The Personalist Vision

David Brooks

David Brooks has a gift for bringing audiences face to face with the spirit of our times with humor, insight and quiet passion. He is a keen observer of the American way of life and a savvy analyst of present-day politics, culture and foreign affairs. For audiences in all areas of healthcare, David brings important insights into the politics of healthcare and a focus on character as the key to our healthcare debates, healthcare delivery, and mission-driven leadership. As a commentator, David Brooks holds prestigious positions as a bi-weekly Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times and as a regular analyst on PBS NewsHour and NPR’s All Things Considered. He is the author of New York Times bestseller, The Road to Character, and The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life.

Anne Snyder

Anne Snyder is the Editor-in-Chief of Comment Magazine and the host of Breaking Ground, a collaborative web commons created in 2020 to try to inspire a dynamic cross-section of thinkers and practitioners to respond to the major crises of the year with wisdom, hope and courage. She is the host of The Whole Person Revolution podcast and the author of The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Renewing our Social and Moral Landscape, published in 2019.

Rocco Buttiglione

A trusted collaborator of Pope St. John Paul II, and is an authority on his philosophical anthropology. His book Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man who became Pope John Paul II is a fundamental work on the pope’s early philosophy. A member of the Italian Parliament for over two decades, he serves on the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and holds the John Paul II Chair for Philosophy and History of European Institutions at the Lateran University in Rome. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Hildebrand Project.

John F. Crosby

Josef Seifert

Professor Seifert received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Salzburg in 1969 and, under Professor Robert Spaemann, his habilitation from the University of Munich (Privatdozent) in 1975. He studied chiefly under Balduin Schwarz, the most distinguished German former student of Dietrich von Hildebrand, at the University of Salzburg, and under Gabriel Marcel in Paris. Already as a child (from age 3 on) he knew Hildebrand personally, because Seifert’s mother had been a student of Hildebrand in Munich and both of his parents were Hildebrand’s friends. He is the author of many books, and Europe’s leading student and teacher of Hildebrand’s philosophy.

John Studzinski

John Studzinski is founder and chairman of the Genesis Foundation. Since 2001, the Foundation has supported programmes that nurture the careers of outstanding young artists in the UK, enabling them to develop their professional skills and experience and gain access to mentors and valuable networks. He is Managing Director and Vice Chairman of global investment management firm PIMCO, and his 30 years in investment banking have also embraced senior roles at Blackstone, HSBC Group and Morgan Stanley. Born in the US and long resident in Britain, he holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College. As a hands-on philanthropist and as a thought leader, John Studzinski focuses primarily on the arts, human rights, homelessness and volunteering. He is Founding President of Arise, which was established in 2015 to support frontline work against modern slavery. This role complements his activities to promote transparency in business supply chains, which have included a period as co-chair of the Home Office’s Business Against Slavery Forum. Awarded a CBE in 2008 for his services to the Arts and Charity, John Studzinski has also received the Papal honours of Knight of the Order of St. Gregory and Knight Commander of St. Sylvester, the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award, the Beacon Prize for Philanthropy, the Prince of Wales Medal for Arts Philanthropy and, for his work with the homeless, the Prince of Wales Ambassador Award. In 2017 the Catholic Herald named him Catholic of the Year.

Jonathan J. Sanford

Jared Zimmerer

Jared Zimmerer is the Director of Extension Strategy at Benedictine College. He is the former Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and the Dean of Pastoral Fellows. He holds a master’s degree in Theology from Holy Apostles College and a PhD in Humanities from Faulkner University. He and his wife Jessica live in North Texas with their six children. He is an author, speaker, and holds a bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology.

Rabbi Mark Gottlieb

Michael Matheson Miller

David Walsh

David Walsh, Ph.D. is Professor of Politics with teaching and research interests in the field of political theory broadly conceived. His focus has been on the question that the modern world poses for itself at its deepest level. Does our civilization possess the moral and spiritual resources to survive? In response to that question Walsh has traced the modern retrieval order in a trilogy of works (see more here). One of the results of these studies has been a renewed interest in the centrality of the person from whom order radiates into social and political existence. The first phase of this new direction has appeared in Politics of the Person as the Politics of Being (2016), followed by a companion volume, The Priority of the Person (2020). His current book project is “The Invisible Source of Authority: God in a Secular Age.”

Robert McNamara

Margarita Mooney

Peter J. Colosi

Mark K. Spencer

University of St Thomas, MN Professor of Philosophy

Research Areas: Philosophical Anthropology, Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Philosophical Theology

Dr. Mark K. Spencer, Ph.D. is a Professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Spencer fell in love with philosophy in high school when he first encountered the writings of Albert Camus and St. Thomas Aquinas. He earned his Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo, and his M.A. and B.A. from Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he first encountered the work of Dietrich von Hildebrand. He is the author of 2 books and over 60 papers and reviews, mostly focusing on the nature of the human person, beauty, and God’s relations to us. In his research, he above all tries to synthesize many traditions’ approaches to these topics, drawing on the scholastic, phenomenological, analytic, and Greek Patristic traditions. Among the things he takes greatest delight in is introducing students to the insights of these traditions, so as to help them better perceive and contemplate reality, for which he finds the work of von Hildebrand an indispensable guide. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, Susanna, and their four children. Together, they especially enjoy hiking, camping, reading novels, watching films, gardening, and homeschooling.

Michael Wenisch

Michael Wenisch is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in full-time private practice in Maryland. Further details about how he conducts his practice may be found here. Prior to this, he was a philosophy professor at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas; Morgan State University in Baltimore; and Barry University in Miami, Florida. He has an MA in Psychology from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, as well as a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Catholic University of America. His current research interests revolve around the general topic of healing on all levels of human need, and the agencies and means whereby healing is successfully brought about – or not.

John Henry Crosby

John Henry Crosby is a translator, writer, critic, and cultural entrepreneur. 

Late in 2003, searching for a life’s work that could integrate the quest for truth, the existential need for beauty, and the service of a great good, and beginning to despair of ever finding such a mission, he called Alice von Hildebrand to propose that he spend one year translating her late husband’s Aesthetics. Would she help, he asked.

She did, and her blessing transformed his one-year plan into lifelong mission that soon attracted the collaboration of others. Thus, the life’s work he had sought found him. Established in February 2004, the Hildebrand Project’s mission to renew culture has grown to encompass publications, events, fellowships, and online resources that draw on the continuing vitality of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s thought and witness.

Under his leadership, the Hildebrand Project has become the world’s leading organization dedicated to Dietrich von Hildebrand’s legacy. The Project has been supported by many leading foundations and donors, including the Bradley Foundation, Chiaroscuro Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Fieldstead & Company, Henry Luce Foundation, Luddy Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Our Sunday Visitor Institute, Papal Foundation, and the Raskob Foundation. 

He was the editor of a new edition of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s The Heart (St. Augustine’s Press, 2007). He joined John F. Crosby as co-translator of Hildebrand’s major philosophical work, The Nature of Love (St. Augustine’s Press, 2009). He edited Selected Papers in the Philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand (2012), the first major volume of essays on von Hildebrand in two decades. Most recently he is the primary compiler, editor, and translator of Hildebrand’s anti-Nazi papers, My Battle Against Hitler (Random House, 2014). 

His work has been featured in both popular (e.g., The Daily Beast) and scholarly publications (Logos Journal). His numerous radio appearances have taken him from PRI’s The Takeaway to the Hugh Hewitt Show. He was host of He Dared Speak the Truth, a 14-part television series on the life of Dietrich von Hildebrand, which aired on EWTN (2014).

Son of an Austrian mother and an American father, his mother tongue was German. Both his undergraduate studies in philosophy, history, and literature (2000) as well as his graduate studies in philosophy (2001) were pursued at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. 

He was for many years a violinist. As a student of Daniel Heifetz, he was formed in the great violinistic traditions of Henryk Szeryng, David Oistrakh, and Ivan Galamian. 

He serves as a trustee of The Personalist Project. 

In 2010 he married Robin-Marie Bobak. Through their marriage—and all the more with the birth of their children Magdalene (2011), Robin (2013), John Henry, Jr. (2015), and Peter—he has found (or, again, been found by) an integration of the good, true, and beautiful far greater than any he has ever known.

Christopher T. Haley

“Only the brave return to the source.” — a favorite line from a Hölderlin poem. For Christopher, the source was beauty. Philosophy has always captured his interest, but it was beauty that was his first love, that first broke his heart (and a broken heart the Lord will not refuse, Ps. 51). After many years in school studying philosophy at St. Edward’s University (where he discovered Catholicism) ancient languages at the University of Texas (where he converted from atheism to Catholicism), and the University of Dallas (where he was introduced to Christian Personalism) Christopher misread Aristotle’s Rhetoric and decided that he needed to do something “practical;” so he began working in teaching, marketing, and politics, striking out in new areas with innovative ideas drawn from classical sources (he has a restive habit of starting new projects and companies). 

But his restless soul brought him back to philosophy. He had heard of Dietrich von Hildebrand while studying St. Edith Stein at the University of Dallas, and was eagerly awaiting the publication of Hildebrand’s Aesthetics, when one day his mentor at UD suggested that he apply for a Summer Fellowship with the Hildebrand Project. So he dropped everything and applied. Now, Christopher has always had the strange practice of including his favorite poets and composers on his resume, and for once, it worked (he always knew it would!): at the Hildebrand Project, he finally found a place where a love for beauty mattered—and thus he returned to the source. 

At the end of his Summer Fellowship, he was so excited about the potential of the Hildebrand Project that he refused to leave, finding clever ways to insert himself into vital operations and creating entire program areas with no one to manage them but himself. As a result, he now oversees the Hildebrand Project’s publishing enterprise, marketing, communications, and has helped pioneer a number of innovative and successful programs. 

In his free time—when he gets free time—he likes to listen to classical music, write essays, ride two-wheeled vehicles, and build things. He also hosts a weekly theology symposium at a bar in his beloved state of Texas.  

Catherine Dugan

Catherine Dugan (née Beigel) is the Director of Programs for the Hildebrand Project and a doctoral student (S.T.D.) at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Washington D.C.

Prior to her doctoral studies, she completed her licentiate (S.T.L.) at the same institution with the thesis, “The Resurrection of the Body: Embodied Beatitude as a Participation in Divine Glory in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger.” Her work with the Hildebrand Project has been a catalyst in fruitful cross-pollination between her two primary research interests: philosophical personalism and sacramental theology.

Catherine was not always a philosopher and theologian. While studying abroad in the foothills of Austria, she was introduced to philosophy and the liberal arts. This period of study marked a turning point in her academic interests. Previously pursuing a career in finance, she turned to study philosophy and theology. Together with the thinkers presented in class – from Balthasar to Stein to Aristotle, she embarked into a new world of exploration.

Prior to her time in Austria, Catherine had already taken a nontraditional approach to college and taken a gap year with NET Ministries. Engaging in relational ministry at a parish for a year taught her in a profound way the unique unrepeatability of the person. Taking a step back from the concerns of work and school allowed her to focus on encountering Christ through each instance of humanity. It was an experience that she carried back with her when returning to “normal” life.

What she appreciates most about the Hildebrand Project is their dedication to supporting the new evangelization by a renewal of the person. Participating in their work as a student fellow during her undergraduate, she engaged Hildebrand’s writings and was taught to draw others into that conversation. Time and again she watched the Project place the person as the priority in their programming. We can speak abstractly about renewing culture, but culture is made up of those who inhabit a time and a place. For Catherine, the writings of Hildebrand helped to peel away layers of selfishness as she allowed herself to be transformed by an openness to the world of values. She hopes to share this with others in small ways and to further promote the mission of the Hildebrand Project.

Other interests of Catherine include exploring local hiking trails, cooking (with medium success), digging in the dirt in the hope of plants growing, and scheming over a cup of coffee.