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276 BOOK REVIEWS Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Katholizität: Die Briefe Friedrich von Hügels an Giovanni Semeria. By Giuseppe Zorzi. 2 vols. [Tübinger Studien zur Theologie und Philosophie, Vol. 3] (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald Verlag. 1991. Pp. 301; 302-618. Paperback.) This two-volume work is a splendidly edited and copiously annotated edition of Baron Friedrich von Hügel's letters to the Barnabite priest and theologian Giovanni Semeria and seeks to understand and contextualize von Hügel's and Semeria's role in the Modernist crisis as well as their version of a "Liberal Catholicism." Volume I represents an effort in intellectual biography, based upon the correspondence between von Hügel and his fellow Italian Modernist as well as from numerous other sources and scholarly literature. But it is more than an intellectual biography, in that Zorzi seeks to understand the heart of von Hügel's theological concerns, in particular his attempt to forge in an intellectually open manner a religious apologia that does justice to scholarship and saintliness, incarnation and transcendence. In part one of the book, this intellectual and religious drama is shown as taking place in a life ofvastly different influences,those ofJohn Henry Newman; Henri Huvelin, the spiritual adviser; and the historical critic and exegete Alfred Loisy. In the second part we see von Hügel in dialogue with Semeria and other figures of the Modernist crisis. Here the main focus is on those themes and tensions that have characterized theology throughout the past two hundred years: questions of scientific autonomy and criticism, scholarship and dogma, as well as the role of ethics and spirituality amidst these creative yet fruitful tensions. The human characters representing these foci in the book are the friends of von Hügel with whom he engaged in a particularly intense discussion:Alfred Loisy, Maurice Blondel, George Tyrrell, and Giovanni Semeria . It is the presentation of Semeria's life, as reflected in von Hügel's correspondence, which struck this reviewer as especially valuable for the English reader who may not have been exposed to the Italian Modernist. We are presented here with the personal drama of the author ofScienza e Fede: his intellectual and spiritual quest, his struggle of conscience with institutional infringements amidst an active campaign of ecclesiastical denunciation and prohibition to preach and publish, and, finally, his exile in Brussels and subsequent military service. All along it was von Hügel's letters and support which in no small measure sustained Semeria, who is now considered a viable candidate for beatification. The third and final part ofthe book seeks to define von Hügel's position within the movement of Liberal Catholicism. Zorzi pays more attention to Loome's programmatic suggestions of Modernism as a more complex phenomenon than the "Modernist crisis" that took place during the pontificate of Pius X. But he does not agree with all judgments of Loome and develops his own characterizations ofvon Hügel's Liberal Catholicism within the context of several available options, among which the "ideological" modernism of Minocchi , Houtin, Buonaiuti, and Muni represents an especially powerful contrast. Von Hügel, according to the author, can also not be characterized with Loome as a more international version of von Döllinger minus the German savant's re- BOOK REVIEWS 277 jection of papal infallibility. Rather, and here the result of Zorzi coincides much with the estimate of the work of Peter Neuner, von Hügel's Liberal Catholicism is not only aware ofthe complexity, dynamism, and social dimensions of the historical situation but also grounds human knowledge and action not in a purely intellectual universe but places special value on the growth process by which an individual integrates the scientific and human tensions in an active religious life. The ideals and driving forces of such a life are those manifested throughout the Church's history: love and sanctity. Should the reader object that such an analysis ofModernism leaves the realm of historical movement for a theological ideal, the lives and correspondence of Baron Friedrich von Hügel and his priestly friend Giovanni Semeria are powerful witnesses pleading this very case in the outgoing nineteenth and beginning...

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