In The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement, Ulrich Lehner challenges the longstanding academic assumption that the Enlightenment and Catholicism are fundamentally incompatible. Citing the Council of Trent’s emphasis on a theology of human freedom, Lehner posits that the men he calls “Catholic Enlighteners” were “moderates, favoring a modernization that compromised with tradition and reigning authorities.” These 18th-century Enlighteners had two aims: to use scientific and philosophic achievements to defend Catholicism in a new language, and to reconcile their faith with modern culture. Although Lehner recognizes local variations in the particulars of Enlightened Catholic belief, he suggests that they generally shared a scholastic tradition that disdained religious enthusiasm, and had little room for superstition or prejudice.

Part of the purpose of The Catholic Enlightenment is to argue for such a movement’s actual existence. In academia and the historical literature, it is still relatively common to find scholarly (and not-so-scholarly) arguments about the essentially anti-Catholic nature of the Enlightenment. On the whole, scholars tend to present Catholicism and Enlightenment thought as mutually exclusive. To some of the academic world, an enlightened Catholic is oxymoronic.

Accordingly, Lehner uses his introductory chapter to acquaint readers with the intellectual leaders of the Catholic Enlightenment in 18th-century Europe. Although he offers only a cursory introduction to the ways in which it unfolded across France, Italy, Scotland, and Germany, several key themes emerge. Lehner sees church reform as the heart of the Catholic Enlightenment. Although Enlighteners debated the specifics of reform (topics like priestly celibacy and church teaching on divorce), they shared a desire to update their church. Almost paradoxically, the second major commonality was their interest in upholding a significant degree of continuity with the Catholic tradition. In steering debates away from radical rationalism and skepticism, the Enlighteners maintained some semblance of religious orthodoxy.

Lehner notes that some Catholic monarchs—although a minority of them—engaged or at least agreed with the movement’s religious toleration, with Emperor Joseph II of Austria particularly inclined to permit the building of Protestant churches and allowing Jews to live more freely. His limited toleration was less progressive than that of the Polish king, Stanislaw Poniatowski, who in 1791 approved a constitution that tolerated all religions. Lehner nonetheless acknowledges the limitations of tolerance in early modern Catholicism.

The book’s most provocative chapter argues that a kind of proto-feminism emerged in Catholic Reformation thought. Speaking to the relationship between science and faith, Lehner identifies Maria Gaetana Agnesi as a major “voice of the Catholic Enlightenment” and places her as an early philosophe who posited that increasing knowledge of the natural world increases knowledge of God. He also discusses Madame LePrince, a proponent of education for women. But it is unclear how representative these highlighted case studies truly are—there is no way of knowing just how widespread this strain of Catholic female empowerment was, or indeed if it is even a recognizable trend in Catholic thought.

Another chapter is almost as thought-provoking, with its characterization of Catholicism as flexible. Focusing on missions in America, China, and India, Lehner stresses that Jesuits in India and Catholics in Maryland were notably more liberal and accommodating than their contemporaries. “Inclusionism” in America signaled that Catholics were, in particular circumstances, both required and able to adapt their teachings to local cultures and politics. While recognizing that not all Catholics—especially those who spoke out against Jesuit accommodationist practices in China—were on board with quasi-syncretic (the combination of Christian and indigenous) religious practice, Lehner seems too inclined to present Enlightened Catholicism as a benevolent force. One wonders how he would square the continued existence of the Inquisition in Spain with a supposedly open-minded church.

Although an author’s motivation is not necessarily a fatal flaw in a book, and wouldn’t be in this one, some readers might question Lehner’s reasons for writing The Catholic Enlightenment. In the historical scholarship on the Enlightenment, there is a notable shortage of work on Catholicism. Although filling that gap is likely the book’s main impetus, the tone of Lehner’s discussion of 18-century Catholicism hints at an underlying goal of apologia (making a case for something, often tending toward total justification, when it’s faced major criticism). When Lehner presents the church’s relation to what he calls the secular Enlightenment, he seems quick to suggest that the secular Enlightenment, not Catholicism, was responsible for any number of now-disreputable practices or beliefs normally attributed to the church. This questionable finger-pointing occurs in his description of European attitudes toward native South American peoples. “The armchair anti-Americans,” he emphasizes, “were all famous [secular] Enlighteners.”

But even if Lehner writes partly in defense of Catholicism, his work merits no more scrutiny on this basis than do any of Mark Noll’s or George Marsden’s prominent works on evangelicalism in the United States. The degree to which the author’s religious or sectarian goal is relevant in judging a book depends on how much analytic bias it produces. Because The Catholic Enlightenment and Lehner’s other books are among the few major works that directly connect Catholicism with the Enlightenment, it is difficult to judge them fairly and completely. Not until his arguments are fully in the academic mainstream, beyond only Catholic intellectual circles, can we do so.

In any case, The Catholic Enlightenment makes good use of specialized scholarship related to its subject, is cogently argued, and is a positive addition to historical writing that has focused on other themes: either Protestantism’s relationship to the Enlightenment or the Enlightenment’s overshadowing of religious thought. With its approachable prose, it is highly recommended both for historians removed from the early modern period and for general readers unfamiliar with the era. And historians of the period, especially those with an interest in the intersection of religion and science in the 18th century, should engage with it, even if they push back against its claims.