Sandro Magister, whose analysis of curial ineptitude, was referenced here a few days ago (and was cited by Rachel Donadio in yesterday's Times), has posted an analysis of the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr by one of Italy's Niebuhr specialists, Gianni Dessi.Dessi traces the growing influence of Saint Augustine's City of God on Niebuhr's thought, and its possible influence upon President Obama. He concludes:

The realism of St. Augustine, in other words, does not give in to cynicism and indifference toward power, because "while egoism is 'natural' in the sense that it is universal, it is not natural in the sense that it does not conform to man's nature." In fact, "a realism becomes morally cynical or nihilistic when it assumes that the universal characteristic in human behavior must also be regarded as normative. The Biblical account of human behavior, upon which Augustine bases his thought, can escape both the illusions of a too consistent idealism and the cynicism of a too consistent realism because it recognizes that the corruption of human freedom may make a behavior pattern universal without making it normative".The idea of a realism capable of avoiding indifference, cynicism, and the unconditional approval of any form of power, as well as sentimentalism, idealism, and illusion toward politics and human existence, emerges forcefully from Niebuhr's proposed reinterpretation of St. Augustine. It is to this perspective which, as Niebuhr recalled, expresses a disposition rather than a theory that Obama seems to refer.

Read the whole post here.