The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75 by Oliver P. Rafferty (review)

BOOK REVIEWS349 The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75- By Oliver P. Rafferty. (NewYork: St. Martin's Press. 1999. Pp. xvii, 229. $6995.) Between 1866 and 1870, an Irish nationalist organization popularly known as the Fenians orchestrated a rising in Ireland, invasions of Canada, and several outbreaks of violence in British cities. While most of these were smashingly unsuccessful , the Fenians stUl deserve a notable position in the histories of Anglo-Irish relations and Irish republicanism. Apart from biographies, however, they have received relatively little attention from historians. This may be due in part to the fact that the most prominent writer on the Fenians, R.V Comerford, has consistently downplayed their importance, portraying them as a social, rather than a poUtical or mUitary, organization. Comerford's interpretation is not without its critics, most notably John Newsinger, and, with this concise study, Oliver P. Rafferty. Making use of a wide assortment of archival materials in Britain, Ireland, America, and Rome, Rafferty presents the most detailed study yet made of relations between the Catholic Church,the Fenians, and the governments in Britain and North America. In contrast to Comerford, Rafferty argues that Fenianism must be taken seriously on its own terms, and that it presented a threat to the established religious and poUtical order. He finds proof of the latter in the intensive intelligence-gathering operations spurred on by Fenianism as well as the re-evaluation of Irish policy at Westminster after the mid-1860's. The bulk of the book, however, is concerned with Fenianism's spiritual danger . Unlike the British government, the Irish Catholic hierarchy, led by Cardinal Paul Cullen, quickly realized the challenge the Fenians posed to the Church's view of Irish society and the "Irish Question." Rafferty locates the source of the Church's opposition in its social ambitions. The Church desired to win reforms and concessions from the government that helped its members advance socially in Ireland, Rafferty argues, "so as to enable them to exercise that degree of influence which they thought they ought to have as the regulators of faith and morals of the Irish people" (p. 96). This strategy was predicated on Ireland remaining in the union, placing the Church on a collision course with the republican revolutionaries. The Fenians were not, as Cullen depicted them, anticlerical in a strict sense, but their rejection of a reformist agenda and their assertion that the bishops concern themselves only with spiritual matters jeopardized the Church's public role. Rafferty demonstrates that the majority of the hierarchy responded to this threat by pubUcly denouncing Fenianism and assisting the authorities, though this support went largely unacknowledged. In North America, where the Church was in a much more ambiguous social position, clerical condemnations of the Fenians were more muted. While others have explored the Fenians' contribution to the concept of separation of Church and State in Ireland, none have offered the same depth of material and analysis that Rafferty fits into his lean volume. This book deserves the 350BOOK REVIEWS attention of anyone interested in Fenianism or relations between the Church and Irish nationalism. To that end, it is sincerely hoped that a more affordable paperback edition wUl be forthcoming from the publishers. Michael de Nie University of Wisconsin-Madison Die katholisch-theologischen Disziplinen in Deutschland 1870-1962: ihre Geschichte, ihr Zeitbezug. Edited by Hubert WoLf (with Claus Arnold). [Programm und Wirkungsgeschichte des II. Vatikanums, Band 3.] (Paderborn : Ferdinand Schöningh. 1999. Pp. 408. DM 108 paperback.) The book examines "the history of the theological disciplines and cultural changes in Germany before the Second Vatican CouncU," especiaUy from 1870 to 1962. Each of the thirteen essays focuses on the work of German-speaking scholars in relation to international developments. This review gives a glimpse of each essay. H. G. Reventlow describes the early exegesis of P. Heinisch and A. Sanda on the Pentateuch, G. Hoberg and H. Herkenne on the Psalms, J. Göttsberger on Second Isaiah, and A. Scholz and M. Schumpp on the Book of Tobit. After considering German contributions to the Church's teachings on the Bible, H. J. Klauck reviews the history of the Biblische Zeitschrift, Bíblica, and Bibel...