Catholicism and Kierkegaard's Existentialism

[goodcatholic]

Is Soren Kierkegaard’s writing on existentialism accepted or refuted by the Catholic Church?
I know that he was more interested in subjective truth which perhaps puts him in conflict with the Catholic way of using faith with rational reason.
And is existentialism in general frowned upon by Catholic theologians and the Church?

 

[Hunho]

So far as I am aware, the Church has never made a judgment on Kierkegaard’s writings. However, I can recommend the article “Kierkegaard for Grownups” by Father Richard John Neuhaus which originally appeared in First Things in October 2004. Be careful of the term existentialism, however, especially in regard to Kierkegaard. Although Kierkegaard is commonly regarded as the “father” of existentialism, he probably would reject being linked to what the mid-twentieth century understood by that term. Kierkegaard was a Christian (a Lutheran by denomination) and focused much of his writings on the nature of a human being’s existence in the presence of God. Twentieth century atheistic existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre are the opposite of what you will find in Kierkegaard’s writings. Kierkegaard had problems with the Danish national church, and attacked it fiercely in some of his works, but he had no problem with the Faith itself.