On the Road to Vatican II: German Catholic Enlightenment and Reform of the Church
by ulrich l. lehner
fortress, 414 pages, $49
On the Road to Vatican II focuses on German and ÂAustrian theological debates in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as examples of the Catholic Enlightenment. Historians and theologians will be grateful for Ulrich Lehner’s careful, dispassionate treatment of under-studied figures. His work is primarily historical. Lehner argues that Catholic Enlightenment theology offers lessons in how to go about engaging with modernity, not answers to contemporary questions.