Department of Medieval and Modern Church History

During a week-long retreat for the project "Asking the Pope for Help," a team from the Hamburg-based agency "Fork Unstable Media" presented the current designs for the new homepage. In addition to the scientific staff and assistants, the volunteer Citizen Scientists of the project were particularly well represented. They actively engaged in the discussions with a variety of ideas and suggestions for improvement.

On Easter Sunday, Pope Francis imparted the Easter blessing on thousands of faithful in St Peter’s Square. One day later, on April 21, the morning of Easter Monday, the 266th head of the Catholic Church died after suffering a stroke. Church historian Prof. Dr. Hubert Wolf has been researching the Catholic Church based on the documents kept in the Vatican archives for 40 years. The Vatican expert has closely followed the Argentinean’s twelve-year pontificate and draws mixed conclusions.

The theologian Lorena König will write her dissertation at the Cluster of Excellence on Romania’s special position, analyzing the processes that protected numerous Jews who converted to the Catholic faith from being deported to an extermination camp. The three-year position is funded by the Cluster of Excellence Religion and Politics at the University of Münster.