Romano Guardini (1885-1968)

A priest, author, and academic, Romano Guardini was one of the most important figures in 20th-century German Catholic intellectual life. Born in Verona, his family moved to Mainz when he was young, and he lived in Germany for the rest of his life. After studying chemistry and economics, he decided to study for the priesthood and was ordained in 1910. After ordination, he earned a doctorate in theology at the University of Freiburg. He also worked as a chaplain to the Catholic youth movement. In 1923 he was appointed to a chair in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Berlin, a position he held until the Nazis forced him to resign in 1939. In the 1935 essay “Der Heiland” (“The Saviour”) he openly criticized the Nazi mythologizing of the person of Jesus, and emphasized the Jewishness of Jesus. In 1945 Guardini was appointed professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Tübingen, and resumed lecturing on the Philosophy of Religion. Finally, in 1948, he became professor at the University of Munich, where he remained until retiring, for health reasons, in 1962. His ill health prevented him playing any active role in the Second Vatican Council. Guardini’s book The Lord is still in print today. Among those it inspired was Pope Benedict XVI, who acknowledges its influence in his Jesus of Nazareth.

(Adapted from Wikipedia)