What I deplore is that the new Mass is replacing the Latin Mass, that the old liturgy is being recklessly scrapped, and denied to most of the People of God.
—Dietrich von Hildebrand

However we greet his writings and thought, there is no denying Dietrich von Hildebrand’s historical status as a long-standing hero among Catholic opponents of Nazism. A philosopher who once speculated that each nation has its own unique guardian angel, Hildebrand nonetheless detested nationalism as a diabolical parody of patriotism; as the reader is no doubt aware, this parody had manifested itself with special virulence in Germany in the wake of World War I. Especially loathsome to Hildebrand was the collectivist tendency to steamroll individuality and personality for the sake of a grand, abstract, and artificial German nationhood. Who Paid The Piper : T... frances-stonor-saunders Best Price: $18.09 Buy New $15.10 (as of 05:26 UTC - Details)

On the more affirmative side, Hildebrand’s ideas may be related to his life. Biographers agree that it is no mere coincidence that Hildebrand’s father was a famous and successful sculptor, as the beauty and wonder of art were motivating values in Dietrich’s thought. Working out of the milieu of phenomenology, Hildebrand developed his own theory of Christian personalism, which promotes a revived appreciation for the heart and lived experience in the world.

While the perspective of Christian personalism often concurs with the judgments of what is called traditionalism, the two movements are hardly synonymous. For instance, Hildebrand would become one of the first prominent thinkers to highlight the joy and intimacy implicit in sexuality. It is not only prudish but ungrateful and shallow to treat the conjugal act as if it were solely oriented toward the duty to reproduce, he argued—a position which would today draw some pushback in certain traditionalist circles.

In any event, back in the 1920s and ’30s Hildebrand’s repeated condemnations of National Socialism landed him on the Nazi blacklist; during the frantic hours of the brief Beer Hall Putsch, he had to dodge his way through Berlin to avoid falling into hostile hands. After Hitler’s rise to power, Hildebrand then had to flee Germany altogether, seeking refuge in his native Austria. When Hitler’s government absorbed Austria into the Third Reich, Hildebrand left Europe for the United States, where he established himself as one of Catholic America’s leading thinkers. He married one of his former students, Alice von Hildebrand, who would go on to become a renowned Catholic scholar in her own right.

So, there can be little doubt regarding Hildebrand’s principled devotion to human dignity and freedom, or that he sought to adapt his thought to modernity, to the concerns of real individuals coping with the complexities of contemporary life. Not every Catholic luminary agrees with every point of Hildebrand’s work, to be sure, but not even his unfriendliest critics could accuse him of being “rigid” or “authoritarian.” Whatever we may say of the theory of personalism, its focus obviously lies in the welfare and aspirations of…persons. The War Between The St... Wilson, Clyde N. Best Price: $7.20 Buy New $8.49 (as of 05:26 UTC - Details)

All this brings us to Hildebrand’s attitude toward the Latin Mass, and a stark irony. Today enemies of the Latin Mass condemn it as narrow-minded and reactionary, if not downright fascist and oppressive toward the individual. Yet, it just so happens that the same man who took a stand against Nazism—back when it was actually dangerous to do so—would later take his stand against the freewheeling liturgical “reforms” which followed Vatican II.

For, according to Hildebrand, most of the so-called “reforms” were really desecrations carried out by subversives acting in bad faith who had twisted the directives of the Council:

[T]he Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy goes no further than to permit the vernacular Mass in cases where the local bishop believes it desirable; the Constitution plainly insists on the retention of the Latin Mass, and emphatically approves the Gregorian chant. But the liturgical “progressives” are not impressed by the difference between permitting and commanding. Nor do they hesitate to authorize changes, such as standing to receive Holy Communion, which the Constitution does not mention at all. The progressives argue that these liberties may be taken because the Constitution is, after all, only the first step in an evolutionary process. And they seem to be having their way.  

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