The Persistence of the Sacred
German Catholic Pilgrimage, 1832-1937
Description
For millions of Catholic believers, pilgrimage has offered possible answers to the mysteries of sickness, life, and death. The Persistence of the Sacred explores the religious worldviews of Europeans who travelled to Trier and Aachen, two cities in Western Germany, to view the sacred relics in their cathedrals.
The Persistence of the Sacred challenges the narrative of widespread secularization in Europe during the long nineteenth century and reveals that religious practices thrived well into the modern period. It shows both that men were more active in their faith than historians have realized and how clergy and pilgrims did not always agree about the meaning of relics. Drawing on private ephemeral and material sources including films, photographs, postcards, correspondence, and souvenirs, Skye Doney uncovers the enduring and diverse sacred worldview of German Catholics and argues that laity and clergy had very different perspectives on the meaning of pilgrimage.
Recovering the history of Catholic pilgrimage, The Persistence of the Sacred aims to understand the relationship between relics and religiosity, between modernity and faith, and between humanity and God.
Reviews
“Offering a tightly bounded history of Catholic pilgrimages to Trier and Aachen, Skye Doney has ably foregrounded how Catholicism in Germany, both as an institutional religion and as a mass movement of millions, sought to straddle faith and empirically-based science.”
- Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, Flinders University
“An important study that broadens our understanding of Catholic faith and practice in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”
- Kevin P. Spicer C.S.C., Stonehill College
“An eminently readable and very fruitful study.”
- Jonathan Sperber, University of Missouri
“The work offers readers new, engaging ways of thinking about German Catholicism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and provides a glimpse into the world of everyday German Catholics and their attempts to navigate the practice of their religious faith in the modern world.”
- Beth Griech-Polelle, Pacific Lutheran University