The Charitable Anathema

by Dietrich von Hildebrand

Renowned thinker Dietrich von Hildebrand's post-Vatican II speeches at the Roman Forum in New York, most of which later became concise essays, diagnosed the multiple concerns afflicting the Mystical Body, and prescribed the cure.

205 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1993

About the author

Dietrich von Hildebrand was a German Catholic philosopher and theologian who was called (informally) by Pope Pius XII "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church."

Pope John Paul II greatly admired the work of von Hildebrand, remarking once to von Hildebrand's widow, Alice von Hildebrand, "Your husband is one of the great ethicists of the twentieth century." Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has a particular admiration and regard for Dietrich von Hildebrand, whom he already knew as a young priest in Munich. In fact, as young Fr. Ratzinger, he even served as an assistant pastor in the church of St. Georg in Munich, which von Hildebrand frequented in the 1950s and 1960s. It was also in St. Georg that Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand were married.

The degree of Pope Benedict's esteem is expressed in one of his statements about von Hildebrand, "When the intellectual history of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century is written, the name of Dietrich von Hildebrand will be most prominent among the figures of our time." Von Hildebrand was a vocal critic of the changes in the church brought by the Second Vatican Council. He especially resented the new liturgy. Of it he said "Truly, if one of the devils in C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters had been entrusted with the ruin of the liturgy, he could not have done it better."

Von Hildebrand died in New Rochelle, New York, in 1977.

Reviews

[Jen S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much of von Hildrebrand’s observations still apply to the state of the Church today. This book strengthened my understanding of the Magisterium, infallibility, and the continual fight needed against relativism/modernism.

[Dan DalMonte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a powerful collection of essays for traditional Catholics concerned with a growing irreverence in the Church. Hildebrand discusses a general cultural decline as well as the maladministration of Vatican II. The most memorable part for me was when he showed how heretical the work of Teilhard de Chardin is. de Chardin thinks that matter and spirit are equivalent, and that we are to worship the evolutionary process, which yields an Omega point at which we will be merged into a totalitarian unity. In the Catholic tradition, matter and spirit are distinct, and Christ is not the apex of an evolutionary process. Theistic evolution is a controversial position when seen in light of Church history. We are supposed to retain our individuality, also, as we enter into the mystical union.