Discovering the Delightful, Trenchant, Spiritually Profound Writings of Leonardo Castellani

A prolific author of about fifty books and a thousand articles, Leonardo Castellani (1899–1981) is widely revered as one of the greatest modern Argentine writers in multiple genres.

In a most arresting manner, Castellani comes across as almost an exact negative type of his fellow countryman Bergoglio: he was spiritual, intellectual, and eschatological where his papal opposite was political, propagandistic, and mundane; he was clever, poetic, and apologetically old-fashioned where the other was crafty, blunt, and unconflictedly modern. After the experiences of 2013 to 2025, reading a very different kind of Argentine Jesuit is delightful—one might even say medicinal.

Yet until now, English-speaking audiences have had almost no access to his remarkable body of work—a lacuna decisively changed by this new anthology, Christ and the Pharisees & Other Short Works, equipped with a substantial introduction by the translator, Sebastián Randle. 

A student of Cardinal Billot’s, a pugilist for orthodoxy at a time of progressive disarray, and a faithful old-school Jesuit who fell afoul of his superiors and suffered years of marginalization, Castellani was at the same time unafraid to poke holes in conventional pieties and complained about unhealthy trends in the Church years before the Vatican II debacle brought many latent weaknesses to light.

In many ways he can be (certainly nowadays) classified as a traditionalist, as these typical remarks show, from his 1954 essay "The Destruction of Tradition":

It’s rather unpleasant to find oneself speaking like a prophet of misfortunes, knowing all the time that to act instead the part of a soothsayer proclaiming good tidings would always brings home the bacon; and anyway, I would always prefer, God willing, to be an incompetent prophet of doom. But the destruction of tradition in the Western world is glaringly obvious, and denying it is equivalent to closing your eyes while crossing a street. In any case, opening our eyes could be the cure, following the poet’s lines:

Prior to any other one,

the first of all medicines

is to identify the disease.

There is no rectilinear and uniform progress in the sense that the Marquis of Condorcet understood it—the myth and dogma of Indefinite Progress. But there is a certain type of progress or, to put it more precisely, something more like two parallel and yet invisible lines of progress. “Tell us, when shall these things be?” the disciples asked Jesus (Mt 24:3). We find the answer at the end of the Book of Revelation: “The time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly” (22:10– 12); that is to say, there’s a certain progress in humanity, but this must be properly understood. The progress of which I’m speaking happens in men’s inner selves—that “inner self” of which we have spoken so much; and consequently, good and evil imbue more and more the “inside” of men, and, because of that, they become more conscious and therefore more refined and concentrated. In this sense, Kierkegaard is more “interior” (or “inward wise”) than St. Augustine; and on the other hand, Sartre, for instance, is more of a pervert than the worse heathen authors: compared to Sartre, Petronius looks as innocent as a newborn babe. Humanity marches toward history’s dramatic denouement, a drama which includes one protagonist and plenty of hostile enemies.

Tradition is that ideal world of human values that we inherit when we are born, without deserving it . . . and for which we show ourselves pretty ungrateful. But not all that we inherit belongs to tradition. A son inherits from his father a house and, say, tuberculosis; the house is tradition— tuberculosis is not a tradition. It could be that tuberculosis runs in the family, but that sort of tradition must be interrupted as soon as possible. But nowadays, morally speaking, homesteads are being broken, and tuberculosis is being cultivated. [...]

What is tradition? To repeat, tradition is that ideal world of human values that we inherit when we are born, without deserving it— and for which we seem to be rather ungrateful too. For me, when I was born, tradition was represented by a firmly established family, some Italian grandparents with a mind full of European legends—my grandmother used to tell me about the Council of Trent in an entirely legendary form—full of tenacious customs and even one or two healthy obsessions (with the persistence that is a badge of never-changing tradition)...

We cannot create the civilization into which we’re born: but we can destroy it—in our very selves, for a start. Believe it or not, it would be easier for men to create the whole physical universe than to produce the moral and intellectual universe that makes up humanity’s vacillating heritage. Hard to believe, perhaps, but that’s how it is.

Above all, Fr. Castellani was a supremely observant reader of Scripture and one of its finest modern commentators, capable of breathtaking insights into familiar texts, especially the Book of Revelation. All these characteristics are on full display in this enlightening and entertaining little volume, an ideal introduction to the wide scope of Castellani’s genius.

Here's a video in which I talk more about the book, and read two passages from it (different from the one above):

“In my life as a reader, I have savored many moments of wonder; but none as immense and enduring as the one provided by the Argentine Leonardo Castellani. A passionate polemicist, a relentless critic of modernity and all its ideological filth, Castellani is above all a champion of orthodoxy, which, as we already know, is the only form of heterodoxy that our age repudiates. Castellani reveals himself to be a consummate apologist and a formidable polemicist, endowed with a vibrant style and a sardonic humor in the tradition of Cervantes that allows him to tear down the thick walls of lies as if they were made of sculpted sugar. In all his works, Castellani displays intellectual depth and an admirable ability to stir in the mind a response of joyful acceptance (or of scathing rejection, if the mind is infested with politically correct nonsense). The fact is, our author was what the French call a maître à penser-someone who not only spurs our intellect but also nourishes it, fortifies it, provides it with a sturdy framework, and, at the same time, propels it down paths never before traveled. No wonder such a dangerous writer has been equally reviled by the godless, the snobs, and the self-righteous, both in life and in death.” -Juan Manuel de Prada

“Castellani was the man sent by Divine Providence to my homeland and to everyone who can access his legacy to shed light on the purpose of the Christian life: the Parousia. Castellani’s books are full of good humor, and this makes them very human, free of ethereal theological jargon. He knows how to laugh at the ridiculous. His work has no set progression; you can dive in from any angle, much like a Pampas-style barbecue.” -Daniel Francisco Giaquinta

“Castellani is undoubtedly a rich, multifaceted, and transcultural figure.” -Javier Navascué

Available from the publisher, Os Justi Press, in paperback, hardcover, or ebook (at this link you can also “look inside” to see a sample), or from any Amazon outlet.