Dietrich von Hildebrand -- The City of God and the Vineyard

In the decade after the Vatican II Council, Catholic philosopher and layman Dietrich von Hildebrand wrote a pair of books not so much on the Council itself, but on the aftereffects within the Catholic Church.   His take was philosophical and specifically, personalist, for it was in phenomenology that he received his academic grounding.

The books are called Trojan Horse in the City of God, published in 1967, and The Devastated Vineyard, published in 1973, which was only a few years before his death in 1977.

The difference in content and tone between the two books is a kind of timelapse analysis of the chaotic decade that followed the Council.  

Dietrich von Hildebrand was a layman; a philosopher, whose second spouse (after he lost his first wife) was a philosopher in her own right, Alice von Hildebrand, who spent most of the half century after she became a widow consolidating his heritage.    He wrote many, many books, mostly for a general Catholic audience.

The majority of Catholics today were born after the Vatican II Council (1962-1965) or were very young when it ended.    For instance, Pope Francis was only 24 or 25 when it was convoked.   It would be easy for us to take for granted the vast number and wide influence of laypersons who feature in the Church's post-conciliar life.    This is a sea-change essentially received and approved all across the Church.   It is a sea-change but not for the Church strictly an innovation, because laymen and laywomen have always had their part.  

In the half century before the Council, prominent Catholic laity that spoke publicly about Catholicism were relatively uncommon.   Sure, there were Catholic rulers, and scientists, and politicians and judges,  and other folk who influenced the workings of the societies they lived in.   There were a LOT of apostolates and sodalities that were basically lay efforts.    At the Vatican II Council itself there were a few lay auditors.  

But as far as people who actually became known for their proclamation of Church teaching, who in a way were influences on the thinking of the Church, I could only come up with a relatively short list.   I may add to the list in the future.   Here are the ones who come to mind, in no particular order:   GK Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc,  JRR Tolkien, Jacques and Raissa Maritain, Frank and Maisie Sheed, Christopher Dawson, Henri Daniel-Rops, Etienne Gilson, Jean Guitton, Paul Claudel, Josef Pieper, Peter Geach and GEM Anscombe, Charles Peguy, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Maurice Blondel, Jean Guitton.  And Dietrich von Hildebrand.

Of these, quite a large percentage are philosophers, and the rest are mostly literary or historical thinkers, with a representative couple of apologists and mission-oriented types.    I am featuring laypeople whose influence and legacy were high during the half century preceding the idea of a Council.   Some of these like Blondel and Peguy are a bit too early, perhaps.    I left out some like Graham Greene, Walker Percy, Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O'Connor who were known more for their literary work than their public forays into theology.   Tolkien gets into the other category because of his well-known association with CS Lewis and the Inklings, who explicitly tried to link fantasy fiction with the evangelium and whose influence on Catholicism is still strong for that reason.  

Quite a lot of these interestingly are either converts, or reverts, or closely associated with a convert.    Dietrich von Hildebrand was a convert.  

The main point is that Dietrich von Hildebrand was rather unusual in his time.   By the period after the council, he was an old man with only a decade left to live.   But before the Council, and after as well, he was consulted and admired by popes.  

In the days when his contemporary in phenomenological philosophy Martin Heidegger was joining the Nazi party, Hildebrand was already vocal in protesting Nazism and Hitler.   In fact, he had to leave Germany to avoid arrest;  the story is told by his wife in Soul of a Lion and also in his own work.  

All this is by way of showing his credibility as one of the prophetic and acute witnesses of what happened after the Council.   Everything in his background and character had trained and prepared him to recognize barbarity and error and untruth.