GÖRRES, JOHANN JOSEPH VON

German Catholic publicist, lay theologian, political philosopher, and romantic mystic; b. Coblenz, Jan. 25, 1776; d. Munich, Jan. 29, 1848. He was the single most influential and formative force in the 19th-century German Catholic thought. Although he was a typical product of the enlightenment, hostile to all religion, and an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, his books and editorial activities mark his progress toward a deep Catholic mysticism and a moderate conservatism. He was the author of Glauben und Wissen (1805), Mythengeschichte der asiatischen Welt (1810), Deutschland und die Revolution (1819), Die christliche Mystik (1836–42), Athanasius (1837), and Die Wallfahrt nach Trier (1845). He founded (1814) and edited the Rheinische Merkur until its suppression in 1816, and published a collection of folktales, Deutsche Volksbücher (1807). In 1827 he became professor and dominating spirit at the University of Munich. Here, he and his circle published two journals, Eos (1828–32) and the Historischpolitische Blätter (from 1838). Görres became a leader in the renewal of Catholic life and thought that accompanied the Romantic movement. He demanded a free Church, independent of the State, but at the same time he rejected ultramontanism. His thought was vague and sentimental and his mysticism verged on the fanciful, but his "Munich circle" energized the whole of German Catholic Life.

Bibliography: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. m. gÖrres, 9 v. (Munich 1854–74); critical ed. w. schelberg (Cologne 1926–). j. galland, Johann von Görres (2d ed. Freiburg 1876). j. n. sepp, Görres und seine Zeitgenossen (Nördlingen 1877). a. dru, The Church in the Nineteenth Century: Germany 1800–1918 (London 1963). l. just, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche (Freiburg 1957–), 2 4:1058–60, esp. bibliog.

[s. j. tonsor]