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The Walberberg Circle
The Social Ethics
of the German Dominicans
Fribourg Union
Association of Catholic social scientists & politicians
who worked on Rerum Novarum
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Albert Maria Weiss
1844-1925
Taught in Fribourg
Books:
– Liberalismus & Christentum
– Soziale Frage & Soziale
Ordnung
• Karl Fürst zu Löwenstein
• 1834-1921
• Entered 1908 as
Raymundus OP
• Christian Social
Movement:
– Centre Party
– Katholikentage
Walberberg Circle
• 1930s & especially postwar
• Dominicans of socio-ethical & sociopolitical influence on wider Christian social
movement
• Walberberg Priory
– Strategic site between Bonn & Köln
– Housed OP Studium till 1970s
• Siemer, Welty, Utz, Nawroth, Steinofen
• Individuals, not a ´school´
Laurentius Siemer
• 1888-1958
• Reforming rector of Vechta Boarding School
• German Provincial 1932-46
– Set up Walberberg as centre of CST
– Oversaw German edition Aquinas´works
• Vehement distance from Nazi regime
– Arrested 1935-6
– joined resistance of Catholic Workers in Köln
– plot to assassinate Hitler - rest of war in hiding
• 1946 editor of journal Die Neue Ordnung
– Article ´The German People & Militarism´
• Radio & TV appreances, published in So sind
wir Menschen (This is how we are)
Eberhard Welty
• 1902-1965
• Walberberg lecturer in
ethics & moral theology
• Köln doctorate in political
science 1935
• Worked on German
edition of Aquinas
• With Siemer, joined
resistance of Catholic
Workers in Köln
• Walberberg was a
Gestapo military hospital
at the time
Politics for Postwar Germany
• Struggle to connect communal identity & personal
independence
– community as living organism
– ideal social order ´from the bottom up´
– Critiquing Pesch & Gundlach SJ´s
solidarism & personalism
• Debate in emerging Rhineland CDU (Christian
Democratic party) on principles
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Welty central to negotiations
his papers in book form Entscheidung für die Zukunft (1946)
tried to introduce name Christian Socialist
unable to get wider appeal for CST, worker involvement in CDU:
concepts of common good too abstract
Spreading CST
• Welty’s Sozialkatechismus (1951-8)
– spread the concept of CST in Germany
• Started adult education courses in social ethics
– ecumenical, non-partisan
– wide audience e.g. workers´groups, trade unions
• 1951 Walberberg Institute of Social Sciences
– Founded in co-operation with politicians & business leaders
• Co-ordinated programme of missionary preaching
• Acted as a link between social democrat SPD & Church
• Chief editor of Die Neue Ordnung
Arthur Urz
• 1908-2001
• From Basle, entered aged 20
• Deepened & updated Thomist
Catholic social ethics
• Fribourg PhD on inner relation
of moral virtues in Aquinas
• During WWII rural parish rector
Bergish region near Köln
• Famous for his collections of
documents on CST:
Bibliographie der Sozialethik
(1960-1980)
• 5-volume Sozialethik (2000)
New Institutes
• Utz founded International Institute for Social Sciences &
Politics
– as Chair of ethics & social philosophy at Fribourg
– to apply CST to current political & social problems
– rejuvenated Fribourg Union with lawyers, economists & political
scientists
– edited journal Politea on social ethics 1949-1953
• 1976 president of International Humanum Foundation
– which aimed to fulfil the mission of Gaudium et Spes
– publications on open society, unions, migration, unemployment
• 1990s involved in founding Papal Academy of Social
Sciences
Thomistic Framework
• Common good as starting point, (not personalist)
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results from nature of person as social being:
relation & connection between individuals
Individual wellbeing integrated without sacrificing personal freedom
Subsidiarity ensures that individual interests are respected
• Rational ethical basis, addressing itself to ´secular´ realm
– CST justified by natural law, not biblical revelation alone
– Law-based logic of norms
– Inner experience, awareness of moral responsibility from which norms
are abstracted
• Theory in dialogue with practice:
– Positivistic pragmatic views of human rights not enough, can lead to
inhumanity
– e.g. in debates on right to life of the born & unborn
Uncomfortable Questions
• For whom & what is the ´open society´
open?
• What obligations must people face to
support pluralism?
• not popular issues for a mass audience,
• but Utz had wide-ranging influence,
• connecting diverse fields to create an
integral social philosophy
Edgar Nawroth
• Born 1912 in Silesia
• Medical orderly during WWII, then missionary
in Düsseldorf
• Fribourg PhD on Neo-Liberal Social &
Economic Philosophy
• 2nd Director of Walberberg Institute of Social
Sciences
• also taught theology & social ethics at Trier
• 1965-1984 Chief editor of Die Neue Ordung
• Specialist in social policy, especially questions
of social partnership & social security
– Particular interest in working & living conditions
of employees
– Advisor to Catholic Workers´ Movement & trade
unions
– Also advised business leaders e.g. Walberberg
System Symposium, governments & bishops
Heinrich Basilius Streithofen
• 1925• 3rd Director of Walberberg Institute of Social
Sciences & editor of Die Neue Ordnung
• Düsseldorf base as a confessor & preacher
– working with Rhineland CDU
– Journalist, co-founded Rhine Catholic Journalists
group
– Committed to Christian Trade Union Movment –
caused conflict with Welty
• Fribourg doctorate under Utz on Standards of
Value in Trade Union Policy (1967)
Wolfgang Ockenfels
• Doctorate on Trade Unions &
the State 1978
• took over Die Neue Ordnung
from Streithofen
• continues Nawroth´s work as
Professor of Christian Social
Science in Trier theology
faculty
• Took over Utz´s chairmanship
of International Humanum
Foundation
• Walberberg Circle´s ideas live
on in these institutions
Challenges for Today
• Change since the 1960s:
– financial limits of the welfare state became clear
– workers seem integrated into society, no longer
fighting for their exisitence
• Secularisation & individualism in society
– mid-1970s lack of ´young blood´, Walberberg Studium
suspended
• Ideological disputes within the Order
– Thomist Walberberg group v liberation theologians
• 1984 Institute & Die Neue Ordnung now moved
to Bonn, where the tradition continues