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[German Version] I. General Church History – II. Europe – III. Latin America I. General Church History Laicism (from Gk λαος/ laós, “people”; Laity) originated in 19th-century France ( laïcisme) as an aggressively anticlerical concept; originally it proposed absolute separation of the state, secular culture, and the church (esp. the Catholic Church; Church and state), opposing all public influence on the part of the church. Its intellectual roots were in the Enlightenment and especially the French Revolution – although it r…

[German Version] (Jan 31, 1867, Worms – Nov 15, 1944, Munich), Catholic publicist. Following discussion about the scholarly inferiority of German Catholics, he prompted the “Catholic literature controversy” with his pseudonymous controversial publication Steht die Katholische Belletristik auf der Höhe der Zeit? Von Veremundus [Are Catholic belles lettres adequate for today? By Veremundus, 1898]. In order to provide a literary platform for “germinating talents,” in 1903 he founded a Catholic review with an avant-garde emphasis entitled Hochland. Monatsschrift für alle Ge…

[German Version] (Baron; May 5, 1852, Florence – Jan 27, 1925, London). Von Hügel was the scion of a baronial Rhineland family, an autodidact, and an erudite private scholar. During the Modernism controversy, his wide-ranging international and interconfessional contacts enabled him to play an influential role as “colporteur and intermediary” among scholars of very different stripe, all debating the same theological problems – among them E. Troeltsch, R. Eucken, M. Blondel, E. Buonaiuti, Giovanni S…

[German Version] Pius X published the encyclical Editae saepe on May 26, 1910 on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the canonization of C. Borromeo. The text praises the merits of this “Tridentine” cardinal and archbishop, who did much to preserve the purity of the faith and renew church life in the century of the Reformation. It also contains ¶ a severe condemnation of the Reformers and of the princes who supported them. This encyclical was not, however, addressed to Protestant groups. Rather,…

[German Version] Jul 17, 1740 – May 3, 1758 (Prospero Lambertini, born Mar 31, 1675, Bologna). From an old noble family, he rose rapidly in the curial administration after theological and legal studies in Rome (1694: Dr. theol. et iur.), became titular bishop of Theodosia in 1725, cardinal in petto in 1726 (made public in 1728), archbishop of Ancona in 1727, and archbishop of Bologna in 1731. Elected pope as a compromise candidate after a conclave which lasted more than …

[German Version] (Mar 5, 1869, Klosterheidenfeld – Jun 12, 1952, Munich). Faulhaber was ordained priest in 1892, attained the Dr.theol. in 1895, became professor of Old Testament in Strasbourg in 1903, bishop of Speyer in 1911, also deputy field provost of the Bavarian Army in 1914, archbishop of Munich (I) and Freising in 1917, and finally cardinal in 1921. He was widely known as a brilliant speaker and powerful preacher. A resolute monarchist, he kept his distance from the Weimar Republic. Despi…

[German Version] (Jan 22, 1879, County of Glatz [Kladsko] – Aug 22, 1949, Göhrde), theologian and popular religious writer. He received his Dr.theol. from the University of Breslau in 1902 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1903; in 1915 he was appointed pro-¶ fessor of Early Church history at Breslau. His Easter article “Die Erlösten” [The Redeemed] published in Hochland in 1922 used the form of an autobiographical narrative to criticize his church’s contemporary penitential system (doctrine of justification); as a result, his works were placed on the Index and he was excommunic…

[German Version] (Dec 8, 1813, Kerpen near Cologne – Dec 4, 1865, Cologne) was the son of a small farmer and originally a journeyman cobbler who, in part ¶ through private study, achieved his Abitur (high-school diploma) in 1841. He studied theology in Munich and Bonn, was ordained priest in Cologne in 1845, and became chaplain in Elberfeld. When, as the president of the Gesellenverein, “journeyman union,” founded there in 1846 by the teacher Johann Gregor Breuer, Kolping was again confronted with the needs of the journeyman class and the industrial proletar…

[German Version] According to the Greek Passio (5th/6th cent.), Pantaleon was the son of a pagan father and Christian mother in Nicomedia and a student of the emperor’s personal physician Euphrosynos. After his conversion he healed a blind man in the name of Christ. Envious members of the college of physicians denounced him; even his successful healing of a paralytic in a contest with his informers before the emperor Maximian could not save him from martyrdom. The lions in the arena refused to attack …

[German Version] (May 13, 1773, Aulendorf – Apr 14, 1868, Freiburg im Breisgau), archbishop of Freiburg (1843–1868). In 1798 he obtained a canonry at the collegiate church of St. John in Constance. He studied in Augsburg, Vienna, and Dillingen, where he received his Dr.iur.utr. in 1797. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1797 but never served a parish; instead he was active in church administration from the outset, initially as a colleague of I.H. v. Wessenberg in Constance, after 1827 as canon and vicar gener…

[German Version] (orig. Pehm; Mar 29, 1892, Csehimindszent, Vas district, Hungary – May 6, 1975, Vienna), last prince-primate of Hungary. After seminary studies in Szombathely, he was ordained priest in 1915 and was appointed pastor of Zalaegerszeg in 1919. In 1944 he was made bishop of Veszprém and in 1945 archbishop of Esztergom and prince-primate. In 1946 he was made cardinal. His career as a writer and political activist began early. In 1919 he was arrested as an enemy of the revolutionary gov…

[German Version] (1513, Meslin l'Evêque – Sep 16, 1589, Louvain) became a priest in 1542, professor of philosophy in 1544, and professor of theology at the University of Louvain, where he had studied, in 1550. He officiated as dean of Saint-Pierre and vice-chancellor of the university from 1575 onward. He was involved in the debates concerning the problems of original state,…

[German Version] (Jan 9, 1626, Paris – Oct 27, 1700, La Trappe), founder of the La Trappe reform (Trappists), son of Maria de’ Medici’s secretary, and godchild of Cardinal Richelieu. He held many benefices. In 1651 he was ordained priest, and in 1654 gained his Dr.theol. He became a rigorous ascetic, renounced his benefices, retired to La Trappe, and from then on subjected this Cistercian abbey to the strictest observance as regular abbot (1664–1695), attracting monks who were willing to reform. H…

[German Version] Sep 3, 1914 – Jan 22, 1922 (Giacomo della Chiesa, born Nov 21, 1854). Of ancient Genovese nobility, he became archbishop of Bologna in 1907 and cardinal in 1914. Following the serious disputes over “modernism”, “Reform Catholicism” …

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[German Version] a family from the Auvergne (?) living in Paris after 1547; originally Huguenot, they converted to the Catholic Church after the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572. 1. Antoine “the lawyer” (Aug 6, 1560, Paris – Dec12, 1619, Paris), son of the lawyer and procurator general Antoine Arnauld de la Mothe et de Villeneuve (died 1585). After the abortive attempted assassination of Henry IV, he became a passionate enemy of the Jesuits. He had 20 children by his wife Catherine Marion, some of whom became leaders of the Jansenist cause:…

[German Version] (Dec 27, 1903, Steinheim am Main – Jul 1, 1988, Mainz), cardinal, bishop of Mainz (1962–1982). After studying in Mainz, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1927 and appointed chaplain. He earned his Dr.phil. in Freiburg im Bresgau in 1938 and his Dr.theol. in Münster in 1939. He gained his habilitation in 1943 and was appointed professor of dogmatics in 1946. Familiar with modern Protestant theology through his works on K. Barth and E. Brunner and ecumenically active, in 1945 he became a member of the ¶ Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians (leader of the Catholic section from 1946, president from 1975); in 1960 he was appointed a consultant to the Roman Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. As bishop of Mainz, he took part in Vatican II, where he made significant contributions to the discussion and became a member of several commissions of the council and the German Bishops’ Conference. In 1968 he was appointed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and …

[German Version] ([v. Hefele]; Mar 15, 1809, Hochmühle near Aalen – Jun 5, 1893, Rottenburg), priest in 1833, associate professor (1835) and professor of church history in Tübingen (1840, succeeding his teacher J.A. Möhler). Hefele, along with J.E. Kuhn, led the ultramontane-young church party (Ultramontanism) in the bishopric of Rottenburg who fiercely opposed the Württemberg state church and the “late Enlightenment” clergy. He turned, however, to moderate ultramontanism after 1848. Hefele was a …

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[German Version] (born Thérèse Martin; religious name Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus et de la Sainte-Face; Jan 2, 1873, Alençon – Sep 30, 1897, Lisieux). In 1888 Thérèse entered the cloistered Carmelite community at Lisieux; an extremely sensitive person since the death of her mother in 1877, she initially experienced very severe treatment and suffered from the “dryness” o…

[German Version] (May 27, 1651, Castle Peynière near Aurillac – May 4, 1729, Paris…

[German Version] (Dec 26, 1751, Tasswitz [Tasovice], Moravia – Mar 15, 1820, Vienna). Apprenticed as a baker, he studied theology as a “late vocation” in Vienna, joining the Redemptorists in 1784. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1785. In 1788 he became vicar general of his order for northern Europe. From 1808 he served as a pastor in Vienna, with a strong commitment to social and charitable work; not least because of his rustic manner, he was an engaging preacher. His charismatic personality made him the focus of a Romantic circle (including F. Schlegel, Z. ¶ Werner, A. Günther, and Jo…

[German Version] When the Reformation put an end to the Catholic episcopal sees in the northern lands of the Old Empire, the remaining Catholic population (and immigrant Catholic craftsmen, merchants, artists, and soldiers) came initially under the jurisdiction of the Cologne nuncio, then of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, established in 1622, and it pastoral representatives “on the ground,” the nuncios in Cologne, Brussels, and Warsaw. In 1667 the duke of Brunswi…

[German Version] (Oct 19, 1625, Chartres – Nov 16, 1695, Paris), Jansenist theologian. Nicole taught at the abbey of Port-Royal (1646), in Flanders and France (1679), and in Paris (from 1683). A close friend of Antoine Arnauld, Nicole wrote several, sometimes pseudonymous, writings defending the orthodoxy of Jansenism, and with regard to the condemnation of the teachings of C. Jansen by Innocent X (1653) he distinguished the quaestio iuris from the quaestio facti ( Innocentii papae brevissima quinque propositionum in varios sensus distinctio, 1653). Nicole was involved in the…

[German Version] I. Definition The expression papal primacy denotes the juridical supremacy in the universal church of the pope as bishop of Rome, i.e. his supreme and immediate administrative authority as head of the College of Bishops, pastor of the universal church, and vicar of Christ on earth ( CIC/1983, c. 331: “The Bishop of the Church of Rome . . . is the head of the College of Bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and the Pastor of the universal Church here on earth; consequently, by virtue of his office, he has supreme, full, immediate, and…

[German Version] (Apr 1, 1800, Strasbourg – Nov 8, 1871, Maria Laach), a catechist, Jesuit (1817), and priest (1828), worked 1830–1841 as professor of rhetoric in Brig and Fribourg, Switzerland, and 1845–1847 as professor of pastoral theology in Lucerne. In his apologetic Katholisches Katechismus oder Lehrbegriff, nebst einem kurzen Abriß der Religionsgeschichte von Anbeginn der Welt bis auf unsere Zeit (1847, anonymous; ET: A Complete Catechism of the Catholic Religion, 1924), he attempted to grasp doctrinal content in rational terms.…