Die Franziskanerinnen von Bonlanden: Licht and Schatten by Paul Kopf (review)

BOOK REVIEWS9 1 French savants conducted research. Although there are a few misreadings of secondary sources (The Tunisia-Morocco chapter mentions Khéreddine/Khayr ad-Din as two persons), Pyenson has carefully mined government and private papers. For scores ofscientists his wit enlivens narratives ofcareer vicissitudes and bureaucratic-military-academic politics. The style is erudite yet brisk. In Algeria Albert Camus passed through 1937-38 as a research assistant in meteorology (p. 124). "The physical climate is omnipresent in his novels and essays." Meticulous scholarship fills the notes, and the publisher is lavish with photographs. Both appear in the pages where they matter. The handsome edition has a Glossary of French Terms, Note on Sources, and Index (but no bibliography). Pyenson catalogues French endeavors in the carte du ciel and other astronomical measurement, meteorology, seismology, vulcanology, and mapping the earth, its geology, and its magnetic variations. In the twentieth century wireless time signals from the Eiffel Tower, and data cabled or radioed from weather stations, unified the program. French cultural imperialism spanned more than a century in some lands. In the Americas it included Québec, Martinique, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Equador, and Mexico. The Society of Jesus made particular contributions to science and to the mission civilisatrice. Jesuits carried on despite Third Republic anticlericalism; they resumed after the Great War in which some of them fought. Pyenson describes a Jesuit's fifteen-year formation. Superiors identified adolescent talent and planned the seminarians' doctoral research in philosophy and theology . They scheduled decade-later assignments in Madagascar, Shanghai (which ended after Mao's victory), and the Beqa'a Valley (which Lebanon's recent civil war ended). Many careers demonstrate the inner discipline which made Jesuits so productive and cost-effective in the view of "metropolitan mandarins." These Third Republic bureaucrats, military brass, and academics collaborated, during the late unpleasantness, with Jesuit authorities exiled to Britain or Jersey. As for the latter, "In their view, no civil regime could alter the fact that France remained a profoundly Catholic country" (p. 155). Government money somewhat compromised the autonomy of the Jesuits' observatories and weather stations (a problem for principal investigators in general). But it went for the greater glory of God. As Father Pierre Lejay remarked (p. 187): "Science is one of the most glorious parts given to man in unfolding the Creation that continually advances." J. Dean O'Donnell, Jr. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Die Franziskanerinnen von Bonlanden: Licht and Schatten. By Paul Kopf. (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag. 1992. Pp. 308. DM 48,-.) The book tells the story of the Franciscan nuns of Bonlanden, located in Württemberg, founded in 1854 by Faustin Mennel (1824-1889). As the author 92BOOK REVIEWS correctly mentions in the introduction, Mennel and his congregation are widely unknown in Germany. Mennel, who became an orphan at the age of seven months, studied theology in Tübingen and, in 1867, became pastor of a parish in a little village near Tuttlingen. Influenced by the 1848 revolution and me suffering of the population, he first cared about young people. He intended to improve their situation by learning and education. In November 1853, he became pastor in Erolzheim. There, he met a couple who gave him as a present a piece of land near Bonlanden. This was the place to build his school for young girls, indigent widows, and sick people. In 1855, he asked the Franciscan nuns in Dillingen to support his work (till 1918, it was forbidden in Württemberg to found a male religious congregation). One year later, the first two nuns were robed in Bonlanden. In the following years, he expanded the property to provide the economic basis. Although the Prussian Kulturkampf Laws in 1875 made Mennel's work more difficult, he was able to increase the number of nuns and students in his institute. At the end of the Kulturkampf there were forty-five sisters in Bonlanden. On June 17, 1898, Mennel died after several years of illness and afflictions. Up to that time, there were already forty-three Franciscan nuns, diirty-six tertians (members of the third order of St. Francis), and seventyeight students living in Bonlanden. The year 1925 can be regarded...