The relationes ad limina of the German Bishops

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_10424
dc.title	The relationes ad limina of the German Bishops. From Post-War Emergency to Confronting the ‘Double’ Materialist Threat (1948-58)
dc.contributor.author	Tacchi Francesco
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/journal-of-modern-and-contemporary-christianity/2022/2/the-relationes-ad-limina-of-the-german-bishops/
dc.description.abstract	The paper analyses the content of the relationes ad limina drawn up by German bishops between 1948 and 1958. In their abundance of information, these documents make it possible, among other things, to shed light on the episcopate’s view of the material and moral condition of the German Catholic population in the immediate post-war period and in the 1950s, as well as on the situation of the Catholic Church in the two German states (FRG and GDR) separated by the ‘Iron Curtain’. In the last years of Pius XII’s pontificate, a cause of great concern for the ecclesiastical hierarchy was on the one hand ‘practical’ materialism in a West Germany that was experiencing a phase of rapid economic growth, and on the other dialectical materialism in an East Germany under Soviet influence.
dc.relation.ispartof	JoMaCC
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 1 \| Issue 2 \| October 2022
dc.issued	2022-12-13
dc.dateAccepted	2022-11-03
dc.dateSubmitted	2022-08-27
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2785-6046
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/JoMaCC/2785-6046/2022/02/002
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Catholic Church in Germany
dc.subject	Cold War
dc.subject	German Episcopate
dc.subject	Materialism
dc.subject	Relationes ad limina

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

The relationes ad limina of the German Bishops

From Post-War Emergency to Confronting the ‘Double’ Materialist Threat (1948-58)

Francesco Tacchi Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia

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abstract

The paper analyses the content of the relationes ad limina drawn up by German bishops between 1948 and 1958. In their abundance of information, these documents make it possible, among other things, to shed light on the episcopate’s view of the material and moral condition of the German Catholic population in the immediate post-war period and in the 1950s, as well as on the situation of the Catholic Church in the two German states (FRG and GDR) separated by the ‘Iron Curtain’. In the last years of Pius XII’s pontificate, a cause of great concern for the ecclesiastical hierarchy was on the one hand ‘practical’ materialism in a West Germany that was experiencing a phase of rapid economic growth, and on the other dialectical materialism in an East Germany under Soviet influence.

Published

Dec. 13, 2022

Accepted

Nov. 3, 2022

Submitted

Aug. 27, 2022

Language

Keywords: Materialism • German Episcopate • Relationes ad limina • Catholic Church in Germany • Cold War

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/JoMaCC/2785-6046/2022/02/002

Copyright: © 2022 Francesco Tacchi. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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