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The Catholic Historical Review 86.4 (2000) 698-699



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Book Review

Sanctity and Secularity during the Modernist Period

Late Modern European


Sanctity and Secularity during the Modernist Period. Edited by Lawrence Barmann and Charles J. T. Talar. [Subsidia hagiographica, 79.] (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes. 1999. Pp. xi, 187. 35 Euros.)

Catastrophe nipped at the heels of the Roman Catholic Church as it stepped into the twentieth century. For an institution so long and closely connected to emperors and kings, the revolutionary birth of representational government sent shock waves from the many capitals of Europe to the Vatican. There the pope, former "owner" of central Italy, was now a political "prisoner." A similar revolution in the academic arena, the birth of historical consciousness, also sent tremors and threats of intellectual displacement to representatives of the Catholic faith.

Historical consciousness was a new kind of filter for Catholic faith, one that might sift legendary and mythological elements out from traditional Catholic teachings. But was that something that Roman Catholics at the turn of the century were themselves ready and willing to do? This book contains historical essays that analyze six representatives of Roman Catholicism in the "modernist period" of church history (1890-1914) and provides a carefully nuanced and variegated answer to that question.

The essays examine six individuals who struggled with the distinction between the historical and the legendary. Four of the examples (Henri Bremond [1865-1933], Hippolyte Delehaye [1859-1941], Friedrich von Hügel [1852- 1925], and Paul Sabatier [1858-1928]) stand in the middle. They blend together elements of the new historical criticism with degrees of a more traditional credulity. They show this blend in their respective works: discussing saintly ideals; reflecting on rules for hagiographical methodology; exploring the meaning of mysticism in a viable spirituality; and writing a life of St. Francis of Assisi. Bordering these blended positions are two extremes: Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) and Albert Houtin (1867-1926). Houtin wants to be the pure critic. C. J. T. Talar shows the strongly positivist way that he viewed history, with an almost "binary mentality that divided history into established fact and legend." In Talar's article we see especially Houtin's investigation of the legend that the church in France was of apostolic origin. Huysmans, at the other extreme, is a novelist who proudly retained the legendary in his examination of Saint Lydwine. Here Talar tends to agree with George Tyrrell that Huysmans' work seemed almost a reaction against historical criticism and that it constituted a greater threat to the faith of educated individuals than such criticism itself.

Despite their differences, all these men are connected to each other not only by the revolutionary circumstances in which they wrote, but also by their shared sense of the special value of something termed "sanctity" that they chose to investigate. Historical criticism exposed the difference between two kinds of sanctity: sanctity as an actual existential reality and sanctity as an artificial, institutional adornment. Barmann's introduction is a gem in distilling the tensions surrounding all six scholars in the distinction between true sanctity and the false overlays in the tradition. [End Page 698]

The four authors of the articles in the book are: (1) B. Joassart (Société des Bollandistes, Brussels) regarding Delehaye; (2) C. J. T. Talar (St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore) regarding Albert Houtin, Paul Sabatier, and J.-K. Huysmans; (3) É. Goichot (Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg) regarding Henri Bremond; and (4) Lawrence Barmann (St. Louis University, St. Louis) regarding von Hügel. Barmann and Talar are also editors of the book. The articles by Joassart and Goichot are in French, the rest in English. Each of the articles is a landmark work in exploring the details and context of its particular subject, with no discernible errors and recurring instances of superb scholarship and insight.



Ronald Burke
University of Nebraska at Omaha

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