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Julius Kardinal Dopfner: 26 August 1913 bis 24. Juli 1976 Edited by Klaus Wittstadt. [Wurzburger Diozesangeschichtsblitter, Band 58.] (Wurzburg: BistumWurzburg. 1996. Pp. 234.)
By any standards, Cardinal Julius Dopfner was one of the most prominent and influential leaders of the Catholic Church in postwar Germany. Born in 1913 in the Franconian village of Hansen, he studied philosophy and theology in Wurzburg and Rome, where he was ordained to the priesthood for his native diocese of Wurzburg in 1939 and obtained a doctorate from the Gregorian University in 1941 with a dissertation on the relationship of nature and grace according to John Henry Newman. After brief service in two parishes and on the staff of the diocesan seminaries, he was appointed Bishop of Wurzburg, not yet thirty-five years old, in 1948. In later years, he became Bishop of Berlin (1957-1961), Cardinal (1958), and Archbishop of Munich-Freising (19611976). Dopfner also served as one of the four moderators of the Second Vatican Council from 1963 to 1965, as President...