Many know  Dietrich von Hildebrand for his spiritual work. Over all he is one of the most important Christian philosophers of the 20th century. So much that Hitler's ambassador in Austria considered him the most dangerous enemy to Nazism. Because this intellectual like few others defended dignity of man with his heart.

“My husband said many times to me the greatest illusion is to believe that human loss can make the world perfect. The only thing that can make the world perfect is a change of heart,  the purification through revelation.” 

The Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project has brought together philosophers, theologians, psychologists and scientists from all over the world to Rome to spread the works of Von Hildebrand.

The leading Orthodox theologian, Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pérgamo, the German philosopher Robert Spaemann and von Hildebrand's widow all participated.

“For him the heart was absolutely of crucial importance. Not a wild heart, not a heart carried by emotion but the heart sanctioned by the will. For example, you fall in love with a person, because you see beauty in this person, your heart is touched. My husband insists on the fact that it is absolutely crucial that it should have the sanction of my will. Suppose that for some reason this love cannot flower or develop, if the other person is married for example, then your will has to stop it.”  

"One of the great aspects of his legacy was that the defense of truth and the pursuit of truth in all areas was something uncompromising and so we have here a thinker who offers a very robust, a very radical, a very challenging vision of Christianity. This is not Christianity light.”

The theme of the congress was von Hildebrand's philosophy on love. The assumption that one cannot make sense of the human person apart from his or her capacity for loving and being loved.

“Shortly before he died he said to me solemnly, I give you my literal request, I confine it in to you so you can spread it if it deserves to be spread, but if you find one single sentence which is not in perfect harmony with the teachings of the Church, burn it. That is a Christian philosopher and he was one.”

Benedict XVI is a member of Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project's committee of honor.

In March of 2007 the pope wrote the foundation's president a letter and highlighted that if you don't use reason, faith transforms into fideism. So the effort to speak to society about God will fail automatically if you leave philosophy aside.

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