Customer Reviews

Charitable Anathema

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We write this review only so that the reader may gain a more accurate picture of Dietrich von Hildebrand's thought on the post-Vatican II ecclesial atmosphere. The review below my own entitled "Post-Vatican II analysed (sic) by Hildebrand" is a gross distortion of this great philosopher's religious thought, and it bears more the marks of the viewpoints of its author, whom we shall call that "poor reviewer," than those of von Hildebrand.

To the comment that von Hildebrand "subscribes a one hundred (sic) per cent(sic)traditional catholic view about such an issue," is a terrible anachronism and displays a superficial reading of the book "Charitable Anathema." Von Hildebrand had a great love and esteem for the Tridentine Mass, no doubt due to his affinity for reference and beauty. He was a "traditionalist" in the sense that he revered the history of the Catholic Church in all stages and rites and not simply the post-Gregorian Latin rite. However, von Hildebrand was not a "traditionist" in the SSPX sense of the word. He did not reject the Novus Ordo Mass, though he preferred the Tridentine. And no matter how much he perceived the leadership of Paul VI to be weak, he never once preferred his own interpretation of Church teaching to that of the pope.

Von Hildebrand would never admit the Church had "lost its faith" as our poor reviewer submits. The Church by definition cannot loose her faith, pre- or post-Vatican II. If she were to lose her faith, she would cease to exist, nay, she would show that she never existed in the first place. Our poor reviewer is imposing his haphazard, unfounded historical sense upon von Hildebrand. Only one who lacks a true understanding of the doctrinal and litrugically development of the post-Augustinian Church could make such brash and erroneous conclusions, and this certainly is not the case with von Hildebrand.

Finally, to suggest that von Hildebrand was a primordial apologist for "the great Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre" stretches the integrity of sanity. First, von Hildebrand's colossal intellect prevented him from committing the galactic blunders of Lefebvre. Second, von Hildebrand's philosophical method was in stark contrast to what Lefebvre defended and demanded. By all accounts and purposes, von Hildebrand qualifies as a "modernist" according to the SSPX definition because he employed the "heretical" insights of phenomenology over and above the conventional neo-Thomism, something Lefebvre would tear his vestments over. Lastly, one simply must look to von Hildebrand's widow, Alice von Hildebrand, for the correct understanding of his post-Vatican II lamentations. Von Hildebrand decried abuses and practices, not the Council or the documents themselves. He was a faithful Catholic who stood in the line of true tradition, not the falsified and misconstrued tradition of Lefevbre.

Perhaps we can close by suggesting to our poor reviewer that he ought to read the likes of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Trent, Vatican I and Vatican II himself rather than relying upon the unscholarly and naive interpretations of these figures and events by the sad Angelus Press. After all, von Hildebrand did. This is no polemic against SSPX, but simply an admission of fact. Poor Lefebvre...if only he had known the facts.

I wonder how could I have been lived for so long without reading any book from the autorship of Dietrich Von Hildebrand: now, I know that he was a master and fairly deserved his reputation as the 20th Doctor of the Church (Pope Pius XII used to label his beloved friend Hildebrand in that way).

In "Charitable Anathema", a compilation of essays that Hildebrand wrote, I suppose, in the late 1960's and early 1970's, he analyses the crisis that assaulted Catholic Church after the closure of the Second Council Vatican, a crisis that unfortunately persists until the present day.

Dietrich Von Hildebrand, for my great happiness, subscribes a one hundred per cent traditional catholic point of view about such issue, which can be resumed in the following statement: Post-Vatican II Catholic Church lost her faith and, invaded by the heretic modernist and progressit trends - the so-called "Spirit of Vatican II"-, intends to establish compromises with the uncompromisable, the "this-worldism" mind. Against such states of things, Hildebrand prescribes the role-models of Saint Athanasius and Saint Pius X.

The book is absolutely excellent and its essays, all of them, are unlosable precious gems. Nevertheless, I would detach, for example, "The Case for the Latin Mass", a passionate praise of the eternal Tridentine Mass; "The Illusion of Progress", where modernism, a variant of leftism inside the religious field, is exposed in its true colours; finally, "The Institutional Church and Institutionalism" and "Belief and Obedience: The Critical Difference", pieces that today can only be read as ahead of time defenses of the great Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Great, great, great: definitively, a must read book!