Beda Mayr, Vertheidigung der katholischen Religion (1789)

Ulrich L. Lehner is the William K. Warren Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. A member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, he has received awards and fellowships from the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the Notre Dame Institute of Advanced Study, the Earhart Foundation, the German Humboldt Foundation and the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation. He is the award-winning author of several scholarly works on early modern and modern history of religion.

"Ulrich Lehner must be congratulated for this fine edition of the third volume of Mayr’s Defence. It is a welcome and refreshing addition to the growing body of literature on the Catholic Enlightenment, which the forthcoming Brill Companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe, co-edited by Lehner with Michael Printy, will further enhance. The value and utility of the book derive also, if not chiefly, from the scholarly and elegant introduction, a stimulating invitation to appreciate Mayr’s desire for the reunion of the Christian Churches by solving the problem of the papacy and ecclesiastical infallibility. Specialists and students alike can undoubtedly benefit from this volume as a whole."Frank Ciappara in Central Europe, vol. 8 (2010) nr. 1"Ulrich Lehner brilliantly contextualizes Mayr’s ideas within the different philosophical and theological currents of the time ... Lehner also does not fail to compare Mayr’s viewpoints with today’s theological discussions ... The book is highly recommendable to anyone who wishes to investigate the intellectual culture of the late Holy Roman Empire’s Catholic south; and it is very welcome (and fully justified) that an international and renowned publisher such as Brill has opened a series in intellectual history to competently commented treatises in Catholic theology, which might facilitate their reception on the international level."Thomas Wallnig in German History, vol. 28 (2010) nr. 2"The great worth of this volume is that it will make accessible to a wide variety of readers a key text from the later phase of the German Catholic Enlightenment, and contribute to a general rediscovery of the complex ways in which Enlightenment reforms, cross-confessional discussion and ecumenical theology interacted with each other in the final decades of the Holy Roman Empire ... Ulrich L. Lehner’s lengthy introduction on ‘Ecumenism and Enlightenment Catholicism ’ offers a substantive and thorough presentation of current research on the place of monks and monastic culture in the Catholic Enlightenment in Germany, accompanied by a detailed scholarly apparatus and bibliography."Michael Printy in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2010"Lehner (L.) bietet eine moderne Neuausgabe, keine historisch-kritische Edition im engeren Sinn. Sie wird durch eine sehr elaborierte englischsprachige Einleitung (S. IX-LXXIV), eine umfangreiche Bibliographie (S. LXXIX-LXXXIX) und einen Personenindex ergänzt. [...] Für den Leser bietet die Einleitung schließlich eine konzentrierte Zusammenfassung der Gedankengänge, die sich eng an das edierte Werk anlehnt und den schnellen Leser dazu verführt, erst gar nicht mehr das Original zu lesen. Positiv fällt auf, dass L. an keiner Stelle der Gefahr unterliegt, „seinen“ Theologen zu idealisieren." Bernhard Schneider, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 2010."Ulrich Lehner’s edition of Beda Mayr is a wonderfully wellwrought asset to both historians and religious scholars alike. It is destined to become a foundational text in future study of the Catholic Enlightenment, transnational Theological Enlightenment, and the participation of monasteries in the siècle de Lumières".Jeffrey D. Burson in Church History and Religious Culture 91.3-4 (2011), 563-568

• ForewordEditor’s Introduction: Ecumenism and Enlightenment Catholicism: Beda Mayr O.S.B. (1742–1794) Works by Beda MayrBibliographyBeda Mayr: Vertheidigung der katholischen Religion. Sammt einem Anhange von der Möglichkeit einer Vereinigung zwischen unserer, und der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche (1789)Index