HÜGEL, FRIEDRICH VON (1852–1925), Roman Catholic layman who at the turn of the twentieth century became involved in the modernist crisis and who later became recognized as an outstanding authority on mysticism and religious philosophy. Born in Austria, von Hügel moved with his family to England in 1867. Mainly self-educated, von Hügel became a friend of the French exegete Alfred Loisy (1857–1940) and of the English Jesuit George Tyrrell (1861–1909). He immersed himself in the new scriptural criticism and championed Loisy's right to publish when the latter faced church condemnation. He also generally supported Tyrrell, who was expelled from the Society of Jesus in 1906. The official church saw in the ideas of a number of writers at the time, including Loisy and Tyrrell, a denial of the transcendence of God and of church authority. It labeled their ideas "modernism...