Barbara Waldstein-Wartenberg: A Translator of Ida Friederike Görres
She translated Broken Lights (1964) and Is Celibacy Outdated (1965)
Part of an occasional series about the translators of the work of Görres.
BARBARA WALDSTEIN-WARTENBERG
September 27, 1924 – February 14, 2017
One hundred years ago, on September 27, 1924, Barbara Mary Brown was born in Dublin, Ireland. She would later become one of the translators of the work of Ida Friederike Görres into English.
AN IRISHWOMAN MEETS AN AUSTRIAN
As a young lady, she knew no German. But then she met a young Austrian man, Heinrich Waldstein-Wartenberg, while he was on a study trip in the Republic of Ireland. They married on July 28, 1948 in Dublin. Initially, they remained in Ireland and started a family.
LEARNING GERMAN
In 1952, they moved to Innsbruck, Austria, where they lived with Heinrich’s parents. Initially, Barbara and her in-laws communicated in French, though she soon began to learn German. In 1955, the young couple moved to Munich, where he became the Director of the Catholic publisher Rex-Verlag.
They had three children: Nicholas, Christina, and Philipp. Among them, there were eight grandchildren.
Her son Dr. Nicholas Waldstein-Wartenberg, born in Dublin and now living in Salzburg, told me, “I can still remember as a boy that she often struggled to find the right translation, as my mother only learned German after her wedding in 1948.”
Yet over time, she was able to learn German to a high level. In addition to translating works by Ida Friederike Görres, she also translated a book by Cardinal Julius Döpfner plus some works on art and historical sites from German to English.
TWO BOOKS BY IDA FRIEDERIKE GÖRRES
Barbara Waldstein-Wartenberg translated two books by Ida Friederike Görres into English.
1. Broken Lights: Diaries and Letters 1951–1959
This was published in the UK and the US in 1964.
Translating this book would have been no easy task. It is 373 pages long and addresses many different topics.
In addition to the many rich spiritual and intellectual reflections, Görres’ commentary on modern developments—such as the section on “Marriage, Eros, Woman”—remains more relevant than ever.
Broken Lights is out of print. Recently, a publisher expressed interest in bringing the book back into print. A new edition would require some editing (such as adding some footnotes to aid today’s readers) and it is unclear if it would be possible to get copyright permission. However, there is at least interest. So, please stay tuned.
2. Is Celibacy Outdated
This was published in the Republic of Ireland and the US in 1965.
This is a shorter book—95 pages—containing two long essays:
“Sons of the resurrection” on priestly celibacy.
“Relations between priests and women. Some reflections.”
This book is also out of print. However, as an indication of its enduring relevance, earlier this year, the Canadian writer John Paul Gamage wrote an article about it for The New Oxford Review: “Priestly Celibacy: An Eschatological Vanguard” (March 2024).
Do any of you, dear readers, have access to the US edition of Is Celibacy Outdated? I have never seen the cover of the US edition. I hope to obtain a scan of it, including the inside flaps of the dust jacket.
According to WorldCat, nearly 75 university and seminary libraries in the U.S. and Canada have this book. It is likely that most of these North American schools have the U.S. edition and perhaps a few have copies that still have the dust jacket. Please DM me with any leads.
Contact between Waldstein-Wartenberg and Görres
How the translator and the author met is unknown. Perhaps in the future correspondence between the two or other information about their connection will surface. In the meantime, the fact that they had contact seems clear.
One hint of potential contact between them is that the English edition of Broken Lights contains an additional section by Görres about the Catholic Youth Movement (pp. 370–373) not in the German edition. My hunch is that the translator or perhaps the publisher asked Görres to add this background information for an English-speaking audience likely unfamiliar with this Catholic renewal movement in Germany and Austria from around 1919 to the early 1930s. The Catholic Youth Movement was important in many ways, including as a key element of Görres’ formative years. There are references to this movement in this book.
The second indication is more concrete. On the title page of Is Celibacy Outdated, one reads that Waldstein-Wartenberg translated this book “in collaboration with the author.” Ida Görres knew English very well. As a child, she had an English-speaking Nanny. As a young lady, Görres studied to earn a certificate in teaching English and throughout her life, she read authors such as John Henry Newman and C.S. Lewis in English and translated some work by them into German. She was not, however, a native speaker as Barbara Waldstein-Wartenberg was.
Bibliography: English
Görres, Ida Friederike. Broken Lights: Diaries and Letters, 1951-1959. Translated by Barbara Waldstein–Wartenberg. London: Burns & Oates, 1964.
Görres, Ida Friederike. Broken Lights: Diaries and Letters, 1951-1959. Translated by Barbara Waldstein–Wartenberg. Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1964.
Görres, Ida Friederike. Is Celibacy Outdated? Translated by Barbara Waldstein-Wartenberg. Cork, Ireland: Mercier Press, 1965.
Görres, Ida Friederike. Is Celibacy Outdated? Translated by Barbara Waldstein-Wartenberg. Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1965.
Bibliography: German
These are the works Barbara Waldstein-Wartenberg translated into English:
Görres, Ida Friederike. Laiengedanken zum Zölibat. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Knecht Verlag, 1962.
Görres, Ida Friederike. Zwischen den Zeiten: Aus meinen Tagebüchern 1951 bis 1959. Olten and Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany: Walter-Verlag, 1960.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to Dr. Nicholas Waldstein-Wartenberg for his assistance providing information and the photograph of his mother for this post.
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