While the ecclesial, theological and social history of modern Catholicism, which has developed since 1800, has been researched extensively, its manifestations with regard to literary and cultural history have tended to receive merely sparse attention and be regarded with extreme reservation. In this regard, the series entitled ‘Catholica’ breaks new ground, primarily in German-speaking research into this field. By being the first series to raise awareness of the broad spectrum of the image of literary Catholicism since 1800 in terms of literary aesthetics, historical assessment, cultural appraisal, the history of piety and intellectualism, and the intensive interdependence between and permeation of authors and milieus, plus their mutual distancing from each other, it shows that Catholic literature is also part of the plural modernity of the 19th and 20th centuries, which abounds with self-contradictions.