The Catholic Historical
Review
VOL. XCVIII

JANUARY, 2012

No. 1

FOR PROSPERITY OR PENURY:
A COMPARISON OF LARGE AND SMALL ENGLISH
AUGUSTINIAN HOUSES AND THEIR LAY PATRONS
IN LATE-MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
BY

NICK NICHOLS*

The status, feudal ties, and generosity of the founder and hereditary
patrons of a religious house played a role in the monastery’s prosperity. The author argues that although smaller Augustinian priories may have been less expensive to establish and maintain than
larger ones of their monastic brethren, it was not always the case
that the patrons of smaller priories were of lower social status
and/or that they were less active in these priories. As is seen with
the Augustinian monasteries in the Diocese of Worcester, the
patrons of smaller monasteries frequently were of high social position and played an active role in the monasteries under their
patronage.
Keywords: Augustinian canons; benefaction; Diocese of Worcester;
patronage
Medieval monasteries depended on the grants of those outside
their walls to survive. Most often, laymen made gifts to the religious
to procure the spiritual benefits of the prayers that the monastic
brothers offered to God on their behalf. Of the benefactors to a particular religious house, one had prominence above the rest—the
*Dr. Nichols is a teacher of biblical studies at Westminster Christian Academy in St.
Louis, Missouri, email: nnichols@wcastl.org. A version of this article was presented at
the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in May 2009.

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founder, who, at his establishment of the religious house became its
patron. Patronage brought with it responsibilities and privileges, and
many patrons took their responsibilities seriously and took advantage
of their privileges frequently.1 When the patron died, his family often
sought to bury him in the house of his founding, and the right of
patronage passed to his heir. Thus, the connection with a priory or
abbey reflected an ongoing, multigenerational relationship. As with a
family business in the modern world, the importance of monastic
patronage to the heirs of the founder varied greatly depending on the
successor to the title. For some monasteries, the hereditary patrons
continued to bestow gifts and privileges on their family house. For
others, the relationships cooled, and the protection and services rendered by the patrons faded as well.
The role of patrons and their involvement with monasteries have
received reasonable treatment in recent monastic scholarship.
Although it is generally true that patrons enjoyed a similar status
across the orders, the nonexempt orders were the most likely to have
their patrons involved in the activities of the monastery.2 As such,
this article focuses on the order that enjoyed the least exemption
from outside influences—the Augustinian canons—although it
should be noted that this article does not assert that the canons were
in a markedly different situation than the other orders concerning
their interaction with their patrons.3 This study focuses on the
Augustinian canons in the Diocese of Worcester, a diocese that has
substantial extant written records and represents something of a
cross-section of the order. Although there are many questions that
can be asked in addressing the question of patronage, the essential
1
See Janet Burton, The Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300
(New York, 1994), pp. 210–32. The involvement of patrons with their monasteries,
although fluid in practice, was nonetheless bound by fairly well-understood parameters. Generally, the patrons, the heirs of the founders of the monastery, were responsible for the well-being of their religious houses—frequently benefaction, for defending
the convent’s rights and freedoms when they could.They also received numerous privileges to which others were not privy, particularly hospitality and occasionally the right
to appoint a member of the community.
2
Karen Stöber, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales,
c.1300–1540 (Woodbridge, UK, 2007), p. 22.
3
In fact, Stöber asserts that “the overall developments in monastic patronage . . . are
valid for all religious orders,” but she does note that one distinct characteristic is that
the Augustinians were an overwhelmingly lay-founded order.This fact must be weighed
in the overall direction of the religious houses moving into the hands of the Crown as
the medieval period wore on. Stöber, Late Medieval, pp. 35–36, 44–46.

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3

question of this article is whether a notable difference exists in the
interaction between large and small Augustinian monasteries and
their patrons. In other words, did the larger monasteries prosper or
suffer in ways that the smaller monasteries did not because of their
patrons?
The Status of the Founders and Patrons of
Augustinian Monasteries in the Diocese of Worcester
It often has been asserted that one major reason for the rapid
expansion of the Augustinian canons in England was that it was relatively inexpensive to found a house of regular canons as opposed to
one of another order.4 This relatively low cost to found a house of regular canons often is used to establish that they were more accessible
to the lower nobility and gentry in England, and thus that the lesser
nobility tended to establish them.5 It may be that, as the twelfth century turned into the thirteenth, the lower nobility and landed gentry
began founding Augustinian houses, but most of the houses of canons
in England were indeed founded by major magnates and upper nobility, particularly those established in the early- to mid-twelfth century.
The connections of the order with St. Anselm (archbishop of
Canterbury), King Henry I and his court, King Henry II, and several
powerful bishops in the twelfth century ensured that many early
houses were founded by several of the greater noble families of the
twelfth century.
Among the houses in the Diocese of Worcester that compose the
focus of this article, the founders and patrons were frequently men of
4
It is true that there was no statutory minimum number of regular canons in a house
of Augustinians like the Cistercians, but it also is true that most early houses of canons
were located in the cities and towns of southern England, not in the isolated wilderness
of the Cistercian monks.Thus, inarable land was not a satisfactory landed endowment
for the canons, as it frequently was for the Cistercians. See R. W. Southern, Western
Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, UK, 1970); David Postles,
“The Austin Canons in English Towns, c.1100–1350,” Historical Research, 66 (1993),
1–20; John Compton Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and Their
Introduction into England (London, 1950).
5
Stöber, Late Medieval, pp. 10, 35–49. Stöber’s claims, however, that the canons were
of overwhelmingly lay patronage when compared with the Benedictine houses seem to
fall short, especially when she illustrates how both the Cluniac and Cistercian houses
were of overwhelmingly lay patronage as well. Perhaps this is more indicative of an
overall chronological trend in foundation and patronage rather than one that can be
attributed to the cost of founding a house of regular canons.

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high position.6 The four largest houses in the diocese were all
founded by men of the upper nobility and were tied closely to either
Henry I or Henry II. Henry I founded Cirencester Abbey, the wealthiest house of the order at the Dissolution. Henry granted a sizable
endowment, particularly rich in spiritual property, at the foundation
of the abbey in 1131.7 Geoffrey de Clinton—Henry’s chamberlain,
treasurer, and one of his “new men”—founded Kenilworth Priory in
1122. At the foundation, Geoffrey lavishly endowed the priory with
lands, churches, and the tithes on everything that came into
Kenilworth Castle.8 Miles of Gloucester, later earl of Hereford,
founded the priory of Lanthony by Gloucester in 1136. The house,
founded with canons taken from Llanthony Prima in Wales during the
warfare of Stephen’s reign, came to be a powerful force in Gloucester
throughout the medieval period and enjoyed the ongoing patronage
and favor of the earls of Hereford.The abbey of St. Augustine in Bristol
was the last large house in the diocese to be founded, which occurred
in about 1142 through the support of Robert Fitzharding, a powerful
citizen of Bristol and source of the Lords Berkeley. Henry II supported, patronized, and protected the abbey in the twelfth century,
followed by the Lords Berkeley for the rest of the medieval period.
The smaller monasteries in the diocese were founded by powerful
men as well. Henry de Newburgh, first earl of Warwick, founded the
small priory of St. Sepulchre Warwick in 1119. Although slimly
endowed, it was the first house of the canons of the Holy Sepulchre
in England.9 Henry Murdac, archbishop of York, founded the priory of
St. Oswald in Gloucester around 1150. He converted the secular
canons to Augustinians and held the priory as a particular possession
of the archbishop of York throughout its existence. Peter de
Corbezon, later Peter de Studley, founded Studley Priory, which is the
6
Kenilworth Priory will be considered in this article because of its prominent place
and geographical proximity to the diocese and other houses in it, although its proper
locale was the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield.
7
Charles Derek Ross and Mary Devine, eds., The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey,
Gloucestershire, 3 vols. (London, 1964–77), 1: no. 28. The abbey’s roots can be traced
back to 1117, but Serlo was appointed the first abbot in 1131—the date typically used
as its foundation.
8
William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (hereafter Monasticon), ed. John Caley,
Henry Ellis, and Bulkeley Bandinel, 6 vols. in 8 (London, 1817–30), 6:220, and Alan and
Philip Tennant, Brailes History: Episodes from a Forgotten Past, 5 (2005).
9
Monasticon, 6:602–03. Sancti Sepulchri Warwici, quae erat prima domus et aliis
superior per Anglium, Walliam, Scotiam, et Hiberniam, usque ad iteratum destructionem hierosolomitanam.

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5

only house not founded or patronized by a powerful family in the
region. However, the patronage of the priory changed hands, falling to
the Cantilupes in the thirteenth century, then later to the Zouche
family. As will be seen, this change of patronage had significant effects
for the priory. There also were two other small monasteries in the diocese—Horsley Priory, which was a dependent cell of Bruton in
Somerset, and Dodford Priory, a very small Augustinian house in
Warwickshire. Dodford poses an interesting puzzle, as it was, as much
as can be discerned, founded by Henry II, although it received almost
no benefaction or support throughout its existence and ultimately
wound up as a cell of Halesowen, a nearby Premonstratensian house.
It seems that the prosperity of a monastery was not directly proportional to the status of its founder. Although wealthy and powerful
men founded the larger monasteries in the diocese, not all priories
founded by such men were large and wealthy. Although an influential
patron aided benefaction, he did not necessarily guarantee a prosperous future for a religious house.
Although the specific duties expected of patrons were unclear, especially in the twelfth century, the material prosperity of a monastery was
generally seen as the responsibility of the founder and patrons.10
Benefaction, the most well-known and most easily traceable interaction
between a monastery and its patron, gives a key to the importance of a
patron’s status in the success or failure of a house of monks or canons.
A founder only became a founder of a monastery when he took the
deliberate step of granting possessions to a group of canons or monks
living under a rule, thus providing a source of income for the community.11 It often was the case, but certainly not absolute, that the descendants of a founder, who were the patrons by inheritance, would continue the practice of almsgiving and thereby take their place as active
patrons of a given monastery.12 Thus, a brief exploration of the patterns
of benefaction of the patronal families is in order.
10

See Stöber, Late Medieval, pp. 24–25.
As Stöber has said,“whatever the motive . . . the foundation of a religious house in
medieval England and Wales was never accidental.” Stöber, Late Medieval, p. 22.
12
Thompson has argued that each successive generation of patrons had to continue
as benefactors of monasteries if they were to be included in the daily Masses sung for
the founders, although the monks always remembered the founder. This provided
impetus for the patrons to continue in benefaction and thus endear themselves to the
monks or canons in each generation. Benjamin Thompson, “Monasteries and Their
Patrons at Foundation and Dissolution,” TRHS, 6th ser., 1 (1994), 103–25, here 111–12.
11

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Benefaction
There were three potential “types” of patrons in medieval
England—royal, lay, and episcopal—and all three varieties of patrons
were represented in the Diocese of Worcester.There were two royal
foundations—Cirencester Abbey and Dodford Priory.13 These two
foundations are polar opposites in almost every way. Cirencester was
granted a very sizable endowment at its foundation. Henry I gave the
canons all the tenure of Regenbald, the dean of Cirencester and noted
pluralist. This grant included an interest in nineteen churches and
other miscellaneous income sources as well as lands in
Gloucestershire, Bristol, Berkshire, and Somerset.These grants totaled
more than £350 of annual income for the canons.14 The canons
enjoyed the ongoing support of the Crown, mostly in the form of confirmation of its possessions. Some of the later kings, however, did
actually make new grants to the abbey.15 The canons did not receive
much local patronage alongside their grants from the king.Their cartulary is filled with acquisitions of properties in Cirencester,
Gloucestershire, Berkshire, and Wiltshire, but the priory purchased
most of those—several in violation of the Statute of Mortmain. Few of
them were grants in free alms to the abbey.
In stark contrast, Dodford’s possessions were slim indeed.
Dodford’s income recorded in the Taxatio was a very meager £4
17s.16 Royal patronage was neither a financial boon for Dodford
13
Although there is little evidence surviving for Dodford, a most important charter
of Edward IV that authorized the merging of the house with Halesowen identified
Dodford as fundationis inclitorum progentorum nostrorum, nostrique patronatus
pleno jure existens (a foundation existing by the full right of patronage of our illustrious ancestors and of us). This is very strong language that seems to be beyond simple
claim to patronage. Dugdale also asserted that Henry II founded the house. Monasticon,
6:944–45.
14
Although it cannot be established that this was the actual income in the earlytwelfth century, this was the reported income for these properties at the 1254 Valuation
of Norwich, which is recorded in the cartulary of the house.This amount was approximately 90 percent of the canons’ total income at the time. Ross, Cirencester Cartulary,
2: no. 459.
15
Among these grants were the “seven hundreds of Cirencester and the town of
Minety” granted to the abbey by Richard I.This grant, as discussed in more detail later,
gave the abbey expansive rights in the region and generated substantial conflict
between the townsmen of Cirencester and the canons well into the fifteenth century.
Ross, Cirencester Cartulary, 1:nos. 31–35.
16
Thomas Astle, Samuel Ayscough, and John Caley, eds., Taxatio ecclesiastica
Angliae et Walliae auctoritate P. Nicholai IV, circa A.D. 1291 (London, 1802), p. 231.

BY NICK NICHOLS

7

during the lifetime of their founder nor inspired patronage of the
king’s descendants and the local nobility.17 In Dodford’s case, there is
little evidence for ongoing benefaction from anyone.
The lone example of episcopal patronage—St. Oswald’s
Gloucester—also was not a prosperous monastery.18 Henry Murdac,
archbishop of York, founded the house for regular canons in about
1150.The archbishop recognized that his original endowment to the
canons was insufficient for the regular life and promised future benefaction to the house.19 This further endowment was slow in coming,
if it ever came, as in 1291, the income of the house amounted to
some £23, and at the Dissolution it was approximately £90.20 The
house did receive local benefaction in the later Middle Ages; many of
its acquisitions in the later medieval period were small properties in
and around Gloucester given by local families of nominal societal
importance.21
Of the houses with lay patrons, two larger houses deserve mention.
The priory of Lanthony by Gloucester initially was granted relatively
little by the founder, Miles of Gloucester, in 1136. After Miles was
named earl of Hereford, he gave the manor of Hempstead in
Gloucester to the priory “in view of the honor of the office
attained.”22 The priory, which passed to the Bohuns, the hereditary
earls of Hereford, continued to enjoy the benefaction from the powAlthough the Taxatio is not the most reliable assessment, it is clear that Dodford was
very small indeed. In c. 1465, when it was assumed into Halesowen Abbey, its income
was still only c. £7. It also sought exemption from a levy early in the fourteenth century
of 44s 6d. See R. A. Wilson, ed., The Register of Walter Reynolds, Bishop of Worcester,
1308–1313 (London, 1927), p. 168.
17
See the aforementioned charter of Edward IV, wherein the poverty of the house is
seen as insoluble. Monasticon, 6:944–45.
18
This stands in relief to several of the other houses founded by ecclesiastical
powers in the medieval period—the most notable is Plympton. See Allison Fizzard,“The
Augustinian Canons of Plympton Priory and Their Place in English Church and Society,
1121–c.1400” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1999).
19
Janet Burton, ed., English Episcopal Acta York 1070–1154 (London, 1988), no.
117.
20
See Taxatio, p. 233 and John Caley and Joseph Hunter, eds., Valor Ecclesiasticus
temp. Henry VIII Auctoritate Regia Institus, 6 vols. (London, 1810–34), 2:487.
21
See the many entries in the Calendar of Patent Rolls in the fourteenth century for
the monastery.
22
That is, iamque consulatus honorem adeptus. Monasticon, 6:137. See also Anne
M. Geddes,“The Priory of Lanthony by Gloucester:An Augustinian House in an English
Town, 1136–1401” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1997), p. 46.

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erful family throughout the medieval period.23 The second of the
larger houses founded by lay nobility was St. Augustine’s Bristol, the
favorite foundation of the Berkeleys, who came into the possession of
the abbey through marriage with Helen, the daughter of abbey
founder Fitzharding. Fitzharding, in conjunction with the future
Henry II, liberally endowed the house with lands and churches in and
around Bristol, and the succeeding generations of Berkeleys continued to make grants to the house throughout the twelfth century.24
The Berkeleys also maintained patronage of the abbey throughout the
entire medieval period, something few lay families were able to sustain.25 These two well-endowed houses echoed the status of their
patrons, both of whom were powerful baronial families in the west of
England in the Middle Ages.
The two small priories founded by the laity in the Diocese of
Worcester present interesting examples in the fortunes of a
monastery changing with the political fortunes of patrons.
Although Henry de Newburgh, first earl of Warwick, was a major
nobleman and closely connected with the first Anglo-Norman
kings, he seems to have given little care to the endowment of the
house of canons he began near to the time of his death. His son,
Roger, completed the foundation, but its properties were minimal.
This may very well be a direct result of the loss of many of Roger’s
lands to de Clinton, whose promotion by Henry I caused great
problems for the earls of Warwick in the 1120s.26 When the earls
reclaimed most of their dignity in the middle of the twelfth century, it seems that St. Sepulchre had been forgotten or was no
longer the favored house of the earls. Later earls of Warwick, including the Beauchamps, chose the collegiate church of St. Mary
Warwick as their favorite house, as the magnificent Beauchamp
chapel attests even today, leaving the priory of St. Sepulchre to fend
for itself. In this instance, the political connections of the founder
23
For details of these, see Geddes, “The Priory of Lanthony,” and David Walker,
Charters of the Earldom of Hereford, 1095–1201, [Camden 4th Ser., vol. 1, pt. 1],
(London, 1964).
24
David Walker, ed., The Cartulary of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol, [Gloucestershire Record Ser. 10], (Gloucester, UK, 1998). Most of the entries in the first half of the
cartulary are charters relating to the Henry/Fitzharding/Berkeley grants.
25
See Stöber, Late Medieval, pp. 209–50, for a useful chart detailing the patrons of
English religious houses.
26
See David Crouch,“Geoffrey de Clinton and Roger, Earl of Warwick: New Men and
Magnates in the Reign of Henry I,” IHR, 55 (1982), 113–24.

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and patron seem intimately connected to the benefaction granted
to a monastery in their patronage.
The other small monastery founded by a layman in the diocese was
Studley Priory. Endowed modestly by founder Peter de Corbezon,
later styled Peter de Studley, the canons enjoyed several small possessions and close ties to the castle of Studley.27 The patronage passed to
the Cantilupe family in the thirteenth century, and the fortunes of the
monastery improved somewhat, but on the cessation of that family,
the priory came under the patronage of Eudo la Zouche, who seems
to have paid little attention to it, as it struggled significantly throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
It is clear that in virtually every case, the benefaction of a priory or
abbey depended on the founder and his descendants as hereditary
patrons. But, beyond the gifts of a single family, the feudal grouping
of a particular baron might elect to endow a house jointly.28 This phenomenon can be clearly identified at Lanthony Priory,29 where the
earls of Hereford and their retainers were responsible for the overwhelming proportion of grants to the priory in the twelfth and earlythirteenth centuries.30 Until 1220, when the Bohuns became the earls
of Hereford and Essex, the canons were closely connected to the earls
and their families, and not with the town of Gloucester or the other
surrounding nobles. However, with the move of the earl’s caput from
Gloucestershire to Essex in 1236, the priory’s ties to the earls of
Hereford ceased almost entirely. The earls, who were generous
patrons of the monastery, brought in their wake a large number of
other benefactors, who may very well have been granting possessions
to the priory only because of their desire to show their allegiance to
the earls.
27
Calendar of Charter Rolls, 1327–1341, pp. 60–61. See also the discussion of the
Corbezon family as subordinates to the earls of Warwick in this contentious period in
Crouch,“Geoffrey de Clinton.”
28
See Emma Cownie, “Gloucester Abbey 1066–1135: An Illustration of Religious
Patronage in Anglo-Norman England,” England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, ed.
David Bates and Anne Curry (London, 1994), pp. 143–57, here pp. 148–49. Cownie also
cites the work of Christopher Harper-Bill and others who have identified this phenomenon. Cownie’s own words are somewhat ambiguous, but she indicates that solidarity evident in gift-giving tended to be on an honorial basis and was somewhat
uncommon in England, tending to exist in new foundations.The house under her consideration was uncommon in its pre-Conquest foundation and honorial benefaction.
29
See Geddes,“Lanthony Priory,” pp. 64–69.
30
Geddes,“Lanthony Priory,” pp. 69–79.

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The patronage of Kenilworth Priory also seems to bear this out. De
Clinton, sheriff of Warwickshire—who was elevated by Henry I as a
foil to the disloyal Roger, earl of Warwick—brought many gifts to the
priory from the estates surrounding the priory. However, it may be the
case that, rather than inspiring benefaction from the men in his fee,
Geoffrey simply bought their lands and gave them to the priory.31 In
any case, these two larger houses also demonstrate how a monastery
might benefit substantially from close connections to men in power
and their retinue.
It seems that the houses with prominent and local patrons tended to
benefit materially from the prestige of that patron through the gifts of
the patronal family and the benefaction of those in their honor, something that priories with lesser nobles or nonlocal families as patrons
could not do. The close ties of Lanthony with the Bohuns and St.
Augustine’s Bristol with the Berkeleys are excellent examples of this.
Royal and episcopal houses, by contrast, may have received sufficient
benefaction at their foundation, but they did not attract the same local
patronage as monasteries with local lords as patrons. This phenomenon
may not be directly proportional to a priory’s size, however, but may
owe more to the timing of the foundation and the relative strength and
prosperity of the patrons at the time of the founding of the monastery
and in the second and third generations after the founding. If the fortunes of the founding family changed soon after a house was established, then it is likely that the fortunes of the priory changed with it.
So, a key distinction in the patronage of larger and smaller priories may
not be so much the status of the founders, but the fortunes of the
founder’s descendents in the first few generations after the establishment of the house.The priories whose patronage changed hands over
the course of their existence can demonstrate such a reality.
As previously mentioned, Lanthony Priory’s connections with the
Bohun family were deep, which led to great prosperity for the
monastery in the twelfth and early-thirteenth centuries. However,
when the earls of Hereford moved their family center away from the
area of the priory, their patronage dwindled. In the thirteenth century
the priory turned instead to the citizens of Gloucester for its support
and thrived even with essentially absentee patrons.32 It was not until
31
See Crouch, “Geoffrey de Clinton,” pp. 113–24; R. W. Southern, “Henry I,” in
Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford, 1970), pp. 214–18.
32
Geddes,“Lanthony Priory,” pp. 341–50.

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the late-fourteenth century that the patrons again began to be significant players in the affairs of the priory. When Humphrey de Bohun VII
died in 1373, his possessions were divided between his daughters—
Eleanor, who married Thomas, earl of Buckingham; and Mary, who
married Henry, earl of Derby. The patronage of the monastery fell to
Mary and thus Henry by default, but Thomas was desirous of it, and
the parties struck an agreement whereby Thomas held the priory for
the term of Henry’s life. During his time as patron, Thomas took an
active interest in the priory, and the canons worked to strengthen
their relationship with him.33 On some twenty-five occasions in the
late-fourteenth century the canons received the support of Thomas as
their patron.34 Richard II killed Thomas in 1397, and the priory was
transferred to Henry at that time. Succeeding Richard, Henry
ascended to the throne in 1399 as Henry IV, and thus the priory ended
up with royal patrons.Thus, the fortunes of the priory and the benefits of such patronage fluctuated with the interests and success of the
family of the earls of Hereford until the family failed and Lanthony
passed seamlessly into the king’s hands. In this case, it was the rising
status of the family that had a negative effect on the priory. This
stands in contrast to the canons of St. Sepulchre Warwick, who, as
mentioned earlier, saw their fortunes decline with the decline of the
earls of Warwick. After the first earl of Warwick founded the priory,
they received almost nothing from his descendants, probably partly
because of their rough treatment from Henry I.
Another priory represents well how the fortunes of a priory might
fluctuate with changes of patronage. The priory of Studley changed
hands between laymen at least twice in its existence. Although the
precise date is unclear, around the beginning of the thirteenth century, the patronage of the priory passed from Peter de Corbezon, son
of the founder, to William de Cantilupe.35 The Cantilupes were generous benefactors to the priory, as several charters indicate,36 and the
thirteenth century seemed to mark something of a high point for the
priory. When the Cantilupe line ended with George III Cantilupe in
33

Geddes,“Lanthony Priory,” pp. 375–78.
Geddes, “Lanthony Priory,” pp. 379–84. Most significant of these were the times
when Thomas aided the priory in maintaining its estates in Ireland.
35
Monasticon has listed this as occurring in the time of Bishop William Wittelsey,
which cannot be correct, as he acceded to the see of Worcester in 1363. If the
Corbezon family only held the priory for two generations, then it would be likely that
this transpired c. 1200.
36
Monasticon, 6:185–86.
34

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1273, his estates were divided between his sisters—Joan, who married Henry Hastings, and Millicent, who married Eudo la Zouche. Joan
and Henry received many of George’s estates, including his estates in
Aston, whereas Millicent and Eudo received, among other possessions, the patronage of Studley Priory.37 The priory had appropriated
the church of Aston Cantlowe in about 1253, by confirmation of
Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester.38 However, shortly after the
change in patronage, the priory had to reacquire the advowson of
church, exchanging lands for the church from John de Hastings.39 It
seems that there was unclear identification of what each heir received
at the distribution of the Cantilupe estates, or there was some collusive act that led to Hastings seizing control of the church. The end
result was that the canons lost the church. It was eventually appropriated to Maxstoke Priory, another Augustinian house, and the
canons of Studley had to take extraordinary measures to try to reacquire the church in the fourteenth and fifteenth century—acts of
fraud that nearly resulted in the charge of heresy.40 The failed oversight by the Zouche family, coupled with poor leadership in the
priory, caused the canons to lose a valuable possession in the later
medieval period.41
There was more to patronage than benefaction, however, and
beyond the granting of income-generating properties to the priories,
the patrons played active roles in the lives of the canons on many
fronts. All monasteries sought out freedoms from the many hands that
reached into the pockets of medieval institutions. In seeking freedom
and protection from the taxation and burdens placed on monasteries,
the patrons often were powerful advocates for the religious in their
patronage.

37

Calendar of Close Rolls (hereafter CCR), Edw I, 1272–79, pp. 114–15, 259.
Philippa M. Hoskin, ed., English Episcopal Acta 13, Worcester 1218–1268
(Oxford, 1997), no. 150.
39
Calendar of Patent Rolls (hereafter CPR), Edw I, 1292–1301, p. 210.
40
See Nick Nichols, “The Augustinian Canons and Their Parish Churches, a Key to
Their Identity,” in The Regular Canons in the British Isles in Later Medieval England,
ed. Janet Burton and Karen Stöber (Turnhout, forthcoming).
41
For details of the poor leadership in Studley Priory in the fourteenth century, see
Ernest Harold Pearce, ed., The Register of Thomas de Cobham, Bishop of Worcester,
1317–1327 (London, 1930).
38

BY NICK NICHOLS

13

Rights and Grants to Priories
One benefit sought and acquired by the canons from their patrons
was to hold their temporalities when the abbey or priory was vacant.
Three houses of canons acquired this costly but valuable freedom,
which relatively few monasteries in England enjoyed. Cirencester
sought and received this privilege on December 10, 1306.The Patent
Rolls record the agreement that “in times of voidance the prior and
convent have the custody of the abbey, saving to the king knight’s fees
held of the abbey and advowsons of churches that fall in during the
voidance.”42 The entry goes on to stipulate the other terms of the
agreement—namely, that the convent owed £100 for every voidance
lasting three months or less “and if longer, further sums at the rate of
£100 for every three months.”43 No outsider was allowed to take any
more than a simple seisin of the property of the abbey, carry anything
away from the abbey, or place anyone to stay at the abbey. Cirencester
defended this right quite frequently and vociferously, seeking the
assistance of Edward II and Edward III five times in defense of the
privilege. This privilege proved very beneficial during a voidance
during the reign of Richard II when the king allowed the abbey to pay
a maximum of £100, even though the voidance was longer than three
months, as it was not the fault of the abbot that his election and confirmation took significant time.44
Kenilworth, too, struck a similar agreement with the king, who was
by this time the likely patron of the monastery.45 On March 4, 1386,
Richard II confirmed a charter dated March 10, 1331, stating that the
prior and convent should have the temporalities of the monastery at
the rate of £117 2s 8d per year at every voidance.46 Most interesting
of all about this entry was that the agreement was made “in consideration of the great losses sustained by the said prior and convent on
42
CPR, Edw I, 1301–07, p. 486.The agreement is recorded in full in the cartulary of
the house. Little can be added to the agreement as it is found in the Patent Rolls. Ross,
Cirencester Cartulary, 1:69–71.
43
CPR, Edw I, 1301–07, p. 486.
44
CPR, Ric II, 1391–96, p. 418. On one other occasion, Edward VI forgave the payment altogether. CPR, Edw VI, 1461–67, p. 325. It may be that this was a payment to the
king for several pardons issued by him to people who failed to show to answer debts
owed to the abbey that totaled £320. See CPR, Edw VI, 1461–67, pp. 3, 6, 253.
45
Stöber, Late Medieval, appendix. It is unclear exactly when the priory of
Kenilworth escheated to the king.
46
CPR, Ric II, 1381–85, p. 544.

14

FOR PROSPERITY OR PENURY

account of the frequent visits of the king and his father” (Edward II
and III).47
Lanthony Priory, too, was allowed the right to keep its own temporalities during a vacancy, but its patron, Humphrey de Bohun,
granted this right, not the king.The close rolls of Edward II record that
Humphrey de Bohun,
sometime earl of Hereford and Essex and constable of England, granted by
charter for him and his heirs to the subprior of that house (Lanthony) for
the time being that, on the cession, decease or deposition of the prior, the
subprior with one man of the earl’s, by the earl or his heirs to him joined,
should have the keeping of the priory and all thereto pertaining until the
prior elect should be confirmed.48

The subprior and convent also were granted the right to choose a
new prior without license of the earl or his heirs, but after he was
selected, he would be presented to the earl or his heirs.49 This seemingly lucrative right of Lanthony Priory reveals just how important the
patronage of a priory could be.
Although the smaller monasteries in the diocese did not garner
such lucrative rights, some of them did receive material benefits
beyond benefaction from their patrons. The priory of St. Oswald in
Gloucester provides an interesting case study about the power of
patronage as it related to jurisdiction.50 The priory was peculiar to the
archbishop of York, and it was for many years in the thirteenth and
fourteenth century embroiled in disputes among the bishops of
Worcester; the archbishops of Canterbury, especially John Peckham
and Robert Winchelsey; the archbishop of York; and the king. On
numerous occasions after the death of Walter Giffard, archbishop of
York, in 1279, the bishops of Worcester and archbishops of
Canterbury attempted to visit the priory, but the priory resisted,
claiming it was not in their jurisdictions.51 In 1280 Peckham tried to
47

CPR, Ric II, 1381–85, p. 544.
CCR, Edw III, 1360–64, pp. 373–34.
49
In Lanthony’s case, freedom of election was significant, as the earls had indeed interfered with the canons’ elections in the past. See Geddes,“Lanthony Priory,” pp. 95–100.
50
The Augustinians almost universally lacked exemption from the diocese, and thus
issues of jurisdiction were of greater significance to them than perhaps to any other order.
51
Godfrey Giffard, brother of Walter Giffard, was bishop of Worcester until 1301, and
much of the sharpest controversy occurred during his tenure, although after his
brother’s death.
48

BY NICK NICHOLS

15

visit the priory, although he had not attempted to do so during
Giffard’s tenure at York.52 Although the particular issue among the
priory, Peckham, and Giffard faded after several sharp conflicts, the
confrontations among St. Oswald’s, Giffard, and Archbishops Peckham
and Winchelsey continued to escalate until the canons called on their
patron, Thomas Corbridge, archbishop of York, who turned to King
Edward I, who in turn claimed the priory as a royal free chapel.53 The
king indicated that only the archbishop of York had any claim on the
church regarding visitation, and that Winchelsey, in pursuing visitation
and excommunicating the prior and the canons, had violated that
privilege, even though the canons had appealed to Rome.54 The king’s
intervention eventually freed St. Oswald’s from the battle over visitation once and for all, but not before much grief was brought to the
house.55 In this instance, a powerful patron brought much-needed
protection to a small and beleaguered priory.
A second, smaller priory also received protection from its patrons,
although it was much less dramatic than that sparked by events at St.
Oswald’s Gloucester. Studley Priory was granted protection of its
lands in the forest of Fakenham. It was to be free from the meddling
of all foresters, verderers, and bailiffs in the forest; it would have its
52
This notably came to a head in 1279, when Walter Giffard, archbishop of York and
brother of Godfrey Giffard, bishop of Worcester, died.The next year, Peckham tried to
visit the priory, although he had not done so during Giffard’s tenure at York. See Francis
Neville Davis and Decima L. Douie, eds., The Register of John Pecham, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 1279–1292, 2 vols. (London, 1968–69), p. 244; J. W. Willis-Bund, ed.,
Episcopal Registers, Diocese of Worcester, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1902), p. 122.
53
Thompson refers to a comment in the register of Thomas Corbridge that Edward
and his predecessors had aided the convent prior to this time. Thompson,
“Jurisdictions,” p. 145.The Close Rolls do not mention that St. Oswald’s is a free chapel
until May 1303. The Close Rolls reveal the extent of the action that Giffard had taken
against the priory. In an entry dated October 28, 1300, Edward I wrote to the bishop
that he knew “that the bishop had publicly and inhumanly prohibited . . . anyone from
buying or selling bread, wine, ale, or any victuals necessary for maintenance from or to
the prior and canons . . . under pain of excommunication.” He went on to state his surprise at such an action, as it was an insult to the Crown. He also forbade Giffard from
reissuing such an injunction and ordered him “to cause to be revoked speedily any (like
sentences) that he may have made or any sentences of excommunication that he may
have pronounced” because of such a decree. CCR, Edw I, 1296–1302, p. 411.
54
CCR, Edw I, 1296–1302, p. 411.
55
The Close Rolls contain several mandates to both the bishops of Worcester and
the archbishops of Canterbury, one of which actually threatens a summons of the archbishop if he did not desist from taking actions against the priory. Apparently, the actions
of the bishops had cost the priory as much as £200—a sizable sum for any monastery,
especially one the size of St. Oswald’s. CCR, Edw I, 1302–07, p. 191.

16

FOR PROSPERITY OR PENURY

own foresters and did not answer to the king’s foresters or bailiffs; and
it was free from the burden of hospitality to any who had business in
or near the woods.56 This right was granted at the instigation of
William de Cantilupe, the priory’s patron.
Large monasteries, too, received protection from their patrons.
Cirencester benefited from royal patronage throughout its existence,
frequently relying on the king’s defense for the protection of its
rights in the town of Cirencester. It had been granted almost complete control over the seven hundreds of Cirencester and the vill of
Minety by Richard I, a right for which it had to pay £100 initially and
£30 per annum subsequently.57 The abbey went to court numerous
times to defend this right and paid mighty sums to protect it.This is
clearly one right that smaller houses of canons could not possibly
have attained.
Another right earned by both large and small priories because of
their patrons was exemption from collecting tithes or taxes. Most of
the Augustinian houses in the Diocese of Worcester served as collectors in some capacity, although a few of the smallest did not. Two
houses received the right not to collect when summoned owing to
the actions of their patrons. Richard II excused the priory of St.
Oswald in Gloucester because it claimed to be a royal free chapel, and
“it (wa)s the king’s will that this time they be exempted.”58 During the
reign of Henry V, the prior of Lanthony was excused from serving as
a collector anywhere except the Diocese of Worcester. The stated
reason was because the progenitors of the king founded the priory of
Lanthony, and the prior had collected many times in the past.59 This
privilege was confirmed during the reign of Henry VI.60 Edward IV
reiterated this right, although he made no mention of the precedent
set by Henry V.61

56

Calendar of Charter Rolls, 1:264. December 22, 1241.
Ross, Cirencester Cartulary, 1: nos. 31–35.
58
CCR, Ric II, 1381–85, p. 367.
59
CPR, Henry V, 1413–16, p. 109. See above for the story of Lanthony escheating to
the king. Cirencester was granted the same privilege; see CPR, Henry VI, 1436–41, p.
294.
60
CPR, Henry VI, 1429–36, p. 177.
61
CPR, Edw IV and Henry VI, 1467–77, p. 520.
57

BY NICK NICHOLS

17

Conclusion
It would seem that the Augustinian patrons influenced their
monasteries in diverse ways. Benefaction was perhaps the greatest
evident contribution of patrons to their monasteries. For some of the
larger monasteries, this benefaction was not only from the hereditary
patrons but also from those connected to a powerful family through
feudal association or political alliance.62 A wealthy patron often translated into a wealthy monastery, although such was not always the
case. It would seem that benefaction beyond the founder’s generation
was contingent on the fortunes of the founder’s family; changes in
their status, positive or negative, seems to have had a measurable
impact on the prosperity of the family’s foundation. As for rights and
privileges that could be granted by the patrons, both large and small
monasteries seemed to benefit from the actions of their patrons, and
it was in these interactions that royal patronage may have been most
significant.
As with most studies of medieval religious houses, the larger
monasteries receive most of the attention, in large part because a
greater amount of evidence can be marshaled for them. However, it
would seem to be the case that the smaller Augustinian houses in the
Diocese of Worcester received grants and attention from their
patrons similar to the larger houses—if not in scope, then at least in
kind. Although their stories may be less dramatic and more obscure,
it should not be concluded that the smaller priories of late-medieval
England were any less important or vital to their communities and
their patrons than the larger ones of their brethren.

62
This also can be seen in the case of St. Augustine’s Bristol and likely Kenilworth
as well, although Lanthony was the house that received treatment here.

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM:
1968 AND THE NEW CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS
BY

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI*

After the Second Vatican Council, new movements arose within the
Catholic Church. In Italy this phenomenon crossed paths with the
movement called 1968 and spawned a new elite not only in the
Catholic Church but also in Italian Catholicism. These movements
reacted to and participated in 1968 in Italy in different ways, marking the development of a deeply rooted diversity within Italian
Catholicism. These Catholic movements represented an initial step
in the ongoing replacement of old clerical elites in Catholic Europe.
Keywords: Catholic Action; Italian Catholicism; social movements;
Second Vatican Council; social justice
1. A Fatherless Child in the Memory of Italian Church and
Politics: 1968
The public debate on the role of Catholicism in Italy’s recent history is split into two very different and, in many respects, opposite
ways of looking at the subject. Most interpreters of the history of the
relationship between Italian Catholicism and the post-1968 cultural
and political landscape tend to describe the directions taken by
Italian Catholics in two ways—liberal, “Vatican II Catholicism” allied
with radical-revolutionary leftists on one side, with “conservative
Catholicism” supporting right-wing, Italian political parties of the
post–cold war period on the other. However, the ideological contribution of 1968 to the culture of the Catholic Church is much more
complex than these two interpretations. The series of events called
1968 played a major role in Italy not only in polarizing the new cultural impulses of the 1960s but also in stopping the successful exper*Dr. Faggioli is an assistant professor in the Theology Department of the University
of St.Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, email: Massimo.Faggioli@stthomas.edu. Unless otherwise noted, translations provided in this article are by the author.

18

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

19

iments of the early 1960s and a much-needed turnover of the elites;
this affected the social and political history of Italy as well as the history of Italian Catholicism.
The complexity of the ideological and cultural cleavages in the
1960s—especially the period between the end of the Second Vatican
Council in 1965 and the first crisis in its aftermath (caused by Hans
Küng’s book The Church,1 the Dutch Catechism,2 and the encyclical
Humanae vitae on contraception and its reception)—still requires
much analysis. Such an analysis must include the role of the Catholic
movements in Italy.
This rift around the interpretation of the role of Catholicism in
Italy in the 1960s and 1970s reflects a deep cultural deficiency in the
analysis of the social and political role of Catholicism in twentiethcentury Italy.This situation exists partly because critics of the political role of Catholicism in Italy view the Catholic Church as a vertical
institution ruled by the pope and Roman Curia, cardinals, bishops,
and clergy. Others view the renewed public presence of Catholicism
purely as a right-wing Catholic revanche. Seeing the Church as a
social and political player through these lenses is still valid, but they
display a sociological approach to Catholicism that requires a complementary historical approach, especially in light of the new faces
of the so-called “new Catholic movements” and their role in the creation of a new Italian Catholic “leading elite.”3 Via a historical point
of view, the picture can be completed, illuminating the historical
development of Italian Catholicism and its peculiar features, characters, and culture. Assessing the recent history of Italian Catholicism
means taking into account a new category of protagonists that historians of modern Italian Catholicism have underestimated and sociologists of religion and prophets of the “postsecular age” in Italy have
overestimated.
1

See La Chiesa (Brescia, 1969); Hans Küng, The Church, trans. Ray Ockenden and
Rosaleen Ockenden (New York, 1968); Hans Küng, Die Kirche (Freiburg, 1967).
2
See Il dossier del Catechismo olandese, ed. Leo Alting von Geusau and Fernando
Vittorino Joannes (Milan, 1968); A New Catechism: Catholic Faith for Adults, ed. Leo
Alting von Geusau and Fernando Vittorino Joannes, trans. Kevin Smyth (New York,
1967).
3
See Alberto Melloni,“Movimenti. De significatione verborum,” in I movimenti nella
Chiesa, Concilium, March 2003, ed.Alberto Melloni, pp. 13–35; Massimo Faggioli, Breve
storia dei movimenti cattolici (Rome, 2008; Spanish trans. Historia y evolución de los
movimientos católicos. De León XIII a Benedicto XVI, Madrid, 2011).

20

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

This article will attempt to emphasize the role of the new Catholic
movements and their rise in the period between the end of the
Second Vatican Council and the 1970s in the political, ideological,
and sociological framework of present-day Catholicism in Italy. This
approach will offer a more nuanced view of the social and political
aggiornamento of Italian Catholicism and the opportunity to
reassess the often overlooked, changing identity of the Italian Church
between 1968 and the 1990s. It also will show that the contemporary Italian Catholic elite and Catholic lay movements owe much to
the endeavor of Italian Catholics to make sense of and come to terms
with the difficult ideological divide in Italy during the “tumultuous
1960s.” In fact, the example of the Catholic movements and 1968 in
Italy show that the relationship among the reception of the Second
Vatican Council, “Catholic radicalism,” and the ideological clash in
Italy is much more intricate than that usually portrayed.An examination of the ideological history of the new Catholic movements
between 1968 and the beginning of the twenty-first century reveals
surprising conclusions.
2. Catholicism and 1968 in Italy: A Shift in the History of
Catholic Movements
The official historiography of the new Catholic movements tends
to acritically and apologetically stress the coincidence of their origin
with the Second Vatican Council, but their relationship with 1968 is
much more important, ambivalent, and unexplored. Catholic 1968
should be framed in a complex context—between the end of the long
nineteenth century4 and the beginning of a thorough secularization
of Europe, as well as between the Second Vatican Council and the
1970s. Such a categorization intends to see 1968 Catholicism in a
global context, immediately after the worldwide event in the history
of the Catholic Church—that is, the Second Vatican Council.5
The pontificate of Paul VI played a significant role in the history of
the relations between not only the Church and the modern world but
also elements within the Church—between lay movements and the
ecclesiastical institution. The importance of the change in the balance
4

John W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA, 2008), pp. 53–92.
See Giuseppe Alberigo, “Il concilio Vaticano II e le trasformazioni culturali in
Europa,” Cristianesimo nella Storia, 20 (1999), pp. 383–405; History of Vatican II, ed.
Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak, vols. 1–5 (Leuven-Bologna, 1995–2001;
New York, 1995–2006).
5

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

21

of power within the Catholic Church cannot be overemphasized.The
Second Vatican Council meant not only a debate between theologies
and social and political cultures but also a turnover in the balances of
power in an institution deeply marked by a multisecular stratification
in the social identity of those who held power—bishops, clergy,
monks and religious orders, and Catholic nobility.6
Paul VI symbolized the social dynamics of Catholics after the
Second Vatican Council in his preparation of a massive turnover in the
elite of the Church—that is, among the bishops, thanks to new regulations that “invited” the bishops to resign their office when they
turned seventy-five.7 This decision changed the face of the Italian
episcopate almost overnight, but the social dynamics of the Catholic
Church after the Second Vatican Council went much deeper and farther. It is beyond any doubt that Catholicism after the Second Vatican
Council contributed to the 1968 movement, perhaps more than has
been acknowledged, and much more in Europe (France, Germany,
Italy) than in North America.8 Italy played a special role in the
attempt to link the demands produced by the Second Vatican Council
with the 1968 movement and to assess the effects of 1968 on the
Catholic Church as an institution.
Judgments differ on the role of Italian Catholics in the 1968 movement. Regarding the protests at the Catholic University in Milan,
which launched 1968 in Italy, the Italian historian Agostino Giovagnoli
stated that “it would be an overstatement to say that the religious ele6
See Richard P. McBrien, The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism (New York,
2008), pp. 345–49; Richard R. Gaillardetz, Ecclesiology for a Global Church: A People
Called and Sent (Maryknoll, NY, 2008), pp. 132–42. For the reception of the Second
Vatican Council in Italian lay movements, see Massimo Faggioli,“I movimenti cattolici
internazionali nel post-concilio: il caso della recezione del Vaticano II in Italia,” in
Proceedings of the International Conference of Gazzada on the Reception of the
Second Vatican Council in Italy, June 2009 (Brescia, forthcoming).
7
See Giuseppe Alberigo,“Santa Sede e vescovi nello Stato unitario.Verso un episcopato italiano (1958–1985),” in La Chiesa e il potere politico (Turin, 1986), pp. 857–79;
Alberto Melloni, “Da Giovanni XXIII alle Chiese italiane del Vaticano II,” in Storia
dell’Italia religiosa. Vol. 3: L’età contemporanea, ed. Gabriele De Rosa,Tullio Gregory,
and André Vauchez (Rome-Bari, 1995), pp. 361–403; Guido Verucci,“La chiesa postconciliare,” Storia dell’Italia repubblicana (Turin, 1995), pp. 297–382; Augusto D’Angelo,
“L’episcopato italiano dalla frammentazione al profilo nazionale,” Memoria e ricerca,
December 2003, 75–92.
8
On “leftist Catholicism,” see Gerd Rainer Horn, The Spirit of ’68: Rebellion in
Western Europe and North America, 1956–1976 (New York, 2007).

22

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

ment played a decisive role.”9 But Salvatore Abbruzzese more convincingly affirmed in his classical study on Communion and
Liberation that “this presence of Catholics within the movement of
1968 was less marginal than we might suppose.”10
The struggle for the reception/application of the Second Vatican
Council met the 1968 climate and offered the opportunity for a more
general attempt to renovate not just the language, symbolism, or theology of Catholicism but also the leading elites of the Church as an
institution. The new conciliar Weltanschauung implied disposing of
an old religious elite and replacing it with a new one. For the catastrophic memories of 1968 presented by mainstream Catholicism at
the beginning of the twenty-first century, the period after the Second
Vatican Council, brought about several changes for the Church as a
whole—weaker responses of the laity toward the moral and doctrinal
teaching of the pope and bishops; deterioration of the link of obedience between bishops and lay movements; a growing pluralism
within Catholicism; and the beginning of the detachment of the “civil
society” in the Catholic Church—the laity—from church institutions.11 Italy and Italian Catholicism became the first and best field of
operation for these occurrences.12
3. The Catholic Movements in Italy during and after 1968
The phenomenon of the new Catholic movements has much more
to do with the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council than the
9
“Non si può dire che la componente religiosa abbia giocato un ruolo decisivo.”
Agostino Giovagnoli, “Cattolici nel Sessantotto,” in 1968 tra utopia e Vangelo.
Contestazione e mondo cattolico, ed.Agostino Giovagnoli (Rome, 2000), p. 39.
10
“Cette presence des catholiques au sein du mouvement de contestation fut moins
marginale qu’on pourrait le supposer.” Salvatore Abbruzzese, Comunione e
Liberazione, Identité Catholique et Disqualification du monde (Paris, 1989), p. 117.
11
See Carlo Falconi, La contestazione nella Chiesa. Storia e documenti del movimento cattolico antiautoritario in Italia e nel mondo (Milan, 1969); Igino Giordani,
La Chiesa della contestazione (Rome, 1970); Danièle Hervieu-Léger, De la mission à
la protestation. L’évolution des étudiants chrétiens en France (1965–1970) (Paris,
1973).
12
On the 1970s in Italy, see Mario Cuminetti, Il dissenso cattolico in Italia,
1965–1980 (Milan, 1983); Guido Crainz, Il paese mancato: dal miracolo economico
agli anni Ottanta (Rome, 2003); Alberto Melloni,“L’occasione mancata. Appunti sulla
chiesa italiana, 1978–2009,” in Il Vangelo basta, ed. Alberto Melloni (Rome, 2010);
Massimo Faggioli,“Il modello Bartoletti nell’Italia mancata,” in Cristiani d’Italia. Chiese,
società, Stato 1861–2011, ed.Alberto Melloni (Rome, 2011), pp. 317–30.

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

23

Council itself. As it has been observed recently,“ One of the most striking developments in Catholic life since the council ended has been
the flourishing of ‘movements’ such as Opus Dei, the NeoCatechumenate, Communion and Liberation, and so on.”13 This development also occurred in Italy and greatly contributed to the changing
landscape of Italian Catholicism and to the relationship between
Italian political culture and the Italian Church.
The role of the Catholic movements in Italy after 1968 clearly can
be seen through the prism of five groups: Azione Cattolica (Catholic
Action), Comunione e Liberazione (Communion and Liberation),
Comunità di Sant’Egidio (Community of St. Egidio), and the
Organizations of Catholic Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts (Associazione
Scout Cattolici Italiani [ASCI];Associazione Guide Italiane [AGI], later
Associazione Guide e Scouts Cattolici Italiani [AGESCI]). Omitted
from this analysis are Catholic movements and organizations that did
not confront the cultural and political situation around 1968 and had
stronger cultural and political ties with countries other than Italy (for
example, Spanish-speaking movements such as Opus Dei, Legionaries
of Christ, and charismatic Pentecostal groups).14
4. Catholic Action
The oldest and noblest nest of Catholic laity was Catholic Action,
founded in the 1920s by Pope Pius XI to educate laymen and -women
in a society under threat by fascist, Nazi, and communist ideologies.15
Catholic Action was the organization par excellence of the Catholic
laity in Italy, forging connections to the Catholic Federation of
University Students (FUCI) and the main organization of young
Catholics (Gioventù Italiana di Azione Cattolica [GIAC]) and acting as
an umbrella organization for the Catholic laity in Italy. Based in dioceses and parishes, Catholic Action enrolled its members through the
13

Nicholas Lash, Theology for Pilgrims (Notre Dame, 2008), p. 236.
See Faggioli, Breve storia/Historia y evolución. For a general overview on the
postconciliar Catholic movements, see Antonio Giolo, Brunetto Salvarani, I cattolici
sono tutti uguali? Una mappa dei movimenti della Chiesa (Genoa, 1992); Agostino
Favale, Movimenti ecclesiali contemporanei. Dimensioni storiche, teologico-spirituali
ed apostoliche (Rome, 1991);Agostino Favale, Segni di vitalità nella chiesa. Movimenti
e nuove comunità (Rome, 2009).
15
See Liliana Ferrari, L’Azione cattolica in Italia dalle origini al pontificato di
Paolo VI (Brescia, 1982); Liliana Ferrari, Una storia dell’Azione cattolica: gli ordinamenti statutari da Pio XI a Pio XII (Genoa, 1989).
14

24

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

territorial structures of the Church. Its first leaders were Armida
Barelli, Carlo Carretto, Giuseppe Lazzati, and priests Franco Costa and
Emilio Guano. In 1946 Vittorino Veronese became president (with
Luigi Gedda as vice president); Vittorio Bachelet served as president
for the crucial period 1964–73, with Costa as the “ecclesiastical assistant” (1963–72) formally guaranteeing the obedience of the organization to the bishops and the pope.The intellectual sources of Catholic
Action put this new kind of laity front and center in the attempt to
renew the language of Catholic theology vis-à-vis the modern world,
as seen in the writings of Jacques Maritain, the new ecclesiology overcoming the idea of the Church as a societas perfecta, and the cautious
but attentive approach to the nouvelle théologie.
Catholic Action, which peaked in church influence and power in
the late 1940s and 1950s, gained recognition in Second Vatican
Council documents as “the organization” of Catholic laity. However, it
was unable to take advantage of a canonically incipient but culturally
exhausted “theology of laity.” Thus, Catholic Action started losing
members to the new movements immediately after the Second
Vatican Council, just when it was accomplishing much more than the
rest of the Catholic laity by accepting the Second Vatican Council, its
ecclesiology of the Church as a communion, and the need to reconcile the Catholic laity with a more democratic organizational model.
Catholic Action tried to take the middle path in 1968, refusing to
adhere to the radical, anti-institutional stance of many Catholics and
holding an open dialogue with the student movement and society at
large. But at the same time Catholic Action embraced some cultural
aspects of 1968, as one of its leaders remembered:
Catholic Action lived the period of 1968 with attentiveness and openness
of mind; in its younger components it created a profound relationship with
that movement and through many of its members it became part of that
movement of ideas that was 1968.16

The effort to halt the departure of its members with a new statute
(October–November 1969) was only partially successful; the new
16
“L’Azione Cattolica visse con attenzione e spirito di apertura la stagione del
Sessantotto; mediante le sue componenti giovanili stabilì un contatto profondo e attraverso numerose persone si può dire che fece parte di quel movimento di idee.”Angelo
Bertani, “L’Azione Cattolica Italiana e la svolta del Concilio,” in 1968: fra utopia e
Vangelo, ed.Agostino Giovagnoli (Rome, 2000), pp. 79–101, here 79–80.

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

25

statute disappointed both the liberal and the conservative wings of
the movement, because it underscored the institutional continuity
with the past (hardly acceptable to the liberals) while stressing the
role of Catholic Action in promoting “the co-responsibility of laity in
the mission of the Church”17 (intolerable to the conservatives). But
the new attention of Catholic Action to political and social movements did not meet with universal approval, as noted by Mario
Casella: “The new Statute had many supporters, but also caused
dismay and disappointment, especially in the most extreme fringes of
Catholic Action.”18
The “religious option” (“scelta religiosa”), the adoption of a framework typical of a democratic association (“scelta democratica” and
“scelta associativa”), and the end of the political and institutional ties
of Catholic Action members with the Christian Democratic Party
(Democrazia Cristiana) represented huge steps in the direction of a
new Catholic Action identity. But it also was an option that clearly ran
counter to both the 1968 movement and the new Catholic movements, as Guido Formigoni noted: “The weaknesses of the postVatican II renewal of the Church were closely intertwined with the
need for more genuinity, naturalness, and faithfulness to the Gospel,
together with an anti-hierarchical and anti-institutional mood.”19
The delay in updating its theological and political culture and the
attempt to stand for the obedient, old guard of the Catholic laity cost
Catholic Action many of its members after 1968. Apart from this political crisis of membership, the attempts of Catholic Action to reform
itself in the early 1970s were not rewarded by the Holy See, which
soon started to repudiate its new theological course and sought new
organizations of the new Italian laity that were more reliable than “the
old guard” in the stormy period between 1968 and the mid-1970s.The
clash between Catholic Action and the Vatican, especially between
17
Ernesto Preziosi, Obbedienti in piedi. La vicenda dell’Azione Cattolica in Italia
(Turin, 1996), pp. 318–25.
18
“Il nuovo Statuto suscitò molti consensi, ma anche sconcerto e scontento, soprattutto nelle ali più estreme dell’ACI.” Mario Casella, L’Azione Cattolica nell’Italia contemporanea (1919–1969) (Rome, 1992), p. 555.
19
“Esigenze di genuinità, di spontaneità, di rigore evangelico, rafforzate dalla ventata
antigerarchica e anti-istituzionale, si intrecciarono strettamente alle debolezze presenti
nel rinnovamento conciliare della chiesa italiana. Rispetto alla contestazione verso la
gerarchia e la politicizzazione la scelta religiosa andava palesemente controcorrente.”
Guido Formigoni, L’Azione Cattolica Italiana (Milan, 1988), p. 111.

26

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

1970 and 1973, was caused by Catholic Action’s new approach to the
social and political realm—the so-called “religious option” that was
intended to give more autonomy to Italian lay Catholics about the legitimate pluralism of their political options and to distance itself from the
influence of the Vatican and Italian bishops in Italian politics.20
During the 1980s and 1990s, the pontificate of John Paul II was
much more explicit than that of Paul VI in indicating the need for a
new and stronger accountability of the Italian laity for the Roman
pope.This was a responsibility evidently no longer found in Catholic
Action, split “between conscience and obedience”21—that is, between
fidelity to the Church and responsibility to the new and diverse cultural and political sensibility of its members. The late reconciliation
between Rome and Catholic Action in Loreto in 2004 magnified not
the rehabilitation of Catholic Action in the eyes of the Roman Church,
but the new obedience of Catholic Action to the Holy See and the
spectacular acknowledgment by Rome of the supremacy of the more
assertive style of Communion and Liberation.22
5. Communion and Liberation
Communion and Liberation, founded by the priest Luigi Giussani
(1922–2005) in 1954 originally as Gioventù Studentesca, represented
the most significant Catholic movement in Milan and soon became
the most important splinter group from Catholic Action in Italy.
Giussani, the founder of the most politically active Catholic movement in Italy, taught at the seminary of Venegono near Milan and at a
high school in Milan (1954–64) before serving later as chair of introduction to theology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in
Milan.23 In 1965 Giussani left Gioventù Studentesca and founded the
Charles Peguy Center in Milan—the beginning of the transition to the
new movement Communion and Liberation.24 A charismatic leader of
20
See Azione Cattolica Italiana, Scelta religiosa e politica: documenti 1969–1988,
ed. Raffaele Cananzi (Rome, 1988).
21
Vittorio De Marco, Storia dell’Azione Cattolica negli anni Settanta (Rome, 2007).
22
See Alberto Melloni, “The Politics of the ‘Church’ in the Italy of Pope Wojty–l a,”
Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 12 (2007), 60–85.
23
The first writings of Giussani—Riflessioni sopra un’esperienza (1959), Tracce
d’esperienza cristiana (1960), and Appunti di metodo cristiano (1964)—had been
published “pro manuscripto,” and they had been republished with the title Tracce d’esperienza cristiana (Milan, 1972).
24
Abbruzzese, Comunione e Liberazione, p. 105.

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

27

this new students’ circle, Giussani had his disciples read Georges
Bernanos, Paul Claudel, Jonathan Edwards, Jacques Maritain, Charles
Peguy, and American and Russian writers. In the period after the
Second Vatican Council, this intellectual eclecticism eventually led
Giussani to accept Henri de Lubac’s emphasis on nature and grace, in
reaction to the anthropological theology of Karl Rahner and Edwaard
Schillebeeckx.25 Giussani’s ecclesiology became increasingly autarchical, monolytical, and inclined to a quasi-identification of the Church
with Christ; Communion and Liberation’s understanding of Maritain is
closer to the harsh judgment expressed about the Second Vatican
Council in Le paysan de la Garonne (1967) than to the philosophy
of Humanisme integrale (1936).26 At the same time, Jaca Book, the
publishing house close to Communion and Liberation, also published
authors very popular in the revolt movement of 1968 such as Fidel
Castro, Régis Debray, and Rosa Luxemburg.27
Evident before Communion and Liberation emerged was Catholic
Action’s inability to bridge the competing demands for renewal and
preservation of traditions.28 According to Communion and Liberation,
the events of 1968 played a major role because the student movement
attracted many members of Giussani’s Gioventù Studentesca. It
caused the most serious crisis in the history of the group.Accounts of
the group’s history reveal the heavy burdens of those turbulent
years.29 Giussani recalled these troubled times:
The development of the movement became less clear in 1963–64, until the
dark moment of 1968 that triggered the consequences of the previous 5–6
years, when the bad influence of a few people had radically changed the
original idea and made the center of our action not our presence in the
25

See Dadder, pp. 154–71.
See Dadder, pp. 247–65. See Jacques Maritain, Le paysan de la Garonne: Une
vieux laïc s’interroge à propos du temps présent (Paris, 1967); Jacques Maritain, The
Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself about the Present Time,
trans. Micheal Cuddihy and Elizabeth Hughes (New York, 1968).
27
See Abbruzzese, Comunione e Liberazione, p. 107.
28
On Communion and Liberation, see also Gli estremisti di centro: il neo-integralismo cattolico degli anni ‘70. Comunione e liberazione. Presentazione di David
Maria Turoldo, ed. Sandro Bianchi and Angelo Turchini (Rimini-Florence, 1975); Anke
Maria Dadder, Comunione e Liberazione. Phänomenologie einer neuen geistlichen
Bewegung (Constance, 2002); Massimo Camisasca, Comunione e Liberazione. Le
origini (1954–1968) (Cinisello Balsamo, 2001); Massimo Camisasca, Comunione e
Liberazione. La ripresa (1969–1976) (Cinisello Balsamo, 2003); Massimo Camisasca,
Comunione e Liberazione. Il riconoscimento (1976–1984). Appendice 1985–2005
(Cinisello Balsamo, 2006).
26

28

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

schools, but a vague social activism. Our identity was lost. . . . The political
project had taken the place of our presence; utopia had become the
center. What happened between 1963 and 1968 was a process of adaptation and surrender to the environment.30

A harsh opposition to 1968 is clearly present in the ideological history of Giussani’s group, although many of its members had been part
of the 1968 movement, as can be seen in a speech delivered by
Giussani in 1976:
The historical trajectory had already made justice of the vanity and emptiness of the utopia of 1968: this utopia was nothing other than a tool for
a new hegemony, even more despotic and destroying. That is why we
continue to say that we are the only representatives of the real 1968.31

Communion and Liberation owed much of its good fortune and
political success to 1968. Although it rejected the eminently Marxist
ideological backdrop of the students’ revolt, Communion and
Liberation capitalized on the anti-institutional mood that became
mainstream in its culture. At the same time, Communion and
Liberation contributed to the issue of the change in church leadership reacting against the crisis of authority in the Church after the
Second Vatican Council with a display of ultramontanist devotion for
the pope.
The political language of Communion and Liberation, in the wake
of the reconstruction of the group from scratch after the shock of
1968, changed its target but not its weapon. Refusing the “people of
29
See Roberto Beretta, Il lungo autunno. Controstoria del Sessantotto cattolico
(Milan, 1998); Roberto Beretta, Cantavamo Dio è morto. Il ’68 dei cattolici (Casale
Monferrato, 2008).
30
“La storia del movimento incominciò ad annebbiarsi nel ’63–’64, fino alle tenebre
del ’68 che fece esplodere le conseguenze di quei cinque o sei anni in cui l’influsso di
certe persone aveva capovolto la situazione originale e reso scopo del nostro muoverci
non la presenza nella scuola, ma un progetto d’attività sociale. Così l’identità stessa della
nostra presenza si smarrì. . . . Il progetto aveva sostituito la presenza, l’utopia l’aveva
scalzata. Ciò che avvenne dal ’63–’64 fino allo scoppio del ’68 fu un processo di adattamento e di cedimento all’ambiente.” Luigi Giussani, “Dall’utopia alla presenza,”
Dall’utopia alla presenza (1975–1978) (Milan, 2006), pp. 49–87, here pp. 63–64.
31
“La traiettoria storica aveva già sgomberato la vanità e la vuotezza delle utopie
del ’68: quello che esse avevano destato non era diventato altro che strumento per una
nuova egemonia, ancora più dispotica e livellatrice. Perciò, già due-tre anni fa dicevamo di essere rimasti gli unici a portare avanti le parole del ’68.” Giussani,“Dall’utopia
alla presenza,” pp. 64–65, emphasis in original.

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

29

God” ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council and the 1968 liberal
culture, Communion and Liberation acted in the early 1970s as the
group with the highest level of political engagement, in an Italian
Catholicism unable to navigate between the newly discovered
Catholic “political theology” and the tradition of church collateralism
with the Christian Democratic Party:
The Italian Catholic movement is embedded in a conciliar legacy that
pushes it toward a more direct engagement with the world, but at the
same time employing a cautious and realist strategy, which sometimes
leads to some kind of desertion. . . . Lay Catholics can escape this trap only
by creating different and autonomous paths, thus initiating a diaspora that
has not been studied yet.32

Despite the official and apologetic history of the movement written by a prominent member of Communion and Liberation,33 the ideological origins of Communion and Liberation shared the ideological
attack against the liberal state with other Catholic movements and
1968 culture, as members of the same movement have acknowledged:
“Gioventù Studentesca expressed the same need for renewal as the
students’ movement did, but it judged the ways of the movement
inadequate.”34 Communion and Liberation focused on the “culture of
the presence” of Catholics in society35 and rejected political engagement.According to Communion and Liberation, politics becomes radically disqualified as a field of action for Catholics, as “politics is just
another trap created by the ‘false rationality of the Enlightenment.’”36
While Italian Catholicism was struggling to free itself from the
problematical heritage of collateralism with the Christian Democratic
Party, Communion and Liberation pushed a small but important part
of the Italian laity back into the “ghetto” under the flag of a new “non
32
“Le mouvement catholique italien se trouve ainsi coincé dans un héritage conciliare qui le pousse aux engagements dans le monde et une stratégie réaliste de ‘désertion’ et de prudence. Les militants catholiques ne pourront sortir de ce piège qu’en
prenant des chemins autonome set diversifiés, constituant ainsi une diaspora dont
l’analyse est encore loin d’être fait.”Abbruzzese, Comunione e Liberazione, p. 127.
33
See Camisasca, La ripresa.
34
“Gioventù Studentesca condivise l’istanza di rinnovamento insita nel Movimento
studentesco, ma giudicò inadeguata la forma di lotta scelta.” Maurizio Vitali and
Ambrogio Pisoni, Comunione e Liberazione (Milan, 1988), p. 77.
35
See Italo Mancini, Tornino i volti (Genoa, 1988).
36
“Le politique n’est qu’un des pièges de la ‘fausse rationalité des Lumières.’”
Abbruzzese, Comunione e Liberazione, p. 134.

30

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

expedit.” Communion and Liberation and its branches rejected the
need for political mediation inside the Christian Democratic Party and
bargained with grassroots politicians from every political party, to
fund branches of the group that provided social services for members
of Communion and Liberation and their families.
Communion and Liberation took advantage of the last years of Paul
VI’s pontificate and recognized the major shift in the pope’s attitude
toward the Second Vatican Council and the postconciliar problems,
unlike others. The turning point in the success of Communion and
Liberation came with John Paul II and his vision for a new
Catholicism in Italy. John Paul II’s preference for the “new Catholic
movements” and the antiliberal (even more than anticommunist) language of Communion and Liberation developed very early in the history of his pontificate and peaked in 1982 with the pope’s visit to the
annual meeting of Communion and Liberation in Rimini.
The struggle against the anthropology of liberation of 1968 and
John Paul II’s emphasis on moral issues made Communion and
Liberation a key player in the public arena of the Catholic Church in
Italy during the last pontificate of the twentieth century. In 1980
Giussani affirmed, “Communion and Liberation created a new synthesis, in a dialectic, practical, cultural, and educational opposition
to 1968.”37
The cultural opposition of Communion and Liberation against
1968 also was an opposition to the early attempt of Italian
Catholicism and some leaders of the Italian episcopate to take
advantage of the end of temporal power and new freedom for the
Catholic Church at the end of the “Constantine era.”The success of
Communion and Liberation in representing Italian Catholicism as
“resilient” toward the novelty of the Second Vatican Council was
rooted in the efforts of Communion and Liberation to distance
itself from the message of 1968. Nevertheless, the “Jacobin-minded”
language of 1968 still played a role in the propaganda of
Communion and Liberation toward a renewal of the leading elites
of the Church that acknowledged the social and political power of
post-Catholic Italy.
37
“Comunione e Liberazione è sorta proprio come una nuova sintesi, in dialettica, in
opposizione culturale e pratica, culturale ed educativa con il Sessantotto.” Camisasca, La
ripresa, p. 56.

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

31

Communion and Liberation rejected 1968 because of its Marxist
underpinnings and its narrow view of institutions of political, social,
and religious power.38 As Giussani explained in a 1981 speech:
“Radicalism is just bourgeois ideology made into a penetrating and
solid system. Bourgeois ideology is the extreme, final, and most coherent result of the anthropological and social views of the
Enlightenment, of liberalism, and then also of Marxism.”39
However, Communion and Liberation used social tactics similar to
those of the 1968 leaders to affirm its presence and power in the
heart of Italian Catholicism. The success of Giussani’s group, which
was unofficially recognized by Paul VI in 1975 and later greatly magnified by John Paul II, was paradigmatic of the crisis of the old
Catholic elite (embodied by Catholic Action and especially by bishops
who had a troubled relationship with Communion and Liberation)
and the success of the new Catholicism represented by the movements (strengthened by a direct papal endorsement of the movements’ founders).
6. The Community of St. Egidio
A particular community movement, distant from the cradle of
Catholic Action and the other “new Catholic movements,” was the
1968-inspired and Rome-based Comunità di Sant’Egidio. The Community of St. Egidio experienced the contestation against the
Catholic Church in its early years but remained detached from the
ideological mood of 1968 and the 1970s.40 Like Communion and
Liberation, St. Egidio emerged when a group of students wanted personal engagement in society and saw scope for such work in a
changing world. It developed a particular charisma that set it apart
from not only from Communion and Liberation but also every other
“new Catholic movement.”

38

Camisasca, La ripresa, pp. 61–62.
“Il radicalismo non è nient’altro che il borghesismo eretto a sistema nel modo più
coerente e capillare. Il borghesismo è l’esito estremo, ultimo e più coerente, di tutta
quanta l’impostazione antropologica e sociale dell’Illuminismo, del liberalismo e quindi
anche del marxismo.” Luigi Giussani,“Qualcosa che cambia la vita,” in Certi di alcune
grandi cose (1979–1981)(Milan, 2007), p. 427.
40
See Hanspeter Oschwald, Bibel, Mystik und Politik. Die Gemeinschaft
Sant’Egidio (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1996).
39

32

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

Now one of the most important and widely published historians on
Christianity,41 Andrea Riccardi founded St. Egidio in 1968 with a group
of high school students of the Liceo Virgilio in the bourgeois heart of
Rome.They intended to remake the world in the image of the Gospel,
starting with charitable projects in the poor suburbs of Rome. Soon the
community expanded beyond Rome, and its engagements became international when, in the 1990s, St. Egidio mediated between parties in several international conflicts (especially in Mozambique in 1992). But it
began with a simple mission—to live the Gospel in the city of Rome.42
This dimension was consistent with the later diplomatic engagements of
the community, given that Rome has been seen since antiquity as a
shared place in a world burdened by nationalisms and ethnocentrisms.
This openness to the world—and not just “internationalization”—
is the most typical indication of the specific nature of St. Egidio in the
landscape of the Catholic movements after the Second Vatican
Council. The typical marker of postconciliar Catholic movements—
the core value of fidelity to the pope—was enclosed in the
Community of St. Egidio in two rather particular and uncommon elements in Italian Catholicism of the modern era, very distant from
Catholic Action as well as from Communion and Liberation. On one
side, the creation of an efficient and ecumenical welfare network in
Rome for the poor, homeless, and immigrant populations—solidarity
with the poor and other worlds43—was the Community of St. Egidio’s
translation of both the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council and
the 1968 political openness to the world, along with a political culture that did not reject liberal Catholicism, but, on the contrary,
accepted the end of confessionalism and thus the cultural basis of
Risorgimento and the modern constitutional Italian Republic. On the
other side, the culture of the group (that at the beginning did not
share the typical 1968 passion for politics, assemblies, and democracy
inside the movement) turned to a rather cultivated and antifundamentalist biblical culture, to the study of the history of ancient tradi41
Among Andrea Riccardi’s vast bibliography: Il Partito romano nel secondo
dopoguerra, 1945–1954 (Brescia, 1983); Il potere del papa: da Pio XII a Paolo VI
(Rome-Bari, 1988); Il Vaticano e Mosca 1940–1990 (Rome-Bari, 1992); L’inverno piu
lungo 1943–44: Pio XII, gli ebrei e i nazisti a Roma (Rome-Bari, 2008). In November
2011 Riccardi was appointed Italy’s minister for international cooperation and integration policies.
42
See Andrea Riccardi, Sant’Egidio, Rome et le monde. Entretiens avec JeanDominique Durand et Régis Ladous (Paris, 1996), pp. 17, 20.
43
See Riccardi, Sant’Egidio, Rome et le monde, pp. 27, 110.

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

33

tions of the first millennium of an undivided Christianity, and to ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. Riccardi repeated St. Egidio’s particular relationship with 1968, defining himself as “a child of 1968”—
that is, as a citizen of the world and a member of the Church who
learned that everything also has a political dimension.44
In October 1986 the interreligious prayer for peace in Assisi
marked the first international success of the movement, which soon
became famous for its peace-building initiatives in Africa (especially
Mozambique in 1994) and Eastern Europe (Albania and Kosovo in
1997–98) and to an international campaign against the death penalty.
The success of the Community of St. Egidio in subsequent years represented the most remarkable example of the success of a postconciliar and post-1968 Catholic movement. Despite the “progressive” elements of its social activism and theological culture—which were
quite unique for Italy—the fidelity to the pope as their bishop (“the
bishop of Rome,” but also the head of the Catholic Church), protected
this small but active group of young activists, as Riccardi indicates:
“the local Church of Rome and its bishop represent a very important
reference point in such a big world.”45
The balance embodied by the Community of St. Egidio between
fidelity to the culture of the Second Vatican Council (with issues such
as the new role of the Bible, ecumenism, and interreligious dialogue)
and the traditional “Roman-windows Catholicism” (with an effective
social network of members of the Roman Curia and Roman politics)
said much about the outcomes of the “Roman Catholic filtering of
1968.” Among the movements the Community of St. Egidio embodied
a number of issues for the era—the activism of the laity and good relations with the Roman Curia; the skills in creating Catholic welfare
services and cooperative relationships with government entities (in
the slums surrounding Rome as well as in an Africa devastated by
HIV-AIDS); the outreach to the academic community through ecumenical and interreligious international meetings with deep cultural
ties to Catholic tradition; and the cautious navigation of the political
demands of the Catholic Church in Italy (concerning issues of
Catholic schools, abortion, and bioethics).
44

Riccardi, Sant’Egidio, Rome et le monde, p. 32.
“L’église de Rome et son évêque représentent un point de reference important
dans un monde si grand, mais où resurgissent les frontiers.” Riccardi, Sant’Egidio, Rome
et le monde, p. 161.
45

34

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

The importance of this lightly institutionalized movement (sometimes dubbed “the UN of Trastevere”) lies more in its most visible
national leaders than in the relatively small numbers of members scattered among cities in Italy and around the world. The informal, personal ties with the leadership of the leftist Democratic Party and the
new pontificate of Benedict XVI did not seem to affect the position of
the Community of St. Egidio within Italian Catholicism.
7. Catholic Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts Associations
From the left wing of Italian Catholicism, the associations of
Catholic Boy Scouts (Associazione Scout Cattolici Italiani, ASCI) and
Catholic Girl Scouts (Associazione Guide Italiane, AGI; see figure 1)
represented the most receptive part of Catholic laity both to the message of the Second Vatican Council and to the culture of 1968.46
Created in Italy only a few years after the British movement, thanks to
Italian nobles close to the British community living in Italy, the comeback of the Catholic scout movement in Italy (which Mussolini had
outlawed in 1928 to control the education of the younger generations
of the Fascist state) followed the guidelines of the faithfulness of
Catholic organizations to the Church of Pius XII and shaped itself
after World War II along the cultural and spiritual identity of the
“Franco-Belgian school” of scoutism. Close to the theological identity
of the Jounesse Ouvrière Chrétienne and, more generally, to Catholic
Action in Europe before and after World War II, the Italian Catholic
scout movement advocated a special educational methodology but
did not, until the 1970s, express the desire to part ways with the mainstream Catholic lay movements in Italy.47 After the Second Vatican
Council, the Italian Catholic scout movement represented an important part of the Italian laity because of their numbers (83,000 in 1974;
almost 200,000 in the late 1990s). The male and female Italian
Catholic scout organizations—which had a difficult relationship with
the bishops and pope because of the inferiority complex of Catholic
scouts toward Catholic Action—merged in 1974 to form the new
association AGESCI (Associazione Guide e Scout Cattolici Italiani).
The sensitivity to the importance of some of the 1968 issues for
the Catholic scout movement were common to both the boy and girl
46

See Mario Sica, Storia dello scautismo in Italia (Rome, 1973, 2006).
See Le scoutisme. Quel type d’hommes et quel type de femmes? Quel type de
chrétiens?, ed. Gérard Cholvy and Marie-Thérèse Cheroutre (Paris, 1994).
47

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

35

FIGURE 1. Scout leaders of ASCI and AGI in one of the first desegregated (male
and female) formation events, early 1970s. Photograph courtesy of Archivio
Fotografico ASCI, Centro Documentazione AGESCI, Rome.

scouts associations and to their leadership—the new role of the laity
in the Church conceived as the “people of God”; the need for a gradual “de-militarization” of traditional boy-scout language (founded in
1907 after the Anglo-Boer wars by Robert Baden-Powell, a British general); the option for “co-education” (boys and girls educated together
by a mixed staff of educators and a parish priest); the option to establish an association based on a “pledge” (engagement in the social-political reality, in the sense of Lorenzo Milani’s “I care”), functioning with
democratic rules, resenting the traditional Catholic anticommunism,
and accepting antifascism as a common ground, as proclaimed in the
“Patto Associativo” (the “mission statement” of the AGESCI) in 1974;
the assumption of a pedagogical methodology following anti-authoritarianism more from Maria Montessori than from the anti-institutionalism of 1968; and disengagement from any direct involvement of the
association with party politics.
On the other side, the Catholic scout movement in Italy was important, because it embodied one of the most successful reconciliations
of the culture of 1968 with Catholicism. This occurred despite the
presence of some clearly conflicting elements: defying the 1968 antiinstitutionalist mood concerning the role of the educator in the education process; preserving “outside life” at a time when urban sociology played a major role in shaping the ideological landscape of 1968;
expressing the intention to remain faithful to the Catholic Church

36

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

(following the example of Milani); and reinforcing the Catholic
Church’s idea of education in its practices (such as in coeducation, lay
ministry in the Church, and the secondary role of the clergy in local
scout groups).
It is noteworthy that AGI (the girl scouts association) pushed much
harder than ASCI (the boy scouts association) in accepting the new
ideas of 1968 and in shaping the merging of the two associations,
which was recognized—not without difficulties—by the Catholic
Church only years later. But for the Catholic scout movement in Italy,
the impact with 1968 went in multiple directions. First, 1968 and its
anti-authoritarianism culture posed a cultural challenge to the educational method of “Scouting for Boys.” Second, the merger typical of
1968 between the private and public dimensions of individual life
provided the educational intuition of the boy-scout methodology
about moral self-improvement and social-political dimension with
issues regarding the “elitism” of the educational model of scoutism.
Third, and most important, 1968 redefined the relationship between
membership in a Catholic association and faithfulness to every aspect
of the Catholic magisterium.48
Not by accident, between 1974 and 1975 there was a long
exchange of pointed messages between the leaders of the Italian
Catholic scout movement and the Italian Bishops’ Conference, especially concerning the faithfulness of AGESCI to the Catholic Church
and the need to avoid a direct politicization of the activities of the
association. In particular, the scouting association reassured the bishops by stating the goals of the movement:
to make the educational activities of the association engaged in the big
social problems close to the members’ lives, even the ones that are not visible. . . . We want to offer our educational activities also to the most poor
and marginalized boys and girls.49
48

A long, interesting series of interviews with members and leaders of the Catholic
scout movement in Italy between 1967 and the early 1970s in Vincenzo Schirripa,
Giovani sulla frontiera. Guide e Scout cattolici nell’Italia repubblicana (1943–1974)
(Rome, 2006), esp. pp. 183–220.
49
“Il Consiglio Generale AGESCI ribadisce quindi la volontà associativa di essere lontani da ogni settarismo, e l’impegno a lottare contro ogni violenza, comunque e
dovunque avvenga, e ad offrire la possibilità di una educazione e di una presenza scout
anche negli ambienti più poveri ed emarginati.” Response of the members of the
Consiglio Generale of AGESCI to the Permanent Board of the Conferenza Episcopale
Italiana, April 27, 1975, sent after the letter of the secretary of the Conferenza

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

37

But the crisis in the relationship with the Italian bishops was soon
resolved and the new association AGESCI saw a steady rise in the
number of its members through the 1970s and 1980s; it reached
200,000 members in Italy in the 1990s. By then, it was known as a
unique Catholic mass organization that had gained the respect of
society at large and of the Church, despite an unparalleled independence from Roman Catholic hierarchies and a fairly variegated spectrum of political ideologies among its members and leaders.50
AGESCI’s national events for its educators in 1986 and 1997 marked
the distinctiveness of the Catholic scout association in Italy. It specialized in the education of the younger generation with a classical but
updated methodology, distant from any direct involvement in national
politics. Even though the cultural and theological roots of the priests
Lorenzo Milani (1923–67) and Giuseppe Dossetti (1913–96) were
undeniably much more “traditional” (without adherence to a traditionalist point of view) and “conservative” (without alignment with rightwing political parties) than their political reception by the progressives in Italian Catholicism of the 1970s, very evident were the cultural
ties of the Italian scout movement with the progressive and socially
and politically engaged Catholicism embodied by the followers of
Milani and Dossetti.51 The remarkable “naiveté” of AGESCI leaders concerning their relationship with the Catholic Church, which continues
to regard the largest and most active Catholic association in Italy as the
most independent and self-governing player in the Italian laity, explains
the recent comeback of the most traditionalist part of Catholic
scoutism (“Scoutes d’Europe”) in Benedict XVI’s Roman Curia.52
8. Conclusions: The New Catholic Movements and the
New Catholic Elite in Italy
The difficulties in the transformation of Italian Catholicism from
the model before the Second Vatican Council often are portrayed as a

Episcopale Italiana, Enrico Bartoletti, April 24, 1975, to the Consiglio Generale of
AGESCI, in Documenti pontifici sullo Scautismo, ed. Giovanni Morello and Francesco
Pieri (Milan, 1991), pp. 242–45, here p. 245.
50
See Achille Ardigò, Costantino Cipolla, and Stefano Martelli, Scouts oggi: diecimila
rovers/scolte dell’Agesci rispondono (Rome, 1989).
51
See Laura Giuliani, I giovani cattolici e la politica. Un’indagine su due realtà
associative: AGESCI e RnS (Milan, 2003).
52
On the conservative branch of the European Catholic scout movement, see Leggere
le tracce. Guide e scouts d’Europa nella Fraternità internazionale (Rome, 2007).

38

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

direct result of Catholics who adhered to the teachings of the Council
embracing the radical left-wing political culture of 1968. This brief
synthesis of the encounter between 1968 and Italian Catholic lay
movements offers a different picture. The new Catholic movements
and their interpretation of 1968 shaped much of the Catholicism in
Italy after the Second Vatican Council. This change called 1968 was
actually part of the backdrop of the “new Catholic movements” such
as Communion and Liberation, which Catholic apologists now frequently identify as the Church’s best possible defense against the surrender to secularization brought about by 1968.
There was an intertwining of the reception of the Second Vatican
Council with Catholics’ participation in 1968, and Italian Catholicism
contributed substantially to the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s.The different identities of the Italian Church survived as long as they managed to establish a link with the bishops; the national bishops’ conference, Conferenza Episcopale Italiana; and the conference’s pastoral
projects. The radical culture of Communion and Liberation and the
edgy pastoral outreach of Italian Catholic scoutism became safe
because they were under the tutelage of the Italian bishops.53
Sant’Egidio found a powerful sponsor in the bishop of Rome. In this
respect, it is clear that the ideological DNA of the new Catholic movements and their relationship with 1968 soon became secondary.
The most important outcomes of the link between the Second
Vatican Council and 1968 are not just in terms of the theological and
cultural change of paradigm but also in terms of the change in the
elites of Italian Catholicism.The final outcome of the Council’s reception in Italy was very distant from the much imagined and dreamedof Church led by the “Second Vatican Council bishops,” but not less
distant from the idea of an Italian Catholicism as victim of the dialogue between “Second Vatican Council theologians” and liberal and
Marxist groups. Even a political scientist such as Nicola Matteucci
observed in 1970 that in Italian Catholicism, two types of cultures
were active—the “Catholic culture” (composed of different cultural
origins and markers) and the “Catholic ghetto” (composed of the great
organizations built by the Catholic Church in opposition to “modern
civilization”). According to Matteucci, the new Catholic movements
born after 1968 did not represent the ultimate surrender to theologi53

Vittorio De Marco, Storia dell’Azione Cattolica negli anni Settanta (Rome, 2007),
p. 242.

BY MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

39

cal liberalism, but they were the successors of the same old antimodern soul of the Catholic ghetto—the same intolerant culture at the
service of a new, self-serving view of modernity.54 There is some truth
in the opinion of an admirer of American political culture such as
Matteucci about the relationship between 1968 and the new Catholic
movements. Among the issues of the “new Catholic movements” close
to the culture of 1968, there was the emancipation of the laity from
the clergy through the delegitimization of theology; the creation of a
new, deinstitutionalized model of Church; and a more pluralistic and
more engaged relationship with politics.55 All of this was expressed in
a language rife with egalitarianism, Jacobinism, and harsh criticism of
the modern state.56
Thus it is not surprising that moderate reformist Catholics (mostly
in Catholic Action) became more and more marginal in Catholic 1968
and after 1968. The Catholic scout association AGESCI preserved its
independence and courage in experimenting with new pedagogical
and social instruments, but it neither desired nor attained a “seat at the
table” in the decision-making process in the Catholic Church after the
Second Vatican Council.57 The real winners of the struggle within
Italian Catholicism after 1968 were movements such as Communion
and Liberation on one side and the Community of St. Egidio on the
other, which embodied and represented the Rome-linked and postinstitutional face of Roman Catholicism while expressing two very different sets of styles and theological cultures.
The overall result of the rise of the Catholic movements in the last
forty years—with their dramatic breakups and divisions between rad54
Nicola Matteucci, “La cultura politica italiana: fra l’insorgenza populistica e l’età
delle riforme,” Il Mulino, 19 (1970), 5–23 (repr. in Sul Sessantotto. Crisi del riformismo
e “insorgenza populistica” nell’Italia degli anni Sessanta, ed. Roberto Pertici [Soveria
Mannelli, 2008]).
55
See Sandro Magister, La politica vaticana e l’Italia 1943–1978 (Rome, 1979).
56
See Guido Verucci,“Il 1968, il mondo cattolico italiano e la Chiesa,” Passato e presente, 20–21 (1989), 107–22.
57
See Massimo Faggioli,“Tra chiesa territoriale e chiese personali. I movimenti ecclesiali nel post-concilio Vaticano II,” in “I movimenti nella storia del cristianesimo.
Caratteristiche—variazioni—continuità.” Special issue, Cristianesimo nella Storia, 24,
no. 3 (2003), ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Massimo Faggioli, 677–704; Massimo Faggioli,
“Second Vatican Council, between Documents and Spirit:The Case of the New Catholic
Movements,” in After Vatican II: Trajectories and Hermeneutics, ed. James Heft and
John W. O’Malley (Grand Rapids, MI, forthcoming); Massimo Faggioli, Vatican II: The
Battle for Meaning (Mahwah, NJ, forthcoming).

40

THE NEW ELITES OF ITALIAN CATHOLICISM

icals and the ecclesiastical institution—was not just the newly begun
“church reform” sparked by the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.
It also meant the pluralist face of Italian Catholicism composed of
Catholic movements that had dealt with every part of the diverse culture of 1968 and the politically dangerous 1970s—absorbing some
parts and rejecting others.
The result of the movements’ desire to distance themselves from
the radicalism of 1968 (the dissenting parties) and the reforms
imparted by the practical interpreters of the Second Vatican Council
(the laity of Catholic Action, the bishops) was the creation of a new
elite inside the movements, the homines novi. This phenomenon of
the “new Catholic movement” has already gone beyond the geographical boundaries of Italy. Understanding their cultural roots—
include those of 1968—is the key to understanding their historical
importance in twentieth-century Catholicism.

CATHOLIC CACOPHONY:
RICHARD NIXON,THE CHURCH,AND WELFARE
REFORM
BY
LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS*

President Richard Nixon’s 1969 welfare reform proposal, the
Family Assistance Plan (FAP), debuted to rave reviews from conservatives (who appreciated its work requirement) and liberals
(who lauded its minimum income). The two-thirds of Americans
who approved of FAP included many Catholics and their bishops.
However, Nixon ran out of enthusiasm, and Congress ran out of
time. By 1972, the bishops had turned left, insisting on a higher
income floor and a work incentive rather than a mandate,
whereas many of their congregants had turned right. Nixon stopped
courting the bishops and started wooing their flock, helping to
ensure his re-election victory and FAP’s legislative defeat.
Keywords: Family Assistance Plan; McHugh, Bishop James Thomas;
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick; Nixon, Richard M.; United States Catholic
Conference
Although attention to the “Catholic vote” was not new in 1969, the
degree to which a president courted it was. The arguments of journalists Kevin Phillips, Richard Scammon, and Ben Wattenberg—that an
electoral realignment of working-class, white ethnics from Democrats
to Republicans could occur if only the new president transmitted the
proper political signals—fascinated Richard Nixon. Prominent among
these potential Republicans were Catholics, and prominent among
these political signals was welfare reform.1
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Nixon’s domestic affairs adviser and
product of the Irish-Catholic working class of New York, had, with
*Dr. McAndrews is professor of history at St. Norbert College in De Pere,Wisconsin,
e-mail: larry.mcandrews@snc.edu.
1
Robert Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (Chapel Hill, NC,
2004), p. 117.

41

42

CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

sociologist Nathan Glazer in Beyond the Melting Pot (Cambridge, MA,
1963), predicted that “religion and race would define the next stage
in the evolution of the American people.” Moynihan would recall
Nixon’s interest in the New Yorker magazine article “The Revolt of the
White Lower Middle Class,”in which Pete Hamill described the resentments of the hard-working blue-collar class in New York—too poor to
live in the suburbs and too proud to accept charity. By encouraging
dependency and discouraging work,“welfare,” Moynihan related,“was
the supercharged object of their fury.”2
Welfare reform, therefore, offered Nixon a way of confronting New
Deal and Great Society liberalism while converting many disaffected
liberals. If the politics came to overshadow the principle behind
Nixon’s noble effort to employ the able and insure the unable, so be
it. After all, it was not as if Nixon did not believe in what he was
doing. If it was not for the transparent politics of wooing Catholic
voters, the Quaker president privately allowed, he might even join
their Church.3
Nixon would not become a Catholic, and welfare reform would not
become law. But the political and policy considerations that shaped
and sank his Family Assistance Plan (FAP) helped forge a legacy from
which the country would not turn back.
The Proposal
Although Nixon’s welfare reform proposal would constitute a
repudiation of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, it originated with
Johnson appointees, evolving from a task force recommendation by
Richard Nathan of the Brookings Institution to an initiative by Worth
Bateman, deputy assistant secretary for planning and evaluation of the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), and economist
James Lyday of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). By March
24, 1969, the Bateman-Lyday plan had become a position paper
drafted by the Urban Affairs Council Subcommittee on Welfare.4
2
Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot (Cambridge,
MA, 1963), p. 315; Daniel Patrick Moynihan,“I—Income by Right,” New Yorker, January
13, 1973, 34–57, here 50; Gareth Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement (Lawrence,
KS, 1996), p. 228.
3
Mason, Richard Nixon, p. 154.
4
Moynihan, “Income by Right,” p. 52; Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (New York,
1994), pp. 122–23.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

43

The so-called Family Security System (FSS), endorsed by Moynihan
and HEW Secretary Robert Finch, included a negative income tax of
$1500 a year (later $1600) for a family of four, which would increase
by $450 for each additional adult and $300 for each additional child
up to a family of seven, which would receive $2400. Once individuals
within the family were employed, the family’s payment would decline
50 cents for every dollar earned, until it eventually disappeared.These
families also would be eligible for food stamps. The program, to be
administered by the Social Security Administration, would mandate
minimum-payment levels for the blind, disabled, and aged. The FSS
would enroll almost 20 million recipients, 43 percent of whom were
black and 52 percent from the South. If enacted, it could end 60 percent of the nation’s poverty. “That afternoon,” Moynihan would recall
of the presentation of the subcommittee report to Nixon, “the
President was talking about a Family Security System.”5
The next day, many Catholics were talking about their Church’s
inadequate response to the urban crisis facing the country. Speaking
at the first meeting of the House of Delegates of the National
Federation of Priests’ Councils, Monsignor John Egan, chairman of the
bishops’ Subcommittee on Pastoral Ministry, criticized the Church for
refusing to “get its hands dirty” to allay the nation’s urban ills. Three
weeks later, the bishops responded to this criticism by voting at their
spring meeting to augment the staff and budget of their Social Action
Department to inaugurate an urban affairs task force. Cardinal Patrick
O’Boyle of Washington, DC, insisted that the bishops be spokesmen
“for the principles of social justice.”6
However, John Wright, bishop of Pittsburgh and chair of the Social
Action Department, worried that his colleagues might go too far in
addressing the needs of African Americans at the expense of the white
majority. Wright advocated a revision of the department’s preliminary
report, preferring that the words “that moral and doctrinal heresy
called racism” replace the single term racism; that black “self-determination” is “a strong word and should be used cautiously [and]
within the limits of constitutional law”; and that the characterization
5

Moynihan,“Income by Right,” p. 52.
George Dugan, “Catholics Scored on Social Issues,” New York Times, March 26,
1969, sec. L, 28;Washington, DC, United States Catholic Conference Archives [hereafter
USCCA],“Social Action Department,” Minutes of the United States Catholic Conference
Sixth General Meeting, April 15–19, 1969, United States Catholic Conference Papers
[hereafter USCCP], p. 6.
6

44

CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

“White Church” to describe American Catholics “appears to be in
need of qualification,” for “it has also been suggested that the report
concern itself not only with the plight of the Negro but with that of
all underprivileged minority groups.” Joseph Brunini, bishop of the
Diocese of Natchez-Jackson, Mississippi, tried to unite the two camps
represented by O’Boyle and Wright by suggesting that “many who are
relatively unconcerned about social justice will respond if it is presented to them in terms of establishing a state of social peace within
the [urban] community.”7
The same debate was underway in the White House. Moynihan
warned Nixon on April 11 that “the press seems to be getting hold of
the general outline of the FSS” and that “we will have to expect that
the story will break fairly soon,” so the president “should think of
announcing it” within a couple of weeks. But Nixon was in no hurry.
At an April 26 meeting HEW Undersecretary John Veneman, chairman
of the Urban Affairs Council’s Subcommittee on Welfare, briefed more
than half the Cabinet on the Family Security System that he had
helped devise. Under the proposal, a man with a wife and three children could collect $1600 in cash and $1000 in food stamps, but
receive a $300 penalty for refusing to work.8
White House aide Bryce Harlow, just back from Capitol Hill, spoke
optimistically about the reception of liberals to the national minimum
income. But without a stiffer work requirement, Harlow forecast that
Republicans would react to FSS with “absolute horror.” Even
Veneman’s assurance that “seventy percent of poor families were
white” could not erase the politically unappealing prospect of the
president distributing cash to able-bodied black men, some of whom
had been screaming “Black Power” and burning their neighborhoods
only a year earlier. “Among the irritating features of American life,”
America conceded after applauding a minimum income, “none is
more frustrating to industrious middle-class folk than the parallel
growth of welfare rolls and the gross national product.”9
7

“Social Action Department,” p. 7.
College Park, MD, National Archives [hereafter NA], Memorandum from Daniel
Patrick Moynihan for the President and handwritten note by Richard Nixon, April 11,
1969, President’s Office Files, Box 1, Folder: President’s Handwriting, April 1969,
Richard M. Nixon Presidential Papers [hereafter RMNPP], pp. 1–2; Moynihan,“Income
by Right,” p. 52.
9
Moynihan, “Income by Right,” pp. 52, 54; “Why Should the Poor Work?” America,
April 26, 1969, 489.
8

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

45

Nixon thus instructed Secretary of Labor George Shultz to include
new work provisions in the legislation.White House aide Arthur Burns
advocated a minimum payment and work requirement under the
existing welfare system. Finch and Secretary of Agriculture Clifford
Hardin told the Senate Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs
that FSS instead would feature a minimum income and work incentive
while abolishing the current program. When Shultz submitted his
report to Nixon on June 10, he sided with Finch and Hardin, proposing a work incentive that would exempt the first $720 of a recipient’s
earnings from taxation, then tax the remainder at 50 percent. Shultz
also estimated that $600 million would be necessary for job training,
doubling the cost of the original FSS plan.10
Asked to choose between Burns’s work requirement and Shultz’s
work incentive, Nixon opted for neither position and quietly assigned
Domestic Affairs Adviser John Ehrlichman to create a hybrid. While
Ehrlichman labored privately, America weighed in publicly, advocating “minimum federal standards” but asserting that “a welfare system
should not destroy the incentive to work.”The bishops continued to
strike their own balance, as each archdiocese established its own
urban affairs task force, which issued guidelines to advise priests on
how to work toward social justice. The New York chapter, for example, endorsed “a national minimum standard of assistance for families
and especially the aging poor” while acknowledging that although the
“Black Power” movement deserved respect,“the majority of our white
people are not ready for this.”11
Ehrlichman submitted his report to Nixon on July 10. It established
a national income floor, to be supplemented by the states, of $1600
(to grow to $2500 by 1971) for a family of four. All able-bodied heads
of households except mothers with preschool children would “accept
work or training” or lose their guaranteed income. All children, regardless of their parents’ employment status, could receive a guaranteed
income. Although eleven of his fifteen Cabinet members opposed it,
Nixon, who had chaired six of the first eight meetings on welfare
reform and had solicited input from inside and outside the administration, was ready to act.12
10
Moynihan,“Income by Right,” p. 54; Marjorie Hunter,“Nixon’s Aides Prefer Cash to
Stamps to End Hunger,” New York Times, May 8, 1969, sec. L, 1.
11
Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, p. 126;“Nixon’s Welfare Option,”America, June 14, 1969,
p. 682;“Catholic Priests Issued Guidelines,” New York Times, July 13, 1969, sec. L, 53.
12
Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, pp. 128, 124.

46

CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

So he presented the Ehrlichman proposal (renamed the “Family
Assistance Plan” by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird) to Congress on
August 8. “We cannot simply ignore the failures of welfare or expect
them to go away,” said the president, noting that 3 million more people
had joined the welfare rolls in the previous eight years. In a nod
toward conservatives, Nixon rejected a “guaranteed income” for parents. In an appeal to liberals, he spoke only of an “incentive to work.”13
Sixty-five percent of those who had heard of the Family Assistance
Plan approved of it. Eighty-one percent of the communications to the
White House on FAP were positive. Ninety-four percent of editorials
supported it.“President Nixon’s message on welfare reform is a realistic attempt to move the country toward the adoption of a more
comprehensive family-centered policy responding to the needs of
low-income families,” James McHugh, director of the Family Life
Bureau of the United States Catholic Conference (USCC), responded.
“If there is one thing that just about every citizen of this country
agrees upon, it is this,” America editorialized after the speech. “The
present welfare system has to go.”14
But if there was “approval of its general direction,” America’s associate editor Thomas Gannon added, there were “questions about its
particulars.” Gannon interviewed civil rights standard-bearer John
Lewis, a staffer at the National Welfare Rights Organization, and an
unnamed lawyer from a “national service organization.” Both attacked
the plan from the left, with Lewis decrying a minimum income lower
than comparable welfare payments in all but six states, and the attorney deploring the proposal’s reliance on those same states to supplement the national minimum. McHugh called for “refinement, extension or modification” of the income floor. They had a lot of company,
as Americans for Democratic Action, the American Friends Service
Committee, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, the Urban League, the International Brotherhood of Team13
Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on Domestic Programs,” August 8, 1969,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1969
(Washington, DC, 1970), pp. 639, 641.
14
Herbert Parmet, Richard M. Nixon: An Enigma (New York, 2008), p. 188; USCCA,
“Statement of Rev. James J. McHugh, Director of the Family Life Division of the United
States Catholic Conference, Commenting on the Message of President Nixon on
Welfare Reform,” August 8, 1969, Box 140, Folder: USCC–U.S. Government, Family
Planning, USCCP, p. 1;“Welfare, Manpower Training, Revenue Sharing,” America,August
30, 1969, 112.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

47

sters, and the Methodist Church lined up against FAP. “You know the
libs will never forgive Richard Nixon for this,” Moynihan sneered.
“And you know why? Because he’s done what they wouldn’t do, what
they wouldn’t dare do. And they can’t stand that.”15
But many on the right could not stand it either.The bill’s federalizing of welfare, assistance to the working poor, and minimum income
alienated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American
Conservative Union. The conservative journal Human Events
denounced FAP’s affront to “limited constitutional government, local
self-government, private enterprise, and individual freedom.”16
So who was for it? The American Federation of Labor–Congress of
Industrial Organizations, the Urban Coalition, the National Council of
Churches, the Synagogue Council of America, and—the Nixon administration hoped—the Catholic bishops. When FAP arrived on Capitol
Hill in October 1969, so, too, did an invitation from the administration
to the USCC to testify on its behalf. Monsignor Aloysius Welsh, staff
director of the USCC Task Force on Urban Problems, recommended an
affirmative reply.Welsh argued:
The basic question to me is the opportunity presented to go from the traditional Catholic teaching on the need for economic recognition of the
family structure (family wage, family income) to support of the
Administration’s initiative in offering it legal and political support.

Although “the latest statement of the Church’s position in the
Bishops’ pastoral of November 1968 [“Human Life in Our Day”] is
somewhat ambiguous, calling for a ‘family allowance,’” Welsh continued,“it does affirm the traditional, and inasmuch as the administration
bill includes it for the first time, the bill should first be commended
for its intent before being analyzed for specific defects.”17
The bishops accepted Welsh’s counsel. On November 12, John
Cosgrove, director of the USCC Department of Social Development,
15
Thomas Gannon,“The Welfare Plan: Two Washington Views,” America, August 30,
1969, 118–19; Parmet, Enigma, p. 188; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, p. 135, emphasis in
original.
16
Parmet, Enigma, p. 188; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, p. 135.
17
Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, p. 135; USCCA, Memorandum from Msgr.Aloysius Welsh
to Most Rev. Joseph Bernardin, Msgr. Francis Hurley, Msgr. George Higgins, John
Cosgrove, and Rev. James McHugh, November 1969, Box 140, Folder: USCC–US
Government, Poverty, 1967, July–December, USCCP, emphasis in original.

48

CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in favor of FAP.
Quoting from “Human Life in Our Day,” Cosgrove lamented the “family
instability in the urban areas of the country” due in part to “our
national failure to adopt comprehensive and realistic family-centered
policies during the course of this century.” He noted that
some of our welfare policies [have] led to the disruption of the family unit,
such as the provision that financial assistance would not be granted to a
family in which there was an able-bodied father or the requirement that
mothers of young children must work or take job training as a condition
for receiving welfare assistance.

He praised FAP as “a new and realistic attempt to provide a basic
income for poor families” that “merits our endorsement and support.”
Siding with liberal critics, however, Cosgrove criticized the $1600
minimum income as “far too low,” worried that the “proposed training
program is curiously isolated from any job creation program,” and proposed that no one be forced to take a job under minimum wage and
that no mother of a school-age child be compelled to work.18
America applauded Cosgrove’s testimony, reservations and all,
asserting that “as the bill stands now, it fails to live up to the sound
philosophy that inspired it.”The bishops agreed, endorsing the entire
Cosgrove testimony at their February 1970 Administrative Board
meeting. Despite the bishops’ problems with the legislation, the
USCC’s James Robinson assured the OEO’s Thomas Cosgrove (no relation to John Cosgrove) that, in Thomas Cosgrove’s words, he “would
be glad to do anything to help” in enlisting other churches in support
of the bill.The president was more than happy to accept the offer.19
On March 11 the House Ways and Means Committee reported the
Nixon proposal, cosponsored by committee chairman Wilbur Mills
18
USCCA,“Testimony of John E. Cosgrove, Director, Department of Social
Development, United States Catholic Conference,” November 12, 1969, Box 140, Folder:
USCC–U.S. Government, Poverty, 1967, July–December, USCCP, pp. 2, 3, 4, 13, 17, 19, 20,
emphasis in original.
19
Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Archives [hereafter UNDA], Minutes,
Administrative Board Meeting, United States Catholic Conference, February 1970, Box
25, Folder: USCC Administrative Board Minutes, February 1970, NCCB, Cardinal John
Dearden Papers [hereafter CJDP], p. 13; NA, Memorandum from Thomas Cosgrove
through Carol Khosrovi to Donald Webster, February 20, 1970, White House Special
Files, Staff Member and Office Files, Charles W. Colson, Box 63, Folder: Family Assistance
Plan, RMNPP, pp. 1–2.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

49

(D–AR), and ranking minority member John Byrnes (R–WI), without
any major changes. Two days later, McHugh circulated a “Special
Memorandum on Family Assistance Plan, 1970,” which reiterated the
bishops’ endorsement of the bill but continued to press for amendments. Prophesying that the bill would pass the House but struggle in
the Senate, the memo called for a massive lobbying campaign by
which Catholic, interfaith, and government agencies would flood the
media and contact senators via mail, telephone, or in person. “The
important thing,” the memo stressed,“is to get this legislation enacted
as soon as possible, with the determination to improve it at every
opportunity.”20
Moynihan encouraged the administration to “let the USCC know
how much we appreciate all this.” Nixon expressed his appreciation
at a Mass at the White House on April 5. The USCC reciprocated the
same day, when its general secretary, Bishop Joseph Bernardin, joined
R. H. Espy, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, and
Rabbi Harry Siegman, executive vice president of the Synagogue
Council of America, in writing to the members of the House of
Representatives to urge their vote for FAP. In an appeal to conservatives they argued that “the requirement that able-bodied heads of
households register for or accept jobs or job training should help
shatter the myth that the aspirations and ambitions of the welfare
recipients somehow differ from those of the rest of society.” In a concession to liberals, they pointed to the bill’s “shortcomings,” including
its omission of individuals and childless couples as well as its inadequate minimum income.21
FAP passed the House on April 16, 243 to 155, with 102
Republicans and 141 Democrats in the majority. An attempt by conservatives to amend the bill lost 205 to 183. The next week at their
spring meeting, the bishops urged “prompt enactment of the Family
20
“Family Assistance–1970 Action,” Congress and the Nation, 1969–1972
(Washington, DC, 1973), III:624; NA, Rev. James McHugh, “Special Memorandum on
Family Assistance Plan,” March 10, 1970, White House Special Files, Staff Member and
Office Files, Charles W. Colson, Box 63, Folder: Family Assistance Plan, RMNPP, pp. 1–5.
21
NA, Memorandum from Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Donald Webster, March 13,
1970,White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files, Charles W. Colson, Box
63, Folder: Family Assistance Plan, RMNPP; NA, Memorandum from Dwight Chapin to
Rose Mary Woods and Connie Stuart, March 22, 1970,White House Central Files, Subject
File—Religious Matters, Box 18, Folder: RM 3-1 Catholic [69/70], RMNPP; “Heads of
Three Major Religious Organizations Urge Congress to Pass Welfare Reform Bill,” New
York Times, April 6, 1970, sec. L, 21.

50

CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

Assistance Act or some similar family assistance program,” but
repeated their preference for “suitable” job training and a higher minimum income. They accepted a proposal by the Interreligious
Committee against Poverty of a June 5–7 “Welfare Reform Weekend,”
consisting of “sermons, adult education, youth group discussions,
parish bulletins, newsletters, meetings of men’s and women’s groups,
and [publicity] through the religious press” to push for enactment of
FAP or a reasonable facsimile. Calling FAP “one of the most important
and urgent issues to come before the Congress in recent years,” the
bishops pledged an all-out effort to secure its passage.22
Moynihan continued to salute the bishops’ commitment. He sent
the USCC a copy of his April 22 speech before the American
Newspaper Publishers Association, in which he thanked “the major
religious organizations of the nation,” which “without exception
came together in an alliance at once singular and spectacularly effective in helping to see that what needed doing [to pass FAP] was
done.” In July Moynihan passed a pamphlet to Nixon from the bishops’ National Conference of Catholic Charities on FAP, which “chides
the bill just a bit for requiring mothers to register for work but then
comes down hard for this ‘landmark in social legislation’—support
the bill, contact your Congressman.” Noting that “no group has shown
anything like the energy—devotion—to your proposal,” Moynihan
suggested that “if FAP passes—when it passes—I would hope you
might invite a few of the bishops in for a cup of coffee.” Nixon
heartily concurred, scribbling on the Moynihan memo, “I think we
ought to have them in anyway.”23
So he did. Bernardin, John Cosgrove, Monsignor George G. Higgins
of the Social Action Department, Charles Burns of the Task Force
Administration, David Finks of the Division on Urban Life, Geno
Baroni of the Task Force on Urban Problems, and Russell Shaw of the
22
“Family Assistance–1970 Action,” p. 624; “United States Catholic Conference
Resolution, Welfare Reform Legislation, 1970,” Box 16, Folder: Reports, 1970, CJDP,
UNDA, no p.; USCCA, “The Family Assistance Program,” Minutes of the United States
Catholic Conference Eighth General Meeting, April 21–23, 1970, USCCP, p. 12; USCCA,
Memorandum from Most Rev. Joseph Bernardin to All Catholic Dioceses, Religious
Orders, Institutions, and Organizations, May 1970, Box 140, Folder: USCC–U.S.
Government, Poverty, 1970–72, USCCP, pp. 1–3.
23
USCCA, Daniel Patrick Moynihan,“A Moment Touched with Glory,”April 22, 1970,
attached to Letter from Moynihan to Most Rev. Joseph Bernardin, April 22, 1970, Box
140, Folder: USCC–U.S. Government, Poverty, 1970–72, USCCP, p. 12.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

51

Office of Information represented the USCC at the White House on
August 17.24
As the bishops’ delegates were entering the front door of the White
House, welfare reform was in danger of exiting the back door.
Republicans and Democrats who objected to the cost of FAP as too
high or too low and the work requirement as too weak or too strong
threatened to bury it in the Senate Finance Committee. In a compromise negotiated between the administration and the committee on
August 28, the president agreed to an amendment proposed by Sen.
Abraham Ribicoff (D–CT) to subject FAP to a “series of field tests” for
a year before it would become fully operational. In a statement from
his Western White House in San Clemente, California, Nixon pleaded
for passage of the modified measure, because “the present legislation
is too far advanced, the need for reform is too great.”25
“The House has responded with a resounding yes,” America
reminded its readers of FAP’s status on Capitol Hill. “Let the Senate
stop stalling and follow suit.” Commonweal surprisingly agreed. “In
general, Mr. Nixon’s priorities are not ours,” the liberal journal conceded. Although they hoped that the national minimum would be
higher and uniform throughout the states, the editors nonetheless
concluded that FAP “represents a dramatic gain in social insurance.”26
By a resounding 14 to 1 vote, however, the Senate Finance
Committee sank the House-passed version of FAP. America regretted
that although the senators could return home for the midterm elections with appealing arguments for the program’s stillbirth,“the millions of poor people who would have benefitted from this modest but
commendable initiative on the part of the Nixon Administration”
would be the worse for it.27
Following the elections, the senators returned to Washington, and
the Finance Committee passed the Ribicoff pilot program, 10 to 6,
without any assurance that it would become permanent and with
24
NA, Memorandum from Charles Colson to the President, August 17, 1970,
President’s Office Files, Box 1, Folder: President’s Handwriting, August 1970–October
1970, RMNPP, p. 2.
25
“Family Assistance—1970 Action,” p. 624.
26
“Last Chance for Welfare Reform,”America, September 12, 1970, 138;“Family Plan,”
Commonweal, September 18, 1970, 451.
27
“Setback for Welfare Reform,” America, October 24, 1970, 306.

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CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

additional restrictions—despite its previous rejection by the U.S.
Supreme Court—of a one-year residency requirement for welfare
recipients and a denial of benefits to families without a “man in the
house” able to support them. This version then became part of an
omnibus House-passed bill, including Social Security benefit
increases, veterans’ pensions, import quotas, and health insurance for
catastrophic illnesses. When the omnibus bill reached the Senate
floor, it faced a two-week filibuster followed by a 49 to 21 tally to
remove FAP from the legislation.28
Unbowed by two years of failure on FAP, Nixon vowed to try again
in his January 1971 State of the Union Address, in which he listed six
legislative priorities for the new session of Congress, of which the
“most important” was welfare reform. The bishops’ National Conference of Catholic Charities was among a broad coalition of organizations that began weekly meetings with Assistant HEW Secretary John
Montgomery to devise a winning strategy for FAP in 1971.29
The House Ways and Means Committee attempted to meet the
objections that had defeated the previous year’s bill, raising the minimum income from $1600 to $2400 by including the value of food
stamps and inserting special provisions for families headed by women
with children three years or younger, who were not required to work,
as well as the working poor or unemployed yet able-bodied poor, who
were required to work. The new bill provided federal benefit levels
that were higher than the current levels in twenty-two states, but
unlike the previous measure, it did not require those states with benefit levels higher than the federal minimum to maintain them.30
The committee changes gave the bishops considerable pause.
Although still in favor of the concept of welfare reform, they remained
silent as the Mills Committee did its tinkering. In April the USCC’s
Robinson recommended that the bishops “stand on the statements
issued on this subject last year and the testimony submitted to the
House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee
last year.” The bishops thus refused to join the National Council of
Churches and the Synagogue Council of America in a “Tri-Faith
28

“Family Assistance—1970 Action,” p. 624.
“Family Assistance—1971 Action,” Congress and the Nation, p. 626; “Broad
Coalition Lobbies for FAP,” Congress and the Nation, p. 625.
30
“Family Assistance—1971 Action,” p. 626.
29

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

53

Statement on Welfare Reform,” which advocated a minimum national
income “not less than the current OEO/HEW poverty line ($3720)”;
the provision of “suitable” employment (defined as a job paying at least
the minimum wage); a federal job creation program; and the exemption of mothers of school-age children, as well as adult guardians of ill
or disabled family members, from the work requirement.31
Robinson preferred that the bishops follow the same route that
they had pursued the previous year, pressing for hearings before the
committees to try to shape the bill to their liking. Robinson argued
that although the bishops substantively agreed with the tri-faith statement, signing it would be tactically counterproductive. So it remained
a bi-faith statement.32
John Cosgrove proposed that the bishops author a proclamation of
their own,to be sent to the House Ways and Means Committee and state
Catholic Conferences as well as to diocesan social action directors with
a corresponding call for contacting their Congressional representatives.
Cosgrove’s declaration, approved by the bishops after minor revisions,
called for a minimum national income “approaching” the official
poverty level with a timetable for reaching it and echoed the tri-faith
proposal’s minimum wage requirement and work exemptions.33
The new FAP passed the House Ways and Means Committee in May
and reached the House floor in June. In a letter to Speaker of the
House Carl Albert (D–OK), Nixon urged passage of the bill, which he
called “the most important social legislation in thirty-five years.” The
next day the House obliged, 288 to 132, while defeating an attempt to
delete FAP from the omnibus bill, 234 to 187. A majority of
Republicans and Democrats approved of both actions, sending the
new bill to the old Senate Finance Committee.34
America again praised the House, even improbably predicting that
this time the Senate would finish the job. After all, the editors quoted
Veneman, a vote against FAP would be a “hard vote to explain.” Robert
31
USCCA, Memorandum from James Robinson to Most Rev. Joseph Bernardin, April
2, 1971, Box 140, Folder: USCC–U.S. Government, Family Planning, 1971, USCCP, pp. 1–3.
32
USCCA, Memorandum from Robinson to Bernardin,April 6, 1971, Box 140, Folder:
USCC–U.S. Government, Family Planning, 1971, USCCP.
33
USCCA, Memorandum from John Cosgrove to Most Rev. Joseph Bernardin,April 5,
1971, Box 140, Folder: USCC–U.S. Government, Family Planning, 1971, USCCP, pp. 2–3.
34
“Family Assistance—1971 Action,” p. 626.

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CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

Kennedy, director of the bishops’ National Conference on Catholic
Charities, tried anyway, criticizing the bill’s failure to require a wealthier state to continue to provide welfare benefits above the $2400 minimum, while offering an employer no incentive to pay adequate
wages to the working poor and penalizing a mother with children
older than age three by forcing her to work.The bishops themselves
regretted that
the Administration and the House passed bill would not include payment
of the federal minimum wage. . . , the earlier bad provision that mothers
who are heads of families would have mandatory referral to jobs or training if they had children six years of age or older has worsened . . . to three
years of age or older. . . , [and] there are no provisions to guarantee that the
States’ contribution to the program could not be decreased.35

The Defeat
With FAP under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee,
Nixon announced in August that he was postponing his campaign for
welfare reform for another year to concentrate on a new anti-inflation
economic package.“The President’s decision to sacrifice this measure
to his business-oriented plan for economic recovery is tragic,” Commonweal editorialized in the wake of the Nixon announcement.36
The president’s decision also was fatal.The administration returned
FAP to Capitol Hill in January 1972. Cosgrove again testified for the
bishops, repeating their support for the bill yet insisting on a higher
income floor, a wider range of recipients, a uniform national standard
for eligibility, and a work incentive rather than a requirement. The
Senate Finance Committee in September reported an alternative to
FAP sponsored by its chairman, Russell Long (D–LA), which excluded
from welfare benefits all families headed by able-bodied adults with
children older than age six and included a “workfare” provision guaranteeing a job in a new Federal Work Administration or in the private
sector as well as child care under a new Bureau of Child Care.37
35
“Big Package of Welfare Reform,” America, May 29, 1971, 557; Robert Kennedy,
“Explained: One Nay Vote,” America, June 26, 1971, 656; “Minutes of the Eleventh
General Meeting,” November 15–19, 1971, Box 18, Folder: NCCB General Meeting
Agenda Report Documentation, November 1971, CJDP, UNDA , pp. 103–04.
36
“Punishing the Poor,” Commonweal, September 24, 1971, 471.
37
USCCA,“Conference Official Asks Improvements in Family Assistance Proposals,”
USCC News, February 1, 1972, Box 140, Folder: USCC–U.S. Government, Family
Planning, 1971, USCCP, 1–2.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

55

The full Senate accepted the Long proposal, but only on a two- to
four-year pilot basis alongside the House-passed administration bill
and a proposal by Ribicoff that would raise the minimum income to
$2600. With only ten days remaining in the Congressional session,
the House and Senate bills went to conference, where they died a
quick death.38
Although members of his Cabinet and staff would not abandon
welfare reform, Nixon would, not mentioning it again publicly until
his January 1974 State of the Union Address. So, too, would the
American Catholic bishops, whose next pastoral on the subject would
not come until February 1977 at the outset of the Jimmy Carter
administration. “The crisis atmosphere which surrounded welfare at
the end of the 1960’s has now pretty much vanished,” Moynihan
admitted to Laird, who had replaced Ehrlichman as domestic affairs
adviser in April 1973. Indeed, a lot had changed since those heady
days in early 1969 when Moynihan championed FAP, and Ehrlichman
drew up the blueprint for it.The advocate was now serving as ambassador to India.The architect was now serving time.39
The Blame
Who killed FAP? As always, assigning blame for failing to pass legislation was much easier than passing it. Conservatives blamed liberals. The AFL-CIO incurred criticism for caring more about the state
workers’ union jobs that FAP might eliminate than the nonunion
employment that it might create.The California Republican Assembly,
a group of 12,500 conservatives, deemed Nixon conservative enough
to merit re-election, but his welfare reform plan liberal enough to
deserve its fate.40
Liberals blamed the Nixon administration. Writing in the Yale
Law Journal, Charles Reich criticized FAP’s proposed work
requirement, because it “involves work that is foreign to a man’s
prior skills, requires a [sic] acceptance of a lower status, demands
38

“Family Assistance–1972 Action,” Congress and the Nation, pp. 626–27.
Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, pp. 132–33; United States Catholic Conference
Department of Social Development and World Peace, “Welfare Reform in the 1970’s,”
February 25, 1977, in Quest for Justice, ed. J. Brian Benestad and Francis J. Butler
(Washington, DC, 1981), pp. 270–79.
40
Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, p. 131;“Conservatives on Coast Vote to Support Nixon,”
New York Times, sec. L, 30.
39

56

CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

transfer to a new location, or presents the risk that no jobs will be
available even after retraining.” Catholic Senator Eugene McCarthy
(D–MN) was more succinct, branding FAP the “Family Annihilation
Plan for starving America’s poor.” Ribicoff held that “everyone
engaged in the battle has his own perceptions of what went wrong”
in the defeat of FAP.“But one thing is clear: after Pat Moynihan left
the White House, the leadership of the Nixon Administration was
not forthcoming.”41
The Nixon administration blamed both conservatives and liberals.
Historian Herbert Parmet included “conservatives” on his list of the
administration’s villains in the FAP tragedy. Nixon himself concluded
that “although I think a majority of the Senate might have voted for
it,” the conservatives in control of the Senate Finance Committee
believed “that instead of reforming welfare we were simply adding
more to the welfare rolls.”42
Nixon speechwriter William Safire would counter,“Welfare reform
was killed primarily by liberals who wanted not only a whole loaf but
one baked to their exact specifications.” Nixon himself would explain
that he ultimately relinquished FAP, because “I had to at least take positions that liberals don’t like.The liberals have a litmus test: you’ve got
to be all for us or you’re against us.”43
Catholics could only blame themselves. Inside the Church, FAP was
in part a victim of the residual backlash by the rank-and-file against
Johnson’s War on Poverty. At the bishops’ November 1969 meeting
two weeks after Nixon coined the phrase “silent majority,” Baroni
reported that
little attention has been given to the anguish of the socially and politically
alienated ”middle American”—the second and third generation, almost
poor, descendant of the largely Catholic immigrant, a major source of vocations and traditional backbone of the Church.

41
Isidore Silver, “Is Poverty Illegal?” Commonweal, February 19, 1971, 489; Hoff,
Nixon Reconsidered, p. 131; “Nixon Welfare Plan Not Enacted,” Congress and the
Nation, p. 622.
42
Parmet, Enigma, p. 189; Richard Nixon, “Remarks to Eastern Media Executives
Attending a Briefing on Domestic Policy in Rochester New York,” June 18, 1971, Public
Papers of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1971 (Washington, DC, 1972), p. 753.
43
William Safire, Before the Fall (Garden City, NY, 1975), p. 548; Parmet, Enigma,
p. 162.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

57

Baroni’s diagnosis that the New Deal coalition of white ethnics and
minorities was falling apart earned him a promotion to director of
program development for the bishops’ Task Force on Urban
Problems.44
At the same meeting, seven regional discussion groups arrived at
similar conclusions. Contending that “the white majority in America
… is largely united in its opposition to blacks,” Region I lamented that
“while many resist integration,‘ethnic groups’ tend to resist it more.”
Region II attributed the “ignorance” of the white majority to its
“responsibility toward the majority, vested interests and the fact that
adequate financial and professed service for the poor will mean an
increase in taxes.” Region III called for “tours of poverty areas for
white suburban parishes.” Region IV suggested that “polarization
between blacks and whites can be avoided if efforts are made to bring
the groups together in attacking their common problems.” Region V
posited that white-black conflict “very often reflects a lack of understanding on the part of those who live in suburban areas of the problems of those living in the cities.” Region VI concluded that “whiteblack polarization has increased or decreased in different areas of the
country.” Region VII urged “collaboration with government programs
for the unemployed.”45
All seven groups agreed upon the “recognized necessity … for the
education of the total Catholic community in terms of a more generous, sympathetic, and Christ-like attitude toward the poor and minority groups.”The bishops then voted to create a National Central Office
for Black Catholics and to launch a national crusade against poverty,
speaking and raising $50 million “over the next several years” to
combat the scourge that afflicted the “twenty-two million people certified as poor.” They noted, however, that “sixty-six percent of these
poor people are white” and acknowledged “the intricate forces which
lead to group conflict.” Baroni would spend the next six months trav44
Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” November 3,
1969, Public Papers, 1969, p. 909; Gene Halus, “Monsignor Geno Baroni and the
Politics of Ethnicity, 1960–1984,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 25 (2007), 133–59, here
148–49; Linda Major,“Ford Grant Awarded [to] Msgr. Baroni for Urban Ethnic Work,”
National Catholic News Service, January 12, 1971, Box 38, Folder: Statement Phasing
Out Task Force, November 25, 1970, Monsignor Baroni Papers [hereafter BP], UNDA,
p. 12.
45
“Reports from Regional Discussion Groups,” Minutes of the Seventh General
Meeting, USCC, pp. 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45.

58

CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

eling to the country’s major cities, listening to those white ethnic
Catholics for whom he spoke.46
The administration heard the rumblings at the bishops’ meeting.
White House aide John Brown argued in December 1969 that Nixon
should intensify his outreach to “‘gut,’ conservative, predominantly
Catholic Silent-Majority Democrats.” Observing that “our Catholic division, set up last spring, consists today of one girl—full time, as compared with the RNC’s [Republican National Committee’s] permanent
black auxiliary,” Brown contended that “Southern Protestants and
Northern Catholics, predominantly white, are the missing elements in
the Nixon Majority, waiting to join.”47
The president concurred, responding that, as Brown recounted,
“the [Republican] National Committee always puts too much emphasis on guys we can’t get.” Nixon thus instructed aide Harry Dent
by the early fall of 1970 . . . to have clearly identified all the national
Catholic press; expanded contacts in the Catholic communications world;
and know[n] every district and every state where a hard-sell Catholic
approach can win over the swing votes.48

The USCC discussion groups not only echoed the sentiments of
Baroni but also reflected the contemporary arguments of other
prominent Catholics.“The intellectual who ‘loves’ the blacks and the
‘poor’ but has contempt for the Irish or the Italians of the ‘middle
class,’” Jesuit sociologist Andrew Greeley contended, “is in the final
analysis every bit as much a bigot of the blue-collar worker who ‘hates
blacks,’ for both are asking ‘Why Can’t They Be Like Us?’” Michael
Novak warned that “[w]hite Anglo-Saxon Protestants have never had
to celebrate Columbus Day or march down Fifth Avenue wearing
green. Every day has been their day in America. No more.”49

46
“Reports from Regional Discussion Groups,” p. 50; “Report of the Ad Hoc
Committee on the Proposal for a Central Office for Black Catholics,” Minutes of the
Seventh General Meeting, USCC, p. 11; Lawrence O’Rourke, Geno:The Life and Mission
of Geno Baroni (New York, 1991), p. 83.
47
NA, Memorandum from John Brown to Harry Dent, December 19, 1969, White
House Central Files, Subject File–Religious Matters, Box 18, Folder: [EXEC] RM 3-1
Catholic [69/70], RMNPP.
48
Memorandum from Brown to Dent.
49
Andrew Greeley, Why Can’t They Be Like Us? (New York, 1970), p. 19; Michael
Novak, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics (New York, 1971), p. 115.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

59

Similar sentiments continued to percolate in the Nixon administration. In April 1970 a memorandum by Jerome Rosow, assistant secretary for policy, evaluation, and research, reached the desk of Shultz.
Titled “The Problem of the Blue-Collar Worker,” the memo warned that
FAP would not help the “lower-income mothers who seek work and
are outside the welfare system” because, unlike welfare mothers, they
would not “receive subsidized child care to facilitate their move from
welfare to work.” Rosow lamented that these blue-collar voters,“many
of whom are immigrants or sons of immigrants,” had become “‘forgotten people’—those for whom the government and the society have
limited if any direct concern and little visible action.” He urged Shultz
to create a White House working group to address the problems of
this increasingly neglected stratum.50
While the White House deliberated, the bishops acted. Under the
leadership of Baroni, the USCC convened a workshop on ethnic community development in June 1970. Baroni explained the need for the
conference:
The largest single group of whites remaining in our large industrial and
manufacturing towns and cities happen to be white working-class ethnics
who for the large part are Roman Catholics [and] . . . who now feel trapped
between Blacks on one side and middle-class suburbia on the other.51

The bishops reached out to the administration during and after the
gathering. Among the speakers at the workshop were Robert Podesta,
assistant secretary for economic development at the Department of
Commerce, and Lawrence Brekka, education director of the White
House National Goals research staff. Baroni then wrote Nixon requesting that he appoint a “special inter-departmental task force to review
what assistance can come” to blue-collar workers “from present programs in OEO, HEW, HUD [Housing and Urban Development], DOT
[Department of Transportation] and the Departments of Commerce
and Labor and other agencies.” Baroni also implored Congress “to
introduce and treat favorably legislation that is designed to promote
the hopes of ethnic people as well as to alleviate their fears.”52
50
NA, Memorandum from Jerome Rosow to the Secretary,April 16, 1970, attached to
Memorandum from Colson to the President,August 17, 1970, RMNPP, pp. 6, 8, 15.
51
“Workshop on Urban Ethnic Community Development,” June 15–19, 1970, Box 38,
Folder: Urban Ethnic Community Workshop, BP, UNDA, p. 3.
52
“Workshop on Urban Ethnic Community Development,” p. 3; NA, Letter from Msgr.
Geno Baroni to the President, June 29, 1970, White House Central Files, Subject
File–Religious Matters, Box 18, Folder: [EXEC] RM 3-1 Catholic [69/70], RMNPP, p. 2.

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CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

Although Baroni was not “a heavy hitter, either in the hierarchy
or intellectually,” White House Catholic liaison Peter Flanigan
allowed that “this area might be of some value to us from a political point of view.” Thus Baroni was among those from the USCC
who visited the White House in August. Observing that Baroni’s
workshop “covered much the same ground” as Rosow’s memorandum, White House aide Charles Colson prepped Nixon for the
meeting with the observation that “Baroni has attracted considerable publicity and has become a public symbol for forty million
lower-middle-class white workers.” Although “the Family Assistance
Plan will be an important step in helping to create more work
incentive in the black community and therefore partially dissipate”
the rancor of white blue-collar workers toward African Americans,
Colson recommended that the president encourage the bishops to
“provide the spiritual and moral leadership to help the white communities overcome this fear and suspicion.” To Baroni’s suggestion
of an interagency task force, the president should assure him that,
like the Rosow recommendations, this matter was under consideration.To reward the “patriotic zeal” and “devotion to their country”
of the white ethnics, Nixon should prescribe community improvement, rehabilitation of housing, and civic activities.53
The bishops would direct their Labor Day statement two weeks
later toward “one of the most neglected segments in America society—the so-called white ethnic working class.” They lamented that
“public and private agencies devoted to the restoration of urban
America have largely ignored working-class whites in designing programs to eliminate poverty, substandard housing, racial discord,
declining schools, and physical decay.”They applauded the “renewed
interest” in the plight of the blue-collar class by “the academic community, the mass media, the foundations, and a growing number of
people in official Washington,” because “to continue to ignore their
valid needs is to jeopardize those efforts which are designed to
restore urban America and to reduce social discord rooted in economic insecurity and racial misunderstanding.”54
53
NA, Memorandum from Peter Flanigan to Hugh Sloan, July 15, 1970,White House
Central Files, Subject File–Religious Matters, Box 18, Folder: [EXEC] RM-1 Catholic
[69/70], RMNPP; Colson to the President,August 17, 1970, p. 2.
54
Milwaukee, WI, Marquette University Archives, Msgr. George Higgins and Msgr.
Geno Baroni,“1970 Labor Day Statement,” attached to Letter from Baroni to “Mr. Harris,”
July 29, 1970, Series 20, Box 31, Folder: USCC Task Force on Urban Problems, National
Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice Papers, pp. 1–2.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

61

After the November midterm elections brought one Irish Catholic
Republican,Thomas Meskill, to the governorship of Connecticut and
another, James Buckley, to the U.S. Senate from New York, Colson suggested that the administration “cultivate the right Catholic leaders in
several key Northeastern states.” Colson viewed the election results as
the harbinger of a potentially historic shift: “The Democrats have
always built their powerful machines around prominent Irish Catholic
political bosses (occasionally Italian). Their Catholic leaders are now
becoming much less important while ours are gaining in prominence.”With an eye to Nixon’s upcoming re-election campaign, Colson
concluded,“Work should be started on this now—not in 1972.”55
So the work began. Roy Morey of Nixon’s Domestic Council conducted an internal analysis of the so-called “Catholic vote.” By
September 1971, he had reached the conclusion that for white ethnic
Catholics, their ethnicity is far more important than their religion, so
“there are definite risks in attempting to woo Catholics as
Catholics.”56
The Morey study provoked an angry response from White House
aide and Irish Catholic Patrick Buchanan, who indelicately described
it as “remorseless nonsense.” Although Buchanan conceded that ethnicity meant more to most American Catholics than religion, he
strongly disagreed with Morey’s conclusion that courting the Catholic
vote was fraught with danger. Instead, Buchanan ardently encouraged
such an effort, as long as the administration pursued the right
Catholics—not the “Catholic liberals, who ape the WASP Upper East
Side liberals”—but the Catholics on the right.57
“There is a potential, latent majority out there, available to the
President, which he has failed to put together,” Buchanan argued. “It
consists of the President’s WASP and white-collar conservative base—
55
NA, Memorandum from Colson to H. R. Haldeman, November 13, 1970, White
House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Charles W. Colson, Box 46, Folder:
Catholic Vote, RMNPP, pp. 1–2.
56
NA, Memorandum from Haldeman to Robert Finch, November 27, 1970, White
House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files–Charles W. Colson, Box 46, Folder:
Catholic Vote, RMNPP; NA, Memorandum from Roy Morey to Kenneth Cole and Edwin
Harper, September 16, 1971,White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—
Charles W. Colson, Box 46, Folder: Catholic Vote, RMNPP, p. 5.
57
NA, Memorandum from Patrick Buchanan to John Ehrlichman, H. R. Haldeman, and
Charles Colson, September 23, 1971,White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office
Files—Charles W. Colson, Box 46, Folder: Catholic Vote, RMNPP, pp. 4–5.

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CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

added to it Southern Protestants and Northern, Midwestern, and
Western Catholics.” Buchanan contended that “middle-working-professional class Catholics have drifted away from the [Democratic]
party of their grandparents,” and the “general attitude of this group
toward the president is clearly favorable. . . . They feel that President
Nixon is ‘like them.’”58
Buchanan then sent Colson an analysis of the Catholic vote by
Thomas Melady of the Business Council for International
Understanding. Praising Cardinals Terence Cooke, John Krol, and John
Wright and “almost 150 weekly Catholic newspapers [which] have
since 1968 been giving very good coverage to the Nixon
Administration,” Melady asserted that “anti-Nixon sentiment exists
only in the ‘Catholic left wing—underground’ group which represents
no more than ten to twelve percent of the Catholic community (as
reflected in ‘Commonweal’ and the ‘National Catholic Reporter’).”59
Despite their rift over the wisdom of attracting Catholic voters,
Morey and Buchanan could agree that FAP, with its minimum income,
meager work provisions, and high price tag, was not a way to most
Catholic hearts. Morey responded to Buchanan’s rant with poll data
compiled by demographic specialist Arthur Finkelstein of the
Committee for the Re-election of the President.Although Finkelstein
concluded that “consistently [on most issues], Catholics give the
President a better rating than the public at large,” Nixon did not
command majority support from Catholics on welfare reform. Only
45 percent of Catholics and 39 percent of all Americans, believed
that the president was “trying as hard as anyone else would” to
“improve the welfare system.”When asked to rank ten problems from
most to least important, Catholics, like other Americans, put inflation
first and welfare last.60
58
Buchanan to Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and Colson, September 23, 1971, pp. 4, 15;
Memorandum from Buchanan to Colson, September 20, 1971, White House Special
Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Charles W. Colson, Box 46, Folder: Catholic Vote,
RMNPP, NA, p. 1.
59
NA, Letter from Thomas Melady to Patrick Buchanan, September 27, 1971, attached
to Memorandum from Buchanan to Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and Colson, September 29,
1971, Box 46, Folder: Catholic Vote, RMNPP, pp. 1–2.
60
NA, Letter from Arthur Finkelstein to Robert Marik, December 16, 1971, attached
to Memorandum from Roy Morey to John Ehrlichman, September 24, 1971, White
House Central Files, Subject File—Religious Matters, Box 18, Folder: RM 3-1 Catholic
1/1/71–12/72, RMNPP.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

63

To the liberal Moynihan, the argument for FAP “appealing to a new
majority,” as historian Robert Mason put it,“was not robust.” The problems addressed by FAP ultimately
were not of direct relevance to potential Nixon voters. The area of [their]
concern was the perceived welfare crisis and an impatience with the apparently undeserving welfare recipients described by Hamill and others. The
direct beneficiaries of FAP were the poor, most unlikely to support Nixon.61

To the conservative Safire, FAP’s moment had come and gone.
Safire would recall:
For years, during the liberal emphasis on welfare reform, the conservatives
within the Administration were told that the Nixon followers on the far
right would have to hold still and stick with RN because “they would have
no place to go.” “No place to go”was the conservative Buchanan’s revenge.

Thus, Safire concluded,“Nixon . . . heard Buchanan loud and clear . . .
and regardless of party turned more and more toward the people
with whom he could feel congenial politically: in domestic affairs,
people who resented the ‘welfare bums.’”62
Yet, just as the president was turning toward the Catholic right, the
bishops were turning away. Over the objections of Baroni, who
viewed the decision as a personal as well as a political affront,
Bernardin announced in November 1970 that the USCC was disbanding its Task Force on Urban Problems. Bernardin explained that the
mission of the task force had always been limited in scope and direction and that other USCC agencies would continue its work. Baroni
himself could “join the Department of Social Development, USCC, for
six months in order to work out plans for continuing the ethnic programs he began as a staff member of the Task Force.” The New York
Times, however, cited “sources in the conference” as attributing the
abolition of the task force to competing demands by African American and Mexican American clergy. In other words, white backlash had
generated nonwhite backlash, jeopardizing Baroni’s handiwork.63
61

Mason, Richard Nixon, p. 59.
Safire, Before the Fall, p. 557.
63
Memorandum from Msgr. Geno Baroni to Most Rev. Joseph Bernardin and Rev. James
Rausch, November 7, 1970, Box 38, Folder: Statement Phasing Out Task Force, November
25, 1970, BP, UNDA, pp. 1–2; “Statement of Most Rev. Joseph L. Bernardin, General
Secretary, United States Catholic Conference, November 25, 1970, Box 38, Folder:
Statement Phasing Out Task Force, November 25, 1970, BP, UNDA;“A Catholic Leader Says
Ethnic Work Will Be Continued,” New York Times, December 1, 1970, sec. L, 70.
62

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CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

But the portly son of an Italian coal miner had an ace up his sleeve.
In January 1971 the bishops begrudgingly announced a one-year,
$163,831 Ford Foundation grant to start a Center for Urban Ethnic
Affairs at the USCC. Stated Baroni:
We cannot deal with the urban crisis—whether white or black, rich or
poor—and the complex problems of society without understanding and
concern for the overall dimensions of American ethnics and the pluralistic
society.

The Workshop on Ethnic Community Development in June would be
one of the center’s major accomplishments.64
Baroni’s grant would expire within a year, however, and by that
time, the bishops’ affinity for his message had diminished as well.With
their growing desire for a higher minimum payment and deepening
disdain for a work requirement in FAP, the bishops had drifted further
from the more conservative majority and closer to the “liberal ten to
twelve percent” of American Catholics identified by Melady. Among
the casualties of the bishops’ left turn were the white ethnics, to
whom they had paid little more than lip service, and welfare reform,
for which they were losing their enthusiasm. In April 1971 the USCC’s
Robinson did not stop at depicting the bishops’ dilemma of whether
to continue supporting FAP as a “difficult decision.” As the Senate
Finance Committee kept maneuvering the legislation to the right
even as the bishops tried to steer it to the left, Robinson averred that
“it is quite possible” that the “USCC made a mistake” in supporting
FAP the previous year. By 1972, the bishops had withdrawn their
endorsement. The USCC Division of Urban Affairs reported to the
bishops in November:
The composition of the Senate Finance Committee is such that, given its
overwhelmingly conservative majority and leadership and given the lack
of practical and serious support from the White House, the only bill
reported would have been repressive and damaging to family life. In the
circumstances, it is better that no legislation resulted.65

64
Linda Major,“Ford Grant Awarded Msgr. Baroni for Urban Ethnic Work,” National
Catholic News Service, January 12, 1971, Box 38, Folder: Statement Phasing Out Task
Force, November 25, 1970, BP, UNDA, p. 14.
65
Robinson to Bernardin, April 2, 1971, p. 3; “Report of Division of Urban Affairs,”
Minutes of the Thirteenth General Meeting, National Conference of Catholic Bishops,
November 11–13, 1972, Box 18, Folder: NCCB General Meeting Agenda Report
Documentation, November 1972, CJDP, UNDA, p. 57.

BY LAWRENCE J. MCANDREWS

65

The Fallout
The bishops and the president had moved on to other matters. In
August 1971 Nixon became the first president to address the Knights
of Columbus, just the kind of white ethnic Catholics Buchanan had
targeted. But he made no mention of FAP. Cooke’s meeting with
Secretary of the Treasury John Connally in January 1972 and Nixon’s
speech to the National Catholic Education Association in April
focused on parochial school aid, an issue that even Buchanan questioned. Melady’s June blueprint for the re-election campaign’s outreach to Catholics featured “abortion on demand, pornography for
children, and drugs for children” on the list of Catholic concerns, but
not welfare reform.66
It is ironic that the liberal Democratic Baroni, whose first parish
assignment had been a black church and who later would work for
President Jimmy Carter, and the conservative Republican Buchanan,
who extolled his Confederate ancestors and who would work for
President Ronald Reagan, were on the same side in their advocacy of
a louder national political voice for white ethnic American Catholics.
Baroni’s popularity and Buchanan’s pugnacity helped overcome the
liberals in the American Catholic hierarchy and the administration, as
the more conservative Krol won election in November 1971 and a
more conservative Nixon won re-election with majority Catholic support in November 1972.67
“Krol has an unbending manner which most of us simply can’t
hack,” a liberal prelate complained after the cardinal’s ascension.“But
66
NA, Memorandum from Charles Colson to Dwight Chapin, February 12, 1971, and
Memorandum from William Galvin to H. R. Haldeman, February 17, 1971,White House
Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Charles W. Colson, Box 91, Folder: Knights
of Columbus [1971], RMNPP; Richard Nixon, “Remarks to the Eighty-Seventh Annual
International Meeting of the Knights of Columbus in New York City,”August 17, 1971,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1971
(Washington, DC, 1972), pp. 893–98; NA, Memorandum from Peter Flanigan to the
President, January 21, 1972, White House Staff Files, Staff Member and Office
Files–Peter Flanigan, Box 10, Folder: Presidential Meetings, Agendas and Briefs/Memos
to File [April 1971–July 1974], RMNPP; Richard Nixon, “Remarks at the Annual
Convention of the National Catholic Educational Association in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania,” April 6, 1972, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States:
Richard Nixon, 1972 (Washington, DC, 1973), pp. 517–23.
67
Halus, “Monsignor Geno Baroni,” p. 146; Patrick Buchanan, Right from the
Beginning (Boston, 1988), p. 21.

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CATHOLIC CACOPHONY

his election as president just might turn out to be a blessing for the
American church. The illusion of unity would disappear.” He could
have said the same thing about Nixon.The illusion of unity on welfare
reform, in the nation and the Church, had long since disappeared.68
Neither Krol’s victory nor FAP’s defeat, however, marked the end of
the liberal influence on the American Catholic hierarchy or the political salience of welfare reform.Two decades after Nixon left the White
House, his party gained control of Congress and successfully prodded
Democratic President Bill Clinton not to veto for the third time a
tough welfare reform bill that required work but did not finance education or training. Castigating the legislation as too punitive toward
the poor were Moynihan, now a Democratic senator from New York,
and the bishops of his Church. The politics of resentment, which
Moynihan had once exposed, helped produce welfare reform, which
Moynihan had once proposed. But when the “silent majority” of their
country and Church finally spoke, the senator and the bishops
decided not to listen.69

68
“Where to Find the Leaders?” Newsweek, November 4, 1971, p. 82; Nixon obtained
the minimum income and subsidies to the states that he had sought in FAP, without the
political costs which FAP would have incurred, when Congress passed the
Supplemental Security Income program for the elderly, blind, and disabled in October
1972, in Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, p. 134, and Parmet, Enigma, p. 189.
69
Dorothy Brown and Elizabeth McKeown, The Poor Belong to Us (Cambridge, MA,
1997), p. 196.

BOOK REVIEWS
________
General and Miscellaneous
A New Short History of the Catholic Church. By Norman Tanner. (New York:
Burns and Oates. 2011. Pp. xvi, 260. $22.95. ISBN 978-0-860-12455-9.)
This is a useful book of reference by the master of the history of the councils of the Church. It treats its subject in a straightforward chronological
manner, dividing the narrative into five chapters, taking the Church from
Pentecost to the fourth century; through the early Middle Ages, 400–1054;
the central and late Middle Ages; early-modern Catholicism, 1500–1800; and
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This brings sharply into prominence
the fact that, as Tanner points out, the Middle Ages span half the period of the
Church’s existence.
This account allows the characters to spin the plot, although it would be
instructive to hear more from them in their own words; some close-ups of the
honest wrestling with question and challenge down the centuries would add
vividness. The main omission is a substantial discussion of “Church” and
“Catholic Church.” The key passages of arms, outlined one by one; Cyprian
and the rigorists; the Donatist challenge in St. Augustine’s North Africa; the
discomfort as Eastern and Western Christendom drew apart and the schism of
1054; the implications of the ecclesiological challenges of the Reformation
and after; and modern ecumenism all threw up in different ways the questions “What is the Church?” and “What does it mean to call it ‘Catholic’”?
The book slips almost without comment from the assumption that to
begin with there was one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church; to the assumption that after 1054 that became the co-terminous with the Church in the
West; and to the assumption that from the sixteenth century, it became the
Roman Catholic Church with the Protestants dropping away from the
Catholic Church. This may be so, but it needs to be argued, and the book
would be the richer for a frank grappling with these shifts and their implications as ecclesiologically challenging. “Catholicism” cannot be used in
quite the same way of the present-day Church and the Church of the fourth
century, because it means, since the Reformation, taking a position in what
many Christians would regard as a divided Church. The Second Vatican
Council’s Unitatis redintegratio is discussed briefly in the context of its
immediate aftermath and the wider questions of interfaith dialogue, but not
as a prompter for a concluding discussion of catholicity as it appears at the
beginning of the twenty-first century.
67

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BOOK REVIEWS

There is enormous value in a short, reliable, and careful study of a
sequence of events that may have unfamiliar joinings and passageways to
modern believers. But this tends to take for granted the answer to the key
question,“What is the Catholic Church?”.
University of Oxford

G. R. EVANS

Italian Mosaics 300–1300. By Joachim Poeschke. Translated from the
German by Russell Stockman. (New York: Abbeville Press. 2010. Pp. 431.
$150.00. ISBN 978-0-789-21076-0.)
This book is clearly intended to be appreciated more for its illustrations
than for its text, since these take up the lion’s share of the 431 pages that are
bound between the two covers. In fact, they appear mostly twice—first as a
set of thumbnails at the end of the textual entry on each individual monument and then as full-page illustrations in the section that follows. This
arrangement seems strangely Web-like, and the inspiration for it may have
come from the kind of online catalogue often encountered on the Web, with
an index of images in the form of thumbnails that may be enlarged. The
images are gorgeous, and they bear eloquent testimony to the grandeur of
this supremely medieval art, which has been preserved in Italy more than
anywhere else in the Mediterranean or European world.
The close-up details published here make the mosaics perched high up
on the walls of churches available for a tessera-by-tessera analysis. Viewing
them in the book is almost as good as looking at them from scaffolding. At
the same time, the illustrations tend to minimize or even eradicate the spatial complexity of the mosaics, especially when they cover the curved surface of an apse or a dome, reducing them to the square or rectangular
format of a panel painting.The mosaics in situ envelop the viewer in space
and, as reflective surfaces of gold and colored glass and stone, surround him
or her with the scintillating effects of the movement of light.There are diagrams of some of the more complicated pictorial programs in the book, but
these are hardly optimal in orienting the viewer and can be misleading. In
addition, the colors of the images are so saturated that it causes the reader
to wonder if they have been digitally enhanced, although this is not noted
in the introduction.
This book is divided into nineteen sections, each devoted to a single
monument from Rome, Ravenna, Sicily (Palermo, Cefalù, and Monreale),
Venice, and Florence, and these are arranged in a trajectory that is basically
chronological.The monuments are all churches, with the exception of two
mausolea (Santa Costanza in Rome and Galla Placidia in Ravenna) and two
baptisteries (Ravenna). Each section of illustrations is preceded by a short
text describing the monument in question, with relevant historical data and
a discussion of some of the scholarly debates about them.These texts seem

BOOK REVIEWS

69

rather dry, especially in contrast to the visual exuberance of the illustrations.The author is unusually devoted to the intricate problems of chronology, which are treated at length, and averse to any kind of visual characterization of the work in question (what might have been called, at an earlier
point in art history, stylistic analysis). But this also is important, since it
speaks to the difference between a presentation of the material in a book
in print versus the Web. These texts, through a sensitive reading of visual
phenomena, could have helped shape the reader’s (viewer’s) response to
the works or at least directed his or her attention to salient features, over
which the reader could linger.
University of California, San Diego

WILLIAM TRONZO

The Cardinals: Thirteen Centuries of the Men behind the Papal Throne. By
Michael Walsh. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. 2010.
Pp. vi, 250. $23.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-802-82941-2.)
Michael Walsh has over many years been much engaged in the writing and
compilation of ecclesiastical biography, not least in his editing of the revised
Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford, 2006). It is not surprising, therefore, that
he has published this general study of cardinals, a companion piece to his
Westminster Cardinals (New York, 2008) and his study of the conclave. It
begins with a useful introduction on the development of the cardinalitial
office and continues with some sixty pithy character sketches, which take
their inspiration from the brief-lives formula adopted by Trevor Beeson, the
former dean of Winchester, in his series of informative and sometimes sardonic vignettes of leaders of the Church of England.
The cardinals lack the comfortable provincialism of the Anglican clergy
but still form an inner elite, an intimate circle, in the hierarchy of the Catholic
Church that is manageable enough in scale; only some 4000 men have
received the title, and there have been generally fewer than 100 at any one
time to make them eminently accessible. The origins of the cardinalitial dignity are obscure (despite there being little doubt about the etymology of the
word, taken from cardo, a hinge) but by the high Middle Ages, like much else
in the Western Church, the cardinalate had received definition and focus. By
the end of the twelfth century they formed a college, met with the pope regularly in consistories, and conducted papal elections in conclaves. By the end
of the thirteenth century they had acquired a very distinctive hat.
What makes the cardinals historically important is their role in the election of the pope—“the men behind the papal throne”—and whatever else
they do or are is secondary. Their corporate identity outside the conclaves
remained unclear; they never quite constituted a senate in the Church and
were not a separate order.Their individual contributions—whether as curial
officials, politicos and diplomats, scholars, crown cardinals of high birth, or

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BOOK REVIEWS

leading bishops in their local church—have been diffuse. Walsh provides an
excellent overview of the variety of “the princes of the Church” over a wide
chronological span. He delights in the quirks and singularities of the saints
and sinners who have made up the Sacred College.
Most of the biographies are of Europeans, as most cardinals have been
from that continent and within Europe mainly Italians. He looks at “nearly
men”—those who came close to receiving the papal crown. None came
closer than the Englishman Reginald Pole. Among the saintly figures he features is one with strong North American ties: Breton-born Jean-Louis Lefebvre
de Cheverus (1768–1836), who was an exile in England as a young priest,
spent twenty years in Boston, became the Boston Archdiocese’s first bishop,
became notable for his work among Native Americans, and died as cardinal
archbishop of Bordeaux. Walsh also presents an affectionate portrait of
Thomas Weld (1773–1837), a widower from an English recusant Catholic
family who was ordained as a priest in 1821 and appointed five years later as
a bishop in Upper Canada—a place he never visited. In 1830 he became a cardinal in Rome and became celebrated as the cardinal who was accompanied
openly in the city by his (legitimate) grandchildren.
This book makes interesting and sometimes amusing reading and is an
insightful and well-informed introduction to the subject. It would have benefited from a concluding section, balancing the opening part of the book,
which might have provided some unifying themes to the book. It also could
have allowed the author to show how the internationalization of the Sacred
College beyond Europe to the developing world has been so significant a feature of the office over the last century, a mirror (as so often with the cardinals) of the wider Church. The Catholicity of the Church is now firmly
wedded to its Mediterranean roots in the institution of the College of
Cardinals. Nevertheless, as Walsh suggests, the papacy remains attached to the
Church and clergy of Rome, of which at least technically the cardinals form a
part, and “to permit the Bishop of Rome to be elected by some constitutional
body drawn from the Church at large would irrevocably alter what is the
underlying constitution of the Catholic Church” (p. 19).
Downside Abbey
Bath, United Kingdom

AIDAN BELLENGER, O.S.B.

Interpreting Francis and Clare of Assisi from the Middle Ages to the
Present. Edited by Constant J. Mews and Claire Renkin. (Melbourne:
Broughton Publishing. 2010. Pp. xvi, 416. $89.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0980-66346-4.).
This collection of studies from Australia celebrates the 800 years of the
Franciscan Order (1209–2009), arising from an event at Yarra Theological
Union, one institute in the Melbourne College of Divinity. In the introduction

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71

(pp. xi–xvi), the editors explain the origins of the collection and briefly summarize the contributions. The studies begin in Assisi, of course, and then
spread throughout Europe and into different fields of learning. Toward the
end, they rapidly survey the centuries to the present day.The book contains
studies that will interest a variety of readers.
Given that it is a Franciscan collection, it often speaks about poverty. We
find an emphasis on poverty in the first article (p. 4) and in a well-developed
study on Franciscan identity (p. 79). Poverty is looked at closely in the study
on the Sacrum commercium, a symbolic tale of St. Francis and his brothers
in search of Jesus’s poverty. Poverty repeatedly comes to the fore in the
attention accorded St. Clare and her sisters, whether in her day or in our own
(p. 333). However, poverty is a tricky term in Franciscan history. It played no
role in the beginning and first arose in the Early Rule as a defensive maneuver. In the Rule of 1223 it stands at the heart of chapter VI, the very core of
the Rule. In their 1242 commentary on the Rule, the learned Four Masters
define the poverty of chapter VI and mean something clearly different from
what Francis meant in 1223. The word is used too easily in accounts of
Franciscan history—especially when referring to Francis and Clare—and
needs to be handled more carefully.When we encounter it in an early source,
it should be contextualized and defined.
Art plays a strong role in these Franciscan studies. Hugh Hudson tells in
great detail the story of a reliquary dyptich now in the National Gallery of
Victoria (Melbourne), produced by the Franciscan artist Pietro Teutonico.
Hudson reads several details (pp. 246–47) as bringing together Christ’s birth
and the Man-of-Sorrows tradition in art. Mary would have had foreknowledge
of her son’s sufferings. Claire Renkin concentrates on the purpose of a miniature in a German life of Clare from the late-fifteenth century.The illuminated
manuscript contains a few other miniatures, but Renkin looks closely at the
one of Clare and St. Mary Magdalen. He muses on the response that the two
figures would elicit from a Poor Clare reader.
The final study in the collection tells about the tapestries of the Australian
artist Arthur Boyd. In a series of works he has given Francis and Clare a fresh
presence in our times. There was much color in the life of Francis and his
brothers, some of it in the music of their lives.The Poor Clare Briege O’Hare
and her sisters brought that to light when they wondered what was lacking
to their prayer and discovered that it was song (p. 341). Their singing and
Boyd’s colors bring the book to a happy ending.
The Franciscan Institute
Saint Bonaventure University

DAVID FLOOD, O.F.M.

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BOOK REVIEWS

The Carmelite Tradition. By Steven Payne, O.C.D. [Spirituality in History
Series] (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. 2011. Pp. xxxiii, 197. $16.95
paperback, ISBN 978-0-814-61912-4; ebook, ISBN 978-0-814-63953-5.)
A pilgrim to the Holy Land in the early-thirteenth century who passed by
a small band of hermits meditating on the Law of the Lord on Mount Carmel
near the fountain of Elijah could never have predicted what would become
of those simple hermits. This book by Steven Payne, a North American
Discalced Carmelite friar teaching at Tangaza, a college of the Catholic
University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi, would have astonished not only pilgrims but also the hermits.These hermits from Mount Carmel have become
two separate orders of mendicant friars, with cloistered nuns, active sisters,
and laity affiliated with the Carmelites who lead a formally consecrated life.
Modern Carmelites are spread across the globe, and their numbers are growing in developing countries. Among the women and men known as
Carmelites are three doctors of the church as well as numerous saints and
blesseds. Moreover, many other members of the Carmelite family are recognized unofficially for their holiness. In the past the Carmelites were known
as one of the principal schools of spirituality along with the Benedictine,
Dominican, Franciscan, and Ignatian schools of spirituality.Today, more commonly since the Second Vatican Council, we speak of the Carmelite charism
or, as Payne does in this book, the Carmelite Tradition.
Payne prefaces his anthology of Carmelite texts with an insightful but
brief overview of the Carmelite tradition (pp. xxi–xxxiii). Readers next learn
about the Carmelite Rule that began as a formula of life between 1206 and
1214, approved by Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem. The Albertine formula of
life, with slight but significant adjustments, was recognized as a formal rule
by Pope Innocent IV in 1247. Payne then introduces his readers to documents that are not well known by those outside the Carmelite Family: The
Flaming Arrow, a jeremiad by a former prior general who regretted the
move to mendicancy, and The Institution of the First Monks, a fourteenthcentury work of legends that stressed the role of Elijah and Mary to the order
and affirmed its contemplative tradition as mystical.
The anthology then takes up such well-known Carmelites as Teresa of
Ávila, John of the Cross, Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi,Thérèse of Lisieux, Elizabeth
of the Trinity, Titus Brandsma, Edith Stein, and Jessica Powers. Payne does a
genuine service for his readers by selections and introductions to lesserknown Carmelites who reveal the great variety of paths in the Carmelite tradition.These are John of St. Samson, Lawrence of the Resurrection, Michael of
St.Augustine, Maria Petyt, and the Martyrs of Compiègne.
Each entry has a substantial but brief introduction followed by selections
from the Carmelite authors. Notes for these entries occur at the back of the
book. There are select bibliographies for each entry. In the entry “Recent

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73

Voices,” Payne samples some ways that the Carmelite charism is lived and
understood in Christianity’s third millennium.
Payne writes clearly; his text moves swiftly; his scholarship is broad, inclusive, and impeccable. The author has made a significant contribution to the
dissemination of the wisdom of the Carmelite tradition about ways that one
may be called to live the Christian gospels.
Saint Mary’s College (Emeritus)
University of Notre Dame (Adjunct)

KEITH J. EGAN

Witch Hunts in the Western World. By Brian A. Pavlac. [Extraordinary World.]
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2010. Pp. xx, 228. $17.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-803-23290-7.)
General summaries of the history of witch prosecutions in Europe and the
Americas have a useful role to play in transmitting some of the latest research
to the public at large and weaning people off the sensationalist and inaccurate views to which they are happy to cling and that are still peddled by some
of the media and popular press. Unfortunately, Pavlac’s book, potentially interesting and informative, is spoiled by his old-fashioned insistence on letting
readers know that in his opinion witchcraft was nonsense and witches in
effect were innocent victims of sinister or heartless authorities. He does this
mainly via his choice of vocabulary:“blaming witches was more convenient”
(p. 66),“Demonologists invented the [Devil’s] mark” (p. 72),“[Descartes’] promotion of the scientific method” (p. 76), and so forth (emphasis added).
Research has long passed the old notion that authorities, especially the
Church, fell in with people’s supposed eagerness for scapegoats to blame for
poor harvests, disease, or similar catastrophes and used intensive prosecutions to further their own authoritarian ends. It may not have been Pavlac’s
intention to re-create this catchall explanation, but the way he writes leaves
the reader with the impression that this is what he means. There also are
other blemishes that do not help his narrative. His account of witchcraft in
Scotland, for example, is confused and rather a mess; he makes claims that, if
pressed, he would find difficult to prove—“De Lancre’s opinions inspired a
widespread hunt” (p. 97) and “[Del Rio’s] detailed explications of the various
arguments about witches convinced many of their reality” (p. 158); and he
also spends too long (pp. 97–103) on reviewing cases of demonic possession.
These, although interesting in themselves, are not witch hunts and take up
space that might have been more fruitfully employed in expanding his principal topic. One also questions the title Witch Hunts.Wolfgang Behringer has
discussed this kind of emotive terminology—persecutions, hunts, panics—
and, in effect, suggested that scholars choose their terms more carefully.
Certainly it is true that Pavlac’s book has the virtue of covering very wide
chronological and geographical ranges and introduces to the survey areas

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such as South America and Eastern Europe that often are neglected in general surveys of this kind. On the other hand, when he summarizes witches
and witchcraft in his final chapter, he cannot resist pushing the button of
appeal to emotional response. Having quite rightly noted that modern
research tends to reduce the estimates of individuals executed for witchcraft, he adds that “many more people at the time, though, were affected by
the hunts” and that “while these numbers hardly attain the level of a holocaust or a genocide, they nonetheless show how too many people suffered
for a crime that did not exist” (p. 189).The references to holocaust and genocide are superfluous and irrelevant, and one must therefore conclude that
they are there as part of Pavlac’s subtext, a subtext that is by now very oldfashioned indeed, not to mention unsubtle. That there is such a subtext
seems to be confirmed by his ending the book with an anecdote relating to
an incident from 1589, a woman brutally tortured, almost certainly innocent,
and burned alive. Why is she included at this particular juncture? Witches
were by no means always tortured, many were guilty as charged, and relatively few suffered death by burning. So this example’s inclusion looks like a
final emotional appeal rather than anything else. Modern studies of historical
witchcraft are a good deal more sensitive than that to the available evidence.
So, as a final judgment on Pavlac’s book, one is unfortunately obliged to
repeat Muriel Sharp’s Miss Jean Brodie: “For those who like this sort of thing,
this is the sort of thing they like.”
University of St. Andrews

PETER MAXWELL-STUART

Empires of God: Religious Encounters in the Early Modern Atlantic. Edited
by Linda Gregerson and Susan Juster (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press. 2011. Pp. 334. $59.95. ISBN 978-0-812-24289-8.).
This interdisciplinary collection of essays provides fertile ground for scholarly inquiry on the colonial history of this hemisphere. The twelve chapters
and “Final Reflections” offer readers a balanced approach and a wealth of
information with which to understand this transatlantic encounter that often
involved contradictory objectives—religion and compassion pitted against
self-interest and conquest.As the editors point out, European colonization of
the New World must be understood in its entire complexity; England’s colonizing efforts perhaps owe more to Spain that previously thought. This
approach, using historiography and literary analysis, gives rise to Atlantic studies in an assessment of religious conflict among Europeans, not just violence
to native peoples; accusations of cruelty abound while lands inhabited by
non-Christian natives were even deemed “empty” or vacuum domicilium
(Carla Gardina Pestana), thus justifying imperial expansion.The editors wisely
arrange essays by topic into three parts: I, Launching Imperial Projects; II,
Colonial Accommodations; and III,Violent Encounters. Each essay addresses a
common set of questions on the interaction between religion and empire.
Legal, literary, and archival documents are all brought to bear concerning

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ways in which Europeans sought to establish and maintain their colonies and
manage the Christianization of native inhabitants.
In part I Rolena Adorno goes a stage further regarding the well-known
debate in Valladolid between the royal chronicler Sepúlveda and the
Dominican friar Las Casas, whom she sees primarily as a legal scholar; the
encomenderos still managed to repeal New Laws he espoused for indigenous
rights. Barbara Fuchs considers literary models and the picaresque in captive
narratives. Linda Gregerson examines the challenges of the New England
Company to bring the Gospel to a people with no tradition of writing.
Part II largely involves missionary efforts and devotional practices both in
Catholic and Protestant traditions. Cornelius Conover focuses on St. Philip of
Jesus, the Discalced Franciscan martyred in Japan in 1597. Politics and religion intertwine regarding intercessional powers of local patron saints. St.
Philip with very human defects begins the tradition of “Creole saints,” including the Virgin of Guadalupe and even St. Teresa of Ávila who wrote on the
Christianization of these new lands. Father Chaumonot’s autobiography
exemplifies the struggles of a Jesuit missionary who often lost his native
French language.Allan Greer likens his narrative to the picaresque novel, yet
with “feminine” compassionate descriptions of native peoples in New France.
Karen Bross shows that in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the conversion of
native people often confirmed the belief in the second coming of Christ; she
studies Henry Jessey’s book on conversion, published in 1650, a year seen as
a transition to the end of the world. Dominique Deslandres’s analysis of the
prophetic nature of dreams shows that Huron dream culture could become
an obstacle to conversion.
In part III Bethany Wiggin examines German migrants to Pennsylvania and
their impact on a nascent abolitionist movement against the African slave
trade. Katherin Ibbett presents Marie de l’Incarnation’s concept of martyrdom
and the interior way; her accounts of violence between missionaries and
Iroquois reestablished the importance of sacrifice in a colonial setting.
Violence, however, occurs among European colonists themselves. Patrick
Erban studies the Mennonite Martyrs’ Mirror—confiscated in 1776 as a pacifist, and therefore loyalist, book—and community building in Pennsylvania. In
this same vein, Susan Juster writes about iconoclasm, a practice firmly
entrenched in England (God is to be represented in the Word, not in icons),
and challenges notions of religious freedom; John Eliot’s Indian Library was
destroyed as idolatrous, much the same as the Spanish destruction of Aztec
pictographic codices.
Paul Stevens’s “Final Reflections” focus on Protestantism in British imperial design. As with Catholic empires, Protestantism cannot fully explain
attempts to legitimize possession and conquest. Since God’s grace is a gift to
the individual mediated by Christ’s death, Stevens argues, Protestant imperi-

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alists become emboldened, and Edmund Spenser is their “Protestant nationalist.” Stevens projects notions on religion and empire into our own century
with ideas of the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. If Thucydides helps us
understand Polynesian history today, perhaps imperial expansion could be
tempered by Las Casas’s concern for human rights.
The wealth of information, range, and depth of investigation in these
essays show that concerns of empire, conversion, and spirituality remain
problematic well into the twenty-first century.This volume engages and challenges the reader’s received assumptions about our colonial past and this
transformed New World.
United States Naval Academy

SHARON D.VOROS

The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the
Christian Church. Vol. 6: The Modern Age. By Hughes Oliphant Old.
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. 2007. Pp. xxii, 997.
$50.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-802-83139-2.)
In 1998, Hughes Oliphant Old published the first of his projected sevenvolume history of preaching, The Biblical Period. Subsequent volumes followed: The Patristic Age; The Medieval Church; The Age of the Reformation;
Moderatism, Pietism, and Awakening; The Modern Age; and Our Own
Time. These volumes are a valuable resource to which students may turn to
become acquainted with the church’s preaching tradition. They are written
in a manner that is not only informative but also invites readers to share the
author’s deep love of preaching as an act of worship in the church.
The present volume aims to cover the period extending from the French
Revolution to the fall of communism (1789–1989). According to Old, the
central problem for all preachers in the modern age has been secularization,
followed by the challenge of biblical criticism and the opportunities provided by the world missionary movement. To accomplish this task, Old
organizes his discussion of preachers according to schools or fellowships
within the following chapters: I, Religion Revived in a Secularized Europe; II,
German Preaching in the Wake of the Enlightenment; III, The Evangelical
Calvinism of New England; IV,The Old School;V,The Victorians;VI,The Great
American School; VII, The Beginnings of Black Preaching; VIII, German
Preaching in the Mississippi Valley; IX, Scotland in the Nineteenth Century;
X, Southern Baptist Preaching; XI; Europe in Crisis; and XII,The War Years in
Britain (1914–1960).
As in the previous volumes, Old writes in a manner that demonstrates his
impressive knowledge of and profound respect for the wisdom, skill, and
devotion of preachers from the Christian past. Homiletic descriptions, or
sketches, that vary in length and detail walk the reader through selected sermons that are illuminated by Old’s commentary in relation to matters that

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are theological, exegetical, pastoral, liturgical, and cultural in nature. In addition, Old’s commentary often reaches back to previous figures, schools, or
movements in the history of preaching to note similarities in style, interpretation, content, and purpose. The benefit of this kind of interpretative discussion is significant in that it helps the reader to identify recurring
homiletic patterns and habits and encourages the cultivation of a sense of
the logic or grammar of Christian preaching across time.
It is difficult to criticize a book that contains so much valuable information and insight on preaching. However, the sections on twentieth-century
preaching might have been framed by a discussion of theology, mission, and
preaching in light of the ecumenical vision articulated at the 1910 Edinburgh
Conference and the subsequent movement for Christian unity. This larger
perspective could have provided balance to the overall discussion that often
reveals Old’s clear preference for expository preaching in the Reformed tradition, especially as exemplified by John Calvin.
Asbury Theological Seminary
Wilmore, KY

MICHAEL PASQUARELLO

Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence and the Sacred in Argentina and
Italy, 1919–1945. By Federico Finchelstein. (Durham: Duke University
Press. 2010. Pp. xiv, 330. $89.95 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-822-34594-7.
$24.95 paperback, ISBN 978-0-822-34612-8.)
Federico Finchelstein is an outstanding historian who has been working
on Argentina’s version of fascism for several years. The very question of the
existence of a non-European fascism has been debated for a long time from a
wide variety of perspectives, and there is no definitive consensus on the
issue. Yet for most scholars, fascism is a European phenomenon that has
inspired in its epoch politicians, intellectuals, and ideologues outside Europe.
The fascist revolution and the introduction of a third way between liberalism
and communism affected nationalist movements worldwide. In some societies, the appearance of such third-way movements was a curious phenomenon without political consequences. In other societies—Argentina is a case in
point—the debate on the fascist inspiration of nationalism had become a central feature of the debate on its own national identity. Indeed, the importance
of Finchelstein’s book is in the fact that it touches the nerves of Argentinean
national identity and its most important political expression, Peronism.
In Transatlantic Fascism Finchelstein deals with the pre-Peronist era and
looks into its ideological roots. He advances a very interesting, compelling
claim:“Generally speaking, historians of Argentina find themselves in a position of ‘inferiority’ with respect to their Argentine fascist sources. Argentine
fascists knew more about European fascisms than their historians currently
do” (p. 11). Argentinean fascist intellectuals were well acquainted with the

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fascist political and ideological phenomenon. They understood its theoretical sources, its composition as a synthesis of integral nationalism and left
revolutionary syndicalism, and its revolutionary potential. This understanding is much more substantial and determinant than Benito Mussolini’s own
claim that fascism as a radical form of nationalism is not for export.
For Italian fascists such as Franco De Felice, Argentina became a civilized
nation after Italian immigration (p. 88). In this sense Argentina was a repository of Italian blood (p. 164).
However, as Finchelstein correctly claims, the transnational features of fascism were ideological, not ethnic. Finchelstein understands what few other
historians grasped, that Argentinean fascists or antiliberal nationalists understood the transnational character of fascism. However, at the same time,
Argentinean fascists understood that under the revolutionary spirit of fascism different political expressions could rise up. Very few Argentinean
national fascists considered themselves as members of a fascist international
political movement as worldwide communist members of the Third
International did. However, the spirit of fascism is totally present. It is a universal spirit that sets the third road between liberalism and communism.
Finchelstein highlights that both fascism and antisemitism are transnational
formations and puts especial emphasis on what can be defined as a core fascist unconscious.The role of violence as a purification act rooted in Georges
Sorel’s Reflections on Violence (London, 1908) was totally adopted by
Argentina’s fascists.This is indeed the spirit of fascism, which should be contrasted with the organizational realm of the communist Third International.
In sum, Finchelstein underscores the fascist self-understanding and its conceptions of the sacred. The idea of the transnational phenomenon challenges
most historians’ claims regarding the European character of fascism.
This had a clear political connotation regarding Peronism. Was Peronism
a “nationalized” type of fascism? Could Peronism be included inside the fascist ideal type? As noted, this is a question that touches Argentina’s national
identity. In Finchelstein’s account, Peronism was influenced by fascism. It
was an authoritarian movement that represented the “third way,” as fascism
did.To a certain extent Argentinean antiliberal nationalists reformulated fascism until it was unrecognizable (p. 165).We might conclude that this reformulation of fascism was nothing original. Most fascists in Europe and abroad
reformulated fascism to meet their particular cultural backgrounds. Different
from communism, however, Italian fascism hardly had an ideological police.
Tel Aviv University

ALBERTO SPEKTOROWSKI

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Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian’s
Vocation. Edited by John Fea, Jay Green, and Eric Miller. (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press. 2010. Pp. xviii, 354. $35.00 paperback.
ISBN 978-0-268-02903-6.)
This book is composed of a preface, an introduction, fourteen essays, and
an afterword by Wilfred M. McClay, which introduces, almost for the only
time in this book, the thought of Christopher Dawson (not particularly well
treated).The authors are affiliated with a broad spectrum of mostly Christian
academic institutions, with a special presence of Reformed Christians. The
topics addressed and tone taken range from the homiletic to the nicely
delimited, but all speak to the vocation of the Christian historian. Space
allows for individual mention of only a few of the articles, but there is much
that is useful in the essays of Mark R. Schwehn, Una M. Cadegan, Thomas
Albert Howard,William Katerberg, Michael Kugler, Bradley J. Gundlach, John
Fea, Jay Green, Robert Tracy McKenzie, and Douglas A. Sweeny. Most of the
authors undertook their PhD work in the 1990s, and this book evidences a
sea change in the profession in the matter of religion, which, according to a
recent American Historical Association survey, has become the most-named
field of study by historians asked to identify their specialties.The editors of
the present book are associated with the Conference on Faith and History
and the journal Fides et Historia.
The introduction declares:“this book . . . joins a long tradition of writings
in which Christian scholars have . . . sought to probe and articulate the ways
in which life on earth might be playing out beneath the eye and at the hand
of the God of Christian faith” (p. 2).This central project of the book seems to
be unclearly treated at times; essays like that of Gundlach need to pay further
attention to their exposition of “providentialist history” (p. 163), but James B.
LaGrand, in siding with St. Augustine, seems to have it exactly right.The wise
comments of George Marsden, disavowing any claim to chart the particular
ways of God, are invoked, though not all agree. The essay of Christopher
Shannon, which should be read by every Christian historian, seems not to
draw necessary distinctions in its discussion of historical causation.
If the Christian historian has no “method” by which to pin providence
down, what can be Christian about his or her work? The essay by Beth
Barton Schweiger gets closest to the heart of the matter—the Christian, historian or not, replaces the categories of the world by the truths revealed in
the Incarnation, above all the revelation that charity rather than power is at
the heart of what is real.That said, it would have been preferable if she and
Lendol Calder had worked out their ontological insight—God is love and
what is love in the world is most real—into specifying what history under
this heading looks like. Contributors to the volume such as Howard make
good use of Catholic thinkers such as Josef Pieper, but as a group they seem
unaware of the resources in especially resourcement and communio
Catholic thought for the questions they address.

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William Katerberg’s idea that the historian should engage in “useful
scholarship” (p. 107)—that is, scholarship useful to a tradition—is very
provocative. Shannon provides the most radical position in the book, holding that it is not just that secular historical scholarship is incomplete because
it leaves Christianity out, but that it is deeply wounded, and for a Christian
historian to accept it is tantamount to participation in “the legitimation of
the modern secular world” (p. 12). McClay, on the other hand, although holding for a chastened view of progress (he thinks the idea is necessary as the
only possible ordering principle, and although speaking of the unpredictability of history, does not mention Hans Urs von Balthasar’s alternative
idea that history is dramatic in form), still affirms that human agency and the
ability “to master the material terms of our existence” (p. 318) have
expanded in our times. It is a far from unassailable assertion.
University of Utah, Salt Lake City

GLENN W. OLSEN

Ancient
Alienation: The Experience of the Eastern Mediterranean (50–600 A.D.).
By Antigone Samellas. (Bern: Peter Lang. 2010. Pp. x, 556. $110.95 paperback. ISBN 978-3-039-11789-5.)
This monograph is a recognizable sequel to Antigone Salmellas’s first
book, Death in the Eastern Mediterranean (50–600 AD): The Christianization of the East—An Interpretation (Tübingen, 2002). Both are discursive
readings of the changed mentalité of the later Roman Empire that can be
ascribed to the effects of Christianization. Social and psychological alienation,
understood in a very broad sense, provides the subject matter that links the
first three chapters of the new book. The first, on life as theater, argues that
whereas much “pagan” classical conduct rested on the adoption and acting
out of personae on life’s stage, a fully internalized Christian set of values
required alienation from secular activity and an emptying of personality. By
discarding the masks that made an individual visible and effective in society,
the inner person was revealed to God’s judgment.The second chapter on the
growth of asceticism deals with alienation in its most recognizable form—the
retreat of the individual from communal society and the family, already apparent in some philosophical movements, which took extreme forms in the desocialization of Christian hermits and other ascetics and could lead to a level
of social estrangement that was the virtual equivalent of death. The third
chapter discusses changing attitudes to mental illness and healing in later
antiquity, tracing a line from initial stigmatization to a Christian recognition
that the symptoms of apparent madness often were to be understood as
revealing the character of the inner person.These three essays in social psychology draw on a rich tradition of late-classical philosophical and patristic
literature, but one ancient writer provides a welcome linking thread through
all of them—St. John Chrysostom, whose sermons on the theater at Antioch

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and on the renunciation of earthly pleasures and comforts in favor of the
solace of the desert echo through chapters 1 and 2, and whose homiletic
letter to the afflicted monk Stageirios is a key reference for chapter 3.
The second half of the book moves away from the single theme of alienation to offer a reading of the intellectual and political transformations that
followed from the conversion of the later Roman Empire and the internalization of Christian values by Roman society. Chapter 4 suggests that bishops
and other Christian leaders of the Christian Church attempted to replace
classical utopias with the actualized charitable institutions of the Church, an
aim that was inhibited by their need to act in harmony with, and indeed to
reinforce, the authoritarian and hierarchized structures of the Roman
Empire. Chapter 5, a thought-provoking study of imperialism and Christianity, charts the transformation of Christianity from initial marginality to
become a force that reinforced and transformed Roman imperial power. By
detaching itself from Judaism, Christianity avoided the destructive consequences of direct political opposition to Rome and was unthreatened by the
decadence of Greek institutions through offering an explicit alternative to
Hellenic culture. Thus by the end of the later empire, Christian orthodoxy
could claim to occupy the cultural and religious territory of both Greeks and
Jews, as it provided reinforcement to Roman political power. Chapter 6
explores the paradox that the extreme punishments inflicted on Christian
martyrs, which were central to the self-definition of the faith, but nevertheless were adopted as models for their own understanding of proper punishment both in the context of divine and secular justice. Chapter 7, loosely
attached to the rest of the book, examines the question of the psychological
importance to individuals of reading scripture.
This book is long and learned, and its loose structure makes it anything
but an easy read. However, the writer has an impressive command of the
patristic literature and a productively catholic approach to modern scholarship ranging from social psychology to Greek epigraphy. She does not make
the case that alienation is the experience that provides the key to understanding late antiquity, but has provided much challenging historical material
to ponder.
University of Exeter

STEPHEN MITCHELL

The Old Testament in Byzantium. Edited by Paul Magdalino and Robert
Nelson. [Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia.] (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. Distrib.
Harvard University Press. 2010. Pp. viii, 333. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-88402348-7.)
In December 2006, while Dumbarton Oaks was undergoing major renovation, the Byzantine Studies department hosted a symposium on the Bible

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in Byzantium in the Freer Gallery of Art to coincide with an exhibition on
early Bibles.The present volume includes a selection of the papers presented
on that occasion.
In the introduction the editors raise three questions: how did Byzantines,
Jews, and Christians “encounter” the text; how did the Christians “use” the
text; and how typical was the Byzantine reaction when compared with that
of contemporary cultures. Subsequent chapters point to the importance of
the prophetologia (books of liturgical readings); James Miller examines the
real channels by which most people came to know the Old Testament in
auditory fashion, and Georgi Parpulov analyzes the psalters written mainly
for the piety of the wealthy. John Lowden presents a more specialized case
in the elaborately decorated Octateuch manuscripts, which only very
wealthy patrons could afford and probably formed a tiny trickle as far as dissemination of the text was concerned.Two chapters tackle the subject from
a historiographical perspective: Elizabeth Jeffreys’s discussion of how the
Old Testament account influenced Byzantine chronicles, and Claudia Rapp’s
text on how it provided models for emperors in the early period. Clearly, as
Derek Krueger discusses, the scripture text was a dominant presence in
Byzantine monasticism, but, as Robert Ousterhout points out, it can hardly be
said to have had any practical impact on Byzantine architecture. Two final
chapters reach beyond the borders of the Empire—Ivan Biliarsky presents
the evidence for the impact of Old Testament models on medieval Bulgaria,
and Jane Dammen McAuliffe examines their effect on the Qur’ān.
The handsome volume is well up to Dumbarton Oaks standards, with
only a few errata noted (p. 12n44, vaut in place of veut; p. 233, perhaps “at”
has misplaced “as” on the penultimate line; p. 255n1, misspelling of Complutense). All eleven chapters are the work of specialists, some renowned
for their previous publications and clearly of the highest quality. All repay
careful study, and all provide new insights.Yet so much remains to be done.
Lowden (pp. 110n15, 131) and Jefferies (p. 170n67) only briefly refer to the
major question faced by students of the Old Testament in Byzantium—what
texts of the Septuagint were commonly available? Certainly not that published in the twentieth century by Alfred Rahlfs, nor indeed that of the
Göttingen editions. These attempt to reproduce the earliest text, but presumably it is the “Byzantine” tradition that one should consult, although it
has been shown that a late Byzantine exegete, like the monk Malachias, was
using a Lucianic text.1 In second place, so much remains to be said about
the questions that ordinary laypeople, not just clerics, were asking about
Old Testament texts—questions preserved in the many “Questions and
Answers,” erotapokriseis (such as those of St. Anastasios of Sinai), and the
1
J. R. Busto Saiz, “The Biblical Text of ‘Malachias Monachus’ to the Book of Wisdom,”
ed. N. Fernández Marcos, La Septuaginta en la Investigación Contemporánea (V
Congreso de la IOSCS) (Madrid, 1985), pp. 257–69.

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catenae with which the Byzantines demonstrated their immense interest in
the “divine” text.
Campion Hall
University of Oxford

JOSEPH A. MUNITIZ, S.J.

Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for TwentyFirst-Century Christian Social Thought. Edited by Johan Leemans, Brian J.
Matz, and Johan Verstraeten. [CUA Studies in Early Christianity.]
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. 2011. Pp. xviii,
272. $34.95. ISBN 978-0-813-21959-5.)
The eleven papers in this volume originate from a seminar organized by
the Centre for Catholic Social Thought of the Catholic University of Leuven in
2007. They are arranged under four headings: “Approaching Patristic SocioEthical Texts,” “Contexts for Patristic Socio-Ethical Texts,” “Issues in Patristic
and Catholic Social Thought,” and “Reflections on the Theme.” In part 1,
Reimund Bieringer undertakes a quick survey of modern hermeneutical theories, highlighting Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, to justify a reading
of patristic texts that is future-oriented rather than centered on the world of
the text. By contrast, Pauline Allen offers a more conventional overview of
patristic writings on social ethics, emphasizing the challenges involved for
contemporary theology in making constructive use of patristic writings that
support property, slavery, and class distinctions, but at the same time highlighting the limited engagement with patristic thought to be found in official
Catholic social teaching documents.
In part 2, Peter Van Nuffelen discusses the encounter between classical
and Christian attitudes to care for the poor, with reference to writers of the
fourth to sixth centuries. He affirms the “transformative impact” of Christian
caritas on ancient society, but argues that caritas was itself transformed by
its encounter with the Greco-Roman tradition of liberalitas as a public virtue.
Helen Rhee surveys pre-Constantinian eschatology for evidence of God’s
judgment on the wealthy and the eschatological benefits of almsgiving.
Wendy Mayer focuses on St. John Chrysostom, arguing that his strictures
against the wealthy were directed at outsiders as well as his immediate audience, so that his vision for Christian social ethics was evangelistic.
In part 3, Susan R. Holman discusses Cappadocian ideas about the
common good, identifying St. Basil of Caesarea’s use of an Aristotelian source
and outlining the Cappadocians’ doctrine of a common human nature. Brenda
Llewellyn Ihssen surveys usury in patristic texts that decry its effects on society and on the spiritual health of the individual. Brian Matz discusses Basil of
Caesarea’s teaching on spiritual detachment from wealth in the wider context
of ancient and early Christian thought on private property and its use. Both
Ihssen and Matz identify specific points of comparison and contrast between

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patristic and recent Catholic social teaching, especially with regard to social
and economic doctrines. Finally, Thomas Hughson discusses the contemporary significance of the appeal to Constantine to practice justice in
Lactantius’s Divine Institutes.
Part 4 contains two reflections—one by Richard Schenk, and one by Johan
Leemans and Johan Verstraeten. Both are negative about the outcome of the
seminar and about the prospects for a genuine dialogue between patristic and
Catholic social thought (this impression is somewhat mitigated by the
description of the two papers in the introduction). Schenk seems doubtful of
finding much to applaud in patristic social teaching and is impatient with the
findings of the historical papers; Leemans and Verstraeten are equally frustrated by the lack of encounter between the study of patristic texts and
underlying theological issues. Such negativity seems to underestimate the theologically constructive character of the papers on patristic contexts and
themes. Perhaps it betrays a systematicians’ fear of the genuine differences
between patristic and modern Catholic social thought—differences that exist
whether one stresses the more radical features of the Fathers’ teaching on
property and renunciation or their social conservatism on issues such as slavery.The real question at issue thus seems to be not whether patristic texts can
somehow be made relevant to today (as the editors and contributors suppose) but whether or not modern Catholic social thought can come to terms
with the historical diversity of the Christian tradition.
London, England

GRAHAM GOULD

The Targum of Lamentations. Translated, with a Critical Introduction,
Apparatus, and Notes by Philip S. Alexander. [The Aramaic Bible,Vol. 17B.]
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. 2008. Pp. xvi, 224. $99.95. ISBN 978-0814-65864-2.)
Targum Lamentations contains fewer than 2900 words across five chapters. Despite this brevity, Philip Alexander’s thoughtful and thorough study
begins with 100 pages of introduction followed by 100 pages of translation
and commentary. The volume’s centerpiece is, of course, the translation, on
which the commentary and the introduction depend, and it accurately
reflects the Aramaic’s meaning with a high degree of precision. Alexander has
an ear not only for the Aramaic’s meaning but also for conveying that meaning in an English style that is literal while remaining clear and expressive.
When nuances cannot be captured in the English, they appear in the notes.
Alexander translates Targum Lamentations’ Western recension, which provided the foundation for the later Yemenite recension, as recent scholarship
has demonstrated. Unfortunately, he translates the unpublished manuscript
Héb. 110 of Paris’ Bibliothèque Nationale. The best available Western text to
use with Alexander’s translation is Urbinus Hebr. 1 from the Vatican Library,

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which appears in Christian Brady’s The Rabbinic Targum of Lamentations
(Leiden, 2003), alongside Brady’s own translation. Sperber’s readily available
text (in volume 4a of The Bible in Aramaic [Leiden, 1968]) should be
avoided, since it constitutes an idiosyncratic combination of a Yemenite manuscript with selections from Bomberg’s second Rabbinic Bible.
The commentary constitutes a model of the tradition-history approach to
the analysis of Jewish texts and takes up most of the book’s second half.
Beginning with close attention to the lexical meaning of each word,
Alexander then considers the interpretation conveyed through inner-scriptural exegesis (both in the Hebrew text and other Targums), which conveys
nuances and connections of the Targum with the Hebrew Bible. Beyond that,
Alexander’s remarks range across comparisons with rabbinic literature; the
Dead Sea Scrolls; other ancient translations such as the Septuagint, Peshitta,
and Vulgate; as well as medieval Jewish writers such as Saadya Gaon.
Comparison with the rabbinic midrash Lamentations Rabbah rightly receives
most attention.
The volume’s critical introduction fulfills the same purpose as it does in
the other Aramaic Bible volumes. But rather than slavishly reiterate previous
scholarship,Alexander pushes the envelope, bringing in not only the best of
the past but also putting together well-argued and solidly founded new proposals. Although he readily addresses textual, dating, and linguistic matters,
Alexander’s primary interests stand out in the explorations of the theological, liturgical, and literary character and context of Targum Lamentations; he
believes, along with Brady, that it was composed as a single, unified work.The
key theme that runs throughout these topics is that of the comparison
between Targum Lamentations and Lamentations Rabbah.With regard to theology, Alexander finds the Targum emphasizes the destruction’s impact on
the Temple and the priesthood, which leads to a focus on messianic expectations, whereas Lamentations Rabbah features God’s pathos over his treatment of Israel—a notion missing from the Targum. When Alexander studies
the Targum in light of other translations, he finds links only in Saadya’s Tafsir.
Comparing the Targum’s interpretations to those found in rabbinic,
Christian, medieval and other Jewish writings, he finds that Lamentations
Rabbah has by far the most overlap, yet he also sees that the difference
between the two works rules out any clear dependence of one on the other.
Given this situation,Alexander argues that the two works were composed in
the same time period, speaking to the same issues but giving different
responses. This supports Alexander’s dating of Targum Lamentations, in
which he interprets the reference to Rome and Constantinople at 4:21–22 as
indicating composition in the fourth or fifth century.
When Alexander broadens the analysis of primary sources to address
Targum Lamentations’ role in Jewish liturgy, he provides an exciting reading
of the social dynamics of the late rabbinic period. He sees Targum

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Lamentations as a rabbinic composition that aims to wrest liturgical mourning over the Temple’s destruction away from (priestly?) groups like the
“Mourners of Zion” and place it within the confines of rabbinic Judaism’s
increasing influence on Jewish worship.
This Targum, like many of the Writings Targums, mixes features from several Jewish Aramaic dialects and Hebrew. Alexander fails to see this as evidence of the dialect of Late Jewish Literary Aramaic, which, as described by
Edward Cook and Stephen Kaufman, combines several Jewish Aramaic
dialects with Syriac, Aramaic archaisms, and Hebrew. Instead, he imagines an
elaborate, four-step history of textual rewritings to account for the mixture.
The test of Occam’s Razor seems to preclude Alexander’s explanation. Apart
from this minor matter, Alexander’s translation and explanatory volume on
Targum Lamentations constitutes an important work—one of the best volumes in the Aramaic Bible series—and belongs in any undergraduate or
graduate library where the early history of the Bible is studied.
University of Wyoming

PAUL V. M. FLESHER

Riot in Alexandria: Tradition and Group Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan
and Christian Communities. By Edward J. Watts. [The Transformation of
the Classical Heritage, 46.] (Berkeley: University of California Press. 2010.
Pp. xvi, 290. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-520-26207-2.)
Edward Watts has written a wide-ranging, thoughtful, and stimulating
exploration of what can be learned from a single episode that occurred in
Alexandria in the late-fifth century (probably in spring 486).The illuminating
episode in question is known only because Zacharias of Mitylene included it
in his account of the career of Paralius of Aphrodisias in Caria, which forms
approximately the first third of his Life of Severus (CPG 6995).
Unfortunately, Zacharias’s Life of Severus has survived only in a Syriac translation—this was edited together with a French translation by Marc-Antoine
Kugener in Patrologia orientalis, vol. 2 (Paris, 1903); was reprinted as the
separate volume Sévère, patriarche d’Antioche, 512–518 (Turnhout, 1993);
and was translated into English by Lena Ambjörn (Piscataway, NJ, 2008).
Watts has used both Kugener’s text and Ambjörn’s translation critically, stating at the outset that “in places they have been amended for clarity” (p. 1n1).
He rounds off his book with an appendix answering Alan Cameron’s argument that the Life of Severus is fundamentally unreliable. Watts observes,
quite correctly, that from a literary point of view Zacharias’s account of
Paralius should be considered as “a self-contained work that has rhetorical
concerns and a thematic structure distinct from the Life of Severus” (pp.
265–68). But Cameron also argues that Zacharias includes invented material
supplied to him by Paralius and that Paralius himself is a dubious witness.
Hence, it is not clear whether Paralius’s story about his beating in Alexandria
can justifiably be taken au pied de la lettre, as Watts appears to do.

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Watts begins with a twenty-page analysis of how Christian students in
Alexandria transformed the beating of Paralius into “a religious persecution
launched by a hostile pagan intellectual establishment” (p. 11). Paralius,
whom Watts describes “an obnoxious teenager” (p. 11), had been beaten by
other students whose revered teachers he had denounced in offensive and
insulting language. The remainder of the book is divided into three parts:
“Historical Discourse in Intellectual Communities,” “The Past Within and
Outside Late Antique Monasteries,” and “Defining the Alexandrian Bishop.”
For the most part,Watts is accurate in his reporting of ancient evidence and
shows good sense when interpreting it. However, he sometimes downplays
the political background of ecclesiastical events, thus unwittingly diminishing the impact of the emperor or agents of the imperial government on
them. For example,Watts correctly notes that Cyril had been groomed to succeed Theophilus, his uncle, as bishop of Alexandria, but he states that “instead
of assuming power peacefully, Cyril was forced to battle a rival for the patriarchal throne” (pp. 207–08). For this assertion he cites Christopher Haas,
who alleges that Cyril’s appointment was opposed by the commander of
imperial forces in Egypt. Haas relied on A. C. Zenos’s translation of a precritical text of Socrates. In the only critical edition of Socrates that uses all the
relevant textual evidence, G. C. Hansen correctly follows the ancient Armenian
translation, which names Cyril, not his rival, as the candidate supported by
the military commander Abundantius. What Socrates says, therefore, is that
when conflict broke out because there were two candidates, Abundantius
supported Cyril. Again, although Watts notes that Proterius was in effect an
imperial appointee when he replaced Dioscorus at the Council of Chalcedon
in 451, his discussion of his murder in 457 makes no mention of the death
of the emperor Marcian on January 27, 457, even though it was the news of
his imperial patron’s decease that encouraged his enemies to consecrate
Timothy Aelurus as a rival bishop of Alexandria in opposition to Proterius
and thus set in motion a series of events that ended with his violent death.
Fortunately, however,Watts, on the whole, avoids the mistake of trying to
analyze religious controversies in the Roman Empire after Constantine without constant reference to the emperors who created the legal and political
framework in which ecclesiastical affairs were conducted.
University of Edinburgh

T. D. BARNES

The Mythological Traditions of Liturgical Drama: The Eucharist as Theater.
By Christine C. Schnusenberg. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. 2010. Pp. xx,
359. $44.95. ISBN 978-0-809-10544-1.)
In this ambitious study, the author seeks to account for the evolution of
early Christian liturgy in the light of the mythological and dramatic traditions
of ancient cultures. Drawing heavily on the work of Mircea Eliade and Paul
Ricoeur, Schnusenberg elaborates the significance of the claim “[i]n the

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beginning there was theater” (p. 273) on two levels: the historical and the
interpretative. All ancient cultures, she argues, have their cosmogonic myths;
at the heart of the rituals, festivals, and practices of their theaters lies the
endeavor to represent and mimetically re-enact these creation stories. In a
series of learned chapters, she traces wide-ranging examples in the theaters
of Egypt and Babylon, Hittite cult-drama and festival, the theater of CanaanUgarit, the cosmogony of ancient Israel, and the dramas of ancient Syria. At
an analytical level, the pervasiveness of the theme of creativity in dramatic
performance across these civilizations points to a fundamental reality—cosmogony itself is inherently an act of staging; the creation of a world by divine
agency of one sort of another is, irreducibly, a theatrical business, the primordial presentation of that which is.The dramatic impulse, made manifest
in literally endless expressions of human creative activity, is intrinsic to
human culture precisely insofar as the cosmos itself is constituted in a piece
of drama par excellence.
For Schnusenberg, this insight demands a rethinking of the context of
early Christian attitudes to the theater. Contrary to some (alarmingly enduring) Western assumptions, theater was not invented by the Greeks and the
Romans, for the emergence of an “official” dramatic setting, the theater of the
Greek tragedians and their heirs, amounted only to a development upon a
long-established instinct: a capacity now to reflect dramatically on the power
of theater to be reflective. When the first Christians started to make their
startling claims about the significance of Jesus, they did so in a world in
which the supremacy of Rome was supposed (by its architects, at least) to
represent the ultimate expression of the triumph embedded in Rome’s
founding myths, and Roman theater—games, rituals, and plays—typified the
creative expression of that fact. Early devotion to Jesus—the depiction and
imitation of his moral character and the celebration of his redemptive
actions centrally in the ritual of the Eucharist—was, in a real sense, just
another creative act of theater.
It was, of course, a bold one, for in the nascent contention that the Christevent was the incarnation of the one true God, the original creator of all
things, the mimesis practiced by his followers professed universal pertinence. The corporate life and practices of Christ’s followers constituted
drama like no other, for in the liturgy of the Eucharist, a performance that
absorbed but crucially reshaped both Jewish and Roman practices, the early
church saw itself as engaging in representative actions of a definitive order:
participating in the ultimate theater of the creator God. It is this that explains
the vehemence of early Christianity’s lengthy story of opposition to the
Roman or secular theater (a subject explored more fully by Schnusenberg in
earlier work). Christian leaders were against the world’s theater not so much
because it was theater, but because it was, for them, the wrong theater.
As an exercise in comparative religion, Schnusenberg’s work demonstrates exceptional learning in a very large range of literature; her argument

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contains many astute observations and is presented with admirable clarity.
The foundational assumption about the general cultural significance of cosmogonic drama, although overstated at points, is essentially sound, as certainly is the quest to discern the performative aspects of early Christian piety
and the self-consciously competitive missionary strategies by which it was
disseminated.
Where the study falls down is in its failure to take nearly seriously enough
the radical nature of early Christian drama. Although Schnusenberg rightly
sees that the story of Jesus is embedded in the story of Israel’s history with
its God, she fails to see how Israel’s narrative of divine identity-in-action was
itself highly unusual in the ancient world and how, in its continuation and
enlargement of the claims of Israelite faith, early Christianity resists straightforward classification as specimen of a more generic religious phenomenon.
For all the parallels and debts that may undoubtedly be traced across traditions, it is necessary to do justice to the sharp edges of the Christian mythos:
its subversive hero, its distinctive gospels, its political scandalousness in the
Roman world, its summons to participation of a specific order—the discipleship not of re-enactment as such, but of entry into the benefits of ongoing relation with one whose achievement was transformative of all things
and strictly unable to be replaced.Viewed according to the logic of creationredemption bequeathed by Israel, Christianity’s moral and liturgical drama
inevitably conflicted with other ways of doing theater. Reduced to an expression (albeit a striking one) of something more general in antiquity, the particularity of the collision remains in danger of being missed.
The book is well presented and contains very extensive bibliographies. It
would have benefited significantly from an index or two.
IVOR J. DAVIDSON

University of St. Andrews
Medieval

Medieval Religious Rationalities: A Weberian Analysis. By D. L. d’Avray.
(New York: Cambridge University Press. 2010. Pp. x, 198. $85.00 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-521-76707-1; $29.99 paperback, ISBN 978-0-52118682-7.)
Rationalities in History: A Weberian Essay in Comparison. By D. L. d’Avray.
(New York: Cambridge University Press. 2010. Pp. x, 214. $85.00 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-521-19920-0; $29.99 paperback, ISBN 978-0-52112808-7.)
In Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion (Tübingen, 1920–21)
and Economy and Society (Tübingen, 1925), Max Weber developed a taxonomy that distinguished four types of rationality. In the pair of studies
under review, D. L. d’Avray argues that Weber’s four rationalities (instru-

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mental, value, formal, and substantive) might be fruitfully applied to the
study of history.The two volumes are closely related and best understood as
parts of a single argument. In Rationalities in History, the more theoretical
of the two volumes, d’Avray reviews the Weberian framework and suggests
the rewards of using it to interpret diverse historical evidence. In Medieval
Religious Rationalities, he applies Weber’s schema to case studies from the
European Middle Ages. In both volumes, the author rejects readings of
Weber that describe the rise of rationality as a defining feature of modernity. D’Avray argues convincingly that to accept such readings is to misunderstand both Weber and the premodern world. Gratian’s Decretum, for
example, serves as a compelling example of the operation of formal rationality in the medieval period.The Weberian approach has benefits aside from
allowing us to cultivate a subtler understanding of the differences between
the modern world and the Middle Ages. The diverse examples adduced in
Rationalities in History (Azande witch oracles, Hume’s essay on miracles,
and Buddhist asceticism, to name a few) dramatize the appealing prospect
that Weber’s model can foster broadly comparative approaches to the study
of religion and history.
D’Avray is especially interested in the interface of different rationalities.
In Rationalities in History, the Congregation of the Council, a body formed
to interpret the decisions of the Council of Trent, serves as an example of
how value rationalities informed formal legal rationalities. In Medieval
Religious Rationalities, the interplay of rules and exceptions to rules in
canon law illustrates the interface of Weber’s types. In a particularly learned
and engaging discussion, d’Avray shows how papal dispensations for marriages within prohibited degrees of consanguinity reflect a symbiosis of
formal and substantive rationalities.
D’Avray is to be applauded for his range of reference and his eagerness to
confront thorny questions about the relation between history and other
social sciences rather than indulging in the opportunistic cross-disciplinary
borrowing that too often characterizes the boundaries among history, sociology, and anthropology.The works under review are richly thought provoking, but not entirely convincing at every point. The decision to pursue the
argument in two volumes is puzzling. Organizing the material in a single
volume would have allowed the author to knit the empirical evidence more
tightly to the broader theoretical agenda. One also might hope for a more
decisive report of what we gain from looking at the past in this way. D’Avray
shows that Weber’s scheme might be coherently applied to historical evidence, but it is not always clear what benefits are derived from such applications. One could, for example, read with keen appreciation d’Avray’s
insightful account of how medieval religious convictions were parts of interlocking, mutually reinforcing belief systems without believing that recourse
to Weberian models is absolutely necessary. D’Avray’s overarching claim that
Weber can help us hone a more precise analytical vocabulary for describing

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the choices, preferences, and values of people in societies unlike our own
should inspire lively discussion among medievalists, historians in general,
and students of religion.
Kenyon College
Gambier, OH

JEFFREY BOWMAN

Signs of Devotion: The Cult of St. Æthelthryth in Medieval England,
695–1615. By Virginia Blanton. (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press. 2007. Pp. xviii, 349. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-271-02984-9.)
Virginia Blanton’s lucid examination of the cult of St. Æthelthryth (d.
679), founder and first abbess of the abbey of Ely (also known as Ætheldreda
and Audrey/Audrée), is valuable partly in its uniqueness. It is the first study
of an Anglo-Saxon saint to trace its meanings across the early-medieval to
early-modern periods. This multidisciplinary study draws on an impressive
range of sources, including all the extant lives of Æthelthryth (of which over
twenty-five versions survive, written in Latin, Old English, Anglo-Norman,
and Middle English), as well as visual representations of her figure and life in
various media.The book is well illustrated. An appendix provides a useful list
of more than 150 images of the saint, some no longer extant, as well as a list
of dedications. Documentary evidence of both clerical and lay responses to
the cult also are examined. Overall, the book achieves its stated aim of
demonstrating “how one national figure provides a central point of investigation among the cultic practices of several disparate groups over an
extended period of time—religious and lay, aristocratic and common, male
and female, literate and nonliterate” (p. 5). In common with other similar
studies Blanton stresses the malleable and multivalent nature of the cult and
divides her analysis into five chapters. These focus on its manifestation in
specific chronological contexts, thus illuminating the responses of different
groups of devotees.
The first chapter considers the Venerable Bede’s account of Æthelthryth
and explores the importance of his depiction of her miraculously healed
tumor scar as a sign of her inviolate virginity. Blanton argues that this episode
is a crucial part of Bede’s purpose in narrating England’s history as a
Christian community. Chapter 2 focuses on the late-tenth-century cult and
central to the discussion here is the refoundation of Ely, in 970, as a house
solely for monks. Blanton demonstrates that Æthelthryth’s virginity and
power made her an appropriate means of advertising and promoting the
authority of monasticism and clerical chastity.
Chapter 3 examines Æthelthryth’s status as the patron and protector of
the abbey of Ely after the Norman Conquest up until the early-thirteenth
century. Blanton shows that the miracle stories recorded by the Liber

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Eliensis portray the saint’s virginal body as a symbol of the monastic community, and any attempt to abuse the abbey or its resources was therefore
represented within these as an attempted rape. The chief source for the
fourth chapter is the late-twelfth/early-thirteenth-century La Vie Seinte
Audrée, authored by a woman.This version of Æthelthryth’s life embellishes
the existing narrative, including more material on the saint’s experience as a
married woman, and Blanton argues that this was deliberately intended to
render her a figure with whom aristocratic lay female readers could identify.
The final chapter continues the investigation of lay responses to Æthelthryth
by reading later medieval vernacular lives in concert with her frequent representation in parish churches.This provides Blanton with a means of gauging the value that the laity evidently found in her life and cult. Overall,
Blanton’s approach allows her to reveal the array of different meanings and
uses that such a popular saint could embody, and establishes the nature of
Æthelthryth’s appeal to many different groups.
This rich study makes a compelling case for the importance of understanding an individual saint’s cult as a means of inferring how medieval men
and women made sense of their lives and experiences. It is to be hoped that
it will inspire other scholars to subject other saints to similarly sensitive and
insightful scrutiny.
University of Huddersfield

KATHERINE J. LEWIS

The Lindisfarne Gospels and the Early Medieval World. By Michelle P.
Brown. (London:The British Library. Distrib. University of Chicago Press.
2011. Pp. vi, 184. $45.00. ISBN 978-0-712-35801-9.)
With the exception of a short section that incorporates some new
research on relations (traders and pilgrims) between the British Isles and
both the Near and Far East (pp. 44–45) during the seventh and eighth centuries, in terms of its analysis of and conclusions about the Lindisfarne
Gospels, there is little here that cannot also be found in Michelle Brown’s
The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (Toronto,
2003).The chapter titles here are slightly different, but the material covered
is essentially the same: the time, place, and culture in which the book was
created; the book’s biography: its makers, annotators, and owners from the
time of its creation in the late-seventh or early-eighth century to the present;
its late-seventh/early-eighth-century Latin text and its tenth-century Old
English gloss (Northumbrian dialect); its paleography, orthography, and textual conventions; its art and ornament; its styles, techniques, and principles
of design; its place within and its relationship to other forms of art within
the Insular tradition; its codicology, both sacred and procedural; and its
meaning as an embodiment of the Word of God in connection with the cult
of St. Cuthbert in post-Whitby Northumbria.

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What distinguishes this work from Brown’s earlier study is its presentation, which covers all of the above subjects in 300 fewer pages than the earlier work. Here, however, less is actually more, in two ways.
First, this book is lavishly illustrated, with not only full-page color reproductions of all of the essential pages from the Lindisfarne Gospels and several similar pages from contemporary manuscripts and books but also both
color and black-and-white photographs of contemporary architecture, sculpture, and other artistic creations of the period: jewelry; coins; and metal,
wood, and stone carvings and engravings—all of which visually demonstrate
the Lindisfarne Gospels’ place within the Insular tradition. Of its 161 pages
of text, 110 are illustrated; 108 of those are in brilliant color. Like the
Lindisfarne Gospels, this book is a feast for the eyes.
Second, the text itself is color-coded. Information intended for the interested general reader is printed in black; more detail and analysis intended for
the scholar is printed in red—making the book suitable for both types of
readers.
The combination of its easy-to-follow, two-tiered text; its beautiful visuality; its comprehensive approach; and its excellent bibliography make this a
book about a magnificent medieval masterpiece that would be equally at
home on a coffee table or a researcher’s desk. For either type of reader, this
is a book well worth owning.
San Jose State University

BONITA M. COX

Rulers and Ruled in Frontier Catalonia, 880–1010: Pathways of Power. By
Jonathan Jarrett. [Studies in History, New Series.A Royal Historical Society
Publication.] (Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press, an imprint of Boydell &
Brewer. 2010. Pp. xii, 208. $90.00. ISBN 978-0-861-93309-9.)
This is a study of Catalonia in the tenth century (one hesitates to use a
term such as the long tenth century), when the Christian princes of northeastern Iberia gained some advantages, not all of them permanent, over the
Islamic Caliphate on the one hand and the faltering Carolingian kings on the
other. Catalonian scholars have examined the years from the emergence of
autonomous counts (c. 880) to the temporary but dramatic Christian conquest of Córdoba (1010) in terms of the formation of something recognizable as Catalonia. Even if the term Catalonia did not come into use until the
twelfth century, the establishment of a set of independent polities within
and south of the eastern Pyrenees under various counts, mostly of the same
family, has been regarded as the origin of the great medieval principality.The
destruction of Barcelona by al-Mansur in 985 and the response of Count
Borrell II were commemorated in the late 1980s as constituting the “millennium” of Catalonia, and if this did not meet with universal agreement as a

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precise date, the “process of independence”—of which it forms at least a
part—has dominated historiography, to the neglect, according to Jonathan
Jarrett, of asking what really held the fledgling counties together and allowed
them to flourish.
Rather than looking at the tenth century in terms of the future Catalonia,
Jarrett aims to consider the region as a neglected part of the history of the
Carolingian empire. Although the only evidence of interest from the distant
and beleaguered descendants of Charlemagne comes in the form of a few
ecclesiastical confirmations, Jarrett wants to examine the substantial documentary evidence from Catalonia to understand Carolingian institutions and
practices.
This original inspiration tends to evaporate once the author embarks on
his real project, which is to discuss who held power and how they exercised
it—an affair of upper-level peasants, large landowners, and great men in
small spheres who are otherwise unknown. The result is a kind of prosopography of power, especially in the regions to the north of Barcelona:
Osona (centered on the episcopal city of Vic), Bages (centered on the town
of Manresa and the monastery of St. Benet), and the Ripollès (which takes its
name from the great monastery of Ripoll). Particular consideration is given
to valleys belonging to the monastery of Sant Joan “de les Abadesses,” the fortified site of L’Esquerda on the Ter River, and the castellanies of Malla and
Gurb near Vic.
None of these places are household names among medievalists. The
reader not intimately familiar with Osona and its neighbors will not find it
easy to follow the local geography, cast of characters, or ultimately the argument of the book. Jarrett has looked very carefully at those who bought and
sold land, people who turn up as officials and members of the counts’
entourages, and how fortunes were made and lost in a fluid but well-organized frontier setting. The diversity of names and the fact that so many are
unique or unusual during the tenth century allows the author to follow individuals with reasonable confidence through many transactions and appearances. We come to see how territories were settled and to some extent
administered without reference to the impositions of counts and bishops.
Power, Jarrett concludes, was based more on wealth than on title, function,
or delegation—an argument worth making even if it says little about the
Carolingians, who, by this time, were virtually absent.
Yale University

PAUL FREEDMAN

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95

Die Konzilien Deutschlands und Reichsitaliens, 1023–1059—Concilia
aevi Saxonici et Salici, MXXIII–MLIX. Edited by Detlev Jasper.
[Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Concilia, Tomus VIII.] (Hannover:
Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag. 2010. Pp. xxiv, 463. €90,00. ISBN 978-3775-25502-8.)
This latest volume in the MGH Concilia series covers church councils,
synods, and assemblies from Mainz (1023) to the famous Lateran synod of
Pope Nicholas II (1059). In keeping with the format of the series, Detlev
Jasper has furnished a complete apparatus for each council, including handlists of all manuscripts containing published decrees, acta, or other surviving
documentation. In addition, he has noted the relevant secondary literature;
provided excerpts from indirect references to the councils contained in letters, annals, saints’ lives, or other sources; and prefaced each with a brief
overview of our state of historical knowledge concerning it. Full editions of
the canons and their prologues, historical narratives of conciliar proceedings,
and charters drawn up at the assemblies round out the contents. The end
matter—consisting of textual incipits, biblical and literary citations, terminological index, and concordance—make the volume exceptionally easy to use.
In all, the volume includes forty-three assemblies. More than 60 percent
were held in Italy. There was one held in France, and the remainder were
held in German lands. Documentary evidence varies tremendously from
council to council, and Jasper has included not only minor provincial synods
(for example, Venice, 1040; Toul, 1056; and Fontaneto d’Agogna, 1057) but
also papal and imperial assemblies, some of which, by virtue of the broad
transmission of their canons or decrees, approach something like “universal”
status in the Latin Church (e.g., Rome, 1059). The collection makes clear that
a council’s wider influence did not necessarily correlate to its size or the
number of dignitaries in attendance. The provincial synod of Seligenstadt
(August 12, 1023) furnishes an excellent example. In all, six bishops and ten
abbots attended, most from the province of Mainz. The famous canonist
Burchard of Worms was among them, and the canons issued at Seligenstadt
frequently were transmitted together with his Decretum and display many
parallels to it; thus, they survive in twenty-nine manuscripts and two recensions, and were copied throughout Italy, Germany, France, and as far afield as
Durham. Seligenstadt is an exception rather than the rule, however. The
canons of only a handful of councils covered in this volume are extant, and
few circulated widely.
The conciliar “high point” of the eleventh century was arguably
Nicholas’s Lateran Synod of April–May 1059 (pp. 352–407). The superiority
of Jasper’s edition to earlier editions of the conciliar texts, including the
1893 edition of Ludwig Weiland in volume 1 of the MGH Constitutiones et
acta publica imperatorum et regum, is evident here. In addition to gathering more than a dozen secondhand reports of the council, Jasper brings

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together in one place all of its known legislation and acta, previously scattered piecemeal across a variety of publications. Included are the papal election decree and Nicholas’s oration on simoniacal ordinations; the synodal
report on deliberations concerning the reform of communities of canons; a
sentence of excommunication pronounced against several French bishops;
the oath sworn by Berengar of Tours; and the papal letter to the bishops of
Gaul,Aquitaine, and Gascony listing the canons issued at the council. Having
a reliable edition with all the legislation in one place is a great boon to
researchers.
This is, of course, one goal of the MGH Concilia series, which expands
and improves on the earlier editions of Giovanni Mansi, Philippe Labbe and
Gabriel Cossart, Jacques-Paul Migne, and others.To this ambitious endeavor,
Jasper’s volume is a worthy and successful contribution.
Portland State University

JOHN S. OTT

Ælred de Rievaulx, 1110–1167: De l’homme éclaté à l’être unifié. Essai de
biographie existentielle et spirituelle. By Pierre-André Burton. (Paris: Les
éditions du Cerf, 2010. Pp. 650. €39,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-204-09033-9.)
In recent years St. Ælred has gained in popularity; previously, his friend
and fellow abbot, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, tended to receive the lion’s share
of attention. A flood of monographs and articles have demonstrated intense
scholarly interest in Ælred’s life, works, and teachings.
With this hefty volume Pierre-André Burton has contributed his encyclopedic knowledge of the sources, a synthesis of previous scholarship, and a
novel approach that offers deeply insightful and far-ranging results. Burton
draws on the literary, doctrinal, sociohistorical, and psychohistorical
approaches of recent scholars, notably his mentor, the late and much-revered
Charles Dumont. Burton’s own design is an interlacing of two threads: an
ordering principally, although not systematically, chronological and what he
calls an existential ordering. These approaches are integrated through considerations of the principal events or works of each stage of Ælred’s life.
Burton’s exposition of this methodology constitutes the first part of the
book.
The second part,“The Time of Human and Spiritual Foundation,” encompasses the period 1110–34. Of particular interest are chapters 3 and 4, which
focus on Ælred’s intellectual formation and his stay at the Scottish court that
culminated in his conversion. That conversion Burton characterizes as a
triple quest for peace, freedom, and internal unity.
The third part offers insights into Ælred’s monastic formation and first
pastoral responsibilities. Burton sees this stage of Ælred’s growth reflected

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in his Mirror of Love. That growth marks his development of an affective
anthropology—a reconciliation of the flesh and the spirit—and an affective
Christology—an affectionate devotion to the humanity of Christ and an
embrace of spiritual friendship.
Burton’s fourth part explores Ælred’s spiritual growth from ascesis to
charity, following the “way of excellence” that is spiritual friendship—powerfully expressed in his treatise on that topic. Burton also offers a detailed
description of the events that characterize this growth in the early 1110s,
centering on Ælred’s success as a master builder of community. Ælred’s conviction was that he must be at once father, mother, and friend to his monks.
The fifth part of the work examines Ælred’s life during the 1150s and
1160s. Burton sees this as the period of Ælred’s spiritual maturity and activity as the moral conscience of his time.The latter is exhibited in Ælred’s historical works. Here Burton offers a penetrating discussion of Ælred’s stance
on the relationship of Church and society.
Burton’s chapter 10, “Toward a Mystical Theology of History or the
Cosmic Mystery of the Cross of Christ,” features an analysis of Ælred’s littleread Homilies on the Burdens of Isaiah. In these works Burton sees Ælred
moving from the formation of Christ in the soul and in the Church to the formation of Christ in history.
Throughout this encyclopedic tome, Burton offers historical, theological,
psychological, and philosophical insights of a high order. The quality and
thoroughness of the book virtually demands its translation into English.
University of Dallas (Emeritus)

JOHN R. SOMMERFELDT

King Stephen. By Edmund King. [Yale English Monarchs Series.] (New
Haven: Yale University Press. 2011. Pp. xviii, 382. ISBN 978-0-300-11223-8.)
Edmund King offers a well-researched and valuable biography of King
Stephen. His study adds to the seven other monographs and two sizable collections of essays on the topic published to date. The reason why Stephen is
probably the most studied king of England, next to John, lies in continued
interest in his ultimate failure as an Anglo-Norman monarch and, in particular,
his inability to control his Church and unruly nobility. The traditional view is
that Stephen’s reign formed an unsatisfactory interlude between the more
successful and peaceful rule of Henry I (1100–35) and that of his talented
grandson, Henry II (1154–89). To contemporaries, the turmoil of Stephen’s
nineteen years was in stark contrast to the previous reign that is viewed by
many as a vanished golden age. Modern historians choosing to write on
Stephen’s reign almost inevitably run the gauntlet of dealing with the substantial collection of primary sources and the monumental historiography of
the subject. Adding something new and valuable to the debate is difficult, and

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the merits of this could be questioned. King admits that his is a work of biography—a fair point—yet here offers a narrative that maneuvers around (and
sometimes ignores) the most recent historiography of Stephen’s reign.
Much attention is given to Stephen’s religious nature and activities as well
as his well-documented relationship with the bishops—in particular, his
brother, Henry of Winchester (to whom King attributes much of his success).
Less well explored is the critical association between Stephen and the barons,
with limited analysis of the roles of Waleran II of Meulan and Robert of
Gloucester, as well as curial lords such as Ranulf II of Chester. This is problematic as a number of key issues are denied their due significance (for example, the emergence of Robert of Gloucester as the leader of the Angevin cause
in 1138, which overshadowed the politics of England until Stephen’s capture
at Lincoln, and Count Waleran’s exit from the realm). As might be expected,
King provides a masterly treatment of the contemporary chronicles and the
charters issued in the king’s name, although it is a pity that he tends to shy
away from the question of the authorship of the Gesta Stephani.
Throughout the book, the author attempts to offer a balanced assessment
of the strengths and weaknesses of Stephen’s leadership and problematic
reign.Yet the focus is on the political and dynastic people who, we are told,
molded Stephen’s destiny. Thus it was his ambitious brother Henry who
largely engineered his seizure of the throne, whereas Stephen’s war strategy
depended greatly on the role played by his wife, Matilda of Boulogne, who
wished to protect the succession for her son, Eustace. Although recent historiography tends to emphasize the king’s role in monastic foundations and
benefactions (especially toward Cluny and Savigny), most of the credit is
given to Matilda. Also, much emphasis is placed on the influence of the
king’s adversaries—Robert of Gloucester; Stephen’s cousin, Empress Matilda;
and her son, Henry, who succeeded Stephen in 1154.The author concludes
that Stephen was essentially “weak” and perhaps harshly views him as just
“acting a part” (p. 339). It seems that the usual picture of Stephen as a brave,
yet insubstantial, man and ruler as well as political failure is largely upheld in
this latest biography of a flawed medieval king of England.
University of Wales, Trinity Saint David

ANDREW ABRAM

The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts. By
Margot E. Fassler. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2010. Pp. xiii, 612.
$55.00. ISBN 978-0-300-11088-3.)
The magnificent cathedral of Chartres, dedicated to the Virgin, needs no
introduction to most medievalists. Those who have made the pilgrimage to
Chartres cannot fail to feel awe at the sight of the edifice and its domination
of the wheatfields on the Beauce plateau, its towering western façade, and
the soaring interior—a place of mystery, peace, and grace. Some of that mys-

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tery extends to large portions of the cathedral’s medieval history because of
the unfortunate destruction, in the Allied bombing on May 26, 1944, of many
of the holdings of the city’s Bibliothèque municipale. Photographic records
and inventories of some medieval manuscripts survive, but much irretrievably perished. Margot Fassler attempts to penetrate some of the mystery
through her analysis of the cathedral’s history and the ways in which its clerics shaped that history through their celebration of the liturgy and the
design of the space in which the liturgy took place.
Fassler begins by situating the cathedral, the Virgin, and the principal
relic—the tunic said to have been worn by Mary during the birth of Jesus—
in the social and political history of the central Middle Ages.Viking raids; the
struggles for power among the Carolingians and their successors; and finally
the emergence of the comital family of the Thibaudians, linked maritally in
the twelfth century with the royal houses of both England and France, all take
turns on the stage at Chartres. Throughout, the intercessory power of Mary
and her relic, together with the church that housed it, play central roles in the
drama.Within this context, then, the author shows how the liturgy that came
to be celebrated at the cathedral shaped and retold history, biblical history,
the life of Mary and Jesus, and the history of the city and the cathedral itself.
The central focus of the book occupies its third and fourth sections,
where Fassler recounts the rebuilding of the cathedral in the twelfth century, detailing the contributions of successive bishops and lay patrons (conveniently summarized in tabular form in appendix H, pp. 450–53). She provides a critical analysis of the architecture and its decoration, showing how
the physical setting interacted with the liturgical ceremonies that took place
in and around it to reshape and reinterpret the history that they, the decorative and liturgical programs, mutually presented. The many photographic
illustrations included admirably supplement the discussion. As a kind of running counterbalance to this intensive analysis, the author presents, like a
series of vignettes throughout the book, the texts of prominent chants in the
liturgy, scrutinizing their internal meaning and their role in liturgical practices at the cathedral, all complemented by an anthology of some of the most
important chants sung there (appendix D, pp. 387–419). Another useful
appendix (A, pp. 369–75) lists the cathedral’s musical and liturgical books.
This book represents the synthesis of an enormous amount of material
from social and political history through architecture and the decorative arts
to the liturgy and its constituent music. The reader emerges with a much
clearer idea of the history of the city and the cathedral during this tumultuous period, but especially of the way its clerics preserved and reshaped
that history in the cathedral’s decoration, and especially in its re-enactment
during the celebration of the liturgy.
University of Western Ontario

JAMES GRIER

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Carta Caritatis—Verfassung der Zisterzienser. Rechtsgeschichtliche Analyze
einer Manifestation monasticher Reformideale im 12. Jahrhundert. By
Monika R. Dihsmaier. [Schriften zur Rechtsgeschichte, Heft 149.] (Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot, 2010. Pp. 261. €68,00 paperback. ISBN 978-3-42813404-5.)
The aim of this work is to compare and comment on three versions of the
Cistercian charter of charity as it developed over the course of the twelfth century. The work presents in three parallel columns three versions of the Carta
Caritatis, or CC. These are the CC Primitiva or CC1, apparently as derived from
the Ljubljana manuscript, and dated according to the author to c. 1119
(because purported to be earlier than the 1135 date once given to the Trent
manuscript). As I have shown in The Cistercian Evolution (Philadelphia,
2000), Trent begins with an 1135 manuscript but the CC materials are part of
the remade manuscript to which has been attached various pages and first and
last quires. Next in the book is the Summa CC published by Jean Leclercq in
1952 and attributed to c. 1125. Finally included is the CC posterior or CC2
attributed to after 1152, as argued by Edmund Mikkers in 1985.
This sequence and dating has been challenged by my work and that of the
late Chrysogonus Waddell—although we have not always been in agreement.
Monika Dihsmaier does not cite Waddell’s edition of the Consuetudines
monachorum Cisterciensis, but includes under Waddel [sic] only an article,
“The Exordium Cistercii and the SCC,” from Cistercian Ideals and Reality
(Kalamazoo, 1978). She includes no reference to my examination of the manuscripts in The Cistercian Evolution. Many other relevant recent books in
English such as Giles Constable’s The Reformation of the Twelfth Century
(New York, 1996) are missing.
Even without any effort to review the much more complex manuscript
evidence, the text itself suggests that apparent sequencing from CC1 to SCC
to CC2 cannot be maintained. Although this may have little effect on the discussion of the various chapters as part of the development of a customary
or law for the Cistercians with regard to other developments of canon law,
challenges to the presumed dating obviate the claim on page 39 that the
Cistercian Charter of Charity establishes a precedence for the development
of Cistercian institutions over those of Chalais, Arrouaise, Prémontré, and
Oigny. Indeed, abolishing the precocious dates for the CC claimed by the
Cistercians obviates their claims of the Order’s precedence in the development of institutions. Indeed, it is obvious that twelfth-century monastic institutional developments once thought to be dated firmly by Cistercian documents need to be reassessed in light of our inability to date any longer the
early Cistercian practices to the first quarter of the twelfth century.
There are many other difficulties.The chapter titles included for the CC1
are later than versions of SCC and CC2 that do not include those chapter
titles. Although the author makes comparisons to canon law that may be

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useful (such as on the authority of father abbots over daughter-houses), she
has not given attention to the later placement of father abbots in oversight
of daughter-houses of nuns. Indeed, although the author does cite the evidence of Jean de la Croix Bouton, Benoît Chauvin, and Elisabeth Grosjean on
le Tart, issues about Cistercian nuns are generally occluded.
If the study has a virtue, it is in placing divergent versions of institutional
texts side by side, as on page 122 (“Quod si aliqua ecclesia pauperiem intolerabilem incurrerit. . .”), which is identical in CC1 and CC2, but wholly different in SCC. Perhaps this points to a variety of versions of the twelfth-century
CC for which no sequential development may be argued. The overall treatment, however, has missed the discussion of at least a decade.
University of Iowa

CONSTANCE HOFFMAN BERMAN

Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th–13th
Centuries. Translated by Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate. [Crusade Texts
in Translation, Vol. 18.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2010. Pp. xv,
188. ISBN 978-0-754-66356-0.)
This excellent and very useful collection of eighty-two letters ranges from
the well-known letter of Stephen of Blois to his wife, Adela, in June 1097, displaying admirable domestic affection, but grossly underestimating the time it
might take to travel from Nicaea to Jerusalem—“[five weeks] if Antioch does
not hold us up” (p. 1)—to one from James of Molay to James II, king of
Aragon, in April 1306, announcing the death of one messenger and the
appointment of another, who also was to deliver an oral supplement to the
letter. In the latter case, James was tactfully refusing to accede to a request
from the king. Between 1097 and 1306 (and, after 1306, from Cyprus—James
of Molay’s letter is sent from Limassol—and other bases) a great deal of the
business of the Holy Land was accounted for in letters, not only from the
great to the great (Conrad III [nos. 15, 17], Louis VII of France [no. 16], various kings of Jerusalem [nos. 22–24, 26, 32, 36], Frederick Barbarossa [no. 49],
Richard I of England [nos. 50–51], two Il-Khans of Persia [nos. 72, 81] the
leader of the Assassins [no. 52], and Prester John [no. 33]) but also from a
considerably wider spectrum of Christian society in the East than other
letter collections contain.The existence of oral supplements occurs in other
letters as well, suggesting that the messages beyond the letters—most now,
of course, lost—were probably as interesting and important as the letters
themselves. After 1098, all the letters traveled by sea, risking shipwreck
(James of Vitry [no. 58]), and a number of them contain indications of
authenticity, since forgery was as possible in letters as in charters.
Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate translate directly from printed editions of
the original sources and therefore give a contemporary linguistic consistency to their translations, even catching the level of Latin of the originals.

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They translate ten of the twenty-three letters on the First Crusade edited by
Heinrich Hagenmeyer in 1901, but there is, alas, only a brief bibliographical
mention of the pioneering earlier translations into English by Dana Munro in
1896 and A. C. Krey in 1921 (p. 173). The rest are translated from various
nineteenth-century editions (PL, RHG, various cartularies and chronicles, and
the MGH) as well as from more recent editions by Alan Forey, Nikolas Jaspert,
B. Z. Kedar, and Paul Meyvaert.1
Overall, the coverage is more than adequate for the entire period.The nine
letters recounting the disasters at Hattin and Jerusalem from July to October
1187 (nos. 41–49), and the letter describing the destruction of Jerusalem and
the defeat at La Forbie in 1244 (no. 68) convey a kind of alarm verging on
despair that is different from the more routine requests for aid on other occasions. From another perspective, the relentlessly informative James of Vitry
(nos. 58–60) tells us as much as anyone ever did about the perception of an
educated, pastoral-minded bishop on the journey out from Western Europe,
who became furiously displeased with the moral climate of his new Diocese
of Acre. The military orders are well represented (nos. 18, 25, 27–31, 35, 38,
42, 46, 48, 53, 55, 61, 62, 67, 70, 73, 75–80, 82), as are, when possible, lowerranking folk (nos. 38, 56, 79). John Sarrasin’s letter of 1249 (no. 69) is an essential complement to the narrative of Joinville on the crusade of King Louis IX.
The book is now essential reading for any course in crusade history and
takes a proud place in a distinguished publication series.
University of Pennsylvania (Emeritus)

EDWARD PETERS

Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Preaching, 1200–1500. Edited by Katherine L. Jansen and Miri Rubin. [Europa
Sacra, Vol. 4.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2010. Pp. xii, 260. €60,00. ISBN 978-2503-52859-5.)
The product of a 2004 conference, this edition of twelve papers by Miri
Rubin and Katherine Jansen seeks to understand the lived reality of religious
preaching among the three monotheistic religions, a welcome broadening of
our views of medieval preaching. In this undertaking the guiding light is Max
Weber and his thoughts on “charisma” and “charismatic leadership.” All in all,
it proves to be a constructive collaboration.
1
Alan Forey, “Letters of the Last Two Templar Masters,” Nottingham Medieval
Studies, 45, no. 12 (2001), 145–71; Nikolas Jaspert,“Zwei unbekannte Hilfersuchen des
Patriarchen Eraclius vor dem Fall Jerusalems (1187),” Deutsches Archiv für
Erforschung des Mitterlalters, 60, nos. 1 and 2 (2004), 483–516; B. Z. Kedar, “Ein
Hilferuf aus Jerusalem vom September 1187,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des
Mitterlalters, 35 (1982), 112–22; Paul Meyvaert,“An Unknown Letter of Hulagu, Il-Khan
of Persia, to Louis IX of France,” Viator, 11 (1980), 245–60.

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An instructive introduction lays out the recent scholarship on preaching,
as well as clarifies the meaning and use of Weber’s terms. The introduction
usefully lays out the main issues and does not shy away from the fact that
lived preaching is notoriously difficult to reconstruct from the extant
sources. After that, the book is divided into five sections that deal with
authority, polemics, lived performance, sacred space, and political change in
the context of various aspects of preaching in the light of Weber’s considerations. The only absence is charisma and miracle working, although several
papers do touch on that important aspect of popular preaching. The focus
on Weber remains mostly intact throughout the work, a singular achievement
in such a disparate group of papers and a testament to editorial care.
The book opens with one of its finest and most useful chapters, one by
Linda Jones on medieval Islamic preaching. Jones takes the reader on a trip
to an unfamiliar world and explains it thoroughly while offering insight into
the natures of both silence and ritual as they relate to charisma. Geert
Warnar’s paper also is well done and offers a great current appraisal of
Meister Eckhart studies; however, the connection to the previous paper is a
bit unclear.As the volume moves on, the focus does seem to wander a bit.
Beverly Kienzle’s expertise in sermon studies is well known, and her
essay is another fine example of her scholarship, this time on Hildegard’s
antiheretical preaching. She suggests that Hildegard’s antiheretical message
won approval from clerics, even in the midst of papal-imperial schism, and
allowed the abbess to continue her work. Marc Saperstein’s look at Jewish
preaching is very interesting, especially in regard to the problems of regulating preachers, but seems too broad for the current work in that it looks at
issues far beyond 1500. The ways in which popular preachers were able to
insinuate themselves into Islamic communities is very well laid out in
Jonathan Berkey’s contribution.
Moving into the sacred space of preaching, Nerit Debby’s paper is partly
about sacred drama and partly about the place of the pulpit in Tuscan church
architecture. Ottó Gecser offers an interesting look at St. John of
Capistrano’s deployment of charisma north of the Alps, through reputation
and ritual panoply, purposively contrasted with his personal poverty. George
Ferzoco contributes a piece on the Italian hermits Ss. John Bono and Peter
of the Morrone, and describes the contrasts involved with eremitical preachers. Gabriella Zarri writes a particularly useful essay on women preachers in
late-medieval Italy. She argues that their authority derived from the “routinization” of charisma (a Weberian idea to which the authors often return)
that comes from the sacrality of consecrated life itself. Zarri usefully broadens our notion of preaching to include monastic discourse and prophecy.
The final section discusses preaching and political change. Christopher
Fletcher offers a very contextualized reading of dreams and sermons surrounding the Good Parliament of 1376.The antityrannicide sermons of Jean

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Gerson at the Council of Constance form the backbone of Mishtooni Bose’s
consideration of the dynamic relation of charisma and orthodoxy. Stephen
Milner concludes the collection with a reflective and useful summation of
the main themes, skillfully woven into a consideration of the religious conceptions of the Italian communes.
This is a well-produced and -edited collection, with only two incidental
spelling errors. Many of the papers are insightful. It would have been interesting to read Jansen’s and Rubin’s own studies on the topic, but given the
variety that already exists among the papers, that absence is understandable.
Given the especially interesting essays on Islam, it would have been nice to
see more scholarship on Judaism and the Islamic world. As it is, there are
nine essays on Europe, two on Islam, and only one on Judaism. All in all, however, it is a very interesting collection.
Jacksonville State University

DONALD S. PRUDLO

The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from Her
Canonization Hearings.Translated with notes and interpretive essays by
Kenneth Baxter Wolf. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xviii,
230. $74.00. ISBN 978-0-199-73258-6.)
Wolf, the John Sutton Miner Professor of History at Pomona College, has
provided something that students of medieval hagiography have long
awaited—a good English translation, with notes, of all the testimonies from
the canonization process for St. Elizabeth, carried out between 1232 and
1235. This important work is one of the earliest and most complete examples of the formal papal canonization process that took shape in the earlythirteenth century.Along with the testimonies on Elizabeth’s life by her four
closest female companions, known as the Dicta, and the summary of her life
by her confessor, Conrad of Marburg, the records include official depositions
on 130 miracles worked through her intercession.
Wolf says that the only previous partial English translation of these testimonies was done in the 1950s by Nesta de Robeck; he missed my translation
in The Greatest of These Is Love: St. Elizabeth of Hungary (New York, 2007).
Although his is still not a complete edition of the process—it lacks the letters of Pope Gregory IX to the commissioners and the bull of canonization—
Wolf’s is the first to contain all the miracle testimonies.
In addition to the clear and readable translation, notes, and solid bibliography, Wolf has included two essays—one on the witnesses to the saint’s
virtues and one on the miracle testimonies. He draws a sharp distinction
between the “life” of the saint, or the reconstruction of her personality by
those who knew her, and the “afterlife,” in which the witnesses to the miracles see her as a supplier of healing cures rather than as a real person whose
virtues should be imitated.

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Wolf indicates a range of possibilities for the way different models of
sanctity might have affected the testimonies of the witnesses to Elizabeth’s
life. His comments about the similarities between her social concerns and
those of the Beguines are particularly good. The witnesses show her
reflecting some aspects of Franciscan life, such as penitential preaching,
that fall outside of the usual hagiographic conventions. He successfully
brings out the way that the miracle testimonies indicate the varying
degrees of sophistication in ordinary people’s understanding of the theology of saintly intercession.
However,Wolf could have dealt more with the nature of the existing text
of the Dicta; some scholars believe that the work does not represent the
original depositions but a Vita based on them, in which the words of the witnesses were rearranged and possibly cut. This certainly would have affected
his approach to the text. He also fails to take into account the additional testimonies from the process discovered in the Anonymous Franciscan life.
Wolf also never states his criteria for determining when omission of
something in the testimonies is significant. He believes people were uninterested in Elizabeth’s personality or virtues, but the questions asked by commissioners did not even broach the issue, and people might have been reticent about commenting on the personal traits of a member of the nobility
before officials. One witness recounted that hearing a German song about
Elizabeth’s farewell to her husband moved her while she was on her pilgrimage. How many other people heard it, were moved, and yet did not testify about it—and why?
In spite of some shortcomings,Wolf’s book is a valuable resource.
New York, NY

LORI PIEPER

The Letters of Adam Marsh.Vol. II. Edited and translated by C. H. Lawrence.
[Oxford Medieval Texts.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 2010. Pp. x,
291–664. $160.00. ISBN 978-0-199-57584-8.)
The current volume is the continuation and conclusion of an edition and
translation project that has been received favorably because of the quality of
the textual criticism and the English rendering of the Latin (and to a small
degree also French) texts. The second volume, which contains letters no. 110
to no. 245, offers a continuation of the text without further introductory
remarks.The correspondence represents its writer’s wide range of interests
and extensive network of correspondents, including Queen Eleanor; Sanchia,
her sister and countess of Cornwall; Eleanor de Montfort, countess of
Leicester; Aymer de Valence, half-brother of King Henry III; Simon de
Montfort, earl of Leicester; Peter, count of Savoy; John of Lexington, steward
of the royal household; and Sewal de Bovill, archbishop of York.The twenty
letters in this volume addressed either to Simon de Montfort or to Eleanor,

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his wife and sister of King Henry III, are testimony of the intense contact
between them and the Franciscan scholar. Further letters were sent to two
Franciscan ministers general, Blessed John of Parma and St. Bonaventure of
Bagnoregio, and to the English provincial, William of Nottingham, who
received at least thirty-nine letters. Not all letters to aristocratic correspondents deal with the great affairs of state. It is true that the friar Adam Marsh
tried to help overcome Henry III’s resistance to the appointment of a new
bishop of St. Asaph in 1249 (no. 124) and that he informed Simon de
Montfort of his conversation with the king about the earl’s affairs (no. 138).
However, Marsh knew the limits of his influence. Much of his correspondence to magnates focuses on issues such as a request to return the vicar of
the chancellor of Salisbury after the earl of Leicester had taken the vicar
abroad. The vicar had the cure of souls in Odiham, and his absence left the
village without an adequate ministry. Other letters feature cryptic admonitions to the earl to maintain the peace in his household or to control his
steward (no. 141). For some of these letters it would have been helpful if further detail on the particular issues had been provided. It should be noted,
however, that in many instances the editor provides helpful references to
personal names and placenames as well as additional information on events.
Although the material is not unknown—the letters were published for
the first time in the nineteenth century—they offer insights into Franciscan
life and work in thirteenth-century England that are not provided by other
sources. Marsh’s fame could be converted into influence and patronage, and
letters with requests for assistance to relatives and other people close to him
form another important part of the collection. They deal mostly with petitions for help with career development; exoneration of ill officials from the
duties and burdens of their office; and even admonitions to repay debts, as
the friar attempted to mediate between the particular parties with the hope
to avoid litigation. To his English confrères, Marsh was not merely a prominent intellectual.They also wanted to use his contacts and apparently asked
him to intervene on behalf of outsiders, as Marsh stated in a letter to William
de Beauchamp, sheriff of Worcestershire and a member of one of the kingdom’s great aristocratic families (no. 148).This example of the petitioner as
recipient of petitions from his fellow friars reveals a hierarchy that had
emerged among the Franciscans by the middle of the thirteenth century.
Bonaventure held Marsh in high esteem. Although they planned to meet, it
never occurred, and the English friar’s sphere of influence does not seem to
have exceeded the boundaries of his province. His request for confirmation
of the re-election of his friend William of Nottingham as English provincial
minister in 1254 was not granted because the general chapter of that year
had already absolved William from office.
There is a minor discrepancy in no. 113—“Thomas of Anstan,” “Thomas of
Anston” for “de Anesti”—which could have been clarified.The letters in the
present volume are important sources for historians interested in the intel-

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lectual history of the thirteenth century, the early history of the Franciscan
order, and the political history of England in this period. Overall, this is a
superb edition.
University of Birmingham

JENS RÖHRKASTEN

Colette of Corbie (1381–1447): Learning and Holiness. By Elisabeth Lopez.
Ed. Elise Saggau. Trans. Joanna Waller. (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan
Institute Publications. 2011. Pp. xx, 616. ISBN 978-1-576-59217-5.)
Elisabeth Lopez offers a broad survey of the many historical sources that
pertain to various aspects of the life of St. Colette of Corbie. Extensive appendices enhance the collection of these historical sources. These appendices
offer access to the historical sources utilized through the use of chronologies, tables of various foundations, maps, glossaries, an exhaustive index of
names and places, an inventory of archives, and an extensive bibliography.
Anyone who wishes to engage in a study of Colette now has a rich resource
with which to begin. Lopez has collected and identified the significance of
the multiple and varied sources. These include the hagiographies, Colette’s
Constitutions, her letters, letters written to her, and significant papal documents. This is actually a good resource for the study of reform movements in
general in the early-fifteenth century, especially in France. These sources also
are pertinent to the Franciscan Observant reform.
A most valuable part of this collection of studies is found in the first part,
which reviews and compares the two Vitae of Colette. This was offered in a
parallel study of the two texts, the one by Pierre de Vaux written c. 1447 and
the other by Sister Perrine written in 1477. The former was a Colletine friar
who was Colette’s friend and spiritual director; the latter was one of Colette’s
sisters who lived with her for many years. This comparison of these two Vitae
demonstrates the many factors that enter into the writing of a vita.
Subsequent sections of part 1 draw out the differences between the two
Vitae, and the reader thereby gains some insight into multiple aspects of the
concept of sainthood that emerged in the fifteenth century. The author allows
the reader to see the development of Colette’s notion of sanctity. Her “spirituality actually moves away from the mystical toward a solid piety that
encourages a virtuous life . . . rather than attempting to return to the origins
of its own [St. Clare’s] spirituality” (p. 96). Thus, Colette’s “form of sanctity is
demonstrated by a set of fixed, pre-determined evidential data” (p. 129).
The second part reviews Colette’s letters, identifying themes and purposes and analyzing her Constitutions. The emphasis in her writings differs
in a number of ways from the emphasis found in the vitae. In reading these
letters and Constitutions, the reader enters into her connection with currents of the Observant reform and thus learns why she wanted her own
Colettine friars:

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[She] provided for each monastery a number of Colettine friars, responsible for celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, collecting alms and acting
on behalf of the nuns with the outside world . . . the right to dismiss any
particular friar from his position belonged to Colette. (p. 190)
In the consideration of the Constitutions, the author gives a survey of the
earlier legislative texts of Popes Innocent IV and Urban VI. This helps contextualize the uniqueness of Colette’s vision. The author points out that
“Colette took a different view, with minute detail indicating rather a certain
dogmatism rather than a supernatural, creative freedom” (p. 247). Even
William of Casals wrote in a letter to Colette, “I am afraid of imposing too
heavy a burden on your sisters” (p. 265).
The third part surveys Colette’s relationships with the world. She was well
connected to the House of Bourbon, the House of Savoy, and the House of
Burgundy. She visited Pope Benedict XIII and received confirmation of privileges from the Pisan Pope John XXIII. She engaged St. John Capistrano as legate
of Pope Eugene IV and firmly defended her independence from the Observants
who were concerned that this nun could “take friars away from obedience to
the vicar of the Observants” (p. 332). The manner in which she engaged males
in high places proved her strength and her independent spirit. By the time she
died in 1447, “she had founded and reformed seventeen monasteries, which
would soon spread” (p. 334). This study of her own writings and relationships
to the powers of the early-fifteenth century indicate her reform was part of general movement, especially in France. Lopez points out how the French reform
differed from the reform in Italy, which,“a more cultured and humanist society,
adopted more diversified structures that emphasized the primacy of the person
. . . in France one woman made the rules” (p. 380).
Finally, Lopez completes her study with a survey of the history of the
Colettines in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Colette was canonized
in 1807. This opened a fresh period for a flourishing of foundations in
Belgium and France. From there new foundations spread.
Thus, this book is exhaustive and covers a long span of history and a multitude of different texts. It is thereby a rich resource for beginning any study
of Colette. In effect, Lopez points out that Colette reintroduces the Rule of
St. Clare (more properly Clare’s Form of Life) and begins to make changes to
that Rule in view of fifteenth-century reform movements in France. Since so
much is based on this premise, it would be interesting to know which manuscripts Colette had available as she reintroduced that rule.
In the wealth of new information gathered in one place and the new
questions it raises, Lopez has made a fine contribution to the rich resources
found in the Franciscan tradition.
Saint Louis University

WAYNE HELLMANN, O.F.M.CONV.

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Le Concile de Pise. Qui travaillait à l’union de l’Église d’Occident en 1409?
By Hélène Millet. [Ecclesia Militans. Histoire des hommes et des institutions de l’Église au Moyen Âge.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2010. Pp. 443. €60,00
paperback. ISBN 978-2-503-53198-4.)
This book is the culmination of many years of work. Hélène Millet
explains that her first publication was a new list of the Council of Pisa in
1981 which might have been followed by a definitive study of the whole
council had not circumstances intervened. She therefore decided to republish that first list with some earlier work. The first list now includes an index
and additional notes, a chronological list of events, and republished articles
comparing MSS Uppsala C 47 and Vat lat 3477 and discussing the representative nature of Pisa, the French delegation, the Angevins at the Council, and
the Portuguese.Therefore, this is not a complete history of the Council, but
rather is a series of reflections on how Pisa came to think the unthinkable
(that a council could assemble without the pope); how representative it was;
and why it has not been included among general councils, even though it
began the healing of the Great Schism. Millet wishes to rehabilitate Pisa into
the list of genuine Councils of the Church.
Millet underscores again the efforts of the cardinals who convened Pisa
to make it as widely representative as possible; thus she stresses the importance of the numerous procurations. The English delegation was relatively
small, but the proxies were many, and we know quite a lot about how they
were gathered.The idea, according to Millet, was to ensure that the Council
represented the universal Church as understood by jurists at the time. She
guesses, however, that voting was almost certainly by prelates only (as was
traditional) and that the assent of other delegates to the sentence of the
Council was given after the decision had been taken.
The reader is left wondering whether Pisa really was the most important
of the councils of the Conciliar Movement, as the author tries to persuade
us. Pisa did not really offer a solution to the true crisis in the Church, because
that crisis involved conflicting ecclesiologies.What is evident here is that the
assembly did produce a case for a council called by the cardinals as a judge
of erring popes, although that assent was by no means universal even in the
West. But, on its own terms, Pisa was only justified if the popes were guilty;
and so, in a sense, it was largely a propaganda machine. For this reason, it is
hard to consider it as anything except an unclassifiable event, rather than a
traditional council. It could be justified from past theory, but the charges
against the popes were carefully fudged to align them with various theories
to justify the action that was to be taken. Students of English history can see
both how the Crown directed the assent and how the nature of the charges
was left unclear, probably deliberately, to allow as wide an assent as possible.
This volume will be of value to specialists, and the index and commentary
on the delegate list are well worth having. Pisa remains, however, an ambigu-

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ous event. Perhaps it was the only answer possible to start the process of
ending the Schism, and one should not try too hard to fit it into a traditional
pattern for General Councils. Probably a new, complete history will reopen
that debate.
Durham University

MARGARET HARVEY

The Call to Read: Reginald Pecock’s Books and Textual Communities. By
Kirsty Campbell. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2010. Pp.
xi+, 311. $38.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-268-02306-5.)
Reginald Pecock has the reputation of being a difficult and idiosyncratic
writer. During his lifetime, he went from being an influential and apparently
well-regarded cleric attached to the Whittington Hospital in the City of
London to become bishop, first of St. Asaph in Wales in 1444 and then of
Chichester in 1450. But from 1447 he seems to have aroused hostility among
the clerical authorities because of his teaching; in the 1450s he was charged
with heresy on various scores, recanted, and was forced to consign many of
his writings to be destroyed; he was deprived of his bishopric in 1459 and
died a year or two afterward. Work done by Wendy Scase has done much to
elucidate both Pecock’s life and more particularly the London environment
in which he moved in his earlier career. But the precise stages behind his
alienation from that environment and the details of the charges against him
are still not entirely clear; the very poor survival of some of his works and
the complete absence of others (whether because they were incomplete or
because all copies were destroyed remains unclear) are two of the factors
that make an overall view of his career hard to perceive. Kirsty Campbell,
rather than searching for further details of Pecock’s life, gives an account of
the content of his writings (p. 5) and aims to show through them how far
Pecock conformed to normal medieval lines of discussion and how far his
views and modes of expressing them were individual.
Pecock saw himself as providing a series of writings that would answer
and defeat those whom modern historians usually call “Lollards” but that
Pecock described by a variety of terms, most frequently as “the lay party” or
“Bible men.” Unusually, and probably rashly, Pecock chose to do this for the
most part in English, although for certain knotty subjects such as the Trinity
he often moved into Latin. As Campbell indicates, Pecock speaks of a
number of texts he has composed beyond those that are available now;
again, a retreat into Latin seems to have marked some of the lost works.
Campbell makes much of Pecock’s expressed desire to meet his opponents
in argument and his hopes of converting them back to orthodoxy. She
spends much time outlining previous educational efforts by the medieval
and especially English clergy; at some points her citation of earlier critics on
well-documented developments takes undue space and precludes the closer
analysis of Pecock’s own mode of procedure (for instance, she could well

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have examined in detail Pecock’s teaching against Lollard disregard of
images and the saints they represent in his Repressor of Overmuch Blaming
of the Clergy (c. 1449)—arguably his most sophisticated surviving discussion). Important suggestions tend to be submerged in a wealth of familiar
points: Pecock’s texts are not reading for beginners in medieval religious literature, and Campbell could have had more confidence in the competence
of her probable audience. The notion of “textual communities” invoked in
her subtitle and again in chapter 7 could well have been linked more closely
with Pecock’s endeavor and also with Pecock’s life and his downfall.This is
a case where life and writings can hardly be kept apart—Why did his
endeavor turn out so disastrously for himself? Who were his real enemies?
Why were his writings perceived as heretical and burned? Campbell’s book
has some interesting ideas that deserve further consideration.
ANNE HUDSON

Lady Margaret Hall
University of Oxford

Early Modern European
Reading Augustine in the Reformation: The Flexibility of Intellectual
Authority in Europe, 1500–1620. By Arnoud S. Q.Visser. [Oxford Studies
in Historical Theology.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xiv,
240. $74.00. ISBN 978-0-199-76593-5.)
In a brief 139 pages (with an additional 100 pages of textual apparatus)
that belie their extensive and innovative scholarship, Arnoud Visser sets out
to investigate the production, circulation, and consumption of St.
Augustine’s works from 1500 to 1620 in a study aimed “to delineate how the
material infrastructure of reading in Reformation Europe enabled readers of
various backgrounds to appropriate Augustine in radically different ways” (p.
7). In the section on production Visser examines the three sixteenth-century
editions of Augustine’s opera omnia: the Amerbach (1505–06), the Froben
(1528–29, edited by Desiderius Erasmus), and the Plantin (1576–77, edited
by theologians from the Catholic University of Leuven). In the section on circulation the focus is on how confessional considerations prompted the way
Augustine was presented in bibliographies, indexes, and the patristic
anthologies that “came to play a dominant role” in the dissemination of his
texts (p. 91). The section on consumption, finally, focuses on reading practices, including the provenance of Augustine’s œuvre (including spurious
works) in Protestant England and Catholic Italy, individual case studies of the
different responses of three influential theologians within English
Protestantism (Thomas Cranmer, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and William Laud),
and a discussion of the public debates centering on Augustine’s anti-Pelagian
writings in Catholic Leuven and Protestant Leiden.

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This is an invaluable study of how the Church Father was read in
Reformation Europe, but it also usefully explores the complex interrelationship among the scholarly, confessional, and mercantile interests by which an
authority like Augustine is mediated through both printed and oral media.
Besides mapping the terrain expertly, Visser, supported by solid textual evidence, is able to make a number of inferences, some of which go against
received scholarly opinion. He can demonstrate, for example, how the
“dynamic interaction” (p. 8) between humanism and Reformation could benefit both parties, but also how the humanists (their protestations to the contrary), not unlike the scholastics they derided, facilitated “a selective, fragmented, and goal-oriented reading practice” (p. 9). On the issue of the
confessionalization of Augustine, Visser shows that Amerbach’s conservative
edition probably did as much for the growth of Protestantism as the one by
Erasmus, whereas the Leuven edition, despite its conception as a postTridentine Catholic alternative to the Froben edition, in fact silently incorporated much of Erasmus’s scholarship and was, except for certain commentary to Augustine’s anti-Donatist and anti-Pelagian works, confessionally
neutral. It is rather in the circulation of Augustine’s œuvre that an overt confessional presence can be felt—that is, in the construction of bibliographies
and indexes, and in particular in the selection and presentation of
Augustine’s works in the many compendia produced. Another important circumstance that one gleans from Visser’s study is how the confessional lines
in these contentious debates (often over Augustine’s anti-Pelagian works)
were not necessarily drawn between Catholic and Protestant, but as often
within each religious community. Thus two Anglican archbishops like
Cranmer and Laud can draw diametrically opposed conclusions about the
use of Augustine, as did the Baianists and their opponents in Catholic Leuven
(a fight soon exported to France in the form of acrimonious disputes
between Jansenists and Jesuits), as well as the Calvinists and Arminians in
Protestant Leiden.
Karlstad University, Sweden

ÅKE BERGVALL

Art, Piety and Destruction in the Christian West, 1500–1700. Edited by
Virginia Chieffo Raguin. [Visual Culture in Early Modernity.] (Burlington,
VT:Ashgate Publishing. 2010. Pp. xii, 226. $99.95. ISBN 978-0-754-66946-3.)
This collection of essays contributes to a growing literature on iconoclasm and censorship, but it foregrounds social forces such as historic
preservation that deflect negative outcomes. One recurrent theme is the fate
of Catholic visual images following the rise of Protestantism. However, it is
refreshing that the emphasis is less on destruction than on the transvaluation
of medieval cult objects as “art” and the invention of distinct Protestant
imagery and ritual. The main thrust is contextual, with thick analysis of particular events and interactions affecting Christian images and spaces in

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Germany, England, France, Italy, Mexico, and the United States.The contents
are as follows: “Introduction: Art and Religion: Then and Now” by Virginia
Chieffo Raguin;“Salvaging Saints:The Rescue and Display of Relics in Munich
during the Early Catholic Reformation” by Jeffrey Chipps Smith; “Does
Religion Matter? Adam Kraft’s Eucharistic Tabernacle and Eobanus Hessus”
by Corine Schlief;“—You Are What You Wear (and Use, and See):The Form of
the Reform in England” by Raguin; “Repackaging the Past: The Survival,
Preservation and Reinterpretation of the Medieval Windows of St. Mary’s,
Fairford, Gloucestershire” by Sarah Brown; “Preserving Antiquity in a
Protestant City: The Maison Carrée in Sixteenth-Century Nîmes” by David
Karmon;“Destruction or Preservation? The Meaning of Graffiti on Paintings
in Religious Sites” by Véronique Plesch; and “Inquisitorial Practices Past and
Present: Artistic Censorship, the Virgin Mary, and St. Anne” by Charlene
Villaseñor Black.
Presumably in the interests of coherence and size, the fate of Jewish cultural production is not included (such as the continuing destruction of synagogues, as in Halberstadt in 1669). Postmodern collections that have
become a major genre of publication in recent decades do not claim to be
collaborative histories. Their value lies in presenting good scholarship under
a thematic rubric, orchestrated by an imaginative editor, as is the case here.
In the introduction, the editor explores the alienation of religious objects
that thereby “shed their historical usefulness and their power” (p. 7).Yet, she
notes, as in several of these studies, that reclassification as “art,” or as material culture, comes with new historical significance and power—a “reconfigured meaning,” as she puts it (p. 9). She gives a nuanced discussion of the
interactions of patron, artist, and church in the commissioning and especially
in the reception of works. To elaborate the social and historical contingencies of ascribed value, she seeks a theoretical base in books by Pierre
Bourdieu, first published in French in the 1960s. Although his work has been
as foundational—and as much criticized—as that of Derrida and Foucault,
some recent studies also would have been of assistance. In expanding the
purview of the introduction to survey recent incidents of tension surrounding sacred objects, Ragiun might have taken into account the global
approach offered in Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science,
Religion and Art, Karlsruhe, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, ed.
Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (Cambridge, MA, 2002).
The case studies that follow engage with particular instances that complicate generalizations. Each author provides a careful analysis of specifics,
whether concerning the political value of relics; communal attitudes to private, public, and sacred space; the interventions of individuals; the ability of
artists to skirt censorship and the anxieties that lead to it; and even the sociological interest that can compensate for premodern graffiti on mural paintings. The combination of broad framework and thick history in the contri-

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butions by Schlief, Raguin, and Brown—and the documentary detail presented by Smith—are especially laudable. Overall, this is a valuable, well-presented collection, with bibliography and index. The publishers should be
lauded for the choice of paper that facilitates the reproduction of high-quality black-and-white illustrations. However, weak binding may be the price for
reining in costs.
Tufts University (Emerita)

MADELINE H. CAVINESS

The Religious Culture of Marian England. By David Loades. [Religious
Cultures in the Early Modern World, No. 6.] (Brookfield,VT: Pickering and
Chatto. 2010. Pp. viii, 209. $99.00. ISBN 978-1-851-96291-0; ebook ISBN
978-1-851-965984.)
This general discussion and analysis of religion in the England of Mary I
arise out of the comprehensive online transcription and edition of the first
four editions of John Foxe’s mighty Protestant martyrology, the Acts and
Monuments. Several useful studies have arisen out of this project, and in this
case its director distills his own thoughts on the character and development
of Christian religion in England between the fifteenth century and the early
years of Elizabeth’s reign. In an introduction and nine chapters, Loades examines, in turn, religion as it existed in England before the reign of Henry VIII,
categories of religious experience that he describes as “elite” and “popular”;
the place of religion in the daily life of English people in the mid-Tudor
period; the training of clergy; heresy, dissent, and their punishment; contemporary portrayal of religious repression under Mary; and a postscript on the
characteristics of the English Church in Elizabeth’s reign.
In his introduction, Loades criticizes those who have concentrated on the
upper reaches of Church and society in their analysis of English religion in
this period. In particular, he reproaches Thomas Mayer for committing this sin
in his fine and voluminous studies of one of the main religious figures in this
period, Cardinal Reginald Pole. This seems unfair, in that Pole was perforce
and by definition an “elite” figure, and the overall conclusion from a reading
of Loades’s book has to be that he has been no more successful than anyone
else in accurately characterizing the religion of early-modern English people.
On this evidence, he appears to regard late-medieval religion, in England and
no doubt elsewhere, as largely external, overstructured, and repressive,
whereas the churches of Henry VIII and Elizabeth were “sensible” and
“English” (not Welsh or Irish, let alone Scottish), with a period in between of
wild swings and turmoil, in a more “extreme” Protestant direction under
Edward and a Catholic one under Mary. There seems to be an underlying
assumption that no normal person would ever have been a Catholic, if in possession of a full understanding of the Christian religion. Yet, paradoxically,
although there is much discussion here of the nature of “elite” and “popular”
religion in the period, and these concepts need to be questioned far more

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than they are here, there is a strange void at the heart of this learned and often
vivid writing, as good as one expects from Loades.This gap can best be characterized, perhaps ironically given the author’s approach to the Reformation
period, as a failure to address the delicate but vital question of how people in
early-modern England related to God. On this account, it is hard to see what
exactly attached people at that time to the Catholic faith and its practice.We
hear a great deal about rulers, church leaders, and structures, but readers gain
no sense of the inner life of the practice of the liturgy in churches and its
place in the public and private lives of individuals.When Pole tried to rebuild
this religious life in Mary’s reign, he came, although he was a keen preacher
himself, to put the teaching and ceremonies of the reforming Catholic Church
even before that verbal teaching of God’s word. Not everyone needed to
know Latin to attend school as a Christian soul, and both the Bible and
Church tradition could be—and were—communicated by means of all the
senses as well as the intellect. So, although this book contains much useful
and relevant material, built on many years of scholarship, and powerfully and
effectively presented, there also is perhaps too much of that highly talented,
but hardly objective, Protestant propagandist, John Foxe.
University of Oxford

JOHN EDWARDS

English Catholic Exiles in Late Sixteenth-Century Paris. By Katy Gibbons.
[Studies in History, New Series.] (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, an imprint
of Boydell & Brewer, for the Royal Historical Society. 2011. Pp.x, 206.
$90.00. ISBN 978-0-861-93313-6.)
This engaging and stimulating book focuses on the English Catholic lay
exiles in Paris in the 1580s and 1590s. It is composed of five chapters. The
first gives a brief overview of the English and French political and religious
context.The second chapter contains fascinating pages on the different circumstances that prompted some English Catholics to leave England and
move to Paris, as well as on the social and economic challenges they faced
in a city that had an urban and juridical structure different from that of
London and other English towns. Notwithstanding the difficulties, however,
Paris offered important opportunities to the exiles, who were free to practice their religion publicly and to take advantage of the city’s printing
houses, colleges, and universities, which became venues for English
Catholics “to interact with their hosts, to appeal to their continental coreligionists, and to articulate their identity as Catholic exiles” (p. 75). In the third
chapter Gibbons insightfully shows how French polemical works in the
1580s exploited the English Catholic cause and how, conversely, the French
polemical atmosphere contributed to radicalize the political and religious
positions of some members of the English Catholic community in Paris.The
fourth chapter discusses how English Catholics articulated their condition of
exile. Although in the rest of her work Gibbons persuasively argues for the
specificity and the importance of the Paris community, in this chapter she

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mainly relates common tropes of Catholic exiles that scholars such as Anne
Dillon and Alison Shell have already analyzed. Moreover, when Gibbons
examines how the English exiles in Paris grappled with the relationship
between religious exile and political loyalty, she neglects important questions. For instance, a fuller discussion of how the English exiles in Paris
related to Gallicanism (especially the political Gallicanism of the Parlement
and a part of the Sorbonne) would have been useful, especially given the fact
that, as Gibbons shows, the English exiles did not leave Paris with the
League, but they remained a significant presence even after the accession of
King Henri IV. The final chapter contains a lucid and rich analysis of the
nature of the English Catholic community in Paris and of what the Parisian
case can teach us on the nature of early-modern English Catholicism.
According to traditional scholarship, the English Catholic presence in Paris
was generally minor and radical (both politically and religiously). English
Catholics chose Paris mainly because of the French League; once the League
lost its control over the city and the state, the English Catholics also left
Paris. Against this kind of scholarship, Gibbons demonstrates that Paris was
indeed an important center for English Catholicism and that the theological
and political positions of the English exiles were much more nuanced and
diverse than previously thought. Indeed, Gibbons’s discussion in chapter 5 of
how the English Catholic exiles in Paris were influenced by and articulated
the internal division of the Catholic community in England in the 1590s and
early 1600s is especially impressive for its clarity and depth.
In conclusion, Gibbons shows that the Parisian case is a useful lens
through which we can examine English Catholicism not simply as an
“English” or “British” phenomenon, but as a European one. As she puts it,
“English Catholics defined their identities and political positions in response
to their Protestant opponents; but also in response to their relations with
Catholic Europe at large” (p. 176). Contemporary scholarship on English
Catholicism has recently started to take into greater account its European
and international dimension: Gibbons’s work is an important contribution to
this increasingly relevant line of scholarship.
University of California, Santa Barbara

STEFANIA TUTINO

Galileo: Watcher of the Skies. By David Wootton. (New Haven:Yale University
Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 328. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-300-12536-8.)
This book is primarily an intellectual biography, but also covers most of
Galileo’s personal life. Additionally, it belongs to the genre of “conjectural history,” as the author states in the introduction. However, he does not distinguish between two subgenres: plausible and implausible conjectural history.
Their difference may be characterized in terms of whether the conjectures
are based on such practices as exaggerations, textual misinterpretations, inju-

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dicious emphases, arbitrary assumptions, prejudicial assessments, and so
forth. Unfortunately, this book exemplifies implausible conjectural history.
Consider its three principal theses.
The first (pp. 56, 261–62, 266) is an account of Galileo’s attitude toward
Copernicanism, claiming that he became a Copernican in the early 1590s,
and the rest of his career was an attempt to prove its truth.This is an exaggeration of the fact that, since the early 1590s, Galileo was implicitly pursuing a Copernican research program—namely a general physics of moving
bodies, one of whose consequences was the physical possibility of the
earth’s motion.
The second major thesis (pp. 240–50) is that, although Galileo outwardly
tried to appear a good Catholic, in reality he was not a Christian but privately
held “esoteric” beliefs. He was allegedly a materialist, pantheist, or deist, who
denied the existence of a provident personal God, the reality of salvation and
redemption, and the supernatural origin of miracles. This thesis inflates the
fact that Galileo was largely uninterested in theological questions and religious discussions; was usually silent about them; but was willing to pay lip
service to Catholic religious doctrines and go through the motion of religious rituals, as long as the demands were not too great.
The third principal thesis attributes to Galileo a “reluctant empiricism” (p.
265): he occasionally used observations and experiments, but “chose not to
become a careful experimental scientist” (p. 255), and instead practiced
mostly abstraction, idealization, deduction, and speculation. This is an overstatement of the truth that Galileo was a self-reflective and critical empirical
thinker, equally appreciative of observation and reason; his emphasis on
active experimentation (as distinct from passive observation) and on mathematical quantification (as contrasted with qualitative thinking) were his way
of judiciously combining the requirements of both observation and reason.
However, the book is not completely devoid of merit.The author displays
a high degree of imaginative talent that might otherwise be put to good use.
His erudition is considerable.The book is full of information that might benefit discriminating readers; they would almost certainly learn some interesting details about Galileo’s personal life that had escaped their attention.
Additionally, there are at least three topics on which the book’s discussions
are valuable.
This first is a critique of Paul K. Feyerabend’s claim that Galileo’s observations of the moon were inaccurate and unreliable, based on the poor quality of the lunar illustrations in The Sidereal Messenger (1610).Wootton (pp.
101–02) points out that Feyerabend used the crude illustrations found in the
pirated Frankfurt edition rather than the superior ones in the original Venice
edition.

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A second valuable discussion involves chronological questions about the
origin of the external difficulties that affected the publication, reception, and
consequences of Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems,
Ptolemaic and Copernican (1632).The chief difficulty concerned the politics of the Thirty Years’ War and is usually connected with the events of
spring and summer 1632, after the Dialogue had already been published.
However, Wootton (pp. 197–200) argues that such difficulties started in
summer 1630, immediately after Galileo received a tentative imprimatur.
A third valuable point is Wootton’s decision to usually refer to Galileo as
a “scientist,” rather than as a (natural) “philosopher.” Wootton’s justification
(pp. 259–60) is right; although the English words science and scientist stem
from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, the Italian terms scienza and
scienziato were already common in Galileo’s time.
Despite these useful points, nonexperts might be unable to separate the
wheat from the chaff in this book, and specialists might use their precious
time more cost-effectively.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

MAURICE A. FINOCCHIARO

Die Konklavereform Gregors XV. (1621/22). Wertekonflikte, symbolische
Inszenierung und Verfahrenswandel im posttridentinischen Papsttum.
By Günther Wassilowsky. [Päpste und Papsttum, Band 38.] (Stuttgart:
Anton Hiersemann. 2010. Pp. x, 406. €112,00. ISBN 978-3-777-21003-2.)
Since the early-fifteenth century the call had been heard for “reform in
head and members” in the Church. This valuable, clearly written volume calls
our attention to a reform in the head that has been nearly completely overlooked in the literature of early-modern Catholic Reform. Pope Gregory XV,
shortly after his election, issued on December 17, 1621, the bull Aeterni
Patris Filius that was followed by a Caeremoniale in electione Summi
Romani Pontificis observandum the next April 22. The two documents represented a complete reform of the procedure and ceremony for the election
of a pope, brought to completion a long campaign for this reform, and led to
the first truly secret and so (as the author argues) truly free papal election—
that of Pope Urban VIII in 1623. The papal action represented a triumph of
an ethic of conscience and commitment to the common good over one characterized by pietas or loyalty to one’s family, patron, or place of origin that
was widely accepted in early-modern Rome, where cardinals often voted in
gratitude for past benefits or in anticipation of future ones. To support his
argument, the author draws heavily on a rarely used source—the diaries of
the papal masters of ceremonies now found in copies in the Archivio dei
Maestri delle Cerimonie Pontifice (sic) as well as in other Roman archives.
The author observes at the start how little research has been devoted to
the procedure and ceremonies of a papal election as opposed to its politics.

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A sixteenth-century author, the Augustinian hermit Onofrio Panvinio, wrote
in an unpublished manuscript of eighteen different methods that had been
employed to choose a pope starting with Jesus’s installation of Peter. Crucial
in the development was the determination of Pope Alexander III in 1179 that
the cardinals alone would elect a pope—so defining their basic function—
and that a two-thirds majority would be necessary. But nothing was prescribed about the method of election.The conclave was introduced in 1274,
and oral and written scrutinies were conducted, but they were not secret.
Gradually there evolved a procedure that became a method of election first
employed in the election of Leo X in 1513, election by adoration. One group
or faction of cardinals, after negotiations, would gather around a candidate
even in the middle of the night, recognize him as pope, and kiss him in the
hope of attracting two-thirds of their number to join them. No one wanted
to be the last to jump on the bandwagon of the winner lest he lose any
chance for advancement. This adoration then became the actual process of
selection with the later scrutiny becoming a formality. Most elections were
held in this manner into the early-seventeenth century with the election of
Paul V Borghese in 1605 as particularly raucous and even tumultuous.
Many calls for reform were raised in the course of the century by the socalled zelanti who wanted a truly secret election where each cardinal could
vote his conscience for the best candidate rather than under pressure from
patron or faction. This was the way the Holy Spirit operated, not through the
sometimes chaotic process of the election by adoration as their opponents
argued. The author analyzes at length four influential papers drawn up in
favor of reform that eventually won the day—two by Jesuit Cardinal Robert
Bellarmine, one dating from shortly after the election of Paul V and another
from a later date; one from 1617 from the Milanese Cardinal Federico
Borromeo; and a fourth from 1621 by Benedetto Giustiniani, a prominent
Jesuit canonist in Rome. In addition, advocates of the reform were Cardinal
Ludovico Ludovisi, papal nephew under Gregory XV, and Francesco Ingoli, a
major figure in the Curia who also played a significant role in the foundation
of the Propaganda Fide in 1622 and the Galileo Affair. Gregory XV’s Aeterni
Patris Filius represented “the first written codification of the concrete procedure for the election of a pope in the history of the church” (p. 248). In
addition to eliminating election by adoration and establishing complete
secrecy for the election, the bull and the subsequent Caeremoniale thoroughly regulated the election. They tightened the cloister for the conclave
and made it a requirement for the validity of the election, they prescribed an
oath for each cardinal in each scrutiny that he would vote according to
God’s will, and they located the conduct of the election in the Sistine
Chapel.There, the cardinals were to place their ballots in the chalice on the
altar as they faced the Last Judgment of Michelangelo.
The new procedure was generally implemented effectively, although, of
course, it did not eliminate all factionalism and politics. Factions contended

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in the election of Urban VIII in 1623, but the vote was secret. Ironically, as
the author points out, the bull ended for the most part the influence of the
European powers in the conclave, but it resulted in their asserting in the
next century the right to veto candidates from outside the conclave.
Throughout, the author astutely interprets the symbolism of the ceremonies
surrounding the election.
The Latin texts of Aeterni Patris Filius and the Caeremoniale are published in an appendix.
Loyola University Chicago

ROBERT BIRELEY, S.J.

Boundaries of Faith: Catholics and Protestants in the Diocese of Geneva.
By Jill Fehleison. [Early Modern Studies, 5.] (Kirksville, MO:Truman State
University Press. 2010. Pp. viii, 269. $48.00. ISBN 978-1-935-50311-8.)
Jill Fehleison’s study of the Diocese of Geneva in the late-sixteenth and
early-seventeenth centuries is a fine addition to a lengthy list of books examining the Catholic Reformation in French, German, Italian, and Spanish dioceses. However, the Diocese of Geneva presents a particularly interesting
example of the reform program. Since its former seat was now the center of
Calvinism, it was on the frontlines of the battle against heresy. The diocese
also crossed a national boundary between the Duchy of Savoy and France.
Among its bishops was one of the most famous figures of the Catholic
Reform—the future saint, François de Sales.
De Sales (bishop from 1602 to 1622)—along with his predecessor, Claude
de Granier (1579–1602), and his successor (and younger brother) JeanFrançois de Sales (1622–35)—focused much of their energy on reclaiming
the diocese from Protestantism. Their greatest success came in the Chablais
region south of Lake Geneva, where François de Sales started a mission to
convert Protestants in 1594. Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries joined his
campaign, preaching, debating Reformed ministers, and organizing extravagant Forty Hours celebrations. The missionaries were convinced that
baroque spectacles would attract Protestants starved for a religious life with
emotional appeal. They may have been right; Protestantism largely disappeared from the region. But success owed as much to backing the mission
received from the duke, Charles Emmanuel I. In a critique of the confessionalization paradigm, Fehleison points out that the political concerns of the
duke and the religious aims of the missionaries often diverged. When they
did come together, the duke participated in the mission’s celebrations, supported it financially, and eventually revoked the Protestants’ right to liberty
of conscience.
In contrast, in the Pays de Gex to the west of Lake Geneva, Protestantism
survived.The region became part of France in 1601, leaving reforming bish-

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ops caught between hostile rulers—the duke and French kings. Henri IV may
have admired François de Sales, but he offered the bishop only limited help.
He applied the Edict of Nantes’s provisions in the region to restore Catholic
worship but also to protect the Reformed community.
Like authors of other diocesan studies, Fehleison has examined the
records of episcopal visits for evidence of the Catholic Reformation’s impact
on Catholic parishes.What she finds confirms what these other studies have
concluded. Generally bishops succeeded in improving the education and
competency of parish priests as well as getting them to observe celibacy. But
the old monastic foundations in the diocese strenuously resisted reform.
Unlike clergy elsewhere, Catholic Reformation orders such as the Society of
Jesus and the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin had little lasting success.The
laity did not offer them much support.
As was the case with Catholic reformers in other regions, the Geneva
bishops sought to remake the religious lives of laypeople by instilling religious behavior that the clergy controlled and that met new standards for
proper worship. But they found that the people “continued to define for
themselves what it meant to be a Catholic” (p. 182). Bishops succeeded in
encouraging Catholic-Reformation confraternity devotions such as the
Blessed Sacrament and the rosary. But older Holy Spirit confraternities continued, as did traditional processions and pilgrimages. In general, people
“embraced new practices that enriched their spiritual lives, protected valued
local customs, and resisted changes not to their liking” (p. 217). Given the
nearby presence of the rival Reformed faith, bishops did not press the issue.
And so, the Council of Trent’s ideals remained difficult to implement. Bishops
adapted to local realities and scaled back their expectations when their
major preoccupation was the fight against Protestantism.
North Carolina State University

KEITH LURIA

The Tactics of Toleration. A Refugee Community in the Age of Religious
Wars. By Jesse Spohnholz. (Newark: University of Delaware Press. 2011.
Pp. 334. $80.00. ISBN 978-1-611-49034-3.)
The Tactics of Toleration examines religious coexistence and toleration in
the German city of Wesel in the second half of the sixteenth century.
Spohnholz argues that both elites and common folk in Wesel generally supported a pragmatic set of policies that allowed Lutherans, Calvinists,
Catholics, and Anabaptists to live together in the city. Importantly for historians’ understanding of this period, this coexistence was founded on a creative tension between the confessional identity of each religious group and
a broad sense that communal peace depended on a sense of Christian unity
demonstrated in shared religious services. This notion of Christian unity was
particularly important, but also particularly strained, in Wesel, which was

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swamped with Dutch (mostly Calvinist) refugees fleeing the Dutch Wars
after 1566.
Spohnholz’s clearly written and well-argued study is based on extensive
archival work in Wesel’s archives. As with any local study of this kind, the
archives give Spohnholz a clear sense of the views and policies of the city
government and the local elites.The first two chapters, which focus on the
Lutheran and Calvinist communities, deal with the relationships among the
Lutheran-dominated city council, the Calvinist consistory, and the Lutheran
clergy. Here we see the city fathers navigating between religious extremes
and resisting calls from hard-line Lutherans to enforce a strict Lutheran line,
particularly in the administration of the Eucharist. At the same time, the
council worked with the (unofficial) Calvinist consistory to force those
refugees with strong Calvinist views to attend church services administered
by the Lutheran clergy, while tolerating private Calvinist services.
Catholics and Anabaptists also were allowed to practice their religion in
private, as long as they attended public services on a regular basis. The
Anabaptists, almost all Mennonites, were generally willing to dissimulate and
caused few problems, despite the close oversight of the authorities. The
small Catholic minority had the support of the Catholic William, duke of
Cleves, and were thus a greater threat to the city than the Anabaptists. A
number of monasteries survived the Reformation in Wesel and provided
places for Catholic worship, but Wesel Catholics also attended services in
the town’s two parish churches, maintaining that sense of Christian unity.
Spohnholz moves beyond an analysis of the policies and strategies of the
city’s rulers and elites to examine the religious culture of the Weselers as
experienced on a day-to-day basis, making the book more original and more
interesting than the traditional local urban study. Spohnholz shows how each
community found space within Wesel to develop aspects of a confessional
identity, without destroying urban peace. He argues that a real confessional
divide developed in daily life, but this divide was fluid. For example,
Lutherans and Calvinists married within their confessional communities and
chose confessionally specific names for their children. There was always tension around baptism, since Calvinists did not want the minister to perform
the exorcism rites as part of the service. However, pastors usually finessed
this problem, performing the service as the parents wanted. Funerals and
burials, however, were rarely a problem, and members of all religious groups
held funerals in the form of their choosing in the parish churches of the city.
Furthermore, neighborhoods did not have a confessional character and
members of religious communities, including the Dutch refugees, lived and
worked together all across the city.
This fine study develops a nuanced and complex understanding of religious toleration and coexistence in the early-modern period. Spohnholz
shows how “. . . membership in . . . [a] confession did not undermine partici-

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pation in a larger body of Christendom. . .” (p. 226). Unfortunately, the complex and essentially peaceful balance of different religious groups in Wesel
lasted only two generations and could not survive the growing confessional
tensions in the Holy Roman Empire in the late-sixteenth century. The Dutch
War spread to Wesel, and conflicts between Catholic and Protestants in the
Jülich-Cleves Crisis in 1609 led to further confessional polarization. Within
Wesel, confessional coexistence continued; but common services ended, and
each confession developed its own institutions within clearly demarked
legal boundaries. In the long run, confessional identities hardened in Wesel,
as they did in much of the Holy Roman Empire, in the decades around 1600.
Connecticut College
New London, CT

MARC R. FORSTER

Portraits from the French Renaissance and the Wars of Religion. By André
Thevet.Translated by Edward Benson; edited with introduction and notes
by Roger Schlesinger. [Early Modern Studies, 3.] (Kirksville, MO: Truman
State University Press, 2010. Pp. xxxiv, 214. $39.95 paperback. ISBN 9781-931-11298-7.)
This book is an annotated translation of thirteen selections from André
Thevet’s Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres (Paris, 1584). Most
of the individuals featured in this edition were Thevet’s contemporaries:
kings (François I, Henri II, Charles IX), aristocrats and warriors (including
François de Lorraine, duke of Guise; Constable Anne de Montmorency; and
Chancellor Michel de L’Hospital), and scholars (Guillaume Budé and
Guillaume Postel).
This gallery of portraits contains little that is new. Thevet’s eulogies of
powerful political figures often are trite and at times redundant. As Frank
Lestringant wrote in his biography of Thevet, a certain realism, if not opportunism, dictated the cosmographer’s writing. As a protégé of Cardinal Jean
de Lorraine, who funded his first voyage to the Levant in 1549,Thevet celebrated de Lorraine (the cardinal’s nephew) as a martyr during the first Wars
of Religion. According to Lestringant, Thevet reconfigured his political position from 1563 to support the policy of conciliation led by Catherine de
Medici and advocated by L’Hospital. After the St. Bartholomew Day’s massacre in 1572, Thevet justified persecution of seditious Huguenots. He
increasingly veered toward the Catholic Ligue and, before his death in 1590,
received protection and favors from Charles, duke of Mayenne and son of de
Lorraine. This rapidly shifting political stance may explain why Thevet, a laicized Franciscan and the queen mother’s chaplain, largely avoided thorny
issues of confessional conflict. The overall absence of ideological steadfastness in Les vrais pourtraits may reflect his career as a quintessential
courtier—he managed to serve as royal cosmographer under four successive
kings. The introduction in this English edition provides a balanced picture of

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the events and developments surrounding the Wars of Religion, but it rarely
mentions Thevet’s political opinions, paying perhaps too much attention to
his earlier travel accounts. One wonders whether it would have been more
helpful if the editor had attempted to discuss Thevet in the context of political patronage and power politics of the time.
Thevet’s work often is compared with Theodore Beza’s Vrais pourtraits
des hommes illustres en piété et doctrine (Geneva, 1581). There are differences between the works of the two authors. Nearly every entry in Thevet’s
book was accompanied by a copperplate engraving of the subject’s portrait,
but the chapter on L’Hospital was left with an empty frame. Beza, Calvin’s
successor in Geneva, had presented in his book a picture of L’Hospital with
a lit candle hanging behind his back. According to Beza, the chancellor,
although he held Protestant sympathies, failed to declare openly his true religious belief and thus turned his back to the light, which signified the Truth.
Thevet stated:
Very willingly should I have offered you [L’Hospital’s] portrait, if the
Seigneur de Besze [Beza] had not set it in his work of the portraits of illustrious men. I am angry that he put the candle behind his back. . . . [H]e
wishes to tax de L’Hospital with not having taken sides over Religion, but
if Besze [Beza] takes light for his Religion, I will leave him, and shall confess to him that an infinite number saw de L’Hospital live as a Catholic.
One can hardly be sure whether he did so with his heart, that being a
secret not revealed to men. (p. 117)
Thevet considered L’Hospital to be a good Catholic, yet stopped short of
disputing Beza’s presentation of the chancellor as nicodemite, pointing out
instead the futility and vanity of speculating on individual religious belief.
L’Hospital himself strenuously denied that he was a crypto-Protestant, but
Thevet, by effectively referring the readers to Beza’s book, left the chancellor’s religious opinion in doubt. Thevet’s ambivalence seemed to be in full
display.
As his contemporary Jacques-Auguste de Thou noted, Thevet was not
known for his scholarly reputation. Nonetheless, his accounts are an important testimony to his time. Expertly translated and carefully annotated, this
English edition provides an excellent introduction to the history of sixteenth-century France.
St. Cloud State University
St. Cloud, MN

MARIE SEONG-HAK KIM

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125

Saints and Signs: A Semiotic Reading of Conversion in Early Modern
Catholicism. By Massimo Leone. Edited by Gustavo Benavides, Kocku von
Stuckrad, and Winifred Fallers Sullivan. [Religion and Society, Vol. 48.]
(New York: Walter de Gruyter. 2010. Pp. xi, 652. $196.00. ISBN 978-3-11022951-6.)
Massimo Leone’s book intends to demonstrate the author’s semiotic
hypothesis that saints rank among the more important communication
media or “signification simulacra” of Catholicism. (pp. 1–2). His case study is
the contributions made to the early-modern definition of sainthood by
hagiography on the four early-modern saints canonized in 1622: Ignatius of
Loyola (chapter 2, pp. 23–203), Philip Neri (chapter 3, pp. 205–319), Francis
Xavier (chapter 3, pp. 321–479), and Teresa of Ávila (chapter 4, pp. 481–530).
For Leone, the early-modern conception of sanctity largely differed from
the medieval conception (p. 531).Teresa best embodies Leone’s first premise: that, in contrast to medieval saints, early miracles depend more on the
transformation of souls than of bodies (pp. 531–32). Neri, Ignatius, and
Teresa can be cited to exemplify Leone’s argument that early-modern
Catholicism conceives spiritual change as mainly an internal and intimate
process of conversion (p. 533). In this sense, the hagiography of Teresa especially emphasized the role of individual will and moral responsibility in conversion (p. 501).
The portrayal of Ignatius as a new St. Francis of Assisi (p. 90) best illustrates Leone’s point that early-modern representations of sainthood serve as
different experimental fields (laboratories) of spiritual and religious identity
through a reshaping of previous saints (p. 534). The intention to address different constituencies is clear in the cases of Xavier (non-European public),
Neri (poor classes), and Teresa (women).
Early-modern Christianity has a global character (p. 535), because sainthood is produced and diffused throughout the whole of the known world
and is best represented by the exoticism associated with Xavier. Moreover,
fabricators of sainthood used all the means that were to hand (multimedia).
Certainly, Leone’s semiotic approach to sainthood opens up a research
pathway that is innovative and challenging. He has an extensive knowledge of
primary and secondary sources (the recent and essential contributions on
Xavier by Pamplona scholars—in particular, Ignacio Arellano Ayuso and
Gabriella Torres Olleta—are, however, missing) and a remarkable ability to
decipher the encoded meanings of details presented in the visual arts.
Moreover, Leone correctly selects particularly influential texts and images
from among the enormous amount of textual and visual testimonies available.
Nevertheless, the reader sometimes might wish that the author had better
explained and illustrated his points (this problem is particularly evident in

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the conclusions compiled as general statements without any reference to the
previous analysis of the four saints, pp. 531–36). Moreover, the inclusion of
some excursus is difficult to follow and needs closer articulation with the
subject of the chapter (this can be seen in the excursus on Tridentine theology, pp. 119–25, of the chapter on Ignatius). Finally, Leone also might have
adopted a more comparative approach in analyzing texts and images pertaining to the saints (for instance, Rubens’s altarpiece with the representation of Xavier’s miracles, pp. 471–79, must be seen in context of the same
artist’s pendant showing Ignatius’s miracles).
CITCEM–Universidade do Porto (Portugal)

CRISTINA OSSWALD

The Theological-Political Origins of the Modern State: The Controversy
between James I of England & Cardinal Bellarmine. By Bernard Bourdin.
Translated by Susan Pickford. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press. 2010. Pp. x, 282. $59.95. ISBN 978-0-813-21791-8.)
In this well-argued book, Bernard Bourdin contends that the debate
between King James I and the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine, cardinal and saint,
during the Oath of Allegiance controversy marked a “decisive step” in the
“origins of modern politics” (p. 6). Arguing that the birth of modernity
cannot be reduced to secularization, Bourdin maintains that “the advent of
modern politics” was characterized by the “judicial distancing from papal
authority” (p. 248). James’s stance in the controversy was especially important, because it laid out a “clearer demarcation of secular and ecclesiastical
powers” (p. 111).
The book begins by providing historical background to the controversy.
It then discusses the Oath of Allegiance, imposed by King James after the
failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This oath, which included an article
denouncing the pope’s right to depose or excommunicate a ruler, set off a
pamphlet war throughout Europe. King James and Bellarmine were among
its most important disputants, and Bourdin expertly analyzes the two men’s
theological-political theories throughout the rest of the book. James argued
that rulers are the sole sovereigns over their subjects by divine right and are
above any ecclesiastical body in their domains. The Church, indeed, never
can interfere in political affairs. Bellarmine disagreed. He argued that the
pope possesses ultimate power in spiritual affairs and indirect power in temporal ones.This indirect temporal power means that the pope can intervene
by admonishing, spiritually censoring, and eventually deposing rulers whose
policies endanger the salvation of souls.
Bourdin’s analysis of the conflict between the king and the cardinal is
convincing. His interpretation of James’s theological-political views, as well
as the Calvinist influences visible in them, also is supported by James’s writings, those of his contemporaries, and the best of the secondary literature.

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One wonders, however, if there was always quite as much “constancy” (p.
217) in the king’s theological-political thought as Bourdin suggests—at least
when it came to its practical application. For example, during the same
period that the king and his advisers were participating in the Oath of
Allegiance controversy, they also became heavily involved in another significant theological-political conflict taking place in the Dutch Republic. In
these disputes the “Arminians” were in general agreement with the king’s
stance about the supremacy of rulers over ecclesiastical bodies whereas
their “Gomarist” foes were not. But despite this fact, James forcibly intervened on behalf of the Gomarists.
In addition, Bourdin’s writing often is needlessly opaque, making his arguments more difficult to follow than necessary. Terminology is occasionally
muddled as well. For example, the book repeatedly refers to the Reformation
as “the Reform,” while Reformed thinkers become “Reformist.” Occasional
missteps such as referring early on to King James as “James VI” (his Scottish
title) rather than “James I” (his English one) in reference to a period when he
was king of both countries and then proceeding to call him “James I” in the
same context throughout the rest of the book also distract the reader.
The six-year gap between the book’s original publication and its 2010
English translation means that it does not reference relevant works from the
past several years such as Stefania Tutino’s excellent Law and Conscience:
Catholicism in Early Modern England, 1570–1625 (Burlington, VT, 2007).
It is unfortunate that the translation was not revised slightly to put it into dialogue with this research. There also are some scholarly gaps even among
works published before 2004. For example, it surprisingly does not reference
a single work on the topic by Michael C. Questier.
Despite these problems, Bourdin’s book provides an important study of
the Oath of Allegiance controversy and its historical significance.
St. Francis College
Brooklyn Heights, NY

ERIC PLATT

James II and the Three Questions: Religious Toleration and the Landed
Classes, 1687–1688. By Peter Walker. [Studies in the History of Religious
and Political Pluralism, Vol. 5.] (Bern: Peter Lang. 2010. Pp. xxx, 307.
$72.95 paperback. ISBN 978-3-039-11927-1.)
In October 1687, King James II ordered his lords lieutenant to ask the
leading office-holders and other gentry of their counties whether (if elected
to Parliament) they would vote for the repeal of the penal laws and Test Acts,
whether they would vote for candidates pledged to repeal them, and
whether they would live peaceably with people of all religious views. His
aim was to secure a Parliament that would repeal these laws, allowing both

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Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to worship freely and to hold public
offices of all kinds (from which the Test Acts excluded them). Most of those
holding local offices were Anglican Tories, and the majority of responses
were negative or evasive—many could not say “yes,” but did not want to
offend the king. His preparations were never put to the test, thanks to King
William III’s invasion late in 1688.
Most historians have seen James’s “campaign” to pack Parliament as counterproductive and doomed to fail.The dismissal from office of those whose
responses were negative or ambivalent showed that opposition to his policies was widespread, whereas the very fact of asking candidates and voters
to pledge themselves in advance was seen as unconstitutional—the negation
of free elections and free debate within Parliament.The questions could thus
be seen as (in Walker’s words) a public-relations disaster. In many respects
Walker shares the received view, but with two important qualifications.
First, the claim that the failure of James’s strategy was inevitable owed
much to hindsight. The alienation of the Tories and the failure to win Whig
support in their place owed much to events in 1688, notably the prosecution
of the Seven Bishops and the birth of the king’s son, opening up the
prospect of an ongoing Catholic dynasty. Above all, the prospect of invasion
brought the hope of deliverance. Second, Walker argues that the third question—on living peaceably with people regardless of their religion—was
important, as it encouraged people to declare themselves publicly in favor of
tolerance or toleration, which he seems to see as one and the same.
(Admittedly, he also suggests that many who had given “unsatisfactory”
answers to the other two questions were happy to please the king in this
case, especially as it did not commit them to anything.) He argues that this
encouraged religious pluralism, whereas before religious persecution had
been justified by equating nonconformity with political disaffection.
However, this claim seems exaggerated. Since Elizabeth’s reign, the English
state had (in theory) prosecuted Catholics for their allegiance to a foreign
ruler (the pope) rather than for their religion, while Dissenters were accused
of plotting sedition and “murdering” King Charles I. Many people interacted
socially with Catholics or Dissenters, while arguing for the need to guard
against the political implications of their principles. That said, James II’s
Declaration of Indulgence did lead to a wider measure of toleration from
1689—from which his fellow Catholics were excluded.
It would be unfair to conclude this review on a negative note.The book
is well researched and well written. If it does little to change the bigger picture of James II’s reign, it sheds a great deal of light on the problems of Tory
landowners, who struggled to reconcile their fear of popery and dislike of
Dissent with their loyalties to Church and king. Some were forthright in their
negatives; others took refuge in equivocation and evasion.Walker is sensitive
to the nuances of their responses and helps his readers to understand better

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the dilemmas and discomforts of the Tories during and after the Revolution
of 1688–89.
Queen Mary
University of London

JOHN MILLER

Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the
Convents of Italy. By Craig A. Monson. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. 2010. Pp. xvi, 241. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-226-53461-9.)
From Boccaccio and Chaucer to Nunsense, the antics of misbehaving
women religious have been a popular topic in literature and the arts.
Although there is nothing in Craig Monson’s new book quite as outlandish
or hilariously funny as an abbess wearing her lover’s trousers on her head
instead of a coif, the tales he tells have the attraction of a firm basis in the
historical record. Monson, a musicologist at Washington University in St.
Louis, is well known for his work on music in the nunneries of early-modern
Bologna (Disembodied Voices [Berkeley, 1995]). In the course of his
research in Italian archives, particularly the Vatican, Monson came across
the fascinating records of a number of investigations of wayward nuns, most
of them dealing not at all, or only tangentially, with music. In this new
volume, he retells five of them from the late-sixteenth through the earlyeighteenth century—three set at Bolognese convents, one in Pavia, and one
in Reggio Calabria.
The nuns in these cases cast spells, set fire to their convent, fled with
friends, argued about artistic patronage, or stole away at night to attend the
opera.Although the events themselves are engrossing, Monson uses them to
reveal much about the lives of these women, their relationships with each
other, and their interactions with the ecclesiastical authorities whose rules
and regulations they were obligated to follow. Many of these women, of
course, had not become nuns by true vocation, but because their families
forced them to enter the convent to avoid paying massive dowries for multiple daughters. In many cases, they found themselves locked behind walls
with other unhappy women, aware of the outside world, but barred from
participation in it. Some could channel their frustrations in positive directions, devoting themselves to managing the convent, developing musical
skills, or sponsoring and directing the renovation of their church. Others
such as the ones in Monson’s stories went in the other direction and ran
straight into conflict with abbesses, bishops, and inquisitors.
As Monson explains in his wide-ranging and invaluable prologue, he has
chosen to bring these cases to life by diverging a bit from standard historical procedure. Although everything here is based directly on the archival
documents, sometimes quoted at length in translation and all carefully cited
in extensive endnotes, the author has chosen to turn the written records of

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interrogations into dialogue and to show us the environment through the
eyes and minds of the protagonists. For example, instead of drily describing
the convent buildings as done in more traditional scholarly books, Monson
shows them to us as they would have been seen by the inquisitor as he
arrived to begin his investigation. The resulting narratives are fun to read, but
nonetheless chock full of both information and insights. Monson also has
tried to preserve for us the excitement of uncovering what others are
endeavoring to keep secret, as we follow the sometimes frustrating and
almost always contorted investigations of both the seventeenth-century
inquisitor and the twenty-first-century historian.
University of Kentucky

JONATHAN GLIXON

Comme il importe au bien de l’Église et de l’État: L’opposition de l’épiscopat «belgique» aux réformes ecclésiastiques de Joseph II (1780–1790).
By Bernard Vandermeersch. [Bibliothèque de la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Fascicule 94.] (Louvain-la-Neuve: Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique;
Leuven: Universiteitsbibliotheek. 2010. Pp. 498. €55,00 paperback.)
Based on several eighteenth-century manuscript sources in Belgian
archives and libraries (especially the Acta Episcoporum and the Acta
Archiepiscopatus), printed pamphlets, and edited sources—as well as the
principal contributions within the historiography on the Enlightenment,
Josephinism, Reformkatholizismus, Spätjansenismus, Catholic Enlightenment, and ultramontanism—Bernard Vandermeersch aims to study the reactions of the Belgian episcopate toward the religious reforms imposed by
Joseph II. The termini a quo and ante quem of his study correspond to
Joseph II’s reign (1780–90). The material limits are those of the so-called
Belgian Church of the second half of the eighteenth century, composed by
the Dioceses of Ypres, Ghent, Roermond, Antwerp, and Bruges, under the
authority of the Archdiocese of Malines, and those composed by the
Dioceses of Tournai and Namur, theoretically dependent of the Archdiocese
of Cambrai.
According to the author, the religious policy pursued by Joseph II in the
Austrian Low Countries was led along three lines: nationalization of the
Church, secularization of political life, and state supervision of the clergy.
Several decrees were issued to suppress jurisdictional bonds between the
Belgian Church and the Holy See. Surprisingly, the Belgian episcopate did not
at first really oppose this anti-ultramontane feature of imperial Reformism.
Cardinal Johann Heinrich von Franckenberg, archbishop of Malines, was
almost the only party not to approve the anti-Roman legislation, and there
was hardly any opposition to secularization by the high clergy. It was as if
Joseph II easily imposed the Febronianist-inspired legislation on the Belgian
bishops. The case of marriage dispensations (1781) revealed that several
bishops had episcopalistic tendencies toward Rome. Joseph II took advan-

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tage of them by giving them more power to create an independent Belgian
Church, molded after the Gallican model. However, it contributed to a degradation of the relationship between the “Two Powers” and to confusion in
Catholic minds among Joseph II, the Jansenists, and the Philosophes.
Actually, the strongest opposition by the bishops was provoked in 1786 by
the state’s attempt to subdue the Belgian Church so as to promote goals
influenced by the Enlightenment. The bishops were losing prerogatives,
especially in the organization of theological studies (by the foundation of a
state seminary) and in the regulation of ecclesiastical careers.The attempt by
Joseph II to control and subdue the episcopate at the end of his reign greatly
contributed to the return and triumph of ultramontanism, which eventually
appeared to be the best way to preserve the Church’s independence and,
therefore, faith itself. Ultramontanism then appeared to be the true Roman
Catholic orthodoxy. The most important contribution of Vandermeersch is
to have proven through his historical research this change and evolution
within the Belgian Church during the ecclesiastical reforms of Joseph II.
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies
Catholic University of Leuven

DRIES VANYSACKER

Late Modern European
Mennonite German Soldiers: Nation, Religion, and Family in the Prussian
East, 1772–1880. By Mark Jantzen. (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 371. $38.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-26803269-2)
Mark Jantzen’s book Mennonite German Soldiers discusses the history of
Mennonites in the regions of the Vistula River, from the beginning of the 1772
Prussian takeover of the lands where Mennonites resided to the early years
after the formation of the German Empire in 1871. In particular, the book is
the story of how a faith community, within the space of a century, was transformed from a community whose primary identity was faith in God and the
belief that this faith required rejection of military service to a community that
embraced German nationalism and accepted that military service was the
highest duty of a German Christian. As such, this book becomes a study in
nationalism, acculturation, toleration, and the precarious nature of all minority religious groups in the face of the ultimate claims of nation-states.
Jantzen portrays in detail the struggle between Mennonites and the
Prussian state. In the government’s effort to draw Mennonites into the
national ethos and have them accept military service, it decided to put pressure on them in three areas: land, taxation, and marriage patterns. As long as
Mennonites rejected military service, they could not buy additional land.This
caused many to emigrate to Russia. As long as Mennonites rejected military

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service, they had to pay a military exemption tax and local church taxes to
either the Lutheran or Catholic parishes, in addition to their normal taxes.
This resulted in a double-taxation system.As long as Mennonites rejected military service, they could not marry outside of their church group, since the
government decreed that children of mixed marriages could not be exempt
from military service. Thus, intermarriages with non-Mennonites jeopardized
the future of the Mennonite church.
Jantzen’s excellent book is a sequel to the study by Peter Klassen,
Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia (Baltimore, 2009), of
these same Mennonite communities. Klassen’s study covers the period spanning the sixteenth-century Mennonite migration to the Vistula River regions
in Poland to the 1772–95 divisions of Poland, when most of the Mennonites
in this region came under Prussian rule.Thus, these two books provide readers with excellent, new, well-researched, and well-written histories of the
years that Mennonites lived in the former Polish and Prussian regions.
This study is remarkably well documented, using Mennonite records, local
archives, and various state archives of Germany and the former Prussia. It
thus places the various movements, discussions and issues fully within the
local and federal cultural, political and religious contexts.
The book includes almost sixty pages of footnotes, fifteen pages of primary documents, about twenty-four pages of bibliography (including both
primary and secondary sources), and a helpful index. A few maps would
have enhanced the book, especially for contemporary readers unfamiliar
with the various changes to political boundaries in that area of Europe.
Jantzen’s study is highly recommended for anyone interested in
Mennonite history. In addition to helping readers better understand the history of this important segment of the Mennonite past, it also sheds light on
the character and identity of Mennonites from this community who migrated
to Russia and from there to North America and Latin America.
Canadian Mennonite University
Winnipeg, Canada

JOHN J. FRIESEN

Spiritual Elders. Charisma and Tradition in Russian Orthodoxy. By Irina
Paert. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2010. Pp. xiii, 286.
$43.00. ISBN 978-0-875-80429-3.)
In Spiritual Elders, Irina Paert provides a theoretically well-informed and
impressively researched account of the revival, evolution, and social and cultural significance of spiritual eldership (starchestvo) in Russian Orthodoxy
from the eighteenth century to the present. In the process, she perceptively
discusses many of the main challenges confronting, and developments

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within, the Russian Orthodox Church across this time period. By structuring
her analysis around the questions of the tension between charismatic and
ecclesiastical—particularly episcopal—authority, authenticity and the invention of religious traditions, the adaptation of religious institutions and practices to modernizing change, and the role of gender in shaping religious sentiment and behavior, Paert also offers valuable insights into a number of
important issues of interest to scholars of religion generally.
Contending that the evolution, character, and significance of spiritual
eldership in Russian Orthodoxy have been influenced strongly by changing
historical circumstances, Paert organizes her study chronologically. She
argues that, although long a strand in Russian Orthodox monasticism, the
practice of spiritual eldership had largely disappeared by the seventeenth
century. The foundations for its revival paradoxically but not coincidentally
were laid during the eighteenth century, at a time when monasticism in
Russia was in sharp decline due to a combination of state policies, cultural
Westernization, and centralizing trends within the Orthodox ecclesiastical
administration. In response to these developments, some Russian monks
retreated to remote regions and adopted a severely ascetic and pious mode
of life while others such as Paisii Velichkovskii emigrated abroad, seeking to
discover a more spiritually fulfilling form of monastic life in communities
such as those on Mt. Athos. Velichkovskii eventually developed an ideal of
communal monasticism that was structured on a conception of eldership
based on asceticism, mystical prayer, and the guidance of younger monks by
experienced spiritual fathers.This ideal was embodied in the monastic communities in Moldavia founded by Velichkovskii and was promoted by him as
the authentic form of Christian monasticism both in his own writings and in
the compendium of early Christian and Byzantine theological writings (the
Dobrotoliubie, or Philokalia) that he produced. Hence, Paert demonstrates,
when in the first half of the nineteenth century state policies toward religion
became more favorable, Russian Orthodox hierarchs seeking to promote a
revival of monasticism both for its own sake and as a means for religious revitalization generally adopted Velichkovskii’s ideal as a model for reform and
embraced—albeit not unambiguously—isolated practitioners of spiritual
eldership. At the same time, Slavophil writers fashioned spiritual eldership
into a symbol of Russian cultural particularity and spiritual superiority in
comparison with the Catholic and Protestant West.The result of these developments, Paert shows, was a growth in the number and the visibility of spiritual elders; an expansion under their influence particularly of female religious communities; and an increased flow of lay believers visiting elders in
search of spiritual guidance, advice with their concerns, and divine intercession in their lives.This latter phenomenon grew dramatically after 1861, due
both to the increased mobility and access resulting from the abolition of serfdom and improvements in transportation and to an apparent increase in
demand arising from social and economic dislocation and cultural flux.
Expanded literacy and developments in publishing, moreover, enabled spiri-

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tual elders to offer guidance and advice remotely to an even wider number
of believers through personal and published collections of correspondence.
By the last decades of the Old Regime, Paert argues persuasively, although
growing only modestly within monastic communities, not only had the practice of spiritual eldership contributed significantly to the revival of Russian
Orthodox monasticism but also its reach into lay society had been extended
through adoption by prominent parish priests and lay leaders of informal
religious groups. Meanwhile, its image had become a medium of cultural and
political discourse, serving as a symbol inter alia of Russian national character, the deep spirituality of the Russian Orthodox Church and the uncorrupted Russian peasantry, and the mystical union of the tsar with his people.
After the revolutions of 1917, the noninstitutional and charismatic character
of spiritual eldership facilitated its persistence in Soviet conditions and
enabled recognized elders to emerge in post-Soviet Russia as spiritual and
religious authorities untainted by the suspicion of compromise with the
Soviet state.
This latter point highlights two of Paert’s central themes: the tension
between charismatic and institutional ecclesiastical authority and the capacity of Russian Orthodoxy to respond and adapt to modernizing change. As
Paert demonstrates, the authority of spiritual elders derived (and derives)
not from any formal position or the sanction of ecclesiastical authorities, but
from their reputation for holiness gained over time through their asceticism,
piety, skill in giving advice, perceived ability to heal and prophesy, and other
personal qualities. Although elders remained within the Church, their
authority thus existed independently of the church hierarchy and depended
on the exercise of their autonomous judgment, a situation that often led (and
continues to lead) to tension and conflict particularly with episcopal authority. Yet this ability to act autonomously on an interpersonal and local level
enabled elders frequently to respond more flexibly than other church institutions to the daily needs, cares, and concerns of Orthodox believers, especially women, in the conditions of dislocation, uncertainty, and anxiety produced by modernizing change. Hence Paert concludes that spiritual
eldership, although represented as an archaic component of and means of
preserving authentic Russian Orthodoxy, has provided a medium for adapting it to modernity.
Williams College

WILLIAM G.WAGNER

Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles By John Henry
Newman. Edited with an introduction and notes by Geoffrey Rowell.
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2010. Pp. xlviii, 457. $40.00.
ISBN 978-0-268-03607-2.)
In April 1826, Newman completed an article on scriptural miracles that
had been commissioned for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. In it, he main-

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tained that the age of miracles was limited to the Old and New Testaments,
ending with the end of the apostolic age. He argued that miracles were only
necessary at the beginning of the Church to secure its foundations. In the preceding month he had completed another article for the Encyclopaedia on
“The Life of Apollonius Tyaneus, with a Comparison of the Miracles of
Scripture and Those Elsewhere Related”; Apollonius was a neo-Pythagorean
philosopher credited with many miracles that Newman consigned to the category of magic. Newman pointed out, although miracles are anomalous
events in the natural world as we understand it, they may be quite normal in
the divine scheme of things. He realized that miracles would not convert the
atheist. Miracles are only likely on the “antecedent probability” that the
Creator is likely to intervene in his creation—just as some occurrences are
unlikely to qualify as miracles, because, for example, their object is trivial.
Newman’s second essay on miracles appeared as the preface to an 1842
English translation of The Ecclesiastical History of M. L’Abbé Fleury. His
acceptance now of the postapostolic miracles that he had rejected in the
earlier essay simply reflects the development of his own ecclesiology from
a Protestant to a Catholic sense of the supernatural nature of the Church.
He also came to connect the earlier denial with the flippant way he had
spoken about the Fathers, an irreverence that he saw as part of his drift
toward liberal theology under the influence of the Oriel “Noetics.” Now he
sees a continuity between the history of the Old and New Testaments and
that of the postapostolic Church. Since the latter also is sacred history, there
is an expectation that miracles are likely to occur.To deny that miracles are
still possible is to fall into the same skepticism as that of Hume toward the
miracles of the scriptures. As for the argument that postscriptural miracles
tend to have a legendary look about them, Newman observes that the miracles recorded in the scriptures would similarly have looked to contemporaries like Jewish sorcery. Whether or not we believe in the postapostolic
alleged miracles depends, he argues, less on the evidence producible than
on whether we think they are likely—that is, antecedently probable.
Geoffrey Rowell’s informative introduction is unfortunately marred by
two sentences that do not make sense (pp. xxv, xxviii) and have strangely
escaped the notice of the editor, the general editor of the series, and the
copyeditor. The composition of the second essay also is wrongly dated to
1824 (p. xii).The notes are copious and detailed, indicating an aspiration, as
in previous volumes in the series, toward the status of a critical edition.
University of Oxford

IAN KER

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The Madonna of the Prickly Pear Cactus: Tradition and Innovation in
19th- and 20th-Century Christian Art in the Holy Land. By Nurith
Kenaan-Kedar. (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press. 2010. Pp. 168. $35.00. ISBN
978-9-652-17317-1.)
In The Madonna of the Prickly Pear Cactus, Nurith Kenaan-Kedar provides the reader with a valuable survey of the several specific sites in the
Holy Land during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The reader is
presented with three separate Christian traditions within the time frame
that the author has chosen: the Armenian Christian, Greek Orthodox
Christian, and Latin or Roman Catholic churches. Within each instance,
Kenaan-Kedar provides a historical context in which to view the individual
works selected as well as a comparison of works of the same theme produced over a period of centuries. In the instance of her discussion of the
icon paintings of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste, the reader is presented
with an early example of this composition from the fifteenth century as
well as a number of later iterations of this theme. It is interesting to see
how each artist, true to the essential message transmitted in these icons,
has responded with the sensibilities of his or her particular time. One can
see, as time progresses, the definite influence that Western styles of painting have exerted over the traditional late-Byzantine style. The result is a
painting style that is neither completely Eastern nor Western but would
aptly represent its place of origin as a crossroads of different cultures.
Kenaan-Kedar also directs the reader’s attention to the introduction of representations of local buildings or landmarks in the painter’s compositions.
These additions “ground” the paintings to the specific locale and community of faithful believers, making the biblical stories and the lives of the
saints even more vivid to the faithful viewer. Although this addition of
locale is certainly not a new idea in the history of painting, it is yet another
example of the confluence of artistic ideas and conventions evident at the
time of the creation of these paintings.
There is certainly a wealth of work contained in this book that bears consideration, but the two most recent churches featured in the book are
worthy of mention—the Church of the Visitation at Ain Karim and the
Church of the Annunciation at Nazareth. The older of the two churches at
Ain Karim is a lovely ensemble of architecture and mosaic and murals that,
taken as a whole, becomes one well-integrated work of art. Of particular
appeal are the large window openings that bear the obvious influence of
Arabic art. The window openings harken to the open fretwork and marquetry of the Arab world. The innovative design of the Church of the
Annunciation allows the pilgrim to view the church within the church
through an opening in the floor of the upper level. It is a vibrant architectural expression that allows the ancient and the contemporary to work in
harmonious juxtaposition—a point-counterpoint duet. Both architects, however, were Italian.

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It is unfortunate that this book does not contain the contemporary work
of the native artists and architects working today in the Holy Land. In addition, although examples are cited of mosaics representing different ethnic
Madonnas, none seems to express the artistic tradition of that place. Each
was masterfully executed, but all seemed to represent the viewpoint of a foreign culture.Where is the Virgin of the Holy Land?
Saint Meinrad Archabbey
St. Meinrad, IN

MARTIN ERSPAMER, O.S.B.

Antikatholizismus: Deutschland und Italien im Zeitalter der europäischen
Kulturkämpfe. By Manuel Borutta. [Bürgertum Neue Folge. Studien zur
Zivilgesellschaft, Band 7.] (Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 2010. Pp.
488. €61.95. ISBN: 978-3-525-36849-7.)
Manuel Borutta’s Antikatholizismus: Deutschland und Italien im
Zeitalter der europäischen Kulturkämpfe is a book with a very large and
ambitious scope. Indeed, its central arguments require it to be so. According
to Borutta, anti-Catholicism played a far larger role in modern European history than often is acknowledged. Its central role throughout the long nineteenth century prompted liberals time and again to take action against everything from clerical influence in election campaigning to the continued
existence of religious orders. Borutta demonstrates that the Kulturkampf, far
from just referring to the decade after the 1871 unification of Germany, can
just as well be applied to many other events throughout the century in both
Germany and elsewhere. His two main areas of focus are Germany and Italy;
yet Borutta emphasizes the transnational, European-wide scope of the struggles. Even though Borutta is interested in the interaction between the discourse and the events, another major issue that he foregrounds is the important role played by newspapers, journals, books, and other media in
spreading and reinforcing anti-Catholic views. In drawing out these and
many other more specific arguments, Borutta provides scholars with a wellresearched and informative book.
One of the most interesting and illuminating sections of Borutta’s book
comes in the first part that posits anti-Catholicism in the framework of
Orientalism. As evidence of incompatibility with modern progress,
Catholicism was treated as static, exotic, and primitive. Borutta provides a
particularly fascinating discussion of this in his comparisons of how writers
depicted Catholics in Europe with how European colonizers described
indigenous peoples elsewhere. Moreover, he shows that even the more positively inclined Romantics asserted the same basic vision of Catholicism as
fundamentally belonging to “the Other.” In the Italian case, much of the focus
of this Orientalizing discourse on Rome proved particularly tricky to navigate in the recasting of the home of the pope into a city representing the
new nation-state.

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Also quite useful is Borutta’s discussion in the third part of his book of
the factors limiting the actual advance of the various secularizing efforts.
Beyond the resistance of the Church and believers, factors within the camp
of those attempting to limit the influence of religion also acted as a brake on
secularization. The liberal vision of the relationship between state and
Church as one of marriage, for example, meant that religion was still guaranteed a role—albeit quite subordinate—in the nation in all frameworks
except those of Kulturkämpfer on the far left.
Although the liberal vision of state and Church as man and wife is integrally connected to issues of gendering, Borutta expands on the description
of Catholicism as feminine throughout the book, especially in part 2. He certainly uncovers interesting material in this part as well, but it does seem one
of the less innovative sections, especially given existing research like that in
Michael Gross’s The War against Catholicism: Liberalism and the AntiCatholic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Ann Arbor, MI,
2004). Although there are certainly many important differences of interpretation between the two books, Borutta might have been more generous at
times in showing how much of his work could be seen as in the same vein
as that of Gross’s. Moreover, Borutta’s points about secularization theory as
an integral part of the story, not an explanation for anti-Catholicism but a
product of it, are quite provocative but never seem to get as much sustained
attention in the book as they deserve. Nonetheless, Antikatholizismus is a
fine book and a welcome addition to the literature. Its impressive scope
allows it to provide many insights as to how integral anti-Catholicism was to
the conflicts of the nineteenth century and beyond.
Middlebury College

REBECCA AYAKO BENNETTE

Bishop Herbert Vaughan and the Jesuits: Education and Authority. Edited
by Martin Broadley. (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press for the Catholic Records
Society. 2010. Pp. xxxviii, 248. $80.00. ISBN 978-0-902-83225-1.)
The editor has brought together from archives in England and Rome, the
papers relating to a dispute in 1875 between Bishop Herbert Vaughan, subsequently cardinal archbishop of Westminster, and the English province of the
Society of Jesus. The general history of the altercation has been well known
for some time and addressed by a number of historians. The dispute centered
on the fact that the Jesuits opened a school in Manchester, in the Salford diocese, in defiance of Vaughan’s wishes. The Jesuits claimed that the privileges
of the Order enabled them to act in this high-handed fashion, and Vaughn
would have none of it. He went to Rome determined that he would have the
authority of a diocesan bishop upheld, or he would resign his see. In the end
a compromise of sorts was worked out whereby the Jesuits, in the person of
Father General Peter Beckx, agreed to close the school and Vaughan agreed not
to demand an investigation into the exempt privileges claimed by the Society.

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The dispute is of interest for a number of reasons, not least because it
occurred within twenty-five years of the restoration of the hierarchy in
England. But also because, as Broadley indicates in his introductory essay to
the collection of documents, it was one more instance of the struggles
between the Jesuits and the diocesan clergy that had been a feature of
English Catholicism since the days of Elizabeth I.
In this instance the confrontation between the bishops, all of whom were
dragged into the dispute and who collectively petitioned the Holy See on
Vaughan’s behalf, and the Jesuits would ultimately lead in 1881 to the pontifical constitution Romanos Pontifices. That document would prove to be the
basis for regulating the relationship between bishops and religious orders until
the codification of the Canon Law in 1917. One towering figure who, in the
1875 dispute, seemed to play only a minor, if vital, role was Henry Edward
Manning, made a cardinal in that very year. Manning was convinced, as he wrote
to Vaughan in March 1875, that the English Jesuits were ‘altogether abnormal,
dangerous to themselves, mischievous to the Church in England’ (p. 56).
This is a valuable collection and will be of immense use to students of
nineteenth-century English church history. The collection is not, however, as
comprehensive as might have been expected. The editor, for admittedly
cogent reasons, has not included exchanges of letters that are available in
three booklets published simultaneously with the dispute.This choice gives
an uneven perspective. Thus, for example, we have the letters written from
Italy by Father Alfred Weld, the English assistant to the Jesuit General, but
none from Father Peter Gallwey, the English Provincial, to Weld. The editor
does not always indicate at first mention the role and significance of correspondents. He misidentifies the author of “Appendix ten,” since from internal
evidence it cannot be by Weld, but undoubtedly draws on a letter written by
Weld. Some pagination is missing from the appendices. There also are a
number of misprints.These are, however, minor blemishes in what is an otherwise splendidly produced volume.
Ultimately, as with so many ecclesiastical disputes, none of the protagonists really emerges with their reputations unsullied. The Jesuits tried to
besmirch both Vaughan and the Xavieran Brothers who already had a school
in Manchester. Weld could say of the brothers that they represented no
threat to the Society, since, in his words, “they have not got educated men
and are not likely to have them. . .” (p. 116). He had previously asked Gallwey
to “get some facts . . . to show how uneducated the Xaverians themselves are”
(p. 24). For his part,Vaughan objected to a petition that a number of laymen
in Manchester signed in protest against the forced closure of the Jesuit
school on the basis of the fact that for the most part they were men of “inferior social and intellectual standing” (p. 152).
Heythrop College
University of London

OLIVER P. RAFFERTY, S.J.

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Mes missions en Sibérie, suivi de Confession d’un prêtre devant l’Église. By
Archimandrite Spiridon. Translated by Pierre Pascal and Michel
Evdokimov with an introduction by Michel Evdokimov. [L’histoire à vif.]
(Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. 2010. Pp. 255. €20,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2204-09373-6.)
The first of these two memoirs by Archimandrite Spiridon, a Russian
monastic priest of the early-twentieth century, was first translated from the
Russian by Pierre Pascal and published in 1950. Michel Evdokimov, an
Orthodox priest of the Western European Archdiocese based in Paris and an
emeritus professor of comparative literature at the University of Poitiers, has
translated the second part—a confessional open letter about Spiridon’s service as a military chaplain and a statement he sent to the 1917–18 Moscow
Council that was charged with reform of the Russian church.
This is a wonderful, first-person account of a life of dedication to pastoral
ministry by a monastic priest who was born in 1875 and died in 1930. The
first memoirs are colorful, recounting deprivations and adventures of the
most inspiring sort as a missionary in Siberia. Spiridon comes across quite
strongly as a pastor with a compassionate and discerning heart. He recognizes the hard life of people in this desolate, harsh region and the goodness
of the Buddhists—even envisioning Christ and the Buddha as brothers, leading people to salvation/enlightenment.When he became a military chaplain,
he was troubled by the act of communing soldiers who would then kill other
human beings in battle.
Perhaps the most passionate expression of Spiridon’s soul comes toward
the end in his open letter to the Moscow Council and the epilogue.
Although St. Tikon (Bellavin), the newly restored patriarch of Moscow and
head of the council, received the letter, Spiridon never received a reply.
Spiridon, to be sure, speaks from the experience of the decadence of the
church in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, a realization that
finally took incarnation in the convocation of the Moscow Council in 1917.
Spiridon pleads for the bishops, the teachers, and leaders of the church to
repent and cast off their enslavement to canons and traditions, to distance
themselves from the state and from power both spiritual and political and
return to the simplicity and community spirit of the early Church. His is a
call for the most basic Christian conversion and renewal, acutely relevant
today not only within the internal Eastern Orthodox churches but also in
the churches in communion with Rome and those of the Reformation. He
notes that Christ himself might appear more like an anarchist to the institutional church in the radical nature of his words and actions in the gospels.
St. Maria Skobtsova used a similar image in her provocative essays, imagining Christ leaving the incense, candles, icons, and chant of the church sanctuary to abide with the poor, the despised, and sick in the streets, past the
church door and gate. Like her and other prophetic voices such as
Alexander Schmemann, John Meyendorff, Paul Evdokimov and the martyred

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Alexander Men, Spiridon expresses the same Spirit-driven passion and compassion.What he saw—hierarchs resolute in opposing reform, content with
their power; churches preferring political and cultural power—is still evident today. In these stirring pages, however, we hear another voice, one reminiscent of those in the scriptures, saying otherwise.
Baruch College, City University of New York

MICHAEL PLEKON

The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis. Edited by Robert MacSwain and
Michael Ward. [Cambridge Companions to Religion.] (New York:
Cambridge University Press. 2010. Pp. xx, 326. $90.00 clothbound, ISBN
978-0-521-71114-2; $29.99 paperback, ISBN 978-0-521-71114-2.)
The Cambridge Companion to Religion series presents important religious topics as seen through the eyes of prominent scholars in theology and
religious studies.The inclusion of C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) to this canon is a
necessity for both professional theologians and laymen alike. Thanks to the
efforts of Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward, this lacuna has been satisfied.
Lewis is more than just the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, books
written for children that have enjoyed some publicity of late due to their discovery by Hollywood. Lewis was a scholar, Christian apologist, poet, novelist,
distinguished professor, and literary critic. The Cambridge Companion
brings together a collection of essays about Lewis’s accomplishments by
scholars and intellectuals—all of whom are experts in the field of Lewisania.
In the introduction MacSwain explains that the goal of the Cambridge
Companion is to give a fair and balanced account of Lewis’s contributions
to literary and theological studies. He examines Lewis’s unvarnished reputation among Evangelicals as well as his critical detractors among British atheists. He writes, “His detractors are certainly not all British and those who
regard his thought as valuable and interesting can be found across the theological spectrum, including British and North American Anglicans, Roman
Catholics and Eastern Orthodox” (p 2). MacSwain recognizes that Lewis is
the most influential religious author of the twentieth century (even to the
twenty-first century) despite the criticism of mainstream academic theologians. He notes,“Meanwhile, Lewis continues to sell millions of books a year
and to shape the religious faith of thousands” (p. 4).
The Cambridge Companion is divided into three parts, which each contain essays commenting on a particular field of Lewis’s writings. Part I discusses Lewis as scholar. The five essays included discuss Lewis as literary
critic, literary theorist, intellectual historian, and classicist. The last of the
essays, written by Mark Edwards, examines Lewis’s use of classical themes.
The essays in part II relate to Lewis the thinker, focusing on the topics of
religion, apologetics, and philosophy for which Lewis is most famous. The

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ten essays in this part discuss Lewis on scripture, theology, naturalism, moral
knowledge, discernment, love, gender, power, violence, and suffering. Not all
the essays are in agreement with Lewis’s stated positions. Ann Loades comments on Lewis’s essay on the ordination of women (“Priestesses in the
Church”). She writes,“The primary difficulty here is that Lewis had his own
‘theology’ of gender which is perhaps more imaginative metaphysics than
sober theology. . .“ (p. 168).
Part III discusses Lewis the writer in six essays. It is likely that Lewis’s fiction has attracted the widest audience because of its appeal to both
Christians and non-Christians. The Pilgrim’s Regress (written shortly after
his conversion), Surprised by Joy (his autobiography), The Great Divorce,
the Chronicles of Narnia, the Ransom Trilogy (popular among science fiction enthusiasts), and Till We Have Faces (his personal favorite) are examined with precise explanations. The last essay, by Malcolm Guite, discusses
Lewis’s poetry—probably the most neglected of Lewis’s contribution to the
literary genre. Although some scholars feel that Lewis himself had settled for
the rank as a minor poet, Guite writes: “The time has come to revisit this
judgement, made many years ago, and to look afresh at Lewis’s poetic
output” (p. 294). This Guite does in the hope that Lewis’s poetry will enjoy
the wider audience it deserves.
The Cambridge Companion includes a short chronology of Lewis’s life,
biographical notes on the contributors, and a list of abbreviations.The latter
feature, in conjunction with an ample index and bibliography of Lewis’s writings, affords the reader an excellent resource for Lewis’s scholarship.
The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis ranks among the best of what
is available in Lewis studies.
New York C. S. Lewis Society

CLARA SARROCCO

Mémoire des deux mondes: De la révolution à l’Église captive. By
Archbishop Basile Krivochéine. Translated from Russian by Nikita
Krivochéine, Serge Model, and Lydia Obolensky. With presentation, revision, and notes by Serge Model. (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. 2010. Pp. 526.
€44,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-204-09222-7.)
Vsevolod Krivoshein was born in the Russian Empire in 1900, the son of
Alexander Krivoshein, who was the minister of agriculture of Tsar Nicholas
II between 1908 and 1915. When Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew the
provisional government in 1917, and civil war broke out in 1918, Krivoshein
joined the White forces of General Anton Denikin. In 1920, with the White
Army on the verge of defeat, he went to the Sorbonne to study Russian history, particularly the history of Russian Orthodoxy. In 1924 he entered the
monastery at Mount Athos, taking the religious name of Basil, and studied

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Orthodox theology and patristics. In 1951 he was ordained a priest and continued his study of patristics at Oxford. In 1959 the Russian Orthodox
Church named him archbishop for the Russian Orthodox Diaspora in
Belgium, a community that dated from the nineteenth century and
increased after World War II. As leader of the Russian Orthodox community
in Belgium, he wrote extensively on spirituality, the Church Fathers, and
church-state relations. He participated in ecumenical dialogues and conferences and was an observer at the Second Vatican Council. He became a
sharp critic of the Russian Orthodox Church’s compromises with the Soviet
government and the Soviet regime’s attempts to use Orthodoxy to push its
foreign policy. In contrast to Orthodox leaders in the Soviet Union, he
defended Orthodox dissidents, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn and priest
Dmitri Dudko, but he also criticized other dissidents such as A. E. LevitinKrasnov for their visceral attacks on church leaders. He was both a pragmatist and a pastor. On the one hand, he loved Russia, wanted the Church
to survive the Bolsheviks, and worked with the Soviet-ordained ecclesiastical structure to try to improve it. On the other hand, he was an unequivocal enemy of communism’s assault on the human spirit, the Church, spirituality, and man’s yearning for truth and justice. He died in 1985, leaving a
rich literary and spiritual legacy.
The present volume, his memoirs, is divided into two parts.The first part
is Krivoshein’s recollections of his youthful experience during the Russian
Revolution and civil war before he entered religious life. Here he provides
valuable information about prisons, bureaucracy, peasantry, violence, war,
and many other subjects during the revolutionary era. He noted that the
peasants, who were deeply religious and solidly anticommunist, sat out the
civil war, ultimately to their own peril. Solzhenitsyn found the eyewitness
account so valuable that he mined it extensively for his own work on the
Revolution. Part 2 consists of Krivoshein’s memories of his relations with
and evaluation of a series of Russian Orthodox leaders, including Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) and Patriarch Pimen. It is a rare account from a critical but sympathetic observer of Russian Orthodoxy’s paradoxical accommodation with the Soviet government during the Nikita Khrushchev and
Leonid Brezhnev periods and of the inner political maneuvering, often
exploiting believers’ faith, between the Department for External Church
Relations of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate and Orthodox faithful outside of Russia.
Throughout his life, Krivoshein remained committed to the Christian
faith, Orthodoxy, and Russia. He was a critic, but also a loving and profoundly
religious pastor who worked tirelessly for Russian society and its rich
Christian culture. His book is a valuable contribution to the history of Russia
and Orthodoxy in the twentieth century.
Texas State University–San Marcos

DENNIS J. DUNN

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Patterns and Persons: A Historiography of Liturgical Studies in the
Netherlands in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Louis van Tongeren,
Marcel Barnard, Paul Post, and Gerard Rouwhorst. [Liturgia Condenda,
25.] (Leuven: Peeters. 2010. Pp. viii, 500. €59.00 paperback. ISBN 978-9042-92301-0.)
Liturgia Condenda is a series of monographs published under the auspices of the Institute for Liturgical and Ritual Studies at the University of
Tillburg in the Netherlands. The institute promotes studies by scholars of
many countries and languages as they explore liturgy from a multidisciplinary point of view.
This volume, however, is by Dutch authors and focused on the historiography of the liturgy in the Netherlands during the twentieth century. Its
larger intent is to invite readers to consider how liturgical studies have
evolved. The editors are from the faculties of Tillburg and Utrecht, and are
both Protestant and Catholic, and the book has a balanced ecumenical perspective based on the country’s religious heritage. The book has four
unequal parts. Part 1 is an introductory chapter (by Gerard Rouwhorst and
Louis van Tongeren) introducing the reader to an overview of the religious
history of the Netherlands in the twentieth century; much of what comes
later can be understood only from the vantage point of the original separation and “silo” mentality of the Netherlands that changed palpably in the
latter part of the century.
Part 2,“Patterns,” has six chapters. Two are overviews of the Dutch liturgical movement in the Catholic Church (Louis van Tongeren) and the
Protestant church (Klaas-Willem de Jong).Two chapters focus on art: music
in the Catholic world (Anton Vernooij) and the plastic arts as fostered by the
Van der Leeuw Foundation in the Dutch Reformed world (Marcel Barnard).
The last two chapters in this section explore the architecture of Catholic
churches (Paul Post) and Protestant churches (Justin Kroesen).
Part 3,“Persons,” provides biographical sketches of nine key figures of the
liturgical movement in the Netherlands, presented in chronological order
based on their year of birth. Seven are Catholic, and two are Protestant. The
figures profiled include liturgical theologians and historians (Gerardus van
der Leeuw, Jan Prein, Frits van der Meer, Cees Bouman, Gerrit Lammens, and
Herman Wegman), two musicians (Eligius Bruning and Hendrik Andriessen),
and the scholar of liturgical Latin, Christine Mohrman. None of the subjects
is still alive, which was a criterion for inclusion.
Part 4, “Balance and Perspective, ” provides an epilogue by Barnard and
Post.The chapter concludes the work with some critical observations about
liturgical studies and its prospects, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
A postscript to the chapter indicates that the whole team of authors was
asked to comment on the final chapter and made lively and sometimes con-

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tradictory observations, which the authors attempt to convey fairly and
comprehensively.
The key to the interpretation of the work as a whole is the prism of the
liturgical movement. Despite criticism from their collaborators, the authors
of the final chapter posit the thesis that the liturgical movement no longer
provides an adequate perspective to understand liturgical studies. They
understand the liturgical movement to be primarily historical and textual.
Under the impetus of the broader scope of the curriculum at Tillburg, they
expand liturgical studies to include ritual studies and a more comprehensive
social science perspective. They raise the question of liturgy as something
done from within (a concern of a particular church group and in the realm
of “theology”) and something that needs to include that which is outside the
group (the concern of “religious studies”). This final chapter provides a
provocative conclusion to a well-conceived and written book, which will be
of interest to historians, liturgical and sacramental theologians, and those
interested in the life of the churches. One blemish on this fine work is the
translation of some of the articles. Some ill-chosen words and faulty grammar
cause the occasional stumble in what is in general a smooth English-language
presentation.
The Catholic University of America

MICHAEL WITCZAK

La condanna del modernismo: Documenti, interpretazioni, conseguenze.
Edited by Claus Arnold and Giovanni Vian. (Rome: Viella. 2010. Pp. 260.
€30.00 paperback. ISBN 978-8-883-34440-4.)
The 2002 opening of the Vatican archives to scholars through 1922 has
enabled a series of highly illuminating publications on the modernist period,
the most recent being the present volume. Claus Arnold introduces this
superb collection with an astute observation: To understand the modernist
crisis on its own terms, one must see it in the context of the struggle
between Christianity and “modernity” from the early Renaissance to the present; ecclesiastical opponents saw modernism as but an acute phase of this
age-old confrontation. Decisions made during this acute phase had, Arnold
observes, precedents in Pope Leo XIII’s interventions regarding biblical criticism, which Pope Pius X escalated to a worldwide antimodernist campaign
with chilling consequences lasting to the present day.
Annibale Zambarbieri begins his chapter on the censure of Ernesto
Buonaiuti by thanking Hubert Wolf and his associates for publishing descriptions of Vatican archival holdings that facilitate research into the microhistory and thus the composition of the “mosaic” of the modernist crisis, with
sharper delineations of the protagonists, the theological issues, and the
enduring repercussions. Zambarbieri’s contribution outlines the charges
against Buonaiuti, among which were “ambiguous language,” the dangerous

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influence of Maurice Blondel, and failure sufficiently to credit the intellectual content of Christian beliefs as incompatible with the contemporary
mentality.
Arnold details the internal story of the process against Alfred Loisy from
the initial “indexing” of five of his works (1903) to the drafting of
Lamentabili, and the publication of Pascendi dominici gregis (1907)—the
latter accompanied by Pius X’s letter to the world’s bishops and religious
superiors on the execution of antimodernist measures. Arnold provides the
drama that other kinds of historical treatments cannot supply. No one interested in the historical development of modern theology should miss this
section.
Giovanni Vian’s chapter on the reception of Pascendi by the bishops of
France and Italy adds a fascinating and chilling piece to the mosaic. The
church-state friction particularly in these two countries heightened the bishops’ vigilance against modernism. Most hierarchs around the world, aided by
apostolic visitations (promoted by the staunchly antimodernist Cardinal
Gaetano de Lai), adhered strictly to the provisions of Pascendi. References to
the encyclical in church documents “into the third millennium have been
frequent enough to reinforce church discipline to combat” modernist seductions (p. 136).
The relationship between Lucien Laberthonnière and Blondel following
the publication of Pascendi is fairly well known from previously published
works. Giacomo Losito, however, fills out the story, using the minutes of the
fifty-seven meetings of the vigilance committee (1907–25) of the
Archdiocese of Paris and important unpublished correspondence. Far clearer
now is why the two collaborators had a falling out after the Holy Office
“indexed” the series of the Annales de philosophie chrétienne edited by
Laberthonnière.
Judith Schepers’s account of the curial interpretation of the antimodernist oath of 1910 guides readers through the oath’s complex development
within the Holy Office, its debated wording, and its final official interpretation, thus clarifying the oath’s enduring historical significance—how, until
1967, it permanently stamped many church officials with a paranoia about
“modernists” as the Church’s “fifth column.” An appendix includes key Latin
documents.
The most affecting chapter is the one by Raffaella Perin, who details how
the antimodernist campaign played out in the fractious Diocese of Vicenza.
Using heretofore unknown correspondence, Perrin shows the terrible toll
the campaign took (and continues to take) on the lives of flesh-and-blood
clerics as well as on the Church as a whole. She appropriately highlights the
role of De Lai. who was “rigidly antimodernist” (p. 208n5).

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This collection shines a bright light into some dark corners of contemporary ecclesiology.
Marquette University

DAVID G. SCHULTENOVER, S.J.

Roads and Ruins: The Symbolic Landscape of Fascist Rome. By Paul Baxa.
[Toronto Italian Studies.] (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2010. Pp.
xvi, 232. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-802-09995-2.)
Baxa argues that fascist urban planning in Rome—the sventramenti (gutting) of whole quarters of the old city and the building of new roads—was
determined by the experience of World War I and, in particular, the horrors
of fighting on the Carso, the eastern front line against Austria-Hungary that
now is the border with Slovenia. The fascist veterans of that terrible front
allegedly refashioned Rome to reproduce the shattered, ruined landscape of
the battlefield and the open spaces of the zone between the Carso and the
river Piave, behind which Italian forces regrouped following the catastrophic
rout of Caporetto in October 1917. In this way, they could both punish Rome,
center of “legal Italy,” for its equivocal attitude to the war and reshape the capital according to the experiences of Italy’s most recent and important history.
This is not entirely implausible—historians of Italian fascism over the last
twenty years have sought to understand its actions by closer reference to its
ideologies, passions, and prejudices, and fantasies. But Baxa takes his argument too far. Another part of the explanation might be that the fascist conquerors of the “March on Rome” of October 1922 that enabled Benito
Mussolini’s rise to power, were overwhelmingly ‘northerners’ by virtue of
their provinces of birth—such as Mussolini (Forlì), Dino Grandi (Bologna),
Italo Balbo (Ferrara), Giovanni Giuriati (Brescia), and Cesare Maria De Vecchi
(Turin). Like the Piedmontese who seized Rome from the pope in September
1870, the fascists despised Rome and sought to bring it under their control,
in both cases by radical town planning.
In their reshaping of Rome, the fascists were inevitably influenced by
notions of modernism. The result was the disappearance of many of the “picturesque” smaller streets and squares, and the opening up of the remains of
the various forums and the creation of wide, often ceremonial, roads worthy
of a twentieth-century capital city. For Baxa, these roads represented the culmination of futuristic modernity, the triumph of speed through the motorcar,
and he may be right.
He examines Pope Pius XI’s response to the great fascist urban project
and argues that apart from the demolition of some important churches and
religious houses, the pontiff was concerned abut the “paganizing” agenda
that he perceived to lie behind it. His worst fears were realized by Hitler’s
visit to Rome in May 1938. Ironically, Pius himself indulged in some sventra-

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meni after the establishment of the State of the Vatican City in 1929. Many
of the old Vatican streets were swept away; and when the triumphal Via della
Conciliazone was built from the Tiber to St. Peter’s, most of a whole quarter,
the Borgo, was demolished.
Sometimes the reader is left confused by Baxa’s use of street names,
because he does not always explain what they were called before and after
fascism.Thus he repeatedly talks about the “Corso Umberto I.” One surmises
that he means what Romans now call il Corso or the Via del Corso—that is,
the street between the Piazza Venezia and the Piazza del Popolo. Oddly, on
page 97 he actually quotes a contemporary fascist writer who calls it by its
proper name,Via del Corso.A book on topography and town planning must,
for obvious reasons, contain maps.This one does not. It is consequently very
difficult to understand some of the issues that Baxa seeks to explore—in particular, the project to build the Palazzo del Littorio (headquarters of the
Fascist Party) on what is now the Via dei Fori Imperiali, between Via Cavour
and the Colosseum, and why the site was eventually abandoned for the
Forum Mussolini up the Tiber. It is unclear if this omission is an oversight on
the part of the author or is one that can be attributed to the University of
Toronto Press.
Despite its defects, this is a thought-provoking and fascinating read for
anyone familiar with the history and topography of the Eternal City, prompting a fresh way of looking at its cityscape.
University of Cambridge

JOHN POLLARD

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Resistance. By Sabine Dramm. (Translated by
Margaret Kohl). (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009. Pp. 304. $29.00 hardcover. ISBN 978-0-800-66322-3.)
In the foreword to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship (New
York, 1958, 1995), George Bell, bishop of Chichester, wrote that “Dietrich
himself was a martyr many times before he died” (p. 11). Against the “idolatry” of Hitler and his supporters, contended Bell, Bonhoeffer had stood as
“one of the first as well as one of the bravest witnesses” (p. 11). In arguing
largely against this long-prevailing Bonhoeffer hagiography, Sabine Dramm
offers sobering balance.
Dramm is especially successful in explaining how Bonhoeffer’s family and
collegial contacts brought him into the orbit of those within the German military opposed to Hitler and his criminal regime, including Hans von
Dohnanyi (Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law) and Major General Hans Oster. In
spite of his reputation as an opponent of Hitler and in spite of the fact that
that he faced police restrictions on his rights of residence, speaking, and
publishing, Bonhoeffer was able to use these contacts (remarkably) to gain a

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position under the German Military Intelligence Foreign Office starting in
late 1939. While serving in this clandestine center of resistance, Bonhoeffer
was protected from frontline military duty (against which his Christian conscience objected). He also served as a bridge between the resistance and the
Christian Churches abroad, particularly in Great Britain. As a purported
secret agent, Bonhoeffer made several journeys to neutral Switzerland,
where he met, among others, Karl Barth. Here, he hoped to serve notice that
a viable resistance movement did exist in Germany and was prepared to act
if only it were given reassurance of cooperation from the Allied powers.
(Barth remained skeptical.) Temporarily free of the censor while in
Switzerland, Bonhoeffer also took the opportunity to reestablish his correspondence with Bell (p. 79). Bonhoeffer subsequently met with Bell personally in the Swedish town of Sigtuna in May 1942, where he informed Bell that
a coalition of civil servants, trade union officials, and army officers was prepared to launch a coup against Hitler and end the war. Quixotically, most of
Bonhoeffer’s fellow conspirators hoped that particularly the Western Allies
would treat Germany leniently in the event that Hitler and his criminal
regime were removed. In fact, Bell’s influence with the British government
was negligible. Unknown to Bonhoeffer or his fellow conspirators, British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill had already instructed all British officials
to treat any overtures from the German opposition with absolute silence.
Starting in 1942, the Allies were on the same page—regardless of any regimechanging internal developments, Germany must surrender and submit
unconditionally.
As Dramm rightly argues, observers who see in Bonhoeffer and the
“resistance” (a term the resistors themselves did not use) a bridge between
the Weimar Republic and post–1945 German democracy do so at their own
risk. Bonhoeffer’s vision for a Germany without Hitler was in fact tinged with
authoritarian-leaning elitism. This was true for most of his colleagues.To concede that Bonhoeffer and his conspirators had an inconsequential impact on
the outcome of the war, however, is not to argue for their insignificance. For
his part, Bonhoeffer used his contacts in Switzerland in late 1942 to arrange
for the emigration of fourteen Jewish men and women who faced deportation and the death camps. Although he could not speak for the otherwise
generally compliant Christian churches in Germany more broadly,
Bonhoeffer, as a thoroughly respected Lutheran theologian, could offer “intellectual pastoral care” (p. 240) to German public officials who struggled to
come to terms with their Christian ethics that otherwise rejected violence
as a legitimate means of resistance, even against a murderous tyrant.
Schreiner University
Kerrville, TX

JEREMY ROETHLER

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Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice. By Gerald
Steinacher. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xxviii, 382.
$34.95. ISBN 978-0-199-57686-9.)
Historians have long known that relatively few Nazi war criminals faced
justice; those tried at the Nuremberg War Crimes Court, and individuals apprehended much later, such as Adolf Eichmann (tried and executed in Israel in
1962) and Klaus Barbie (sentenced in France in 1987 to life imprisonment; he
died in 1991). Thousands of others escaped. This has given rise to conspiracy
theories, notably the claim by the Jewish Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal that
a powerful secret organization of former SS members, ODESSA (Organization
der ehemaligan SS-Angehörigen), facilitated the escape of thousands. In Nazis
on the Run Gerald Steinacher writes: “An all-powerful, mythical organization
like ODESSA never existed” (p. xviii). In support he cites Heinz Schneppen’s
Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 2007).
Such an organization was unnecessary. In “the chaos of the post-war years
[with] millions of refugees in transit” (p. 2), escape from justice was easy.
Steinacher’s book is the fruit of exhaustive primary research, documented in
fifty-two pages with 1154 endnotes, plus twenty-two pages of bibliography
and sources. The result is a mind-numbing account of how countless individuals got away.
Most fled to “the Nazi bolt-hole” of South Tyrol (p. 32). To this day ethnically and linguistically German, the province was detached in the Versailles
Treaty of 1919 from the collapsed Austro-Hungarian monarchy and given to
Italy. Once these individuals reached South Tyrol, they were in Italy, where
“fake IDs were not a problem after the war” (p. 42). Moreover, the Italian
authorities “had great interest in encouraging the emigration of refugees as
quickly as possible” (p. 64). Most boarded ships in Genoa and Naples for
Argentina and other South American countries. The International Red Cross
also was helpful.Although there is no evidence that the organization deliberately supported an escape route for ex-Nazis (p. 99), it had issued at least
120,000 transit documents by 1951 (p. 56). Even before that date the United
States was actively recruiting former Nazis for service in the cold war against
the USSR, and Juan Perón’s Argentina was doing the same to build up its economy and military.
Readers of this journal will be especially interested in the role of Catholic
clergy in assisting escapees. Two names recur constantly in Steinacher’s
account: the Croatian monsignor Krunoslav Dragonavić and the Austrian
bishop Alois Hudal—the latter a notorious loose cannon who was increasingly embarrassing to the Vatican and was never Pope Pius XII’s protegé, as
Steinacher claims (p. 126). The two men facilitated hundreds of escapes.
However, their activities never constituted the much-trumpeted “Vatican
Ratline.” Steinacher concedes that “the Vatican was not a monolithic bloc”:
there were “different voices and positions within the Catholic Church” (p.

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285).A full account of these “different voices” may be obtained from Hunting
Evil: How the Nazi War Criminals Escaped and the Hunt to Bring Them to
Justice (London, 2009) by Guy Walters, who, like Steinacher, is a non-Catholic.
Steinacher does not understand that conditional baptism, often administered
to those seeking church documentation, was routine practice and not a trick
devised to facilitate escape (pp. 148ff). Although he credits West Germany
with publicly acknowledging German guilt for the Holocaust (p. 275), he is
silent about that nation’s payments of reparations to Israel. Steinacher’s most
serious omission is complete silence about the documentation of church persecution by the Nazis supplied to the Nuremberg War Crimes trials by Pope
Pius XII. He met personally with Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, the
chief U.S. prosecutor; and Jesuit Edmund Walsh, who transmitted the Vatican
documentation, said the material was “of great value to us.”1
Archdiocese of St. Louis

JOHN JAY HUGHES

Saving the Holy Sepulchre: How Rival Christians Came Together to Rescue
Their Holiest Shrine. By Raymond Cohen. (New York: Oxford University
Press. 2008. Pp. xvi, 308. $27.95. ISBN 978-0-195-18966-7.)
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the holiest worldwide
Christian shrine, has been the topic of much research focusing on the struggles between the churches over strongholds within and surrounding the
church. This book, written by Raymond Cohen, professor emeritus of international affairs at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, focuses on a different perspective—attempts at coordination and cooperation between rival churches
for the restoration and maintenance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The book covers the periods of the British occupation and Mandate
(1917–48), Jordanian rule (1948–67), and oversight by the Israeli government (since 1967). Focusing on the human perspectives behind the scenes,
it opens with the 1927 earthquake and the damage it caused to the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre and the lives of the monks who served there.The book
flashes back to the history of the basilica and the rivalries between the major
churches in Jerusalem since the fourth century. A major landmark was the
“status quo” arrangements at the Holy Places—designed in 1853 by the
weakened Muslim Ottoman Sultan Abd al-Majid—that Cohen considers as an
informal system for coexistence among the three major churches in
Jerusalem and a way to alleviate international pressures and conflicts such as
preceded the Crimean War.

1
Cf. Patrick H. McNamara, A Catholic Cold War: Edmund A. Walsh, S.J., and the
Politics of American Anti-Communism (New York, 2005), p. 123; see also Nicholas
Doman, “The Nurenberg Trial,” Bulletin of the American Association of University
Professors, 32, no. 1 (1946), 83–91, here 83.

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The British government of Palestine was concerned that the rivalries
among the churches in the Holy Places as backed by European powers ultimately would undermine its rule over Palestine. It set up a commission
headed by Lionel George Archer Cust that presented its memorandum in
September 1929. It became the British Mandate’s manual on the status quo
and has been respected by the rival churches in Jerusalem until the present
day. Cohen vividly describes how the British administration managed repairs
of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, overcoming conflicts within as well as
between the churches through personal contacts behind the scenes.
A serious fire occurred at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1949 as the
Jordanians were repairing damage from the 1948 war. Because of the fire, the
dome was in imminent danger of collapse. King Abdullah of Jordan took personal responsibility for repairing the church. Cohen sees the king’s incentive
as the desire to reject the initiatives to internationalize Jerusalem and to
prove to the United Nations and worldwide Christianity that the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan would be a capable caretaker of the Christian holy
places. The Jordanian view was that it was the government’s responsibility
to restore the church, which it would accomplish with or without the cooperation of the local churches. Cohen gives major credit to the Jordanian governors of Jerusalem, especially Hasan al-Khatib, in moving forward with the
process of repair. An impressive, honest civil servant educated in Ottomanera Muslim law, Khatib treated the church heads with courtesy and firmness
as backed by Amman. He induced the churches to sign an agreement of
cooperation in 1952 so that the restoration could commence. However, the
restoration did not begin until 1961 because of strife within the major
churches in Jerusalem and Jordan’s problems with Egypt’s Gamal Abd alNasser and Nasser’s promotion of pan-Arabism. By 1966, the danger of the
collapse of the dome’s ceiling had been alleviated.
Following the 1967 war, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and officially
united it with the Israeli West Jerusalem, putting the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre under direct Israeli rule. Unlike the British and Jordanians, the
Israeli authorities declared their abstention from any involvement in the
restoration of the Holy Sepulchre Church and inter-communal rivalries
except for cases of violence. Cohen quotes Israel Lippel, the deputy director
general of the ministry of religious affairs at the time:“We are not interested
in the Christians accusing the Jews once again of murdering Jesus and I do
not think that we should interfere in these matters.They should deal with it
by themselves” (p. 191). Hence, Israel played a very minor role in the restoration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Church conflicts brought about
several deadlocks regarding the restoration. It was UNESCO rather than
Israel that applied pressure on the three major churches in Jerusalem to
come to an agreement regarding the restoration plans. Finally, an inauguration ceremony was held in 1997 for the restored dome, attended by the three
patriarchs of Jerusalem—a rare demonstration of unity.

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As the ruler of East Jerusalem, Israel has had the obligation of keeping law
and order, preventing violence, and maintaining the status quo in the Holy
Places. Has the Israeli stand of noninterference in intercommunal strife
proved itself? Cohen describes the collapse of the delicate balance in
between the Copts and Ethiopians in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre compound due to changing relations among Israel, Egypt, and Ethiopia. He does
not elaborate on other cases of law breaking, most obviously the encroachment of the Muslim waqf into the properties of the Franciscans and Greek
Orthodox in the church compound in 1997 and the annexation of two
rooms that belonged to the Greek Orthodox patriarchate by al-Khanka alSalahiya mosque. The three patriarchs of Jerusalem filed an official complaint with the Jerusalem police, met with Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, and urged Netanyahu to intervene. The court in Jerusalem issued
a decree to stop work at al-Khanka, but no action was taken.
The book concludes that only an outside force such as a firm government
approach could make the rival churches in Jerusalem cooperate. It compares
the British and the Jordanians attitudes toward the restoration of the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre and refrains from referring to the Israeli policy or lack
of policy regarding this issue.This book is an important contribution to the
research of Jerusalem and the Holy Places.Well documented and vividly written, it is recommended for researchers; the general public; and, above all, the
lovers of Jerusalem.
The Technion—Israel Institute of Technology

DAPHNE TSIMHONI

Ein Jahrzehnt der Hoffnungen. Reformgruppen in der bayerischen
Landeskirche 1966–1976. By Angela Hager. [Arbeiten zur Kirchlichen
Zeitgeschichte, Reihe B, Band 51.] (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
2010. Pp. 352. €70,00. ISBN 978-3-525-55742-6.)
Speaking in 1971 to the Synod of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland
(EKD), Bavarian Protestant state bishop Hermann Dietzfelbinger warned his
colleagues,“we stand today in a faith struggle compared to which the church
struggle of the Third Reich was merely a skirmish” (p. 12). In the eyes of
many traditional Lutherans in the Bavarian State Church—and, indeed, across
Germany—it seemed that the influence of modern theology, popular culture, and left-wing student politics posed a dire threat to the integrity of the
church and its historical mission. Many young pastors and laypeople, for
their part, felt an equally urgent need for church reforms that would promote democracy, a more equitable structure, and political reorientation, thus
saving the church from irrelevance in the increasingly secular modern
world. Yet for all of the controversy that surrounded these conflicts during
the late 1960s and early 1970s, historians have only recently begun to examine them in much depth. Historical scholarship on Protestants in postwar

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West Germany lags far behind the state of research on postwar German
Catholicism, not to mention work on the churches under both the Nazi and
East German dictatorships. For this reason, Angela Hager’s new book is a welcome foray into relatively uncharted territory.
Focusing on the period 1966–76, Hager examines the role of three reform
groups that sought to transform both the structure and the broader culture
of the Bavarian state church: the Arbeitskreis Evangelische Erneuerung, a
broad, reform-oriented circle of clergy and laity; the Vereinigung Bayerischer
Vikare, an organization founded to represent the interests of vicars (pastoral
interns); and the Landeskonvent bayerischer evangelischer Theologiestudenten, a group representing Bavarian Protestant theology students. The
first major section of the book examines the founding and organization of
these groups in the context of the larger cultural, political, and theological
movements of the 1960s and 1970s.The second goes into more detail on the
groups’ major actions and goals, including in-depth examination of several
specific controversies in which they were engaged.These include the push
for ratification of the Leuenberg Concord, which opened full communion
between most of Europe’s major Protestant churches; advocacy for the ordination of women; criticism of traditional understandings of the pastorate and
the local parish; efforts to broaden pastoral training to include more engagement with humanistic and social scientific learning; and support for greater
(left-of-center) political and social engagement by the churches. The third
major section analyzes oral and written interviews with important figures in
these movements in an attempt to understand how they viewed (and view)
their own role in the movements and events under examination.
The book provides an excellent general background on Germany’s
Protestant churches during the 1960s and 1970s, concisely summarizing
recent research in the field. It also draws attention to several interesting controversies in the Bavarian church. These include the fight over the
“Engagement Paragraph” in Bavarian church law, which required pastors and
theology students to submit background information on potential spouses
for the approval of the church hierarchy, and the “Ordination Dodger”
(Ordinationsverweigerer) controversy, in which several vicars, already
licensed to administer the sacraments, refused to undergo full ordination as
a symbolic protest against the hierarchical structure of the church. It also
examines Bavarian church debates on larger issues such as 1970s-era
changes in West German relations with the Eastern Bloc (Ostpolitik) and
reactions to the controversial Program to Combat Racism of the World
Council of Churches. Despite these strengths, the book is written for a relatively narrow audience of specialists and is unlikely to have great appeal to
those not already well versed in German Protestantism.
Tusculum College
Greeneville, TN

BENJAMIN PEARSON

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155

American and Canadian
Native Americans, Christianity, and the Reshaping of the American
Religious Landscape. Edited by Joel W. Martin and Mark A. Nicholas.
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2010. Pp. xviii, 235.
$75.00 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-807-83406-0; $27.95 paperback, ISBN 9780-807-87145-4.)
The title of this volume is misleading because the “American religious
landscape” is larger than the book’s geographic and interpretive scope. Still,
these essays contribute valuably to a healthy scholarship on indigenous
Christianities. Three essays—one on Jesuit Jean de Brébeuf by Emma
Anderson, another on Illinois Marian devotions by Tracy Neal Leavelle, and
one on the Ojibwe/Anishinaabe by Michael D. McNally—encompass indigenous Catholicisms. Others by Joanna Brooks, Daniel Mandell, Rachel Wheeler,
and Douglas L.Winiarski focus on indigenous New England Protestantisms,
and one by David J. Silverman features those in New York and Wisconsin.
Two studies, one on the Cherokee by Joel W. Martin and another on
California by Steven W. Hackel and Hilary E.Wyss, pursue a comparison with
New England missions. Another by Laura M. Stevens contextualizes New
England missions in their Scottish and British sources. Michelene
Pesantubbee’s foreword, the editors’ introduction, Mark A. Nicholas’s conclusion, and Michael D. McNally’s retrospective and forward-looking legacy
essay round out the volume.
Although the editors’ emphasis on the essays’ interdisciplinary character
also is a bit overstated—this is not a text that stresses either method or
theory (but see Nicholas)—the contributors do derive from multiple disciplinary homes such as history (6), religious studies (5), literature (3), and
Native studies (1). The editors note aptly that the essays represent a sea
change in the study of North American missions. All reject Christianization
as a progressive achievement. Similarly, the contributors are not politically
correct inheritors of the victimization scholarship that reacted against the
uncritical valorization of Christian missions. These essays focus on the multiplicity of the motivations and outcomes of indigenous agency.Their reconstructed Christianities recognize identity; adaptation; resistance; and, more
often than not, a religious and political critique of the colonial encounter. As
evidence of the volume’s consolidation of the missionization field, each
essay has rich citations that provide readers access to primary and secondary sources.
An important indigenous perspective—the rationality of Native
Americans’ religious syncretism—is only partially visible in these essays.
Because many of the essays take up missionization within tribal cultures
with previous colonial histories and peoples with post-traditional subsistence, political, and religious practices, it is difficult to see the surviving reli-

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gious philosophies and life values of precolonial indigenous peoples. For all
of that, the essays document the Christianities as developing religious worldviews aiming for cultural survival.These include historical developments in
the terms kitchi manitou, the Great Spirit, the great and good spirit, and
discourses focusing on God and Jesus Christ. Although these theological
transformations have yet to be traced ethnographically and historically (see
McNally, p. 298), close study of these rhetorical shifts would reveal the fault
lines of historical religious change and the ruptures and reconfigurations of
indigenous ways of reasoning about—and ways of acting on—cosmic being,
modes of knowing, and the survival and adjustment of religious values that
have sustained Native American identities into the present.
As the volume’s careful framing suggests, understanding indigenous perspectives on religious change has developed richly in a single generation.
These essays capture a crucial insight. Although missionaries brought an
alien purposefulness to the encounter, indigenous peoples everywhere acted
as the crucial arbitrators of both the process and the evolving outcomes of
missionization.
Arizona State University

KENNETH M. MORRISON

The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America.
Edited by Chris Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda. [Early American
Studies.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2011. Pp. vi, 401.
$45.00. ISBN 978-0-812-24270-6.)
Collections of essays, despite the hazards of the form, have grown in popularity in recent years. Pulling together multiple pieces into a coherent
whole is well beyond the ken of most such volumes, while editing to a high
standard can be an elusive goal. Too often, a few high points are hidden
among less noteworthy contributions. This collection avoids many of the pitfalls of the form. Most of the contributions are based on in-depth primary
research or provide sweeping overviews chock-full of well-documented
examples. A remarkably high number make important interventions into our
understanding of early American religious differences and the tensions they
engendered. With the exception of John Corrigan’s brief and focused analysis of the biblical texts referring to the Amalekites, the interpretive frameworks are broad. Although the essays vary in the extent of their innovation
and substance, the quality is generally exemplary. The coherence across
essays may be somewhat murky, and the editors’ introduction does not
entirely satisfy on this score, but the volume on balance makes a worthy
addition to the literature on early American religious history.
More than half of the dozen contributions address the experience of a
particular group or groups.William Pencak analyzes that of the Jews in early
America, organized around the themes of antisemitism, toleration, and appre-

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157

ciation. Joyce Goodfriend surveys three groups who were outside the
Reformed Protestant community that the governor of New Netherland Peter
Stuyvesant favored: Lutherans, Jews, and Quakers. Christopher Grasso
explores the persistent prejudice against atheists and freethinkers in the
early republic. Richard Pointer and Jon Sensbach canvass the experiences of
Indians and Africans respectively. Not so much Catholics themselves as antiCatholic fears are the subject of Owen Stanwood’s similarly broad essay.
Andrew Murphy revisits the Keithian schism that sundered the early
Pennsylvania Quaker community, endorsing the arguments made by George
Keith himself about the causes of the controversy.
A number of the essays fit into the classic literature on church-state relations, toleration, and religious liberty. Susan Juster analyzes prosecution of
three religious crimes—heresy, blasphemy, and Sabbath-breaking—across
numerous colonies over time; she demonstrates the persistence of concern
over these issues accompanied by a hesitation to inflict the harshest penalties. Ned Landsman shows how the Union of 1707 inadvertently permitted
constitutional arguments against a Church of England establishment for the
British North American colonies. Coeditor Christopher S. Grenda contributes
a long and detailed analysis of the reasoning behind debates about toleration,
linking an intellectual history to a discussion of the practical effects of each
set of views. Coeditor Chris Beneke argues for the impact of the American
Revolution on religious freedom, embracing the idea of irreversible progress
while acknowledging its vulnerability to charges of “Whiggism” (p. 283).
Except that Grasso’s treatment of “infidels” and to a lesser extent some of
Pencak’s observations about Jews fly in the face of Beneke’s conclusions, the
editors’ own articles serve as helpful framing devices for the entire volume.
Their individual contributions exceed their jointly authored introduction to
the collection; in that piece they unconvincingly argue that the corpus of
work departs drastically from previous literature.
Catholicism, although the focus of only one essay, makes an appearance
in a number of others. Sensback treats briefly the experiences of Catholic
Africans; Pointer does the same for Native American converts allied with the
French.The status of Catholics in the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary
era come into the discussions of Beneke and Grenda in particular. For readers of this journal, however, the greatest benefit of this volume will be in the
understanding of the general context for religious difference and accommodation in British North America and the new United States.
Miami University
Oxford, OH

CARLA GARDINA PESTANA

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With Anza to California, 1775–1776: The Journal of Pedro Font, O.F.M.
Translated and edited by Alan K. Brown. [Early California Commentaries,
Vol. 1.] (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011. Pp. 464. $55.00.
ISBN 978-0-87062-375-2.)
“On the whole,” admitted the late Alan K. Brown,“it is impossible at times
not to dislike Father Font” (p. 39). It is not the specters of racism, sexism, or
homophobia of our own day—which we would expect from Pedro Font—
but rather the friar’s open disclosure of his difficult personality. He is petty,
peevish, jealous, critical, and complaining, and at the same time keenly observant, dutiful, and meticulous.To the surprise of his readers then and now, he
simply lets it all hang out. He scruples not at all to call a fart a fart (nor does
Brown hesitate to translate it so).
Font, accomplished Franciscan and a Catalonian by birth, served as chaplain and “cosmographer” on the famed trek of Juan Bautista de Anza in
1775–76 shepherding colonists overland from Sonora to California. The friar
preached, sang, played his psaltery, observed and recorded latitude,
described everything that piqued his curiosity, deftly drafted maps and
mountain profiles, and kept daily field notes. At the conclusion of the eventful, eight-month round-trip, he prepared a shortened version of his field
notes, both in draft and as the clear copy he sent to his superiors. A year
later, he had a book-length “final text” ready.
Brown’s volume is a tour de force of historical editing. He combines creatively all of Font’s versions, taking into account “the multitude of additions,
corrections, and deletions,” to present for the first time a unified and fluid
translation “incorporating all of the information that he found worth recording” (p. 71). Font’s commentaries clearly offered in hindsight, not on the trail,
are presented in smaller type (surely for economic reasons). Where such
asides go on at length (occasionally with as many as forty long lines on a
page), it can be hard on the reader’s eyes. Such musings, however, often are
captivating, as when Font anguishes over why God has allowed “the ignorance, misfortune and wretchedness in which the Indians whom I saw all
along the way as far as San Francisco harbor live” (p.138). Brown’s informative footnotes are set in even smaller type. An extensive table, “The Days’
Marches: Distances and Bearings in the Three Texts and in Anza’s Journal,”
forms a concluding appendix. Most days the friar, sick much of the time,
reckoned they had gone farther than the soldier.
This landmark edition calls to mind a similarly rich primary source by
Font’s equally condescending Franciscan contemporary, Francisco Atanasio
Domínguez, edited by Eleanor B. Adams and Fray Angélico Chávez as The
Missions of New Mexico, 1776 (Albuquerque, 1956). Although both friars
offer much not contained elsewhere in the documentary record, Font’s focus
is on Spain’s newest far-northwestern colony whereas Domínguez’s is on the
oldest.The contrasts and similarities are revealing.

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Sadly, editor and translator Brown died in September 2009, with his monumental manuscript in “next-to-last draft” (p. 13), but Rose Marie Beebe and
Robert M. Senkewicz skillfully saw it through to publication.
As for the Indians’ flatulence, Font portrays them seated on the ground,
lifting a haunch and letting the dust fly. Once, when lighting Anza’s cigar, an
Indian “standing very seriously in front of him with the match stick in his
hand, let out a formidable fart, and although the commander told him that
was not something that was done, he kept smiling quite undisturbed” (p.
135).Thereby, we learn as much about the friar as about his subject.
University of New Mexico

JOHN L. KESSELL

A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier del Bac. By Bernard L.
Fontana. Photographs by Edward McCain. [Southwest Center Series.]
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2010. Pp. xx, 353. $75.00. ISBN 9780-816-52840-0.)
This handsome book is the culmination of the author’s many years of
study of one of the most important Mexican colonial buildings in the United
States. Fontana’s first book about the building and site was Biography of a
Desert Church: The Story of Mission San Xavier del Bac (Tucson, 1961). In
the present volume, he provides the known facts about this Franciscan building erected between 1780 and 1793, which replaced an earlier Jesuit church,
as well as fresh information on the church and especially on its decoration.
His method is to guide the reader through the building, with the help of
plans and photographs, to discuss the paintings that cover the walls and the
sculptures in riches and altarpieces.
Following the introduction, the book is organized by areas of the building, as a visitor might walk through them. This is a good way to think about
buildings and the works made for them, as it enables the reader to understand the relationships between the church and its artworks. For art historians, Fontana’s approach to the art and its iconography sometimes lacks context. There are selections of iconographic comparisons for each work that
are usually interesting, but sometimes puzzling. Fontana does note the existence of similar sculptures in other churches built by the Franciscans toward
the end of the eighteenth century in Mexico. He also provides useful information about the processes of restoration of the church over the years.
The visual materials that complement the text will be very useful for
anyone interested in this church and the others related to it on both sides of
the U.S.-Mexico border. The plans of the building are especially helpful. The
text and illustrations will encourage scholars to examine more closely the
complex history of Bac as a Jesuit and Franciscan site on the frontier. The
sculpture is a good case in point, because it is clear that the pieces are from

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different periods and are not homogeneous. Some came from Mexico City,
others from elsewhere in Mexico. Others were made locally, and some have
mixed origins. Local art production also included wall paintings that abound
at San Xavier. Unfortunately, some of these have been repainted or greatly
restored. However, with recent discoveries of wall paintings in the region,
scholars should be able to link the different sites, especially those relevant to
the period of Bac’s construction and decoration.This is a useful and visually
impressive book (as well as one that is reasonably priced).
Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

CLARA BARGELLINI

Southern Manuscript Sermons before 1800: A Bibliography. Ed. Michael A.
Lofaro. (Knoxville: Newfound Press. 2011. Pp. xxvi, 735. $34.95 paperback.
ISBN 978-0-979-72926-3.)
Graduate students and historians studying religion in the colonial South
and the early national period will be happy to see the publication of this
book. This volume brings together citations, titles, and brief descriptions of
more than 1600 manuscript sermons preached in the South before 1800 by
more than 100 clergy representing a variety of denominations: Roman
Catholic (forty-two clergy), Anglican/Episcopal (forty clergy), Congregational
(three clergy), Baptist (seven clergy), Methodist (six clergy), Presbyterian
(eleven clergy), and Lutheran (two clergy), as well as one Quaker preacher.
Many of these document may have been unknown to many scholars before
publication of Southern Manuscript Sermons before 1800. For instance, few
historians were likely aware of the large number of sermons available at the
F. Garner Ranney Archives of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. Other
people may have been unaware of the relatively large body of Roman Catholic
sermons preached in the colonial South.
The collection includes a number of helpful appendices, one listing the
religious affiliation of the preachers whose sermons are represented in the
collection and a keyword-short title index. The keyword index is broad in
scope, listing topics as diverse as “Hail Mary, On the”; “yellow fever, epidemic
in Baltimore”; “Holy Orders”; and “Green, Bishop William Mercer,” who had
come to own at least one of Virginia colonial Anglican James Maury’s manuscript sermons by the 1860s.
Also available online in a searchable database (http://dlc.lib.utk.edu/
sermons), this source should help scholars locate sermons that will eventually
expand our understanding of the Southern religious mind in the colonial
period. One might wonder whether historians will find more differences or
similarities in the discourses preached by members of different denominations. How will historians address, for example, sermons that discuss “the new
birth,” a term usually thought to suggest evangelical leanings, although

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Anglicans hostile to the Great Awakening (such as Maury) also used the term
in their sermons?
This is an important collection of citations that will prove helpful to
scholars from a range of fields—from history and literature to psychology.
However, this book is not without problems. The Reverend Deuel Pead, previously identified by Richard Beale Davis as an Anglican, shows up here as a
Baptist. In addition, the collection clearly does not include all of the collections of manuscript American sermons before 1800. The Bishop Payne
Library at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, for
instance, does not even appear in the list of “United States and British
Repositories Investigated,” although the archives there include a collection
of manuscript sermons written by the Reverend William Douglass.
These issues aside, Southern Manuscript Sermons before 1800 is a valuable source, not only for collecting in one place citations to so many relatively
obscure sermons but also for the commentaries that accompany each entry,
including a reference to secondary works that have already published edited
versions of the particular sermon.
Alabama A & M University

EDWARD L. BOND

Mrs. Mattingly’s Miracle: The Prince, the Widow and the Cure That Shocked
Washington City. By Nancy Lusignan Schultz. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2011. Pp. ix, 274. $30.00. ISBN 978-0-300-11846-9.)
Nancy Lusignan Schultz’s new book is both fascinating and strange. It fascinates because of the wondrous historical event that is at the center of this
story. Her book is strange because of Schultz’s unusual presentation of the
event. The Mrs. Mattingly and widow in the book title was the thirty-nineyear-old Ann Carbery Mattingly, a resident of Washington, DC, suffering from
end-stage breast cancer. Mattingly was well known in her parish of St.
Patrick’s, and the priests and parishioners launched a novena for her on
March 1, 1824. The cure recounted was her miraculous healing from breast
cancer on March 10, 1824. The prince was German priest and nobleman
Alexander Leopold Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingfurst.
In June 1821 Hohenlohe’s intercession had brought about the healing of
the paralyzed Princess Mathilde von Schwartzenberg. This event caused a sensation in Europe, and many people came to Hohenlohe seeking healing. On the
tenth of each month Hohenlohe would offer his Mass and prayers of intercession for those who were unable to come to him. On March 10, 1824, Father
Stephen Dubuisson, a Jesuit who ministered to Mattingly, offered a Mass at St.
Patrick’s church at two o’clock in the morning in the hope that it would coincide with Hohenlohe’s offering of Mass in Germany. Shortly after he took
Mattingly a host consecrated at his Mass, she was miraculously healed.

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The cure was immediately the talk of Washington. Schultz reports that in
the two days that followed her cure 500 people came to visit Mattingly,
including many politicians and government officials. Ambrose Maréchal,
archbishop of Baltimore, was concerned that the story of Mattingly’s cure
would be met by some with skepticism and thus instructed her pastor to collect affidavits from witnesses to the miracle, including both Protestant and
Catholic witnesses. The archbishop’s concerns were well founded, as the
story of the Mattingly miracle was reported negatively in several East Coast
newspapers. Also, a number of Protestant journals treated the miracle as a
fraud perpetuated to mislead the simple-minded. However, facts are stubborn
things, and the critics were never able to demonstrate that what had happened to Mattingly was anything less than miraculous.
Schultz offers much additional information about the life of Hohenlohe,
but in the end he remains a mysterious character. Believed by many to be
holy and devout, Hohenlohe was criticized by others, including some church
authorities, as being vain and worldly. Even Princess Mathilde’s estimation of
him must have been mixed, as in 1848 she requested that church authorities
compel the prince to repay money that he had borrowed from her in 1831.
Still, whatever Hohenlohe’s personal shortcomings, many people were
healed of very serious illnesses through his intercession. Between 1824 and
1838, there were fifteen such miraculous cures in Washington and Maryland
alone attributed to the intercession of Hohenlohe. All but one of those cured
were women; ten of these women were religious sisters. As for Mattingly,
after a few years, the notoriety of her miraculous cure faded, and she lived a
quiet life until her death on March 9, 1855. She was buried the following day,
thirty-one years to the day of her cure.
Although Schultz’s book is amply documented with endnotes, it sorely
lacks a bibliography. The strangeness of the book is the insertion of supernatural stories at the beginning of each chapter. Although they are supposedly “based on historical material,” Schultz has allowed herself “imaginative
free play in writing them” (p. 22). These stories are interesting but do not
really pertain to Mattingly’s miracle. Additionally, Schultz suggests, but does
not demonstrate, that somehow the Mattingly miracle and reactions to it
offer lessons on nineteenth-century ecclesiology, gender roles, and slavery.
The real lesson of this miracle is in the power of one woman’s faith.
Office of the Historian
Archdiocese of Washington

RORY T. CONLEY

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Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West, 1845–1910. By David M.
Emmons. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2010. Pp. viii, 472.
$34.95. ISBN 978-0-806-14128-2.)
The present book began life as a “relatively uncomplicated account of
western Irish,” but soon transformed itself into a “cluttered storyline of a
people beyond a cultural as well as a geographical pale” (p. 460). To fully
develop his thoughts, writes the author, the University of Oklahoma Press
allowed him a larger than usual word limit. The result is a large, dynamic
book about a people, a religion, a region, and a culture. Happily, this hefty
volume is exceptionally well written.
An earlier book by David Emmons, The Butte Irish (Urbana, IL, 1989), is
considered a model for the study of an ethnic group located in a specific
town or region. Researching and writing Beyond the American Pale allowed
Emmons to draw wider conclusions about the Irish by extending his field of
vision to many different western locations. How deep is the research? The
author has considered the influence of the Irish in 210 western cities or settlements, eighty-two mining locations, and ten railroad towns.
Emmons begins his task with enthusiasm in the introduction by debunking some assumptions about Irish immigration to America. Next, he examines
some exaggerated myths about the West. All of this is relevant to “Part I.
Unwelcome Strangers: the Irish and the American West,” the first five chapters in this two-part book. Among the most interesting considerations
advanced by Emmons are the attitudes by the Irish immigrants toward slaves
and Indians—two minority groups with whom they could identify. In the
mind of many Americans, for example, rigid Catholicism was a form of slavery. Moreover, the British viewed the Catholic Irish as savages and therefore
justifiably conquered, just as they had the Indians of America.
“Part II. An Alternate Frontier: The Irish in the American West” moves the
story of Irish immigration across the 100th meridian. Of course, labor, both
unorganized and unionized, is a major part of the story. Capitalism loved Irish
laborers who worked in the mines, laid railroad track, and cleaned homes,
but not when they dominated labor unions, as so often occurred. In the latter
scenario, they became papists in need of assimilation into Protestant
America.When the Irish resisted, they were kept beyond the American pale.
The glue that binds together the two parts of Emmons’s book is
Catholicism. In the late-nineteenth century Butte, Montana, was the most
Irish city in America in terms of percentage of total population, which made
it the most Catholic city in America. That fact alone also made it the most
antiwestern city. The West was Protestant country, notwithstanding the
notable efforts of Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries. Emmons argues that the
West was not a place of equal opportunity if an individual was Irish,
Catholic, or both.The irony is, writes Emmons, that the West was viewed as

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a place where people could go to be free, yet when the westering Irish took
that to mean they were free to practice their clannishness and Catholicism
they immediately became unwelcome.
Emmons, now professor emeritus at the University of Montana, has been
at work on this project for thirty years. This is an outstanding contribution
to Irish studies, the American West, and American history.
Gonzaga University

ROBERT CARRIKER

The Beginning of Print Culture in Athabasca Country: A Facsimile Edition
& Translation of a Prayer Book in Cree Syllabics by Father Émile
Grouard, O.M.I. Prepared and Printed at Lac La Biche in 1883.
Translated by Patricia Demers, Naomi McIlwraith, and Dorothy Thunder,
with an introduction by Patricia Demers. (Edmonton, Canada: University
of Alberta Press. 2010. Pp. xxviii, 457. $80.00. ISBN 978-0-888-64515-0.)
This book is a unique contribution to sociocultural history and to
Aboriginal language studies. It introduces the reader to a forgotten document and calls attention to an often neglected dimension of early missionary
work—its attention to language. The original text brings to light the process
of recontextualizing Christianity through the complex translation of beliefs
into indigenous languages and its reflective dimension. It is relevant to note
that the original text was prepared and printed in the Oblate Mission, Notre
Dame des Victoires in Lac La Biche (a community with Cree, Métis,
Saulteaux, and Montagnais residents), in Athabasca Country with a Parismade press by Father Émile Grouard, M.O. (1840–1931).Thus, the book also
opens a window to the dissemination of print culture in western Canada, as
the authors have written in the preface, and to the exploration of “the
fusions of Cree, French, and Latin linguistic patterns” (p. x).
The foreword, written by Arok Wolvengrey of the First Nations University
of Canada, provides the most appropriate comments situating the work in
the contemporary context and calling attention to the difficult tasks of the
authors/translators, given the temporal distance from Grouard’s work and
even possible misunderstandings on his part. In the preface the translators
make clear that the transcription and transliteration, as well as the English
translation of the phonemic system of the sound and word patterns of Cree
Syllabics (geometric characters representing syllables), represented a challenge. Given the changes of meaning, the representation of Cree sounds, and
the differences in sentence patterns between the time of the original publication to today, the authors/translators have included both a direct transcription of Grouard’s Syllabics in Roman font and a transliteration of Cree
in italics, according to current linguistic practice.
The introduction brings to the forefront the missionary work of Grouard.
Before Grouard traveled to Lac La Biche, he spent thirteen years in the

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Northwest, became conversant with Aboriginal languages, and learned printing and painting during two years spent in France to recover his health. In
September 1876 Grouard went to the Notre Dame des Victoires Mission at
Lac La Biche, a place where the aims of the Oblates and those of the Hudson
Bay Company often intersected. It is important that the authors also examine
the work of the Grey Nuns, their gendered position in the mission, and their
spiritual notion of sacrifice that needs to be understood even as their work
now can be construed as oppressive of the Aboriginal peoples. Grouard and
other early missionaries were open to the mediation of culture and language
in the process of Christianization, contrary to the assimilationist patterns of
the residential schools later in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth
century. The point is not to argue about the desirability or not of conversion
that happened at the intersection of the colonization process, but to underscore the approach at a time of ultramontane missionary zeal.
The afterword, rightly titled “Language and Devotion:A Missionary Use of
Cree Syllabics,” is a major contribution to cultural and linguistic history. The
authors, having positioned themselves at the interface of oral culture and
textual representation, engage in a cultural linguistic analysis of the challenges they encountered in the process of transcription, transliteration, and
translation. This book represents a major milestone in Aboriginal studies.
Queen’s University
Kingston, Canada

ROSA BRUNO-JOFRÉ

Miracle on High Street. The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of St. Benedict’s
Prep in Newark, N.J. By Thomas A. McCabe. (New York: Fordham
University Press. 2010. Pp. xiv, 322. $26.95. ISBN 978-0-823-23310-6.)
The story of St. Benedict’s Prep is not only miraculous but also inspired,
as author Thomas McCabe so aptly and consistently illustrates throughout
the course of this highly detailed volume. What is most evident at first and
last within the pages of this retrospective is the diligence and pluck that
each generation of administrators, students, alumni, and supporters exhibited to keep St. Benedict’s going through constant challenges and a reprieve
from near extinction to re-emerge as a verifiable success story.
At first glance, the chronicle of St. Benedict’s is one that often is shared
with other Catholic secondary institutions in varied forms that launched
from modest origins and subsisted from semester to semester by a combination of honest toil and force of will. Beyond the parochial nature of this
work in a strictly religious sense; the geo-social implications that faced the
school are also important to note.Therefore, the telling of St. Benedict’s history with that of New Jersey’s largest city shows a rare and valuable glance
into a symbiotic and respectful story of how “The Prep” benefited from and
aided its host city in turn. Its reach transcended the Catholic Church, as

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Newark emerged as one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the nation.
The early German monks who administered St. Benedict’s not only taught
their fellow ethnic coreligionists but also Irish, Italian, and Eastern European
individuals. Most recently, Latino and African American men, among other
ethnicities, have contributed to its unique and steadfast character.
In substantive terms, McCabe traces the developmental steps of his subject in chronological form. The contents are broken down by traditional
chapter blocks extolling major eras of development over the years. The full
scope and resilience of St. Benedict’s history from the “forgotten” antiCatholic riot of 1854 predating its official founding fourteen years later
through the more famed Newark Riots of 1967 that have defined the city and
precipitately led in part to the temporary closure of St. Benedict’s in 1972
before re-opening one year later. Aside from these situational “bookends” of
aggression that has fostered anxiety and fueled desire, McCabe mentions that
everyday concerns remain constant and ever present despite financial
issues, fluctuations in enrollment, competition from public schools, and
other factors that threatened its stability. Hope remains alive on High Street
despite varied obstacles, but McCabe shows how strength of character has
carried the day since 1868.
From a stylistic point, this text reads like a drama that is evident from the
introductory text onward as this book transcends that of a straight facts-andfigures type of institutional history. McCabe presents a vivid account that combines historical analysis, statistical data, press accounts, archival resources, and
anecdotal information among other germane information of note. The arrangement is very well balanced, as curriculum, faculty, student life, athletics, social
life, neighborhood, and special milestones that constitute the core parts of any
academic study are thoroughly and expertly covered in proper detail. Just like
their mascot, the “Gray Bees,” this tome is alive with the vibrancy and virtues
that mark the Rule of St. Benedict, “ora et labora” that McCabe ultimately
imparts to his audience throughout the course of this opus.
Overall, there is something in this story for everyone, as it is a time-honored tale of modest origins with waves of success and crisis, but is ultimately
a tale of passion and success. As McCabe notes, perhaps the miracle of St.
Benedict’s has been the long and enduring impact of one venerable institution that remains alive due to industry, endurance, and well-placed faith.
Seton Hall University

ALAN DELOZIER

Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War. By
Jonathan H. Ebel. (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2010. Pp. xiv,
253. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-691-13992-0.)
The subtitle of this book defines its main subject: religion and the
American soldier in the Great War. The author notes accurately that his

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book is the first on this topic since the publication of Religion among
American Men (New York, 1920). It has two distinct advantages over the
earlier work. First, it relies heavily on letters, diaries, and memoirs of participants that were not available in 1920. Ebel found many of his sources in the
New York Public Library’s collection of U.S. World War I narratives and in
several postwar collections of letters and other accounts of the experiences
of soldiers. The public source was The Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the American Expeditionary Force. Second, it takes a broad view of
the term American soldier, embracing a variety of military personnel: soldiers, airmen, and noncombatant workers. Many of the latter were women
who served in a multitude of support agencies. This expansive view pays
many dividends in providing a wider range of motivations and firsthand
experiences.
The author has at least two goals and two arguments. One goal is to give
voice to the religious ideas of participants in the war. He achieves this with
considerable success by bringing to life the memories of a wide variety of
individuals. Another goal is to establish the religious dimensions of the war.
At the very least, he says, historians of American religion should begin to
include them in their histories, to weave the voices of the soldiers and war
workers “into the increasingly complex tapestry of American religious history” (p. 196).
The first argument is “the necessity, though not the sufficiency, of religion
as a cause of American involvement in the Great War” (p. 194). It was, he
claims, religion that put a large number of the participants in the war. The
argument is not new, but the author makes it through the lives and words of
those at the front, rather than the words of President Woodrow Wilson and
some of the leading clergymen. The second argument is that World War I was
not the “death of an old order and the birth of a new,” but that it demonstrated the continuity of the past with the future. It was about “the reassertion of religious ideas and ideals in the face of war and in war’s aftermath. It
is, in short, a story of reillusionment” (p. 18). The American soldiers, in his
broad meaning of the term, were more frequently advocates of prewar faiths
“than they were revolutionaries against them.”
The book features an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion.
Chapter 1, “Redemption through War,” reveals that all kinds of Americans—
men and women, Protestant and Catholic—saw the war in remarkably similar religious terms, as a way to achieve redemption. Chapters 2 and 3 deal
with theological issues, including God, suffering, death and salvation, and the
efforts of the participants to “theologize” the violence and devastation of the
war. Ebel uses the arguments in Rudolf Otto’s Das Heilige (Breslau, 1917;
trans. The Idea of the Holy, 1923) to explore the memories of several of the
combatants as they tried to come to grips with the presence of the numinous in the terror of the war.

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Chapter 4, “Christ’s Cause, Pharaoh’s Army,” has both an intriguing title
and powerful subject. African American participants fought a two-front war,
one in Europe and another at home, experiencing what W. E. B. DuBois called
a double-consciousness. Ebel’s readers will meet Vernon Smith, Isaac
Sanders,Willie Thomas, Julius Mitchell, and others as they struggled to carry
out their duties under the heavy burden or racism. Just as compelling are the
stories of Carolyn Clarke, Addie Hunton, and others in chapter 5, “Ideal
Women in an Ideal War.” The final two chapters are “There Are No Dead”
(about soldiers’ visions of the afterlife) and “The Same Cross in Peace” (about
the rise of the American Legion).
Faith in the Fight is a complex study, fitting to describe and analyze the
experiences of those who participated in an event far more complex than
most Americans think. It offers a strong argument for the recovery of World
War I in American histories, those of religious life and those of the nation as
a whole.
Lycoming College (Emeritus)

JOHN F. PIPER JR.

Rising Road: A True Tale of Love, Race, and Religion in America. By Sharon
Davies. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 327. $27.95.
ISBN 978-0-195-37979-2).
The establishment of the English-speaking colonies in North America was
an anti-Catholic experiment. Except for Maryland, the Christian colonies
were antipapist. The prejudice against Roman Catholics and Roman
Catholicism continued throughout the course of the history of the United
States until recent times; one may argue that expressing anti-Catholic prejudice is still publicly acceptable. Sharon Davies, professor of law at Ohio State
University, vividly recounts one violent and fatal act of anti-Catholic prejudice in Rising Road: A True Tale of Love, Race, and Religion in America.
This thoroughly researched and well-written narrative recounts the murder
of James Coyle, a Roman Catholic priest, on August 11, 1921, in Birmingham,
Alabama, by Edwin Stevenson, a Methodist minister. Stevenson’ s daughter,
Ruth, had converted to Catholicism and had married a Hispanic Catholic,
Pedro Gussman, in a service officiated by Coyle.
What is fascinating and significant about Davies’ s work is her judicious
handling of the sources at her disposal. Using court transcripts, newspaper
accounts, and church documents, Davies chronicles the anti-Catholic mood
of the region, the state of race matters in the South, and the understanding
of legal and extralegal justice in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Davies demonstrates that Stevenson was not on trial when his case was
finally brought before Judge William Fort’ s court; rather, this was a trial that
would uphold family values, Protestant hegemony, and racial purity in the
South.

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A good portion of this work centers on the efforts of the county solicitor,
Joseph R. Tate, to bring Stevenson to justice and those of Hugo L. Black,
future Supreme Court justice and Ku Klux Klan member, to save him from
the electric chair. Black and his colleagues portrayed Stevenson and his wife,
Mary, as dutiful, yet somewhat indulgent, parents to a spoiled and disrespectful daughter. Black and company presented the Catholic Church as
“other,” feeding into the religious bias of the region against the “intolerable
alien.”The Hugo Black defense team, by questioning Gussman’ s ethno-racial
status, provided a justification for Stevenson’ s action: Gussman violated that
which was never to be violated in the South—racial purity. As the editors of
the anti-Catholic New Menace argued before the trial took place, Stevenson
should not be punished, as they believed that he “would rather have seen his
daughter in her grave than a member of the papal church, married to a
Catholic, destined to bring into the world a generation of half breed slaves
to the papal system. . .” (p. 203). A jury of Stevenson’s white peers acquitted
him on October 21, 1921, some ten weeks after he had shot Coyle in cold
blood.
In a work that is suitable for graduate and undergraduate students as well
as one that will appeal to the general public, Davies presents a cautionary
tale of racial and religious intolerance. Such intolerance, unchecked, led to
murder, unpunished. As Alabama governor Emmett O’ Neil commented after
Stevenson’ s acquittal, “We have not advanced far from savagery or barbarism
if murder is to be justified on account of the religious creed of the victim”
(p. 281).
Fordham University

R. BENTLEY ANDERSON, S.J.

“Go to the Worker”: America’s Labor Apostles. By Kimball Baker. [Marquette
Studies in Theology, No. 70.] (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
2010. Pp. 275. $30.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-874-62749-7.)
Independent historian Kimball Baker has written the best book to date on
American Catholic leaders who answered Pope Leo XIII’s appeal to “go to
the worker.” There are ten essays and four brief “social action vignettes” covering many of the major figures in Catholic labor history from the 1930s
through the postwar era, ending with Monsignor George G. Higgins. Baker
has done his homework, reading the Catholic labor press, interviewing most
of his subjects, and consulting the best work in labor history. Most of the
essays are far more than biographical profiles. They are studies in local labor
history informed by awareness of local political and social as well as ecclesiastical history. Best of all, Baker knows his labor history, including the often
complicated stories of internal union politics, where Catholic influence was
sometimes important and always controversial. Although the focus is on
leaders, the local stories communicate clearly the struggles and the courage
of the rank and file.

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The pope’s appeal was to priests, and Baker includes essays on important
clergymen who devoted all or part of their ministry to the labor movement.
Here we are reminded of the close connections between pastoral work and
labor action when most Catholics were working-class wage earners. He also
offers essays on two important lay leaders, John Cort and Ed Marciniak.
Baker worries that all his subjects are white males, except for a one-page
vignette on pioneer factory inspector Linna Bressette, who served for three
decades as an aide to John A. Ryan and Raymond McGowan. Those two pioneers do not get chapters, although their names, and that of Dorothy Day,
appear throughout. Most of the stories are about less well-known figures in
Chicago, Brooklyn, New York, Pittsburgh, and Boston.
Baker helps readers understand the fight on the ground for union recognition and the importance of Catholic support or indifference. He admires
the coalition building where Catholics joined with workers of other faiths
and with socialists, even communists, and he carefully explains the need
for—but ambiguity of—the divisive battles that freed some unions from
communist control. He recalls that church support for labor unions
affirmed the goal of improving wages, hours, and working conditions, but
also insisted on the need to build labor-management cooperation.
Eventually, these leaders thought that industrial America, to achieve justice
and ensure democracy, would have to explore new structures similar to the
“vocational group” corporatism of Pope Pius XI. Ryan taught them to call
the goal “industrial democracy,” and the CIO for a time flirted with “industry councils.” Baker, better than most historians, helps us understand how
and why that goal faded after World War II and is now lost to Catholic and
American memories.
Academic historians should know that this is serious, well-researched, and
clearly presented history, but it is far from neutral. Baker unapologetically
favors unions, collective bargaining, and larger reforms to strengthen democracy. He believes, as did the subjects of his book, that the enemy was unbridled capitalism.
College of the Holy Cross (Emeritus)

DAVID O’BRIEN

For Both Cross and Flag: Catholic Action, Anti-Catholicism, and National
Security Politics in World War II San Francisco. By William Issel.
(Philadelphia:Temple University Press. 2010 Pp. vii, 206. $40.00. ISBN 9781-439-90028-4.)
In For Both Cross and Flag William Issel accomplishes what he set out to
do; he “restore[s] our appreciation of the impact of European political and
religious rivalries in the political cultures of American cities in the first half
of the twentieth century” (p. 2) by telling the story of Sylvester Andriano, a
Catholic, Italian American lawyer living in San Francisco. Andriano’s story

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warrants attention, because in 1942 he was declared a security risk and prohibited from living on the West Coast by the House Un-American Activities
Committee (HUAC) and California’s Tenney Committee (TC), largely in
response to the testimony of members of the Communist Party. Issel first
encountered Andriano’s story when researching “competition between the
Communist Party and the Catholic Church in San Francisco in the 1930s and
1940s” (p. 6). After working his way through the collections of papers, correspondence, and testimony related to the case, he concluded that Andriano
was innocent of the charges against him and decided to tell his story. Issel
wanted not only to correct the record but also “to demonstrate how international and national events impinged on the political culture of a major
American city from World War I to World War II” (p. 6) and how “Andriano’s
exclusion [from the West Coast] derived also from his militant Catholic
activism” in promoting Catholic Action (p. 5). As seen, Andriano’s story is a
complex one that encompasses religion, culture, immigration, World War II,
and politics at the local, national, and international levels.
Beginning with the introduction, which presents an overview of the case,
Issel skillfully guides the reader through the layers of Andriano’s story and
presents his central point: that anti-Catholicism played a key role in the decision of the Communist Party and anti-Catholic fellow Italian immigrants to
target him. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to Andriano, offering a brief biography of his family roots, immigration to the United States, education at Saint
Mary’s College of California, and career as a lawyer. Then in chapters 2
through 9, Issel shifts his focus to Andriano’s leadership position in Catholic
Action and prominence in San Francisco’s Catholic community. He presents
Andriano’s work in the context of the religious and political movements, historical events, and cultural developments that put Andriano on a collision
course with the Communist Party and eventually led to his ordeal with
HUAC and TC. He makes it clear how Andriano’s close relationship with
Archbishop John J. Mitty and Mayor Angelo Rossi, his contribution to settling
the dock workers’ strike of 1934, and his work to promote Catholic Action
drew the ire of the local Communist Party, which sought to undermine the
Catholic Church’s influence among the workers. Consequently, when Issel
covers the UAC and TC hearings in chapters 10 and 11, the reader clearly
understands how Andriano found himself a casualty in the battle between
the Communist Party and the Catholic Church in San Francisco.
Issel closes with an epilogue in which he presents a series of conclusions
that draws his work together and returns the reader to his theses regarding
immigrants, politics, and anti-Catholicism. He ends with a final note regarding the timeless importance of Andriano’s story, stating,“Few San Franciscans
recall the name Sylvester Andriano, but his story is important because it
serves as a cautionary tale about how easily government officials can make
mistakes that lead to the abuse of citizenship rights during wartime” (p. 172).
Issel has told a story whose importance lies in its cautionary nature and its

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reminder regarding the influence of immigrants’ homeland politics and religious affiliation in domestic politics.
Mount Marty College
Yankton, SD

HELEN CIERNICK

America and the Vatican: Trading Information after WWII. By Robert F.
Illing. (Palisades, NY: History Publishing. 2011. Pp. 245. $25.95. ISBN 9781-933-90969-1.)
Robert F. Illing spent the bulk of his career as a U.S. foreign service officer, including five years as an assistant to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., who was
appointed the personal representative of President Richard Nixon to Pope
Paul VI in 1970. Lodge was not accorded diplomatic rank or salary with this
post, which he held until 1977, and never maintained his permanent residence in Rome. He was reimbursed for his expenses, however, when he
made official visits to the Vatican, and the government paid for a permanent
suite at the Grand Hotel, which served as the official office of the mission.
Illing notes that Lodge made fourteen official visits during his five-year tour
in Rome, spending an average of five to six weeks in the city each year. As
assistant to Lodge, Illing remained in Rome and acted as a kind of chargé d’affaires, despite the lack of official diplomatic relations between the United
States and the Holy See, as was the case until 1984.
Illing is a man of many interests. Those interests often are on display in
this loosely woven narrative, which includes historical and cultural observations, personal anecdotes, some diplomatic history, and theological opinions.
The book includes an index, but is without footnotes or bibliography. Some
facts, stories, and events are repeated across chapters, and the tone of the
whole is overwhelmingly personal.The complete work might best be understood as a memoir. Illing is an admirer of both Lodge and Paul VI, and is quite
explicit in his esteem for all things “progressive.” In Paul VI, Illing finds a
reflection of his own liberal preferences. All else is dismissed somewhat derisively, including some Catholic teachings. This is especially the case in the
chapter “The Population Conundrum,” in which the author appears baffled
by the apparent intransigence of the Holy See on the matter of contraception and birth control in contrast to the official position of the government
he represented. Illing’s lack of theological, ecclesiological, and historical
background is clear throughout the book.
The chapters that intend to sum up large periods of history are sometimes filled with little more than gross caricatures. This is overwhelmingly
apparent in the fourth chapter,“Historical Growth of Papal Power,” which it
might have been better to omit. His summary of the relationship between
Benjamin Franklin and the nuncio to Paris (the third chapter) fails to credit
any of the scholars who have long since brought this relationship to light.

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Rather, with his photocopies of contemporary documents found in the
Vatican archives, he might leave some with the impression that this story is
his discovery. The second chapter, which outlines the history of bilateral
relations between the United States and the Papal States/Holy See, is more
helpful, but again, is still sketchy and lacks attribution of sources.
The chapters that review particular diplomatic relations with regard to
specific nations while Illing served at the Vatican contain useful memories of
an ancillary participant and professional diplomatic observer. The story of
Cardinal Josef Mindszenty might be of some interest to a wider audience, as
may be the review of U.S. relations with the Holy See in light of the Vietnam
War. But it is doubtful that Illing’s nation-by-nation review (“Covering the
Waterfront”) would, in the main, be of interest to the general public. More
intriguing, perhaps, would be the string of personal encounters, along with
impressions, that included visiting U.S. presidents and other politicians,
General Josip Tito, and Gloria Swanson.
Mount Olive College
Mount Olive, NC

JAMES F. GARNEAU

Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar America to Its
Protestant Promise. By Kevin M. Schultz. (New York: Oxford University
Press. 2011. Pp. x, 256. $34.95. ISBN 978-0-195-33176-9.)
In part 1 of this valuable book, Kevin Schultz documents the origin, development, and general acceptance of the “tri-faith” idea in the second quarter of
the twentieth century. “Tri-Faith America” meant that the country could no
longer be understood simply as a “Protestant nation”; rather, Catholicism and
Judaism had attained equal status as spiritual constituents of American identity. By the 1950s, that view shaped what Schultz calls “standard operating
procedure” (p. 43) in American social thought. In part 2, he analyzes significant shifts in American thinking related to this development.
The National Conference of Christians and Jews, formed in 1928 in reaction to Ku Klux bigotry, was the key agency in systematically promoting the
tri-faith idea. Its message of tolerance and brotherhood was reinforced in the
wartime years by the prevailing sense of cultural crisis and the conviction
that America’s democratic values were rooted in the “Judeo-Christian tradition.” The NCCJ’s programmatic activities in training camps, enthusiastically
supported by military authorities, made the organization “one of the most
extensive propagandists for what the nation was fighting for” (p. 49). The
same linkage of tri-faith/Judeo-Christianity with Americanism was carried
over into the cold war battle against “godless communism.”
Schultz’s account of how the “three faiths of democracy” (p. 50) came to
be regarded as the leading markers of diversity in American society is well

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researched and convincing. However, his treatment of Will Herberg’s
Protestant, Catholic, Jew (Garden City, NY, 1955), the classic contemporary
analysis of the phenomenon, is surprisingly ungenerous. His summary of its
argument is incomplete; he calls Herberg’s critique of American religiosity
cynical and characterizes his interpretation as derivative—Herberg was
merely “the most famous of the bunch” of sociologists who had been theorizing along the same lines for years (pp. 88–89). This dismissive evaluation of
Herberg’s work seems quite wrongheaded. However, Schultz’s review of the
overall impact of the tri-faith idea is more rewarding. Here he argues, first, that
the tri-faith vision legitimated “communalism”—that is, the right of minority
groups to maintain a distinctive identity—and implicitly suggested that
groups as such have rights. Second, it was associated with a shift in constitutional thinking whereby church-state separation was grounded in the need to
protect minorities from discrimination. Third, by being associated with the
Jewish campaign to exclude religious questions from the census, the tri-faith
idea helped establish the principle that religion is a strictly private matter.
Finally, it “softened the ground” for the civil rights movement by supplying a
language that Reverend Martin Luther King and other leaders could “tap into”
in their struggle for equality and by making “American pluralism an accepted
part of the nation’s identity” (p. 185). However, the leaders of tri-faith America
did not formally embrace the cause of racial justice until the 1960s, and
Schultz is highly critical of the “sometimes willful blindness” (p. 194) that kept
them from including racial minorities in their campaign for brotherhood and
tolerance from a much earlier date.
The broadly interpretive claims Schulz makes in part 2 are definitely
provocative, but also plausible and well worth further investigation. There
are, however, some disquieting errors of detail in part 1. Schultz mistakenly
calls Whittaker Chambers a “Catholic convert” (p. 90); and he errs in respect
to the dating of Father Charles Coughlin’s antisemitic agitation (p. 30), Carlton
Hayes’s service as ambassador to Spain (p. 31), and Servant of God Fulton J.
Sheen’s elevation to episcopal dignity (p. 63). To assert that Stuart
Symington—rather than the courtly Joseph N.Welch—“famously asked [Sen.
Joseph R.] McCarthy if he had any decency” (p. 90) has to be called a howler.
University of Notre Dame (Emeritus)

PHILIP GLEASON

Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod: A Conflict that Changed American
Christianity. By James C. Burkee. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2011. Pp.
xvi, 256. $29.00. ISBN 978-0-800-69792-1.)
Unlike most of American Lutheranism, the Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod takes pride in the fact that it has never merged with another church
body. Founded in 1847, it once flirted with a like-minded Lutheran church
regarding altar and pulpit fellowship as well as experienced—also unlike
most of American Lutheranism—the pain of schism.

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James Burkee, associate professor of political science at Concordia
University Wisconsin, did not experience the Lutheran civil war of the 1970s
as did most of those who have written about it to date. The present book, the
first nonpartisan account, narrates the evolution of a conservative movement
that succeeded in driving more moderate voices from the synod by the mid1970s.
At the center of the conservative element was Herman Otten, whose seminary faculty in 1957 refused to certify him for ordination after he leveled
charges of heresy against them. Burkee considers Otten the synod’s “most
infamous figure” (p. 8), yet finds him among its most pitiable characters.
Since 1962, Otten has published the Christian News, a weekly “church
tabloid” (p. 43), in which he has vilified individuals and institutions and
through which “he defined conservatism for the Missouri Synod, created a
sense of crisis,” and “turned a handful of anxious pastors and laymen into a
movement” (p. 6).
Yet Burkee finds little consensus within the so-called movement and even
less trust. Using extensive quotations from interviews with key players from
the era, he weaves an account of growing discontent fueled by Otten’s publication, a drumbeat that led to blatant politics by the synod’s 1969 biennial
convention, “as awkward and schizophrenic a gathering as Missouri
Lutherans had ever seen” (p. 90). With the election of Jacob Preus, the conservative candidate who ousted the more moderate incumbent, the synod
set on a path to clean house of all things liberal, in particular Concordia
Seminary in St. Louis. Seven years later, the schism was complete with the
departure of 250 congregations.
Burkee correctly puts Missouri’s conservative-moderate conflict within
the larger context of the rising polarization of American society during the
late 1960s and early 1970s. Calls for law and order like those that put Richard
Nixon in the White House echoed in Missouri conservatives’ demand for
purging the St. Louis seminary of liberal theology. Despite describing the
conflict as “a war of ideologies, primarily but not exclusively theological in
expression” (p. 45), Burkee’s narrative is largely devoid of any discussion of
the profound theological differences represented by the two camps.
The story told here is instead a sordid tale of secret meetings, threats, electioneering, blackmail, backbiting, and backstabbing. The book’s title would be
more accurate without commas—power politics became the order of the day
with the conservative takeover of the synod, which “is today as politically
managed and charged as ever” (p. 12). Unfortunately, the author does not
make a convincing case for the claim of his subtitle.The conflict did, however,
change American Lutheranism, most dramatically the Missouri Synod itself, a
body Burkee concludes “has become an also-ran, struggling for existence and
relevance even as it continued the fight to define itself” (p. 183).

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The book offers valuable insight into what Robert Wuthnow has called
the restructuring of postwar American religion and serves as a case study of
the extremes to which the conservative/liberal divide can impact churches.
Burkee’s account of an “all-out war that has not ended and whose outcome
is uncertain” (p. 11) leaves the reader little sense of hope. Primarily an
unmasking of perpetual malcontent Otten, whose unbridled arrogance and
disproportionate influence remain unmatched in Missouri Synod history, it is
not, as Martin Marty suggests in his foreword, a happy story.
MARY TODD

Marshall University
Huntington, WV

Latin American
Bonfires of Culture: Franciscans, Indigenous Leaders, and the Inquisition
in Early Mexico, 1524–1540. By Patricia Lopes Don. (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press. 2010. Pp. xiii, 263. $34.95. ISBN 978-0-806-14049-0.)
An intriguing feature of the early evangelization of central Mexico is the
extraordinary manner in which the natives flocked with genuine zeal to be
baptized at the hands of Franciscan friars. It all seemed to confirm Hernán
Cortés’s efforts to reassure the emperor Charles V that the conquest of
Mexico had more than made up for his losses in Europe by adding vast new
territories populated by people who would merely need instruction rather
than forced conversion. Unfortunately, this initial enthusiasm soon was
replaced by disillusionment.The apparent enthusiasm for baptism was likely
the result of the Mesoamerican tradition of incorporating the victor’s deities
into the pre-existing pantheon, but the practice was in no way meant to be
accompanied by the outright rejection of the other deities. As evidence of
indigenous recidivism increased, therefore, so did a sense of betrayal and a
growing distrust among the friars in the face of what they could only interpret as duplicity and bad faith.This led to a flurry of inquisitorial trials in the
late 1530s under the leadership of Archbishop Fray Juan de Zumárraga that
reached a tragic climax in 1539 with the burning at the stake of the Cacique
de Texcoco, Don Carlos Ometochtli Chichimecateuctli.
The documents relating to these episodes have been widely available to
historians since Luis González Obregón published them in 1912.
Nevertheless, this is the first scholarly monograph that attempts a detailed
reconstruction of the trials, placing them authoritatively in their historical
context and delving into the circumstances behind each case and the chain
of intrigue on both sides of the cultural divide.The author is as comfortable
in the Inquisitorial methods deployed in Spain to deal with conversos and
moriscos as she is in analyzing the structures and dynastic intricacies of the
Valley of Texcoco and the Sierra de Puebla. She thus sheds as much light on

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the attitudes of Zumárraga and his illustrious coreligionist, fray Andrés de
Olmos—both of whom had been involved in witchcraft trials in the Basque
region before setting off to evangelize New Spain—as she does on the
motives of the likes of Martín Ocelotl, Andrés Mixcoatl, the keepers of
tlaquimilloli (the puzzling sacred bundles containing prehispanic relics),
and the cacique de Texcoco himself.
The fluidity and adaptability that the author brings to light in her reconstructions also allow her to provide a thoroughly convincing reinterpretation of the Boban Calendar Wheel, now in the John Carter Brown Library,
which she dates to the years shortly after the execution of Don Carlos. It is
a beautiful example of the mid-way process between pictographic and
alphabetic documentation in Nahuatl to which both natives and Spaniards
clearly contributed. It therefore is a pity that the analysis of the Calendar
Wheel should not be better integrated into the main argument of the book,
for it would have allowed the author to resist a tendency to present a rather
neat picture that draws too sharp a dividing line between the flexible adaptability of the indigenous actors (who allegedly did not know “moral temptation” [p. 157] and thus managed to “shape the contours of Franciscan teaching in ways that showed little regard for Franciscan dreams” [p. 191]) and the
comparatively monolithic, “black and white” morality of the Franciscans
(which, according to Patricia Lopes Don, prevented them from understanding “the natives’ values and moral dilemmas” [pp. 58, 174]). But this is a minor
quibble in what is otherwise a very solid and illuminating study, whose evident merits will prevent it from gathering much dust in libraries in the foreseeable future.
University of Bristol

FERNANDO CERVANTES

Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico. By Edward W.
Osowski. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 261. $50.00.
ISBN 978-0-816-52855-4.)
Mesoamerican peoples were long familiar with miraculous occurrences,
and they therefore readily incorporated those of the Spaniards into their new
beliefs in Catholicism. Indeed, over the course of the colonial period native
leaders appropriated select miracles to suit their purposes and, in many
ways, made them indigenous. Their Christian piety consequently affirmed
their legitimacy as stalwart members of New Spanish society.
Miracles in central Mexico were, of course, cause for celebration, with
bell ringing at the churches and entire communities rallying for the occasion. Apparitions, a dead child suddenly come to life, a stone cross on the
move, and spontaneous sacred images were among the many marvelous
events that the natives personalized. Early miracles included the widely
known visitations experienced by Fray Martín de Valencia, head of the

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Franciscan Apostolic Twelve, which occurred in a cave on a hilltop in
Amecameca, Chalco. Now known as the Sacromonte, that hill (Chalchiuhmomoztli Amaqueme), as the Nahua historian Chimalpahin (b. 1579) recounted,
was the site where Amecameca’s founding rulers established their kingdom
in 1241—not a coincidence. Thus inviolable, the cave was configured by
subsequent leaders into a sanctuary with an image of the Santo Entierro (the
Holy Burial of Christ, another miracle in its own right) and served as a pilgrimage destination for centuries.
Other indigenous miracle sites were not necessarily as prosperous over
the long term, due largely to demographic change and interference by
Spanish authorities. Undaunted, native leaders sent out alms collectors, who
traveled the countryside with a sacred image ensconced in a box strapped
to the back of a mule. Musicians and women often accompanied them, and
frequently the latter contacted women in distant towns to arrange for exclusive viewing of the saintly icon. The fame of the miraculous cult and the
additional revenue benefited the home community and its leaders, and such
alms collectors became familiar travelers across the region, much to the chagrin of the Spaniards.
By the eighteenth century Bourbon viceroys were implementing various
regulations to gain greater control over ostentatious political and religious
celebrations in Mexico City and neighboring communities.Two targets were
the annual Corpus Christi and Semana Santa festivals, in which the native
peoples were heavily invested. For example, San Juan Tenochtitlan and
Santiago, the indigenous cabildos in the capital, organized the stately milelong, floral-covered arches that framed and shaded the Eucharist as it was
carried about the city in procession. In collaboration with the native interpreter general, invitations were sent to rural towns, requisitioning delegations with construction materials, boughs of flowers, food, and money for
the eight-day celebration. Delegations struck deals regarding the placement
of their arch, as proximity to the cathedral door was a sign of influence.
Corpus Christi was truly the grandest and most sacred of all Christian festivals in New Spain, and the native celebrants’ pious fulfillment was without
question.Yet there were other advantages: the great prestige enjoyed by the
rulers from distant towns who took part, the inexorable authority of the governors in San Juan and Santiago who held sway during the festival, the economic boon for retail merchants (Spaniards included) in the capital, and the
ongoing satisfaction and legitimacy invoked by the public display of indigenous religiosity.
Semana Santa was important as well for the Indians, who marched in the
processions but also rented costumes and served as pagan Roman centurions. They re-enacted the Passion and watched over the body of Christ and
then professed themselves true believers on the final day of the festival,
essentially reiterating their spiritual conquest by the Spaniards. There also

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were seasons of Passion plays (first written in Nahuatl, the natives’ language,
and later translated into Spanish to be more ecumenical—and all in spite of
viceregal mandates to the contrary).
Indigenous Miracles emphasizes the Christological, rather than the
Marian, devotions in New Spain and focuses on regional, rather than urban,
miracle-related activities. Edward Osowski also stresses the influence of local
leaders as the mainstays of the wondrous celebrations, but the evidence also
speaks of class and ethnic pluralism and corporate communities expending
remarkable capital and effort for the benefit of all. It is an important book,
revealing indigenous creativity, adaptability, and sustainability for centuries.
Yet there are some points of concern. According to Chimalpahin, the date of
the beginning of the worship of the Santo Entierro is 1583, but Osowski renders it as 1584 (pp. 37, 39) and 1589 (p. 56); San Juan Tlacotenco is rendered
as San Juan Tlatelolco (p. 62); spiritual alms collectors and spiritual tax collectors are deemed to be synonymous entities; and the index has little utility. Nevertheless, Indigenous Miracles brings to light a trove of new information and fine history about the vitality of native spiritual life at the end of
the colonial era. It is a most welcome contribution to the field.
Tulane University

SUSAN SCHROEDER

Framing the Sacred: The Indian Churches of Colonial Mexico. By Eleanor
Wake. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2010. Pp. xxii, 338. $65.00.
ISBN 978-0-806-14033-9.)
Eleanor Wake’s impressive new book on the perennially fascinating topic
of the indigenous impact on the built and visual culture of early New Spain is
a welcome addition to the literature in English. Its elegant, jargon-free writing;
methodical overview of the secondary literature; and deft detective work
based on extensive fieldwork will make this book invaluable as a primer for
the subject for undergraduates, graduates, and interested members of the general public.
The book takes us on a journey through time and space—both real and
cosmic—beginning with overviews of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican beliefs
and rituals centered on geography, the calendar, agriculture, and fertility,
focusing on the role of plants and especially flowers, the leitmotif of this
book. Chapters 2 and 3 explore familiar territory, telling the story of the
implementation of Christianity by the conquerors on the existing sacred environment and the indigenous reappropriation of their own world through
selective adaptation and interpretation of these alien forms and beliefs. We
see again the ingenious systems of indoctrination used by the friar missionaries and the ways that the Nahua employed them to their own ends, as well
as the cycles of tolerance and intolerance imposed by a Church that at times
had little idea of what was going on. Chapter 4 rehearses the history of the

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building of the great mission churches and the ways in which their unique
structures (open chapels, posas) reflect the pre-Hispanic ritual environment
and its colonial inheritor and how they represented continuity as much as
novelty for the indigenous populations. Her relation of indigenous depictions
of churches to representations of the altepetl (Nahua community) is particularly helpful.
Much of this material is well known even to a nonscholarly audience and
indebted to George Kubler, Joseph Baird, John MacAndrew, Jeanette
Peterson, Samuel Edgerton, and Jaime Lara—just to name some of those writing in English.Yet there is not enough acknowledgment of the work of these
pioneers and contemporaries, or even a clear statement about what is original and what is not. As a consequence, the survey of the literature in the
introduction seems dated—the author’s points are well taken about the
indigenous contribution to colonial culture, but she fights a battle against a
Eurocentric mainstream literature that was won two decades ago. More
problematic is her claim that she is using sources “hitherto not included in a
study of this kind” (p. 8) such as lienzos (map documents), which are the
foundation of a groundswell of recent scholarship (e.g., Barbara Mundy and
Lara, both of whom she cites, but not enough). Her neglect of Lara’s work
and dismissiveness toward that of Edgerton prevents her from opening up a
fresh scholarly dialogue, and it is an oversight not to bring in some of the literature on colonial South America (Ramón Mujica, Adrian Locke, Thomas
Cummins, Elena Phipps), which deals precisely with issues of indigenous
participation in colonial architecture and visual culture and has been engaging the Mexican material directly for more than twenty years.
Wake is at her most impressive in the later part of the book (chapters 5
and 6). Her meticulous and original study of the location and identification of
pre-Hispanic embedded stones in colonial churches and their possible alignment with solar activity and radial sightlines with elements of sacred geography (mountains in particular) is very provocative, as is her unprecedented
identification of this sacred geography in the backgrounds of Christian mural
paintings.Also intriguing is her emphasis on flowers and their relationship to
flower imagery in the Nahua Cantares Mexicanos (sacred songs)—although
in this case the reader wishes she had gone further, reproducing some of the
texts in full and going back over the material treated earlier in the book. In
fact, it would have been preferable to have these splendid texts at the beginning rather than the conclusion.
In sum, this is a very useful book for students and the lay public, with significant new observations to whet the appetite of the scholarly community,
but also not sufficiently appreciative of the work of others nor entirely up to
speed with the larger state of the question.
Queen’s University
Kingston, Canada

GAUVIN ALEXANDER BAILEY

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Agents of Orthodoxy: Honor, Status, and the Inquisition in Colonial
Pernambuco, Brazil. By James E. Wadsworth. (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield. 2007. Pp. xviii, 269. $82.50. ISBN 978-0-742-55445-7.)
Studies on the Portuguese Inquisition have increased and have led to very
important publications in recent years. Gone are the days when works that
dealt with the Holy Office centered mostly on the lists of heretics such as
the New Christians (Jews converted to Catholicism who continued to profess their faith in secrecy). Such studies have allowed us to analyze many
aspects of the societies subjected to the Inquisition. However, as the subject
also gained new followers amid the scholars in research centers and universities, the focus also has changed.
James Wadsworth is an author who belongs to this new generation of
scholars who have intensified the studies on the Holy Office by embracing
such other perspectives. In Agents of Orthodoxy, he presents to the reader
a detailed and institutional study on the presence and practices of the
Portuguese Inquisition in the Captaincy of Pernambuco, one of the most
important regions of colonial Brazil. Working with an extensive and varied
manuscript documentation found in Portuguese and Brazilian archives and
usually difficult to read, as well as using an updated bibliography, the author
delves into the archives of the Inquisition and studies the Pernambuco case
from 1613 through 1821, successfully analyzing the structures of the Holy
Tribunal in Brazil.
Wadsworth demonstrates how social uplift marked Portuguese American
society as it adhered to the Iberian values of purity of blood; legislation
granted access to military orders as well as public and ecclesiastical functions to those deemed noble. Such was the case for the agents who served
or worked for the Tribunal of the Holy Office, including the Familiares, the
author’s main focus. Only after a very detailed and long investigation that
attested to their “purity of blood” could they be approved to enter the privileged group of officers chosen for the Inquisition bureaucracy. They were
laymen who played a significant role in the inquisitorial structure created in
colonial Brazil, especially in the absence of a tribunal in the region. These
agents received most denunciations, accompanied the prisoners during the
autos de fé, guarded them in jail, and imprisoned suspects as well as enjoyed
several privileges.
Wadsworth has unveiled this web of agents in Pernambuco and provided
an extremely interesting socioeconomic profile of this group. He thoroughly
discusses limitations on the agents from the late-seventeenth century
onward, including Don Pedro II’s curbing the number of familiares who
could benefit from the exemption of taxes and tributes as well as other
advantages. Given the many conflicts that arose over these measures, the
author concludes that the motivation for pursuing such a post was because

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of the prestige and honor that it conferred on its occupant. Agents of
Orthodoxy is certainly a book worth reading by those who want to better
understand the many meanderings and secrets of the Lusitanian Holy
Tribunal in America.
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

DANIELA CALAINHO

Far Eastern
A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552–1610. By R. Po-chia Hsia.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv, 359. $57.50. ISBN 9780-199-59225-8.)
Among the abundance of publications and events in 2010, to honor the
400th anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci, R. Po-chia Hsia’s book is
surely among the most remarkable both for academic and lay readers. Ricci
was the best-known Jesuit in late-Ming China. In the past 400 years, his fame
and story have continuously been interpreted, circulated, and debated. Given
such extensive research on this legendary figure, to write about Ricci is definitely not easy. The summary on the back cover of this book calls it “the first
critical biography of Ricci.”
Hsia’s narrative starts with the triumphal ending to Ricci’s glorious burial
in Beijing in 1611, then ventures into his life—from his birthplace in
Macerata, Italy; to Rome; his journey on the Portuguese seas as well as to
India and Macao; and finally his arrival in mainland China—in the subsequent
twelve chapters. It reveals a vivid missionary tour in the changing world
from Europe to China. Guided by the author, this historical account lasts into
Ricci’s posthumous periods: in the epilogue, the undulating fate of Ricci’s
documents and the China mission, as well as the public interest and academic research surrounding him up to the present, are all critically
reviewed. Hsia occasionally reminds readers of his position as a “reader” of
Ricci’s life—by means of fine photos he had taken of Macerata, Guangdong,
Nanijng, and other places—simultaneously showing a historical distance and
personal connection between the narrator and narration. This historical
journey can be read with much greater interactive interest.
Moreover, as a well-reputed scholar in the field of early-modern Europe,
Hsia has contributed his insights on the use of Ricci’s sources in the following three ways. First, Ricci wrote his own version of the journey two years
before his death. This work much resembles a life memoir of Ricci himself.
The best-selling book on China in seventeenth-century Europe (first published in 1615) was an appropriated text based on Ricci’s memoir and edited
by another Jesuit, Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628). For a long time, Ricci’s
account in manuscript and Trigault’s text in print have been considered the
most important and most often cited works for an understanding of Ricci. In

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this book, however, Hsia actually makes more use of Ricci’s letters than is
available in Ricci’s account, revealing Ricci’s private voice and persona.The
unprecedented advantage of those personal letters is their simultaneity and
spontaneity with the years in which the occurrences are described. In addition to this new method of telling Ricci’s story, Hsia also encompasses many
of Ricci’s Chinese works and related Chinese primary sources in his narrative, so that this book can be considered as the first truly balanced account
of Ricci. Hsia also gives the first full translations of some Chinese Christian
sources. In addition, this book is the first in Hsia’s œuvre to appeal in a serious and favorable way to scholars of Chinese history. As the work of a wellestablished scholar of European history delving into an intercultural context,
Hsia’s accomplishment is both amazing and admirable. Third, Hsia’s archival
discovery of a manuscript journal of the Jesuit Michele Ruggieri
(1543–1607) and his moving portrait of this overlooked missionary are
among the most original and surprising aspects of the research for this book.
By highlighting the tension and difference between Ruggieri and Ricci (pp.
102 ff.), Hsia’s descriptions open up a neglected aspect of the early China
mission. The figure of Ruggieri was “partially obscured by the posthumous
glorification of Ricci” (p. 88).
There are two minor points to mention. Possibly because of limited space
and editing concerns, the notes for sources seem considerably reduced. A
few descriptions might have been improved if they had been accompanied
by their sources—for example, the comments on Ricci’s Chinese style by a
Nanchang mandarin (p. 167); the story of Ricci’s first journey to Beijing (pp.
170–72); and the miserable, first martyrdom of a Chinese Jesuit, Wang
Mingsha (Francisco Martins, pp. 265–66). In addition, Beijing does not
encompass Ricci’s full story. The scope of Ricci’s journey and Hsia’s lively
portraiture are not fully suited to the book’s title,“a Jesuit in the Forbidden
City.”
The value of this book lies in its research on the Jesuit China missions and
cross-cultural history of both sides.The style of this book is a blend of interesting and readable narration and thus will appeal to a wider readership.
National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan

HUI-HUNG CHEN

Aborigeno con gli Aborigeni per l’evangelizzazione in Australia: il testo
della Relazione (1883) per Propaganda Fide del vescovo Rudesindo
Salvado. By Giulio Cipollone and Clara Orlandi. [Pontificio Comitato di
Scienze Storiche, Atti e Documenti, 32.] (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice
Vaticana. 2011. Pp. 497. €45,00. ISBN 978-8-820-98533-2.)
Rosendo Salvado was born in Spain on March 1, 1814, and died in Rome
in 1900. He was ordained as a Benedictine at Naples in 1839 and left for

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Western Australia in 1846 to give his life to the Christianization and civilization of the Aborigines. In Rome in 1883 he wrote a report for Propaganda
Fide that forms the body of this splendidly presented and well-illustrated
book, although it lacks adequate maps.The first half is a useful introduction
by two Italian scholars who could have benefited from the help of a competent historian of Australia. For many years, the estimate of Aborigines in
Australia in 1788 was about 300,000, which is that given on page 91.
Nowadays, that estimate has risen to at least 700,000; some say 1 million. In
earlier times, low estimates helped to obscure the rapid fall in Aboriginal
numbers, bordering in places on extinction after white settlement.
Furthermore, there are many spelling mistakes in names and places. For
example, the eminent scientist of the Australian National University, Jim
Bowler, would be amused to find himself rendered here as “Jim Boiler” (p.
79n26).
On arrival, Salvado acted on his conviction that he must go out and live
among the Aborigines in the bush where they had not already been vitiated
by contact with the whites. His provisions were soon exhausted, forcing him
to live off the land on kangaroos, lizards, snakes, and the like while sleeping
on the ground in a different locality each night. In addition to their nomadic
lifestyle the Aborigines also went “walkabout,” which led him to conclude
that doing so was not an aimless activity but a kind of religious act that
united them with their “country” and its sacred places. Salvado rapidly
decided that both the Christianization of the Aborigines and the development of civilization among them, twinned in the great Benedictine tradition,
demanded stability. Hence the need for a monastery about which the
Aborigines could live and become self-reliant by engaging in agriculture and
the rearing and tending of flocks, principally sheep. New Norcia, eighty-four
miles from Perth, was founded in 1847, although many years passed before
it resembled a monastery in the physical sense.
The vicissitudes suffered by Salvado in the bush were as nothing compared to those to which Bishops John Brady and Joseph Serra, his mentally
unstable superiors in Perth, subjected him. Finally, New Norcia became an
Abbazia Nullius in 1867 with Salvado already, and to his dismay, a bishop
since 1849, as abbot for life.The turn in fortunes from then on was remarkable. Monastic life flourished, as did the Aboriginal community. Baptized, educated, married, and cared for, they worked happily on the monastic lands as
builders, shepherds, mill hands, female telegraphists, nurses, and stockmen.
New Norcia rapidly became an unrivaled example of apostolic zeal
poured out for a people whose dignity was never infringed. To Salvado, the
Aborigines were not savages but, as he called them, Australiani capable of
achieving any level of education and culture to which they were given
access. That the local civil authorities contributed so generously to the
development of New Norcia, and especially with land grants, is greatly to

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their credit. Their main source of chagrin was that the New Norcia cricket
team, in which the monks played no role, invariably defeated the gentlemen
of Perth summer by summer.
The regrettable outcome for this fine venture by the Libreria Editrice
Vaticana could be that it remains unread. Couched in the quaint and, in part,
archaic Italian of Salvado, it demands translation lest its treasures lie hidden
as they have been since 1883.
Australian National University

JOHN MOLONY

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BRIEF NOTICES

BRIEF NOTICES
Eccher, Luciana (Ed.). Documentazione papale in archivi trentini tra XII e
XIII secolo. [Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, Fonti,
9.] (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2010. Pp. 212. €17,50 paperback.
ISBN 978-8-815-13930-6.)
The relatively slender volume presents in chronological order all papal
documents known to have survived in archives of the late-medieval diocese of Trent and for the period from the oldest preserved (privilege) of
1177 to 1296. Their total amounts to seventy-four items of which sixtyseven appear fully transcribed among the “Documenti” (pp. 65–164); the
remaining seven figure only in brief Italian regests. The editor justifies their
exclusion by stating that “of several documents . . . a critical edition has
been made recently, which renders a new one less than useful” (p. 61). An
edition in accordance with current scholarly standards is indeed what
Luciana Eccher has set out to accomplish, and the exhaustive presentation
of each text as well as the generous inclusion of five “Apparati,” or analytical indices (pp. 165–202), certainly support her claims to philological conscientiousness and accessibility.
Eccher’s introduction (pp. 10–61) highlights in the opening bibliographical section (pp. 10–25; complemented by the bibliography, pp. 203–12) that
a mere two of her documents underwent registration at the papal curia. In
addition, she states that forty-one of her seventy-four texts survive in the
original, others in late-medieval copies. To be sure, the papal documentation
in the Tridentine archives promised by the title does not always refer to
sources available in the archives today. Eccher’s seventy-four testimonies feature a considerable number (more than twenty) that are no longer extant
except in the transcriptions of eighteenth-century antiquarians.
For general historians, Eccher’s introductory remarks on the original
recipients of her documentation (pp. 27–53) are particularly intriguing. It
turns out that more than forty of the surviving papal letters for Trent from
1177 to 1296 were directed toward a single addressee, the “poor women” of
San Michele in Trento (cf. pp. 31–42). The extraordinary density of this material on the earliest stages of the women’s religious movement and its progressive institutionalization in the forms of, first, the order of St. Damian and,
later, the Poor Clares, will be of special interest to students whose research
falls outside the scope of local Tridentine affairs. WOLFGANG P. MUELLER
(Fordham University)

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Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate, and Bruce L. Venarde (Eds. and trans.). Two
Women of the Great Schism: The Revelations of Constance de
Rabastans, by Raymond de Sabanac, and Life of the Blessed Ursulina of
Parma, by Simone Zanacchi. [The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe:
The Toronto Series, 3.] (Toronto: ITER, Inc., and Centre for Reformation
and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto. 2010. Pp. xi, 131. $13.00
paperback. ISBN 978-0-772-72057-3.)
This volume is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of two “ordinary”
women who, against social norms, were able, through visionary authority, to
intervene in the politics of the day. In addition to providing access to female
experience, these texts give a vivid sense of the deep and pervasive influence of the Great Schism on the mental world of contemporary Christians—
the topic of Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski’s Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of
the Great Schism, 1378–1417 (University Park, PA, 2006).
The Revelations of Constance de Rabestans is an account by her confessor of the spiritual insights of a young woman from Toulouse who in the
1380s began receiving visions that led her to denounce the Avignon papacy.
Although she became for some a type of oracle, for others she was a political nuisance; indeed, authorities in Toulouse had her jailed. The Life of the
Blessed Ursulina of Parma was written in 1472 at the behest of the abbess
of the convent that possessed Ursulina’s body.The Life describes in conventionally hagiographic terms the dramatically unconventional life of Ursulina,
a diminutive visionary born in 1375, who was moved by divine command to
intervene in the Schism by traveling to Avignon and Rome to preach to
Clement VII and Boniface IX.
A concise, lucid, and insightful introduction—ideal for students—discusses the biographies of the two women in relation to the relevant historical circumstances of the Schism and the local politics of the regions of
Languedoc and in Parma, as well as the history of female sanctity and politically engaged visionaries. The editors also take up questions of literary genre
and the complex relationship between subjects and authors in these texts,
which were written by men to represent the voices and experiences of
women. F. THOMAS LUONGO (Tulane University)
Jung, Martin H. Philipp Melanchthon und seine Zeit. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 2010. Pp. 168. €17,90. ISBN 978-3-525-55006-9.)
The year 2010 marked the 450th anniversary of Philipp Melanchthon’s
death. Such events tend to stimulate historical scholarship, and 2010—much
like 1997, the 500th anniversary of Melanchthon’s birth—saw a number of
interesting new studies on this eminently significant but often underappreciated German Reformer. Those works include this new biography by the
Reformation historian Martin H. Jung. A concise work at 168 pages, it seeks to

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provide an overview of Melanchthon’s life and work for a general readership.
One can easily imagine congregational study groups, college students, and
other nonspecialists using the book as an introduction. Such readers need, of
course, to be able to read German, as Jung’s work is not available in English.
Given its brevity, Jung’s work can only skim the surface of its subject matter.
Jung’s approach, which places Melanchthon within a larger Reformation-historical narrative rather than letting the man’s thoughts and deeds dictate the
storyline, makes good sense for an audience of nonspecialists, but it sometimes
seems to give a bird’s-eye view on a great number of very small people, one of
whom has an “X” on his back. As a result, Melanchthon’s considerable—and
often distinctive—influence on the early Reformation remains rather vague.
Jung’s account is far more compelling, however, when it turns to the later years
of the Reformer’s life. In fact, his coverage of the years between 1540 and 1560
makes up almost two-thirds of the book and is both perceptive and interesting, especially since this period of the German Reformation often is neglected.
These sections alone make it easy to recommend this book to anyone interested in a compact overview of Melanchthon’s life and work. KENNETH G.
APPOLD (Princeton Theological Seminary)

Beebe, Rose Marie, and Robert M. Senkewicz (Eds.). “To Toil in the Vineyard
of the Lord”: Contemporary Scholarship on Junipero Serra. (Berkeley:
Academy of American Franciscan History. 2010. Pp. 144. $12.50 paperback. ISBN 978-0-883-82312-5.)
This book is an outgrowth of a 2009 conference held at Santa Barbara
Mission, which aimed to make materials on Fray Junipero Serra more readily
accessible to researchers and others interested in the friar’s canonization.
Although the six short but salient essays composing the volume are not
intrinsically related, they are well written and might best be remembered as
the first in a series of studies that will surely adorn the tricentennial of
Serra’s birth in 2013. Following a chronology of California’s most writtenabout personage is an introduction by Robert M. Senkewicz providing an
overview of the major works about the friar since publication of Francisco
Palóu’s classic Relación Histórica in 1787. James and Patricia Sandos then
give an insightful exposition on the “Indian Responses to Mission San Diego,”
which the authors claim did not satisfy all the parties involved. Steven W.
Hackel discusses the role that Serra played in baptism, followed by the two
editors’ examination of plans about a mission in the Santa Barbara channel
area that was eventually established by Serra’s successor. The collection of
essays concludes with an interesting exposition by Brother Lawrence
Scrivani on “Seeing the Serra Documents through the Eyes of an Archivist”
about the magnificent collection of materials assembled in the Santa Barbara
Mission Archives by the late friars Zephyrin Engelhardt and Maynard J.
Geiger. FRANCIS J.WEBER (Mission Hills, CA)

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________
Association News
The American Catholic Historical Association’s spring meeting will be
held on the campus of Tulane University in New Orleans on March 23–24,
2012.Tulane University and Loyola University of New Orleans are cosponsoring the meeting; cochairs of the program committee are Thomas Luongo
(Tulane University) and David Moore (Loyola University). The complete program will be available online by mid-January. For registration information,
visit the ACHA’s Web site, www.achahistory.org.
The Association’s next annual meeting also will be held in New Orleans
on January 3–6, 2013.
The Catholic Historical Review
JSTOR has made the first eight volumes (1915–22) of The Catholic
Historical Review publicly available in its new “Early Journal Content” service. Users are asked to acknowledge JSTOR as the source of the content and
to provide a link to its Web site, www.jstor.org.
Congresses, Conferences, Meetings, and Lectures
The fifth annual Antonine Tibesar OFM Lecture was delivered on
November 5, 2011, at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley,
California, by William Taylor, former professor of Latin American history at the
University of California, Berkeley. His topic was “Placing the Cross in Colonial
Mexico.”
At the conference “Delirious Naples: For a Cultural, Intellectual, and Urban
History of the City of the Sun,” which was held at Hofstra University on
November 16–18, 2011, and at the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, New York
University, on November 19, Caroline Bruzelius (Duke University) read a
paper on “The Convent of Santa Chiara between Heaven and Earth: Prayer,
Politics, and Power in Late Medieval Naples,” and Salvatore Napolitano
(University of California, Los Angeles) read one on “The Sansevero Chapel:
Art, Magic, and Masonic Ideology in 18th-Century Naples.”
The Accademia Ambrosiana, Classe di Studi Borromaici, held its annual
Dies Academicus in Milan on November 24–25, 2011, on the theme “Prima di
Carlo Borromeo: Istituzioni, religione e società a Milano agli inizi del ‘500.”
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Paolo Prodi delivered the prolusione. The papers will be published in the
next volume of the Studia Borromaica, including Paul Grendler’s “The
Schools of Christian Doctrine, Fifteenth-Century Catechisms, and Jesuit
Catechesis.”
The 2012 American Conference for Irish Studies will be held on March
14–17 in the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Its
theme will be “Erin at Home, Erin Abroad: Capturing the Irish Experience,”and
Christine Kinnealy, Cormac O Grada, Dan Barry, and Stephen Watt will be the
plenary speakers. Details about the conference are available on its Web site,
acisnola2012.org.
The American Cusanus Society will have sessions at the Fifty-Eighth Annual
Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in
Washington, DC, on March 22–24, 2012, and at the Forty-Seventh International
Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, on
May 10–13, 2012. The society’s Gettysburg Conference will be held on
October 12–14, 2012, on the theme “On Christian-Muslim Dialogue Focusing
on Cusanus’ Cribratio alkolani and De pace fidei.” For further information
visit the society’s Web site, haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/
cusanus/cusanus.html.
“After Constantine: Religion and Secular Power in Late Antiquity and the
Middle Ages” is the theme of the Thirty-Ninth Sewanee Medieval Colloquium,
which will take place on March 30–31, 2012, at the University of the South in
Sewanee,Tennessee.The program and other information can be viewed at the
Web site www.sewanee.edu/Medieval/main.html.
The Fourteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law will be
held on August 5–11, 2012, at the University of St. Michael’s College in
Toronto. The program committee has announced the six plenary speakers.
Information about the congress can be found on the Congress Web site,
medieval.utoronto.ca/events/ICMCL/index.html.
A conference on “Vatican II: Teaching and Understanding the Council after
50 Years” will be held at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, on
September 20–22, 2012. The conference will focus on the place of the Second
Vatican Council in teaching at Catholic colleges and universities today. Father
John O’Malley, S.J.; Father Michael Joncas; Sister Maureen Sullivan, O.P.; and
Sister Katarina Schuth, O.S.F., will be the keynote speakers. Paper proposals
are solicited on such themes as the theological reception of the Council, the
Council across the academic disciplines, the Council in the age of globalization, the Council in the current North American cultural landscape, and the
Council and the advancement of the common good. Proposals of a maximum
of 300 words should be sent to Vatican2@stthomas.edu by January 30, 2012.
Further information on the conference is available at the Web site
www.stthomas.edu/theology/Vatican2.

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Quincentenaries
The Somascan Fathers are celebrating the quincentennial of their founding by St. Jerome Emiliani. The jubilee celebrations opened in Venice on
September 25, 2011, and will close in Somasca on September 30, 2012. Pope
Benedict XVI marked the anniversary with a “Message to the Order of
Clerics Regular of Somasca on the 500th Anniversary of the Prodigious
Liberation of Their Founder, St. Jerome Emiliani” (dated July 20, 2011, on the
Vatican Web site).
Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the
Unity of Christians, announced in an interview with the German Catholic
agency KNA that the Holy See and the World Lutheran Federation are preparing a joint declaration on the Reformation in view of the forthcoming 500th
anniversary of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses. The joint commemoration
of this event could be the occasion for a mutual mea culpa, according to the
cardinal, who considers a common purification of memory to be necessary.
Causes of Saints
Twenty-two Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate who were killed
during the Spanish Civil War were beatified in Madrid on December 17, 2011.
The Oblate priests were chaplains to three communities of nuns and assisted
in neighboring parishes. The Oblate students taught catechism in parishes,
and the Oblate choir solemnized the liturgical celebrations. Their religious
activity so annoyed the revolutionary committee of the neighborhood that
the religious were subjected to insults and intimidation. On July 20, 1936,
churches and convents were set on fire, especially in Madrid. Two days later,
armed militiamen assaulted the monastery and detained thirty-eight members
of the community, putting them under guard. Searching the house for
weapons, they found only religious objects, which they threw from the upper
floors and burned in the street. On July 24, seven religious (one priest-professor, Juan Antonio Pérez Mayo; two subdeacons; and four students) were
summoned; sentenced without interrogation, trial, or defense; and taken away
to be slain. The rest were unexpectedly set free and sheltered in private
homes. In October, however, under a search-and-capture order, they were
again taken to prison; there they endured hunger, cold, terror, and threats,
which they accepted with heroic patience and charity. On November 7, a
priest, José Vega Riaño, and a student were shot. On November 29, thirteen
others—Francisco Estéban Lacal, the provincial superior; Vicente Blanco
Guadilla, the local superior; Gregorio Escobar García, a newly ordained priest;
Juan José Caballero Rodríguez, a subdeacon; six student brothers; and three
coadjutor brothers—were taken from the prison to Paracuellos de Jarama,
where they were executed. All died professing the faith and forgiving their
executioners; despite the psychological torments of their captivity, none apostatized or lamented that they had embraced the religious vocation.

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National Monument
The National Cuban Commission on Monuments has declared the Cross of
Parra a national monument. The commission had carried out a scientific
analysis to verify the historicity of the cross, which Christopher Columbus
planted on December 1, 1492, and which is now preserved in the parish
church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Baracoa, the oldest city in Cuba.At
the end of a Mass of thanksgiving celebrated there on August 15, 2011,
Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez, archbishop of Santiago, raised high the
cross and with it blessed some 2000 faithful gathered in the square.Wilfredo
Pino Estévez, bishop of Guantánamo-Baracoa, began the ceremony with
words of welcome, and the historian Eusebio Leal announced the commission’s declaration. He also noted that some days before, Cuban president Raúl
Castro had presented the topic of faith as a cardinal topic of liberty; Leal said
that that address was as important for Cuban Catholics as the Edict of Milan
was for Christians of the fourth century. As Columbus recorded in his diary,
Baracoa was the first place on the island where he set foot; he arrived on
November 27, 1492. Pope John Paul II erected the Diocese of GuantánamoBaracoa during his visit to Cuba in January 1998.
Raphael’s Madonnas
In preparation for his apostolic visit to Germany in September, Pope
Benedict XVI had Raphael’s Madonna of Foligno sent from the Pinacoteca in
the Vatican Museums to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen of Dresden, where
it is on display until January 8 alongside Raphael’s Sistine Madonna; the latter
has been in Dresden since 1784, when King Augustus III of Poland purchased
it.The two large altarpieces were begun around the same time in 1512. Papal
secretary Sigismondo dei Conti commissioned the Madonna of Foligno, and
Pope Julius II personally requested the Sistine Madonna for the church of St.
Sixtus in the newly annexed territory of Piacenza. The two works were completed a few years apart and were never seen together. The Madonna of
Foligno was already in place in the church of Ara Coeli in Rome when the
Sistine Madonna was shipped to the monastery of St. Benedict in Piacenza in
1513 or 1514. This is the first time that the two masterpieces can be viewed
side by side. Elizabeth Lev’s essay in the September 24, 2011, issue of Zenit
describes and compares the two works.
Book Prizes
The Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre
Dame is soliciting nominations for the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary
European Studies. The prize will be awarded for “the best book in European
studies that transcends a focus on any one country, state, or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole.” Books in
history and social sciences are eligible. Publishers may nominate up to three

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books, and an author may nominate his or her own book.The amount of the
prize is $10,000.The deadline for submissions is January 27, 2012.Additional
information and the entry form may be found at the Web site nanovic.nd.edu/
programs-partnerships/shannon-prize. Questions may be addressed to Monica
L. Caro, the institute’s assistant director for operations, at mcaro@nd.edu.
One of the six books that the jury for the Cundill Prize in History at McGill
University selected in October to compete for the world’s largest nonfiction
history book award (US$75,000) is Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a
Secular Age by Sergio Luzzatto (New York, 2010). In 2010 the Cundill Prize
was awarded to Diarmaid MacCulloch for his book A History of Christianity:
The First Three Thousand Years (London, 2009). He gave a public lecture at
McGill University on December 1, 2011. The award was established by the
late alumnus of the university, F. Peter Cundill, to recognize and promote literary and academic achievement in history.
Research Tools
Ad Dudink and Nicolas Standaert of the Department of Sinology in the
Catholic University of Leuven have opened access to a new “Chinese
Christian Texts Database” (CCT-Database), Web site www.arts.kuleuven.be/
sinology/cct. It contains sources concerning the cultural contacts between
China and Europe from 1582 to c. 1840 in religion, philosophy, science, art,
and other fields. It is divided into two sections. The “primary” sources are
approximately 1050 Christian text documents dating from roughly the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; they include printed books, manuscripts,
pamphlets, and maps. The “secondary” sources include more than 4000 items.
Searches can be made in the whole database or in the primary or secondary
sources separately. Access to the database is free, but the use of its contents
must be acknowledged.
Publications
A special issue of the Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum—Journal of
Ancient Christianity (Band 15, Heft 1, 2011) is devoted to the theme
“Patristik vor Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges zwischen Altertumswissenschaft
und Theologie.” The following eight articles attempt to show how patristic
research was conducted a century ago in several countries: Hans Christoph
Brennecke, “‘Patristik’ oder ‘altchristliche Literaturwissenschaft’? Eine historische Leitwissenschaft der protestantischen Theologie in Deutschland
am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts” (pp. 7–46); Volker Henning Drecoll, “Die
katholische Patrologie an deutschen Universitäten im Jahr 1911” (pp. 47–74);
Peter Gemeinhardt,“Die Patristik um 1911 in ihrem Verhältnis zur Religionsgeschichte” (pp. 75–98); Uta Heil,“Die Patristik in der Realencyklopädie für
protestantische Theologie und Kirche. Eine Blütenlese” (pp. 99–123); Mischa
Meier, “‘Ein dogmatischer Streit’—Eduard Schwartz (1858–1940) und die

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‘Reichskonzilien’ in der Spätantike” (pp. 124–39); Ward De Pril and Johan
Leemans, “Patristics in Belgium around 1911: Universities and Beyond” (pp.
140–62); Hacik Rafi Gazer, “Armenier und Armenien in der Patristik im ausgehenden 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts” (pp. 163–79); and Alessandro
Capone,“Gli studi patristici in Italia (1900–1914)” (pp. 180–96).
The articles in the second number of the Bulletin de la Commission
royale d’Histoire—Handelingen van de Koninklijke Commissie voor
Geschiedenis for 2010 (vol. 176) deal with scriptoria, chanceries, or chartularies in four sections. Under the heading “Van scriptorium tot kanselarij—
Du scriptorium à la chancellerie” are Jens Schneider,“Monastères et scriptoria en Lotharingie (IXe–Xe siècles)” (pp. 21–39), and Steven Vanderputten,
“Collectieve identiteit, sociaal gedrag en monastieke memoria in het liber
traditionum van de priorij van Saint-Georges te Hesdin (1094–circa 1185)”
(pp. 79–112); under “Chancelleries épiscopales et chapitres cathédraux—
Bisschoppelijke kanselarijen en kathedraalkapittels” are Jean-Louis Kupper,
“La «chancellerie» des évêques de Liège (Xe–XIIe)” (pp. 115–27); Nathalie
Barré, “Chancellerie épiscopale, chancellerie canoniale: unicité ou pluralité
des institutions à Cambrai au XIIe siècle?” (pp. 130–46); Benoît-Michel Tock,
“L’élaboration des chartes épiscopales à Thérouanne au XIe siècle” (pp.
148–85); J. W. J. Burgers, “De bisschop, de heren en de stad. Het oorkondewezen in Utrecht circa 1250–circa 1320” (pp. 187–215); and under
“Organisation: personnel et gestion—Organisatie: personeel en beheer” are
Valeria Van Camp, “Trois clercs de chancellerie hennuyers au service des
comtes de Hainaut, Hollande et Zélande (1299–1345): au centre d’une
réforme administrative?” (pp. 315–41); Alexis Wilkin,“Enquête sur l’impact de
l’incendie de 1185 sur les archives de la cathédrale Saint-Lambert de Liège et
sur la rédaction d’un premier cartulaire” (pp. 381–413); and Jean-Charles
Bédague, “Archives, archivage et archivistique à la collégiale de Saint-Omer à
la fin du XVe siècle à la lumière d’un inventaire de 1480” (pp. 415–58).
“Enjeux de pouvoir à Notre-Dame de Paris” is the theme of three articles
published in the July 2011 issue of the Revue historique (135 anée, Tome
CCCXIII/3, no 659), as follows: Guillaume Gross,“L’organum aux XIIe et XIIIe
siècles: le discours musical comme stratégie de communication ou la légitimation implicite de l’autorité épiscopale” (pp. 487–509); Véronique Julerot,
“Jean Simon, évêque de Paris (1492–1502): les réseaux d’un succès” (pp.
511–25); and Christine Jéhanno,“Entre le chapitre cathédral et l’hôtel-Dieu de
Paris: les enjeux du conflit de la fin du Moyen Âge” (pp. 527–59).
A conference on “L’Ordine dei Chierici Regolari Minori (Caracciolini): religione e cultura in età postridentina” was held at Chieti on April 11–12, 2008.
The proceedings of that conference, edited by Irene Fosi and Giovanni
Pizzorusso, have now been published in the first issue for 2010 of Studi
Medievali e Moderni (vol. XIV) in three parts: Parte prima, “S. Francesco
Caracciolo e la fondazione dei Chierici Regolari Minori: aspetti spirituali e

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195

istituzionali tra Italia e Spagna”: Roberto Rusconi,“Chierici, regolari, minori:
gli Ordini religiosi nell’Italia del Cinquecento” (pp. 13–31); Nello Morrea,
“Francesco Caracciolo, l’Uomo, il Fondatore, il Santo” (pp. 33–90); Bruno
Forte,“Le Sette Stazioni sopra la Passione di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo di
San Francesco Caracciolo: presentazione critica” (pp. 91–98); Silvano
Giordano, “Francesco Caracciolo e la Monarchia Cattolica” (pp. 99–113);
Massimo C. Giannini,“« Accrescere il culto divino, et l’honore, et servitio della
religion cattolica». Le origini e i primi anni di vita dei Chierici Regolari Minori
(1588–1608)” (pp. 115–35); Parte seconda, “I Chierici Regolari Minori e la
cultura del Seicento”: Massimo Moretti and Giulia Semenza, “I Chierici
Regolari Minori nella storia e nelle arti del Ducato di Urbino” (pp. 139–69);
Antonio D’Amico,“I Caracciolini a San Ginesio e la chiesa di Santa Maria in
Vepretis con un’attribuzione a Niccolò Berrettoni” (pp. 171–208); Federica
Favino, “I Chierici Regolari Minori fra teologia e nuova scienza: Giovanni
Guevara e il caso Galileo” (pp. 209–28); Adelisa Malena,“Alessandro Regio e
la Clavis aurea (1682)” (pp. 229–44); Giovanni Pizzorusso, “Filippo
Guadagnoli, i Caracciolini e lo studio delle lingue orientali e della controversia con l’Islam a Roma nel XVII secolo” (pp. 245–78); Aurélien Girard, “Des
manuels de langue entre mission et érudition orientale au XVIIe siècle: les
grammaires de l’arabe des Caracciolini” (pp. 279–95); Andrea Trentini, “Il
caracciolino Filippo Guadagnoli controversista e islamologo, Un’analisi dei
suoi scritti apologetici contro l’Islam” (pp. 297–314); Parte terza, “Fonti per
la storia dei Chierici Regolari Minori”: Paola Zito, “Le biblioteche dei
Caracciolini nel 1600 (Napoli e Roma) secondo il ms. Vat. Lat. 11318” (pp.
317–30); Giuliana Adorni, “Le fonti per la storia dei Caracciolini presso
l’Archivio di Stato di Roma” (pp. 331–48); and Silvia Iannuzzi and Livia
Martinoli, “Il fondo «San Lorenzo in Lucina» della Biblioteca Nazionale
Centrale di Roma” (pp. 349–61).
Five articles in the October 2011 issue of the Revue des Sciences
Religieuses (vol. 85) deal with the “Sœurs d’écoles en Alsace.” Following a
“Liminaire” by Luc Perrin (pp. 471–73) are Dominique Dinet,“L’éducation des
filles de la fin du 18e siècle jusqu’en 1918” (pp. 475–90); Jean-Luc Hiebel,“Le
statut scolaire local de 1870 à nos jours” (pp. 491–509); Claude Muller, “La
croix et la femme: Les sœurs de la Divine Providence, un État dans l’État” (pp.
511–22); Jean-Noël Grandhomme, “La congrégation des sœurs de la Divine
Providence de Ribeauvillé pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, 1939–1945”
(pp. 523–56); and Luc Perrin,“Vers la sortie de l’école” (pp. 557–69).
The U.S. Catholic Historian has devoted its summer 2011 issue (vol. 29) to
“Religious Biography and Autobiography,” offering nine articles in ninety-one
pages: Patrick W. Carey,“England, Brownson, and Dulles: Religious Biography
and the Catholic Tradition” (pp. 1–7); Jean Gartlan, “Barbara Ward—Lay
Woman Extraordinaire” (pp. 9–16); Patrick J. Hayes, “Redemptorist Biographers: Digging into the Lore and Legend of the Baltimore Province” (pp.
17–26); Richard Gribble, C.S.C.,“Religious Biography: The Melding of History

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and Christianity” (pp. 27–33); Stephanie Jacobe, “Thomas Fortune Ryan and
the Issue of Identity in Catholic Biography” (pp. 35–41); Cecilia A. Moore,
“Writing Black Catholic Lives: Black Catholic Biographies and Autobiographies” (pp. 43–58); Timothy Matovina, “Latino Catholic Biography” (pp.
59–66); Anne Klejment, “Dorothy Day and César Chávez: American Catholic
Lives in Nonviolence” (pp. 67–90); and Michael S. Carter and Paula Kane, “A
Discussion of Biographies in the Classroom” (pp. 91–94).
Personals
At the request of George Niederauer, archbishop of San Francisco, Pope
Benedict XVI has conferred the Benemerenti medal on Jeffrey M. Burns,
archivist of that archdiocese, in recognition of his long service in its
archives.
Obituary
Joachim F. Smet, O. Carm. (1915–2011)
Leading Carmelite historian Joachim Frederick Smet, O.Carm., died at
Providence Hospital in Washington, DC, on October 4, 2011, six days before
his ninety-sixth birthday. Father Smet, who was a member of the American
Catholic Historical Association since 1957, belonged to the North American
Carmelite Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary.
Father Smet was born in Chicago on October 9, 1915, to Belgian immigrants Joseph Smet and Juliana van Royen Smet.As a child, he spent two years
in Belgium, where he was introduced to the Dutch language—one of the
many languages he used extensively as a historian. He attended the Carmelite
minor seminary in Niagara Falls, Canada; professed his simple vows in 1935
and his solemn vows in l943; and was ordained to the priesthood in May
1942. He had received the name Joachim as a Carmelite friar, cherishing the
signature of one of the witnesses to his simple profession—that of Blessed
Titus Brandsma, O.Carm.
Father Smet received a master’s degree in Latin from The Catholic University of America in 1943 and a bachelor’s degree in library science from the
University of Chicago in 1944. He earned his doctorate in ecclesiastical history from the Gregorian University in Rome with a dissertation that he published as The Life of Saint Peter Thomas by Phillppe de Mézières (Rome,
1954).
During his seminary years, Father Smet determined that he would write an
accurate and reliable history of his order. For too long, that history often was
ill served by those willing to repeat fictional renditions of Carmel’s history.
The first general chapter of the Carmelites following World War II made the

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197

unprecedented decision to assign the composition of a history of the order
to a young friar who had not yet commenced his doctoral studies. In 1948
Father Smet arrived in Rome to begin those studies and lived there with only
a few interruptions until his death.
Over the years, Father Smet accepted without complaint duties that kept
him away from research on his history of the order. He served from 1954 to
1993 as editor of Carmelus, a polyglot journal dedicated to Carmelite studies.
From 1959 to 1965 he served as an Assistant General, a position that entailed
numerous meetings and extensive global travel. Moreover, no matter how
busy he was, Father Smet warmly welcomed inquiries from all over the world
by those who sought advice about the history of the Carmelites. In addition,
it was well known that, for years, he took a long, daily walk to a convent in
Rome to preside at the Eucharist.
The historian Smet also was a published poet and a translator of poetry. A
selection of his poetry was published as Familiar Matter of Today (Rome,
2007). For years, he spent endless hours acquiring and cataloguing books for
the Carmelitana Collection housed at Whitefriars Hall in Washington, DC.This
library is the largest collection of Carmelitana outside of the Carmelite library
at the Centro Internazionale Sant’Alberto in Rome, and numerous scholars
consult it.
Despite the frequent calls on his time, Father Smet worked steadily on his
history of the order. In the 1960s he issued An Outline of Carmelite History
(Washington, DC), an offset edition of notes. In 1975 a Carmelite provincial
prematurely published the first volume of Father Smet’s history.After the publication in English of Father Smet’s long-awaited The Carmelites: A History of
the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (4 vols. in 5, Darien, IL, 1976–88),
it subsequently was translated into Dutch, French, German, Indonesian,
Italian, Spanish, and Tagalog.
Only months before he died, Father Smet published The Mirror of Carmel:
A Brief History of the Carmelite Order (Darien, IL, 2011), a one-volume condensation of his history.The Mirror omits the numerous notes and bibliographies of the multivolume The Carmelites, but scholars will appreciate its
extensive indices (pp. 707–97). Scholars can easily access the four-volume history through the Mirror, which retains chapter headings and subheadings of
the original.
While Father Smet was working on his history of the order, he published
extensively. His colleagues honored him with a Festschrift that contains a bibliography of his writings from 1937 to 1989 (pp. 467–92): The Land of
Carmel: Essays in Honor of Joachim Smet, O Carm., edited by Paul Chandler
and Keith J. Egan (Rome, 1991). Carmelite Media intends to republish Smet’s
four-volume history.

198

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Father Smet was a much-cherished colleague whose gentle presence, quiet
humor, and nonintrusive concern for others invoked St. Thomas Aquinas’s
virtue of eutrapelia—someone who keeps one’s community joyful. Father
Smet’s monumental contribution to Carmelite history will serve, one hopes,
as an inspiration to members of the Carmelite community to imitate his ministry of scholarship by taking up where he left off. He knew that he had not
written the final word on the history of Carmel, as he often indicates in the
Mirror where more research is needed if the Carmelite tradition is to be well
known by an order that needs to understand its own past as it happened—
both the glorious and inglorious. Moreover, there is a much wider community
that will be enriched by a reliable history that began with a small group of
hermits on Mount Carmel about 1200 AD.
Saint Mary’s College (Emeritus)
University of Notre Dame (Adjunct)

KEITH J. EGAN

PERIODICAL LITERATURE
________
General and Miscellaneous
Die Entfaltung des ontologischen Prinzips der Subsidiarität in der Enzyklika
Pius XI. Quadragesimo anno 1931. Heinz Sproll. Archivum Historiae
Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 89–141.
Note sui rapporti tra Italia, Islam e impero ottomano (secoli XV–XVII).
Mustafa Soykut. Archivio Storico Italiano, CLXIX (2, 2011), 221–39.
I miracoli nelle beatificazioni e nelle canonizzazioni. Paolo Molinari, S.J. La
Civiltà Cattolica, 162, III (Aug. 6–20, 2011), 245–51.
Assessoren und Akzessissten am Offizialat im alten Erzbistum Trier
(1312–1802). Karl Heinrich Theisen. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für
Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische Abteilung 96 (2010), 350–80.
A Visual Documentation of Fil-Hispanic Churches, Part V: Parish Church of San
Vicente Ferrer, Dupax del Sur, Nueva Vizcaya. Regalado Trota Jose.
Philippiniana Sacra, XLVII ( Jan.–Apr., 2012), 147–78.
The Formative Years of the Archdiocese of Manila (1565–1850)—Part Two.
Lucio Gutierrez, O.P. Philippiniana Sacra, XLVII ( Jan.–Apr., 2012), 179–204.
Encountering Religion: Encounter, Religion, and the Cultural Cold War,
1953–1967. Mike Grimshaw. History of Religions, 51 (Aug., 2011), 31–58.
La mission par quatre chemins…Les origines des vice-provinces grécocatholiques des rédemptoristes belges en Ukraine et au Canada
(1879–1919). Karim Schelkens. Gregorianum, 92 (3, 2011), 558–83.
Un siglo de cuestión jacobea. Francisco J. Buide del Real. Compostellanum, LV
(3–4, 2010), 435–502.
Daniel Boorstin and Saint Benedict: An American Historian’s Perspective on
the Holy Rule. Daniel J. Heisey, O.S.B. American Benedictine Review, 62
(Sept., 2011), 278–90.
Köln—Ein Erinnerungsort des Christentums in Mittelalter und Früher
Neuzeit. Heribert Müller. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 122 (1, 2011),
52–81.
La Vita Christi de Ludolfo de Sajonia († 1377) e Ignacio de Loyola († 1556).A
propósito de un gran libro. José García de Castro Valdés. Estudios
Eclesiásticos, 86 ( July–Sept., 2011), 509–46.
De datering van de regeerperiodes van de Ninoofse abten tot 1578. Dirk Van
de Perre. Analecta Praemonstratensia, LXXXVI (2010), 5–45.
199

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PERIODICAL LITERATURE

La povertà e l’obbedienza nelle costituzioni dell’Ordine dei Minori
(1239–1517) e dei Frati Minori Conventuali (1517–1932). Binoy Thomas,
OFMConv. Miscellanea Francescana, 111 (I–II, 2011), 77–122.
El antiguo convento Casa Grande del Carmen de Sevilla: crisol de
Hermandades y Cofradías hasta el siglo XIX. Alberto J. Álvarez.
Isidorianum, XX (No. 39, 2011), 153–96.
Rudolf Weigand und die kirchenrechtliche Mediävistik. Ein Überblick. Stephan
Haering, OSB. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 127,
Kanonistische Abteilung 96 (2010), 381–406.
Percorsi storigrafici fra Ottocento e Novecento: Francesco Lanzoni. Gaetano
Colantuono. Vetera Christianorum, 47 (2, 2010), 283–307.
Ancient
The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas and Christian Origins in India. George
Nedungatt. Gregorianum, 92 (3, 2011), 533–57.
L’eucharistie des origines: datation et déroulement, à la lumière des sources
syriaques. Francesco Celi. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 106 ( Jan.–Mar.,
2011), 9–32.
Resumptions of Radicalism. Christian Wealth Ethics in the Second and Third
Centuries. Christopher M. Hays. Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft, 102 (2, 2011), 261–82.
From Alexandria to Caesarea: Reassessing Origen’s Appointment to the
Presbyterate. Lisa Holliday. Numen, 58 (5–6, 2011), 674–96.
Christianity, Private Power, and the Law from Decius to Constantine: The
Minimalist View. Kate Cooper. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 19 (Fall,
2011), 327–43.
Tolleranza e intolleranza religiosa nel mondo tardo antico: questioni di
metodo.Tessa Canella. Vetera Christianorum, 47 (2, 2010), 249–66.
Superfluous Verbiage?: Rhetoric and Law in the Age of Constantine and
Julian. Jill Harries. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 19 (Fall, 2011),
345–74.
Basil of Caesarea on the Ascetic Craft: The Invention of Ascetic Community
and the Spiritualization of Work in the Asketikon. Joseph Ballan. Heythrop
Journal, 52 ( July, 2011), 559–68.
“. . . denn Er ist gütig und menschenfreundlich”. Kirchenrecht als
Erfahrungshorizont göttlicher philanthropia. Eva M. Synek. Zeitschrift der
Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische Abteilung 96
(2010), 38–56.
Bishops and Law Courts in Late Antiquity: How (Not) to Make Sense of the
Legal Evidence. Caroline Humfress. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 19
(Fall, 2011), 375–400.

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201

Quatre études sur le monachisme asianique (IVe–VIIe siècle). Sylvain
Destephen. Journal des Savants ( July–Dec., 2010), 193–264.
Christiana religio absoluta et simplex: Eine Verbindung zwischen Ammianus
Marcellinus und dem manichäischen Bischof Faustus von Mileve? Lukas J.
Dorfbauer. Historia, 60 (3, 2011), 328–42.
¿No había ‘scriptorium’ en el monasterio de Cartago? Observaciones sobre
escritura y trabajo manual en ‘De opere monachorum’ de Agustín.Andreas
E. J. Grote. Augustinus, LVI ( Jan.–June, 2011), 107–13.
Ursa’s Return: Captivity, Remarriage, and the Domestic Authority of Roman
Bishops in Fifth-Century Italy. Kristina Sessa. Journal of Early Christian
Studies, 19 (Fall, 2011), 401–32.
La correspondencia antipelagiana de África con Roma: presentación de un
expediente del epistolario agustiniano (416–418). Laurence Dalmon.
Augustinus, LVI ( Jan.–June, 2011), 45–52.
Un unicum nel codice teodosiano: il venerabilis papa di 16, 5, 62. Elio
Dovere. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 7–16.
Ecclesiastical Servi in the Frankish and Visigothic Kingdoms. Mary E. Sommar.
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische
Abteilung 96 (2010), 57–79.
Gregory the Great’s “Prisons”: Monastic Confinement in Early Byzantine Italy.
Julia Hillner. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 19 (Fall, 2011), 433–71.
Soldiers, Saints, and States? The Breton Migrations Revisited. Caroline Brett.
Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 61 (Summer, 2011), 1–56.
Medieval
La polémique entre Juifs et Chrétiens dans les texts hagiographiques du Haut
Moyen Âge. Immacolata Aulisa. Vetera Christianorum, 47 (2, 2010),
185–218.
In tempore. Weichenstellungen für die Edition des Concilium Quinisextum
(691/2). Heinz Ohme. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 41 (1, 2009),
1–68.
The Exercise of Parish Ministry by the Monks of the Middle Ages. Ursmer
Berlière, O.S.B. American Benedictine Review, 62 (Sept., 2011), 311–33.
Santuari e territorio: il caso di san Michele tra l’Italia e la Normandia. Laura
Carnevale. Vetera Christianorum, 47 (2, 2010), 267–82.
Tous libres devant Dieu. Société carolingienne, Église et esclavage d’après
l’exégèse de Claude de Turin († ca. 827/828). Pierre Boucaud. Revue de
l’histoire des religions, 228 ( July–Sept., 2011), 349–87.
Parvitas regni, villae dominicatae et vassalorum. Note sur un faux diplôme
de Lothaire II au profit de l’abbaye de Stavelot (†862 DD LII 37). Nicolas
Schroeder. Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 88 (4, 2010), 921–33.

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Mega-structures of the Middle Ages:The construction of religious buildings in
Europe and Asia, c. 1000–1500. Maarten Prak. Journal of Global History, 6
(Nov., 2011), 381–406.
A New Manuscript of the Exceptiones legum Romanorum Petri. Uta-Renate
Blumenthal. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 127,
Kanonistische Abteilung 96 (2010), 111–26.
Varlar und sein Priorat Deventer.Werner Frese. Analecta Praemonstratensia,
LXXXVI (2010), 46–66.
Petrus Venerabilis—der antijüdische Polemiker als Botschafter des Friedens
gegenüber dem Islam? Eine Untersuchung seiner Schrift, Contra sectam
Saracenorum‘. Tobias Georges. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 122 (1,
2011), 1–19.
Hildegarda de Bingen, una pluma en las manos de Dios (Prima parte).Azucena
Adelina Fraboschi. Divinitas, LIV (3, 2011), 313–38.
Episcopal benediction and monastic autonomy in the twelfth-century bishopric of Tournai: the curious blessing of Hugo, first abbot of Saint-André
(1188). Steven Vanderputten. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 106
( Jan.–Mar., 2011), 37–59.
Le scritture duecentesche in quaterno dei notai al servizio della Chiesa
ambrosiana. Marta Mangini. Studi Medievali, LII ( June, 2011), 31–78.
Archbishop Langton and Magna Carta: His Contribution, His Doubts and His
Hypocrisy. David A. Carpenter. English Historical Review, CXXVI (Oct.,
2011), 1041–65.
Die Chronica des Bruders Jordan von Giano. Einführung und kritische Edition
nach den bisher bekannten Handschriften. Johannes Schlageter, O.F.M.
Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 104 ( Jan.–June, 2011), 3–63.
Legami familiari e rapporti con il potere nel Mezzogiorno angioino: Gli
Ospedalieri di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme tra monarchia e papato.
Mariarosaria Salerno. Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, Moyen Âge,
122 (1, 2010), 127–37.
Church, state and law: solutions to lay contumacy in the Anglo-Scottish borders during the later thirteenth century. Philippa M. Hoskin. Historical
Research, 84 (Nov., 2011), 559–71.
Die Argumentation des Patriarchen Gregorios II. Kyprios zur Widerlegung des
Filioque Ansatzes in der Schrift, De Processione Spiritus sancti.Theodoros
Alexopoulos. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 104 (1, 2011), 1–39.
Beyond the Filioque Divide:The Late Thirteenth Century Revisited.Aristeides
Papadakis. St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 55 (2, 2011), 141–63.
Cathedrals and Charity: Almsgiving at English Secular Cathedrals in the Later
Middle Ages. David Lepine. English Historical Review, CXXVI (Oct., 2011),
1066–96.

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203

The Brotherhood of Saint Leonard and Saint Francis: Banners, Sacred
Topography and Confraternal Identity in Assisi. Jessica N. Richardson. Art
History, 34 (Nov., 2011), 884–913.
Scandalum in the Medieval Canon Law and in the English Ecclesiastical
Courts. Richard Helmholz. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für
Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische Abteilung 96 (2010), 258–74.
Were the Templars Guilty, Even if They Were Not Heretics or Apostates? A. J.
Forey. Viator, 42 (2, 2011), 115–41.
Johannes XXII, Ludwig der Bayer und die monitio canonica. Diethelm
Böttcher. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 127,
Kanonistische Abteilung 96 (2010), 314–49.
Demonology at a Crossroads:The Visions of Ermine de Reims and the Image
of the Devil on the Eve of the Great European Witch-Hunt. Fabián
Alejandro Campagne. Church History, 80 (Sept., 2011), 467–97.
Hat Papst Gregor XII. seine Tiara verpfändet? Jürgen Petersohn. Römische
Quartalschrift, 106 (1–2, 2011), 100–13.
Vernacular Songs as “Oral Pamphlets”: The Hussites and Their Propaganda
Campaign. Marcela K. Perett. Viator, 42 (2, 2011), 371–91.
Des images comme miroirs pour l’observance dominicaine en Toscane
(1420–1450). Cyril Gerbron. Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome,
Moyen Âge, 122 (1, 2010), 211–38.
Illustrationen in Papsturkunden des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Otfried Krafft.
Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 67 (1, 2011), 51–98.
The consistory court of Freising in the late Middle Ages. Kirsi Salonen.
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische
Abteilung 96 (2010), 226–57.
Dead Infants, Cruel Mothers, and Heroic Popes: The Visual Rhetoric of
Foundling Care at the Hospital of Santo Spirito, Rome. Diana Bullen
Presciutti. Renaissance Quarterly, 64 (Fall, 2011), 752–99.
The Regulation of Sexuality in the Late Middle Ages: England and France. Ruth
Mazo Karras. Speculum, 86 (Oct., 2011), 1010–39.
Per la anima della donna: Pregnancy and Death in Domenico Ghirlandaio’s
Visitation for the Tornabuoni Chapel, Cestello. Maria DePrano. Viator, 42
(2, 2011), 321–51.
Los Carrillo de Albornoz y Cisneros: Conflictos y Arbitrajes familiares. Hipólito
Barriguín Fernández. Archivo Ibero-Americano, LXX (Sept.–Dec., 2010),
601–38.
Gottesdienst, Sakraltopographie und Saliermemorie—Zum Liber Ordinarius
des Speyerer Domes aus dem 15. Jahrhundert. Andreas Odenthal.
Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 122 (1, 2011), 20–51.

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Il tardoantico sottoposto a censura: le rappresentazioni dell’arco di
Costantino tra Quattro e Cinquecento. Manuela M. Morresi. Annali della
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, serie 5 (2/1, 2010), 45–66.
Sixteenth Century
La stimmatizzazione di san Francesco in alcuni frontespizi del XV e XVI secolo.
Marianna Iafelice. Collectanea Franciscana, 81 (1–2, 2011), 259–92.
Michelangelo, Drawing, and the Subject of Art. Joost Keizer. Art Bulletin, 93
(Sept., 2011), 304–24.
The Fifth Lateran Council and Preventive Censorship of Printed Books.
Nelson H. Minnich. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, serie
5 (2/1, 2010), 67–104.
Thomas More, joint keeper of the exchange: a forgotten episode in the history
of exchange control in England. George Ramsay. Historical Research, 84
(Nov., 2011), 586–600.
Anatomia Antichristi: Form and Content of the Papal Antichrist. Lawrence P.
Buck. Sixteenth Century Journal, XLII (Summer, 2011), 349–68.
Políticas nobiliarias femeninas y espiritualidad en la primera Edad Moderna:
Santa Clara de Montilla. María del Mar Graña Cid. Verdad y Vida, LXIX
( Jan.–June, 2011), 149–77.
Castiglione’s Francescopaedia: Pope Julius II and Francesco Maria della
Rovere in The Book of the Courtier. W. R. Albury. Sixteenth Century
Journal, XLII (Summer, 2011), 323–47.
Religion, Politics, and the Parish in Tudor England and Wales:A View from the
Marches of Wales, 1534–1553. Katharine K. Olson. Recusant History, 30
(Oct., 2011), 527–36.
Sobre la potestad y castigo del cismático. Breves comentarios de Francisco de
Vitoria desde Salamanca (1535). Ignacio Jericó Bermejo. Studium, L (2,
2010), 305–32.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries. G. W. Bernard. History, 96 (Oct., 2011),
390–409.
La Pietà di Ragusa. Antonio Forcellino. Annali della Scuola Normale
Superiore di Pisa, serie 5 (2/1, 2010), 105–42.
Traduzioni, censure, riscritture: sul De Inventoribus di Polidoro Virgilio.
Michele Lodone. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, serie 5
(2/1, 2010), 143–77.
Doctrine réformatrice et pratique humaniste de la consolation chez Calvin.
Olivier Millet. Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme
Français, 157 ( July, Aug., Sept., 2011), 309–30.

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Il controllo interno della produzione libraria nella Compagnia di Gesù e la formazione del Collegio dei Revisori generali (1550–1650). Lucio Biasiori.
Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, serie 5 (2/1, 2010),
223–49.
Alcalá, Universidad teológica; vocación y régimen. José García Oro. Archivo
Ibero-Americano, LXX (Sept.–Dec., 2010), 449–515.
Zur Württembergischen Großen Kirchenordnung von 1559. Michael Frisch.
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische
Abteilung 96 (2010), 455–84.
Rechte, Widerstand und Revolution in westlicher Tradition: frühe protestantische Grundlagen. John Witte Jr. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für
Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische Abteilung 96 (2010), 485–519.
Witchcraft, Spiritualism, and Medicine: The Religious Convictions of Johan
Wier. Hans de Waardt. Sixteenth Century Journal, XLII (Summer, 2011),
369–91.
Die ,,Domus Gregoriana“ zu München—eine Ausbildungsstätte des
Prämonstratensernachwuchses. Benedikt Mario Röder, O.Praem. Analecta
Praemonstratensia, LXXXVI (2010), 67–103.
From Sukkot to Saturnalia: The Attacks on Christmas in Sixteenth-Century
Chronological Scholarship. Carl Philipp, Emmanuel Nothaft. Journal of the
History of Ideas, 72 (Oct., 2011), 503–22.
El Hospital franciscano de los Naturales de Filipinas, siglos XVI–XVII.
Cayetano Sánchez Fuertes, O.F.M. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum,
104 ( Jan.–June, 2011), 107–46.
Curiosity, Contingency, and Cultural Diversity: Montaigne’s Readings at the
Vatican Library. François Rigolot. Renaissance Quarterly, 64 (Fall, 2011),
847–74.
Die allegorischen Querhausaltäre von St. Michael in München. Ingrid
Dettmann. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXX (1, 2011), 95–148.
Cesare Baronio sulla Donazione di Costantino tra critica storica e autocensura
(1590–1607). Stefano Zen. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di
Pisa, serie 5 (2/1, 2010), 181–219.
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
On the Fringes of Center: Disputed Hagiographic Imagery and the Crisis over
the Beati Moderni in Rome ca. 1600. Ruth S. Noyes. Renaissance
Quarterly, 64 (Fall, 2011), 800–46.
Witch-Hunting in Celtic Societies. Ronald Hutton. Past & Present, No. 212
(Aug., 2011), 43–71.
Liturgia e architettura nel Carmelo riformato. Archetipi, miti, modelli. Saverio
Sturm. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 106 ( Jan.–Mar., 2011), 61–96.

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‘Virgo Becomes Virago’: Women in the Accounts of Seventeenth-Century
English Catholic Missionaries. Laurence Lux-Sterritt. Recusant History, 30
(Oct., 2011), 537–53.
The Spiritual Journey of an Independent Thinker:The Conversion of Li Zhizao
to Catholicism.Yu Liu. Journal of World History, 22 (Sept., 2011), 433–53.
Inediti vaticani su san Lorenzo da Brindisi. Sergio Pagano. Collectanea
Franciscana, 81 (1–2, 2011), 145–55.
Giulio Aleni racconta Matteo Ricci. L’evangelizzazione della Cina attraverso la
storia agiografica. Ugo Dovere. Asprenas. Rivista di Teologia, 57 (4, 2010),
437–65.
Probleme der universitären und kirchlichen Lehrautorität nach dem
Dominikaner Francisco de Araújo (1580–1664). Ulrich Horst, O.P.
Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 41 (1, 2009), 69–94.
The earliest phase of the Jansenist controversy among the Flemish
Capuchins. Part I: Hildebrand’s interpretation and the case of Eugenius of
Bruges. Gert Partoens. Augustiniana, 61 (1–2, 2011), 155–85.
Hanging up Kings:The Political Bible in Early Modern England. Kevin Kileen.
Journal of the History of Ideas, 72 (Oct., 2011), 549–70.
Parliament and the Committee for Accommodation, 1644–6. Youngkwon
Chung. Parliamentary History, 30 (Oct., 2011), 289–308.
The Old Catholic Synods. Traditional or Innovative Elements within the
Constitution of the Church? Jan Hallebeek. Internationale Kirchliche
Zeitschrift, 101 ( Jan.–June, 2011), 65–100.
Death penalty, execution and liturgy. A Perspective from Sweden and North
Europe (18th and 19th Centuries). Martin Bergman. Revue d’histoire
ecclésiastique, 106 ( Jan.–Mar., 2011), 97–166.
La congregación de Santo Tomás de Villanueva de Madrid en el siglo XVIII.
Javier Campos y Fernández de Sevilla, OSA. Revista Agustiniana, LII ( Jan.–
Apr., 2011), 97–142.
Priesterexerzitien von Sebastian Sailer (1775) und Georg Lienhardt (1778).
Ulrich G. Leinsle, O.Praem. Analecta Praemonstratensia, LXXXVI (2010),
146–71.
„Gottes Zügel für das Abendland“—„Gottes Gesandter zu unserer Rettung“.
Das Osmanische Reich in der Sicht des Ökumenischen Patriarchates im
Kampf gegen Aufklärung und Freiheitspropaganda am Vorabend der grieschischen Revolution. Heinz Ohme. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 122
(1, 2011), 82–99.
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Théologie et Politique. Prier pour le souverain en France au 19e siècle.Vincent
Petit. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 106 ( Jan.–Mar., 2011), 188–213.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

207

Selbständige Kirche, politische Kirche, “Ehe von Thron und Altar”? Die
Auseinandersetzungen um die Verfassung der Evangelischen Kirche im
Rheinland (1803–1923). Jörg Van Norden. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung
für Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische Abteilung 96 (2010), 520–72.
Silent Preachers in the Age of Ingenuity: Faith, Commerce, and Religious Tracts
in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain. Joseph Stubenrauch. Church History,
80 (Sept., 2011), 547–74.
Die Reformationsjubiläen des 19. Jahrhunderts. Dorothea Wendebourg.
Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 108 (Sept., 2011), 270–335.
Los Provinciales compostelanos a la hora de la exclaustración. Manuel
Rodríguez Pazos (†). Francisco Morales and Rosario Virgós de Cea (Eds.).
Archivo Ibero-Americano, LXX (Sept.–Dec., 2010), 517–600.
The Greek-play bishop: Polemic, prosopography, and nineteenth-century
prelates. Arthur Burns and Christopher Stray. Historical Journal, 54 (Dec.,
2011), 1013–38.
John Newman and the Writing of History. Stephen Kelly. Newman Studies
Journal, 8 (Fall, 2011), 29–41.
Defining moments: the reasons Mauro Cappellari became Pope Gregory XVI.
Christopher Korten. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 17–39.
Irish immigrants in Scotland’s shipyards and coalfields: employment relations,
sectarianism and class formation. John Foster, Muir Houston, Chris
Madigan. Historical Research, 84 (Nov., 2011), 657–92.
Newman’s Disputed Honesty:A Case Study in Victorian Religious Controversy.
Geertjan Zuijdwegt. Louvain Studies, 34 (4, 2009–2010), 361–84.
Humanismo y Ciencia: los Jesuitas y el magnetismo terrestre. Agustín Udías
Vallina, S.I. Perficit, XXVI (2, 2006), 219–28.
Charles R. Darwin entre albaceas, taxidermistas, probetas, cátedras, escaños
parlamentarios y . . . púlpitos (I). Santiago Díez Barroso. Estudio
Agustiniano, 46 ( Jan.–Apr., 2011), 69–131.
«Romaniser» la liturgie lyonnaise au 19e siècle. Les conditions d’une alliance
entre Lyon et Rome. Bruno Dumons. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 106
( Jan.–Mar., 2011), 168–85.
Der Jurist Mittermaier und der Altkatholizismus. Edward Kessler.
Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 101 ( Jan.–June, 2011), 116–36.
François Guizot: quelques lettres inédites (1861–1871). Laurent Theis.
Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 157 ( July,
Aug., Sept., 2011), 359–84.
John Henry Newman’s View of the “Darwin Theory.” Ryan Vilbig. Newman
Studies Journal, 8 (Fall, 2011), 52–61.

208

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Alumnos españoles en el internado jesuita de Beaumont (Old Windsor,
Inglaterra) 1869–1874. Bernardo Rodríguez Caparrini. Archivum
Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXX (1, 2011), 151–250.
L’élite cardinalizia dopo la fine dello Stato Pontificio. Roberto Regoli.
Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 63–87.
Newman’s Account of Ambrose St. John’s Death. Ono Ekeh. Newman Studies
Journal, 8 (Fall, 2011), 5–18.
Discurso Pronunciado En La Apertura Anual De Los Estudios De La
Universidad De Manila El Día 3 De Julio De 1876. Foreword by Belen
Tangco, O.P. A Proposal on Saint Thomas’ Doctrine Being One of the
Remedies against The Errors of the Century. Manuel Puebla, O.P.
Philippiniana Sacra, XLVII ( Jan.–Apr., 2012), 205–29.
«…den blühendsten Zustand der Kirche wieder herbeizuführen». Papstkritik
und Alte Kirche bei Koseph Hubert Reinkens. Andreas Krebs.
Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 101 ( Jan.–June, 2011), 101–15.
La tradizione francescana e cappuccina in Angelico Lipani da Caltanissetta
(1842–1920). Salvatore Vacca. Laurentianum, 52 (1–2, 2011), 115–48.
Die internationalen eucharistischen Kongresse von Lille (1881) bis München
(1960)—Erneuerung und Aktualität. Piero Marini. Liturgisches Jahrbuch,
61 (3, 2011), 135–53.
Singing Luther’s Praises in 1883 with L. Meinardus. Linda Maria Koldau.
Lutheran Quarterly, XXV (Autumn, 2011), 279–97.
Leone XIII e la Famiglia francescana. Emil Kumka, OFMConv. Miscellanea
Francescana, 111 (I–II, 2011), 186–207.
Leone XIII e la fondazione di S.Anselmo nell’Urbe. Ádám Somorjai. Archivum
Historiae Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 41–61.
Teofilo Domenichelli, Tommaso da Celano e l’Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum. Felice Accrocca. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 104
( Jan.–June, 2011), 183–226.
Les politiques religieuses dans les pays européens de tradition catholique
(XXe–XXIe siècles). Philippe Portier. Revue théologique de Louvain, 42 (2,
2011), 169–89.
The Royal Declaration Against Transubstantiation and the Struggle Against
Religious Discrimination in the Early Twentieth Century. Joseph M.
Fewster. Recusant History, 30 (Oct., 2011), 555–72.
Opening the Holy of Holies: Early Twentieth-Century Explorations of the
Sancta Sanctorum (Rome). Kirstin Noreen. Church History, 80 (Sept.,
2011), 520–46.
Modernismo e antimodernismo in Sicilia. Salvatore Corso. Laurentianum, 52
(1–2, 2011), 51–89.

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209

Conventual Franciscans and the Common Life (III). Its Final Implementation
after 1907. Timothy Kulbicki, OFMConv. Miscellanea Francescana, 111
(I–II, 2011), 136–62.
Girolamo Golubovich e la fondazione dell’Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum (gennaio 1907– aprile 1908). Paolo Pieraccini. Antonianum,
LXXXI (Apr.–June, 2011), 335–60.
Le Monastère de Chevetogne. Un veilleur avant l’aurore. P. Michel Van Parys.
Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique, CXII (Apr.–June, 2011), 125–32.
L’«anno terribile» del cardinale Pacelli e il più segreto tra i concistori di Pio XI.
Giovanni Coco. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 143–276.
Los dos exilios del Obispo Múgica: Cartas inéditas del Obispo de Vitoria
(1931–1937). Vicente Cárcel Ortí. Scriptorium Victoriense, LVII
( July–Dec., 2010), 425–562.
Vergangenheitsbewältigung in der Kirche. Zugleich ein Beitrag zu den
“Wochenbriefen” August Marahens’. Axel Frhr. von Campenhausen.
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 127, Kanonistische
Abteilung 96 (2010), 573–601.
The Catholic Origins of Totalitarianism Theory in Interwar Europe. James
Chappel. Modern Intellectual History, 8 (3, 2011), 561–90.
Hermann Sasse (1895–1976). John T. Pless. Lutheran Quarterly, XXV
(Autumn, 2011), 298–325.
La mancata pubblicazione dell’opera Pio IX e Il Risorgimento italiano di
Giuseppe Clementi ed Edoardo Soderini. Sergio Pagano. Archivum
Historiae Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 455–67.
Das Märtyrertum des Patriarchatsverwesers Metropolit Petr (Poljanskij).
Aleksandr Mazyrin. Ostkirchliche Studien, 59 (2, 2010), 328–43.
El nuncio Gaetano Cicognani en la España nacional (1938–1939). Vicente
Cárcel Ortí. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 277–430.
Magdeleine di Gesù, un cuore per l’África. Piersandro Vanzan, S.J. La Civiltà
Cattolica, 162, II ( June 4, 2011), 439–49.
Un pasteur pris dans la tourmente de l’histoire: Manuel Martinez. Gabrielle
Cadier-Rey. Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme
Français, 157 ( July, Aug., Sept., 2011), 387–422.
«Les silences de Pie XII» entre mémoire et oubli, 1944–1958. Muriel GuittatNaudin. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 106 ( Jan.–Mar., 2011), 215–38.
Religion and fertility at the extremes: The Netherlands and Taiwan,
1950–1985. Marloes Schoonheim and Marloes Hülsken. History of the
Family, 16 (Aug., 2011), 267–77.
München als Treffpunkt der Kirche. Der 37. Eucharistische Weltkongress
1960. Franz Xaver Bischof. Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift, 62 (2,
2011), 101–18.

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Il P. Henri de Lubac, S.J., dal suo diario al Concilio Vaticano II. Agostino
Marchetto. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 47 (2009), 431–53.
City of Walls [Belfast, Northern Ireland]. Robin Kirk. American Scholar, 80
(Autumn, 2011), 7–11.
The Canonisation of the Forty English Martyrs: An Ecumenical Dilemma.
Andrew Atherstone. Recusant History, 30 (Oct., 2011), 573–87.
Meine wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten als Rektor des Campo Santo Teutonico
(1975–2010). Erwin Gatz (†). Römische Quartalschrift, 106 (1–2, 2011),
114–36.
Die Erhebung des heiligen Norbert zum Patron für den Jurisdiktionsbezirk
Magdeburg—1982. Daniel Lorek. Analecta Praemonstratensia, LXXXVI
(2010), 172–234.
American and Canadian
‘The Bond of Civility’: Roger Williams on toleration and its limits. Teresa M.
Bejan. History of European Ideas, 37 (Dec., 2011), 409–20.
Un Canadien errant: Louis-Marie Moreau, dit Coulon: hérésie et rébellion au
Nouveau-Mexique. Sonya Lipsett-Rivera and Colin M. Coates. Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 63 (Spring, 2010), 435–64.
Archibald Alexander and the Use of Books: Theological Education and Print
Culture in the Early Republic. Michael J. Paulus Jr. Journal of the Early
Republic, 31 (Winter, 2011), 671–99.
The Lion Who Did Not Roar . . .Yet: The Editorials of James A. McMaster—May
1860 to May 1861. Kenneth J. Zanca. American Catholic Studies, 122 (Fall,
2011), 1–29.
Religion and Evolution in Progressive Era Political Economy: Adversaries or
Allies? Thomas Leonard. History of Political Economy, 43 (Fall, 2011),
429–69.
“God is My Partner”: An Evangelical Business Man Confronts Depression and
War. Sarah R. Hammond. Church History, 80 (Sept., 2011), 498–519.
The Catholic Diocese of Alexandria and Desegregation, 1946–1973. Mark
Newman. Louisiana History, LII (Summer, 2011), 261–99.
We Hold These Truths at Fifty: John Courtney Murray’s Contested Legacy. John
F. Quinn. American Catholic Studies, 122 (Fall, 2011), 31–51.
The Anglican Church of Canada from Conversion to Dialogue: The Case of
Roland de Corneille, 1961–1970. Haim Genizi. Journal of Ecumenical
Studies, 46 (Summer, 2011), 427–43.
In Celebration of African American Women’s Religious Activism. Katie G.
Cannon. Journal of African American History, 96 (Summer, 2011),
349–53.

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211

Latin American
Mission und Sprache—Bernardino de Sahagún als Autor. Uta Berger.
Wissenschaft und Weisheit, 74 (1, 2011), 55–104.
El Estatuto de Limpieza de Sangre de la Compañía de Jesús (1593) y su influencia en el Perú Colonial. Alexandre Coello de la Rosa. Archivum
Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXX (1, 2011), 45–93.
Reassessing the Rise of Mexico’s Virgin of Guadalupe, 1650s–1780s. Cornelius
Conover. Mexican Studies, 27 (Summer, 2011), 251–79.
Rodrigo Antonio de Orellana, O.Praem. (1755–1822)—Counter-revolutionary
Bishop in Argentina. Wolfgang Grassl. Analecta Praemonstratensia,
LXXXVI (2010), 104–45.
Breve notizia storico morale del Gran Pará e Amazonas (I) a cura di Claudio
Bonizzi. Pietro Paolo da Ceriana. Collectanea Franciscana, 81 (1–2, 2011),
187–257.
El Concilio Provincial de Cartagena de Indias de 1902. Historia, presentación
y análisis a partir de la documentación romana (Teil 1). Victor E. Forero
Cabarcas. Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, 41 (1, 2009), 95–214.
Edmund A.Walsh, S.J. and the Settlement of the Religious Question in Mexico,
1929. Marisa Patulli Trythall. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXXX
(1, 2011), 3–42.

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED
________
Acharya, Francis, O.C.S.O. Cistercian Spirituality: An Ashram Perspective.
Edited with an Introduction by Michael Casey, O.S.C.O. [Monastic Wisdom
Series, No. 26.] (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications. Liturgical Press.
2011. Pp. xx, 116. $15.95 paperback.)
Anlezark, Daniel (Ed. and Trans.). Old Testament Narratives. [Dumbarton Oaks
Medieval Library, 7.] (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2011. Pp.
xxii, 342.) Five Old English poems by unknown authors inspired by
Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Azarias are included in this volume.
Baggett, Jerome P. Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their
Faith. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xvi, 286. $19.95 paperback.)
Behrend, Heike. Resurrecting Cannibals: The Catholic Church, Witch-Hunts
and the Production of Pagans in Western Uganda. [Eastern Africa Series.]
(Rochester, NY: James Currey, an imprint of Boydell and Brewer. 2011. Pp.
viii, 216. $80.00.)
Benedict XVI, Pope. Great Christian Thinkers: From the Early Church
through the Middle Ages. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2011. Pp. x, 316.)
From Ss. Clement and Ignatius to St. Catherine of Siena and Julian of
Norwich these vignettes were presented at the weekly general audiences
in 2007–10.
Benestad, J. Brian. Church, State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic
Social Doctrine. [Catholic Moral Thought Series.] (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press. 2011. Pp. xii, 500. $54.95 clothbound,
$34.95 paperback.)
Bradshaw, Paul F. Reconstructing Early Christian Worship. (Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press. 2010. Pp. viii, 151. $19.95 paperback.) First published in
2009 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Bray, Gerald L. (Ed.). Reformation Commentary on Scripture. New Testament
X: Galatians, Ephesians. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic.
2011. Pp. lviii, 446. $50.00.)
Campbell, Julie D., and Maria Galli Stampino (Eds.). In Dialogue with the
Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for
Women’s Writing. [The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe:The Toronto
Series, 11.] (Toronto: Iter Inc. Centre for Reformation and Renaissance
Studies. 2011. Pp. x, 386. $32.00 paperback.) Among the eleven essays here
published are “Christian Feminine Virtue in Silvio Antoniano’s Three Books
212

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

213

on the Christian Education of Children” by Julie D. Campbell (pp. 59–71)
and “Centrality and Liminality in Bernardino Ochino’s ‘Sermon Preached
. . . on the Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalen’” by Maria Galli Stampino (pp.
325–47).
Cartwright, Steven R. (Trans.). Peter Abelard: Commentary on the Epistle to
the Romans. [The Fathers of the Church Mediaeval Continuation,Vol. 12.]
(Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press. 2011. Pp. xxiv,
428. $49.95.)
Casey, Michael, O.C.S.O. The Road to Eternal Life: Reflections on the
Prologue of Benedict’s Rule. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. 2011. Pp.
xii, 182. $19.95, $14.99 ebook.)
Costambeys, Marios, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean (Eds.). The
Carolingian World. [Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.] (New York:
Cambridge University Press. 2011. Pp. xii, 506. $99.00 clothbound; $34.99
paperback.)
Díez Torres, Julian (Ed. and Annot.) Diego de Aguilar y Córdoba. El Marañón.
[Biblioteca Indiana, 28.] (Orlando, FL: Iberoamericana Vervuert. 2011. Pp.
288. €36,00 paperback.)
Donoso, Miguel, with Mariela Insúa and Carlos Mata (Eds.). El Cautiverio en
La Literatura del Nuevo Mundo. [Biblioteca Indiana, 27.] (Orlando, FL:
Iberoamericana Vervuert. 2011. Pp. 288. €24,00 paperback.)
Dragseth, Jennifer Hockenbery (Ed.). The Devil’s Whore: Reason and
Philosophy in the Lutheran Tradition. [Studies in Lutheran History and
Theology.] (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2011. Pp. xviii, 248. $49.00.)
Edgar, Swift (Ed.). The Vulgate Bible: Douay-Rheims Translation. Volume II,
Parts A and B. The Historical Books. [Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library.]
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2011. Pp. xxxvi, 1126; xii,
1127–1921. $29.95 each.) Part A contains the Latin and English texts of
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and 1, 2, 3, and 4 Kings; part B, 1 and 2 Paralipomenon,
1 and 2 Ezra,Tobit, Judith, and Esther.
Fischer, Klaus P. Hitler and America. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press. 2011. Pp. vi, 356. $29.95.)
Foley, Marc, O.C.D. St. Teresa of Avila: The Book of Her Foundations.A Study
Guide. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies.
2011. Pp. x, 546. $22.95 paperback.) This book describes St. Teresa of
Ávila’s numerous trials during 1567–82, as she worked to establish seventeen convents. She finished writing this account toward the end of June
1582 and died on October 4 of the same year.
Forum Mission. Tolerance—Respect—Trust II. Volume 7. (Kriens, Switzerland:
Förderung der Missionswissenschaft. 2011. Pp. 276. Paperback.)
Garcés, María Antonia (Ed. and Introd.). An Early Modern Dialogue with
Islam: Antonio de Sosa’s Topography of Algiers (1612). Translated and

214

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notes by Diana de Armas Wilson. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press. 2011. Pp. xxiv, 400. $45.00 paperback.)
Good, Edwin M. Genesis I–II: Tales of the Earliest World. A New Translation
and Essays. (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2011. Pp. xii, 346. $15.95
paperback.)
Gribble, Richard, C.S.C. (Ed.). Apostolic Religious Life in America Today: A
Response to the Crisis. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press. 2011. Pp. xii, 170. $19.95 paperback.)
Grusková, Jana. Untersuchungen zu den griechischen Palimpsesten der
Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek. Codices Historici, Codices
Philosophici et Philologici, Codices Juridici. [Österreichische Akademie
der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Denkschriften, 401.
Band. Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung, Band XX.] (Vienna: Verlag
der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 2010. Pp. 260. €77,30
paperback.)
Härter, Karl, and Cecilia Nubola (Eds.). Grazia e giustizia: Figure della
clemenza fra tardo medioevo ed età contemporanea. [Istituto trentino di
cultura.Annali dellIstituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, Quaderni, 81.]
(Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2011. Pp. 628. €45,00 paperback.)
Among the twenty-one articles collected in this volume are “Rituali della
grazia a Trento nel 1477”by Diego Quaglioni (pp. 127–45); “Una lunga lotta
per la giustizia? Rivolta e pacificazione dopo i tumulti nel Salzkammergut
del 1601–1602” by Martin Scheutz (pp. 295–322);“Grazia divina e giustizia
commutativa: un confronto tra Bañez e Lessius” by Wim Decock (pp.
361–88); “La grazia e il perdono nei Rituali francesi” by Nicole Lemaitre
(pp. 413–34); and “Atti di sottomissione e grazia davanti al giudice ecclesiastico: I «Sendgerichte» in Westfalia (1600–1800)” by Andreas Holzem (pp.
435–60).
Hildegard of Bingen. Homilies on the Gospels. Translated with Introduction
and Notes by Beverly Mayne Kienzle. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.
2011. Pp. xviii, 224. $29.95 paperback.)
Hill, Jonathan. Christianity: How a Despised Sect from a Minority Religion
Came to Dominate the Roman Empire. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
2011. Pp. 256. $29.95.) A textbook embellished by numerous full-color
illustrations drawn from disparate sources but mostly not fully identified.
Huffman, Tim (Ed.). The Lutheran Confessions: A Digital Anthology.
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2011. $59.00 CD-Rom.)
Jackson, Ken, and Arthur F. Marotti (Eds.). Shakespeare and Religion: Early
Modern and Postmodern Perspectives. (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press. 2011. Pp. vi, 306. $38.00 paperback.) Chapter 1 deals with
“Two Jesuit Shadows in Shakespeare: William Weston and Henry Garnet”
(pp. 25–45).

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

215

King, Ursula. Teilhard de Chardin and Eastern Religions: Spirituality and
Mysticism in an Evolutionary World. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. 2011. Pp.
xvi, 416. $29.95 paperback.)
Lacey, Michael J., and Francis Oakley (Eds.). The Crisis of Authority in
Catholic Modernity. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. x, 382.
$35.00 paperback.) In section I,“Historical Background: Contested Pasts,”
there are essays by Francis Oakley, “History and the Return of the
Repressed in Catholic Modernity:The Dilemma Posed by Constance” (pp.
29–56), and Michael J. Lacey,“Leo’s Church and Our Own” (pp. 57–92).The
other sections deal with theological, canonistic, and philosophical issues
and with authority in the lived Catholicism of American laity and clergy.
Lionel, Joseph. My Beloved: The Theological and Liturgical Understanding
of the Christian Priesthood. (Palo Alto:Academica Press. 2011. Pp. x, 152.
$62.95 clothbound.)
_____. New Missal, Same Mass. (Palo Alto:Academica Press. 2011. Pp. x, 156.
$54.95 clothbound.)
Martini, Magda, and Thomas Schaarschmidt (Eds.). Riflessioni sulla DDR:
Prospettive internazionali e interdisciplinari vent’anni dopo. (Bologna:
Società editrice il Mulino. 2011. Pp. 516. €34,00 paperback.)
McInerny, Ralph. I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and Pastimes.
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2011. Pp. 168. $22.00 paperback.) Originally published in 2006. First paperback edition.
O’Brien,Tony. Light in the Desert: Photographs from the Monastery of Christ
in the Desert. With an Essay by Christopher Merrill. (Santa Fe: Museum of
New Mexico Press. 2011. Pp. 112. $50.00.)
Peña, Elaine A. Performing Piety: Making Space Sacred with the Virgin of
Guadalupe. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 2011. Pp. xiv, 220.
$24.95 paperback.)
Phan, Peter C. (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity. (New York:
Cambridge University Press. 2011. Pp. xvi, 418. $90.00 clothbound; $32.99
paperback.)
Pinn, Anthony B. What Is African American Religion? [Facets series.]
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2011. Pp. xii, 116. $9.99 paperback.)
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam. (New York:
Columbia University Press. 2011. Pp. vi, 126. $19.50 paperback.) Originally
published in 2008 and reviewed by James M. Powell, ante, 95 (2009),
313–19.
Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Woman and Redemption:A Theological History.
Second Edition. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2012. Pp. xviii, 332. $39.00
paperback.) Originally published in 1998.

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Ryan, Robin, C.P. God and the Mystery of Human Suffering: A Theological
Conversation across the Ages. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. 2011. Pp. viii,
372. $29.95 paperback.)
Taylor, F. Flagg, IV (Ed.). The Great Lie: Classic and Recent Appraisals of
Ideology and Totalitarianism. [Religion and Contemporary Culture
Series.] (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. 2011. Pp. xl, 658. $30.00 paperback.)
An anthology of brief essays by twenty-nine authors.
Thuesen, Peter J. Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious
Doctrine. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xvi, 310. $19.95
paperback.) Originally published in 2009 and reviewed by Mel Piehl, ante,
96 (2010), 608–10.