The Jesuit Specter in Imperial Germany

From 1872 to 1917 legislation banned Jesuits from Imperial Germany. Believing the Jesuits sought to control the social, political, and religious realms, the Protestant bourgeoisie championed the ban and promoted a politics of paranoia against the Jesuits. By exploiting widespread fears of the specter of Jesuitism, Protestants pushed their own confessional, nationalist, and often liberal agenda. Author Roisin Healy charts the path of anti-Jesuitism against the background of society, politics, and religion in Imperial Germany. The core of the book is evenly divided between an analysis of the political struggle over the passage, gradual dilution, and eventual repeal of the Jesuit Law and the main themes of anti-Jesuitism: the order’s internationalism, moral theology, and scholarship. This book will interest all scholars of modern Germany, particularly those specializing in religion, nationalism, liberalism, and political mobilization.