Eleonore Schulz gives a working paper on 'Thomas Freykirch - Benedikt Maria Werkmeister's Free Investigations on the Infallibility of the Catholic Church'

The paper introduces a writing by the Catholic theologian Benedikt Maria Werkmeister. It was published anonymously in 1792 under the title "Thomas Freykirch; or free investigations on the infallibility of the Catholic Church ". Based on historical critique and the law of reason Werkmeister refutes the infallibility of the church and advocates the primacy of the state. He raises the question of the form and function of religion and church in bourgeois society, the conditions of development of beliefs, and the position and function of theologians in society. His use of the concept of freedom makes his answers to these questions very clear. In his perception of bourgeois society and the bourgeois state as a new, overarching unity the church has to adapt by permanent perfection based on free competition of beliefs. Accordingly, he also sees the old clergy doomed to decline and therefore secures his position as a theologian in the new bourgeois elite by advocating the legal monopoly of the state. In his conception of church and religion he tries like many of his fellow enlightenment theologians to harmonize the constraints of civic life and the human need for freedom.