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Katholiken in den USA und Deutschland: Kirche, Gesellschaft und Politik. Edited by Wilhelm Damberg and Antonius Liedhegener. (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2006. Pp. viii, 393. euro24.80.)
At the time of the Second Vatican Council, Germany exercised a powerful attraction for Americans seeking doctorates in Catholic theology. German theologians like Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, Walter Kasper, Joseph Ratzinger, and Johann Baptist Metz all counted Americans among their students. Today the tide runs in the other direction. Astonished at full churches in the United States, and impressed with the vitality of American parish life, German Catholics now come in increasing numbers to the United States to investigate a level of religious practice inconceivable in Germany today.
One of those impressed by American church life is the German businessman, Dr. Karl Albrechts, whose Aldi supermarkets can be found on both sides of the Atlantic. His generous grant provided funding for a conference in Berlin in May 2004, at which reports on church life...