral Inter-

view with Thomas Lau, TC04, pp. 6-7.
MWiest,Maryknoll in China,p.4lO;FA, 1 (January, 1907), 2 and 6-7;FA, 1 (May, 1907),
cover; FA, 5 (June-July, 1911), 3; FA, 6 (February-March, 1912), 3-4; FA, 6 (June-July,
1912), 2; and fit, 11 (January, 1917), 2.

BY PAUL R. RTVERA487

War I, Bishop Jean Baptiste de Guébriant, the Paris Foreign Mission
Society vicar of Canton, offered a district along the West River and
the coast of the South China Sea to Walsh in December, 1917. "Field
Found," Walsh cabled Maryknoll.27 Within a year, the first group of American Catholic missioners reached Yeungkong.28
Fired by missionary zeal, filled with a spirit of self-sacrifice, but deficient in their knowledge of the language, history, and contemporary
politics of China, increasing numbers of Maryknoll missioners departed
from Ossining to Christianize East Asia. An average of two Maryknoll
priests per year was ordained in 1914-1918; with the establishment of
the first Maryknoll mission in China, the number of missioners ordained
doubled in the years 1919-1922. Thirteen more were ordained in 1923,
sixteen in 1924, and fourteen in 1925. While 1926 saw the number decline to seven new missioners, twenty-one men were ordained in 1927,
and sixteen in 1928. Parishes in lower New England, the Mid-Atlantic,
and the Mid-West contributed the largest numbers of prospective missioners. In 1923, sixteen of the Society's total of forty-three priests were
assigned to China, and four missioners staffed a new mission in Korea.
By 1928 fourteen missioners were stationed in Korea and two in the
Philippines, while thirty-three Maryknollers or 30 percent of the Soci-

ety's lió priests occupied twenty-five mission stations in Kwangtung

!7Wiest, Maryknoll in China,pp.47-52.the assignment of Catholic mission territories
was the product of negotiations between missionary organizations and the papal authority in Rome. China had been divided into mission territories, each of which was entrusted
to a European mission society. A mission society enjoyed exclusive rights to evangelize its
assigned territory; newcomers could establish a mission only with the permission of the
entrusted society.

"FA, 12 (June, 1918), Special Insert, p. 1. Yeungkong city is located 140 miles southwest

of Hong Kong on the banks of the Mo-yang-chiang, twelve miles inland from where the
river empties into the South China Sea. In 1918 Yeungkong city was the seat of government for the sub-prefecture of Yeungkong, which stretched along more than sixty miles of
coastline and into the interior of Kwangtung province. Père Auguste Gauthier, the French
missionary of the Paris Foreign Mission Society resident in Yeungkong in 1918, described
the city as the commercial center of the region and one of four small seaports used by

fishing boats and commercial junks involved in the coastal trade; larger junks carried

products and passengers on a weekly schedule and connected Yeungkong to Canton.
Much of the land in the southwest Kwangtung region was hilly and deforested; severe
weathering and erosion produced a thick red top soil that retained little moisture. Floods
and droughts were commonplace. Vast stretches of unreclaimed, barren land characterized the region; according to the geographer Sun Ching-chih, the district which included
Yeungkong county contained "the most concentrated barren area in Kwangtung." See FA,
13 (January, 1919), 5; and Sun Ching-chih (ed.), Economic Geography of South China,
translated by Joint Publications Research Service, U.S. Department of Commerce (Pei-

ping,1959),p. 176.

488"FIELD FOUND! " ESTABUSHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

and Kwangsi (Guangxi) provinces (see map).29 In September, 1921, the
first group of six Maryknoll Sisters departed for China to be followed by
a group of six in 1922 and additional groups in 1923 and 1924. Located
in an important town, a Maryknoll mission station contained a residence, chapel, primary school, and perhaps a dispensary together with
a network of chapels and rented buildings or rooms in surrounding villages. Assisted by catechists, Maryknoll priests conducted periodic services and supervised religious instruction, while Maryknoll Sisters
operated schools, orphanages, and dispensaries.30
The Field Afar became the official Maryknoll magazine in 1911 and
played a paramount role in the emergence of the mission enterprise in
the United States and China. Designed to inform the public about the
activities and needs of Maryknoll missioners and to secure the spiritual
and financial support of American Catholics for the mission enterprise,
the magazine reached 35,000 subscribers by 1917. The establishment
of Maryknoll's first China mission in Yeungkong stimulated a dramatic
increase in circulation with annual subscriptions reaching 75,000 in
1920 and 100,000 in 1923. Paid subscriptions stabilized at 125,000 for
the remainder of the 1920's.31 Throughout the years 1912-1928 the effective use of photographs, articles, letters, and statistics focused the attention of American Catholics on Catholic mission activities in China.

With an average length of twenty-five to thirty pages, each issue contained information about Maryknoll activities in the United States, news
about the world missionary movement, selections from the diaries of
Maryknoll missioners in East Asia, solicitations for mission funds, and financial reports from Walsh. According to Wiest, four themes were propagated by the magazine. China was "a great country and a great people."
29MFBA, Ordination List, 1914-1933, 1-2; FA, 15 (September, 1921), 245; FA, 18 (January, 1924), 20; FA, 18 (May, 1924), 145; MFBA, Foundation Day Brochures, 1923 and 1927;
FA, 20 (June, 1926), 2; MFBA, General Report, 1928, p. 1; and Wiest, Maryknoll in China,
Appendix V, pp. 468-470.
>0FA, 21 (January, 1927), 18; MFBA, China Diaries Kongmoon, Yeungkong Diaries,
1918-1919, January 7 and January 30, 1919; Yeungkong Diaries, 1920-1921, January 27,
January 30, and March 17, 1921; and Yeungkong Diaries, 1922-1923, December 31, 1922.
Throughout the 1920's Maryknoll Sisters assigned to the Society's Kongmoon mission district lived in mission station convents and worked almost exclusively in institutional settings. Only when assigned to the Kaying mission district in the 1930's were the Sisters
able to leave the mission station to make direct evangelistic contact with Chinese in remote rural villages. See Wiest, Maryknoll in China, pp. 99-101 and 118-119; and Bradshaw, op. cit. , pp. 38-4 1 .

"FA, 21 (January, 1927), 3-4: and Wiest, Maryknoll in China, pp. 27-30 and 410-411.

During the Society's early years the editing and production services provided by the
Maryknoll Sisters were crucial to the success of The Field Afar.

BY PAUL R RT^ERA489

China was "a country ready for Christianity.'' Works of charity would
reach and convert non-Christian Chinese, and their faith was a wonder
to behold.32

The most important function of The FieldAfar was to solicit financial
contributions from American Catholics to support the growth of the
Maryknoll mission enterprise. Each issue included a myriad of financial
appeals and fundraising reports. Readers were urged to contribute to
burses which supported the education of American and native clergy,
to funds for training native catechists, to foundations which aided
needy students, and to land schemes for retiring mortgages. The purchase of annuities providing lifetime income for benefactors and securing the principal for the Society was encouraged. "Mission Circles"
enabled parishes to make in-kind contributions. To recognize old benefactors and motivate new ones, lists of contributors and donations were

highlighted in each issue. Special appeals solicited larger sums to build
mission schools, medical dispensaries, chapels, and residences. During
1925 a page of the magazine was devoted to an appeal for "prayers and
financial backing" for the new mission at Antung (Andong) in Manchuria, the Hakka Mission in eastern Kwangtung, and a mission to the
"stubbornly resistant" population of Wuchow (Wuzhou) in Kwangsi
province.33 Throughout the period 1912-1928 the major contributors
to Maryknoll were drawn from urban centers in the Northeast, the Middle West, and the West Coast and included bishops and priests, individually or through diocesan efforts or parish organizations, Sisters and the
institutions in which they served, lay organizations and individual
Catholics, and parochial school students.34
Mission society fund-raising and finances are the least-studied dimensions of the Christian mission enterprise in the United States and China.
"The official statistics are faulty when available," warns Rabe, "and incomplete for the movement as a whole."35 As a result, generalizations
are tentative and comparisons problematic. By 1900, American Protes52Wiest, "China as Portrayed to American Catholics by Maryknoll Missionaries,

1918-1953," pp. 171, 176, 178, 180, and 186.
"FA, 15 (December, 1921), 362-363;i?4, 20 (November, 1926), 283;7M, 15 (November,

1921),321;i54, 18 (May, 1924), 156;FA, 13 (November, 1919), 235-236;#t, 17 (May, 1923),
156;?4, 17 (October, 1923),291;7Î4, 18 (January, 1924), 28; and FA, 19 (June, 1925), back
cover.

MFA, 10 (March, 1916), 42-43; FA, 13 (April, 1919), 80-81; FA, 15 (February, 1921),
44-45;fi4, 15 (April, 1921), 100-101;ßl, 17 (May, 1923), 131-133; Twelfth Annual Report,
MFBA, Treasurer Collection: Financial Reports [hereafter cited as TRCOLFrNRPT] , February 1, 1924,p. l;and Seventeenth Annual Report, TRCOLFINRPT, February 1, 1929, pp. 1-2.

"Rabe, The Home Base ofAmerican China Missions, p. 163.

490"FIELD FOUND!"ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

tant missions in East Asia had become the leading recipients of American funds with expenditures for the China missions outpacing those for

Japan and Korea. In 1916 the United States replaced Great Britain as the

leading source of foreign mission funds in the world. C. E Remer placed
the value of property held in China in 1929 by American Protestant missionary and philanthropic societies at approximately $40 million and
the value of property held by Catholic societies at $1 million.36 Rabe examined the financial supporters, fund-raising strategies, and policies of
the Protestant mission enterprise, while Kessler explored the financial
ties between the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmington, Delaware,
and the Jiangyin mission station. Though Wiest devotes considerable attention to the historical context from which the Maryknoll mission enterprise emerged, limited attention is focused on the growth of
infrastructure, financial resources, and properties in the United States
or China.37

Analysis of the corporation reports and financial records of the
Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America indicates that Maryknoll
enjoyed impressive financial growth under the stewardship ofJames A.
Walsh. Receipts from fund-raising efforts, Society memberships, and
subscriptions to The FieldAfar increased fivefold from $51,170 in 1912

to $281,079 in 1918. Publicity about the search for a Maryknoll territory in South China stimulated a 137 percent increase in total receipts

from 1916 to 19 1838 Prompted by the establishment of the mission sta-

tion at Yeungkong, receipts increased 67 percent in 1918-1919 to total

$470,486 with marked increases in burses, gifts, and subscription in-

come (see Table 1). Father Superior used the additional revenues to expand the mission enterprise. During 1919 expenditures for facilities at
Maryknoll and the seminary at Clark's Summit, Pennsylvania, increased

from $110,561 to $223,891, while expenditures for establishing and

mamtaining the new missions in China rose from $6,815 to $38,414.
Maryknoll's remarkable financial growth continued through 1922. DurTield/Near East Notes and Far East Queries,"p. 34; Rabe, The Home Base ofAmerican
China Missions, p. 261 ; and C. F. Remer, Foreign Investments in China (New York, 1968),
p. 303. The value of property held by the Kongmoon Mission, the largest of three Maryknoll mission districts in south China, was placed at $432,658 in 1928. See Statement of
Assets and Liabilities of the Maryknoll Kongmoon Mission, TRCOLFINRPT, August 15,
1928.

"Rabe, The Home Base of American China Missions, pp. 163-171; Lawrence D.
Kessler, "'Hands Across the Sea' Foreign Missions and Home Support," in Neils (ed.), op.
cit. , pp. 78-81 ; and Wiest, Maryknoll in China, p. 581 .
"Statement of Receipts and Expenditures 1912-1919, TRCOLFINRPT, June, 1936,
pp. 1-4.

Table 1.—Receipts and Expenditures,
Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, 1919-1924
Receipts
The Field Afar
Dues & Memberships
Gifts
Annuities
Burses

1919

1920

1921

1922

1923

1924

$84,820

$108,075
21,605

$117,710

$137,880
48,527

76,592
43,118
116,224

133,729
38,312

77,691
128,142

145,343
51,486
65,908
148,000

$127,440
34,602
182,994

45,199
66,306
13,242

27,696
471,581

36,003
627,339

712,039

59,880
57,372
57,000
193,389
39,507
810,510

$102,034
33,680
158,146
40,786
42,439
56,689
32,369
71,475
662,993

$30,827

$54,090
179,425
64,342

$72,861
267,926

15,733
8,890

26,979

11,372

Loans/Mortgages
Sale of Investments
Foreign Missions

Total Receipts
Expenditures
The FieldAfar
Maryknoll Estate
Office/House Expenses
Interest Paid

83,073

34,321
8,448

Loans/Mortgages Paid
Purchase of Investments

Seminary Expenses
Property
Foreign Missions
Total Expenditures

140,818
38,414
416,041

20,330

27,184

60,887
649,963
$93,660
164,536
106,261

$68,011

202,779
102,991

34,702
136,000

31,101
9,500

33,510

23,984

39,219

28,522
3,717

35,021

30,716

51,065
4,026
75,346

33,669
24,426
17,463
32,698

627,339

712,039

810,510

74,457
138,576

93,188
10,500
31,818

53,691

$88,511

181,851

68,663
649,963

191,130
110,993

5,115
120,395

662,993

Source: MFBA Treasury Collection: Financial Reports, Maryknoll Mission Archives (Ossining, New York: Catholic Foreign Mission Society
of America, February 1, 1920-1925).

Note: Only selected categories of receipts and expenditures are listed. The figures for total receipts and expenditures include all cate-

gories found in the original statements together with cash on hand at the beginning or end of the year.

4k

492"FIELD FOUNDPESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOU MISSION ENTERPRISE

ing this period receipts from gifts and dues increased 147 percent, and

income from The Field Afar grew 50 percent, while receipts from an-

nuities averaged per year $49,892 and those from burses $66,990. Contributions to support the China missions grew from $27,695 in 1919 to

$36,070 in 1922 as the number of missions staffed by Maryknoll increased from three to eight.39
At the same time, however, Maryknoll began to experience financial
difficulties. Receipts for 1923 and 1924 represented a decline of 20 percent from the peak year of 1922. Why did Maryknoll experience financial contractions? Analysis of financial reports for 1919-1922 indicates
that much of the observed growth in receipts had been fueled by the

securing of loans ($333,142) and the sale of stocks and bonds ($193,389)

held by the Society. These sums were expended to acquire property
and construct facilities for the rapidly expanding mission enterprise.

Expenditures for property and facilities increased from $232,339 in

1919 to $424,546 in 1922 and averaged 53 percent of total expendi-

tures during these years. In 1921-1922 the Society expended $443,027
for the new seminary at Maryknoll, $104,757 in subsidies for the Venara College, and $72,219 to buy properties in Los Angeles, New York,
and Hong Kong.40 Due to these development-oriented policies, Maryknoll experienced chronic cash flow problems. In September, 1920,

Walsh responded to a request to purchase property at Loting, "I wish

that I could say magnanimously 'accept the enclosed check for thirtysix hundred dollars,' but just at this moment I have bills amounting to
forty-five thousand dollars to pay and nothing in the bank."41 In March,
1921, he complained, "my neck is sore trying to dodge our creditors
here." In June he noted, "Money is very tight, . . . we have borrowed almost up to the limit."42
To ameliorate cash flow problems and to support the continued expansion of the mission enterprise, Walsh modified his strategy of securing loans and selling investments. Receipts from loans declined from
"Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, TRCOLFINRPT, February 1, 1920, 1921, and
1922.

"Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, TRCOLFINRPT, February 1, 1920, 1921,
1922, 1923, 1924, and 1925.By comparison, expenditures for the China missions averaged

$44,865 for the period 1919-1922 or 7 percent of total expenditures. Much ofthat figure

($75,346) was expended in 1922, when the China mission territory expanded from three
to eight mission districts.

^'Father Superior James A. Walsh to James E. Walsh, JEWCORR, September 20, 1920,

p.l.

"Father Superior James A. Walsh to James E. Walsh, JEWCORR, March 25, 1921, p. 3;

same to same.June 30, 1921, p. l;and same to same, December 12, 1922, p. 3.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA493

$276,142 in 1920-22 to $69,932 in 1923-1924 while the sale of stocks
and bonds fell from $193,389 in 1922 to $32,369 in 1923-1924. Adopting the slogan "Economize till it hurts," Walsh also cut $25,000 from the

yearly operating expenses of the Maryknoll estate and $20,000 from the

Vénard Seminary. The modifications and economies eased, but did not
resolve, the Society's cash flow problems; in December, 1922, Walsh reported that the Society was $11,000 behind in payment of monthly
bills.43 Despite these financial difficulties, the mission enterprise contin-

ued to grow. By 1924 ten mission districts in China were staffed by
twenty-four priests and twenty-three Sisters.44 Expenditures to support

the expanding mission enterprise in China increased to $90,979 or 14
percent of total expenditures for that year.45

This pattern of expansion of the mission enterprise, coupled with
cash flow problems, continued to characterize the financial condition
of the Society from 1925 to 1928 (see Table T). Fueled by increases in
loans ($260,343), annuities ($35,679), and the sale of investments
($11,641), receipts increased 50 percent from $662,993 in 1924 to

$997,959 in 1925. Walsh used the increased receipts in 1925 to pay off

old loans, purchase new investments, and finance the continued development of the Maryknoll Preparatory College.46 However, receipts de-

clined 26 percent in 1926, and the Society suffered substantial deficits
"Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, February 1, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, and

1924; and Eleventh Annual Report, February 1, 1924, p. 5.

"MFBA, Kongmoon Reports, 1924. Throughout the 1920's the Maryknoll Sisters were
financially dependent upon the Society. The financial need of the Sisters is a common
theme in the mission correspondence of James E. Walsh. Statements of assets and liabilities regularly included references to the Maryknoll Sisters in capital assets and loans

payable, while financial statements of the Kongmoon mission district identified expenditures for the Sisters and included properties used by them among the mission's physical
assets and liabilities. See James E. Walsh to Father Superior,JEWCORR, May 22, July 20, October 18, and October 26, 1922, and January 10, 1923; Statement of Assets and Liabilities,
TRCOLFINRPT, January 31, 1926, and January 31, 1928; Kongmoon Mission Financial
Statement, TRCOLFINRPT, February 28, 1922; Kongmoon Mission Balance Sheet, TR-

COLFINRPT, September 20, 1924; and, Kongmoon Mission Statement of Assets and Liabilities, TRCOLFINRPT, August 15, 1927.
"Statement of Assets and Liabilities, TRCOLFINRPT, January 31, 1925, pp. 1-2. On Jan-

uary 31, 1925, the total assets of the Society were valued at $2,131,634, of which 71 percent represented property and facilities. Mortgage and loan liabilities, however, totaled

$315,291 while current assets amounted to $59,932. Analysis of expenditures for 1924 indicates that 10 percent were for The FieldAfar, 50 percent for operations, 9 percent for
interest and repayment of loans, 3 percent for investments and property, and 18 percent
for the foreign missions. See Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, TRCOLFINRPT February 1,1925.
"Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, TRCOLFINRPT, February 1, 1925 and 1926.

494"HELD FOUND!" ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

Table 2.—Receipts and Expenditures, Catholic Foreign Mission
Society of America, 1925-1928
19251926

19271928

Receipts

The FieldAfar$98,725$131,851$103,989$97,077

Dues & Memberships35,17352,498

41,82239,976

Sale of Investments44,01022,269

87,60681,686

Gifts161,651178,137211,123165,946
Annuities76,46561,725143,413204,671
Burses51,03029,092
37,47852,184
Loans/Mortgages317,03220,266
79,29814,225
Foreign Missions81,20188,625109,354129,000

Total Receipts970,959716,766989,6021,005,439

Expenditures

The FieldAfar$57,740$73,526$62,565$68,010
Maryknoll Estate134,62789,874109,65089,642
Office/House Expenses106,306114,603101,920103,814
Interest Paid41,78242,609
50,29256,982

Loans/Mortgages Paid267,59283,957148,69392,973
Purchase of Investments61,27021,441

95,392119,042

Property16,91797,804

58,712128,290

Seminary Expenses87,88135,944123,65189,676
Foreign Missions123,35487,069147,736147,464
Total Expenditures970,959

716,766989,602

1,005,439

Source: MFBA Treasury Collection: Financial Reports, Maryknoll Mission Archives (Os-

sining, New York: Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, February 1, 1926-1929).

Note: Only selected categories of receipts and expenditures are listed. The figures for
total receipts and expenditures include all categories found in the original statements together with the cash on hand at the beginning or end of the year.

BY PAUL R. RTVERA495

($103,940) in China mission accounts as expenditures exceeded receipts in 1925 ($32,358), 1927 ($41,939) and again in 1928 ($30,942).

Walsh reacted by de-emphasizing the use of loans as a solution to cash
flow problems. New loans were reduced substantially in 1926-1928,
and a serious effort was made to pay down existing loan liabilities,
which decreased from a high of $348,704 in 1925 to $170,863 in
1928.47

Father Superior did not abandon the loan strategy altogether. Loans
totaling $79,298 enabled him to resolve cash flow problems in 1927.
Nor did he curtail property development. Construction began on a sem-

inary in Los Altos, California ($71,000), while residential properties
were acquired in Washington ($44,973) and Rome ($84,655), and new

mission territories were established in Manchuria ($43,239) and Korea
($90,191). Walsh's financial strategy for 1925-1928 combined a more
conservative approach to development with the aggressive solicitation
of contributions, frugal management of existing facilities, and the timely

sale of investments and property. During 1926-1928 this strategy
yielded sizable net increases in annuities ($180,414), general mission
donations ($83,376), and gifts ($70,253) together with $191,561 from
the sale of investments and property.48 As a result of Walsh's fiscal stewardship, on January 31, 1929, loans payable and current liabilities decreased to a four-year-low of $203,710, while the value of foundations

and annuities climbed to a four-year-high of $1,616,985. Having experienced a fourfold increase in assets to $2,984,000, Maryknoll completed
its first decade in China in an apparently healthy financial condition.49

"Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, TRCOLFINRPT, February 1, 1926, 1927,
1928,and 1929; and Statement of Assets and Liabilities, January 31, 1926, and January 31,
1929.Two factors appear to account for much of the increase in expenditures. In 1925

and 1926 approximately $25,000 in additional expenses were reported by the Hong
Kong Procure, much of it apparently related to the maintenance of Maryknollers evacuated from the interior of south China. At the same time, the Society was fulfilling commitments to the expansion of facilities in Hong Kong to house evacuated Sisters and to new

mission territories in Wuchow and Manchuria.

«Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, February 1, 1926, 1927, 1928, and 1929.
Comparison of expenditures for fiscal years 1924 and 1927 illuminates the changing financial strategy. Expenditures for physical facilities declined from 50 percent of total expenditures in 1924 to 34 percent in 1927, while expenditures for interest and loans paid
increased from 9 percent to 20 percent, and financial and property investments increased

from 3-5 percent to 15.6 percent. Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, February 1,
1925, and February 1, 1928.
"Statement of Assets and Liabilities, TRCOLFINRPT, January 31, 1929, pp. 1-2.

496"FIELD FOUND!" ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

Building the Maryknoll Mission Enterprise in China
James Edward Walsh personified the energy, drive, and commitment

of the infant American Catholic foreign missions movement. Appointed

successor to Father Price as superior of Maryknoll's first mission district
in China in 1920 and consecrated the Society's first bishop in 1927,
Walsh played a decisive role in shaping the Maryknoll mission enterprise in China. Born in Cumberland, Maryland, in 1891, he was the second of nine children of an influential Catholic family; two of Walsh's
sisters became nuns; one brother was a Maryknoller, while another
served as Attorney General of Maryland. A graduate of Mount Saint
Mary College, Walsh worked in a steel foundry before entering the
Maryknoll seminary in 1912. Ordained four years later, he directed the
Vénard preparatory college until his assignment to China. Named Wha
Lee Sou or "Pillar of Truth" by Chinese Catholics, Walsh was articulate,
forceful, and persistent in the pursuit of his vision for the Maryknoll
missions in China. Though Walsh could be an insightful observer of developments in China, the limited attention accorded to China during his
Maryknoll education, together with his strong character and tendency
to hold tenaciously to his own views, led him to appear, at times, opinionated and righteous in his dealings with Chinese leaders in the
1920's.50

Walsh shared Father Superior's vision of building a Maryknoll mission
enterprise in China. In a February, 1919, letter to the Maryknoll head,
Walsh characterized the Society's mission territory in Kwangtung
province as "a piece-meal kind of a thing." "At some future time our mission will be extended," he predicted, and a mission center with a "big
plant" including a seminary, orphanage, and hospital should be located
in a large city such as Kochow (Gaozhou) rather than buried "in a little
place like Yeungkong."51 Anticipating expansion of the mission enterprise, he argued that Kongmoon (Jiangmen) would make an ideal
headquarters for the seminary, orphanage, and hospital he already
envisioned for Maryknoll in China. After his confirmation as mission
superior, Walsh successfully overturned the Maryknoll policy of not becoming a property holder in China. Emphasizing the need for a Chinagenerated income to support the Society's investment in churches,
schools, and dispensaries, he argued, "If we are going to do the thing on
businesslike lines, instead of playing at running a mission, we must
,0Josh Barbanel, "Bishop James E. Walsh Dies," NYT, July 30, 1981, B17; and "Bishop
Walsh, Missionary, Catholic Hero, Dies at 90," The Sun, Baltimore, July 30, 1981 , Cl and C4.
"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, February 14, 1919, p. 3.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA497

come to the idea of having funds that we can depend upon at our command."52 In 1921 Walsh negotiated the transfer of French mission stations at Wuchow and Pingnam to Maryknoll control, emphasizing, "It
gives us a foothold and assures us of something for future development.
We want to see a big body of American missionaries down here some
day."53 Surveying Maryknoll's first decade in China in 1928, Walsh revealed the depth of his commitment to building the mission enterprise;
"mission work is a gain, but organization to make possible more and
better work is a greater gain; ... it means the creation of the machinery
needed to perform the actual mission work."54
Walsh took the initiative to clarify the procedures to be followed
when mission organizations purchased land and buildings in China. In
response to his March, 1920, inquiry, the American Consul General in
Canton (Guangzhou) stated that deeds for property purchased by religious associations in China must include the name of the society or mission rather than the French Catholic practice of registering property in
the name of "the Catholic Church." Moreover, he advised Walsh, deeds

of property owned by the Society should be registered with the American Consulate. Receiving contradictory advice from the German
Catholic prelate of Shantung (Shandong), Walsh presented his findings
to Father Superior and successfully argued that the Society should reject the French practice and follow the procedures outlined by the
American Consul. "The question of how to acquire property will be always with us," he emphasized, "and we might as well get it straight at
the beginning."55 Not all of Walsh's initiatives, however, were as carefully
evaluated. In 1922 he co-sponsored a proposal to erect a Catholic university in south China. Only later did Walsh learn that the sponsors
"would be obligated to supply the university staff and the initial expenses for the founding of the University." The proposal was shelved.56
Undaunted by this setback, Walsh persisted in his efforts to build the
Maryknoll enterprise in China. Reminded by Father Superior of the Society's dire financial status in 1922 and the need to assign Maryknollers
"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, November 11, 1919, pp. 2-3; same
to same, December 17, 1919; Father Superior to James E. Walsh, March 20, 1920; and
James E.Walsh to Father Superior, February 18, 1922, p. 1.
"James E.Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, April 9, 1921, p. 3.
54MFBA, General Chapter 1929 Kongmoon Mission Report, August 10, 1929, pp. 1 and
14-15.

"American Consul General Bergholz to Father J. E. Walsh, JEWCORR, March 19, 1920,
pp. 1-2; and James E.Walsh to Father Superior, April 22, 1920, pp. 2-3.
"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, October 19, 1922, p. 1; and Synod for

South China to Rev. M. A. Mathis, November 26, 1922, p. 1.

498"FIELD FOUND! " ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOU MISSION ENTERPRISE

to activities in the United States, he appeared to accept the policy of
"going slow." Inserted in his reply, however, was a forceful appeal for satisfying the needs of the China missions.'! do not say that we MUST have
the money," Walsh wrote; "I simply say that we NEED it, and as a consequence we ought to TKFto get it" (emphasis in original). Announcing,
"The way I look at these needs I'd borrow anything I got my hands on,"
he urged Father Superior to allow him to send a missioner to the United
States to raise funds for the China missions.57 Ironically, Father Superior's directive to Walsh to return to Maryknoll for that purpose arrived
the day this plea was posted. Walsh immediately replied. Urging Maryknoll to clarify how the funds would be allocated, he asserted, "I think
every cent of it ought to go to the mission here. "The tone of this corre-

spondence was not lost on Father Superior. In March, 1924, he coun-

seled Walsh,"if there is one advice that I would give, it is to express your
judgments cautiously and with much tact, above all when you write. Directness has its advantages and its place," Father Superior remonstrated,
"but it is often harmful."58 Heeding this advice, Walsh moderated his
tone even as he continued to take the initiative in managing the mission

territory. In 1926 he crafted a plea for funds "to restore the proper eq-

uity in our mission accounts," and advanced a proposal for a China missioner to return to the United States for fund-raising. At times, Walsh's

sense of righteousness would resurface; disputing the claim that American priests supported the missions, he declared in 1927, "only 323
American Priests have ever sent anything here."59
The cultural contexts and processes which shaped the purchase of
property in Chinese society frustrated Walsh. After a visit to Loting (Luoding) in 1919, he argued that a mission residence, chapel, and school
should be established in the town. Within days of Price's death, Walsh

pressed Father Superior for $1,000 to purchase mission property.60 His

letter of October 12,1919, confessed,"I would like to have some money
to buy a property. If I had the money ... I could make a dicker, and get
this important matter settled." Reassuring Father Superior, he concluded, "I will drive a good bargain." In his first communication as superior of the Kwangtung mission stations, he presented his plans for the
57Father Superior to James E. Walsh, JEWCORR, December 12, 1922, p. 3; and James E.
Walsh to Father Superior, January 10, 1923, pp. 1-4.

"James E.Walsh to Father Superior,January 10, 1923, pp. 1-4;January 16, 1923, p. l;and
Father Superior to James E. Walsh, JEWCORR, March 25, 1924, p. 1 .
wJames E.Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, June 30, 1925, p. 2; same to samejuly 1,

1926, p. l;same to same, August 5, 1926, pp. 1-2; and same to same, March 3, 1927, p. 1.

"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, February 14, 1919, p. 3; June 27, 1919,
p. l;and September 21, 1919, p. 2.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA499

Loting mission and appealed for $5,000 to purchase property and construct a chapel and residence.61 Given permission, Walsh immediately
journeyed to Loting. He soon realized that buying and selling was a val-

ued activity for the Chinese participant;"It is a sweet morsel to him, and

he wants to linger over it." Unfortunately for Walsh, it was also a social
occasion; "There must be conferences, parleys, heckling, tea drinking,
banquets, and all the other time killing device [s] known to man." Chi-

nese social conventions conflicted with Walsh's American notions of

the efficient use of time; "I spent this entire two weeks in putting thru
the deal, . . . The only reason that it did not take two months or two
years was because I did not have time to wait, and after two weeks succeeded in impressing on the Chinese that it was to be a quick sale or
nothing."62 The final terms of the sale reflected Walsh's impatience with

Chinese customs. For $3,600 he purchased an eighty-yard by sixty-yard

lot which overlooked the river. His neighbors, however, were the poor
and opium smokers of Loting. And, in his haste, he had acquired a lot
which was too small for his plans. Walsh minimized this error, rationalizing that when the mission needed additional land for schools and a
hospital, the resident missioner would be able to purchase it at a fair
price. "The Catholic Church of Lo Ting," he informed Maryknoll,"is now
a landed proprietor."63
That Walsh could be an adroit negotiator when dealing with European mission leaders is revealed by his role in the expansion of the
Maryknoll mission enterprise in Wuchow and Kaying (Jiaying) districts. The Paris Foreign Mission Society had responded to Father Superior's search for a mission territory in 1918 by entrusting Maryknoll
with three mission districts in southwest Kwangtung. In November of
1920, Bishop Maurice Ducoeur, the Paris French vicar of Kwangsi, invited Maryknoll to take over the mission territory of Wuchow. Ducoeur
wished to be reimbursed for the properties and Walsh argued that the
French missioners should receive greater compensation than the

$1,500 initially proposed. Given the value of the property and the cost

of relocating the French priests, he recommended the payment of

$20,000. When Ducoeur complicated negotiations by altering the terri-

tory to be exchanged, Walsh maintained his support of the proposal
and counseled Maryknoll to remain patient while he bargained with
the French bishop. By April, 192 !,Walsh had worked out a compromise
"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, October 12, 1919, and November 11,
1919.

i2MFBA, Loting Chronicle, July 15-31, 1920, pp. 2-4.

"James E.Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, August 10, 1920, p. 1.

500"FIELD FOUND!" ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

with Ducoeur which gave Maryknoll a mission territory in the prefecture of Wuchow adjacent to the Society's missions in Kwangtung. Arguing that the compromise presented Maryknoll with a more manageable
territory together with a foothold for the future in Kwangsi, he recom-

mended that Father Superior offer Ducoeur $10,000 in compensation.

Walsh's compromise was ratified by Maryknoll.64 In 1924 Bishop Adolf
Rayssac, the French vicar of Swatow (Shantou), offered Maryknoll a
Paris Foreign Mission Society territory in northeast Kwangtung which
included five complete mission plants and 8,000 Chinese Catholics.
Though the offer envisioned no compensation from Maryknoll, it did
impose increased demands on the Maryknoll staff in China. Walsh ar-

gued that the value of the property together with the future potential
of the district outweighed short-term staffing problems. When the

proposal became entangled in differences among the French bishops,
Walsh worked patiently with all parties to insure that Kaying was transferred to Maryknoll.65

The initiative and persistence which made Walsh an effective administrator of the mission enterprise brought him into conflict with Chinese civil and military officials who did not share his vision for
Maryknoll in China. Walsh understood the importance of cultivating
relationships with local officials and notables; early mission diaries note
pleasant visits and useful contacts with the Chief Military Official and
the Civil Prefect of Yeungkong and with the viceroy of Kwangtung and
Kwangsi provinces. Contacts with officials were superficial, however,

described in the mission diary as "agreeable" and "polite palaver."66

Moreover, perceived corruption among Chinese officials outraged the
Maryknoll newcomers. In February, 1919, the Yeungkong diary offered
this judgment which became widely accepted among the missioners:
"There is everywhere the same squeeze, the same petty grafting that
has always characterized government in China; . . . [officials] seize on
personal property with little or no remuneration to the owners, levy arbitrary taxes that kill growing industries, force the owners to sell any"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, February 7, 1921, p. 1; March 2, 1921,
pp. 1-2; and April 9, 1921, pp. 1-3.
"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, MFBA China Materials, JEWCORR, June 8, 1924, p.
1; December 27, 1924, p. 1; April 30, 1925, p. 1; and FA, 19 (June, 1925), back cover. Francis Ford was appointed superior of the Kaying mission in 1925. When the Wuchow mission was separated from the Kongmoon mission district in 1930, Bernard Meyer was
appointed superior.

«Yeungkong Diaries, 1918-1919, July 31, 1919, p. 73; September 8, 1919, p. 76; and

MFBA, China Mission Diaries, Kochow Diary, December 2-3, 1919, pp. 25-26.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA501

thing that looks like a money-making proposition, all for their own
ends."67 And Walsh was troubled deeply by the depredations inflicted
upon rural villages during the civil war which raged in south China
from 1918 to 1923 and by the inability of the local military to protect
the people and punish lawbreakers.68
As early as February, 1919, the Yeungkong missioners recognized the
threat to the Maryknoll mission enterprise posed by revolutionary conditions in China. "The general opinion among missioners," noted a diarist, "seems to be that the slower this movement, . . . the better it will

be for Christianity, and, of course, the people."69 When Dr. Sun Yat-sen
established a republican government in Canton in 1921 and set out to
wrest control of south China from warlord generals, Walsh expressed
his preference for warlord General Ch'en Chiung-ming. Characterizing
a manifesto by Chen a "dignified and able document," Walsh described
Sun as the leader of a party of"extremely radical Republicans" who professed a range of Western-style reforms "from woman suffrage to mild
Bolshevism."70 In August of 1922, when it appeared that Sun had lost
control of Kwangtung to Ch'en, Walsh delivered this assessment:
Our old friend . . . appears to have reached the end of his rope; . . . practically all the foreigners in South China, with the exception of the American
Protestant missionaries—will be heartily glad to see the end of Dr. Sun. His
actions and his public statements have revealed him as a self-seeker pure
and simple. And he seems willing to subject his innocent countrymen to
any sort of trouble and suffering in order to gain his own personal ends.71

The appeals to nationalism and anti-imperialism employed by Sun Yatsen were, in Walsh's eyes, evidence of self-seeking and disruptive intentions. "With the elimination of Sun we will all breathe more freely," he
concluded; "General Chan [sic] and his crowd appear much more stable
and conservative than Sun, and under their regime we would hope for
a return to settled conditions."72 The peace and security that accompanied settled conditions would enable Walsh to get on with the business
of building the mission enterprise.
"'Yeungkong Diaries, 1918-1919, February 10, 1919, p. 49.
"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, March 27, 1919, p. 2.
"Yeungkong Diaries, 1918-1919, February 10, 1919, pp. 49-50.
70FA, 15 (November, 1921), 320-321.
"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, JEWCORR, August 3, 1922, pp. 2-4. Maryknoll missioners rarely missed the opportunity to point out the mistakes and deficiencies of the
Protestant mission enterprise.
72Ibid.

502"FIELD FOUND!"ESTABUSHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

Returning to China in June, 1924, from a fund-raising leave in the
United States, Walsh discovered that his pronouncement of Sun Yatsen's political obituary had been premature. The First United Front—
the 1923 coalition between the Nationalist Party, the fledgling Chinese
Communist Party, and the Soviet Union—gave Sun the military and organizational assistance needed to build a secure revolutionary base in
Kwangtung province and launch a military expedition to unite China.
Upon his return, Walsh searched for property to realize his vision for a
mission center at Kongmoon. Advised not to purchase land from private individuals, he approached the Canton Provincial Government
about securing waste public lands. Negotiations with the Chief of the
Public Land Department resulted in the lease in perpetuity of fifty acres
of waste land for $30,000. Walsh registered the deed with the American
Consul in Canton only to learn that the Finance Department of the
Provincial Government had been directed by the military commander,
General Hsu Chung Chi, to cancel the land transfer. According to General Hsu, the sale of land to foreigners "had long been criticized by the
public," and this action was taken to protect "public property" and maintain "national prestige." Unfortunately, the $30,000 had been spent, and
a local government official was directed "to devise means to raise

funds" and reimburse Maryknoll.73 Accusing General Hsu of corrupt behavior, Walsh exploded in anger, "[the general] only got half the
money . . . whereas he wanted it all, so in pique, or is it hoping for another squeeze, he crabs the deal."74
Walsh immediately initiated a strategy to bring diplomatic pressure
to bear on the Canton Government and force it to certify the land transaction. The French Consul was asked to reassert the right of Catholic
mission organizations to purchase land in China while diplomatic intervention was sought from the American Consul in Canton and the Legation in Peking (Beijing). Father Superior was urged to rally the Catholic
hierarchy in the United States and gain the support of the State Department in Washington. Walsh family contacts approached Senator Orvington E. Weiler (R.-Maryland) and Senator William Borah (R.-Idaho),
73James E. Walsh to Father Superior,JEWCORR, November 20, 1924, p. 1 James E. Walsh
to William O'Shea, December 27, 1924, p. 1; January 5, 1925, p. 1; William O'Shea to Mr.

Lockhart, Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs, State Department, JEWCORR, March 31, 1925, pp.
1-4; J. V A. MacMurray, Assistant Secretary, Department of State, to John J. Burke, JEW-

CORR, May 19, 1925, pp. 2-3; and, Dispatch from Commissioner ofForeign Affairs for Canton to American Consul-in-Charge, December 11,1 924, National Archives, RG 59, Canton

Consular Correspondence, 3931163 Am3/3,pp. 1-2.

'!fames E. Walsh to William O'Shea, January 5, 1925, p. 1.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA503

Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Aided by the National
Catholic Welfare Conference, Father Superior secured a commitment
from the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs to bypass the Peking Government and deal directly with the Provincial Government in Canton.
Walsh submitted a lengthy dossier on the case to the Secretary of State,
Frank Kellogg, and appealed for diplomatic intervention.75 Father Superior sought to enlist the influence of Ma Soo, the Provisional Government's ambassador to the United States and friend of General Hsu,
while Walsh wrote to Hsu, clarifying the missionary purposes for which
the land would be used and offering to meet any "fair" objections to the
transaction. A letter was dispatched to the Civil Governor of Kwangtung to present Walsh's case in the dispute. However, efforts to reach
Ma Soo failed, while the responses of General Hsu and the Civil Governor reaffirmed the original decision.76
Frustrated with the failure of his strategy, Walsh lashed out at the Canton Government. "The present Kwangtung officials," he wrote Father
Superior,"are out and out Bolshevists of the extreme type, supported by
Russian money and trying to Russianize China."77 Provincial leaders
openly embraced Soviet principles, he informed the Secretary of State,
"and are now engaged in actively propagating these ideas among the
people."78 The Maryknoll campaign did win the support of the State Department; Assistant Secretary of State J. V A. MacMurray informed the
Catholic hierarchy that the cancellation of the contract and the failure
to make restitution "was outrageous." The American Consul, Douglas
"Raymond Lane to Father Superior, JEWCORR, January 2, 1925, p. 2; James E. Walsh to
Father Superior, January 5, 1925, p. 1; James E. Walsh to William O'Shea, January 5, 1925, p.
l;James A. Walsh, to John J. Burke, National Catholic Welfare Conference, March 17, 1925,

National Archives, RG 59, Canton Consular Correspondence, 393. 1163 Am3/3, p. 1;

William O'Shea to Mr. Lockhart, Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs, State Department, March 3 1 ,
1925, pp. 2-3; William O'Shea to James E. Walsh, April 3, 1925, pp. 1-2; Mrs. William C.
Walsh to James E. Walsh, March 14, 1925, pp. 1 -2; and James E. Walsh to Honorable Frank
Kellogg, Secretary of Sute, April 10, 1925, National Archives, RG 59, Canton Consular Cor-

respondence, 393. 1 163 Am3/3-

'"Raymond Lane to James E. Walsh, JEWCORR, February 10, 1925, p. 1; James E. Walsh

to Father Superior, February 14, 1925, pp. 1-2; James E. Walsh to William O'Shea, March
14, 1925, p. 1 ; Father Superior to James E. Walsh, March 20, 1925, p. l;and Comment on
American Consul's Letter of January 13, 1925, and Resume of the Whole Incident to Date,

March 20, 1925, National Archives, RG 59, Canton Consular Correspondence, 393. 1163
Am3/3,p.l.

"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, February 14, 1925, p. 1 .

'"Regarding the Canceled Deed for Land Purchased at Kongmoon by the American
Catholic Mission, October 1, 1924, dated April 19, 1925, National Archives, RG 59, Canton

Consular Correspondence, 393. 1 163 Am3/3, p. 9.

504"FIELD FOUND!" ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

Jenkins, was directed to inform the provincial officials that the transaction should be ratified and the deed returned without delay.79 While
MacMurray promised Senator Weiler that he would pursue the issue as
American Minister in Peking, he stressed that any change in the Kwangtung government would make this task more difficult. Weiler informed
Walsh's family that there was little else the State Department could do.
Exposing the fallacy of Walsh's strategy for resolving the dispute, Weiler
concluded, "It would not be wise to hope for such prompt action as
might be expected in this or some European country"80 Throughout the
episode, moreover, Walsh evidenced no understanding that his behavior could be viewed by Chinese as "imperialistic" and that his actions
may have exacerbated Maryknoll's problems with government officials.
The dispute was not resolved until 1928.
At the conclusion of Maryknoll's first decade in China, Walsh assessed the Society's accomplishments in south China. "The harvest is so
far not large," he wrote in 1928. "Two thousand converts have been
added to the original five thousand. This is a small quota for ten years'
work." Spiritual returns lagged behind the expansion of physical facilities; the number of Christians served by the Kongmoon Vicariate totaled 7,207 Chinese Catholics in 1928 or about one-tenth of one

percent of a total population of six million Chinese. As the most noteworthy achievement, Walsh characteristically selected what he called
"Brick and Mortar" —the expansion of facilities and properties operated by Maryknoll in China. "The Society had accomplished," he
reported, "its first indispensable bit of building, ... its business organization, [and the] occupation of its territory."81 Mission statistics confirm
that Walsh realized his vision of acquiring property and building a mission enterprise in south China. Financial contributions from American
Catholics were used to purchase property and expand facilities at
Yeungkong and at the nine mission districts in Kwangtung and eastern
Kwangsi provinces transferred to Maryknoll control by French missioners between 1919 and 1924. As a consequence of these transactions,
the mission enterprise in south China grew from one mission staffed by

four Maryknollers serving 269 Christians in 1919 to eighteen mission
districts and 234 outstations staffed by twenty-eight missioners who
"Assistant Secretary of State J. V A. MacMurry to John J. Burke, May 19, 1925, p. 3; and
Secretary of State to Douglas Jenkins, American Consul General, Canton, China, June 5,

1925, National Archives, RG 59, Canton Consular Correspondence, 393. 1 163 Am3/1 , p. 1 .

»»Senator O. E. Weiler to Honorable William C. Walsh, JEWCORR, May 28, 1925, p. 1 .
"Maryknoll-in-Kongmoon Decennial 1928, MFBA, China Materials, Kongmoon Reports,
pp. 10- 11, 27, and 15.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA505

served 7,572 Christians in 1928.82 Rejecting a pessimistic reading of
the hard struggles and modest gains of the years 1918-1928, Walsh

projected an optimistic future for the mission enterprise in China. "If

Maryknoll's friends will join the missioners in begging the Saviour of
men to bless—and His Immaculate Mother to smile upon—their
people and their work," he concluded, "the future can be viewed with
entire confidence."83

"This Is a Very Critical Time in China"
The years 1925-1928 were a critical period for Christian missions in
China.84 Ignited by the May 30 and June 23, 1925, incidents in which
Western security forces killed Chinese demonstrators in Shanghai and

Canton, anti-imperialist campaigns targeted missionary colleges and
schools during Christmas of 1925 and throughout 1926. Students, work-

ers, and soldiers, mobilized in support of the Northern Expedition to

unite China under Nationalist rule, assailed mission institutions in cen-

tral and south China in 1926-1927.85 The year 1927 was fraught with
difficulties, "one of the most disastrous years that the province of
Kwangtung has experienced for some time," wrote American Consul
J. C. Huston.86 Nationalist attacks on foreigners in Nanking (Nanjing) in
March, 1927, led to the immediate evacuation of 93 percent of the
Protestant missionaries in the interior of China. In Yeungkong district,
Protestant missioners reported that "disaster has come to nearly every
"Kongmoon Reports, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, and 1928; and Statements of Receipts
and Expenditures, 1920-1925, TRCOLFINRPT, pp. 1-4. In 1922 $33,000 was spent to purchase property in Hong Kong, while the Paris Foreign Mission Society was reimbursed
$6,412 for mission stations in Kwangsi. In 1924 property for a convent in Hong Kong was

purchased for $27,000, and $35,000 was raised for a mission center at Kongmoon.

"'Maryknoll-in-Kongmoon Decennial 1928, p. 25.
"The 1923 edition of Webster's New International Dictionary defines "critical" as a
turning point, an especially important juncture, crucial and decisive, and attended with
risk. Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language (Springfield, Mas-

sachusetts, 1923), p. 534.

"Donald A. Jordan, The Northern Expedition: China's National Revolution of
1926-1928 (Honolulu, Hawaii, 1976), pp. 203-204; Ka-che Yip, Religion, Nationalism
and Chinese Students: The Anti-Christian Movement of 1922-1927 (Bellingham, Washington, 1980), pp. 54-56 and 67-72; and Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the Christian

Colleges 1850-1950 (Ithaca, New York, 1971), pp. 255-260, 265-267,and 270.

86A Review of Political Conditions in the Canton Consular District During 1927 with

Special Reference to the General Economic and Commercial Situation, U.S. Department of
State, December 31, 1927, National Archives, RG 59, Internal Affairs of China, 1910-1929,
893.00/9824, p. 1.

506"FIELD FOUND!"ESTABUSHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

market town having a chapel and the Christians have become much
scattered and in some cases demoralized. "87

Contrary to the arguments of Feuerwerker and Lutz, anti-Christian
movements in the 1920's were not "almost exclusively" directed against
Protestant missions, nor did the Catholic missions "remain apart" from
the currents of the Nationalist Revolution. Rather than marginalized
and unaffected, the historical record indicates that American Catholic
missions also were put at risk by the campaigns, disputes, and incidents
which accompanied the Nationalist Revolution. American Catholic Dominican missions in northern Fukien (Fujian) province were seized by
Nationalist army units, as were Franciscan missions in Wuchang district
and Vincentian missions in southern Kiangsi (Jiangxi) province. The
Passionist mission at Senchow (Chenzhou) was destroyed in 1927,
while that society's mission stations in western Hunan province were
evacuated.88 Reacting to the Yeungkong incident on November, 1927,
during which students and workers attacked the mission, Bishop Walsh
acknowledged its alarming potential for the Maryknoll enterprise when

he warned Father Superior, "this is a very critical period in China, when

a mis-step [sic] may ruin the entire Mission."89
Maryknoll missioners were not passive bystanders observing the turmoil of the Nationalist Revolution from remote rural enclaves. With mis-

sion compounds located in key coastal cities and provincial towns, and
a network of outstations, chapels, and schools reaching into the countryside of Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces, on two dozen occasions
Maryknollers were drawn into the demonstrations, disputes, incidents,
and accidents which characterized daily life in south China from 1925
to 1927. All Maryknollers were forced to flee from mission stations in
the summer of 1925, while kidnapings and incarcerations periodically
disrupted mission journeys thereafter.90 Maryknoll mission stations
"'Janet Heininger, "Private Positions Versus Public Policy: Chinese Devolution and the
American Experience in East Asia," Diplomatic History, 6 (Summer, 1982), 290-291;
China Christian Yearbook 1926 (Shanghai, 1926), p. 151; China Christian Yearbook
1928,pp. 160-161; and The Chinese Recorder, 59 (August, 1928), 527.
""Breslin, China, American Catholicism, and the Missionary, pp. 53-55; E P Lockhart,
American Consul General, Hankow, to Honorable Frank Kellogg, Secretary of State, U.S.

Department of State, August 25, 1927, National Archives, RG 59, Hankow Consular Correspondence, 393.1l63Am3/37, pp. 2-3; and Carbonneau, "The Passionists in China,
1921-1929," pp. 392, 405, and, 412-416.

"'Maryknoll-in-Kongmoon Decennial 1928, pp. 17-18; and Bishop Walsh to Father Superior, February 26, 1928, JEWCORR.
"James E. Walsh to Father Superior, July 11, 1925, JEWCORR; "Chinese Bandits Hold
Two American Priests," NYT, November 4, 1925, p. 8; and MSA, China Convent Diaries, Lo-

ting Convent Diaries, March 27, 1926, and March 12-April 2, 1927.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA507

were the sites of serious incidents involving destruction of property
and threats to life; in June, 1926, anti-Christian demonstrators protested

the Maryknoll decision to open a mission school at Siou-loc (Soule) in

eastern Kwangtung by invading the compound, ransacking the chapel,
and wrecking the school.91 Disputes also erupted between Maryknoll
missioners and Chinese citizens; in March, 1927, a confrontation be-

tween a Chinese mission employee and soldiers from a Nationalist
army unit forced the Maryknollers of Fachow (Huazhou) mission to flee
when the compound was invaded by soldiers and looted by civilians.92
Anti-Christian and anti-foreign demonstrations repeatedly targeted

Maryknoll mission compounds and schools at Loting in October, 1925,

and March, 1926, at Pingnam in June, 1926, at Yeungkong in December,

1926, and at Kochow from December, 1926, to February, 1927. On No-

vember 12, 1927, a mass meeting of students and workers, stirred by
newspaper reports that a student had been struck by a Maryknoller, attempted to invade the mission compound at Yeungkong.93 Maryknoll
missioners also experienced serious problems with the Chinese Catholic

community. Atisiou-loc, an ex-Catholic became the leader of the Anti-

Christian Movement and played an important role in the invasion of the
mission by demonstrating students, workers, and soldiers. During 1927
the Sancian Island (Shangchuan) mission experienced a host of challenges from the Chinese Catholic community including: lax Mass attendance, disputes over rice field rents and repayment of loans, polygamous
unions by nominal Christians, and conflicts over the staff and curriculum of the mission school.94

More than one-third of the reported interactions involving Maryknoll

missioners and Chinese nationalists occurred in the coastal region of
"Francis Ford to Father Superior, June 1, 1926, MFBA, Mission Superior Correspondence, 1925-1927; Charles Walker to Bishop Walsh, March 25 and 26, 1927, JEWCORR;
Yeungkong Diaries, 1924-1935, December 26, 1926, January 7, 1927, and May 9 and 10,
1927; and Frederick Dietz to Father Superior, November 25, 1927, MFBA, China Mission
Letters.

"Francis Ford to Father Superior, June 1, 1926; James E. Walsh to Frederick Dietz, July
15, 16,and 18, 1926,JEWCORR; MFBA, China Diaries Kongmoon, Sancian Island Diary.November, 1926-November, 1927, pp. 1-7 and 10; Charles Walker to Bishop Walsh, March 25

and 26, 1927; and Yeungkong Diaries, 1924-1935, December 26, 1926, January 7, 1927,

and May 9 and 10,1927.
"MFBA, China Diaries Kongmoon, Loting Mission Diaries, 1923-1928, October 21 and

27, 1925; John Murray to Father Superior, MFBA, China Mission Letters, June 24, 1926;
Adoph Paschang to Father Superior, January 24, 1927; Yeungkong Diaries, December
18-30, 1926; and Frederick Dietz to Father Superior, November 25, 1927.

9<Francis Ford to Father Superior, June 1, 1926; and Sancian Island Diary, November,

1926-November, 1927, pp. l-7,and 10.

508"FIELD FOUND!" ESTABUSHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

southwest Kwangtung province at Yeungkong, Kwonghoi (Guanghai),
and Sancian Island. Interregional networks of transportation and communication linked these coastal areas with centers of revolutionary ac-

tivity at Hong Kong and Canton. Chesneaux reports that 1926 was a

peak year for union activities in the Canton-Hong Kong region with
forty-three unions formed and seventy-three strikes organized. Most industrial workers in the 1920s were former peasants from nearby rural
areas who maintained close links to natal villages and returned to the
countryside at harvest time and during strikes.95 The Canton-Hong
Kong Strike Committee organized local branches of unions in Kwangtung province, including seafarers of the coastal ports who were enrolled in the Chinese Seamen's Union in 1926. Concurrently, the Strike
Committee stationed 200-member armed units of the Strike Pickets at

posts in the Pearl River estuary and along the southwest coast of
Kwangtung, including a detachment at Yeungkong.96 One-half of the interactions involving the Maryknoll missions and Chinese nationalism
occurred in areas which were liberated from warlord control in

1925-1926 and into^which the mass organizations poured personnel
and resources. Mobilization activities among students, workers, and
peasants demonstrated impressive results in northeast Kwangtung, the
site of Siou-loc mission, while Fachow, Kochow, and Loting missions in

southwest Kwangtung reported extensive mobilization of urban popu-

lations.97

Analysis of the chronology of episodes involving the Maryknoll mis-

sions and Chinese nationalism indicates a direct correlation between

the timing of such events and important developments in the mass mobilization campaigns and the Northern Expedition. Following the
bloody incidents of May 30 and June 23, 1925, local branches of the National Student Association (NSA) were organized in Kwangtung cities
and towns. Working co-operatively with labor unions and peasant asso"Jean Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement 1919-1927 (Stanford, 1968), pp.
48- 5 1 , 64-67, and 377-380; Ming Kou Chan,"Labor and Empire: The Chinese Labor Movement in the Canton Delta, 1895-1927" (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1975), pp.
342-345 and 471; and David Faure, The Rural Economy of Pre-Liberation China (Hong

Kong, 1989), pp. 117-126.
"Chan, op. cit., pp. 308, 318, and 353; Earl John Motz, "Great Britain, Hong Kong, and
Canton: The Canton-Hong Kong Strike and Boycott of 1925-1926" (Ph.D. dissertation,
Michigan State University, 1972), pp. 67-70; Chesneaux, op. cit., pp. 295-297; and Jordan,

op. cit., pp. 10, 12, and 177.
"Jordan, op. cit., pp. 18 and 177; Yip, op. cit., pp. 49-53; and Robert Marks, Rural Revolution in South China: Peasants and the Making of History in Haifeng County,
1570-1930 (Madison, Wisconsin, 1984), pp. 195-200 and 207-212.

BY PAUL R. RIVERA509

dations, NSA branches targeted both Protestant and Catholic missions

with parades and demonstrations during 1925-1926. Anti-Christian agitation was particularly vehement in northeast Kwangtung near the
Maryknoll mission at Siou-loc, while "student storms" disrupted Christmas celebrations throughout the province both years.98 Anti-Christian
demonstrations, attacks on missionaries, and destruction of mission

property intensified in late 1926 and early 1927 as the mass organiza-

tions mobilized public support for the Nationalist Party-led Northern
Expedition to unify China. Despite orders to protect missionaries and
mission property, Nationalist army units joined with students and workers to attack and seize Protestant and Catholic mission properties, including the Maryknoll compound at Fachow. While anti-foreign
demonstrations declined after the military crackdown on the mass organizations in April, 1927, the legacy of repression exploded in two endof-year anti-government coups in Canton and the Yeungkong incident
of November 12, 1927.99

Analysis of Maryknoll reactions to encounters with Chinese nationalism suggests the outlines of a general pattern or strategy employed by
the Maryknoll leadership. When news of an incident in China involving
Maryknollers was recounted in the American press, Father Superior responded to public queries in a confident and assured manner. Questioned about the kidnaping of two Maryknoll priests by Chinese
bandits on Sancian Island, he identified the missioners and downplayed
the seriousness of their plight. Stressing that the two priests knew "how
to take care of themselves," he cautioned that Chinese bandits posed
less of a threat to life than did criminals in New York and Chicago. Upon
their release, Father Superior expressed greater concern over the possible effects of exposure and improper food on the missioners than with
the supposed threat to their lives.100 The tactic of downplaying the seriousness of incidents also characterized reporting in The FieldAfar. Coverage emphasized that the missioners were busy with their evangelistic
duties, coping successfully with propaganda and disturbances, and
*"Yip, op. cit. , pp. 49-53; and Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges, pp. 249-250, 252,
and 254; and, Lutz, Chinese Politics and Christian Missions, pp. 197-199 and 202-205.

"Jordan, op. cit., pp. 143-150 and 203-204; Yip, op. cit., pp. 54-56, 67-72, and 74-75;
Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges, pp. 255-260, 265-267, and 270; and, Lutz, Chinese Politics and Christian Missions, pp. 214-216; Chesneaux, op. cit., pp. 362-365 and
369-371; Harold R. Issacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (Stanford, 1961), pp.
105-106 and 282-291;and Marks, op. cit., pp. 234 and 239.
"""Chinese Bandits Hold Two American Priests," NYT, November 4, 1925, p. 8; "American Warship Rescues Missionaries," NYT, November 5, 1925, p. 3; and "Father Ford Cap-

tured," NYT, February 23, 1926, p. 16.

510"FIELD FOUND! " ESTABUSHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

making encouraging headway in the struggle to convert China. Harsh
realities were presented as unavoidable aspects of foreign missions
work. When Maryknoll Sisters returning to Yeungkong were robbed by
pirates, Father Superior praised their courage, made light of the loss of
money and goods, and repeated the theme that Chinese pirates had
"more consideration for the lives of their victims than have the reckless

highwaymen of our own civilized (!) country."101 Labeling conditions in
China Maryknoll's "Baptism of Fire," Walsh reminded his audience that
the Church had never been established "without the shedding of martyrs' blood." Anti-foreignism, he alleged, was the product of "Bolshevist
influences" and did not represent the sentiments of the "peaceful
people" of China.102
To deal with disruptive conditions in China, the Maryknoll strategy
sought to avoid the entangling of missioners with Nationalist constituencies and anti-imperialist activities. In the aftermath of the bloody incidents of May 30 and June 21, 1925, Walsh ordered the evacuation of
twenty Maryknoll priests and twenty-four Sisters to Hong Kong. Though
most Maryknollers returned to their mission stations by the end of
October, 1925, concern for the safety of the Maryknoll Sisters led Walsh
not to reopen the convent at Loting until March, 1926. When massive
demonstrations by students, workers, and soldiers threatened the
safety of the convent in March, 1927, he ordered the Sisters to return
to Hong Kong. Convinced that the conditions at Yeungkong remained
unsafe, Walsh delayed the Sisters' return to that city until November,

1926. When their returning boat was plundered by pirates in the South

China Sea, Walsh shut down the Yeungkong convent until 1930.103
""FA, 21 (February, 1927), 45; and FA, 21 (March, 1927), 84.

"'2FA, 21 (April, 1927), 103-105; FA, 20 (April, 1926), 96; and FA, 19 (September, 1925),

247.

"»Loting Convent Diary 1925, June 22, 1925; Loting Diaries, 1923-1928, June 26-30,
1925: James Drought to Father Superior, August 17, 1925, MFBA, China Mission Letters;

MFBA China Diaries, Fachow Diary, 1925, August 21, 1925; Loting Convent Diary 1926,
March 29, 1926, p. 4; Loting Convent Diary 1927,March 12, 1927,p. 15,and April 2, 1927,

p. 20; and FA,2l (March, 1927), 84. The Maryknoll Sisters were members of their own religious community under the leadership of Mother Superior Mary Joseph Rogers. In
China they worked in co-operation with Maryknoll priests and Brothers under the direction of the pastor of their assigned mission station and the superior of the mission district
in which they served. For much of the 1920's Maryknoll Sisters served under the direction of the mission superior, Father James E. Walsh, who ordered them to leave the Yeung-

kong and Loting missions when he judged their safety to be imperiled. See FA, 17
(February, 1923), 38-40; FA, 17 (July-August, 1923), 215-219; John J. Casey, M.M., "Doing
Mission: The Catholic Experience," Missiology: An International Review, XTV (October,

1986), 423-425; and Sister Mary Ann Schultz, OR, "An Investigation of the Modernizing

BY PAUL R. RP/ERA511

After several Maryknollers became embroiled in the struggle between
the Canton government and a local warlord for control of Kwonghoi

city in July, 1926, Walsh ordered all missioners to avoid the region and

prevent further trouble for the Society.104

Another tactic employed by Maryknoll was to secure the protection
of mission lives and property by local authorities. Ford obtained an
order from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the local government officials in Siou-loc to protect the mission from further disturbances, while
the Pingnam missioners used this strategy to stop demonstrators from
placing posters on mission property. The Loting Sisters posted a proclamation from the local "Mandarin" safeguarding the mission from violent
acts during demonstrations in March, 1927. Indeed, the Fachow missioners reported that they had enjoyed the protection of local officials
prior to the March, 1927, incident while the Pingnam diary recorded
that the highest military official in Kwangsi province had guaranteed
protection for foreign lives and property. Receiving word of impending
demonstrations against the Yeungkong mission on November 12, 1927,
Father Frederick Dietz immediately sought the protection of the local
military commander. The timely dispatch of soldiers prevented the
demonstrators from invading the compound.105
The essentially reactive nature of the Maryknoll strategy—downplaying the seriousness of events and maintaining a low profile in China—
failed to insulate the mission enterprise from powerful and disruptive
currents of the Nationalist Revolution. On those occasions when Maryknoll missions became entangled with groups and forces associated
with Chinese nationalism, missioners responded by asserting rights and
privileges guaranteed to foreigners in China by the system of unequal
treaties. In an effort to achieve a satisfactory resolution of the Kongmoon property dispute, Walsh asserted the right of mission organizations to purchase land in China and mounted a campaign to bring
American and French diplomatic pressure to bear on the Canton government. After the Maryknoll mission at Fachow was ransacked and the
Role of the Maryknoll Sisters in China" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1978),
pp. 121, 171-172, and 192-193.
1MJames E. Walsh to Thomas O'Melia, July 15, 1926, JEWCORR; and James E. Walsh to

Frederick Dietz, July 16, 1926, MFBA, China Mission Letters.
""Francis Ford to Father Superior,June 10, 1926, MFBA, China Mission Letters, p. l;John
Murray to Father Superior, June 24, 1926; Loting Convent Diary 1927, March 12, 1927, p.
15; Dispatch from the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs to the American Consul at Canton, April 30, 1927, JEWCORR, p. 1; MFBA, China Diaries, Pingnam Mission Diary, 1927,
May-June, 1927; and Frederick Dietz to Father Superior, November 25, 1927.

512"FIELD FOUND! " ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

lives of missioners threatened, Walsh sought diplomatic assistance from
the American Consulate in Canton to pursue his four-part plan to rectify the affair. Walsh demanded that the Fachow Magistrate issue a public statement guaranteeing protection to all Americans in the district

and pay a $3,000 indemnity for damages which resulted from the offi-

cial's failure to preserve order. Those who had stolen mission goods
should be tried in Chinese courts and the offending army unit transferred. "These measures," argued Walsh, would "discourage a repetition
of such trouble in Fachow and elsewhere."106 When the Acting Minister
of Foreign Affairs ruled that the aggressive actions of the mission coolie
had provoked the crowd to attack the mission and that the soldiers

were not responsible for the incident, Walsh dismissed the report as a

fabrication and urged Father Superior to press the State Department to

"insist on our original demands."107 Concerned more with containing
bad publicity from the incident in the United States than with asserting
Maryknoll rights in China, Father Superior elected not to pursue compensation through the State Department.108 Thus, the Maryknoll strategy was partially successful; maintaining a low profile, avoiding trouble,

and downplaying problems reduced the potential for harmful disrup-

tions of the mission enterprise. However, when missioners became entangled in disputes -with groups and forces associated with the
Nationalist Revolution, the strategy failed and efforts to assert treaty
rights proved unproductive.
Father Superior recognized that the Maryknoll mission enterprise
was vulnerable to developments in China which might cause American
Catholics to discontinue financial support of the missions. "The whole
""'Bishop Walsh to Douglas Jenkins, American Consul General, Canton, April 12, 1927,
JEWCORR.

'"'Dispatch from the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs to the American Consul at Canton, April 30, 1927, pp. 3-5; Note on Report, Re Fachow Mission, June 1 , 1927, JEWCORR,
p. 1; Bishop Walsh to Father Superior, June 1, 1927, JEWCORR; and Father Superior to
Bishop Walsh, May 25, 1927, JEWCORR.

"»Father Superior to Bishop Walsh, September 6, 1927, JEWCORR, p. 1. Unlike many

American Protestant missioners, Maryknoll did not support revision of the system of spe-

cial privileges and protections enjoyed by foreign missionaries in China, nor did it pursue
devolution of responsibility and control of its missions to Chinese Catholics. See Philip
Taggart to Father Superior, May 15, 1925, MFBA, China Mission Letters, pp. 1-2; James
Drought to Father Superior, August 18, 1925, MFBA, China Mission Letters, p. 2; MFBA,

China Diaries, Hoingan Mission Diary, January-March, 1927, p. 9; Frederick Dietz to Par-

ents, August 26, 1925, MFBA, China Mission Letters, p. 2;James E.Walsh to Father Superior,

August 24, 1925, JEWCORR, p. 1; and John Burke, National Catholic Welfare Conference,
to Francis Ford, October 12, 1925, MFBA, Mission Superior Correspondence, 1925-1927,
pp. 1-2.

BYPAULRRT^ERA513

Chinese situation," he wrote in May, 1927, "has had a tendency to make
people over here question the value of spending money for missions in
that country."109 Indeed, financial gifts designated for the China missions
declined from $69,532 in 1926 to $44,687 in 1927, and $43,842 in
1928, while the China share of total mission gifts declined from 65 percent in 1925 to 34 percent in 1928. no Diminished financial support by
American Catholics was keenly felt by Maryknollers in China. In private
correspondence with the American directors of the Society for the
Propagation of the Faith, Bishop Walsh warned, "We are exactly where
we were at the beginning [1919] ¡although, with expenses mounting as
the Mission grows, the outlook is even less promising."111 Thus, when
unpleasant news involving Maryknoll missioners appeared in the American press, Father Superior sought to limit damage by emphasizing the
most favorable interpretation of events. Interviewed for a New York
Times report about the kidnaping of two Maryknollers, he made light of
the dangers faced by missioners in China. Eleven days later, readers of
the newspaper learned that seven more Maryknollers were departing
for Cliina.112 In November, 1927, he was fortunate not to have to re-

spond to questions about the Yeungkong incident. Though reported in
the New York Times and Hongkong Telegraph, coverage was buried
amid a welter of dispatches about the Northern Expedition and an antigovernment coup in Canton."3
Moreover, reporting of news from China could be managed in the
pages of The Field Afar. When expectations for a quick return to pre"Tather Superior to Bishop Walsh, May 25, 1927. For a discussion of the impact of developments in China upon the finances of American Protestant missions societies, see
Shirley S. Garrett, "Why They Stayed: American Church Politics and Chinese Nationalism

in the Twenties," in Fairbank (ed.), The Missionary Enterprise, pp. 283-288 and 296-301 .
""Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, February 1, 1926-1929. Though financial

gifts designated for the China missions declined during the period 1926-1928, overall
contributions designated for foreign missions increased from $88,625 in 1926 to
$129,000 in 1928. The loss in contributions for missions in China was more than offset by
increases in giving for Maryknoll missions in Korea and general mission gifts.
"'Bishop James E. Walsh to Rt. Rev. James Black, February 2, 1927, JEWCORR. See also

James E. Walsh to Father Superior, August 5, 1926; Maryknoll-in-Kongmoon, Decennial

1928, pp. 14 and 19; and, MFBA, China Materials, Report of the Kongmoon Vicariate, August 10, 1929, pp. 6-7.
"'"Chinese Bandits Hold Two American Priests," NYT, November 4, 1925, p. 8; and

"Priests Leave For Orient,"NYT, November 16, 1925, p. 11.

""'Mission Reported in Danger," NYT, November 14, 1927, p. 7: "Our Gunboat Sent to
Yuengkong [sic] " NYT, November 18, 1927, pp. 1 and 7; "Trouble at Yuengkong [sic] is
Over," NYT, November 29, 1927, p. 5;"Shots Fired at Mission in China," NYT, November 22,
1927, p. 15;"Trouble in Yeungkong," The Hongkong Telegraph [hereafter cited as HT] No-

vember 16, 1927, p. 1; and "The Yeungkong Trouble,' HT, November 17, 1917, p. 14.

514"FIELD FOUND! " ESTABUSHING THE MARYKNOLL MISSION ENTERPRISE

1925 conditions proved false, extensive reporting about developments
in China was avoided in favor of short statements stressing the complexity of the issues and the rapidity with which events changed. "I
have been watchful," Father Superior confessed, "not to lament about
present conditions."114 Reports minimized the risks and emphasized the
daily efforts of the missioners. American Catholics learned about the
Chinese seminary and Maryknoll language school at Kongmoon, medical dispensaries at Sunchong (Xinchang) and Sancian, Sacred Heart
School at Kochow, and newly acquired mission territories including the
Hakka Mission in eastern Kwangtung, Wuchow district in Kwangsi, and
Antung in Manchuria. In 1926-1927, fictional short stories set in
unidentified Maryknoll missions and infused with inspiring messages
about the faith of Chinese Christians replaced unsettling news from
China, while accounts of successful Maryknoll endeavors in the United
States and the growing mission enterprise in Korea and the Philippines
were designed to reassure American Catholic supporters.115
On several occasions during these critical years, concerns about the
impact of what Father Superior called "the whole Chinese situation" on
American Catholic support of the missions led him to reshape or suppress reporting in The Field Afar of incidents involving the Maryknoll
missions and Chinese nationalism. Reporting about events of the traumatic summer of 1925 downplayed the risks to the missioners and suggested that they had not been ordered to evacuate the interior by
Walsh.116 The Kwonghoi misadventure which resulted in the detain"Tather Superior to Bishop Walsh, May 25, 1927.

"5#1,21 (April, 1927), 102-106;fi4,21 (March, 1927),84;ß4,20 (June, 1926), 154-155;
FA, 19 (December, 1925), 340; FA, 20 (March, 1926), 65-66; FA, 21 (December, 1927),

298-299; FA, 19 (December, 1925), 350; FA, 20 (September, 1926), 208-210; FA, 21 (September, 1927), 228-229; FA, 23 (January, 1929), 16-17; and FA, 21 (December, 1927),
312-313- By 1924 a pattern for news coverage in the magazine had been established; 30
percent of the news was devoted to the Maryknoll missions in south China and 7 percent
to the Yeungkong mission. Coverage of missions elsewhere in Asia was 1 1 percent; financial reporting averaged 1 2 percent; U.S. news 32 percent, and world news 7 percent. This
pattern was altered dramatically during the Chinese Nationalist Revolution of
1925- 1927. China coverage dropped to 13 percent in the second half of 1925, and Yuengkong virtually disappeared from The Field Afar. At the same time, coverage of Maryknoll
activities in Korea doubled. After 1927 coverage of China returned to the pattern set in

the years 1920-1924. See "Table l.-Regional Coverage in The Field Afar 1919-1928," in

Paul R. Rivera, "Turing the World Upside Down': The Maryknoll Mission Enterprise and
Chinese Nationalism, 1918-1928" (M.A. thesis in History, University of Maryland, Balti-

more County, 1996), p. 173.

"'According to The FieldAfar, notification for the evacuation of Maryknoll nuns came
from the Consul-General at Canton, while the decision regarding the status of Maryknoll
priests was made at the time the missioners "were gathering for their annual retreat."

BY PAUL R. RIVERA515

ment of three Maryknollers and Walsh's order to avoid the area was reported in amused terms; "Brother John, we hasten to assure our readers,
was arrested through an error. He wrote us a card from the Sunning jail

and signed it 'Maryknoll's first jailbird in China.'"117 Father Superior did

not publicize the sacking of Fachow mission in March, 1927. "American
people . . . are very practical," he informed Walsh,"and report of money
which they have given and which has been stolen is not encouraging."118 A five-sentence notice was inserted amid announcements and
appeals in the September issue of the magazine while Bishop Walsh
downplayed the incident in a February, 1928, article which stressed the
progress made by the mission and the chance nature of the event.119
News of the Yeungkong incident was suppressed by Father Superior
in response to Walsh's plea that,"this matter should not be aired in anyway."120 In recognition of the catastrophic potential of the incident for
the mission enterprise, no news appeared in The Field Afar. While
Walsh included a brief reference to the destruction of Fachow mission

in the General Report of 1928, the sole allusion to events at Yeungkong
in 1927 sanitized the record and recast the incident as a "little flurry"
which occurred in April "when a band of students and labor unionists—classical protagonists of communism in China—staged a demonstration before the Mission." The authorities quickly restored order "by
sending the ringleaders to jail to meditate on the difference between
parlor and applied bolshevism."121 Apparently conflating the destruction of the Fachow mission in April with the November incident at
Yeungkong, Walsh succeeded in purging the former from the Maryknoll
memory and reconstructing the latter as evidence that China was ready

for Christianity, not Bolshevism. Ironically, by providing the missioners

with a powerful explanation for the disruptions of the Nationalist Revolution, the "challenge of Bolshevism" argument also gave comfort.
Maryknoll problems in China were due to the forces of materialistic

Rather than ordered to evacuate their missions, American Catholics were informed that
"under advisement from civil and ecclesiastical authorities, our missionaries deferred
their return." Emphasizing the most favorable interpretation of the events, Walsh noted
that the delayed return allowed the missioners to undertake an "intensive study of the
Chinese language." See:.R4, 19 (November, 1925), 311;.R4, 19 (December, 1925), 337; and

FA, 20 (February, 1926), 40.
"754,21 (January, 1927), 4.

""Father Superior to Bishop Walsh, May 25, 1927.
"9FA, 21 (September, 1927), 217; and FA, 22 (February, 1928), 40-42.
"»Bishop Walsh to Father Superior, November 25, 1927, JEWCORR.
'"General Report 1928, Kongmoon Report; and Maryknoll-in-Kongmoon Decennial
1928, pp. 18-19.

516"FIELD FOUND!" ESTABLISHING THE MARYKNOU MISSION ENTERPRISE

Communism. China had not rejected Christianity. China remained "a
country ready for Christianity.''
The Maryknoll Mission Enterprise in 1928
As leader of the first American Catholic foreign mission society,James
A. Walsh was the architect of the Maryknoll mission enterprise. Infusing
seminarians with zeal for the missions and commitment to "the Maryknoll Spirit," he assembled the infrastructure of properties and facilities
and secured the Society's first mission territory in China. Stressing that
China was "a country ready for Christianity," Father Superior made effective use of the mission magazine, The FieldAfar, to promote the missions and to solicit financial support from American Catholics. Under
his stewardship, Maryknoll experienced impressive financial growth,
acquired property, constructed facilities, and expanded its mission territory. By 1928 the Maryknoll mission enterprise was established in the
United States, China, Manchuria, Korea, and the Philippines. Rapid expansion, however, created cash flow problems which he sought to
manage through a strategy that combined large loans with increased solicitation of financial contributions, frugal management of existing facil-

ities, and timely sale of investments and property. While this strategy
alleviated the Society's fiscal problems, Walsh recognized that the financially over-extended Maryknoll enterprise was vulnerable to developments in China that might cause American Catholics to withdraw
their monetary support. To divert pubic attention from turmoil in China
in 1925-1927 and to minimize damage to fund-raising, Walsh reshaped
the treatment of China in The Field Afar, praising the faith of Chinese
Christians, celebrating Maryknoll successes, and suppressing unpleasant news.

As superior of the Kongmoon mission district from 1919 to 1936,

James Edward Walsh shaped the Maryknoll mission enterprise in China.
Infused with an expansionist vision, his initiative and persistence
yielded a fivefold increase in mission stations in Kongmoon district,
while his adroit negotiations with French bishops added territories in
Kwangsi and eastern Kwangtung. However, Walsh displayed limited understanding of the history and culture of China and of the revolutionary
changes underway there. Suspicious of the threat posed to the Maryknoll enterprise by what he perceived as the "radical" programs of Sun
Yat-sen, Walsh preferred conservative leaders and policies that would
enable him to build the mission enterprise in China. During the years
1924-1928 he experienced great difficulties dealing with the indepen-

BY PAUL R. RIVERA517

dent leadership and disorderly agitation of the Nationalist Revolution.
Increasingly, he labeled those who opposed the foreign mission presence in China as Communists, Bolsheviks, and Reds.

The Maryknoll mission enterprise was an important focus of the antiChristian and anti-imperialist demonstrations, disputes, and incidents of
the Nationalist Revolution of 1925-1927. Rather than marginalized and
uninvolved in the "great difficulties" which characterized only the
Protestant missions in China, the weight of evidence suggests that these
experiences were shared by both Catholic and Protestant missioners.
Indeed, a complex web of relationships, complementary and antithetical, bound the Maryknoll mission enterprise to China. The promise of a
China "ready for Christianity" engendered the formation of Maryknoll in
1911 The experiences of Maryknollers in China in the 1920's nurtured
the youthful mission enterprise in the United States and East Asia. The
Nationalist Revolution of 1925-1927 posed a significant threat to the
evangelistic activities and financial health of the Society in China and
the United States. Surviving this threat, Maryknoll emerged with a renewed commitment to the Christianization of China through the evangelization of poor rural villagers. In the 1930's the Society earned the
reputation as a pioneer in developing different approaches to evangelizing non-Christians. When World War II, the Chinese Civil War, and the
formation of the People's Republic in 1949 ended foreign mission activities in China, the Maryknoll enterprise refocused its energies on mission territories in Latin America that the Society had acquired in
I942-I944.122

u2Wiest, Maryknoll in China, pp. 88-90 and 99; and Ellen M. McDonald, M.M., "Mary-

knoll's Fifty Years in Latin America," International Bulletin ofMissionary Research, 16
(October, 1992), 154-156. For an example of contemporary Maryknoller activities in the
PRC, see Larry Lewis, M.M., The Misfit (Maryknoll, New York, 1997).

BOOK REVIEWS

General and Miscellaneous

The IllustratedJesus through the Centuries. By Jaroslav Pelikan. (New Haven:
Yale University Press. 1997. Pp. x, 254. $35.00.)
Jaroslav Pelikan, the Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University,
needs no introduction to the readers of this journal. HisJesus through the Centuries:His Place in the History ofCulture, published byYale University Press in
1985, attained a circulation of more than 100,000 copies and translations in
more than a dozen languages. That book, which brought together the author's
William Clyde De Vane Lectures at Yale, complements his earlier five-volume
work on The Christian Tradition, which describes the history of the significance of the person and work of Jesus Christ for the faith and teaching of the

Christian Church. Jesus through the Centuries delineates the place of Jesus
Christ in the general history of culture. It comprises eighteen chapters begin-

ning with first-century images of Jesus as rabbi and continues with such representations of Jesus as king of kings, bridegroom of the soul, prince of peace,
teacher of common sense, and poet of the spirit. Recent centuries have interpreted Jesus as liberator; hence his message has extended beyond Christendom, and so he is seen also as the man who belongs to the whole world.
Because of the gracious response to Jesus through the Centuries, Pelikan

acceded to the publisher's wish that he prepare an illustrated edition. The

result is a strikingly beautiful and accessible book with over two hundred illustrations, most of them in color. The original text has been judiciously shortened
so that readers will have to turn to the first edition for the identification and

documentation of quotations, for additional readings, and for a more complete

exposition, but the handsome illustrations serve as a rich complement to the

written text and show how a picture can in fact mean more than a thousand
words. The illustrations are drawn from roadside crosses in Anglo-Saxon
Northumbria to Carolingian miniatures to Renaissance masters. They make one
wonder whether theologians have not been too exclusively text-bound and
have neglected the important role that the arts have played in the development
of the Christian tradition.

Accompanied by the author's lively commentary, the illustrations range from
familiar Western works, such as Fra Angélico's "Madonna and Child" and Warner
Sallman's "Head of Christ" to images derived from the Eastern Christian tradi518

BOOK REVIEWS519

tion and -works by Chinese, black American, Australian aboriginal, Native
American, and other artists. There are reproductions of Marc Chagall's "Yellow
Crucifixion," Edvard Munch's "Golgotha," William Johnson's "Mount Calvary,"
Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus," and Horace Peppin's "The Crucifixion.'' Because of such wide-ranging styles, the illustrations are appealing to people of all
ages, social backgrounds, religious persuasions, and educational levels. It is unfortunate that the illustrations are not accompanied by clear identifications; one
has to turn to the illustrations credits at the back of the book for that information.

Like the original lectures on which the book is based and which were intended for an audience representing both town and gown, The IllustratedJesus
beckons an audience of believers and skeptics alike. It shows, in Pelikan's own
words, that "Jesus is far too important a figure to be left only to the theologian
and the church." The book is dedicated to the Benedictines of Saint John's
Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota,"nihil amori Christi praeponere."
R. Kevin Seasoltz, O.S. B.

SaintJohn 's Abbey
Collegeville, Minnesota

Tradition & Diversity: Christianity in a World Context to 1500. By Karen
Louise Jolly. [Sources and Studies in World History.] (Armonk, New York:

M. E. Sharpe. 1997. Pp. xiv, 569. $64.95 cloth; $28.95 paper.)

For a number of reasons, this is a welcome new anthology of sources for
teaching the history of Christianity to 1 500. First of all, some of the best readers
in ancient and medieval Christianity published in the past half-century are now
out of print. (One thinks, for example, of the first volume of Ray Petry's A
History of Christianity:Readings in the History of the Church [Grand Rapids,

Michigan: Baker, 1962; repr. 1981, 1988].) But even if some of the earlier anthologies were still in print, there is reason to salute the arrival of Jolly's. The
times change how history is written, how it is presented to students and,
clearly, how documents are chosen and taught. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine any American historian making this selection of documents much before
1990.

Especially hard to imagine such a selection being made when Petry or Colman Barry (Readings in Church History: From Pentecost to the Protestant Re-

volt [Westminster, Maryland, I960] , a Benedictine and then professor of history
in St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, first made theirs. Both Barry and

Jolly begin their readers with selections from the canonical scriptures of Christianity. Here are the titles Barry gives to his first five scriptural readings: "The
Promise of the Primacy to Peter," "The Authority of the Apostles," "The Commission of the Apostles," "The Conferring of the Primacy on Peter," and "Peter, the
Guide of the Apostles." Jolly, associate professor of history in the University of

520BOOK REVIEWS

Hawaii at Manoa, gives this title to the chapter containing the scriptural documents: "Jew and Gentile: Early Origins of Christianity." And these are the titles of
six of Jolly's other chapters: "Christian and Roman: Conflict and Assimilation,"
"Adaptations of Christianity Outside the Roman World,""Christian Acculturation
in Western Europe," "Christian Diversity and Accommodation," "Cross-Cultural
Exchange: Missions and Dialogue," "Cross-Cultural Contact." Two of the other
chapters have the word "Diversity" in their titles, as does the title of the book.
In addition to marking quite vividly the intellectual distance traveled in the
four decades since Barry's book was published, those titles tell us a lot about
the principle of selection at work here. In addition to presenting documents reflecting the "older" but "still valuable" approach to Christian history (Jolly's
words, see pp. 3-5)—i.e., the records of councils, papal decisions, wars, spectacular conversions, the writings of influential scholars, and so forth—Jolly has

chosen documents that emphasize a number of other, characteristically late

twentieth-century themes: the notion that European Christianity was just one,
culturally determined brand of Christianity, and that other, geographically
diverse forms ought to be represented (they are here); that Christianity often
found itself in "cross-cultural interaction" with other religions and societies; that
there is a "diversity of voices" (p. 5) within Christianity that in some sense compete with an "official view" and that these should be heard in order to fill out
our picture of Christian history. In general, the book is organized, and the chapter and section introductions written, in terms of the concepts and language of
cultural interaction, conflict, adaptation, pluralism, and diversity.
One more illustration can help drive home the significance of this way of organizing the book. When Petry chose documents related to the Crusades, he
chose Urban II's address at Clermont, documents on the crusade indulgence,
the start of the Crusades, the origins of the Templars, Bernard of Clairvaux's
support, the course of the various battles, and so forth. Jolly also has chosen to
include Urban's address. But her other documents include Jewish and Islamic

views of the Crusades, the former including passages where the pope is denounced as Satan and the latter expressing the hope that the Franks will be
damned by God. It's difficult to imagine Barry having much sympathy with, let
alone making room for, angry Jewish and Muslim denunciations of the Western
Church.

The strength ofJolly's book for pedagogical purposes is precisely that it is organized around one or two grand themes and that it gives a newer, different picture of Christianity. Is it a more complete picture? That's a harder question to
answer. But it's only fair to point out that a number of traditional episodes and
themes do get short shrift or are not represented at all. There is, for example, little or nothing on (restricting ourselves just to ancient Christianity) imperial attitudes toward Christianity, on Donatism or the Pelagian controversy, Christian
organization, Marcionism, Montanism, the growth of papal claims and so forth.
Still, no reader, not even one as long as Jolly's, can include everything. One must
make hard choices, and, to her credit, Jolly is explicit about acknowledging

BOOK REVIEWS521

hers. Instructors using her book should simply expect to use a secondary text
or lectures to furnish data not well-represented here. They will find their job in
the classroom made easier by the excellent questions Jolly encourages students
to ponder at the end of each selection and the equally fine introductions she
has before each.

Putting together an anthology like this—which requires one to select, locate,
collect, photocopy, translate, organize, and introduce scores of historical sources,
as well as to master at least the fundamental research for a millennium and a

half of ecclesiastical history—is, as Jolly accurately describes it, "a monumental
task" (p. 1 1). She has done the job about as well as it can be done. May her efforts earn her this reward at least: that her collection stay in print a long time.
Kevin Madigan

Catholic Theological Union, Chicago

The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336. By Caroline
Walker Bynum. [Lectures on the History of Religions Sponsored by the
American Council of Learned Societies, New Series, Number 15.] (New

York: Columbia University Press. 1995. Pp. xxii, 368. $29.95 clothbound;
$17.50 paperback.)

This volume presents, in printed form and with careful scholarly elaboration,
the ACLS Lectures on the History of Religions delivered by Caroline Walker
Bynum, who is Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor at Columbia University
and the author of several books that have decisively shaped the recent study of
the Western Middle Ages, includingJesus as Mother and Holy Feast and Holy
Fast.

As those books and her other writings have documented, Professor Bynum
has become a leading figure in "the new history of the body that is being written by historians such as Peter Brown, Danielle Jacquart, Lynn Hunt, Thomas Laquer, Roy Porter, Marie-Christine Pouchelle, and Claude Thomasset" (p. xviii). In
choosing as her topic specifically the resurrection of the body, she emphasizes
that "this book is not about eschatology or about soul but about body" (p. xvii).
But it is "about body" in the sense that the resurrection of the body means "the
continuity of the self" (p. 309); for "what was at stake was not finally fingernails.
It was self" (p. 225). And though it is "not about soul" as such, it is obliged to pay
much attention to soul, especially when the soul is "physicalized" (p. 158) or,
conversely, when the dominant tendency of the time is "packing body into soul"
(p. 270), the "subsuming of [body] into soul" (p. 283)· In Christian theology, the
understanding of the term "body" is fundamental to the doctrine of the Incarnation, to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, to the doctrines of

the Immaculate Conception and "bodily" Assumption of the Virgin Mary, to the
cult of relics, and to a host of moral issues including sexuality. In Christian art,
the iconography of any age inevitably expresses its guiding presuppositions

522BOOK REVIEWS

about "body," whether it be the body of Christ or of the Virgin or of the other
saints; and in the monuments of Christian literature, such as the Divine Com-

edy, to which "any study of eschatology must come" (p. 291), the portrayal of

bodies is the key to the poem's meaning.

Despite its title, this is not a continuous history of the development of the
idea of the resurrection of the body from "200 to 1336." Its terminus a quo is
indeed 200, especially "the daring inconsistency of genius" (p. 38) in Tertullian
and Irenaeus; and its terminus ad quern is the controversy over the beatific vi-

sion involving the hapless Pope John XXII, which was "really about body and

resurrection" (p. 279), together with what Jacques Le Goff has called "the birth
of purgatory" and other fourteenth-century phenomena. But between its terminus a quo and its terminus ad quern, the late patristic and the early-to-middle
medieval periods receive far less than their share of attention; as the author her-

self acknowledges, "no one can be more keenly aware than I how much it loses

by omitting the early Middle Ages" (p. xvii). She is also aware how much it loses
by concentrating, almost but not quite exclusively, on what the title calls "Western Christianity." For in fact the Eastern Christian tradition—or traditions—do

come into view: the Syriac writers Aphrahat and Ephraim (pp. 71-78), Gregory

of Nyssa as her "final example of the Greek tradition" (p. 81), "visual tradition
from the East" (pp. 119-120) and "Byzantine iconography of the Last Judgment"
(p. 192) including also Mount Athos (p. 195 n. 128), and above all Origen of
Alexandria. In many ways, Origen emerges as the unacknowledged hero of the

piece, or at any rate as the leitmotiv that recurs at almost every crucial juncture.

The introduction to the discussion of his thought announces the leitmotiv: "In

the first half of the third century, one of the greatest theologians of the ancient

world, Origen of Alexandria, gave a highly satisfactory answer" (p. 63), which
"solved the problem of identity more successfully than any other thinker of

Christian antiquity" (p. 66). Thus he stands in contrast to "the majority of patristic theologians" (p. 112), to "the majority of twelfth-century writers" (p.
225), and to Thomas Aquinas (p. 233 n. 15), while Bonaventure, whose discussion "seems to mark the limits of what was possible, at least to a scholastic theologian, in positive conceptions of body" (p. 248), bears some similarities to

Origen (p. 241), and Otto of Freising is "almost Origenist"(p. 182). One other lacuna that troubled me is, except for one reference (p. 26), the virtually total si-

lence about the role of the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, which were,
I am sure, cited and recited more frequently than 1 Corinthians 15 or any other

biblical passage in articulating the hope of the resurrection.

Having wisely decided that, short of producing a multi-volume book, she
could not make "any pretense of complete coverage" for the entire history from

200 to 1336, Professor Bynum certainly made the right choices in concentrat-

ing as she did and, as a distinguished medievalist, in making "the medieval section . . . much longer than the patristic one" (p. xvii). For what she has been
able to give us as a result is a profound and nuanced exposition that goes far beyond the history of a doctrine. The iconographie materials in the thirty-five

plates do far more than illustrate the ideas expounded in the text; they are pri-

BOOK REVIEWS523

mary sources in their own right, from which, with a learned and sensitive eye,
she teases out important insights. The philosophical traditions of Platonism and
Aristotelianism decisively shaped medieval scholastic consideration of the body;
and, with suitably gracious acknowledgment of the debt we all owe to "the

great French and German historians of scholasticism" (p. 247), she subjects the

scholastic texts to a fresh and exciting reinterpretation. From her earlier books
we would expect to see references to medieval women visionaries and mystics,

especially Hildegard of Bingen (pp. 157-163), Marguerite of Oingt (pp. 334-

337), and Mechtild of Magdeburg (pp. 337-34l);but she has in many ways gone
well beyond her earlier expositions by relating these thinkers and writers to
medieval debates over the body and its resurrection. Both in these sections
about medieval women and throughout the book, Professor Bynum demonstrates her thorough acquaintance with both the theory and the practice of
contemporary literary and historical methodology, with its distinctive vocabu-

lary:"gender and class essentialism" and "social hierarchy" (pp. 90-91, 2l4);"the
other" (pp. 110, 214-215, 216, etc.);"classes and hierarchies in the hereafter" (p.
296 n. 64); "ideological repression" (p. 321). But she demonstrates even more

strikingly her total lack of subservience to its trendiness, even suggesting that "it
seems likely that some heretics actually held at least some of the opinions attributed to them by their orthodox opponents" (p. 219), and that some contemporary scholars "make a rather uncritical use of Foucault" (p. 325 n. 23).
There may be a relevant article or a dissertation somewhere that Caroline
Bynum has not read, but it would be difficult to say what it is. In her primary

sources, seemingly "bizarre" (p. 31) or "to modern tastes offensive" (p. 316) ref-

erences to the parts of the body and to bodily functions—all the bodily functions—provide her with pertinent material, because, as she suggests, "none of
this is irrelevant to resurrection" (p. 333). And none of her discussions of the
resurrection of the body is irrelevant to our better understanding of the entire
pattern of systems of belief and thought in the patristic period and especially in
the High Middle Ages. Almost apologetically, she describes her enterprise as "in
one sense rather old-fashioned intellectual history" (p. xvi). If it is, this is a great
way to be "old-fashioned," and all of us are profoundly in her debt.
Jaroslav Pelikan

Yale University

Ancient

Zölibat in der frühen Kirche: Die Anfänge einer Enthaltsamkeitspflicht für
Kleriker in Ost und West. By Stefan Heid. (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 1997. Pp.339. DM 39-80.)
Heid contextualizes the theme of clerical celibacy within the institutionalization of the Church and the Early Christian understanding of sexuality. Tb a
lesser extent, he deals with the personalities on the various sides of the ques-

524book reviews

tion. He claims a contemporary significance for the study: "Ohne die frühe
Kirche gab es heute keinen Zölibat" (p. 9), even though mandatory celibacy
emerged from the twelfth-century Papstkirche (an unfortunate and inaccurate
term).

After a brief review of some recent literature, Heid begins his study with the

New Testament and follows it to Justinian and the Council in Trullo (690) in the

East and the fifth-century popes in the West. The last chapter considers the pos-

sible Grundsätzliches zum Konsens zwischen östlicher und westlicher Zöli-

batsdisziplin. This reviewer found it refreshing to see an ecumenical proposal
based upon solid historical research rather than just good will.
The heart of the book lies in the examination of the historical data. Separate
chapters deal with the Bible, the second century to Tertullian (T220), the third

century to Nicaea (325); two chapters comprising 40% of the text deal with

East and West in the fourth and fifth centuries. Heid has rounded up all the
usual suspects (Jerome, Augustine), but he also looks at Syriac literature, canons
of regional councils, and what he calls indirekte Bestätigungen, such as the duties of Klerikerfrauen. Many writers receive only one or two pages, often because they said little on the topic or little survives of what they said. While this
material makes this survey more complete, Heid could have omitted some of it
and given increased space to more significant writers.
Heid finds that the New Testament, as usual, points in several directions,
while in the second century some clear directions (Hinwetee) emerge. Gnostics patronized the body, while Clement ofAlexandria praised marriage. Heid argues that Clement knew of an apostolic tradition of clerical abstinence from

marriage. Other writers of this period concentrated on encouraging virginity
and prohibiting digamy. The third century saw Origen advocate priestly celibacy;
other writers advocated clerical marriage but without sexual relations between
the couple.

Heid emhasizes the contribution of the popes to the fourth-century discussion, especially Siricius (384-399), who influenced Spanish and even North

African practices. Early in the century the West required celibacy for the higher
clergy, but Siricius required it for priests as well. Yet he carefully avoided downgrading marriage at a time when the Priscillianists and Manichees were active
and when the monastic element in Rome overreacted against Jovinian. Heid
also credits the popes and Western bishops for giving celibacy a long overdue
theological underpinning.
Lacking the central leadership Rome provided for the West, the East did not
work out its own views of celibacy until the Byzantine era.
This is a solid, wide-ranging study which will not be replaced for some time.
One must hope for an English translation for wider use.
Joseph F. Kelly

John Carroll University

BOOK REVIEWS525

Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia. Epigraphic Sources Illustrating the
History of Montanism. By William Tabbernee. [North American Patristic

Society, Patristic Monograph Series 16.] (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. 1997. Pp. xl, 722 + [58]; 106 figures, 12 maps, 42 plates. $45.00.)

William Tabbernee's corpus of Montanist inscriptions is in a sense a sequel to
Ronald Heme's collection of The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia, which

was published in the same series in 1989. But it far exceeds Heine's slim volume
of 190 pages in size, scope, and usefulness. For, whereas many of the texts relat-

ing to Montanism reproduced by Heine come from easily accessible Christian

literary works and are reprinted without any form of critical apparatus, Tabbernee has assembled his corpus from very widely scattered publications, and
he prints critical texts with a very full scholarly apparatus. Each inscription is
presented in the following standard format: number and short title, provenance
and date, current location with inventory number (if known), editio princeps,
description, text, translation, illustration, editions other than the editio princeps, other publications of the text (including discussion), variant readings, further references including to published photographs, line drawings and/or
facsimiles, commentary, and discussion. The testimonia are presented in a similar, though simplified format: number and short title, literary source and date,
editio princeps, text, translation, notes on the text, further references, commentary, and discussion.
The value and reliability of a corpus of this type can only be fully established
by use, consultation, and verification over a long period of time, so that a reviewer can only render a preliminary verdict. But my initial assessment is

strongly favorable. Those aspects of Tabbernee's work that relate directly to the

texts which he republishes I have found to be accurate and reliable wherever I
have checked. On the other hand, the commentaries on individual inscriptions
do not seem to me always to show the same sureness of touch when they deal
with historical matters, especially when the problems discussed are not directly
relevant to Montanism. Too much space, for example, is spent on dubious or fictitious acta martyrum whose testimony is rightly rejected: thus I cannot understand why almost a page is needed on the Acts ofAchattus in order to reach

the conclusion that they "are totally spurious" and "cannot be taken as having
any historical value" (p. 141). The conclusion is correct, but Delehaye had al-

ready set out a full proof in his Les passions des martyrs et les genres lit-

téraires2 (Brussels, 1921), pp. 266-268.

The criteria which Tabbernee has used in deciding whether or not to include
an inscription must be carefully noted. The introduction states explicitly and
clearly: "in compiling this collection of epigraphic material related to Montanism, I have included all inscriptions known to me which have been claimed
by reputable scholars to be Montanist or likely to be Montanist, even if I doubt

their Montanist nature" (pp. 5-6). Accordingly, "the commentary on each inscription indicates the basis on which the inscription has been considered

526BOOK REVIEWS

Montanist and my judgement on the matter" (p. 6). As a result, among the
ninety-five inscriptions edited and discussed are several which are definitely
not Montanist and many whose presumed Montanist character was inferred
from flimsy, fallacious, or circular arguments. Let me give two illustrative examples. There was never any good reason to classify as Montanist the famous and
much discussed text of a juridical nature from Carthage which mentions "holy
patriarchs" (no. 15 = CIL 8.25045 = ILCV 1003 = Inscriptions chrétiennes de
Carthage, 3 [1991], no. 381): since the word protogamia occurs elsewhere
only in the Talmud, the inscription was claimed as Jewish by Paul Maas, "Ein rät-

selhafter kirchenrechtlicher Erlass," Theologische Literaturzeitung, 47 (1922),

311 = Kleine Schriften, ed. W. Buchwald [Munich, 1973], pp. 213-214). And although Tabbernee includes a good number of Phrygian epitaphs with the formula "Christians for Christians," he expressly and correctly rejects the view that

use of this formula indicates that the deceased was a Montanist (pp. 200-202).

The arrangement of the collection also requires comment. Its primary division is chronological, into six periods: c. 165-179; c. 180-224; c. 225-274;
c. 275-313; c. 314-395; c. 395-600. Tabbernee describes and justifies his ar-

rangment, arguing that these periods correspond to successive and distinct
phases in the history of Montanism (pp. 10-11). Consequently, the successive
introductions with which he prefaces each section of this collection of epi-

graphic sources constitute, in effect, a brief connected history of the movement.

T. D. Barnes

University ofToronto

The Christianity of Constantine the Great. By T. G. Elliot (Scranton: University

of Scranton Press. 1996. Pp. x, 366. $24.95 cloth; $19.95 paper.)

Such is the place of Constantine in history that interest in him, on the part of

both scholars and the reading public, continues to run high, although the available literature on the subject long ago became so abundant that no scholar can
truthfully claim to control it all. The book here under consideration does not

pretend to be a comprehensive study of all aspects of Constantine's life and

reign. Rather, as its title suggests, it is limited to an examination of Constantine's
religious beliefs and ecclesiastical policies, while the secular aspects of his
reign receive, justifiably, much less attention. T. G. Elliott of the University of
Toronto, no newcomer to Constantinian studies, displays considerable erudition and draws upon a wide range of primary sources and secondary literature.
Unfortunately, his interpretation of the evidence at times seems to be less than
objective, and his arguments do not always flow easily. Knowing that some of
his conclusions are counter to prevailing scholarly opinion, he sometimes as-

sumes a defensive tone (p. 67) or, worse, dismisses the views of other scholars
as "a quack theory" or as "figments of their own imagination" (p. 328).

book reviews527

It is the principal thesis of this book that Constantine was raised as a Christian by Christian parents, Constantius and Helena (pp. 18-25), that he may have

compromised his Christian faith at the time of the Great Persecution (pp.

84-85 and 214), that it was the Great Persecution rather than the "miracle" of
312 that was the critical experience of his life (p. 331), that his entire career as

an emperor, beginning not in 312 but in 306, was a Christianizing mission (pp.
34-35, 50, and 127), although he was quite capable of playing a double game (p.
193), and that the conversion of 312 was an invention of Eusebius (pp. 36 and
67-68). Elliott has not made a convincing case; he misinterprets a key passage,
Theodoret,i£Z? 1.18.1 (pp. 18-19); he is obliged to explain away the Apolline vision of 310 (p. 51).

Many scholars in the past have reached the conclusion that Constantine's understanding of the Christian gospel was quite imperfect. Elliott holds other-

wise, contending that Constantine was familiar with theological argument (pp.

181 and 271) and understood the Arian controversy very well (p. 283); he even
calls Constantine a theologian (p. 284). In 324 Constantine addressed a letter to
Alexander and Arius, calling upon them to settle their dispute and showing little understanding of, or even patience with, the theological issues. Elliott thinks
that this letter is quite insincere, rising from the need to assume a neutral stance

(pp. 179- 180 and 185). We are also assured that the emperor's thinking and pol-

icy remained consistently and genuinely anti-Arian and that there was no vacillation (pp. 217, 221, 279, and 333). On this point, too, Elliott is at odds with
prevailing scholarly opinion.

Among Christians in the Roman army there existed supposedly a special kind

of "army Christianity,'' more tolerant and less rigorous than in civilian life (p.

37). Perhaps so, but it certainly is not true that there were few martyrs among

Christians in the army (p. 26). The hagiographical traditions, however unreli-

able, give evidence to the contrary: we learn of soldier saints such as Theodore,
George, and Demetrius, of the martyrs of the Theban Legion, and of the Forty
Martyrs of Sebaste.

In an interesting chapter on Constantine's legislation Elliott correctly holds

that "Constantine does not seem to have considered legislation the best means
of Christianizing the empire" (pp. 104-105), that "Constantine never had any
program of Christian legislation," and that there was no "overwhelming impact

of his religion upon his legislation" (both p. 1 14).

The big losers in this book are Eusebius of Caesarea and Athanasius. The former's account is repeatedly said to be not trustworthy, misleading, and even

fraudulent (pp. 163, 164, 171, 185, 187, 190, 200, and 261.) Elliott judges Eusebius almost as severely as Jacob Burckhardt once had judged him when he
called him "the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity." As for Athanasius, we would hardly expect him to be an impartial observer. Elliott finds that
he practiced systematic distortion (p. 314) and "concocted a tale" (p. 322);

528BOOK REVIEWS

worse, he forged the letter which Constantine supposedly sent in 335 to the

bishops assembled at Tyre (pp. 4 and 315-316).

In his final paragraph Elliott describes Constantine as "a great warrior and an

able administrator who carried out his extraordinary mission with deliberate

speed, indefatigable industry, and great generosity of spirit" (p. 336). Great warrior, yes. Able administrator, yes. Extraordinary mission, yes. Deliberate speed,

yes. Indefatigable industry, yes. Great generosity of spirit, no. In 306/307 he fed
two Frankish kings to the beasts in the amphitheater of Trier. He had the sev-

ered head of Maxentius fixed to a pike and carried through the streets of Rome.

He ordered the execution of the Licinii, father and son, breaking his solemn
promise. The executions of his son Crispus and of his wife Fausta certainly are
not to his credit, whatever the circumstances may have been. He had a fierce

temper. He specified horribly cruel punishments for certain kinds of offenders.

Elliott does not seem to consider these things in his assessment of Constan-

tine's personality; he does not "see much wrong with the personal character" of
Constantine (p. 329). He insists that Constantine's relationship with Minervina
was one of legitimate marriage (pp. 29, n. 8, and 233), although several ancient
sources call her Constantine's concubine and many modern scholars have con-

curred. He says that Maximian committed suicide (p. 43); he does not say that
Constantine forced Maximian to do so. He does not fault Constantine for the

presumptuous, if not blasphemous, arrangements which he made for his own
burial (p. 258). And is it really possible to see Constantine as a man of peace (p.
336)? Did he not spend the most productive years of his life in the quest for sole

power, and was war not the principal means toward that goal? Elliott's book is

not the first attempt to view Constantine in such a favorable light. Paul
Keresztes, in his Constantine: A Great Christian Monarch and Apostle (Amsterdam, 1981), was not more successful than Elliott is now. Strangely, Keresztes'
book is not found in Elliott's bibliography.
Because it issues a challenge to much of prevailing scholarly opinion on Constantine, Elliott's book belongs in every college or university library. I would not
use it as a class text. The book provides a selective bibliography and a good
index; there are no maps or illustrations. The book is well produced; I have noticed very few misprints. The price is reasonable.
Hans A. Pohlsander

State University ofNew York atAlbany (Emeritus)

Alexandria in Late Antiquity.Topography and Social Conflict. By Christopher
Haas. [Ancient Society and History.] (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1997. Pp. xviii, 494. $45.00.)

When one looks at the pathetic archaeological remains so far uncovered at
Alexandria, it is difficult to imagine the magnificent city described by ancient

BOOK REVIEWS529

literary sources. Add to this the paucity of documentary evidence from Alexandria and the Delta, the result of the destruction of papyri by the dampness of
those areas. To do a comprehensive study of late antique Alexandria, it is necessary to rely heavily on literary sources. Christopher Haas's attempt to present a

comprehensive history of Alexandria highlights all these problems. But the

book is also an example of what can be accomplished when limitations are recognized, and the surviving data are carefully scrutinized for what can be recovered from the history of this center of trade, church politics, and intellectual
life, the political capital of one of Rome's richest and most volatile regions.
A noteworthy strength of the book lies in its successful attempt to locate historical events in both their physical and social contexts. For the former this is
difficult because so much of ancient Alexandria has been obliterated, and clues

to the plan of the city remain hidden under subsequent construction, with a
few exceptions like the excavated portion of KOm el-Dikka, a modest neighborhood that gives some insight into the lives of people lower on the social ladder
than those we usually encounter in literary documents. Following a topographical account of the city, Haas moves to an analysis of its social structures, and
closes the chapter by positing the effects of the city's topography on the main-

tenance of control and display of political power by the magistrates and magnates who ran the city.

Three great forces came together in late antique Alexandria: the traditional
polytheism, Judaism, and Christianity. The first two receive a chapter each, followed by four chapters on the development of the Christian community that
came to dominate both ecclesiastical and civil affairs in a way that was unique
in the Roman East. Again the author's ability to place what he terms the "inte-

rior landscape" of these social institutions in the "civic landscape" demonstrates

that it is impossible to separate religious history from the civil or political environment, and vice versa. Haas also deals with the dynamics of the relations between the three religious communities and the Roman government, which
shows the power of that government, as well as its limitations. Successive emperors were unable to heal the religious rifts that resulted from the Council of
Chalcedon (451) or to impose its orthodoxy on the majority of the Egyptian
church.

In a work of this scope, minor disagreements are sure to arise. For instance,
patronage at times seems to be confused with bribery or simple charity and
compassion, especially with reference to Popes Timothy Salofaciolus and John
the Almsgiver. This is a rich and rewarding book that should provoke even further study of a historically important city.
David Johnson, SJ.

The Catholic University ofAmerica

530BOOK REVIEWS
Medieval

Women's Monasticism andMedieval Society:Nunneries in France and England,

890-1215. By Bruce L. Venarde. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University
Press. 1997. Pp. xx, 243. $42.50.)

In the eleventh, twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries, the overwhelming majority of charters and literary materials were composed in religious communi-

ties of men. Modern scholars of monasticism have been drawn to that wealth of

source material and, as a consequence, have often underestimated the number

and significance of -women's religious houses. But the large number of monastic
foundations for women points to an importance that the paucity of the sources
obscures. In recent decades, the study of religious women has made great
strides, in spite of the limitations of the sources. This monograph is a solid, focused contribution to the effort to understand the monastic life of women.

Sometimes an obvious idea, well executed, can yield important insights. For
the period between the fifth century and 1350, Bruce Venarde counted the religious communities for women in fifteen archdioceses, two in England and
thirteen in France: he found evidence for more than 850 houses, not all of

which existed at the same time. He estimated that in the year 1000 there were

seventy nunneries in England and France, a number which grew to more than
400 by 1170, to 525 by 1220, and to 625 by 1300. The effort to count communities of women in a particular region is an original idea and seems to have
been carried out with care and good sense. The author created a database in

which, for each house, he put the name, location, monastic order or rule, date of

foundation, and other evidence, such as the social status of founders. From the
database he generated interesting maps, graphs, and tables that tell a great deal
about the foundation, diffusion, and affiliation of religious communities of
women, particularly in the period from about 890 to about 1215. The author realized that numbers without context were a limited source of historical insight.
He embedded his numerical findings in a narrative which summarized much
contemporary scholarship about women's monasticism and about contemporaneous demographic, political, and economic developments.
Careful counting can offer remarkable insights. The "group portrait" of female
religious houses is convincing, with appropriate regional and temporal nuances. At times, the research confirms prevalent generalizations: it comes as no
surprise, but is now more precisely documented, that the years between 1080
and 1 170 were the most exuberant period of foundations for women, as they
were for men. At other times, the research produces unexpected conclusions.
For instance, in spite of the attention given by medieval writers and modern
scholars to the "new" orders of Cistercians, Premonstratensians, and mendicants/Old-style" Benedictine monasticism retained a strong attraction for founders
and nuns well into the thirteenth century. The author identified a rhythm of
monastic foundations for women which is very plausible, linked as it is to
changes in demography, agricultural growth, and assertions of political power.

BOOK REVIEWS531

There is much that will never be known about women's monastic life, in

large part because the women did not write about themselves. This is a rela-

tively brief, original, and informative approach to the development of religious
life, not just of women but by implication of men as well. In spite of the ambi-

tious title, this is not a history of women's monasticism, but it does reveal a great
deal about the pace of foundation, the geography of foundation (some dioceses
had many nunneries and some dioceses had none at all), and the social station
of founders. The book is well written in a clear, economical style.
Joseph H. Lynch

Ohio State University

The Exultet in Southern Italy. By Thomas Forrest Kelly. (NewYork: Oxford University Press. 1996. Pp. xvi, 352; 17 plates. $95.00.)
The Exultet is a chant of rejoicing and praise that is sung at the beginning of
the Easter vigil service after the lighting of the Paschal candle. As a very long
text that is sung by a soloist, and performed only once in the liturgical year, it
must be written down. Although in many places during the Middle Ages the Exultet was included in missals, pontificals, processionals, and other types of liturgical codices, in southern Italy it was written by itself on a scroll. In this form it
was illuminated; it was provided with illustrations that were usually oriented in
the opposite direction from the text, so that to the person who performs the
chant they look upside down. If the singer can manage to have the scroll drape
down the front of the lectern as he unwinds it, the pictures will look right-side
up to members of the clergy or congregation who are facing him. Hence Exultet scrolls (and reproductions of them) often seem to have either their illumi-

nations upside down or their text, as on the dust cover of this book. A further
(and apparently unanticipated) difficulty for modern publications lies in the
fact that the technicians who print photographs from negatives and make
plates from them cannot read Beneventan script. As a consequence, in books

on this topic illustrations are occasionally printed in reverse. There are several

instances of this in recent publications, including one in the work at hand
(Plate 3).
Most of the Exultet scrolls described in this book date from the eleventh and

twelfth centuries. A tiny number may be from the tenth century, and there are
some that are from the thirteenth century and later. Although certain images
recur in one scroll after another, there seems not to have been a standard series
of illuminations, and it is difficult to argue that the pictures were ever intended
to illustrate the text in any systematic way. As for the chant melody, it has
not hitherto received a detailed examination. It is a holdover from the archaic

Beneventan liturgy and employs only three neighboring pitches. The south Italian Exultet text is also distinctive. Its special features are extensively described
here.

When the Beneventan liturgy was suppressed and replaced by the Franco-

532book reviews

Roman, there were some attempts to reuse old Exultet scrolls by erasing the
texts and music and writing new texts and music in their place. This is shown
most clearly in Plate 3. (For convenience, it may be examined in a mirror.) The
original capital letters remain, though after the first line the text is now written
in Gothic, rather than Beneventan characters; the Beneventan notation has also
been replaced.
The book has many valuable features. Among them is its description of each

of the relevant surviving sources. As one example, there is an Exultet scroll in

the British Library (Additional MS 30337), shown here in Plate 16, that is made
up of twelve membranes, each of them measuring about eleven by twenty-four
inches (except for one that is unusually short; there is more variation in length
from one membrane to another than in width). Fully unrolled, it would be more
than twenty-two feet long! What makes this scroll of unusual interest, apart
from the exceptional beauty of its illuminations, is the fact that it may include a
depiction of a feature of the abbey church of Montecassino before its eleventhcentury renovation.

Professor Kelly is to be congratulated on his meticulous presentation of the
evidence contained in these remarkable sources and the fascinating contribution to ecclesiastical history that his work offers.
Ruth Steiner

The Catholic University ofAmerica

Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy: Dominic of
Sora and His Patrons. By John Howe. [Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. 1997. Pp. xxiii, 220. $37.50.)
John Howe's study of the hagiographical dossier of Dominic of Sora (d. 1032)
is a superb example of how the traditional strengths of medieval studies (close
study and comparison of manuscripts, careful genealogical reconstruction) can
be felicitously combined with new interpretive approaches. The result is a stimulating exploration of ecclesiastical reform in its social context based on a rigorously researched case study.
The book opens with an evocative description of the rugged geographical
and social terrain of the Abruzzi, Lazio, and Umbría in the ninth, tenth, and
eleventh centuries. After describing "Dominic's World," Howe sketches Dominic's
career as a monk, a hermit, a reforming priest, a wandering preacher, a founder

of churches and monasteries. The most interesting parts of the study are its cen-

tral chapters analyzing "Dominic's Holiness," his "'Benedictine' Monastic System," and his "Patrons and Followers." Two closing chapters describe and
analyze the undoing of the saint's life work and several appendices set out
Howe's reconstruction of the hagiographical dossier, the genealogy of the
Counts of Marsica, and their patronage relations with Monte Cassino. The author arrives at several important conclusions. Howe's evidence adds to the

book reviews533

growing scholarly acknowledgment of well articulated reform ideals in the early
eleventh century and to the relative unimportance of the papacy to the
early formulation of the reform program. "Before there was a center," Howe pithily concludes, "there was reform . . ."(p. 160).
Howe's emphasis on the concrete character of Dominic's ecclesiastical work
is also salutary. While historical narratives of the reform era continue to stress
the rhetoric of the investiture contest, the theoretical foundations of papal authority, monastic spirituality, and the legal formulation of reform principles,
Church Reform places the physical aspects of renewing religious life at the
heart of its story. Dominic builds churches and monasteries with his own hands,
melting lime for mortar and placing stones. He physically traverses a harsh and
impoverished landscape, bringing healing and prayer to remote communities.
Dominic ministers to sinful elites, instructing them to give their wealth to
endow churches and monasteries. As Howe rightly notes, this "grubby accumulation of ecclesiastical property would make possible the intellectual and spiri-

tual achievements of later generations" (p. 160). The concrete quality of
Dominic's reform efforts also extends to his charisma. Rather than relying upon
standard topoi of holiness and biblical allusions, Dominic's hagiographers locate his sanctity in the minute articulation of specific deeds.
Howe's application of the ideas of Brian Stock to the character of Dominic's
"Benedictine" monasticism should, moreover, command the interest of scholars

in religious studies and historians of monasticism. Dominic's interactions with

the monasteries he founded often contradicted the letter and spirit of the Rule,

and yet he and his successors clearly considered these houses to be following
St. Benedict's precepts. Howe suggests, invoicing Stock, that the "the puzzling
features of Dominic's 'Benedictinism' can be understood if his system and its
counterparts are viewed as manifestations of a largely oral and customary
monastic tradition, one for which the Benedictine Rule was the most authorita-

tive supporting document but not an absolute guide" (p. 94). The author also
notes that this flexibility may have contributed to the difficulties of Dominic's
foundations after his death.

In other ways, Howe's analysis of Dominic of Sora suggests that the categories often applied to religious life during this period are unproductive.
Dominic's hagiographers, for example, depicted him as both exemplary priest
and monk: they emphasize his preaching, his sacramental and liturgical activities, while also praising his observance of monastic discipline and love of solitude.
While the role of monasticism in the early reform era is always acknowledged,
and the numerous failings of the clergy enumerated, the strong sense of a
charismatic priesthood is often missing in accounts of the Gregorian era. Johannes Laudage has done much to rectify this; Howe's study contributes another important example.
There is one tension within the work that is problematic. That tension is
between the author's empirical project of reconstructing the life and work of
Dominic of Sora, and his awareness of the constructed quality of the hagio-

534book reviews

graphical sources that are the foundation of his study. Through most of the
work Howe judiciously acknowledges the perspective and limitations of his
texts as he narrates his history of Dominic and his world, but contradictions
do occur. In his discussion of Dominic's holiness, for example, resonances with
the life of Benedict and his Rule are attributed to his hagiographers (pp.

63-64). The implication here is that they reflect the hagiographer's perception

and construction of Dominic's sanctity. In the subsequent chapter on his Benedictinism, however, such resemblances are confidently asserted as representing

Dominic's "practice" (p. 86). They may, but then again they may not. What
we can know are how the communities that venerated and interacted with

Dominic saw him, and one of the strengths of other aspects of the author's
study is the weight he accords these communities. That -we know anything at
all of Dominic is the result of his ability to move others. And yet the com-

munities that developed around this individual were fragile; they did not long

outlast him. Indeed, their most lasting result seems a bit sinister: Howe argues
that the counts of Marsica used what they learned from Dominic about the
power inherent in ecclesiastical patronage to take over, and ultimately destroy,
the great abbey of Monte Cassino. These relationships—between charismatic

individuals and the varied communities that formed around them—and their in-

fluence upon our understanding of someone like Dominic, merit sustained consideration.

Hopefully others will take up this theme, and Howe's fine book is good
inspiration to do so. Our understanding of the medieval Church will be enormously enriched if we incorporate into its history the less "successful" or enduring ventures, like Dominic's monastic foundations and ministry, that did not
directly contribute to the Church of Innocent III that still so dominates our historiography.
Maureen C. Miller

Hamilton College

The Russian Icon:From Its Origins to the Sixteenth Century. By Viktor Nikitich

Lazarev. Edited by G. I. Vzdornov. Translated from the Italian by Colette JoIy
Dees. English text edited by Nancy McDarby. (Collegeville, Minnesota: The
Liturgical Press. 1996. Pp. 402. $99.95.)

Viktor Nikitich Lazarev (1897-1976) was a renowned scholar of early Russian, Byzantine, and Western art, whose innovative books and articles are treasured by scholars and artists in many lands and in several academic disciplines.
Within the field of Russian studies, Lazarev is much admired for his masterful

studies of Byzantine religious painting and his pioneering scholarship on Russian iconography. This volume, a grand presentation of Russian religious painting from the mid-eleventh to the sixteenth century, serves as a magnificent
memorial to Lazarev's accomplishments.

book reviews535

Those unfamiliar with the Russian icon might well find this work the finest
possible introduction to this field. With patience and this book in hand, the inquiring beginner can undertake a brief but intense course of study and
smoothly gain sound appreciation of Russian iconography in its historical and
cultural context. Lazarev begins with an absorbing introductory chapter con-

cerning the discovery and restoration of early Russian icons; his plain style of
exposition enables him to encompass a great array of factual and historical data
in a few pages. Most non-specialists will be surprised to learn that aesthetic appreciation of Russian icons dates only to the very late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries and that scientific cleaning and restoration of icons became widespread only as late as 1905. The antireligious campaign later
mounted by the Soviet state was responsible for greatly encouraging the col-

lection, preservation, and restoration of icons, because of the Soviet policy of

restoring confiscated icons and state support of many scholars who served in
Soviet state commissions and studios for preserving and renewing treasures of
Russian national art.

Lazarev then offers interesting general observations on the history of reli-

gious art in early Russia. He explains the various historical forces that isolated
the Russian North from Byzantine influence, making it "easier for the Russians
to find their own artistic path" in creating a national school of sacred painting.
He examines the artistic centers that arose in Novgorod, Pskov, Moscow, and the
central Russian principalities, placing in historical context their more important icons and their creators. His explanation always is direct and thoroughly
engaging, perhaps the finest short account of this subject now available in
English.
Lazarev's text is followed by 1 43 photographic plates of icons, each of which
is displayed against an unrelieved background of intense blackness. They are
presented as true replicas, with no effort taken to beautify them, enhance their
colors or sharpen features that have faded over the years or suffered damage

from neglect and restoration. Many of the icons, therefore, retain the muddy
tones and damaged surface that frequently annoy and repel the casual and unsophisticated viewer. By arranging these works in an unbroken series, the editors offer a dazzling panorama of Russian Orthodox devotion over the ages.
Concluding notes provide highly valuable information on the dating, measurements, and current location of each icon, specific citations to writings on these
individual masterpieces, notes on alterations made to them over the centuries,
and the religious themes pursued by iconographers. A bibliography of general
scholarly works in Russian and other languages concludes this volume.
One hates to find any fault with so welcome an accomplishment, and, in fact,

few criticisms are warranted. The brief comments that identify each plate suffer

from a number of annoying errors in dating and attribution, all of which are cor-

rected on an accompanying errata sheet. Somewhat disappointing is the brief
introduction by the editor, G. I. Vzdornov, which produces a number of quotations beneficial for advertising but could better describe Lazarev's scholarly

536book reviews

process in writing this book and the various circumstances that brought this
volume into existence in its present form.
All serious students of Russia, Christian culture, and European art should
spend some time with this work. It is a superb primer for those first beginning
study of iconography and an invaluable reference source for advanced students
of this field of culture. Above all, this volume should be treasured as a truly beautiful survey of a form of Russian national enlightenment still poorly appreciated
in Western countries. It is difficult to fault Lazarev's conclusion that "early Rus-

sian icons form a totally original artistic world which is not easy to penetrate.

But whoever discovers the key to it will effortlessly begin to discover a beauty
that is always new."
Joseph L.Wieczynski

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The First Crusaders, 1095-1131- By Jonathan Riley-Smith. (New York: Cam-

bridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xvi, 300. $49.95.)

In 1098 and 1099 survivors of the First Crusade began to reappear in their
homelands. Some had been part of the great triumph at Jerusalem in July, 1099;
others had left before then, particularly during the horrendous siege of Antioch
in 1097-98. One of the latter was Guy Trousseau of Montlhéry, who "came
home worn out by his journey and unable to come to terms with the fact that
his courage had left him." But at least Guy had returned. Baldwin of Mons simply disappeared in Asia Minor in 1098, and his wife, Ida of Louvain, having

waited for him in vain, actually went on pilgrimage in 1 106 in a fruitless search

for him. The stories of such people are at the heart of this book which investigates the lesser-known participants, many of whom left only a single charter or
incidental reference in a chronicle or annal. Jonathan Riley-Smith has made a
systematic trawl for such references and has distilled the findings of his meticulous scholarship to record as many of the crusaders of this period as possible.
Inevitably evidence of this kind cannot yield rounded portraits of those in-

volved; often there are only tantalizing glimpses of their motivation and feel-

ings. Nevertheless, the material has offered considerable rewards for the
author's patience, enabling him to draw some firm general conclusions as well
as vignettes of those such as Guy Trousseau and Ida of Louvain.
The key figures are "middle-ranking nobles," most of whom went on crusade
in a group centered on their local lord or as part of a kindred. So powerful were
these ties that, in the 1 120's, one family—the Montlhérys of the Ile-de-France—
came close to taking over both the Latin settlements in the East and the crusades which were directed toward them. The charters show the spiritual and
financial arrangements that they and their families made before their departure;
many were driven by guilt for past depredations, especially against local churches
and monasteries, and this is often emotionally expressed in their attempts to

BOOK REVIEWS537

make good the wrong they now admitted they had perpetrated. The ecclesiastical institutions, for once in the driver's seat, often took the opportunity to
make them grovel. If the crusaders had any illusions at the time they took the
cross—often fired up by a manipulative pope and clergy—the need to face
practical problems must have brought them back to earth. The charters show,
for example, how costly this was; although many gained prestige and some
brought back important relics, Riley-Smith found only four examples of crusaders who seem to have made any monetary profit, rlxamination of hundreds
of specific cases has, therefore, led the author to the conclusion that many of
the previous theories about motivation are at best of marginal relevance. The
evidence does not suggest that many were driven by material gain, colonial aspirations, or even by the need to redirect the surplus energies of younger members of an aristocracy suffering from a crisis of over-population. Indeed, the
results might have had quite the opposite effect; the removal of figures of
power and authority actually encouraged local violence rather than diverted it
to the East. Many of the heroes of the First Crusade returned to find property
usurped and their own families plundered, for the Church's protection of a crusader's lands was quite ineffective.
Reading this account of the departures of these closely-knit groups and
the fate that met so many of them, one is reminded of the 'Pals' regiments of
World War I, so different in class background and mental outlook, but also convinced that they were joining a crusade to cleanse the world of evil. One of the
features of this book is the chapter on the returning crusaders—a relatively neglected subject in comparison with the vast literature on crusading motivation—but it would also be fascinating to know what happened in those
localities where few of their leading young men came back at all. Did these, too,
suffer from "the lost generation"?
Malcolm Barber

University ofReading

Bernhard von Clairvaux und der Beginn der Moderne. Edited by Dieter R.
Bauer and Gotthard Fuchs. (Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag. 1996. Pp. 345.)
A conference held in the monastery of Schöntal in March, 1990, to celebrate
the nonacentenary of the birth of Saint Bernard is the source for this valuable
collection of papers. Unlike the celebrations at Kalamazoo and Rome that year,
both of which brought together scholars from many nations and continents, all
but one of the papers here collected are by German or Austrian scholars. The
sole exception is a paper by the late and deservedly renowned master Bernar-

dine scholar Jean Leclercq, whose presence at, and participation in, all the celebrations was, of course, both mandatory and acclaimed.

Space limitations prevent a detailed report on all of the papers. And so I offer
my reading of a few of the papers, chosen to represent the wide range of topics
treated in this valuable volume.

538book reviews

Peter Dinzelbacher provides the justification for the perhaps surprising title
of the collection with his "Die 'Bernhardinische Epoche' als Achsenzeit der europäischen Geschichte" (pp. 9-53). He offers an "inescapably broad and general
sketch" (p. 15) of the transition from the late antique/early medieval world view
to the early modern (through the first half of the seventeenth century). He sees

the century 1050 to 1 1 50 as the pivotal period in the birth of the "modern."That

crucial century was characterized by the birth of cultural pluralism, an acceptance of the new class of townsmen as an integral part of society and as a time
of greater social interaction. The period saw a revolutionary distinction between the sacred and the profane, a rationalizing of every aspect of intellectual
inquiry. It exhibited a new approach to institutional reform and personal piety
and the development of a sense of the individual (the ascendancy of interior
motivation and individual conscience). In a survey encompassing a range of
topics from climatology to vernacular literature, the specialist is bound to discover specific views with which he or she will disagree, but few, I think, would
dispute the general lines of an argument which is truly a tour deforce.
The title of Arnold Angenendt's paper, "Die Zisterzienser im religiösen Um-

bruch des hohen Mittelalters" (pp. 54-69), is misleading, for the Cistercians

occupy only a small place in his survey of that religious transformation. Nevertheless, the article is an excellent summary of the change in the notion of religious perfection from the death of Hugh of Cluny (1109) to the century-later
emergence of the mendicant orders. Angenendt's thesis is that the traditional
view of perfection as a monastic life of unremitting prayer and absolute obedience in community was slowly but surely altered by the new orders. Endless
community prayer was replaced with a new sense of social responsibility; an individual's conscience became more important than unquestioning obedience;
the focus of religious activity became less the "desert" than the teeming towns.
The humiliati even attempted to transform the married state into an apostolic
life style. Perhaps the most interesting observations are made about the movement toward organized women's piety, the problems it encountered, and the
new and various forms of religious sensitivity it engendered.
At the other end of the disciplinary spectrum is the paper "Die Zisterzienser
und der wirtschaftliche Wandel des 12. Jahrhunderts" (pp. 70-95) by Werner
Rösener, who summarizes admirably the recent research on early Cistercian
economic activity. The traditional understanding relied too heavily on the Cistercians' own descriptions of their abbeys' foundations in waste lands. This resulted in a romantic view which saw the Cistercians as pioneers opening up
vast tracts of wilderness all over Europe. Newer, more careful studies have
shown that the Cistercian economy was largely a result of the agricultural and
pastoral exploitation of lands already settled, then donated to, or purchased by,
the Cistercians. The industry of laybrothers and the simple life style of all the
monks resulted in surpluses which were sold in the expanding towns of the
time. This, in turn, gained the capital necessary to expand further the Cistercian
holdings, providing the economic basis for the extraordinary expansion of the
order and explaining the amazing size of many of its abbeys. By the thirteenth

book reviews539

century, the wealth of Cistercian abbeys, their possession of tithes, villages, and

churches, made them virtually indistinguishable from Benedictine foundations
and led spiritually hungry youth to seek entrance into the ranks of the new
mendicant orders.

Other valuable, often profound papers are also included: Ulrich Kopfs

"Monastische und scholastische Theologie" (pp. 96-135), Otto Langer's "Affekt
und Ratio in der Mystik Bernhards von Clairvaux" (pp. 136- 1 50), M. Assumpta

Schenkl's "Bernhard und die Entdeckung der Liebe" (pp. 151-179), Peter
Dinzelbacher's "Bernhards Mystik: Eine Skizze" (pp. 180-193), Ulrich Kopfs
"Schriftauslegung als Ort der Kreuzestheologie Bernhards von Clairvaux" (pp.

194-213), Bernhard Vosicky's "Bernhards Leben mit der Eucharistie" (pp.

214-228), Gerhard B. Winkler's "Bernhard von Clairvaux: Reformer oder Refor-

mator? Oder: Die Art und Weise, mit der Kirche umzugehen" (pp. 229-234),

Johannes Rauch's "Die anderen im Menschenbild Bernhardsjuden, Heiden, Ketzer" (pp. 235-261), Hans-Dietrich Kahl's "Die Kreuzzugseschatogie Bernhards

von Clairvaux und ihre missionsgeschichtliche Auswirkung" (pp. 262-3 1 5), and

Jean Leclercq's "Der heilige Bernhard und Deutschland" (pp. 316-328). Even
this mere listing shows the wide range and importance of the volume.

My only quarrel is with the bibliography (pp. 329-344). It does not include
many of the works cited in the footnotes or listed in the bibliographies of the

papers. It is also the only place in the volume where errors, inconsistencies, and
typos abound.
John R. Sommerfeldt

University ofDallas

Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages. By André Vauchez. Translated by Jean Bir-

rell. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xxvii, 645. $95.00.)

André Vauchez originally published La sainteté en occident aux derniers
siècles du moyen âge d'après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques (his thèse d'état) in 1981. It became on its publication, and remains today, the benchmark for all study of hagiography and the cult of saints in
the later Middle Ages. In it Vauchez examined the records of the formal
processes initiated for the canonization of saints between 1 1 98 and 1 43 1 in the

hope of illuminating the practices of western Christianity—and the attempted

control of those practices by the papacy—during those centuries. Vauchez thus
implicitly took up the challenge issued over fifteen years earlier by Frantisek
Graus (Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger: Studien zur

Hagiographie der Merowingerzeit [Prague, 1965]) to use neglected genres of
hagiographie works as sources for the social history of western Christianity.
Tellingly, however, Vauchez opened his work with a reference not to Graus, but
to a 1929 review of Hippolyte Delehaye's Sanctus:Essai sur le culte des saints
dans l'Antiquité (Brussels, 1927) by Marc Bloch. He thus managed simultane-

540BOOK REVIEWS

ously to pay tribute to both the Bollandistes and the annalistes. Vauchez' work
from 1981 to the present, can be read as a respectful critique of the immense resources made available through the efforts of the former by a scholarly sensibility schooled in the methods of the latter.
This book is, quite simply, a masterpiece. In a quirk of fate it was published in
the same year as Peter Brown's The Cult of the Saints:Its Rise and Function in
Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981). In the intervening years these two books
have helped, more than any others, to shape a vibrant and growing subdiscipline in what might be called the "social history of sanctity." Despite its monumental scope and size (765 pages in the original edition),Vauchez crafted a text
which was both elegant in its style and remarkably concise in its argumentation. With the exception of a few passages (mostly those in which the author at-

tempted analysis based on quantification), this book still reads with immediacy

and freshness. Its translation makes available to Anglophone students a study of
medieval religious ideals and practice which is of the highest—indeed one
might say canonical—stature. Vauchez's scholarship is also exemplary in its
"catholicity," in terms of its breadth of scope, scholarly standards, and intellectual openness.
The most important source material for Vauchez's study comes from the inquests conducted by ecclesiastical officials into the authorization of saints'
cults, that is (to use a term which itself evolved from these very procedures),
canonization. Its most important theme is the relationship between the Roman
Curia and local officials. (My reading of Vauchez differs subtly, yet significantly,
from that of Richard Kieckhefer—himself a distinguished scholar of late medieval sanctity—who states in his foreword to this translation that the book "has
as its central explicit focus the relationship between curial and lay perceptions
of sainthood" [p. xix]). By reading this relationship, Vauchez expounds the ways
in which Rome controlled—or at least attempted to control—the practices of
western Christianity. Thus he persuasively elucidates the experiences of lay
Christians through sources produced by clerics. But laypeople themselves
(with the notable exception of those who became saints) always remain off
center stage. Such is the fate of any study based on hagiographie sources.
At the heart of Vauchez's enterprise is the means by which the formal designation of sainthood was constructed out of a variety of ideals of holiness. Jean
Birrell is thus on target with her rendering of sainteté (which can also mean the
more general "sanctity") in the title as"sainthood."Throughout the work she intelligently chooses between the two possibilities (see, for example, the use of
"sanctity" on pp. 1 , 34, and 54). The translation, however, is not without its problems. Most significant is the rendering of mentalité commune as "popular
mind." (Richard Kieckhefer is much more successful in his foreword [p. xx]
where he employs the phrase "common mentality.") Vauchez intended a set of
mental categories which linked clerics and laity. Birrell's English version, by
seeming to divide the two, makes the few, but essential, concluding paragraphs
of the book extremely confusing to the uninformed reader.

BOOK REVIEWS541

André Vauchez has vigorously pursued his scholarly agenda in the years following the publication of this book. He has not, however, significantly updated
this particular work. Although it has appeared in two further French editions,
they are essentially reprintings, with no changes to text or notes. This English
translation is of the second edition, which dates to 1987 and has only a few
pages of a cursory "bibliographic update." The student, therefore, should not
rely on this translation as a guide to current scholarship, or even necessarily for
bibliographic references, as many of the works cited in the notes have been
since published in significantly different versions. It is also worth noting that
much of Vauchez's own work has already appeared in English translation. An
important sampling of his articles written between 1981 and 1987 may be
found in The Laity in the Middle Ages: Religious Beliefs and Devotional Practices (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1993). Perhaps even more important for the Anglophone student of medieval Christianity is his brief, but brilliant overview of The
Spirituality of the Medieval West: The Eighth to the Twelfth Century (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1993), which was first published in 1975. (Unfortunately, the
English translation necessarily lacks a wonderful chapter on the mendicants

added to the second edition of 1994.) In any and all forms, André Vauchez is a
scholar whose work is to be carefully considered and even treasured.

Thomas Head

Washington University

Studio escuola inArezzo durante UMedioevo e U Rinascimento.I documents

d'archivio fino al 1530. A cura di Robert Black. (Arezzo: Accademia

Petrarca di lettere arti e scienze. 1996. Pp. 873. Lire 150.000 paperback.)

This is a collection of 1,284 documents and parts of documents dealing with
education inArezzo, 1241 through 1530. Some 1,123 documents focus on preuniversity education; the rest detail Arezzo's failures to restore its university,
which flourished in the early thirteenth century, then died. As Black informs the
readers, he has not uncovered anything new of significance before 1384, but
has found an abundance of new materials after that date. The documents come
from three Aretine archives and the Archivio di Stato in Florence. Black summa-

rizes the key points of the material in an historical survey of seventy-nine
pages.

Numerous documents deal with the two teachers paid by the communal goverment, the Latin or grammar master, who sometimes had an assistant, and the
abbaco master, who taught commercial mathematics in the vernacular. Limited
publicly-funded education was common in small Italian centers; Black has
found little evidence of private teachers in Arezzo. Student fees supplemented
the teachers' salaries. A document of i486 states that the Latin teacher had 120

students, which Black estimates to have been 25% of the masculine school-age
population. Unfortunately, he offers no population figures to support the esti-

mate. The abbaco teacher taught forty boys in 1471 and twenty-five in 1506,

542book reviews

which was between 5% and 10% of the masculine school-age population, according to Black's estimate. Again supporting evidence is lacking.
On the whole, the communal Latin and abbaco schools were successful and

continuous. The university was neither. It probably was very small, perhaps
eight professors in 1 255, and seem to have died by the early fourteenth century.
The government made several unsuccessful efforts to revive it in the next 200
years. Although Arezzo awarded some degrees, the university did not recover as
a teaching institution for several reasons. The costs would have been higher
than the Aretines were willing to bear. The ruling class never reached a consensus that a local university was needed. And Florence, which ruled Arezzo from
1384, did not grant permission for a university. When Lorenzo de' Medici signaled his intention of moving the University of Florence, the Aretines eagerly offered to be hosts. But it moved to Pisa in 1473.

Beyond the individual documents, Black makes the case that Arezzo's strong
tradition of Latin schooling nourished such important Aretine-born humanists
as Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini, and Benedetto Accolti. Indeed, Black
claims that Arezzo was the only Italian town to maintain an unbroken tradition
of classical studies from the end of the thirteenth century to the flowering of
the Renaissance in the fifteenth century. This appears to be too much local patriotism. The nature and quality of the Aretine classical tradition need further investigation, and other towns, such as Bologna with its famous university, may
have stronger claims. Overall, the picture of Aretine communal pre-university
education is similar to that found elsewhere in Tuscany and Italy in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Paul F. Grendler

University ofToronto

Criminal Churchmen in theAge ofEdward III: The Case ofBishop Thomas de
Lisle. By John Aberth. (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania

State University Press. 1996. Pp. xxiv, 280. $45.00.)

Thomas de Lisle, a Dominican friar, was appointed bishop of Ely by Pope
Clement VI in 1345. His officials—and by implication and accusation the
bishop—embarked on something like a local reign of terror, involving arson,
intimidation, theft, and murder. The resultant legal actions dragged in King Ed-

ward III, who took the dispute and the law into his own hands. His temporalities confiscated, de Lisle fled to Avignon, invoking papal support and political
theory in an ineffective search for reinstatement. The pope's interference resulted in harassment of the English clerics who obeyed his mandates, and a
strong assertion of royal authority over the English church.

The story is a good one. John Aberth's analysis of the bishop's activities considers his alleged criminality without quite prejudging his role as medieval God-

book reviews543

father; although he clearly thinks de Lisle guilty, driven by financial problems
caused by mamtaining a lavish lifestyle -when his revenues were declining after

the Black Death. Others may feel that reasonable doubts remain to challenge
the verdict.

This is not a straightforward episcopal biography. Apart from finding the motivation for de Lisle's actions in his financial problems, and his exploitation of

his household and administration to create a gang, his episcopal status seems

secondary. Diocesan rule and estate administration receive only brief consideration. The legal history holds center stage, locating events in a broader debate
on criminality in fourteenth-century England, and about Edward Ill's own responsibility for the breakdown in law and order. Here Aberth finds against the
king.
Aberth acknowledges the problems of using overtly one-sided legal records,
yet seems happy to accept them largely at face-value. He efficiently proposes
explanations for the actions of both sides in a case; but the end product seems

inconclusive. De Lisle was misguided and deluded to believe papalist ideas on

relations between pope and prince, church and state; but flight is not irrefutable
proof of guilt. His years of exile raise their own questions: why was he not relegated to obscurity by translation?
Other reviewers have praised this book. My reaction is more guarded, confi-

dence being undermined by some curious slips in the early chapters. If de Lisle

was, as postulated, from a neo-gentry family, would they really call a daughter

"Ancilla"? "Fruit" repeatedly appears as the main crop of episcopal manors; this
should be wheat. In their immediate contexts such mistakes are fairly innocuous, but they provoke a wariness which affects the reaction to the legal history.

That lingering sense of unease (quite possibly unjustified) creates a feeling
that although this book is thought-provoking in its general discussions, it must
be used with caution. To cap it all,Aberth is ill-served by his index: the page references slip, and it soon becomes useless.

R. N. Swanson

University ofBirmingham

Renaissance Cardinals and Their Worldly Problems. By D. S. Chambers. [Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS553-] (Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Pub-

lishing Company. 1997. Pp. xii, 360. $98.95)
The Variorum series presents us here with a collection of articles by David
Chambers that date from 1966 to 1987, with an additional "postscript" from

1997. The problem with the volume is that most of the essays do not deal with
Renaissance Cardinals at all, but rather with one man—Francesco Gonzaga

(1444-1483), the first of a string of cardinals from the ruling family of Mantua.

544book reviews

Of the ten articles here reprinted, numbers II through VI discuss respectively
suitable housing for the fledgling cardinal; his patronage of the church of
Sant'Andrea in Mantua; the cardinal's defense of non-residence; the martial activities of the young Francesco for the projected crusade of Pius II and in later
legations; and a brief visit to the Medici court in Florence in 1471. Article VII
traces the brief and unedifying life of the cardinal's illegitimate son; Article VIII
discusses Giovanni Pietro Arrivabene, Francesco's secretary; and LX discusses
Bartolomeo Marasca, Francesco's master of household. The only other cardinal
who receives more than the most superficial mention (article X) is Ferdinando
Gonzaga (1587-1626), cardinal for the five years from 1607 to 1612 and then
Duke of Mantua to his death, hardly a typical curial career.
The only essays, then, which deal with "cardinals" are number I and the Postscript. The first, "The Economic Predicament of Renaissance Cardinals," was an

intriguing and provocative piece when it first appeared in 1966. Its argument

remains useful—that the demands of the cardinalate required conspicuous consumption and magnificence that left the members of the Sacred College in perpetual and inevitable financial embarrassment. However, a great deal has been
discovered about the fiscal arrangements of the cardinals during the past thirty

years, and Professor Chambers' "Additions and Corrections" fail to incorporate
much in the way of new evidence or analyses. Chambers also fails to correct a

curious error in the original essay (I, p. 31 1) in which he calls Giovanni Guidiccioni the uncle of Cardinal Bartolomeo Guidiccioni, whereas in actuality, the
young Giovanni was warning his uncle Bartolomeo about the dangers of the
court at Rome. (He also calls Cardinal Alessandro Farnese the nephew of Paul
III, when he was in fact the pope's grandson. [Additions and Corrections, p. 2.])
The final piece, "Postscript on the Worldly Affairs of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga and of Other Princely Cardinals," does not say much about "other princely
cardinals" at all, but rather is primarily concerned with the Gonzagas and particularly their first cardinal, Francesco. I have no quarrel with this, except that
any attempt to generalize about Renaissance cardinals on the sole basis of the
house of Mantua or of its first cardinal seems to me to be an extraordinary
reach. Furthermore, neither Francesco in the fifteenth century nor Ferdinando
in the seventeenth had much influence on the Sacred College of Cardinals—the
former died at age thirty-nine, and the latter gave up his red hat at age twentyfive.

In spite of these quibbles, this volume has much to offer. The most interesting
figure in the entire book was Francesco Gonzaga's long-suffering secretary, Giovanni Pietro Arrivabene (1439-1504), whose career began as a servant and man
of letters for the Gonzaga family and ended as a reforming bishop of Urbino.
The appendices are also treasures, whole letters from the Archivio Gonzaga in
the Archivio di Stato in Mantua. The correspondence is extensive, well-edited
and annotated; indeed, article VI,"Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga in Florence," contains six pages of text and notes and thirteen pages of letters and notes. David
Chambers' years of research in the Mantuan archives have produced the steady

book reviews545

stream of scholarship reprinted here. It is a pleasure to have the collection in
one tome.

Barbara McClung Hallman

California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, California
Early Modern European
La Bibbia al rogo. La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura

(1471-1605). By Gigliola Fragnito. (Bologna: Il Mulino. 1997. Pp. 345. Lire
38.000.)

Italian bishops proclaimed 1997 the "year of the Bible" and enjoined their
flocks to read the Scriptures with fervor. They expressed their unease at the fact
that the Bible, although widely diffused in Italy, was probably among the least
read books. Their proclamation followed Pope John Paul II's call to all Christians in his pastoral letter Tertio millennio adveniente to "turn with renewed
interest to the Bible." The appearance of Professor Fragnito's book coincidentally with these efforts to deepen the knowledge of biblical texts among
Catholics is nothing short of ironic. She tells a complex story which shows why
and how this knowledge disappeared among the Italian people in the sixteenth
century, never to return to the mainstream of their culture.
This book quite literally opens a new stage in scholarship. Professor Fragnito
is one of the very few who were given permission to use the archives of the former Holy Office (or Inquisition), inaccessible to most scholars before its very recent opening celebrated on January 22, 1998. Her work is based on hitherto
unknown material and brings an entirely new perspective on vexed and muchdebated questions.
In her opening chapter the author has assembled information showing the

ready availability of vernacular Scriptures during the first half of the sixteenth
century, whether editions of the Old and New Testaments, the Gospels, or the
Epistles. The first printed Italian translation of the Bible by Nicola Malerbi appeared in Venice in 1 47 1 , to be followed by other translations in many editions.

A wealth of devotional works based on biblical texts like the Eioretti della Bib-

bia were printed as well. Italy was a country where reading the vernacular
Bible was common and widespread among individuals, in families, confraternities, convents, and monasteries.

The increased interest in reading the Scriptures in the wake of the Reformation led ecclesiastical authorities to mistrust the owners of vernacular Bibles.

Reading the word of God in one's own language became suspect or linked with
heresy. The author points out that this was true not only in Italy, but that political authorities in England, France, or Spain made the same connection between

546BOOK REVIEWS

reading the Bible and heresy. However, in Italy the enforcement of the prohibition lay not so much with the state as with the Inquisition, reorganized and
made into an effective organ of the papacy in 1542.
The central part of the book is devoted to a discussion of the various Indexes
from that of Paul IV in 1559 to the Clementine Index of 1596, and their provisions regulating the printing and/or reading of vernacular Bibles. Using the
newly accessible documentation with exemplary expertise, the author shows

the profound differences which existed during these years at the highest levels
of the Church concerning the reading of the word of God by the common
people. Popes, masters of the Sacred Palace, the Congregations of the Index and
of the Inquisition, cardinals and bishops disagreed among themselves. The
Index of 1 559 flatly forbade both reading and printing the Bible, putting control
over enforcement into the hands of inquisitors. However, the Tridentine Index

of 1564, drawn up by a commission of more sympathetic bishops, mitigated
these prohibitions. Soon afterward, in 1567, the last vernacular Bible until 1773
was printed in Italy.

With the establishment ofthe Congregation of the Index in 1571 a new office
entered the picture. One of the most surprising aspects of this book is its presentation of the ongoing conflict between this new congregation and the Inquisition. The latter defended its turf, aimed at control over all literary and
religious works, and wanted to nullify the role of bishops in the censorship of
books. The former, while generally not more lenient, was sensitive to encroachments of its jurisdiction by the Inquisition and more ready to co-operate with
bishops. But periods of activity alternated with years of inaction, depending on
the reigning pope.

Against this background the author concentrates on the various attempts to
prohibit vernacular Bibles (and works of prose and poetry that incorporated or

paraphrased biblical texts) during the 1590's. Pope Sixtus V was a hardliner
who renewed the prohibition, although the Congregation of the Index wanted
to leave room for local inquisitors and bishops to decide who could read

the Bible. Under Gregory XTV revision of the Vulgate was given priority over the

matter of vernacular Bibles. Only under Clement VIII was there a return to the

project of assembling a comprehensive Index. Despite a tug-of-war between
the Congregation of the Index and the Inquisition, the careful and fully docu-

mented account of which can be read almost like a detective story, such

an index was finally published in 1596. It had taken twenty-five years to complete it.

According to the author, the application of the Clementine Index led to enor-

mous consequences for the religiosity, culture, and mentality of Italians. Chap-

ter 7 examines the "indescribable confusion" among local inquisitors over what
books should be censored. Professor Fragnito demolishes the idea, expressed in
several recent works, that the Inquisition had a "light hand" in dealing with literary works. She asserts that, on the contrary, the application of the Clementine

BOOK REVIEWS547

Index was rigorous. When in doubt, local inquisitors forbade books that might
be suspect. Thus, many works, including The Book of the Courtier, were con-

demned by local inquisitors although they did not appear on the Index of 1 596.

In fact, one of the significant areas that have never been studied concerns the
vast scope left to the discretion of individual inquisitors, and the rationale for
their judgment.
But the key point the author makes is that Index and Inquisition succeeded
in snuffing out biblical culture among the Italian people. The old link between
reading the Bible and heresy had become fully accepted by ecclesiastical authorities, as had the idea that the common people were not capable of understanding the "nude" or unannotated word of God unaided and without guidance
by the clergy. Reading the Bible was reserved for those who knew Latin—and
only the Vulgate was permitted. Thus the gulf separating the common people
and the educated elite was widened; a two-tier Christianity was officially confirmed.

There was a logic in keeping the vernacular Bible from the Italian people:
since there were no heresies in Italy, there was no need to read the Bible in
order to contradict them. In areas of Europe where Catholics and Protestants
coexisted, the former were granted permission by the Holy Office to read
Catholic Bibles in the language of the people. According to Professor Fragnito,
a new "geography of licitness of vernacular translations" was created in Europe,
adding to the contrast of eis- and trans-Alpine Europe.
The final chapter entitled "The Destruction of the Holy Book," discusses the
physical annihilation of vernacular Bibles and related works. Pyres of books
were not isolated instances; Bibles in Italian were confiscated by agents of
the Holy Office, aided by local officials, and burned in public places. Individuals who knew no Latin were not allowed to encounter God through the reading of the entire text of the Bible. Catholic Italy received the Christian faith
through sermons, art, and above all the catechism, which was taught
zealously. The equation of Bible and heresy was so deeply rooted in the minds
of Italians that reading the Bible disappeared as a major aspect of Italian religious culture.

This is a deeply learned book that tells a sad tale in a masterful fashion. A
wealth of documentation supports Professor Fragnito's every assertion. She has
written as a scholar, not a polemicist, even though her deep regret about the series of events she has discussed and their implication for Italian culture is obvious. But one major question remains in the reader's mind: after more than two

centuries the entire Bible in Italian was printed again between 1769 and 1781.

Since then, two more centuries have elapsed during which the vernacular Bible
was printed many times. Did what happened now four hundred years ago,
namely, the prohibition in the Clementine Index, so totally influence and deter-

548BOOK REVIEWS

mine the course of modern Italian religious and biblical culture that other more
recent influences pale by comparison?
EUSABETH G. GlEASON

University ofSan Francisco

Prierias.The Life and Works ofSilvestro Mazzolini da Prierio, 1456-1527. By
Michael Tavuzzi. [Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies,

Vol. 16.] (Durham: Duke University Press. 1997. Pp. x, 189. $39.95.)

This admirably researched work presents a familiar figure in the first act of
Reformation controversy, Silvester Prierias, O.P., the papal palace-theologian
(1515-1527). It rests on work in Dominican archives and chronicles and on

close reading of early sixteenth-century works, which combine to carry it well

beyond all recent treatments of Prierias and his work. The author also shows a
sense of the limits imposed on him both by the vastness of his subject's writings and by the absence of correspondence, table-talk, and other more personal
revelations.

Especially interesting is Tavuzzi's work on the conventual-observant division
within the Dominican order around 1500 and his account of the itinerary of education of the friars in the late fifteenth century. Many will be surprised at the
extent of contemporary polemics by Dominican Thomists against the thought
of Tommaso de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan. Also, whereas Prierias's death is commonly dated in 1 523, we find a good case for him living into mid-1 527 and dying
amid the violence of the Sack of Rome.

For the works of Prierias, concise accounts of their contents are given, e.g.,
the early Compendium dialecticae and its Apologia, vernacular booklets of lay
spirituality, writings on witchcraft and sorcery, and the fateful De potestate
papae dialogus (1518),in which Prierias subjected Luther's Ninety-Five Theses
to rigorous testing of their orthodoxy.
Many readers will turn immediately to Tavuzzi's account of Prierias's censorious writings against Luther in 1518-1519. They should also read the following

section, that argues for Prierias's, not Cajetan's, authorship of a forthright Con-

silium on reform of the Church, prepared for Pope Adrian VI in 1522.

Prierias's anti-Luther works are now given in Dokumente zur Causa
Lutheri, edited by Peter Fabish and Erwin Iserloh, in a Corpus Catholicorum
volume of 1988. Tavuzzi has worked out Prierias's thought-processes in interpreting Luther, and shows how his hermeneutic was dominated by an anticonciliarist ecclesiology, accentuating papal plenitude of juridical and
magisterial authority, which was already expounded by St. Antoninus of Florence, Juan de Torquemada, and Prierias himself in his Summa Silvestrina

(1514-15). In the Dialogus, this ecclesiology served as norm for Pope Leo X's
decision to open canonical proceedings against Luther as suspect of heresy.

BOOK REVIEWS549

Prierias was completely forthright in setting out the criteria he applied to
Luther's theses, in the well-known fourfundamenta, placed at the head of the
book in the Dialogas, on the universal normativity of papal teaching and
Roman church order. We note in passing that the backnote reference to
Tavuzzi's translation of the fundamenta is confused, and does not lead the
reader to the well-annotated Latin original in Fabish-Iserloh, Corpus Catholico-

rum, vol. 41 , pp. 53-56. Also, one may question his translation offides et mores

as "faith and ethics," since in the context mores refers as well to church discipline and practice, including matters such as indulgences.
On the substantive question of the competence evinced in Prierias's assessment of the Ninety-Five Theses, this work becomes very thoughtful, even intriguing. The author admits to difficulty in justifying the Dialogas when it takes
Luther's theses as doctrinal conclusions or determinations, instead of initial
propositions for disputation. When this leads to repeated judgments of error
and heresy, Tavuzzi joins Erasmus in admitting that there was "serious mishandling" of the case at its beginning (p. 112).
But why would an accomplished Dominican thinker take such an approach
in 1 518? In response, the author recalls that severe discipline was characteristic
of the observant Lombard Congregation to which Prierias belonged. Moreover,
Luther's Roman critic of 1518 knew how, twenty years before, Fra Girolamo
Savonarola had passed from reforming fervor to contestation and disobedience.
Thus, the Dialogas betrays the outlook of one who had applied his order's
norms with no little stringency as prior of communities, vicar or superior of his
Congregation of over forty houses and a thousand members, and member of a
Dominican reform task-force in Naples.
Tavuzzi also tells the tale of inquisitorial witchcraft prosecution in midRenaissance Italy, reports on the Roman phase of the Reuchlin affair, and relates
the swirl of philosophical argument on the soul's immortality set off by the Aristotle interpretation of Cardinal Cajetan and Pietro Pomponazzi.
Clearly this work will be of interest to early-modern historians across a wide
span of ecclesiastical and cultural topics.
Jared Wicks, SJ.

Pontifical Gregorian University

The Politics of the Reformation in Germany:Jacob Sturm (1489-1553) of
Strasbourg. By Thomas A. Brady, Jr. (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Hu-

manities Press. 1997. Pp. xiii, 280; 4 maps. $19.95 paperback.)

Based on thirty years of archival research, Thomas Brady's book is a masterful
study of the impact of the Reformation on the German Empire and the role of
the Empire in shaping that reform. Breaking with the Rankean tradition of the

550BOOK REVIEWS

Reformation as the foundation of German national unity, Brady emphasizes the
movement's broad appeal to all ranks of German society, each interpreting the
message in its own way. He rejects the view of the Empire as an archaic aggre-

gation of states incapacitated by decentralization. Brady emphasizes that the

Empire protected a form of political life with multiple layers of power and authority. It was a "dispersed governance" which preserved local autonomy. The
book follows the simultaneous development of the Reformation at imperial,
territorial, and local levels through the eyes of one man,Jacob Sturm, Strasbourg
magistrate and diplomat.
The first two chapters on the Empire and on Strasbourg provide the setting.
Each element of the imperial structure is described with its ambitions and
weaknesses: the Emperor; the territorial states; the cities; the towns and villages.
The city of Strasbourg c. 1500 is similarly described: the city's constitution and
magistrates; the rituals of civic order; the influence of the Hapsburgs under the
Emperor Maximilian. The solemn entry of the bishop-elect in 1507 for his enthronement dramatized the tension between church and city. Met at the city
gate by sixty mounted, armored urban nobles and guildsmen, the noble bishop-

elect with 600 officials and 1000 horses, was denied permission to enter the

city until he had sworn to uphold its traditional liberties. Armed guildsmen and
villagers formed a barricade along the streets. The demonstration reflected the
collapse of trust between the city and the Church. Geiler von Kaysersberg had
tried for years to close the gap, but his appeal for individual moral renewal did
not meet the laity's longing for reform of the Church. Despite their enthusiastic
response to Geiler himself, the antagonism between Church and people deepened.

At an early age Jacob Sturm was dedicated by his noble family to fill the position of his deceased uncle, a revered churchman and humanist. Instructed by
his tutor Jacob Wimpheling that church reform could be achieved by an educated, disciplined clergy, Sturm attended Heidelberg and Freiburg universities,
leaving in 1508 without a theological degree. He waited for the next ten years
for the prestigious, well-endowed benefice his family believed he deserved. His
intellectual life quickened when, influenced by Erasmus, he began the serious
study of Latin and Greek, which laid the foundation of his adult life. In 1517,
aged thirty-four, he was appointed secretary to the provost of the Strasbourg
Cathedral.

Sturm converted slowly to the Evangelical movement. In 1524 he left his
church appointment to enter the city government, moving swiftly through the
hierarchy of offices. Within two years he was a member of the privy council for
foreign affairs, a life appointment. The magistrates, yielding to popular pressure
from below, were beginning to make changes in religious practices. Strong imperial opposition to the Reform made a new foreign policy essential. Sturm's
first diplomatic assignment was to negotiate peace with the peasants in the
maelstrom of the Peasants'War. The experience taught him "the Common Man's

BOOK REVIEWS551

courage, the Empire's weakness, the princes' might" (p. 86). These insights in-

fluenced his decisions for the rest of his life. Directly after the war they led him

to broaden the city's alliances to include the Evangelical princes as well as re-

formed Swiss cities. His reliance on common religious bonds determined Stras-

bourg's role in the Reformation. The policy was immediately imperiled by the
Eucharistie controversy.

The chapters which follow describe the slow process of Reformation: the
Marburg Colloquy;the Diet of Augsburg; the founding of the Smalkaldic League.

Brady's focus on Jacob Sturm shows the endless negotiations; the different
viewpoints and political positions of the parties involved; the failure of one set
of arguments; the reasons for acceptance of another. There was no inevitable
victory of a single truth but the valiant effort of Sturm and other men to achieve
acceptance of divergent ideas from which compromise or at least de facto
agreement might be reached.
Basic differences between the cities and the princes surfaced in the Smalkaldic League, organized in 1535. The princes were unable to accept the cities as
social or military equals. The cities resented the princes' independent exercise

of their authority. Property confiscated from the Church became an issue. The
princes considered it patrimonial property to be added to their personal treasury. The cities believed it was communal property to be dedicated to civic pur-

poses. Sturm's foundation of the Strasbourg Gymnasium and a Theological
Seminary supported by church assets exemplifies what Brady calls the conflict
of political cultures.

By 1542, after meetings, colloquies, and resumption of sessions of the imper-

ial Diet, the Reformation's disruption of the Diet appeared to have run its

course. Charles V preferred conciliation to coercion. Then, in an act of pure aggression, the Protestant princes invaded Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel to end the

rule of its Catholic duke. Sturm gave his unwilling consent. But the balance of

power with the emperor was destroyed. Sturm realized that the differences between cities and princes were irreconcilable; common religion was not a sufficient bond.

And so it proved. In June, 1546, Charles V mustered his armies to restore

Catholicism and religious unity. The Smalkaldic League mobilized but failed to
achieve a quick victory. Princes and cities, each acting independently, led their
troops home, leaving the Elector of Saxony to bear the assault of the Emperor's
troops alone. The Emperor's broad terms of submission and the restoration of
the Catholic faith were negotiated separately by each territory and city.
Far from creating a unified Germany, Brady concludes, the Reformation confirmed the strength of German particularism, the independence of each politi-

cal entity. These were the foundation of the unique resiliency of the German
Empire.

552BOOK REVIEWS

The book is a superior text for providing the political background of the Reformation in an upper division or graduate course.
Miriam Usher Chrisman

University ofMassachusetts, Amherst

Trento, un problema: la última convocación del Concilio (1552-1562), I: Estudio. By Constancio Gutiérrez, SJ. [Corpus Tridentinum Hispanicum, V]

(Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas. 1995. Pp. xxxiv, 614.)

With this book, Constancio Gutiérrez has brought the number of published
volumes in a monumental series, the "Corpus Tridentinum Hispanicum," to five.

He launched the series some forty-seven years ago with a study of Spanish par-

ticipants at the Council of Trent, and then followed with two that present a crit-

ical edition of sources from separate phases of the Council, 1549-1551, and

1552-1553· In the fourth installment, Gutiérrez provided a study of the second
period of the Council, and in this one, he has presented analysis of the difficulties associated with the convocation of the third, final phase of the Tridentine

assembly. A large number—perhaps as many as five or six—additional volumes

are promised, including a critical edition of sources to complement the text
under review.

Like all the other volumes in the series, this one belongs in every research li-

brary with a serious collection on the history of Christianity. It is a work of impressive erudition, and based upon vast archival research in Spain, in Italy, and at

the Vatican. The work beautifully illustrates the enormous political and religious complications behind Pius IVs intention to reconvene the Council that,
upon his election, had already been suspended for more than seven years. In
the battles that ensued between supporters and opponents of the convocation,
power and authority were at stake on many different levels: the authority of existing decrees from previous sessions, the power of secular rulers—like those in

Spain and France—to effect religious change in their nations, the authority of

the pope in demanding continuation of Trent rather than the creation of a new
assembly, the power of the leaders of Spain and France to resist the policies of
the pope and of each other, the authority of bishops over clerics—especially
cathedral chapters—in their dioceses, and the power of existing exemptions

from episcopal control. In the context of late-twentieth century developments
in the historiography of this era in European history, careful analysis of both
early-modern theoretical positions on authority and of the practical problems
encountered in exercising them is of paramount importance. This volume—
and the others in the series—will be crucial for evaluating the legitimacy of paradigms like state building, confessionalization, and social disciplining that have
such wide circulation in scholarly literature.

For Gutiérrez, the story of the reconvocation of the final sessions begins with

the conclusion of the first phase in 1547 and ends with a bull of convocation

book reviews553

that, for all its careful wording, still raised determined opposition. The suspension designed to shut down dissident voices in 1547 left big issues unresolved,
including one with a long history in Spain: the question of the power of bishops

undertaking corrective visitations. Even when such visits were justified through
the decrees of the first phase of Trent, exemptions from episcopal authority—

usually held by cathedral chapters—limited that power. Gutiérrez gives over
the first three chapters in this book to this problem and to examples of chapter
opposition, and then follows with analysis of the diplomacy between the Spanish clerics, the Emperor, and the papacy in 1554 designed to reduce this contention. These negotiations were paralyzed, as Gutiérrez relates in the following
four chapters, by the death ofJulius III and by an interlude that included hopeful signs for the cathedral clerics (like the election of Marcellus H) but also
included decisive abandonment of diplomacy in the bellicose, anticonciliar
pontificate of Paul IV The stories Gutiérrez presents establish the precedents to

the wider diplomatic operations followed to gain reconvocation in 1561, and

these he relates in chapters 9 through 15. Pius IV quickly overcame the concil-

iar lethargy characteristic of the Pauline pontificate to capitalize on the oppor-

tunity afforded by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, but only with hard work and
complex diplomacy. Gutiérrez traces it all, demonstrating, for example, the symbolic barrier that the very city of Trent constituted for Protestants, and the wide
variety of fears operating: from papal fear of a French national council, to fear
within the Consejo Real that renewed jurisdictional strife would result from
conciliar reconsideration of episcopal authority. He does so with constant use
of archival sources, and includes appendices with transcriptions of correspondence and other documents. Gutiérrez argues a familiar position, namely, that it
was the determination of Pius IV that secured reconvocation, but he does so
with a presentation of archival evidence that far surpasses those who have held
it before.

A brief episode—but one with a vast network of connections to the religious,
political, and military history of the era—is reconsidered in this massive volume. Gutierrez's finely researched, detailed analysis represents a major contribution to the history of early-modern Catholicism, even though it is a relatively
small portion of the study to which he has dedicated his scholarly career.
William V Hudon

Bloomsburg University

Michel de l'Hôpital: The Vision of a Reformist Chancellor during the French
Wars ofReligion. By Seong-Hak Kim. [Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies,
Volume XXXVI.] (Kirksville, Missouri: Sixteenth Century Journal Publish-

ers. 1997. Pp. xii, 216. $40.00.)

A central figure in the fractious religious politics of sixteenth-century France,
Michel de l'Hôpital has surprisingly not received much attention in recent

554book reviews

decades. The last major treatment of his life was A. Buisson's rather limited biography published in 1950. Apart from a few articles, nothing much new has
been added to the nineteenth-century portrait of Hôpital as an early apostle of
freedom of conscience guaranteed by a secular state. Kim's fine book revises
this picture considerably by drawing on a wide array of archival sources and by
devoting attention to the early stages of Hôpital's career. In the process, she captures the complex inconsistencies of a man who embodied a number of the
central contradictions that plagued France during the Wars of Religion.
Kim stresses the importance of Hôpital's own family history in explaining his
rise to power. His father's involvement in Charles III de Bourbon's betrayal of
François I in 1523 led to the family's exile in Italy, where young Michel grew up,
taking a law degree from the University of Bologna. His firsthand exposure to
Cinquecento Italian humanism impressed upon him a special sensibility re-

garding notions of civic duty and political morality that distinguished him from
his counterparts back in France. Indeed, his Neo-Latin poetry demonstrated the

close connection between literary humanism and careerism so emphasized by
Italian courtly writers such as Castiglione and Delia Casa. Yet Hôpital's foreign
upbringing only sharpened his own acute sense of patriotic devotion to France,
where he returned in 1537 to begin a twenty-year career in the Parlement of

Paris and then the Chambre des Comptes. This early professional experience

very much shaped his later stormy relations with the Parlement as well as the
evolution of his religious policies and ideas about judicial reform. Hôpital owed
his advancement, limited as it was until 1 560, to patronage from the Guises, particularly the Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom he offered advice in shaping the
French position at the Council of Trent. In fact, Hôpital's fall from power in

1568 was due as much to his angry break with the Cardinal as to the failure of

the religious policies he had persuaded Catherine de Médicis to adopt in the
celebrated Edict ofJanuary (1562).

This crucial background makes so much of Hôpital's tenure as Chancellor
more understandable. Indeed, Kim dispels many of the myths long surrounding
Hôpital. For example, the Chancellor was far more authoritarian than liberal in

his thinking about the role of royal government across a broad spectrum of con-

cerns, including religion. In this area, Kim convincingly demonstrates that Hôpital was at heart not a believer in individual freedom of conscience, but a
moyenneur who advocated a more intrusive, yet prudential royal presence in
matters of faith. In effect, the Chancellor viewed the worsening confessional
disputes in France from the vantage point of royal Gallicanism; he was convinced that royal law rightfully could and must be employed to ensure order,
without which questions of morality and religious truth became moot. Whether
his ideas actually called for a separation of politics and religion, as Kim claims,
is another matter, however. Indeed, the Chancellor's own religiosity, so sensitively treated throughout the book, suggests the fifteenth-century conciliarist
distinction between the externalities of religion and the mystical body of the
faithful. His so-called political realism, in other words, reflected a distinct vision
of ecclesiology that foundered, along with its accompanying commitment to

book reviews555

pacifism, on the growing tendency to define religious identity largely in terms
of such externals as doctrine and public behavior. In this respect, Hôpital resembles not so much Cardinal Richelieu, as Kim suggests, but rather Michel de
Marillac. Like Marillac, Hôpital proposed a different course for France than the
one historically taken. It was perhaps only symbolically fitting that the last year
of the Chancellor's life witnessed the horrors of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacres, a paroxysm of violence that, as Denis Crouzet has recently argued, destroyed the forlorn hope to forge a sense of brotherhood based on the kind of

humanistic understanding of justice and piety so cherished by Hôpital.

Michael Wolfe

Pennsylvania State University—Altoona College

The Rule, the Bible, and the Council: The Library of the Benedictine Abbey at
Praglia. By Diana Gisolfi and Staale Sindling-Larsen. [College Art Association Monograph of the Fine Arts, Volume LV] (Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1998. Pp. xiii, 201;ills. 73 [4 in col.]. $55.00.)
The subject of this monograph is the cycle of twenty-four paintings created ca.

1570 (according to the author's reasoning) by Battista Zelotti (ca. 1526-1578)

for the earlier sixteenth-century library room at Sta. Maria di Praglia near Padua.
The Renaissance monastic complex there was the result of the Benedictine reform movement begun by Ludovico Barbo (1381-1443), the abbot of Sta.

Giustina at Padua. Before they can turn their attention to the paintings, how-

ever, the authors must reconstruct the architecture and furnishings of the
original room—compromised in the eighteenth century—and reassemble
the complete cycle, including the wall paintings now in the refectory, all of
which they achieve by means of their examination of the existing space, their
reinterpretation of the documents, and the magic of the computer. The result

restores to historical knowledge a characteristic Cinquecento library with two
rows of reading benches, paintings alternating with openings along the walls,
and a geometrically framed painted ceiling.

Had the authors set out to do nothing else, this would be a welcome study, as

the inventory is short indeed of well-understood Renaissance monastic library
rooms. Judging by their bibliography, only a little has been added since my own

student survey of a third of a century ago. It is the program of Zelotti's work,
however, that is the center of the authors' interest. The paintings represent allegories and scenes from the Old and New Testaments, but they find the program

doctrinal rather than narrative. Their exploration of the intellectual, spiritual,

and institutional context in which Zelotti worked reveals sources that are

stated succinctly in their title: the program relies upon the Rule of St. Benedict,
the Benedictine "tradition of books," and Benedictine reform movements within
the Church that stem from before and during the Council of Trent. The theme

556book reviews

of the cycle, they suggest, was inspired by the wish to reaffirm sacramental and
monastic traditions in the period following the Council. They can find no narrow library iconography here.
While their introduction claims without qualification that Zelotti's paintings
at Praglia (including those in the church itself) "constitute an important
achievement, comparable in size and complexity to that of Paolo Veronese at
San Sebastiano in Venice," they are more modest and more cautious about their
interpretation of the library program itself. They present a working hypothesis,
they say. "Right" or not, their discussion will further the study of Renaissance library rooms and library cycles.
That is not to state that this book is without its faults. Although one might say
that their larger argument seems reasonable and will further discussion, there

are any number of vague or questionable statements that give one pause. In

general the authors were ill-served by their copy editor, who allowed some
awkward moments to get by (as in "there occurred an activation of" [p. 24]), but
I would guess that they are responsible for others. In their eagerness to connect
the library paintings to the Benedictine "tradition of books," for example, they
"point out that most manuscripts and early printed codices were illustrated" (p.
26). That's a characteristically art-historical distortion: students of the history of
the book know better.

James F. O 'Gorman

Wellesley College

Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland. By Raymond
Gillespie. [Social and Cultural Studies in Early Modern Europe.] (Manchester University Press. Distributed by St. Martin's Press, New York. 1997. Pp.
x, 198. $5995.)
"This book is about the reality of the religion which survived in the lives of
the people in sixteenth and seventeenth century Ireland," writes the author,
who has divided his material into six chapters, using an impressive range of
sources and providing excellent footnotes. There are many insights into popular belief and practice (both Catholic and Protestant), based on the conviction

that religious experience and belief are more fundamental than religious insti-

tutions and that belief does not need to be aberrant to be "popular." Most people
learned their religion from their mothers, a process which the author regards as
innately conservative. There were tensions between lay belief and church doctrine, between lay concern about devotion and clerical concern about organi-

zation. Catholic and Protestant churches offered intellectual systems which

were in dialogue with the religious needs of communities and individuals, but
Catholics were offered far more symbols.

BOOK REVIEWS557

The author emphasizes the universal belief in providence, in the sacredness
of times and places, and in wonders. Few people in early modern Ireland lived
far from a holy place. The recurring tendency to resort to astrology and other
signs was common to both Protestants and Catholics, neither group being passively receptive of orthodox theological ideas, but rather forging a genuinely lay
spirituality.
Gillespie gives many interesting examples of popular practices, such as
soldiers carrying written prayers on their persons for protection, and the

thirty-four holy days of obligation observed by Catholics. The description of re-

ligious customs includes the Independents, who were very important in midseventeenth-century Ireland.

Any reader of this book must have a sound knowledge of Irish history from

the Reformation to the death of Queen Anne. The arrangement of material
within each chapter moves backward and forward, without any chronology, and
so the narrative is often confusing. "Anglican" is used as shorthand for the Es-

tablished Church of Ireland, though in that era it was decidedly Protestant and

often Calvinist in its theology. The problem of preaching both the Reformation
and the Counter-Reformation in a bilingual country is never discussed. Gillespie

says that the regular clergy were seen as having access to greater spiritual

power, but one regular, whom he often cites, the English Jesuit William Good,

has his writings attributed to the early seventeenth century (they were published by William Camden in 1610), whereas his work in Ireland was early in the

reign of Elizabeth I, to whose era his remarks are most applicable. The body of
St. Francis Xavier is said to be at Michelle in Flanders, rather than in Goa.
Gillespie rejects the idea that the peoples of early modern Ireland lived in a
barely Christianized world, but he believes that, in the short term, both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation failed. In fact, both movements can be
said to have had great success, the former among the newcomers and the latter
amongst the indigenous population. In both cases, the respective reforms won
the loyalty and support of the people with whose allegiance they finally had to
be content.

Fergus O'Donoghue, SJ.
Milltown Institute, Dublin

Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland nebst ergänzenden Aktenstücken: Die
Kölner Nuntiatur, Volume 5/1 , Ergänzungsband: Nuntius Antonio Alber-

gati (1610 Mai- 1614 Mat). Edited by Peter Burschel with Wolfgang Reinhard. (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 1997. Pp. xxx, 217. DM 54.00.)

This supplementary volume is the result of an unexpected documentary dis-

covery. Back in 1972 Wolfgang Reinhard published the correspondence for the

558book reviews

period 1610-1614 of the nuncio in Cologne, Antonio Albergati, Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland: Die Kölner Nuntiatur, vol. 5, l,in two Halb-

bände. Recentiy Peter Schmidt was gathering materials for the remainder of

Albergati's tenure as nuncio in Cologne, from 1614 to 1621. His research
brought him to the archive of Cardinal Alderano Cibo (1613-1 700), who served

as secretary of state under Innocent XI from 1676 to 1689. It is now located in

the Italian State Archive in Massa in Tuscany. There he found five volumes of
correspondence of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who was secretary of state
under his uncle, Paul V (1605-1621). These included the 162 letters from Al-

bergati to Borghese, written between 1610 and 16 13, that are published in this
supplement to the 1972 volume.

The five volumes found in Massa also included correspondence between
Borghese and the nuncio in Poland. How this material ended up in the archive
of Alderano Cibo is unclear. The editor speculates that the cardinal gathered it
for his personal use, especially to assist him in the making of policy toward
Louis XIV and towardJohn Sobieski in Poland. Alderano Cibo came to the office
of secretary of state with little diplomatic experience, and he probably sought
guidance in this way from the policy of his predecessor.
Reinhard estimated that he had published roughly sixty-five percent of the
correspondence between Borghese and Albergati for these four years. This volume, the editor judges, raises the figure to eighty-five percent, so that about
fifteen per cent remains unrecovered. The new material does not alter
significantly the picture of papal policy or of Albergati's conduct as it emerged
from the earlier volume. But it does help us to understand more completely
some of his actions, and it fills us in on details, especially about matters of
Catholic reform in northwest Germany and the nearby Netherlands and about
papal policy in the dispute over the succession in the duchies of Jiilich-Cleves
and in the election of Emperor Matthias. The numbering of the documents in
this supplement makes it easy to insert them in the appropriate place as one
works through the earlier volume edited by Reinhard.
We now await the publication by Schmidt of Albergati's correspondence for
the rest of his tenure as nuncio in the important post in Cologne.
Robert Bireley

Loyola University Chicago

The Religious Origins of the French Revolution. From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560-1791. By Dale K. Van Kley. (New Haven: Yale University

Press. 1996. Pp. x, 390. $35.00.)

The allegation of a Jansenist plot to destroy Church and State is as old as the
accusation of Jansenism itself—a reputation that the famous remark in Louis
XTVs Mémoires on their "Republicanism" did not help to stifle. But did the

book reviews559

Jansenists actually influence the process that ended the Ancien Régime'! Already in 1929, E. Préclin attempted to show how the resistance to the bull Uni-

genitus produced a revival of Richerism that led to the Civil Constitution of
1790. His conclusions have inspired later historians to look more closely into
the political aspects of this influence, especially in the parliamentary circle that
was so instrumental in these changes. They have shown the validity of this per-

spective as well as its greater complexity. The question remains to define

Jansenism and to discern the continuity between the bishop of leper (Ypres)
and those who have been labeled his disciples during the century and a half
that followed the publication of Augustinus. This is the purpose of Dale Van
Kley's book; he sees in the opposition to absolutism a common element that

supports the notion of a Jansenist party and explains its influence over the "un-

raveling of the Ancien Régime," to use the title of another of his important
works. In this political vision, Van Kley sees also an affinity with Calvinism—
hence the subtitle of the book.

In this "synthetic study," that patterns the works of W Doyle, K. Baker, and R.

Chattier, the author draws on a vast amount of scholarship to reconstruct the
complex ideological and political evolution of Jansenism that instigated the
Revolutionary process. The demonstration is impressive and often convincing.

In his first chapters Van Kley establishes the tenets of French Absolutism, the

"royal religion," a Gallican conception that was rejected by French Calvinists as
well as the Parti dévot, thus forcing the monarchy under Henry IV to adapt it
in order to place itself "above the confessional fray." This required a weakening
of the two factions, but did not prevent the emergence of a Jansenist Party representing both sides [author's italics, p. 12] of this resistance that was more
successful in resisting and eventually defeating the divine-right monarchy.
The Constitution Unigenitus (1713) was the occasion of the rebellion; during
the rest of the century a faction of clerics and jurists would first desacralize the

monarchy and then transfer its sway to the Nation. The last decade of the old

Regime would see a division of this group that accounts for the divergent reactions to the Civil Constitution.

This brilliant essay is above all a testimony to recent scholarship in the field
of eighteenth-century France, especially at the level of intellectual and political
analysis. Due to its scope and ambition it should generate a helpful debate
around some of the author's assessments and interpretations. The idea of looking for a unifying element in the complex history of Jansenism and of reconstructing this history from that perspective is a fruitful one, and resistance to

absolutism is certainly a recurring theme, from Jansenius' Mars Gallicus to the

revolt against Unigenitus. The question is the religious interpretation of this political stance, since religion remained crucial to the time of the Revolution, as C.

Maire's recent book amply confirms. I, for one, wonder whether the continuity
between Calvinism and Jansenism is as operative as Van Kley thinks; his affirmation (p. 12) that "what marched under the banner of Jansenism somehow

united the biblical, doctrinal, and presbyterian ecclesiastical tendencies of
the Protestant reformation" is, to say the least, debatable. For instance, the "près-

560BOOK REVIEWS

byterianism" of the Jansenists had nothing in common with the Calvinist con-

ception of ministry. They functioned within the Catholic hierarchical and sacramental system and simply advocated a "constitutional" structure of the Church

based upon a reinterpretation of late medieval conciliarism, as Van Kley shows
well. Saint-Cyran and Arnauld after him were adversaries of absolutism in the
Church, present in their eyes in the post-Tridentine Papacy and its Jesuit sup-

porters; a return to an idealized church polity was an important element of
their program of reform, which would realize what neither the Reformation nor

Trent had achieved. This program was continued by Quesnel and its explicit
condemnation by Unigenitus produced the mutations carefully analyzed by
Van Kley. Both persecuted minorities may have shared a spirit of resistance to
political absolutism fostered by their experience, but this does not necessarily
imply ideogical affinity beyond common references to Augustinianism. It is all a

question of perspectives; raised in the Calvinist tradition (p. 10), Van Kley is attentive to the similarities; from a Catholic viewpoint the differences seem quite
as much incontrovertible.

This is an important book, therefore, that deserves, indeed, to become "a
standard work in the field," despite the fact that it bolsters the association, misleading in my eyes, between Calvinism and Jansenism. The absence of a bibli-

ography is unfortunate; at least a list of the references used in the notes would
have been helpful.

Jacques M. Gres-Gayer

The Catholic University ofAmerica

Divided Loyalties: The Question of an Oath for Irish Catholics in the Eigh-

teenth Century. By Patrick Fagan. (Dublin, Four Courts Press. Distributed
in the U.S. by International Specialized Book Services, Inc., Portland, Oregon. 1997. Pp. 202. $45.00.)

For more than a century now, much has been written on the penal laws inflicted on Irish Catholics from 1691 to 1829, and on the sporadic attempts
made to abrogate them. Each successive scholar to take up the question, if one
excepts Maureen Wall, was interested in some particular aspect or episode to
the exclusion of others. As often as not, their work appeared in obscure journals
or booklets not easily found. The merit of Patrick Fagan's book is that he takes
a basic point, namely, the various oaths of allegiance, abjuration, and supremacy,
and uses their gradual evolution to provide a solid framework for a study of the
laws as a whole. He comes well equipped for the task, having already written bi-

ographies of Cornelius Nary (d. 1 738) and Sylvester Lloyd, Bishop of Killaloe (d.
1747), both early spokesmen on the Catholic side, and edited in two volumes

the Irish material among the Smart Papers now at Windsor Castle. His familiarity with the published and unpublished writings of Charles O'Conor of Belanagare (d. 1791) greatly enriches this account.

book reviews561

One could say that Fagan's chief interest is in the period before 1778 when
Luke Gardiner's parliamentary bill,"a watershed in history," enabled Catholics to
take long leases and put paid both to "discoverers" of Catholic property and to
the"gavelling act,"which broke up their small estates. For the period after 1778,
one should also read Thomas Bartlett, The Fall and Rise ofthe Irish Nation.The
Catholic Question, 1690-1830 (1992), which, though it says little of the early
eighteenth century, offers a rich panorama of later decades from a purely polit-

ical point of view. Yet Fagan does discuss in greater detail the later relief acts of

1782, 1792, and 1793. Even the so-called "Emancipation Act" of 1829 required a
new oath of Catholic members of parliament, while denying to the regular
clergy any legal recognition of their existence. The author's long analysis of
names in the Test-Book (1775-76) and Catholic Qualification Rolls (1778-1830
ca.) is extremely useful, not least because it explains exactly which records survived the destruction of the Record Office in 1922 and where exactly one may
find them.

For this reviewer, the chief advantage of the book is that it draws into a cohesive whole a series of episodes and problems hitherto treated in isolation,
such as Nary's controversy with the Protestant archbishop Synge (1733), the

Stuart nomination of bishops, the "Trimblestown pastoral" (1756), Hamilton's

"registration of priests" (1757), the embarrassing letter of the nuncio Ghilini

(1769) upholding ancient papal "rights," and the dispute between the archbishops of Dublin and Cashel in 1774 over the oath of allegiance. More recent research has proved the author correct in his view (p. 93) that the formula of an

oath proposed by the Catholic party in 1756 was drawn up by Cornelius Nary
more than twenty years before. The evidence is to be found in A. R W. Malcom-

son, Eighteenth-century Irish Official Papers in Great Britain, vol. 2, p. 168.

All told, there is far more to this book than its title suggests. While devoted to
the search for an acceptable "oath," it is equally a penetrating guide to the long
struggle for Catholic emancipation in Ireland.
Hugh Fenning, O.P.

St Mary's Priory, Tallaght, Co. Dublin

Late Modern European
Il Vescovo di Trento Giovanni Nepomuceno de Tschiderer e la situazione
della Chiesa in Austria e nel Tirólo nel corso della prima meta del secólo
XIX. By Josef Grisar. Translated from the Latin by Elio Gottardi. [Istituto di
Scienze Religiose in Trento, series maior, IV] (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane

Bologna. 1997. Pp. xxi, 375. Lire 65.000.)

This work had an unusual genesis. When during the 1930's the beatification

of Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer, Bishop of Trent (1834-1860), was under

562BOOK REVIEWS

discussion at Rome, the objection was raised that he had supported the
Josephinist state-church system then prevalent in Austria, and had indeed co-

operated with it. Given the long-standing Papal hostility toward Josephinism,

this would have been a serious obstacle to his beatification. To answer this ob-

jection, the Diocese ofTrent called upon the noted historian FatherJosef Grisar.

He published the results of his research in 1936 in a Latin version essentially in-

tended for internal use; it remained largely unknown to the scholarly community at large. After Tschiderer was at length beatified in 1995, the Istituto di
Scienze Religiose in Trent decided to bring the work to a larger audience, and
this slightly abridged Italian version is the result.
It must be said at the outset that the work shows its age; much research has
been done since 1936 on Josephinism, and Grisar's work has lost some of the
originality it had when written. Moreover, its attitudes are those of an earlier

era, and may jar the sensibilities of the post-Vatican Council II age (e.g. , his sympathy with Tschiderer's efforts to keep the Tyrol a purely Catholic area by preventing the introduction there ofAustrian laws on religious toleration). Despite

these inevitable limitations, this book still deserves attention, for it is a work by
a great scholar, based on intensive research in the archives of Austria and the
Vatican, and much of it has not been superseded by later work.

Grisar opens with a perceptive account of the origin and development of
Josephinism, and then takes on the key question ofTschiderer's attitude toward
it. He demonstrates conclusively that if the Bishop was not a vigorous public
opponent ofJosephinism, he certainly did not support it. His attitude, like that
of many Austrian bishops of his day, was rather one of reluctant and partial toleration. The author attributes this tolerance to several factors. First, by 1834,
Josephinism was in decline, and its most objectionable features had either been
modified or were not systematically enforced in practice. Second, Tschiderer
appreciated the aid that the Imperial government had given the Church to recover from the great damage done during the wars and upheavals of the revolutionary era, and so was reluctant to oppose it, the more so since its support
still seemed necessary against liberalism, which he considered a much greater
threat to the Church than Josephinism. Third, the lower clergy and mass of the
people, little touched by the ultramontane current of the age and traditionally
loyal to the Habsburgs, would have neither understood nor supported an open
assault on Josephinism and the government that upheld it; the assault would
have failed, weakening church and state alike, to the sole benefit of the liberals.
Finally, Tschiderer had less cause than most bishops to complain of Josephinism, since its laws had always been applied more discreetly to the Tyrol than
elsewhere, from respect for its staunch Catholicism.

Tschiderer did work against Josephinist laws that he considered truly harm-

ful to the Church, but he did so without publicity, by expressing his views in private letters to the Emperor and members of the government, or by simply

ignoring such laws in his diocese; he always hoped that a peaceful and mutually

BOOK REVIEWS563

acceptable settlement of any controversy could be worked out between Vienna
and Rome.

In his final chapters, Grisar examines several other aspects ofTschiderer's career. Nationalism was a growing problem for him, in a diocese split between
Germans and Italians. He deplored it as a cause of disunity among Catholics and
a source of strife; he criticized Italian nationalism for its hostility to the Temporal Power, but defended Italian clergy attacked by the government for their nationalist sympathies. Liberalism he disliked, identifying it with anticlericalism,

and his attitude toward the 1848 revolutions was generally unfavorable. There

is no bibliography, but there is an appendix of documents useful for showing
Tschiderer's views.

As mentioned earlier, Grisar's work has its limitations today, and it is a pity it
was not published when it was first written. Nonetheless, it is still of value, for
it is a work of great scholarship, based on intensive research. Anyone interested
in nineteenth-century Catholicism in the Austrian Empire, particularly in the
Tyrol, can still read it with profit.
Alan J. Ree>jerman

Boston College

Catholic Nationalism in the Irish Revival: A Study of Canon Sheehan,
1852-1913- By Ruth Fleischmann. (New York: St. Martin's Press. 1997. Pp.
xiv, 188. $65.00.)
During the early decades of this century in Ireland, when the Literary Revival,
at its zenith, was earning the country international critical acclaim, one of the
most popular of its writers was a parish priest from County Cork. But the aspects of Ireland featured in the work of W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, George Moore,
and Bernard Shaw, and which have continued to appeal to later generations of
twentieth-century readers, have little prominence in the novels of Patrick Augustine Sheehan. Always known simply as Canon Sheehan from the honor the
Church bestowed upon him in 1903, he depicted instead a nation so permeated

by Catholicism and devoted to its priests and traditional pieties that social in-

equality, and indeed politics generally, were of far lesser significance. And he
portrayed the enemies of such an Ireland not primarily as British rule or oppressive Protestant landlords, so much as socialist or nationalist radicals, or patriotically posturing hypocrites. His ideal was an Ireland poor in material terms
but morally the safer for that, in which patriotism was inextricable from unwavering loyalty to the Church.

This vision was less accurate for the Ireland of Sheehan's own day than for
that of the 1920's and '30's, after most of the country gained independence as
the Irish Free State. That was certainly not the Ireland the Revivalists wanted,
and for their successors—writers like Sean O'Faolain and Frank O'Connor—its

564BOOK REVIEWS

yoking of nation to Church was acutely uncomfortable. Canon Sheehan feared
that materialism would overwhelm the Ireland he envisioned, and it has, though
more slowly than he anticipated. Traditional Catholic Ireland lingered into the
1960's, when economic advances and the Church's own embrace of change effected its rapid demise.
Ruth Fleischmann is not sympathetic to Canon Sheehan's ethos, nor admiring, in the main, of his literary qualities. His novels have the faults common to
popular fiction: sentimentality, didacticism, and too great a reliance upon coincidence and melodrama, but his sacerdotal characters are often compelling.
Fleischmann most creditably examines their complexities and the conflict, to
which Sheehan was personally sensitive, between the intellectual tendencies or
ambitions of many priests, and the dullness to ideas of most of those to whom
they ministered, a disparity so often issuing in clerical autocracy.
As Fleischmann indicates, Sheehan's social attitudes were comparable with
those of numerous contemporary leaders; indeed, his novels are indispensable
to any reconstruction of the sense of Ireland that prevailed early in this century
among so many of its people. His writings bespoke an age in which the Revival
itself arose, a context, now largely hidden, against which Ireland's betterremembered writers defined themselves. Ignorance of that very Catholic Ireland serves even its opponents poorly, and Fleischmann's revisiting one of its
major proponents merits genuine praise.
Robert Mahony

The Catholic University ofAmerica

Cardinal Herbert Vaughan: Archbishop of Westminster, Bishop of Salford,
Founder of the Mill Hill Missionaries. By Robert O'Neil, ?.?.?. (New
York: The Crossroad Publishing Company. 1997. Pp. viii, 520. $49.50.)
Throughout 1995, English Roman Catholics celebrated the centenary of
Westminster Cathedral. Cardinal Herbert Vaughan (1832-1903) played a significant role in the planning and realization of this London cathedral. On June 29,
1895, Vaughan laid the foundation stone for the new cathedral, and his Requiem
Mass in June, 1 903 , was the first major liturgical function in Westminster Cathedral. This impressive church stands as a memorial to Vaughan's vision for English Catholics, but it represents only an aspect of his devotion to Roman
Catholicism. Robert O'Neil's well researched biography of Cardinal Vaughan
tells the story of the third Archbishop ofWestminster, Bishop of Salford, and the
founder of the Mill Hill Missionaries in an objective and entertaining manner.
Vaughan's Roman Catholic family background influenced his decision to
choose the priesthood. After an education at Stonyhurst, Brugelette in Belgium,
and Downside, Vaughan went to Rome to prepare for the priesthood. O'Neil's

BOOK REVIEWS565

description of these formative years, especially the influence of his mother,
Louisa Elizabeth, and Vaughan's poor health, is good. After ordination in 1854,
he returned to England and was appointed vice-president at St. Edmund's College, Ware. The author then discusses the significant events in this cleric's life:
his association with the Oblates of St. Charles, his early missionary dreams, travels to the Americas, the establishment of St. Joseph's College, his purchase of
The Tablet, views on Vatican Council I and infallibility, and missionary activities
in America. In 1872, Herbert Vaughan was consecrated as Bishop of Salford.
Again, O'Neil does an excellent job in describing Vaughan's activities in this
northern diocese such as temperance, education, rescue work among children,
his feud with the Jesuits, and issues relating to Ireland.
In 1892, Vaughan succeeded Henry Edward Manning as the third Archbishop
ofWestminster. Beginning with the problems surrounding the construction and
staffing of Westminster Cathedral, the author gives an excellent account of the
archbishop's role in the controversy over the validity of Anglican Orders, Modernism, and Roman Catholic attendance at the universities of Oxford and Cam-

bridge. The missions and rescue work also formed an important part of
Vaughan's program at Westminster. The cardinal's health began to deteriorate in
1897, and the last chapter gives an intimate glimpse into the struggles Vaughan
experienced during the final years of his life. The book's epilogue addresses
some criticisms of the cardinal and re-emphasizes the vision he had for the
Catholic Church in England.
O'Neil's biography of Cardinal Vaughan is a readable and entertaining book
which gives the reader an insight into the motives and personality of this important figure in English Roman Catholic history. The author does not avoid

hostile interpretations of Cardinal Vaughan by his contemporaries or discus-

sions of his weaknesses, but also presents a more humane and spiritual personality. "The often-heard criticism that he was a medieval lord-prelate is refuted by
his genuine humility and simplicity" (p. 495). Vaughan's dedication to missionary work at home and abroad was a constant theme throughout his life, and
this biography does not fail to draw attention to his accomplishments in
this area. O'Neil also provides the reader with insightful personality sketches of
Vaughan's numerous acquaintances. The relationship between Vaughan and
Cardinal Manning is especially perceptive.
Without losing sight of his subject, O'Neil discusses the important issues in
the history of English Catholicism and the many achievements associated with
Vaughan in a succinct and entertaining manner. Like John Snead-Cox, Vaughan's

first biographer, Robert O'Neil has written a candid biography of this significant
Roman Catholic leader. The author's research is evident throughout the book,
and his use of archival sources and recent books and articles dealing with
English Catholicism is impressive.

Rene Kollar

Saint VincentArchabbey, Latrobe, Pennsylvania

566book reviews

Religion in the Age of Decline: Organisation and Experience in Industrial
Yorkshire, 1870-1920. By S.J. D. Green. (New York: Cambridge University

Press. 1996. Pp. xv, 426.)

This is a fascinating work in which, despite the case-study subtitle, the author
takes on the troubles of secularization theory. In a well-written and very helpful
introduction, Green casts doubt on both classic secularization theory and its
major schools of criticism. The crisis of secularization theory is itself somewhat

aging and sufficiently familiar to most students of religious history as not to require detailed explanation. Secularization theory has encountered many histor-

ical contradictions. On the other hand, as Green aptly warns his readers, various
revisionist schemes (which he simplifies to four categories: transformation, relocation, divergence, and spontaneous renewal) themselves fail to supplant the
older thesis.

Where then does all this leave an author presenting his readers with new research into "decline"? Green proposes a provocative route out of the secularization morass. Quite unabashedly he advocates a return to the institutions.
Once upon a time not long ago, it was the basic consensus that the study of religion, at least of Christianity in the West, ought to divest itself of institutional
bias and immerse itself instead in the techniques and assumptions of social history. To stay with the institutional perspective smacked of elitism, sectarianism,
hierarchalism, etc., all deemed to be very bad things indeed. Yet in the midst of
liberation one problem remained intractable: how to dump an institutional perspective from the study of a movement which from the very beginning has portrayed its own mission as the setting apart, initiating, and instructing people, all
with authority and discipline? Green answers that one cannot and ought not to
forgo institutional history for one simple reason: historical Christianity is what
it says it is and therefore the institutional perspective forms the base which
grounds other historical analyses. He writes,". . . a description and analysis of
the ends, activities and fate of religious institutions . . . necessarily comprehends the social history of religion, the history of the churches and the history
of religious (and other) ideas" (my emphasis).
Through all this and through his detailed evidence, Green settles on some
rather interesting conclusions. Primarily, the notion of "decline" applied to
British Christianity is very accurate and very real. Green finds no support for
the idea that Yorkshire religiosity re-located or re-defined itself once the traditional churches began to decline. If in fact it did transform, he says, it was no
longer identifiably Christian. No churches, no faith. Second, historians ought to
link, not oppose, the buoyant spirit, competitive vigor, and pure ambition of the
Yorkshire churches circa 1870 with the gloom and exhaustion of the 1920's.
Why? Because, claims Green, it was the very ambition of the late Victorian
churches seeking to expand, to grow with the general population, to identify
with all sections of society all the time, in short to cater and to pander which
led to the virtual identification of these churches with all the secular forms (and

less stuffy alternatives) of associationalism. The Gospel was lost amidst all the

BOOK REVIEWS567

newfound "relevance" of the churches and people stayed away in droves. They
are still staying away from all the "relevant" churches and seminaries in Britain
and America to this day.
Ken Hendrickson

Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, Texas

Louis Massignon. The Crucible of Compassion. By Mary Louise Gude. (Notre
Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1996. Pp. xii, 283. $34.95.)
Mary Louise Gude's admirable biography of Massignon is the only one in English (a French life appeared in 1994) despite his international reputation as an
Oriental scholar, a religious mystic, and a social and political activist who devoted much of his life (1883-1962) to promoting understanding between Islam
and Christianity and, in a larger context, between the Arab world and the West.
The work appears at a sadly opportune moment, when with increasing violence and fanaticism the need to achieve such understanding becomes even
greater than in the past. Gude records in detail Massignon's career as one of the
greatest Arab scholars of his time, dwells on the profundity of his religiosity
which co-existed with social and political activism as evidenced in his attacks
on colonialism and social injustice, and in his heroic efforts, despite fierce accusations against him as "anti-French" and "Communist," to bring peace to Algeria. Massignon's family belonged to the "grande bourgeoisie." His father, an
agnostic, successfully practised sculpture under the pseudonym of "Pierre
Roche." His mother, a devout Catholic, gave her son a religious education, but by
the age of eighteen he had become an unbeliever who was to recover his faith
only "in contact with the African desert and with Sufi mystics. . . ." With the
years, he became a devoted husband and father and an ordained Melkite priest.
After receiving his "bac" in mathematics in 1 90 1 , he made his first contact with

Arab culture during a trip (the first of many) to North Africa, a trip which was
to influence the rest of his life. In a letter to Paul Claudel he states:"It was there

that I was really born." He was enchanted by the beauty of the desert, where he
experienced "a sense of beauty and of deep religious exaltation."After completing his military service (1902-3) he re-affirmed his commitment to Arab culture
by choosing, as the subject of his "Diplôme d'études supérieures" Leo Africanus,

a sixteenth-century Moroccan geographer. In 1906 he obtained a diploma in

written and spoken Arabic and became deeply interested in the medieval Sufi
mystic, Hallaj. (His study, La Passion de Hattaj, martyr et mystique de l'Islam,
was published in Paris in 1922. English translation by Herbert Mason, 1982.) In
Paris, he was named a member of an archaeological mission in Mesopotamia.
He arrived in Baghdad in December, 1907, rented a house in a Muslim neighborhood where no Westerners lived, dressed as an Arab, frequented young Muslims. On the way to the archaeological site in a remote village, he was attacked
by a group of Bedouins who suspected him of being "a spy" and was robbed by

568BOOK REVIEWS

members of his own caravan. He complained to Turkish authorities who
claimed that he "wasn't in his right mind." Mentally depressed, he returned to

Baghdad, where he was hospitalized for several weeks and then was sent off to
France. On the ship, he suffered attacks of paranoia and was confined. This ex-

perience, as he recalls in numerous essays, culminated in his return to the
Church. In the following years, he soon enjoyed increasing success as an Orientalist, as professor at the Collège de France, as founder of the Institut des études
islamiques, as writer (the author of twelve major works) and lecturer, as a social
and political activist, and as a member of the national academies of ten different
countries, including Iraq and Egypt. But all these official honors did not suppress his unrelenting criticism of governmental injustice. He enraged conservative French Catholics for his pro-Arabic position in the Algerian war. He
criticized the Americans for their support of Israel against the Palestinians, although he greatly admired Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the last

years of his life, despite failing health, he remained passionately involved in so-

cial and political movements. For over three decades, he taught night classes for
North African immigrants. He organized regular meetings of "The Friends of
Ghandi," of which he was the founder. He strongly supported De Gaulle for his
declaration in 1959 that Algeria had the right to self-determination. Algeria was

granted independence in 1961, but violence between rival factions continued

and still continues today. In this era of unending strife throughout the world, we
can join Mary Louise Gude in her moving, impressively documented homage to
an heroic, compassionate spirit, who devoted his life to the service of God and
to bringing peace and mutual understanding to humanity. Dead of a massive

heart attack on October 31, 1962, he was nearly granted his long-expressed
wish to die on All Saints Day "the feast of holy ones throughout the ages who
offer their lives to God for others."

John L. Brown

Washington, D.C.

Louis Massignon et le dialogue des cultures. Edited by Daniel Massignon. [Col-

lection: "L'histoire à vif."] (Paris: Éditions du Cerf. 1996. Pp. 371. 165FF.)

The French scholar of Islam, Louis Massignon (1883- 1962), is best known for
his monumental four-volume biography of the tenth-century Sufi mystic,
Mansur al-Hallaj. Massignon's career spanned the first half of the twentieth century and shaped Islamic studies in France for two generations.Yet his influence
extended far beyond the confines of both the university and France. Assignments in the diplomatic service as a young man gave him a keen sense of shifting geopolitical realities in the Middle East and North Africa. His critique

escalated into protest after 1945 with the creation of Israel and demands for in-

dependence from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria; he attempted to end suffering
and political violence that affected Palestinian refugees and later the indigenous
population of Algeria during the Algerian War. A committed Catholic after his

book reviews569

19O8 conversion in the Iraqi desert, Massignon worked tirelessly to improve relations between Christians and Muslims.

Scholar, Christian, and activist, Massignon defies easy categories because his
life alternated between prayer and action, theological reflection and social
protest, the library and the street. Its one unifying characteristic was an unceasing effort to understand the other, particularly Muslims. To do so he practiced
what he termed "sacred hospitality," whereby he attempted to enter mentally
into another's thought processes and situation. Louis Massignon et le dialogue
des cultures, the proceedings of a 1992 UNESCO conference honoring the thirtieth anniversary of his death, reflects this attempt to understand people of
other cultures on their own terms.

The book is divided into two parts, "Les Bases du dialogue" and "La Pratique
du dialogue," a division which proves to be somewhat arbitrary, since in the
case of Massignon, theory always implied practice. Thus, the content of some
chapters tends to overlap, and many contributions would have benefited by
more rigorous editing. However, students of Arabic and readers with some
knowledge of Massignon's life will find here a rich source of information. Moreover, since many quotations come from Opera Minora, the essential collection

of Massignon's writings and talks mentioned on pages 274-275, the book
guides the reader to further study.

Part one, "The Basis of Dialogue," is loosely organized around major influences in Massignon's life: linguistic, theological, and literary. It begins with his
contributions to the study of Semitic languages, particularly Arabic, and their relationship to sacred texts: the Bible and the Qur'an. Certain contributions stand
out. In "Le Coran dans la pensée de Louis Massignon," Roger Arnaldez treats
with great precision the inseparable links between the Arabic language, the
Qur'an, and the faith of Louis Massignon. "Aspects théologiques de la pensée de
Louis Massignon sur l'Islam" by Maurice Borrmans provides an excellent summary of four key Massignon writings that set forth his spiritual vision of Islam.

The importance of Islamic law in the life of Hallaj and for Massignon is under-

scored in "Louis Massignon et le droit musulman." "Douleur, substitution, intersignes," evokes the spiritual and literary legacies of French writers, J.-K.
Huysmans, Léon Bloy, and Villiers de l'lsle-Adam, legacies whose full impact on
Massignon has yet to be studied. Finally,Jacques Waardenburg provides a transition to Part II, by tracing the concrete political and religious context of Massignon's outreach to others, its spiritual origins and development.
Part two, "La Pratique du dialogue," discusses Massignon's links to North
Africa, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, and Japan. Again, certain chapters merit special
note. "Le Comité chrétien d'entente France-Islam" traces Massignon's role in a
group he co-founded in 1948 during the turbulent postwar period of decolonialization. Georges Anawati documents the activity of the Dar El-Salam Center
in Cairo, from its creation in 1940 by Massignon and an Egyptian friend, Mary
Kahil, until her death in 1979. "Louis Massignon face à Israel" lists Massignon's
contacts over the years with Jewish thinkers, describes the friendship with Mar-

570BOOK reviews

tin Buber and Judah Magnes, and cites statements of Massignon about the creation of Israel. Because the eschataological perspective of the Shiites so influenced Massignon in the last third of his life, "Louis Massignon et l'Iran" is
particularly valuable: Shiite theology, its echoes in Massignon's writings, and an
account of Massignon's visits to Iran are all included.
The varied topics of this book reward the careful reader not only with insights into Massignon's life and thought but also with references to guide further research.
Mary Louise Gude

University ofNotre Dame

Religion in the Soviet Union:An Archival Reader. By Felix Corley. (New York:

New York University Press. 1996. Pp. xiv,402. $55.00.)

Felix Corley's Religion in the Soviet Union:An Archival Reader is a valuable
guide to Soviet religious policy from 1917 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1991· The author has located many of the key documents that outline the Soviet government's policy on religion and then organized them chronologically
to show the changing nature of that policy. Some of the documents were already published and translated from Russian into English, but many were not,
and Corley found most of these in the newly opened Soviet archives. The author also connects the major chronological divisions of the documents with a
running commentary, which puts the various documents into context and

shows clearly the Communist government's antireligious policy that went from
an initial effort to eradicate religion by any means to a policy in the late Brezhnev and Gorbachev eras to control and harness religion for various political
goals, including political stability. In effect, the book is a description of the policy handbook of Soviet bureaucrats, who were charged with the implementation of Soviet religious policy.

The overriding impression of the compilation of documents is to underscore
the Soviet government's hostility to religion. Of course, the book shows that Soviet animosity waxed and waned, depending upon circumstances, including

foreign-policy pressures and the strength and willingness of specific religious

leaders to make an accommodation with the Kremlin. Nonetheless, there remained an unrelenting opposition to religion, even in the last days of the Soviet
empire. The author attributes this attitude to ideology and bureaucratic habit.
He explains the persistence of religion as due in part to inconsistent persecution. Corley does make clear that the Soviet government's policy of persecution
ebbed as it had less to fear from beleaguered believers, as foreign threats mushroomed, especially the Nazi threat in the 1940's, and as religious believers
sought refuge from persecution in underground movements, which the state

BOOK reviews571

soon saw as more threatening than the toleration of above-ground religious
groups, which at least it could control.
The book offers striking evidence of the determination of the Soviet authorities to damage religion. One is struck by the extraordinary dedication to detail
of Soviet ideologues in their effort to control and, where and when possible,
weaken religion. On the other hand, the book also produces compelling evidence by implication of the persistent influence of religion in the lives of the
people. The choice was between ideology or religion, and both had believers
and supporters.
Although the Soviet Union is gone, the choice really has not changed much at
the end of the twentieth century for the former Soviet people or, for that matter, for people in general. In our increasingly interdependent world, where men
and women are torn from their traditional ways of life, it is clear from the experience of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and now the former Yugoslavia
that secular ideologies will destabilize and destroy civilized communities. Religion has its own checkered history of intolerance and dogmatism and in the
wrong hands can be manipulated to wreak havoc as destructive and destabilizing as ideology. But in the hands of genuine believers and spiritual leaders religion is a force for harmony and stability. Religion is perhaps our best hope for
peace and co-operation as we enter the age of globalization, and we can only
pray that the major religions can work together to meet the challenge of divisive ideology and help produce a global community united in its support of the
dignity of man.
Dennis J. Dunn

Southwest Texas State University

Cries in the Night, Women Who Challenged the Holocaust. By Michael Phayer
and Eva Fleischner. (Kansas City, Missouri: Sheed & Ward. 1997. Pp. xxi,

153. $15.95 paperback.)

The history of the Holocaust, until recently, has paid little attention to those
that defied Hitler and the Nazis and sought to save Jews. And while the evils
perpetrated by the Nazi criminals should never be forgotten or diminished,
there is room for honoring those who risked their lives to come to the aid of
the Jews.
Cries in the Night is the story of seven Catholic women, motivated by a sense
of compassion and justice and prepared to subject themselves to bodily injury,
imprisonment, and even the possibility of death in order to save Jewish families
from being murdered. The accounts are both revealing and inspiring because
they describe what they did for the Jews in spite of the indifference of many
clergymen and important public officials, and of the moral ambiguity of the Vat-

572book reviews

The story of these women begins in Poland, where the Holocaust took place.
The Polish nun, Mother Mytlda Getter, saved hundreds of orphaned Jewish children and many adults. In Berlin a social service worker, Margaret Sommer, began
protecting Jews who had converted to Catholicism, but ended up saving many
non-converts. In Hungary Margaret Slachta, a member of the Sisters of Social
Service, tried to stop the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the ldlling camps.
The book also contains several chapters about three French women who
risked their lives to aid the Jews. Germaine Ribière, a university student in Paris,
refused to be a bystander when the Jews began to be rounded up by the
Gestapo in May, 1941. She joined the Amitié Chrétienne, an organization of
Protestants and Catholics who helped the Jewish victims of Nazism and Vichy.
Marie Rose Gineste, whom the authors dubbed "the woman with the bicycle,"
crisscrossed the diocese on her bicycle to deliver a pastoral letter by her bishop

condemning the anti-Semitic measures of the Nazi occupation forces. Germaine Bocquet provided a hiding place for Jules Isaac. Much later Isaac was in-

strumental in persuading Pope John XXIII to put the Church's relation to
Judaism on the agenda of the Second Vatican Council. Dr. Gertrud Luckner,
whose courageous efforts to save Jews resulted in sharing the fate of Nazi victims in Ravensbruck, spent two years experiencing lice, filth, human degradation, and the stench of cremation. After the war she helped thousands of
displaced Jews from the camps find places to live.
The courage of these women was offset by the failure of many clergymen,
bishops, and even the Vatican to publicly condemn the persecution of the Jews
in spite of the urgent appeals of these women. However, as the authors rightly

point out, there were some courageous French and German bishops who publicly spoke out against the persecution of the Jews.

The archival sources include the Yad Vashem Documentation Center, the
Kommissionfür Zeitgeschichte in Bonn, the Catholic Archdiocesan archives in
Berlin, and the Archives of the Social Service Sisters in Buffalo, New York. The

authors also used diaries, letters, reports, and personal interviews of the women
who were still alive. While the footnotes provide additional interesting and important bibliographical references, it would have been more helpful to include
a bibliography as well as an index.
While this study is a definite contribution to the growing body of literature
on the Holocaust, it still leaves open the unanswered question, why did the
Catholic hierarchy, including Pope Pius XII, fail to speak out more openly
against the Nazi persecution of the Jews? Recent statements by both the Vatican and the French bishops hold out the hope that a complete response to this
question is not far off. Meanwhile studies such as this remind us that selfless

protection of the Jews only underlines the bystanders' failure to help. If those
who claimed nothing could be done engaged in rescue, fewer Jews would have
perished.
Richard W. Rolfs, SJ.

Loyola Marymount University

BOOK REVIEWS573

The East German Church and the End of Communism. By John P. Burgess.
(New York: Oxford University Press. 1997. Pp. xiv, 185. $3995.)
Burgess has used a wealth of primary written and oral sources from the former East Germany to illustrate how the Protestant church there contributed to
the downfall of Communism by providing a free space for discussion and
thought. He shows the reader very effectively how the church's theological arsenal of the 1980's had its foundation in Barth, Bonhoeffer, and the Barmen declaration of 1934, which assaulted Nazi ideology.
The church's benevolent incursion into politics had precedents, since both
Christians and Communists had resisted Hitler together. They both had different ways of interpreting the ultimate reality, but Marxist-Leninists argued that
the attainment of peace and social equity was more important than the propagation of atheism and the critique of religion. The political leaders, therefore,
did not need religious legitimization, and the church also was free to realize its
humanistic and social-political goals. The dichotomy seemed workable until the
late 1980's, when it became clear that the foundational problem threatening
monolithic communism was its spiritual malaise. Humans desire truth and freedom, i.e., ultimate meaning, something alien to the sterile political culture of
Soviet-dominated Europe. Into this vacuum stepped religion.
Several theologians contributed to the spiritual vision that transformed the
political life of East Germany. Especially representative are the writings of Heino
Falcke, who has probed the anxiety that he perceived as a crisis in contemporary human experience. In his works, he asserted that contemporary materialism stressed worth in terms of "having" rather than "being." Such an ethic only
increases anxiety. The Marxist-Leninist state was suffering from a spiritual impoverishment that had produced a morally indifferent and immature citizenry.
Through his use of the biblical symbols of covenant and the kingdom of God
and a reliance on Bonhoeffer, Falke conceived an ecclesiology in which the
church would practice solidarity with the weak and marginalized and so would
promote a reconciliation among the alienated members of both the ecclesial
and political communities. Such a political theology offered a critique of the instrumental Marxist-Leninist ideology that reduced the meaning of life to a secular understanding of human reason as it exercised political control.
Burgess' work has broader implications as we evaluate our culture at the end
of the millennium. Generally, social change has been attributed by scholars to
economic and political forces rather than to the spiritual-moral dimensions of
human existence. In 1989, however, the spiritual crisis seemed to stimulate revolution in East Germany and in much of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe. In
East Germany, for example, the Protestant church nurtured the movement
toward democratization. It offered a free space for discussion and a theology
that could directly engage the materialistic culture that had led to the crisis in
spirituality that such non-German leaders as Vaclav Havel have critiqued. This

574BOOK REVIEWS

book on the former East Germany very effectively helps focus on the humanistic impulses that have helped shape the radical post-1989 transformation of the
European scene.
Donald J. Dietrich

Boston College

American

Situado and Sabana: Spain's Support System for the Presidio and Mission

Provinces of Florida. By Amy Turner Bushnell. [Anthropological Papers,
American Museum of Natural History, No. 74.] (Athens: University of Georgia Press. 1995. Pp. 249. $26.95 paperback.)

Amy Turner Bushnell, a distinguished Latin American historian at the College
of Charleston, has written widely on Spanish colonial Florida. Situado and Sabana is the fruit of a consultancy she undertook for David Hurst Thomas, chief
archaeologist for the American Museum of Natural History. Thomas sought
from Bushnell the historical background for his lengthy excavations of the
seventeenth-century Franciscan mission on Georgia's St. Catherine's Island.
Within the short scope of this volume, Amy Bushnell more than fulfills her
charge. This work, in fact, prefigures the general history of Spanish Florida
which the author deems to be urgently needed. It centers around the Royal subsidy (situado) and the sabana, the cultivated Native American lands which supported Indians and Catholic missionaries alike. As David Thomas states, this
book is a "rich mine of relevant detail and original assessment." Bushnell's clarity of thought and style is evident throughout, and she builds upon her earlier
concepts of the "sacramental imperative," an underlying factor which she believes drove the form and location of the Florida missions, and of the "republic
of Spaniards, republic of Indians," her description of the two organisms which
confronted each other in Florida after European contact.
There exists no better explanation of the workings of a Franciscan mission
than this. Bushnell depicts the everyday functioning of vicarios, doctrinas, and
visitas in Florida; how they were manned, equipped, and nourished. Her narrative is enlivened with the stories of incessant conflicts involving regular and
secular clergy, Indian caciques, Spanish governors, and private merchants.
Bushnell demonstrates that Spanish Florida never was a "Borderland" in the
Boltonian sense of isolated mission-cww-presidio. Rather, it proceeded through
phases in which private enterprise, Royal funding and government, and the Native Americans interacted in varying proportions. She shows how the entity
came full circle at last, as the European rivalries and wars of the eighteenth century impacted North America. The once-extensive Spanish colony of Florida

BOOK REVIEWS575

then shrank down to the vicinity of its presidios, and its Indian support vanished. It was undergirded at last, as it had been at the beginning, by private
funds and Crown troops and subsidies from abroad.
When the general history of Spanish Florida is written, Amy Bushnell should
be its author. Until then, this work will abundantly inform the reader about a neglected century and its Franciscan missions in the provinces of Florida.
Eugene Lyon

Flagler College

Being Religious, American Style: A History of Popular Religiosity in the
United States. By Charles H. Lippy. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood

Press. 1994. Pp. x, 284. $65.00; $19.95 paperback.)

This book is an ambitious attempt to trace the history of "popular" religion
among the American people from the colonial period to the present. Much attention is given to European settlers in America, but pages are also devoted to
native peoples and African Americans. For individuals whose understanding of
American religion may lie solely on texts that tell the story of religion in America from the perspective of religious institutions, this book could be a revelation. Lippy sees "popular religiosity" as "that inchoate, unorganized, and highly
syncretistic sense of the supernatural" (p. 17), and believes that the search for
this sensibility about the supernatural has been "a constant in American culture" (p. 17). Lippy points out this supernatural element in a number of unrelated religious examples throughout the book, suggesting to the reader that the
groups and individuals he uses as evidence all share a similar understanding or
characterization of the supernatural in their lives. Indeed, the interest in the supernatural may be very significant and a common element within popular religiosity, but the specific apprehension and expression of the supernatural may
vary quite considerably from one example of personal religiosity to the next.
Religious lives are too complex to reduce the personal religious understanding
and experience of all individuals and communities of individuals to a few simple, detectable characteristics.
As much as I admire and enthusiastically commend Lippy's attempt to construct a history of American popular religion, I was troubled by his method for
writing this history. Lippy sees popular religion and its history as a companion
or complement of institutional religion and its history. But popular religion is so
much more; it is the religious history of the American people! I was hoping
that Lippy would offer a more radical or creative approach to this history in
his book. As for his overall linear approach to this material (from the Great
Awakening and Revolution to Antebellum America, Nineteenth Century, the
two World Wars, etc .), I have always felt that the important lesson that the study
of popular religion teaches scholars is that histories based on such linear
schemes can be a fiction. Linear narratives of American religion are not neces-

576book reviews

sarily helpful in uncovering, understanding, or interpreting how people actually
lived their religious lives. As a part of his linear design, Lippy uses major events
as the foundation for his history such as wars, theological disputes, ecclesiastical or governmental decisions. He offers a history of popular religion as peoples' religious reactions to institutional norms, dogmas, decisions, functionaries,
hierarchical individuals within institutions. Popular religion, therefore, is not
valued as an important history in and of itself, but as the residual history of believers living in relation to their religious institutions. A history of popular religion must give attention to the way that peoples' religion complements, but is
also quite different from, these social and religious structures and institutions so
that this work may yield a richer, fuller, and more complete history ofAmerican
religiosity.

The challenge presented to the author is how he can convince his readers
that he is actually able to construct a reliable history of American personal religion, especially when there are no ethnographic accounts to be used as sources
of historical information, and comparatively few historical studies. Such a history is difficult to chronicle because it involves an examination of data which
have not yet been collected. It is not that such religion did or does not exist, but
that the scholarly process of distilling such a religious history is still seeking
recognition and support. Lippy does make use of the work of contemporary
historians of the "popular" religion of American Protestants and Catholics (such
as Robert Orsi, Colleen McDannell, Ann Taves, Jon Butler, and David Hall) to
craft his survey. Unfortunately, there are still not enough of these studies to
build a dependable history. To his credit, Lippy is quite honest in admitting that
in the end it is impossible to know truly how people believed or acted religiously at any given time in the American past. What is obviously warranted, and
what Lippy does not call for as a methodological conclusion, is the urgent need
for further work in historical and contemporary ethnography of America's religious populace, so that future volumes like this one will not be left with so
many missing elements of the American religious equation.
What the book becomes is an account of popular or mass American religious
movements and not really a history of intimate or personal religiosity among
American populations, when it is clear that it is Lippy's intention to present a
history of individual American world views about religion. Even as a survey of
popular religious movements, I felt, at times, that Lippy's book duplicates Peter
Williams' 1980/1989 Popular Religion in America at least in terms of subject
matter, although he leaves out communities which Williams included such as
the Amish and Father Divine's International Peace Mission Movement.

I was particularly disappointed that a book so sympathetic to the significance
of religion in everyday life contained no illustrations of the religious material
culture discussed within its pages. This omission is a major oversight on the
part of the publishers. I still must applaud Lippy's zeal for this subject, his recognition of the importance of the study of religion as it is lived, and his meticulous
research which includes excellent endnotes, bibliography, as well as a detailed

book reviews577

index. This book is certainly a fine introduction for someone interested in "popular religiosity," while suggesting the need for new approaches to American religious history.
Leonard Norman Primiano

Cabrini College

Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England. By Elizabeth
Reis. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 1997. Pp. xxi, 212.
$32.50.)
In this interesting book, Elizabeth Reis argues that ordinary Puritans were as
much concerned about damnation as they were about sanctification. Extending
David D. Hall's emphasis on popular religious belief, Reis shows that our
overemphasis on Puritan elites has obscured appreciation of the powerful hold
that ideas about the Devil and demonic activity exerted on ordinary imaginations. In addition, she explores the reasons that women were more likely than
men to be damned both in their own eyes and in those of others. Extending backward the observation Barbara Leslie Epstein first made about the gendered nature of conversion in the second Great Awakening, Reis argues that
seventeenth-century New England Puritan women were more likely to think of
themselves as utterly depraved while men were more likely to focus on particular sins. Thus women were more likely to be accused of, confess to, and accuse
other women of the extreme sacrilege of witchcraft.
Preoccupation with actual, physical manifestations of demonic power de-

clined after the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, Reis argues, partly as a result of

ministerial warnings about the mischief resulting from imagined occurrences
of demonic possession. While eighteenth-century women were still more likely
than men to think of themselves in negative religious terms, they came to think
about the Devil in metaphorical terms. They were still more likely than men to
think of themselves negatively, but they also perceived themselves to be more
responsible for particular sins than earlier women and more capable of overcoming them.

In its attention to popular ideas about supernatural reality and their role in
constructing gender, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of American religious thought—and a timely one, given the resurgence of
supernatural beliefs today. Moreover, Reis's emphasis on the power of religious
belief is enlightening, as is her sldllful return to Puritan culture as a basis for understanding the historical development of American religious thought. But in

pushing Epstein's argument back into the seventeenth century, Reis overlooks

the degree to which men and women in Puritan culture were equally preoccupied by the inherently sinful nature of their souls. This oversight not only obscures understanding of the egalitarian implications of Puritan belief but also of

the antiegalitarian implications of Arminian interpretations of personal respon-

578BOOK REVIEWS

sibility, which undercut the morbidity of Calvinist psychology but also opened
the way for the idea that women and men had inherently different natures, with
women being emotional rather than rational and more concerned with relationships than with rules or truth.
Puritans may not have believed the human soul to be essentially female, as
Reis suggests, but rather that, with respect to God, all Christians should assume
a posture of wifelike affection and submissiveness. This belief enabled wives to
exemplify sanctity somewhat more easily than their husbands. It also raised expectations about women's virtue that many women could not meet. And it
never fully triumphed over medieval notions about the special corruptibility
and deficiencies of womanhood.
Amanda Porterfield

Indiana University—Purdue University at Indianapolis

American Women in Mission:A Social History ofTheir Thought and Practice.
By Dana L. Robert. [The Modern Mission Era, 1792-1992: An Appraisal.]

(Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. 1996. Pp. xxii, 444. $30.00 paperback.)

Historians and theologians have given short shrift to the role of women in
the missionary movement; much research remains to be done. This work by
Dana L. Robert, a professor in Boston University, begins to fill the gap. She bases
her study on three assumptions: that women participated in the creation of
American mission theories; that gender had an effect on those theories; and
"that mission theory includes motivations, goals, theological assumptions, and
reflections upon practical strategies that American women employed as they
participated in foreign mission."
The study moves from the wives of missionaries (American Board and Baptist
Convention), in the early nineteenth century, to unmarried women missionaries
(Methodist Episcopal Church) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (where she also includes evangelical missions), to the rather brief section
on Roman Catholic missions (Maryknoll Sisters).
In each section, Robert describes the social context, and grounds her examples in the chronology of the missionary movement as a whole. For example,
she demonstrates how the role of the missionary wife developed with an emphasis on service and usefulness, which led to lives of great self-sacrifice.
Women and children came to be the main recipients of this service, and teaching emerged as the main work. Through the use of case studies, the reader follows these developments in the lives of the early women missionaries.
As unmarried missionary women came to be accepted, albeit grudgingly,

around the 1860's, we see a turning point in mission history. The development
of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society led to expansion of women's role; in

BOOK REVIEWS579

addition to teaching, women began work in health care and evangelization. The
slogan became "Women's work for women," as their missionary movement became the "largest grass-roots movement of American Protestant women" in the
late nineteenth century (p. 188).
Robert makes pivotal in her work the Woman's Missionary Jubilee of 1910-

1 1 , celebrating fifty-one years of women's mission activity. It was an ecumenical

event, organized at the grassroots level to celebrate about forty missionary societies whose members were in the millions. Celebrations took place in fortyeight cities and many smaller localities. An event forgotten by historians, says
Robert.

The Roman Catholic Church labeled the United States itself mission territory
until 1 908, which is one reason for the relatively late development ofAmerican
Catholic women in mission. Needs at home took first priority. Also, Catholic
women had no access to the missionary life save through joining a religious
congregation of celibate women. The Maryknoll Sisters were the first American
congregation to devote themselves to missionary work. Robert does an effective job tracing the changes in mission theory in the United States after Vatican
Council II.

Robert brings to light American women in mission in an engaging and

provocative manner, while her stories of individuals make their point and ad-

vance the argument. Because the work covers an enormous amount of time and
discusses many individual women, it begs for an index. That aside, what Robert
has begun provides a rich field to inspire further research.
Ann M. Harrington, B.VM.

Loyola University Chicago

American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who BuiltAmerica's Most Power-

ful Church. By Charles R. Morris. (NewYork: Times Books, Division of Random House. 1997. Pp. xüi, 511. $27.50.)
American Catholic historiography has varied in method over the last thirty
years. Thomas McAvoy C.S.C., utilized a traditional hierarchical model; James

Hennesey, SJ. , paralleled Catholic and secular history in the United States, while

Jay P. Dolan opted for a social-history approach. In American Catholic Charles
Morris has successfully utilized recent scholarship and extensive oral history to
produce a highly contextualized work that combines the hierarchical and social
models in a description of the twentieth-century Church and its root influences.
This book, which is thoroughly readable, well researched and argued, insightful
and candid, is a tribute to the scholarship and industriousness of the author.
In Part I, "Rise," Morris describes the emergence of American Catholicism
from an immigrant Church to acceptance in American society. Using the dedi-

580book reviews

cation of St. Patrick's Cathedral as a background setting, Morris insightfully and
forcefully argues that the American Church in the twentieth century was created from the influence of the Irish Church of the nineteenth century. The Irish

potato blight and subsequent famine and diaspora brought a rigorist and militant brand of Irish Catholicism to the United States. Irish Catholics dominated

the priesthood and hierarchy, bringing stability and recognition, but Morris can-

didly states, in a description of the NewYork City draft riots (1863) that "making

all allowances, the Irish and their Church were racist, even by standards of the
time" (p. 78). Morris concludes that the American Catholic compromise was "a
peculiarly Irish-American one" (p. 109).

"Triumph," the monograph's second section, describes the Church's movement from the separatist ghetto of the 1920's to its heyday in the 1950's. Morris

demonstrates how American Catholicism grew to acceptance through its social
activists of the 1930's, powerful and triumphant bishops, illustrated by Cardinal

Dennis Dougherty of Philadelphia, and the Church's spectacularly positive pre-

sentation in popular motion pictures such as The Song of Bernadette and
Going My Way. The high time of the fifties was capped with the election of
John Kennedy to the Presidency in I960, an event which Morris describes as an
unmistakable signal that the old separatist ways were gone.

Morris shifts in Part III, "Crisis," from chronological narrative to descriptions

of various contemporary issues. He candidly describes "the dark valley" of clerical misconduct and the laity's rejection of Humanae Vitae. Through a compar-

ison of the dioceses of Lincoln and Saginaw, Morris outlines the variance in
theological vision in the American Church. Although generally positive on the
state of American Catholicism, he concludes that it is a mirror image of our so-

ciety: "If America has made an idol of choice, and enthroned process over substance, the Church devalues process, limits participation, and is suspicious of
pluralism" (p. 421).

Morris' excellent book contains a few inconsistencies and errors. Generally
American Catholic provides clear explanations of events, ideas, and terms not
widely known, such as a scapular and Eucharistie minister.Yet, Morris mentions

the slander that Francesco Satolli was the bastard son of Leo XIII without ex-

planation. The book contains a few errors in dates, including Dorothy Day's
meeting with Peter Maurin—late 1932, not early 1933, and Joseph McCarthy's
re-election campaign— 1952, not 1950.
American Catholic is an outstanding book that is a significant contribution
to the literature. This volume should be read by academics and all who seek a
better understanding of the Church in the twentieth century.
Richard Gribble, C. S. C.

Stonehill College
North Easton, Massachusetts

BOOK REVIEWS581

The Life and Times ofBishop Louis-Amadeus Rappe. By John F. Lyons. (The Author, 3175 West 165th Street, Cleveland, Ohio 44111. 1997. Pp. xii, 285.
$29.95.)
The Reverend John F. Lyons has published this "life and times" biography of
Louis-Amadeus Rappe, first bishop of Cleveland (1847-1870), appropriately

enough during the celebration of the bicentennial of the founding of the city of
Cleveland in 1796 and the sesquicentennial of the establishment of the Diocese

of Cleveland in 1847. The histories of both are closely intertwined. European
immigrant Catholics flocking to the jobs available in such rapidly industrializing
cities as Toledo and Cleveland simultaneously fueled the explosive growth of

the region and the Catholic Church itself. Recruited by Bishop John Baptist

Purcell of Cincinnati, Father Rappe journeyed from France in 1840 to become a
successful missionary on the northwest Ohio frontier, preaching both religion
and temperance. With grave misgivings, Rappe accepted Purcell's offer to become the bishop of the new Cleveland diocese, serving until he resigned in
1870, beset by charges of mismanagement and sexual misconduct. He then
went to Vermont, where he was again what he always wished to be, a missionary and temperance advocate, until his death in 1877.
Lyons dedicates his study to the late Reverend William A. Jürgens, H.E.D.,
whose extensive research and writing form a major part of the volume. Lyons
relies almost exclusively on diocesan archives in Cleveland, Baltimore, Norwood (Cincinnati), and Burlington (Vermont) and on archival material at the
University of Notre Dame and at the Propaganda Fide in Rome. There are fewer
than a dozen references to the secondary literature, little of it current and much
of it cited improperly. Since there is no bibliography (or index, for that matter),
the interested reader will have difficulty locating a particular secondary source.
Either ignoring or unaware of the significant scholarship on both the Rappe administration in particular and the American Catholic Church as a whole, Lyons
fails to place the events and personalities about whom he feels so deeply in any
effective historical or analytical context. He has thus written not an even-

handed "life and times" biography of Rappe but, rather, a legal brief in which he

pictures the bishop as a saintly man destroyed by lying, evil-minded enemies,
both lay and cleric. For Lyons, disagreements over such issues as nationality
parishes, placement of priests, or the language to be used in services and

taught in parochial schools are not legitimate differences of opinion over im-

portant issues but selfish, imagined grievances which produced conspiracies,
led by plotters (at first Germans but later and especially the Irish led by Father
Eugene M. O'Callaghan) inflamed by the foul spirit of nationality. Lyons rarely
acknowledges that Rappe himself was motivated by a spirit of French nationalism. On the other hand, Lyons stereotypes Rappe's opponents—the Germans
suffered from an inferiority complex and were "a touchy lot" who "could explode at any moment with little or no warning" (pp. 1 18- 1 19). Most of the Irish
were especially combative and untrustworthy and believed that only they were

582BOOK REVIEWS

good Catholics. Lyons fails to recognize that disagreement over nationality issues and clashes among bishops and aggrieved priests and lay men and women
were endemic in the Church in the United States at the time. In fact, they were
usually intertwined. Differences over ethnic issues rapidly escalated into battles
over authority almost everywhere in an American church struggling to establish its own identity in a democratic republic and to set up administrative structures adequate to solve the problems as well as take advantage of the benefits
which rapid growth, mostly based on European immigration, created. Lyons
does perform a useful service in uncovering some documents and letters hitherto lost, especially those dealing with sexual misconduct charges against
Rappe, which clarify some of the issues surrounding Rappe's resignation and
his opponents' motivations. But in the final analysis Rappe was brought down
not by apparently untrue charges of solicitation (Rome discounted them) or by
"conspiracies" led by selfish Germans and Irish but by his own administrative
ineptitude, a weakness which Rappe himself recognized throughout his life.
If Lyons fails to place Rappe in the historical framework of American Catholicism (for example, he provides no context for the growth of parochial schools
or the establishment of religious orders and charitable institutions), he also fails
to place him in the historical context of northern Ohio. Rappe's "times" consist
of a few pages of mostly one-sentence paragraphs listing unconnected events,
usually only in Cleveland. For example, on the same page (p. 181) Lyons tells us
that in 1870 there were about ten and one half miles of stone pavement in
Cleveland, cleaned four or five times a year by manual labor; that Francis H.
Glidden began mixing paints and varnishes; that the Little Sisters of the Poor
opened an asylum on Erie Street; and that an iron fence with a Gothic gateway
was built around Erie Street Cemetery at a cost of $8,296 and that almost all of
the lots had been sold as early as I860. Bishop Rappe deserves better treatment
by historians than this deeply flawed biography provides.
Henry B. Leonard

Kent State University (Emeritus)

Death's Deceiver: The Life ofJoseph P Machebeuf. By Lynn Bridgers. (Albu-

querque: University of New Mexico Press. 1997. Pp. viii, 268. $3995 clothbound; $21.95 paperback.)

A crippled, homely French missionary seems an unlikely hero for the American West. Yet, Father Machebeuf logged some 100,000 miles in New Mexico,
Colorado, Arizona, and Utah in a heroic effort to bring Catholicism to the American Southwest. Covering an area larger than France, he traveled in a wagon
which doubled as his home. The tailgate he lowered for use as an altar.
After being appointed Colorado Territory's first priest, and later the first
bishop, Machebeuf proved to be a prodigious builder. Like Rocky Mountain

book reviews583

mining, ranching, and railroad tycoons, he borrowed money to the hilt and suffered through bankruptcies, risking everything to acquire more resources for
the Diocese of Denver. He had the unshakable optimism that characterized the
great pioneers. "To be a true American," he wrote home to his family in France,
"one must have many debts, and in that regard I am the genuine article" (p. 57).
When Machebeuf came to Denver in I860, his parish (all Colorado and Utah)
had only two adobe mission churches. When he died in 1889, the Diocese of
Denver boasted 102 churches, nine schools, a college, an orphanage, and ten
hospitals.
Machebeuf's story has been told before, in a factual straightforward biography by Father William J. Howlett. Readers of Willa Cather's wonderful novel,
Death Comesfor theArchbishop, may remember that the Santa Fe Archbishop
Lamy's right-hand man was Father Joseph Valliant, a fictional but accurate
Machebeuf. Paul Horgan's classic, Lamy of Santa Fe, also gives much attention
to Machebeuf, Lamy's lifelong friend and closest associate.
Yet, this well-written fresh look at Machebeuf is enjoyable and edifying reading with updated research and a review of the controversy about Machebeuf.
Lynn Bridgers bases this book on her MA. thesis for the writing program at the
University of California at Berkeley. She opens with a description of Machebeuf's "heavenly smile that lit up his plain face—it illuminated the blue eyes, exuded peace and confidence" (p. 10).
Why canonize a man at the beginning of his career—or at the beginning of
his biography? The few known photos of Machebeuf show a dour old man, not
a smiling saint. And when he was exhumed for reburial, officials took a look at
his corpse to see if it was preserved—one sign of sainthood. It was not.
Bridgers forgives Machebeuf even his cranky attacks on women's suffrage.
She dismisses suggestions that Machebeuf was Lamy's lover and bigoted against
Hispanics. Here she provides a convincing reply to modern criticism of Machebeuf in the books of Fray Angélico Chavez.
Perhaps because Bridgers relies on dated and/or romanticized books for her
Colorado background, it is skimpier and less accurate than her coverage of her
native New Mexico. She confuses the founding dates for Auraria with that for
Denver. She calls the resort town of Manitou Springs a pioneer mining town
and grossly exaggerates the number of Indians slaughtered at the Sand Creek
Massacre. Nor does she provide the hard factual list of achievements that
Howlett did for Machebeuf's mighty labors in Colorado.
Generally, however, Bridgers excels at recreating the places and atmosphere
of Machebeuf's life. She is a gifted writer. She recreates well Machebeuf's childhood and education in France and his missionary work in the United States,
where Machebeuf found "everybody shows good will and has respect for the
priest. Protestants have more respect for us than one-half, I should rather say
three-fourths, of the Catholics in France" (p. 55).

584book reviews

Although French-Americans—south of Canada—are not organized to agitate
and push their ethnic agendas, this book is also a reminder of that substantial,
rarely discussed contribution. Lamy was one of a considerable army of French
missionaries to work in the United States.

Bridgers' title refers to Machebeuf's ability to survive. He swam ashore from a
midwinter shipwreck in the freezing waters of Lake Ontario, outmaneuvered
an Arizona murderer, looked down the rifle barrels of irate New Mexico

rancheros, confronted a pistol-packing priest, and lived to tell about a terrible
fall off a mountain road in Colorado (where Mt. Machebeuf was recently named
for him). A small, frail, sickly man, he survived attacks of typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and malaria. He harshly disciplined errant Hispanic and Irish-American
priests: Machebeuf called it "fighting the cats"; yet he emerged almost unscathed. On more than one occasion, newspapers reported he had been killed.

Father Lamy and his other friends often thought they would have to bury
Machebeuf, before dubbing him "trompe la mort."

This spirited, positive, fresh biography should keep Machebeuf alive longer

still.

Thomas J. Noel
University of Colorado at Denver

Thomas K. Beecher, Minister to a Changing America, 1824-1900. By Myra C.
Glenn. [Contributions to the Study of Religion, Number 47.] (Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 1996. Pp. xiv, 236. $59.95.)
Historians have generally accorded the Beecher family attention commensurate with their celebrity in nineteenth-century America, but such scrutiny
stopped short of a thorough consideration of patriarch Lyman's next-toyoungest son until now. That Thomas never garnered a fraction of the national
spotlight that illuminated the careers of siblings Catharine, Henry, and Harriet
may explain the slight, but Myra Glenn's richly layered biography serves notice
on what scholars have missed.

Glenn seeks to demonstrate that Thomas, if not the most prominent member
of the clan, "was certainly one of the most interesting" (p. xi), and her sources
are an embarrassment of riches. The pulpit, a newspaper column, the political
platform, and a thoroughly social nature supplied Thomas the means to become
a regular source of anxiety for the elder Beechers, as well as his parishioners.
Despite youthful doubts and an abiding interest in the physical side of life,
Thomas's ordination in 1851 answered his father's prayers and began a lifelong
career in the ministry. He would minister, however, on his own terms. His hierarchical, patriarchal understanding of the good society afforded Beecher little
personal peace in democratic America, but even in advanced age he never cow-

BOOK REVIEWS585

ered. His Christocentric gospel, tilted sharply toward order and stability, led him

to defend Southern slavery and to excoriate abolitionists, women's rights activists, and temperance leaders as the vanguards of chaos. Beecher's Congregational theology notwithstanding, he applauded the stability sustained by
Catholic ritual and hierarchy and in the 1850's even took the Church's point
that public schools should purge the curriculum of Protestant bias.

Beecher was anything but predictable, and Glenn does some of her best work

in iUuminating the irony and contradictions that punctuated his life. Disgruntled with temperance agitators early in his ministry, he later ran for local political office under the Prohibition Party banner. A frank apologist for Southern
slavery, Beecher established a long-term relationship with his solidly abolitionist Independent Congregational Church (renamed Park Church in 1871) in

Elmira, New York. A firm opponent of the women's rights movement, Beecher

maintained close relationships with his wife, sisters, and lifelong friend Ella WoIcott, all fiercely independent women with activist credentials. More remarkably,

he supported the ordination of Annis Eastman, his female successor at Park
Church.

Finally, while holding to a conservative line on several fronts, Beecher made
late nineteenth-century Park Church a model of socially conscious outreach,
sponsoring poor relief, day care, and a variety of educational and cultural programs. Such innovations are the basis of Glenn's claims that institutional
churches nationally, as well as the Social Gospel Movement, "owed much to
Beecher's pioneering efforts" (p. 160). If so, her claim for direct influence needs
more substantial support in the text.

While the progress of Beecher's ministry controls Glenn's narrative, she commendably integrates his undulating professional path with national transformations and a lively personal life that included two marriages and an on-going
struggle to keep his eccentric flights from eroding the family ties he cherished.
Most importantly, Glenn's work reveals the internal struggles that pressed conservative Protestants like Beecher toward both parochial and progressive responses to nineteenth-century democracy.

Mark Y. Hanley

Truman State University

Philip Schaff (1819-1893): Portrait of an Immigrant Theologian. By Gary K.
Pranger. [Swiss American Historical Society Publications, Vol. IL] (New

York: Peter Lang. 1997. Pp. 305. $45.95.).

Exactly one hundred years ago, Philip Schaffs son, David, published with
Charles Scribner's Sons the story of his father's life, in part autobiographical. In
526 large pages he presented a thoroughly complimentary yet complete pic-

586BOOK REVIEWS

ture of Philip Schaff along with perhaps still the most comprehensive bibliography of Philip's wide-ranging publications.
Since 1988, when the centennial celebration of the American Society of

Church History, founded by Philip Schaff, was held, a number of works have appeared to honor and interpret him. Prior to 1988 a host of dissertations across

the country studied Schaff from various viewpoints, perhaps the first of which

was Luther J. Binkley's "The Mercersburg Theology" at Harvard University in
1950. Soon thereafter Theodore L. Trost wrote his "Philip Schaffs Concept of
the Church" at New College, Edinburgh University in 1958. Others followed the
leaders—Shriver (Duke, 1961), Penzel (Union, 1962), Post (Michigan, 1966),
Meyer (Catholic University, 1968), Goliber (Kent State, 1976), Mitchell (Notre
Dame, 1978), Conser (Brown, 1981), Pranger (University of Illinois at Chicago,
1987), and Graham (Chicago, 1989).
During the centennial year my own brief celebratory biography of Schaff appeared along with Henry Bowden's edited volume, A Century of Church His-

tory: The Legacy of Philip Schaff. A few years later, Klaus Penzel's magnificent
Philip Schaff: Historian and Ambassador of the Universal Church—Selected
Writings (1991) was published. Stephen Graham's Cosmos in the Chaos came
out in 1995 as the most thorough exposition of Schaffs views of America and
religion in America. A sprinkling of articles also made their contribution to facts
about Schaff in relation to his personal life (his illegitimacy, the reason for his
leaving Chur early on, his friendship with Sarah Borthwick) as well as his contributions to academic freedom. Pranger's book is the latest contribution to
Schaffian scholarship.

An otherwise fine contribution, it is marred at two major points. First, Pranger
does not show a major awareness of Schaffian scholarship since 1987. Bowden's and Penzel's later volumes are not referred to at all, and Graham's book is

only listed in the bibliography. Though Pranger asserts that his book "is not

meant as an exhaustive biography," it should have shown more sensitive awareness of the last ten years of scholarship. Second, Pranger does bring some conservative baggage to his interpretation of Schaff which in my opinion leads to

some key misinterpretations. Pranger presents him as a conservative leaning

toward fundamentalism, especially in relation to modern biblical criticism,
whereas I would place Schaff just to the right of nineteenth-century evangelical
liberalism. This conservative bias colors a number of key interpretations. On
the other hand, Pranger shows a firsthand acquaintance with the manuscript
and letter collections in Lancaster and New York. He also correctly presents ecumenism at the heart of all that Schaff did as well as underscoring Schaff as a
bridge builder between European and American religious thinking. My value

judgment as to the essence of Schaff as presented in various sources, however,
is as follows: David Schaffs long work and my own brief work are best to pre-

sent the human Schaff; Klaus Penzel is superior in relation to the theological

Schaff; Henry Bowden describes in excellent fashion Schaff as an historian; and

Stephen Graham is unexcelled in writing about the American Schaff. It is, per-

BOOK REVIEWS587

haps appropriately, a constellation of works that presents the complete Philip
Schaff, Christian scholar and ecumenical prophet.
George H. Shrtver

Georgia Southern University, Statesboro

The Determined Doctor: The Story of Edward McGlynn. By Alfred Isacsson,

O.Carm. (Tarrytown, New York: Vestigium Press. 1996. Pp. Lx, 442.)

Of the thousands of clergy who ministered within the Catholic community in
the United States in the nineteenth century, perhaps none was more widely
known in his day than Edward McGlynn, the New York priest who from the
1870's to the 1890's through his preaching and reform activities inspired passions and controversy across country and sea. In the mid-1880's he was a feared
political influence among the working class in New York and beyond, a major

promoter of Henry George's reform program, an occasion for the sending of the

first permanent delegate from Rome to the United States, and a catalyst for Pope
Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum. Thousands turned out for his speeches on economic reform; scores of thousands marched in his support when Rome excommunicated him in 1887; and an estimated 45,000 viewed his body in New York

City in 1900. Given his significance, it is surprising that since Stephen Bell's
popular study of McGlynn in 1937, there has been no biography. Part of the

problem has been a lack of private sources. Friends of McGlynn's destroyed his
papers following his death; documents relating to McGlynn in the New York
Archdiocesan Archives were heavily filtered and generally made unavailable to
scholars during Cardinal Francis Spellman's administration and thereafter. One
of the strengths of Isacsson's work is its utilization for the first time of the McGlynn materials in both the Vatican Archives and those of Propaganda Fide.

Despite the subtitle, The Determined Doctor is not really a biography. Within
a biographical framework Isacsson concentrates on the decade-long ecclesiastical controversy revolving around McGlynn's support of Henry George's reform
proposals, McGlynn's consequent disciplining by local and Roman authorities,
and the protracted struggle to restore and vindicate the priest. Isacsson so as-

siduously follows this labyrinthine trail through diocesan and Vatican bureau-

cracies that the context, significance, and impact of the dispute tend to be
overwhelmed by the details. Elbridge Gerry, the author notes, supposedly kept
his yacht in readiness to sail during the height of "the McGlynn Affair" in 1887
should McGlynn's local superior, Archbishop Michael Corrigan, be forced to flee
from the wrath of the priest's supporters, but the tumultuous and divisive climate ("the furies turned loose," as one observer described it) that prompted
such a radical precaution is largely invisible. So too the reasons why McGlynn
became such a divisive figure and his condemnation such a priority for certain
church figures. What Isacsson does shed light on from his intensive scrutiny of

Vatican documents is Corrigan's long crusade, far predating 1886, to silence

588book reviews

McGlynn; Rome's compliance with that goal but its hesitancy to condemn McGlynn's teaching (he was excommunicated not for his heterodoxy but for failing to go to Rome); Ella Edes's Byzantine role as Corrigan's agent in shaping
Rome's response; and McGlynn's diminished political clout as an excommunicated priest.
In the end, the author argues that the entire "affair" could well have been
avoided had Corrigan simply dealt with McGlynn personally about the obscure

postelection newspaper interview in 1886 in which the priest gave renewed offense to the archbishop. But that, like the book itself, is to underappreciate the
larger dimensions of the "affair" which kept it alive within Catholic circles for so
long.

R. Emmett Curran

Georgetown University

Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania, 1925-1950. By Philip

Jenkins. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1997. Pp. xiii, 343.
$29.95.)

Historians are fond of saying that we need detailed studies of an issue or a
movement at the state level. Philip Jenkins has provided us with a first-class example of this genre with his well-researched study of right-wing extremism in
Pennsylvania from 1925 to 1950. Although the book discusses the full gamut of
extremism from the Ku Klux Klan to the German American Bund, this brief review will focus primarily on Chapter 7, which deals with the Coughlin movement. Jenkins discusses only the anti-Semitic phase of the Coughlin movement
which commenced in 1938 and led to the formation of the Christian Front in

1939. While New York City and Boston are well known as the principal strongholds of the Christian Front, Pennsylvania also had its share of militant Coughlinites centered, as one might expect, in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with their
large Irish Catholic populations. As the author aptly expresses it: "the Christian
Front was founded on traditions of Irish nationalism, anti-British feelings, and

absolute Catholic loyalty" (p. 166). Other important motivations were a hatred
of the federal government as represented by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal,
support of Franco, and isolationist beliefs so extreme that they were an embarrassment to the American Firsters.

Following the lead of their Royal Oak leader, the Pennsylvania Coughlinites of
this period were vehemently anti-Semitic. When Father Coughlin's inflamma-

tory broadcasts were banned by certain radio stations, the Coughlinites unleashed a bitter attack on Jews. Even the official Catholic newspaper of the
Altoona-Johnstown diocese carried an incendiary headline: "Jews Back Radio
Drive Against Coughlin." Fortunately, Pennsylvania was also the home state of
two well-known activist priests: Fathers Charles Owen Rice and James R. Cox.
In August, 1939, Father Rice delivered a radio broadcast in which he declared

BOOK REVIEWS589
that anti-Semitism was a mortal sin for Catholics. Father Cox attacked Father

Coughlin as "Hitler's Hatchet Man" in a fiery speech to a Pittsburgh Rotary Club.
Father Coughlin quickly retaliated by writing a letter to Bishop Hugh Boyle
purporting to show that Father Cox was "in the pay of the Jews" (p. 188). This
was to little avail as Boyle was openly critical of the "misled Catholics" who
came under Father Coughlin's influence.
Philadelphia had neither a Rice nor a Cox, only the ultra-conservative Dennis
Cardinal Dougherty, a great admirer of Mussolini and Franco. But on the issue of
anti-Semitism the Cardinal spoke out loud and clear. In a much-applauded pastoral letter of 1938 Dougherty wrote that any Catholic "who discriminates on
the basis of race, color, or nationality is not loyal to the Church, is a renegade to
the faith and a scandal to fellow members of the Church" (p. 189).
Fortunately, the Christian Front in Pennsylvania was a small, ineffective group
of disgruntled agitators who were never as serious a threat to the social order
as they and their detractors believed. After the wave of criticism created by the
arrest of seventeen Christian Fronters in Brooklyn in 1940 the movement
rapidly declined in numbers and in influence.
It is difficult to do justice to this provocative book in so short a review, but
Jenkins has given us a fascinating study of a quarter-century of right-wing extremism in the Keystone state.
Charles J. Tull

Indiana University South Bend (Emeritus)

Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father ofHate Radio. By Donald Warren.
(New York: The Free Press, Macmillan Publishing Co. 1996. Pp. ix, 376.
$27.50.)

No voice was more readily identifiable on the radio in the United States in the

1930's with the possible exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's than Father

Charles E. Coughlin's (1891-1979). It has been said that on a balmy Sunday afternoon one could walk down the streets of many an American city and never
miss a word of his weekly radio broadcast. This study by Donald Warren, professor of sociology in Oakland University, has as its goal to relate "the story of
hate radio, and its inventor, Charles Edward Coughlin."
Coughlin, a Canadian by birth, graduated from the University of St. Michael's
College in 191 1 . He joined the Congregation of St. Basil and was ordained to the

priesthood in 1916. The young cleric was assigned to teach at Assumption Col-

lege in Ontario and on weekends assisted at parishes in nearby Michigan. In
1923 he was incardinated into the Diocese of Detroit, where Bishop Michael J.
Gallagher, his close friend and defender, asked him to build a new parish in suburban Royal Oak, and name it in honor of the newly canonized St. Thérèse of
Lisieux, affectionately known as "the Little Flower." In an effort to raise funds for

590BOOK REVIEWS

this endeavor he negotiated his first radio broadcast which aired on WJR in Detroit on October 17, 1926.
Coughlin's program began as a series of sermons. After the crash of 1929, he
spoke to the frustrations of the people, attacking Bolshevism and becoming an
"authority" on communism and monetary issues. By 1930, the Columbia Broadcasting Sy-jtem picked up his program nationally. Short-wave carried his mellifluous voice to millions of listeners around the world on "The Golden Hour of
the Little Flower."

Initially Coughlin was an ardent supporter of Roosevelt, coining the slogan
"Roosevelt or Ruin!" After Roosevelt became president, however, he did not
look to Royal Oak for advice. Coughlin became disenchanted. In 1934 the priest
founded the National Union for Social Justice, and in 1936 established the
weekly newspaper SocialJustice. That same year he joined with the Protestant
evangelist and anti-Semite Gerald L. K. Smith and with Dr. Francis Townsend of
California to found the anti-Roosevelt Union Party. Coughlin's theatrics during
the campaign, ripping off his Roman collar and calling the President "Franklin
Double-Crossing Roosevelt" and a liar and a betrayer shocked Catholics and nonCatholics alike. Even the Vatican was disturbed with his activities and cautioned

Bishop Gallagher, who was supportive of Coughlin to the end.

The Union Party was roundly defeated in the Roosevelt landslide of 1936.
Coughlin had promised that if the party did not receive nine million votes he
would retire from the radio. He did—for about two months. After Bishop Gallagher's death on January 20, 1937, Coughlin returned to the radio claiming it
was his bishop's deathbed wish.
Edward Mooney was appointed the first archbishop of Detroit. Warren describes the relationship between Coughlin and Mooney as "a complicated,
behind-the-scenes ecclesiastical chess game." Rather than endure "censorship,"
Coughlin went off the air briefly, but Social Justice encouraged his friends to
deluge the Vatican with requests for his reinstatement. Coughlin won. Warren
claims that there was a fear among some church leaders that Coughlin would
leave the Catholic Church, causing a schism.
In 1938 Coughlin became radically anti-Semitic, finding the theological justification in the writings of the Irish theologian Father Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp. In
vitriolic radio speeches in November, 1938, Coughlin accused Jewish MarxistCommunists and Jewish international bankers of responsibility for war and depression. Coughlin's fascist leanings had been apparent early on in his support
of Mussolini and Franco. Even in 1942, with the United States at war with Germany, he defended Hitler as our "defense mechanism against communism."
This is the most complete portrait of Coughlin to date. Warren was fortunate
to have access to the Coughlin Papers in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Detroit, material not available until the late 1980's. His study sheds new light on

BOOK REVIEWS591

Coughlin's conflictual relationship with Mooney, and Mooney's correspondence with the Roosevelt administration as both made efforts to silence Coughlin in 1942.

This volume, while extensively researched, has many inaccuracies, e.g. , referring to the Summa Theologica as a papal encyclical (p. 11); naming Thomas
O'Brien, vice-presidential candidate of the Union Party, as a Congress[man]
rather than District Attorney of Boston (p. 88); identifying economist Gertrude
Coogan twice as "Cooper" (pp. 141-142); erroneous material on Father Denis
Fahey who did his theological studies in Rome rather than France, never belonged to the Action Française, and did not form the Maria Duce movement

until the 1940's (p. l6l);and a reference to Coughlin celebrating Mass on New
Year's Day in "rich purple vestments" (p. Lx), a color reserved to Advent, Lent,
and Ember Days. It is regrettable that this volume was not edited with more
care to correct these as well as typographical and other errors, and confusions
in documentary data.

Coughlin, a precursor of the televangelists, mixed religion and politics in an
incendiary way. Warren's goal of relating "the story of hate radio" is unfulfilled,
however, by his fleeting references to Falwell and Robertson, and efforts to provide a link to the Oklahoma City bombing in the light of Coughlin as "the inspirational leader" of the Christian Front. His claim to substantiate Coughlin's
connection to the Nazi regime, while fascinating, does not provide incontestable evidence.

The story of "hate radio" is larger than Coughlin. He was, however, a unique
catalyst. As Warren states: "He ushered in a revolution in American mass media
by his dramatic ability to blend religion, politics and entertainment in a power-

ful brew whose impact is still being felt decades later. . . ."

Mary Christine Äthans, B.V.M.

The Saint Paul Seminary School ofDivinity
of the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)

Fighter with a Heart: Writings of Charles Owen Rice, Pittsburgh Labor Priest.
Edited by Charles J. McCollester. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh

Press. 1996. Pp. xx, 244. $49.95 cloth; $19-95 paper.)

Fighter is a delightful collection from the writings of Monsignor Rice, Pittsburgh's premier social activist priest. (He was once best known as a "labor
priest," but has long since transcended that category.) McCollester's deft editing
of some sixty years of Rice's works, nicely appointed with telling photographs,
chronologies, and a brief introduction and transitions, allows Rice himself to
bring back to vivid life the nearly nine decades of his existence and many of the
causes with which he has been involved—even at a time when he is in his

592BOOK REVD2WS

ninetieth year and a doughty battler still. Those who are familiar with the social
history of Pittsburgh, or wish they were, will not find a more enjoyable way to
pursue their interest than with Fighter.
That said, there remain substantial differences of interpretation between the
portrait of Rice offered in this volume and the one in my biography, Charles
Owen Rice, Apostle of Contradiction (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press,
1989). McCollester, a close friend of Rice and his appointed literary executor,
says of that book that it "has the facts straight, but the analysis is weak" (p. 237).
I, on the other hand, believe that historians will need to take with a large grain
of salt McCollester's editorial efforts to depict a personal icon and hometown
hero.

McCollester's interpretation of Rice is relatively unambiguous: the pugnacious Irish lad who becomes a devoted Catholic priest with an abiding affection for the underdog and a willingness to enter the lists against an
ever-changing lineup of adversaries, perhaps going to a bit of (later regretted)
excess at times, but erring only on the side of the angels, a hero of American
labor history if ever there was one. Over six decades, McCollester's Rice speaks
with a coherent and unambiguous voice. That is, in fact, the version of Rice I
once set out to write, but along the way things became rather more complicated.

Fighters, I came to realize, have victims. In Rice's case this does not mean the
captains of industry or the conservative politicians who ultimately won most of
their battles and whom Rice merely managed to annoy along the way. It means
those he really defeated: rank-and-file members he got tossed out of their
unions, the Catholic daily communicant and official of CPUSA whom he apostrophized as a heretic, others whose reputations he ruined by using his clerical
status and his access to the mass media they could not match, and perhaps
other victims whose tales have never seen the light of day. Familiarizing myself
with the stories of his victims did not ultimately convince me that Rice, even
the Rice of many decades ago, was a scoundrel, but they did make it impossible
to recount his life as I had originally envisioned it or as McCollester and Rice
present it.
Two examples may suffice to illustrate these differences of interpretation.
McCollester tells us that Rice "collaborated with the House Un-American Activ-

ities Committee, which held a hearing in August 1949, on the eve of crucial
union elections in East Pittsburgh" (p. xvii). What he does not tell us is that it
was Rice who secretly approached a committee member rather than the other
way around, that Rice covered up his involvement in his writings at the time, or
that Rice's intervention with HUAC came after repeated failures to convince
union members democratically to vote out the leftists he opposed (Apostle of
Contradiction, pp. 124-125). Nor was this an isolated instance of back-door in-

triguing by Rice: his only major success against the left was in convincing or

helping to convince the pious Catholic Phil Murray to act unilaterally and
undemocratically in expelling the left from the CIO.

BOOK REVIEWS593

The other example comes from the mature Rice writing in 1990, "Battles I
have had aplenty, but in my adulthood they were never personal and, when I attacked people, it was over their actions or positions" (p. 230). Had he then not
reached adulthood when he said of UOPWA official James Durkin,". . . you may
have been reared a Catholic, but you no longer live up to your faith," or of another official, Bernard Mooney,"I do not know about Mooney and I do not care;
he is merely another Irish-monickered half-man . . ." (Apostle, pp. 100-101). Or
did he not regard these attacks as "personal"?
Fighter with a Heart is most satisfying when it presents Rice's clear-eyed and
ringing indictments of commonly held prejudices or misplaced patriotism: antiSemitism and racial prejudice as early as the 1930's (pp. 52-55), the war in Vietnam in the 1960's and 1970's (149 ff), or Desert Storm in 1991 (207-208).
It is least satisfying when, as is often the case, Rice is involved in polemics
with specific adversaries and we hear only his part of the conversation. This applies generally to his writings about the left in labor (pp. 59-123), but also to
smaller tiffs like one he had a with fellow priest, Andrew Greeley, in 1981 (pp.
213-214). Greeley, for whom Rice is no intellectual match, had just slit Rice's
throat with a stiletto; here the reader is privy only to the ensuing squawking.
There are other important aspects of Rice's life that do not show up very
much in this collection, and understandably so because he did not write much
about them: his many years of visiting inmates in prisons, his work on corrections panels, his efforts as an arbitrator in labor-management disputes. We
should remind ourselves that Rice's life work is greater than the sum total of his
writings.

The historian will want to be aware that Charles Owen Rice has been keenly
attentive to his "public image" since well before that term came into common
usage. Larry Sullivan, a staff member at St. Joseph's House of Hospitality, suggested that the prime purpose of that institution was to publicize Rice's name
and that a testimonial dinner at the Syria Mosque honoring Rice for his accomplishments nearly had to be sponsored by the young priest himself (Apostle, p.
57). Over the years a long parade of journalists and researchers have presented
themselves to Rice, who has willingly and sometimes with wry self-deprecation
told them the story of his life pretty much as he wanted it told.
My own experiences as his first-published biographer ran parallel to this history. Rice was most accommodating with interviews and access to his writings,
but troubles arose in the matter of interpretation. When I had finished a draft of
the book, I submitted it to him for his corrections and comments. He returned

quite a few, and the ones I agreed with, I inserted into the draft and forwarded
it to Duquesne University Press. Thereupon Rice, without my knowledge or
permission, obtained the latest draft from the Press and presented me with an
additional set of demands for further changes. Publication went forward only
after we had compromised our differences.

594BOOK REVIEWS

Suzanne Rini is a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer who was working on another book about Rice at the same time I was. Her manuscript focused exclusively on his role in expelling the left from the labor movement, and in her
portrait Rice was a scoundrel. She has complained to me that Rice intervened
to forestall her attempts to find a publisher. To my knowledge, her work remains
unpublished today.
Now McCollester's effort, the friendliest one so far, has emerged with a long
list of financial contributors to the publication project. Thus scholarship on
Rice's life seems to have succeeded in proportion as it tells the story in terms
flattering to its subject. Television viewers may be reminded of the plight of the
show "Nothing Sacred," which has created a firestorm of criticism from the
Catholic hierarchy and some laity, by depicting life in an American Catholic
parish in ways that are sometimes irreverent and unflattering. In biography,
there will always be a tension between the search for heroes and the quest for
accuracy.

Where does scholarship on the life of Charles Owen Rice go from here?
Deeper, I hope. None of us who has attempted so far to tell the story of Rice's
life has been a professional historian (McCollester was trained as a philosopher,
I as a political scientist). But Rice's importance to the history of his time and
place merits the attentions of such a professional. I hope he receives them.
Patrick J. McGeever

Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis

Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley 1927-1961. By James T Fisher.

(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 1997. Pp. xi, 304. $25.95.)

Thomas Anthony Dooley, III, interrupted studies at the University of Notre
Dame to serve briefly as a Navy hospital corpsman and in 1953 graduated in
medicine at Saint Louis University. After internship in Navy hospitals and "special duty" in southeast Asia, ostensibly to collect epidemiologic data, he resigned
from the Navy in March, 1956, to avoid court martial for buggery. Immediately
transfigured into a "Jungle Doctor," he was carefully packaged as ? celebrity
hook into the Irish Catholic subculture. This book tells little about his medical

practice, which approximated that of the medics who did the work during the
five years when Dooley wrote three best-selling books, toured the United States
to raise money, collected honorary degrees from Holy Cross and Notre Dame,
and relaxed in homosexual purlieux from Bangkok to Manhattan. This jungle
surgeon confined himself to emergency circumcisions although acute balanoposthitis has, at least since the Civil War, been treated by a simple incision
through the dorsal foreskin and, anyhow, Asians typically have short foreskins.

BOOK REVIEWS595

What little medical assistance he founded did not survive his well-publicized
death from melanoma.

The author misses an essential point: Dooley's flaw was not his tedious ho-

mosexual promiscuity. His lying, egocentricity, manipulativeness, and lack of
close human relationships document a profound psychopathic character disorder. Charming, pretty, and sexually available, he simply had no sense of right and
wrong. Psychological rationalization of unacceptable behavior not very uncommonly assumes a super-righteous, sometimes super-patriotic, facade that
can end in fantasy. Dooley's fair-haired status among parochial sectarians protected him from the less forgiving conservative Protestant establishment that he
so much resented. Morally rootless, Dooley served a bizarre confederacy ranging from the messianic liberal left through public relations firms and the
Vietnam lobby to Cardinal Spellman, all eager to involve the United States in
Southeast Asia. He gladly proved useful to Diem's handlers. His stateside public
persona— "Blessed Thomas of Laos" —precluded control and his role in getting

at least Irish Catholics (and, therefore, Democrats) to support the American dis-

aster in Vietnam remains murky. He certainly helped to focus Catholic hatred on
Asian communists, but the State Department and CIA loathed and mistrusted
him.

The author hints at but does not document some vast gay network involving
the Pentagon, the CIA, and the Catholic Church; nudges and winks are not
scholarship. Balance required more attention to what other superpatriots contributed to anticommunist hatred, and why. This book required tighter editing
than it got, and it is not clear what it set out to be: it is not satisfactory political
history; it certainly is not medical history and it cannot be dismissed merely as
gay history. Cesaropapism proved no blessing!
William D. Sharpe, M.D.

South Orange, NewJersey

Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times ofDaniel and Philip
Berrigan. By Murray Polner and Jim O'Grady. (New York: Basic Books.
1997. Pp. xiv, 434. $30.00.)
Journalists Murray Polner and Jim O'Grady have written a comprehensive
joint biography of twentieth-century America's most celebrated and controversial radical priests. Darnel and Philip Berrigan were born in rural Minnesota in
1921 and 1923, respectively, the fifth and sixth (and youngest) sons of the devoutly Catholic Freda and Thomas Berrigan. They grew up in a rented farm-

house near Syracuse, NewYork, that lacked indoor plumbing or central heating.
Polner and O'Grady depict their father as a frustrated poet and quixotic Irish
romantic who, despite being a staunch union man, impulsively traveled from
Syracuse to New York City "for the purpose of personally breaking the 1949

596book reviews

Catholic gravediggers' strike" (p. 43). By then his son Daniel had been a
member of the Society of Jesus for a decade (in an otherwise historically wellinformed account, the authors mistakenly give 1591 as the year of the order's
founding). Philip Berrigan entered the Josephite order after graduating from the
College of the Holy Cross in 1950.
Polner and O'Grady show how the brothers Berrigan were only tentatively
radicalized during the first decade of their priesthoods: Daniel discovered the
French priest-workers during his tertianship year at a seminary near Lyons but
remained a conventionally ambitious priest-poet through the 1950's; Philip
witnessed the effects of racism firsthand while teaching in New Orleans and

was jarred by the Cuban Missile Crisis, because "other people were deciding
whether I would live or die. I felt betrayed, and not just about the urban crisis

but for all that was behind the threat" (p. 104). The Berrigans began questioning
America's growing involvement in Southeast Asia in the early 1960's, just as Dan

Berrigan began a rich friendship with Thomas Merton. The renowned Trappist
predicted that both brothers "will do much for the Church in America" but "will
have to pay for every step forward with their blood" (p. 106).

Daniel Berrigan was exiled to Latin America by his superiors in 1965 for disobeying Francis Cardinal Spellman's demand that he refrain from comment on

the suicide of Roger LaPorte, a former student of Berrigan's who set himself
afire outside the United Nations building "as a religious action" (p. 125) against
the war in Vietnam. Polner and O'Grady provide a vividly detailed treatment of
the increasingly radical acts committed by the Berrigans after Daniel's return to

NewYork in 1966. They reveal that a trademark Berrigan tactic was devised in

1967 after Philip Berrigan expressed his desire to blow up the U.S. Customs
House in Baltimore, where draft records were kept, only to be warned by a sympathetic attorney to "do something less serious, like pouring blood, or honey, or

red paint on the locks" (p. 174) of the office.

While the authors' accounts of the various raids on draft boards, trials, flights
from captivity (Daniel's), and jail terms of the Berrigans may be familiar mater-

ial to many readers, Disarmed and Dangerous reaffirms the undeniable con-

stancy of their witness against war and dehumanization, while offering insights
into the complementary natures of the two men. Daniel Berrigan's identity as a
freelance yet loyal Jesuit is contrasted with Philip's stubborn antinomianism,
tempered only by his commitment to the family he began in 1973 after marrying the former nun and activist colleague Elizabeth McAlister. Although they
clearly admire the Berrigans, especially Daniel, the authors provide a nuanced
and credible portrait of these complex, driven men.
James T. Fisher
Saint Louis University

BOOK REVIEWS597

Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities.

By Ann Carey. (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Press. 1996. Pp.
367. $19.95.)

Sisters in Crisis has already evoked strong responses from various points of
view. It was predictably unacceptable to the Leadership Conference ofWomen
Religious (LCWR), which issued a press release and circulated a critique among
its members. Yet many of the book's numerous footnotes refer to the LCWR
records. As in so much contemporary Catholic controversy, the argument is not
about facts. It represents a profound difference of opinion about what constitutes good news.
Ann Carey's convictions are shared by many American Catholics: that the
widespread transfer of the services of Sisters out of education and health care
is unfortunate for the Church and society; that religious congregations should
be unconditionally obedient to the Holy See and the New Code of Canon Law;
that the drastic decline in religious vocations is at least partly due to the secularization of religious life, and that much of its leadership is in denial of this
clear reality.
The leadership and much of the membership of the groups involved operate
from very different convictions: that concern for the survival of religious congregations should not preoccupy their leaders; that the diversification of services which has replaced the traditional commitment of most to education and
health care represents a growth and development, not loss of direction; that
what Sisters share is a "contemplative attitude toward life that demands a constant réévaluation of work and lifestyle to adapt to the needs of the times."1
The debate is not really about what is in religious life but about what should
be. Ann Carey believes that present practice falls short of what should be. The
LCWR appears to equate what should be with what is. Ann Carey, however,
does agree that some changes made since the Council were long overdue, and
no doubt the LCWR sees room for improvement.
No one knows how many members of the LCWR communities actually agree
with its strongly feminist and egalitarian positions, nor how many lay people
see the present condition of Sisters as Ann Carey does.
In defense of some of the measures taken to change the structures and mys-

tique of religious life, one can say that those who took them were genuine crusaders, convinced that they were saving women from a degrading slavery to
masculine authority. On the other hand, we do not know how many so rescued
wanted this kind of deliverance. The often uncanonical autocracy of our past

prepared a membership disposed to docility regardless of their personal pref-

erences or even at times of their personal convictions. Perhaps there is still
' Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Press Release: "LCWR" sees "Sisters in
Service" not "Sisters in Crisis":April 16, 1997.

598BOOK REVIEWS

"blind obedience." Some see the widely used consensual process as more oppres-

sive than the structures of the past, without the canonical safeguards. Though
the pressures are more subtle, they may not be less effective.

Mrs. Carey's account is largely limited to the American scene. She is not writing about religious life abroad and the International Union of Superiors General
is not mentioned. But in fact some groups heavily represented in the United

States were affected by the slower and sometimes more considered rate of
change preferred in other cultures. On the other hand the generally more articulate and aggressive American delegates often had a disproportionate influence
in the chapters of international communities.

This reviewer has two convictions about the phenomenon described in this
book—that the LCWR leaders, some of them personally known to her, were and

are sincere in their choice of objectives and that, on some occasions, they have
made tragic mistakes.

Joan Bland, S.N.D.

Education for Parish Service Foundation
Trinity College, Washington, DC.

Canadian

Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640-1665- By Patricia Simpson.

[McGill-Queens Studies in the History of Religion, Series 2.] (Montreal:

McGill-Queen's University Press. 1997. Pp. xxvi, 247. $49.95 cloth; $19.95
paper.)

Patricia Simpson begins this first of a projected two-volume biography of

Marguerite Bourgeoys by describing the restoration, some thirty years ago, of a

portrait painted at the time of the latter's death in 1700. Simpson understands

her own task as analogous to the restorer's: to permit the life of this educator,
founder of North America's first uncloistered religious congregation, and cofounder of a city to be viewed without the accretions which centuries of devo-

tion have added. To that task Simpson brings the fruit of considerable archival
and archaeological research, in particular that of Alfred Morin and Sister Mary
Eileen Scott. She also brings concerns which did not occupy earlier biogra-

phers, notably the way in which Marguerite and other ordinary women lived

and related to one another and to men in society and in the Church. Not only is
she meticulous in her use of sources (J would quibble only with her assertion

that Bishop de S.-Vallier's 1694 Constitutions attempted to impose "solemn

vows" on the Congregation), but she displays what Margaret Miles has termed a
"hermeneutic of generosity"toward such earlier commentators as Marie Morin,
whose annals of the Montreal Hotel-Dieu are mined for their insight into the
daily lives of Ville-Marie's women, in spite of numerous factual inaccuracies.

BOOK REVIEWS599

When possible, she allows Marguerite Bourgeoys' own voice to emerge, forming each chapter around an initial quotation from her often fragmentary writings and providing context for numerous other citations sprinkled liberally
throughout the text.
More than half this work serves as preface to its presentation of the period

with which it is most concerned, the years from 1653, when Marguerite and the
"hundred men" landed in Ville-Marie, to 1665, when Ville-Marie's first governor,
Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, departed. The description of Marguerite's
early life in Troyes (1620-1653) includes the educational training she received

from Pierre Fourier's Congrégation de Notre-Dame and her efforts to find a
communal expression of religious life. In Simpson's discussion of the French Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal and the precarious first eleven years of VilleMarie's existence, she shows herself aware of revisionist histories but chooses
to give full weight to the founders' stated intention: to recreate the primitive
Christian community in the New World. In her view, economic motivations

came to the fore only afterwards; "[t] he Montreal that evolved after 1665 was

not the settlement of which its founders had dreamed" (p. 10).

The final three chapters recount Marguerite's voyage to Ville-Marie, her numerous involvements in its life, especially establishing its first school, and the
beginnings of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame of Montreal. Her friendships
with Maisonneuve, Jeanne Manee, and Marie Morin, and her involvement with
native Americans and with thefilles du roi receive particular attention. For the
most part, Simpson allows the events she narrates to speak for themselves, but
with regard to this latter group, whose counterparts in Quebec had accidentally
set fire to their lodgings several times, she cannot forgo surmising: "Marguerite
presumably initiated them into the innumerable skills necessary to the mistress
of a pioneer household, not least among them that of warming a house without

burning it down" (p. 167). The woman whose portrait emerges from these

pages is a compassionate educator, skilled at organization, practical and able to
collaborate with people of every social stratum. In response to the needs she
saw, she undertook work ordinarily considered demeaning, but "without com-

promising her dignity as a person and as a woman" (p. 100). In the end Simp-

son is as convinced as Marguerite's original biographers that she is a saint, but
one whose sanctity rests on a spirituality of involvement with, rather than withdrawal from, society.

Readers unfamiliar with the history of New France may be somewhat daunted
by the great wealth of detail; others might wish Simpson's own voice to emerge
more clearly, offering further analysis of the role played by gender and class, for
example. But simply by making so many facets of this remarkable woman's life
accessible to an English-speaking audience, she has performed an invaluable
service to anyone concerned with the history and theology of religious life for
women, the evolution of educational practice, or early Canadian history.
Mary Anne Foley

University ofScranton

600BOOK REVIEWS
Latin American

From Viracoca to the Virgin of Copacabana: Represenation of the Sacred at

Lake Titicaca. By Verónica Salles-Reese. (Austin: University of Texas Press.
1997. Pp. xi, 208. $30.00 clothbound; $13.95 paperback.)

Right from the start, the author states in rather heavy, burdensome prose that
her aim is to write the "history of the discourse of the representation of the sacred in the region of Lake Titicaca by focusing on narratives which relate this
geographical space to a transcendent or divine order" (p. 1). She studies "the
representation of the sacred" in the Kolla, the Inca, and the Christian eras to
show that "the discourse of the sacred from the different cultures of the region
is a sustained discourse of appropriation and recontextualization that corresponds to changes in the nature of culturally hegemonic structures over time"
(p. 2). In short, she is writing the story of how a native-made, painted wooden
sculpture of a Virgin (of Copacabana) came to be linked with a pre-Christian religious tradition and accepted as a miraculous mediator by the peoples who
came from far and near.

Using myths as partial visions of the history of the Andean world, she begins
her chronological vision with the Kolla and their narratives which suggest that
Tici Viracocha intervened in a chaotic world to establish a natural order. In a

later era amidst a growing political chaos, the Kolla invite the Inca to Titicaca.
There, the Inca appropriates the place as a site to worship the sun, and, not so
incidentally perhaps, as a strategic location from which to exert political control on their southern neighbors. For a second time, barbarism, warfare, and social and political instability are vanquished; this time, a political stability and
order under the Inca replaced chaos. In the process, the Incas knowingly claim
the area as their place of origin. In so doing, they recuperate their past and justify their conquest, while the local peoples deify them as the progeny of the
sun. In the third era or cycle, the Christians appear to impose a moral order on
a society condemned by the practice of polygamy, incest, and human sacrifice.
Ancient myths are appropriated, interpreted, and recontextualized within a
Christian frame of reference. In the process, the Virgin of Copacabana becomes
the most recent hierophany in the sacred history of the Lake. The Virgin's
promise of miracles, divine mercy, and protection impressed the natives and facilitated the Virgin's acceptance as the successor to the Sun.
If, in fact, the argument is clear, the telling of the story is flawed. One problem is a near-universal one that is beyond the author's cultural control. This first
has to do with describing a non-western culture using a western language.
Westerners distinguish between the sacred and the profane, and tend to neatly
categorize phenomena in one pigeon-hole or another. Although the author recognizes that the boundary between the categories is often blurred, she does not
emphasize enough that the distinction seems unimportant from a pre-1532 Andean perspective.

BOOK REVIEWS601

The other flaws are evidence of sloppy scholarship. The encomienda, for example, was not a land grant; it was a grant of labor and tribute. Therefore, her
statement about "partitioning of land into encomiendas" is nonsensical and

wrong (see pp. 132 and footnote 85 on p. 190). The sentence should have been
written as "partitioning of people into encomiendas." In other places, she quali-

fies a 1910 study as evidence of what is practiced by the Aymara people "today"
(p. 12) and omits a page number reference from Cristóbal Albornoz on yIlapas
(pp. 57 and 185).
Finally, she limits her audience to only specialists in the field by her extensive
use of unexplained jargon. Such words as hierophany, theophany (pp. 10 and
80), thaumaturgical (p. 22), and kratophany (pp. 10 and 29) (which neither I
nor a reference librarian could find in unabridged English dictionaries or any
other published source in the library at hand) take the book out of the undergraduate, even advanced undergraduate, market.
Susan E. Ramírez

DePaul University

Contradiction and Conflict: The Popular Church in Nicaragua. By Debra
Sabia. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. 1997. Pp. xi, 239. $34.95.)
In July, 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de
Liberación Nacional, FSLN) led a multi-class coalition in toppling the dictatorship of the Somoza family in Nicaragua. The hierarchy gave qualified support
for armed struggle during the insurrection to an unprecedented degree, and by
the 1980's Nicaragua also represented the greatest church polarization in Latin
America over the desirability and moral legitimacy of violent political change,
class struggle, and socialism.
Debra Sabia's study is "an attempt to understand the rise, growth, and fragmentation of the popular church in Nicaragua" (p. 2) that is a clearly written
treatment of grassroots Catholic groups before, during, and after FSLN rule
(1979-1990). Background chapters discuss the impact of Vatican Council II,
pastoral innovation, and the spread of Christian base communities (comunidades eclesiales de base, CEBs). The author then explains the splits in the
popular church and offers a typology of Catholics that comprised it. These
types include Marxists,"Revolutionary,Reformist and Alienated Christians." The
basic distinctions among them pertain to religious beliefs and practices, the degree of ties to the institutional church, and views on the desirability and means

of social change. The first group came to reject Catholicism completely, and was

most committed to socialism, class conflict, and the use of violence to bring
about radical change (pp. 111-114). Revolutionary Christians had greater ambivalence about violence and close association with the FSLN (pp. 132-137).

602BOOK REVIEWS

Reformists were equally interested with the Church's option for the poor, but

were less ideological and turned against the FSLN after 1980-1983 (pp. 148-

154). Finally, Alienated Christians who once supported Catholic social change

movements turned toward individualistic religion, be it Charismatic Catholicism, or conversion to Protestantism.

Sabia's contributions are demonstrating how the extent of leftism in the
Nicaraguan Catholic Church was overstated in the 1980's, and through ethnographic research, describing "the variegated nature of the progressive Christian
sector in Nicaragua" (p. 1 1). The life histories of CEB participants destroy any
notion of a monolithic, pro-FSLN, and radically violent grassroots church. In
their own words lay persons describe the evolution of their faith, and how the
insurrection against Somoza, Church-FSLN conflict, the Contra War, and later de-

velopments shaped it. Poverty, female-headed households, and a majority of the

population that came of age after 1980 constitute major drains on the membership of the CEBs. Increasingly there is renewed value for many in the grassroots
church in Catholic liturgy and recognition by church authorities (and the legitimacy and resources that go with it). Another strength of the book is the linking
by the author of the four types and their potential patterns of political participation.

There are some basic flaws to Sabia's research. First, her sample is limited to

three Managua communities, San Judas, San Pablo, and Adolfo Reyes. The author
claims that her CEBs are not representative of the "larger Christian sector" (pp.
8; 10), and yet she makes generalizations that her research does not allow. Previous studies of CEBs throughout Nicaragua by Gregory Smutko, François
Houtart, Genevieve Lemercenier, Rosa Maria Pochet, Michael Dodson, and Eric
Canin provide material for fruitful comparisons that were not made. Therefore,
Sabia's book cannot assess the dynamics of CEBs in rural areas versus Managua,
or in dioceses where CEBs did maintain support of bishops, contrary to what
happened in the archdiocese. Second, Sabia gives a view of priests, bishops, and
business elites as"traditional,""conservative,"and monolithic. This is empirically
wrong—their response to the FSLN depended on the place, time, and genera-

tion (see Rose Spalding, Capitalists and Revolution in Nicaragua, 1994). Sabia

is correct in noting the preference of many elites for non-violent reform over
socialist revolution; however, there needs to be a greater recognition of the heterogeneity among them and how their views evolved in response to personal
experiences and changing contexts (much as occurred with her informants).
The popular church cannot be understood absent its symbiotic relationship to
clergy at the parish, diocesan, and national levels. Third, the differences in reli-

gious beliefs and practices among CEB members were insufficiently probed.

Canin's dissertation on the Nicarao and 14 de junio CEBs in Managua (Between
Religion and Revolution, 1993) and Houtart and Lemercenier's 1989 attitudinal survey of CEBs in eight regions were researched almost simultaneously with
Sabia's book, and give close attention to the socio-cultural and religious views
of the poor. Canin shows (based on participant observation in two commu-

BOOK REVIEWS603

nities and an opinion survey of fifteen different Managua CEBs) how revolutionary Christians tried to reinterpret traditional images of the Virgin Mary, martyrdom of FSLN heroes, and popular religious celebrations such as the Purísima,
or the patron saint festival of Santo Domingo. Sabia might have considered at
greater length the goals of pastoral agents such as the Dominican, Franciscan,
and Jesuit priests, or nuns she interviewed, and how their attempt to transform
religious and political culture was received by CEB members. Sabia's and
Canin's studies suggest that popular religious culture is not highly malleable.
Contradiction and Conflict deserves careful reading regardless of its limitations. The closing discussion on how much the weakening of the popular
church was caused by too little "critical distance" from the FSLN or opposition
by the institutional church is insightful. The legacy of CEB activism in Nicaragua
for the emergence of a democratic political culture among the poor needs to be
examined further, and has implications for the remnants of the popular church
in El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, and throughout Latin America.
Andrew J. Stein
Tennessee Technological University
Cookeville

Australian

Thomas CamArchbishop ofMelbourne. By T. R Boland. (St. Lucia: University of

Queensland Press. 1997. Pp. vii, 495. $39.95.)

Thomas Carr was remembered for the completion of Melbourne's impressive
St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1897 but for little else before this impressive biography by the prize-winning author offames Duhig appeared. Boland's expert use
of Carr's diaries and personal papers breathes unexpected life into the portly
figure whose portrait hangs dimly in a cathedral sacristy.
Unlike many of his colleagues, Carr (1839-1917) was not born into the austerities, defeatism,, and nationalist resentments of the Irish tenant-farming culture. In his family there were twelve mouths to feed but his father, a Galway
landlord, ensured that the table was always well-laid. From boyhood he developed a love of horse-riding, hunting, tennis, cricket, and nude swimming. Carr's
scholastic ability and social connections led to his appointment as canon law
lecturer at Maynooth, where he also helped to revive the Irish Ecclesiastical
Record. To mark his consecration as Bishop of Galway in 1883, he treated 126
of his establishment friends to turtle soup, Kromeskies à la Russe, York Hams,
and 117 bottles of champagne.
In 1887, a somewhat reluctant Carr was translated to Melbourne, where he

would remain for thirty years. Ruddy, social, smiling, genial, he was already well

604book reviews

on his way to reaching 300 pounds. However, early predictions that Sydney's
steely Cardinal Moran would be the 'head' side of the Australian church while
Melbourne's Carr would provide the soft, motherly 'heart' proved to be unfounded. In fact, Carr did not think very highly of Moran's administrative ability.
Several times he blocked Moran's premature attempts to carve up the Australian interior into uneconomic dioceses. Even more problematic for Carr was
Moran's lack of discretion and tact in addressing public issues.
Carr's careful management of finance was necessary in his rapidly expand-

ing archdiocese. Despite the depression of the 1890's, he was able to leave be-

hind an architectural heritage of dignity and devotion. His new electrically-lit
churches began to fill with more educated, sober, and socially integrated congregations. Education was Carr's special interest, especially for orphans and the
industrial poor. Visits to NewYork's Catholic Protectory and the Sisters of Char-

ity Foundling Hospital in 1899 provided him with ideas for buildings and pro-

grams. On the parish level, schools and Sunday schools, devotional and self-help
confraternities were vigorously promoted, but the real test of Victorian respectability was temperance. By 1910, 80,000 of Carr's adult Catholics had taken the
pledge. Carr's priests understood his policies and for the most part supported
them. At his Golden Jubilee celebrations, Monsignor O'Hea quipped goodnaturedly: "If you retire me, Carr, I shall open a hotel in the middle of the
parish!"
Some mistook Carr's practiced neutrality for weakness, but he was not always silent on controversial issues. Penned in a bolthole above the Cathedral
sacristies, his Lectures and Replies (1907) remain a pioneering classic of Australian Catholic apologetics.
Carr's gentlemanly influence on Australian life was threatened with the arrival of his co-adjutor, Daniel Mannix, in 1 9 1 3 . Carr had built community bridges
which the gaunt and direct Mannix now seemed determined to undermine
in his crusade for Catholic rights. Boland accuses Mannix of playing to the
gallery at the expense of the cause. Sadly, Carr would live to see Melbourne society again divide along religious and nationalist lines.
Boland's scholarship is impressive. His fluent style captures the geniality and

grace of his subject. His 495 pages provide a wealth of information aboulfin-de-

siècle Catholicism. However, his tilting at the Mannix myth on which so much
of current Australian Catholic identity is still based is bound to anger the old
guard. It is to be hoped that the reaction will not be so strong as to return Carr
to his former undeserved obscurity.
Neil J. Byrne

Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, Brisbane

BOOK REVIEWS605

Sacred Threads: Catholic Spirituality in Australia 1922-1962. By Katherine
Massam. (Sydney: UNSW Press. Distributed in the United States by Interna-

tional Specialized Book Services, Inc., Portland, Oregon. 1996. Pp. x, 295.
$34.95 paperback.)

There are a few relevant remarks that need to be made about the title of this

book. Its analysis of Catholic spirituality is, in large measure, the spirituality of
women. The examination is confined almost exclusively to Western Australia

and South Australia, meaning in effect Perth and Adelaide. Why 1922 was
chosen as a starting point is unclear, but 1962 marks the beginning of Vatican

Council II. Sometime in the future, although a beginning could be made now, a
scholar will examine Catholic spirituality before and after the Council. The results, I suggest, will be startling for the very reason that the devotional and public expression of Christianity used in this analysis has largely vanished.
Dr. Massam discovered "a helpful grid" which made it easier to pose "contrasting alternatives" of spirituality. It stems from Jung, Durkheim, and Weber
and argues that there is" 'masculine/animus' and 'feminine/ anima', or 'left-brain
instrumental' and 'right-brain feminine' or 'inward' and 'outward' tendencies in
all human experience . . ." (p. T). This may be another way of saying that the
spirituality of the female differs from that of the male, which could be a useful
device in explaining how spirituality is expressed, provided stereotyping is
avoided. The author, in the main, has attempted to steer clear of that pitfall.
There is an example of a fall on page 183 when a bride is said to be "almost" completely absent from a groom's account of his wedding. It begins,"My
bride and I were married at 9 o'clock in the morning. When we were man and
wife ..." One hopes the unfortunate man was not chastised for his omission by
the bride!

"Religion in Australia was often labelled 'women's work,' and justifiably so,"
and " 'Women were the backbone' of the Church" (pp. 22 and 23) are two early
statements with which there can be little argument. For that reason this is an
important work, but its analysis does not help the reader decide whether the
overall spiritual life of the Church reflected a true imbalance. The forms of spirituality were largely put forward and controlled by men while women, in the
main, practiced them with serious intent. Was it because they were able to
transmute them into an acceptable feminine form?
Nonetheless, there are sections of the book of particular value. Religion based
on devotions, called expressive spirituality, deals with the Sacred Heart, Christ
the King, Mary, the saints in general and Thérèse of Lisieux in particular. The
pages on Thérèse are excellent, even if the analysis was made easy because
Thérèse was a woman whose own spirituality perfectly combined the femalemale elements as a reflection of a divine totality. The final section on "Instrumental spirituality" is notable chiefly for its exploration of Catholic Action. In
particular, a spirituality based on the Jocist principle of the "SeeJudge, Act" reveals how Cardijn successfully made religion incarnate in the daily lives of

606BOOK REVIEWS

young people by accepting the person, male and female, as a unique individual.
The author does not say so, but the virtual loss of that form of lay spirituality is
one of the great scandals of the late twentieth century.
Sacred Threads is a welcome development of institutional history. It is a beginning, even a "helpful grid," on which others will build their own structures.
Dr. Massam deserves thanks and congratulations for her original contribution.
John N. Molony

Australian National University

BRIEF NOTICES

Andrea, Alfred J. (Ed. and Trans.). The Capture of Constantinople: The Hystoria

Constantinopolitana of Günther of Pairis. (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press. 1997. Pp. xiv, 194. $36.50 cloth; $16.50 paper.)

Günther of Pairis (ca. 1 1 50- 1 2 1 0?), a Cistercian monk of the Alsatian abbey of
Pairis, composed four known Latin works. By far the most famous of these was

the Hystoria Constantinopolitana, a contemporary account of the Fourth Cru-

sade (1201-1204) written before the end of 1205 and based on the recollections of Gunther's crusading abbot, Martin. Along with the memoirs of Geoffrey
de Villehardouin and Robert de CIari, Gunther's account is one of the most ex-

tensive descriptions of this pivotal event. But the Hystoria Constantinopolitana is more than that. Not content simply to report a series of remembrances,
Günther crafted a sophisticated epic, using language and literary structure to

place the diversion of the crusade and subsequent conquest of Constantinople

within the context of God's mercy, judgment, and plan for humanity. As a
piece of literature, the Hystoria Constantinopolitana represents a remarkable
achievement of twelfth-century humanism. That a relatively unknown monk

produced it in a smallish monastery in an out-of-the-way location makes it all
the more remarkable.

Despite its importance, the Hystoria Constantinopolitana remained devil-

ishly hard to come by until very recently. It is hard to imagine someone better
qualified to rescue this work from obscurity than Alfred J. Andrea. For many
years, Andrea has trained his historical and linguistic expertise on the so-called
"minor" sources of the Fourth Crusade, publishing definitive editions and translations of the works of the Anonymous of Soissons, the Anonymous of Halberstadt, and the Devastatio Constantinopolitana. None of these, however, matches
the complexity of the Hystoria Constantinopolitana. Rather than relying on
older editions, Andrea went to the manuscripts themselves, producing a superior edition of his own, along with an English translation and extensive notes.
Before it could be published, though, Peter Orth published his own excellent

edition of Gunther's epic. What we have, then, with The Capture of Constantinople is Andrea's previous work minus the critical edition. What is left is far

more than simply a lively and exacting translation. In an extensive introduction
Andrea examines the life of Günther, the structure of the Hystoria Constanti607

608BRIEF NOTICES

nopolitana, and its importance as a historical source. The introduction and
translation are profusely footnoted with comprehensive references to related
primary evidence as well as modern scholarly literature. It is the work of a
scholar who is not only an expert on the text, but on the events that the text describes.

With the publication of The Capture of Constantinople, Andrea has taken a

remarkable medieval text and made it accessible. Scholars will want to use this

work alongside the Orth edition, not only for the copious references but also to
take note of those points on which Andrea and Orth disagree on the text itself.
For students and non-specialists, The Capture of Constantinople opens a new
window onto one of the strangest events in crusading history, allowing them to

examine it from yet another perspective. That is all to the good; for, as Andrea

has written elsewhere, "the Fourth Crusade is too important and interesting to
be left exclusively to professional historians." Thomas F. Madden (Saint Louis
University)

The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book ofJapan's Hidden

Christians. Translated and annotated by Christal Whelan. (Honolulu: Uni-

versity of Hawaii Press. 1996. Pp. xii, 135. $34.00 cloth bound; $16.95 paperback.)

This short work represents a welcome addition to the field ofJapanese studies in the United States. Christal Whelan of the Department of Anthropology in
the University of Hawaii provides the first readily available translation into English of the Hidden Christians' sacred text, The Beginning ofHeaven and Earth
(Tenchi Hajimari no koto). The book is divided almost equally into an introduction, the translation itself, and notes. The introduction contains an enor-

mous amount of information on the beginnings of Christianity in Japan, the

Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians), the origins of the text, and thoughts on
the diverse influences from East and West that surface in the document. All this

background information makes the work accessible to those who are not familiar with Japan's Hidden Christians, and Whelan sees this text as the best way to
introduce the Kakure Kirishitan themselves.

In The Beginning ofHeaven and Earth there is no mistaking the underlying

Christian story; yet accretions that embellish the tale provide wonderful exam-

ples of the varied cultural influences. Throughout the text, Deusu (Deus, God)

is assigned hierarchical ranks using Buddhist terms, but God always emerges
above Buddha. Mary, the mother of God, conceives the Holy One by swallowing

a butterfly. Days of abstinence from meat have their origins as a thanks to the

horses and cattle for the compassion they showed in warming the Holy One
with their breath when he was in danger of freezing at the time of his birth in a
stable. Days of fast originate from the betrayal of Judatsu (Judas) who "eats his
rice with soup every morning."

BRIEF NOTICES609

One finds a wealth of information in the notes. Whelan has done a thorough
job of research in uncovering the possible influences found in the work. Because so many of the words used in the text are of Japanese, Portuguese, or
Latin origin, notes at the bottom of the page rather than in a separate section
would make reading easier for the uriinitiated. Other than that suggestion, this
is a work well worth reading. Ann M. Harrington, B.VM. (Loyola University
Chicago)

Boynton,James, SJ. Fishers ofMen. TheJesuit Mission at Mackinac, 1670-1765-

(Mackinac Island, Michigan: St. Anne's Church. 1996. Pp. x, 67. $7.95.)

This book, originally the author's Master's thesis at Weston Jesuit School of

Theology, provides a concise overview of the involvement of the Jesuits of New

France in the missionary outreach that took place in the vicinity of the Mackinac straits, which separate Michigan's Lower and Upper Peninsulas. From the
time that Father Claude Dablon, SJ., first recognized the unique geographical
opportunities that the Mackinac straits could provide as a base for a missionary
settlement, and throughout the next hundred years, the Jesuits were assiduous
in their attempts to plant a mission and nurture the faith of the Indian tribes.
Boynton, drawing on letters and documents from theJesuit Relations and other
sources, describes the success the missionaries had in their endeavors. He also

details the eventual souring of relations with the French secular authorities
due, as in so many places in New France, to the proliferation of alcoholic beverages and the resulting decline in moral standards. Smallpox, the English victory

in the SevenYears' War, and the uprising led by Chief Pontiac spelled the end of
the Jesuit presence at the straits of Mackinac.

Boynton has researched his material well, and the volume makes good use of
photographs, drawings, and maps. His affection for the region and the Jesuits
who served there is evident even before we reach the epilogue, and learn of his
family's roots in the area, and an admission of his attempt to persuade his
Provincial of the need for a continued Jesuit presence there. Fishers ofMen is a
valuable introduction to the Jesuits and their missionary legacy at Mackinac.
Joseph C. Linck, CO. (The Oratory, Pittsburgh)

Davis, Raymond (Trans.). The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes (Liber Pontificalis). The Ancient Biographies of Ten Popes from AD. 817-891. [Translated Texts for Historians, Volume 20.] (Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press. Distributed by the University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
1996. Pp. xvi, 334. $20.95 paperback.)
This third volume treating the lives of the ten popes who reigned between
817 and 891 completes Raymond Davis' translation of the Liber Pontificalis
(LP), that precious chronicle recording the lives of successive popes from Peter

610brief notices

down to the end of the ninth century (see ante, LXXVII [July, 1991], 546, and
LXXLX IJuIy, 1993], 514-515, for reviews of the first two volumes). After a brief
general introduction, Davis provides a separate introduction for each life, usually informing readers of the events affecting the Roman see that are passed
over in silence in LP. Then comes the translation, based on the Latin text established by Louis Duchesne; extensive footnotes reflecting a thorough grasp of
modern scholarship are supplied to elucidate the text. The volume also includes a glossary of terms and a useful bibliography.
The student audience for which this translation is intended may be severely
challenged. The content of each life, dominated by endless lists of donations to
and restorations of Roman churches, is not gripping. The massive footnotes,
without which the text is often beyond understanding, serve to divert attention
from the flow of the narrative. Interrelating the material found in Davis' introductions and the content of each life requires considerable intellectual dexterity. Yet for the attentive reader, this segment of the LP can provide invaluable
information on a variety of subjects: liturgy, the cult of saints, popular religion,
art and architecture, technology, monasticism, church organization and administration, ecclesiastical politics. On occasion the reader will even get a feel for
the human side of papal affairs, as in the account telling how Pope Paschal I was
so anxious to reach the scene of a fire that he rushed off without putting on his
shoes. On the whole Davis' translation is readable. He is to be thanked for providing those who read only English with an accurate version of a valuable historical source and for gracing his translation with invaluable notes that will
serve those who prefer to read the LP in Latin. Richard E. Sullivan (Michigan
State University)

Maude, Thomas. Guided by a Stone-Mason. The Cathedrals, Abbeys, and

Churches of Britain Unveiled. (LB- Tauris Publishers. Distributed by St.
Martin's Press, NewYork. 1997. Pp. 176. $15.95 paperback.)

The six chapters of this excellent guide to the architecture of the cathedrals,
abbeys, and parish churches of medieval England should prove very helpful to
both the beginning student and the sophisticated traveler. Those chapters explore the Norman cathedral; the evolution of the Gothic; the process of construction, including a section on the training of stone-masons; building materials,
with an informative explanation of the various kinds of stone used in ecclesiastical buildings; the abbeys and monasteries; and the parish churches. The
author, trained as a stone-mason and himself descended from medieval

stone-masons, brings to his book the practical experience of work on continental cathedrals and on the cathedrals ofWells and Salisbury. He has produced

a fresh, beautifully illustrated work with black and white photographs, one written with exceptional clarity and mercifully free of technical jargon; every architectural term is explained in simple language.

BRIEF NOTICES6ll

Contrary to the title, the book is restricted to English buildings: those in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are not discussed. The advanced student may want to
supplement his or her understanding of stone-masons and their work on
church buildings with C. M. Radding and W W Clark, Medieval Architecture,
Medieval Learning. Builders and Masters in the Age of Romanesque and
Gothic (Yale University Press, 1992). Bennett Hill, O.S.B. (Georgetown University)

NewmanJohn Henry. The Idea of a University. Edited by Frank M. Turner. (New

Haven: Yale University Press. 1996. Pp. xxxiv, 366. $35.00 clothbound;
$18.00 paperback.)

This edition of Cardinal Newman's Idea of a University comes as a part of
Yale's series of texts on "Rethinking the Western Tradition." It is a worthy addition to that series. For many, the Idea remains the finest of all commentaries on

what a university is and what it does for its students. As a place where every
branch of knowledge must be professed and defended, Newman's university

serves as a gentle reprimand to most of our secular institutions. Newman's insistence, furthermore, that a university was not a place of research but a place
for the teaching of students serves as a reprimand to most of us in higher education.

The Idea was originally a set of lectures delivered on the occasion of Newman's appointment as rector of the newly established Catholic university in
Dublin. Newman's letters from this period (1852) reflect the enormous mental
effort that went into the writing of the Idea, which suggests that his debt to the
Oxford system of his background was not so great as some have suggested. Indeed, part of the work may be read as a criticism of that Oxford system in both
its social and religious ideals.
With its severe condemnation of easy and eclectic learning, as illustrated in
the reviews of the day, I am inclined to think that Newman would have shuddered at the idea of an electronic university, which one of the commentators
seems to advocate. Mention of the essay on electronic learning brings up the

issue of whether any such commentary ought to be attached to the Idea or any
other such text. No less a critic than C. S. Lewis, whose own reading of the Idea
was hardly sympathetic, has insisted that every work was to be read on its own,
without external assistance or commentary. John R. Griffin (University of

Southern Colorado)

612BRIEF NOTICES

Petit, Loretta, O.P. Friar in the Wilderness: Edward Dominic Fenwick, O.P.

(Chicago: Project OPUS, A History of the Order of Preachers in the United
States. 1994. Pp. ix, 40. $10.00.)

When one considers the bold, untiring lives of the first (mostly Jesuit) missionaries of colonial Anglo-America, one often wonders if their flocks appreciated their largely unsung efforts. Perhaps this attractive volume, the first in a
series to be issued as a joint project of the Dominican Leadership Conference in
the United States, provides an answer to this question by focusing on the life of
a man who grew up under the care of those early missionaries, Edward Dominic
Fenwick. Fenwick cherished his memories of the priests of his youth in Southern Maryland, and though his European schooling was provided under the auspices of the Dominicans, whom he subsequently joined, for much of his
life Fenwick lived his priesthood in a manner which emulated his Jesuit rolemodels.

Returning to the United States in 1804, Fenwick used his own patrimony to
provide for a mission dear to the heart of Bishop John Carroll, the care of those
Catholic pioneers who had crossed the Alleghenies and were now living in
Kentucky. It was in Kentucky that Fenwick carried out much of his early pastoral work, estabUshing the first Dominican province of men at St. Rose, and encouraging the first foundation of Dominican sisters. In none of this did he
neglect his missionary endeavors, as the Catholics of neighboring Ohio could
attest. It is ultimately as first Bishop of Cincinnati that many remember Edward
Fenwick, an appointment he unwillingly accepted in 1821.Yet even as he struggled with his large and impecunious diocese, he could not extinguish his missionary's zeal, undertaking visitations to the Indian tribes of Michigan, and

seeking to provide for their spiritual care. It was on his return from one such
journey in September of 1832 that Edward Fenwick died, unattended by a
priest.

This slender, well-researched and beautifully produced volume on one of the
pioneers of Catholic America whets the appetite for a full-scale biography,
which thankfully is in progress and will soon be published. The OPUS project is
to be commended for a fine first installment of what promises to be a valuable
series. Joseph C. Linck, CO. (The Oratory, Pittsburgh)

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Advisory Editor
Jane Merdinger, who has been appointed an assistant professor jointly in the
Departments of Church History and Theology of the Catholic University of
America, has also accepted an appointment to the board of advisory editors of
the Catholic Historical Review. She received a B.A. degree in 1974 from Brown
University, where she majored in ancient and medieval culture. From 1974 to
1977 she attended the University of Cambridge and earned another B.A. degree
in classics and religious studies. In 1977 she commenced a doctoral program at
Yale University, specializing in the history of early Christianity and studying late
medieval and Reformation history as a secondary field. With the permission of
Yale University she did research for her dissertation at the University of Glasgow from 1982 to 1984 under the supervision of W. H. C. Frend. In her dissertation Dr. Merdinger investigated the North African Church's relationship with
the Papacy in late Antiquity. In 1984 she won a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship,
tenable at NewYork University, and began her teaching career there. Afterwards
she taught at several institutions on the West Coast—Seattle University, the University ofWashington, the University of Oregon, and the University of California
at San Diego. In 1991-92 she was a fellow at the Institute for Ecumenical and
Cultural Research at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. Since
then she has been an independent scholar. Her research interests include
the life and thought of Saint Augustine, the North African Church Fathers,
and North African canon law. In 1997 Yale University Press published Dr.
Merdinger's book Rome and the African Church in the Time ofAugustine.

Association News

Christopher J. Kauffman of the Catholic University ofAmerica and Georgette
Dorn of the Library of Congress, co-chairmen of the Committee on Program for
the seventy-ninth annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, which will be held in Washington, D.C., on January 8-10, 1999, have announced that there will be nine sessions falling into five principal categories,
viz., public Catholicism in American, modern European, and Vatican spheres
and inculturation and sincretism in Japanese, Mesoamerican, and Native American life from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. This multicultural motif

embraces sessions on Free People of Color in New Orleans, Confraternities and
613

614notes and comments

Indians in New Spain, and popular culture in American film, myth, and folklore.
From the twentieth-century perspective a panel of former presidents of the Association will project its life in the next millennium, and a panel of medievalists
will explain the significance of seminal work in social reform. The committee
promises a stimulating intellectual and social experience. David J. O'Brien of
the College of the Holy Cross will deliver his presidential address at a luncheon
on January 9 under the title: "What Was It Like When It All Came Together?
Bishop John J. Wright and the Diocese ofWorcester, 1950-1958."
The president of the Association has reappointed Sister Mary J. Oates, C.SJ.,
of Regis College to the Committee on the John Gilmary Shea Prize for one year,
because Sister Mary did not serve for one of the three years of her original term.
The committee, therefore, consists of John C. Moore of Hofstra University
(chairman), Frederic J. Baumgartner of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University (Blacksburg), and Sister Mary.
Professor O'Brien has also appointed Carlos Eire of Yale University to the
Committee on the John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award for a three-year term. The
committee this year thus consists of Robert I. Burns, S.J., of the University of California at Los Angeles (chairman), Thomas J. Shelley of Fordham University, and
Professor Eire.

The Association was represented by Richard M. Nardone of Seton Hall University as its delegate to the installation of Sister Francis Raftery as the sixth
president of the College of Saint Elizabeth on April 21, 1998, in Morristown,
New Jersey.

Conferences, Colloquia, Seminars, Meetings, and Lectures
At the spring conference of the New England Historical Association, which
took place at the University of Vermont in Burlington on April 17-18, a session
was devoted to "Relics in Medieval Europe." Papers were presented by John
Aberth of Norwich University on "The Skull of Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of
Canterbury: The Relic That Never Was"; by Brett Whalen of the University of
Vermont, "An Account of the Discovery of the Holy Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob: The Cult of Relics and the Twelfth-Century World of the Crusaders" ;
and by Paul Monod of Middlebury College,"One Royal Body or Two? Rethinking

Ernst Kantorwicz." In a session on presidential campaigns and elections Tom Carry
of the University of Connecticut read a paper on "Catholicism's Complex Role
in the 1928 Democratic Presidential Primaries: The Case of Thomas J. Walsh." In
still another session Donald E. Harpster of the College of St. Joseph spoke on
"The Religion of Calvin Coolidge: From Rural Vermont to the White House."

A research conference on "State Religion and Folk Belief in the Early Modern
World" was held at the Center for Early Modern History at the University of Minnesota on May 1-3, 1998. Among the nineteen scholars who presented papers
were Paul S. Seaver of Stanford University ("State Religion and Puritan Resis-

notes and comments615

tance in Early Seventeenth-Century London"), Eamon Duffy of Magdalene College, Cambridge ("The Disenchantment of Space: Salle Church and the Reformation"), and John F. Schwaller of the University of Montana ("Spaniards among
Nahuas: Popular Religion in Late Sixteenth-Century Mexico").
The eighth centenary of the accession of Lotario dei conti di Segni to the papacy will be celebrated at Rome on September 9-15, 1998, in a colloquium entitled "Innocent III (1198-1216): Urbs et Orbis." The organizing committee
consists of Giulia Barone of the University of Rome "La Sapienza" for the Societl
Romana di Storia Patria, Brenda Bolton of the University of London, Otto
Kresten of the Historisches Institut beim Österreichischen Kulturinstitut in

Rom, Werner Maleczek of the University of Vienna, James Powell of Syracuse
University, and Constance Rousseau of Providence College, Rhode Island. Further
information may be obtained from Dr. Bolton at 8 Watling Street, St Albans,
Herts ALI, 2PT, England; telephone and fax: 0044-1727-861170; e-mail:
B.M.Bolton@qmw.ac.uk. Their website may also be visited: http:/www.
umvie.ac.at/Geschichtsforschung/Innocenz.htm.
A colloquium on "Port-Royal et les mémoires" will be held on September
17-18, 1998. Among the dozen papers that will be presented are "La rédaction
des Mémoires de Beaubrun" byJacques Grès-Gayer of the Catholic University of
America and "Un témoignage sur Mlle de Joncoux" by Ellen Weaver-Laporte of
Paris.

The lecture series entitled "Two Millennia of Christianity," which is sponsored
by the Wethersfield Institute in New York, continues in its fourth year. The ten
1998 lectures cover the period from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment and are being given by such well-known lecturers as Eamon Duffy of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Glenn W Olsen of the University of Utah. The
theme of the ten 1999 lectures will be "The Church in the Nineteenth and

Twentieth Centuries: From Romanticism to Postmodernity." The complete pro-

gram may be obtained by writing to the Wethersfield Institute at 230 Park Avenue, Room 1528, NewYork, NewYork 10169; telephone: 212-949-1949.

One of the fall semester seminars that will be conducted at the Folger Institute (from September 24 to December 10) is "The Mental World of Stuart
Catholicism." It "will address the ways in which Catholicism, formed in part by
Continental doctrines, was shaped by and in turn itself shaped British political
thought from the accession of James I to the end of the reign of James II." The
director will be Patricia C. Brückmann, professor emérita of English in the University of Toronto. Another fall semester seminar, entitled "Gender and Sanctity
in Counter-Reformation Europe,""will explore the phenomenon of holy women,
those who achieved lasting renown as well as those who either were denounced to the Inquisition for pretense of sanctity or who faded into the re-

cesses of local history." Teresa of Avila (1515-1582, canonized in 1622) will be

studied as the principal case for sanctity; other examples will be selected from
Portuguese, Spanish, French, or Italian sources. The director will be Alison R
Weber of the University ofVirginia.

616NOTES AND COMMENTS

The American Cusanus Society, in co-operation with the International Seminar on Pre-Reformation Theology and the Institute for Luther Studies of Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, will hold a joint conference from October 28 to
November 1, 1998, at Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary. The topic will be "Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages and Reformation: Nicholas of Cusa and Martin
Luther." Keynote speakers will be Bernard McGinn of the University of Chicago
Divinity School, Ewert Cousins of Fordham University, H. Lawrence Bond of Ap-

palachian State University, and Louis Dupré ofYale University. Further informa-

tion may be requested of the arrangements chairman (and vice-president of the
Society), Gerald Christiansen, at 61 North West Confederate Avenue, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 17325-1795; telephone: 717-334-6286; fax: 717-334-3469.
The next annual meeting of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association will
be held at the University of Sherbrooke in June, 1999. Proposals of papers or
sessions dealing with the history of Catholicism in Canada, especially with the
themes recommended by the Congress of Social Sciences and Humanities (in
which the Association meets), viz., health, migration/immigration, and the public good, will be welcomed. They should be sent to Elizabeth Smyth (e-mail:
esmyth@oise.on.ca) orVicki Bennett (e-mail: vbennett@distance.ced.uottawa.ca).
An international conference sponsored by the Evangelicalism and Globaliza-

tion Project will be held at Oxford on July 14-17, 1999. It is proposed that the

conference will be published. A report on the origins and objectives of the project and information about the conference may be obtained from John Wolffe at
the Open University.
Causes of Saints

On March 15, 1998, in St. Peter's Basilica Pope John Paul II beatified the Bulgarian martyr, Bishop Vincent Eugene Bossilkov, and two women religious who
founded teaching congregations in Spain and Italy. Blessed Bossilkov was born

on November 16, 1900, in Belene, Bulgaria, to a peasant family of Latin-rite

Catholics and was given the name Vincent at baptism. In 191 1 he began his secondary education at the Passionist minor seminary at Oresc. Discerning the
signs of a vocation in him, the Passionist superiors sent him to the diocesan
seminary in Nikopol and then to Belgium and the Netherlands to complete his

liberal arts education. In 1919 he received the Passionist habit at the novitiate in

Ere, Belgium, taking the name Eugene of the Sacred Heart. After his first profession in 1920, he began his theological studies and took his final vows in 1923.
In 1924 he returned to his homeland to complete his theological studies for the

priesthood and was ordained on July 25, 1926. In the following year he was sent
to Rome for further studies at the Pontifical Oriental Institute and received the

doctorate in 1932 with a dissertation on the union of Bulgarians with the
Church of Rome in the first half of the thirteenth century. In 1933 he returned
to his diocese, where the bishop at first made him his secretary and appointed
him parish priest of the cathedral, but since Father Eugene preferred to

NOTES AND COMMENTS617

work more directly with the people, the bishop assigned him to the parish of
Bardaski-Gheran, where he engaged in effective pastoral and educational activities. A gifted linguist, he was so admired for his learning that in 1938, on the
250th anniversary of the Catholic uprising against the Turks, he was chosen as
the official speaker at the celebratory ceremony. In 1944 the Soviet Army invaded and occupied Bulgaria. Two years later, when the bishop of Nikopol died,
Bossilkov was appointed to the see. He faced increasing difficulties due to the
communist government's slow but systematic destruction of religion. He was
subjected to the constant surveillance of the secret police. After expelling the
Apostolic Delegate in 1949, the government tried to force the Catholic Church
either to align itself with the national church or to undergo extinction. That
same year all foreign missionaries were driven out of the country; church property was confiscated; religious congregations were suppressed and their mem-

bers dispersed. The grip of persecution tightened until 1952, when the

government imprisoned religious, priests, the elderly Catholic exarch, Bishop
Romanov, and Bishop Bossilkov, who was arrested on July 16, while on holiday
outside Sofia. He was secretly thrown into prison, and on September 20 the
Communist Party newspapers published on their front pages accusations made
during interrogations accompanied by physical and psychological torture. The
show trial was conducted from September 29 to October 3, 1952, culminating
in a rigged sentence of death, which was executed in the Sofia prison on November 1 1 . His body was thrown into a common grave, so that neither its place
of interment nor its identity can be determined. In the homily that the Holy Father delivered, partly in Bulgarian, at the beatification liturgy, he said: "The martyr Bishop, Vincent Eugene Bossilkov, . . . intensively cultivated the spirituality
of the Passion. He also dedicated himself without reserve to the pastoral service
of the Christian community entrusted to his care and faced the supreme trial of
martyrdom without hesitation. Bishop Bossilkov thus became the Church's radiant glory in his country. A fearless witness to the Cross of Christ, he is one of
the many victims sacrificed by atheistic communism in Bulgaria and elsewhere,
in its plan to destroy the Church. In those days of harsh persecution, many
looked to him and drew from his example of courage the strength to remain
faithful to the Gospel to the very end. . . . Today he is presented to us as an eminent figure of the Catholic Church in Bulgaria, not only because of his extensive learning, but for his constant ecumenical concern and his heroic fidelity to
the See of Peter."

On the following Sunday, in Onitsha, Nigeria, the Holy Father beatified Father
Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi, a Nigerian priest who had served the local church
in that city and died as a Cistercian monk at the Abbey of Mount St. Bernard in
England. Blessed Tansi was born in 1903 at Igboezunu near the ancient city of
Aguleri in southern Nigeria. His parents were Igbo farmers who practiced the
"traditional religion" and gave him the name Iwene at birth. In 1909 he was sent
to the Christian village of Nduka, where he was baptized three years later by
Irish missionaries and given the name Michael. His peers described him as very
studious, conscientious, and pious. At the age of sixteen he received his first

618NOTES AND COMMENTS

school leaving certificate, which qualified him for teaching. He taught at Holy
Trinity Primary School in Onitsha for three years and served for a year as headmaster of St. Joseph School in Aguleri. In 1925, against the wishes of his family,
he entered St. Paul's Seminary in Igbariam. After finishing his philosophical and
theological studies, he was ordained a priest in the cathedral of Onitsha on December 19, 1937. The second indigenous priest of Onitsha and the first in the
Aguleri region, he began his pastoral ministry in the parish of Nnewi. In 1939
he was appointed parish priest of Dunukofia, where he courageously tackled
immoral customs and destroyed the harmful myth of the "cursed forest," which
weighed heavily on the peace of consciences and families. To combat premarital cohabitation, he set up marriage preparation centers where girls and young
women could be sheltered and receive Christian formation. For the moral edu-

cation of youth he also established the League of Mary. His parish produced so
many vocations to the priesthood and religious life that it set a record in the
diocese. Traveling from village to village by bicycle or on foot, Father Tansi set
up prayer centers that eventually became parishes. He demonstrated the same
zeal in Akpu, where he was parish priest from 1945 to 1949, and then in Agu-

leri. When Bishop Charles Heerey of Onitsha expressed the desire during a

priests' day of recollection that one of his clergy would embrace the monastic
life so that he might later establish a contemplative monastery in the diocese,
Father Tansi volunteered. Hence, in 1950 he went to the Trappist Abbey of
Mount St. Bernard in Leicestershire, England. After two and a half years as an
oblate, he was admitted to the novitiate, taking the name Cyprian. One year

later he took simple vows and was solemnly professed on December 8, 1956.

For the next seven years he lived a hidden life of prayer and work, humility and
obedience, in faithful observance of the Cistercian rule. In 1963, after thirteen
years of experience as a Trappist, his superiors finally decided to let him establish a monastery, but because of the political tensions in Nigeria, they directed
him to Cameroon instead. He was appointed novice master. Before he could

leave England, however, he died of an aortic aneurysm in the Royal Infirmary of
Leicester on January 20, 1964. He was originally interred at Mount St. Bernard,

but his body was exhumed in 1988 and reburied in the priests' cemetery near
the cathedral of Onitsha. His remains will be enshrined in the parish church of
Aguleri.

The cause of the Servant of God Elizabeth Ciarisse Lange (1787-1882), in religion Mother Mary Lange, foundress of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, has

been introduced in the tribunal of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The petition-

ers are the Oblate Sisters of Providence. The postulator is John W. Bowen, S.S.,
and the vice-postulator is Sister Virginie Fish, O.S.R The historical commission is
composed of Michael J. R Roach, chairman, E. Michael Camilli, M.S.C, and
Christopher J. Kauffman. The judge-delegate of the archbishop, William Cardinal Keeler, is Jeremiah F. Kenney; the promoter of justice is William A. Collins;

and the notary is Gilbert J. Seitz. Robert Trisco has been appointed nperitus to

the tribunal for this cause. A preliminary meeting of the tribunal was held on
April 22, 1998.

NOTES AND COMMENTS619
Publications

The third centenary of the birth of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori was commemorated with a congresso held in Rome on March 5-7, 1997. The proceedings of the conference have now been published under the heading "La recezione
del pensiero Alfonsiano nella Chiesa" in a double fascicle of Spicilegium Historicum Congregationis SSmi Redemptoris (Volume XLV,Number 1-2 [1997]),

as follows: I. L'lmpulso alfonsiano: Eduardo Martínez Somalo,"S. Alfonso e Ie

slide della nuova evangelizzazione alia vita consecrata" (pp. 29-39); Giovanni

Velocci, "Cristo: centro della spiritualità alfonsiana" (pp. 41-69); Sabatino Majorano, "Il popólo chiave pastorale di S. Alfonso" (pp. 71-89): Louis Chatellier,"La
mission populaire: Annonce prophétique du salut" (pp. 91-1 11); Antonio Napoletano,"La música: una scelta pastorale di S. Alfonso" (pp. 113-120); Francesco
Chiovaro,"S. Alfonso Maria de Liguori. Ritratto di un moralista" (pp. 121-153);
Terence Kennedy, "Did St. Alphonsus practise practical Theology? 'Per venire

dunque alia pratica': Practice or pragmatism" (pp. 155-167); Sante Raponi,"La
chiamata universale alla santità in s. Alfonso. Il caso délie sposate" (pp.
169-204); II. La recezione della dottrina alfonsiana: Gabriele de Rosa, "La

figura e l'opéra di sant'Alfonso nell'evoluzione storica" (pp. 207-224); Fabriciano Ferrero,"La recepción del magisterio alfonsiano en las iglesias de España"
(pp. 225-267); Otto Weiss,"Tra misericordia e rigorismo. La recezione della dottrina di s. Alfonso net paesi germanici nelTOttocento" (pp. 269-290); John
Sharp, "The Alphonsian Mission in Britain and Ireland in the Nineteenth Cen-

tury" (pp. 291-307); Claude Langlois, "Régulation romaine et morale alphonsienne en France dans la première moitié du 19e siècle. Les propositions de Mgr
Bouvier sur la morale conjugale" (pp. 309-329); Raphael Gallagher, "The moral
of St. Alphonsus in the light of the Vindiciae Controversy" (pp. 331-349); III Il
caso italiano: Giuseppe Orlandi, "La recezione della dottrina morale di S. Al-

fonso Maria de Liguori in Italia durante la Restaurazione" (pp. 353-452);
Giuseppe Orlandi,"Il 'Caso Panzuti" (pp. 453-513); IV. An "Historical Essay":
Hamish F. G. Swanston,"The voice of the poor in the writings of S. Alfonso" (pp.

517-6l8);"Cronaca del Congresso: Manuel Gómez Ríos, "Crónica del Congreso

Internacional del III Centenario de S. Alfonso M. de Liguori (1696-1787)" (pp.
621-626).

Timothy Tackett has edited a forum on "Religion and Violence in Nineteenthcentury France" for the winter, 1998, issue oíFrench Historical Studies (Vol. 21,
No. 1). Following his introduction (pp. 1-2) there are six articles: Claude Langlois, "La Fin des guerres de Religion: La Disparition de la violence religieuse en
France au 19e siècle" (pp. 3-25); Sheryl T. Kroen,"Revolutionizing Religious Pol-

itics during the Restoration" (pp. 27-53); Raymond A. Jonas, "Anxiety, Identity,
and the Displacement of Violence during the Année Terrible.The: Sacred Heart

and the Diocese of Nantes, 1870-1871" (pp. 55-75); Michel Lagrée, "Processions religieuses et violence démocratique dans la France de 1903" (pp. 77-99);
Caroline Ford, "Violence and the Sacred in Nineteenth-Century France" (pp.
101-112); and Claude Langlois,"De la violence religieuse" (pp. 113-123).

620NOTES AND COMMENTS

A colloquium on Monsignor Bruno de Solages, rector of the Institut
Catholique de Toulouse from 1931 to 1964, was held in Toulouse on December

13-15, 1996, under the title "Liberté et Résistance."The papers presented at that

gathering have now been published in the issue of the Bulletin de Littérature
Ecclésiastique for January-June, 1998 (Volume IC, Numbers 1-2), as follows: I.

Une liberté dans la société: Emile Poulat, "Entre 'Monde chrétien' et 'Monde
moderne' : Mgr Bruno de Solages, Intelligence catholique et laïcité amicale" (pp.

9-34; René Coste,"Mgr de Solages et la question sociale"(pp. 35-42); Patrick Cabanel,"Résistance spirituelle à Toulouse: Bruno de Solages de 1927 à 1945" (pp.

43-77); IL Une liberté dans l'Église:Jean Amad,"Le Billetiste et le journaliste"

(pp. 81-90); Clément Nastorg, "Action française ou Action catholique" (pp.
91-103); Georges Passerat,"Le rayonnement spirituel et pastoral: L'exemple du
diocèse de Montauban" (pp. 105-113); Robert Cabié, "Correspondance entre

Mgr de Solages et le Cardinal Tisserant" (pp. 115-136); III. Une liberté dans
l'université catholique: Jacques Vacherot and Simon Légasse,"Le chercheur:
Mathématique et Exégèse" (pp. 139-145); André Dartigues, "L'enseignant: L'initiation à la Métaphysique" (pp. 147- 155);Jean-Marie Glé,"'Pour l'honneur de la
théologie': Le défenseur de Henri BouLUard" (pp. 157-165); André Dupleix,
" 'Pour l'honneur de la théologie': Le défenseur de Teilhard"(pp. 167- 179);Yves

Floucat, "Lettres de Bruno de Solages à Jacques Maritain (1927-1941)" (pp.

181-203); IV L'homme et ses racines: Hugues de Solages, "Mgr de Solages et

sa famille" (pp. 207-215); "Éléments de généalogie" (pp. 216-217); Clément
Nastorg, "Éléments de biographie" (pp. 219-247); Annexes: Jean Mompha and
Georges Baccrabère,"Mgr de Solanges et L'Hôtel de la Fonderie" (pp. 251-256);

Bruno de Solages, "Pour l'honneur de la théologie: Les contre-sens du R. P
Garrigou-Lagrange" (pp. 257-272); and "Bibliographie de Mgr de Solages" (pp.
273-293).

The issue of U.S. Catholic Historian for winter, 1998 (Volume 16, Number 1),
is devoted to "The Local Church: Archivists and Historians." The contributors

and their articles are "Diocesan Archives: Twenty-Five Years of Preserving American Catholic History," by James M. O'Toole (pp. 1-13); "Diocesan Archivists:
Models for Stewardship," by Christine Taylor (pp. 15-22); "Archives of the Arch-

diocese of Santa Fe and 400 Years of Church History in New Mexico," by Marina
B. Ochoa (pp. 23-34); "Catholic Archives of Texas: Sense and Sensibility of
Catholic History Preservation and Research," by Kinga F. Perzynska (pp. 35-46);
"Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore: History and Content," by Felicitas
Powers, R.S.M. (pp. 47-56); "A Historian's View of the Archives of the Archdio-

cese of Baltimore," by Thomas W. Spalding, C.F.X. (pp. 57-61); "The Archives of
the Archdiocese of San Francisco," by Jeffrey M. Burns (pp. 63-72); "Archivists

and Historians in Dialogue: The Case of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee," by
Steven M. Avella and Timothy D. Cary (pp. 85-92); and "The Local Church from
the National Perspective: Collecting American Catholic History at the Catholic
University of America," by Timothy J. Meagher and William John Shepherd (pp.
93-114).

NOTES AND COMMENTS621

Sections IV and V of the microfilm publication of the Church Missionary Society Archive (see ante, LXXXIII (January, 1997], 179) have now been made
available by Adam Matthew Publications. Section IV covers "Africa Missions"
(West Africa [Sierra Leone], 1803-1949; Nigeria, 1844-1949; Sudan, 1905-1949;
Egypt, 1889-1949; South and East Africa, 1836-1949; and East Africa, 18751949). Section V covers "Missions to the Americas" (West Indies, 1819-1861;
North West Canada, 1821-1880, and 1881-1930; and British Columbia, 18561925). A descriptive brochure and a price list may be obtained from the Senior
Publishing Associate, Liz Sargut, in care of Adam Matthew Publications, 8 Ox-

ford Street, Marlborough,Wiltshire SN8 IAP, England; telephone: 01672-51 1921;
fax: 01672-51 1663; e-mail: Adam_Matthew@msn.com.

Most of the issue of the Records of the American Catholic Historical Society
of Philadelphia for spring and summer of 1997 (Volume 108, Number 1-2) is
devoted to articles on Dorothy Day on the occasion of the centenary of her
birth, as follows: Sandra Yocum Mize,"'We Are Still Pacifists': Dorothy Day's Pacifism during World War II" (pp. 1-12); Eugene McCarraher, "Into Their Labors:
Work, Technology and the Sacramentalism of Dorothy Day" (pp. 13-27); James
J. Farrell, "Dorothy Day and the Sixties" (pp. 29-37); and Anne Klejment,"CommencThe Long Revolution: Dorothy Day at 100" (pp. 39-50).

Personal Notices

Robert Bireley, SJ., of Loyola University Chicago has received a fellowship
from the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina,
for the coming academic year. Father Bireley's project is entitled "The Jesuits,
the Courts, and the ThirtyYears' War." He will also participate in a year-long seminar on "Religion and the Humanities."
Astrik L. Gabriel, professor emeritus and director of the Folsom Ambrosiana
Collection at the University of Notre Dame, was presented by the Hungarian
Bishops' Conference in December, 1997, with the Pro Ecclesia Hungariae medal
for his many publications regarding the history of the Catholic Church. Titular
Provost Gabriel was notified of the honor by the president of the Hungarian
Episcopate, Archbishop Dr. István Seregély of Eger.
Richard Gribble, C.S. C, has been appointed assistant superior of Moreau
Seminary in Notre Dame, Indiana.
Thomas Head has been appointed professor of history in Hunter College of
the City University of New York.
Christopher J. Kauffrnan of the Catholic University of America has been appointed by the Archbishop of Hartford, Daniel Cronin, chairman of the historical commission for the cause of canonization of the Reverend Michael J.
McGivney founder of the Knights of Columbus. (See ante, LXXXIII [October,

1997], 822, and LXXXTV [April, 1998], 376.)

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

Chiesa cattolica, religione e società nella più recente storiografia tedesca. Otto
Weiss. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (July-Dec, 1997),
169-197.

The Lady Vanishes: Dilemmas of a Feminist Historian after the "Linguistic Turn."

Elizabeth A. Clark. Church History, 67 (Mar, 1998), 1-31.

The Monasteries of the Wadi Natrun, Egypt: A Monastic and Personal Journey.
Tim Vivian. American Benedictine Review, 49 (Mar., 1998), 3-32.
Superstantia e superstantes: alcuni aspetti della fabbrica di Santa Tecla di Milano. Ilaria Chellini. Nuova Rivista Storica, LXXXI (May-Aug., 1997),
401-424.

La "dévote Image noire de Nostre Dame" du Puy-en-Velay: histoire du reliquaire
roman et de son noircissement. Sylvie Vilatte. Revue Belge de Philologie et
d'Histoire,74 (3-4, 1996), 727-760.
Romantic Identity, Nationalism, and the Understanding of the Advent of Romanesque Art in Christian Spain. Janice Mann. Gesta, XXXVI (2, 1997),
156-164.

Du moyen âge à la Renaissance: lecture d'un écrivain néerlandais en pays roman
(ca 1450-1700). Mikel M. Kors. Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, XCII
(July-Dec, 19979,743-766.
The Rule of Faith over Reason: The Role of the Inquisition in Iberia and New

Spain. Margaret Mott. fournal of Church and State, 40 (Winter, 1998),
57-81.

The Evolution of Marian Devotionalism within Christianity and the IberoMediterranean Polity. Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo. Journal for the Scientific Study ofReligion, 37 (Mar, 1998), 50-73.
La storia del Vaticano II diretta da G. Alberigo. Annibale Zambarbieri. Ricerche

di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (July-Dec, 1997), 247-261.

Die Christianisierung des Römischen Reiches. Eine Zäsur in der Geschichte

des Judentums? Ernst Baltrusch. Historische Zeitschrift, 266 (Feb., 1998),
23-46.

622

periodical literature623

The Original Doctrine ofValentinus the Gnostic. Gilles Quispel. Vigiliae Christianae, L (Nov., 1996), 327-352.
In Nomine Patris: Constantine the Great and Constantius II in Christological
Polemic. Mark Humphries. Historia, XLVI (4, 1997), 448-464.
Zur Datierung der ersten Kirchenbauten in der Sketis. Peter Grossmann. Byzan-

tinische Zeitschrift, 90 (1997), 367-395.
Jérôme et Nicomaque Flavien: sur les sources de la Chronique pour les années
357-364. Stéphane Ratti. Historia, XLVl (4, 1997), 479-508.

The Conversions of Scotland. Charles Thomas. Records of the Scottish Church
History Society, XXVII (1997), 1-42.
Procopius and the Imperial Panels of S. Vitale. Irina Andreescu-Treadgold and
Warren Treadgold. Art Bulletin, LXXTX (Dec, 1997), 708-723.

Penance and Prayer in Water: An Irish Practice in Northumbrian Hagiography
Colin Ireland. Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, No. 34 (Winter, 1997),
51-66.

La translation des reliques de saint Vit de l'abbaye de Saint-Denis à celle de Cor-

vey en 836. Anne Van Landschoot. Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire,
74 (3-4, 1996), 593-632.

Roma es a területi egyház küzdelme a kôzép Duna-medencében a 9. század

folyamán. Zoltán Kosztolnyik. ¿eta> (2-3, 1997), 212-221.
"Lélekben, szellemileg megmaradtam magyar származású európainak": Beszélgetés Kostolnyik Zoltán torténésszel. Sándor László Tóth. Aetas (2-3,
1997), 198-211.

The Miracles of St. Demetrius and the Capture of Thessaloniki. Joseph D. C.
Frendo. Byzantinoslavica, LVIII (2, 1997), 205-224.
Samt Eudokia and the Imperial Household of Leo VI. Sharon E. J. Gerstel. Art
Bulletin, LXXLX (Dec, 1997), 699-707.
Collection de reliques et pouvoir episcopal au Xe siècle. L'exemple de l'évêque

Thierry I" de Metz. Anne Wagner. Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, 83
(July-Dec, 1997), 317-341.

Au seuil de l'architecture chrétienne en Pologne. Ostrów Lednicki. Klementyna

Zurowska and Teresa Rodzinska-Chorazy. Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 41 (Jan.-Mar., 1998), 35-54.
Rethinking the Ruthwell Monument: Fragments and Critique; Tradition and History; Tongues and Sockets. Fred Orton. Art History, 21 (Mar, 1998),
65-106.

Monastic Habits in Medieval Worcester. Emma Mason. History Today, 18 (May,
1998), 37-43.

624PERIODICAL UTERATURE

Prostitution and Monastic Reform. J. M. B. Porter. Nottingham Medieval Studies, XLI (1997), 72-79.

Ritual und Recht auf päpstlichen Reformkonzilien (1049-1123). Johannes
Laudage. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 29 (2, 1997), 287-334.
Die Teilnehmer der Synoden Alexanders II. (1061-1073). Mit Neuedition von
JL. 4651. Hubert Houben. Quellen und Forschungen, 77 (1997), 1-17.

Une entreprise historiographique au temps de la réforme grégorienne: les Actes

des archevêques de Rouen. Louis Violette. Revue d'histoire de l'Église de

France, 83 (July-Dec, 1997), 343-365.

Psellos, Romain IV Diogénès et Mantzikert. Eva de Vries-van derVelden. Byzantinoslavica, LVIII (2, 1997), 274-310.

Spiritual Estates:The Durham Monks in Scotland, 1094-1293. J. Donnelly. Records
of the Scottish Church History Society,XKVll (1997), 43-67.
The Pious Traitor: Rhetorical Reinventions of the Fall of Antioch. Robert Levine.

MittellateinischesJahrbuch, 33 (1, 1998), 59-80.
Le Traité "Du Précepte et de la Dispence" et les origines cisterciennes. Joël Regnard. Collectanea Cisterciensia, 60 (1, 1998), 31-59.
Santiago de Compostela in the Time of Diego Gelmirez. Barbara Abou-El-Haj.
Gesta, XXXVI (2, 1997), 165-179.
Kreuzfahrerideologie und Herrscherikonographie: Das Kaiserpaar Helena und
Heraklius in der Grabeskirche. Gustav Kühne! Byzantinische Zeitschrift,
90 (1997), 396-404.
The Formation of Parishes in Twelfth-Century Perthsire. John M. Rogers. Records

of the Scottish Church History Society, XXVII (1997), 68-96.

Callixtus II Consecrated the Cathedral of Piacenza in 1 123? Brian M0llerJensen.
Classica et Mediaevalia, XLVIII (1997), 389-406.
Cistercian Antecedents of the Rosary. André Fracheboud. Cistercian Studies

Quarterly, 33 (2, 1998), 165-184.

Die Klöster von Pavia zwischen Friedrich I. und Alexander III. Zu einem ver-

lorenen Mandat Friedrich Barbarossas und den Auswirkungen des Schismas in Pavia. Kai-Michael Sprenger. Quellen und Forschungen, 77 (1997),
18-50.

La Orden de Alcántara y el papado durante le Edad Media según Ia documentación pontificia. Luis Corral Val. Hispania Sacra, XLLX (July-Dec,
1997), 601-623.
Confraternité e società cittadina nel Medioevo: percorsi di indagine sulla realtà
milanese. Marina Gazzini. Nuova Rivista Storica, LXXXI (May-Aug., 1997),
373-400.

Le cloître du XIIIe siècle de l'ancien prieuré de Saint-Martin-des-Champs.
Philippe Plagnieux and Danielle Valin Johnson. Cahiers Archéologiques,
45 (1997), 89-98.

PERIODICAL UTERATURE625

Le portail de la collégiale de la Madeleine à Besançon. Bruno Vautrin. Cahiers

Archéologiques, 45 (1997), 99-107.

Un témoin inédit de la statuaire dans le Laonnois à la fin du XIIP siècle: la Cru-

cifixion de Montaigu (Aisne). Dany Sandron. Cahiers Archéologiques, 45
(1997), 109-117.

Gruppi ereticali in Puglia e in Lucania nel basso Medioevo. Immacolata Novario. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (Jan.-June, 1997),
219-235.

Die Aufhebung des Templerordens (1307-1314) nach neuren Untersuchungen.
Joachim Seiler. Zeitschriftfür Kirchengeschichte, 109 (1, 1998), 19-31.
Clementinenkommentare des 14. Jahrhunderts. Martin Bertram. Quellen und
Forschungen, 77 (1997), 144-175.
Convention and Conversion: Patterns in Late Medieval Piety. Richard Kieckhe-

fer. Church History, 67 (Mar. , 1 998), 32-51.

Las Iglesias propias de monasterios en la Castilla bajomedieval. Algunos ejemplos riojanos. Máximo Diago Hernado. Hispania Sacra, XLLX (July-Dec,
1997), 625-651.
Matheus Angelí Johannis Cinthii. Un commentatore romano delle Clementine e
lo Studium Urbis nel 1320. Martin Bertram and Andreas Rehberg. Quellen

und Forschungen, 77 (1997), 84-143.
Iconografía de San Pedro y propaganda papal en la pintura gótica: Pedro y
Simón el Mago como imagen de la confrontación del papa aviñonés y el antipapa romano. Un ejemplo catalano-aragonés del siglo XIV Marisa MeleroMoneo. Gesta.XXXVI (2, 1997), 107-121.

Pénitence publique et amende honorable au Moyen Age. Jean-Marie Moeglin.
Revue historique, CCXCVIII (Oct.-Dec, 1997), 225-269.

Kredite europäischer Fürsten für Gregor XL Zur Finanzierung der Rückkehr des
Papsttums von Avignon nach Rom. Stefan Weiss. Quellen und Forschungen, 77 (1997), 17'6-205.
Adam Easton and the Condemnation of John Wyclif, 1377. Margaret Harvey.
English Historical Review, CXIII (Apr, 1998), 321-334.
Vincent Ferrer's Beati PetriApostoli: Canonical and Apocryphal Sources in Pop-

ular Vernacular Preaching. Alberto Ferreiro. Harvard Theological Review,
91 (Jan., 1998), 41-58.

Papa Luna in 1415: A Proposal by Benedict XIII for the Ending of the Great

Schism. Peter Linehan. English Historical Review, CXIII (Feb., 1998),

91-98.

Bayern und Basel: Studien zu Herzogshaus, Kirche und Konzil (1431-1449).
Werner Müller. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 29 (1 and 2, 1997),

1-164,335-500.

626periodical uterature

Florenz und sein Konzil: Forschungen zum Jubiläum des Konzils von FerraraFlorenz, 1438/39-1989. Johannes Helmrath. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 29 (1, 1997), 202-216.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

L'obituaire des grands chanoines du chapitre Sainte-Gudule de Bruxelles

(1506): une première approche. David Guilardian. Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, 74 (3-4, 1996), 695-705.

Anti-Franciscanism in the Early Reformation: The Nature and Sources of Criticism. Geoffrey Dipple. Franciscan Studies, 55 (1998), 53-81.
Eobanus Hessus in Erfurt. Ein Beitrag zum Verhältnis von Humanismus und
Protestantismus. Walther Ludwig. Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 33 (1,
1998), 155-170.

Spanish Protestants and Foxe's Book: Sources. A. Gordon Kinder. Bibliothèque
d'Humanisme et Renaissance, LX (1 , 1998), 107- 1 16.

"Venezia portaua el fuocho in seno" : Guillaume Postel before the Council ofTen
in 1548: Priest Turned Prophet. Marion Leathers Kuntz. Studi Veneziani,

XXXIII (1997X95-121.

Synods and Superintendence: John Winram and Fife, 1561-1572. Linda J. Dunbar. Records ofthe Scottish Church History Society, XXVII (1997), 97- 126.
Anti-Papalismus und begrenzte Monarchie in François Hotmanns "Franco Gallia." Gunter Zimmermann. Zeitschriftfür Kirchengeschichte, 109 (1 , 1998),
32-58.

"Venezia non è tera de studii'? Educazione e política nel secondo Cinquecento.
I gesuiti e i procuratori di San Marco de supra. Maurizio Sangalli. Studi
Veneziani, XXXIV (1997), 97-163.

"Frantick Hacket": Prophecy, Sorcery, Insanity, and the Elizabethan Puritan
Movement. Alexandra Walsham. Historicalfournal, 41 (Mar, 1998), 27-66.
Chiesa ed etnie nella Basilicata moderna: albanesi e zingari tra tolleranza e riforma religiosa (secoli XVI-XVUI)· Giuseppe Maria Viscardi. Ricerche di

Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (Jan. -June, 1997), 135-168.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

La prassi sinodale nel Seicento: un "buco ñero"? Pietro Caiazza. Ricerche di Sto-

ria Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (Jan.-June, 1997), 61-109.

Erycius Puteanus: dalla Biblioteca Ambrosiana alla Lovaniense. Antonio Iurilli.
Accademie e Biblioteche d'Italia, LXV (July-Sept., 1997), 5-22.

periodical literature627

Popery in Buchan and Strathbogie in the Early Seventeenth Century. Alasdair
Roberts. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXVII (1997),
127-155.

The Lutheranism of Thomas Hobbes. Jürgen Overhoff. History of Political

Thought,XVlll (Winter, 1997), 604-623.

Gregorio Barbarigo fra antichi e nuovi modelli episcopali. Liliana Billanovich.
Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (July-Dec, 1997), 7-30.
Die Kirchenunion in Siebenbürgen 1697-1761. Das Bemühen um Sakramentengemeinschaft zwischen Schwesterkirchen degeneriert zur Konversion orthodoxer Christen zum Katholizismus. Ernst Chr. Suttner. Ostkirchliche

Studien, 47 (Mar, 1998), 22-33.
Civility and Skepticism in the Woolston-Sherlock Debate over Miracles. Laura M.
Stevens. Eighteenth Century Life, 21 (Nov., 1997), 57-70.
The Early Career of Bishop Charles Walmesley, O.S.B., D.D., F.R.S., 1722-1797.
Geoffrey Scott. Downside Review, 115 (Oct., 1997), 249-270.
Predicatori nel territorio extraubano della diócesi di Verona dal 1736 al 1758.

Miriam Simonetti. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (July-Dec,
1997), 139-167.
La presenza redentorista Irpinia. Da Alfonso de Liguori a Gerardo Maiella. Angelomichele De Spirito. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI
(Jan.-June, 1997), 169-197.
The Library of Franciscus Bruynincx, Official Principal, Learned Canon and Bibliophile from Antwerp (1719-1791). Pierre Delsaerdt and Dries Vany-

sacker. Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, XCII (July-Dec, 1997), 767-796.

Il seminario diocesano di Padova fra antico regime e restaurazione. Filiberto Agostini. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (July-Dec, 1997), 31-74.
"Scepticism in excess": Gibbon and Eighteenth-Century Christianity. B. W

Young. HistoricalJournal, 41 (Mar, 1998), 179-199.

La chiesa del doge al tramonto della Repubblica di Venezia. GiovanniVian. Studi
Veneziani, XXXIII (1997), 157-173.

An Image of Religious Women in the ancien régime: The états des religieuses
of 1790-1791. Elizabeth and Robert Rapley. French History, 11 (Dec,
1997), 387-410.

nineteenth and twentieth centuries

I questional! délie visite pastorali della diócesi di Bressanone in età contemporánea. Andrea Sarri. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (Jan.June, 1997), 199-218.

628PERIODICAL UTERATURE

Le P J.-B. Loevenbruck (1795-1876), précurseur du catholicisme social et de
!Oeuvres des Orphelins Apprentis d'Auteuil, des 1822. Adolphe Cabon.

Mémoire Spiritaine, No. 6 (2, 1997), 79-96.

Tra antiperfettismo e principio di giustizia. Appunti sulla ricerca rosminiana di
una Enciclopedia integrale della política. Gianni Zen. Ricerche di Storia
Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (July -Dec, 1997), 199-217.
Le clergé à la découverte de la condition ourvière (1830-1848). Paul Christ-

ophe. Mémoire Spiritaine, No. 6 (2, 1997), 47-78.
El cardenal Puente (1808-1867), desde Cádiz, en tres líneas divergentes en el
siglo XLX español. Alfredo Martínez Albiach. Hispania Sacra, XLLX (JulyDec, 1997), 463-495.

The African Factor in Christian Mission to Africa: A Study of Moravian and Basel
Mission Initiatives in Ghana. Daniel J. Antwi. International Review ofMis-

sion, LXXXVII (Jan., 1998), 55-66.

El anticlericalismo popular durante el Bienio 1834-1835. Antonio Moliner
Prada. Hispania Sacra,XUX (July-Dec, 1997), 497-541.
Las relaciones entre la Iglesia y el Estado español según los "Diarios de Sesiones
de Cortes" entre 1834 y 1843. M. Rodríguez Alonso. Estudios Eclesiásticos,
72 (Oct.-Dec, 1997), 655-688.
Frédéric Ozanam et la Propagation de la Foi. Etude suivie de trois lettres in-

édites d'Ozanam à André Terret. Bruno Hübsch. Mémoire Spiritaine, No. 6
(2, 1997), 143-164.

Où l'on voit Libermann découvrir avec admiration les oeuvres sociales marseil-

laises des abbés Julien (1805-1848) et Perrée (1811-1888). René Charrier.
Mémoire Spiritaine, No. 6 (2, 1997), 97- 118.

Homme d'oeuvres entreprenant, ami du P. Libermann, M. Germainville (18061881). Georges-Henri Thibault. Mémoire Spiritaine, No. 6 (2, 1997),
119-142.

Moro, Salviati, and the Mosaics of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan. Irina AndreescuTreadgold. Studi Veneziani, XXXIII (1997), 197-230.
A Display of Tractarian Energy: St. John's Episcopal Church, Jedburgh. Tristram
Clarke. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXVII (1997),
187-219.

Maynooth and Scottish Politics: The Role of the Maynooth Grant Issue, 18451857. Gordon F. Millar. Records of the Scottish Church History Society,
XXVII (1997), 220-279.

Die Griechisch-Katholische Kirche und die Entstehung der ukrainischen nationalen Bewegung in Galizien. Oleh Turii. Ostkirchliche Studien, 47 (Mar. ,
1998), 3-21.

Staat und Kirche in der Paulskirche, 1848: Die Grundrechtsdebatte über Staat
und Kirche, Religionsfreiheit und Schule. Wilhelm Ribhegge. Stimmen der
Zeit, 216 (Mar, 1998), 173-187.

PERIODICAL UTERATURE629

Prassi educativa e religiosa dei Gesuiti: il Real Collegio de Basilicata (1859-

1860). Maria Antonietta Rinaldi. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa,
XXVI (July-Dec, 1997), 219-246.
Les prêtres érudits du diocèse de Dijon aux XIXe siècle. Une historiographie au
service de l'Église (1850-1914). Sylvain Milbach. Revue d'histoire de

l'Église de France,^ (July-Dec, 1997), 367-394.

Symbolisierung des Unendlichen. Ernest Renan und sein Verhältnis zum Protes-

tantismus. Kurt Nowak. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 109 (1, 1998),
59-79.

Sortino e i Cappuccini (1866-1911). Storia vissuta di una comunità cristiana.
SalvatoreVacca. Ho Theológos,XV (2, 1997), 265-318.
Fedele Lampertico e il moderatismo véneto. Gabriele De Rosa. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (Jan.-June, 1997), 1 1 1-133.
Römische Frage und römischer Index. Das Gutachten zum päpstlichen Verbot
von Geremia Bonomellis "Roma, !Italia e la realtà delle cose" 1889, publiziert aus dem Archiv der Indexkongregation. Martin Papenheim. Quellen
und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 77
(1997), 362-411.

Die Eparchien der Russisch-Orthodoxen Kirche und die Reihenfolge ihrer Hier-

archen in der Zeit von 1893-1996 (Fortsetzung). Coelestin Patock, O.S.A.
Ostkirchliche Studien, 47 (Mar, 1998), 44-65.

I quattro prineipi dell'Unione Leonina 1897: sfondo e contesto. Maurice Carmody O.VM.Antonianum, LXXIII (Jan.-Mar, 1998), 79-109.
La Legislazione dell'O.EM. dopo l'Unione Leonina: sussulti, progressi, questioni.
Romain Georges Mailleux, O.F.M. Antonianum, LXXIII (Jan.-Mar, 1998),
111-130.

Quatres lettres de l'abbé Henri Bremond à Antonio Fogazzaro. Federica Ranzato. Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, XXVI (Jan.-June, 1997),
237-247.

Sonnino, il "Giornale d'Italia" e il ruólo internazionale della Santa Sede (19141922). Daniela Ercolani. Nuova Rivista Storica, LXXXI (Sept.-Dec, 1997),
625-674.
Die katholische Kirche in Rußland am Vorabend der Oktoberrevolution. Petar

Vrankic. Forum Katholische Theologie, 13 (4, 1997), 257-270.
Soviet Atheism and Russian Orthodox Strategies of Resistance, 1917-1932.
William B. Husband.fournal ofModern History, 70 (Mar, 1998), 74-107.

L'Église belge et la mémoire de la Grande Guerre: le Comité Interdiocésain,
1919-1922. Frédéric Dauphin. Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, XCII

(July-Dec, 1997), 797-842.
Un abbé en politique: Ferdinand Renaud (1885-1965). Franck Tison. Revue historique,CCXCVIII (Oct. -Dec, 1997), 297-332.

630PERIODICAL UTERATURE

L'épiscopat.les démocrates-chrétiens et les Croix-de-Feu, 1930- 1936. Jean-Louis

Clément. Revue historique, CCXCVIII (July-Sept., 1997), 103-113"Survival of the Fittest": German Protestant Missions, Nazism and Neocolonial-

ism, 1933-1945. Werner Ustorf. Journal of Religion in Africa, XXVIII (1,
1998), 93-1 14.

Le pèlerinage du Puy, 12-15 août 1942. Dominique Avon. Revue d'histoire de

l'Église de France,^ (July-Dec, 1997), 305-434.

Getting Out the Vote with Patronage and Threat: The French and Italian Christian Democratic Parties, 1944-1958. Carolyn M. Warner. Journal of Interdisciplinary History,XXVni (Spring, 1998), 553-582.
"God and the Atom": British Churchmen and the Challenge of Nuclear Power,
1945-1950. Kirk Willis. Albion, 29 (Fall, 1997), 422-457.
Competition and Integration in the Religious History of North-Western Zimbabwe. Jocelyn Alexander and Terence Ranger. Journal of Religion in
Africa, XXVIII (1, 1998), 3-31.
I cattolici cinesi negli anni Cinquanta. Giuliano Raffo. La Civiltä Cattolica, 148,

III (Sept. 20, 1997), 491-504.
La Iglesia española y la Ayuda Social americana 1954-1968. José Luis Mínguez
Goyanes. Hispania Sacra,XUX. (July-Dec, 1997), 421-462.
Malawi's Peaceful Revolution of 1992-94: The Role of the Church of Scotland.

Kenneth R. Ross. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXVII
(1997), 280-304.

Convento Kivas in the Missions of New Mexico. James E. Ivey. New Mexico Historical Review, 75 (Apr, 1998), 121-152.
Huguenot Traditions in the Mountains of Kentucky: Darnel Trabue's Memories.

Marco SioM.Journal ofAmerican History, 84 (Mar, 1998), 1313-1333.

The Reorientation of American Protestantism, 1835-1845. James D. Bratt.

Church History, 67 (Mar., 1998), 52-82.

Aspects of Worship Practices in the History of the Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod. Leonard C. Laetsch. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 70
(Winter, 1997), 147-163.
Missouri's Catechetical Heritage. Daniel Preus. Concordia Historical Institute

Quarterly, 70 (Winter, 1997), 164-178.

Dreams, Disappointments, Achievements: The First 150 Years of Social Ministry.
Gene L. Svebakken and Paul Bacon. Concordia Historical Institute Quar-

terly, 70 (Winter, 1997), 204-216.

Schism on the Prairie: The Case of the Free Portuguese Church ofJacksonville,
Illinois. Dennis E. Suttles. Journal of Presbyterian History, 75 (Winter,
1997), 211-222.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE631

Edwards and His Mantle: The Historiography of the New England
Theology. Douglas A. Sweeney. New England Quarterly, LXXI (Mar. , 1 998),
97-119.

Violence as a Tool of Party Dominance: Election Riots and the Baltimore Know-

Nothings, 1854-1860. Frank Towers. Maryland Historical Magazine, 93

(Spring, 1998), 5-38.
"I could realize what Sodom and Gomorrah might have been": Image vs. Reality
for Presbyterian Missionaries in New Mexico, 1872-1912. Michèle Butts.

Journal ofPresbyterian History, 75 (Winter, 1997), 223-234.

Men, Masculinity, and Urban Revivalism: J. Wilbur Chapman's Boston Crusade,
1909. Margaret Lamberts Bendroth. Journal of Presbyterian History, 75
(Winter, 1997), 235-246.
Abraham Kuyper, J. Gresham Machen, and the Dynamics of Reformed AntiModernism. James D. Bratt. Journal of Presbyterian History, 75 (Winter,
1997), 247-258.
The "Catholic Issue" in the Election of 1928 in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. Kathleen P. Munley Records ofthe American Catholic Historical Society ofPhiladelphia, 108 (Spring-Summer, 1997), 51-73.
Leaning on the Lord during the Lean Years: The Lutheran Church during the
Great Depression. Paul M. Heerboth. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 70 (Winter, 1997), 217-227.
A Jewish Benedictine: The Odyssey of Brother Boniface Spiegelberg,
O.S.B. James Flint, O.S.B. American Benedictine Review, 49 (Mar, 1998),
86-102.

The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and Desegregation, 1945-1980.

Mark Newman. North Carolina Historical Review, LXXV (Jan., 1998),
1-28.

"One Way": Billy Graham, the Jesus Generation, and the Idea of an Evangelical

Youth Culture. Larry Eskridge. Church History, 67 (Mar, 1998), 83-106.
LATIN AMERICAN

Stranger in a Foreign Landjosé de Acosta's Scientific Realizations in SixteenthCentury Peru. Thayne R. Ford. Sixteenth Century Journal, XXLX (Spring,
1998), 19-33.

Una nueva lectura de los informes de la misión Muzi: la Santa Sede y la Iglesia de
las Provincias Unidas. Valentina Ayrolo. Boletín del Instituto de Historia

Argentina y Americana, No. 14, 3rd series (2, 1996), 31-60.

La praxis de visita "Ad limina" de las Iglesias latinoamericanas en el siglo XLX.

Misael Camus Ibzcachc. Hispania Sacra,XLDí (July-Dec, 1997), 569-584.
América Latina y el Caribe hacia 1898 según la diplomacia vaticana. Antón M.
Pazos. Hispania Sacra,XUX (July-Dec, 1997), 543-567.

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

America y las Islas del Pacífico. (Madrid: José Porrúa Türanzas, S.A.) A cata-

logue.
Aronowicz, Annette. Jews and Christians on Time and Eternity: Charles
Péguy's Portrait of Bernard-Lazare. [Stanford Studies in Jewish History
and Culture.] (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1998. Pp. xv, 185.
$39.50.)
Aubert, R. (Ed.). Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastiques. Fascicule 154: Japon-Jean Becchetti de Fabriano; Fascicule 155. Jean Becchetti de Fabriano- Jean III d'Ermeland et Supplément au tome XXVL.
(Paris: Letouzey etAné. [1997.] Cols. 1025-1280; 1281-1512. 290F;293 F.)
Barnes, Andrew E. The Social Dimension of Piety:Associative Life and Devotional Change in the Penitent Confraternities of Marseilles (14911 792). [Theological Inquiries, Studies in Contemporary Biblical and Theological Problems.] (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press. 1994. Pp. x, 285. $ 1 2.95 paperback.)
Barrett, Elinore M. "The Geography of Rio Grande Pueblos Revealed by Spanish
Explorers, 1541-1598." [Latin American Institute Research Paper Series
No. 30.] (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico. 1997. Pp. iii, 43. Paperback.)

Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box.The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.

(New York: Simon & Schuster. 1998. Pp. xii, 307. $13.00 paperback.)

Bergren, Theodore A. Sixth Ezra.The Text and Origin. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1998. Pp. xiv, 282. $49.95.)
Brucker, Gene. Florence.The Golden Age, 1131-1737. (Berkeley: University of

California Press. 1998. Pp. 278. $29.95 paperback.) Lavishly and beautifully

illustrated in full color.

Burdick, Michael A. For God and the Fatherland: Religion and Politics in Argentina. [SUNY Series in Religion, Culture and Society] (Albany: State Uni-

versity of New York Press. 1996. Pp. xi, 283. $21.95 paperback.)

Burton, Janet. Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000-1300. [Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.] (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1994.

Pp. xi, 354. $69.95 cloth; $18.95 paper.)

Calendar of Documents and Related Historical Materials in the Archival
Center, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for the Most Reverend Thaddeus
Atnat, CM, 1853-1878. Prepared by Sister Mary Rose Cunningham, C.S. C.
632

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED633

With a Preface and Historical Introduction by Francis J. Weber. (Mission
Hills, Calif.: Saint Francis Historical Society. 1994. Pp. civ, 143)

Calendar of Documents and Related Historical Materials in the Archival
Center, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for the Most Reverend Francis Mora,
1871-1894. Prepared by Sister Mary Rose Cunningham, C.S.C. With a Preface and Historical Introduction by Francis J. Weber. (Mission Hills, Calif.:
Saint Francis Historical Society. 1994. Pp. xlvi,92.)
Cazier, Pierre. Isidore de Seville et la Naissance de l'Espagne catholique.

[Théologie Historique, Volume 96.] (Paris: Beauchesne. 1994. Pp. vi, 329.

195 FF paperback.)
Chase, Steven L. (Ed.). Doors of Understanding: Conversations on Global Spirituality in Honor of Ewert Cousins. (Quincy, IU.: Franciscan Press. 1997.

Pp. xxxiv, 455. $27.95.) One of the essays is "Was Francis of Assist a Mystic?" by Bernard McGinn (pp. 145-174).

Colahan, Clark. The Visions of Sor María de Agreda: Writing Knowledge and

Power. (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press. 1994. Pp. Lx, 194. $35.00.)

Crosby, Everett U. Bishop and Chapter in Twelfth-Century England:A Study of
the 'Mensa Episcopalis.' [Cambrige Studies in Medieval Life and Thought.]

(NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1994. Pp. xiv, 450. $64.95.)
Cubitt, Catherine. Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c.650-c.850. [Studies in the

Early History of Britain.] (NewYork: Leicester University Press. Distributed

by St. Martin's Press, Inc. 1995. Pp. x, 363)

Debus, Allen G. , and Michael T. Walton (Eds.). Reading the Book ofNature: The

Other Side of the Scientific Revolution. [Sixteenth Century Essays and
Studies,Volume 4L] (Kirksville, Mo. : Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers,

Inc. 1998. Pp. xvi, 280. $45.00.)

Delany, Sheila. Impolitic Bodies: Poetry, Saints, and Society in Fifteenth-

Century England, The Work of Osbern Bokenham. (New York: Oxford

University Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 235. Paperback.)
Demerath III, N. J., Peter Dobkin Hall, Terry Schmitt, and Rhys H.Williams (Eds.).
Sacred Companies: OrganizationalAspects ofReligion and Religious As-

pects of Organizations. [Religion in America.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 1998. Pp. xxiv, 410. $55.00.) One of the essays in Part II,

"Historical Sources and Patterns of U.S. Religious Organizations," is Chapter 8,"Ethnocultural Cleavages and the Growth of Church Membership in

the United States, 1861-1930," by Judith R. Blau, Kent Redding, and Kenneth C. Land (pp. 131-153).
Doran, Robert. Birth of a Worldview: Early Christianity in Its Jewish and
Pagan Context. [Explorations.] (Boulder, Co.:Westview Press. 1995. Pp. xv,
183. $49.95 cloth; $17.95 paperback.)

634OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Ehrman, Bart D. The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early
Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. (New
York: Oxford University Press. 1993. Pp. xiii, 314. $45.00.)

Ellens, Jacob R Religious Routes to Gladstonian Liberalism: The Church Rate

Conflict in England and Wales, 1832-1868. (University Park: Pennsylvania University State Press. 1994. Pp. xiii, 301 . $45.00.)
Ewen, Charles R., and John H. Hann. Hernando de Soto among the Apalachee:
The Archaeology of the First Winter Encampment. (Gainesville: Univer-

sity Press of Florida. 1998. Pp. xvi, 238. $29.95 paperback.)

Flint, Thomas P. Divine Providence: The Molinist Account. [Cornell Studies in
the Philosophy of Religion.] (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press. 1998.
Pp. xi, 258. $35.00.)

Freiberg, Jack. The Lateran in 1600: Christian Concord in Counter-Reformation Rome. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp. xvi, 333·
$75.00.)
Fuller, Anne R (Ed.). Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to
Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, Vol. XVII, Part I: Alexander VL
(1492-1503); Lateran Registers Part Two: 1495-1503. (Dublin: Irish Manu-

scripts Commission. 1994. Pp. lxvii, 926. £50.00.)

Furlong, Paul, and David Curtis (Eds.). The Church Faces the Modern World:
Rerum Novarum and its Impact. (S. Humberside, England: Earlsgate
Press. 1994. Pp. x, 256. £35.00.) Contents: 1. Emile Poulat, "Réflexions sur

un Centenaire" (pp. 21-26); 2. John Molony, "The Making of Rerum No-

varum April 1890-May 1891" (pp. 27-39); 3- Michael J. Schuck, "Theologi-

cal Communitarianism:The Foundation of Encyclical Social Teaching" (pp.

41-48); 4. Jonathan Boswell, "Catholic Communitarianism and Advanced
Economie Systems: Problems of Middle-Level Thinking Since 1891" (pp.
46-69); 5. James O'Connell/'Is there a Catholic Social Doctrine? The Prob-

lem of content and the Ambivalence of History, Analysis and Authority"
(pp. 71-106); 6. Robert C. Walton, "Rerum Novarum and Political Catholi-

cism in the Second Reich" (pp. 107-121); 7. Paul Luykx, "A Century of
Dutch Catholicism and Rerum Novarum" (pp. 123-138); 8. Y M. Hilaire,
"Rerum Novarum et la presse catholique sociale dans la région du Nord
de la France (1891-1914)" (pp. 139-148); 9. Michèle Lagrée,"Le Père Lehret et le Mouvement de Saint-Malo" (pp. 149-159); 10. Roger Pasquier,"La

J.O.C. en Afrique Noire" (pp. 161-179); 11. Jean-Dominique Durand,

"Rerum Novarum dans l'enseignement social de l'Eglise Catholique en

Italie, au Lendemain de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale" (pp. 181-190); 12.

V Alan McClelland, "Henry Edward Manning and the Rights and Dignity of
Labour" (pp. 191-203); 13. Bernard Aspinwall, "Rerum Novarum in the
Transatlantic World" (pp. 205-239); 14. Paul Misner,"The Emergence of an
International Organisation of Christian Labour after Rerum Novarum"

(pp. 241-256).

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED635

Gallagher, John P. A Second Century Begins: The Diocese of Scranton, 19681993- (Scranton, Pa.: The Diocese of Scranton. 1993. Pp. xiv, 391. $17.50.)
Garvey Brian. Bembaland Church:Religious and Social Change in South Central Africa, 1891-1964. [Studies of Religion in Africa, Vol. VIIL] (Leiden:
EJ. Brill. 1994. Pp. vü, 217. $63.00.)
Halls, W D. Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France. [Berg French

Studies.] (Providence, R.I.: Berg Publishers. 1995. Pp. xi, 419. $6995 hardcover; $22.95 paperback.)

Harper-Bill, Christopher. Charters of the Medieval Hospitals of Bury St. Edmunds. [Suffolk Record Society, Suffolk Charters, Vol. XIV] (Rochester,

N.Y.:Boydell & Brewer, Inc. 1994. Pp. xv, 193. $35.00.)

Hathorn, Ramon. Our Lady of the Snows: Sarah Bernhardt in Canada. [Currents in Comparative Romance Languages and Literatures, Vol. 38.] (New
York: Peter Lang. 1996. Pp. xi, 327.)
Horn, Rebecca. Postconquest Coyoacan: Nahua-Spanish Relations in Central
Mexico, 1519-1650. (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1998. Pp. xvii,
356. $55.00.)
Ioly Zorattini, Pier Cesare. Processi del S. UJfizio di Venezia contro Ebrei e Giudaizzanti (1682-1734). [Storia dell'Ebraismo in Italia, Studi ei Testi XVI,
Sezione Véneta 13] (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore. 1994. Pp. v, 317. Ure
84,000 paperback.)

Ivereigh, Austen. Catholicism and Politics in Argentina, 1810-1960. (New

York: St. Martin's Press, in association with St. Antony's College, Oxford.
1995. Pp. xiv, 275. $59.95.)
Jaeger, C. Stephen. The Envy ofAngels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in
Medieval Europe, 950-1200. [Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: Univer-

sity of Pennsylvania Press. 1994. Pp. xvi, 515. $39.95.)
Johnson, Elizabeth A. Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological
Reading of the Communion of Saints. (New York: Continuum Books.

1998. Pp. xi, 306. $24.50.)

Jones, Anny Brooksbank. Women in Contemporary Spain. (New York: Manchester University Press. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. 1998. Pp. Lx, 208.
Paperback.)
Kessler, Lawrence D. The Jiangyin Mission Station:An American Missionary
Community in China, 1895-1951. [The James Sprunt Studies in History

and Political Science, Vol. 61.] (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press. 1996. Pp. xiv, 212. $24.95 paperback.)

Kirk,John M. Politics and the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. (Gainesville: Uni-

versity Press of Florida. 1992. Pp. xiv, 246. $34.95.)

Klingshirn, William E. Caesarius ofAries: The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul. [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and

636OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Thought, Fourth Series, Vol. 22.] (New York: Cambridge University Press.

1994. Pp. xxi, 317. $59.95.)

Knysh, George. Political Ockhamism. (Winnipeg: WCU Council of Learned Societies. 1996. Pp. 352.)
Kruger, Steven F. Dreaming in the MiddleAges. [Cambridge Studies in Medieval
Literature, 14.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1992. Pp. xii, 254.
$59.95.)
Kunkel, Thomas. Enormous Prayers:A Journey into the Priesthood. (Boulder,

Colo.: Westview Press. 1998. Pp. vi, 202. $25.00.)

Landes, Richard. Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits ofHistory:Ademar ofChabannes, 989-1034. [Harvard Historical Studies,Volume 117.] (Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1995. Pp. xii, 404. $55.00.)

Lemaitre, Nicole. Saint Pie V. (Paris: Fayard. 1994. Pp. 432. 150 FF paperback.)
Leyser, Henrietta. Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England,
450-1500. (New York: St. Martin's Press. 1998. Pp. xiii, 337. $17.95 paperback.) First published in 1995.
Llywelyn, Morgan. 79^6. (NewYork:TomDoherty Associates, Inc. 1998. Pp. 447.
$24.95.) A novel about the Irish Rebellion.
Louthan, Howard, and Andrea Sterk (Eds.). John Comenius: The Labyrinth of
the World and the Paradise ofthe Heart. [Classics ofWestern Spirituality]
(Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press. 1998. Pp. x, 250. $16.95 paperback.)
Machan, Tibor R. GenerosityVirtue in Civil Society. (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute. 1998. Pp. xii, 107. $8.95 paperback.)
Maierii, Alfonso. University Training in Medieval Europe. Trans, and ed. D. N.
Pryds. [Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance,Volume

3.] (Leiden: EJ. Brill. 1994. Pp. xvi, 188. $68.75.)

Marshall, Peter. The Catholic Priesthood and the English Reformation. [Oxford Historical Monographs.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 1994.
Pp. xi, 271.)
Massignon, Louis. Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic
Mysticism. Trans. Benjamin Clark. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press. 1998. Pp. xxxi, 253. $45.00.)
Mayer, Thomas F. Thomas Starkey and the Commonweal: Humanist Politics
and Religion in the Reign ofHenry VLLL [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1989. Pp. x,
316. $59.50.)
McLellandJoseph C. (Ed.). Peter Martyr Vermigli. Early Writings: Creed Scripture Church. [Peter Martyr Library, Vol. 1.] (Kirksville, Mo. .Sixteenth Cen-

tury Essays & Studies. 1994. Pp. x, 244. $35.00.)

McLeod, Hugh. Religion and the People of Western Europe, 1 789-1989- (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1997. Pp. xiii, 182. Paperback.) Originally
published in 1981.

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED637

Meeks, Wayne A. The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries.
(New Haven: Yale University Press. 1993. Pp. x, 275. $30.00 cloth; $12.00
paper.)
Merriman, Brigid O'Shea, O.S.F. Searching for Christ: The Spirituality of
Dorothy Day. [Notre Dame Studies in American Catholicism.] (Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. 1994. Pp. xi, 333. $29.95.)
Miller, Calvin (Ed.). The Book ofJesus:A Treasury of the Greatest Stories and

WritingsAbout Christ. (NewYork: Simon & Schuster. 1998. Pp. 574. $15.00
paperback.) Revised edition; originally published in 1996.

Newman, Barbara. Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine.
(Berkeley: University of California Press. 1998. Pp. xxiv, 305. $14.95 paperback.) Originally published in 1987. This edition has a new preface, bibliography, and discography.
Nicholls, David. God and Government in an "Age ofReason." (New York: Rout-

ledge. 1995. Pp. xi, 278. $65.00.)

Nischan, Bodo. Prince, People, and Confession: The Second Reformation in

Brandenburg. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1994. Pp.
xvi, 366. $48.95.)

Noel, William. The Harley Psalter. [Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and

Codicology, Volume 4.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp.
xvii, 231. $64.95.)

O'Connor, Frank. The Big Fellow: Michael Collins and the Irish Revolution.
(New York: Picador. 1998. Pp. 222. $20.00 hardback; $12.00 paperback.)
First published in the United States in 1937. This edition was first published in the United Kingdom in 1991.
O'Grady, John F. The Roman Catholic Church: Its Origin and Nature. (Mah-

wah, N.J.: Paulist Press. 1997. Pp. viii, 216. $14.95 paperback.)

O'Neill, Charles Edwards. Séjour: Parisian Playwrightfrom Louisiana. (Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, Universtiy of Southwestern Louisiana.

1996. Pp. Lx, 164. $25.00.)

Odo of Tournai. On Original Sin and A Disputation with the Jew, Leo, Concerning the Advent of Christ, the Son of God: Two Theological Treatises.
Trans. Irven M. Resnick. [Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press. 1994. Pp. x, 146. $29.95 cloth; $12.95 paper.)

Paravicini Bagliani, Agostino. Der Leib des Papstes: Eine Theologie der Hinfäll-

igkeit. Trans. Ansgar Wildermann. (Munich:Verlag CH. Beck. 1997. Pp. 348.
DM 68,-.) Originally published as II Corpo del Papa (Turin: Einaudi Editore,
1994).

Paravy, Pierrette. De la chrétienté romaine à la Réforme en Dauphiné:

Évêques, Fidèles et déviants (vers 1340-1530). 2 vols. [Collection de

l'École Française de Rome, 183] (Rome: École Française de Rome. 1993Pp. x, 767; 769- 1536.)

638OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED
Perroni, Marinella, and Elmar Salmann (Eds.). Patrimonium Fidei: Traditions-

geschichtliches Verstehen am Ende? Festschrift für Magnus Löhrer und

Pius-Ramon Tragan. [Studia Anselmiana, 124.] (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S.

Anselmo. 1997. Pp. 788. Lire 120,000 paperback.) One of the thirty-one essays in this volume is "Die Lehre vom Sakrament der Ehe vom Konzil von

Trient bis zum IL Vatikanischen Konzil. Eine Überlieferungsgeschichte?" by
Benno Malier (pp. 749-758).
Petersen, Rodney L. Preaching in the Last Days: The Theme of"Two Witnesses"
in the 16th and 1 7th Centuries. (NewYork: Oxford University Press. 1993.
Pp. xiii, 318. $49.95.)
Pulían, Brian. The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550-1670.
(New York: LB. Tauris, distributed by St. Martin's Press. 1998. Pp. xv, 348.

$1995 paperback.) Originally published in 1983 by Barnes & Noble, To-

towa, NJ.

Reich, Peter Lester. Mexico's Hidden Revolution: The Catholic Church in Law

and Politics since 1929- [Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies.] (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. 1995. Pp. x, 193.
$28.95.)
Rey-Mermet, Théodule, C.Ss.R. St. Alphonsus Liguori: Tireless Worker for the
Most Abandoned. Translated from the second French edition by JehanneMarie Marchesi. (New York: New City Press. 1989. Pp. 787. $36.00.)
Roberts, Michael. Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon
of Prudentius. [Recentiores: Later Latin Texts and Contexts.] (Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan Press. 1993. Pp. x, 222. $37.50.)

Robson, Roy R. Old Believers in Modern Russia. [Russian Studies Series.]
(DeKaIb: Northern Illinois University Press. 1995. Pp. xiii, 188. $30.00
cloth; $15.00 paper.)
Rosenberg, Charles M. The Este Monuments and Urban Development in Renaissance Ferrara. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xvii,
320. $75.00.)
Saenger, Paul. Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading. [Figurae:
Reading Medieval Culture.] (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1997. Pp.
xxi, 480. $49.50.)
Schmidt, Stjepan, SJ. Augustin Bea: The Cardinal of Unity. Trans. Leslie
Wearne. (New Rochelle, N.Y.: New City Press. 1992. Pp. 806.)
Schofield, Robert E. The Enlightenment offoseph Priestley:A Study ofHis Life
and Workfrom 1 733 to 1 773- (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1997. Pp. xii, 305. $45.00.)
Sells, Michael A. The Bridge Betrayed:Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. [Comparative Studies in Religion and Society,Volume 11.] (Berkeley: University

of California Press. 1996. Pp. xv, 244. $1995.)

Strehle, Stephen. The Catholic Roots of the Protestant Gospel: Encounter between the Middle Ages and the Reformation. [Studies in the History of

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED639

Christian Thought, Volume 60.] (Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1995. Pp. xi, 146.
$54.50.)

Sullivan, Thomas, O.S.B. Benedictine Monks at the University of Paris, A.D.
1221-1500. [Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance,
Volume 4.] (Leiden: EJ. Brill. 1995. Pp. xii, 458.)
Taylor, Miriam S. Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity:A Critique of the

Scholarly Consensus. [Studia Post-Biblica, Volume 46.] (Leiden: E.J. Brill.

1995. Pp. Lx, 207. $56.00.)
Thomas, George M. Revivalism and Cultural Change: Christianity, Nation
Building, and the Market in the Nineteenth-Century United States.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1989. Pp. xii, 238. $34.95.)
Van Deusen, Nancy (Ed.). The Intellectual Climate of the Early University: Essays in Honor of Otto Gründler. [Studies in Medieval Culture, XXXLX.]
(Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications. 1997. Pp. Lx, 219. Paperback.) Some of the essays published here are "The Sentence Collection

and the Education of Professional Theologians in the Twelfth Century," by
Mareta Colish (pp. 1-26); "Approaches and Attitudes to a New Theology
Textbook: The Sentences of Peter Lombard," by Nancy Spatz (pp. 27-52);"A
Re-evaluation of the Contribution of Thomas Aquinas to the ThirteenthCentury Theology of the Eucharist," by Gary Macy (pp. 53-72); "The Condemnations of 1277 and the Intellectual Climate of the Medieval

University," by Leland Edward Wilshire (pp. 151-193); and "The Schoolmen," by Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M. (pp. 195-218).
Vogel, Lester I. To See a Promised Land:Americans and the Holy Land in the
Nineteenth Century. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

1993. Pp. xvüi, 338. $35.00.)

Weaver, Stewart A. The Hammonds:A Marriage in History. (Stanford: Stanford

University Press. 1998. Pp. x, 349. $49.50.)
Williams, Stephen, and Gerard Friell. Theodosius: The Empire at Bay. (New
Haven: Yale University Press. 1998. Pp. 238. $37.50 cloth; $17.00 paper.)
First published in the United States in 1995 and reviewed by H. A. Drake
ante, LXXXII OuIy, 1996), 500-501.

York, Neil Longley. Neither Kingdom nor Nation: The Irish Questfor Constitu-

tional Rights, 1698-1800. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press. 1994. Pp. xii, 280. $54.95.)

Zanger, Abby E. Scenes from the Marriage of Louis XTV: Nuptial Fictions and
the Making ofAbsolutist Power. (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1997.
Pp. xv, 244. $45.00.)