THEOLOGY BEHIND THE WALL

...Postconciliar developments in the official church, P~pulorum Progressio, Humanae Vitae and so forth, have also been provided with editions in translation, but little in the way of published commentary, except for Werner Becker's aids for the ecumenical dialogue...

...An allotment of paper contributed by the West German conference of bishops is allowed in addition...

...One can understand his caution, in view of the practical break-up of ecclesiastical cohesiveness under pressure from state ministries in some other Communist countries, without suppressing one's regret that little attempt seems to be made to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy initiatives in the Christian people...

...Still, the Andean countries are integrating...

...Like so many other products in the planned economies of Eastern Europe, its books, calendars etc...

...Other single copies find their way to reviewers for the prestigious old Theologische Literaturzeitung, which has remained in Leipzig...

...To round out the picture and soften it somewhat, we should look at the Catholic theology officially available to East German Catholics...

...A few days after the Wall went up in Berlin, Alfred Bengsch was named bishop of Berlin and insisted wisely on residing in East Berlin...

...He has strengthened the parish base and provided for the training of future priests while showing a marked lack of interest in private initiatives or experimental forms of pastoral care which have the potential for slipping out of ecclesiastical control...

...One wonders, in these circumstances, if the bishops did not make things a bit too easy for themselves in thus taking advantage of the conditions created by the government to suppress or control public opinion...

...A good number of books and booklets communicate the newer approaches in the study of the Bible, an important basis of the conciliar renewal in theology --here one can read reprints of West German works as well as high-level local work by well-known exegetes such as Heinz Schiirmann and Wolfgang Trilling...

...The documents of Vatican II in Latin and German were published and disseminated, at least among the clergy...

...After his sudden death in June, 1970, however, the Letter Circle was precipitately dissolved and Herbst was disavowed as a fit representative of the Catholic side in ecumenical discussions...

...The isolation of many Christians in Eastern European countries seems bound to grow more acute as time goes by...

...I had to admire the spirit of those Christians of either tradition who pay their "church tax" and otherwise engage in more or less conspicuous activity on behalf of Christianity...

...Failure to reach common agreement caused the lack of a unified policy for three years, stifling foreign investment plans in all six countries...

...The five percent or so who did live there fifty years ago were largely dependent upon the home mission fervor of the churches of Breslau to the East and Cologne and Munich to the West and South...

...The late bishop of Meissen, for instance, Otto Spiilbeck, came out of the Catholic Rhineland and was a member of the Oratory in Leipzig, which was founded by a band of young Rhenish priests in the 1920s...

...Tom Keating, who--so I gather from what I read--has been doing some very good imitations of Samuel Palmer paintings and selling them to his friends...

...The one licensed Catholic publishing house has to supply all the needs of religious publication...

...Keating's products have not stayed with the people they were originally sold to, and some dealers and collectors have been caught...

...With the greater mobility of the working force, accelerated by the war, priests followed in increasing numbers from these established Catholic areas...

...This ceremony is a sort of Communist-atheist confirmation, by which the young citizen is expected to dedicate oneself to Marxist ideals expressed in terms unPAUL MISNER, a theologian living in the Boston area, i$ the author o] Papacy and Development: Newman and the Primacy of the Pope...

...The Catholics were able to use it at 8:00 A.M., before the regular, not so well-attended service of the Lutheran parish...

...The natural bent of a person in this position is to forge and maintain a disciplined church body, not seeking ~rouble with the regime but ready to meet it firmly on matters of importance...

...The result was an expanded network of parishes, many of them reluctant guests in Protestant churches...

...ministerial colleagues on the occasion of the church unity octave the question, "What are we doing for Christian union...

...The other five members opposed Chile's proposals...

...The stagnation of other Latin integration organizations is often attributed to the cumbersome, timeconsuming process by which all members must pass on policy decisions before an individual member can take action...

...Gift subscriptions of theological journals are certainly possible...

...Herbst and his theology never had access to print, since publication is strictly limited by the government...

...Benno Verlag...

...Benno has to provide for the entire range of Catholic publishing: diocesan, liturgical, devotional, popular, catechetical and pastoral, as well as theological in the strict sense, it is perhaps worthy of note how the problem of keeping abreast has been confronted...

...The generation of seminary professors, writers and editors now active in East Germany was for the most part still able to get their doctoral training in the theological faculties of West German universities...

...This was an ecumenical circle founded during the Nazi period by a Protestant theology professor and an Oratorian...

...With that avenue now cut off, there is a considerable interest developing to strengthen ties (not only or primarily on the level of theological research) with the church of Poland...

...It is a highly praiseworthy effort, but one which only underscores the difficulties that face the theological laborer in East Germany...

...Keating had taken less trouble, and just gone in for photographing the paintings, he would not have got himself, or anyone else, into much trouble: a breach of copyright, or the rules of some gallery or Other perhaps, but not forgery--that is, passing round a copy that looks so like the original that a mistake could be made...

...Together with a Protestant pastor, he proceeded to write letters on topics of interest in the ecumenical dialogue and send them to subscribers, who numbered upwards of 1,500 during and after the years of Vatican II and showed no signs of waning interest--after all, there was no surfeit of reportage on the Council there...

...difference between the art trade and the arms trade is that, whereas the art dealers make a big public fuss when things get into the wrong hands, the arms salesmen have to keep quiet for political reasons...

...Of course, in this case it is for the purpose of keeping the isolated churches of Eastern Europe in touch with outside developments...

...For example, if Mr...

...He aligned him.~elf with ,those Catholic theologians whom the East German conference of bishops perceived as being "criticar' (as opposed to "positive" and "ascetical...

...Thi~ leaves books published in the Ostblock itself as the main channel for keeping up with scientific theological work...

...In a way, this theological roundup was a sort of anticipation of more recent Western attempts at international theological publication in periodical form (Concilium, Communio...

...How effectively has this publishing venture been able to support the cause of theological renewal in East Commonweal: 621 Germany...

...In 1958 Karl Herbst, a priest assigned to the diocese of Meissen, addressed to his Catholic and Protestant...

...Estimated 1976 trade among the six countries is $900 million compared with $295 million in 1973...

...Nevertheless, as long as Bishop Spfilbeck was alive, he interposed himself as a mediator between Herbst and the bishops' conference under Bengsch...

...But few of us would wish to share the dilemma they face, when, for instance, the question of lugendweihe comes up for a member of the family...

...Since St...

...Among other s~bjects, 'he took up the question of infallibility as early as 1963 and that of papal primacy late in 1969, showing a gift for luminous clarifications and concentration on the heart of the Gospel...

...After a visit to East Germany even a theologian ignorant of Polish begins to see in Poland the most promising avenue for printed and personal scholarly exchange between Catholics of the First and Second Worlds...

...There were also refugees like the priest Herman, Hoffmann, however, who joined the Una-Sancta group as soon as he came to Leipzig in 1948...

...The incident raises the question of where a legitimate pastime ends and forgery begins...

...THEOLOGY BEHIND THE WALL PAUL MISNER The isolation of Christians in East Germany To see the parishioners out in front of church after Mass, talking animatedly with one another and with the priest, took me back to a village in staunchly Catholic Westphalia, one of the few areas in West Germany where church attendance is still strong...

...Even the private scholar is well advised not to try to bring any across the border...

...With them came (and, in part, went) their priests, mostly from a solidly Catholic environment, and they helped the church in East Germany overcome the habit of dependence on Catholic centers elsewhere...

...Channels opened by way of Poland would have an indirect effect beyond its borders, not least in aid of the Catholic minority in East Germany...

...BRIAN WICKER Where legitimate pastime ends and forgery begins In the last few months, the art market has been put in a terrible tizz because of the activities of a Mr...

...Never, he says, to people who didn't know what they were buying...

...the crunch came more over Herbsr discussion of authority in internal church matters (as applied to Humanae Vitae, divorced Catholics, celibacy and so forth, the same questions which have long agitated Catholics and their ecumenical discussion partners in the West...

...Would the government block contributions of books or money for the purchase of foreign publications...

...Leipzig, which used to be the publishing center of the German-speaking world, still harbors several nationalized publishers and also the above-mentioned Catholic firm, the St...

...The press runs are always limited by the amount of paper made available under government restrictions...

...In October, 1976, Chile formally withdrew from the Andean Common Market because it favored more liberal regulations for foreign investors...

...They complain about the extra shifts and the scarcity of consumer goods, but sometimes they cheerfully maintain that their less prosperous lifestyle has its good sides...

...Hoffmann, who was already seventy when forced to leave Breeslau and who died just a few years ago at the age of ninety-three, had been active in the youth movement since before World War I. After it he took up the unpopular cause of peace despite Versailles, and was one of the few Catholics present at the international ecumenical assemblies of the twenties in Stockholm and Lausanne...

...It is widely held to be distinctly disadvantageous for one's prospects in work or training not to have undergone this dedication...

...A much broader, solider base of Catholic population and institutions exists there, even a Catholic university in Lublin, Younger Germans who speak Polish are not unwelcome...

...Cardinal Bengsch is thus the leading Catholic churchman of East Germany, all the more so since most of the present bishops have been appointed subsequently and evidently with his approval...

...One BRIAN wlcra~ is Commonweal's regular correspondent in Great Britain...

...They were deeply involved in the Catholic side of the youth movement (Neudeutschland and Guardini's Quickborn were two of the leading groups) and belonged to the activist, relatively progressive wing of German Catholicism in the early twentieth century called the "Cologne direction" (or "tendency:" die Kiffner Richtung ) . A real wave of Catholics broke over,,the land after 1945, as the Russians expelled the German Silesians and sent them West...

...Since 1958 the house has put out a sizable annual volume, a collection of articles from inside and outside East Germany by mainstream theologians (including some felt to be too "critical" by Herbst's superiors...

...As far as I can tell, books and periodicals of Western origin are fairly well limited to the libraries of the state-supported institutions, i.e., the Faculty of Evangelical Theology of the University of Leipzig and the seminaries...

...but I doubt that there is a theologian in the West who has read enough of its output to be able to make a judgment on it...

...Only a very few theological works are ever imported into the country...

...ARS GRATIA ARTIS...

...Yet everyone knows that today, photographic reproductions are barely distinguishable from the original, at 30 September 1977:622...

...The consistency with which the church resists this sort of demoralizing threat is perhaps greater than one would have expected, given the fact that Catholics have always been thinly spread over the present territory of the (East) German Democratic Republic...

...Whether the Polish church is so traditional-bound as we tend to think of it, and hence impervious to theological research of a rigorous kind, I do not know...

...For many the sound housing and basic services that all enjoy compensate for the drabhess of their cities and the dearth of stocked shelves in the shops...

...But I was visiting East Germany this hot summer Sunday...

...it wasn't a village but an industrial city...

...acceptable to Christian believers...

...In this period the number of Catholics in East Germany doubled to over ten percent of the population...

...A case in point that has been reported in the West is that of the "Evangelic-Catholic Letter Circle...

...Herbst asked for and received a leave and has since worked as an orderly in a hospital...

...Whenever two or more member countries agree on a project they can immediately get SELA assistance without seeking the approval of the other SELA members...

...Understanding Protestants was no new exercise for him...

...are largely spoken for in advance of their publication date or soon thereafter...

...and .the church we had just come out of was not built in the eighteenth century to accommc:late the whole village, but was a small medieval church which had been Protestant since the sixteenth century...

...Has anyone investigated the possibility of sending seminarians or other students to Poland for a year's study...

...Latin integrationists cite this as an example that something concrete is happening and economic integration is beginning to operate on its own stimulus, despite setbacks...

...No one has suggested that the ecumenical letters were an embarrassment to the bishops in their dealings with the regime...

...Naturally, like any big money-making commodity--in this respect forged paintings are much like battle tanks or armalite rifles--Mr...

...Many did not stay long, however, and since the stabilization of the East German population brought about by sealing the borders (Berlin 30 September 1977:620 Wall, August 196r), the Catholic quota has been about eight percent or 1,300,000...