La conversione al Cattolicesimo di Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne all’inizio del Novecento

Autore: Angelika Schaser
In: Genesis. VI/2, 2007
doi:10.1400/106044
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Abstract

The Conversion of Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne to Catholicism at the Beginning of the 20th Century
The main focus of the article lies on the conversion of Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne (1850-1917) from Protestantism to Catholicism in the year 1900. The Catholic Church’s confrontation with individuality, in particular, demanded answers to the questions of how modern people can reconcile their roles as believers, family members, workers and citizens. To answer the question what a change of faith means for the converts, the article looks not only at the reasons of the conversion, but also at the lifestyle, activities and networks before, during and after the conversion. As the example of the convert Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne shows, the strong arguments provoked in Germany by conversions to Catholicism even near the end of the 19th century did not necessarily lead to a clear demarcation from their former religious community, the Protestants. While the reactions to the conversion of Gnauck-Kühne revealed the explicit separation of the German society into a Protestant and a Catholic camp, Gnauck-Kühne, in her life and struggle for a more equitable world and for a better social position for women, tried to connect the reform agenda which she had developed in the context of Protestantism, with the needs of the Catholic world which seemed more attractive for her around the turn of the century.