ABSTRACT
Ivan Illich, iconoclastic historian and social critic, has worked as parish priest, university administrator and professor, centre director, lecturer and author. He is best known in educational circles for the work that he did in the late 1960s and 1970s, particularly his second book, Deschooling Society. Born the eldest of three sons in September of 1926 in Vienna, Austria, Illich's radical devotion to the Church incubated during the turbulent years of his youth. Foreshadowing his existence as a pilgrim and a deliberately itinerant scholar, he spent part of each of the first four years of his life living in Dalmatia, Vienna, and France or wherever his parents happened to be. Immediately upon reporting to Incarnation Parish, he began developing and practising an entirely different approach. First, Illich developed fluency in Spanish within three months of his arrival. At all times, Illich believes, the Church while upholding its prophetic mission must denounce without sanctioning.
