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Abstract
This article is a case study concerned with a key figure in the history of anti-Catholicism in Norway in the 20th century, the highly profiled author and professional lecturer, Marta Steinsvik, and her critics of the Catholic Church. Her awareness of 'the menace of Catholicism' was provoked in 1925 when the Norwegian Parliament discussed a motion to abolish the ban on Jesuits in the Norwegian constitution from 1814. By attacking the Catholic Church, she defended the liberal and modern values of Norwegian society and culture, based on a Protestant and Lutheran heritage. She represented what can be termed 'confessional nationalism'. On the international scene, she was one of many contemporaries conveying well-known anti-Catholic propaganda and stereotypes, while in Norway, she left a legacy of anti-Catholicism lasting well into the 1950's.
Introduction
In 1928, Marta Steinsvik (1877-1950) published a highly polemic book with the tide, St. Veters himmelnokler (St. Veter's Keys to Heaven), which caused a sensation as well as a lawsuit. A second enlarged edition was published in 1930, the very year the Lutheran state church, the Church of Norway, celebrated the 900th anniversary of the death of St. Olav, who is attributed with the christening of Norway, and who was regarded as a national hero. Borrowing from foreign anti-Catholic literature, Steinsvik delivered a sharp criticism of the Catholic Church in general, and the Jesuits in particular. When first published, Steinsvik was criss-crossing the country under the auspices of Volkeakademiet (The People's Acad- emy), presenting her lecture 'I Moderkirkens favn' ('In the Bosom of the Mother Church'). Her lecturing tours drew large audiences, and stirred both public debate and sentiment. The lecture itself comprised 40 of the 1930 edition's 612 pages, with the rest of the book consisting of her 'corrections' of a Catholic defence brochure and a documentation of the lawsuit. In addition, she included numerous excerpts from national and local newspapers and magazines, giving critical and applauding assessments of the first edition of her book and her lecture.1 The book is a valuable source, not only to an individual's crusade against Catholicism, but also to anti-Catholic sentiments in Lutheran Norway. Marta Steinsvik serves as an interesting case for studying the international phenomenon of anti-Catholicism in a given national context.
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