Michael O'Neill Printy. Enlightenment and the Creation of German Catholicism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. viii + 246 pp. $90.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-47839-7.

Reviewed by H.C. Erik Midelfort

Published on H-German (November, 2009)

Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher

Michael O'Neill Printy's book is both informa‐ church and state. Printy asserts, moreover, that tive and frustrating. He has valuably afrmed the this sort of Reform Catholic thought sprang from importance of Catholic thinkers and Catholic poli‐ bourgeois origins that betrayed little sympathy for tics in the of the eighteenth the world of noble prelates or peasant "baroque" century; more narrowly he has discerned and de‐ religious practice. In making these important scribed a movement among Catholic canon points, Printy tries to demonstrate the existence of lawyers, historians, journalists, and churchmen to an "Enlightenment Catholicism" that laid the foun‐ assert the autonomy of the German church, a dations for various eforts in the nineteenth cen‐ semi-independence from Rome that echoed and tury to establish a German national church, a envied the longstanding Gallican settlement of the Catholic institution that would compete efective‐ French church. In doing so, these German ly with for the loyalties of increas‐ Catholic thinkers revisited the ffteenth-century ingly fervent German nationalists. In all of these conciliarists and tried to show that the German ways, this book makes a worthy contribution to a church had realized at least in principle what the topic that has been far too often neglected, espe‐ other national churches, especially the French cially in English-language treatments of eigh‐ and the Spanish, achieved in fact. These Catholic teenth-century German history. intellectuals were also united in their opposition Unfortunately, the book also abounds in hesi‐ to the Society of and to the ex-Jesuits who, tant, ungrammatical, clotted sentences, overstate‐ after 1773, continued to insist upon an ultramon‐ ments, misspellings, irrelevancies, and unclear as‐ tane and foridly pious religiosity. Recognizing the sertions that undermine the confdence of the new importance of the absolute state, these writ‐ reader. Sometimes crucial information is hidden ers also perceived the need for rethinking the re‐ in a note. The frst half of the book deals with ef‐ lations of church and society as well as between forts, largely by canon lawyers and Catholic histo‐ H-Net Reviews rians, to establish the "liberty of the German Another of Printy's goals is to ofer "the frst full church." One fnds here the best extended de‐ account of the German Catholic Enlightenment" scription available in English of Febronianism (p. 3), but the result falls well short of that. How (the doctrines of Nikolaus von Hontheim, sufra‐ can this be a "full account" if it does not do justice gan bishop of Trier), that failed efort to claim ju‐ to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (founded in risdictional independence from Rome for the Ger‐ 1759 and one of the beacons of scholarly Catholic man bishops. But were these eforts "enlightened" Enlightenment)? Indeed, if this were the "frst full in any meaningful sense? If so, what sense is that? account," it would be amazing if it could have Nowhere in these pages do we read of the possi‐ been contained within a volume ten times the size ble connection between these canonists and any of this one. Printy has simplifed his daunting self- broader movement toward "Enlightenment." Per‐ imposed task by looking mainly at the national haps they deployed a new historical method? Per‐ question, but this focus comes at the expense of a haps they trusted new arguments from reason discussion of the many issues within Catholic dog‐ over the arguments from tradition? Are we to ma and practice that exercised self-proclaimedly conclude that thinkers who relied on natural law "enlightened" Catholic commentators. The reader were therefore enlightened? We are not told. will miss discussions of witchcraft, demonic pos‐ In the second half of the book, Printy turns to session, , toleration, along with sociopo‐ the eforts of Reform Catholics to establish a new, litical issues such as serfdom, suicide, infanticide, less forid, more educated piety, a reformed the legal and social position of the Jews, educa‐ priesthood, and a specifcally German Catholicism tion, the emerging public sphere, freedom of dis‐ that would respond efectively to the temper of cussion, women and women's place in society and the times. But here again, Printy too often asserts the church, and fnally the --all what he does not prove. His efort to show that issues that were vexing enlightened critics all these reformers were searching for a "bourgeois" over the empire. He does provide some welcome Catholicism never quite shows us what was attention to the question of whether monasticism specifcally middle-class about this attempt. In‐ should play a continuing role in the German deed, many of the most prominent of these church, but this seems to be important to Printy thinkers and journalists were Benedictine or Au‐ mainly because the territories (mainly Bavaria gustinian monks, whose antipathy to the Jesuits and Austria) were threatening to close down the was understandable but whose connections to the monasteries within their borders and by the end "universal class" of urban, academic, or courtly of the century had largely succeeded in doing so. professionals were less visible. In general, I am Too often, Printy assumes that the reader already afraid, Printy's eforts to describe the religious so‐ knows the basic outlines of this and other stories ciology of German Catholicism (noble-worldly, and that what is needed is a revisionist perspec‐ bourgeois-universal, and peasant-superstitious) tive without the details. A fresh attitude is thus of‐ seem amateur and ill-digested. fered, but often without adequate information or context to make the new view compelling. One of Printy's main aims is to provide an "in‐ tellectual history" of Reform Catholicism, but he Most of these difculties stem, it seems, from often gives the reader little information about his a failure to discuss what the actual center of the various protagonists and little sense of their lives, book is and what connection the vexed relations careers, alliances, and motivations. Their journal‐ between church and state might have had to the istic utterances and historical claims seem to Enlightenment, either in its broader European emerge from a social and professional vacuum. form or the more narrowly focused German Catholic variant. Specialists in Catholicism, the

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Enlightenment, and sectarianism in central Eu‐ rope can beneft from reading this text. Cam‐ bridge University Press, however, should be em‐ barrassed to have published a book with such ob‐ vious defcits in copyediting.

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Citation: H.C. Erik Midelfort. Review of Printy, Michael O'Neill. Enlightenment and the Creation of German Catholicism. H-German, H-Net Reviews. November, 2009.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25669

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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