The Loome Catholic Modernism Collection consists largely of the research materials gathered by Thomas Loome for his doctoral dissertation on George Tyrrell and Catholic Modernism, which he defended at the University of Tübingen (Germany) in 1975. Items related to Catholic Modernism and to the gathering of these materials by Loome and others form the remainder of the collection. The vast majority of the items are photocopies of manuscript, typescript, and published documents, of which the originals remain in approximately 45 different collections, some in private hands, some in institutional archives or libraries in Europe and the United States. A notable exception is the collection of letters from Friedrich von Hügel to his niece Gwendolen Plunkett Green, consisting of 90 original manuscript letters, many with their original envelopes.

Particular strengths of the collection include photocopies and microfilms of a wide range of unpublished correspondence, especially by and about George Tyrrell and Friedrich von Hügel but including many others, on matters to do with Catholic Modernism. Of note are copies of items from the Southwark Archives, added to the collection ca. 1980 by John D. Root, which document the final years, excommunication, death, and funeral of George Tyrrell. Some letters are arranged in large notebooks, which carry annotations of referenced persons and events by Loome. This collection reflects nearly all of the extant correspondence for Tyrrell and von Hügel. Articles by and about Modernists and the Modernist movement, as well as newspaper debates and other items to the same effect, also make up a large portion of the collection. Because this is a research collection, reflecting the research interests and efforts of Thomas Loome in preparing his doctoral dissertation on the Modernists, the collection also includes approximately 500 original letters received by Loome about Modernism research from almost all of the international scholars of Catholic Modernism between 1968 and 1974.

Much of the collection features writings by and about George Tyrrell and Friedrich von Hügel, the most prominent voices in the Modernist movement in England. Tyrrell (1861-1909) was born in Dublin and was a member of the Anglican church until he converted to Catholicism in 1879. He joined the Jesuits the following year and taught philosophy at a Jesuit college in the 1890s. Considering himself to be a liberal Catholic thinker, he advocated Modernist perspectives such as the necessity of re-assessing religious belief in light of contemporary knowledge. By 1901 he was in open conflict with his Jesuit superiors because of his views. Through the influence of Friedrich von Hügel, Tyrrell was exposed to Modernist works from the continent, and he published pseudonymous works attacking religious authoritarianism before being expelled from the Jesuits for his views in 1906. Following the papal encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis in 1907, Tyrrell published a letter denouncing it and was excommunicated. He died in 1909. Baron Friedrich von Hügel (1852-1925), of Austrian descent, was born in Italy and lived most of his life in England. He was a philosopher and author who kept contact with many major thinkers of his time, including many prominent in the Modernist movement such as Tyrrell and Alfred Loisy. However, despite his distaste for efforts towards further centralization of power in the Catholic Church, von Hügel accepted the supremacy of the Pope and rejected Modernist perspectives that undermined papal authority or traditional Catholic teachings. His thought and writings covered such topics as mysticism, free will, the relationship between religion and science, and the historical development of theology and religious teaching. He died in 1925.

Other people who figure prominently among the collection include:

Maude Petre (1863-1944), a Catholic religious sister from 1890 to 1907, a Modernist author, and close friend and biographer of George Tyrrell;

Henri Br?mond (1865-1933), a French Modernist writer and member of the Jesuits from 1882 to 1904;

Alfred Leslie Lilley (1860-1948), an Anglican theologian and canon of Hereford Cathedral;

Lady Charlotte Blennerhassett (1843-1917), a German writer best known for her biography of Madame de Stael;

Edward Ingram Watkin (1888-1981), an English writer on Catholicism and mysticism;

Wilfrid Ward (1856-1916), an English Catholic writer and editor of the Dublin Review from 1906;

Rudolf Eucken (1846-1926), a German philosopher and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1908;

Franz Xaver Kraus (1840-1901), a German Catholic priest, historian of art and the church, and ecclesiastical critic;

Albert Ehrhard (1862-1940), a German Catholic priest, theologian, church historian, and Byzantinist;

Joseph Sauer (1872-1949), a German Catholic priest, theologian, and art historian, and pupil of Franz Xaver Kraus;

Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), father of the Catholic Modernist movement, a Catholic priest from 1879 until his excommunication in 1908, and a biblical scholar and philosopher.

Loome's manuscript collection on Modernism complements the printed book portion of the collection, which contains about 1500 printed volumes on Catholic Modernism, also held at Notre Dame's Hesburgh Libraries. Loome's research on Catholic Modernism has resulted in articles, chapters, and books by Loome, including the publication of his doctoral dissertation: Liberal Catholicism, Reform Catholicism, Modernism: A Contribution to a New Orientation in Modernist Research (Mainz: Gr?newald-Verlag, 1979).

What is Catholic Modernism?

Catholic Modernism was a movement at the turn of the twentieth century to reinterpret traditional Catholic teaching in the light of contemporary knowledge, including advances in science and philosophy, and the historico-critical methods of reading Jewish and Christian scripture that gained prominence in 19th-century liberal Protestantism. Modernists held that the authors of the biblical books were products of their historical period, and they rejected readings of the biblical canon that did not allow for an understanding of historical context in modern comprehensions of biblical teaching and of a development over time of religious beliefs based on the scriptures. Related to the rejection of traditional Catholic readings of the scriptures was a rejection of traditional papal authority, which had become more centralized during the later half of the nineteenth century (though a notable exception to this tendency was Friedrich von Hügel, who accepted papal authority). Modernism had manifestations in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Many Catholics who were most vocal about promulgating Modernist perspectives, including Loisy and Tyrrell, suffered suspensions and expulsions from the Catholic institutions with which they were associated. Modernist impulses also concerned the reformation of church institutions as well as church teaching. Reactions from the Vatican included the publication by Pope Pius X of Lamentabili sane exitu (3 July 1907), listing 65 propositions ascribed to Modernist thinkers that were to be rejected by the Catholic faithful; and the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis (8 Sept 1907) against Modernism, which in section 39 defined Modernism as "the synthesis of all heresies." Pascendi also listed the following as the means of combatting Modernism: the study and practical application of Scholastic philosophy, episcopal vigilance over publications, censorship, congresses and other gatherings of intellectuals, diocesan watch committees to oversee publications and teaching, and triennial returns. Modernism as a philosophical movement died out with the generation that propagated it in the early twentieth century, but its influences continued well into the twentieth century.