Encounters with Modernity The Catholic Church in West Germany, 1945-1975 [Hardcover]

During the three decades from 1945 to 1975, the Catholic Church in West Germany employed a broad range of methods from empirical social research. Statistics, opinion polling, and organizational sociology, as well as psychoanalysis and other approaches from the psy sciences, were debated and introduced in pastoral care. In adopting these methods for their own work, bishops, parish clergy, and pastoral sociologists tried to open the church up to modernity in a rapidly changing society. In the process, they contributed to the reform agenda of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Through its analysis of the intersections between organized religion and applied social sciences, this award-winning book offers fascinating insights into the trajectory of the Catholic Church in postwar Germany.

This excellent English translation of Benjamin ZiemannsHabilitationsschrift, first published in 2007, makes more accessible Ziemannss examination of West German Catholic reactions to secularization. Focused on the Churchs adoption of sociological methods of self-analysis in an era of scientization of the social, Ziemanns exploration of metaphor, theology, and the social sciences offers an unusually rich interdisciplinary approach from which all scholars can benefit. In a strongly argued study that stands out for its precision of terms, distillation of complex background, and fulsome documentation, Ziemann paints a nuanced picture of a responsive, if divided, Church confronting unprecedented secularity.? German Studies Review

Without a doubt, this work will remain (&) one of the pillars of the field.? Central European History

&one of the most important studies in contemporary history published in recent years.? Neue Politische Literatur

An impressive and original study& The book is an important contribution to the most recent history of Christian religils‹