Fascinaţia sacrului. De la Mircea Eliade la papa Ioan Paul al II-lea

Wilhelm Dancă, Fascinaţia sacrului. De la Mircea Eliade la papa Ioan Paul al II-lea, ediția a II-a, revizuită și adăugită, Iași 2026, 569 p., 14×20, ISBN 978-606-578-621-9, 50 lei.

Sapientia Publishing House has recently released the book “The Fascination of the Sacred: From Mircea Eliade to Pope John Paul II”, 2nd edition, revised and expanded, written by Rev. Dr. Wilhelm Dancă. The book is part of the “Treatises on Philosophy” collection, in 14×20 format, has 569 pages, and can be purchased from the Sapientia Bookstore (www.librariasapientia.ro), as well as from other Catholic bookstores across the country, for 50 lei/RON = 9,76€.
Promulgated at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council on December 7, 1965, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, emphasizes, among other things, those “more urgent duties that Christians have regarding culture.” Noting and anticipating the increasingly pronounced drift toward a secularized culture, emptied of the sacred, the Council Fathers urgently called for the rediscovery of harmony between culture and Christianity, a process that must be preceded by an education of the human person toward an integral culture, that is, a culture in which the integrity of the human person is defended and upheld, in which the values of intelligence, will, conscience, and fraternity shine forth—values that are wholly grounded in God the Creator and that have been wonderfully restored and exalted in Christ.
Unfortunately, very few people, within the context of post-conciliar Romanian culture, have received and put into practice the apostolic message. With the exception of figures such as Nicolae Steinhardt (1912-1989), Anton Dumitriu (1905-1992), or Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), we lacked thinkers for whom the harmony between culture and Christianity would have been the framework within which their ideas developed. As prisoners of Marxist-Leninist ideology, we watched helplessly as the sacred was driven from the heart of our culture, our education, and our quiet lives—events with extremely grave consequences. After the revolution of December 1989, things did not change much: official atheism was replaced by other, equally harmful phenomena, such as the secularization characteristic of (post)modern relativism or religious fundamentalism. And yet, signs of hope have also emerged. A generation of thinkers to whom the Christian faith is not foreign—among whom authors such as Teodor Baconsky (1963-), Horia-Roman Patapievici (1957-), and Cristian Bădiliţă (1968-) have distinguished themselves—is striving to rediscover that integral culture, dedicated to the splendor of eternal Truth.
Undoubtedly, Father Wilhelm Dancă is also among the exponents of this generation. With vigor and enthusiasm, he shows us precisely what the royal paths of sacred science are, as they engage in a fruitful dialogue with the values of culture. This is how the title of the present work might be explained, a work we preface with emotion and joy, a title in which two of the most illustrious representatives of 20th-century culture meet: Mircea Eliade—a leading figure of secular culture, open to the values of the sacred—and Pope John Paul II—a devoted servant of the values of sacred culture, open to secular values.
A faithful disciple of the aforementioned “masters,” whose works and activities he presents in dense, erudite yet accessible pages, Father Wilhelm Dancă offers us a perspective in which the harmony between faith and culture is a fully embraced imperative. Addressing highly topical themes in fields such as bioethics, contemporary ecumenism, semiotics, the philosophy and history of religions, mass media, Thomistic philosophy, and fundamental theology, Father Dancă poses the most pressing questions, seeking answers that he expresses in a lively, accessible language. By softening the tone and style of scholarly exposition—through the inclusion of accounts of remarkable encounters (with figures such as Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Basil Hume), or by engaging with authors (François Mauriac, F. M. Dostoevsky) who expressed their faith through the language of literature— W. Dancă offers us the opportunity to rethink those things that are truly important for our lives today and tomorrow. More than a mere work of scholarship, The Fascination of the Sacred. From Mircea Eliade to Pope John Paul II is a work in which the problems of “recent” culture are confronted with its own weapons, from the perspective of humanism developed by authors such as Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, or Thomas Aquinas. As we read through it, we will glean from its pages that integral culture called for by the Second Vatican Council, a threshold of hope beyond which lies the civilization of love proclaimed by Pope John Paul II.

He is a member of the FISP Steering Committee since 2024.