Hügel, Friedrich, Baron von Hügel (1852–1925)

Italian-born British Roman Catholic religious writer. Although at one time suspected of modernism and certainly liberal in thought, he was nevertheless loyal to the church, his whole life and practice being inspired by her teaching and doctrine. His works include The Mystical Element of Religion (1908–9), Eternal Life (1912–13), the two-volume Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion (1921, 1926), and Reality of God and Religion and Agnosticism (1931).

Hügel, whose father was Austrian and mother Scottish, was born in Florence, Italy. He was never at school or university. An attack of typhus in 1871 left him deaf. He became a naturalized subject of Great Britain during the First World War, and was foremost among the Catholic scholars in England of his time.