The French philosopher who conquered the world with his embodied thought lands in Madrid with a radical project: an intense year of comprehensive training for young people who reject digital disembodiment and seek to truly live, with faith, art, manual labor and combative hope.

Just a week before the big announcement, the intellectual and Catholic circles of Spain and Latin America are already buzzing with anticipation. On Tuesday, February 17, 2026, at 7:00 p.m., the prestigious Pérez-Llorca Auditorium on the Paseo de la Castellana will host the official presentation of  Incarnatus est , the new humanistic school founded and directed by Fabrice Hadjadj, one of the most original and widely read Catholic thinkers of the last two decades.

Hadjadj, who converted to Catholicism in 1998 after an atheist and nihilistic youth, hasn’t come to Spain to give occasional lectures or sign books. He’s come to stay. Together with his family, he has decided to move his life and his most ambitious educational project to our country. After more than ten years at the helm of the successful Philanthropos Institute in Fribourg, Switzerland, he now sees Spain as the ideal place to cultivate a generation capable of facing the greatest challenges of our time: technological dehumanization, the dictatorship of the virtual, the neglect of the body, the rupture between reason and emotion, and the loss of a transcendent horizon.

Incarnatus est  is not just another university, a master’s program, or a conventional Christian formation course. It is a year of total immersion, designed for young people between approximately 18 and 30 years old, seeking a truly holistic formation. The program organically and rigorously unites:

• The in-depth study of philosophy, literature, theology, and anthropology
• Specific manual labor (carpentry, horticulture, crafts)
• Artistic creation (theater, music, poetry, painting)
• Intense community life
• Liturgical prayer and the spiritual dimension lived in community

The project stems from a radical conviction: in a world that conspires against the incarnation of the human being—that is, against the fact that we are body, soul, history, and relationship—the response cannot be merely intellectual or merely spiritual. We must become incarnate again. Hence the name:  Incarnatus est , “He became incarnate.” The central mystery of Christianity becomes a pedagogical and existential key.

Fabrice Hadjadj explains it bluntly: we live in an age that promotes “the head without hands, reason without heart, faith without body, art without sweat.”  Incarnatus est  seeks to reverse this diabolical logic of disembodiment through a pedagogy that compels students to think with their hands, to pray with their bodies, to create with discipline, and to live with others in truth and charity.

The presentation on February 17th will be an event in itself. The program is as follows:

• 19:00 – Introduction by the organizing team
• 19:15 – Keynote address: “Why  Incarnatus est , today and in Spain?” by Fabrice Hadjadj
• 8:00 PM – Open dialogue with the public
• 20:15 – Fraternization cocktail

The event can also be followed via live streaming, with times adapted to all of Latin America:

• 12:00 in Mexico City,
• 13:00 in Bogotá and Lima,
• 3:00 PM in Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires.

In-person attendance requires mandatory prior confirmation using the  following form .

Why Spain? Hadjadj answers clearly:  because here the Catholic faith still beats in the cultural memory , because the Spanish language allows for immense reach throughout the American continent, because the Hispanic humanistic tradition (from Seneca to Unamuno, from Teresa of Ávila to Ortega) offers fertile ground, and because he perceives in Spanish and Latin American youth a deep thirst for meaning, beauty, and concrete action that does not find an adequate answer in current institutions.

Incarnatus est will begin its first course in the fall of 2026. It is neither an elitist nor a mass school: places will be limited to ensure the intensity of the project and genuine community life. Those interested can now find out more and prepare for the admissions process.

With this initiative, Fabrice Hadjadj is not just bringing a new educational project to Spain: he is proposing an existential and cultural response to the emptiness of the 21st century. A response that doesn’t simply criticize modernity, but dares to build an embodied, beautiful, and hopeful alternative. On February 17th, Madrid will witness the first public step of this endeavor. And many already sense that it will be more than just another event, but the beginning of something much bigger.