Le Pape Pie XI et l'opinion (1922-1939) by Marc Agostino (review)

122BOOK REVIEWS effective through reforms recommended by a pariiamentary commission in 191I-I913 it balked, and seemed ever too willing to resist party government and too anxious to play ethnically based interest poUtics. Perhaps, but in this analysis the possibiUty of the state acting on its own initiative to solve its problems , as Ui the Ausgleiche for Moravia, Bukovina, and Galicia, is given Uttle credibiUty . FranzJoseph also has practicaUy no role in this scenario. Despite Boyer's introductory statements to the contrary, he comes close to making a Sonderweg argument about the coUapse ofthe Empire in which a somewhat compUcit Christian Socialism nevertheless tends to be on the side ofthe normative angels against a benighted state. More successful is Boyer's contention that the relationship between the Christian Socials and the Social Democrats became that of opposing world views of conservative CathoUc versus revolutionary anticlerical. This resulted Ui a Kulturkampf that brought into being the CathoUc inteUectuaI leadership under Ignaz Seipel that would dominate the Christian Social Party in the First RepubUc. Indeed, the conclusion to the book emphasizes the pre-1918 origins of subsequent conflicts,yet that connected with the Christian Social heritage of anti-Semitism is given Uttle emphasis. For the time up to 1914, Boyer handles the issue of anti-Semitism weU, arguing its containment within the bounds of the Rechtsstaat and the party's essential insincerity on the issue. He declines, however, to say what the parry's revival of anti-Semitism during the war and its incorporation into Seipel's program indicates about Christian Social responsibiUty for sustaining attitudes favorable to its Nazi rivals. That Boyer has made commissions and omissions capable of criticism is actuaUy testimony to the importance ofhis book. It is because this book has much to say that much wUl be said about it. No one in the field of modern Austrian history can avoid dealing with whatJohn Boyer has accomplished. James Shedel Georgetown University Le Pape Pie XI et l'opinion (1922-1939). By Marc Agostino. [CoUection de l'École Française de Rome, 150.] (Rome: L'École Française de Rome. 1991. Pp. vi, 820. Paperback.) The reign of Pope Pius XI, claims Marc Agostino, was one of the most significant of modern times because its development "contained many of the key elements of the evolution of the CathoUc Church and of the CathoUc movement in the twentiedi century" (p. 8). From the beginning of his reign in 1922, Pius XI deliberately chaUenged the secularization of the age Ui which he Uved by promoting a Christian reconquest ofthe world to create the "Peace of Christ in the reign of Christ," through which Christian values would permeate modern society . This central reUgious message formed the substance of his first encycUcal, Ubi Arcano Dei, of December, 1922, and informed every action of this pope. BOOK REVIEWS123 The central question raised by Agostino has to do as much with the medium as with the message. To what extent, he asks, did pubUc opinion recognize, receive , and understand the Pope's message? Agostino examines the impact of the papal message on the pubUc through a study ofthe press and popular opinion Ui France and in Italy, two countries which provided striking social and political contrasts Ui the interwar years. Agostino notes that Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922), the predecessor of Pius XI, meant weU but had no significant influence on his times. Pius XI, in contrast, Agostino claims, demonstrated a ffeir for pubUc relations with the result that,by the time ofhis death in 1939, the universal values for which he stood were widely understood and shared by many in European society and formed the basis for the post-1945 revival of CathoUc reUgious, social, and poUtical influence. Agostino first assesses the variety of means avaUable to Pius XI for the transmission of his message. Some means were traditional such as the dissemination of papal encycUcals and official church pubUcations; the appointment of selected individuals as bishops, members of the papal Curia and Secretaries of State; and the celebration of canonizations, great church festivals, and other pubUc occasions. Other means were modern and were used by Pius XI with great skUl and effectiveness...