Given the centennial of World War I, the recent surge of interest in and publications on various aspects of that conflict is hardly surprising. Many facets of the “Great War” nevertheless remain largely unexplored. In this context, Patrick J. Houlihan's new study is a welcome addition that responds to the increased attention directed toward the war, and to the need to explore it from different vantage points. Houlihan sets out his main argument on the first page: the Great War was not the moment of ultimate disenchantment that the scholarly literature has portrayed it to be. That was not generally the case, at least, among millions of Catholics in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and surrounding European countries. Too much of the standard narrative, Houlihan contends, has relied on Protestant evidence. When scholars have looked at Catholic sources, he adds, they have emphasized the episcopal level, leaving unexamined what the masses of soldiers, women, and children experienced.

A second overarching point is that—far from being a great moment of disenchantment—World War I did not really stand out as a caesura of any kind for the Catholic Church or its members. Instead, the war should be seen as one of many events in a longer trajectory of Catholic continuity and adaptation. Houlihan makes these arguments, along with several additional important points, in seven main chapters examining a variety of topics, ranging from soldiers’ religiosity to Catholic war memorialization. In particular, the third and sixth chapters are quite strong. In the former, which looks at the functioning of the military chaplaincy, Houlihan makes interesting distinctions between how Catholic and Protestant chaplains regarded their role at the front. In the latter chapter, which focuses on papal efforts to ameliorate suffering and promote peace during the war, the author argues convincingly that Pope Benedict XV deserves more attention in this regard than scholars have given him.

There are some notable weaknesses in Houlihan's book. In the first place, it lacks clarity in a number of different ways—beginning with the book's title, which is misleading, given that neither of the strongest chapters in Houlihan's book deals closely with “everyday life,” and that some of the others also are not particularly centered on the topic. At points, there is also a lack of clarity in expressing key assessments. Concerning Catholic identity on the eve of the war, for example, Houlihan confusingly suggests in a lengthy passage that German Catholics were still primarily transnational; many, at least, were increasingly national; and German Catholics, as well as those of the Habsburg Empire, were still mainly local or transnational (47–48). As a summation of Houlihan's understanding of where Catholics stood in 1914, this hardly clarifies the issue. A final illustration of opacity—similar to other instances in which Houlihan has difficulty making clear the significance of a given case—comes at the end of an interesting example in which an unmarried girl gives birth, is publically spurned by her lover and his family, recognizes that the consequences for such a transgression of norms were far graver for her as a female, but somehow does not receive the much expected scorn from any other villagers. Summing up the meaning of this case, Houlihan concludes: “The daily rhythms and patterns of Central European Catholic communal life, especially in traditional rural communities, contained relationships rooted in locally-focused existence” (72–73). True as this may be, it is not a particularly illuminating analysis.

Another major weakness in Houlihan's work is a sometimes thin base of evidence. In some cases, the author draws large conclusions from one example, coupled with a limited amount of secondary source evidence. In other cases, one wonders whether the chosen evidence actually substantiates Houlihan's point. His discussion of the activities of women involved in nursing illustrates both aspects of this weakness. Discussing the intimate relationships that developed in the chaos of wartime, as well as the inability to describe fully the horrors of war to those far removed from the front, Houlihan quotes from the papers of nurse Hilda Galles. Besides being the only example Houlihan offers for these particular points, Galles was “likely Protestant” (181). Even if certain experiences and reactions were shared across the confessional divide, as Houlihan reminds us, this piece of evidence is problematic in a book focused on Catholics.

These are not minor issues, but Houlihan has still written a valuable book. As the author remarks himself, finding systematic data on everyday life and religious experience is extremely difficult, and it is to his credit that he visited over a dozen archives in several cities to that end. Such research clearly pays off when, for example, Houlihan is able to explain how Catholic religious beliefs meant that priests ended up being far more involved in combat situations than Protestant clergymen were. Similarly, instead of seeing the Church's response to the horrors of modern warfare as largely stagnant and ineffective, Houlihan conveys the many instances of religious innovation and adaptability seen in practices such as group absolution and the flexible timing of masses held for the soldiers at the front. Ultimately, Houlihan's book provides a new perspective on a very important event and, despite its weaknesses, is a worthy addition to the literature on World War I and religious identity.