Dietrich von Hildebrand

Dietrich von Hildebrand (October 12, 1889 - January 26, 1977) was a German Catholic philosopher and theologian who was called (informally) by Pope Pius XII "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church."

He was also known to be a great favorite of Pope John Paul II.

Biography

Born and raised in Florence in a secular Protestant household, the son of sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand, Hildebrand converted to Catholicism in 1914. He was a vocal opponent of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, fleeing from Germany to Vienna, Austria in 1933 upon Hitler's rise to power. There with the support of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss he founded and edited an anti-Nazi weekly paper, Der Christliche Ständestaat (The Christian corporative state). For this, he was sentenced to death in absentia by the Nazis.

When Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, Hildebrand was once again forced to flee. He spent eleven Months in Switzerland, near Fribourg. He then moved to Fiac in France, near Toulouse, where he taught at the Catholic University of Toulouse. When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, he went into hiding, until after many hardships, and the heroic assistance of Frenchmen, including Edmond Michelet, he was able to escape with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law to Portugal. From there they travelled by ship to Brazil and then to New York in 1940. There he taught philosophy at the Jesuit Fordham University on Rose Hill, The Bronx, New York.

Hildebrand is the author of dozens of books, both in German and English. He died on January 26, 1977 after a long struggle with a heart condition. He was married to Margaret Denck (died 1957), and then, in 1959, to Alice von Hildebrand (born 1923), also a philosopher and theologian.

He died in New Rochelle, New York, in 1977.

Quotations

Dietrich von Hildebrand is the 20th century Doctor of the Church. -Pope Pius XII

References

The Soul of A Lion, a biography by Alice von Hildebrand, Ignatius Press, 2000, ISBN 089870801x

External Links

Partial bibliography