The Catholic Historical
Review
VOL. XC

APRIL, 2004

No. 2

“EVIL-SOUNDING, RASH, AND SUSPECT OF HERESY”:
TENSIONS BETWEEN MYSTICISM AND MAGISTERIUM
IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
BY

BERNARD MCGINN*

In the Bull In agro dominico, issued by Pope John XXII on March 27,
1329, the first fifteen articles extracted from the works of Meister Eckhart are condemned as haereticos, while the final eleven are said to be
male sonantes, temerarios, et suspectos de haeresi, a traditional formula. The pope absolved Eckhart himself of conscious heresy, noting
in the conclusion of the Bull,“The aforesaid Eckhart . . . professed the
Catholic faith at the end of his life and revoked and also deplored the
twenty-six articles which he admitted that he had preached . . . insofar
as they could generate in the minds of the faithful a heretical opinion,
or one erroneous and hostile to true faith.”1 This did not prevent Pope
John from engaging in a damnatio memoriae of the deceased Dominican in the Bull’s preface.Here Eckhart is said to be someone who “wished
*Dr. McGinn is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor Emeritus in the Divinity
School of the University of Chicago. He read this paper as his presidential address at a luncheon held in the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C., on January 10, 2004, during
the eighty-fourth annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association.
1
The critical version of the Bull In agro dominico has not yet appeared in the edition
of Eckhart’s writings, Meister Eckhart. Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke herausgegeben im Auftrag der deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (Stuttgart/Berlin, 1936–).
This edition has two sections, Die deutschen Werke (hereafter DW ) and Die lateinischen
Werke (LW ). The best current version of the bull is that of M.-H. Laurent, “Autour du
procès de Maître Eckhart,” Divus Thomas, ser. III, 13 (1936), 435–446. For the translation
used here, see Meister Eckhart. The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and
Defense, translation and introduction by Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., and Bernard McGinn
(“Classics of Western Spirituality Series” [New York, 1981]), pp. 77–81.

193

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“EVIL-SOUNDING, RASH, AND SUSPECT OF HERESY”

to know more than he should,” who was “led astray by the Father of
lies,” and who sowed “thorns and obstacles contrary to the very clear
truth of faith in the field of the Church.” Eckhart is castigated for presenting “many things as dogma that were designed to cloud the true
faith in the hearts of many, things which he put forth especially before
the uneducated crowds in his sermons.”
Much has been written on Eckhart’s condemnation, both in terms
of sorting out the events and of evaluating its outcome.2 In 1980 the Dominican order petitioned the Holy See to have the condemnation
rescinded, so that Eckhart, like a mystical Gallileo, might be freed of
whatever clouds still hang over his name. Thus far there has been
no word from Rome. My purpose here is not to plead for Eckhart’s
rehabilitation—he scarcely needs one today. Rather, I will try to put the
condemnation of 1329 into a broad perspective in order to gain some
insight into the sources of the tensions between mysticism and the
magisterium, the authoritative teaching of the Church.3 My contention
is that such tensions are not merely accidental, the result of the bad will
of heretics or the mistakes and incomprehension of authority figures,
but that they also are partly the result of inherent issues, pressure
points if you will, in the relation of mysticism and magisterium in the
history of Christianity.
By the time of the 1329 condemnation, Eckhart had been dead for
fourteen months.4 What would have happened to the respected Dominican had he still been alive remains speculation. But the fate of other
mystics condemned for heresy is well known. Let me present two famous cases.
2
Some of the issues still under discussion appear in Eckhardus Theutonicus, homo
doctus et sanctus. Nachweise und Berichte zum Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart, edited
by Heinrich Stirnimann and Ruedi Imbach (Freiburg Schweiz, 1992). For the context of
academic trials for heresy, see J. M. M. H. Thijssen, Censure and Heresy at the University
of Paris 1200–1400 (Philadelphia, 1998), chap. 1.
3
On the notion of magisterium, see Karl Rahner, “Magisterium,” in Encyclopedia of
Theology, The Concise “Sacramentum Mundi,” edited by Karl Rahner (New York, 1975),
pp. 871–880. The most recent official documents on the magisterium are Vatican Council
II’s Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, chap. 3, arts. 25–26; and the 1994 Catechism
of the Catholic Church, especially Part I, Section 2, chap. 3, art. 9, nn. 888–892; and Part 3,
Section 1, chap. 3, art. 3, nn. 2032–2040.
4
The date of Eckhart’s death was thought to have been lost until Walter Senner, O.P.,
discovered that later German Dominican sources celebrated his liturgical remembrance
on January 28, so it is very likely he died on that date in 1328.See Senner,“Meister Eckhart
in Köln,” Meister Eckhart: Lebensstationen—Redesituationen, edited by Klaus Jacobi
(Berlin, 1997), p. 233.

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195

On June 1, 1310, the wandering beguine, Marguerite Porete, was
burned at the stake in the Place de Grève in Paris as a relapsed heretic.5
Marguerite had been arrested in 1308 for continuing to disseminate
her book The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls after having been
forbidden to do so by the bishop of Cambrai. She refused to say anything to the inquisitorial board under the leadership of the Dominican
William of Paris, confessor to King Philip the Fair; so she was finally
handed over to the secular arm for execution.6 As is often the case,
the relation of the motivations behind the condemnation of Marguerite
is unclear. Defense of orthodoxy, suspicion of the beguines, and possible political implications, such as Philip the Fair’s desire to appear as a
staunch proponent of correct belief in the midst of his quarrels with
the papacy, all probably played a part.7
Movie versions of the death of Joan of Arc, or the scene of the burning of the woman accused of witchcraft in Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh
Seal, have given us some sense, if a sanitized one, of what such a horrible scene must have been like. Although the surviving documentation
is negative toward Marguerite,the anonymous continuator of the Chronicle of William of Nangis records that “she showed many noble and devout signs of penance at her death by which the feelings of many were
moved to heartfelt compassion toward her and even to tears, as eyewitnesses who saw it testified.”8 Others may have found it no more than
an entertaining public spectacle,as was so often the case with gruesome
public executions in premodern times.
Unlike Eckhart, Marguerite Porete was not a trained theologian, nor
did she belong to an established, papally supported order, but rather to
the increasingly suspect unenclosed beguines.Characterized as a pseudomulier, or false woman, by her foes, even had she recanted her views,
she would have faced life imprisonment.The heretical articles that were
the basis for her condemnation, partly recoverable through modern
5
There is a growing literature on Marguerite Porete. For a survey, see Bernard McGinn,
The Flowering of Mysticism. Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200–1350)
(New York, 1998), pp. 244–265.
6
The texts relating to the trial and execution of Porete can be found in Paul Verdeyen,
“Le procès d’Inquisition contre Marguerite Porete et Guiard de Cressonessart (1309–
1310),”Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 81 (1986), 41–94. For a useful account, see Robert
E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (Berkeley, California,
1972), pp. 71–78.
7
For the political implications, see Lerner, op. cit., p. 77.
8
Verdeyen, op. cit., p. 89:“Multa tamen in suo exitu poenitentiae signa ostendit nobilia
pariter et devota, per quae multorum viscera ad compatiendum ei pie ac etiam lacrymabiliter fuisse commota testati sunt oculi qui viderunt.”

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“EVIL-SOUNDING, RASH, AND SUSPECT OF HERESY”

study, helped form the basis for the Council of Vienne’s 1312 attack on
the dangerous mystical ideas attributed to beguines and beghards.9 This
was the birth certificate of the movement traditionally referred to as the
heresy of the Free Spirit (secta libertatis spiritus), though, to use
Robert Lerner’s phrase, it may have been an example of a birth certificate without a baby,10 since evidence for an actual movement of libertine heretics,an “elite of amoral supermen,”as Norman Cohn once called
them,11 tends to dissipate when the sources are closely examined.
Although copies of Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls circulated in four
languages during the later Middle Ages, it was subsequently lost to history until 1946, when Romana Guarnieri identified a Vatican manuscript with the treatise known through inquisitorial sources.12 The
work has been controversial both in the fourteenth century and in the
twentieth. In her own time Porete convinced three reputable theologians to write in support of the book, although they all testified to its
difficulty and the need for careful interpretation.13 One of them was a

9
On the decrees of Vienne, see Lerner, op. cit., pp. 78–84; and Jacqueline Tarrant,“The
Clementine Decrees on the Beguines: Conciliar and Papal Versions,” Archivum Historiae
Pontificiae, 12 (1974), 300–308.
10
Op. cit., p. 83.
11
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium. Revolutionary Millenarians and
Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, revised and expanded edition (New York, 1970),
chaps. 8–9.
12
The 1946 article of Romana Guarnieri is reprinted in her essay, “Il Movimento del
Libero Spirito dalle Origini al Secolo XVI,” Archivio Italiano per la Storia della Pietà, 4
(1965), 661–663.
13
The three theologians’Approbatio of Marguerite’s treatise is not found in the one surviving French manuscript,but it is found in both the Latin and Middle English translations.
For the text, see Marguerite Porete. Le mirouer des simples ames, edited by Romana
Guarnieri and Paul Verdeyen (“Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis,” LXIX
[Turnhout, 1986]), pp. 404–409. One likely supposition concerning the creation of the
text and the addition of the Approbatio is as follows:
(a) Marguerite wrote the original form of the Mirror comprising 122 chapters probably in the 1290’s.
(b) Sometime between 1296 and 1305 this version was condemned by Guy of Colmieu,
bishop of Cambrai (1296–1306). He burned the book in Marguerite’s presence at
her native city of Valenciennes and forbade her to disseminate it.
(c) Marguerite then added chapters 123–139 to explain and defend her views. This
version may have been that shown to and approved by the three theologians (Godfrey of Fontaines [d. c. 1306/09], the Franciscan John of Querayn; and Dom Frank
of the Cistercian abbey of Villers in Brabant). Marguerite sent this version to Bishop
John of Châlons-sur-Marne.

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197

famous scholastic master, Godfrey of Fontaines; another, a Franciscan
named John of Querayn, is cited as follows:
He said that the book was truly made by the Holy Spirit and that if all the
world’s scholars heard only what they understood of it, they would not
know how to gainsay it. He asked that for God’s sake it be well guarded and
that few should see it. And he said that it was so deep that he himself could
not understand it.14

But the twenty-one heavyweights on the Paris inquisitorial commission, including an equal-opportunity group representing the major religious orders—the Franciscan Nicholas of Lyra, the Dominican Berengar
of Landorra, and the Augustinian Henry of Friemar—were not convinced. Marguerite went to the stake.
The issue of Marguerite’s orthodoxy was much debated in the 1960’s
and 1970’s, with Jean Orcibal, for example, defending the basic orthodoxy of the Mirror, and Edmund Colledge denying it.15 The outpouring
of studies on the Mirror during the past two decades has not lessened
disputes about this challenging text, one of the most sophisticated and
difficult of all medieval mystical treatises, though few seem as much
concerned about its doctrinal adequacy.However,in 1993,when Paulist
Press’s “Classics of Western Spirituality” published the first full translation of the French version,16 the Press received an irate letter from a

(d) The continued dissemination of the book came to the attention of William of Paris,
who had Marguerite arrested late in 1308. For this suggestion, see the “Introductory Interpretive Essay”in Margaret Porette.The Mirror of Simple Souls, translated
by Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., J. C. Marler, and Judith Grant (Notre Dame, Indiana,
1999), p. lxxxvi.
14
“Approbatio,” in Mirouer 140 (ed., 407.15–19): “Ille frater dixit quod iste liber erat
uere factus a Spiritu sancto, et quod si omnes clerici de mundo audirent solum quod intelligerent, ipsi nichil contradicere scirent. Et rogauit quod pro Deo bene custodiretur et
quod pauci uiderent. Et dixit quod erat ita altus, quod ipsemet non poterat intelligere.”
15
Jean Orcibal,“‘Le Miroir des simples ames’ et la ‘secte’ du Libre Esprit,”Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, 175 (1969), 35–60; and Edmund Colledge,“Liberty of Spirit:‘The Mirror of Simple Souls,’” Theology of Renewal, ed. L. K. Shook (2 vols.; Montréal, 1968), II,
100–117. In The Heresy of the Free Spirit, pp. 200–208, Robert Lerner concludes that
“Marguerite was probably a heretic” ( p. 208). On the other hand, Eleanor McLaughlin,
“The Heresy of the Free Spirit and Late Medieval Mysticism,”Mediaevalia et Humanistica,
n.s.4 (1973),37–54,adjudges the Mirror to be both orthodox and “Free Spirit”in the sense
that it displays a common spirituality found in both condemned and approved mystics.
16
Marguerite Porete.The Mirror of Simple Souls, translated and introduced by Ellen L.
Babinsky (“The Classics of Western Spirituality” [New York, 1993]).

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“EVIL-SOUNDING, RASH, AND SUSPECT OF HERESY”

subscriber who protested the publication of a book he believed attacked the traditions of his Roman Catholic faith and who proceeded to
cancel his subscription to a series that he said was in danger of becoming the “Classics of Feminist Spirituality.”
For the second case, we need to travel from Paris to Rome and fastforward almost four hundred years. On September 3, 1687, the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva witnessed a spectacle
memorable even by Roman standards.17 A Spanish priest resident in
Rome, who had for several decades enjoyed a reputation as a spiritual
guide, and who had found support among the highest levels of the Roman clergy, from the reigning Pope Innocent XI on down, had been arrested by the Inquisition in 1685. The upholders of Miguel de Molinos
had gradually withdrawn support as witnesses testified to the danger of
his teaching and spiritual counseling.18 Some even accused him of improper sexual relations with his penitents. Very little, if anything, dangerous, however, appears in his best-selling mystical treatise, The
Spiritual Guide, first published in 1675.19 Under threat of torture, Molinos confessed to his errors. The event in Santa Maria was the public
proclamation of his guilt.
We are told that the crowds began to gather at eight o’clock in the
morning and that fights broke out among those without tickets who
tried to force their way into the church. Molinos himself was brought in
under guard around noon amidst shouts of “To the flames with him.”
He was given lunch and allowed a siesta. Around three the dignitaries
arrived—prelates,ambassadors,Roman princes,and no less than twentythree cardinals. A team of four Dominicans took over two hours to read
the accusations against Molinos as he stood between guards with a candle in his hands. The reading was punctuated with frequent shouts of
“To the flames! To the flames!”, as the Roman mob got into the action.
Perhaps what infuriated them most was that Molinos remained imperturbable throughout. As one account puts it: “Molinos, not at all dismayed, stood undaunted on the platform with an arrogant look, as if the

17
For an account of the public abjuration of Molinos, see Paul Dudon, Le Quiétiste
Espagnol Michel Molinos (1628–1696) (Paris, 1921), pp. 204–208.
18
According to one account, the Pope himself finally was heard to exclaim, “Siamo
veramente ingannati!”
19
The Guía espiritual was first published in Spanish in Rome in 1675. It went through
twenty editions in seven languages during the decade before the arrest of Molinos. The
most recent edition is by José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras,Guía Espiritual.Edición crítica,
introducción y notas (Madrid, 1976).

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199

whole event were being put on for somebody else.”20 At the conclusion
of the reading, after the recitation of the sixty-eight articles condemned
as “heretical,erroneous,scandalous,suspect,offensive to pious ears,and
subversive of Christian discipline,”21 Molinos knelt before the Commissioner of the Holy Office and handed over his retraction. He was given
absolution and clothed in a yellow penitential robe decorated with a
red cross. About eight in the evening the carozza of the Inquisition
hauled him off to life imprisonment, accompanied by the mob that
threatened to throw him into the Tiber. He died in 1696.
Was Molinos a mystical heretic and sexual predator? We shall probably never know. On the basis of The Spiritual Guide, it is difficult to
convict him of dangerous error. The twenty thousand letters that the
Inquisition is said to have confiscated at the time of his arrest no longer
survive, having been conveniently burnt by the French when they occupied Rome a century later.22 Molinos is unfortunate in that the best
account of his career remains the 1921 book of the Jesuit Paul Dudon,
who was convinced that Molinos was one of the greatest monsters in
the history of Christianity,“a more or less abnormal sensualist,”as he put
it.23 Ronald Knox in Enthusiasm was only slightly less antithetic, characterizing the Spaniard as basically a false prophet, an “exhibitionist”
like Rasputin, who “readily induced himself to believe that the laws of
decency were made for the common run of mankind, not for the spiritually perfect.”24 More recently, the pendulum has swung the other way.
Eulogio Pacho, in his 1980 article on Molinos for the Dictionnaire de
spiritualité, found the Spanish priest neither saint nor villain, concluding:“Perhaps it is better to leave moral judgment to the Last Judge.”25
Most recently, the author of the article on Quietism in The Papacy: An

20
A passage from the eyewitness Avviso Marescotti quoted in Ludwig von Pastor,
The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages (St. Louis, 1940), XXXII, 453:
“Molinos senza punto smarrirsi stette intrepido nel palco con faccia tosta, come se per
un’altro si fosse fatta tal funtione.”
21
These same sixty-eight articles were later included in the papal Constitution Coelestis
Pater, issued by Innocent XI on November 20, 1687. The most convenient edition of
the text is in Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum, 31st ed., edited by Karl Rahner
(Barcelona-Freiburg-Rome, 1957), nn. 1221–1288.
22
Accounts of the number of the confiscated letters range between twelve and twenty
thousand.
23
Dudon, op. cit., p. 194.
24
Ronald A. Knox, Enthusiasm.A Chapter in the History of Religion with Special Reference to the XVII and XVIII Centuries (Oxford, 1950), p. 317.
25
Eulogio Pacho,“Molinos (Michel de),” Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, edited by Marcel Viller et al. (Paris, 1937–1994), X, 1513.

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Encyclopedia flatly declares that the propositions of the bulls and
briefs against the Quietists have no foundation in their texts and says,
“The accusations as to their morals were founded on untrue denunciations and baseless falsifications, whether they concerned Molinos, who
lived and died devoutly, Father La Combe, . . . or Mme Guyon. . . .”26 Can
we really know?
Whatever the motivation of Molinos, of Marguerite Porete, or even of
Meister Eckhart, these cases invite us to reflect on how things came to
such a pass. What lies behind these clashes between mysticism and
church teaching? One popular explanation is that the conflict between
institutional religion and mystical piety is inevitable insofar as mysticism is based upon claims to a direct personal relation to God independent of ecclesiastical structures and mediation. Both historians and
theologians have adopted this position—some to applaud; others to
condemn.For example,Steven E.Ozment’s Mysticism and Dissent says,
“Medieval mysticism was a refined challenge, always in theory if not
in daily practice, to the regular, normative way of religious salvation.”27
More recently, Don Cupitt’s Mysticism after Modernity argues that
mysticism’s fundamental attraction to the postmodern mentality is its
subversive character—it has always been a protest against dogmatic
theology and more often than not it has also served as a female critique
of male-dominated religion. For Cupitt, mysticism is what saves us from
religion.28
The incidents mentioned above, representative as they are of the
mystical heresies of the Free Spirit and Quietism, may seem to give credence to such views, but the theory of inevitable conflict between mysticism and institutional religion is challenged by the fact that so many of
the key mystics in the history of Christianity have been pillars of the institution—think of Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the
Great, Bernard, Bonaventure, Catherine of Siena, Gerson, Nicholas of
Cusa, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux.
A more searching exploration of the history of mysticism suggests a
different explanation, one not of inherent opposition, but of a nuanced
interaction among different elements within the framework of Catholic
belief and practice. Such an approach, or at least the grounds for one, is
26
Christian Renoux,“Quietism,” The Papacy: An Encyclopedia, Philippe Levillain, General Editor (3 vols.; New York and London, 2002), III, 1268.
27
Steven E. Ozment, Mysticism and Dissent: Religious Ideology and Social Protest in
the Sixteenth Century (New Haven, 1973), p. 1.
28
Don Cuppitt, Mysticism after Modernity (Oxford, 1998), especially chapters 9
and 10.

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201

suggested by the writings of the scholar of Jewish mysticism, Gershom
Scholem,who argued for a dialectical relation between mystical contact
with God and the established structures of religion,legal,theological, and
institutional.29 Against those who viewed mysticism in a fundamentally
anti-institutional way, Scholem insisted:“All mysticism has two contradictory or complementary aspects: the one conservative, the other revolutionary.”30
Religion, according to Scholem, develops in three stages.The first is a
mythical one in which there is no gap between gods and humans; this
is succeeded by a classical stage in which divine revelation establishes
institutional religion based upon a distinction between the human and
divine worlds. In the third stage, mysticism, understood as “direct contact between the individual and God,” seeks to revive the original unity
of mythical consciousness.31 Whatever we may think of this model, it
allowed Scholem to work out a nuanced view of the relation of the second and third stages. Since the new mystical contact with God is ineffable (“amorphous”in Scholem’s terms), mysticism becomes an historical
phenomenon only when the mystic tries to communicate his or her
contact with God to the broader religious community.In order to be understood, the mystic must make use of the language and symbols of the
tradition. Thus, as Scholem observed, mysticism in the three Western
monotheistic faiths has been primarily a conservative force insofar as
mystics “seem to rediscover the sources of traditional authority” and
thus “try to preserve it in its strictest sense.”32 But because of the amorphous nature of their consciousness of God, the inherited complex of
symbols and language can never fully capture the mystics’ experience,
and thus often needs to be stretched or transformed in the communicative process. This is why Scholem was so attracted to mysticism as
a resource for change and development within religion.
Change or adaptation, however, raises the nagging question of how
much development a tradition can allow without suffering essential
29
Scholem expounded his view on this aspect of mysticism especially in his essays:“Religious Authority and Mysticism,”On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York,1965),
pp. 5–31; and “Mysticism and Society,” Diogenes, 58 (1967), 1–24. What follows is adapted
from my “Foreword” to the 1996 reprint of On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, especially pp. x–xiii.
30
Scholem,“Religious Authority and Mysticism,” p. 7. See also “Mysticism and Society,”
pp. 9, 15–16.
31
“Religious Authority and Mysticism,” pp. 9–11. In “Mysticism and Society,” p. 8,
Scholem cites the Jewish thinker Leo Baeck (1873–1956) as the source for this view.
32
“Religious Authority and Mysticism,” p. 7.

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deformation or evolution into something different. Here the radical
pole of mystical consciousness comes to the fore. Some mystics, though
these are relatively rare, seem to have started from the claim that their
contact with God represents a new and higher revelation than that
found in the tradition. Between religious authority and such “innately
radical” mystics conflict is inevitable. More often, however, Scholem believed that mystics have conflict forced upon them by religious authority. In his view, “Such conflicts are largely unpredictable and do not
hinge essentially on the personality or doctrines of the mystic. They
depend entirely on historical circumstances.”33 As evidence he offers
the judgment that “doctrines which have been expressed with the utmost force at certain times and places without leading to any conflict
whatsoever may, under other historical conditions, foment violent
struggles,”citing the history of Catholic Quietism as an example.34 Thus,
for Scholem, it was historical accident that led to situations in which
mystics were forced to choose between their own truth and the truth
of the tradition.
As useful as Scholem’s analysis is, it is possible to go beyond his category of historical accident in pointing to certain inherently explosive
tendencies in the interaction of mysticism and religious authority, at
least in the history of Christianity. These tendencies, or perceived dangers, are fundamentally relational, that is, they are not so much inherent
to mysticism itself as they are expressive of the way in which the mystical aspect of the tradition comes to be viewed by the representatives
of its institutional life and teaching. I will try to illustrate these tendencies by a hurried, but I hope not totally superficial, look at the most
weighty of the clashes between mysticism and church teaching over
the centuries.
Gnosticism has meant different things to different investigators, so
much so that some would question its validity as a category. To the historian of mysticism, many Gnostic texts exhibit strong mystical overtones, and experts in Gnosticism have been willing to characterize it as
in some way a mystical form of religion.35 In Gnostic writings we find
33
Ibid., p. 24. See the whole discussion of this issue on pp. 23–25, as well as “Mysticism
and Society,” pp. 8–13.
34
“Religious Authority and Mysticism,” pp. 24–25.
35
Among accounts of Gnosticism that explore its mystical character, see especially
Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures. A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (Garden City, New York, 1987). See also Robert M. Grant,“Gnostic Spirituality,”
Christian Spirituality I, edited by Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff (New York,
1986), pp. 44–60. The following remarks are based in part on my account of Gnosticism

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203

key mystical themes,such as the fall and ascent of the soul,negative theology, contemplation, the vision of God, and unification with the immanent God—all present within a mythic pattern in which salvation is
achieved through the special knowledge ( gnôsis) by which some (not
all) believers come to recognize their inherent divinity.
Scholars of early Christianity continue to argue about the mechanisms
and processes at work in the transition from the early Jesus communities
to the Church—one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Few, however, would
disagree that the struggle over Gnosticism was a central moment in this
evolution. In The Foundations of Mysticism I have argued that the debate over gnôsis was a similarly defining issue in the development of
Christian mysticism.The notion of a teaching authority that was,at least
in principle, unified, apostolic, and universal, and therefore applicable
to all expressions of belief, was peculiar to Christianity among the religions of the Roman world. It began to emerge in the second century in
the midst of the quarrels over what it meant to be a Christian, of which
the struggle over the true meaning of gnôsis was the greatest. Christianity’s emphasis on orthodoxy implies an ongoing dialogue between
claims for personal mystical contact with God and a public and universal teaching authority. This form of conversation is not present, or at
least not present in the same way, in the sister religions of Judaism and
Islam. One might even say that mysticism acquired a necessary relation
to magisterium in Christianity largely because the claims of at least
some early Christian Gnostics to esoteric teaching were seen as inadmissible in a religion whose success was closely linked to the universality of its teaching and the coherence and solidity of its institutional
organization.
Many of the Gnostic texts now available to us, as well as the sometimes skewed presentations of Gnosticism found in the fathers of emergent orthodoxy,highlight certain neuralgic issues that were to continue
to surface in the subsequent history of mysticism. Among these are the
question of whether the soul is naturally divine, a spark fallen from
heaven, or rather something created and only capable of eventual divinization. Another issue is the relation of the three gifts necessary for
redemption: faith ( pistis), love (agapê), and saving knowledge ( gnôsis).
Different Gnostic texts have different takes on the connection of the
three, but the insistence that what is attained in gnôsis and practiced in
agapê could not contravene pistis, the regula fidei, came to be deeply
in The Foundations of Mysticism. Origins to the Fifth Century (New York, 1991), pp.
89–99.

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embedded in the orthodox position during this period, as we see in
writers like Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Origen.
The extent to which some Gnostics did or did not claim that their
knowledge of God surpassed that of ordinary believers highlights the
third,and perhaps most important,issue:the role of esotericism.One aspect of this is the status to be accorded to visionary experience and
new revelatory texts.To what extent did such revelations grant a higher
or different knowing of God available to only a few? A second aspect
concerns the interpretation of scripture. All early Christians utilized
spiritual exegesis, and Gnostics were among the pioneers in its development; but what were the limits to reading beneath the surface of the
text to uncover deeper wisdom? As a result of the debates over Gnosticism, a general principle emerged in Orthodoxy that to the extent that
visions and revelations confirmed tradition, they were acceptable and
even useful; but insofar as any vision or message from God advanced
something new or at odds with tradition, especially a message accessible only to the favored few, they were to be rejected.36 The same principle applied to the spiritual interpretation of the Bible, which also
had to submit to the test of publicly proclaimed orthodoxy, as we can
see expressly argued in the handbooks of exegetical theory by writers
like Origen and Augustine.37 What could be reconciled with the public
regula fidei was allowed; what was seen as producing an esoteric truth
reserved only for those capable of receiving it came to be anathematized. Although the victory for nascent orthodoxy was not to be completely won for several centuries, the struggles of the second and early
third centuries were decisive in this respect.
Suspicion of esoteric teaching marks an important difference between Christian mysticism and the mysticisms of Judaism and Islam. In
both sister faiths it is striking how so many of their forms of mysticism
were developed within restricted conventicles where specially adept
individuals could explore beliefs and engage in practices that went beyond what was expected and sometimes even permissible to ordinary
believers as long as they conducted their public lives according to the
required forms of orthopraxy. Although never universal, esotericism

36
This principle perdures to the present, as can be seen in Lumen Gentium, chap. 3,
art.25:“They [the pope and bishops] do not allow that there could be any new public revelation pertaining to the divine deposit of faith.”
37
The two major handbooks of exegetical practice created by patristic authors both
emphasize the regula fidei as a norm of spiritual interpretation; see Origen, De principiis
4.2.2; and Augustine, De doctrina christiana 3.x.14.

BY BERNARD McGINN

205

was customary, even expected, in Jewish and Islamic mysticism,38
whereas it was considered dangerous in Christianity. To the extent that
there were conflicts and persecutions of mystics in other traditions,
such as in Islam,39 these appear more to have been the product of special situations than to have arisen from fears about esoteric knowledge
qua esoteric. Within the history of Christian mysticism, however,
the struggle against Gnosticism introduced a principle that might be
expressed as follows: insofar as mystics are seen as belonging to secret
groups fostering forms of knowledge in conflict with orthodoxy and
not at least implicitly accessible to the wider community of faith, such
mystics will become subject to suspicion and often confrontation.
Closely entwined with the issue of secrecy is that of illicit sexuality.
In ancient Rome, at least from the time of the persecution of the Bacchanals in 186 B.C., esoteric and clandestine cults were often accused
of sexual license by the guardians of social order.40 Similar accusations
were made against Christians from at least the second century, as we
know from the witness of the Apologists. Athenagoras, writing about
180, rebutted pagan attacks on Christians for indulging in “Thyestian
banquets” (i.e., cannibalism), as well as “Oedipean intercourse,” or incest.41 In the same second century, proto-Orthodox Christians began to
accuse some Gnostics of secret licentious practices.42 The cultural
topos equating esoteric religious groups with illicit sexuality, older than
Christianity, was to reappear again and again in the debates over mysticism. Individuals or groups that are perceived of as making claims to secret wisdom and conducting clandestine meetings were often also seen

38
The great exception in Judaism is the Hasidic movement beginning in the mideighteenth century.
39
The most noted case of Islamic persecution of a mystic is that of al-Hallãj, on which
see the classic work of Louis Massignon, The Passion of al-Hallãj, Volume 1: The Life of
al-Hallãj (Princeton, 1982).
40
In 186 B.C. the Roman authorities instituted a persecution of devotees of secret bacchic rituals said to have numbered seven thousand.The senatus consultum accuses them
of much the same sexual depravities later ascribed to the early Christians and medieval
heretics. The events are detailed in Livy, Book XXXIX.viii–xix. See the study of Adrien
Bruhl, Liber Pater, origine et expansion du culte dionysiaque à Rome et dans le monde
romain (Paris, 1953), pp. 82–116.
41
Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione, edited and translated by William R.
Schoedel (Oxford, 1972), 3.1 and 31–34.
42
E.g., Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1.6.3–4 and 1.13.3–6; Clement of Alexanderia,
Stromateis 3.2.5–10, 3.4.27–28, and 3.6.54; Epiphanius, Panarion 26. On these accusations, see Stephen Benko, Pagan Rome and the Early Christians (Bloomington, Indiana,
1986), pp. 65–73.

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“EVIL-SOUNDING, RASH, AND SUSPECT OF HERESY”

as antinomian. Of course, perhaps they were, at least at times; but the
ancient topos equating secrecy with forbidden sex makes it difficult to
be sure.
If esotericism and its attendant danger of sexual antinomianism (basically the only antinomianism that ever really counts) became fixed as
a neuralgic issue from the second century on, the next major chapter in
the conflict between mysticism and magisterium reveals another facet
of the story.According to Irénée Hausherr,“The great spiritual heresy of
the Christian East is Messalianism.”43 The Messalians or Euchites (both
names mean “those who pray,” one from Syriac, the other from Greek)
began to be noted in the second half of the fourth century.44 They were
anathematized by a council at Side summoned by Basil’s pupil Amphilochius of Iconium in 390. Later condemnations followed, including
at Ephesus in 431. Church historians and dogmatic writers, such as
Epiphanius (c.377),Theodoret (c.440–453),Timothy of Constantinople
(c. 600), and John of Damascus (c. 745), provide us with lists of their errors. Columba Stewart identifies ten key issues of belief and practice
that emerge from a comparison of these lists.45 The central doctrinal
problems revolve around the role of prayer in relation to baptism and
Eucharist. The Messalians were accused of claiming that there is a demon indwelling in the human heart (error 1) that cannot be expelled
by baptism (error 2), but only by ceaseless prayer (error 3) to the detriment of the duties of work and Christian practice (errors 7 and 9). Such
charges of over-reliance on individual prayer and neglect of the sacra-

43
Irénée Hausherr,“L’erreur fontamentale et la logique du messalianisme,” Orientalia
Christiana Periodica, 1 (1935), 328.
44
The most recent account is Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks. Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, California,
2002), chap. 3. See also Columba Stewart, OSB, ‘Working the Earth of the Heart’. The
Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to AD 431 (Oxford, 1991); and
Antoine Guillaumont,“Messaliens,” DS, X, 1074–1083.
45
The lists of Messalian errors are discussed in Stewart, op cit., pp. 52–69, who also presents a synoptic comparison of the texts and gives a translation in his “Appendix 2” ( pp.
244–279). Of the ten themes, the first five concern doctrine and the last five practice:
(1) the presence of an indwelling demon; (2) the inefficacy of baptism for the expulsion
of the demon; (3) the sole power of prayer for the expulsion; (4) the coming of the Holy
Spirit or the heavenly Bridegroom; (5) liberation from passions (apatheia); (6) claims
about visions and prophecies; (7) avoidance of work; (8) excessive sleep and the claim
that dreams are prophetic; (9) disregard for ecclesiastical communion and church ordinances;and (10) denial,perjury,and prevarication.Caner,op.cit.,sees the Messalians as adherents of an early form of Christian ascetic practice emphasizing continuous prayer,
refusal to work, and mendicancy.

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207

ments and active charity may be the earliest appearance of the complex
of errors that eventually crystallized under the name of Quietism.
Who exactly were the Messalians? Some aspects of the language the
orthodox took exception to, if not the most egregious positions themselves, can be found in both the Syriac Book of Ascents (Liber
graduum) from the late fourth century, and also in the contemporary
Fifty Spiritual Homilies pseudonymously ascribed to Macarius the
Great, sermons that were widely read and much praised, not only in the
Christian East but also in the West.46 Some have deemed these works
Messalian, but if this be the case, we have to admit that Messalianism
came in many varieties.47 In the long run the existence of Messalianism
as an actual group or sect is singularly elusive. Stewart notes,“The ‘Messalians,’ as such, have no recoverable history. But ideas and texts associated with them certainly do have a history, whoever may have been
tagged with them at various points throughout the controversy.”48 Stewart further contends that the attack on the Messalians was actually the
result of a linguistic and cultural misunderstanding between Greek and
Syriac forms of spirituality.49 Be that as it may, Messalianism, like Quietism, became a broad brush for smearing any position that seemed to
smack of suspect mystical prayer,as well as a variety of other errors.The
creation of Messalianism as a category of mystical heresy illustrates another of the neuralgic points in the history of the relation of mysticism
and magisterium. Insofar as mystical prayer is seen as in conflict with
the sacramental life of the community and/or the obligations of Christian charity, it becomes suspect.
The history of mystical heresy in Western Christendom, though historically discontinuous with the quarrels in the early Church, is still theologically connected, not only due to the influence of patristic writers,
but also through the persistence of the issues of esotericism, antinomianism, anti-sacramentalism, and suspect forms of prayer. There were,
however, new elements inducing suspicion that emerged in the long
arc of Western mystical heresy in the period between c. 1250 and 1750.
Among these the notion of personal annihilation took a central role,not

For a recent survey of these two works, see Caner, op. cit., pp. 107–117.
John Meyendorff,“Messalianism or Anti-Messalianism? A Fresh Look at the ‘Macarian’
Problem,” KYRIAKON: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, edited by P. Granfield and J. Jungmann (2 vols.; Münster, 1970), II, 585–590, argues that “. . . if ‘Macarius’ is a Messalian, this
entire tradition [i.e., Eastern Christian spirituality] is Messalian as well” ( p. 586).
48
Stewart, op. cit., p. 43.
49
Ibid., pp. 234–240.
46

47

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“EVIL-SOUNDING, RASH, AND SUSPECT OF HERESY”

only because it was new, but also because it can be seen as the root of
many of the dangers that the authorities perceived in mystics of the late
Middle Ages and Early Modernity. Although there were mystics, such as
Catherine of Genoa, John of the Cross, Benet Canfield, and Pierre de
Bérulle, who were able to employ annihilation language without incurring censure, this was a difficult task and a rare achievement.
Given the relational model of the interaction between mysticism and
magisterium suggested here, it was not just the emergence of new
forms of mysticism in the thirteenth century, but also changes in the institutional fabric of the Church and the ways in which it sought to preserve orthodoxy that were at work in the debates over mysticism that
stretched out for more than four centuries. Without the organization of
inquisitorial pursuit of heresy (inquisitio hereticae pravitatis), the
story of this conflict would have doubtless looked quite different.50 This
is not the place to go into the many aspects of medieval heresy investigation that make it difficult to determine what the accused actually
held, aspects such as the extract method for the determination of doctrinal error,51 and the fact that the judges determined what sounded like
heresy (the prout sonat principle),regardless of the intention of the defendant.52 Mystical heretics were rarely investigated for what they actu50
It must be noted that there was never any such institution as “the Inquisition” in the
Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the application of the inquisitional method (i.e., a legal procedure in which the judge was the accuser), on both the episcopal and the papal level, was
important for the history of the relation between mysticism and magisterium. Although
the de iure rights of heretical inquisitors did not generally differ from those of other inquisitional judges, in practice (de facto), heretical trials became a special world. In the
large literature on heretical inquisition, see especially Richard Kieckhefer, Repression of
Heresy in Medieval Germany (Philadelphia, 1979), chap. 3; and H. Ansgar Kelly,“Inquisition and the Prosecution of Heresy: Misconceptions and Abuses,” Church History, 58
(1989), 439–451. On academic investigations for heretical teaching, see Thijssen, op. cit.,
chap. 1.
51
On the method of investigating for heresy by compiling lists of articles, which goes
back at least as far as the case against Abelard, see Joseph Koch,“Philosophische und Theologische Irrtumslisten von 1270–1329. Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung der theologischen
Zensuren,” Kleine Schriften (2 vols.; Rome, 1973), II, 423–450. The method of taking extracts out of context was a source of dissatisfaction even in the medieval period, as can
be seen from Thijssen, op. cit., pp. 25–30. Eventually Benedict XIV in the Constitution
Sollicita of July 9, 1753, was to order that authors should not be condemned unless their
whole works were read. For this text,see Heinrich Seuse Denifle, O.P., Die deutschen Mystiker des 14.Jahrhunderts.Beitrag zur Deutung ihrer Lehre, edited by Otwin Speiss, O.P.
(Freiburg/Switzerland, 1951), pp. 122–123.
52
The prout sonat principle is evident in the academic heresy trials studied by Thijssen,
op. cit., pp. 25–33, and was also at work, if less overtly, in the popular inquisitorial proceedings. Learned theologians, like Meister Eckhart, strongly protested this approach, insisting on the intention of the author of suspect passages.

BY BERNARD McGINN

209

ally might have been willing to say about their beliefs,but most often on
the basis of inquisitional formularies (interrogatoria) of what mystical
heresy was supposed to sound like.53 All this makes it difficult to determine what such heretics really held.
The conflicts between mysticism and magisterium that began around
1300 were rooted not only in the mechanisms of control evident in late
medieval Christianity, but also in social aspects of the new mysticism
that emerged around 1200.54 These new forms of mysticism were
democratized, or open to all, secularized in the sense that they were realizable as much in the market place as in the cloister, and expressed for
the most part in the vernacular, often by women. Paradoxically, although these aspects of the new mysticism would seem to counteract
the suspicion of esotericism inherent in earlier magisterial attitudes
toward mysticism, they actually fomented these fears because they
were seen as allowing dangerous ideas wider dissemination among
strata of society that, unlike enclosed religious, were less subject to
everyday supervision. As long as mysticism was largely the purview of
monastic elites it was deemed a relatively safe phenomenon. When it
moved out into what John XXII called the “uneducated crowd,” it became automatically more dangerous to the guardians of orthodoxy.
As suspicions of mystical heresy smoldered in the thirteenth century
to burst into flame in the fourteenth,many of the nodes of conflict were
strikingly familiar; but if we return to the accusations against Marguerite Porete, we can see new sources of conflict as well. The first of
the three articles known to pertain to the dossier drawn up against the
beguine reads:“The annihilated soul takes leave of the virtues and is no
longer in their service, because it does not possess them insofar as use
is concerned,but the virtues obey [the soul] at command.”55 The fifteenth
53
In the case of the Free Spirit heretics, the basic inquisitional formulary comprised the
eight articles condemned in the decree Ad nostrum from the Council of Vienne. On the
use of formularies, see Kieckhefer, op. cit., pp. 30–32.
54
On the new mysticism, see McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism, pp. 12–30.
55
As found in the verbal process of the theological commission (ed. Verdeyen, p. 51):
“Quorum articulorum primus est:‘Quod anima adnichilata dat licentiam virtutibus nec est
amplius in earum servitute, quia non habet eas quoad usum, sed virtutes obediunt ad
nutum.’” This article is probably drawn from Marguerite’s Mirror, chap. 6 (ed., p. 24),
though the teaching appears in many places in the Mirror. Only three of the articles extracted from the Mirror can be known with certainty. The attempt by Edmund Colledge
and Romana Guarnieri to reconstruct eleven more articles from the glosses of the Middle
English translation of M. N. remains hypothetical at best; see their article “The Glosses by
‘M. N.’ and Richard Methley to ‘The Mirror of Simple Souls,’” Archivio Italiano per la
Storia della Pietà, 5 (1968), especially 372–373.

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“EVIL-SOUNDING, RASH, AND SUSPECT OF HERESY”

article says that such an annihilated soul “has no concern for God’s consolations and gifts, . . . because its whole intent is towards God and
thus its intent toward God would be hindered”56—the indifference that
formed the core of the later assault on the Quietists. Another article,
cited in a contemporary chronicle, highlights antinomianism:“The soul
that is annihilated in love of its Creator can and ought give to nature
whatever it wants or desires without qualm or remorse of conscience.”57
The specific charges brought against late medieval mystics, such as
antinomianism,indifference, and anti-sacramentalism,were old.Although
some have seen claims to mystical identity with God, as distinct from
the more traditional category of mystical uniting of two distinct entities
in love,58 as the key to late medieval mystical heresy, expressions of
merging into identity with God were not unknown in the earlier Christian tradition.59 So too passivity in the face of divine action had been a
staple of mystical literature for centuries.60 What was novel in the mysticism of the late Middle Ages, as we see it in the passages from Porete
just cited, was the notion of the annihilation of the self, especially of the
created will.61 The need for the fallen will to be cleansed and redirected,
a key element in Augustinian theology and mysticism, was pushed a
stage further. For many of the new mystics it was not enough that the
sinful will be purged; rather, the will, precisely insofar as it is created,
must be destroyed in order to attain union with God.
56
Ibid.:“Quod talis anima non curet de consolationibus Dei nec de donis eius, . . . quia
tota intenta est circa Deum, et sic impediretur eius intentio circa Deum.” This article
appears to be drawn from the Mirror, chap. 9 (ed., pp. 32–34).
57
Verdeyen, p. 88:“. . . quod anima annihilata in amore conditoris sine reprehensione
conscientiae vel remorsu potest et debet naturae quidquid appetit et desiderat [concedere], quod manifeste sonat in heresim.” The word in brackets does not appear in the
manuscripts, but was added by Luc d’Achéry, the first editor of the text. Giving nature
what it demands without remorse of conscience is found several times in the Mirror; see,
e.g., Chaps. 9, 13, and 17 (ed. pp. 32; 54; and 68–72). In each case Marguerite explains that
giving nature its due is not to be understood in an antinomian way.
58
On the two forms of unio mystica, mystical uniting and mystical identity, see Bernard
McGinn,“Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,” The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. (forthcoming).
59
A union of identity is found in Evagrius Ponticus, Letter to Melania 6, and also seems
to be what is suggested in a more widely diffused text, the Dionysian De mystica theologia 1.3.
60
Dionysius emphasizes the passivity of the mystic Hierotheus (pati divina) in De
divinis nominibus 2.9.
61
Lerner, op. cit., p. 240, notes that “Free Spirits aimed primarily at divine ‘annihilation.’”
The same was true of many mystics who were not condemned.

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211

Such mystical naughting was necessary so that the individual soul’s
destruction could permit God to be fully present and active. Where the
soul once was, God himself becomes the place where divine action
flows into the world. Meister Eckhart describes this annihilation in the
language of poverty of spirit (Mt. 5:3) in a sermon influenced by Marguerite Porete:
Poverty of spirit is for a person to keep so free of God and of all his works
that if God wishes to work in the soul, he himself is the place in which he
wants to work. . . . If he finds a person as poor as this, then God performs his
own work, and the person is in this way suffering God to work, and God is
his own place to work in, and so God is his own worker in himself.62

The language of annihilation percolated through the disputes over
mysticism for centuries to come. For example, in the early fifteenth century Jean Gerson, a stern opponent of all forms of suspect mysticism,
says that he once met a prophetess and miracle worker acclaimed by
many.“She said and ordered written down,” Gerson avers,“that in contemplating God her spirit had been truly annihilated and then recreated. And when she was asked how she knew this had happened, she
answered that she had experienced it.”63 Centuries later the first of the
condemned propositions of Molinos (one echoed in ten of the remaining sixty-seven) reads: “It is necessary that a person reduce his own
powers to nothingness, and this is the interior way.”64
Marguerite Porete, Meister Eckhart, and later condemned mystics,
like Molinos and Madame Guyon, have been accused of identifying
themselves with God to the extent that they believed their actions were
really God’s action.The root of this mystical identity and its dangers, per62
Meister Eckhart, Pr. 52 (DW, II, 500–501; translation from Essential Eckhart, p. 202).
On the influence of Porete on Eckhart’s noted poverty sermon, see Edmund Colledge and
J. C. Marler,“‘Poverty of Will’: Ruusbroec, Eckhart and the Mirror of Simple Souls,” Jan Van
Ruusbroec: The Sources, Content and Sequels of His Mysticism, edited by Paul Mommaers and N. de Paepe (Leuven, 1984), pp. 14–47.
63
Jean Gerson, Ep. 26 (April–June, 1408), in Jean Gerson Oeuvres Complètes, edited by
Msgr. Palemon Glorieux (Paris, 1960), II, 102:“Haec tandem dixit et scribi jussit quod spiritus suus contemplando Deum fuerat annihilatus vera annihilatione, dehinc recreatus. Et
dum quaereretur qualiter hoc scire potuerat, respondebat se expertam.”
64
Coelestis Pater, art. 1:“Oportet hominem suas potentias annihilare, et haec est via interna.” See also nos. 2, 4, 5, 8, 17, 35, 46, 47, 55, 61, 62, and 63. Mystical annihilation, also
called mystical death in some of these articles, is most fully expressed in art. 5: “Nihil
operando anima se annihilat et ad suum principium redit et ad suam originem, quae est
essentia Dei, in qua transformata remanet et divinizata, et deus tunc in se remanet; quia
tunc non sunt amplius duae res unitae, sed una tantum, et hac ratione Deus vivit et regnat
in nobis, et anima seipsam annihilat in esse operativo.”

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ceived and real, was planted in the soil of annihilation,the process of interior stripping and decreation designed to leave God alone at work,
not the created person.
This is not the place to speculate on how and why the mysticism of
annihilation emerged in the thirteenth century, nor to try to mount a
defense that at least in some of its adherents, such as Meister Eckhart, it
may be a theologically defensible position. My point is only to note that
along with such pressure points as esotericism, antinomianism, and
anti-sacramentalism that had emerged in patristic quarrels between
mystics and the guardians of orthodoxy, the new mysticism of the late
Middle Ages, whose final heirs are to be found among the Quietists of
the seventeenth century, produced a new neuralgic issue: mystical annihilation. Insofar as some mystics were seen to support a teaching that
the created self must be destroyed in order to attain union with God,
conflict with teaching authority seems fated to occur.But this threat did
not deter mystics, like Marguerite Porete, who were convinced that the
limitations of created being could only be overcome by allowing God to
be all in all. As she once put it:“Since I am total wretchedness and He is
total goodness,it is necessary for me to have the totality of his goodness
before my wretchedness can be ended. My poverty cannot be overcome with less.”65 Marguerite went to her death for this conviction.

65
Mirror, Chap. 117 (ed., 312.18–21):“Or suis je donc toute mauvaistié, et il est toute
bonté, pour quoy il m’esconvient avoir tout sa bonté, ains que ma mauvaistié puisse estre
estanchee; ne de moins ne se peut ma pouvreté passer.”

“GHOSTLY FATHERS” AND
THEIR “VIRTUOUS DAUGHTERS”:
THE ROLE OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTION IN THE LIVES
OF THREE EARLY MODERN ENGLISH WOMEN
BY

ELLEN A. MACEK*

In late Tudor and early Stuart England, the religious environment provided a contested space for some Catholic women who sought a more
committed life of faith under the direction of a spiritual guide while remaining active in the world. On the one hand, such women found their
activities increasingly circumscribed by demands of political allegiance
and ecclesiastical rivalries; on the other hand, they might enjoy greater
personal agency in spiritual matters than their medieval counterparts,
albeit at the expense of undermining notions of right order. The multiple tensions and ambiguities fostered by the practice of spiritual direction provide the historical context for examining the lives of three
women—Margaret Clitherow, Dorothy Lawson, and Mary Ward—whose
spiritual maturation and growth in understanding of their Christian calling brought them into conflict with contemporary gender expectations.
The practice of spiritual direction has varied throughout the Christian era. Sometimes spiritual guidance instilled advanced faith and
moral perspectives, especially within a specific population, such as medieval nuns,who had no access to a university education.At other times,
the practice was more nondirective. Under the guidance of a wise and
mature director, a woman’s perception of her growing intimacy with
God was examined, allowing the directee greater self-knowledge, more
trust in divine love and protection, and a clearer understanding of her
life’s direction. It was this conscious awareness of “being with God,”
obtained through a regular practice of meditation and contemplation
combined with commitment to regular spiritual conferences with a director, that would often provide the call to a more active or meaningful
Christian service.1 Such a process was and remains fundamentally gen*Dr. Macek is an instructor of history in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
1
See Patricia Ranft,“A Key to Counter Reformation Women’s Activism: The Confessor-

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“GHOSTLY FATHERS” AND THEIR “VIRTUOUS DAUGHTERS”

derless, but in the fruits it bore in the world, it entered into gendered
spaces and the vicissitudes of secular and ecclesiastical politics.
The spiritual direction of all early modern Catholic women confronted a number of limitations because of increased suspicion of
women’s activities and the post-Tridentine reforms of convents. For
English Catholic women, such restrictions were compounded by legal
penalties for recusancy (failure to attend the established church), limited access to priests, and conflict between clerical factions active in
the English mission. Fines, imprisonment, exile, and even death faced
Catholic laity who refused to abide by the Elizabethan settlement and
its consequences. Ministering to their faithful in England turned priests
into criminals, prisoners, and even traitors, according to the law. The
number of seminary priests and Jesuits active in England remained low,
and in addition, dissension arose within the Catholic community over
mission strategy and leadership.2 It was against the backdrop of a national struggle over confessional identity and personal religious commitment that Margaret Clitherow, Dorothy Lawson, and Mary Ward
sought a clearer understanding of God’s will for their lives with the assistance of a spiritual director.
These devout women generally had a very different experience from
that of their medieval predecessors or even their contemporary continental counterparts. Recent scholarly attention to the relationships between medieval women and their confessors/spiritual directors (who
were sometimes also their biographers) has indicated that such directors, often friars, might test the integrity of their virtuous daughters, but
they were ultimately persuaded of their directees’ path to sanctity and
openly attested to the influence that these women’s examples exacted

Spiritual Director,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 10 (Fall, 1994), 7–26. Ranft
identifies the key elements in the practice of spiritual direction—“revelation of an individual’s innermost thoughts and the complete surrender of one’s will to a single spiritual
director”—that are common to monastic and other types of spiritual direction ( p. 10).
See also Ranft’s A Woman’s Way: The Forgotten History of Women Spiritual Directors
(New York, 2000), which provides a historical context for the changing features of spiritual direction in general, and spiritual direction by women in particular, during the Christian era.
2
Arnold Pritchard, Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England (Chapel Hill, 1979), discusses the dispute between the Jesuits and seminary priests ( pp. 3–10). See Megan
Matchinske, Writing, Gender and State in Early Modern England: Identity Formation
and the Female Subject (Cambridge,England,1998),pp.56–61,for Elizabethan laws against
recusancy and their enforcement.

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215

in their own personal and professional lives.3 This intimate association
with “holy women” was of mutual benefit, and although there may have
been some rivalries among religious orders serving such women, the
medieval political and ecclesiastical culture rarely deterred such authentic spiritual relationships.
Despite recently imposed restrictions,early modern Catholic women’s
religious activism on the continent, such as that found in the life of Jane
Frances de Chantal (1572–1641), also benefited as a result of spiritual
direction.4 Spiritual fathers like Francis de Sales became agents of authentication for women called to greater service in fields of education,
charity, and health care. They also might act as mediators between
women and higher authorities.5 The Spanish Carmelite nun Teresa of
Avila (1515–1582), however, encountered problems with some of her
spiritual directors within the environment of strict enclosure for religious women and the Tridentine orthodoxy enforced by the Inquisition.
Not only did Teresa undergo numerous tests by her spiritual directors,
but also her first-person accounts were often the products of increased
institutional suspicion of those Christians who chose the path of interior prayer and discernment.6 Yet, in the course of her lifetime, Teresa
emerged as a strong Christian woman under directors such as the Franciscan Pedro de Alcántara and the Carmelite Jerónimo Gracián, who allowed her spiritual experiences to be voiced and who supported the
reform directions that she initiated through their own religious and social networks. In turn, the spiritually mature Teresa of Avila, secure with
her own inner direction, was freed from undue reliance upon others;
she became a valued spiritual director in her own right.7
But for Catholic women in England, access to direction that provided
3
See, for example, John Coakley,“Gender and the Authority of Friars: The Significance
of Holy Women for Thirteenth-Century Franciscans and Dominicans,” Church History, 60
(December, 1991), 445–460.
4
Ranft,“Key to Women’s Activism,” pp. 7–26. See also Jodi Bilinkoff,“Confessors, Penitents,and the Construction of Identities in Early Modern Avila,”in Culture and Identity in
Early Modern Europe (1500–1800): Essays in Honor of Natalie Zemon Davis, ed. Barbara Diefendorf and Carla Hesse (Ann Arbor, 1993), pp. 83–102.
5
Wendy M. Wright,“The Visitation of Holy Mary: The First Years (1610–1618),” in Religious Orders of the Catholic Reformation: In Honor of John C.Olin on His Seventy-Fifth
Birthday, ed. Richard L. DeMolen (New York, 1994), pp. 217–250.
6
See Alison Weber, Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity (Princeton, 1990),
for Teresa’s gendered writing style and “strategies of empowerment.”
7
Francis L. Gross, Jr., with Toni Perior Gross, The Making of a Mystic: Seasons in the
Life of Teresa of Avila (Albany, New York, 1993), pp. 43–45, 77–78, 156–157. See also
Ranft, Women’s Way, pp. 129–141.

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them a trusted guide in their spiritual journey was more than a personal
advantage; it would also become a path to nonconformity and illegal activity. A study of the evidence surrounding their experience of spiritual
direction provides an opportunity to analyze the spiritual relationships
of a few women and men during a period of struggle over ecclesiastical
authority and religious choice. It also becomes a window into the clash
of gender roles created by politics and religion in early modern England.
Although the sources derived from women’s access to spiritual direction lend themselves to gender analysis,scholars also recognize their
limitations. A biography written by a cleric after the death of his “virtuous daughter” and composed primarily for the purpose of edification
raises questions about the authenticity of his subject’s words and actions. Yet the historian is often able to “tease out”of such suspect stories
something of the unique historical context and particularly of a women’s
spiritual journey.8 Furthermore, when an ideal relationship in spiritual
direction was framed by the template of traditional martyrology or hagiography,as is the case with John Mush’s account of Margaret Clitherow
and, to a lesser extent, with William Palmes’ life of Dorothy Lawson, the
discussion of the spiritual practice usually included references to standard devotional methods and their usual consequences. Indeed, both
the author and readers of such genres were certain that a disciplined
life guided by spiritual direction could (and did) result in human models of authentic Christian discernment, detachment, and commitment,
regardless of the sex of the individuals involved. Modern scholars must
assume that such widely held expectations and representations re8
Claire Cross argues that the biographer John Mush not only schooled his “spiritual
daughter” Margaret Clitherow in the literature of traditional martyrology, but he also
wrote Margaret’s life in such a genre. See “An Elizabethan Martyrologist and His Martyr:
John Mush and Margaret Clitherow,” in Martyrs and Martyrologies: Papers Read at the
1992 Summer Meeting and the 1993 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (“Studies in Church History,”ed. Diana Wood,Vol. 30 [Oxford, 1993]), pp. 271–281. Yet
even Cross admits that Clitherow’s biography “yields valuable insight into the spirituality of
a remarkable tradesman’s wife.”See Claire Cross,“The Religious Life of Women in SixteenthCentury Yorkshire (Presidential Address),” Women in the Church: Papers Read at the
1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (“Studies in Church History,” ed. W. J. Sheils & Diana Wood, Vol. 27 [Oxford, 1990]),
p. 318. Matchinske prefers to speak of the “compromised construction”of Clitherow’s life
by Mush, but she refuses to discount Mush’s account “as a legitimate source for that history” because that would merely replicate the initial lack of Clitherow’s voice. She submits that Mush’s biography can provide “the broad strokes necessary to document
Clitherow’s life,” but she also proposes to improve her “chances of ‘getting it [Clitherow’s
story] right,’” by comparing Clitherow’s absent or muted voice with another female historical counterpart, Anne Askew, who left an account of her trial for heresy (op. cit., pp.
53–54).

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217

flected, if only obliquely, part of the religious experience of otherwise
“voiceless” women engaged in spiritual direction in early modern England. Finally, a spiritual director’s account of the life of his “virtuous”
daughter also reveals, if inadvertently, the tensions that resulted when
the mandates of Christian perfection in the world confronted the gender roles imposed by political and ecclesiastical authorities. In sum, the
piously constructed lives of Clitherow and Lawson provide, at the very
least, a paradigm of women’s spiritual direction and its impact in the
view of their directors; sometimes those narratives also contain details,
extracted from the text, that portray the historical specificity of an individual woman whose very existence might otherwise be lost to history
because of her subordinate social status.9
Women’s letters and autobiographies, which sometimes owe their
existence to the explicit order of a spiritual director, can supply even
more definitive historical evidence of women’s spiritual paths. Such
writings show both a concern for obedience to an individual director
and the growth in discernment and maturity of the directee, as is the
case for Mary Ward.And when the voices of women were not mediated
by clerical interpreters, their own accounts sometimes alluded to the
problems that arose when a director attempted to impose his pious assumptions or political agenda upon his spiritual daughter. Mary Ward’s
recounting of her experience did not mirror the more ideal spiritual
relationship pictured by Clitherow and Lawson’s biographers, but it
provides the historian with yet another valuable perspective for the
analysis of the practice of spiritual direction in the lives of early modern
English women.
Margaret Clitherow: Spiritual Direction
as Preparation for Martyrdom

Margaret Clitherow (1553?–1586) was an adult convert to Catholicism, a butcher’s wife from Yorkshire, whose life was recorded shortly
9
For a discussion of the scholarly challenges associated with the study of medieval
saints’ lives, see Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in
the Middle Ages (New York and Oxford, 1988). Heffernan’s treatment is a balanced one
that neither discounts the obstacles that such a genre presents for the historian nor dismisses the value of such works as windows into the biographer’s own affective experience
of the subject and into the spiritual and intellectual milieu of the religious community
that accepts such a model of holiness for its own instruction and edification. See also the
discussion by Frank Tobin,“Henry Suso and Elsbeth Stagel: Was the Vita a Cooperative Effort?”in Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters,ed.Catherine M.Mooney
(Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 126–128, for an overview of different perspectives on the historicity of such pious medieval literature.

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after her death by the last of her “ghostly fathers,” John Mush, a secular
priest. Although apparently not present during Margaret’s trial or last
imprisonment, Mush assures his readers that his account derives principally from “that which I saw and well knew in her myself by some
years of our conversation together, for which season I was privy to her
whole heart as much as any.”10 Mush’s emphasis in much of his narrative
is directly related to Margaret’s spiritual development. Fearing that her
actions were inadequate or even offensive to God,Margaret determined
to submit to spiritual guides. Mush was of the opinion that in spite of
small imperfections,Margaret had become a paradigm of humility, a condition that few clerics had achieved.Her growth in love of God and charity to her neighbors was the fruit of a practice of discernment whereby
she did “that the rather of two good things which she imagined or could
learn to be most acceptable to Him, and to the more glory of His holy
Name.”11 Not only did Margaret perform the tasks of an English burgher’s
wife and engage in charitable works, but also she gradually established
a discipline of ritual and prayer, attending Mass and pursuing other private devotions including meditation on the Passion of Christ and daily
examination of conscience.Having learned to read in the vernacular during prior imprisonment,she was familiar with the Rheims edition of the
New Testament,The Imitation of Christ of Kempis,Perin’s Exercises,and
other spiritual works.12 At least weekly she wanted “to hear a virtuous
exhortation by her ghostly Father,and would sometimes make secret motions and signs to him of this secret desire.” She would occasionally
10
John Mush, “A True Report of the Life and Martyrdom of Mrs. Margaret Clitherow
(1586),” in The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers Related by Themselves, ser. 3, ed.
John Morris, S.J. (London, 1877), p. 368. Although a short account of Clitherow’s trial and
death was extracted from Mush’s work and published in the early seventeenth century,
Mush’s manuscript reached print in its entirety only in the nineteenth century. See
Matchinske, op. cit., pp. 62–64. The only modern biography of Clitherow is that by Mary
Claridge [Katharine Longley], Margaret Clitherow (1556?–1586) (New York, 1966),
now in a second edition by Katharine M. Longley entitled Saint Margaret Clitherow
(Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, 1986). Longley relies heavily upon Mush’s account in
both editions, but she also supplements his work with considerable evidence (including
new sources in the second edition) to fill in the historical context of Clitherow’s life and
death. While affirming that Mush’s book was “a solemn didactic work in the conventional
style of the period,” Longley finds that interspersed with his account of the martyr’s
virtues are “glimpses of Margaret as he knew her” (Saint Margaret Clitherow, p. 87).
11
Mush,“True Report,” pp. 373–379.
12
James Walsh, S.J., observes that The Imitation of Christ was recommended by Loyola
for use during the Spiritual Exercises. William Perin, O.P., based his Spiritual Exercises on
those of Loyola (introduction to Till God Will: Mary Ward through Her Writings, ed. E.
Emmanuel Orchard, I.B.V.M. [London, 1985], pp. xiii–xiv).

BY ELLEN A. MACEK

219

meet privately with her spiritual director using the subterfuge of social
obligations.13
Margaret’s husband was not sympathetic with her religious beliefs,
and she walked a fine line between obeying him or God. At times, after
consultation with her director,she took actions that would directly contravene her husband’s desires and interests. She supported a domestic
church and school. She sent her oldest son to France, hoping that he
would one day become a priest, and this without her husband’s direct
knowledge. When Margaret was confronted by a hostile Catholic concerning her dangerous secret support of Mass priests,Mush reports that
he assured her that since her duty to God came first and her husband
was not of a like mind,she should continue her course with a good conscience, for “. . . in this, your necessary duty to God, you are not any
whit inferior to him [her husband].”14
In her final days of imprisonment on charges of harboring a priest,
Margaret was deprived of Mush’s assistance, but “of her own discretion,
after apprehension (not having any counsel in this or any other point),”
she acted with determination and confidence.15 It was because of Margaret’s attachment to her director and the religious services he and
other priests provided that she found herself faced with legal and moral
dilemmas well beyond the experience of women of her status.Teresa of
Avila’s network of spiritual directors often worked with ecclesiastical
and secular authorities on her behalf. Margaret Clitherow, a neophyte in
the faith, was left (at least in purely human terms) to rely upon the discipline, knowledge, and singlemindedness that she had gained primarily as a result of spiritual direction in order to rebuff the various
Protestant clergymen and officials who tried to turn her away from her
13
Mush,“True Report,” pp. 391–394, 396–397. Clitherow’s desire to speak secretly with
Mush, theorizes Matchinske, may have given “her ‘speech’ in a culture that privileges female ‘silence’” (op. cit., p. 80). Arthur Marotti finds Clitherow’s actions to be socially subversive by “committing a kind of spiritual adultery in meeting her priest in a secluded
place away from home.”Arthur Marotti,“Alienating Catholics in Early Modern England:Recusant Women, Jesuits and Ideological Fantasies,” in Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism in
Early Modern English Texts, ed. Arthur F. Marotti (New York, 1999), pp. 6–7. Mush admits
that Clitherow was accused of “sinning” with the priests she harbored (“True Report,” p.
427). Such an accusation reflected the emergent polemical image of the recusant wife.
See Frances E.Dolan,Whores of Babylon: Catholicism, Gender, and Seventeenth-Century
Print Culture (Ithaca and London, 1999), pp. 45–94.
14
Mush,“True Report,” pp. 381–382, 409–410.
15
Ibid., p. 436. See Cross,“Elizabethan Martyrologist,” p. 280.

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obstinate stance of refusing to plead and be tried by the country.16
Alone she faced a difficult judicial process and a terrible death by pressing or crushing (the legal penalty for refusal to plead in criminal cases).
Margaret’s courage, in turn, greatly affected Mush, who called himself
“an unworthy father to her,” and honored her as “my blessed mother,
whom I joyed so often here to have my virtuous daughter.” Others also
mourned the loss of their “common mother” who had aided so many
Catholic neighbors by her spiritual counsel and material help.17 (The
Catholic Church officially recognized Margaret’s exemplary life and
heroic death when Pope Paul VI canonized Margaret of York on October 25, 1970, a feast day that honors forty English and Welsh martyrs.)
Margaret Clitherow’s experience, embellished as it obviously was by
the aims of her “ghostly father” in praising his “virtuous daughter,”
nevertheless illuminates the subversive element in the practice of spiritual direction for women. By her refusal to legitimate the established
church and by her deference to God’s will over that of her husband’s
authority, Clitherow overturned traditional hierarchical authority.18
Even if Mush has exaggerated Margaret’s pious actions at the expense
of her human faults, her obvious courage in the face of death would appear to be at least partially the fruit of her own spiritual maturity, derived from her deepened intimacy with God and a growth in moral
responsibility discovered in the course of spiritual direction and obedience to her “ghostly father.” At the end of her life and bereft of such
immediate direction,she was capable of discerning for herself to whom
her obedience was due and how to act from a position of spiritual empowerment.

Dorothy Lawson: Spiritual Direction and Recusant Domesticity

Dorothy Lawson’s adult life in Newcastle-upon-Tyne exhibited little
of the upheavals, suffering, and martyrdom of Clitherow’s short life, and
yet she shared with Margaret a devotion to a “ghostly father”and a deep16
For the legal complexities of Margaret Clitherow’s refusal to plead, see Longley,
Saint Margaret Clitherow, pp. 121–137.
17
Mush, “True Report,” pp. 384–385. Cross argues that Mush at least indirectly influenced Clitherow by introducing her to the “cult of martyrdom” which he had imbibed in
his seminary days (“Elizabethan Martyrologist,” pp. 276–281).
18
See Anne Dillon, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535–1603 (“St Andrews Studies in Reformation History” [Burlington, Vermont,
2002]), for a very recent interpretation of the origins of Mush’s text and his didactic purposes ( pp. 277–322).

BY ELLEN A. MACEK

221

ening of her spirituality under that direction. Born in 1580 shortly before Clitherow’s death, Dorothy was brought up in the Catholic family
of the Constables of Holderness, Yorkshire, a household marked by
Dorothy’s mother, Margaret Dormer Constable’s own imprisonment for
recusancy.19 When Dorothy moved to the house of her marriage at the
age of seventeen, she introduced her Catholic practices into the Lawson family by requesting the services of a priest; eventually, according
to her biographer,she succeeded in converting almost all her in-laws,her
neighbors, and even her own husband before his death.
The biographer of Dorothy Lawson was William Palmes (or Palmer),
S.J. Father Palmes was the last in an almost continuous succession of
chaplains/confessors/spiritual directors (including for a short time
Richard Holtby, S.J., who features in Mary Ward’s story below) in Mrs.
Lawson’s homes, certainly a dangerous luxury during the early seventeenth century, when harboring priests continued to warrant severe legal penalties.20 As a laywoman, Dorothy Lawson enjoyed a traditional
form of long-term spiritual direction usually available only to religious
women, such as Teresa of Avila, on the continent. Unlike Teresa’s experience, Lawson’s directors all appear to be members of the Society of
Jesus and thus practitioners of an Ignatian spirituality that provided a
new perspective and rationale for women who were married or who
lacked easy access to the cloistered life of women religious. By the time
that Palmes met Lawson only seven years before her death in 1632, she
was already spiritually “mature,” having given much attention to her interior life of prayer and discernment.
Dorothy Lawson’s household at Heaton in Northumberland gradually
filled with children (over a dozen in all), and it was at first protected by
a husband, who, although often absent due to his legal profession, conformed to the established church when he was at home. After her husband’s death, and especially after Lawson moved her household to
19
[William Palmes (or Palmer)], The Life of Mrs. Dorothy Lawson, of St. Anthony’s,
near Newcastle-on-Tyne (Newcastle-upon-Tyne,1855),p.8.Palmes dedicated his account
to the abbess of a continental Benedictine convent where some of Lawson’s female descendants were educated. See J.T. Rhodes,“English Books of Martyrs and Saints of the Late
Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,” Recusant History, 22 (1994), 7–25. Rhodes
considers Lawson’s biography, and that of Lady Magdalen Browne,Viscountess Montague,
accounts of lives that were “domestic, accessible, exemplary and imitable,” appealing to
those not destined for martyrdom or even extraordinary holiness, but for “a life of practical piety”( p. 19). See also Sarah L. Barstow,“‘Worth nothing, but very wilful’: Catholic Recusant Women of Yorkshire: 1536–1642,” Recusant History, 25 (2001), 591–603.
20
A note to Palmes’ dedication identifies him as the Jesuit William Palmer of Yorkshire,
who made his solemn profession in 1631 (Life, p. 3).

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St. Anthony’s, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, her house appears to have taken
on many of the aspects of a well-ordered religious institution with the
regular availability of Mass and the sacraments, the liturgy of the hours
and other devotions, and catechetical instruction for children. On important feasts such as Christmas and Easter, it became, as did other substantial recusant houses, the liturgical center for Catholics in the
neighborhood.21 And it was Mrs. Lawson’s widespread charitable work
for all social classes throughout the area that made her noteworthy to
her contemporaries,so much so that,if her biographer is to be believed,
the entire city turned out for her funeral in 1632.22 She remained a
widow after her husband’s death in late 1613 or early 1614, and one
must assume that it was through her directors that she received much
of the religious and moral support that kept her firmly committed to
her spiritual practice and its resulting apostolic activity in an increasingly Protestant nation.
Lawson’s biographer chronicles the shifting emphasis of CounterReformation piety. Dorothy participated fully in the traditional Catholic
rites and rituals including the Mass and the sacraments, and she engaged in a devotion to the Virgin Mary and the saints. But Palmes also
described Dorothy’s practice of mental prayer (a practice that Teresa of
Avila had supported) and identified it specifically as “that which is usually observ’d in the Society;the matter,the life of our Saviour taken from
points, answering to the times of the year, which I did read every night
after Littannies,and uppon festivall days I gave her one of the feast.Shee
made her prayer solitary in her closset, with all the preparatives and
preambles prescribed in the Introduction or Instruction to Meditation.”
It was such devotions that appear to have set the tone for her daily
activity.23
According to their biographers, both Margaret Clitherow and
Dorothy Lawson rendered an absolute obedience to their “ghostly fathers.” Father Palmes claimed that Lawson “ever lean’d uppon the counsell of her spirituall directour, affirming that God by him had taught her
his will, not only in things of spirituall, but allso temporall [conse21
Palmes remarks that up to a hundred people might make their Easter communion at
Lawson’s home (Life, p. 44). Dolan reviews Catholic women’s involvement in household
religion and details the expansion of Jacobean penal laws aimed at the legal problems
surrounding the prosecution of the nonconforming wife (op. cit., pp. 49–54, 68–69). For
recusants under Charles I, see Martin J. Havran, The Catholics in Caroline England (Stanford, 1962).
22
Palmes, Life, pp. 60–61.
23
Ibid., pp. 38–39.

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223

quence].”In fact, Palmes admitted that he sometimes found it necessary
to seek the advice of others on matters such as husbandry that Lawson
raised and which were beyond his expertise.24 He also sought outside
help when the widowed Lawson broached the subject of entering the
religious life, a suggestion that Palmes and Richard Holtby, S.J., vetoed.
Palmes wrote of conferring with Holtby,“who knew her intimately from
her first coming into these parts, by a most candide correspondency
shee ever held with him; and wee, after due consultation with God, and
dispute among ourselves, ballancing in one scale her years, and want of
health, in the other the great good which would be neglected, if shee
solely attended to her own sole, resolv’d in Our Lord to be more advantagious for his glory, and her crown to persever as she had begun, not
only in the study of her own perfection, but allso in the pursuance and
acquisition of others.” In a surrender of her own will, Dorothy was pictured as humbly accepting that the decision of her spiritual director
and his fellow Jesuit Holtby was identical with the will of God.25 Mary
Ward would also discover that the advice of directors such as Holtby
did not always confirm the vocation to which she felt herself called.
Lawson’s patronage of spiritual directors converted her home into
what appears to have been a safe and convenient haven for the coming
and going of strangers, situated as it was on the river Tyne, which had
its share of commercial traffic and international mariners. Her house
failed to be denounced by the authorities as a house of recusancy although Lawson had painted the name of Jesus on it as a sign of God’s
protection and for the purpose of attracting Catholic travelers. For the
English Jesuits, it was a welcoming and secure house that also sometimes served as their meeting place. Palmes recounted how Lawson
hosted six members of the Society each year as they performed the
Spiritual Exercises with Dorothy personally providing their meals; she
in turn was invited at the end of their retreat to join them for refreshments and community reading. For her devotion to the Society, Lawson
was eventually admitted to the privileges of the Society and made “partaker of their works, as if shee were a member thereoff.”26
Dorothy Lawson appears to have lived a relatively tranquil life, probably due to the tolerance of local authorities and, toward the end of her
Ibid., pp. 42–43.
Ibid., pp. 35–36. See Ward’s similar experience with Holtby, infra, p. 226–227.
Matchinske suggests that the spiritual directors’advice for English Catholic women would be
in some sense self-serving (op. cit., p. 80). Margaret Clitherow also had thoughts of entering
the religious life, should her husband die (Longley, Saint Margaret Clitherow, pp. 100–101).
26
Palmes, Life, pp. 31, 47–48, 51.
24

25

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life, the attempted Stuart rapprochement with the Spanish dynasty followed by the presence of a Catholic queen in the English court. Her advisers did not always fare so well; in fact, several of them including
Palmes spent time in prison or even died for their faith.27 Despite the hagiographical flourishes of Palmes’ account, Lawson’s personal devotional practice and domestic charity were not extraordinary for devout
English Catholic households of the period.28 Although she benefited
from the closeness and constancy of a clerical advisor, especially after
her husband’s death, it is clear that she had been the initiator and promoter of such a relationship at some potential danger to her own and
her family’s temporal welfare. Her position as a widow in charge of a
substantial Catholic household challenged patriarchal rule beyond the
ordinary social and legal tensions created by widowhood in early modern England. Not only did Lawson host neighboring recusants, foreign
mariners, and grateful Jesuits, but she also chose to send many of her
children abroad for a Catholic education, although attendance at such
continental institutions was legally circumscribed.29 The spiritual benefits of continuous clerical guidance made Dorothy Lawson not just a
passive recipient of advice; she became, with the aid of spiritual direction,an active agent of the new domesticated Roman Catholicism,someone whom Palmes chose to memorialize as “once my spirituall child,
but now I hope my zealous advocate.”30

Mary Ward: Spiritual Direction and “Misdirection”
in the Pursuit of a Vocation

Mary Ward (1585–1645) was separated from the guidance of her last
“ghostly father” not because of her death or imprisonment; Mary’s loss
was ultimately the result of clerical infighting and ecclesiastical suspi27
A note in the introduction to Palmes’ work contains a report to the privy council on
local rescusants, including Lawson. But the mayor of Newcastle-upon-Tyne effectively dismissed any wrongdoing (Life, p. xvi). Also see notes on the fates of some of Lawson’s advisers, pp. 3, 32–33.
28
Matchinske points to Mush’s attempt to frame Margaret Clitherow’s pious life within
the domesticity of an Elizabethan tradesman’s household (op.cit.,pp.64–72).She suggests
that the “domestic churches” that held sway in early seventeenth-century recusant England were the result of many different factors, but they “may have derived as well from a
gender-specific elaboration of the spiritual as domestic and the domestic as spiritual, and
both as well-kept household secrets” ( p. 82). Dorothy Lawson’s household seems to fit
such a description.
29
Palmes, Life, pp. 24–26. See Sara Warneke, Images of the Educational Traveller in
Early Modern England (London, 1995), pp. 160–190.
30
Palmes, Life, p. 1.

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Mary Ward (1585–1645), Foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Courtesy
of Monika Glockann, IBVM. Original in the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Augsburg.

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cions. Born in Yorkshire in 1585, the gentlewoman Mary Ward found
herself called to a vocation that was a direct response to an extensive
period of spiritual direction and discernment, a process that propelled
her on a journey fraught with frustrations and obstacles. Unlike the
more hagiographic biographies of the other two women, Ward’s story
derives from her own words, supplemented by the comments of others
close to her, often as a result of the need to defend their vision of a religious institute for women.31
As a youth, Mary had experienced the strong influence of recusant
Catholicism under her maternal grandmother, Ursula Wright, and other
Englishwomen such as Lady Grace Babthorpe. A shy girl, she was hesitant to approach a priest for direction even though she early recognized a call to the religious life. Mary admitted that one of the most
appropriate pieces of spiritual advice she received then was from a Jesuit ( perhaps her later spiritual director John Gerard) who suggested
she read the work entitled Combattimento Spirituale (The Spiritual
Conflict), which she considered “the best master and instructor that
I have had in spiritual exercises for many years, and one perhaps of
the greatest helps, which until now I have enjoyed in the way of perfection.”32
In fact, examples of human misdirection seem to have characterized
Mary’s early life. One of her first directors, Richard Holtby, S.J., the same
priest with whom Palmes consulted concerning Dorothy Lawson’s
31
Mary Ward began an autobiography under the direction of Roger Lee, S.J., but she had
little time for such writing and only fragments survive. Other writings by Ward include
numerous letters, spiritual notes, and two small books. See M. Immolata Wetter, I.B.M.V.,
Mary Ward in Her Own Words, trans. M. Bernadette Ganne (Rome, 1999), pp. IX–XIII.
Early biographies of Ward include those by her two close companions, Winifred Wigmore
and Mary Poyntz, upon whom subsequent biographers rely. The most comprehensive
modern biography of Ward in English is that of Mary Catherine Elizabeth Chambers,
I.B.V.M., The Life of Mary Ward (1585–1645), ed. Henry James Coleridge, S.J., 2 vols.
(London, 1882–1885). Chambers exhibits a somewhat hagiographical and uncritical perspective. Henriette Peters, Mary Ward: A World in Contemplation, trans. Helen Butterworth (Leonminster, Herefordshire, 1994), attempts to assess the historical accuracy of
earlier works on Ward, including that of Chambers.
32
Mary Ward’s autobiography, Orchard (ed.), op. cit., p. 10. See Chambers, who surmises
that this Jesuit was John Gerard, the first translator of Lorenzo Scupoli’s Combattimento
Spirituale into English (Chambers, op. cit., I, 53–54). Also see Jeanne Cover, I.B.V.M., Love
the Driving Force. Mary Ward’s Spirituality: Its Significance for Moral Theology (“Marquette Studies in Theology,” no. 9 [Milwaukee, 1997]), pp. 35–38. Both Mush and Holtby
were confessors of Mary Ward in her youth. See Chambers, I, 51–54, 62, 90–91. James
Walsh assumes that Ursula Wright, Mary’s grandmother, would have known Margaret
Clitherow well (introduction to Till God Will, p. xi).

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227

vocation to the religious life, had urged Mary to follow her father’s
wishes and marry the Catholic nobleman Edmund Neville. Only later
would Holtby advise her to follow her own conscience and travel to the
continent to pursue the austere religious vocation to which she felt
called. Once in Flanders, armed with a letter of introduction to Father
William Flacke at the Jesuit College of the English Nation, Mary was informed by another Jesuit, George Keynes, that it had already been
arranged for her to become a lay sister with the local Poor Clares.33
Keynes assured her that there was little difference between the call to
be a choir sister dedicated to the contemplative life or a lay sister walking the roads of St. Omer to provide for the needs of the convent. The
Jesuit’s insistence that this was God’s will for her overcame Mary’s own
hesitancy, if not actual repugnance, to the active path proposed.34 Only
later did Father Keynes, who became for a time her director/confessor,
realize the inappropriateness of his advice, confirming in Mary a certainty that God “would not deceive me, nor could [he] be deceived.”35
Mary Ward left that St. Omer convent in April, 1602, and went on
to establish a house of the Poor Clares specifically for Englishwomen.
One of her early actions was to have the members make the Spiritual
Exercises of Loyola for a month in late 1608 under the direction of Father Roger Lee, S.J., whom Mary considered “a man truly apostolic, and
much illumined and favoured by God.”36 Lee became Mary’s confessor/
spiritual director until his death in 1615. Mary’s use of the Spiritual Exercises for herself and her companions, coupled with the consistent
spiritual direction she received from Father Lee, would provide her
with tools for her spiritual journey but not the individual guides who
could smooth the way for the difficult road ahead.37 Meanwhile, full understanding of her vocation was long in coming. Mary soon realized
that although she had founded a convent, she was not called to enter it.
33
For Loyola’s views on women’s ability to discern their own vocations, see On Giving
the Spiritual Exercises: the Early Jesuit Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of 1599, trans. and ed. Martin E. Palmer, S.J. (“Jesuit Primary Sources in English Translation,” no. 14 [St. Louis, 1996]), p. 27.
34
The abbess concurred,but the Provincial Visitor of the Franciscans,Father Andreas de
Soto, questioned the others’ advice (Chambers, op. cit., I, 112–139).
35
Chambers, op.cit., I, 133–136; Mary Ward’s autobiography, Orchard (ed.), op.cit., p. 17.
36
Mary Ward’s autobiography, Orchard (ed.), op. cit., p. 22; Wetter, op. cit., p. 28.
37
Orchard (ed.), op. cit., p. 22, n. 2, points out that parts of the Spiritual Exercises would
have been available to English Catholics through The First Booke of the Christian Exercise by Robert Parsons, S.J., first published anonymously in 1582 and subsequently in
many editions entitled A Christian Directorie. Jeanne Cover details the variety of devotional works available to the recusants (op. cit., pp. 31–45).

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Lee and her religious superior cautioned Mary to follow her present
way of life with more exactness and devotion, but she finally left her
foundation without any clear idea of her next step,attesting to the great
pain that such a slow discernment process caused and yet convinced of
its value.38 By then, she was certain that there was “some other thing I
was to do, what, or of what nature I did not see, nor could I guess, only
that it was to be a good thing, and what God willed.”39 Of her own volition,she had made a vow of perpetual chastity and,in obedience to Lee,
a promise to enter the Carmelites, if he so ordered her. Mary later indicated that the latter promise [i.e.,to enter the order of St.Teresa] “caused
me great trouble afterwards in many ways, but all turned out to my best
in the end.”40
While she was in England in 1609, Ward came to understand in a vision that she was not to become a Carmelite nun, but even after returning with companions to St. Omer to begin the teaching of children,
she could settle on no religious order, although male authorities and
supporters earnestly suggested the rules of various established orders.41
It was only in 1611 during recuperation from an illness that Mary, in her
words,“heard distinctly, not by sound of voice, but intellectually understood, these words: TAKE OF THE SAME OF THE SOCIETY [i.e., the Society of Jesus]—so understood as that we were to take the same both
in matter and manner, that only excepted which God, by diversity of
sex, hath prohibited.” Later in a letter to Father Gerard in 1619, she repeated the message, adding the words “FATHER GENERAL WILL NEVER
PERMIT IT. GO TO HIM.”42 Father Lee was not insistent upon Mary’s fulfillment of the earlier promise to enter the order of St. Teresa and even
seemed to support Mary’s early community, sometimes called the English Ladies. But Lee was decidedly against her modeling an institute after that of the Jesuits, ordering her to abandon any such plans.Although
relieved by the clarity of her call, Mary soon perceived in her director’s
reaction that the spiritual advice she would henceforth receive would
be influenced by the political concerns of the Jesuits. Mary submitted
38
Mary Ward’s letter to Mgr. Antonio Albergati,Nuncio of Lower Germany (1620),in Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 23–24, 51; Ward’s autobiography, Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 24–25;
Chambers, op. cit., I, 182–183, 192.
39
Wetter, op. cit., autobiographical fragment, p. 19.
40
Ward’s letter to Mgr. Albergati (1620), in Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 26, 51–52; Chambers, op. cit., I, 195.
41
Ward’s letter to Mgr. Albergati (1620), in Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 26–29; Chambers,
op. cit., I, 277–278.
42
Recounted in her Ward’s letter to Mgr.Albergati (1620),in Orchard (ed.),op.cit.,p.29;
see also ibid., pp. 53, 60–66, and Chambers, op. cit., I, 283–284.

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229

in obedience, even though she realized that external pressures were
forcing Lee to act against his own better judgment.43
According to Mary, she continued to receive interior confirmation of
her call, even as she followed advice that outwardly appeared to thwart
the Ignatian roots of her proposed religious institute for women. Her
past experience had shown her that when human and divine direction
clashed, the divine would eventually triumph. Her views on spiritual direction were clear: she never sought spiritual direction for an ulterior
motive, to please others or be considered virtuous or intelligent, and
particularly she found it distasteful to seek advice “upon things already
known and by fitting circumstances determined. . . . But I have always
been led on in such choices by the rule of reason,a peculiar providence
of God, or by some divine ordering still more marked, and with such as
these I have ever treated with all sincerity, without any reserve, as well
in matters of detail and of minor moment, as in greater, and in the entire
government of my soul.” Her faithful obedience to Father Lee was still
necessary. She knew that “. . . his Divine Majesty makes use of things
less good to arrive at the end determined by him.”44 Lee himself eventually became more convinced of the divine nature of Mary’s call,just as
Mary came to perceive more clearly (in her so-called “vision of the just
soul”) the perfection possible through life in her proposed institute.
When Father Lee died in 1615, Mary not only lost a spiritual director
but also one of the few Jesuits who might assist in drawing up a rule for
her institute and promoting the English Ladies’ cause locally and in
Rome. In fact, it was partially through Lee’s agency that the Ladies did
present an initial petition to Pope Paul V in 1616.45
After founding a new house in Liège in 1616, the English Ladies introduced schooling for town children, continuing the educational ministry
already begun in their girls’ boarding school at St. Omer. Mary undertook the Spiritual Exercises two years in a row under her new director,
the rector of the Jesuit novitiate in Liège, Father John Gerard (alias John
Tomson).Again her call received confirmation as coming from God, not
her own will. This practice she often repeated at critical junctures in
her life such as when her foundation in Liège was experiencing internal
dissension over its future direction.46 It was through this process of
meditation and discernment,according to the Spiritual Exercises,rather
Chambers, op. cit., I, 287–291.
Mary Ward’s autobiography, Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 18–20; Chambers, op. cit., I,
131–132.
45
Chambers, op. cit., I, 315, 356–368.
46
Ibid., pp. 447–460; Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 60–61.
43

44

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than by way of any human voice, that Mary found greater confidence
and clearer vision in her call. Meanwhile, Gerard’s relationship with
Ward as her spiritual director fell under increased scrutiny; he was soon
transferred to Spain and eventually to Rome.
In the years that followed, Ward founded houses in Cologne and Trier
and even further afield, but supporters such as the Elector of Bavaria,
the Holy Roman Emperor and his wife, and individual bishops discovered it increasingly difficult to withstand the widespread distrust of a
group of women,derisively called the “jesuitresses”and “galloping girls,”
who refused to be cloistered or to wear distinctive garb. The English
Ladies appeared to be luring English young women and their dowries
away from more established orders, and they sought an active role in
educating English girls and evangelizing among their compatriots, while
intending to place themselves directly under papal control. For the Society of Jesus,moreover,Ward’s proposal to model her Institute after that
of Ignatius created an insurmountable obstacle. Not only did the Jesuit
Constitutions prevent its men from becoming permanent confessors to
women’s orders, but also any association with the controversial English
Ladies served to weaken their position in the struggle for control over
the English mission then being played out between the seculars and the
English Jesuits.47
In the face of such opposition, even from the ranks of the religious
order she had chosen to emulate, Ward stood firmly anchored in the
spiritual guidance obtained through the process of discernment and
confirmation of one’s vocation introduced in the Spiritual Exercises.48
Loyola had developed the Exercises as a method whereby young men
of promise might grow into fullness of their Christian faith and commitOn Loyola’s reluctance to serve women’s orders, see Charmarie J. Blaisdell,“Calvin’s
and Loyola’s Letters to Women: Politics and Spiritual Counsel in the Sixteenth Century,”in
Calviniana: Ideas and Influences of Jean Calvin (“Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies,”Vol. 10 [Kirksville, Missouri, 1988]), p. 247. The Father General of the Jesuits did facilitate contacts with authorities desiring the English Ladies’ expertise in education (Peters,
op. cit., pp. 379–385, 411–413, 431). In England there was tension between the seminary
priests (seculars), who saw their mission in terms of England alone, and the Jesuits, who
maintained a broader perspective. Jesuits also appeared to have more freedom and organization in the mission than seminary priests, and the Jesuit Father General had more
power than the Archpriest (and later vicar apostolic) appointed in absence of a hierarchy.
See Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 180–187; Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 48 n. 2, and 49 n. 6; and Laurence Lux-Sterritt,“An Analysis of the Controversy Caused by Mary Ward’s Institute in the
1620s,” Recusant History, 25 (2001), 636–647.
48
Mary required that the novices in her Institute make an annual retreat based upon the
Spiritual Exercises. See Orchard (ed.), op. cit., p. 94.
47

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231

ment and possibly elect a vocation to the religious life. Devout believers, including laymen, school boys, and even select women, were soon
undergoing this Ignatian practice. Directions for making the Exercises
suggested that in those few cases where women “possess such good
judgment and capacity for spiritual things, and sufficient leisure
at home, . . . they can make all or most of the Exercises in full form.”49
What seems to be particularly relevant for this study of spiritual direction is the timely appearance of a religious order so grounded in the direction of souls,providing a proven and disciplined program of spiritual
growth that would be attractive to English women such as Lawson and
Ward who now lacked ready access to the traditional direction of the
friars.50
In a memorandum to the Jesuit Father General Mutius Vitelleschi in
1622, Mary reflected upon why the English Ladies could not alter the
Institute’s form,it having finally taken shape.In addition to the Church’s
official recognition of the Society of Jesus and their own proven record,
Mary offered:“. . . because that is the vocation to which we were first
called, and which has been confirmed in us by the assured trials prescribed in blessed Father Ignatius’ book of the Spiritual Exercises, and
therein approved and commended to all by the highest authority.” Mary
went on to review the many means including “retirement and prayer,
and the best advice we could find for our help therein” by which the
Ladies had found this choice to be most salutary for their own spiritual
growth and their service to the Church “in procuring the good of souls
by all means possible to women.”She pointed out that “. . . God and not
man should give vocations. And if this is so for every private soul, how
much more for an Order at its inception. . . .”51 It was upon this firm
foundation of God’s will for her Institute, slowly and painfully realized
in years of spiritual direction and in the practice of making of the Exercises, that Mary rested.52
49
The Official Directory of 1599 in Palmer, On Giving the Spiritual Exercises, p. 307.
Women were to present themselves in the church of the Jesuits for the meditations. Most
women might complete only the first week,which consisted of a review of one’s past life,
in addition to a general confession and an introduction to methods of prayer. See also
ibid., pp. 3 n. 5, 24, 27, 35, 42–45, 109.
50
See Claire Walker,“Contemplative Communities: English Catholic Convents in France
and the Low Countries, 1598–1700” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Western Australia,
1995), pp. 156–167, for the various attitudes that some English nuns had toward Ignatian
spirituality and Jesuit spiritual direction.
51
Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 70–71; Chambers, op. cit., II, 16–17.
52
In the directions of 1599 for giving the Exercises, the director is reminded how serious is the election of one’s state in life and the proper disposition required when “. . . the
soul must admit no considerations which are not from heaven, i.e., none which savor of

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In the 1620’s, Mary Ward would spend extended periods in Rome
pleading the case for her apostolic Institute. By 1622, the English Virgins, as they were called in Rome, had opened a school for girls that
enrolled 150 students.53 From her base in Rome, Mary journeyed to
houses in Perugia and Naples and to her proposed foundations in
Munich, Vienna, Prague, and Bratislava. Each foundation was supported
and praised by secular and religious authorities, especially because of
the English Ladies’ proven talents in the field of education. Each foundation stretched the slender resources and the precarious health of
their founder, and each faced closure because of tensions within the
English mission that would influence the papal decision on the proposed Institute.
The vision of an unenclosed institute of religious women (that which
would one day be officially recognized as the Institute of the Blessed
Virgin Mary) was now increasingly sustained by Ward herself, apparently with a minimum of human guidance. In one of her conferences
with her sisters at St. Omer shortly after Father Lee’s death, she confronted recent disparaging remarks about the women’s commitment
and their relationship with male directors. She pointed out that although some grew tepid as soon as the Jesuits left them, this was not
because they were women, but because they put their affection in humans and neglected God’s truth or verity.54 Mary appeared to realize
that in the precarious world of ecclesiastical politics then being played
out,she and her companions would need to rely more upon divine than
human direction. At times, she clearly ignored Jesuit advice. Willing to
admit even poor women into her houses, Mary told her companions at
the Perugia foundation to ignore the advice of the Society members
that no girl should enter their house without a dowry. By 1627, Mary
flesh and blood, or anything human and worldly, since everything ought to emanate from
the single source of desire for the glory of God and the fulfilling of his will” (Palmer, On
Giving the Spiritual Exercises, p. 326). See also Cover, op. cit., pp. 174–176.
53
Wetter, op. cit., p. 95.
54
Mary’s conferences with her sisters at St. Omer, November, 1617, Orchard (ed.), op.
cit., pp. 56–60; Chambers, op. cit., I, 409–414; Wetter, op. cit., p. 46. See also Cover, op. cit.,
p. 127, and Dorothy L. Latz,“Glow-Worm Light”: Writings of 17th Century English Recusant Women from Original Manuscripts (“Salzburg Studies in English Literature: Elizabethan and Reniassance Studies” [Salzburg, Austria, 1989]). Latz suggests that Mary’s
insights on this and other occasions are “Augustinian and Bérullian in orientation.” Pierre
de Bérulle (1575–1629) was the founder of the French Oratory, closely connected with
the court of Queen Henrietta Maria in England, and influential in the lives of some Jesuits.
Latz also shows that Mary was familiar with the ideas of Angela Merici, founder of the Ursulines ( pp. 162–171).

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was advising her colleague Winifred Wigmore that the novices should
undergo the Exercise annually, and if possible,“take it of their Superior
and not trouble the Father.”55
After Father Lee’s death, Mary herself never appears to have given
her entire confidence, let alone a new vow of obedience, to human directors.56 Yet, it was her former spiritual director, John Gerard, who in
spite of his superiors’ warnings and contemporary ecclesiastical politics, recognized the authenticity of Mary’s call and encouraged the continuation of the Institute from afar. When there was internal conflict in
the Liège house in 1629 after houses in Rome and Naples had already
been suppressed, he sent a letter encouraging Mary’s colleagues in
obedience to Mary,“to whom God has revealed His holy will and pleasure as to what is to be done in this your holy vocation,” and who has
struggled with “burning tears and fervent prayers, with severe penance,
great anxiety, and by consultation with learned men as well as with
God, to learn the will of the Almighty and all that could injure or benefit this holy work.”Gerard warned that “it requires great wisdom and discretion to know at what time and of whom you ought to seek counsel,
what you ought to say, and upon what you should be silent.” In their
founder’s name, he advised them “not [to] lend your ear to every one
who speaks to you, without perhaps knowing you or your vocation, but
incline your ear to Christ, and to her, who has been given you for a
mother and example on earth,” urging them to place “all her words,
works, and maxims in your hearts, for the time will come when you will
desire them, but shall not have them.”57 Gerard disclosed what Mary had
already realized: her obedient response to God’s call did not guarantee
sympathetic hearing from human guides.
By then, Mary’s own deepening spirituality and interior freedom
were able to guide her companions through the ensuing troubles that
55
Wetter, op. cit., pp. 101, 123. See also Lowell Gallagher,“Mary Ward’s ‘Jesuitresses’ and
the Construction of a Typological Community” in Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and
Queens: Women’s Alliances in Early Modern England, ed. Susan Frye and Karen Roberston (New York and Oxford, 1999), pp. 207–208.Gallagher comments on Mary’s rejection
of what she considered “imprudent or harmful advice from confessors and advisors in the
hierarchy of the Church” and also notes her disregard for social and gender boundaries in
plans for the Institute.
56
Peters remarks that “as a more mature woman, she did not make a vow of obedience.
God had led her to a state of self-assurance, an essential prerequisite for carrying through
the establishment of the Institute according to his commands” (op. cit., p. 221). See also
Chambers, op. cit., I, 392–393.
57
Chambers, op. cit., II, 307–316; Gerard’s letter from Rome, 1629, to Mary Poyntz in
Munich, Orchard (ed.), op. cit., p. 79.

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befell the Institute. Mary’s maxims, formed in the maelstrom of hierarchical suspicion, false rumors concerning the Ladies’ virtue and motives,and increasing financial problems in several foundations,provided
solid directives for those who would accompany her during the last
painful years before suppression of the Institute. (The Institute of the
Blessed Virgin Mary would be finally approved by the papacy in 1877.)
Mary had refused to allow her soul to be disturbed, counseling the kind
of detachment that is ultimately the fruit of spiritual guidance and a
faithful prayer life. It was the doing of God’s will, recognized through
obedience in all the contradictions and trials of daily life, rather than
the understanding of such difficulties that Mary stressed, having been
assured that “. . . in all occurrences, God desires our benefit and progress.”58 Born of patient submission in adversity and prayerful reflection,
Mary’s advice became the stuff of spiritual direction for her own companions.
The demise of the proposed Institute as a result of its papal suppression in January, 1631, Ward’s brief imprisonment on charges of heresy
in Munich and her later exoneration, and the dissolution of the foundations and dispersion of many of the English Ladies did not end the tensions that influenced spiritual relationships.Suspicions continued because
Mary and some of her companions never lost sight of their original vocation and groups of women remained under private vows in Rome
and Munich where they continued to teach. From 1632 to 1637 Mary
resided in Rome, where she found herself spied upon and forced to report her activities to the Inquisition. From 1639 she lived in England,
first in London,where she had an audience with Queen Henrietta Maria
and reportedly planned to open a school. When the English Civil War
developed, she and a small group of companions went to Yorkshire,
where they offered material aid and spiritual assistance to all who
sought them.59 Mary Poyntz, a long-time friend, recorded Mary Ward’s
last words to her companions:“God will assist and help you; it is no matter the who but the what.And when God shall enable me to be in place,
I will serve you.”60 Mary had become a spiritual guide in her own right,

58
Wetter, op. cit., pp. 42, 221. Ward had been the subject of polemical accusations of immoral activity with her Jesuit confessor (Dolan, op. cit., p. 91). And in the eyes of the clerical opponents of the Jesuits,the Ladies served as examples “not only of female unruliness
but also of Jesuit wiles: the Jesuit as pimp,” comments Gallagher (op. cit., p. 206).
59
Chambers, op. cit., II, 483–485; Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 118–119.
60
Letter from Mary Poyntz to Barbara Babthorpe, January 31, 1645 (originally in code),
Orchard (ed.), op. cit., pp. 120–121.

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providing a model of faithfulness to that small band of women who
now considered her their “ghostly” mother.
Like Margaret Clitherow, Mary Ward’s initial experiences in spiritual
direction had profited her much, but the radical consequences of her
personal growth in holiness disrupted the direction process itself and
propelled her into activities deemed subversive to social, political, and
religious institutions.61 The actions of all three of these early modern
Catholic women, as perceived by their spiritual directors or themselves, subverted traditional categories of wifely submission to husbands and the individual’s submission to the authority of the state
(Margaret Clitherow and Dorothy Lawson) and even the consecrated
virgin’s submission to ecclesiastical authority (Mary Ward). Their lived
experience raised the question of ultimate authority in the choice of a
vocation, God or human directors (Dorothy Lawson and Mary Ward),
and suggested that occasionally the direction of a male guide became
so problematical that a woman finally resorted to her own mature spiritual insights (Mary Ward). Modern commentators on the actions of
Clitherow, Lawson, and Ward have failed to recognize fully the spiritual
preparation necessary for the radical discipleship of their adult lives.62
Martyr, pious housewife, would-be founder of a new unenclosed religious institute for women—each woman’s life presents an intriguing
glimpse into a powerful process of guided discernment and spiritual
maturation played out against the tumultuous background of religious
change.

61
In 1617 the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, suggested that Ward “does
more harm to the English Church than many priests. Gladly would I exchange six or
seven Jesuits for her.” Quoted in Gallagher, op. cit., p. 199. But also see Latz on the derivation of the Archbishop’s comments (op. cit., pp. 151–152). Gallagher observes that “. . .
there was little doubt, even among those who supported the enterprise, that Ward was
mapping an uncharted itinerary through the prevailing ecclesiastical and social orders of
the world” (op. cit., p. 207).
62
Gallagher comments on “the equivocal place that early modern devotional culture occupies in current critical practice, a place at once familiar and strange” (op. cit., p. 213).
For Ranft, the spiritual director who guides others in the achievement of “the human will
to meaning” becomes a central actor in such devotional culture,“indeed a powerful historical force to be reckoned with” (Woman’s Way, pp. 7–8).

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AN ERODING MILIEU? CATHOLIC YOUTH,
CHURCH AUTHORITY, AND POPULAR BEHAVIOR
IN NORTHWEST GERMANY
DURING THE THIRD REICH, 1933–1938
BY

MICHAEL E. O’SULLIVAN*
I cannot make homesick feelings go away. I miss the community life greatly. I
am happy to be a part of the congregation here, but I cannot participate in
the evenings because I am 3/4 of an hour from the city. How is it going? Are
the Heimabende still nice? Do you attend Marianum on Wednesday evenings?
It is too bad that I could not have continued the training longer.1

A young woman conscripted into the Labor Service wrote this anxious letter to a fellow Catholic youth member, Christel Beilmann, in
March, 1938. On the eve of World War II, she was one of many young
people uprooted from her home religious milieu through the Labor Service, Land Year, and Land Service. The Catholic youth separated from
their home diocese by Nazi policies were known as the “Wandering
Church,” and this letter demonstrates how the phenomenon affected
the lives of everyday worshipers. This young woman’s religiosity
demonstrated the continuing authority of the Church over its youth.
However, it is unclear whether her feelings were typical of the hundreds of thousands of Catholic adolescents removed from their religious milieu for state service and Nazi indoctrination. While current
scholarship remains entrenched in debates about church hierarchy,
prominent dissenters, and the decline of the Catholic milieu, it ignores
such issues surrounding the intersection of religion and everyday life.
Two strands of scholarship dominate the current historiography of
the Catholic Church during the Third Reich. On the one hand, numerous books and articles form a fiery and long-standing debate about the
*Mr. O’Sullivan is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He
would like to thank both Konrad H. Jarausch and Christopher Browning for their help in
revising this article.
1
Christel Beilmann, Eine katholische Jugend in Gottes und dem Dritten Reich (Wuppertal, 1989), p. 110.

236

BY MICHAEL E. O’SULLIVAN

237

complicity of Catholicism in the Third Reich. Postwar Catholic scholars
constructed a narrative portraying the Church as an institution of persecuted resisters, emphasizing areas of conflict between Nazis and
Catholics, such as “euthanasia,” the dissolution of youth groups and religious schools, and the imprisonment of clergy,2 and exceptional protesters,such as Bishop Clemens August Count von Galen from Münster.3
A fierce challenge to the one-sided church interpretation began in the
1960’s and continues into the present. Scholars consistently criticize
the bishops for their failure to speak in favor of the Jews and their nationalistic support for Nazi policies4 and challenge the legacies of revered
church figures, such as von Galen.5 Although these critical historians
provide corrections to the Church’s mythical narrative, they belittle
conflicts as “single issue” opposition6 and underestimate Nazi destruction of Catholic institutions. In the search for martyrs and villains, scholars on both sides ignore the ambiguous interactions between Catholic
leaders and their followers under a regime hostile to the public practice
of Catholicism.
Alternatively, a handful of more recent studies focus on the social history of Catholicism by examining the state of the so-called Catholic milieu during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Many historians describe modern
German politics and society in terms of Catholic, socialist, bourgeoisProtestant, and aristocratic “socio-moral milieus,”7 each of which shared
2
Johann Neuhäusler, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz. Der Kampf des Nationalsozialismus
gegen die katholische Kirche und der kirchliche Widerstand (Munich,1946);Hans Rothfels, Die deutsche Opposition gegen Hitler. Eine Würdigung (Frankfurt am Main, 1960);
Ulrich von Hehl, Priester unter Hitlers Terror. Eine biographische und statistiche
Beschreibung (Paderborn, 1996).
3
Heinrich Portmann, Der Bischof von Münster. Das Echo eines Kampfes für Gottesrecht und Menschenrecht (Münster, 1947).
4
Günter Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (New York, 1964); Ernst
Christian Helmreich, The German Churches under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and
Epilogue (Detroit, 1979); Robert P. Erickson and Susannah Heschel (eds.), Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust (Minneapolis, 1999).
5
Beth A. Griech-Polelle, Bishop von Galen: German Catholicism and National Socialism (New Haven and London, 2002).
6
Claudia Koonz,“Ethical Dilemmas and Nazi Eugenics: Single-Issue Dissent in Religious
Contexts,” in Michael Geyer and John Boyer (eds.), Resistance Against the Third Reich
1933–1990 (Chicago, 1992), pp. 15–39.
7
For the origins of the milieu thesis, see M. Rainer Lespius,“Parteiensystem und Sozialstruktur. Zum Problem der Demokratisierung der deutschen Gesellschaft,” in Wirtschaft,
Geschichte und Wirschaftsgeschichte, ed. Wilhelm Abel (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 371–393.
For recent milieu theory,see Oded Heilbronner,“From Ghetto to Ghetto:The Place of German Catholic Society in Recent Historiography,” Journal of Modern History, 72 (2000),
60–85; Helmut Walser Smith and Chris Clark, “The Fate of Nathan,” in Helmut Walser

238

AN ERODING MILIEU?

distinctive values,leaders,and organizations.In theory,a Catholic milieu
organized all aspects of its followers’ lives around their religious beliefs
through Catholic schools, professional associations, youth groups, and
religious activities. These recent studies portray a weakening German
Catholic milieu, arguing that associational life and church attendance
declined.These conclusions,however,are debatable because of the lack
of attention to the social history of religious practice during the 1930’s.8
New historical methods developed by social historians, such as David
Blackbourn, Jonathan Sperber, and Werner Blessing, help illuminate
such questions.9 They study rituals, pilgrimages, and popular religiosity
to gauge Catholic sentiment during the nineteenth century, but few historians apply these methods to Catholicism during the 1930’s.10
Using methodologies pioneered by historians of the nineteenth century, this essay examines three case studies of Catholic Youth in northwestern Germany between 1933 and 1938.During the early years of Nazi
rule, many young Catholics articulated dissatisfaction with the regime
through public ritual. An analysis of church leadership and youthful behavior at processions,pilgrimages,and holidays forms the first example.
Smith (ed.), Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in Germany, 1800–1914 (Oxford and New
York, 2001).
8
For the declining Catholic milieu, see Oded Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture, and the Countryside: A Social History of the Nazi Party in South Germany (Ann
Arbor, 1998); Christoph Kösters, Katholische Verbände und moderne Gesellschaft: Organizationsgeschichte und Vereinskultur im Bistum Münster, 1918–1945 (Paderborn,
1996); Gerhard Paul and Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Milieus und Widerstand: Eine Verhaltensgeschichte der Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus (Bonn, 1995). Heilbronner argues that the Nazis gained support in southwest Germany because of the vacuum left by
the declining Catholic milieu, while Kösters views the erosion of associational life as an
indicator of a religious community that overstepped its “zenith” in the early 1930’s. For
work asserting a strong milieu in the 1930’s, see Thomas Breuer, Verordneter Wandel? Der
Widerstreit zwischen nationalsozialistischem Herrschaftsanspruch und traditionaler
Lebenswelt im Erzbistum Bamberg (Mainz, 1992).
9
David Blackbourn, Marpingen:Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Nineteenth-Century
Germany (New York, 1994); Jonathan Sperber, Popular Catholicism in NineteenthCentury Germany (Princeton, 1984); Werner Blessing, Staat und Kirche in der
Gesellschaft. Institutionelle Authorität und mentaler Wandel in Bayern während des
19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1982).
10
For exceptions to this assertion, see Christoph Kösters, “‘Fest soll mein Taufbund
immer steh’n . . .’—Demonstrationskatholizismus im Bistum Münster 1933–1945,”in HansUlrich Thamer and Rudolf Schlögl (eds.), Zwischen Loyalität und Resistenz (Münster,
1996), pp. 158–184; Barbara Stambolis,“Wallfahrtsfrühling im Dritten Reich: Überlegungen
zu Religiosität und Resistenz unter dem Nationalsozialismus,” in Ludger Grevelhorster
(ed.), Religion und Gesellschaft im Deutschland des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Vierow
bei Greifswald, 1995), pp. 159–170.

BY MICHAEL E. O’SULLIVAN

239

Throughout the mid-1930’s, the aforementioned Wandering Church became an important issue to both clergy and ordinary Catholics.The system designed for the spiritual care of this youthful Diaspora, separated
from home by Nazi programs,forced Catholic youth to choose between
their religious milieu and their state, making the Wandering Church an
ideal case study. After the dissolution of the youth groups and associations in 1936–1937, the Church relied on Catholic Action and the “Spiritual Exercises Movement” to maintain contact with its youth. This
informal organization of youth provides a third and final indicator by
which to gauge the strength, strategy, and popularity of the Church.
This essay examines Catholic youth to explore the relationship of the
institutional Church to its followers and the interactions of the Catholic
community with the Nazi state. It explores to what extent the Catholic
milieu eroded during the 1930’s and determines how much influence
the institutional Church continued to exercise upon its believers. By exploiting social and cultural methodologies, youthful religiosity is analyzed to complicate the heated debate about Catholic behavior during
the Third Reich.
Demonstrations of Dissent: Catholic Youth
in the Public Sphere, 1933–1936

Although the Catholic Church sought initial avenues of co-operation
with the Nazi state, German Catholics expressed early disillusionment
with violation of the Concordat from 1933. As a result, church leaders
sought ways to challenge Third Reich church policy, while remaining
loyal to the new state. Public ritual became a forum in which clergy felt
they could articulate dissatisfaction with restrictions of schools, public
space, and youth groups. Processions, pilgrimages, church holidays, and
youth gatherings presented the Nazis with an uncomfortable scenario.
They wanted dominance in the public sphere for themselves, but could
not crack down on Catholics as they did on communists and socialists.
Christoph Kösters suggests that a revival began in Westphalia during
the mid-1920’s because of church reforms, disillusionment, and instability, climaxing after the Nazis’ rise to power in the context of churchstate conflicts.11 A brief examination of a canceled youth pilgrimage in
1935, Münster’s Great Procession in 1934–1936,Ascension Day in 1934,
and Christ-the-King Day in 1934 demonstrates that this boom resulted
directly from dissatisfaction with Nazi policy. Furthermore, it reveals
Kösters,“Fest soll mein Taufbund,” pp. 158–165.

11

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AN ERODING MILIEU?

the large number of Catholic youth at these rituals and the complex relations between the Church and its followers.
The Nazis disapproved of the upswing in public piety, but approached it with care, restricting displays of public piety as part of the
co-ordination process. In December of 1934, they issued a decree banning “public events and demonstrations of a religious-confessional nature.” Although the Nazis allowed exceptions for traditional events
established before 1931, Catholic youth groups could not carry banners, wear uniforms, or march as a group. All of these restrictions did
not apply within the confines of the church, making cathedrals and
parishes a haven for canceled events.12
At the peak of pilgrimage attendance during the revival, the Nazis
banned a youth pilgrimage from Münster to a shrine for the Virgin in
May, 1935. In its place, youth groups held a Marian celebration inside
the cathedral, which evolved into a protest. At his dramatic best, the
charismatic Bishop von Galen inveighed,“You have come together to
worship the Virgin Mary.The child-like love, enthusiasm, and honor that
you give to her . . . cannot be stolen by anybody: one would have to rip
out a piece of our Catholic hearts.”13
Despite his rousing language early in the sermon, von Galen cautioned his followers against clashes with the Nazi state. About the canceled pilgrimage he said:
They banned it [the pilgrimage] and we have obeyed the prohibition. . . . We
are Germans and would regard a rejection of the state as insidious treachery
against the Heimat and Volkstum to which we belong and serve with our
hearts. . . . Rejection of the state would be a sin against God who has created
us as Germans.14

Ignoring von Galen’s caution, his followers energetically cheered him
with raised right arms, a greeting usually reserved for Hitler. They also
whistled at police in a clash that resulted in one arrest. The Nazis interpreted the event as a symbol of a “militant atmosphere” in the Catholic
population,“systematically encouraged by the clergy.”15
12
Walter Plötzl,“Wallfahrten gegen das Hakenkreuz,”in Harald Dickerhof (ed.), Festgabe
für Heinz Hürten zum 60. Geburtstag (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), pp. 444–446.
13
Peter Löffler (ed.), Bischof Clemens August von Galen: Akten, Briefe und Predigten
1933–1946 (2 vols.; Paderborn, 1996), Nr. 96,“Ansprache von Galens,” May 25, 1935.
14
Ibid.
15
Joachim Kuropka (ed.), Meldungen aus Münster 1924–1944: Geheime und vertrauliche Berichte von Polizei, Gestapo, NSDAP und ihren Gliederungen, staatlicher
Verwaltung, Gerichtsbarkeit und Wehrmacht über die politische und gesellschaftliche
Situation in Münster und Umgebung (Münster, 1992),“Bericht der Staatpolizeistelle für

BY MICHAEL E. O’SULLIVAN

241

This example illustrates two major points. First, von Galen, like other
members of the church hierarchy, articulated ambiguous feelings about
the Nazi state. While mobilizing young people to oppose restrictions on
public ritual, von Galen praised National Socialist ideas about a unified
Volksgemeinschaft and preached loyalty to the Third Reich.Von Galen’s
mixed sentiments about the Third Reich were not exceptional for
Catholic Germany.In his study of the diocese of Bamberg,Thomas Breuer
concludes that the bishops and clergy passionately led opposition
against certain church policies, but generally sympathized with many
aspects of National Socialism.16 Second, von Galen struggled to control
his revived core of followers. Once he aroused anger over the canceled
pilgrimage, von Galen could not contain their dissent.
Church officials used the unique status of traditional ritual to turn the
Great Procession of Münster into a forum for protest.In 1934,when Münster’s clergy removed Nazi officials from the procession, participation
swelled by at least 2,000 to 10,000–14,000 people,and 300 Catholic youth
group members raised their right arms in honor of von Galen.17 The following year in July, 1935, an extraordinary confrontation between Alfred Rosenberg and the Catholic community strained the traditional
event’s already tense atmosphere. Rosenberg, the symbol of the radical
“new paganism,”was the keynote speaker at the NSDAP rally in Münster
two days before the procession, provocatively attacking von Galen and
calling Catholics a “danger”to the state.18 The Catholic residents of Münster responded with a strong showing of Catholic loyalty. About 20,000
people participated in the Great Procession, which topped the previous year’s impressive totals by at least 6,000.19 One historian estimates
that 45,000 citizens attended the procession,including spectators,which
was astonishing considering that only 100,000 Catholics inhabited the
den Regierungsbezirk Münster vom 7.6.1935 über die Marienfeier der katholischen Jugend am 25.5.1935,” pp. 442–443.
16
Breuer, op. cit.
17
Stadtarchiv Münster (StdAM), Stadtregistratur Kirchen Fach 200, Staatspolizeiliche
Anordnung, June 28, 1934; Domvikar Larsen to the Polizeidirektor, June 18, 1934; Oberbürgermeister to the NSDAP Gauleitung in Northern Westphalia, August 13, 1934; Löffler,
Nr. 54,“Erlass von Galens,” July 9, 1934.
18
Wilhelm Damberg,“Die Grosse Prozession in Münster: Das Verhältnis von Katholizismus und Nationalsozialismus 1933–1936,” in Das Dritte Reich im Fest: Führermythos,
Feierlaune und Verweigerung in Westfalen, 1933–1945, ed. Werner Freitag (Bielefeld,
1997), p. 198; Johannes Gerhard, 600 Jahre Grosse Prozession in Münster, 1383–1983
(Münster, 1983).
19
Kuropka, Meldungen, “Aus dem Lagebericht der Staatspolizeistelle für den
Regierungsbezirk Münster für Juli 1935,” p. 450.

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AN ERODING MILIEU?

city.20 This turnout was an organized response to Rosenberg’s speech.A
statement read in the pulpits the day before the procession proclaimed,
“Yesterday evening public criticism was exercised against the leadership of our beloved shepherd. . . . We are convinced that tomorrow, the
faithful of our city on the occasion of the Great Procession will give the
speaker the proper response through public demonstration.”21
Not only did common Catholics, among whom Catholic youth were
prominent, respond through strong participation, but they also went
well beyond the ritual’s normal boundaries. Thousands followed the
bishop back to his residence, singing songs and once again raising their
right arms as von Galen passed. In response to impassioned calls from
the crowd, Bishop von Galen re-emerged from his residence and delivered a fiery speech.22 Spearheaded by the Catholic youth, von Galen’s
followers interrupted him several times with applause and shouts of
support, and articulated other forms of popular protest against Rosenberg’s actions. For example, a local farmer, whose actions landed him in
“protective custody,” led a boycott of a businessman whose daughter
presented Rosenberg with a wreath at the rally.23
In this instance, von Galen responded to popular protest with a rousing speech rather than cautious words. Because of the extraordinary attendance and aggressive behavior by his followers, he temporarily
departed from his course of ambiguous opposition. He gave into popular pressure and responded to the calls of his community for more open
protest. The following year, however, he retreated to his cautious position. Hoping to avoid the previous year’s tumult, von Galen carefully
pleaded with his followers to co-operate and avoid violent confrontations. Although a police crackdown and poor weather diminished attendance to 25,000, a Catholic crowd of primarily young people greeted
von Galen with raised right arms and protests about Nazi church policy.
While members of the aristocracy abruptly escorted von Galen back to
his residence on horseback, his followers clashed with police and sang
Catholic songs after the procession. Six arrests were made.24
Münster’s Great Procession provides significant information about
the manner in which the Catholic milieu functioned. It demonstrates
Damberg, op. cit., p. 198.
Kuropka, Meldungen,“Aus dem Lagebericht der Staatspolizeistelle für den Regierungsbezirk Münster für Juli 1935,” pp. 450–451.
22
Löffler, Nr. 116,“Ansprache von Galens,” July 8, 1935.
23
Kuropka, Meldungen,“Lagebericht für Juli 1935,” p. 450.
24
Löffler, Nr. 178,“Ansprache von Galens nach der Grossen Prozession,” July 13, 1936.
20

21

BY MICHAEL E. O’SULLIVAN

243

the strength of the Church during the 1930’s because a charismatic figure like von Galen mobilized large numbers of people to articulate dissatisfaction with Nazi church policy. Church leaders, however, proved
unable to contain the scope of religious protests. Although von Galen’s
warnings hindered some from action, significant numbers of ordinary
Catholics disobeyed him and displayed aggressive signs of dissent.
The two examples cited above were not exceptional in the early
years of Nazi rule.Mobilized crowds of Catholic youth fueled numerous
other demonstrations against Nazi church policy. For example, on the
eve of Ascension Day in 1934, Catholic leaders in Cologne released a
pamphlet criticizing Nazi restrictions and calling the Catholic youth to
action. Cologne youth responded enthusiastically, filling the Cologne
Cathedral to capacity and spilling outside “head to head (Kopf an
Kopf ).”Aachen’s Ascension Day was equally impressive. Responding to
Bishop Vogt’s invitation to the diocese’s youth, 35,000 young people attended the celebration. A Catholic pamphlet reported,“Young women
came with specially ordered trains and young men arrived on night pilgrimages by foot and bicycle.”25
Another religious holiday inspiring youthful fervor was the Christthe-King celebration in October, 1934. The Nazis observed popular
demonstrations in at least twenty-five cities and towns.26 In Cologne,
Christ-the-King capped a week of three demonstrations by Catholic
youth, each of which attracted at least 20,000.27 All the gatherings honored the holiday, but the October 21 demonstration exhibited particular
enthusiasm. Besides the 30,000 youths packing the cathedral, 2,000–
3,000 spilled into the streets. Whenever organ music halted, the youth
spontaneously sang Catholic songs, like “Wir sind im wahren Christentum” and “Fest soll mein Taufbund immer steh’n.” When youth
leader Ludwig Wolker and Cardinal Schulte exited the cathedral, they
were greeted with Heilrufe from thousands waiting outside. Aachen
experienced a similar demonstration. Its celebration included massive
attendance, spontaneous song, and enthusiastic greetings for youth
leaders. A throng of people blocked Bishop Vogt’s car and delayed his

25
Bistumsarchiv Münster (BAM), Nachlass Roth (NR) A12, “Flugblatt herausgegeben
von der Pfarrgeistlichkeit der Stadt Köln,” May 15, 1934;“Von der Treue der katholischen
Jugend,” no date.
26
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Record Group (RG)-11:
Moscow State Archives: 501-1-194,“Sonderbericht: Die staatsfeindliche Tätigkeit des politischen Katholizismus,” December, 1934.
27
Ibid.

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AN ERODING MILIEU?

departure. A newspaper reported,“Aachen has not experienced such a
Christ-the-King celebration.”28
The Nazis responded to the Christ-the-King celebrations with significant anxiety:
The Christ-the-King celebrations on October 28 resulted in speeches, of
which the one by Bishop von Galen was particularly noticeable.The speeches
articulate the leadership of Christ in a form that can only be interpreted as a
challenge against the worldly leadership of National Socialism.29

Although church leaders emphasized state loyalty while protesting
state policy,their followers actively shifted loyalty from state to Church.
As a result, the Nazis viewed them as threatening to the goals of National Socialism.
Christ-the-King demonstrations revealed much about the Church and
its youth during the Third Reich. A mobilized core enthusiastically attended the celebrations in many cities, and they all spontaneously
demonstrated their loyalty to bishops and youth leaders, proving the
resonance of church authority. The bishops, however, did not enjoy
complete control over their youth. These celebrations burst the boundaries of the Church’s strategy of legal opposition. Church leaders could
produce popular demonstrations, but they could not contain the behavior of their mobilized followers. Because of their inability to contain
worshipers and the high level of Nazi anxiety, the Church sought more
subtle ways to challenge Third Reich church policy.
The Wandering Church: A New Catholic Diaspora, 1934–1938

Few political movements have caused more population shifts than
National Socialism. Most of their brutal policies affected people living
in occupied territories during the 1940’s and changed the demographic
face of Eastern Europe. Although justly overshadowed by the enormously tragic impact of later events, Nazi policy also challenged the
Catholic milieu in northwest Germany by conscripting youth for the
Land Year, Land Service, and Labor Service during the mid-1930’s.
BAM, NR A12, Kölnische Volkszeitung und Handelsblatt,“Junge Kirche Kölns,” October 22, 1934; Köln am Rhein, “Bislang grösste katholische Jugendkundgebung Kölns:
30,000 weihen sich Christus,” October 22, 1934; Kölnische Volkszeitung, “Die Christuskönigkundgebung der jungen Kirche Aachens,” October 30, 1934.
29
Kuropka, Meldungen,“Aus dem Lagebericht der Staatspolizeistelle für den Regierungsbezirk Münster für Oktober 1934,” pp. 435–436.
28

BY MICHAEL E. O’SULLIVAN

245

All three of these programs fused the Nazi desire to curtail unemployment with ideological goals. The Land Year conscripted selected
children leaving school after their eighth year to do agricultural work.
The program curbed joblessness by postponing entry into a clogged
job market, while simultaneously encouraging movement from cities to
the country. The Land Year sent boys and girls from northwestern industrial cities to farms in the north and east. While completing their
year of agricultural work, they participated in local Hitler Youth activities and lived in a dormitory with Nazi youth leaders. The Land Service
was a similar program aimed at ending unemployment and indoctrinating young people, drawing 200,000 young people to agricultural labor
by the end of 1934.30 Many youths were also drafted into Labor Service
camps designed to decrease unemployment and further steep the young
in tenets of National Socialism.31
The Catholic Church appreciated aspects of these programs, displaying particular enthusiasm for the Land Year. In a secret report about the
program, the Church praised the “core experience of a völkisch community.” Catholic officials agreed with Nazi propaganda saying the program would “bind them [German youth] to the land,” strengthen their
bodies, and “awaken” their consciousness as “proper Germans and National Socialists.”32 In a letter to Land Year children,one priest wrote,“Be
orderly and obedient! Fulfill your duties and pursue the cause of your
savior,who was also part of a community.”33 The Church supported Nazi
attempts to curb urbanization and welcomed Nazi ideas about a united
Volksgemeinschaft.
Despite its support for these Nazi programs, the Church became anxious as departing youth formed a “Wandering Church.” The clergy worried most about the challenge posed to the tight Catholic communities
that they had maintained since the nineteenth century. In their hometowns a complex network of Catholic schools, youth groups, associations, and religious rituals regulated all aspects of a young person’s life.
30
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Records of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt: Reel 46,“Mit Gott
ins Landjahr!: Material für die Kirchliche Führung und Betreuung der Landjahrkinder,”
Düsseldorf, 1935; Gerhard Rempel, Hitler’s Children:The Hitler Youth and the SS (Chapel
Hill and London, 1989), pp. 110–111, 120–122.
31
Detlev Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in
Everyday Life (New Haven, 1987), p. 56.
32
USHMM, RG-15.007:“Mit Gott ins Landjahr!”
33
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46,“Landjahrheimseelsorge,” Chaplain Hartel to the boys
and girls of the Land year dormitory, April 28, 1937.

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The Land Year uprooted 25,000 adolescents in 1934 and 31,000 in
1935. Catholics from northwestern cities were disproportionately sent
to Protestant strongholds in the north and east. The Labor Service
weakened the Catholic milieu in a similar fashion.34
While this demographic shift challenged the Catholic community,the
Nazis actively secularized youth during the Land Year. A Prussian law in
June, 1934, demanded dormitories be free of confessional influence.35
Youth were not separated by denomination; youth leaders were not
chosen on the basis of religion, and priests were banned from dormitories located from twenty to sixty kilometers from the nearest parish.36
The situation was no different in the Labor Service. The German Bishops’ Conference complained,“The de-confessionalization of souls seems
more and more to be the goal of world-view training in the National
Labor Service.”37 Youth leaders were violently opposed to the persistent
religious influence of their charges’ Catholic communities. They confiscated religious publications and encouraged the children to abandon their churches in favor of National Socialism. The Nazi attempts to
weaken parental influence deeply concerned the Church.38 The German bishops complained, “The dormitory leaders emphasize the voluntary nature of Mass attendance with malicious sneers to give the
impression that the old-fashioned standpoint of the parents is already
vanquished.”39
Rather than openly oppose state programs as they did earlier through
public ritual, the Church created a subtle system to care for young
Catholics in the Wandering Church.The Fulda Bishops’ Conference created the Katholische Seelsorgsdienst für Arbeitsdienst, Landhilfe und
Landjahr (KSALL) in 1935. Berlin’s bishop directed the national office,
which delegated responsibility on a descending scale at the diocesan,
regional, and parish level to keep contact with the selected youth before, during, and after their time away from home.40
USHMM, RG-15.007:“Mit Gott ins Landjahr!”
In the German context, Confession comes from the Reformation and specifies to
which of the three major denominations (Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism) a
Christian belongs.
36
USHMM, RG-15.007:“Mit Gott ins Landjahr!”
37
Ludwig Volk (ed.), Akten Deutscher Bischöfe über die Lage der Kirche 1933–1945,
Vol. IV (Mainz, 1981), “Zur Seelsorge in Landjahr und Arbeitsdienst,” January 13, 1937,
p. 127.
38
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46:“Katholisches Elternhaus und Landjahr,” no date.
39
Volk, op. cit.,Vol. IV,“Zur Seelsorge in Landjahr und Arbeitsdienst.”
40
USHMM, RG-15.007M:“Die Kirche und das Landjahr.”
34
35

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247

Local representatives prepared the youth before their departure.
Both priests and active lay people visited the home of every Catholic
adolescent at least three times to prepare them for anti-Catholic
rhetoric, encouraging pre-departure “spiritual exercises.” Perhaps the
most subversive actions during the preparation period were the efforts
to “free” young people from conscription. If adolescents prepared for
another career or suffered serious health problems, they were excused.
Church representatives systematically searched for potential exemptions.41 The high point of pre-departure preparation was the going-away
celebration where youth participated in a final Mass. The hierarchy distributed two “model” sermons designed for this occasion throughout
the northwest, some of which affirmed the Volksgemeinschaft and
praised the camaraderie of the Land Year. The language, however, also
reflected the fierce struggles over church policy. One sermon compared the battle for Catholic souls during the Land Year to World War I,
while the other described a “clear front against Christ and the
Church.”42 While the youth were away, the Church sought contact with
them and organized a complex system to attain every participant’s new
address. Priests wrote them regularly, reminding them to attend Mass
and sharply criticizing “the attack on Christian belief.”43
The clergy identified Catholic parents as the most important element
in the religious care of the Wandering Church, visiting parents, encouraging them to write,44 and reaffirming family gender roles. According to
the Church,“Mothers write glorious letters because they are pleasantly
muddled and unlearned.They can describe in just a few words the small
things of home life.”Fathers, on the other hand, were figures of strength.
If children were not attending church or dormitory leaders prevented
them from doing so, the father was to intervene.45 The re-affirmation of
these family roles came in the context of anti-Catholic Nazi rhetoric.
The Fulda Bishops complained that leaders in the Labor Service dormitories said that the “vital type of man (vitale Männertyp)” rejected confession and only valued the “material conditions of life.” Men with
41
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46: “Mitteilungen des Katholischen Seelsorgdienstes im
Bistum Berlin,” April, 1936.
42
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46: “Ansprache bei der kirchlichen Abschiedsfeier für
Kinder, die ins Landjahr gehen” and “Abschiedsfeier für unsere Landjahrkinder,” no date.
43
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46:“Kirchliche Propaganda,” Father Lutze of Wuppertal to
Catholics in the Labor service and Wehrmacht, March 8, 1937; and Chaplain Hartel to children in the Land Year Dormitories.
44
Ibid.
45
USHMM, RG-15.007M:“Katholisches Elternhaus und Landjahr.”

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Catholic training were portrayed as “unmanly and feminine.”46 Like the
Catholic and Protestant chaplains analyzed by Doris Bergen,47 bishops
and clergymen concerned with the Wandering Church occupied a delicate position regarding gender. Over half their devoted followers were
women, but they affirmed their institution’s masculinity to prevent the
loss of young men.
The Nazis were hostile to what they perceived as church interference with the National Socialist indoctrination of children. One report
accused Catholics of “watering down” the Land Year by turning it into
“a school year in the style of the Catholic Action.”48 Another report says,
“In the fight over the Wandering Church in the Labor Service, Wehrmacht, and Land Year, the clergy . . . often rely on illegal speeches and
acts.”49 The Nazis clearly viewed actions of the Church to be at best suspicious and at worst subversive to the state.
Attempts to provide spiritual care for the Wandering Church revealed much about the complex mix of accommodation and confrontation in the Catholic-Nazi relationship. Catholics interfered with
certain Nazi goals, but did so without aggressive dissent. The Church always praised what they considered the virtues of Nazi programs, such
as the Volksgemeinschaft, never asked their followers to refuse state
service, and avoided the public protest associated with popular ritual
between 1934 and 1936. They attempted, however, everything within
the parameters of Nazi law to preserve the Catholic identity of their
youth in the face of intense National Socialist indoctrination.The fierceness of this opposition is clear in the attitudes of men, such as von
Galen, who openly criticized Nazi policies toward the Wandering
Church as part of pagan attack on the Catholic community.50 Nazi
rhetoric demonstrated contempt for Catholic activities that went beyond the small pagan movement led by Alfred Rosenberg. When the
Volk, op. cit.,Vol. IV,“Zur Seelsorge in Landjahr und Arebeitsdienst,” pp. 127–128.
Doris Bergen,“Germany Military Chaplains in World War II and the Dilemmas of Legitimacy,” Church History, 70 ( June, 2001), 232–247.
48
USHMM, RG-15.007M: “Katholischer Seelsorgdienst im Landjahr und in der Landhilfe,” March 19, 1936.
49
Heinz Boberach (ed.), Berichte des SD und der Gestapo über Kirchen und Kirchenvolk in Deutschland, 1934–1944 (Mainz,1971),“Vermerk des SS-Hauptscharfühers F.über
die Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem SD-Unterabschnitt Koblenz und der Staaspolizeileitstelle
Koblenz auf dem Sachgebiet II/113,” p. 928.
50
Löffler, “Protokoll der Dechantenkonferenz (Auszug),” April 19, 1934, p. 86; “Hirtenbrief von Galens,” April 21, 1935, p. 198.
46

47

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249

Church interfered with state policy, Nazi reports condemned the pastoral work as illegal.
The response of the Catholic population disappointed the Church
and reduced Nazi anxiety. Many letters from clergy pleaded for the letters and addresses that they commanded the youth to send home in
their pre-departure preparation.51 In 1940, Bishop Kaller complained
that even after intensive work, only 10% of the youthful Wandering
Church answered their priests with letters.52 Priests also lamented the
low church attendance of the youth in the Land Year and Labor Service.
The diocese of Rottenburg produced several reports about young men
conscripted into the Labor Service. They characterized Mass attendance and communion participation as “very irregular.”53 In a workers’
dormitory in Schoenbühl bei Grunbach, only a few of the sixty Catholic
young men attended Mass.54 Some Nazi reports recognized church failures, remarking that even free coffee, bonbons, cigarettes, and cake left
Land Service youth indifferent to community evenings and Masses.55
Christoph Kösters views the declining religiosity of youth in the
Wandering Church as an example of the wider erosion of the Catholic
milieu and portrays a Church in decline during the late 1930’s.56 Contemporaries held similar opinions. Many Church leaders blamed the
growing weakness of the milieu for the disinterest of the youthful Wandering Church. Bishop Kaller complained that the youth were “not
armed well enough to protect their beliefs; they lose all religious connection with their Heimat.”57
Despite the validity of Kösters’ viewpoint, many examples indicate a
more complicated response to church policy. Nazi reports contradicted
gloomy Catholic accounts and complained about church success. One
report said youthful workers in eastern Prussia welcomed priests from
their cities of origin because the farm families were strange to them.
Some of these boys had not been particularly religious, but the contact
with clergy in the Land Year turned them into devout Catholics on their
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Chaplain Hartel to Land year children.
Ludwig Volk (ed.), Akten Deutscher Bischöfe über die Lage der Kirche 1933–1946,
Vol.V (Mainz, 1983),“Referat Kallers über die Wandernde Kirche,”August 22, 1940, p. 138.
53
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 146, Nr. 573:“Seelsorge in Arbeitslage,” April 12, 1937.
54
Ibid.,“Bericht über Arbeitsdienst und Seelsorge,” April 29, 1937.
55
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reels 46, Nr. 569,“Landhelferseelsorg,” September 5, 1935.
56
Kösters, Katholische Verbände, pp. 487–493.
57
Volk, op. cit.,Vol.V,“Kallers Referat,” p. 138.
51
52

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AN ERODING MILIEU?

return home.58 Another report expressed great anxiety over the gains of
“political Catholicism” among youths during their Land Year.59
Other sources indicate continuing enthusiasm for the Church among
female members of the Wandering Church. A female companion of Beilmann, serving in the Labor Service, wrote:
On Corpus Christi there was a community evening for the entire [Diaspora]
congregation. The vicar showed a film about the Eucharistic Congress in
Manila. . . . On the next day was an interesting [National Socialist] speech,
but I say to you the pastoral letter found a better echo. The Corpus Christi
procession bore good witness also.

The same adolescent commented on the strong attendance for church
evenings, but complained,“On Sunday morning, there could have been
more young men there.”60 Young women, who made up only one-third
of the Wandering Church in the 1930’s,seemed to participate in church
events more frequently than young men while away from home.
Even in the Rottenburg reports, there are signs that the Church maintained some authority over its young men. One priest claimed that the
best defense of Catholic belief was a strong connection between parents and clergy during the year. This opinion was based on an experience in which he personally advertised a mission when the men of a
camp were free,and almost all of them attended Mass the next Sunday.61
The authority of the priest waned when there was no contact,but upon
personal intervention he could mobilize support.
Occasionally,the Catholic youth even openly opposed state programs.
A Catholic Land Service participant from the Rhineland left his job because his priest told him not to work for Protestant farmers.62 The Gauleitung in Weser-Ems complained that Rhineland Catholics employed by
the Land Service in Wesermarsch, Friesland, Wittmund, and Norden returned home because they did not want to work for Protestants.63
The Wandering Church confronted Catholic leaders with a serious
challenge. Some viewed the religious indifference of the new Diaspora
58
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46: “Seelsorgarbeit im Landjahr und Landhilfe,” April 9,
1936.
59
Ibid.,“Katholischer Seelsorgedienst im Landjahr und in der Landhilfe,” no date.
60
Beilmann, op. cit.,“Maria G. an cb, June 13, 1937,” and “Maria G. an cb, June 7, 1937,”
p. 108.
61
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46:“Bericht über das Arbeitslager Heusbach Gruppe 264
Abt. 4.”
62
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46: Undated Report.
63
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46:“Rückwanderung von Landhelfern,” January 9, 1937.

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251

as a symptom of waning church influence. Popular reactions varied, but
male camaraderie, Nazi indoctrination, and overwhelmed Diaspora
parishes caused young men to abandon religion. Many women, however, maintained their religious practice and a few members of the Labor Service defied Nazi policy,helping the milieu retain some followers.
For a better understanding of the relationship between the Church and
its followers, an examination of opposition to youth policy within the
vibrant local milieu is necessary.
Youth Group Dissolutions and New Pastoral Methods, 1936–1938

The Nazi regime weakened the Catholic milieu significantly by coordinating all German youth under the banner of National Socialist ideology.Most scholarship about Catholic youth during this period focuses
on the church-state clash over youth groups between 1933 and 1936
and concludes that Catholics were the most difficult youth contingent
to co-ordinate. Despite the intensity of this confrontation, historians believe that Catholic youth fell by 1936–1937 when the Nazis dissolved
most youth organizations and severely restricted religious schools.64
Although the Church urged popular compliance with Nazi orders,
youth group dissolution was not always peaceful. When the state police
and the SD officially dissolved the Havixbeck youth organizations and
removed their banners from the community parish, local leaders challenged them. Outside the church, two butchers and a merchant led
a crowd of 200 that verbally abused and physically harassed the Nazi
officials. School children participated in the protest, where someone
shouted,“You new pagans, what do you want? Go home!” Some even
threatened the officers with death. This display, however, was exceptional. Most Catholics obeyed their bishops and surrendered their youth
group banners.65
The history of Catholic youth in Germany, however, did not end in
1936. Rather than openly opposing the dissolution of youth groups, the
German bishops used ideas from Catholic Action and the Spiritual Exercises movement, both growing since the late 1920’s, to maintain influence over Catholic youth. Catholics interfered with Nazi wishes and
64
Barbara Schellenberger, Katholische Jugend und Drittes Reich: Eine Geschichte des
Katholischen Jungmännerverbandes 1933–1939 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung
der Rheinprovinz (Mainz, 1975); Wilhelm Damberg, Der Kampf um die Schulen in Westfalen 1933–1945 (Mainz, 1986).
65
Kuropka, Meldungen,“Bericht des Gendarmerie-Postens Havixbeck vom 30.10.1937
über die Auflösung des Katholischen Jungmännervereins,” pp. 339–341.

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AN ERODING MILIEU?

opposed efforts to monopolize German youth, but did so within the parameters of Nazi laws.
In 1936, the Fulda Bishops’ Conference drafted the “Guidelines for
Youth Pastoral Work,” creating a new direction in the religious training
of children and adolescents. These guidelines replaced youth organizations with Catholic Action and emphasized parish-based lay activity
rather than youth groups. The bishops stressed preparations for marriage and family, cultivation of a career, lay catechism, Caritas, and missions rather than community experiences, nature, and sports.66 These
new pastoral methods discouraged communal gatherings and nature
hikes in favor of more religious activities.67
As the dissolution of youth organizations progressed in 1936 and
1937, the “Guidelines for Youth Pastoral Work”became the central strategy of the Catholic Church in its battle over youth. The Church created
hierarchical youth offices headed by the bishop, who appointed priests
in every region to “oversee the vineyard of God” by caring for the area’s
youth.68 The Spiritual Exercises Movement (Exerzitienbewegung) formed
the center of this new mobilization. It consisted of three types of religious practices. First, there were closed spiritual exercises, which included a three-day retreat in a “Spiritual Exercises House” and strict
religious training based on the disciplined regimen for spiritual reflection created by Ignatius Loyola during the Counter-Reformation. Second, there were the “home spiritual exercises,” which occurred over a
couple of days inside the home church of the participants. Finally, the
very popular Einkehrtage were introduced for those with little time or
money. These events imitated the spiritual exercises in their emphasis
on inner reflection and religious instruction, but lasted only one Sunday.69 At most of these events, Catholic children received catechism instruction, but there were also lessons on themes like marriage and the
family.70 Although young people learned about catechism and the ideal
Kösters, Katholische Verbände, pp. 422–426.
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46, Nr. 571:“Lebendige Jugend in lebendiger Gemeinde,”
April 17–21, 1939, pp. 12–13; for how this decision affected the internal struggle between
Catholic Action and the Catholic Youth Movement, see Mark Edward Ruff,“The Wayward
Flock: Catholic Youth and Secularization in the Federal Republic of Germany from the
Second World War to the Second Vatican Council” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University,
1999).
68
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46, Nr. 571:“Bischöfliche Verordnung über die Seelsorge
der männlichen Jugend im Bistum Münster.”
69
Kösters, Katholische Verbände, pp. 159–165.
70
Ibid.; USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46, Nr. 571:“Errichtung der Diözesanjugendämter”;
Kösters, Katholische Verbände, pp. 422–426.
66

67

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253

Christian family, priests introduced “dynamic energy” into religious
training to break down barriers between teacher and pupil. Rather than
boring the youth with lectures, they started religious “conversations”
with young people.71
This new approach to youth blended opposition to Nazi policy with
state loyalty. The rhetoric of many bishops demonstrated the intensity
with which they approached the battle for their young followers. While
discussing the state of Spiritual Exercises among the young, Bishop von
Galen said,“The more the fight for souls climaxes to the alternative:‘For
Christ or against Christ,’ . . . the more necessary it is for every individual
to clearly understand how much is at stake.”72 While the Church offered
substantial opposition to Nazi youth policy through the new pastoral
guidelines, its insistence on remaining within the confines of Nazi law
still limited its level of dissent. It abandoned both the successful youth
organizations that had been a pillar of the Catholic milieu and the public
demonstrations that frustrated the Nazi state between 1934 and 1936.
Efforts to maintain state loyalty failed to impress the Nazis. Nazi radicals viewed the Spiritual Exercises as training for another generation of
backward Catholic “fanatics.”A police report complained that the use of
these methods made all Catholics identical to the “subversive” Jesuits
and subject to “religious nonsense.”73 While the radicals attacked the
Church ideologically,more practical party reports recognized the threat
that Catholics posed to Nazi co-ordination plans:
The Catholic clergy display a restrained reserve and appear to be at pains to
avoid conflicts with organs of the state and the party. Beside this external restraint,however,one must be conscious of a strengthened activity among the
clergy. Publicly, noisy clashes are to be avoided. . . . The fight of Catholicism
against the state and party is now in a transitional phase.This is characterized
by the search for new weapons and methods for battle. In view of the coming and already executed dissolution of Catholic youth organizations, more
work and energy will go into the incorporation of the Catholic youth into
the so-called parish youth.74

Although the Church limited its opposition, its new methods nonetheless threatened Nazi leaders determined to indoctrinate German youth
with National Socialism.
Ibid., pp. 7–8, 13.
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 47-575: “Exerzitienblätter für die Priester der Diözese
Münster,” June, 1937, p. 1.
73
Ibid.,“Die Exerzitien, Das erfolgreichste Katholische Erziehungssystem,” no date.
74
USHMM, RG-11: Moscow State Archives: 501-1-194,“Politische Kirchen.”
71

72

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AN ERODING MILIEU?

The Nazis displayed more anxiety over Catholic pastoral work than
over their efforts at spiritual care for the Wandering Church because
these new pastoral methods achieved more success.Although the strict
discipline of the movement intimidated some, the Spiritual Exercises
Movement appealed to young Catholics for numerous reasons. First, it
combined religious spirituality with a pleasant leisure activity. In an action that echoed clerical sympathy for rural aspects of the National Socialist Land Year, the Church converted many buildings into first-class
facilities for spiritual exercises in pleasant and rustic locations away
from the stressful life of the city or town.For example,an old monastery
in the forest near Kleve was converted into a spiritual exercises house
with forty single rooms and stunning scenery.75 In fact, many participants articulated their happiness with the “still silence”of the retreats.76
The spiritual exercises were also popular because the inner reflection
helped some to process the tumult of their lives during the late 1930’s.
While young women often commented on how the retreats helped
them recover from setbacks in their personal lives,77 at least one young
man wrote that the exercises helped him accept his role as a soldier after the outbreak of war despite the setback it dealt him in his studies
and professional life.78
As youth organizations were dissolved in 1936, statistical reports illustrate how young Catholics flocked to the Spiritual Exercises Houses.
In 1936, Bishop Caspar of Paderborn described the “gratifying number
of exercise participants,” and Bishop von Galen spoke of the “growth of
the religious exercises.” In the diocese of Paderborn 12,499 people participated in the exercises, 9,430 of whom were adolescents or children.79 In the diocese of Münster, the number of participants in the
spiritual exercises movement grew steadily from 33,000 in 1933 to
44,000 in 1936 to 60,000 in 1938.The majority of the participants were
from the ranks of the Catholic youth and took part in the less demand-

75
BAM,Amtsdrucksachen (AD) 86, Exerzitienblätter für die Priester der Diözese Münster (EPDM), December, 1938, Nr. 2, p. 11.
76
Ibid.,“Material für Predigt und Vortrag:Ein Rettungsmittel für die heutige kranke Welt
sind die Exerzitien,” June, 1936, Nr. 1, pp. 16–17.
77
Ibid., “Material für Predigt und Vortrag, Segen des Exerzitien,” June, 1938, Nr. 1,
pp. 14–16.
78
Ibid., December, 1939, p. 26.
79
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reels 46–47, Nr. 575:“Die Exerzitienbewegung in der Diözese
Münster”;“Exerzitienblätter für die Priester der Diözese Münster,” p. 8;“Die Exerzitienstatistik der Erzdiözese Paderborn 1936.”

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ing Einkehrtage rather than the closed spiritual exercises. Of the
60,000 participants in 1938, 40,000 attended Einkehrtage.80
Sometimes the Nazis linked this enthusiasm for religious exercises to
dissident behavior. One report blamed the attention given to Catholic
children under 10 for their tendency to greet party officials with “Guten
Tag,” rather than “Heil Hitler.”81 Although this type of behavior was exceptional, significant numbers of Catholic youth responded to the new
pastoral methods of the Church. Unlike those in the Wandering Church,
young Catholics at home remained loyal to their faith despite Nazi pressure. Assertions by historians that the Catholic youth capitulated to the
Nazis in 1936–1937 seem ill-founded.
Why, then, did Catholics at home respond so well to their priests and
bishops, while members of the Wandering Church ignored them? Many
factors explain this phenomenon. Catholics placed great emphasis
upon the authority of parents and priests. When children remained in
their religious homes,their parents could coerce them into religious observance. When priests visited Labor Service dormitories personally,
they often motivated previously disinterested youths to attend Mass.
These visits occurred infrequently in the Diaspora regions, but clergy
often made home calls in thriving Catholic dioceses.82 The great difficulties facing the Wandering Church also affected its poor response.
Parishes were far from the dormitories; peers mocked those who maintained their religion; dormitory leaders discouraged religious practice,
and Nazi speeches attacked the Church.
In order to properly understand the disparity between church success at home and failure in the Diaspora, however, a closer analysis of
Spiritual Exercises documents is necessary.The success of new pastoral
methods was not unconditional, and the Church mobilized only a core
of young people. Bishop Caspar complained about “holes” in the high
spiritual exercises statistics,83 and Bishop von Galen admitted that his
priests could focus only on “core groups of parish youth.”84 After the dis80
For a detailed statistical breakdown of the Spiritual Exercises Movement in the Diocese of Münster, see Kösters, Katholische Verbände, pp. 438–439.
81
USHMM,RG-15.007M:Reel 46,Nr.570:“Stellvertreter des Führers an den Reichsführer
SS,” May 11, 1938.
82
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46, Nr. 575: Untitled Report, 1935.
83
USHMM, RG-15.007M:“Die Exerzitienstatistik der Erzdiözese Paderborn,” 1936.
84
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46, Nr. 571,“Bischöfliche Verordnung über die Seelsorge
der männlichen Jugend im Bistum Münster,” January 15, 1938.

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AN ERODING MILIEU?

solution of youth organizations, the Church maintained the loyalty of a
devoted core, but not of all the youth.
Girls and rural youth participated most actively in new pastoral functions.85 The Church placed significant emphasis on family in its new approach to pastoral work. Overlapping Nazi policy, they planned family
weeks in which young women were trained for motherhood.86 The
Church devoted particular attention to girls between fifteen and seventeen, inviting them to Einkehrtage and Bible evenings where they
learned domestic skills, such as decorating for Christmas and saving
money, and read papal encyclicals about marriage.87 Bridal exercises
were among the most popular spiritual exercises. In Münster girls
participated more in Spiritual Exercises than boys, and in Paderborn,
teenage girls outnumbered teenage boys by over 2,000.88 Although
boys occasionally participated more than girls in the closed spiritual exercises of small towns, such as Dülmen and Ludinghausen, girls almost
always outnumbered boys in the parishes of Münster, Beckum, Bottrop,
and Duisburg between 1933 and 1938.89 The Church noticed the disparity and attempted to rectify it in pamphlets advertising Catholic
events. One such advertisement said,“Some believe spiritual exercises
are only for the deeply pious . . . , but they are for real German men.”90
Sensitive about an increasingly feminine following,the Church attempted
to make Spiritual Exercises masculine.
Rural youth also outnumbered industrial youth at new pastoral
events. Parishes undertook a focused campaign to recruit rural
Catholics for the spiritual exercises, mailing letters and pamphlets to
farmers hoping to attract their children.91 Many times, priests and active

85
For evidence of agrarian and female enthusiasm for traditional Catholicism in another
regional context, see Breuer, op. cit., p. 272.
86
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46, Nr. 574: “Tagesmeldung des Geheimen Staatspolizeiamtes, Politischer Katholizismus,” February 3, 1936.
87
Ibid., Nr. 571: “Diözesanamt für Weibliche Jugendseelsorge, Aachen,” September 3,
1938.
88
Ibid., Reel 47, Nr. 575:“Exerzitienblätter; Die Exerzitienstatistik.”
89
For example, in 1935, 477 girls and 91 boys attended closed spiritual exercises in
Münster; 145 girls and 143 boys attended in Beckum; 98 girls and 45 boys attended in Bottrop; 71 girls and 122 boys in Dülmen; 51 girls and 94 boys in Ludingshausen; and 218
girls and 150 boys in Duisburg. For complete statistics, see BAM, EPDM,“Exerzitien Statistik der Diözese Münster,” June 1934, Nr. 1, June 1835, Nr. 1, June 1936, Nr. 1, June 1937,
Nr. 1, June 1938, Nr. 1, June, 1939, Nr. 1.
90
USHMM, RG-15.007M: Reel 46, Nr. 571,“Akten Hinweis,” March 14, 1936.
91
Ibid.

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257

laymen followed these letters with personal visits.92 Bishop von Galen
claimed that thousands of farmers responded to Catholic efforts and
they participated in spiritual exercises in large numbers. The industrial
cities, however, lagged behind rural areas in attendance. According to
von Galen, attendance at church functions in these regions declined because of the dissolution of youth organizations.93
Documents about participation in spiritual exercises provide an adequate explanation for the disparity between the empty pews of the
Wandering Church and the thriving pastoral work in areas dominated
by the Catholic Church. The local Catholic milieu remained strong, but
did not enjoy the participation of all its elements. Farm children and
girls participated in the training sessions and church events promoted
by the bishops, but boys and children from industrial areas displayed
growing indifference. Many programs that created the Wandering
Church, such as the Land Year, selected working class children to liberate them from decadent cities and bind them to the German countryside.The Wandering Church also contained more males than females.In
the mid-1930’s, the Land Year participants were one-third female and
two-thirds male. More females participated as time progressed, but
males still remained in the majority. The Wandering Church lacked religious fervor because it removed youth from their home milieu, but also
because it drew disproportionately from a more secularized pool of
young people.
Conclusion

This examination of youthful religious demonstration, the Wandering
Church, and Catholic pastoral work sheds light upon the nature of
Catholic-Nazi relations, popular Catholic behavior, and the state of the
Catholic milieu during the 1930’s. In the realm of Catholic-state relations, the institutional Church opposed Nazi church policy within the
realm of the law, using increasingly more subtle methods. While much
scholarship about church hierarchy cited earlier portrays Catholics in a
static manner as either resisters or collaborators,this grassroots study of
religious practice illustrates how Catholic behavior changed over time
from popular protests between 1934 and 1936 to the more accommo92
Ibid.,“Geheime Staatspolizei and Sicherheitshauptamt RFSS:Kath.Aktion und Bauernschaft, Berlin,” February 11, 1937.
93
Ibid.,“Exerzitienblätter.”This trend was indicative of a long secularization process because the Church already lost large numbers of industrial workers in the early 1920’s; see
Damberg, Moderne und Milieu, pp. 208–215.

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dating Spiritual Exercises Movement between 1936 and 1938.The Church
protested Nazi church and youth policy most strongly in its early encounters with the Third Reich in public rituals, using legal processions
and holiday celebrations to voice displeasure with Nazi youth policy.
Realizing the necessity of more subtle protests, the Church constructed
a complex system to combat religious indifference in the Wandering
Church, while simultaneously embracing aspects of National Socialism,
such as the Volksgemeinschaft. In a similar manner, the Church did not
prevent the dissolution of youth organizations, but developed a new
strategy to religiously train its youth. This clearly hindered plans for the
unification of German youth under the banner of National Socialism,
but did so without inhibiting the Nazis’ ability to govern.
Despite church attempts at legality, the Nazis disapproved of their efforts. Reports regarding Catholic religious care for Land Year and Labor
Service participants, new pastoral methods, and youthful demonstrations indicated great anxiety with the popularity and dissent of the
Church. Although some recent work shows the overlap between Christianity and National Socialism, Catholicism and National Socialism were
irreconcilable because both competed for ideological, popular, and
public dominance. Catholic devotion to a milieu governing all aspects
of community life clashed with Nazi desires for a state dedicated solely
to the goals of National Socialism. This essay avoids the emotion often
involved in the analysis of the Church during the 1930’s and affirms the
more subtle conclusions reached by Thomas Breuer in his examination
of the diocese of Bamberg by recognizing both points of convergence
and divergence between German Catholicism and National Socialism.
The behavior of the Catholic population amidst this church-state
conflict was ambiguous. The popular appeal of the Nazis and state attempts to discourage Catholic practice reinforced existing tendencies
toward secularization, resulting in religious indifference among the
Wandering Church. In the midst of Nazi indoctrination, many Catholic
youths in the Labor Service and Land Year failed to return their parish’s
letters and did not attend church. This evidence seems to support arguments by Oded Heilbronner, Christoph Kösters, Gerhard Paul, and
Klaus-Michael Mallmann that the Catholic milieu suffered irreversible
erosion during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Spiritual exercises and other new
pastoral methods, however, received significant support from a mobilized core of devoted youth and suggest the perseverance of religious
belief. Among this core, church authority still resonated, often mobilizing large crowds in opposition to Nazi policy. The Church, however,
could not always control the crowd it mobilized into action. Popular

BY MICHAEL E. O’SULLIVAN

259

demonstrations burst the bounds of legality that Catholic leaders wanted
to respect. Catholic youth illegally invaded public space, sang church
hymns,greeted bishops with raised right arms,and occasionally clashed
with police.They infringed upon the legal boundaries both Church and
state constructed for them, challenging most accounts of a top-down
Catholic milieu where worshipers loyally follow the orders of clergy.
As a result of booming piety and the continuing authority of charismatic leaders among a revived core, the Catholic milieu maintained a
relatively large amount of strength throughout the 1930’s. Young men
from industrial cities displayed religious indifference, creating a serious
problem for the Church.The growing mobility of young people through
state programs and war mobilization also caused them to ignore traditional religious practices. In an age of industrialization, urbanization,
and major population transfer, this growing neglect weakened the hold
of regional religious communities throughout Germany. In the midst of
this challenge, the Church maintained the loyalty of young women and
farmers, who formed the core supporting new pastoral methods and,
most likely, massive religious demonstrations. The large demonstrations
and loyal responses of Catholic youth illustrated that although the
Church was moving against the tide of secularization and National Socialism, its milieu contained significant pockets of fervent followers.
In the diocese of Münster during 1938, 60,000 of 170,000 Catholics
participated in the Spiritual Exercises Movement. While 40,000 took
part in the less strenuous Einkehrtage, 20,000 attended the more rigorous exercises. From these numbers, we can conclude that roughly 35%
of all the region’s Catholics remained active on the eve of World War II,
with a fiercely devoted core of about12% spearheaded by Catholic youth
and made up primarily of females and the rural population. While these
numbers illustrate that the Church did not have overwhelming support, they indicate the existence of a diverse and dynamic religious
community in northwest Germany. Rather than declining during the
1930’s, the Catholic milieu rallied around a layered base and revived
core to maintain a strong and youthful religious identity.

NATIVES AND NATIONALISM:
THE AMERICANIZATION OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA
BY

ALLAN GREER*

In the history of the United States, the figure of the Indian has played
an important part in discourses of national self-definition.Since colonial
times, according to Jill Lepore, Americans constructed a “triangulated”
identity, in relation to the native Other, but also in relation to “another
Other,”the European.1 Ancient colonial tropes of the evil savage and the
Noble savage were available to nationalists seeking to distinguish the
United States,either from the wild,untamed New World or from the decadent Old World.At times, the Indian was demonized and rejected so that
the republic could be cast as the embodiment of civilization triumphing over cruel barbarity.At other moments,the Indian was idealized and
incorporated into the American identity as the emblem of virtues that
distinguished the United States from European civilization.The last two
decades of the nineteenth century was one of those intervals when
positive images tended to prevail.
The fact that Indians no longer posed a serious military threat at the
time encouraged the emergence of this comparatively favorable view.
In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the resistance of the Sioux
and other western tribes had favored the resurgence of blood-thirsty
images of “savage red-skins,”but by the 1880’s the West had been “won.”2
It was in that decade that reforming voices (mainly eastern voices) began
to clamor more insistently and effectively than in the past for an end to
violence and broken treaty promises and for assistance to bring the poor
*Dr. Greer is a professor of history in the University of Toronto. He presented a version
of this paper at the Spring Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association in
Santa Fe, New Mexico, in April, 2000. He wishes to thank Todd Webb for research assistance and Ann Little for her comments on an earlier draft.
1
See Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American
Identity (New York, 1998). See also, Robert F. Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian: Images
of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York, 1979).
2
Roger L. Nichols, Indians in the United States and Canada: a Comparative History
(Lincoln, Nebraska, 1998), pp. 213–220.

260

BY ALLAN GREER

261

Indian into the American mainstream.3 Real Indians, it was thought,
needed to shed their distinctive culture as quickly as possible—it was
doomed in any case—in order to enter into the national body politic for
their own good. Military conquest was to give way to cultural annihilation, as the Dawes Act, Indian schools, and other similar initiatives undermined the bases of a separate way of life. Imaginary Indians, on the
other hand, uncontaminated natives inhabiting some timeless region of
the past, were to be cherished for the symbolic work they performed
contributing their natural and primordially American qualities to the nation’s identity.
Fin-de-siècle primitivism, Philip Deloria reminds us, represented the
obverse side of modernism, rather than its negation.4 The primitive—
associated with colonized peoples, but also with the working class and
with women generally—gave definition through contrast to the progressive and the modern, while providing a focus for fantasies generated by the tensions and anxieties inherent in modern life. Primitivism
was a theme found throughout western culture at the time, but Americans had a special fascination with Indians. Industry, urbanization, the
rapid growth of powerful corporations, labor militancy, and class conflict were disturbing developments in Europe as well as America, but in
the United States they were accompanied by massive immigration.Here
the economically degraded and politically radical “foreign laborer” became emblematic of a constellation of “alien” forces that were transforming the United States and threatening its traditional self-image.5 In
the xenophobic atmosphere of the times, images of Indians had a special appeal, not only because of their general association with Nature,
the Past, and the Land, but also because they represented specifically
the negation of immigration. Hence the popularity of Wild West shows,
summer camps with native motifs, and exculpating stories of love and
harmony such as the Pocahontas legend.
In these unquiet late nineteenth-century times,the American Catholic
Church had its own reasons for invoking Indian symbols. Catholicism
had always occupied an insecure situation in a country where civic

3
See Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and
the Indian, 1865–1900 (Norman,Oklahoma,1976),pp.134–147,161–165;Brian W.Dippie,
The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy (Lawrence, Kansas,
1982), pp. 156–176.
4
Philip J. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven, 1998).
5
Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order 1877–1920 (New York, 1967); John Higham,
Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New York, 1963).

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NATIVES AND NATIONALISM: THE AMERICANIZATION OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA

traditions were steeped in Protestant Christianity and where “papist”religion had long been demonized.6 But with impoverished Catholic
workers pouring into the country from Ireland, French Canada, and
southern Europe, old patterns of religious prejudice united with thoroughly modern class conflict to produce an upsurge of nativist antiCatholicism. This was indeed the period when the Church emerged
as—to quote James Hennesey—“preeminently the church of laborer
and city-dweller, of ghetto and slum.”7 In the xenophobic imagination,
all that was Catholic tended to be identified with all that was “foreign,”
degraded, “radical,” and menacing. Thus, as bishops gathered for the
great Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884, they felt an urgent need to
affirm the Church’s American identity.
Among other proposals for rooting Catholicism more firmly in
United States soil came the suggestion that genuinely American saints
were needed. An article in the Catholic World asked:
Where does America stand in this vast spiritual empire of the communion of
saints? We have our share, it is true, in the common treasures of the church,
which are inexhaustible. . . . But where are our national saints and shrines?
This is one of the coming questions of the hour.8

Various names came forward—the Jesuit martyrs René Goupil and
Isaac Jogues, among others—but a Mohawk convert to Catholicism,
Catherine Tekakwitha, emerged as the favorite candidate for canonization. Tekakwitha seemed the perfect symbolic antidote to the negative
associations then burdening the Church in the United States. An innocent Indian from the distant colonial past, she could serve as a screen
on which to project primitivist fantasies and as a symbol connecting
Catholicism to Nature and the Land and to a primordial American
essence that was the antithesis of industry, immigration, urban grime,
and class conflict.
The Tekakwitha story was a standard hagiographic narrative, remarkable not so much for its form as for its subject, a colonized “savage” cast
in the role of the saintly figure.9 It had first been committed to paper by
6
Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of
American Nativism (New York, 1938); Higham, op. cit.
7
James Hennesey, S.J., American Catholics:A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (New York, 1981), p. 175.
8
R. H. Clarke, “Beatification asked for American Servants of God,” Catholic World, 40
(March 1885), 808. See also, The Pilot (Boston), March 7, 1885.
9
Allan Greer,“Colonial Saints: Gender, Race, and Hagiography in New France,” William
and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser, vol. 57 (April, 2000), 323–348. My forthcoming book, Mo-

BY ALLAN GREER

263

two French Jesuits who had known her well and who became convinced after her death in 1680 that she was a saint.10 Born in an Iroquois
village in the Mohawk valley in 1656,Tekakwitha was a sickly and reclusive orphan who converted to Catholicism as an adolescent, taking the
baptismal name “Catherine.” After suffering persecution at the hands of
her “pagan” fellow-villagers, she fled to the Jesuit mission of Sault StLouis (Kahnawake), near Montreal, and there she joined a group of
young Iroquois women who had renounced sex and marriage in favor
of a life of religious perfection.Tekakwitha’s “penances”(fasting, self-flagellation, sleep deprivation, etc.) were particularly severe, her dreams
and visions exceptionally illuminating. She died at the age of 24 and,
beginning almost immediately after her death, she became the object of
a cult among Native and French-Canadian Catholics.
The Tekakwitha story was published in French in 1717, then subsequently translated into other European languages. Appealing to exotic
tastes, but conforming to the familiar conventions of the hagiographic
genre, this Indian vita sanctorum found a substantial audience in
Catholic Europe and Latin America from the eighteenth century down
to the present. However, until the 1880’s the United States seems to
have been comparatively untouched. To readers in other parts of the
world,Tekakwitha had been represented as an Iroquois, as a Native, and
as a child of the New World,but the only attempts to nationalize her image had been Canadian and French.11 Then, suddenly, about the time of
the Baltimore council, it was discovered that this holy Indian had been
born in the state of New York and was therefore, in effect, a deceased
citizen of the United States. Historically-minded Jesuits and local clergy
of the Albany region were the original promoters of this post-mortem
naturalization, but before long, Tekakwitha had been thoroughly Amerhawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits (New York, forthcoming 2004), looks
at Tekakwitha both as a historical figure and as a literary creation.
10
Allan Greer, “Savage/Saint: The Lives of Kateri Tekakwitha,” in Sylvie Dépatie et al.
(eds.), Habitants et marchands, vingt ans après. Lectures de l’histoire des XVIIe et XVIIIe
siècles canadiens (Montreal, 1998), pp. 138–159.
11
The French-Canadian Church showed an interest in Tekakwitha in the nineteenth
century as a potential Canadian saint, but primitivist Indian imagery was less prevalent in
nineteenth-century Quebec than in the United States, and so the Canadian Church gave
priority to the Jesuit martyrs as symbols of patriotic Catholicism. Guy Laflèche, Les saints
martyrs canadiens,Vol. 1: Histoire du mythe (5 vols.; Laval, 1988), pp. 229–336.
The rather unlikely enlistment of Tekakwitha as a national icon for France was the
work of the royalist Romantic François-René de Chateaubriand. In Les Natchez, he presents her crossing the sky in a celestial chariot, the embodiment of “la France sauvage.”
Gilbert Chinard (ed.), Les Natchez (Baltimore, 1932), pp. 167–173.

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NATIVES AND NATIONALISM: THE AMERICANIZATION OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA

icanized and was being put forward by the United States bishops as a
candidate for beatification.12
A central figure in the Tekakwitha campaign was Father Clarence
Walworth, a native of Saratoga Springs, New York, and a parish priest in
Albany.13 Walworth sprang from a prominent New York family, Presbyterian in religion and of old-stock Yankee background, but he had converted as a young man after reading the tracts of Newman, Pusey, and
other Anglo-Catholic writers. His Romantic temperament made him
susceptible to the Oxford Movement’s aesthetic evocation of the picturesque splendors of pre-Reformation Christianity.14 After studying and
receiving ordination in Belgium, Walworth returned to America as a
Catholic revival preacher with the Paulist Fathers, before leaving the order and settling down in the Albany parish of St. Mary’s.
12
The bishops forwarded to Rome a brief for beatification with their collective episcopal backing in 1884, but the Sacred Congregation of Rites waited decades before instituting formal proceedings. When action did come, the case of the Jesuit martyrs took
precedence over that of the Mohawk Virgin. Political influence has always determined
which cases are introduced onto the agenda of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and it
seems that Tekakwitha was shouldered out of the way at this time partly because the
French-Canadian hierarchy pushed more strongly in favor of the martyrs, joining their influence to that of the American bishops where Goupil and Jogues were concerned, but
also adding four other slain Jesuits to the list. Eventually, the Vatican announced the beatification of Goupil and Jogues, as well as Jean de Brébeuf, Gabriel Lalement, Antoine
Daniel, and Charles Garnier, in 1925. Five years later they were canonized as saints. The
case of Tekakwitha moved much more slowly, the formal process beginning only in 1932,
after the Jesuits had been taken care of.Finally,the Iroquois woman was beatified in 1980,
when Pope John Paul II declared her the Blessed Catherine Tekakwitha. Supporters continue with their efforts to secure her canonization. See the statement by the “General Relator,” F. Antonelli, in Robert Holland (ed.), The Positio of the Historical Section of the
Sacred Congregation of Rites on the Cause for Canonization and Beatification and on
the Virtues of the Servant of God, Katherine Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks,
Being Original Documents First Published and Presented for the Edification of the
Faithful (New York, 1940), p. 6; and, more generally, Kenneth L. Woodward, Making
Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn’t and
Why (New York, 1990).
13
On Walworth, see Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography (6 vols.; New York,
1889), VI, 345; Joseph McSorley, Father Hecker and his Friends: Studies and Reminiscences (St. Louis, 1952), pp. 106–118; Ellen H. Walworth, Life Sketches of Father Walworth
with Notes and Letters (Albany, 1907); John J. Dillon, The Historic Story of St. Mary’s, Albany, N.Y.: First-Second-Third Church (New York, 1933), pp. 196–212; David J. O’Brien,
Isaac Hecker:An American Catholic (New York, 1992), passim.
14
Clarence Walworth, The Oxford Movement in America [1895] (New York, 1974);
George Shriver,“Romantic Religion,” in Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams (eds.), Encyclopedia of American Religious Experience: Studies of Traditions and Movements
(3 vols.; New York, 1988), II, 1103–1115.

BY ALLAN GREER

265

By his own account, Indians were Clarence Walworth’s “hobby,”15 and
so when he heard about Tekakwitha he threw himself into the task of
promoting her cause and researching her story. Accompanied by his
niece Ellen Walworth (under Clarence’s influence, her parents had converted and raised their children in the Catholic faith), he set out to
map the Mohawk village sites west of Albany. Then, in September,
1884, the pair travelled to Montreal and Kahnawake to visit Tekakwitha’s grave and consult with the bishop and his assistant about the
historical documentation,as well as the procedures for preparing a case
for canonization or beatification.16 Even after passing this material on
to the council of bishops, Walworth continued to pursue his “hobby,”
following Tekakwitha’s pathway through the old Iroquois lands from
the Mohawk River to the St. Lawrence. Finding the girl’s grave site
sadly neglected, he personally financed a thousand-dollar granite monument at Kahnawake in a much-appreciated gesture of international cooperation.17
Nation-states and rigid borders had no place in the ancient traditions
of either the Iroquois peoples or the Catholic Church and, in that light,
Clarence Walworth’s co-operation with the French-Canadian clergy and
his contribution to commemorating the resting-place of Tekakwitha
seem perfectly appropriate. And yet, there was something fundamentally national about the modern cult of the “Lily of the Mohawk.” The
United States bishops were interested in promoting her beatification
only to the degree that she could be enlisted as an American Catholic
symbol. It is clear that the French-Canadian Church understood this as
a project of appropriation, and accordingly its co-operation was less
than whole-hearted. From the late nineteenth century down to the present, there have been two Tekakwitha shrines drawing pilgrims respectively to Kahnawake, Quebec, and Fonda, New York. Moreover, there are
two official canonization campaigns with separate Canadian and American vice-postulators. At the unofficial level, veneration of the Mohawk
virgin has taken many forms, including one shaped by a Native American movement of continental, even hemispheric, scope.18 Yet the force
that supplied the initial impetus to set in motion the modern cult of
Walworth, Life Sketches of Father Walworth, p. 244.
C. A. Walworth to Mgr. E. -C. Fabre, October 16, 1884; C. A. Walworth to Rev. T. Harel,
November 3, 1884, Archives du diocèse de St-Jean-de-Québec.
17
Nicholas Burtin, Vie de Caterine Tekakwitha, vierge iroquoise, décédée en odeur de
sainteté à l’ancien village du Sault Saint-Louis le 17 avril 1680 (Quebec City,1994),pp.
66–72.
18
Carl F. Starkloff, S.J.,“Native Americans and the Catholic Church,”in The Encyclopedia
of American Catholic History, edd. Michael Glazier and Thomas J. Shelley (Collegeville,
15

16

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NATIVES AND NATIONALISM: THE AMERICANIZATION OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA

Tekakwitha was nationalism acting on and through the Catholic Church
of the United States.
While Clarence Walworth dedicated himself to the Americanization
of Tekakwitha through his contribution to the United States Church’s
beatification campaign, his niece was busy Americanizing Tekakwitha
in a different way. Ellen Walworth came from a remarkable upstate New
York family: her grandfather had served as the last chancellor of New
York state and her mother was a founder of the Daughters of the American Revolution.“Nelly,”as she was known in the family,had been educated
by nuns at Kenwood school in Albany and, while still an adolescent, she
had accompanied her uncle Clarence on a voyage around the world.
Her first book, published at the ripe age of eighteen, was An Old World
as Seen through Young Eyes, and it recounted their adventures in Europe and Asia.19 It was eight years later, when Nelly was teaching school
in Saratoga Springs,that her uncle suggested she write a book on Tekakwitha. She readily accepted the challenge and threw herself into the
task with “a fixed determination to explore so tempting a field of romance and archaeology.20
“Romance and archeology” were Nelly Walworth’s first thoughts, not
religion and piety; it was apparent from the outset that her whole approach to the life of the saintly Mohawk would be different from that of
all her predecessors. When others told the story of Tekakwitha, they
had acted as pious translators and paraphrasers, borrowing their narrative from earlier works of sacred biography and adding embellishments
and discussions of the story’s religious implications. Nelly Walworth attacked her subject as a historian, gathering together seventeenth-century
sources and ransacking the archaeological and enthnographic literature
for background information.
Traveling to Montreal, Quebec, and Paris, she carefully copied the
manuscripts of Chauchetière and Cholenec, Tekakwitha’s original hagiographers. By themselves, semi-sacred texts could not bring the Mohawk woman to life in the way Nelly Walworth had in mind, and so she
turned to works on the colonial history of New France and New
Netherlands, as well as writings emanating from the fledgling science
Minnesota, 1997), pp. 1019–1021; Christopher Vecsey, The Paths of Kateri’s Kin (Notre
Dame, Indiana, 1997).
19
Ellen Walworth, An Old World as Seen through Young Eyes; or, Travels around the
World (New York, 1877).
20
Ellen Hardin Walworth, The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks, 1656–1680 (Buffalo, 1891), p. v.

BY ALLAN GREER

267

of anthropology. She visited and corresponded with amateur scholars
and Indian missionaries, anyone with expertise bearing on her subject.
By chance, she ran into “Mr. [Horatio] Hale of Philadelphia, author of
the Iroquois ‘Book of Rites,’” on a steamboat on the St. Lawrence and
spent the voyage picking his brain about Mohawk culture.21 Not content to rely exclusively on the outsider’s knowledge of white experts,
she also sought out and cultivated native informants, among them a
man named Pierce at the Onondaga Reservation and Grand Chief
Joseph Williams of Kahnawake.22 Though she never mastered the Mohawk language, she did her best to learn about it, and her book is liberally sprinkled with Iroquois words and phrases. Her linguistic,
historical, and ethnographic research really was extensive, but it was
research in the service of imagination.
Neither conventional hagiography nor dry scholarship, Walworth’s
biography is above all a work of literary invention. The largest part of
the book is devoted to Tekakwitha’s early years, before the move to
Kahnawake. This was the phase of her life when the Mohawk saint
could still be considered an honorary citizen of the United States of
America and when she still walked the paths of Nelly’s beloved home
region. Before the visions and heroic penances started, she also seemed
a more human subject and that clearly suited the author’s taste. But
Tekakwitha’s first twenty years are thinly documented. Since the Jesuit
chroniclers had to rely on secondhand memories, shaped no doubt by
the later belief that the girl had always been God’s chosen vessel, they
left the biographer with a sketchy account, short on solid facts about
the young Tekakwitha. This was not entirely a bad thing from the point
of view of a writer whose enthusiasms ran in the direction of “romance
and archaeology.” Walworth, therefore, left the saintly phase of Tekakwitha’s career to Chauchetière and Cholenec, relying extensively on
quotations from their hagiographic texts in the later chapters of her
book.This left her the task of fleshing out the story of the subject’s New
York girlhood, and she approached this challenge by confronting the
meagre evidence directly bearing on that phase of the life with what
she could find out about Mohawk culture and the history of French and
Dutch colonization. On that well-researched basis, she then imagined a
life for Tekakwitha, complete with cozy episodes of domestic routine
and dangerous wartime adventures.
In The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, the wars, treaties, epiWalworth, Life Sketches of Father Walworth, p. 254.
Ibid., pp. 252, 255; Walworth, The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, p. vii.

21

22

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NATIVES AND NATIONALISM: THE AMERICANIZATION OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA

demics, and evangelization campaigns of the seventeenth century form
the backdrop for invented personal vignettes. For example, the resumption of war between the Five Nations and the French in 1658 enters the
narrative with the matron Anastasia rushing to tell the news to Tekakwitha’s mother and finding the Algonquin woman romping on the longhouse floor with the toddler.“Catching the child from the clean-swept
earthen floor, the mother holds it laughing and struggling in her lap,
while she sings the Algonquin ‘Song of the Little Owl.’”Eight years later,
a French army approaches the Mohawk country in the dead of winter.
Young Tekakwitha, who had been out in a blizzard gathering firewood
in an attempt to win the affection of her grumpy aunt, alerts the village
to the danger.23 Other episodes are less dramatic,but equally the product
of historically informed invention.
In Nelly Walworth’s hands, the story of Tekakwitha is thoroughly
feminized.24 Her biography concentrates on sentiment and emotions,
especially feelings concerning personal relations with family and
friends. Tekakwitha’s “pangs of regret” on quitting the country of her
birth, her joy on meeting with a warm welcome at Kahnawake, her
wounded feelings on being falsely accused of adultery:all are recounted
in poignant detail. In this telling, God plays a comparatively unobtrusive
part in Tekakwitha’s emotional life.
Certainly her treatment of Tekakwitha tends to center on the adolescent girl’s struggle to discover and assert her identity. When her aunts
try to pressure her into marriage, this docile child “showed at this time
a sudden development of will, with inherent force to mould its own
fate, and a strength of character that had not before asserted itself.” On
the trail to Kahnawake, after the pangs of separation had passed, she experiences the thrill of “sudden freedom, then, from all the bonds that
bound her to the lodge and tribe.” Finally, she takes a vow of perpetual
virginity, and this too becomes an assertion of autonomy.

Walworth, Life and Times, pp. 27, 69–71.
In case it does not go without saying, I use the term “feminize” not in any absolute
sense, but historically. In The Feminization of American Culture (New York, 1977), Ann
Douglas charts the development of a sentimental style through which disenfranchised
women exerted a powerful influence over the culture of Victorian America. Walworth’s
biography exemplifies several aspects of the tendency Douglas describes: sentimentality
in literature, a preference for feeling over theology in religion, the substitution of nostalgia for history. See also Carroll Smith-Rosenberg,“The Female World of Love and Ritual:
Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Disorderly Conduct:
Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York, 1985), pp. 53–76.
23

24

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269

However others might look upon her act, this solemn engagement with God
gave her a feeling of freedom rather than thraldom. At last she had an acknowledged right to live her own life in her own way.25

Since the seventeenth century, the story of the Mohawk Virgin had always been constructed around clashes between an emergent self and
(mostly hostile) others, but it took a “New Woman” of the late nineteenth century to reshape the narrative into a psychological drama in
which the thoroughly modern quest for personal autonomy provided a
central dynamic.26
Nelly Walworth’s book is modern too in its nostalgic attitude toward
the colonial past. Not only the Mohawk village of Tekakwitha’s birth,
but also Dutch Fort Orange and French Montreal, into both of which
she is imagined wandering, are described as picturesque and quaint.
Walworth repeatedly evokes the landscape of upstate New York, emphasizing the contrast between a bustling present and a dreamlike past.“In
the Mohawk Valley, the great artery of our nation’s life, the tide of human travel now ebbs and flows with ever-swelling force; here the New
York Central Railway levels out the course of four broad tracks;here the
great canal bears heavy burdens easy and west. . . .”27 And here in the
midst of the forest, she continues, stood Iroquois “castles” and Dutch
trading posts in Tekakwitha’s day. Sometimes the author inserts herself
into the scene and, reminiscing about research field trips, indulges in a
double layer of nostalgia.“The past had become like the present that
day; and what was then present, all blended with sunshine that blotted
out the tragic and left the heroic parts of the picture, has since become
past.28 Although the “heroic parts” of the colonial past included wars
and battles, there is a striking absence of fundamental conflict between
natives and colonizers in Walworth’s version of colonial history. She
manages to lionize the French Jesuits without demonizing the Iroquois
or slighting the English and the Dutch, the latter described as sturdy
“early settlers of our State.”29 Europeans and natives all take their place
in this picturesque tableau without any hint that one group is flourishing at the expense of the other.
And yet,Tekakwitha’s people have vanished from the Mohawk Valley,
where the sound of throbbing locomotives now resounds.“The Mohawks
Ibid., pp. 131, 185, 253.
See Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (Concord, Ontario, 1991).
27
Walworth, Life and Times, p. 3.
28
Ibid., p. 38.
29
Ibid., p. 19.

25

26

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NATIVES AND NATIONALISM: THE AMERICANIZATION OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA

have gone from us, indeed, leaving us only a memory, all inwrought in a
thick array of Indian names. Let us try at least to understand and to preserve these names, in honor of the brave race that once peopled our
hills and valleys, our forests and streams.”30 In Nelly Walworth’s mind—
and her views were basically in harmony with contemporary currents
in anthropology and modernism generally—natives were more than a
distinct racial or cultural category; they were inhabitants of a different
time. Her primitivist longing for that authentic “brave race” should actually be read as an affirmation, rather than a rejection, of modernity.“To
reaffirm modern identity,” writes Philip Deloria,
Americans needed to experience that which was not modern. Just as one visited nature in order to be able to live in the city and enjoyed leisure in order
to work more effectively, one acted out a heuristic encounter with the primitive. Indian Others, constructed firmly outside American society and temporality, represented this break not only historically, but also racially, socially,
and developmentally.31

As researcher and writer, Walworth directed her most strenuous efforts to recapturing the lost Indian world. Touches of ethnographic
verisimilitude abound: descriptions of Mohawk houses, costumes,
songs, and crafts, mostly based on the writings of Jesuit missionaries
and modern ethnographers. At the same time, she has difficulty resisting the temptation to merge her subject’s specifically Mohawk identity
into a larger, more generic Indian identity, one in which women are
“squaws,” men are “braves,” hunting is the main economic pursuit, and
people are most at home in the forest. The association of Indians and
nature, so basic to all writings about Tekakwitha, is particularly visible
in Nelly Walworth’s biography.
Her whole life had been the life of an untamed Indian. She had accepted
Christianity in the only way in which under the circumstances it could possibly have been offered to her,—that is to say, Christianity pure and simple,
with few of the trappings of European civilization. . . . She was still a child of
the woods, and out of her element elsewhere.32

Thus, the genuinely serious attempt to recreate the seventeenth-century
Iroquois world of Tekakwitha keeps running aground on the sand bars
of this timeless essence of savage humanity.
In keeping with this nostalgic longing for something pure and lost to
time, Walworth is at pains to maintain her heroine’s “Indian”identity unIbid., p. 102.
Deloria, op. cit., p. 105.
32
Walworth, Life and Times, p. 239.

30

31

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271

defiled and, to that end, she goes so far as to give her a new name. Until
this book appeared, writers had always referred to the Mohawk virgin
as “Catherine Tegakouita.” The girl’s aboriginal name was rendered as
“Tegakouita” or “Tekakwitha” by European writers seeking to approximate the Mohawk sound of a Mohawk name (Iroquois languages have a
consonant somewhere between the sound of a “k” and a hard “g” in English; the French tend to avoid the letter w: hence the variant spellings).
At age eighteen, she was baptized in the name of Catarina di Siena, and
so she acquired that saint’s name, though she still retained her Iroquois
name. In their writings, the Jesuits sometimes referred to native converts by their baptismal name followed by their original name, which
might have given the impression that “Catherine Tegakouita” was a personal name-surname pair, which it was not. Rather it was a coupling of
two personal names reflecting one woman’s multiple affiliations and
layered identities. Such a complicated badge of colonial hybridity
would hardly do for a portrait of unadulterated Indianness, however,
and so Walworth rechristened her subject “Kateri Tekakwitha.” Where
did the name “Kateri”come from? The author explains in a footnote that
this is “the Iroquois form of the Christian name Katherine,”33 leaving us
to surmise that she acquired this information either from Mohawk
people at Kahnawake or from one of the priests who knew their language.Two hundred years after her death,Tekakwitha’s people were referring to her by the European name they heard at church, rather than
her original native name (at least in public and cross-cultural situations;
possibly they called her Tekakwitha in their own homes). But in their
own tongue they could not duplicate the sounds of the French name,
just as the Jesuits could only approximate the sound of “Tekakwitha.”
Thus, Nelly Walworth, anxious to eliminate the blatantly European
“Catherine” from her title, was using a Mohawk mispronunciation of an
Italian saint’s name, linked to a French approximation of a Mohawk
name, to clothe her heroine in an identity designed to look immaculately aboriginal. The gambit was a complete success and, ever since,
Tekakwitha/Catherine has been known around the world as “Kateri
Tekakwitha.”
Nelly Walworth’s biography of Tekakwitha was more than a simple
repackaging: it represented an important break with the traditions of
hagiography. The book is filled with pious sentiments, but its treatment
of Kateri’s religious life, and particularly the extravagant asceticism that
had made her famous, is rather perfunctory. She accords no special significance to her virginity (Victorian prudishness? Yes, but also a desacralIbid., p. 1.

33

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NATIVES AND NATIONALISM: THE AMERICANIZATION OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA

izing of sexual abstinence.) and the miracles that followed her death are
hardly mentioned at all. Indeed, what distinguishes The Life and Times
of Kateri Tekakwitha most emphatically from any hagiography is the
way Walworth treats the subject’s death as an end rather than a beginning. Tekakwitha’s deathbed provides, not a launching pad for glorification, but the setting for a touching conclusion to a short and eventful
life.This is,in the end,a secular text about a religious person,rather than
a religious text about divine intervention in the affairs of humanity.
The product of a modern and essentially secular sensibility, Ellen Walworth’s book is a worthy compliment to her uncle’s campaign to provide the Catholic Church of the United States with a symbol in the form
of an Indian maiden from another century that could anchor this “foreign” religion in American soil. The legend of Tekakwitha was doubly
Americanized.

BOOK REVIEWS

General and Miscellaneous
Credo. Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith
in the Christian Tradition. By Jaroslav Pelikan. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2003. Pp. liii, 609. $37.50.)
This is undoubtedly a major introduction to a major collection, also published in 2003, that was edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie R. Hotchkiss:
Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. Comprising five
parts in three volumes, the collection is inseparable from the introduction, even
though the introduction “is also intended to be a freestanding monograph and
reference work in its own right, even a textbook, also for readers who do not
have the volumes of the set” ( p. xi). As I review the freestanding monograph, a
few allusions to the three-volume set will be unavoidable.
Credo is divided into seven parts, the last three of which ( pp. 517–609) are
made up of exhaustive bibliographies and indexes. In addition, pages xvii–liii,
located after the preface, list abbreviations and “editions, collections, and reference works.”These many pages of references, however, are hardly user-friendly.
They may even be confusing for most readers, who are unlikely to guess immediately to which index a footnote refers. (I sought for Chr Trad near Chr Sci . . . ,
until I realized that it designates a major work of Jaroslav Pelikan, the other reference being to Christian Science!). Some readers may also have problems with
the lengthy convoluted sentences that the author seems to favor. While they allow for the expression of the complex nuances of thought and of fact that may
be appropriate, fifteen-line-long sentences—not infrequent—will leave a number of readers wondering what has actually been said.
The substance of the volume is covered in seventeen chapters divided into
four parts. These successively examine, (I) the “definition of Creed and Confession” (chapters 1–4), (II) “the genesis of Creeds and Confessions” (chapters
5–8), (III) “the authority of Creeds and Confessions” (chapters 9–12), and (IV )
“the history of Creeds and Confessions” (chapters 13–17). Definition and authority relate primarily to theology, genesis and history to history. The two areas, however, cannot be clearly distinguished.The relation between “the Rule of
prayer and the Rule of faith” is a matter of theology no less than of history; and
the “transmission of Creeds and Confessions to other cultures” (III, chap. 11) is
a matter of history no less than of theology. Jaroslav Pelikan is certainly at home

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in both areas. Credo therefore ought to function well both as a theological and
as a historical guide, just as the three volumes of Creeds and Confessions will
become an indispensable source-book for future historians and theologians.
Both collection and reflection are marked by an ecumenical openness that is
refreshing. The creeds and confessions, to the history and theology of which
the reader is introduced, pertain virtually to all Christian traditions. They are
treated objectively, as documents that are made available to all students of the
Christian religion, even though in many instances recourse to their original language will be necessary for an adequate understanding of their teachings, and
instruction as to where to find the original language is not always provided.The
theology of the creeds, is, in general, explained fairly and sufficiently, even
though the adherents of specific confessions may find some explanations too
succinct. The purpose of the book is, of course, presentation, not apologetics.
This is not to say,however,that the “guide”is perfect. While there is a laudable
effort to do justice to the main shades of the Reformation and their sequels, I
find that the uniqueness of the Anglican tradition does not come out well. Despite the Calvinist leanings of Archbishop Cranmer and the Thirty-nine Articles,
Anglicanism stands out for a comprehensiveness in which discussion of the
creeds and their continuing value comes naturally. It has been unique among
the larger Christian churches as not assuming that every member believes all
that is stated or implied in the official texts. Not infrequently have Anglican
theologians debated on the differences between “fundamental” and “nonfundamental”articles.From time to time special commissions have even reported
to the Anglican archbishops on the actual level of belief within the denomination,as for instance on “Doctrine in the Church of England”(1922) or on “Christian
Believing.The Nature of the Christian Faith and its Expression in Holy Scripture
and Creeds” (1976). Such topics would deserve consideration since they touch
directly on the subject matter of Credo. Yet they are not mentioned. In addition,
more attention could have been paid to the Episcopal Church, which, in the
context of the Anglican Communion, has made original contributions to creeds
and confessions. It traces its origin to the “Concordat of Bishop Seabury and the
Scottish Non-Juring Bishops, His Consecrators”(1784), which is in the form of a
confession (“They agree . . .”) in seven articles. More recently, in 1964, a “Fellowship of Witness Doctrinal Basis,” was composed in a perspective of renewal
that was partly inspired by Vatican Council II. It is a statement on “the essentials
of our faith,” in eight articles.
In the area of Byzantine Orthodoxy, a modern document is entirely missing:
“The Thyateira Confession,” which was issued in English and Greek in 1975 by
Athenagoras Kokkinakis, Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain,“with the
blessing and authorisation of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople”
(Leighton Buzzards, Beds: The Faith Press, 1975). It would have been too long
(151 pages for the English text) to include in the relevant section of Creeds and
Confessions. Nevertheless, composed as a commentary on the Creed of NicaeaConstantinople, it should not be ignored in Credo, for it consciously places the

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ancient creed in the modern context. Its tone is unmistakably ecumenical and
it adopts a moderate stance on the Filioque. On the one hand, it affirms the traditional faith: the Holy Spirit, who is the “joy eternal of the Father and the
Son, . . . proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son” ( p. 46). On the other
hand, it takes account of Augustine’s assurance that the Father and the Son are
not two sources of the Spirit, and that since they act as “one principle,”the original movement toward the Spirit can only be from Father. The Thyateira Confession therefore esteems that the Western addition to the Creed has now been
“clarified by an interpretation which solves the problem and is acceptable to
the Orthodox, because it indicates that the Holy Spirit proceeds initially and
eternally from the Father and afterwards is sent by the Son” ( p. 17).
Unfortunately, the treatment of the creeds and confessions of the Catholic
Church has serious flaws that could have been easily avoided. One is rather fundamental. A common practice among American Protestants is to refer systematically to “Roman Catholicism” and “the Roman Catholic Church” where
Catholicism and the Catholic Church would be the historically proper terms. It
is a misnomer to designate the Latin Church of the Middle Ages as “the Roman
Catholic Church.” Strictly speaking, the designation “Roman Catholic” applies
only to the Church of the Counter-Reformation. Credo, however, uses it also of
the Western Church “after the East-West schism” ( p. 583). It speaks of “the medieval (and post-medieval) Roman Catholic West” ( p. 419), as though Thomas
Aquinas or Bonaventure were already reacting to the Reformers’ strictures on
“Rome” and to their conviction of preserving the true catholicity of the Church
while discarding medieval accretions. Chapter 15 rightly mentions “Professions
of Faith in the Medieval West,” and it frequently pairs and compares the “Latin
West” or “the Western tradition” with the Orthodox East. Yet it also places the
second confession of Berengar within “Roman Catholicism.”And it refers to “the
medieval Roman Catholic doctrine” of the eucharistic presence ( p. 441), as
though there were somewhere, at the time, a different doctrine that was also
Catholic. Likewise, the expression “medieval Roman Catholic scholasticism” ( p.
481) retroactively attributes to the scholastics a view of “Rome”that simply was
not theirs.
The information about Catholic confessions that is provided in Credo as well
as in Creeds and Confessions suffers from two serious omissions and a number
of minor flaws. One looks in vain for fides Pelagii, a confession of faith that was
included by Pope Pelagius I (556–561) in a letter, dated February 3, 557, to the
Merovingian king Childebert I. Written before the interpolation of the Filioque,
this papal creed says nothing about a double procession of the Spirit, who,“proceeding from the Father without time, is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.”
Much more recently, on June 30, 1968, Pope Paul VI made a solemn profession
of faith, in thirty articles, that is generally called “the credo of the People of
God.”Given the rarity of a pope proclaiming a new Catholic confession of faith,
this text was worth mentioning, even if what it affirmed was not new, and one
may think that it affirmed too much and that some of its points do not really belong in a creed. Among such points is the statement:“In this sacrament [of the

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eucharist] Christ cannot be made present otherwise than through the conversion of the whole substance of the bread into his Body and of the whole substance of the wine into his Blood . . .” (n. 25). This suggests that Paul VI’s creed
was prompted by anxiety lest points of the Catholic tradition be lost in the turmoil that followed Vatican Council II. If this is correct it serves an interesting
function, as it illustrates the circumstantial origin or occasion of some creeds or
confessions.
Historians could quibble about other points: Was Charlemagne crowned “Roman emperor”( p. 321) or, rather, imperator francorum, emperor of the Franks?
Was Gregory VII’s dictatus papae truly a confession of faith ( p. 231), or simply
an “aide-mémoiré” in the struggle of this pope against the imperial claims? That
it is not included in Denzinger’s Enchiridion symbolorum testifies at least to
its non-reception as a symbol of faith. Was Unam sanctam, the notorious bull
of Boniface VIII (November 18, 1302), also a confession of faith? It is indeed in
the Enchiridion symbolorum, and it does begin with,“We are obliged by faith
to believe and hold. . . .” However, it was in fact not received, in the following
two centuries, as strictly binding on the Catholic faithful, and its conception of
power was considerably toned down, on February 1, 1306, in Clement V’s brief,
Meruit. Further, it is anachronistic to speak of the “infallible magisterium”of the
Roman pontiff as “affirmed by the council of Trent” ( p. 503), when the council
never discussed the question of infallibility. And was Pius IX’s Syllabus of errors
in 1864 a confession of faith? It may look like one when its negative theological
judgments are put positively ( p. 497). But is this a legitimate procedure? Pius IX
himself did not do it.
Some further mistakes could have been easily detected by an attentive proofreader or corrector. For instance, in “the Latin mass” of today, the doxology,“For
thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever,” is not “spoken by
the priest after the congregation and choir have prayed the petitions of the Our
Father” ( p. 409). It is said or sung by the people.
The strangest error I have noticed, however, has nothing to do with theology
or liturgy. It is occasioned by the praiseworthy desire to bring to attention the
inculturation of the faith in the churches of Africa. Are there creeds or confessions that have been written or rewritten in the context of African culture?
There must be some in the numerous Africa-instituted Churches (formerly
called African Independent Churches) that are in existence, and that maintain
an international office in Nairobi, Kenya. What has been chosen for inclusion
and consideration is, however, a Catholic creed: the “Masai Creed, prepared in
the 1960’s by the Holy Ghost Fathers in East Africa” ( p. 328). This is correct. In
Creeds and Confessions, however, the Masai Creed is attributed to “the Congregation of the Holy Ghost in East Nigeria” (III, p. 568). In the absence of further information it then runs the danger of being taken for a Pentecostal creed.
Moreover, the location of this creed in “East Africa, present-day Nigeria” (III,
p.568),is quite erroneous.The Masai live in Kenya and Tanzania.And East Africa
is not in Nigeria, which is itself in West Africa.

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This type of error was not made,I am sure,by Jaroslav Pelikan. While it brings
a slight touch of humor to a serious collection of important theological material, it also raises a question of authorship. Did Pelikan and his collaborator Valerie Hotchkiss put excessive trust in anonymous assistants who were not as
knowledgeable or as careful as they themselves were? The risk is quite real for
huge enterprises like Creeds and Confessions,with their introduction in Credo,
however useful and even necessary such enterprises will remain.
GEORGE H.TAVARD
Assumption Center
Brighton, Massachusetts

La Provincia Domenicana di Grecia. By Tommaso Violante, O.P. [Institutum
Historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum Romae, Dissertationes historicae, Fasciculus XXV.] (Rome: Istituto Storico Domenicano. 1999. Pp. 393. Paperback.)
The success of the Fourth Crusade inaugurated a new epoch in the relations
between the Latin and Greek churches. Pope Innocent III, who first expressed
shock at the news of the diversion of the expedition, afterwards decided that it
was all part of God’s plan to effect a full reconciliation between the churches.
His successors were of the same opinion.
The papal agents in the East were monks, primarily Cistercians, and the recently formed orders of friars, Franciscans and Dominicans. In 1228, while Gregory IX was pope, a General Council of the latter meeting in Paris under Jordan
of Saxony,the head of the order immediately after St.Dominic,responded to the
request for missionaries to the East and organized a Dominican province in
Greece. The friars were to serve both the French and Italian colonists in the
East, but trained in the Greek language as well as theology, they were to seek
converts from the native orthodox. Father Violante’s book tells the story of the
four hundred years of the Dominican presence in fulfilling their charge.
During the first flush of enthusiasm, the Order opened houses in Constantinople and in the lands that now make up modern Greece. In the beginning
they were seven in number: Thebes, Clarence, Modon, and Andreville on the
mainland, Negroponte on Euboea, and Candia on Crete. The author notes that
four were located in Venetian territories, where the Dominicans enjoyed a comfortable relationship with the civil officials of the Republic of St. Mark. Later the
order placed a convent on Chios, which, in the fourteenth century, came under
Genoese control.
St. Hyacinth may have been the founder of the friary in Constantinople, but
the name of its church is variously given as St. Paul or St. Dominic. The sources
are unclear, but for certain the Dominicans had an establishment by 1234. They
remained there until the Byzantine restoration forced the closing of the friary.

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Toward the end of the thirteenth century William Bernard, a Provençal from
Gaillac, re-established the Dominican presence in Constantinople.
The friars spent their time in offering the sacraments to the Latins and, by
preaching and writing, sought to win over the Greeks. Demonstrating the high
regard for the friars in Constantinople, several Greeks, the most prominent of
them Demetrios Kydones, Manuel Kalekas, and the brothers Theodore, Maximos, and Andrew Chrysoberges, not only became Catholic converts, but joined
the Dominicans. Kydones translated portions of the theological books of St.
Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, which were only then made available to
Greek theologians.
Violante points with pride to the Dominican contributions to the two councils of Lyon, the Order’s continued interest in leading the theological debate between the churches, and the many bishops in the East who came from their
ranks. It was thanks to the bilingual Dominican archbishop of Corinth, William
of Moerbeke, that St. Thomas Aquinas had translations of many of Aristotle’s
works.
The author has made a judicious choice of both primary and secondary
sources, and for any scholar interested in the Latin East, his work will now become the standard on the contributions of the Order.Today, visitors can still discover a connection to the Dominican province of Greece at the Arap Cami in
Galata, close by the Golden Horn, which once was the church of St. Paul. Modern Andravida in the Peloponnesos, formerly Andreville, capital of the Duchy of
Morea, holds a few walls of the Gothic church of the Holy Wisdom. Better than
the monuments, cloistered Dominican nuns still dutifully keep the hours on the
island of Santorini.
CHARLES FRAZEE
Episcopal School of Theology at Claremont

Beiträge zur Geschichte des Paulinerordens. Edited by Kaspar Elm. [Berliner
Historische Studien, Band 32; Ordensstudien XIV.] (Berlin: Duncker und
Humblot. 2000. Pp. 333. DM 118.)
The Paulist Order originated in Hungary. St. Paul the Hermit, who lived in
Egypt during the third century, was the paragon of the Hungarian eremites.
Prior to the Mongol invasion in 1241–42, Bishop Bertalan of Pécs (Quinqueecclesiae) had a monastery built for hermits on the Mecsek Mountain, though it
was Özséb (Eusebius), canon of the cathedral at Esztergom, who laid the foundations for the Order when he, with six others, moved to three caves near
Szántó in the Pilis Hills, to lead the eremitic way of life. Hermits had lived there,
and on Ürög Hill near Pécs, for a long period of time. Özséb organized the hermits and made them lead the way of life in accordance with, and in the spirit of,
St. Paul the Hermit. Next to his cave, he had a church and a monastery built in

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honor of the Holy Cross.He became the first head and provincial prior of his order.About 1300, Lőrinc (Laurentius), general of the Order, had a monastery built
near Buda in honor of St. Lawrence, and Budaszentlőrinc (St. Lawrence Convent
at Buda) became the head monastery of the Order. In 1308, Cardinal Gentilis,
the papal legate, suggested that they accept the Rule of St. Augustine, and
arranged for it that they were exempt from the jurisdiction of the regional
bishop, gaining control of their own affairs during their annually held general
chapters. From 1329 on, they were able to elect their Order’s general from
among themselves. The Paulists spread out rapidly in Hungary, in Poland, and in
southern Germany; during the fifteenth century, Spanish and Portuguese
eremites asked for permission to join the order. They excelled as preachers and
authors of religious literature. Louis the Great of Hungary (1342–1382), with
permission of the republic of Venice, had the relic of St. Paul the Hermit transferred to Budaszentlőrinc. The Paulist Ladislas Báthori translated the whole
Bible into Hungarian, and sent his translation to the library of King Matthias
Corvinus (1458–1490). Numerous codices bear witness to the artistry of the
Paulists, such as the Festetich, and the Czech codices, and perhaps the Peer
codex. (Felicián Gondán, A középkori magyar Pálosrend és nyelvemlékei [The
medieval Hungarian Paulists and their linguistic achievements], Pécs, 1916.)
The reformation and Turkish conquest caused much hardship for the Paulists,
but the order renewed itself, and reached its fullest influence and expansion by
the eighteenth century. Emperor Joseph II (1780–1790) abolished the Paulists’
flourishing Hungarian and Austrian provinces; their convents were oppressed
in Prussia and in Russia during the nineteenth century, while on Polish soil,only
two of their monasteries survived, at Cracow and at Cz3stochowa. In Hungary
the once so influential order still remained quite active until the end of World
War II; however, after decades of communist oppression, the Paulists were able
to re-emerge there during the 1990’s.
The book contains twelve articles dealing with the earlier history of the
Paulists. After the carefully prepared study on the eremites and their thirteenthcentury background by the editor, Kaspar Elm, Stefan Rebenich analyzed with
great readiness and dedication the Life of St. Paul the Hermit attributed to the
authorship of the Latin Church Father, St. Jerome. Interesting and worth reading
is Gábor Sarbak’s essay dealing with the books and libraries of medieval Paulist
monasteries, while a fully prepared Magda Fischer commented on the condition
of Paulist libraries in southern Germany during the seventeenth–eighteenth
centuries. Dirk Kottke analyzed and translated into German two Latin poems
describing the history of the monastic community at Langnau, and his learned
comments make good reading. József Török’s analyses of the Paulist liturgy provide fascinating reading as always, and render new data for liturgy experts. In
his paper, J. M. Bak described Hungary in the fourteenth century as the home
base of the Paulists. It is with excitement that one reads Beatrix FülöpRomhányi’s fourteen-page study, in which she dealt in depth with the spiritualintellectual life of the Paulists within the framework of historic Hungary.
Working with data derived from archaeological research (including structural

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plans and drawings), Zoltán Bencze presented the architectural history of
Paulist houses at Budaszentlőrinc,Ürög,Köveskút,Uzsa,Nagyvázsony,Pilisszentkereszt, Pilisszentlélek, Nosztra,Toronyalja, Felnémet, Diósgyőr, Gönc, Újház, in a
thirty-four-page detailed study. Among the last three articles in the volume,
Lorenz Weinrich wrote on the history of the Paulists’ house of Santo Stefano
Rotondo in Rome, and supported his statements by some eighty original documents plus some forty archival materials that provide a foundation for further
research. Gabriel Adriányi provided a well rounded essay on the history of the
Paulist convent in Pest, from 1686 and 1786, while Elmar L. Kuhn reviewed developments of Paulist monasteries in the Swabian province during the early
modern period. At the end of the volume, Gábor Sarbak surprises the reader
with a detailed and still select bibliography on the Paulists ( pp. 280–326), followed by an eight-page index of personal and local names occurring in the
book, carefully prepared by Lorenz Weinrich.
The editor of the volume and his contributors have performed a great service
for, and made a serious contribution toward a better understanding of, the
Paulist Order of Hungarian origin, a religious order that lived through, and yet
persevered in, hard times in the recent and not so recent past. This book of essays is an academic scholarly accomplishment,for which one owes both the editor, Kaspar Elm, and the publisher, sincere thanks and recognition.
Z. J. KOSZTOLNYIK
Texas A&M University

Presenza dei francescani conventuali nel Collegio dei Teologi dell’Università
di Padova: Appunti d’archivio (1510–1806). By Antonino Poppi. (Padua:
Centro Studi Antoniani. 2003. Pp. 222. D20,00 paperback.)
This is a detailed summary of the acts of the College of Doctors of Theology
in Padua from 1510 until Napoleon suppressed it in 1806.The study is based on
the manuscript atti of the college found in the Archivio Storico dell’Università
di Padova. The members of the college possessed doctorates from the college
and oversaw theology instruction and doctoral degree examinations. While the
college included members from the various medieval monastic orders with
convents in Padua, the Jesuits, Barnabites, Somaschans, and other new orders of
the Catholic Reformation were not members. The book focuses on the participation in the affairs of the college by the Franciscan Conventuals, the friars
from the famous convent of Saint Anthony (called Il Santo), the convent to
which Poppi belongs. Well known for his numerous publications on Renaissance philosophy and theology at Padua, Poppi has taught at Il Santo and the
University of Padua.
The college had few members in the early sixteenth century, but grew to one
hundred at the end of the sixteenth century and about 180 in the middle of the

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eighteenth century. About half were resident in Padua and participated in the
activities of the college.The Conventual Franciscans, who espoused Scotist theological positions, were particularly prominent in the seventeenth century.
Only four or five members of the college taught at the University of Padua.They
held the professorships of Thomist theology, Scotist theology, Thomist metaphysics, Scotist metaphysics, and Sacred Scripture from 1551.They served most
often as promoters for degree candidates. Other members of the college taught
in their own convents or did not teach.
The records are sparse for the sixteenth century but ample for the following
two centuries.They do not deal with issues of doctrine with one exception, but
with everyday affairs of the college, especially the conferral of degrees, election
of officers,and,later,responses to directives from the civil government.An issue
throughout was the tendency of candidates to seek degrees outside of the college of theologians, from counts palatine, from individuals with papal authority
to confer degrees such as generals of religious orders, and from institutions beyond Padua. These candidates sought to avoid the high doctoral fees of the college of theologians and sometimes the Paduan examinations altogether. Since
every member of the college involved in a degree examination and ceremony
received payment from the candidate,the college discovered that members of the
college were pressuring degree candidates to nominate them as promoters.The
college affirmed the right of candidates to choose freely. From time to time
the college had to deal with the hostility of arts students and the college of doctors of arts. In the eighteenth century the civil government increasingly intervened in college affairs.
This book is carefully documented with extensive quotations from the acts.
It includes useful bibliography and appendices listing all the Conventual Franciscans who held offices in the college. This is a limited study of an institution
which has received little attention and a good building block for further studies. We look forward to Poppi’s future studies, especially his edition of the
statutes of the college.
PAUL F. GRENDLER
University of Toronto (Emeritus)

Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione. Edited by Guerrino Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca. Vol. X: “Via-Zwijsen.” (Rome: Edizioni Paoline. 2003. Pp. xxv,
1682; 6 colored plates.)
This is the last volume in the monumental encyclopedia of monasticism projected in the wake of Vatican Council II and issued regularly since 1974. Presumably there will be supplementary update volumes. As before, the work
incorporates book and booklet-length treatises, historical in focus but not neglecting theological,legal,psychological,and sociological attention.Taking monas-

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ticism in its widest scope, it include¡s lay movements, non-Christian expressions, traditional orders and congregations, formative concepts, and many roads
less traveled.
From vows (twenty columns), to daily life (one hundred columns on vita
quotidiana), from vocation (fifty-eight columns) to Vincent de Paul and to Visitandines (forty columns), down to Islamic waqf, Hindu vishnu, and Buddhist
Zen, the volume does not neglect Voltaire (four columns), the Protestant community at Villemétrie, or the Orthodox Greek custom of xerophagia. Vita alone
has many lengthy entries (as with apostolica, attiva, contemplativa, comune,
consacrata, and mista). Many of the studies are multi-authored; all are comprehensive and professional, with appropriate bibliographical essays. Two extensive appendixes of some hundred columns each update respectively the
history of women religious and current statistics for religious groups worldwide. A general analytical index of 545 columns closes the work.
The DIP will continue to hold its unique position in the armory of research
tools into the foreseeable future, indispensable for every variety of specialist.
ROBERT I. BURNS, S.J.
University of California, Los Angeles

The Correspondence of Roland H. Bainton and Delio Cantimori 1932–1966:
An Enduring Transatlantic Friendship between Two Historians of Religious Toleration. Edited by John Tedeschi. [Studi e testi per la storia della
tolleranza in Europa nei secoli XVI-XVIII, 6.] (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore. 2002. Pp. xii, 313. D29,00 paperback.)
This beautifully produced and meticulously edited volume contains sixtyseven letters between Bainton and Cantimori.Apart from their correspondence
they hardly knew each other.During the course of the thirty-three years of their
friendship, they met only twice for a brief few hours. Cantimori, the younger of
the two, opened the correspondence by congratulating Bainton on his book on
Sebastian Castellio and telling him that he was working on riformatori italiani
such as Bernardo Ochino and Lelio Socino. Bainton responded, and the exchange
began. It was intermittent. Many letters have been lost. The correspondence
ends sadly in 1966 with Bainton telling Cantimori of the death of his wife. Just
a few months later Cantimori died unexpectedly from an accident in his home.
As John Tedeschi observes in his excellent introduction, on most levels the
two men could not have been more different. Bainton was outgoing and gregarious, a devout Christian, a fine speaker, a good stylist who wrote with seeming ease. Among his many publications was one that became almost a
best-seller, Here I Stand, his biography of Luther. Cantimori was his opposite in
all those respects. He produced only one monograph, on which his reputation
was made, Eretici italiani del Cinquecento (1939). When Harvard University

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Press attempted in the mid-1970’s to publish an English translation, the project
had to be abandoned at the galleys’ stage “because the nuances, subtleties and
complexities of Cantimori’s exposition could not be adequately rendered”
( p. 44).
Two things bound these scholars together: their interest in the same historical figures and phenomena, viz., the Italian heretics or non-conformists of the
sixteenth century and their place in the history of toleration, and, secondly,
their own contrary stance to the status-quo. Bainton was a conscientious objector in World War I, and he consistently voted the Socialist ticket as a protest
against the two major parties. Cantimori explained to Bainton in 1957 when he
broke with the Communist Party that his actions did not mean he abandoned
his conviction that Italy needed a profound change ( p. 184). When Bainton earlier asked him why he was a Communist, he replied that the party was the only
one in Italy that “will not make a deal with the church” ( p. 34).
The correspondence only rarely rises to such big issues. For the most part it
is like our own correspondence with colleagues—what are you working on,
when will your book or my book be published, how can I get hold of certain
materials I need for my research, what are our friends (or our enemies) writing
about or doing. In that last regard, however, this correspondence is special because the friends were often scholars of great distinction or great promise,
especially German Jews who in the 1930’s were lucky enough to escape to
England or the United States. Among them was un giovane ebreo tedesco
( p. 90), Paul Oskar Kristeller, who appears frequently in these pages. I was not
aware until reading this book of the important role that Cantimori and Bainton
played in getting him out of Italy and of the help and support Bainton gave him
once he got here. Peeking out from this often mundane correspondence, therefore, is a wonderful humanity. Especially touching are the letters just after the
end of World War II,in which we read of the food and clothing that Bainton and
his wife sent to Cantimori and his.
The book will interest scholars dealing with sixteenth-century Italian religious history and historiography. Beyond that, I see the book as symbolic of a
great cultural divide between the worlds of Italian and American scholarship. I
cannot imagine an American press publishing this volume. There simply would
not be enough interest even in scholars as important as these two. In a note
( pp. 178–179) Tedeschi lists the books and articles on Cantimori published in
Italy since his death. No recent historian who worked in the United States has
generated a similar commemoration, not even somebody of the stature of Kristeller.
Cantimori’s case is, of course, special in that the religious history of Italy in
the sixteenth century is not a politically neutral topic. That is another way in
which the two worlds of scholarship are dissimilar.As has been often observed,
in Italy that history is an arena in which are fought the political battles of the
present. Cantimori won admiration and adulation for showing how some Ital-

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ians resisted the Counter-Reformation and were eventually forced to flee its
clutches. They did not “make a deal with the church.”
JOHN W. O’MALLEY, S.J.
Weston Jesuit School of Theology

Ancient
Saint Vincent diacre et martyr: Culte et légendes avant l’An Mil. By Victor
Saxer. [Subsidia Hagiographica,Vol. 83.] (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes.
2002. Pp. vii, 372. D65 paperback.)
The universal saints of the Church are characterized not only by heroic sanctity but also by overwhelming paper trails. The world’s longest-lasting scholarly
research project, the Acta Sanctorum (1632–1940), ground to a halt when it
reached November 11, the feast of Martin of Tours. When Pierre Petitmengin
and colleagues devoted years of a Paris seminar to Pelagia, two huge volumes of
papers failed to exhaust the riches of her cult.Thus it is astonishing to find Monsignor Victor Saxer, now in his mid-eighties, attempting to master the dossier
of Vincent of Saragossa (d. ca. 303), a martyred deacon commemorated in
more than forty separately numbered items in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica
Latina, texts which one inventory claims survive today in at least 354 medieval
copies.
Saxer, as he explains in his introduction, recognized in the 1960’s that early
Christian Spain lacked an integrated study of its saint cults and archaeology, a
study he presumably originally envisioned along the lines of his Morts, martyrs,
reliques en Afrique chrétienne aux premiers siècles (1980). Although his initial survey of the ecclesiastical province of Tarraconensis went well enough, he
then entered Carthaginensis and met St.Vincent, whose complicated dossier required an ever-lengthening series of articles and editions. Saxer consolidates
these here, providing an unprecedented overview of the early medieval dossier
of one of the West’s more popular saints.
The volume contains articles, nine in French and one in German, published
between 1989 and 1998, as well as two lengthy, hitherto unpublished textual
analyses and Latin editions.The first section studies the cult of Vincent in Spain,
France, and Italy, a cult that spread early into Visigothic Septimania (Provence)
and also into northern France thanks to relics obtained by Childebert in his 541
siege of Saragossa. The next section examines texts. Saxer attempts to discover
the contents of the lost original passio by comparing the six sermons on Vincent given by Augustine (d. 430) with the two poems honoring him by Prudentius (d. ca. 410), although ultimately he concludes, based upon divergences
and omissions, that slightly different versions of the text may already have been
circulating at the start of the fifth century. He speculates about the historical reality underlying the narrative, finding corroboration for some topographical, ad-

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ministrative, and legal details. He holds that a short version circulated in the
fifth century, probably close to an early Italian version (BHL 8638), whose cultic geography is relatively primitive. The standard text (BHL 8631) already existed by the mid-sixth century, when Visigothic clergymen cited it; it also
influenced the historical martyrologies. In the later ninth century, SaintGermain-des-Près, which had relics of Vincent, produced a local version (BHL
8630), which circulated with a contemporary translation account written by
the monk Aimoin (BHL 8644–45);it probably also produced an abbreviation for
general circulation (BHL 8632). Saxer presents, analyzes, and edits the manuscripts of the half-dozen principal early medieval recensions (BHL 8628–8631,
8632, 8634–8636, 8638, 8639, and 8644–8645).
The work is of high quality, although often necessarily speculative since the
earliest surviving manuscript witness of the passio is from the mid-eighth century. Readers may become nervous after a certain number of phrases such as
“could cause one to think,”“is due perhaps to the fact that,” or “it is natural to admit.” Yet Saxer is judicious and impartial. He presents his results as tentative
judgments, not certainties. In fact, because his knowledge grew while these unrevised studies were being published,several new details,manuscript witnesses,
and revised judgments make their appearance in appendices, in the later articles, or in the summary conclusions.
Although Saxer shows how Vincent became so popular, he does not speculate about why. According to the passiones, Vincent, in contrast to his bishop,
who was also on trial, enthusiastically berated the persecuting governor. In this
he parallels other popular martyrs such as the deacon Lawrence of Rome, who
asked to be turned on his griddle, or the school girl Catherine of Alexandria,
who refuted the philosophers. Perhaps medievals liked martyrs who talked
back.
JOHN HOWE
Erasmus Institute, University of Notre Dame

Families and Friends in Late Roman Cappadocia. By Raymond Van Dam.
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2003. Pp. ix, 265; 1 map.
$45.00.)
After an impressive trail of published articles in peer-reviewed journals and a
book on the saints of Roman Gaul (1993),Van Dam offers in a trilogy a study of
Roman rule, Greek culture, Christian family life and friendship in the Roman
province of Cappadocia (modern Kayseri, Turkey). Whereas the first two volumes dealt with aspects of the Roman rule, classical culture (2002), and the
conversion of the province to Christianity (2003), the third is devoted to viewpoints on family life and nurturing of friendship, as revealed in the writings of
Basil of Caesarea (c.330–379), Gregory of Nazianzus (c.329–c.390), and Gregory

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of Nyssa (c.331–c.395). Justly alongside the material culled from these men, the
author draws as well on the life of Macrina the Younger (c.327–372), sister of
Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, to whom one of the works of the latter seems to appertain (“On the Soul and Resurrection”).
No new material is uncovered, but the well-trodden method of theology is
revitalized, nay utterly abandoned, through the skillful application of literary analysis, comparative demography, Roman-Byzantine law, gender studies,
rhetorical strategies, and authorial self-representation. The application of such
methodologies to documents produced in a far-removed time and environment
yields unexpected results which, being in the past molded into theological categories, appeared devoid of historical and cultural information. One could refer
to the lion’s share of Trinitarian and Christological debates in which are cocooned most writings of the first five centuries and conclude that their authors
never had time to experience the ties that bound them to earthly relations.
However, such reading of past records is more the result of later tamperings
with the texts—monastic scribes and copyists—rather than those who composed the originals. Although Van Dam never makes reference to the textual
transmission of the texts he is using, thanks to the new method, he is still able
to extricate from the theologically embedded discourse multiple glimpses of
what it meant for the early Christians to be part of a God-created order.The stylistic differences notwithstanding—Basil and his brother, the bishop of Nyssa,
wrote in prose, while the bishop of Nazianzus favored heavily poetry and
rhetoric—in Van Dam’s book all of these literary genres are properly handled
and thus they provide the reader with a pretty accurate picture of the whole
socio-cultural milieu in which they and their contemporaries lived. His style is
lively and engaging, free of clichés that often pervade so-called hagiographical
accounts of past Christian authors. If necessary, he levels criticisms, as for instance, with regard to Basil’s harsh treatment of his younger brother and the
cavalier ordination of him and his friend from Nazianzus to the non-existing
sees of Nyssa and Sasima in 372/73. Basil even ended up in not being on speaking terms with Gregory of Nazianzus for most of his own episcopal career (371/
72–379).
What one would have wished particularly in this volume is a more thorough
grounding of the notions of family (better: household) and friendship in the
Classical and Hellenistic sources to which the Cappadocians and other Greekspeaking Christians were indebted. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) is one of several authors who made a pretty significant contribution to the understanding of the
family/household as the foundation of the city-state ( polis) and for whom
friendship played a significant role in explaining human relationships. However, he is barely mentioned in Van Dam’s book. Neither are other authors such
as Plato and the Stoics. Nor is there mention that in the case of Basil, the outgrowth of his family experience led him to the embracing and advocacy of the
community-based lifestyle which he promoted in his ascetic brother/sisterhoods. Appealing to the natural tendency of humans to associate with each
other, he rejected eremitism and proposed a model even more egalitarian than

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that of the later Benedict,and strongly emphasized,in the opening two questionsanswers of his Asketikon, the horizontal rather than vertical structure in his
communities.The Basilian proesto-s (literally:“leader who cares”) is nothing like
the Egyptian or Syro-Palestinian, or for that matter Benedictine, abbot. He is one
whose charisma has been discerned by the group to serve on a temporary, not
life-long,basis.Somewhat less successfully or perhaps less coherently Basil tried
to extend this notion to the leader of the local church.
Notwithstanding some such reservations, the trilogy makes a compelling
reading and significantly revitalizes an area of history which for too long lay
plunged in the doldrums of monastic pseudo-Christian otherworldly abstraction.
PAUL J. FEDWICK
University of St Michael’s College
at the University of Toronto

Medieval
Vision and Image in Early Christian England. By George Henderson. (New
York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. xviii, 292. $90.00.)
The wealth, variety, and inventiveness to be found in the art of early medieval
Britain and Ireland owe much to the interaction of cultures. In Ireland and in
the Celtic-speaking areas of Britain (British, Pictish, and Scottish), distinctive regional and ‘national’ traditions developed in the post-Roman period drawing to
some extent on older traditions of Celtic curvilinear design. Elsewhere, in the
English kingdoms, Germanic-speaking settlers from the Continent (‘AngloSaxons’) were, by around 600, patronizing work in which interlacing animals
were a dominant motif.The visual culture of this phase is mainly represented by
high status secular metalwork, often of superlative quality, such as can be seen,
in an English context, in the grave-furnishings of the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo.
The gradual adoption of Christianity by the English during the course of the
seventh century, partly following the papal mission led by Augustine of Canterbury from Rome and Gaul and partly from the already Christian Irish, brought
Insular cultures into fruitful contact with each other and with the Continent.
One of the most striking products of this interaction was the development of a
shared artistic style, a visual koine, now usually known as the ‘Insular’ style.This
style is probably best known in the decoration of the Insular gospel-books of
Durrow, Lindisfarne, and Kells.
George Henderson has written widely on medieval art and, in recent years,
on early Insular art. His Vision and Image is an imaginative and stimulating exploration of art produced in England during the seventh and eighth centuries
within wider Insular and European contexts. His approach is thematic rather
than chronological, and the thickets of controversy on dating and provenance
are therefore largely, and for present purposes justifiably, ignored. There are re-

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warding discussions of familiar objects such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the
Franks Casket, and the Ruthwell Cross, but the arguments also make much use
of less familiar and sometimes of lost material.
The Insular style of manuscripts such as the Book of Durrow is seen as a dynamic “visual experiment” drawing on a range of secular traditions. This new
style had the dual advantage of being familiar and accessible to secular patrons
and viewers and also, as can be inferred from its widespread adoption, of “acceptability in many parts of the British Isles.” In line with recent thinking, the
Frankish contribution to seventh-century Anglo-Saxon visual culture is stressed.
Henderson speculates, plausibly, that “working drawings” may have played a
role in the transfer of motifs from secular metalwork to the ornamentation of
Christian manuscripts. He then investigates Anglo-Saxon responses to visual
sources imported following the adoption of Christianity, rightly stressing that
these imports may have been in very different styles. The italianate images in
the Codex Amiatinus may be more or less faithful Northumbrian facsimiles of
sixth-century Italian models, although, as he makes clear, that is controversial.
The more two-dimensional and linear paintings of evangelists in the Lindisfarne
Gospels are usually seen as Insular stylizations, but Henderson makes a striking
comparison with the simplified images of impeccably Italian pieces of opus sectile (a form of small-scale mosaic composed of shaped pieces of stone).
This speculation reflects Henderson’s fascination with the visual impact of
materials and, often, with “encoded symbolism relating to the precious materials employed.” The most original chapter is dedicated to the color purple,
which, because of its imperial connotations in the Roman Empire, was a powerful political and religious symbol for the early Middle Ages. Wilfrid’s lost purple gospel-book is seen as an instance of his dangerous predilection for “the
outward signs of royal power.” Henderson sees Wilfrid’s book as a romanizing
equivalent to the very different motifs adopted from high-status ‘native’ metalwork into the Insular style. Henderson’s own experiments in recreating the
techniques for making purple from a substance extracted from the whelk enliven and inform the discussion and challenge some commonly repeated views.
Themes interweave in this book in ways that allow for interesting associations of ideas. Wilfrid and the color purple also exemplify the theme of AngloSaxon responses to and uses of imperial and Christian Rome. Images are seen in
the context of words and of literate culture. Insular religious art, far from being
art for the illiterate, was designed by and for “acutely literate monastic communities” and for “secular patrons wholly immersed in that culture.” On the other
hand, secular concerns can pervade the cult of a saint, as, for example, in Henderson’s view, in the royal manipulation of the life and tomb of St. Guthlac. This
is only one instance of his drawing on the “strong visual content” of contemporary hagiographical literature, which he sees as allowing the reader to “get inside the contemporary imagination.”In a way that is perhaps more kaleidoscopic
than linear, the book amply demonstrates the centrality of the visual arts and of
“visual thinking” in seventh- and eighth-century England.

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A minor quibble with the publisher—the principal images under discussion
are well illustrated, but plate references within the text are almost non-existent.
This may have been to avoid cluttering the text, but the result is that the reader
does not know when to look for an illustration.
JOHN HIGGITT
University of Edinburgh

Order & Exclusion: Cluny and Christendom face heresy, Judaism, and Islam
(1000–1150). By Dominique Iogna-Prat. Translated by Graham Robert Edwards. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 2002. Pp. xvii, 407.
$59.95.)
Dr. Iogna-Prat’s book, Ordonner et exclure (1998), which here appears in a
very satisfactory English translation, has two themes. One is the evolution from
a loosely-structured medieval society to one dominated by an order that was
strictly conceived and repressive to dissent.The other, which the author sees as
closely connected with the first, is the spirituality and thinking of the order of
Cluny.At its heart lies the discussion of treatises of Peter the Venerable, abbot of
Cluny until 1156. Contra Petrobrusianos was written in response to one of the
heresies which had emerged out of the tension between the Gospels and the
changing organization of the Western Church. Contra sectam Sarracenorum
belonged to the world of the crusades and the wars in the Iberian peninsula.
Adversus Iudaeos was an important example of the growing anti-Jewish propaganda. With these more formal controversial texts the author associates an
examination of the De miraculis,one of Peter’s most revealing works,and more
briefly of his Sermo de Sepulchro Domini, perhaps the finest medieval work on
the theology of the Holy Sepulchre. The discussion is set within a deep understanding of Cluniac tradition, which introduces us to features in the thought of
the period such as the evolution of liturgy and the understanding of sacred
space. Although there has been so much work on Cluny in the past fifty years,
this is a book which will deepen understanding further.
Peter’s treatises represented a new type of polemic, and it is not easy to assess their impact on the thought of contemporaries. Peter was a conscientious
writer, who was concerned to understand his opponents. His systematic criticism of the Petrobrusians has no precise precedent in the analysis of medieval
heresy, and his discussion of the Saracens was vastly superior to the nonsense
circulated in existing Lives of Mahomet. It rested on what, by contemporary
standards, was a major research programme into the Koran and associated literature. All the same, much of Peter’s work in these areas looks like a first investigation rather than a major contribution to the understanding of those who
dissented from the Latin West. Inevitably, he was providing a “starter pack” to
subjects, some of which were quite unfamiliar. The Petrobrusians can be linked
to a growing wave of evangelical heresies, and (more dubiously) to dualist

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movements which were emerging at the end of Peter’s life; but the scene was
going to change beyond recognition in the next generation. What is more, although Christianity and Islam had been born within the same Syriac culture,
the Latin West had traveled a long way in its own distinctive direction. Mutual
understanding was always going to be difficult, and Peter was at the beginning
of the process. The rhetorical approach within which he was working (and
which is well analyzed here) functioned as the tool of a repressive society, and
gave license to extreme and unbalanced statements. Peter, famously, emerges as
a savage enemy of the Jews, whom in one passage he denied to be human beings, and a champion of dialogue with the Saracens, claiming to approach them
with love rather than with weapons. Both remarks, well adapted as they are to
quotation, misrepresent what he was attempting to do. Iogna-Prat is very much
at home within Cluniac literature and the development of controversy.
The examination of the restructuring of Christian society is less convincing.
Barbara Rosenwein, in her foreword, comments that the author “builds on R. I.
Moore’s Formation of a Persecuting Society,” but Moore is rarely mentioned in
the text. In contrast, the author traces a jerky progress toward the later structured society. He holds that “the Christendom defined by the eleventh- and
twelfth-century clerics was a unitary whole with a centre, Rome,” but the term
‘Christendom’was rare before 1100,and the idea of Rome as the center of Western Europe causes one to pause at this time. The important text duo sunt genera Christianorum is said, in the section on the eighth century, to have
described a basic division which remained “throughout the whole of the Middle Ages.” It was, however, almost certainly composed in the late eleventh century, and is characteristic of new thinking at that time. In some places in the
text, aberrant terminology runs riot. Cardinals Humbert and Peter Damian appear as “Gregorian ideologues,”although their work was largely done before the
election of Gregory VII. The popes appear as “unassailable at the summit of the
hierarchy,” a strange take on the period as a whole. Experiments appear as conclusive and permanent decisions, as when “in 1231 the Pontifical Inquisition
[author’s capitals] was instituted.” Curiously, the so-called Dictatus Papae,
which is one of the few texts in the period which really presents this absolutist
vision, is mentioned only very briefly. Peter the Venerable was writing in a more
open society than all this suggests;one where heresy was still unformed and papal authority, and ecclesiastical order, much less defined than is suggested here.
The strength of this study lies in its understanding of Clunaic thought, and to
that it makes a real and important contribution.
COLIN MORRIS
Southampton, England

L’Ordre de Saint-Lazare de Jérusalem au Moyen Âge: Milites Christi,Volume 1.
By Rafaël Hyacinthe. (Millau: Conservatoire Larzac Templier et Hospitalier.
2003. Pp. 253. D40.)

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Well presented, richly illustrated, and based on an extensive bibliography, Hyacinthe’s is the first of a series of monographs planned by the Conservatoire
Larzac, an organization dedicated both to the preservation of three threatened
medieval Templar-Hospitaller villages in Southern France and also to the study
of the military-religious orders in general. The minor religious order of Saint
Lazarus originated, like that of the Hospital of Saint John, as a hospitaller institution which emerged in the crusading East. Founded between about 1130 and
1142, its particularity was the care of lepers, a class excluded from normal society. Unlike the Hospitallers’ sick, the lepers were regarded as incurable and
had to remain permanently within their institution.These sufferers could themselves become fully-professed members of the order who were cared for by
other fully-professed brethren, the freres sains or “healthy,” who resided with
the sick in a type of “double” community; all fully-professed members took the
religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Hyacinthe dispels various early myths, some maintained by the order itself,
about its origins.The order soon acquired hospitals in many Western countries,
though not in Spain.There was a house at Burton Lazars in the English Midlands
by about 1150, and in 1154 another at Boigny in France, which became the order’s headquarters after 1291. Shortly before 1244 there developed a class of
knight-brethren who fought against the Muslims, notably at the final defense of
Acre in 1291.There were for a time examples of leper-brethren who were fighting knights and at one point the order’s master was himself a leper, but in general only “healthy” brethren were fighting members.
After 1291 the order lost its military role, but Hyacinthe provides much detail, running into early modern times, on its continued activities in the West, its
houses and organization, donations and estates, its buildings and art, and its
prayer, which was, not unnaturally, especially concerned with death. The book
also provides important information on the medical history and past care of
leprosy. Hyacinthe publishes the texts of seventeen documents. He was unable
to use David Marcombe, Leper Knights: The Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem
in England, c. 1150–1544 (Woodbridge, 2003); nor could he utilize the unpublished studies of François-Olivier Touati on the materials in Turin; however,
the latter’s article on the Turin materials is discussed by Hans Eberhard Mayer,
“Das Turiner Lazariter-Chartular,” in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 82 (2002), 663–676.
ANTHONY LUTTRELL
Bath, England

El derecho canónico catalán en la baja Edad Media: La diócesis de Gerona
en los siglos XIII y XIV. By Santiago Bueno Salinas. [Col-lectània Sant Pacià,
Núm. 72.) (Barcelona: Facultat de Teologia de Catalunya. 2000. Pp. 415. Paperback.)

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The Fourth Lateran Council, convoked by Pope Innocent III in 1215, was and
remains one of the most important of the Ecumenical Councils in the history of
the Church. Its importance lies not only in its doctrinal declarations but also in
its practical and pastorally oriented decrees, which were the critical foundation
for the reform of the Church. While the general juridical parameters of such reform were determined by the Council, its practical application was necessarily
fashioned by the particular churches. Individuals were obviously important, but
a central role was played by diocesan synods, which to varying degrees of effectiveness, sought to translate the ecumenical decrees into particular norms
that reflected the traditions, problems, and realities of the diocese. Not all dioceses were equally successful or attentive to this task, but the study and analysis of the acts of the diocesan synods in the century after Lateran IV provide a
unique and rich vein of information on how the local churches understood and
consequently applied the decrees of Lateran IV. In the process they also offer an
extraordinary insight into the life of the local churches, the challenges they
faced and the means by which they might be confronted.
The present excellent volume,the basis of which was a doctoral thesis,analyzes
the synods celebrated in the Catalonian Diocese of Gerona in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, specifically 1247–1368, namely, from the episcopate
of Berenguer de Castellbisbal to that of Ennec de Vallterra, who was instrumental in the formation of the First Compilation of the Gerona synodal constitutions.The choice of these dates is particularly fortuitous as it neatly corresponds
to a period in which the canon law acquired an invigorating and long-lasting
configuration due initially to the promulgation by Pope Gregory IX of the Liber
Extra (1234), which was followed by the authentic collections, the Liber Sextus and the Clementinae,and to the plethora of academic commentaries which
analyzed and commented upon them.
While the fundamental sources of the universal canon law remained the decrees of the general councils and the ever important papal decretals, the role of
other councils—legatine, provincial, and diocesan—cannot be underestimated.
The study of these particular councils is important for two interconnected reasons: they complemented the universal law and they offer a unique insight into
the practical questions that were either left unresolved or unattended to by the
general councils but which were of some importance to the life of the particular church in its efforts at reform.
The synodal activity of the Diocese of Gerona continued on a regular basis
well into the fourteenth century and alongside a detailed survey of its juridical
foundations the author places it within the context of the history of the diocese. Each of the synods is masterfully presented and analyzed with erudition
and meticulous care. What comes through is a fascinating corpus of canonical
legislation the texts of which dealt with actual questions that required adequate
solutions. In the process a highly fascinating and informative glimpse is offered
into the actual life of the Church in Gerona which encompasses a wide range
of reform related issues: the sacramental life, the rights and duties of clerics and

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laity, and the patrimonial questions involved in the Diocese of Gerona. The author also offers judicious insights into the lives of the individual bishops who
convened the diocesan synods.
This is a very important piece of scholarship with careful attention given to
the manuscript tradition of the synodal acts and their printed editions. The
seven succinctly written chapters are followed by three very useful appendices. Much work has been dedicated to diocesan synodal activity in the period
after Lateran IV, and the present volume continues this important research. It
has the particular advantage of a relatively complete and regular series of synods which the author has admirably analyzed and presented. It offers a highly
useful insight into what Lateran IV called for and how it was perceived and effected by a particular church.
BRIAN FERME
The Catholic University of America

Olivi and the Interpretation of Matthew in the High Middle Ages. By Kevin
Madigan. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 2003.
Pp. xv, 224. $47.50 clothbound; $27.50 paperback.)
Only recently, in his fine synthetic study of medieval biblical exegesis of
1999, Gilbert Dahan observed that the biblical commentaries of the Franciscan
Peter Olivi (†1298) deserved more attention. Lickety split: in short order the
oeuvre is coming into place. We now have editions and studies (including some
that Dahan overlooked) of Olivi’s commentaries on the Song of Songs, Isaiah,
Lamentations, Acts, and First Corinthians, with others announced on the Minor
Prophets, Romans, and the Book of Revelation. Kevin Madigan’s study of Olivi
on Matthew belongs on this list even though he does not offer an edition.
Doubtless an edition would be welcome, but Madigan’s expert review of this
very lengthy commentary can stand as a surrogate for all except those who
need to ascertain a particular missing detail.
Although the Matthew commentary surely deserves attention, Madigan does
well to remind us that because the work was a product of Olivi’s formal duties
as lector in a Franciscan convent he was obliged to adhere to a rather restricted
understanding of what he was supposed to communicate. (The Matthew commentary was composed in the cloister of Montpellier between 1279 and
1281—Madigan’s dating agrees with that of the estimable Olivian, Sylvain
Piron.) Accordingly, Madigan does not mince words in pronouncing that “much
of Olivi’s Matthew commentary is derivative, and, by any measure, innocuous.”
In this regard a stunning proof of Olivi’s non-stunning derivativeness is the author’s demonstration that Olivi’s commentary draws extensively on St.Thomas’s
chain of exegetical sentences from the Fathers, the Catena aurea. Nevertheless,Olivi,being Olivi,could not bottle up his strongly held views about poverty

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and the calling of the Franciscan Order, and hence expressed himself on these
subjects as he wished from time to time. The most breathtaking example, a diatribe against the very Thomas on whom he relied for many of his commonplaces, was already displayed by Ehrle and d’Alverny. But Madigan goes much
further in locating other less fierce but still pointed expressions on controversial issues regarding the apostolic life and the role of the Order. Comparing
Olivi’s reading of certain obvious cruces with those of other mendicant commentators on the Gospels, Madigan succeeds in showing that Olivi was alone in
clearly interjecting his commitment into his exegesis,or,as he puts it,collapsing
the genres of postilla and apologia.
Madigan’s other main concern is the extent of the Matthew commentary’s
debt to the thought of Joachim of Fiore.A specific problem arises as to whether
Olivi might have drawn directly on the Abbot of Fiore’s uncompleted Tractatus
super Quatuor Evangelia at certain points where the two commentators
treated the same passages. Here Madigan is properly cautious: he thinks that
Olivi may have known and used the Tractatus, but he acknowledges a lack of
proof; certainly Olivi never cites from Joachim’s work verbatim, and if a few of
Olivi’s readings come “uncannily” close to Joachim’s, that could still be because
the Provençal had internalized the Calabrian’s general approach. If not from the
Tractatus, that general approach certainly came to Olivi from knowledge of
Joachim’s two most important works, the Concordia and the Expositio super
Apocalypsim. Thus the larger question is whether Olivi showed himself to be
as much of an extreme partisan of Joachim in the relatively early Matthew commentary as he was in his own late Revelation commentary. Madigan’s conclusion is that in the earlier work the influence is pronounced but not extreme.
Olivi surely appropriated Joachim’s distinctive hermeneutic, allowing prophetic
readings of scripture, but did so in the Matthew commentary only sparingly.
Similarly, although he accepted Joachim’s vision of an earthly sabbath, he only
at most hinted at the Abbot’s three-status scheme.
Madigan ends by noting that Olivi’s distinctive exegetical traits—occasional
controversialism and muted Joachism—had no future, for the Franciscan exegete who called the late-medieval tune, Nicholas of Lyra, had absolutely no use
for them. Madigan’s book, however, will surely have a future because of its clarity and sovereign control of the material.
ROBERT E. LERNER
Northwestern University

The Religious Orders in Pre-Reformation England. Edited by James G. Clark.
[Studies in the History of Medieval Religion 18.] (Rochester, New York:The
Boydell Press. 2002. Pp. xii, 250. $75.00.)
The thirteen essays in this volume began life as papers presented to a colloquium at York in September, 1999. In their variety of subject and approaches

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they provide revealing insights into the current directions of scholarly thinking
about the last century of the religious orders in medieval England.There are six
sections: an Introduction with two essays by James G. Clark and Joan Greatrex;
three papers on the subject of “Education and Learning” (Barbara Harvey, Vincent Gillespie, and Jeremy Catto); and two each on the “Mendicant Life”
(Michael Robson and R. N. Swanson),“Women Religious” (Claire Cross and Marilyn Oliva), “Monasteries and Society” (Benjamin Thompson and Glyn Coppack), and “Dissolution” (F. Donald Logan and Peter Cunich).
The period since David Knowles completed the third volume of The Religious Orders in England (1959) has seen a major upsurge in publication on the
late Middle Ages,and a real attempt made to shift discussion of monastic houses
away from pervasive assumptions about decline and dissolution. In a very useful survey of recent literature, James G. Clark demonstrates what a mixed balance sheet can be constructed on the late medieval religious. If their houses
had become marginalized in terms of the most vital directions of spirituality,
they were nonetheless so deeply integrated into their local societies that their
destruction between 1536 and 1540 constituted a watershed. In a literal as well
as a metaphorical sense the English landscape was changed.
Benjamin Thompson’s persuasive essay “Monasteries, Society and Reform in
Late Medieval England,” systematically explores the reasons why this dramatic
destruction of monasticism could be accomplished in such a short space of
time and relatively easily. His explanation accommodates both the shift away
from monasticism as a dominant force in the Church after the twelfth century,
and the undoubted efforts of the religious to adapt to new needs. The services
they offered to patrons and more generally (hospitality, alms, corrodies, advowsons, places for relatives, prestige, schools) were valued, certainly; but few of
them were exclusive to them. They remained vulnerable to the argument that
they had abandoned the ideal of withdrawal from the world, and that better use
might be made of the large resources they controlled.
Nonetheless, the cumulative effect of other essays in the volume is to suggest
that a major, ruthless drive from the central government has to be factored in to
the destruction of religious houses that remained broadly socially useful, and
did not have communities anxious to leave when opportunity was offered (F.
Donald Logan). Whilst English Franciscans might make little contribution to the
learning of the Renaissance, they were well qualified preachers and confessors,
engaged in traditional apostolic work that had done much to raise religious sensibilities ( Jeremy Catto). The Grey Friars of York can be shown to be still at the
heart of the life of the city in the sixteenth century (Michael Robson).The mendicants in general were active participants in the trade in indulgences that
serviced an important aspect of late medieval religious life, preparation for Purgatory (R. N. Swanson).
Claire Cross’s survey of the Yorkshire nunneries in the early Tudor period
could hardly be called a flattering one, but despite being burdened with debt
and their nuns recurrently a target for accusations of unchastity, her verdict is

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that they “still appear to have been performing a necessary function in local society.” In the diocese of Norwich a concise study of patronage to female monasteries reveals the closeness of their ties with their locality, and a pattern of
support from lesser gentry and yeomen farmers (Marilyn Oliva).
The impression left by these papers is of the vitality of current research and
publication in this field of religious history. The potential of architectural history to contribute to our understanding of changes in the lifestyle of monks is
explored in an essay on monastic planning (Glynn Copack), whilst another essay brings contemporary psycho-historical methodologies to bear on the Tudor
ex-religious (Peter Cunich). In her introductory essay Professor Joan Greatrex
alludes to the many different strands of research that are now shedding light on
the mental horizons and individual lives of late medieval monks and nuns. In
the process we seem to get further from the certainties of earlier judgments,
but the present collection of essays provides a valuable service in alerting us to
the complex strands that now make up sympathetic understanding of the past.
JOHN TILLOTSON
Australian National University

Early Modern European
The Early Reformation on the Continent. By Owen Chadwick. [Oxford History of the Christian Church.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 2001.
Pp. vi, 446. $95.00.)
Unlike most such works, this volume has no introduction or conclusion to
guide readers as to the author’s purpose, but the dust-jacket supplies an essential bit of information: The Early Reformation on the Continent is part of a
valuable series ongoing since 1977,the “Oxford History of the Christian Church,”
of which Professor Chadwick and his brother, Henry Chadwick, have been
the general editors. The Oxford University Press website lists thirteen volumes
to date; many represent the best broad coverage available for important topics
like The Frankish Church, or German and Scandinavian Protestantism
1700–1918, and the series as a whole is more ambitious in scope than previous
multi-volume works, like the old Fliche-Martin Histoire de l’Eglise, or Hubert
Jedin’s Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte. Since the present volume deals almost exclusively with Lutheran Germany and German-speaking Switzerland,
and leaves theology to one side, one must assume that separate volumes are
planned for such topics as Calvinism, Reformation theology, and the Catholic
Reformation.
The author writes as a church historian, not as a historian of European society or European politics who happens to be interested in the Reformation.This
means that debates that have been very much to the fore among social and political historians receive scant notice here—for example,the question of whether,

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or in what sense, the Protestant movement in Germany’s free imperial cities
might be characterized as a “communal” Reformation. But the author’s ecclesial
perspective is also the book’s strength: for each topic Professor Chadwick has
chosen for a chapter, the reader is treated to a lively and learned review of how
earlier Christian communities dealt with the issue (e.g., the use of organ-music
in worship, or the rite of confirmation), and what was novel in the solutions
wrought by Luther and his contemporaries. That Chadwick often illustrates his
themes with examples from Germany’s North Sea and Baltic regions, neglected
in German and especially English-language scholarship, is all the better. This
book is the product of a wide erudition, lightly worn, woven into fresh insights
for the reader, even for one who, like myself, has taught the German Reformation for over thirty years.
Absent an introduction or a conclusion,there are also no ready clues as to the
author’s interpretative stance. One notes, however, that Professor Chadwick’s
treatment of Erasmus is sensitive, usually well-informed, and frequent; the Rotterdam humanist merits nearly as many mentions in the Index (86) as Martin
Luther (95). One may perhaps discern a connection to this admiration for Erasmus in the fact that he takes a dim view of dogmatic controversy. Where others
might see unbridgeable differences, Chadwick seems to see misunderstandings
or at most shades of opinion. Thus “Erasmus believed that Luther denied free
will. Luther said that God’s mercy in saving the soul is overwhelming and
he sometimes gave the impression that the individual had no room to choose”
( p.59).One might derive a different view from reading what Erasmus and Luther
wrote against each other,but then their famous debate on free will “achieved no
object” ( p. 57). If Calvin insisted that believers receive in the eucharist only the
“virtue” or power of Christ’s body, Chadwick presents an ecumenical Calvin,
professing simply that “communicants receive the body and blood” ( p. 186). To
be sure, those later called Gnesio-Lutherans were “stiffer” about the doctrine of
the real presence ( p. 342), but such men perhaps missed the point, for
Melanchthon’s compromise with the Reformed, the Variata version of his
Augsburg Confession,“helped keep Germany from civil war” ( p. 238). In sum,
“the ways of worship were far more important than articles of faith. The German Encyclopedia recognized it for England when it said that the Anglican articles of faith were the Book of Common Prayer” ( p. 233). Would that the
Germans had found, the author seems to say, their own via media.
Yet Erasmus, that paragon of reason and non-dogmatic Christianity, was more
prickly than Chadwick allows. Instead of being “at the head” of humanists supporting Johannes Reuchlin ( p. 30), Erasmus, no lover of Jews or of Jewish
books, kept aloof from the fray. When Johannes Oecolampadius published an
exposition of the Reformed doctrine of the eucharist (1525), Erasmus did indeed decline to reply ( p. 52). But Chadwick does not mention that when another Swiss Reformer accused him of espousing the Reformed doctrine in
private, Erasmus issued a defense of the Catholic doctrine of the eucharist,
based on the consensus Ecclesiae (Praestigiarum Cuiusdam Libelli Defensio,
1526).Precisely because ardent theological controversy has so few defenders in

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our own day,it is doubly incumbent on the historian not to glide lightly over differences of belief on which Christians of the past were willing to stake their
honor, and sometimes their lives.
JAMES D.TRACY
University of Minnesota

Usury, Interest and the Reformation. By Eric Kerridge. [St Andrews Studies in
Reformation History.] (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Co. 2002.
Pp. xiv, 190. $79.95.)
This slim volume, written with a measure of scholarly indignation, aims to set
the record straight about the history of usury during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many modern scholars have so far misinterpreted the teachings
of the Protestant reformers as to make them appear to have broken with the medieval tradition that forbade usurious loans of money. The truth is quite otherwise. The reformers condemned usury. The medieval law had long drawn a
distinction between usury and legitimate interest. For example, more than the
amount of a loan could lawfully be paid where the borrower and lender shared
the risk of a venture financed by the loan.Similarly,where a lender was harmed in
his own affairs by a delay in repayment, he could lawfully be compensated by being paid for the delay. However, this was not usury.These were examples of interest. Protestant writers drew the same distinction. What was condemned was the
increase in the amount to be repaid when no more than a simple loan was at issue.This practice was considered as “sterile”in contemporary thought,and almost
all Protestant theologians were as strong in condemning it as were contemporary
(or medieval) Catholic thinkers. However much they disagreed about theological
issues, both camps recognized the difference between usury and interest. There
may have been some confusion or slight changes in terminology among the
Protestants, but this should not have misled scholars about the substance.
The author pursues this theme with energy, conviction, and examples. The
first half of the book lays out the argument, providing separate chapters for Continental thought and the English treatment with usury. The author also provides
his own helpful commentary. The book’s second half consists of thirty-eight excerpts from the writing of contemporary commentators. John Calvin, Philip
Melanchthon, Martin Luther, and Huldreich Zwingli figure most prominently.
For the reviewer (admittedly a lawyer), one persistent query arose. It was common ground among the commentators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
that unlawful usury might be “cloaked” by a variety of subterfuges and that in fact
many cunning men made use of such subterfuges. The distinction between legitimate interest and unlawful usury was always a thin one. How did one determine
on which side of the line any specific transaction lay? Was there a practicable test?
Did subjective intent matter? The author of this useful book does not take up these

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317

questions, and in this he seems to be following his sources.The writers under discussion were theologians, not jurists. Nonetheless, the questions of implementation of the prohibitions against usury must have arisen often in practice, and it
would have mattered how the distinction was established for practical purposes.
R. H. HELMHOLZ
University of Chicago

The Imaginative World of the Reformation. By Peter Matheson. (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press. 2001. Pp. xiii, 153. $15.00 paperback.)
The unifying theme of this small book is sixteenth-century people’s dreams
of freedom here on earth. Made up of the Gunning Lectures that Matheson presented to the Divinity Faculty at the University of Edinburgh in 1998, the volume examines several ways in which this aspiration found expression. The
author asserts that the so-called enchanted world, the liminality between telluric and divine, of late medieval Catholicism was no longer satisfying. He rejects the premise that “Protestants appear content with an impoverished
imagination”( p. 2).Instead,the Reformation altered prevailing metaphors,away
from the Mass with all its layers of meaning, toward liberty in this life. In order
to achieve this shift, the Reformers had to be destructive. They desired to transform, Matheson says, the images in the heart ( p. 14). Assisting them was widespread anticlericalism and the iconoclastic power of humanistic criticism.
Pamphlets, sermons, woodcuts, and paintings disseminated the images of awakening to a new dawn ( p. 47). They constituted an iconography of an inseparable spiritual and earthy freedom. With their competing utopias, both urban
magistrates and peasant warriors were partisans in this quest for liberation.
The “great shattering” that marked the birthing throes of the new vision gave
way to tyranny and violence. Those in power, including Reformers themselves
in some territories, found the peasants’ egalitarian aspirations intolerable. The
dream became a nightmare. The new symbolic world remained, but the limitations on its concepts stood revealed. And, Matheson admits, the old, the
Catholic, ways of living and thinking died hard. He holds up Thomas Münzer
and Argula von Grumbach as advocates of a fundamental empowerment of the
laity as disciples of Christ. Christians must take up the gritty tasks of this life, including, for women, those of subordination.
Matheson refers regularly to current historiographic discussion, such as the
debate between Peter Blickle and Tom Scott. These essays may echo certain
premises of Blickle, but they are not derivative of it. The author delicately expresses his skepticism toward “social history” and its “negative” conclusions
about the Reformation. This is a learned, reflective, gentle, and very Protestant
analysis of early Lutheran leitmotifs and their short-term fate.
SUSAN C. KARANT-NUNN
University of Arizona

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Mad for God: Bartolomé Sánchez, the Secret Messiah of Cardenete. By Sara
Tilghman Nalle. (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia.
2001. Pp. xi, 228. $49.50 cloth; $16.95 paper.)
Occasionally, historians who spend long hours in the archives will make a
lucky find, a document that opens new views of the past, or that offers a particularly compelling story. But such texts often require boldness and imagination on the part of the historian to draw out its rich implications.How fortunate,
then, that it was Sara Nalle who happened upon Bartolomé Sánchez’s inquisition trial records in the diocesan archives at Cuenca, Spain. Nalle brings to this
fascinating record her reputation for astute analysis and meticulous, thorough
research; but she also transcends conventional cultural histories with a compelling evocation of a time and place,and an imaginative rendering of Sánchez’s
encounters with inquisitorial officials.
The narrative follows Sánchez’s spiritual crisis after an outburst during Mass
in 1552, when he was fifty-one years old. Sánchez ultimately revealed that he
believed himself to be the “Elijah-Messiah,” the Son of Man designated by God
to fulfill the mission of Jesus. Sánchez’s behavior seemed rational to his family and neighbors, as long as he steered clear of religious topics. They understood the wool carder to be sane. A reader accustomed to the stereotypes
about early modern Spain might therefore expect the Inquisition to torture,
sentence, and execute Sánchez quickly. In fact, Nalle demonstrates the poverty
of those outdated presuppositions. The judges associated with Sánchez’s case
suspected that he was insane. Rather than a rush to judgment, the inquisitors questioned Sánchez at length about his beliefs and, with a great deal of
patience, attempted to persuade him to relinquish his views. At the same
time, Nalle suggests, they were waiting for sufficient evidence of mental instability to allow them to end the trial by reason of insanity. When the first inquisitor assigned to the case finally did render a death sentence, Sánchez was
permitted an atypical last-minute conversion and confession, and was released.
Four years later, at his third appearance before the authorities of the Holy Office, the inquisitors finally decided that they had sufficient evidence of his mental instability to remand him to the custody of an insane asylum in Zaragoza,
where they worried that he receive effective treatment. Within a year and a half
the former wool carder escaped the asylum and returned home, where once
again he attracted the notice of the inquisitors. There the record ends.
In Mad for God, Nalle not only does a wonderful job of demythologizing
the Inquisition, but also demonstrates, at a human level, how a trial before
the Inquisition was conducted. She also weaves in an elegant and useful discussion about the challenges posed by the silences in inquisitorial and other
sources. At the end of her book, Nalle notes that the inquisitors had much
compassion for Bartolomé Sánchez. Her sympathetic rendering of Sánchez
and his inquisitors reveals the depth of Nalle’s compassion for her subjects.
In short, Mad for God is a very good addition to the literature on the Inquisi-

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tion, madness, and daily life in early modern Spain, and it deserves to be widely
read.
GRETCHEN STARR-LEBEAU
The University of Kentucky

Anti-Italianism in Sixteenth-Century France. By Henry Heller. (Toronto and
Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 307. $60.00.)
Henry Heller’s latest book tackles a subject that has long been known, occasionally tackled by literary scholars, but rarely addressed by historians in any
kind of systematic way: the intense xenophobia in France directed at Italians in
the sixteenth century that reached its zenith during the Wars of Religion. First,
he suggests that many more Italians belonged to the Protestant community in
Lyons than has been previously thought. While historians have long known
about the domination of the banking industry by Italians in Lyons, Heller argues
that many of the Italians in Lyons were in fact Protestants. This did not apply so
much to the banking families who were from Florence, but to those who had
emigrated to Lyons from Genoa and especially from Lucca, an important Protestant center in Italy. Heller admits that the number of Italian Protestants in Lyons
was surely small, though he is probably right that if six of the ten leading banking families from Lucca in Lyons converted to Protestantism, then this small
number probably wielded significant influence. His point is that the Catholic
majority detested the Italians in Lyons not only because of their influential role
in the banking industry, but also because they had begun to infiltrate the ranks
of French Protestants.
A second argument is that the St. Bartholomew’s massacres were not solely
a religious phenomenon, as anti-Italianism in Paris was as rampant as antiProtestantism both before and after the massacres. Unlike in Lyons, Italians in
Paris had not converted to Protestantism and were despised for their more traditional links with the banking industry and the recent rise at court of several
prominent Italian families. Heller does not claim that many Italians were hunted
down and killed on the night of August 24, 1572, though he suggests they could
have been targeted. It was just three years later, however, in 1575 when the
most significant outbreak of violence against Italians in the capital did occur.
Moreover, the Italians became linked with Jews in the minds of many Parisians,
because of their mutual involvement in financial affairs.Thus, Heller shows that
anti-Italianism and anti-Semitism were intertwined in this period.
Finally, Heller demonstrates conclusively that both Huguenots and Catholics
in France were equally hostile to Italians. For the Huguenots, it was more a case
of associating Italians with the anti-Machiavellianism that emerged after the St.
Bartholomew’s massacres. For Catholics, it was during the period of the

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Catholic League (1584–1594) that this anti-Italianism reached its apex. In linking together Henri III and the Italian financiers, the deputies at the EstatesGeneral at Blois found a useful way to attack both the king and foreigners at the
same time.For example,Pierre d’Epinac,archbishop of Lyons,was a well-known
agent of the Guises and he himself had close ties with many Italian bankers.
Nevertheless, even he denounced the Italian influence on the crown and complained that Italian bankers were getting rich by getting all kinds of perquisites
and special favors in return for their loans to the king. Heller is surely right to
stress that this criticism during the period of the League went far beyond the
traditional complaints against foreign influence in the past, resulting as it did in
calls for regicide.In conclusion,Heller provides a great service in examining the
anti-Italian literature of the sixteenth century in all its many guises, and he is especially good in demonstrating how much it contributed to evolving French notions of national sentiment and racism in the period.
MACK P. HOLT
George Mason University

Ramus and Reform: University and Church at the End of the Renaissance. By
James Veazie Skalnik. (Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press.
2002. Pp. xii, 172. $39.95.)
This slim but important study begins with the statement:“Peter Ramus was a
difficult man.”The author proceeds to demonstrate the point thoroughly. By the
time the reader has finished, it is easy to appreciate why a colleague in the University of Paris denounced him as “either rabid and demented or else perverse
and criminal” ( p. 1). Skalnik has well integrated the biographical details of Ramus’s life into the account of his beliefs and goals, thereby making the analysis
of his motivations and those of his many critics plausible and convincing.
Skalnik insists that Ramus had an ideology of reform, not so much of religion,
as Ramus came to religious reform late in life, but of education and, more
broadly, of society.As a self-made man himself, his ideal was a meritocracy of talent and learning, not one of birth. Brought up during the reign of Francis I,
which Skalnik proposes was an era when the social structure of France was far
more fluid than it had been for centuries and would be for centuries to come,
Ramus sought to expand the opportunities for bright young men (his meritocracy did not extend to women), especially at the University of Paris. Thus his
challenge as a new master of arts to the primacy of Aristotle in the university,
which he saw as perpetuating the control of learning by a handful of men
trained in scholasticism. Ramus moved on to challenge Latin as the language of
learning, proposing the substitution of the people’s French. In his offices as
royal professor of mathematics, although he was not much of a mathematician,
and principal of the College of Presles, Ramus sought to implement a reform of
education that emphasized practical knowledge made available to bright young

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men regardless of status or wealth. One of the strengths of this book is its detailed study of both the royal professorships, providing a valuable appendix on
them between 1530 and 1610, and Ramus’s college, especially its finances.
Skalnik demonstrates that venality appeared in the University of Paris after
1560, and Ramus proposed to cure the ill by establishing royal salaries for the
faculty members.
Given Ramus’s unrelenting hostility to oligarchies in almost every aspect of
French society, it came as a surprise to no one when he attended a Reformed
service in 1569. Most everyone believed he was a Protestant long before, although Skalnik’s examination of Ramus’s will of 1559 shows that he still was a
Catholic when that highly personal document was written. Once committed,
Ramus brought his demand for meritocracy to his new church. Drawing more
from Zwingli than Calvin, he challenged the leadership in the French Reformed
churches exercised by Geneva and was deeply involved in the Congregationalist controversy at the time he was murdered during St. Bartholomew’s Day.
Skalnik concludes by analyzing Ramus’s use of timocracy, which for Ramus
meant more than oligarchy but less than democracy.
Painting often with broad strokes, Skalnik at times overstates his case both in
the extent to which Francis I’s reign was a period of social mobility even for
the humble and how badly it declined in the following decades. In the late sixteenth century, there were still commoners with positions of authority in the
army and the Catholic hierarchy,leading to complaints at the 1614 Estates.I also
dispute the assertion that no one had Henry II “so firmly in hand as the Cardinal of Lorraine” ( p. 70). Montmorencey, Diane de Poitiers, and Francis of Guise
all had more influence than the cardinal in 1551, when Ramus was named a
royal professor, although certainly the cardinal was Ramus’s major patron at the
court.
Such minor criticism aside, Skalnik makes his case for Ramus’s ardent opposition to oligarchy in education,royal office, and religion. He has written a lively,
succinct study of Ramus, which will be the starting point for any future work
on the man and his thought.
FREDERIC J. BAUMGARTNER
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Plots and Plotters in the Reign of Elizabeth I. By Francis Edwards, S.J. (Dublin:
Four Courts Press. Distributed in the United States by ISBS, Portland, Oregon. 2002. Pp. 296. $50.00.)
Francis Edwards was archivist of the English Jesuit province and later director of the central archives of the Society. He has written extensively on Elizabethan politics, and this book deals with eleven plots, or rumored plots, which
occurred between 1571 and 1601.These, he argues, were all manipulated, or in-

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vented outright, by William Cecil Lord Burghley and his son Sir Robert Cecil,
successively the leading ministers of Elizabeth I.They were “the only contrivers
with sufficient daring,intelligence and influence”to do so.“Their imprint lies on
all the plots.”They “behaved with complete ruthlessness and an astonishing degree of success,” using the plots to eliminate all their opponents. In the obscure
and frequently ludicrous Squier plot of 1597–98, which admittedly “teems with
absurdities,” the younger Cecil nevertheless made his “first truly independent
excursion into the dark realm of plot management.” Finally in 1605 with the
Gunpower plot (not treated here), Cecil “produced a masterpiece . . . a contrivance flawless enough to deceive for centuries.” The aim was the most extreme repression of Roman Catholics in England, smearing them by association
with treachery. After 1605,“the papists came increasingly to occupy the position of the Jews in Nazi Germany.” In the course of their deceptions the Cecils
succeeded in “losing” large numbers of volumes of the privy council registers,
organizing the poisoning of Ferdinando fifth earl of Derby, and forging (along
with Sir Francis Walsingham) any documents that might come in useful. Both
Cecils aimed at an absolute monopoly of power: anyone who “attempted to exercise independent political judgment was destined for removal” ( pp. 13–14,
17, 27, 129, 253–258, 282–283).
It would be tedious to enter into detailed argument here. Father Edwards ignores a large quantity of modern scholarship which does not support his picture of the Cecils, and does not discuss numerous scrupulous studies which
show that the Roman Catholic minority could, in many circumstances and
places, live largely unmolested by the English authorities. It is simply untrue—
and surely offensive to Jewish people all too aware of the reality of Nazism—to
see the flexible regime of James VI and I as equivalent to a Holocaust. On the
contrary, with the exercise of only a token amount of discretion, Roman
Catholics flourished at court and in the counties. Queen Anne of Denmark was
one of them:so was the Earl of Northampton,a leading privy councillor.In 1611
the king, on the advice of Robert Cecil himself, allowed the central group of
Roman Catholic families linked to the Gunpowder plotters—the Treshams,
Throckmortons, Brudenells, and Tuftons—to buy hereditary baronetcies from
the Crown, a move intended to re-integrate them into the county elites from
which their relatives’ disastrous extremism had excluded them.
The overstatement of the argument is regrettable since it is perfectly true
that the plots have been treated over-simplistically by Protestant historians. Father Edwards is right to point to “the seamy side of Elizabethan history” and to
contest “the over-optimistic view” ( pp. 13–14). His earlier researches on the
1571 Ridolfi Plot have produced good evidence for suspecting that the Genoese banker Ridolfi was a double agent for the Elizabethan privy council. Even
at the time, the Duke of Alba thought Philip II was very naive to trust him. Similarly, Father Edwards is on excellent ground in seeing the Lopez plot of 1594 as
largely an invention, whipped up by the Earl of Essex as a factional ploy to outmanoeuvre the Cecils, who thought there was little evidence against Dr. Lopez,
the queen’s crypto-Jewish physician. The implications of this interpretation,

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however, are not explored: to depict the Cecils as outwitted by an even more
antipapist and ruthlessly ambitious politician hardly supports the author’s argument. Many of the lesser “plots” belong, as Father Edwards indicates, to the
realms of fantasy, criminality, and mental illness rather than sedition.There is no
reason to think that the Cecils were the originators; such charades sprang up
spontaneously, particularly in wartime when episodes of panic were common.
In January,1598,Lord Thomas Howard was pestered by a man who insisted that
a most dangerous plot was being hatched at Amsterdam. Howard despatched
him to Robert Cecil for interrogation, with a note describing him as “this either
honest or frantic [crazy] fellow.” Father Edwards never considers the dilemma
of the Elizabethan government, particularly after the 1570 bull of excommunication against the queen, an ill-informed papal miscalculation that incensed
Philip II. Thereafter the privy council could not ignore any possibility of a Roman Catholic conspiracy, however flimsy, that might assassinate the childless
queen and plunge England into chaos. We live in similar times. After September
11, 2001, the intelligence services of the western democracies have been inundated with information, most of it utterly trivial but requiring extensive analysis
just in case there should be some real evidence of terrorism. Innocent people
have suffered in the subsequent investigations.A comparison between extreme
modern fears of Islamic violence and obsessive Elizabethan fears of Catholic
sedition would seem more fruitful than the insistence that behind every single
plot, however improbable, far-fetched, or indeed non-existent, there lurked two
cunning and indefatigable puppet-masters, William and Robert Cecil.
PAULINE CROFT
Royal Holloway, University of London

Rhetoric & Dialectic in the Time of Galileo. By Jean Dietz Moss and William A.
Wallace. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.
2003. Pp. ix, 438. $69.95.)
The core of this book consists of introductions to and abridged translations of
six Renaissance works in Latin by Italian authors. Five are by Ludovico Carbone
(1545–1597):Introduction to Logic (1597);The Tables of Cypriano Soarez’s Art
of Rhetoric (1589); On the Art of Speaking (1589); On Oratorical and Dialectical Invention (1589);and On Divine Rhetoric (1595).The sixth is Aristotle’s Art
of Rhetoric (1579) by Antonio Riccobono (1541–1599). The subject matter is
clearly that cluster of fields known by such labels as logic,dialectic,and rhetoric;
here logic means the theory and practice of demonstration, dialectic the theory
and practice of probable reasoning, and rhetoric the theory and practice of persuasive argument. There is also a general introduction with two aims: (1) to contextualize these works in the history of logic-dialectic-rhetoric,by discussing the
Aristotelian and medieval traditions and such other Renaissance authors as
Lorenzo Valla, Rudolph Agricola, and Peter Ramus; (2) to apply these ideas to the
Galileo affair (1613–1633) and advance an account I would label rhetorical.

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This book is clearly written, well documented, skillfully argued, and attractively produced. For this alone the authors should be commended. But it has
other merits. One is that the material has greater significance than they realize
insofar as it is of some relevance to that philosophical and cultural movement
labeled informal logic and critical thinking. For example, the following definition of logic by Carbone would find favor with scholars in that field:“Logic is a
habit that directs the operations of the mind; or, it is a science of beings of reason as they are directive of the intellect’s operations. Or, it is a faculty that treats
of the method by which things that are obscure are manifested by defining,
things that are confused are discerned by distinguishing, and truths are confirmed and errors refuted by arguing” ( p. 61).
A second merit is that their account of the Galileo affair is relatively novel and
original, and this is no mean accomplishment in light of the countless pronouncements about this cause célèbre that have been advanced in the past four
centuries. Thus their account deserves a brief summary: In 1616 the Church issued a decree forbidding Catholics to defend Copernicanism as true, because it
was contrary to Scripture. After one of Galileo’s admirers became Pope Urban
VIII in 1623, Galileo felt he could resume his pro-Copernican cause as long as
he did it discreetly. He tried this with the Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican (1632). Paying lip service to the decree, he
claimed he was defending Copernicanism only as probable. He worked on
three levels. Dialectically, he examined both Ptolemaic and Copernican arguments, concluding that the latter were stronger than the former. Logically, he argued that only the earth’s motion could provide a physical explanation of why
the tides occur, and that the demonstrative certainty of this argument could be
undermined only by invoking divine omnipotence and saying that God could
have created tides on a motionless earth. Rhetorically, Galileo disparaged Ptolemaic ideas, arguments, and authors with “figures such as ridicule, irony, analogy,
metaphor, metonymy, prosopopoeia, and more” ( p. 10). The effort did not succeed: Church authorities found his comparison of the relative merits of arguments on both sides biased toward Copernicanism; his tidal argument was
found invalid; and his rhetoric was found offensive, especially by the pope.
More generally, the authorities found the book to violate the separation among
the three domains of demonstration,dialectic,and rhetoric.I would want to question several parts of this account, but that is beyond the scope of a brief review.
MAURICE A. FINOCCHIARO
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Giambattista Riccioli e il merito scientifico dei Gesuiti nell’età Barocca.
Edited by Maria Teresa Borgato. [Istituto e museo di storia della scienza,
Biblioteca di “Nuncius”: Studi e Testi XLIV.] (Florence: Leo S. Olschki. 2002.
Pp. xviii, 484, and 29 illustrations. D51.00 paperback.)

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Giambattista Riccioli was born in Ferrara in 1598, entered the Society of Jesus in 1614, was ordained in the winter of 1627–28, and wanted to go to China
as a missionary. Denied permission, he spent his life teaching in north Italian Jesuits schools, especially at Bologna. Combining excellent mathematical technique, great skill in designing experiments, and accurate observations, he made
important contributions to the study of falling bodies (supporting Galilei), the
pendulum, astronomy, geography, and cartography. This book is the result of a
conference, probably the first devoted to Riccioli, held at Ferrara and Bondeno
on October 15 and 16,1998.It consists of twelve articles in Italian,and one each
in English, French, and Spanish, plus valuable appendices.
Although Riccioli is the focus, the volume offers a considerable amount of additional information about Jesuit scientific activity in Italy and the tension between Aristotelian natural philosophy and the new theories of Copernicus and
Galilei. In the 1640’s, the Jesuits tried to reconcile scientifically the two, but they
later became more conservative, partly in order to safeguard religious doctrine.
Four articles deal with Riccioli’s astronomical works.Ugo Baldini,in a careful and
comprehensive article, gives details about the help that Riccioli’s younger Jesuit
contemporary, Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618–1663), known for his studies on
optics, gave to the preparation of Riccioli’s Almagestum novum (1651). Juan
Casanovas argues that Riccioli accepted much of the work of Johannes Kepler.
Fabrizio Bonoli speculates about the astronomical instruments that Riccioli used
and provides some illustrations. Alfredo Dinis argues that Riccioli’s views about
Copernicus evolved. While he never accepted Copernican heliocentrism as
more than a useful mathematical hypothesis, he was more open early in his career, but later feared that denying the literal interpretation of the Bible on astronomical matters might weaken belief in religious doctrine. Jacques Gapaillard
analyzes Riccioli’s geodesic studies, i.e., plotting the shortest line between two
points on a curved surface, again with the collaboration of Grimaldi.
Riccioli also taught and wrote about theology. Antonino Poppi analyzes his
book on the logical distinctions between God and His creatures, an erudite but
traditional work of Second Scholasticism. Cesare Preti uses documents found in
the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to discuss the
complicated history of Riccioli’s other two theological works, one defending
the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary against a Dominican who
rejected it, and another defending the infallibility of popes in supporting the
doctrine and proclaiming feasts honoring Mary. Opinions in the Congregation
of the Index were divided, some arguing that the second book should not be
printed because it defended papal infallibility with dubious arguments, and that
there was no point to attacking the Dominicans. However, Riccioli went ahead
and published the papal infallibility book with an altered permission to print,
thus angering the Dominican inquisitor at Bologna. Then the Congregation of
the Holy Office ordered the book placed on the Index of Prohibited Books and
confiscated most of the copies. This episode confirmed an internal Jesuit evaluation of Riccioli in 1658 as a man of “ingenium optimum” but “iudicium
mediocre, prudentia mediocris.”

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Denise Aricò discusses well the institutions ( Jesuit college, university, and
academies) which brought together scholars in Bologna. Renato Raffaelli analyzes the manual of Latin prose and poetry that Riccioli published in 1639.
Veronica Gavagna analyzes a dialogue on meteorology of Paolo Casati. And Victor Navarro Brotóns discusses the influence of Riccioli’s astronomical work in
Spain.
Three articles deal with Ferrara.Alessandra Fiocca looks at Riccioli’s research
on controlling the waters of the Po River, a perennial issue in Ferrara, and Giacomo Savioli uncovers the will of Riccioli’s father in Ferrara, documenting family affluence. Luigi Pepe, who edited I gesuiti e i loro libri a Ferrara: Frontespizi
figurati del Seicento (Ferrara, 1998), published in conjunction with the conference, adds an interesting study on the contents of the Ferrara Jesuit library at
the suppression of the Society in 1773. Maria Teresa Borgato provides an excellent long article on Riccioli’s studies of falling bodies plus two useful appendices,the first an edition of a manuscript concerning computational methods in
astronomy, and the second a list of the nearly 500 titles found in the lecture hall
of the mathematics teacher in the Jesuit school in Ferrara in 1773.
The only criticisms to make are that some of the articles presuppose a certain
amount of knowledge by readers, and some typographical errors slipped
through. This is a learned collection of studies that adds much information
about Riccioli and Jesuit science in the seventeenth century.
PAUL F. GRENDLER
University of Toronto (Emeritus)

Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Edited by Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter.
(New York: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. ix, 270. $59.95.)
This volume collects the papers delivered at a conference held in Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, in 1997, which was the culmination of a series of
academic symposia dealing with the issue of religious toleration in England
(1991) and the European Reformation (1996). In the eighteenth century, obviously, the notion evolved from a limited practice, religious tolerance, to a concept, toleration. This is the common theme of the different contributions,
introduced by a synthetic presentation by the editors. Some of the papers have
a more abstract perspective: M. Fitzpatrick,“Toleration and the Enlightenment
Movement”; R. Wokler,“Multiculturalism and Ethnic Cleansing in the Enlightenment”; S. Tomaselli, “Intolerance, the Virtue of Princes and Radicals”; J. Israel,
“Spinoza, Locke and the Enlightenment Battle for Toleration.” They aptly present the theoretical basis for a form of acceptance of religious diversity. The
level of discussion is, as expected, rather high and stimulating, Fitzpatrick’s
learned essay on the passage from toleration to religious Liberty being particu-

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larly illuminating in showing the limits—for lack of experience—of the
Philosophes’ concept of freedom of conscience.
The other contributions are geographical: E. van der Wall,“Toleration and Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic”; J. Champion,“Toleration and Citizenship in
Enlightenment England: John Toland and the Naturalization of the Jews”; M. Linton,“Citizenship and Religious Toleration in France”; J. Whaley,“Religious Toleration in the Holy Roman Empire”; K. Vocelka,“Enlightenment in the Habsburg
Monarchy”; M. Miller,“Toleration in Eastern Europe: the Dissident Question of
Eighteenth-Century Poland-Lithuania.” Each one, well researched and carefully
presented, has its own value. Being more familiar with the topic and literature,
I was not particularly convinced by the paper on France. The Jansenists’ contribution to the debate on religious toleration is not well understood, despite reference to the most serious studies. The last papers, N. Davidson,“Toleration in
Enlightenment Italy,”and H. Kamen’s “Inquisition,Tolerance and Liberty in Eighteenth Century Spain,” are valuable for the authors’ effort to find and develop
what was conspicuously absent in Southern European Catholicism. Davidson,
however, finds in Italy a desire for intellectual freedom as a reaction to the fruitless action of the Inquisition. Representatives of the Catholic Enlightenment, including Pope Benedict XIV and some of his cardinals, seem to have favored a
more open discussion and exchange of ideas.
In sum, a valuable conference, certainly well-prepared and well-presented
that deserved publication. It will be a reliable reference on the issues.
JACQUES M. GRES-GAYER
The Catholic University of America

Late Modern European
Madeleine Sophie Barat, 1779–1865: A Life. By Phil Kilroy. (New York and
Mahwah, New Jersey. Paulist Press. 2000. Pp. x, 550. $34.95.)
Phil Kilroy has written a masterful biography of Sophie Barat, founder of the
Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The book not only offers an intimate portrait of Barat’s personal and professional evolution, but also draws the reader
into the fascinating intricacies of ecclesiastical politics, Gallican and ultramontane battles, French spiritual currents, and the precarious fortunes of an apostolic women’s religious order vis-à-vis church demands for strict enclosure and
bishops’ desires for full control over convents in their dioceses. Kilroy has
painstakingly made her way through a wealth of primary sources, many largely
overlooked heretofore, including 14,000 letters by Barat, thousands of letters to
her, and a trove of documents such as house journals,personal memoirs,and ecclesiastical and governmental decrees.The author has left no stone unturned in
research at sixteen archives in France and Italy.

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Sophie Barat came from a lower bourgeois family in the small town of Joigny,
France. She received a rigorous education, unusual for girls of her day, from an
overbearing older brother. He inculcated in her a Jansenistic spirituality that
she struggled over many years to counterbalance with the warmer image of the
human, loving, suffering Christ manifested in devotion to the Sacred Heart. At
the young age of 23, Barat was elected superior of a fledgling group of women
dedicated to educating girls in post-revolutionary France. The Society of the Sacred Heart stands out within the explosion of nineteenth-century French
women’s religious orders for its famed education of the elite sectors of society,
although it was Society policy to attach a poor school or similar work to each
of its boarding schools. Reflecting the biases of her times, Barat opposed mixing
girls from distinct classes. She believed, as did so many Catholic leaders, that educating the elite to a sense of Christian responsibility, morality, and charity, was
the best way to restore religious values to society.
Kilroy’s book surpasses all previous biographies of Barat and is unlikely to be
replaced for many years. She has a fine sense for the myth-making and hagiography that enters into histories of religious orders and their founders and
knows how to draw on these without sharing their facile conclusions. A number of sacred cows meet their end in this biography. For example, Father of the
Faith and then Jesuit Joseph Varin, formerly lauded as faithful friend and supporter in the foundation of the Society, is shown frequently to be undependable, distrustful of Barat’s leadership ability, and a poor judge of character. More
significant are Kilroy’s insights into Barat herself. The author frankly examines
not only Barat’s successes, but also her mistakes and failings, and how these
contributed to her evolving leadership skills. In 1820, for example, Barat purchased the sumptuous Hôtel Biron (now the Musée Rodin) in the aristocratic
center of Paris, a choice she later rued for its identification of the Society with
the reactionary forces of the Parisian aristocracy. For much of her life, Barat relied on her gift for relationships to lead the Society, but this style proved inadequate as the Society grew, and disastrous when Barat failed to take the measure
of those whom she trusted. The most notable example is her intimate friendship with the French aristocrat Eugénie de Gramont, whom Barat left as superior of the community on the grounds of the influential Hôtel Biron for thirty
years. Despite repeated and overwhelming evidence that de Gramont was severely undermining Barat’s authority and dividing the Society to the point of
schism, and despite constant warnings from other religious, Jesuit friends, a
trusted bishop, and the Society’s own ecclesiastical superior in Rome, Barat
failed to remove de Gramont from power. On the other hand, Barat astutely employed her non-confrontational mode of diplomacy to win a modified form of
cloister for the Society, to gain recognition from Rome of her own right to make
policies and move personnel without undue interference from local bishops,
and to negotiate between the contentious Gallican and ultramontane parties
within the Church. Other noteworthy topics include Kilroy’s discussion of
Barat’s frequent illnesses, the expansion of the Society into the American fron-

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tier, and the extent to which the Society’s French identity proved sometimes
off-putting to houses elsewhere in the order. The latter topic could have been
enhanced by a discussion of the extent to which French manners and customs
were imposed on religious throughout the world. When Barat died in 1865,
sixty-three years after she had assumed leadership of the Society, she left an order of about 3,500 members in eighty-nine institutions in over a dozen countries in Europe, North America, South America, and north Africa.
The book has photographs, sketches and facsimiles of notable persons,
places, and documents, and a detailed Index. The meticulous endnotes include
the original French for hundreds of quotations included in the text. A few maps
would have been helpful.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. One might quibble about some occasional repetition in the book, but its detail will overall be richly rewarding to
anyone interested in the religious history of this period.
CATHERINE M. MOONEY
Weston Jesuit School of Theology

Britain and the Papacy in the Age of Revolution, 1846–1851. By Saho
Matsumoto-Best. [Royal Historical Society: Studies in History. New series.]
(Rochester, New York: Boydell Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 196. $75.00.)
In my recent book (Great Britain and the Holy See: The Diplomatic Relations Question, 1846–1852 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2003]) on Papal-British relations during the first Russell ministry,
I observed that previous studies “tell the story from a British perspective
(which is not to say a pro-British point of view), simply because little effort has
been made to utilize Roman archives.”This, I contended, was a mistake:“more is
gained by hearing the Papacy’s side of the story than merely listening to the
same conversation from the other end of the line. For it is not quite the same
conversation when one party would just as soon hang up.” I sought then to
demonstrate that “the primary reason why diplomatic relations were not established was that the Holy See really did not want them to be.”
The dissertation upon which Professor Matsumoto-Best’s study is based bore
the subtitle “British Reactions to the Papacy of Pius IX, 1846–52.” Notwithstanding some limited use of Roman archives, this remains an accurate description and sums up well the contribution made. Readers will find a thorough
treatment of the views of contemporary British diplomats, statesmen, and public opinion on all that occurred in Rome during Pio Nono’s first years.
For the most part, unfortunately, the Holy See’s viewpoint finds expression
only at second hand. The problem is not primarily that British diplomats and

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others were biased in their outlook (though they often were), but that they
were generally clueless about the opinions,intentions,and operations of the Roman Curia.
Professor Matsumoto-Best’s work quite properly devotes attention to the
1847–48 Minto Mission, which clumsily sought to take advantage of a brief period when Pius IX was willing to explore closer ties with Great Britain so as to
gain greater independence from France and especially Austria. Desiring to increase its influence both upon Italian affairs and the activity of the Holy See in
Ireland, the Russell ministry had two very good reasons to want a British legation established in Rome.
However, for precisely the same reasons, the Holy See had long been resistant
to the Protestant power possessing a formal diplomatic presence. To follow the
growing concerns of Curial officials in the fall of 1847, even before the Earl of
Minto arrived in Rome, makes clear the apprehension with which most Papal
officials contemplated the possibility of a Palmerstonian proconsul regularly delivering lectures (accompanied perhaps by threats) to the Pope on how to rule
his States—and how to facilitate Her Majesty’s Government’s rule over Ireland.
Pius IX was, no doubt, genuinely outraged by the Eglintoun Clause, the House
of Lords’ insistence (February, 1848) that no priest could serve as the Pope’s
representative in London. But it is likely that he was—and certain that some of
his subordinates were—also relieved that a legitimate reason now existed to
spurn the no-longer-desired advances of the British lion. The extent to which
most of the Curia feared and distrusted Great Britain cannot be appreciated utilizing only British documents.
A seeming lack of familiarity with the institutional aspects of Catholicism
leads to several errors in Professor Matsumoto-Best’s work: Monsignor Corboli
Bussi ( p. 44) and Father Ventura ( p. 59) are promoted to Cardinal; Rosmini’s Institute of Charity ought really not be identified as “the Rosmini Charity foundation” ( p. 23); Robert Graham, S.J., is not usually known as S.J.R. Graham ( pp. 89,
184); and it rather misses the point to say that the 1850 re-establishment of the
English Catholic hierarchy “meant that the English Catholic Church which had
up until then been indirectly ruled by Propaganda Fide was now to be governed by the Vatican directly”( p.144).In fact,the change reduced direct Roman
control.
JAMES FLINT, O.S.B.
St. Procopius Abbey
Lisle, Illinois

Catholic Churchmen and the Celtic Revival in Ireland, 1848–1916. By Kevin
Collins. (Dublin: Four Courts Press. Distributed in the United States by
ISBS, Portland, Oregon. 2002. Pp. 203. $50.00.)

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Historical accounts of the Celtic, or Gaelic, cultural revival in Ireland, which
occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have generally emphasized the significance of secular organizations, such as the Gaelic
Athletic Association (founded in 1884) and the Gaelic League (1893),while suggesting that the Roman Catholic Church was, despite the participation of many
priests in the movement, largely indifferent and, at times, even hostile to the
cause of preserving traditional Gaelic culture and reviving the Irish language.
Such narratives tend to locate the origins of Irish cultural nationalism in
Thomas Davis, who as one of the leaders of the non-sectarian Young Ireland
movement of the 1840’s coupled advocacy of Irish political independence with
calls for preserving the Irish language. Kevin Collins’s useful and lucidly written
study convincingly establishes a central and ongoing role in all phases of the
Celtic revival for the Catholic clergy, including many prominent bishops, and argues that an unbreakable bond between Gaelic culture and the Catholic faith
began to emerge in the writings of the historian Geoffrey Keating and other
post-Reformation Irish Catholics as early as the seventeenth century.
Despite continuing differences about political tactics, the Irish Catholic
clergy and revolutionary nationalists had come, by the time of the Easter Rising
in 1916, to conceive the Irish nation as being necessarily rooted in Gaelic cultural traditions and also inherently Catholic. Collins argues convincingly that
clerical involvement in the Celtic revival was decisive and that, ultimately, the
activities of Catholic bishops and priests were far more influential in instilling a
sense of pride in the national cultural heritage among the masses of Irish
people than such elite movements as the Anglo-Irish literary revival. Rather
than following the familiar line of descent for the ideal of an “Irish Ireland,”
which runs from Davis through Douglas Hyde and D. P. Moran and culminates
in Padraic Pearse, one of the martyrs of 1916, Collins details contributions of
equal or even greater significance made by such Catholic priests as Father John
Lanigan (1758–1828), Canon Ulick Bourke (1829–1887), Father Peter O’Leary
(1839–1920), Father Patrick Dinneen (1860–1934), Father Michael O’Hickey
(1861–1917), and Father Eugene O’Growney (1863–1899). While Lanigan was
an antiquarian and church historian of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, the others were all active in the Irish language movement during the
Celtic revival.
Collins also highlights the strong support given the Irish language and Gaelic
culture by Archbishop John MacHale (1791–1881) of Tuam, who translated
much of The Iliad into Irish, Archbishop Thomas William Croke (1823–1902)
of Cashel, who served as a patron of the Gaelic Athletic Association, and other
bishops. Especially revealing is Collins’s treatment of Paul Cardinal Cullen
(1802–1878), commonly regarded as an enemy of the national cause because of
his firm opposition to the revolutionary Fenians. Collins points out, however,
that Cullen strongly supported an Irish identity that was both Catholic and
Gaelic, and regarded the “golden age” of “saints and scholars” in early medieval
Ireland as the foundation of a continuous national historical tradition, the
strength of which had allowed the Irish people to endure such subsequent trau-

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mas as the Penal Laws of the eighteenth century and the Great Famine of the
1840’s without sacrificing either their national identity or their faith.
Although their mutual participation in the Celtic revival provided clerical
and lay cultural nationalists in Ireland a common perspective on the nature of
Irish identity, they still had very significant differences about particular issues.A
controversy erupted in 1909, for instance, over the status of the Irish language
at the new National University. Contrary to Gaelic League demands, the Catholic
bishops opposed making it mandatory for matriculation.Father Michael O’Hickey,
professor of Irish at the seminary at Maynooth, was dismissed because of his
outspoken support of the League. Although Collins rightly balances this instance of conflict with the long history of support for the Irish language at
Maynooth, he still tends to underplay the extent to which the priorities of the
Church often conflicted with the cause of national cultural revival. In addition,
Collins’s relatively brief study seems simultaneously too short and too long. It is
too short in that many of its accounts of prominent clerical revivalists would be
enhanced by fuller detail. For instance, Collins mentions the contentious relationship between Cullen and MacHale, but does not provide any relevant details about these personal differences. At the same time, the book seems
overlong in that the abundance of quotation from previously neglected clerical
revivalists tends, while flavorful, to be repetitive.
In sum, Collins’s book provides a useful corrective of earlier studies of Irish
cultural nationalism that focused too narrowly on secular figures, and underlines the need for a new scholarly synthesis that balances clerical and nonclerical contributions to the Gaelic revival.
FRANK A. BILETZ
Loyola University Chicago

Aux Frontières de la Paix: Bons Offices, Médiations, Arbitrages du Saint-Siège
(1878–1922). By Jean-Marc Ticchi. [Collection de l’École Française de
Rome,294.] (Rome:École Française de Rome.2002.Pp.ix,483.Paperback.)
This is a study of the development of the papacy’s role as arbitrator, mediator,
and ‘honest broker’ in international disputes, in the reigns of Leo XIII
(1878–1903), Pius X (1903–1914), and Benedict XV (1914–1922). Most of the
disputes in which Vatican diplomacy involved itself were between Latin American nations, but some involved the large and small European powers, and the
United States of America.
The study is original because relatively little attention has been focused on
this important aspect of the diplomacy of the modern papacy, and it has been
carried out with meticulous scholarship, providing the reader with an exhaus-

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tive historiographical contextualization and an elaborate scholarly apparatus,
including a complete list of all the disputes in which the papal diplomacy was
involved and a full itemization of the archival sources consulted. In this regard
it’s a pity that there is not a subject as well as a name index.
Ticchi presents Leo XIII’s ‘active’ diplomacy within the context of the ongoing struggle with the Kingdom of Italy over the “Roman Question.”A high diplomatic profile certainly was a very effective way of asserting the pope’s
continued claim to the status of “sovereign pontiff” despite the loss of the Papal
States in 1870, and of re-establishing the moral authority of the papacy in the
world. He gives us a very detailed examination of Leo’s most famous diplomatic
intervention, the Spanish-German dispute over the Caroline Islands, mediation
in other disputes between Latin American states, and also the Vatican’s failed attempts to prevent war between Spain and the United States over Cuba in 1898.
Leo also had his diplomatic failures, and the most notable was the exclusion
of the Holy See from the Hague Peace of 1899. Ticchi explores the complex
diplomatic negotiations surrounding the organization of the conference, including the extremely duplicitous diplomacy of the Russians when faced by the
intransigent refusal of Italy to allow the papacy to participate in a major international gathering for fear that its representative would exploit the occasion to
raise the “Roman Question.” Ironically, it was the poor Dutch, hosts of the conference, who got the blame for papal exclusion. The Holy See was also to be excluded from the Hague Conference of 1907. In his analysis of the pontificate of
Pius X, Ticchi demonstrates that though the diplomacy of Papa Sarto and his
secretary of state, Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, in many ways demonstrates a
break with Leonine diplomacy, they continued to regard a peace-making role as
normal to the Holy See.
This is a good book, but there is one disappointment.The title defines the period under study very clearly,“1878–1922.” Consequently, the reader not unnaturally expects a full examination of papal peace diplomacy during World War I,
whereas in fact the important pontificate of Benedict XV is effectively subsumed into the Conclusion.Thus the really crucial mediatory role that Benedict
and his secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, both pupils of Rampolla and
Leo XIII, sought to play to bring the belligerents to the negotiating table is dealt
with in exactly six pages. One understands the author’s dilemma; a full examination of wartime papal diplomacy would have required a very much longer
work: Would it not have made more sense to restrict the book to the study of
the reigns of Leo XIII and Pius X, and then add some remarks about the pontificate of Benedict XV as a postcript?
JOHN POLLARD
Trinity Hall, Cambridge

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The Voices of Gemma Galgani: The Life and Afterlife of a Modern Saint. By
Rudolf M. Bell and Cristina Mazzoni. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2003. Pp. xviii, 320. $30.00.)
This is a multi-textured study of the spiritual experience of Gemma Galgani
(1878–1903). Galgani, the first person who lived in the twentieth century to be
canonized as a saint, has been an unknown figure except among those that are
familiar with Passionist spirituality, preaching, and popular devotion. In this
work Rudolf M. Bell and Cristina Mazzoni present Gemma’s writings in English
for the first time. They allow the reader to inhabit her world, the religious milieu of late nineteenth-century Lucca. Then, in separate essays, they reframe her
significance for those committed to an examined life of discipleship and mysticism in the twenty-first century.
In the helpful introductory chapter Bell considers the historical setting of
late-nineteenth-century Italy. Gemma was born just outside Lucca in 1878, the
fifth child and the first daughter of Enrico Galgani, a pharmacist, and Aurelia
Landi. Another boy and two girls followed. Her family was deeply Christian,
though influenced by the secularism and scientific rationalism that permeated
the educated classes throughout Europe. Gemma was bright, sensitive to the
poor, and fervent in faith. At the same time, she was brought up in the modern
world where secular concerns and institutions intruded everywhere. Gemma’s
writings reveal her profound longing for nurture and intimacy. After the death
of her parents—Aurelia died of tuberculosis in 1885 and Enrico died of throat
cancer in 1897—the Giannini family supplied some measure of warmth and affection. Both earthly and celestial surrogates provided Gemma with a sense of
security and belonging.
In the second, third, and fourth chapters the reader is given access to
Gemma’s life through her autobiography (up to 1899),her diary (summer 1900),
and her ecstasies and letters (summer 1992).Gemma reluctantly penned her autobiography in obedience to her spiritual director (her “Dad”), Passionist Father
Germano Ruoppolo (1850–1909).“The humility of a saint and the hubris of autobiography did not cohabit easily in Gemma’s conscience” ( p. 24). She completed the document in a remarkably fresh and unaffected style. The reader is
given glimpses into her spiritual companions: Mary, our Lady of Sorrows and
her surrogate mother, her guardian angel, Gabriel Possenti, the second member
of the Passionist community to be canonized, and Jesus, her beloved. Gemma
writes of her identification with the Passion of Jesus Crucified, her share in
Christ’s suffering through life-threatening illness, and her bearing the stigmata,
received on the eve of June 8, 1899, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The
three documents narrate her trials and struggles, her slow and gradual maturation in prayer and spirituality, and her movement from the exterior (the stigmata) to interiority and depth.
In chapters five and six Bell and Mazzoni bridge the Gemma Galgani of Lucca
and the Saint Gemma Galgani of today. Bell critiques the politics of making

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Gemma a saint,reviews the roles that Monsignor Volpi,Gemma’s first confessor,
and Father Germano, her spiritual director, played in her spiritual growth, and
the development of her cult beyond Lucca. Mazzoni brilliantly reads Gemma’s
life for today. This chapter, “A Saint’s Alphabet, or Learning to Read (with)
Gemma Galgani: Theory, Theology, Feminism,” is framed through feminist
hermeneutics. Mazzoni allows Saint Gemma Galgani to speak to a postmodern
world by considering her embodied self and clothing, her devotion to the Eucharist, her difficulties with food and hysteria, and much more. This chapter
alone is worth the price of the book.
JOHN J. O’BRIEN
Calvary Retreat Center
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts

Class and Religious Identity: The Rhenish Center Party in Wilhelmine Germany. By Thomas M. Bredohl. [Marquette Studies in Theology,Volume 18.]
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. 2000. Pp. 288. $35.00 paperback.)
In this well researched political history, Thomas Bredohl provides a careful
study that condenses the regional historiography and forwards a convincing argument. After sketching out the background of nineteenth-century Rhenish
Catholicism, Bredohl re-examines the Center Party’s failed courtship of the
working class and the party’s internal power struggles. He devotes separate
chapters to the Center’s organizational development under Karl Trimborn, the
various initiatives to attract industrial laborers to the party, and the public battles over Christian Trade Unionism (Gewerkschaftsstreit) and party reform
(Zentrumsstreit). He also includes a fine chapter on the Rhenish Center Party
and national politics. As a history of the regional party, this book demonstrates
how thorough our knowledge of politics in the Kaiserreich has become. Trimborn’s efforts to reform the party apparatus reveal for us the dynamics of an internal contest to preserve and to expand the Center. Historical debates over the
Kölner Richtung, the Bachem family, and Matthias Erzberger’s early career are
given full treatment, as are other significant arguments.
The Cologne-based reform movement hinged on questions of class and religious identity, and our understanding of German Catholic culture and society is
profoundly important for the conceptual framework of this monograph. Yet the
historical analysis of these issues is notably brief. Missing from this study are
several important contributions on class and Catholic identity in the Germanspeaking countries, particularly the research of the 1990’s. While David Blackbourn’s work is included, the more recent studies of identity and modernity by
Michael Klöcker, Urs Altermatt, and Wilfried Loth are absent. Raymond Sun’s
study of working-class Catholics in Cologne was probably unavailable, but
Thomas Mergel’s weighty analysis of the Rhenish Catholic Bürgertum certainly
was.Helmut Walser Smith’s German Nationalism and Religious Conflict (1995)

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and Noel Carey’s The Path to Christian Democracy (1996) would have strengthened the analysis of religious identity and political culture in Wilhelmine Germany.
By examining the various efforts to reach working-class voters in the Rhineland and the struggle to limit aristocratic and clerical control within the party
structure, Bredohl reveals what was specifically modern in this political history.
He rightly points out that democratic initiatives were confined solely to internal party reform.But his research begs a larger question that looms over all studies of political Catholicism in Wilhelmine Germany: What were the Catholic
political issues of the post-Kulturkampf era? Aristocratic, rural, and small-town
elements favored the status quo in the party, effectively blocking urban and industrial interests. Bredohl provides several clear examples of this, but none so
telling as the fundamental issue of redistricting. Redistricting for the new city
populations was never seriously entertained by the Center even if reformers
could demonstrate that these populations were overwhelmingly Catholic. At
the same time, working class voters came to view politics as a matter of economic interests and not a struggle to preserve a traditionalist Christian Weltanschauung. One wonders how much this political viewpoint can be attributed
to the actions rather than the ideology of the Center.The Center may have been
the party to protect Catholic interests, whenever they needed protection, but
political Catholicism provides more questions than answers about class and religious identity in modern Germany.
ERIC YONKE
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

L’Ouest-Éclair: Naissance et essor d’un grand quotidien régional, 1899–1933.
Under the direction of Michel Lagrée, Patrick Harismendy, and Michel Denis. (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 2000. Pp. 203. 150 Ff.)
A team of historians under the able direction of three professors from the
University of Rennes has produced a very interesting selection of essays on the
first thirty or so years of the regional daily newspaper, L’Ouest-Éclair. The collection of fourteen essays by twenty-one contributors is divided into three sections: the context (four essays), the newspaper and its personnel (four essays),
and the content (six essays).The essays vary in length from eight to twenty-four
pages, and there is some overlapping of information. Because of the overlapping, an index would have been helpful.
L’Ouest-Éclair first appeared on August 2,1899;it sought to reconcile Catholicism with republicanism. It never claimed to be Catholic but always claimed it
was written by militant Catholics (“catholiques sociaux” and “démocrates chrétiens”) who were republican. The majority of bishops in western France never
trusted L’Ouest-Éclair; they supported a rival conservative paper, Le Nouvelliste
de Bretagne. In 1910, the bishops of Brittany forbade their priests from sub-

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scribing to L’Ouest-Éclair; in 1927 the bishop of Nantes labeled L’Ouest-Éclair
“bad press.”Abbé Félix Trochu, one of the founders, had repeated troubles with
his ecclesiastical superior over his activity in the print media. Despite this lack
of support from the Catholic hierarchy, L’Ouest-Éclair prospered because of its
self-proclaimed moderation, its business acumen, and its appeal to rural Brittany. In 1899, the printrun was 1800; in 1913, 100,000 and in 1924, 250,000.
The first section (context) provides an overview of Catholicism in the 1890’s
and shows how L’Ouest-Éclair interacted with society and other newspapers
(four daily and eight weekly) in the West. It sought an alternative path—a third
way—between liberalism and socialism and between the politics of the conservative, royalist archbishop and the politics of the secular, anticlerical republic. Among the topics in this section are the ralliement of Leo XIII, the Dreyfus
affair (and anti-Semitism), Le Sillon, election politics, and the conflict with reactionary Catholics.
After setting the religious context, the authors focus on the newspaper itself.
Though sympathetic with the ralliement of Leo XIII,the Sillon,and the Parti démocrate populaire (PDP), L’Ouest-Éclair never became an organ of any movement. Thus, it succeeded despite the hot issues that it confronted: Dreyfus
Affair, the separation of church and state, the condemnation of Le Sillon. Christian Hamon’s essay traces the growth and financial success of L’Ouest-Éclair despite many obstacles (distribution, costs, world war, hierarchical antipathy, rival
newspapers). Despite all the problems, L’Ouest-Éclair remained true to its
Christian democratic origins; it instituted social benefits for its employees before they were enacted by the state. Though there is no essay focusing on the
two men responsible for the success of L’Ouest-Éclair, the roles, talents and
shortcomings of Abbé Trochu and Emmanuel Desgrées du Loû come through
very clearly in the overall coverage of the book.
The third section begins with a discussion of the changes of the L’OuestÉclair’s appearance (masthead, columns, photography). The next four essays
analyze one topic each in order to illustrate how L’Ouest-Éclair reflected and/
or molded cultural attitudes. The final essay discusses its expansion into LoireInférieur (Nantes). Particularly fascinating are the discussions of sports, of
women, and of religion. By 1923, L’Ouest-Éclair had a daily sports page. Virna
Cogo-Sternberg argues that the essential role of women remained good wife
and mother. Nonetheless, L’Ouest-Éclair covered new careers for women and
commented on female fashion (short skirts—knee length in 1920’s—were “fort
mauvais gout”). The essay on religion and death examines the secularization of
Breton society and the changing attitudes toward death.
This collection is a welcome addition to study of the French periodical press
and of social Catholicism. It demonstrates the important contribution that the
print media offers to the study of history and religion.
M. PATRICIA DOUGHERTY, O.P.
Dominican University of California

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Libéralisme et modernisme. Mgr Lacroix (1855–1922): Enquête sur un suspect. By Christian Sorrel. [Histoire religieuse de la France, Vol. 21.] (Paris:
Les Éditions du Cerf. 2003. Pp. 541. D59 paperback.)
While major figures involved in the Modernist movement have received the
attention of—in some cases, multiple—biographers, many of those whom Alec
Vidler termed “lesser lights and fellow travelers”had not received like attention.
Recently, this has begun to change, as exemplified by B. Waché’s study of Louis
Duchesne, L.-P. Sardella’s of Archbishop Mignot (forthcoming), and the present
biography of Lucien Lacroix.
Judging by the reactions of many of the French bishops to theological innovators and ralliés to the Republic, the episcopacy would not appear at first
sight to be a fertile field for recruitment to the ranks of supporters for the Modernist cause. The involvement of both Mignot and Lacroix, then, takes some explaining. Mignot has been the better known of the two, while Lacroix has
remained a comparatively shadowy figure, remembered principally for his opposition to the line taken by the Vatican over the Separation Laws of 1905 in
France, and for resigning his see in the wake of those events. Sorrel’s study not
only provides access to this pivotal phase of Lacroix’s career, but enables his
reader to appreciate his subject’s broader contributions to this turbulent period
of church history.
The subtitle of the book signals its author’s intention to investigate “the
dossier of a suspect, without seeking to condemn him or rehabilitate him”
( p.19).Sorrel begins with Lacroix’s early formation,his entering the Dominican
Order and tensive relationships with his superiors there, eventual break, and incardination in the diocese of Reims. Chapter 2 picks up the thread of his life,
highlighting his receiving the Doctorate in Letters in 1891,and his appointment
as a lycée chaplain that same year. That position, under the Ministry of Public
Instruction,“epicenter of policy of the laicization of the State” ( p. 67), was sufficient to render him automatically suspect in the eyes of some Catholic contemporaries.The tension between loyalty to the State and loyalty to the Church
will be a leitmotiv of Lacroix’s life.
The following chapter covers his founding and editing of the Revue du
clergé français from 1894 to 1898, intended as an instrument of individual and
collective renewal of the clergy. While this deepened suspicion in some quarters,it also provided connections to ecclesiastical and laic milieux hospitable to
modernity.Chapters 4 and 5 deal with his appointment in 1901 as bishop to the
diocese of Tarentaise, and his attempts there to continue the efforts for renewal
manifest in the Revue. His links to figures prominent in the government and his
desire to tie the education of his clergy closer to the Université did not pass
without opposition,either locally or in Rome.As Sorrel remarks,Lacroix “scarcely
corresponded to the classical image of bishop” ( p. 185).
Chapter 7 examines the bishop’s relationships with various figures identified
with Modernism, with longer sections devoted to Paul Sabatier and Albert

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Houtin, as well as his support for Alfred Loisy in the midst of the exegete’s escalating troubles with ecclesiastical authorities. Lacroix’s tendency to distance
himself from moderate positions is evident, and the close association with
Sabatier and Houtin identifies him with the “Catholic left.” A chapter is devoted
to the Separation, Lacroix’s disillusionment over Rome’s handling of the matter,
with resulting hostility toward the Vatican and clandestine activity to reveal
facts designed to discredit the Holy See. The ninth chapter weighs the various
factors that contributed to Lacroix’s resignation from his diocese, followed by
one devoted to his assuming a teaching post in the École pratique des hautes
études—a move arousing displeasure to a papacy desirous of drawing a clear
line between Church and State. Final chapters note the growing radicalization
of the Modernist movement and effects upon Lacroix, his activities during the
war, and final years.
Lacroix emerges as a figure caught between a sense of loyalty to France—
which rendered him suspect in Rome—and loyalty to the Church, which motivated his involvement in various initiatives for renewal. His life manifests the
“disconcerting complexity” of Modernism ( p. 475) and the consequent difficulty in containing that within clearly defined contours. In this well researched
biography Sorrel has filled an important gap in our knowledge of French Modernism. His contextualizations shed light on both the man and his times, capturing a sense of the ambiguities and difficulties experienced by those who
sought to hold together being loyal French and committed Catholics.
C. J. T.TALAR
University of Saint Thomas
Houston, Texas

Katholizismus und Antisemitismus: Mentalitäten, Kontinuitäten, Ambivalenzen: Zur Kulturgeschichte der Schweiz, 1918–1945. By Urs Altermatt
(Frauenfeld, Switzerland:Verlag Huber. 1999. Pp. 414. sFr. 58.-.)
At first glance, Urs Altermatt’s study appears to be strictly about anti-Semitism
among twentieth-century Swiss Catholics, a response to Switzerland’s belated
confrontation with its own past, but it quickly reveals itself to be much more.
Altermatt provides what may be the most judicious discussion of the relationship of Catholicism and anti-Semitism in the first half of the twentieth-century,
at least in German-speaking Central Europe. Urs Altermatt (Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Fribourg) employs a social-science methodology that provides particular clarity to his analysis. After a comprehensive
review of the scholarly literature, he formulates his fundamental question about
the role of traditional Catholic mentalities toward Jews in the failure to assist
Jews persecuted by the Nazi regime. Altermatt provides a much better explanation than John Cornwell or Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. He uses the Tridentine
Good Friday liturgy, passion plays, and other practices popular in Central Eu-

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rope to explore the extent of deep-seated anti-Judaism.As sources, he uses texts
ranging from academic monographs and standard works of theological commentary to daily newspapers and weekly Catholic family magazines. He then
goes on to discuss the distinctions made by church leaders and Catholic intellectuals between permitted anti-Semitism, a mixture of traditional anti-Judaism
and antimodern socioeconomic and cultural prejudice, and prohibited antiSemitism, which was racial. Altermatt distinguishes anti-Semitism from xenophobia and anti-Zionism, both of which contributed to the failure of the Swiss
to extend a greater measure of assistance than they did. It is particularly this
carefully differentiated analysis that makes this volume especially valuable, for
here Altermatt goes much further than, for example, Beth Griech-Polelle in her
study of Klemens August Graf von Galen, Bishop of Münster, or even Uwe
Mazura in his important study on the attitudes toward Jews of members of the
German Center Party. One of the other strengths of this work is Altermatt’s differentiation of anti-Semitism over time. After discussing what he calls “the long
shadow of Catholic anti-Judaism,” he carefully delineates the shift under antimodernist influences to xenophobic fears. Most interesting is the focus on
Swiss Catholic opinion during the years of the Nazi regime in Germany. It develops from a position marked largely by the fear of Jewish refugees flooding
Switzerland to one marked by growing concerns about Nazi violence but not a
decline in anti-Semitic attitudes to increasing embarrassment at the inaction of
Swiss Catholics. Finally, in 1944, Altermatt notes an outburst of outrage at the
news about the deportations of Hungarian Jews. Ultimately, Altermatt places
much of the blame on Catholic parish priests who failed to educate their flocks
to have “respect, tolerance, or empathy for suffering and persecuted Jews”
( p. 299). As long as the world of Swiss Catholicism remained intact, there
seemed to be little reason to question one’s own attitudes, much less actively to
take on the cause of the persecuted Jews. In this, Swiss Catholics did not differ
from those of other countries.
Unlike some other scholars, Altermatt argues that it makes little sense to talk
of collective guilt and innocence, but that collective shame (Kollektivscham)
requires Catholics today to take responsibility for the past.
This work deserves translation into English, not only because of its comprehensive analysis of Swiss anti-Semitism and the parallels drawn to mentalities
among German Catholics, but also because of its value as a particularly clear
study of the relationship of anti-Judaism to anti-Semitism and its relation to
other mentalities and influences that help explain the failure of Christians to assist Jews in their time of need. Finally, it is a model of the careful, exhaustive research that too often is lacking in works on the difficult relationship between
Catholics and Jews.
MARTIN MENKE
Rivier College

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Archivo Gomá: Documentos de la Guerra Civil. Vol. 1: Julio-Diciembre de
1936;Vol. 2: Enero de 1937;Vol. 3: Febrero de 1937;Vol. 4: Marzo de 1937.
Edited by José Andrés-Gallego and Antón M. Pazos. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. 2001–2002. Pp. 589; 540; 393; 366.)
The first four volumes of documents from the personal archive of Cardinal
Isidro Gomá y Tomás (1869–1940), archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain
between 1933 and 1940, cover the period between July, 1936, when the military rising against the Second Republic began, and March, 1937. Few prelates in
the Spanish Church’s modern history faced greater challenges than the elderly
Gomá,who had been promoted to the most important position in the hierarchy
from the obscure diocese of Tarazona. It is not entirely clear even today why
Pope Pius XI surprised ecclesiastical pundits of the day by passing over more
well-known and experienced bishops in favor of Gomá, who had become a
bishop only in 1927. Gomá’s reservations about the policy of accommodation
between the Church and the Republic attempted by Cardinal Vidal y Barraquer,
the hierarchy’s leader since the republican authorities forced the resignation
from the archbishopric of Toledo of Cardinal Pedro Segura in the fall of 1931,
may have moved the pope, frustrated by the strong anticlerical legislation
passed by the Republic in 1933, to make the appointment.
As these first volumes in a projected multi-volume series show, Gomá was a
meticulous record keeper who kept virtually every document that passed over
his desk. Unfortunately, his archive for the period prior to July, 1936, was destroyed in the anticlerical disturbances that swept republican Toledo in the aftermath of the generals’ rising on July 18, 1936. Gomá was more fortunate than
his archive. When the conflict began,he was absent from his diocesan seat in an
area dominated by the Nationalists, thereby escaping certain arrest, if not worse.
The new archive that he began to assemble includes a wide range of documents
including his communications with the Holy See and his correspondence with
officials of the Franco regime and his fellow bishops as well as with other ecclesiastical and lay figures. Some of the documents in the collection have been
published before, particularly Gomá’s reports to and correspondence with Cardinal Pacelli, the papal secretary of state. But publication of the archive now
makes it possible to follow with some clarity the Spanish Church’s reaction to
the rapid unfolding of events during the early months of the Civil War.
Gomá wore many hats as he confronted what often seemed to him an impossible task.As archbishop of Toledo, he worried about the fate of his diocese,
where priests were subject to a wave of persecution. As president ex-officio of
the Committee of Metropolitans, he had to confront the terrible reality of massive executions of bishops, priests, and religious in the republican zone. He conducted often difficult negotiations on ecclesiastical matters with a regime that
was by no means free of a regalist view of church-state relations. As Pius XI’s
personal representative to General Franco (from December, 1936), he engaged

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in a delicate, sometimes tense, juggling game between the Vatican and the Nationalist government over the extension of full diplomatic recognition. As an
apologist, he defended the rising against the Republic as necessary to save the
country from Communism and atheism. He was the author, for example, of the
hierarchy’s 1937’s Collective Letter to the world’s bishops exalting the war as a
religious crusade. The cardinal’s correspondence with his fellow bishops with
respect to the Collective Letter reveals the evolution of his ideas over several
months, although it also shows that more bishops expressed reservations about
the project than once was thought because they feared that its publication
might worsen the already desperate situation of clergy and laity in the republican zone.
Gomá’s role as an apologist for the rising against the Republic in the name of
religion caused controversy during the Civil War. It has continued to do so.
There is no doubt that the cardinal reduced the conflict’s complex causes to a
simple struggle between the forces of good and evil. His numerous statements
and publications, many reproduced in this collection, helped consolidate support for the rising among Catholics in Spain and abroad. But the cardinal was
not an ecclesiastical intransigent in the mold of his predecessor in the Toledo
archdiocese, Pedro Segura, who made no bones about his support for the
monarchy and hostility toward liberal ideas. Gomá was a resolute clerical conservative, but opposed restoration of the monarchy. Although an admirer of
General Franco as a loyal son of the Church, he was deeply concerned about
the regime’s possible totalitarian development.It is interesting to note that even
as the war raged, he continued to correspond with an old friend, the exiled Dr.
Gregorio Marañon, a liberal intellectual and one of the founders of the Republic. Nor was he averse to using his influence with Franco in an unsuccessful effort to avert the execution of General Batet, one of the few generals who
supported the Republic.
In public, Gomá projected an overarching vision of a Catholic Spain engaged
in a life-or-death struggle for survival. Realizing this vision in practice with the
Nationalist government was another matter, for here Gomá acted as a timid
pragmatist who feared pushing the authorities too far on a number of key issues. The collection contains extensive documentation, for example, of long
and difficult negotiations to create a chaplaincy corps in Franco’s army. Gomá,
backed by the bishops and the Vatican, wished to avoid a return to the pre-1931
situation in which military chaplains were exempt from episcopal jurisdiction,
but in the end the regime got its way. A far more important question predominates in the documents of this period, the fate of priests who supported the
Second Republic for having created an autonomous Basque state.
It is ironic that it fell to Gomá, a Catalan who was once denied promotion to
a bishopric by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship for his alleged separatist views,
to confront what unquestionably was the most contentious issue between the
hierarchy and the Franco government during this period.The execution of fourteen Basque priests by lower-level Nationalist authorities in the fall of 1936 and

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a relentless campaign of pressure by the military authorities and their supporters aimed at purging the ranks of the Basque clergy of separatist sympathizers
put Gomá between the proverbial rock and hard place. The abundant documents on the topic contained in this collection provide a fascinating account of
Gomá’s twists and turns to avoid the worst strategy. He was no friend of Basque
separatism and publicly condemned the support given by Basque Catholics to
the Republic. At the same time, his Catalan roots made him aware of the danger
to the faith that unbridled repression could cause in regions where sympathy
for autonomy had deep popular appeal even for practicing Catholics. But the
documents also show that he was fearful of the reaction of the authorities
should the Church adopt an uncompromising stance in defense of priests who,
he knew, were often unjustly accused of being militants in the separatist movement.
Gomá persuaded Franco to end the executions of priests. He managed to
avert punitive action being taken against Bishop Mateo Múgica of Vitoria, the
only diocese in the Basque Provinces, whom the authorities were determined
to remove for his alleged separatist sympathies, although at the price of the
prelate’s exile from his diocese and eventual transfer to Rome. Gomá also refused to consider excommunicating Basque Catholics supporting the Republic
in spite of pressure from clerical and lay supporters of the regime in the region
who wished to destroy separatism root and branch. But this avoid-the-worst,
behind-the-scenes strategy failed to satisfy the military,who continued to apply intense pressure on the ecclesiastical authorities to remove and sanction priests
whom they regarded as separatists. In the end, Gomá was not tough enough
with the regime in its campaign against priests who had committed no crime
other than express support for Basque autonomy.
The documents in this collection cover a wide range of other topics.There is
abundant material on ecclesiastical administrative and financial matters. The cardinal received letters from bishops, priests, and concerned laity assessing the
Church’s situation in the areas where they lived. Letters dealing with the Basque
Provinces reveal the deep antagonism existing within the Church between the
regime’s clerical and lay supporters and clergy sympathetic to Basque autonomy. Indeed, they show that a kind of ecclesiastical civil war raged within the
broader conflict between Republicans and Nationalists. Gomá also received unsolicited letters. Many of these were aggressive in tone as they urged him to act
more decisively against Catholics supporting the Republic. The cardinal’s correspondence shows that his views on the political nature of the Franco regime
were far from specific. Although aware of the totalitarian currents circulating
among some groups supporting Franco, he placed all his confidence in the general to create a Catholic Spain in which the Church would function with complete liberty and independence. By the end of the Civil War, the cardinal no
longer entertained this illusion.His 1939 pastoral letter discreetly criticizing the
totalitarian character of official policies as they affected Catholic organizations
combined with his appeal for a general pardon to end the bitter divisions
among Spaniards caused by the war was censored by the authorities and,to add

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insult to injury, Gomá was subject to a humiliating dressing down by Franco
himself.
There is no question that when completed, the publication of the cardinal’s
archive will make the most important contribution to the study of the Church
during the 1930’s since the appearance of the archive of Cardinal Vidal y Barraquer (completed in 1991). The two are complementary. Vidal v Barraquer’s
archive deals primarily with the period between the proclamation of the Republic in 1931 and the beginning of the Civil War; Gomá’s will cover the period
of the war and its immediate aftermath. The editors of these first four volumes
of the Gomá archive have produced an exceptional work. The biographical
notes identifying persons, many of them obscure, are especially informative.
There are, to be sure, some shortcomings. A large number of formulaic documents, such as letters of congratulation for a book or pastoral letter published,
an appointment received, could have been pruned without loss to the integrity
of the documentation.But this is a minor reservation.The editors have provided
historians of the modern Spanish Church with an invaluable collection of research materials.
WILLIAM J. CALLAHAN
University of Toronto (Emeritus)

European Christian Democracy: Historical Legacies and Comparative Perspectives. Edited by Thomas Kselman and Joseph A. Buttigieg. (Notre
Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 2003. Pp. ix, 339. $40.00
hardcover; $18.00 paperback.)
A colleague who conducted a “Junior Year Abroad Program” in Italy related
how an agitated American student entered his office to complain that she had
seen a crucifix on the wall of a Florentine post office.“We should organize a
protest over this,”she insisted.The professor calmed her,reminding her that she
was now in another country where things were done differently. Such anecdotes, or the recent news reports of the almost universal outrage in Italy encountered by a Muslim father who insisted on removing a crucifix from the
wall of his child’s schoolroom, illustrate that Europe’s Christian identity retains
a vitality that may surprise those social scientists and pundits who frequently
dismiss it as “nominal.” Church attendance figures are usually lower there than
in America, but other indicators can lead to different conclusions. Does the absence of crucifixes in United States public schools and post offices indicate that
America’s culture is less Christian than Europe’s? Does the persistence and
weight of Christian Democracy in European, but not American, politics illustrate the same point? Thomas Kselman and Joseph Buttigieg’s impressive and
provocative collection of essays, European Christian Democracy, reminds the

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reader of the significance and complexity of religious politics and, as an examination of that phenomenon, challenges the notion “that secularization is an ineluctable process.”
After Kselman’s introduction the book is divided into twelve chapters, each
of which is a self-contained essay by a leading scholar in the field. Most of the
contributors are historians although the work is enriched with a sprinkling of
political scientists and theologians. Perhaps a third of the essays are nationspecific while most of them attempt, with varying levels of success, to take
broader perspectives.Stathis Kalyvas’contribution,burdened perhaps too heavily
by social-science language, even goes beyond Christian Democracy to focus on
“non-secular” parties in the Third World.Antonio Santucci’s piece, a Marxist critique of Italian Christian Democratic corruption, is based on a 1981 interview
with the Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer and stands out as too
polemical for a book such as this. Santucci’s discussion, however, indicates that
Christian Democracy remains in the thick of European politics and can still elevate blood pressure readings among friends and foes.
Differences of approach and of opinion, in fact, emerge in some degree
throughout all of the essays. One central question asks how progressive or,
more to the point, how democratic has been Christian Democracy? On the one
hand, Winfried Becker recalls the German experience where emphasis on the
human person and pluralism (advocated especially by Karl Bachem and in labor
circles) distinguished Catholic politics even before Nazism galvanized their
commitment to democracy. Karl Strickwerda echoes this in noting that while
Christian Democrats “grudgingly came to accept a pluralist society,” nonetheless, in learning “to fight a rear-guard action against the tidal wave of secularism
and liberalism, they had also begun learning the difficult life of coexistence earlier than their opponents” ( pp. 281, 283). Furthermore, he concludes, in Latin
America even “Liberation Theology” takes a back seat to Christian Democratic
parties in the struggle against dictatorship. A skeptical Martin Conway sees
Christian Democracy as a “center-right”force, drawn there by the cross-class nature of its politics and by Cold War anticommunism. Although he does not cite
Alcide DeGasperi’s famous description of his party as centrist but leaning to the
left, Conway nevertheless acknowledges ironies here. He concedes that
Catholic politics constituted something of a big tent that sheltered movements
“open to men and women of all faiths and of none” and that at the same time
covered a church that was “intransigent,hierarchical,and dismissive of the values
of other denominations and political traditions” ( p. 47). In his study of the postwar Italian case, Steven White portrays these two forces at work in direct opposition to each other. The conservative Pius XII and Luigi Gedda envisioned a
new, more confessional and rightist Catholic party and conspired against the
more progressive DeGasperi and Vittorino Veronese with Don Luigi Sturzo
caught in the middle. While Papa Pacelli’s gambit failed in Italy,he never needed
one in Germany. There, as Carolyn Warner reveals, ecclesiastical support for the
CDU was more secure and Adenauer never had to look over his shoulder for

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signs of episcopal machinations. Maria Mitchell adds nuance in her discussion
of German Catholic antimaterialist condemnation of Marxist socialism. After
World War II, however, the inclusion into the Christian Democratic movement
of Protestant elements sanctioned their more bourgeois attitudes and led to the
further condemnation of Christian socialism.
Kselman and Buttigieg’s valuable collection aims primarily at an audience
that speaks English, the language least common in Europe’s Christian Democratic circles. Nonetheless, in his discussion of “Parties, Politics, and Pressure
Groups” Strikwerda compares the Europeans to the evangelical American
Protestant movement, recommending “that if we look beneath the level of political parties, European Christian Democrats have more similarities with—and
more to teach—Christians in the United States than we usually realize”( p. 268).
Whether as a primer for American evangelicals or as a work of scholarship,
Kselman and Buttigieg’s book should occupy a welcomed place on the shelf.
ROY PALMER DOMENICO
The University of Scranton

American
Religion and the American Nation: Historiography and History. By John F.
Wilson. (Athens: University of Georgia Press. 2003. Pp. xv, 104. $24.95 cloth.)
This brief but helpful book contains the inaugural George H. Shriver Lectures, which were delivered by a distinguished interpreter of U.S. religion, John
F. Wilson. Wilson’s “primary interest is in the historiography of American religion, that is, how the topic has been written about” ( p. 3). So it is not surprising
that the first two chapters of this three-chapter volume deal with “selfconscious” historical interpretations of religion in America ( p. 10). Chapter one
traces the history of writing about U.S. religion from the nineteenth century to
the publication of Sydney Ahlstrom’s A Religious History of the American People (1972), which served as “the culmination of an era” ( p. 28). Wilson considers a wide range of interpreters in that era, from Robert Baird and Philip Schaff
to Peter Mode and William Warren Sweet. What they shared, he argues, was an
inclination to construct an overarching narrative that emphasized “the long
shadow of the Puritans.” In chapter two, Wilson analyzes historiographical patterns since the 1960’s. He suggests that Henry May’s 1964 essay,“The Recovering of American Religious History,” marked a “transition point” ( p. 53). The last
several decades have been characterized by two impulses:“One is the approach
to American religious history that undertook to make the case that multiple
narratives should replace a master narrative; the other is the approach that took
seriously studies of religion among social scientists”( p. 33). Wilson ends his historiographical survey by pointing to the importance of “comparative studies”
for the future of the field ( p. 51).

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In his remarkably judicious account of the historiography, Wilson acknowledges the usefulness of some recent approaches while trying to preserve insights from earlier interpretive traditions. In particular, he aims to “rehabilitate”
the term “Puritanism” ( p. 4). Wilson proposes that Puritans remain important
because they were “the first of many concentrated immigrations”in U.S. history,
and that emphasis on migration is “entirely congruent with the broad historiographical preoccupations of the last half of the twentieth century”( p. 55). More
important for his argument, Wilson suggests that attention to Puritanism “may
display prototypical dynamics for how religion has functioned in American history” ( p. 26). Those “dynamics” are his focus in chapter three, where Wilson
identifies some “dimensions” of U.S. society that “embody cultural codes that
carry the American religion” ( p. 71). He emphasizes media practices and consumer behavior: the media evoke “the American Way of Life”just as a visit to the
mall can function as “a kind of temple-work of the American religion” ( pp.
72–73). He concludes that “American society at the beginning of the twentyfirst century embodies a cultural life that includes a spiritual or religious dimension” ( p. 73). So as the earliest narratives proposed, Americans do share a
great deal religiously, though it is not Protestant beliefs or practices.
Even if some readers might not fully accept the third chapter’s provocative
conclusion, many will welcome its insights about public religion—for example,
the suggestion that civil religion is “episodic” in U.S. history ( p. 64). Some readers of this journal might be slow to celebrate the “rehabilitation” of Puritanism
as an interpretive theme for inclusive narratives, and they might want more attention to historians of Catholicism and Catholic historians in chapters one and
two, even though Wilson mentions the American Catholic Historical Association in a footnote ( p. 85). Yet, overall, this is an extremely valuable contribution
to the conversation about interpretations of U.S. religion. Not since Edwin S.
Gaustad’s Religion in America: History and Historiography (1973) has there
been a short volume that provides as helpful an overview of the field.This is essential reading for all scholars of American religious history.
THOMAS A.TWEED
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Religious Pluralism in America: The Contentious History of a Founding
Ideal. By William R. Hutchison. (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 276. $29.95.)
Hutchison, a distinguished scholar of liberal and modernist tendencies in
American Protestantism, in his newest book joins the growing number of historians and other commentators who have turned their interpretive lens to the
rich diversity that has become a hallmark of America religious life. Hutchison is
not as captivated as some by the stunning growth of traditions such as Islam,

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Buddhism, and Hinduism in the last forty years; nor is he as smitten as others by
the vast range of personal approaches to spirituality that make the lived religion
of ordinary folks such a fascinating topic for exploration.
Rather, Hutchison presumes that some understanding of pluralism was indeed a “founding ideal”of the American enterprise, although pluralism itself has
had, as he puts it, a “contentious history.” For Hutchison, that history is contentious because he believes that what pluralism denotes has itself evolved
from the colonial era to the present and that securing it has often occasioned
much struggle.
In its earliest guise,pluralism for Hutchison represented simple tolerance of diversity. Although the vast majority of European settlers were Calvinists of some
sort, they exhibited considerable differences with regard to particulars of belief
and practice.Diversity was acknowledged and accepted,so long as religious difference did not disrupt public order.
In time, there emerged a selective tolerance, sometimes an “amused tolerance” ( p. 38), of more radical religious expressions, such as those of the Millerites and the Transcendentalists. But underneath there remained a powerful
intolerance as well, as the well-known hostility to Roman Catholics, Latter-day
Saints, and others testifies. Tolerance meant putting up with others, so long as
the evangelical Protestant majority retained its influence as an unofficial establishment.
Hutchison argues that by the later nineteenth century the ideal of pluralism
was moving from tolerance to inclusion. The social gospel, while helping secure a place for Protestantism in a changing urban, industrial culture, was open
to a more liberal stance that promoted inclusion. The increasing presence of
Roman Catholic and Jewish immigrants also prompted calls for inclusion, particularly when Reform Jews and more liberal Catholics such as John Spalding
and John Ireland seemed to echo the paean to progress that issued from industrial growth. The World’s Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893 in
conjunction with the Columbian Exposition, represented both the possibilities
and problems of pluralism as inclusion. On the surface a showcase for inclusion
since representatives of the world’s religions were welcomed at the gathering,
the Parliament also assumed the finality and superiority of Protestant Christianity among humanity’s religious traditions.
By the twentieth century, it was clear to theologians, anthropologists, and a
host of others who dissected American culture that tolerance and inclusion
were necessary, but insufficient. Despite backlashes that came with those who
resisted assimilation of any sort and the celebration of a mythic Judeo-Christian
heritage—best epitomized in Will Herberg’s 1955 Protestant, Catholic, Jew—it
was increasingly clear that pluralism required full participation in public conversations about the nature and character of the America enterprise. No longer
would it do, as Hutchison sees it, for any single group to presume it could dictate comprehensive policy and vision, while consigning others to the margins.

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By the twenty-first century, Hutchison insists, simple tolerance and inclusion
were assumed as basic to the social covenant. It was time for full participation
of all religious approaches as equal partners in the covenant, however challenging it might be to sustain a civil conversation.
Engagingly written and mining a vast range of sources, Hutchison’s important
exploration of the pluralist ideal assures that the conversation will indeed be civil.
CHARLES H. LIPPY
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Religion, Power, and Politics in Colonial St.Augustine. By Robert L. Kapitzke.
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 2001. Pp. xi, 219. $55.00.)
In studying the place of religion, power, and politics in colonial St.Augustine,
Robert Kapitzke has restricted himself to the eighty-some years from 1680 to
the end of the First Spanish Period. His rationale is the relative abundance of
documentation beginning in 1680 compared to what is available prior to that
year together with the reality he proposes that, until the decade of the 1670’s,
St. Augustine had failed to “develop as a distinct community apart from the military presidio.” In reality his work is even more narrowly focused than that on
the whole. After an introductory chapter on the “Religious Environment,” four
of the five remaining chapters cover exclusively or largely the twenty or so
years after 1680 while the concluding chapter presents the sixty years after 1702.
In the first of those four chapters the author discusses the politics of religion,
maintaining that “the institution of religion . . . also functioned as a separate
branch of the royal government” in a system in which “the lines of jurisdiction
were left intentionally ambiguous to produce” informal checks and balances to
limit colonial officials’ personal power base. In the second one he presents a detailed study of Father Alonso de Leturiondo, a Florida Spaniard who returned to
the city in 1686 after a twenty-year absence to find it polarized by conflict between the governor and the city’s regular and secular clergy.From then to 1700,
the author maintains, the city’s religious life “revolved around the capable and
sometimes contentious” priest. He devotes the next chapter to “ecclesiastical
asylum” claims in the city as a bone of contention. In the fourth one the major
topic is the dissension that developed between St. Augustine’s secular pastors
and the Franciscans involving Leturiondo and others later and the creation of
an auxiliary bishopric for Florida. A 1689–1690 conflict involved the Franciscans’ poaching on Father Leturiondo’s parish preserve in performing burial services and providing burial in their convent for people who were Leturiondo’s
parishioners.
The book is well written and does not at all reflect its origin as a dissertation.
The chapters on the post-1680 period are based on extensive documental research on the legal disputes between the governor, St. Augustine’s pastor, and

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the friars. The author set out to fill a gap that he perceived in prior work on religion in colonial Florida because of that work’s exclusive focus on the interaction between Franciscan missionaries and the Indians they worked with and on
“the relationship between the friars and governmental and secular church officials living in St. Augustine.” But, of necessity, to a considerable degree he reexplores much of the same ground as do earlier works such as those of Michael
Gannon and Amy Bushnell.
As Kapitzke observed, colonial St. Augustine’s “peculiar cultural stability” for
almost two hundred years provides the historian “a unique perspective on the
functioning of a Spanish parish in the Americas” while its isolation offers special advantages for studying and understanding “the complex jurisdictional system of colonial administration”and its jurisdictional conflicts and religion’s role
within it because they were manifested at St. Augustine on a lesser scale than
elsewhere in view of its isolation.
On occasion the text juxtaposes a peculiar admixture of the correct use of an
obscure technical clerical term with the incorrect use of a common term such
as priest.The most glaring example is his presumably correct use and definition
of the clerical term “prone” while on the same page speaking of St. Augustine’s
pastor’s requesting that the position “of organist be given to a priest of minor
orders.” For Anglicans, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox, according to Webster’s
Collegiate Dictionary, the rank of “priest” implies someone who has received
the three major orders. But this is a minor failing that does not distract from the
book’s overall usefulness and value.
JOHN H. HANN
Bureau of Archaeological Research
Tallahassee, Florida

Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State. By
Daniel L. Dreisbach. (New York: New York University Press. 2002. Pp. x,
283. $42.00.)
This is an excellent, eloquent book about a metaphor—the “wall of separation” that Thomas Jefferson believed the First Amendment placed between
“Church and State.” Dreisbach has written an almost definitive book on this
metaphor, with a double focus—on the uses and pitfalls of metaphors in legal
discourse, and on the meaning of the very brief words in the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Jefferson included his “wall” metaphor in a now famous, carefully crafted, politically motivated 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. Always sensitive to the point of paranoia, Jefferson still seethed with anger

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from the attacks from clergymen in the campaign of 1800. He was also under
attack for his refusal to issue proclamations of thanksgiving or fasting and
prayer,an issue that he openly addressed in early,longer drafts but left out of the
final letter. In the first half of this book, Dreisbach carefully attends to all the implications of this letter, surveys many earlier uses of the “wall”metaphor, and explores the implications of related metaphors (wire fences, lines, gated walls,
even iron curtain).
Neither the language of the First Amendment nor Jefferson’s metaphor is
very clear. The Constitution of 1787 specifically delegated certain legislative
powers to the Federal Congress, and reserved all others, including religious issues, to the states. Thus, the Congress had no authority to pass any laws relating
to an establishment of religion but, as subsequent events made clear, it could
not avoid laws that related in some sense to religion, including the religiously
grounded moral commitments of citizens. To facilitate the free exercise, it almost had to appoint military chaplains,and later chose to exempt religious contributions from taxation. The First Amendment assured anxious New England
states that the federal government would not interfere with their legally established churches, and that it would not challenge the religious preferences in all
early state constitutions (for Christianity, Protestantism, Trinitarianism, or at
least theism), or preferences that courts today define as tending toward an establishment.Thus the First Amendment did not place any wall of separation between governments and religion, but it did reaffirm a restraint, although never
a perfectly clear restraint, upon federal power.
Jefferson’s metaphor was a poor gloss on the language of the Amendment,for
it suggested a much greater degree of separation between federal legislation
and the many facets of religion (beliefs, worship, institutions, clergy, moral
codes). Although his “wall” could apply, legally, only to the federal government,
Jefferson clearly would have liked states to accept the rather vague principle of
separation. Note that he used the parochial Christian term, Church, rather than
a broader term encompassing non-Christian, and even non-theistic, religions.
But what “separation” entailed was not clear even for Jefferson. It seemed to
have a largely institutional reference. He proclaimed days of fasting and prayer
as governor of Virginia, appealed frequently to a divine power in his presidential addresses, and attended worship services in the chambers of the House of
Representatives.
Jefferson’s “wall of separation”had almost no impact on early court decisions.
Even early editions of Jefferson’s papers did not include his Danbury letter.It reentered legal discourse with a bang in 1879, when the Supreme Court upheld
the conviction of a Mormon under a federal anti-bigamy law.The Court affirmed
the Danbury letter as “an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the
[first] amendment.” Yet, the case scarcely involved separation, but the opposite.
The federal government prevented Mormons from a free exercise of their religion, in which plural marriage was a very critical doctrine. Before later uses of

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the metaphor, a critical shift occurred, one more often assumed than clarified
by Dreisbach—the twentieth-century use of the Fourteenth Amendment to expand the protections in the bill of rights to state and local governments.
The next major decision to involve the “wall” came well after this shift. It was
Everson v. Board of Education in 1947, in which the court declared unconstitutional the use of public money to transport children to parochial schools. Justice Hugo Black, who wrote the majority opinion, is the main subject in the last
section of Dreisbach’s book. Black used the most extreme separationist language, arguing that the “wall” had to remain “high and impregnable” without
even the “slightest breach.” By then, even the attorneys for Catholic parents accepted the image of a wall, but argued that transportation of children did not
breach it. From then on, the metaphor has been at the center of church-state litigation, but in the last two decades many judges, most called conservative, have
argued that the metaphor has distorted the original meaning of the First Amendment. I believe this is Dreisbach’s view, although he tries, in a final chapter, to
give a fair statement of the views of rigid separatists and those who seek a more
loose and permeable line between religious organizations and governments.
PAUL K. CONKIN
Vanderbilt University

Faith and Action: A History of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, 1821–1996. By
Roger Fortin. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 2002. Pp. xviii, 489.
$35.00.)
The historic see of Cincinnati looms large on the American Catholic diocesan
landscape. Established in 1821 at the emerging West’s key urban community,
the Cincinnati diocese at first included Ohio and parts of what became Michigan and Wisconsin.Partitions reduced its territory to southern Ohio by the time
Cincinnati became an archdiocese in 1850. By then, the city of Cincinnati, the
nation’s largest inland city, had attracted a diverse population including many
Germans.There, Catholics built a complex ethnic and religious culture that was
a model of Catholic life for the region. By the twentieth century, other large urban Catholic communities emerged. A less influential but substantial archdiocese, consisting of nineteen Ohio counties since 1944, developed along the
lines of other large dioceses coping with changes in American and Catholic life.
This archdiocese’s imposing past gives cause to welcome Roger Fortin’s history covering its first 175 years up to 1996. Superseding the institutional approach of John H. Lamott’s 1921 centennial history, Fortin’s focus is “the growth
and administration of the archdiocese of Cincinnati, the active participation of
the laity in the life of the church, religious education, social issues, and the relationship of Catholics to the larger society” ( p. xiii). He strives for a “general portrait of the accomplishments of the clergy, religious, lay people, parishes, and
Catholic organizations” ( p. xiv). The archdiocese recruited Fortin to write this

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history and gave him “full freedom to tell the story” ( p. xi). Tucked away in the
endnotes ( p. 458) the author discloses that he did not have access to any correspondence of recent Archbishops Paul Leibold, Joseph Bernardin, and Daniel
Pilarczyk, that is, since 1969. For an authorized history the archdiocese could
have been less restrictive so that the author had indeed “full freedom” at least
until 1982, the last year of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s decade as archbishop. Such a restriction serves as another reminder of the official Church’s
uneasiness with accountability.
The volume has many strengths. The pre-1969 archbishops’ papers and the
continuous files of the diocesan paper, The Catholic Telegraph, provide abundant sources. Previous scholarship on topics and persons related to the archdiocese helped the author advance a rich story especially for the nineteenth
century. From the hardships marking founding Bishop Edward Fenwick’s
tenure starting in 1821 through the building of a Catholic culture during the
half-century of John Baptist Purcell’s leadership as bishop and archbishop
(1833–1883) the administrative narrative runs strong. This approach continues
through the bureaucratic consolidations of Archbishops William Elder (1883–
1904) and Henry Moeller (1904–1925). The welcome account of Archbishop
John T. McNicholas (1925–1950) as an innovative leader of the local church and
influential national leader could have been balanced with a frank discussion of
his often arbitrary treatment of persons and skills at self-promotion in dealings
with Roman officials. The high tide of pre-Vatican II Catholicism was reached
through the busy years of Archbishop Karl J. Alter (1950–1969).
The volume has its share of weaknesses.A newcomer to U.S.Catholic studies,
the author lists a formidable bibliography containing most of the important titles in the field published in recent decades. A thorough immersion in this literature should have preceded and new interpretations should have guided
research in primary sources. The author was not skilled in weaving the archdiocese’s story into the larger themes of American Catholic life that have been
illuminated through recent scholarship. Explaining the broader contexts
should have been the starting point of discussion of many Cincinnati issues—
perhaps in the introduction to each of the volume’s four parts. Too often for
twentieth-century issues, the author introduces the rich Cincinnati story with
the context inserted as an afterthought or not at all and concluding the discussion of an issue with slight interpretation. As a result the reader is not made
aware of Cincinnati’s place in the larger patterns of Catholic life. The author’s
conclusion that the archdiocese has experienced “constant change and adaptation”( p. 392) could have been predicted. But what was characteristic or unique
about the Cincinnati Catholic experience? Perhaps the archdiocese’s 200th anniversary history in 2021 will address that question.
A mentor knowledgeable in Catholic history could have assisted the author
with ecclesiastical language that is often awkwardly handled and with preventing a number of gaffes. For instance,Archbishop John Baptist Purcell was born at
Mallow, County Cork, Ireland, not in nonexistent “County Mallow.” The never

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crestfallen activist Bishop Edwin V. O’Hara was not ordinary of “Crest Falls” but
Great Falls,Montana.Carl Moeddel,appointed an auxiliary bishop in 1993,did not
then become “ordinary”of Cincinnati;Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk remained so.
Roger Fortin’s informative study will be the standard history of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati for many years, but a much broader exploration needs to be
done for an adequate interpretation of southwestern Ohio’s Catholic life.
JOSEPH M.WHITE
Indianapolis, Indiana

How the Jesuits Settled in New York: A Documentary Account. By Thomas C.
Hennessy, S.J. (New York: Something More Publications, Distributed by
Fordham University Press. 2003. Pp. xii, 286. $24.00 paperback.)
In this and in its companion volume, Fordham, The Early Years (1998),
Thomas C. Hennessy, professor of education emeritus at Fordham University,
completes a scholarly labor of love. As Gerald McCool, S.J., says in an epilogue,
if Hennessy and his collaborators had not assembled and translated these documents it never would have been done, and scholarship would have suffered a
serious loss.
We have the letters, diaries, short biographies, reports, portraits, essays, and
appendices,many of which have already fed three histories of Fordham and will
serve future researchers in nineteenth-century Catholic education and urban
and ethnic history. One of Hennessy’s major accomplishments is in documenting who lies where in the Fordham Jesuit graveyard—all to refute a myth popular among students that it was a “fake” cemetery with no actual bones.
Why else read the book? For the stories, some only hinted at in the details
that spark these otherwise formulaic documents from missionary territory
meant not for our eyes but for religious superiors in Rome, who would perhaps
take them with a grain of salt.
Hennessy has divided his documents into four sections, the first three centered around strong personalities whose leadership determined the future of
the apostolate: Clement Boulanger, S.J., the mission superior who pulled the
French Jesuits out of Kentucky and moved them to Fordham; August Thebaud,
S.J., the first Jesuit president of Fordham (then called St. John’s College), a scientist,historian,writer,Renaissance man;and John Larkin,the rotund orator who
founded Xavier College,now Xavier High School and parish in lower Manhattan.
To best navigate these pages, pick a name like Peter Tissot, S.J., a young
French scholastic who first shows up on one of Boulanger’s lists in 1846, then
again in 1847, among scholastics not assigned to (not having jobs at) the college, but appears in the minister’s diary as beginning his long retreat at the college in 1846. We learn in his mini-bio that after ordination, though he taught, he

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preferred pastoral work, that he was a chaplain for the Union Army during the
Civil War, and though he had three horses shot out from under him during battles, felt the chaplain belonged behind the front lines serving in hospitals and
camps.Though named acting president of Fordham in 1865,he protested until released to work in a parish. We last encounter him in 1890 in the diary of the Jesuit who supervised transferring the corpses from the old cemetery to the new:
“Jan. 23: We moved Fathers Tissot, Legouais, Schemmel and DeLuynes. . . .” (The
index somehow includes only three of Tissot’s five appearances in the book.)
Over all a portrait emerges of a community of men, at Fordham fluctuating
from forty-two to seventy-five—priests, brothers, scholastics in studies, and novices—plus diocesan seminarians and students from grammar school through
college, who live and die, and are often buried, together.
For the priests, St. John’s College is only one of their concerns. They spread
out all over New York, starting new schools and parishes, hearing confessions,
preaching, bulling their way into hospitals, orphanages, and prisons, from The
Tombs to Sing Sing, overcoming Protestants who block their way.
The raw texts both inspire us and give us a smile—as in Fr. Boulanger’s report
of April 10, 1846, to the Jesuit General that he had allowed the serving of a little dinner wine, only two-thirds of a glass, because the food was so bad. Some
were eating nothing but pork.“Living like this in a disgusting state of uncleanliness is called ‘the American way of life.’ (Thus falling even below the peasants
of Kentucky).”
RAYMOND A. SCHROTH, S.J.
Saint Peter’s College
Jersey City, New Jersey

Anti-Catholicism in America:The Last Acceptable Prejudice. By Mark S. Massa,
S.J. (New York: Crossroads. 2003. Pp. x, 245. $24.95.)
Fordham University professor and Jesuit priest Mark Massa’s provocative title
implies that North Americans tolerate anti-Catholicism despite denouncing irrational biases, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. Several others, such as
historian Philip Jenkins and William Donohue of the Catholic League, have
made similar accusations. Yet contemporary political debates about same-sex
marriage, capital punishment, abortion, and stem cell research reveal significant
moral differences between Catholics and other Americans. Massa’s book successfully contributes to an important discussion about interfaith relations by
distinguishing legitimate questions about Catholic culture from unfriendly bias
against Roman Catholicism.
Where does Massa find objectionable anti-Catholicism in the United States?
In the eyes of both seventeenth-century Puritans and twentieth-century secular

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intellectuals, Catholics owed loyalty to an institutional hierarchy that repressed
individual autonomy. The Know-Nothing movement and the Ku Klux Klan employed similar arguments to justify opposition to both Catholic immigration
and New York Governor Alfred E. Smith’s 1928 candidacy for president. Since
World War II, public intellectual Paul Blanshard increasingly characterized the
undemocratic Roman Catholic Church as incompatible with the nation’s liberal, constitutional standards. During John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign, Protestant minister Norman Vincent Peale also expressed doubts that
sincere Catholics would defend religious liberty. More recently, some Protestant
evangelicals, such as cartoonist Jack Chick and televangelist Jimmy Swaggart,
have portrayed Catholicism as a global conspiracy to prevent individuals from
achieving an authentic, personal experience of faith in Jesus Christ. Most disturbing, several academics have argued that Catholicism’s suppression of creative, original thought fosters an under-representation of Catholics among
those who earn doctorates in scientific disciplines at U.S. universities.
Rather than presenting this evidence as proof of Catholic victimization, however, Massa introduces Catholics who responded positively to this criticism.
John Kennedy denied that religious obligations would affect his decisions as
president.Prior to Kennedy’s election,a Catholic sociologist,Thomas O’Dea,berated North American Catholicism as excessively formalistic, authoritarian, clerical, moralistic, and defensive. These Catholics nonetheless attributed such
negative characteristics to the historical context of the Catholic experience in
North America rather than to the fundamental principles of Catholicism.
This notion—that Catholic culture can change without perverting theological truth—allows Massa to suggest that the recent sexual abuse scandal justifies
prejudice, or skeptical pre-judgment, toward Catholicism in the United States.
Instead of blaming the current crisis on Catholicism’s sexual teachings, liberal
or conservative Catholic theology, Massa encourages Catholics to re-examine
the Church’s institutional norms and practices. In Massa’s assessment, the
Catholic community must adopt North American values, specifically personal
accountability to temper traditional loyalties to community and church.
This book has some limitations, such as Massa’s portrayal of John Kennedy as
devoted to church-state separation throughout his career. Such an assessment
fails to account for the Massachusetts politician’s earlier advocacy of government aid to parochial schools and federal compensation for damages to the Vatican caused by Allied bombing during World War II. Even as president, Kennedy
sought a compromise on federal aid to education that would include Catholic
schools in some manner. Although Massa blames Kennedy’s “hard-line separationist”positions for secularizing political discourse, the acceptance of a Catholic
president supports Massa’s thesis that Catholics should answer legitimate suspicions rather than merely denounce strong criticism as tainted by bias.
Undergraduates, seminary students, and the general public would benefit
from this book’s optimistic perspective (despite the pessimistic title) on
Catholicism’s position in contemporary U.S. culture. In less than 200 pages of

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text, this book demonstrates lessons from the Protestant Reformation and European Enlightenment for contemporary Catholic culture in the United States.
Instead of blaming the media, church dogma, or specific individuals, Massa challenges the Catholic public to require accountability from the clerical leadership. Such changes could reaffirm Catholic and non-Catholic confidence in
North American religious institutions. This message of personal responsibility
for community actions also offers hope that anti-Catholicism might eventually
become an unacceptable prejudice.
THOMAS J. CARTY
Springfield College (Massachusetts)

Catholicism and American Freedom: A History. By John T. McGreevy. (New
York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2003. Pp. 431. $26.95.)
Is anti-Catholicism really the last acceptable prejudice of the intellectuals?
John T. McGreevy’s masterful Catholicism and American Freedom offers abundant evidence to this effect. But McGreevy also situates this faintly self-pitying
saw in broad historical context, with generous references to parallel developments in Europe and the British Isles. This has the effect of mostly deflating
Catholic claims to victim status. Liberal intellectuals in the United States and Europe may have been prone to the grossest stereotypes in their various battles
against the Church.They were right, however, to see the Catholic world-view as
resting on assumptions in fundamental opposition to their own. Catholics,
moreover, often promoted their views in ways that were calculated to confirm
the worst prejudices of the other side. Catholics were not so much victims of
liberal bigotry as liberalism’s sparring partners—vigorous co-participants in an
on-going debate about the nature of the human person and of society. “This
book sketches the interplay between Catholic and American ideas of freedom,”
as McGreevy explains.“The trick is to capture two traditions in motion,not one:
to explore American ideas about Catholicism along with the predispositions (at
times blinders) framing the mental landscape of American Catholics” ( p. 15).
McGreevy’s ambitious narrative opens with a pair of closely-related debates
in the 1840’s and ’50’s over slavery and education. Catholics in the United
States, like those in Europe, were mostly opposed to emancipation, at least of
the immediate variety. And in view of the overly Protestant content of the public school curriculum, many American Catholics—again, like those in Europe—
championed public funding for religiously separate schools. What linked the
two positions was a distinctively Catholic view of freedom. As Catholic intellectuals saw it, human freedom had moral meaning only in a relational context—a very different notion from the autonomous choice-maker posited by
liberals. As McGreevy explains, “. . . Catholics saw moral choice and personal
development as inseparable from virtues nurtured in families and churches”
( p. 36). Hence the almost obsessive Catholic fear of “liberal individualism and

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social disorder” ( p. 52) that characterized the Catholic revival in Europe and
Catholic intellectual life in the United States. Nor did Catholic intellectuals see
the mitigation of suffering as critical to human freedom, although nearly all liberals did. Suffering, in the Catholic view, was a means of spiritual purgation. It
also underwrote communal bonds, as families and Church-sponsored institutions cared for those in distress. Catholic schools made eminent sense in such a
world; slavery made a kind of tragic sense as well.
Not surprisingly, abolitionists both in the United States and Europe trafficked
in anti-Catholicism and continued to do so even after the death of slavery. The
1864 publication of the Syllabus of Errors caused liberals on both sides of the
Atlantic to regard Catholicism more than ever as a threat to the secular nationstate. American liberals—most of them with abolitionist pedigrees—praised
Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, the Italian Risorgimento, and the various anticlerical
laws in France. The Republican-controlled Congress in 1876 came close to ratifying a constitutional amendment prohibiting public aid to religious schools,
and toyed with levying taxes on church-owned properties—a policy that would
have had disproportionate impact on Catholics. The proponents of such measures were convinced that Catholic separatism undermined national unity.
Many Catholic intellectuals confirmed their fears by trumpeting the ultramontanism so spectacularly embodied in the 1870 declaration on papal infallibility.
Despite the polarization of the 1870’s and ’80’s, a rapprochement of sorts
took place in the early twentieth century. Catholic intellectuals and their liberal
counterparts still saw the world through very different lenses. But Protestant
and secular liberals had by this time abandoned their benign view of laissezfaire capitalism.So Catholics and liberals were increasingly able to make at least
semi-common cause in support of social welfare measures and the regulatory
state.The process reached its high-water mark during the first administration of
Franklin Roosevelt, who famously invoked Quadragesimo Anno at a campaign
appearance in heavily-Catholic Detroit. Bedfellows with Catholics now in the
Democratic Party, secular liberals had of necessity to accommodate a constituency whose votes were essential to the liberal project, at least as it was understood in a Depression context.
Even in the late 1930’s,however,the liberal-Catholic alliance was showing signs
of strain.Catholic support for fascist regimes in Italy and Spain revived barely dormant liberal worries about Catholic authoritarianism. What we now call social issues were a growing irritant, too. Liberals called for a less rigorous censorship
of books and movies, sex education in the schools, freer access to contraception—all of which Catholics opposed. For liberals, a genuinely progressive politics had of necessity to promote freedom of choice in both public and private life.
But Catholics,as McGreevy explains,“saw no connection between social reform
and individual autonomy” ( p. 153). The family remained at the heart of Catholic
social doctrine. From the perspective of the Catholic intellectual, Casti Connubii was as integral to a genuinely progressive politics as Quadragesimo Anno.

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Strains in the liberal-Catholic alliance were painfully evident by the late
1940’s, when Paul Blanshard seemed to speak for most secular intellectuals. If
democracy was a culture rather than simply a set of political arrangements, as
liberal intellectuals now argued, then Catholic separatism and anti-individualism
almost seemed to disqualify Catholics for citizenship.“According to the editors
at the New Republic and Nation, a broad group of faculty members in the humanities and social sciences, and many influential figures in Reform Judaism
and mainline Protestantism, Catholic authoritarianism might quash the scientific spirit, produce adults incapable of psychological autonomy, and have a disastrous effect on national unity because of the growing numbers of children
enrolled in Catholic schools”( p.175).But by the later 1950’s,liberals were looking more kindly on Catholicism, at least in its American incarnation. Sound on
communism and enlightened on civil rights, the Catholic bishops commanded
a new respect in liberal intellectual circles. The work of John Courtney Murray
and others underwrote a more benign image of the Church, as did a less combative stance by spokesmen for an increasingly middle-class Catholicism. John
Kennedy’s evident secularism, first as a candidate and subsequently as president, was even more reassuring. And then there was the Council. In the early
1960’s, it almost seemed as if Catholic intellectuals, at least those of a progressive stripe, were about to become full partners in the liberal project.
The rest of the story will be known in outline, at least to readers of a certain
age. Abortion law reform, a decidedly fringe issue in the 1950’s, moved toward
the center of American politics in the later 1960’s.If Catholic intellectuals could
now be found who defended a woman’s “right to choose,” Catholics prior to
1980 were still the principal opponents of liberalized abortion policies. With
the national Democratic Party increasingly influenced by organized feminism
and Republicans eager to exploit the abortion issue to their own ends,
Catholics and liberal intellectuals were once again at serious odds.“Whereas in
the 1940s liberals had accused Catholics of producing citizens incapable of loyalty to American institutions, they now accused Catholics of refusing to recognize the moral importance of autonomy” ( p. 265). The result has been a sense
of political homelessness for many thoughtful Catholics and a liberal intellectual culture where hostility to Catholicism not infrequently accompanies what
McGreevy calls “a romantic view of individual autonomy” ( p. 294).
McGreevy deals with the abortion debate in two stellar chapters, where he
links it to earlier contests over contraception, forced sterilization, and euthanasia. His philosophical literacy is in particular evidence here, as in his prodigious
research. Like the book’s earlier chapters, these are written with sprightly grace
and a perceptive eye to present-day dilemmas. McGreevy has also succeeded
brilliantly at demonstrating the relevance of Catholicism to a comprehensive
understanding of American politics and intellectual culture. This is no small
achievement, given the still-marginal status of most Catholic subject matter
among American historians. Happily, this erudite book is also eminently acces-

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sible. One hopes that it wins a broad audience. McGreevy has much to tell us
about American Catholicism,American liberalism, and the not wholly unrelated
crises in which both traditions are currently mired.
LESLIE WOODCOCK TENTLER
The Catholic University of America

Archbishop Lamy: In His Own Words. Edited and translated by Thomas J.
Steele, S.J. (Albuquerque: LPD Press. 2000. Pp. vii, 271. $29.95 paperback.)
As first Archbishop of Santa Fe, Jean Baptiste Lamy (1814–1888) left a divided
legacy. Perhaps no figure in New Mexico history has provoked so much controversy,criticism,and devotion as Lamy.In this book Thomas Steele,S.J.,known
for his substantial scholarship in New Mexican culture and religious tradition,
excavates the real Lamy from myth and fiction.
Steele does so in two ways, each corresponding to a section of the book.
First, he challenges the fictional portrait of Lamy presented in Willa Cather’s
Death Comes for the Archbishop. Contexting his life through historical analysis
of the French ecclesiastical culture that produced him, Steele then profiles
Lamy and explores his spirituality. Secondly, Steele examines existing manuscripts of Lamy’s sermons and selected characteristic sermons to create a facsimile of the liturgical cycle during which Lamy usually preached. Steele uses
the sermons to allow us to see Lamy “in his own words.”
One of the most intriguing chapters explores Lamy’s psychological profile.
The portrait emerging of Lamy, as an extroverted guardian with a strong sense
of adventure and great respect for authority, stands in stark contrast to the introverted, intuitive soul of Jean Marie Latour, the title character in Cather’s
book. Steele’s research suggests that Latour’s personality actually reflected
Cather’s personality more than Lamy’s. Since Lamy’s personality has so long
been hidden behind Latour’s, Steele constructs a more accurate portrayal
through the profile, elements of his spirituality, and the voice emerging from
the sermons.
The sermons themselves are presented in two sections. Steele has selected
representative sermons in English, most of which are from Lamy’s time on the
Ohio Frontier, in Covington, Kentucky, and Danville, Ohio. They give us a
glimpse of the younger Lamy, before the demands of the episcopacy added political undercurrents to his pastoral duties. In the second section of sermons,
Steele has selected representative sermons in Spanish, presenting them alongside the English translation.Here we see Lamy as he preached in New Mexico—
deeply grounded in Scripture, urging his listeners to “conform to the rules of
this very faith,” seeking the “grace of God in this life and a blest eternity in the
other” ( p. 169).

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Those seeking the romanticized version of Lamy that captured popular imagination will find little to support that fantasy in Steele’s book. We find instead a
portrait of Lamy that consistently reflects what his Sulpician formation in the
Grand Séminaire de Montferrand hoped to instill, the characteristics of a generation of French priests who so shaped nineteenth-century American Catholicism. Lamy was fond of elaborate devotional practices, dutiful, obedient,
respectful of authority, and somewhat dualistic, with Jansenist tendencies not
too far beneath the surface of his spirituality. He was also,however, a figure who
has intrigued and challenged us for over a century, and continues to do so.
Students of New Mexican history will find an interesting perspective on the
motivation behind some of Lamy’s more controversial acts, but this volume will
also be helpful to those pursuing larger questions in terms of nineteenthcentury religious history. A fully searchable CD-ROM (for both PC and MAC) of
Lamy’s complete sermons in English and Spanish is also available.
LYNN BRIDGERS
Spring Hill College

FDR, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic Church in America, 1933–1945.
Edited by David B. Woolner and Richard G. Kurial. [The World of the Roosevelts.] (New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2003. Pp. xvii, 295. $59.95.)
The sixteen papers selected for this volume were among those originally presented at a memorable international conference held at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park and Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New
York, in 1998. The majority of the papers chosen by the editors are scholarly
contributions by recognized experts, a few are by younger scholars and graduate students, and a couple of them might best be described as essays. Together,
they represent a real contribution to a fascinating period, from the beginning of
the New Deal to the closing days of World War II, in which religion and politics
were entwined in new and complex relationships as American Catholics were
increasingly and publicly recognized as wielders of potential and real political
power. A presidential administration and a nation that were moving from a primarily isolationist stance to one of international involvement and leadership
also began to reckon with the Holy See,whose international presence appeared
to many non-Catholics to be increasingly significant.
Father Gerald Fogarty, S.J., of the University of Virginia, provides one of the
most comprehensive studies encountered in this book. Entitled “Roosevelt and
the American Catholic Hierarchy,” it draws upon his earlier work, The Vatican
and the American Hierarchy, adding interesting detail from the diary of Cardinal Spellman and from the Archivio Segreto Vaticano. His paper includes a survey of the relationship between the American hierarchy and the Holy See,

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beginning with the Wilson administration. One of the more intriguing conclusions supported by Fogarty’s well documented research is that the “close alliance” between Roosevelt and American Catholics was lost by the end of the
war, due to military exigencies “influenced by British policies” (such as the willingness to bomb Rome).
In some contrast to the scholarly style of Fogarty’s contribution is the insightful essay by Michael Barone, a Senior Writer for U. S. News and World Report. Though filled with interesting observations, many helpful facts, and well
written, his “Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Protestant Patrician in a Catholic Party”
does not, unfortunately, provide notes to assist further research. While lauding
FDR’s ability to create a sustainable political coalition among Protestants, Jews,
and Catholics,he focuses on the tensions between “this patrician Protestant and
his heavily Catholic party.”
The second section of the book, subtitled,“Catholic Friends/Catholic Foes:
The New Deal and American Catholicism”provides an eclectic survey of loosely
related issues in six papers.Anthony Burke Smith’s “John A. Ryan, the New Deal,
and Catholic Understandings of a Culture of Abundance,”notes the ambivalence
inherent in Ryan’s use of Catholic social teaching to champion the New Deal.
For while that tradition provided an ample base of support for the president’s
reform policies, it also provided a significant critique of the “consumer culture
it spawned.”“Al and Frank: The Great Smith-Roosevelt Feud,” written by Robert
Slayton, posits that Smith’s rejection of those policies was primarily the result
of personal animus. It was directed against FDR, who served in this instance
as the “ultimate symbol of the fraud that was the American spirit.” Slayton argues that Smith’s rage against FDR was engendered by the bigotry and rejection
of the American people that he experienced in 1928. While it is perhaps legitimate to explore this path of psychological analysis, it is also fair to ask if
Smith’s criticism of the New Deal could have been, in fact, more substantive
than personal.
Steven M. Avella focuses on “California Catholics and the Gubernatorial Election of 1934,” arguing that Sinclair Lewis’ bid for state leadership was undermined by his militant anti-Catholicism and attacks on religion in general, as
found in his earlier writings. A result of the defeat, Avella suggests, was that the
Catholic political voice in California was fostered. Francis Sicius, in “The Practical Personalism of The Catholic Worker and the Pragmatic Policies of the New
Deal,” has a less convincing thesis. In arguing for “the confluence of Catholic
Worker and New Deal thought,” he suggests a causal relationship between the
philosophy of Personalism, as incarnated in the Catholic Worker movement,
and the New Deal. While the similarities presented are intriguing, his argument
is not particularly convincing to this reader.
The neo-scholasticism of Father Francis Lucey’s legal world-view is explored
by Ajay K. Mehrotra. He highlights the natural law perspective of Lucey, regent
of the Georgetown University Law Center,which enabled him to both “embrace
and resist the New Deal and legal realism.” This paper, in addition to looking at

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a time of shifting legal thought, also deftly grapples with important philosophical principles and provides much food for thought with regard to the modern
state and the variety of liberal orders that are possible therein. Philip Chen studied the pages of America and Commonweal in order to highlight the ambiguities that arose when the idea of religious liberty was offered as a tool of public
policy, through the days of Mexican anticlericalism, Spain’s civil war, and the debate over political and military relationships with the Soviet Union.
Part Three of the book,“Searching for a New World Order: FDR, the Vatican,
and World War II,” naturally provides what might be considered the most controversial material,given the contemporary state of the question in both serious
historical studies and in more polemical works. The respected scholar Dr. John
S. Conway offers a study of “Pope Pius XII and the Myron Taylor Mission.” It is
relatively brief and without endnotes, but is typical of Dr. Conway’s considered
and balanced approach to the questions raised by contemporary scholarship
with regard to the wartime pontiff. American Protestant opposition to FDR’s
“personal representative”and Truman’s proposal to send an ambassador is amply
documented by Michael Carter in “Diplomacy’s Detractors.” Following a broad
treatment of the anti-Catholic bigotry of the period with a somewhat repetitious statistical analysis and style, Carter concludes that this opposition was utilized by some Protestant leaders in order “to reinvigorate recently failed efforts
at ecumenical unity and political activism within the mainline denominations.”
Diplomatic history and espionage are the subject of David Alvarez’s “A Few
Bits of Information: American Intelligence and the Vatican, 1939–45.” Utilizing
important archival sources, Alvarez uncovers a fascinating story. His main conclusions are that the Vatican was “actually rather poorly informed about events”
and that the U.S. intelligence services were often confused, sometimes worked
at cross purposes with one another, and learned very little that contributed to
American policy through their efforts at the Vatican during the war. The story
of the Holy See’s relationship with the U.S. State Department through the offices of the Apostolic Delegation in Washington, D.C., are given in significant
detail in a paper by Monsignor Robert Trisco of The Catholic University of America. Archbishop Amleto G. Cicognani, apostolic delegate from 1933 to 1958,
proved to be useful to the Holy See, the American Church, and the U.S. government. Though not always successful in terms of the particular goals assigned to
him by the Holy See in a long series of interventions, this hard-working and
well-respected diplomat maintained friendly communications with all parties.
His success in this, Trisco argues, was especially important since normal diplomatic relations with the United States were not politically possible at the time.
Michael Phayer,in considering “Catholics,Jews,and the Bombardment of Rome:
The Priorities of Pius XII during World War II,”provides a considerably more harsh
analysis of the pope than Conway, concluding that Pius failed in as much as he
“confined himself to a diplomatic role,” in the service of a univocal motivation,
namely, “to preserve Rome as the vital symbol of the center of the Christian
world.” Phayer has, of course, expanded on his judgment in subsequent works.

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Peter C. Kent, in “Toward the Reconstitution of Christian Europe,” argues that
the war aims of the papacy (1939–1945) were too inflexible. Moreover, Kent asserts, Pius XII was “obsessed” by the future of Italy and Germany, concerned as
he was to impede the advance of Soviet Communism, and so failed to significantly influence the formation of a postwar Europe. While Kent suggests that
compromise, as advocated by Montini, was possible, he never explicitly considers the slaughter and oppression that in fact followed in the wake of Stalin’s advances. This seems odd, especially since Kent does draw attention to the Allied
betrayal of its promise for a free and democratic Poland, a commitment to
which Pius remained ever-faithful.
Perhaps the least convincing argument in the volume is presented by Charles
R. Gallagher, who was once the archivist for the Diocese of St. Augustine. His
contribution,“A Peculiar Brand of Patriotism:The Holy See, FDR, and the Case of
Reverend Charles E. Coughlin,” focuses on the alleged anti-Semitism of Archbishop Joseph P. Hurley. The editors evidently accept this conclusion, as they, in
the preface, label Hurley “a rabid anti-Semite originally from an Irish neighborhood.”Gallagher argues that it was Hurley who, while attached to the Secretariat
of State of the Holy See in the 1930’s, effectively “filtered out any references to
anti-Semitism as he prepared reports for his superiors”about the Coughlin case.
While Gallagher has indeed surfaced quotes from Hurley’s writings that ring
of prejudice and personal bias, and though he may be correct in faulting Hurley
with not understanding the dangers of Coughlin’s anti-Semitic rhetoric, he fails
to appreciate the broader context, as described in detail by Fogarty and Trisco
in this same volume.Both provide ample evidence that the Holy See was not dependent on one American channel for information. In fact, Fogarty alludes to
the high-level communications about the matter with the Holy See and its representatives by a plethora of influential churchmen, including Fumasoni-Biondi,
Cicognani, Dougherty, McNicholas, Mooney, Spellman, Pacelli, Curley, and, perhaps,Mundelein ( pp.16–22).Gallagher,in contrast to several U.S.bishops at the
time, does not consider the delicate matter of the effect that a “gag order” from
the Holy See on an American citizen might have had in the contemporary political and cultural context. Finally, to make an assertion that Hurley was “the
only bishop of the entire Second Vatican Council to officially and publicly
protest the signing of Nostra Aetate” with a reference to a written animadversion submitted during the discussions on religious liberty (note 24, see Acta
Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, vol. 4, pt. 2, p. 190), is
imcomprehensible.
The selection of papers, taken as a whole, like the conference itself, might be
said to have one slightly jarring aspect. In what emerges as an attempt to make
the endeavor of historical research more relevant, the conference organizers focused the last day on the Holocaust, more precisely, on the reaction to the Holy
See’s then-recent document on the Shoah. As if to highlight the movement
away from the principal themes of the conference,the venue for this discussion
was transferred from Hyde Park to the Marist College campus. The adequacy of

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the March 16, 1998, statement (or its lack thereof ) was explored by several
speakers, including Father Roemi Hoeckman, O.P., Secretary to the Holy See’s
Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. His paper, without notes and
somewhat sharp and defensive in tone, though not perhaps without due cause
given some of the virulent criticisms at the time, closes the volume.
This collection of papers is a useful volume, providing information, insight,
and references and questions for further research for the scholar as well as for
the interested reader.It is,however,somewhat unfortunate both that the editors
failed to include accent marks for foreign words in the text and in notes and
that the price of this volume is so relatively high.
JAMES F. GARNEAU
Diocese of Raleigh

Canadian
Households of Faith: Family, Gender, and Community in Canada, 1760–1969.
Edited by Nancy Christie. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2002. Pp. xiv, 381. $75.00 clothbound; $27.95 paperback.)
Among historians of the English-speaking world studying the family and gender relations the now-standard interpretation of the transformation of gender
relations in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, most fully articulated by Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall in their landmark British work
Family Fortunes that appeared in the late 1980’s, goes something like this: the
simultaneous rise of capitalism and evangelicalism led to the creation among
the middle classes of a new form of marriage, the companionate marriage, a
relationship that on the one hand valued individual identity and on the other
intense affective ties among family members. This development was in turn
accompanied by the emergence of separate spheres, the domestic sphere dominated by women, and that outside of the home by men. Recently, family and
gender historians have developed substantial revisions to this interpretation,
and the authors of this volume offer a major contribution to this endeavor in
the Canadian context, beginning with the issue of the nuclear family and the
rise of individualism.
In his examination of the Roman Catholic parish in rural, French-speaking
Quebec during the late seventeenth through to the early nineteenth century,
Ollivier Hubert rebuts John Bossy’s influential view that Tridentine Catholicism
resulted in individualism.Rather,he argues the nuclear family was a prime agent
through which the clergy inculcated Tridentine belief and practice, a strategy
that relied upon communal pressure and traditional collective identities. Family
ties also proved salient for religious behavior in the nineteenth century. In her
statistical study of church affiliation as reported in the census returns for the
mid-nineteenth-century parish of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Hannah M. Lane

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traces how denominational affiliation was no mere individual choice but instead followed family ties,a pattern that Christine Hudon reveals existed among
a French-speaking Protestant community in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.
The concept of separate spheres, which it was argued mainly relegated
women to maternal and domestic roles, has not fared so well either. J. I. Little
discovers that for the Reverend James Reid, an Anglican ministering in Quebec’s Eastern Townships in the early 1800’s, a companionate marriage coexisted with the exercise of patriarchal authority, particularly when it came to
the raising and education of children. Marguerite Van Die in her study of the
small, mid-Victorian Ontario town of Brantford shows how women’s participation in evangelical churches enabled them to secure a prominent place in the
public life of their community. Likewise, Kenneth L. Draper examines women’s
interdenominational organizations in London, Ontario, and their engagement in
urban moral reform and religious renewal.
The ways in which various cultures understood gender also shaped how men
and women responded to clerically defined religious norms and approved cultural practices. Susan Neylan shows how Christian missionaries’ strategy to
make the nuclear family the norm among aboriginal peoples had the unintended consequence of enabling British Columbia’s Tsimshian converts to
strengthen their clan system, and thereby retain their matrilineal ties. Enrico
Carlson Cumbo argues that Italian men in Ontario’s Toronto-Hamilton region
during the early nineteenth century by and large rejected official forms of
Catholic practice (which women tended to follow in addition to their extensive
range of unofficial, family-based religious observances) but still considered
themselves to be fully Catholic and so appropriated Catholicism on their own
terms, most notably in their enthusiastic celebrations of their home villages’ patronal feast day. Moving into the first two decades of the twentieth century, Patricia Dirks looks at how shifting understandings of masculinity led mainstream
Protestant churches to co-operate with one another in developing religious education programs for male adolescents. Growing anxiety over the growing feminization of their membership, she argues, spurred church leaders to transform
their Sunday School curriculums so that teen-age boys could successfully
weather the storms of adolescence and grow up to become upright church
members.Michael Gauvreau studies the ways in which Roman Catholic women
in post-World War II Quebec appropriated the Church’s marriage-preparation
courses according to their own social and personal needs and so, in a turn that
the clergy surely must not have anticipated, took control over their sexual reproduction. Nancy Christie looks at the United Church’s response to cultural
changes in postwar English-speaking Canada, when it shifted from viewing the
family as a religious haven in an increasingly secular and self-centered world
and began in the late 1950’s to promote marriage as a means for personal and
sexual fulfillment.
This synopsis can hardly convey the richness and depth of this volume’s contributions, all of which are based on extensive research. Written by both new

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and well-established scholars, they are uniformly of high quality and set the
standard for future inquiry. That said, to my mind the essays by Hubert,Van Die,
and Neylan are especially fine at delineating the interconnections between religious practice, family relations, gender identities, and community making.
Nancy Christie’s introduction and conclusion do a nice job in exploring the
central historiographical issues raised by these essays and in highlighting the
central shifts in gender relations within the family over the 200 years around
which these essays grouped, a task that requires extrapolating trends on the basis of a pioneering body of literature that brings together the study of religion
and family. As historians of Christianity are increasingly turning to social and
cultural history, it is to be hoped that this debate will continue. Historians with
an interest in religion, gender, and the family in the North American context
should read this volume. Would that it had an index.
BRIAN CLARKE
Emmanuel College
Toronto School of Theology
Latin American
Power, Witchcraft, and Caste in Colonial Mexico. By Laura A. Lewis. (Durham,
North Carolina: Duke University Press. 2003. Pp. xvi, 262. $79.95 clothbound; $22.95 paperback.)
Anthropologist Laura Lewis anchors her analysis of race and caste in colonial
Mexico on Inquisition records, which she uses to explore the ways in which
people of different races perceived each other. Thus, she reiterates the multiplicity of uses to which these records can be put to use to tease meaning from
the past. Since caste, rather than race, was used more extensively in New Spain
to identify people, Lewis begins by analyzing the meaning of caste and lineage
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Caste was transmutable because it partook of the concept of kinship, buttressed on genealogical ties and social connectedness. In other words, people could claim cultural and social affiliation to
individuals of two races. Lewis argues that in the conceptualization of race it
was lineage that added fluidity to a system in which Spanishness was at the top
of the pyramid. Indianness was associated with the masses of commoners, and
the interstitial spaces were populated by various admixtures.
Her analysis of the nature of testimony and the reliability of Inquisitorial procedure is enlightening and defines her analytical tool for the reader, reaffirming
the validity of the texts when placed within their own complex context. Some
of the most interesting chapters in this book deal with the ascription of Spanishness by individuals of mixed race who stressed lineage and the redemptive
quality of Spanish blood. Caste was not necessarily a biological fact but a political venue that could be manipulated in many ways by all concerned. However,
if the claimant did not adhere to standard concepts of good behavior expected

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of the claimed ethnic group, he or she joined the ranks of the socially marginal.
Class also remained a factor to be considered alongside caste to define one’s
rank and social position. Thus, class could separate Indian chiefs from commoners, or Indians from mestizos. Common expectations about races and admixtures formed part of the popular imaginary, an area that Lewis explores by
analyzing the language of Inquisitorial texts.
One of her most intriguing interpretations is about the ambiguous and almost contradictory relationship between Spaniards and Indians:“while Spaniards
exploited Indians, they also leapt to their defense”; thus defiance to laws protecting Indians compelled the Spanish judiciary to step in to ameliorate its own
abuses ( p. 91). This kind of problematization of the multiplicity of meanings in
a racially and culturally complex society makes of this work a refreshing and
challenging re-reading of colonial race and social relations.
Other interpretations will evoke responses from historians engaged in the
discussion of race, gender, and colonialism. Lewis argues that the feminization
of the Indian subject placed women and Indians at the center of preoccupation
over sexual control, metaphorically as well as factually. An incursion into the
realm of witchcraft reviews the concept of the devil as black, and ties Indians,
Africans, mulattoes, and Spaniards in a “hall of mirrors” that reflects transgression at all levels and the use of unsanctioned power borrowed from each other.
Ultimately, the essence of caste is regarded as one of shifting identities depending very much from a relative angle of perception, and definitely taking shape
in the sixteenth century. Throughout time, both class and race, she argues, took
increasing importance and obliged people in the nineteenth and twentieth century to resort to the same manipulations once used by their ancestors. Lewis
has written a book that by shaking the foundations of the concepts of authority, proposing the multiplicity of foci of domination, and the malleability of the
process of colonization will reopen the debate on those themes.
ASUNCIÓN LAVRIN
Arizona State University

The Chaco Mission Frontier:The Guaycuruan Experience. By James Scholfield
Saeger. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2000. Pp. xviii, 266. $50.00.)
This book adds perspective on the studies of missions in Latin America. Traditionally, most historians have associated missions with institutions in the
colonial Spanish American heartlands,where native populations were settled agriculturists. This inquiry expands and nuances these ideas by focusing on the
work of Catholic friars working among the non-sedentary (or semi-nomadic)
Guaycuruan hunter-gatherers of the Gran Chaco. They constituted people who
valued war and scorned farmers like the Guaraní. In seven detailed chapters
and a conclusion, Saeger presents, wherever the sources permit, the Guaycuruan (a term applied to Abipones,Mocobis,Mbayás,the Toba,Pilagá,and others)

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perspectives on missions and the negotiated conditions under which they were
accepted in the eighteenth century.In the absence of a written Guaycuruan language, Saeger reconstructs Guaycuruan history and their lifeways from contact
in the 1500’s to the coming of the missions in the 1740’s and into the twentieth
century, based on records left by their enemies and tutors and assumes “that
Guaycuruans spoke most clearly through their behavior” ( p. xiii).
The analysis of their lifeways focuses on change and continuities over time.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Guaycuruan groups exhibited
no political organization or loyalty above the band, although they shared a common language.They defined themselves partly in opposition to the Hispanic societies with whom they fought, plundered, and traded. They were led by
hereditary chiefs with limited authority. Among the Mocobis, for example,
chiefs won influence from powerful oratory with which to persuade and win
adherents, brave deeds, and good decisions. And, although such a decentralized
structure might suggest weakness, in fact it prevented Spanish forces from capturing the one person who at least symbolically signaled the defeat of them all.
Over the years the settling of the area by the Spanish resulted in wars, disease,
and ecological degradation, and increasing pressure on hunting and other resources. Guaycuruans adjusted by adopting the horse; raising cattle; using iron
hatchets and knives (which in the long run ruined palm groves); replacing war
as an economic activity with trade; accepting the concept of private property
and the market economy; becoming sedentary; adopting agriculture; learning
trades, converting to Catholicism; and embracing sobriety. By the late twentieth
century, most of the Guaycuruans had lost their land, language, and identity.
In the conclusions, Saeger compares and contrasts his findings with the standard view of the mission, as presented by David Sweet’s synthesis. Like the
stereotype, missionaries to the Guaycuruan attempted to change food habits;
introduce new conceptions of time; make the natives into “unwaged rural proletarians”;teach the Guaycuruan to work as domestic servants and ranch hands;
and, in general, replace native customs with Hispanic ones. Like the standard,
too, resistance was greatest among the least sedentary and least political. But
the Guaycuruan experience was also different in important ways. Missions in
the Gran Chaco were not in the vanguard of Spanish penetration. Natives remained relatively healthy; they were not chronically ill and did not die early and
in mass. Guaycuruans actually improved their nutrition. Missionaries did not deprive them of freedom to procure subsistence as they saw fit. Finally Guaycuruans resisted by departing rather than by rebelling.
Saeger’s analysis is particularly strong on the eighteenth century. His description and analysis are especially good in Chapter 5 on the kin-based allegiances
among the various groups who constituted the Guaycuruan. His review of religious beliefs also seems coincident and parallel to those of natives elsewhere.
Beliefs that sickness had supernatural origin and that native gods provided victory in war echo those found elsewhere in South America, most particularly
among the peoples conquered by the Inca.

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Problems with the text are few. The many and changing names of the various
Guaycuruan groups were confusing. The Mbayás called themselves the
Eyiguayegis (“people of the palm”);the Mocobis called themselves the Amocovit;
and the Toba called themselves the Qom or the Nam Qom or the Natocovit. The
Abipones were also known as the Acallagaec. The Guanás were also called the
Chanés or the Naperús. By the 1700’s the Lichagotegodes (people of the land of
the red earth) were also lumped into the Mbayá. Names like the Cadiguegodis
Guetiadegodis; the Apachachodegodegis (from the lands of the Rhea), the Eyibegodegis (also known as the Enacagas) (the people hidden among hills and
marches), and the Gotocogegodegi (people from the cane field), though authentic, complicate the story. Further, readers are never given an explanation of how
or why or even when one band becomes another and changes names.Another is
the notion of territoriality. Saeger finds that the Guaycuruan claimed exclusive
territories ( p. xi), yet the “Mocobis and Abyion bands were distributed randomly
among each other” (p. 17; see also 53, 120). Such a dispersed and intermingled
settlement pattern did not signal exclusive territory.And,if territory did not serve
as a basis for identity, might not religious beliefs have played that role? Were the
natives’ excessive drinking habits a way of forming identity and community, like
those of the K’ulta that Thomas Abercrombie studied in highland Bolivia or those
of the Andeans more generally, studied by Thierry Saignes (1987)?
In sum, this is a laudable piece of scholarship that summarizes the history of
a disappearing people. Its contribution to the anthropological history of this
area of South America will make it a “must read” for the well-informed anthropologist, historian, and geographer.
SUSAN E. RAMIREZ
Texas Christian University

Death Is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century
Brazil. By João José Reis. Translated by H. Sabrina Glidehill. (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 386. $59.95 clothbound;
$27.50 paperback.)
Death is a festival. Death is the hereafter. Death is faith. Death is omnipresent.
Death is a will.Death is a good end.Death is a passing.Death is family unity.Death
is a funeral. Death is religious solidarity. Death is a tomb. Death affirms social distinctions.Death confirms cultural traditions.Death causes medical and cultural innovation. Death is so important that meddling with its meanings can incite riot.
The above litany presents the principal findings of João José Reis’s study—revised from the original, Portuguese-language edition of 1991—of death in the
Brazilian city of Salvador da Bahia (inhabited mainly by people of African descent) in the early nineteenth century. The book shows how dramatically and
drastically death has been banished from contemporary culture. For us the only

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legitimate cause for dying is extreme old age. In Salvador, as Reis points out, social, economic, and health conditions made death all too intrusive. It struck
down the most vulnerable, who were often the most cherished. In 1836, 30% of
the freeborn and at least 47% of the slaves who died in the city were aged ten
and under. Orthodox medicine availed little against death. it was inept even at
identifying the diseases causing death.
The intrusiveness of death meant that, to be made emotionally bearable, it
had to be ritualized and that ritual incorporated, as the study shows, into every
aspect of life. The most powerful vehicle in this process was religion, which
provided formularies for dying, burial, and remembrance and which also linked
the living to the departed and supplied the means to aid the dead in the hereafter.Both the ceremonies and the doctrines of Catholicism,the state religion of
Brazil, served all these ends most effectively. João José Reis, the leading authority on the culture and lives of the African slaves in Brazil, argues that, for many,
the indigenous religions of Africa served the same purpose. Since over 40% of
Salvador’s inhabitants were slaves (most from Africa), the author’s contention is
very probable, but it is not, from the evidence he gives, proven. His analysis and
arguments would be stronger if he had kept Tridentine Catholicism and what
may be termed “folk” ( pre-Tridentine) Catholicism distinct in his analysis, instead of conflating them as “baroque Catholicism.”
In the ritualization of death the irmandades (the confraternities and third orders) of Salvador played a key role,in part because specific irmandades acted as
religious and social centers for different racial groups, such as that of Our Lady
of the Rosary for African slaves. Members of an irmandade were assured of a funeral and interment with due ceremony and reverence.They could be,and often
specifically requested to be interred in the irmandade’s church. Such practice
united the dead and the living, a union intensified by the celebration of Masses
for the deceased’s soul. Burial in church may promote unity but rotting corpses
stink. The medical profession in the nineteenth century was increasingly convinced that eliminating “miasmas” (gases), including the stench of corpses,
would reduce the death rate. Physicians advocated the construction of cemeteries isolated from residential areas. One third of Reis’s book is devoted to the crisis that exploded at Salvador in 1836, when a law banned interment in church
and granted a monopoly of burials to a company that constructed a new-style
cemetery. The popular riot that followed left the cemetery in ruins and the law
unenforceable. Not until the cholera epidemic of 1855 was the ban reinstated.
Death Is a Festival is, in sum, an admirable study, stimulating in approach and
thorough in its research. It is a pity that the translation is often clumsy and on
occasion misleading. The illustrations are excellent, although those from Debret’s Voyage pittoresque show life and death in Rio de Janeiro, not in Salvador.
RODERICK J. BARMAN
University of British Columbia

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Papal Overtures in a Cuban Key. The Pope’s Visit and Civic Space for Cuban
Religion. Edited by Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo. (Scranton: University of
Scranton Press. 2002. Pp. xxxvii, 174. $27.95 paperback.)
In January, 1998, Pope John Paul II visited Cuba. The visit was much anticipated by Cuba watchers, who saw it as a potential turning point in Cuban history. Many wanted to be flies on the wall during the visit, eavesdropping on all
of the conversations that took place in the hopes of understanding what the future might bring for religion and politics in Cuba. In Papal Overtures in a
Cuban Key. The Pope’s Visit and Civic Space for Cuban Religion, Anthony M.
Stevens-Arroyo has edited a valuable collection of essays that suggests some of
the answers.
In his introduction to the collection, Stevens-Arroyo places the Pope’s visit in
a deep historical context. He argues that the modern perceptions of a weak
Church are based on the historical estrangement of the institutional Church
with popular religion. The early openness of Catholicism in Cuba (and the
Americas in general) gave way to a tough orthodoxy by the late eighteenth century. New theological preoccupations in Europe, combined with the identification of the Cuban Church with an oppressive colonial power, further distanced
formal Catholicism from popular religions. Stevens-Arroyo recognizes that simple descriptions of the Church as an exploitive foreign intrusion are not very
helpful, but at the same time demonstrates that the historical weaknesses of the
Church hampered it during the crisis of the 1960’s.
The tightly packed introduction sets the stage for analyses of the struggle for
civic and social space in Cuba. Some precise definition of “civic” and “social”
space, especially the way in which their meaning might have changed through
time, would have given more theoretical precision to the essays, but their main
points are clear. All in one way or another analyze the efforts of the Catholic
Church to play a more visible part in the ongoing drama of Cuban life,especially
as it touches the questions of liberty and social justice.Three interrelated themes
are the heart of the essays. First, Catholicism’s relationship with Protestantism
and African-influenced religions; second, the relationship between Cubans and
Cuban-Americans; third, the emergence of the Church as a social and cultural
force. Of the many fine essays addressing these questions I would single out
María Inés Flores’“The Struggle for Civic Space:A Case Study Perspective.”The essay is the product of extensive field research in Cuba, and describes the groups,
agencies, and institutions active in carving up Cuban civic space in the 1990’s.
If she and the other authors continue their research, we could soon have a very
welcome collection of monographs on religion in recent Cuban history.
Stevens-Arroyo does more than summarize the essays in his concluding chapter on “Popular Religion and Civil Society:The Papal Visit to Cuba as a Blueprint
for a Catholic Renewal.” He envisions a more active role for the Church, now
more closely identified with Cuban nationalism than in the past, as it adjusts and
adapts to the realities of Cuban life. In an afterword, Miguel A. De La Torre gives

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a theological perspective on the future of religion in “Toward an Ajiaco Christianity,”using the traditional Cuban stew as a metaphor for a Christianity inspired
by different cultures and ethnicities. An ajiaco Christianity would combine the
complex realities of the past and present to lead Cuba into a new future.
All of the essays are made more useful by a chronology and list of Internet
sources (a glossary would have also helped). The essays do not pretend to answer all of the questions arising from the Pope’s visit, but they do provide rich
insights, and at the same time suggest useful approaches for future research on
religion and Cuban society.
JOHN C. SUPER
West Virginia University

BRIEF NOTICES

WEBER, FRANCIS J. A Tradition of Outreach: Examples of Catholic Action in the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles. (Mission Hills, California: Saint Francis Historical Society. 2003. Pp. xiii, 107. $10.00 paperback.)
The Los Angles archdiocesan archivist, Monsignor Francis Weber, in A Tradition of Outreach claims with respect to Catholic Action, “It is clear that the
Church in Southern California was considerably out in front of its sister ecclesial jurisdictions in the field.” While his book provides no historical context nor
notes or bibliography to check the historical record, it is clear from this very
functional book that Los Angeles was active in Catholic Action, not only after
Pius XI’s 1922 call for same, but as early as the late nineteenth century. Indeed,
as Weber claims, the spirit of Catholic Action has been present in the Southern
California Church since the arrival of the Franciscan missionaries in the late
eighteenth century.
This book provides summary historical sketches of forty groups, arranged alphabetically, that run the gamut of peoples, institutions, and causes. Some of the
groups, such as the Knights of Columbus and St.Vincent de Paul Society, are international in focus; others, such as the Young Men’s and Ladies’ Institutes, were
statewide groups; still others, such as Miserere House and the Marymount
Tabernacle Society served the Southern California Church exclusively. The
needs of labor, the poor, children, Christian education, various ethnic groups,
and even campaigns against anti-Catholicism and Communism were aided by
these groups. Some organizations mentioned by Weber could be considered
rather tangential to true Catholic Action, including the Family Rosary Crusade,
Knights of Saint Gregory, and the Protestant-founded Landmark’s Club.
Weber’s book, while not a work that provides analysis or commentary on the
groups described is, nonetheless, a very helpful volume. The book’s interesting
and information-laden summaries can, along with a brief background on the
concept of Catholic Action, serve as a ready reference for scholars and general
readers. Francis Weber has continued his long tradition of adding significantly
to the historical landscape of American Catholicism.
RICHARD GRIBBLE, C.S.C.
Stonehill College

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375

WEBER, FRANCIS J. Requiescant in Pace. The Story of Catholic Cemeteries in the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles. (Mission Hills, California: Saint Francis Historical Society. 2003. Pp. vii, 93. $12.00 paperback.)
Catholic cemeteries are sacred places,being an outgrowth of belief in the resurrection of the body. Monsignor Francis J. Weber, the author of this book,
points out that burying the dead has long been looked upon as a corporal work
of mercy.He thus thought it appropriate to write a history of the Catholic cemeteries located within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The author, currently the
archivist of the Archdiocese, is no stranger to the funeral industry, having spent
part of his youth in the employ of a Los Angeles mortuary.
The book opens with a discussion of the historical background of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Catholic burial practices, the general and evolving
rules and regulations, and the administration of the cemeteries. The next three
sections profile individually the six mission cemeteries within the archdiocese
boundaries, the ten closed, abandoned, or alienated cemeteries, and the twelve
currently functioning cemeteries. The discussion for each of these is pleasant,
informal, even chatty, highlighting historical elements and quoting statements
by church officials relevant to the particular cemetery. The text is amply supplemented by photographic illustrations, some dating to the nineteenth century,of both current and abandoned cemeteries.The final section (“Appendices”)
consists of a more lengthy discussion of six special topics, related in tangential
ways to the preceding histories.The author’s own opinions are occasionally evident; clearly, for instance, he lacks enthusiasm for cremation, while tracing its
increasing use. (It is interesting that the new Los Angeles Cathedral Mausoleum
was built with 1,275 casket spaces and 5,000 columbarium niches—an anticipation of about eighty percent cremation for that facility.) There is no index or
bibliography, the latter sorely missed for the historical data cited.
In reading through the vignettes of the various cemeteries, and especially in
reading the appendices where a few topics are discussed in more depth, one
realizes the wealth of historical material that awaits even the moderately industrious student. Cemetery studies can involve research into local history, architecture and landscape design, sociology of burial practices, and monument
symbolism and craftsmanship, among many other ancillary subjects.The author
touches upon all of these, but lightly. And the book rightly should be regarded
as an introduction to and overview of these Catholic cemeteries. In this it
stands alone on the market today; and, although not written as such, the book
could be of good use as a general guidebook when visiting the cemeteries.
STUART F. ROBINSON
Newport Beach, California

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Association News
At its last annual meeting, which was held in Washington, D.C., on January 8,
2004, the Executive Council appointed Leslie W. Tentler of the Catholic University of America assistant secretary and treasurer of the American Catholic Historical Association.
At the same meeting the Executive Council approved the regulations for the
awarding of the Harry C. Koenig Prize that were proposed by an ad hoc committee consisting of James D. Tracy of the University of Minnesota (chairman),
Marvin O’Connell, emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, and Uta-Renate
Blumenthal of the Catholic University of America. (See the obituary of Monsignor Koenig ante, LXXXVIII [April, 2002], 407–408.) The following statement
was unanimously adopted:“The Harry C. Koenig Prize, offered every two years,
is a subvention fund to assist a press in publishing a book-length biography of a
member of the Catholic Church who has lived in any period of history and in
any part of the world. Works already accepted for publication may be submitted
for the award, but the winning manuscript must have printed, preferably on its
title page,‘The Msgr. Harry C. Koenig Prize in Catholic Biography.’The monetary
grant will be made within a maximum of two years after the award has been announced and upon receipt in writing of a commitment from the publisher accepting the manuscript for publication. Beginning with the initial competition,
for 2004/2005,manuscripts must be submitted by November 1 to the Executive
Office of the American Catholic Historical Association in Mullen Library, Room
320, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064. Manuscripts
may not be submitted in more than one competition. The award will be announced at the Association’s annual meeting in January.” As is true of all the Association’s prizes, an applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of the
United States or Canada. The committee for the choice of the first winner will
be the same as the ad hoc committee named above.
The President of the American Catholic Historical Association, Christopher J.
Kauffman of the Catholic University of America, has appointed three members
to the Committee on Program (of which he is chairman) for the eighty-fifth annual meeting, which will be held in Seattle, Washington, on January 7–9, 2005.
They are Jo Ann H. Moran Cruz of Georgetown University, Thomas Kselman of
the University of Notre Dame, and James Riley of the Catholic University of
America.

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377

Meetings, Congresses, Conferences, Symposia, and Colloquia
The Texas Catholic Historical Society was to hold its annual meeting in
Austin on March 5. In a joint session with the Texas State Historical Association
the topic “Writing Diocesan History” was discussed by Sister Hildegard Varga,
O.S.B.,of St.Benedict Monastery and Sister Dolores Ann Liptak R.S.M.,of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.
To commemorate the quincentenary of the election of Giuliano della Rovere
to the papacy in 1503, an international conference on “Giulio II: Papa, politico,
mecenate” was held on March 25–27, 2004, in the Fortezza del Priamar at
Savona, the city in which he was born. Among those presenting papers were
Christine Shaw of the University of Warwick (“Giuliano Della Rovere: l’uomo, il
politico, il principe della Chiesa”) and Nelson H. Minnich of the Catholic University of America (“The Image of Julius II in the Acta of the Councils of PisaMilan-Asti-Lyon and Lateran V”).
A colloquium will be held on the Island of Andros, Greece, on April 22–25,
2004, to mark the eighth centenary of the Fall of Constantinople.
The Advisory Committee of the project “The Vatican and Religious Institutions, 1802–1914,”will hold an international colloquium on May 27–29, 2004, at
the Belgian Academy in Rome on “Religious Institutions and the Roman Factor
in Western Europe, 1802–1914.” Papers will be delivered in English and French
and will subsequently be published. Seven themes have been proposed, to wit,
“The Role of the Curia,”“The Role of the Papal Nuncios,”“The Position of the Local
Bishops,”“Rome and the Various Types of Religious Institutions,”“The Implementation of Vatican Instructions,”“The Beatification or Canonization of the Founder,”
and “The Position of the Missionary Institutions.” More information is available
from Sofie Leplae of the Project Staff of KADOC Leuven at Vlamingenstraat 39,
B-3000 Leuven, Belgium; telephone: 01 32 16 32 35 00; fax: 01 32 16 32 35 01;
e-mail: sofie.leplae@kadoc.kuleuven.ac.be.
The theme of the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium that will be held at the University of the South on April 16–17, 2004, is “Medieval Perceptions of Women
and Womanhood.” In a session on “Women, Conversion, and Devotion” papers
will be read by Ann Hartle of Emory University (“The Role of Augustine’s
Mother in the Confessions: A Philosophical Interpretation”),by Karen Winstead
of Ohio State University (“Beyond Virginity: Women in the Writings of John
Capgrave”), and by Martha M. Daas of Old Dominion University (“Escaping the
Confines of Corporeality: The Anomaly of Saint Martha”). In a session on
“Women, Religion, and Authority” papers will be read by John Damon of the
University of Nebraska, Kearney (“The Social Theory of the Three Orders and
the Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Female Monasticism”), by Emilie Amt of Hood
College (“What the Nuns Knew, What the Bishop Thought: Visitations of Some
English Convents”), and by Susan Uselmann of Rhodes College (“Women Writing for Vernacular Readers; Julian of Norwich’s Revelations and Margery
Kempe’s Book”).A session will also be devoted to “Interpreting the Virgin”with

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papers by Donna M. Altmari-Adler of St. Xavier University (“Birgitta of Sweden,
a Woman of Influence: Her Life, Her Influence, Her Mariological Moorings”), by
Rachael Carlson of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (“The Womb of the
Virgin Blossoms: Transfigurations of Mary in Aquitanian Versus”), and by Frederick Waage of East Tennessee State University (“The Secularization of the Magdalen in English Medieval and Early Modern Drama.”
A summer institute for college and university teachers,funded by the National
Endowment for the Humanities, will be held at the University of Maryland from
June 14 to July 16, 2004, on the theme “Persecutions in Early Modern Cultures.”
Donna B. Hamilton and Ralph Bauer will lead the participants in a comparative
study of representations of persecution between 1492 and 1700 in Spain and
England and their respective colonies in the Americas and the wider Atlantic
world. The interdisciplinary perspectives and intercontinental connectedness
will, it is hoped, suggest new directions in early modern studies. More information may be obtained from Adele Seeff by e-mail: crbs@umail.umd.edu, or from
the project website: http://crbs.umd.edu/persecutions.
The Academy of American Franciscan History will sponsor a seminar on
“Constructing California: Fray Francisco Palou, OFM,” on August 24, 2004, at the
Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley. It will be conducted by Robert
Senkewicz and Rose Marie Beebe of Santa Clara University in Berkeley: telephone: 510-548-1755; website: www.aafh.org.
A call for papers has been issued in preparation for a conference titled “Consecrated Women:Towards a History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland,”
which will be held in Cambridge, England, on September 16–17, 2004. Proposals on the following themes are particularly solicited:“Women Religious in the
Community: assessing social and pastoral activism”; “Authority and Governance”; and “Writing Biography: challenges, issues, and approaches.” Proposals
should be sent to either Ruth Manning, University College, Oxford OX1 4BH, England; e-mail: ruth.manning@univ.ox.ac.uk; or Susan O’Brien, 26 Emery Street,
Cambridge CB1 2AX, England; e-mail: susan.obrien4@btopenworld.com.
An international symposium on “The Franciscan Presence in the Borderlands
of North America” will be held on September 16–18, 2004, at the De Falso Retreat Center, Amarillo, Texas. The bishop of that diocese, John Yanta, will be the
host. Among the participants will be Francisco Morales, O.F.M., of Mexico City,
Leonardo Sánchez, O.F.M., of Zapopan, Michael Mathes, formerly of the Sutro Library in San Francisco, Jeffrey Burns of the Academy of American Franciscan
History, and Joseph P. Sánchez of the Spanish Colonial Research Center at the
University of New Mexico. More information may be obtained from the coordinator of the symposium, Félix D. Almaráz, Jr., at the University of Texas at
San Antonio, Downtown Campus, 501 West Durango Boulevard, San Antonio,
Texas 78207–4415; telephone: 210-458-2616.
The ninth conference sponsored by the International Seminar on Pre-Reformation Theology of Gettysburg Seminary and the American Cusanus Society

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379

will be held at the seminary on October 10, 2004. The title of the conference is
“Reform and Obedience: The Authority of Church, Council, and Pope from the
Great Schism to the Council of Trent,” and its purpose is to consider the contributions of the “generation” of Brian Tierney to the question of how the Great
Schism and the conciliar crisis caused theologians, jurists, and humanists to rethink accepted concepts of church government, while the contemporary Hussite challenge compelled them to balance the need for reform with the need to
preserve order in the visible institution and reaffirm its legitimacy. In particular
the contributions of Nicholas of Cusa to this debate will be studied. Francis
Oakley of Williams College will deliver the opening public lecture. Further information may be obtained from the chairman of the seminar, Gerald Christianson at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg,61 Seminary Ridge,
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 17325–1795; telephone: 717-334-6286; fax: 717-3343469; e-mail: gchristianson@Ltsg.edu.
As the conclusion and crowning of the celebrations for the fourth centenary
of the founding of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, the Accademia di San Carlo
will devote its dies academicus that will be held on November 25–27, 2004, to
the theme “Federico Borromeo fondatore della Biblioteca Ambrosiana: Biblioteche storiche europee tra XVI e XVIII secolo; Modalità di fruizione odierna
dei fondi antichi.” Requests for the program should be addressed to Maria Luisa
Frosio in care of the Accademia di San Carlo, Piazza Pio XI, 2, 20123 Milano,
Italy; e-mail: asc@ambrosiana.it.

Causes of Saints
On December 20, 2003, in the presence of Pope John Paul II the prefect of
the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, presented decrees approving miracles attributed to the intercession of four candidates for canonization and seven for beatification; among the latter is Karl,
Emperor and King of Austria-Hungary. (See ante, LXXXIX [ July, 2003], 584.) No
date has yet been set for the beatifications. Cardinal Saraiva Martins also announced decrees of recognition of heroic virtues of seven servants of God, one
of whom was Clemens August Graf von Galen (1878–1946), Bishop of Münster
(1933–1946) and cardinal for only one month before his death. The prefect
said,“He fought openly against the errors of National Socialism and against the
violations of the rights of man and of the Church.”His energetic,fearless preaching earned him the nickname “Lion of Münster.” He will be beatified if a miracle
attributed to his intercession is recognized by the congregation.
The Congregation for the Causes of Saints has approved the opening of the
process of beatification for 124 Korean martyrs, namely, Paul Yun Ji-Chung and
his companions, who were put to death in 1791. Last year the Korean Bishops’
Commission for Beatifications and Canonizations submitted all the relative
documentation to the Roman congregation; the commission had formed a
panel of experts in history to act as consultors, presided over by Andrea Kim

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

Jin-so, director of the Honam History Center. The postulator of the cause for beatification is Domenico Youn Minku of Suwon Catholic University. Paul Yun JiChung was the first of many noble Korean Christians to be killed or exiled for
their faith in Christ. Catholics in Korea suffered four major persecutions in the
following century, when they had to remain underground, and did not obtain
freedom of worship until 1895. The local estimates that no fewer than 16,000
Korean Catholics were martyred during this period.
The Archbishop of Besançon, André Lacrampe, announced after a papal audience granted to him and the other bishops of eastern France on February 27,
2004, that the cause of beatification of Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of a united Europe, is in its final stages. (See ante, LXXXIX [ July, 2003],
584–585.)
Publications
The École Française de Rome sponsored a round table on June 6–8, 2002, on
the theme “La mémoire des origines dans les institutions médiévales.” The papers presented on that occasion have now been published in the first fascicle
for 2003 of the Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome (Volume 115). Under
the same title Cécile Caby has given a “présentation d’un projet collectif” ( pp.
133–140). Among the other articles are “Croyance et communauté: la mémoire
des origines des abbayes bénédictines,”by Amy G. Remensnyder ( pp. 141–154);
“Mémoire des origines et idéologies monastiques: Saint-Pierre-des-Fossés et
Saint-Victor de Marseille au XIe siècle,” by Michel Lauwers ( pp. 155–180);
“Tradizione monastica e racconto delle origini in Italia centrale (secoli XI–XII),”
by Antonio Sennis ( pp. 181–211); “La funzione della memoria nella definizione
dell’identità religiosa in comunità monastiche dell’Italia centrale (secoli XI e
XII),”by Umberto Longo (pp. 213–233);“L’abbaye à l’ordre: écriture des origines
et institutionnalisation des expériences monastiques, XIe–XIIe siècle),” by Cécile
Caby ( pp. 235–267);“Rito, narrazione, memoria. Primi racconti sulle origini dei
Frati predicatori,”by Luigi Canetti ( pp. 269–294);“Quelles origines pour le Tiers
ordre dominicain?” by Anne Reltgen-Tallon ( pp. 295–309);“La Vierge pour mémoire: réécrire les origines, l’exemple servite,” by Sylvie Barnay ( pp. 311–323);
“La memoria dall’eresia alla riammissione: le cronache quattrocentesche degli
Umiliati,” by Caterina Bruschi ( pp. 325–340);“Entre historiographie et négation
du temps: l’arbre bénédictin de Jean de Stavelot (1432),” by Dominique
Donadieu-Rigaut ( pp. 341–359); and “Memoria ‘religiosa’ e memoria ‘laica’: sulle
origini di ospedali di area padana (secoli XII–XIV),” by Marina Gazzini ( pp.
361–384).
The annual volume (97) of the Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Kirchengeschichte for 2003 contains articles ranging in time from the fifth century to
the twentieth: Alexandre Pahud,“Romainmôtier et la mémoire. La question des
origines” ( pp. 7–35); Jean-Loup Lemaitre, “Pour un répertoire des obituaires
suisses”( pp. 37–56); Georg Modestin,“Ein treuer Diener seiner Herren. Der Lau-

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381

sanner Jurist Pierre Creschon zwischen bischöflicher Hexenjagd und städtischem Ratsalltag (15. Jh.)” ( pp. 57–69); Ulrich Köchli, “Grabmalskultur und
soziale Strategien im frühneuzeitlichen Rom am Beispiel der Familie Papst Urbans VIII. Barberini” ( pp. 71–87); Zsolt Keller, “Von ‘Gottesmördern’ und Sündern. Mt 27,25 in der Lebenswelt von Schweizer Katholiken 1900–1950” ( pp.
89–105); Stéphanie Roulin,“Une union des chrétiens conservateurs pour sauver
1’Europe en 1940? L’œcuménisme selon Gonzague de Reynold” ( pp. 107–121);
Markus Furrer,“Konfession und Nation im Schweizer Schulbuch” ( pp. 123–144);
Franziska Metzger,“Die Konfession der Nation. Katholische Geschichtsschreibung
und Errinerungskultur der Reformation in der Schweiz zwischen 1850 und
1950” (pp. 145–163); Urs Altermatt, “Zum ambivalenten Verhältnis von Katholizismus und Moderne: Epochen, Diskurse, Transformationen” ( pp. 165–181),
and (under “Miszelle”) Alois Steiner, “Ein wichtiges Dokument zum Luzerner
Universitätsprojekt von 1920” ( pp. 183–189).
The papers presented at a round table on “Dissidences religieuses et sorcellerie: une spécificité montagnarde?” which was organized by the University of
Toulouse-Le Mirail and the Anthropology Laboratory of Toulouse and held in
that city on November 21, 2001, have been gathered to constitute a numéro
thématique of Heresis (Number 39 [autumn and winter, 2003]). Following an
“Introduction”by Serge Brunet ( pp. 11–17), the articles are: Pierrette Paravy,“La
sorcellerie, une spécialité montagnarde? Le cas du monde alpin occidental”
( pp. 19–33); Pilar Jimenez Sanchez,“Catharisme ou catharismes? Variations spatiales et temporelles dans l’organisation et dans l’encadrement des communautés dites ‘cathares’ ” ( pp. 35–61); Nelly Pousthomis-Dalle, “Le langage des
pierres: l’iconographie de portails romans des sept vallées (Hautes-Pyrénées)”
( pp. 63–76); Gabriel Audisio,“Unité et dispersion d’une diaspora européenne:
les vaudois (XVe–XVIe siècles)” ( pp. 77–89); Jean-Pierre Albert,“Croire et ne pas
croire. Les chemins de l’hétérodoxie dans le registre d’Inquisition de Jacques
Fournier” ( pp. 91–106); François Bordes, “Montagne et sorcellerie au Pays
Basque et en Béarn” ( pp. 107–114); and Martin Gelaberto Vilagran,“La sorcellerie catalane à l’époque moderne” ( pp. 115–128). Nicole Lemaitre has provided a conclusion ( pp. 129–134).
The papers presented at the conference of the Accademia di San Carlo on
“Federico Borromeo Vescovo,” which was held in Milan on November 22–23,
2002, have now been published in Volume 17 (2003) of Studia Borromaica, as
follows: Mario Rosa,“L’Europa cattolica tra Cinque e Seicento: religione, politica
e cultura” ( pp. 17–30); Danilo Zardin,“La curia arcivescovile al tempo del cardinal Federico” ( pp. 31–56); Anthony D. Wright,“Federico Borromeo e il governo
pastorale della diocesi di Milano”( pp.57–71);Marco Navoni,“Le Conciones synodales: il ministero pastorale nella predicazione al clero di Federico Borromeo”
( pp. 73–117); Marzia Giuliani,“ ‘Vide Dei benignitatem.’ I Sacri ragionamenti
di Federico Borromeo per ‘ogni stato di persone’ ” ( pp. 119–142); Flavio Rurale,
“Federico Borromeo e gli ordini regolari maschili” ( pp. 143–179); Claudia di Filippo, “Monache, mistiche, sante: Federico Borromeo e le claustrali del suo

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tempo” ( pp. 181–202); Michela Catto,“Il catechismo al tempo di Federico Borromeo: La nascita di un sistema educativo permanente” ( pp. 203–218);
Francesco Marchesi,“Le scuole della dottrina cristiana: strumenti e metodi”( pp.
219–245);Claudio Bernardi,“‘L’opere di Dio’.Liturgia,rituali e devozioni nell’opera
pastorale di Federico” ( pp. 247–266); Giovanna Zanlonghi, “Sermo corporis.
Teatro e teatralità nella trattistica di Federico Borromeo” ( pp. 267–290); Inge
Botteri, “Cypria sacra: Federico Borromeo e le buone maniere della santità”
( pp.291–309);and Gianvittorio Signorotto,“A proposito dell’intentato processo
di beatificazione del cardinal Federico. Milano e Roma agli escordi dell’età innocenziana” ( pp. 311–345).
The history of the Spiritans or Holy Ghost Fathers is explored in several articles published in Number 17 (first semester of 2003) of Mémoire Spiritaine, to
wit, Henry J. Koren,“Du Séminaire du Saint-Esprit aux missions en Amérique au
XVIIIe siècle” ( pp. 17–26); Catherine Marin,“Les premiers missionnaires ‘spiritains’en Asie au XVIIIe siècle”( pp.27–44);Marie-Christine Varachaud and André
Zysberg, “Les Spiritains et la ‘France équinoxiale’: la mission de Guyane (vers
1770–1789)”( pp. 45–69); Bernard Plongeron,“Le Séminaire du Saint-Esprit et le
Serment constitutionnel (1790–1793)” ( pp. 70–100); Henry J. Koren and Jean
Ernoult,“Les spiritains, l’enseignement et les œuvres d’éducation (1703–1982)”
( pp.101–126);and Paul Airiau,“Le Séminaire français de Rome du père Le Floch
(1904–1927): Faits et problématiques” ( pp. 127–144).
A special issue of Church History was published in December, 2003 (Volume
72, Number 4), on the theme “The Missionary Impulse in United States History.”
Following an “Introduction” by Grant Wacker ( pp. 699–702), we find “Orthodoxy or Decorum? Missionary Discourse, Religious Representations, and Historical Knowledge,” by Peter R. D’Agostino ( pp. 703–735); “ ‘Friends to Your
Souls’: Jonathan Edwards’ Indian Pastorate and the Doctrine of Original Sin,” by
Rachel Wheeler ( pp. 736–765); “ ‘Is It Worse to Follow Mahomet than the
Devil?’ Early American Uses of Islam,” by Thomas S. Kidd ( pp. 766–790);“The
New Divinity and the Origins of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,” by David W. Kling ( pp. 791–819);“ ‘Cameras ‘never lie’’: The Role
of Photography in Telling the Story of American Evangelical Missions,” by
Kathryn T. Long ( pp. 820–851); and “Pearl S. Buck and the Waning of the Missionary Impulse,” by Grant Wacker ( pp. 852–874).
“Anti-Catholicism”is the theme of the issue of U.S. Catholic Historian for fall,
2003 (Volume 21, Number 4). Six articles are there published: David J. Endres,
“Know-Nothings, Nationhood, and the Nuncio: Reassessing the Visit of Archbishop Bedini” ( pp. 1–16); Brendan J. Buttimer, “Turning Away from Georgia
toward Rome: The Diocese of Savannah and the Growth of the Anti-Catholic
Movement in Georgia, 1870–1970” ( pp. 17–35); Gerald P. Fogarty, S.J.,“Reflections on Contemporary Anti-Catholicism” ( pp. 37–44); Elizabeth McKeown,
“Drawing Lines” ( pp. 45–61); Mark M. Massa, S.J.,“The ‘Death Cookie’ and Other
‘Catholic Cartoons’: Jack Chick and the Vatican Conspiracy against ‘Gospel

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383

Christianity’ ”( pp. 63–78); and Andrew Greeley,“An Ugly Little Secret Revisited:
An Analytical Reflection” ( pp. 79–84).

Exhibition
The Folger Institute will present an exhibition entitled “Voices for Tolerance
in an Age of Persecution”from June 9 to October 30, 2004. It has been set up by
Vincent Carey of the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, with Betsy
Walsh and Ron Bogdan of the Institute. It will draw on the Folger Library’s collections of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century books, manuscripts, and works
of art.

Personal Notices
Thomas A. Brady of the University of California at Berkeley was presented
with the twelfth annual Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award of the American Historical Association at its general meeting on January 9, 2004, in Washington, D.C.
Jeffrey Burns was ordained to the diaconate for the Diocese of Oakland on
December 6, 2003, and has been assigned to St. Lawrence O’Toole-St. Cyril of Jerusalem Parish in Oakland. Dr. Burns will remain archivist of the Archdiocese of
San Francisco and director of the Academy of American Franciscan History.

Correction
In the review of With Bound Hands:A Jesuit in Nazi Germany.The Life and
Selected Prison Letters of Alfred Delp, by Mary Frances Coady, which was published in the preceding issue ( January, 2004, p. 149), Count Helmuth von
Moltke’s estate was wrongly said to have been in East Prussia; actually, it was located in Silesia.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

GENERAL

Wandel im Verständnis von Schisma und Union. Von Bischof Cyprian von
Karthago bis ins 20. Jh. Ernst Chr. Suttner. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 69 (2, 2003), 267–285.
Die Rolle der Textkritik im ersten jahrtausend der Geschichte des kanonischen
Rechts. Peter Landau. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 34 (1, 2002),
1–15.
I Gesuiti come pacificatori in età moderna: dalle guerre di frontiera nel Nuovo
Mondo americano alle lotte fazionarie nell’Europa mediterranea. Paolo Broggio. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, XXXIX (2, 2003), 249–290.
El Rosario en España y América a través de bulas pontificias del siglo XVI. VitoTomás Gómez García, O.P. Teología Espiritual, XLVII (May–Aug., 2003),
223–247.
La Curie romaine et le gouvernement de l’Église (1850–1914) dans l’historiographie française depuis 1950. François Jankowiak. Rassegna Storica del
Risorgimento, XC (Apr.–June, 2003), 196–225.
El cónclave de Juan XXIII. Luis Marín de San Martín, OSA. Religión y Cultura,
XLIX ( July–Sept., 2003), 543–568.
Mons. Michele Maccarrone e la scuola storica lateranense. Mario Sensi. Lateranum, LXIX (2, 2003), 343–400.

ANCIENT

Archaeologies and Agendas: Reflections on Late Ancient Jewish Art and Early
Christian Art. Jas´ Elsner. Journal of Roman Studies, XCIII (2003),
114–128.
Christ-Bearers and Fellow-Initiates: Local Cultural Life and Christian Identity in
Ignatius’ Letters. Philip A. Harland. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 11
(Winter, 2003), 481–499.
Los orígenes del Cristianismo en Egipto a la luz de los papiros del Nuevo Testamento y otros escritos de los siglos II y III. Jorge Juan Fernández Sangrador.
Studium Ovetense, XXX (2002), 309–322.

384

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

385

Judicial Nightmares and Christian Memory. Brent D. Shaw. Journal of Early
Christian Studies, 11 (Winter, 2003), 533–563.
Discipline and Diet: Feeding the Martyrs in Roman Carthage. Andrew McGowan. Havard Theological Review, 96 (Oct., 2003), 455–476.
Catechumenate and Contra-Culture: The Social Process of Catechumenate in
Third-Century Africa and its Development. Alistair Stewart-Sykes. St
Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 147 (3–4, 2003), 289–306.
La ‘Passion’ des Martyrs d’Abitina: remarques sur l’éstablissement du texte.
François Dolbeau. Analecta Bollandiana, 121 (Dec., 2003), 273–296.
The vision of Constantine. Peter Weiss. Journal of Roman Archaeology, 16
(2003), 237–259.
The Reception of the Ecumenical Councils in the Early Church. Bishop Hilarion
(Alfeyev) of Podolsk. St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 147 (3–4, 2003),
413–430.
Litteratulus christianus. Beobachtungen und Bemerkungen zum Bildungsgrad
der antiken Christen. Hans Reinhard Seeliger. Theologische Quartalschrift,
183 (4, 2003), 297–334.
Ritual Kissing, Heresy and the Emergence of Early Christian Orthodoxy. Michael
Penn. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 54 (Oct., 2003), 625–640.
Torture and truth in late antique martyrology. Lucy Grig. Early Medieval Europe, 11 (4, 2002), 321–336.
Jerome’s Vita Hilarionis: a Rhetorical Analysis of its Structure. Pazemyslaw
Nehring. Augustinianum, XLIII (Dec., 2003), 417–434.
La presenza di Vittricio di Rouen nell’opera di Paolino di Nola. Dal De Laude
Sanctorum all’Epist. 18 e ai Carmm. 17 e 19. Guiseppe Guttilla. Augustinianum, XLIII (Dec., 2003), 453–471.
Il Molise paleocristiano dalle origini a Gregorio Magno. Giovanni Nigro. Vetera
Christianorum, 40 (1, 2003), 93–116.
Fronto,the bishops,and the crowd:Episcopal justice and communal violence in
fifth-century Tarraconensis. Michael Kulikowski. Early Medieval Europe,
11 (4, 2002), 295–320.
Totila come perfidus rex tra storia e agiografia. Laura Carnevale. Vetera Christianorum, 40 (1, 2003), 43–69.
Making It Our Own: Reflections on Gregory the Great’s Life and Miracles of
Saint Benedict—Saint Benedict’s Final Miracle. Ileana M. Porras. Cistercian
studies quarterly, 39 (1, 2004), 3–30.
Who Wrote the Dialogues of Saint Gregory? A Report on a Controversy. Terrence G. Kardong. Cistercian studies quarterly, 39 (1, 2004), 31–39.

386

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

‘Aremorica novitas’? Colombano e Gregorio Magno sullo sfondo di grandi
tradizioni. Lellia and Giorgio Cracco. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, XXXIX (2, 2003), 201–226.

MEDIEVAL

Wo bleibt der Mensch? Das Dilemma der Typologisierung des Sujets in hagiographischen Texten des Mittelalters. Adelheid Krah. Mitteilungen des
Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung,111 (3–4,2003),267–285.
Die mittelalterlichen Bußbücher—Trägermedien von Einfachreligiosität? Hubertus Lutterbach. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 114 (2, 2003), 227–244.
“Celtic” or “Catholic”? Writing the history of Scottish Christianity, AD 664–1093.
Thomas Owen Clancy. Records of the Scottish Church History Society,
XXXII (2002), 5–39.
Papisci et Philonis Iudaeorum cum monacho colloquium: note per una ricostruzione del confronto tra giudei e cristiani in epoca altomedievale. Immacolata Aulisa. Vetera Christianorum, 40 (1, 2003), 17–41.
York, Bede’s Calendar and a Pre-Bedan English Martyrology. Donald A. Bulloch
(†). Analecta Bollandiana, 121 (Dec., 2003), 329–355.
Bede’s In Ezram et Neemiam and the Reform of the Northumbrian Church.
Scott DeGregorio. Speculum, 79 ( Jan., 2004), 1–25.
Der byzantinische Bilderstreit bis zum Konzil von Hiereia 754. Hans Georg
Thummel. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 34 (1, 2002), 16–56.
An angel’s power in a bishop’s body:the making of the cult of Aubert of Avranches
at Mont-Saint-Michel. Katherine Allen Smith. Journal of Medieval History,
29 (Dec., 2003), 347–360.
Piecing Together the Fragmentary Account of the Martyrdom of Cyrus of
H.arra- n. Amir Harrak. Analecta Bollandiana, 121 (Dec., 2003), 297–328.
Einhard: The Sinner and the Saints. Julia M. H. Smith. Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, Sixth Series, XIII (2003), 55–77.
L’institution synodale et la législation épiscopale des temps carolingiens au IVe
concile du Latran. Joseph Avril. Revue d’Histoire de l’Eglise de France, 89
( July–Dec., 2003), 273–307.
Les évêchés byzantins de la Calabre septentrionale au VIIIe siècle.Vivien Prigent.
Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, Moyen Âge,114 (2,2002),931–953.
Il più antico Libellus precum in scrittura beneventana (Cod. Casin. 575, già
Misc. T. XLV ). Un testimone di rapporti tra Nonantola e Montecassino nel
secolo IX.Mariano Dell’Omo.Revue Bénédictine,113 (Dec.,2003),235–284.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

387

Les autels portatifs et leurs inscriptions.Robert Favreau.Cahiers de civilization
médiévale Xe–XIIe siècles, 46 (Oct.–Dec., 2003), 327–352.
Pontífices ovetenses del siglo XI (hasta 1075). Manuel Carriedo Tejedo. Studium
Ovetense, XXX (2002), 257–286.
Irische Schreiber in Deutschland im 11. Jahrhundert. Hartmut Hoffmann.
Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 59 (1, 2003), 97–120.
The beginning of eremitical architecture in Tuscany. G. T. Radan. Augustiniana,
53 (1–4, 2003), 295–318.
Der Pilgerzug von 1064/65 ins Heilige Land. Eine Studie über Orientalismuskonstruktionen im 11. Jahrhundert.Hans-Henning Kortüm.Historische
Zeitschrift, 277 (Dec., 2003), 561–592.
Die Byzanzreise des Erzbischofs Gebhard von Salzburg. Axel Bayer. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 96 (2, 2003), 515–520.
Death and Monastic Landholding in Eleventh Century France. Stephen Weinberger. Revue Bénédictine, 113 (Dec., 2003), 337–346.
Convivenza tra i popoli e pluralità di religioni in Sicilia durante la prima età normanna. Salvatore Vacca. Laurentianum, 44 (3, 2003), 359–389.
Innovazioni dei Primi Cistercensi: per una storia della spiritualità delle origini.
Goffredo Viti. Vivens Homo, XIV ( July–Dec., 2003), 229–247.
La transformation de l’échange des dons pieux: Montier-la-Celle, Champagne,
1100–1350. Richard Keyser. Revue Historique, CCCV (Oct., 2003), 793–815.
“Iuxta stratam peregrinorum”:la canonica di S.Leonardo di Siponto (1127–1260).
Hubert Houben. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LVI ( July–Dec.,
2002), 323–348.
Patrons and Politics at Twelfth-Century Barking Abbey. Emily Mitchell. Revue
Bénédictine, 113 (Dec., 2003), 347–364.
The Benedictines, the Cistercians and the acquisition of a hermitage in twelfthcentury Durham. Tom Licence. Journal of Medieval History, 29 (Dec.,
2003), 315–329.
Alliances et réseaux aristocratiques dans la grande guerre méridionale: la création de Montauban et l’élection d’Amiel (1149–1177), abbé de SaintThéodard. Didier Panfili. Annales du Midi, 115 (Oct.–Dec., 2003), 501–514.
Kurie und Kloster im welfisch-staufischen Thronstreit. Peter Wiegand. Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 111
(3–4, 2003), 104–145.
Des images au service de la parole. Le programme iconographique des ambons
de Rosciolo,Moscufo et Cugnoli (Abruzzes,1157–1166).Laurence Aventin.
Cahiers de civilization médiévale Xe–XIIe siècles, 46 (Oct.–Dec., 2003),
301–326.

388

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Hildegard von Bingen 1198–1998—oder: Was bringen Jubiläen für die Wissenschaft? Franz J. Felten. Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 59 (1, 2003), 165–193.
Réaltiés et figures: la plainte, la joie et la colère dans le chant aux XIIe–XIIIe siècles. Gérard Le Vot. Cahiers de civilization médiévale Xe–XIIe siècles, 46
(Oct.–Dec., 2003), 353–380.
The Dead Beneath Our Feet. Nicholas Orme. History Today, 43 (Feb., 2004),
19–25.
A Seat of Authority:The Archbishop’s Throne at Canterbury Cathedral.Matthew
M. Reeve. Gesta: International Center of Medieval Art, XLII (2, 2003),
131–142.
The Friars Minor: An Order in the Church? Dominic Monti, O.F.M. Franciscan
Studies, 61 (2003), 235–252.
An Unexplored Influence on the Epistola ad fideles of Francis of Assisi: The
Epistola universis Christi fidelibus of Joachim of Fiore. Michael F. Cusato,
O.F.M. Franciscan Studies, 61 (2003), 253–278.
Victorine Liturgy and its Architectural Setting at the Church of Sant’Andrea in
Vercelli. Martina Schilling. Gesta: International Center of Medieval Art,
XLII (2, 2003), 115–130.
La fondation du couvent des Cordeliers de Fribourg revisitée: des premiers testaments à la fondation d’Elisabeth de Kibourg (1252–1268). Martin Morard.
Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 96 ( Jan.–June, 2003), 3–43.
The organisation of military religion in the armies of King Edward I of England
(1272–1307). David S. Bachrach. Journal of Medieval History, 29 (Dec.,
2003), 265–286.
Regular Clergy and the Episcopate in the Provinces of Canterbury and York during the Later Middle Ages. Roy Martin Haines. Revue Bénédictine, 113
(Dec., 2003), 407–447.
Partikularsynoden und Synodalsstatuten des späteren Mittelalters im europäischen Vergleich. Johannes Helmrath. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum,
34 (1, 2002), 57–99.
Le monastère de Carbone au début du XIVe siècle.Annick Peters-Custot.Mélanges
de l’École Française de Rome, Moyen Âge, 114 (2, 2002), 1045–1066.
Les testaments princiers à la fin du Moyen Âge, miroirs de la spiritualité et des
dévotions aristocratiques. Murielle Gaude-Ferragu. Revue d’Histoire de
l’Eglise de France, 89 ( July–Dec., 2003), 325–344.
La Regola dei frati minori al Concilio di Vienne e la bolla Exivi de paradiso
(1312) di Clemente V. Andrea Bartocci. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 96 ( Jan.–June, 2003), 45–84.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

389

Nuntii, questuarii, falsarii: l’ospedale di S. Spirito in Sassia e la raccolta delle
elemosine nel periodo avignonese. Andreas Rehberg. Mélanges de l’École
Française de Rome, Moyen Âge, 115 (1, 2003), 41–132.
Giovanni XXII e il Mezzogiorno. Testimonianze di vita ecclesiastica dai suoi registri (1316–1324).Vito Sibilio. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LVI
( July–Dec., 2002), 377–399.
Governare dall’ “esilio”. Appunti su frate Aicardo da Camodeia arcivescovo di
Milano (1317–1339). Alberto Cadili. Nuova Rivista Storica, LXXXVII
(May–Aug., 2003), 267–324.
L’exégèse au service de l’impôt Royal. La postille du franciscain Nicolas de Lyre
(†1349). Lydwine Scordia. Revue d’Histoire de l’Eglise de France, 89
( July–Dec., 2003), 309–323.
Théorie et pratique de la pauvreté: les Frères Mineurs au Royaume Uni. Luca
Parisoli. Antonianum, LXXVIII (Oct.–Dec., 2003), 627–650.
Leban und Schrifttum des Augustinereremiten Johannes von Basel (†1392).
Venício Marcolino. Augustiniana, 53 (1–4, 2003), 319–381.
Sulle trace del “Liber Catasti” della Chiesa ascolana: una ipotesi di ricostruzione.
Martina Cameli. Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, LVI ( July–Dec.,
2002), 349–376.
L’attività caritativa della Misericordia Maggiore di Bergamo: da un registro di entrate e uscite (1384–1386).Andrea Ferrante.Nuova Rivista Storica,LXXXVII
(May–Aug., 2003), 405–428.
Late Medieval Control of Masculinity. Jean Gerson. Yelena Mazour-Matusevich.
Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 98 ( July–Dec., 2003), 418–437.
Dependent Priories and the Closure of Monasteries in Late Medieval England,
1400–1535. Martin Heale. English Historical Review, CXIX (Feb., 2004),
1–26.
The Lollard Trail: some clues to the spread of pre-Protestant religious dissent in
Scotland, and its legacy. Margaret H. B. Sanderson. Records of the Scottish
Church History Society, XXXIII (2003), 1–33.
Fede, mercato, comunità nei sermoni di un protagonista della costruzione
dell’identità politica della corona catalano-aragonese. Matteo d’Agrigento
(c.1380–1450).Paolo Evangelisti Collectanea Franciscana, 73 (3–4,2003),
617–664.
Die Prädikatur des Salve Regina an der Stuttgarter Stiftskirche. Zur Geschichte
einer Predigerstelle am Vorabend der Reformation. Oliver Auge. Blätter für
württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 102 (2002), 11–34.
A Sabbat of Demonologists: Basel, 1431–1440. Michael D. Bailey and Edward Peters. Historian, 65 (Winter, 2003), 1375–1395.

390

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Marian Virtues and Margery Kempe:The Influence of Carmelite Devotion to the
Virgin. Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa. Carmelus, 50 (1, 2003), 89–112.
Constantinople: From Christianity to Islam. K. E. Fleming. Classical World, 97
(Fall, 2003), 69–78.
Enea Silvio Piccolomini e il De Europa: umanesimo, religione e politica. Barbara
Baldi. Archivio Storico Italiano, CLXI (4, 2003), 619–683.
The Dance of Death in Reval (Talinn):The Preacher and his Audience.Elina Gertsman. Gesta: International Center of Medieval Art, XLII (2, 2003), 143–159.
The Contours of Tolerance: Jews and the Corpus Domini Altarpiece in Urbino.
Dana E. Katz. The Art Bulletin, LXXXV (Dec., 2003), 646–661.
Documenta Vaticana ad Franciscales spectantia.Ann. 1385–1492 (Pars VII). Caesar Cenci, OFM. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 96 ( Jan.–June,
2003), 85–127.
“Tanta vertù ed efficatia.”Aux origines d’un culte: le Bienheureux Jacques de la
Marche de Carlo Crivelli.Thomas Golsenne.Mélanges de l’École Française
de Rome, Moyen Âge, 114 (2, 2002), 1067–1093.
Gabriel Biel und die Brüder vom Gemeinsamen Leben in Oberdeutschland. Gerhard Faix. Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 102 (2002),
35–44.
Late Medieval Churchwardens’ Accounts and Parish Government: Looking beyond London and Bristol. Beat Kümin. English Historical Review, CXIX
(Feb., 2004), 87–99.
The Broader Church? A Rejoiner to ‘Looking beyond . . . ’ Clive Burgess. English
Historical Review, CXIX (Feb., 2004), 100–116.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Les travaux de la cathédrale de Beauvais dans un arrêt du parlement de Paris
(1512). Florian Meunier. Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 161
( Jan.–June, 2003), 33–57.
Raphael’s Portrait Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de’Medici and Luigi de’Rossi:
A Religious Interpretation. Nelson H. Minnich. Renaissance Quarterly, LVI
(Winter, 2003), 1005–1052.
The Plea by the Humanist Petrus Mosellanus for a Knowledge of the Three Biblical Languages. A Louvian Perspective. Wim François. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 98 ( July–Dec., 2003), 438–480.
Luther and the Via Moderna: The Philosophical Backdrop of the Reformation
Breakthrough. Heiko A. Oberman. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 54
(Oct., 2003), 641–670.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

391

The History, Use and Significance of the Weimar Luther Edition. Helmar Junghans. Lutheran Quarterly, XVII (Autumn, 2003), 267–287.
Santa Catalina de Toledo. Seminario y Universidad de la Iglesia Primada de España. José García Oro and Ma José Portela Silva. Archivo Ibero-Americano,
63 (Sept.–Dec., 2003), 405–680.
The Sorbonnic Trots: Staging the Intestinal Distress of the Roman Catholic
Church in Franch Reform Theater. Jeff Persels. Renaissance Quarterly, LVI
(Winter, 2003), 1089–1111.
Stephen Gardiner and the Making of a Protestant Villain. Michael Riordan and
Alec Ryrie. Sixteenth Century Journal, XXXIV (Winter, 2003), 1039–1063.
“A work in which the angels are wont to rejoice”: Lucas Cranach’s Schneeberg
Altarpiece. Bonnie J. Noble. Sixteenth Century Journal, XXXIV (Winter,
2003), 1011–1037.
Testamento del cardenal Quiñones, protector de la Orden Franciscana (OFM) y
gobernador de Veroli (†1540). J. Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras and F. Víctor
Sánchez Gil, OFM. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 96 ( Jan.–June,
2003), 129–159.
Santo Tomás de Villanueva y los moriscos. Arturo Llin Cháfer. La Ciudad de
Dios, CCXVI ( Jan.–Apr., 2003), 39–62.
Reform without Frontiers in the Last Years of Catholic Scotland. Alec Ryrie. English Historical Review, CXIX (Feb., 2004), 27–56.
Les enjeux culturels du texte biblique dans l’Europe du XVIe siècle. José Emilio
Burucúa. Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 58 (Nov.–Dec., 2003),
1347–1366.
An English Version of Cardinal Pole’s Appeal for Peace. Thomas F. Mayer. Manuscripta, 45/46 (2001/2002), 79–107.
La mesa de Felipe II. J. Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras. La Ciudad de Dios, CCXVI
( Jan.–Apr., 2003), 127–150.
El Seminario Conciliar de San Lorenzo de Oviedo del año 1591. Constituciones.
Juan José Tuñón Escalada. Studium Ovetense, XXX (2002), 287–308.
The Doctrine,Life,and Roman Trial of the Frisian Philosopher Henricus de Veno
(1574?–1613). Christoph Lüthy and Leen Spruit. Renaissance Quarterly,
LVI (Winter, 2003), 1112–1151.
Il catalogo delle biblioteche dei conventi cappuccini della Provincia di Milano
alla fine del Cinquecento. Vincenzo Criscuolo. Laurentianum, 44 (3,
2003), 391–516.
Les synodes du diocèse de Saint-Malo aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Bruno Restif.
Revue d’Histoire de l’Eglise de France, 89 ( July–Dec., 2003), 345–361.

392

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Réforme catholique et modifications de l’espace sacré. Architecture et organisation de l’espace intérieur des edifices cultuels. Bruno Restif. Annales de
Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 110 (4, 2003), 107–114.
La Vierge comme protectrice des Pays-Bas méridionaux dans les livrets de pèlerinage marial au XVIIe siècle. Annick Delfosse. Revue Belge de Philologie
et d’Histoire, 80 (4, 2002), 1225–1241.
Legitimation durch kulturelle Assimilation. Habituelle Modernisierung als Überlebensstrategie der katholischen Adelskirche in der Frühen Neuzeit. Michael
Schwartz. Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 85 (2, 2003), 509–552.
Las Hermandades de la fe ante la gran persecución del Japón del siglo XVI (I).
José Delgado García. Studium, XLIII (2, 2003), 343–363.
Jewish History, Catholic Argument: Thomas Lodge’s Workes of Josephus as a
Catholic Text. Erin E. Kelly. Sixteenth Century Journal, XXXIV (Winter,
2003), 993–1010.
Die geistlichen Schätze der anderen: Anmerkungen zur Rezeption römischkatholischer Erbauungsbücher in Johann Gerhards,“Meditationes Sacrae”
(1606). Alexander Bitzel. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 114 (2, 2003),
181–199.
Analecta Albineana: Documents inédits relatifs à Agrippa d’Aubigné. Gilles
Banderier.Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français,
149 (Oct.–Nov.–Dec., 2003), 669–691.
Brawling in Church: Noise and the Rhetoric of Lay Behavior in Early Modern England. Laura Feitzinger Brown. Sixteenth Century Journal, XXXIV (Winter,
2003), 955–972.
El convento de franciscanos de la Purísima Concepción de Peñaranda de Bracamonte (Salamanca). Claudia Möller Recondo and Ana Ma Carabias Torres.
Archivo Ibero-Americano, 63 (Sept.–Dec., 2003), 681–712.
The Perversion of Nature: Johannes Baptista Van Helmont, the Society of Jesus,
and the Magnetic Cure of Wounds. Mark A. Waddell. Canadian Journal of
History, XXXVIII (Aug., 2003), 179–197.
L’installation des carmes déchaux à Toulouse en mars 1623, de la Ligue au
catholicisme royal. Stéphane-Marie Morgain. Revue d’Histoire de l’Eglise
de France, 89 ( July–Dec., 2003), 363–383.
António Vieira, S.J.: an actor in Hobbes’ shadow. Karl A. Kottman. La Ciudad de
Dios, CCXVI ( Jan.–Apr., 2003), 103–126.
Des Jésuites d’Aix-en-Provence au monument Sec : l’étonnante destinée des
statues de la chapelle des Messieurs. Alexandre Maral. Bibliothèque de
l’École des Chartes, 161 ( Jan.–June., 2003), 289–321.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

393

Aberdeen and the Church in the Highlands. Ian R. MacDonald. Records of the
Scottish Church History Society, XXXII (2002), 71–91.
‘An Angry and Malicious Mind’? Narratives of Slander at the Church Courts of
York, c. 1660–c. 1760. Fay Bound. History Workshop Journal, Issue 56 (Autumn, 2003), 59–77.
‘According to Ancient Custom’: The Return of Altars in the Restoration Church
of England. Kenneth Fincham. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, XIII (2003), 29–54.
Notizie Historiche. Giancarlo Caputi. Archivum Scholarum Piarum, 54 (2003),
9–79.
The Impact of Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, before and after 1690, on one
parish: a case study of Dunblane kirk session minutes. Bill Inglis. Records of
the Scottish Church History Society, XXXIII (2003), 35–61.
John Hutton M.D. and the Dumfries Presbytery Library, 1714–1826. John V.
Howard. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXXII (2002),
41–69.
“Lang bey Hof, lang in der Hölle”. Hofprediger Eberhard Friedrich Hiemer
(1682–1727) als Protestant, Pietist und Paläontologe. Wolfgang Schöllkopf.
Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 102 (2002), 43–47.
The genesis and operation of the Royal Bounty scheme 1725–30. Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXXIII
(2003), 63–141.
Icon and narration in eighteenth-century Christian Egypt:the works of Yuhanna
al-Armani al Qudsi and Ibrahim al-Nasikh. Tania C. Tribe. Art History, 21
(Feb., 2004), 62–94.
Manoscritti autobiografici del p. Francesco Pentimalli e suo profilo biografico
scritto dal p. Giuseppe Landi. Salvatore Giammusso (†), CSSR. Spicilegium
Historicum Congregationis Ssmi Redemptoris, LI (2, 2003), 333–368.
God Before Mammon? William Robertson, Episcopacy and the Church of England. Alexander Du Toit. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 54 (Oct., 2003),
671–690.
Ausgewählte Quellen zur Jesuitenaufhebung in Frankreich 1761–1765. Michael
Müller. Francia, 30 (2, 2003), 159–212.
“Kirch seye eben ein steinen Hauß,Gott wohne nicht darinn”.Verhörprotokolle
als Quellen zur Geschichte des radikalen Pietismus in Württemberg. Eberhard Fritz. Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 102 (2002),
69–108.
The reconstruction of Episcopalian identity in Scotland: the renunciation of the
Stuart allegiance in 1788. Rowan Strong. Records of the Scottish Church
History Society, XXXIII (2003), 143–164.

394

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

L’élection de l’évêque constitutionnel de Rhône-et-Loire (1er mars 1791). Paul
Chopelin. Revue d’Histoire de l’Eglise de France, 89 ( July–Dec., 2003),
385–418.
Marbach—Ein Knoten im separatistischen Netzwerk. Hermann Schick. Blätter
für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 102 (2002), 109–125.

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Revival and Reality: Congregationalists and Religious Revival in Nineteenthcentury Scotland. William D. McNaughton. Records of the Scottish Church
History Society, XXXIII (2003), 165–216.
Vom Augustinerchorherrenstift zum Redemptoristenkloster. Aufhebung und
Wiederbesiedlung des Klosters Gars. Otto Weiss. Spicilegium Historicum
Congregationis Ssmi Redemptoris, LI (2, 2003), 233–265.
Der Schulorden der Maria Theresia von Jesu Gerhardinger († 1879). Ausdruck
ultramontaner “Familienspiritualität”? Hubertus Lutterbach. Theologische
Quartalschrift, 183 (4, 2003), 313–334.
Colporteurs bibliques et colporteurs évangéliques (1837–1960): deux visages de
l’évangélisation protestante. Jean-Yves Carluer.Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 149 (Oct.–Nov.–Dec., 2003), 719–736.
Church extension and division in 1830s Inverness: the East Church and the Rev.
Archibald Cook. Norman Campbell. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXXII (2002), 93–113.
Newman and Maurice on the Via Media of the Anglican Church: Contrasts and
Affinities. Jeremy N. Morris. Anglican Theological Review, 85 (Fall, 2003),
623–640.
The Enthralling Power: History and Heresy in John Henry Newman. Thomas
Ferguson. Anglican Theological Review, 85 (Fall, 2003), 641–662.
James Morison (1816–1893). Kenneth B.E. Roxburgh. Records of the Scottish
Church History Society, XXXII (2002), 115–141.
Almost twins by birth: Hydropathy, temperance and the Scottish churches,
1840–1914. Alastair J. Durie. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXXII (2002), 143–163.
Pio IX visto da un sacerdote romagnolo: don Lorenzo Alpi (1815–1898). Federico Lama. Nuova Rivista Storica, LXXXVII (May–Aug., 2003), 429–444.
Lord Emly and Pope Pius the Ninth. Matthew Potter. Studies, 92 (Winter, 2003),
396–404.
Karl Joseph (von) Hefele an Joseph (von) Feßler. Briefe aus den Jahren
1858–1871. Walter Brandmüller. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 34
(1, 2002), 100–111.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

395

Una lettera aperta del conte di Montalembert a Camillo Cavour. Carlo Pischedda.
Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento, XC ( July–Sept., 2003), 347–354.
Der Anfang eines akuten Konflikts zwischen der preussischen Monarchie und
der katholischen Kirche und die Frage der Braunsberger Altkatholiken
(1870–1872). Janusz Jasiński. Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 93
( July–Sept., 2003), 129–164.
‘Loyal Sons of the Church and Fatherland’? Center-Polish Relations in Upper
Silesia, 1870–1907. Jeffrey D. Bowersox. Canadian Journal of History,
XXXVIII (Aug., 2003), 231–257.
Villarejo de Salvanés: fundación (1879) y supresión (1883) de una comunidad
redentorista. Manuel Gómez Ríos, CSSR. Spicilegium Historicum Congregationis Ssmi Redemptoris, LI (2, 2003), 267–320.
Watch Out for the Children! Differential Infant Mortality of Jews and Catholics
in Nineteenth-Century Venice. Renzo Derosas. Historical Methods, 36
(Summer, 2003), 109–130.
Der tschechische politische Katholizismus in den Jahren 1890–1914. Pavel
Marek. Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 111 (3–4, 2003), 445–469.
Die Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche—von ihrer Gründung bis zum Ersten
Weltkreig. Thomas Kaufmann. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirsche, 100
(Dec., 2003), 466–496.
Die Wiedergründung der Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche nach dem
Zweiten Weltkreig. Johannes Wallmann. Zeitschrift für Theologie und
Kirche, 100 (Dec., 2003), 497–519.
Remembering Bishop Joseph Dupont (1850–1930) in Present-Day Zambia.
Marja Hinfelaar. Journal of Religion in Africa, 33 (4, 2003), 365–376.
Albert Ehrhard et Hippolyte Delehaye. Correspondance. Bernard Joassart.
Analecta Bollandiana, 121 (Dec., 2003), 366–480.
Loisy’s “Mystical Faith”: Loisy, Leo XIII, and Sabatier on Moral Education and the
Church. Harvey Hill. Theological Studies, 65 (Mar., 2004), 73–94.
Preparing for the Philippines foundation. Samuel J. Boland, CSSR. Spicilegium
Historicum Congregationis Ssmi Redemptoris, LI (2, 2003), 369–395.
Sergii (Stragorodskii) in the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Finland:Apostasy and
Mixed Marriages, 1905–1917. Simon Dixon. Slavonic and East European
Review, 82 ( Jan., 2004), 50–73.
Orden zwischen Institution, Wissenschaft und Mystik. Friedrich von Hügels religionsphilosophischer Blick auf den Reichtum der abendländischen Ordensgeschichte. Johannes Schaber. Erbe und Auftrag, 79 (Oct., 2003), 365–376.

396

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Historical and Ethnographical Publications in the Vernaculars of Colonial Zambia: Missionary Contribution to the ‘Creation of Tribalism’. Giacomo Macola. Journal of Religion in Africa, 33 (4, 2003), 343–364.
More than a Biblical Critic: Alfred Loisy’s Modernism in Light of His Autobiographies. Harvey Hill. Anglican Theological Review, 85 (Fall, 2003), 689–707.
Spirituality of Mission in the Indonesian Context. The “Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St. Charles Borromeo”. Lisbeth Cicih Ratwasih. Neue
Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 59 (4, 2003), 241–269.
“A Chapter of Free Church history that is yet to be written”: Dr. John White and
the Free Church behind closed doors.Douglas Ansdell.Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXXIII (2003), 217–232.
The Religious Policies of King Zog I. Ines Angjeli Murzaku. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 69 (2, 2003), 429–452.
1933 als protestantisches Erlebnis: emphatische Selbsttransformation und Spaltung. Manfred Gailus. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 29 (Oct.–Dec., 2003),
481–511.
Protestantische Pfarrer und Nationalsozialismus in der Region. Vom Ende der
Weimarer Republik bis zum Beginn des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Thomas Fandel. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 29 (Oct.–Dec., 2003), 512–541.
Die “Deutschen Christen” 1933–1945: Ganz normale Gläubige und eifrige Komplizen? Doris L. Bergen. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 29 (Oct.–Dec., 2003),
542–574.
Antijudaismus und Antisemitismus in den evangelischen Landeskirchen
während der NS-Zeit. Gerhard Lindemann. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 29
(Oct.–Dec., 2003), 575–607.
La mancata visita di Hitler in Vaticano. Giovanni Sale. La Civiltà Cattolica, 154,
IV (Oct. 4, 2003), 10–23.
Les congrégations religieuses en Belgique sous l’Occupation: typologie des
archives utilisables. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 98 ( July–Dec., 2003),
482–514.
Predigt an der Front. Zur Tätigkeit der Kriegspfarrer im Zweiten Weltkrieg.
Siegfried Hermle. Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 102
(2002), 127–166.
In fremdem Dienst. Die Strahlenbriefe der Tübinger Stiftsverbindung “Nicaria”
aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Konrad Plieninger. Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 102 (2002), 167–202.
The Hungarian Communist Party and the Catholic Church, 1945–1948. Peter
Kenez. Journal of Modern History, 74 (Dec., 2003), 864–889.
The Virgin and the Bear: Religion, Society and the Cold War in Italy. Robert A.
Ventresca. Journal of Social History, 37 (Winter, 2003), 439–456.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

397

Remembering Archbishop McQuaid, U.C.D. and reform of Irish Education. John
O’Meara. Studies, 92 (Winter, 2003), 340–348.
Il clero in Abruzzo (1958–1978). Augusto D’Angelo. Rivista di Storia della
Chiesa in Italia, LVI ( July–Dec., 2002), 401–425.
Michel de Certeau, historien de la spiritualité. Jacques Le Brun. Recherches de
Science Religieuse, 91 (Oct.–Dec., 2003), 535–552.
El Consejo Presbiteral en la Diócesis de Oviedo (II) (1994–2001). Jesús Porfirio
Álvarez Rodríguez. Studium Ovetense, XXX (2002), 383–438.

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN

“James Neale . . . hath Adventured Himself into our Province of Maryland”. Francis Neale Smith. Maryland Historical Magazine, 98 (Fall, 2003), 263–280.
South Carolina Catholics before Roman Discipline, 1670–1820. John D. Basil.
Journal of Church and State, 45 (Autumn, 2003), 787–808.
Espaces sacrés, distribution des corps et groupes sociaux dans le Québec rural
des 18e et 19e siècles. Ollivier Hubert. Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de
l’Ouest, 110 (4, 2003), 115–124.
Souls Filled with Ravishing Transport: Heavenly Visions and the Radical Awakening in New England. Douglas L. Winiarski. William and Mary Quarterly,
Third Series, LXI ( Jan., 2004), 3–46.
Were the Acadians/Cajuns (really) “devout Catholics”? Michael P. Carroll. Studies in Religion, 31 (3–4, 2002), 323–337.
Le presbytère québécois au 19e siècle. Espace de vie, lieu de tensions et enjeu
de pouvoir. Christine Hudon. Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest,
110 (4, 2003), 125–138.
Family Dynamics and the Great Revival: Religious Conversion in the South Carolina Piedmont. Peter N. Moore. Journal of Southern History, LXX (Feb.,
2004), 35–62.
Memoirs of Ernst Moritz Buerger: Parts One and Two. Edgar Joachim Buerger
(trans.). Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 76 (Fall, Winter, 2003),
131–146, 194–279.
Saviors and Scientists: North American Protestant Missionaries and the Development of Anthropology. C. L. Higham. Pacific Historical Review, 72 (Nov.,
2003), 531–559.
La fabrique, les couvents et les académies dans le diocèse de Nicolet 1852–1904.
Jean Roy.Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest,110 (4,2003),95–105.
“How Good and Pleasant to Live Together in Harmony”: Part Four. Mark Braun.
Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 76 (Fall, 2003), 147–162.

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PERIODICAL LITERATURE

The Nature and Function of Holy Scriptures as Discussed in Nineteenth Century Lutheran Free Conferences: Part Two. Dale B. Huelsman. Concordia
Historical Institute Quarterly, 76 (Winter, 2003), 220–241.
Organised Protestant Missions to Chinese Immigrants in Canada, 1885–1923.
Jiwu Wang. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 54 (Oct., 2003), 691–713.
A Czech Monk at the Time of the Columbian Exhibition: Letters of Father Ildephonse Wittmann, O.S.B., 1893. James Flint, O.S.B. American Benedictine
Review, 54 (Dec., 2003), 357–374.
Montée de l’État-providence et transformations du soutien laïc aux œuvres
d’assistance catholiques: Trois-Rivières, 1921–1965. Lucia Ferretti and KarlXavier Thomas. Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 110 (4, 2003),
171–183.
Le riviste accademiche del Canada francofono e il Vaticano II (1950–1970). Massimo Faggiolo. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 34 (1, 2002), 112–155.
Hidden from History, Shielded from Harm: Desegregation at Spring Hill College,
1954–1957. Charles Stephen Padgett. Alabama Review, 56 (Oct., 2003),
278–310.

LATIN AMERICAN

Exención de los religiosos y jurisdicción episcopal en Hispanoamérica durante
la época colonial. Alberto Gutiérrez. Boletin de Historia y Antigüedades
[Bogotá], XC (Oct.–Dec., 2003), 813–831.
Gli “altri” visti dal missionario gesuita padre José de Acosta. Eutimio Sastre Santos. Euntes Docete, LVI (3, 2003), 189–208.
Biblical Prophecy and the Conquest of Peru: Fernando de Montesinos’ Memorias historiales. Sabine Hyland. Colonial Latin American Historical Review, 11 (Summer, 2002), 259–278.
Proyección histórica de un arzobispo letrado. Fray Cristóbal de Torres y su obra
350 años después. Luis Carlos Mantilla R. Boletín de Historia y
Antigüedades [Bogatá], XC (Oct.–Dec., 2003), 851–864.
Reseña histórica de la Iglesia de San Francisco y del Colegio de Misiones de
Nuestra Señora de la Gracia de Popayán.Hedwig Hartmann Garcés. Boletín
de Historia y Antigüedades [Bogotá], XC (Oct.–Dec., 2003), 833–844.
La primera visita extraordinaria a los redentoristas del Pacífico Suramericano.
Álvaro Córdoba Chaves, CSSR. Spicilegium Historicum Congregationis
Ssmi Redemptoris, LI (2, 2003), 183–231.

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

[Books that were sent to scholars for review but of which no review has been
received are indicated by an asterisk.]
Accattoli,Luigi,Heinz-Joachim Fischer,Arthur Hertzberg,Marco Politi,and Hansjakob Stehle. John Paul II: A Pope for the People. Captions by Michael
Schrom. Translated from the German by Russell Stockman. (New York:
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers. 2004. Pp. 208. $40.00 clothbound.) This
lavishly illustrated, large-format book contains five articles: Heinz-Joachim
Fischer,“A Passionate Faith: A Portrait of John Paul II” ( pp. 11–44); Hansjakob Stehle, “Visions, Not Divisions: The Pope and Communism” ( pp.
45–64); Arthur Hertzberg,“The Pope and the Jews” ( pp. 65–88); Luigi Accattoli,“A Pope Who Begs Forgiveness: John Paul II and His ‘Mea Culpa’ at
the Turn of the New Millennium” ( pp. 89–156); and Marco Politi,“The Battle for Europe” ( pp. 157–199).
Ackerman, Jane. Elijah: Prophet of Carmel. (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications.
2003. Pp. x, 292. $13.95 paperback.)
*Adams, Geoffrey. The Call of Conscience: French Protestant Responses to the
Algerian War, 1954–1962. [Editions SR, Vol. 21.] (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press for the Canadian Corporation for Studies in
Religion. 1998. Pp. xxii, 270. $29.95 paperback.)
Aubert, R. (Ed.). Dictionnaire d’Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastiques.
(Paris: Letouzey et Ané. 2003. Fascicule 165: Kalamona-Kašić, cols. 769–
1024. D50 paperback; Fascicule 166: Kašić-Keramos, cols. 1025–1280. D50
paperback; Fascicule 167: Keramos-Kilber, cols. 1281–1520. D50 paperback). These fascicles contain major articles on Kanin and Kanina by D.
Stiernon (cols. 849–874, 874–912), Kansu by D.Vanysacker (cols. 926–936),
Kells by F.Grannell (cols.1177–1196),the Diocese of Kerry also by Grannell
(cols.1320–1355),Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler by V.Conzemius
(cols. 1385–1391), and the City and Diocese of Kiev by R. Aubert (cols.
1481–1505).Thomas J. Shelley has contributed articles on the Archdiocese
of Kansas City (cols.921–924),the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph (cols.
924–926), Archbishop Frederick Katzer (cols. 1079–1083), Bishop John
Keane (cols. 1120–1123), Brother Thomas Stanislas Keating (col. 1126),
Msgr. Robert Fulton Keegan (cols. 1134–1135), Patrick Keely (cols. 1135–
1136), Edward Joseph Kelly (cols. 1196–1197), Eugene Kelly (cols. 1197–

399

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OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

1198), Gerald A. Kelly, S.J. (cols. 1198–1199), the Kenedy family (cols.
1227–1229), Frederick P. Kenkel (cols. 1237–1239), Bishop William John
Kenny (cols. 1249–1250), Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick (cols.
1251–1255), Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick (cols. 1255–1258), James
Keogh (col. 1270), John Keogh (cols. 1270–1271), Archbishop Francis
Patrick Keough (cols. 1272–1273), William Kerby (cols. 1284–1285),
William Ketcham (cols. 1377–1378), and Francis Parkinson Keyes (cols.
1403–1404). These fascicles complete Volume XXVIII of the Dictionnaire.
Bense, Judith A. (Ed.). Presidio Santa María de Galve: A Struggle for Survival
in Colonial Spanish Pensacola. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
2003. Pp. xx, 492. $75.00.)
Bettotti, Marco. La nobiltà trentina nel medioevo (metà XII - metà XV secolo).
[Istituto trentino di cultura. Annali dell’istituto storico italo-germanico in
Trento. Monografie, 36.] (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2002. Pp. 863.
D46,00 paperback.) With “Alberi genealogici”in a separate folder (26 tables).
Bowman, Jeffrey A. Shifting Landmarks: Property, Proof, and Dispute in Catalonia around the Year 1000. [Conjunctions of Religion & Power in the
Medieval Past.] (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. 2004. Pp. xviii, 279.
$42.50 clothbound; £24.50.)
Britnell, Richard (Ed.). The Winchester Pipe Rolls and Medieval English Society. (Rochester, N.Y.: The Boydell Press. 2003. Pp. x, 213. ) Among the nine
essays published in this book are (4) “The Peasant Land Market on the Estate of the Bishopric of Winchester before the Black Death,” by Mark Page
( pp. 61–80); (5) “The Transfer of Customary Land on the Estates of the
Bishop of Winchester between the Black Death and the Plague of 1361,”by
John Mullan ( pp. 81–107): (7) “Boom and Bust: Building Investment on the
Bishop of Winchester’s Estate in the Early Fourteenth Century,” by John
Langdon, Jill Walker, and John R. Falconer ( pp. 139–155); and (8) “The Politics of Church and State as Reflected in the Winchester Pipe Rolls, 1208–
1280,” by Nicholas Vincent ( pp. 157–181).
*Burdick, John, and W. E. Hewitt (Eds.). The Church at the Grassroots in Latin
America: Perspectives on Thirty Years of Activism. (Westport, Conn.:
Praeger. 2000. Pp. xix, 220. $62.50.)
Butigan, Ken. Pilgrimage through a Burning World: Spiritual Practice and
Nonviolent Protest at the Nevada Test Site. (Albany, N.Y.: State University of
New York Press. 2003. Pp. xvi, 233. $65.50 clothbound; $21.95 paperback.)
Carstens, R. W. Notes on Humanity: Faith, Reason, Certainty. Second edition.
(Lanham, Md.: University Press of America. 2003. Pp. x, 136. Paperback.)
Cremo,Michael A.Human Devolution:A Vedic Alternative to Darwin’s Theory.
(Badger, Calif.: Torchlight Publishing. 2003. Pp. xxx, 554. $35.00 clothbound.)

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

401

Elie,Paul.The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage. (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2004. Pp. xiv, 555. $15.00 paperback.)
Evagrius Ponticus: Ad Monachos. Translation and commentary by Jeremy
Driscoll, O.S.B. [Ancient Christian Writers, No. 59.] (New York and Mahwah, N.J.: The Newman Press. 2003. Pp. xiv, 398. $39.95 clothbound.) The
Greek text and English translation of the 137 proverbs occupy only
twenty-five pages. The rest of the book consists of the introduction, an
essay on this kind of literature, and a commentary on individual proverbs.
Evdokimov, Michael. Light from the East: Icons in Liturgy and Prayer. Translation and Introduction by Robert Smith, F.S.C. (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press.
2004. Pp. xiv, 95. $16.95 paperback.) Beautifully illustrated with a full-page
icon for each of the twelve great feasts of the Orthodox Christian liturgical
year with a commentary.
Fasolt, Constantin. The Limits of History. (Chicago and London: The University
of Chicago Press. 2004. Pp. xxii, 126. $40.00 clothbound.)
*Feldman, Lawrence (Ed. and Trans.). Lost Shores, Forgotten Peoples: Spanish
Explorations of the South East Mayan Lowlands. [Latin America in Translation.] (Durham: Duke University Press. 2000. Pp. xxv, 269. $54.95 clothbound; $18.95 paperback.)
Gallo,Patrick.For Love and Country:The Italian Resistance.(Lanham,Md.:University Press of America. 2003. Pp. viii, 361. $55.00 paperback.)
*Gordon, Linda. The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. 1999. Pp. xvi, 416. $29.95.)
*Graham, Barry F. H. (Ed.). The Litomĕr̆ice Gradual of 1517: (Lovosice, Státní
okresni archiv Litomĕr̆ice, IV C 1). [Monumenta Liturgica Bohemica I.]
(Brno, Czech Republic: Luboš Marek Publisher. 1999. Pp. lxxix, 307.
$29.00.)
Greeley, Andrew M. Priests: A Calling in Crisis. (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press. 2004. Pp. xii, 156. $19.00.)
*Hen, Yitzhak. The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul:To the Death
of Charles the Bald (877).[Henry Bradshaw Society,Subsidia III.] (Rochester,
N.Y.: The Boydell Press. 2001. Pp. xii, 180. $60.00.)
Henderson, Alice Corbin. Brothers of Light:The Penitentes of the Southwest. Illustrations by William Penhallow Henderson. (Las Cruces, N. M.: Yucca
Tree Press. 1998. Pp. x, 104. $10.95 paperback.) Originally published by
Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, in 1937.
Izbicki, Thomas M., and Christopher M. Bellitto (Eds.). Nicholas of Cusa and
His Age: Intellect and Spirituality: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of
F. Edward Cranz, Thomas P. McTighe and Charles Trinkaus. [Studies in
the History of Christian Thought,Vol. CV.] (Leiden: Brill. 2002. Pp. xiv, 282.)

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Among the essays here published are “Behind the Scene: The Carthusian
Presence in Late Medieval Spirituality” by Dennis D. Martin ( pp. 29–62);
“Canonists in Crises ca. 1400–1450: Pisa, Constance, Basel” by Thomas E.
Morrissey ( pp. 63–75); “The Curse of Cusanus: Excommunication in
Fifteenth Century Germany” by Brian A. Pavlac ( pp. 197–213); and “St.
Nicholas Hospital at Kues as a Spititual Legacy of Nicholas of Cusa” by
Morimichi Watanabe ( pp. 217–235).
*Jodock, Darrell (Ed.). Catholicism Contending with Modernity: Roman
Catholic Modernism and Anti-Modernism in Historical Context. (New
York: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. xiv, 345. $64.95.)
*Kervingant,Marie de la Trinité,OCSO.A Monastic Odyssey.Trans. Jean Holman,
OCSO. [Cistercian Studies Series, No. 171.] (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian
Publications. 1999. Pp. 469.)
Leib, Ethan J. Deliberative Democracy in America: A Proposal for a Popular
Branch of Government. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 2004. Pp. x, 156. $27.50 clothbound.)
López Pulido, Alberto. The Sacred World of the Penitentes. (Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press.2000.Pp.xx,108.$40.00 clothbound;$17.95
paperback.)
Luzzi, Serena. Stranieri in città: Presenza tedesca e società urbana a Trento
(secoli XV–XVIII). [Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento.
Monografie, 38.] (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2003. Pp. 522. D28,00
paperback.)
Maloney, George, S.J. (Ed. and Trans.). Nil Sorsky: The Complete Writings. [The
Classics of Western Spirituality.] (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press. 2003. Pp. x,
164. $19.95 paperback.)
Marchione, Margherita. Man of Peace: Pope Pius XII. (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist
Press. 2004. Pp. xii, 76. $9.95 paperback.) This book, intended for general
readers, contains historic photographs, sketches, and documents related to
the life of Pius XII.
Marsh, David (Ed. and Trans.). Francesco Petrarca, Invectives. [The I Tatti Renaissance Library.] (Cambridge,Mass.:Harvard University Press.2003.Pp.xx,539.
$29.95.) This volume contains “Invectives against a Physician,” “Invective
against a Man of High Rank with No Knowledge or Virtue,”“On His Own Ignorance and That of Many Others,”and “Invective against a Detractor of Italy.”
Martinez,German.Signs of Freedom:Theology of the Christian Sacraments.(New
York and Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press. 2003. Pp. xvi, 346. $22.95 paperback.)
McGinn, Bernard, and Patricia Ferris McGinn. Early Christian Mystics: The Divine Vision of the Spiritual Masters. (New York: The Crossroad Publishing
Company. 2003. Pp. 255. $18.95 paperback.)

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

403

McInerny, Ralph. Aquinas. [Classic Thinkers.] (Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
2004. Pp. viii, 160. £50.00, $59.95 clothbound; £15.99, $24.95 paperback.)
Mott, Lawrence V. Sea Power in the Medieval Mediterranean: The CatalanAragonese Fleet in the War of the Sicilian Vespers. [New Perspectives on
Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology.] (Gainesville: University Press
of Florida. 2003. Pp. xiv, 336. $59.95.)
*Murray, Patrick. Oracles of God: The Roman Catholic Church and Irish Politics, 1922–37. (Dublin: University College Dublin Press. Distributed in the
U.S.A. by Dufour Editions, Chester Springs, Pa. 2000. Pp. 493. $69.95 clothbound; $32.95 paperback.)
Norris, Richard A., Jr. (Trans. and Ed.). The Song of Songs: Interpreted by Early
Christian and Medieval Commentators. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2003. Pp. xxii, 325. $40.00 clothbound;
£28.95 clothbound.)
Paravicini Bagliani, Agostino, Eva Pibiri, and Denis Reynard (Eds.). L’itinérance
des seigneurs (XIVe–XVIe siècles):Actes du colloque international de Lausanne et Romainmôtier, 29 novembre-1er décembre 2001. [Cahiers Lausannois d’Histoire Médiévale, Vol. 34.] (Lausanne: Université de Lausanne,
Faculté des Lettres, Section d’histoire BFSH2. 2003. Pp. 413. Paperback.)
Among the thirteen articles published in this volume is “La force du vœu.
Le pèlerinage à Jérusalem de Guillaume de Chalon et ses témoins (14531454),” by Jean-Daniel Morerod ( pp. 89–102).
Pasnau,Robert,and Christopher Shields.The Philosophy of Aquinas.[The Westview Histories of Philosophy Series.] (Boulder,Colo.: Westview Press.Pp.x,
264. $95.00 hardcover; $29.00 paperback.)
Rowe, Margaret. God is Love: Saint Teresa Margaret: Her Life. (Washington,
D.C.: ICS Publications. 2003. Pp. x, 276. $12.95 paperback.) A reprint of an
old book.
Rubin, Harriet. Dante in Love: The World’s Greatest Poem and How It Made
History. (New York: Simon & Schuster. 2004. Pp. xii, 274. $23.95.)
Schultze, Quentin J. Christianity and the Mass Media in America: Toward a
Democratic Accommodation. (East Lansing: Michigan State University
Press. 2003. Pp. viii, 440. $84.95.)
*Swanson, R. N. Gender and Christian Religion. Papers read at the 1996 summer meeting and the 1997 winter meeting of the Ecclesiastical History
Society.[Studies in Church History, 34.] (Rochester, N.Y.:The Boydell Press.
1998. Pp. xxii, 546. $90.00.)
*Talbot, Mary Alice. Women and Religious Life in Byzantium. [Variorum Collected Studies Series CS733.] (Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate. 2001. Pp. xii, 310.
$105.00.)

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*Tavarone da Genova,Annibale.Viaggio di Affrica e America Portughesa (Testo
inedito del secolo XVIII.) Ed. Carlo Toso. (Rome: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini. 2001. Pp. 420. Paperback.)
Urban, William. The Livonian Crusade. (Chicago: The Lithuanian Research and
Studies Center. 2004. Pp. xvi, 549. $45.75 Perfect Bound.) Originally published by University Press of America, Washington, D.C., in 1981 and reviewed by Richard Spence ante, LXX (April, 1984), 298–299.
Viarengo, Adriano (Ed.). Lorenzo Valerio, Carteggio (1825–1865), Vol. IV
(1849). (Turin: Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. 2003. Pp. cxlviii, 502.)
Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel. On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives
1950–1970. (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
1998. Pp. x, 183. Paperback.)
Weigel, George. Letters to a Young Catholic. (New York: Basic Books. 2004. Pp.
xiii, 251. $22.50.)
Weigel, George. The Courage to Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of
the Church. (New York: Basic Books. 2002. Pp. x, 260. $14.00 paperback.)