Hungarian Catholic Intellectuals in Contemporary Romania: Reforming Apostles

274 Pages·2022·3.807 MB·English

by  Marc Roscoe Loustau

CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION
Hungarian Catholic
Intellectuals in
Contemporary Romania
Reforming Apostles
Marc Roscoe Loustau
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion
Series Editors
Don Seeman
Department of Religion
Emory University
Atlanta, GA, USA
Hillary Kaell
Department of Anthropology
School of Religious Studies
McGill University
Montreal, QC, Canada
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion is the official book series of the
Society for the Anthropology of Religion, a section of the American
Anthropological Association. Books in the series explore a variety of issues
relating to current theoretical or comparative issues in the study of reli-
gion. These include the relation between religion and the body, social
memory, gender, ethnoreligious violence, globalization, modernity, and
multiculturalism, among others. Recent historical events have suggested
that religion plays a central role in the contemporary world, and
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion provides a crucial forum for the
expansion of our understanding of religion globally.
More information about this series at
https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14916
Marc Roscoe Loustau
Hungarian Catholic
Intellectuals in
Contemporary
Romania
Reforming Apostles
Marc Roscoe Loustau
Journal of Global Catholicism
Catholics & Cultures Program
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester, MA, USA
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion
ISBN 978-3-030-99220-0 ISBN 978-3-030-99221-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99221-7
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To Amy
A N A o , N ,
ote bout rthogrAphy Ames
p N
ANd lAce Ames
I use standard Romanian and Hungarian orthography.
I identify public figures by name, especially when discussing their pub-
lished works. When it is unclear whether individuals are public figures, I
err on the side caution. For instance, all members of the Csíksomlyó choir
are identified by pseudonyms. I also use pseudonyms for individuals who
explicitly requested that their identities be protected.
For place names, I use the model established by Brubaker et al. (2007).
I use official place names as determined by the governing legal regime of
the period in question. For example, I use the “Csík Valley” when discuss-
ing the era of Dualist Austro-Hungarian rule in Transylvania. I change this
place name to the “Ciuc Valley” for the interwar decades and then, from
the post-World War II period until the present.
Csíksomlyó is the only the exception to this convention. I use the
Hungarian place name throughout because it refers to both a place and an
event, as in “the annual Csíksomlyó pilgrimage.”
A
ckNowledgemeNts
I am grateful to the colleagues who both supported and exhorted me
while I was writing this book. Mathew Schmalz and Tom Landy at the
College of the Holy Cross provided wise counsel and pedagogical mentor-
ship. Members of Holy Cross’s Department of Religious Studies were
engaged interlocutors about their own groundbreaking research projects.
The Sociology and Social Anthropology Department at Central European
University supported a semester’s residency, and I continue to benefit
from the relationships I made while in Budapest. A post-graduate school
conversation with Michael D. Jackson about intellectualism as a vocation
was both personally and theoretically impactful. I remain grateful for
Michael’s friendship.
The editorial staff at Palgrave -Macmillan were patient, skilled, and
helpful. Hilary Kaell and Don Seeman, editors of the Anthropology of
Religion book series, have been friends and champions of my research. I
received the support of several generous institutions without which I
could not have finished this book: Harvard University and Harvard
Divinity School, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Unitarian
Universalist Association’s Panel on Theological Education, the Center for
Theologically Engaged Anthropology, and the Working Group on
Lived  Religion in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The Catholics & Cultures
Program at the College of the Holy Cross has kept me connected to a
vibrant intellectual community after offering me a generous Post-Doctoral
Fellowship in 2016.
Over the years, friends, family, and religious communities offered valu-
able encouragement as I pushed ahead with this text and also pursued
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
public scholarship: István Cziegler, Kate Y. DeConinck, Robert and Nóra
Ferencz, Chris and Regina Walton, Nicolie Loustau, Sarah Langer and
Rachel Fichtenbaum, Nathan and Amira Shulman, Abraham and Jaclyn
Miller-Barbarow, the members of the Minns Lectures Steering Committee,
King’s Chapel and First Church in Boston for the gift of their pulpit and
faithful guidance, Stephen and Liz Kendrick, Johannes, Leena, Devendra,
and Anvidha Loustau, Kate Dugan, Kate and Ethan Handelman, Linda
and Tom Dickey, Frank Karioris, Ezgican Özdemir, Alice Horning, Anne
Loustau, Cayla Saret, Julia Hamilton and Adam Shive, Ari Shapiro, Erick
Verran, Dan McKanan, James Bielo, Sara Williams, the editorial staff at
America: The Jesuit Review, Allan Oliveira, Leah Varsano, Ariela Lovett,
Cathy Wanner, Joel Robbins, Elizabeth and Jim Epstein, Sherill Stroschein,
Zsuzsa Csergő, Frank Clooney, Valentina Napolitano, John Brooks and
Laura Brooks Partain, Ben Legg, Emil Moldovan, Nándor Bárdi, Stefano
Bottoni, Dénes Kiss, Seth and Amy Izen, and Deborah McConnell.
I am deeply indebted to the people I met in Transylvania and at the Our
Lady of Csíksomlyó shrine.
My wife, Amy Loustau, once coined the phrase “book bonanza” to
describe one of my marathon writing sessions. According to my diction-
ary, a bonanza is also a sudden increase in good fortune. That is an accu-
rate description of what happened to me the first time we met.
My father, John A. Loustau, took such pride in the books he published
at the end of his life. May his memory be a blessing.
Praise for Hungarian Catholic
Intellectuals in Contemporary Romania
“In this intimate ethnographic account of the inner lives of Catholic thinkers and
practitioners among the Hungarian-speaking minority of Romania, Marc Loustau
humanizes theology for a discipline that has often treated it with suspicion. He
sympathetically examines these local intellectuals’ ethical and pedagogical dilem-
mas after the demise of state socialism and the uneven rise of consumerism on both
sides of a culturally and ideologically conflicted border. This is a rich account of the
sufferings and satisfactions, the rewards and reversals, of religious vocation under
unending, shape-shifting siege.”
—Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Research Professor of the
Social Sciences emeritus, Harvard University, USA
“This is an exciting book. Loustau has given us a sustained exploration of the lives
of engaged Catholic theologians who lead important educational and charitable
projects among the Hungarian minority population of Romania. The first full
length ethnography to take the intellectual life and practice of important Christian
thinkers as its focus, the book is a milestone in the growing conversation between
anthropology and theology. Along the way, the book also speaks powerfully to
those interested in issues of volunteerism and right wing populism, both subjects
appearing in fresh ways under Loustau’s superb ethnographic eye. Written with
great energy, this book should find a wide audience.”
—Joel Robbins, Sigrid Rausing Professor of Anthropology,
University of Cambridge, UK
“This exceptional study of Hungarian Catholics in Transylvania looks at how a
minority’s intellectual tradition is forged and transformed in the long 20th century.
Bringing back ‘intellectuals’ as key actors in the relationship between state, church
and minority politics it contributes to broader discussions about civic cultivation/
education, Christianity and nationhood in Central and Eastern Europe, and sheds
light on the roots of contemporary Hungarian right-wing populism. Loustau’s
study of theologians and pedagogical institutions bridges historical analysis with a
rich ethnography of Catholic devotionalism, provoking anthropologists to rethink
their engagement with Christianity and theology in a more radical manner.”
—Vlad Naumescu, Associate Professor of Sociology and Social
Anthropology, Central European University, Austria