Alice von Hildebrand

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When Alice von Hildebrand wasn’t promoting her late husband’s work, the Catholic philosopher, professor and author spent most of her life “reminding women of the privilege of femininity and the gift of motherhood,” said Rachel Bulman, a blogger and popular speaker.

She made the comments in a Jan. 28 appreciation she wrote on the life and work of Mrs. von Hildebrand, who died peacefully at home in New Rochelle Jan. 14. She was 98.

"Alice invited women to be women, to have their power rooted in their own femininity. She believed that women could be receptive, nurturing, demure and empathetic while also wielding the dynamism of intellect and culture,” said Ms. Bulman in an essay posted on the website www.wordonfire.org.

Ms. Bulman, a wife and mother of four, never met Mrs. von Hildebrand but knew her writing well, including her book "The Privilege of Being a Woman," a reflection on "woman as a unique, mysterious creation of God and the blessings of traditional femininity."

The Funeral Mass was celebrated Jan. 22 at Holy Family Church in New Rochelle, the home parish of Mrs. von Hildebrand.

Cardinal Dolan, in remarks read at the Funeral Mass by Auxiliary Bishop James Massa, rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, said Alice von Hildebrand’s “deep faith in the salvation won for each of us by Jesus, and her desire to spend eternity in Heaven in God’s presence, surely is a cause for rejoicing,” even while sorrowful at her passing.

The cardinal said “the Archdiocese of New York and the local academic community have been greatly blessed by the presence” of Mrs. von Hildebrand and her husband, Dietrich.

“Over the past nearly 13 years that I have served as archbishop,” Cardinal Dolan said, “I had the immense privilege of being able to visit with Alice and correspond with her. She was always so gracious to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed our visits. I shall miss her wisdom and example.”

Born in Brussels, Belgium, Alice fled at age 17 with her family to France in 1940 when the Nazis invaded Belgium. That June, she and her sister Louloute went to New York to live with an aunt and uncle.

She enrolled at Manhattanville College, where she earned a bachelor's degree. Before she finished her degree, she began taking classes at Jesuit-run Fordham University taught by her future husband, Dietrich von Hildebrand, a German-born Catholic philosopher and religious writer who left a teaching post in Germany to escape the Nazis.

In December 1947, Alice was hired for a substitute position at Hunter College and then was offered a permanent teaching position.

“From the start, she faced opposition from her own colleagues, in part out of professional rivalry—she quickly became one of the most popular professors—and in part because of anti-Catholic sentiment,” according to an obituary from the Hildebrand Project, which she co-founded.

“The latter surprised her, because she never spoke of Catholicism in the classroom. The difficulty was that several of her students began converting to Catholicism,” it said. “She soon realized that it was her defense of the objectivity of truth against the prevailing relativism of the day that prepared the ground for these conversions.”

She and Dietrich, a widower, married in 1959. Dietrich taught philosophy at Fordham from 1942 until his retirement in 1960. He died in 1977.

After his death, Alice wrote “By Grief Refined” about the experience of becoming a widow. She also saw her primary mission as preserving his legacy.

Besides Hunter College, she taught at other institutions, including the Catechetical Institute of St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie; the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, where she served on the board of trustees from 1987 to 1999; the Thomas More Institute in Rome; Ave Maria College in Michigan; and the Notre Dame Institute in Arlington, Va.

Alice retired from Hunter College in 1984 and went on the lecture circuit, speaking in 35 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico and in many countries in South America and in Europe.

She received numerous awards and three honorary degrees, including from Franciscan University. In 2013, she received the Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of St. Gregory.

Among her books are “The Soul of a Lion: The Life of Dietrich von Hildebrand,” published in 2000, and “Memoirs of a Happy Failure,” a 2014 autobiography.

"One of the most central themes in the lives of Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand was the crucial importance of reverence if man is to order his life properly and fruitfully in this world," said Father Gerald E. Murray, pastor of Holy Family parish in Manhattan, in his homily at Alice's Funeral Mass, where he was the principal celebrant.
Alice von Hildebrand