Conversions to Catholicity

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1913, Page 27

Conversions to Catholicity

Writing of Baron Von Cramer-Klett, the Bavarian nobleman and Councillor of the Empire, who was converted to Catholicity last year, Abbe C. A. Maurin in I'Univers says that the conversion was remarkable for two reasons. In the first place the Baron became a Catholic although there was a clause in the will of his father providing that in case of the abjuration of Protestantism by the Baron, a part of the property would pass to other heirs; and secondly it was the Baron's love for the religious Orders that led him into the Church. While yet a Protestant he was the friend

and benefactor of the Jesuits and Benedictines (remarks the Sacred Heart Review). . "• ■ The Abbe Maurin says that the story of German conversions to Catholicity during the last hundred years is a deeply interesting, one, the number and character of German Protestants who turned to the faith of their fathers in that period being lengthy, and notable. Dr. Rosenthal, himself a convert, has published a book on the subject, and Alban Stolz, said to be the greatest German Catholic writer in the last century, another. The causes that led to these celebrated conversions ■were many and varied, but they group themselves into several well-defined movements. The trend of art towards ancient Rome and Catholic Rome attracted at first, in the early part of the nineteenth century, painters of great talent like Overbeck, Cramer, Vogel, Schnorr, the two ’ Schadows, Klinkowstrom, Muller, Wassmann, Ahlhorn, Achehbach, Lasinsky, and Jonas Veit; sculptors like the brothers Riepentrausen • artists like Emilio Lindner; and scholars like the archaeologist Platner. These ‘ Nazarenes,’ as they were called at that time, became disgusted with theological paganism and rationalism, and asked themselves what it was that inspired the hearts and hands of Michael Angelo, Raphael, and those others who wrought the masterpieces of Christian art. They found the answer in the Catholic Church, and they turned to that Church as one holding the mystery of life as well as art. In the middle of the nineteenth century numerous missions, chiefly those given by the Jesuits, attracted to the Church other notables—noblemen like Prince Eadziwill, Chassot de Florencourt and the Baron of Kettenburg; journalists like Lewald, Yogulsang, and Gloeden ; writers like the Countess Ida de Hahn-Hahn, who in their conversion turned from dangerous to edifying themes men who became priests and religious, like Mueller, Meinhold, Petersen, Bulow, Suckow, Maassen : a Royal Highness Paul, brother of the King of Wurtemburg; a Jewish physician, Rosenthal. The third group of conversions is connected with the persecution to which Prussia subjected the Archbishop of Cologne, Monseigneur de Droste-Yischering. Count Stolberg Wernigerode, the historian Gfroerer, the publicist Rintel, and Baroness Kimsky, received from this incident the desire for the faith. Between time and flowing from different causes came the conversion of the historian Hurter, the writers Schlegel, Warner, Moehler, Rumohr, Adam Muller, Drevers; the jurist Jerecke de Haller, and a number of others. ‘ It is a truth of experience,’ comments the writer in rUnivers, ‘that converts usually become apostles and in their turn convert others. By their deeds, their words, their writings, they exercise an apostolate, imitating in this the action of the Apostle Andrew, who, already chosen by Jesus, went to call his brother Peter to the cause of the Master.’ The most recent illustration of this truth Abbe Maurin finds in the case of Professor Yon Ruville, of the University of Halle, who embraced the faith in 1911 and has employed all his knowledge since then, and'devoted his pen to the Catholic Church.