Franz Renz (theologian)

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Franz Seraph Renz (born October 3, 1860 in Altenstadt ; † April 21, 1916 in Breslau ) was a Catholic theologian who contributed significantly to the development of the concept of the sacrifice of the mass and was counted among the representatives of modernism .

Life

Renz came from a humble background. One of his ten siblings was the religious scholar , women's rights activist and ethnologist Barbara Renz , with whom he had a lifelong close relationship and intellectual exchange. Renz was ordained a priest of the diocese of Augsburg in 1884 and worked at the seminary in Dillingen on the Danube for the next twenty years .

In 1902 he caused a respectful sensation with his extensive treatise on the history of the concept of the sacrifice of the Mass in the Eucharist . Because of his scientific work, he was appointed full professor of dogmatics and apologetics at the University of Münster , where he also met resistance because of his modernist views.

Together with his sister Barbara Renz , who had moved to Münster with him and gave lectures on the philosophy of religion at the university (something extraordinary, since women were not yet admitted to studies in Germany at the time, let alone lecturers), he agreed came that the biblical story of the fall of man ( Genesis 2 and 3) should not be understood literally, but symbolically .

Catholic modernism, which sought to reconcile the teaching of the Catholic Church with the new scientific knowledge, was already in 1864 by Pope Pius IX. has been declared heretical . The restrictive climate of the anti-modernist oath after 1910 led to the "Renz case" in Münster.

In order to avoid a confrontation with the ecclesiastical authority, which could possibly lead to his excommunication , Renz moved to Breslau , where he was welcome in the much more liberal climate of the Catholic Faculty. However, he had to muzzle himself and henceforth refrained from making public statements about his views.

Renz died in Breslau in 1916. The memory of the "Fall Renz" caused his sister, however, to prove the correctness of the symbolic character of the Fall of Man story, which resulted in her scientific work Tree and Snake .

Fonts

  • Sacrificial character of the Eucharist according to the teaching of the fathers and church writers of the first three centuries. A dogma-historical treatise . Paderborn, Schöningh 1892.
  • The history of the concept of the sacrifice of the mass or the old belief and the new theories about the nature of the bloodless sacrifice . 2 vols. Freising, Datterer 1901/02.
  • The Catholic Morals Regarding the Rationalization of Births . Breslau, Aderholz 1913.

literature

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