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BOOK reviews313 In order to comprehend the Republican anticlericalism in France, Larkin made an exhaustive study of the Vatican,Jesuit, Assumptionist, and French National Archives as well as the archives of the Grand Orient. The result is a detailed account of Vatican policy under Popes Leo XIII and Pius X. Leo XIII followed a policy of ralliement with republican France in the hope that France would aid him in regaining the papal territories lost in 1870. Pius X and his Secretary of State Raphael Merry del VaI followed a policy of seeking an accommodation with Italy rather than France. This policy created great difficulties for the French Church at the very moment of the crisis in the French Church over separation of church and state. Larkin's basic conclusion is that the French governmental policy aimed at keeping the prefectoral corps free of committed Catholics and this extended also to the ministries of Interior and Justice. Promotions of committed Catholics into ministries which required expertise such as public works, finance , commerce, andponts et chaussées were not so restricted. The army was a special case as at the beginning of the wave of anticlericalism there were large numbers of Catholic officers. It took major efforts of staunch republican officers to somewhat redress the balance. Throughout all of this period there were numerous notations in the personnel files describing the private lives of the officers in question as well as their wives and children. Of special interest was whether they educated their children in private or public schools. One conclusion is certain: Protestants and Jews were overrepresented in the higher civil service and Catholics grievously underrepresented. The author writes in a clear and forceful, often witty, style which is a joy to read. This valuable, well-researched, and remarkable work clarifies the churchstate problem such as the attitudes of the Vatican, the role of the Grand Orient in supporting republican policies, especially in the Affaire desfiches of 1904. The attitudes of Waldeck-Rousseau and Emile Combes in purging the civil service of practicing Catholics is well treated as is the complex role of Vichy. Walter D. Gray Loyola University Chicago (Emeritus) Romano Guardini:A Precursor ofVatican II. By Robert A. Krieg, CS.C. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1997. Pp. vii, 270. $18.00 paperback.) The Italian-German theologian Romano Guardini (1885-1968) was an influential figure in the formative stages of the liturgical movement and a prominent contributor to the modern renewal of ecclesiology. As professor of Catholic Weltanschauung at the Universities of Berlin (1923-1939), Tübingen (19451948 ), and Munich (1948-1962), he held a series of specially designed appointments which both required and allowed him to teach outside the parameters of 314BOOK REVIEWS standard theological programs. Guardini developed a pattern of lecturing regularly on three distinct sets of topics: major themes of ethics and Christian anthropology ; the New Testament, not in a technical exegetical sense, but through reflections of a meditative nature; and interpretations of philosophical or literary texts of religious significance. This wide-ranging activity led to prolific publication , much of which was translated into the major Western languages, with the result that Guardini became one of the most widely read Catholic religious authors of the first half of the twentieth century. Interest in Guardini has subsided in North America, though the centenary of his birth and the publication of several dissertations have spurred renewed attention to his work in the German-speaking world.Yet the historical impact of his thinking on the Church remains significant. For these reasons, Robert Krieg, professor of theology in the University of Notre Dame and author of Karl Adam: Catholicism in German Culture (University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), seeks to introduce this prominent theologian to a late twentieth-century North American audience. After an introduction providing basic biographical information and locating Guardini theologically between Vatican Councils I and II, successive thematic chapters present his thought on seven topics of interest: revelation, the Church, the liturgy, faith and literature, Nazism, Jesus Christ, and the modern world. The usual pattern is to depict the historical and theological context of an aspect of Guardini's life and work, present (sometimes...

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