Avery Cardinal Dulles finally laid to rest
Jun 22, 2009
Our friend is finally resting in peace.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., was buried on June 1 at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, NY. He died on December 12th. A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated December 18th at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick by Cardinal Edward Egan.
Cardinal Dulles was the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University since 1988. He was the first American to become a cardinal without first becoming a bishop.
The Sacrifice of Mass celebrated by Bishop Howard Hubbard for the soul of Cardinal Dulles at the Coliseum Church on the grounds of the shine. The Cardinal received an escort by a pair of Naval officers, in recognition of Cardinal Dulles' military service during Second World War.
The Shrine of the North American Martyrs is the only one of its kind in the USA. There rests the Jesuit martyrs Saints Rene Goupil (1642), Isaac Jogues (1646), John Laland (1646) and others. New York Province Jesuits are buried in the cemetery at the Shrine.
U.S. Catholic Community Bids Farewell to Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
Jan 30, 2009
The life of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., America’s preeminent Catholic theologian, was celebrated on Dec. 18 in a Mass of Christian Burial held at the Cathedral of St. Patrick in New York City.
The Mass drew hundreds of mourners to the cathedral, including Cardinal Dulles’ friends and family, as well as fellow Jesuits and other members of the New York and national Catholic communities.
It was the third and final ceremony honoring Cardinal Dulles, who died Dec. 12 at the age of 90. Masses also were held on Dec. 16 and 17 at the University Church on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus.
Cardinal Dulles was the first American to become a cardinal who had not first become a bishop. The Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham since 1988, he was lauded by New York Archbishop Edward Cardinal Egan as a man of academic rigor and devotion.
In his homily, Cardinal Egan recalled a crucifix he saw 50 years ago in Italy that showed a tortured expression on one side of Christ’s face and a triumphant visage on the other side. He called it a potent symbol of earthly life.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, he said, shared similar characteristics; he had a privileged childhood and achieved numerous triumphs, including stunning academic success, 24 books and nearly 800 published papers.
But he also knew pain. His family, which was Presbyterian, expressed disappointment at his conversion to Catholicism. Also, effects of the polio he contracted as a young man returned in later life, confining Cardinal Dulles in his final years to a wheelchair.
His body’s weakened condition prompted doctors to tell him that he would never write again, but Cardinal Dulles “proved them monumentally wrong,” Cardinal Egan said.
“In the life of our lamented cardinal, there was triumph of the most authentic sense,” he continued. “You have the example of a triumphant life story, never matched, to my knowledge, by any other American Catholic.”
Those in attendance included the children of his eldest brother, John W. F. Dulles, and sister-in-law, Eleanor Dulles: Edith Dulles Lawlis and Ellen Coelho and the children of his sister, Lillias Hinshaw: Janet Hinshaw-Thomas and Foster Hinshaw. Likewise, the Mass was celebrated with longtime friends, including John Murphy, who gave the first reading, and his longtime assistant, Anne-Marie Kirmse, O.P., who gave the second reading.
Family and friends had ample time to pay their respects to Cardinal Dulles. His body lay in state through the morning in the Lady Chapel, a small area on the cathedral’s east side behind the main sanctuary. Visitors streamed by the coffin even as the noon, 12:30 and 1 p.m. daily Masses were celebrated in the rest of the cathedral.
Only at 1:45 p.m. did regular activity cease, as the coffin was moved to the front of the sanctuary. Soon after, the elaborate, highly choreographed Mass of Christian Burial was set into motion.
Near the end, David S. Ciancimino, S.J., provincial of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, thanked Cardinal Egan for his care of and fraternal affection to Cardinal Dulles. Both men were elevated to cardinal in the same 2001 ceremony.
“It will come as no surprise when I tell you that he cherished your friendship. He was especially touched when you traveled to Rose Hill this past August to celebrate his 90th birthday,” Father Ciancimino said.
He also called Cardinal Dulles a “priest’s priest,” and a theologian whose work was marked by a mastery of church tradition as well as creative fidelity to that tradition.
“Cardinal Dulles was all they said he was—theologian, mentor, counselor. He was, however, foremost, a man of the church,” he said. “To us Jesuits, he was also Avery, our brother—our older, wiser brother.”
Cardinal Dulles began his connection with Fordham in 1951, when he was appointed an instructor in philosophy while a Jesuit scholastic. He left Fordham in 1953 to pursue theological studies in preparation for ordination in 1956. After graduate theological studies in Europe, he undertook an academic and priestly career that spanned five decades and included professorships at Woodstock College, the Catholic University of America and several visiting posts at the world’s top universities and seminaries.
In 1988, when he reached the retirement age of 70 in his post as professor of systematic theology at the Catholic University, he returned to Fordham—35 years after he had left—to accept the McGinley chair.
Cardinal Dulles referred to his years as McGinley Professor as the happiest and most satisfying of his life, pleased with the freedom that the position gave him to teach, to lecture and to assume visiting appointments all over the world.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. — A Timeline
Jan 07, 2009
918 Born on Aug. 28 in Auburn, N.Y., the son of future Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Janet Pomeroy Avery.
1940 Graduates Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College.
1941 Applies that summer for a commission in the Naval Reserve and is called into active duty.
1946 Converts to Catholicism in his first year as a Harvard law student.
1946 Enters the Society of Jesus on Aug. 14 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
1951 As a Jesuit scholastic, begins teaching philosophy at Fordham.
1953 Leaves Fordham to pursue theological studies at Woodstock College in Maryland in preparation for his ordination.
1956 Ordained at the University Church on the Rose Hill campus. The ordination is reported on the front page of The New York Times.
1958 Enrolls at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
1960 Completes his dissertation and receives a
doctorate in sacred theology. He begins his 48-year
professorial career.
1962 Becomes one of the chief exponents and
developers of the theology of the Second Vatican Council.
1969 Appointed to serve on the Fordham Board of Trustees.
He would step down in 1972.
1974 Becomes professor of systematic theology at
the Catholic University of America. Models of the Church
is published; it will become his most widely read book.
mid-1970s Criticizes the extremes of the intransigent
wing of Catholic theology as well as the radical reformist wing,
maintaining the need for continuity and accommodation.
1988 Returns to Fordham as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor
of Religion and Society. He delivers the first of 39 McGinley Lectures.
2001 Elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II
on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
2001 Receives the Fordham Founder’s Award.
2008 Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures,
1988-2007 (Fordham University Press, 2008) is published in February.
2008 Gives his final address as Laurence J. McGinley
Professor of Religion and Society on April 1 at
Fordham Preparatory School.
2008 Meets privately with Pope Benedict XVI on April 19
at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie), in Yonkers, N.Y.
2008 Celebrates his 90th birthday on Aug. 24 with family,
fellow Jesuits and friends at Fordham University.
Cardinal Dulles could be the last of his kind
Jan 07, 2009
Earlier this month, Cardinal Avery Dulles died in New York. Dulles was one of the world’s pre-eminent theologians and intellectuals. His absence will be noticed in the public square.
His passing also marks the end of a very particular kind of American life. The Dulles clan was never quite royalty, but it was, in its way, an American version of the British nobility. Three of Avery Dulles’ forebears were secretaries of state. His father had an airport named after him, and his uncle was director of the CIA.
Dulles himself left Harvard Law School to serve in the Navy, where he was distinguished with the Croix de Guerre and also contracted polio. His early life looked something like the traditional upbringing of a young British gentleman. Yet Dulles took a couple of unexpected turns. A Presbyterian by birth, he was fashionably agnostic by the time he reached Harvard. In 1940, he converted to Catholicism. One must understand how radical this was at the time. The Dulles family was the epitome of elite, respectable Protestantism. Catholics were immigrants and laborers, viewed as suspect and perhaps un-American.
But Dulles eventually became a Jesuit and in 1956 was ordained a priest. That event made the front page of The New York Times.
Over the course of his time in the priesthood, Dulles often taught, and he wrote 23 books and more than 700 articles — products of a mind engaged with the world right up until the end. His last book was released in April.
Dulles’ body of work demonstrates an astonishingly lucid mind, linked to a gentle, charitable soul. He explored theological subjects, such as the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, with the same careful inquisitiveness he brought to discussions of societal topics, such as human rights.
Dulles’ most lasting work involved the Second Vatican Council, of which he was an important interpreter and reconciler. It was a task he was born for. “I think of myself as a moderate trying to make peace between opposed schools of thought,” he explained.
Dulles’ particular gifts were grounded in a kind of intellectual modesty that barely exists anymore. He knew what he did not (and could not) know, and he placed enormous value in the sum of human philosophical achievement. “I do not particularly strive for originality,” he remarked toward the end of his life. “If I conceived a theological idea that had never occurred to anyone in the past, I would have every reason to think myself mistaken.”
This humble man became the most important American theologian of the 20th century, and in 2001 Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal — a rare elevation, since Dulles was not a bishop.
Into his 90th year, Dulles continued to inspire, even as his physical condition suddenly deteriorated.
The aftereffects of polio robbed him of his voice and began to paralyze him, forcing him to abandon his teaching duties.
In April, Pope Benedict XVI met privately with him to bless him and say goodbye.
Two weeks earlier, Dulles had delivered his farewell lecture at Fordham.
“Suffering and diminishment are not the greatest of evils, but are normal ingredients in life, especially in old age,” the cardinal said. “If the Lord now calls me to a period of weakness, I know well that his power can be made perfect in infirmity.”
Faith and reason were never better met.
Cardinal Dulles to Have 3 Funeral Masses
Dec 21, 2008
In 2001 he was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, and became the first American priest to become a cardinal without having been a bishop.
NEW YORK (Zenit) - Three funeral Masses for Cardinal Avery Dulles, a U.S. Jesuit theologian who died Friday at the age of 90, are being celebrated in New York.
The New York Province of the Society of Jesus informed of a Mass today for Jesuit religious and seminarians, followed by a Mass on Wednesday for the Fordham University community. After Thursday's Mass of Christian Burial at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Cardinal Dulles will be buried in the Jesuit cemetery in Auriesville, New York. Wakes will be held before each of the Masses.
Avery Dulles was born in 1918 in Auburn, New York. He was raised Presbyterian, became agnostic in college, and converted to Catholicism in 1940. On the eve of his 86th birthday, in an interview with Salt and Light Television, he exclaimed simply that it was his studies that led him to the Catholic faith.
He was ordained a priest of the Society of Jesus in 1956. In that same interview, Cardinal Dulles said that the Jesuit order had been his home ever since he entered, a home that had made him very happy.
Father Dulles served as a professor at Woodstock College, the Catholic University of America, and Fordham University, as well as a visiting faculty member at many other universities.
"I've always been a learner in teaching," the cardinal told Salt and Light, "and I'm always interested in finding out something new for myself so I try not to repeat courses any more than I have to […] so I'm exploring something new." And Cardinal Dulles said he preferred above all teaching graduate students, so they could "criticize and talk back to me and that way, refine my own thinking."
He authored over 700 articles and 22 books on theological topics. In 2001 he was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, and became the first American priest to become a cardinal without having been a bishop.
Reflecting on his theological journey, he said: "By and large, I don't see any great break in my own theology. Other people seem to think my theology has shifted but I think only to the extent that I have addressed new problems that have arisen in different decades. But, I think basically my doctrine has been the same. I've always been adherent to the teaching of the magisterium. I don't remember ever contradicting any official Roman Catholic teaching."
Benedict XVI visited Cardinal Dulles in a private audience during his apostolic trip to the United States last April.
Report: Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, Laid to Rest
Dec 21, 2008
This afternoon, at 2:00, the Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated by Edward Cardinal Egan, archbishop of New York, for Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, in the great space of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
In addition to the Dulles family, his Jesuit brothers, religious and clergy from around the country, representatives from colleges and universities, members of religious communities from New York, and his friends; in attendance were Cardinals Sean O'Malley, Theodore McCarrick, Francis George, William Keeler; as well as Archbishop Celestino Migliore (the Holy See's Permanent Observer to the UN) and Archbishop Pietro Sambi (Vatican nuncio to the United States. Joseph McShane, SJ, president of Fordham; Joseph O'Hare, SJ, emeritus president; as well as former Jesuit provincials, and Fathers Richard John Neuhaus and Benedict Groeschel, were also part of the immense crowd of priest-celebrants. Accompanying the Dulles family was Anne-Marie Kirmse, OP, Cardinal Dulles's longtime assistant, who also read the first reading.
Before the Mass, a selection from Mozart's "Requiem" and the hymn "Abide with Me," floated over the crowd, one speaking of his Latin Catholic faith the other of his Protestant roots. Hundreds of priests, a score of bishops, Jesuit scholastics and brothers, and seminarians from St. Joseph's, the archdiocesan seminary, processed in with the casket to the strains of "For All the Saints."
Cardinal Egan's warm homily took as its central image an ancient crucifix he had seen some 50 years ago in Umbria; from one side the face of Christ appeared contorted in pain; from the other illumined by joy. This image, suggested Egan, could be said to characterize Avery's life, one of triumph and, towards the end, of pain. Of the triumph: "In the life of our lamented cardinal, there was triumph of the most authentic sense," he said. "You have the example of a triumphant life story, never matched, to my knowledge, by any other American Catholic."
As a young man in the Navy, Avery contracted polio, and was told that, because of the paralysis is his arm, he would never write again. "He proved them monumentally wrong," said Egan, referring to the over 800 articles and 23 books written by the Jesuit cardinal.
Cardinal Egan remembered visiting Avery on his 90th birthday at Fordham--when Avery was bedridden, crippled by the recurrence of his polio--for a Mass in his honor. The cardinal wheeled Avery's bed up the aisle of the Fordham chapel, but only with difficulty, as a result of Egan's childhood polio. "I'm afraid it's a case of the lame pushing the lame," said Egan to Dulles.
With that Avery broke into broad smile, and Egan was put in mind of that crucifix.
Fr. David Ciancimino, SJ, the head of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, thanked the cardinal for his gracious words and, especially, the personal attention and friendship that he showed Cardinal Dulles. And he thanked the Dulles family for the gift of Avery to the Society of Jesus and to the Church. The Provincial reminded his listeners that Avery was a model Jesuit--pitching in to celebrate Masses in the Jesuit community, decorating the Christmas trees in the community, doing his own laundry, making his own breakfast, like any Jesuit. While he was a world-famous theologian and a "priest's priest," said Ciancimino, ""To us Jesuits, he was also Avery, our brother—our older, wiser brother."
And, indeed, after Communion, the traditional Jesuit song "Take, Lord, Receive," taken from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, was sung by the congregation, with the Jesuit priests and brothers, as tradition holds, standing.
For the recessional, a familiar tune: "Eternal Father, Strong to Save," the old Navy hymn, set to lyrics expressing Christian hope: "O Lord, You Died That All May Life." Drew Christiansen, SJ, editor of America, recalled that this was one of the old Navy hand's favorites.
Out on Fifth Avenue, at the height of the Christmas season, traffic stopped and the shoppers paused, as the massive procession of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, provincials, abbots, priests, brothers, sisters, friends, family and the faithful poured onto the street. The great bronze doors of St. Patrick's were opened wide, the doors on whose front are the American saints and blesseds. Borne aloft, the dark wooden casket slowly emerged under the bas-relief of Jesus Christ, his arms outstretched in blessing.
As Avery Dulles's body was carried out of the church and into the public square, the crowd erupted in applause.
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
James Martin, SJ
Avery Dulles: Friend, Hero, Christian
Dec 16, 2008
Avery Cardinal Dulles's earthly life, which ended last week, was like something out of a Henry James novel. The scion of a fabled family--his father, John Foster Dulles, was Secretary of State under President Eisenhower--and educated at élite schools, he left his Presbyterian roots for the Roman church and, worse, the Jesuits. (Newsreels covered his 1956 ordination; the footage is now on Youtube.) During World War II, the young man joined the Navy, and won the French Croix de Guerre.
Dulles's conversion from agnosticism came during his undergraduate years at Harvard. As described in his autobiography, his turn to God was half in response to philosophical inquiry, half in response to noticing a tree in springtime, its little buds "in all innocence and meekness" following an unseen law that called to the student. His subsequent career as a Jesuit priest and theologian was, by all accounts, extraordinary. By the time of his death, he had written roughly 800 scholarly articles and 23 books; was considered the dean of American Catholic theologians; and was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II--the only American Jesuit ever to receive that honor.
Over the last ten years of his life, I was fortunate to come to know a serious scholar who did not take himself too seriously. In October 2001, I was asked to accompany the great man to Boston, where he would receive one of his many awards, at a fundraising dinner. Before we boarded the train near Fordham University in New York, where Avery taught theology, I asked how he felt about the accolade. "I haven't really done anything to deserve it," he said. What about the books, the articles, the lectures? "I suppose," he said, "But I still feel awkward."
We arrived in Boston with barely enough time to dress in the Jesuit community where we were lodging. "Come by my room when you're ready," he said. An hour later, I knocked on his door. When he opened the door he was resplendent in his cardinal's black cassock with red piping, and the grand ferraiolo, or scarlet cape. At age 82, Cardinal Dulles couldn't reach the lowest buttons of his cassock so I knelt down to help. "How do I look?" he said with a sly smile. "As my mother would say," I told him, "you look very handsome." His patrician bearing was evident no matter what he wore; that night, the lanky Jesuit looked like Cardinal Abe Lincoln.
The next morning we caught the 8 a.m. train back to New York. (His Protestant work ethic, undimmed by his Catholicism, opted for the earliest train we could make.) Back at Fordham, a few Jesuits asked how things were in Boston; the country was still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks. "People in Boston were upset that two of the planes that hit the World Trade Center came from Logan airport," I explained, relating what I heard the night before. Avery said, "How do you think I feel? One of them came from Dulles!"
That was one of the rare times he referred to that place, out of humility. Once, during a stay in Washington, D.C., a young Jesuit was assigned to drive Avery to the airport. He asked, "Which airport are we going to, Father? National or...?" Father Dulles said, "The other one!"
Given his lightheartedness, it seemed appropriate that, in 2001, during the Vatican ceremony when he was made a cardinal, Pope John Paul II placed the customary red biretta on Avery's head, and it toppled into the pope's lap. No one enjoyed telling that story more than the new cardinal. And he enjoyed recounting a tale from his Navy days, when as officer of the watch, he ordered his ship to fire on a German U-Boat in the Caribbean. When dawn came, Ensign Dulles realized that had bombarded a coral reef.
Avery was quietly generous to me, as to so many others. When I wrote about a topic I thought might prove controversial, Cardinal Dulles, in his late 80s, patiently read through a 400-page manuscript. He didn't have to tackle the whole thing, I explained, worried about the demands on his time. If he wanted, he could read only the part in question. "Of course I want to read the whole thing," he said. "How else will I understand it in its full context?" A few weeks later he sent a gracious note saying that all was in accord with "faith and morals." Later, in a phone call, he said the old teacher couldn't resist making a few minor corrections: Was I sure about the spelling of the name of St. Thomas Aquinas's mother? He signed off his calls with Naval precision: "Over and out!"
Avery was a model Jesuit. During a 2001 interview for America, he told me the he felt being a cardinal betokened a responsibility to accept more speaking engagements, even at his advanced age. The son of John Foster Dulles taught his friends what it means to be, in Jesuit lingo, a "man for others." Or, to use two old-fashioned words, what it means to be humble and kind. Or, in more common parlance, what it means to be a Christian.
James Martin, a Jesuit priest, is associate editor of America magazine and author of "My Life with the Saints."
Avery Dulles, 90; Prominent Catholic Cardinal, Theologian
Dec 16, 2008
Cardinal Avery Dulles, 90, a former professor at Catholic University who was born into a family of elite Protestant diplomats and became one of the country's most prominent Catholic theologians, died Dec. 12 at an infirmary at Fordham University in New York. Stricken with polio when young, he had post-polio syndrome, which led to progressive muscular and pulmonary deterioration.
Cardinal Dulles, who was appointed to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II in 2001, was the first academic to be named to the Catholic Church's highest advisory council, as well as the first who had never served as a bishop.
Cardinal Dulles, a very tall and thin figure, was known for his unusual spiritual journey and came to be considered a calm statesman of Catholicism during a time of great turmoil.
Through more than 20 books and 800 articles, he articulated a conservative if tolerant case for Catholicism and the church's positions on contraception, sexuality, the role of women and clergy sex abuse. He served as a bridge between the Vatican and the more liberal American Catholic dissidents after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. In his later years, he was seen more as an advocate of orthodoxy and said church sanctions against priests charged in sex abuse scandals were too extreme.
He was the son of former secretary of state John Foster Dulles, who served under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His uncle, Allen Dulles, was CIA director from 1953 to 1961.
Cardinal Dulles wrote and spoke often of his conversion to Catholicism, a faith still looked at skeptically by many Protestants in 1940, when he joined the church. Among the skeptics was his father, who was initially embarrassed about his son's religious path but later reconciled with him.
Avery Robert Dulles was born Aug. 24, 1918, in Auburn, N.Y., and grew up in a patrician Presbyterian family. His grandfather was a Presbyterian minister, and a great-grandfather and great-uncle had both served as secretaries of state.
Cardinal Dulles, who wrote about his spiritual journey in his autobiographical "A Testimonial to Grace" (1946), considered himself an agnostic when he entered Harvard College in the 1930s. He was drawn to Catholicism by his readings of the poet Dante Alighieri and the Catholic philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas. The concept of objective moral standards appealed to him, but his spiritual quest was crystallized during a walk in Cambridge, Mass., when he looked at nature and began to see a governing purpose to the world.
"It was a matter of becoming aware of this reality behind everything that existed," he said in a 2001 interview in the New York Times Magazine. "That evening when I got back to my room, I think I prayed for the first time."
After graduating from Harvard in 1940, he served in the Navy during World War II and attended Harvard Law School for a few semesters before entering the Society of Jesus in 1946. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1956.
He received a doctorate in theology in 1960 from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and taught at Woodstock College, a now-closed seminary in Maryland, from 1960 to 1974. He was a theology professor at Catholic University from 1974 to 1988.
He wrote and lectured on many topics relating to Catholicism, with a specialty in ecclesiology, or the mission of the church in the world. Through his teaching and writing, Cardinal Dulles became "the United States' preeminent theologian," Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl said in a statement.
Cardinal Dulles was at Catholic University when the Vatican disciplined many theologians who publicly disagreed with church authorities on a host of issues, including contraception, premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia. Cardinal Dulles sat on a faculty committee that defied the Vatican by recommending against the removal of a dissident theologian, but he did not speak out publicly against the church.
He said that he was opposed to the punishment of dissidents but that he could not support theologians and priests who routinely went against the church's teachings. His goal was to unify Catholics, he wrote, and to be a liaison between the Vatican and more free-thinking theologians.
After retiring from Catholic University, Cardinal Dulles joined the faculty at Fordham University, where he taught until last year. He served as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society in the 1970s and was also a member of the International Theological Commission, the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue and a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine.
He had no immediate survivors.
The Pope on "Herr Professor"
Dec 15, 2008
Everyone might've wanted to see Benedict XVI during his three days in New York last April... but there was one person the pontiff himself was especially keen to have some time with.
Whispers in the Loggia, Saturday, December 13, 2008
The Pope on "Herr Professor"
Everyone might've wanted to see Benedict XVI during his three days in New York last April... but there was one person the pontiff himself was especially keen to have some time with.
And so, at Joseph Ratzinger's explicit request, Avery Dulles was brought to St Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie for a special private audience before Benedict emerged to address the 30,000 youth gathered on the grounds.
Bound to be moving however it shook out, the last encounter between the two longtime friends and heavyweights of the discipline -- the Jesuit once called the Bavarian "one of the ablest living theologians" -- was made all the more poignant when the Pope switched his salutation from the Italian ecclesiastical "Eminenza" to "Herr Professor," the affectionate honorific of the German classroom.
Believed to have played a role in Dulles' historic elevation to the College of Cardinals in 2001, earlier this morning B16 -- who drew upon the American dean's counsel and expertise in his days as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- sent the following telegram on the cardinal's death at 90 yesterday to Cardinal Edward Egan, the archbishop of New York.
HAVING LEARNED WITH SADNESS OF THE DEATH OF CARDINAL AVERY DULLES, I OFFER YOU MY HEARTFELT CONDOLENCES, WHICH I ASK YOU KINDLY TO CONVEY TO HIS FAMILY, HIS CONFRERES IN THE SOCIETY OF JESUS AND THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY OF FORDHAM UNIVERSITY. I JOIN YOU IN COMMENDING THE LATE CARDINAL’S NOBLE SOUL TO GOD, THE FATHER OF MERCIES, WITH IMMENSE GRATITUDE FOR THE DEEP LEARNING, SERENE JUDGMENT AND UNFAILING LOVE OF THE LORD AND HIS CHURCH WHICH MARKED HIS ENTIRE PRIESTLY MINISTRY AND HIS LONG YEARS OF TEACHING AND THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH. AT THE SAME TIME I PRAY THAT HIS CONVINCING PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO THE HARMONY OF FAITH AND REASON WILL CONTINUE TO BEAR FRUIT FOR THE CONVERSION OF MINDS AND HEARTS AND THE PROGRESS OF THE GOSPEL FOR MANY YEARS TO COME. TO ALL WHO MOURN HIM IN THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION I CORDIALLY IMPART MY APOSTOLIC BLESSING AS A PLEDGE OF CONSOLATION AND PEACE IN OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
Le cardinal Avery Dulles s’est éteint aujourd’hui
Dec 13, 2008
Il avait rencontré Benoît XVI en avril dernier.
ROME, Vendredi 12 décembre 2008 (ZENIT.org) - Le cardinal Avery Dulles s'est éteint ce vendredi aux Etats-Unis, à New York, indique le site catholicnewsagency.com, à l'âge de 90 ans. Il était jésuite et professeur de sociologie de la religion à l'Université Fordham, où il est mort.
Il avait rencontré Benoît XVI lors d'une audience privée, au cours du voyage du pape aux Etats-Unis, en avril dernier.
C'est Jean-Paul II qui l'avait « créé » cardinal au consistoire du 21 février 2001, mais âgé de plus de 80 ans, il n'était pas électeur en cas de conclave.
Né en 1918 à Auburn (États-Unis), il était fils du secrétaire d'État John Foster Dulles et neveu d'Allen Welsh Dulles.
Ancien presbytérien, il devint un temps agnostique. Mais c'est au cours de ses études à Harvard qu'il embrassa le catholicisme.
Il servit ensuite dans la marine américaine, où il reçut la croix de guerre pour ses combats aux côtés de l'armée française.
Au lendemain de la guerre, en 1946, Avery Dulles entra dans la Compagnie de Jésus et il fut ordonné prêtre en 1956. Il passa une année en Allemagne avant de partir étudier à Rome, à l'Université pontificale grégorienne des Jésuites, où il obtint un doctorat en théologie.
Il enseigna ensuite au collège Woodstock de 1960 à 1974 et à l'Université catholique d'Amérique de 1974 à 1988.
Professeur invité dans plusieurs facultés de théologie, il reçut de nombreux prix pour ses contributions à la science théologique : il est en effet l'auteur de plus de 700 articles et de 22 livres.
Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., RIP
Dec 12, 2008
Cardinal Avery Dulles, a Jesuit, a scion of one of America’s most prominent political families, and widely considered a giant of 20th century Catholic theology in the United States, has died at the age of 90.
Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., RIP
All Things Catholic by JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Published:
December 10, 2008
Cardinal Avery Dulles, a Jesuit, a scion of one of America’s most prominent political families, and widely considered a giant of 20th century Catholic theology in the United States, has died at the age of 90.
Dulles was in residence at Murray-Weigel Hall at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York at the time of his death.
Born in 1918, Dulles was the son of the future U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and the nephew of Allen Dulles, who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, both during the Eisenhower administration. Two other more distant relatives also served as U.S. Secretaries of State.
The future Jesuit priest was raised Presbyterian, and declared himself agnostic at the start of his student days at Harvard in the late 1930s. At the university, however, he came into contact with Catholic thought, and converted to Catholicism in 1940. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Dulles entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained to the priesthood in 1956.
Those were the years of ferment in the build-up to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and as a budding theologian, Dulles reflected the intellectual excitement of that era. He taught at the Jesuit-run Woodstock College from 1960 to 1974, and then at the Catholic University of America from 1974 to 1988.
Over the years, Dulles published 23 books and some 750 articles. Perhaps his best-known book was 1974’s Models of the Church, in which Dulles outlined five different images of the church that have developed over the centuries, from “institution,” “mystical communion” and “sacrament” to “herald” and “servant.” Though Dulles regarded each as valid on its own terms, most readers in the immediate post-Vatican II period regarded the images of “herald” and “servant” as best reflecting the council’s vision, and tended to see Dulles as part of the broadly “progressive” theological outlook associated with Vatican II.
As the post-conciliar period gave way to the John Paul years, however, Dulles began to give voice -- along with a broad swath of Catholic opinion -- to doubts about whether some of the reforms and innovations associated with Vatican II had perhaps led to a weakened sense of Catholic identity.
In a 2006 interview with NCR, for example, Dulles expressed deep admiration for both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but added that if he had any criticism, it might be that both men were perhaps “not traditional enough” on some issues, such as the death penalty and the church’s teaching on a just war.
Whatever conclusions Dulles reached, they were always informed by deep learning and considerable generosity to opposing views. Perhaps in recognition of that, Dulles served at various points as president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society. Over the years, he was also deeply involved in ecumenical relations, including the United States Lutheran/Roman Catholic dialogue.
In 2001, Pope John Paul II elevated Dulles to the College of Cardinals, the first American-born theologian who was not a bishop to receive the honor. In a typical gesture of humility, Dulles insisted at the time that the pope meant to honor “North American theology” rather than him personally.
During his April visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI met privately with Dulles, in what amounted to a farewell. During that 15-minute session, Benedict said he remembered fondly the work Dulles had done for the International Theological Commission, an advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, during the time then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger served as prefect.
Dulles had a wide circle of friends, among whom he was admired for his keen sense of humor, deep personal calm, and a prodigious work ethic.
Last April, Dulles delivered a farewell lecture as the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Fordham. By that stage confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak for prolonged periods, Dulles prepared a speech that was read on his behalf.
In that address, Dulles wrote that his aim had always been “to incorporate the valid insights of all parties to the discussion, rather than perpetuate a one-sided view that is partial and incomplete.”
“I think of myself as a moderate trying to make peace between (opposing) schools of thought. While doing so, however, I insist on logical consistency. Unlike certain relativists of our time, I abhor mixtures of contradiction,” Dulles said.
He also confirmed his deep faith.
Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., RIP
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Published:
December 10, 2008
“The most important thing about my career, and many of yours, I feel sure, is the discovery of the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field -- the Lord Jesus himself,” Dulles said.
Dulles held 28 honorary doctorates, along with virtually every major award bestowed upon theologians and distinguished intellectuals. His death brings the number of American cardinals down to 16, with 13 under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote for the next pope.
Cardinal Avery Dulles passes away at Fordham
Dec 12, 2008
This morning, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Cardinal Avery Dulles died at the age of 90 at Murray-Weigel Hall, located at Fordham University in New York.
New York, Dec 12, 2008 / 12:45 pm (CNA).- This morning, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Cardinal Avery Dulles died at the age of 90 at Murray-Weigel Hall, located at Fordham University in New York.
According to America Magazine, the New York Province of the Society of Jesus released a statement reporting that the cardinal passed away around 6:30 this morning.
Cardinal Dulles was born August 24, 1918 in New York to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. He was raised as a Protestant but converted to Catholicism while studying at Harvard.
The prelate was ordained on June 16, 1956 and went on to teach at Woodstock College and the Catholic University of America. He authored 21 books, wrote over 650 articles and was named President of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society.
He was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001.
Cardinal Avery Dulles, Theologian, Is Dead at 90
Dec 12, 2008
Cardinal Avery Dulles, a scion of diplomats and Presbyterians who converted to Roman Catholicism, rose to pre-eminence in Catholic theology and became the only American theologian ever appointed to the College of Cardinals, died today died Friday morning at Fordham University in the Bronx. He was 90.
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
The New York Times
December 12, 2008
Cardinal Avery Dulles, a scion of diplomats and Presbyterians who converted to Roman Catholicism, rose to pre-eminence in Catholic theology and became the only American theologian ever appointed to the College of Cardinals, died today died Friday morning at Fordham University in the Bronx. He was 90. His death, at the Jesuit infirmary at the university, was confirmed by the New York Province of the Society of Jesus in Manhattan.
Cardinal Dulles, a professor of religion at Fordham University for the last 20 years, was a prolific author and lecturer and an elder statesman of Catholic theology in America. He was also the son of John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the nephew of Allen Dulles, who guided European espionage during World War II and later directed the Central Intelligence Agency.
A conservative theologian in an era of liturgical reforms and rising secularism, Cardinal Dulles wrote 27 books and 800 articles, mostly on theology; advised the Vatican and America’s bishops, and staunchly defended the pope and his church against demands for change on abortion, artificial birth control, priestly celibacy, the ordination of women and other issues.
His task as a theologian, the Cardinal often said, was to honor diversity and dissent but ultimately to articulate the traditions of the church and to preserve Catholic unity.
When Pope John Paul II designated dozens of new cardinals in early 2001, there were three from the United States. Archbishops Edward M. Egan of New York and Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington were unsurprising choices; it is common for heads of archdioceses to be given red hats. But the selection of Father Dulles was extraordinary. Although his was an influential voice in American Catholicism, he was not even a bishop, let alone an archbishop.
The appointment was widely seen as a reward for his loyalty to the pope, but also an acknowledgment of his work in keeping lines of communication open between the Vatican and Catholic dissenters in America. Cardinal Dulles considered it an honorary appointment. He was 82, two years past the age of voting with other cardinals in electing a new pope.
His investiture with 43 other scarlet-robed cardinals in Rome on Feb. 21, 2001, almost came unstuck. The last to step up to the pope’s golden throne to receive his biretta, the red silk hat of office, Cardinal Dulles approached with his cane, knelt and was accoutered. But as he embraced the pope, his biretta fell to the ground: a humbling at the great moment, he recalled wryly.
Indeed, he was typically self-deprecating, and soft-spoken, a bit awkward: a lanky, 6-foot 2-inch beanpole with a high forehead, a shock of dark hair going gray and a gaunt face with sharp features. Abraham Lincoln without the beard came to mind.
His spiritual passage to Catholicism was like a fable. A young scholar with a searching mind, he stirred from his establishment Presbyterian family to face questions of faith and dogma. By the time he entered Harvard in 1936, he was an agnostic.
In his second book, “A Testimonial to Grace,” a 1946 account of his conversion, Cardinal Dulles said his doubts about God on entering Harvard were not diminished by his studies of medieval art, philosophy and theology. But on a gray February day in 1939, strolling along the Charles River in Cambridge, he saw a tree in bud and experienced a profound moment.
“The thought came to me suddenly, with all the strength and novelty of a revelation, that these little buds in their innocence and meekness followed a rule, a law of which I as yet knew nothing,” he wrote. “That night, for the first time in years, I prayed.”
His conversion in 1940, the year he graduated from Harvard, shocked his family and friends, he said, but he called it the best and most important decision of his life.
He joined the Jesuits and went on to a career as a major Catholic thinker that spanned five decades.
His tenure coincided with broad shifts in theological ideas as well as sweeping changes brought on by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. These provided new understandings of how the church, after centuries of isolation from modern thought and even hostility to it, should relate to other faiths and to religious liberty in an age when the church was gaining millions of new followers in diverse cultures.
Cardinal Dulles devoted much of his scholarship to interpretations of the Vatican Council’s changes, which he said had been mistaken by some theologians as a license to push in democratic directions. The church, he counseled, should guard its sacred teachings against secularism and modernization.
“Christianity,” he said in a 1994 speech, “would dissolve itself if it allowed its revealed content, handed down in tradition, to be replaced by contemporary theories.”
Theological and academic colleagues, including many who disagreed with him, said Cardinal Dulles had set high standards of intellectual integrity, fairness in judgments and lucidity in lectures, essays and books. They said his was often a voice of mediation between the church and American Catholics who challenged church teachings.
In “The Reshaping of Catholicism” (Harper & Row, 1988), he wrote that the Vatican Council had acknowledged the possibility that the church could fall into serious error and might require reform, that the laity had a right to an active role and that the church needed to respect regional and local differences. But he also emphasized that “a measure of conservatism is inseparable from authentic Christianity.”
Avery Robert Dulles was born in Auburn, N.Y., on Aug. 24, 1918, the son of John Foster and Janet Pomeroy Avery Dulles. His family was steeped in public service. Besides his father, who was secretary of state from 1953 to 1959, and uncle, who directed the C.I.A. from 1953 to 1961, his great-grandfather, John Watson Foster, was secretary of state under President Benjamin Harrison, and a great-uncle, Robert Lansing, held the post under President Woodrow Wilson. Avery’s grandfather, Allen Macy Dulles, was a Presbyterian theologian and co-founder of the American Theological Society.
Avery Dulles attended primary schools in New York City and private secondary schools in Switzerland and New England, but had no strict Presbyterian upbringing.
He attended Harvard Law School for a year and a half before joining the Naval Reserve as a World War II intelligence officer. In 1946, he joined the Society of Jesus, began training for the priesthood and was ordained in 1956 by Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York.
He took a doctorate in theology at the Gregorian University in Rome in 1960, taught at Woodstock College in Maryland from 1960 to 1974 and at the Catholic University of America in Washington from 1974 to 1988, then joined the faculty at Fordham as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society.
Cardinal Dulles served as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America in 1975-76 and of the American Theological Society in 1978-79. His books include “Models of the Church,” (Doubleday, 1974), a theological best-seller that appeared in many languages; “A Church to Believe In: Discipleship and the Dynamics of Freedom,” (Crossroad, 1982) on American Catholic theological concerns, and “The Splendor of Faith: The Theological vision of Pope John Paul II,” (Crossroads, 1999).
The cardinal is survived by eight nieces and nephews. His brother, John Watson Foster Dulles, an author and professor, died in San Antonio on June 23, and a sister, Lillias Pomeroy Dulles Hinshaw, died in 1987. Cardinal Dulles remained an active voice in the church into the new century, responding when the church confronted sexual abuse scandals involving hundreds of priests in the United States. After the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a national policy barring from ministerial duties any priest who had ever sexually abused a minor, Cardinal Dulles said the policy ignored priests’ rights of due process.
“In their effort to protect children, to restore public confidence in the church as an institution and to protect the church from liability suits, the bishops opted for an extreme response,” he said. He noted that the policy imposed a “one-size-fits-all” punishment, even if an offense was decades old and had not been repeated. “Such action seems to reflect an attitude of vindictiveness to which the church should not yield.”
Cardinal Avery Dulles at 90
Sept 03, 2008
His body ravaged by the post-polio syndrome that's left him unable to communicate, but with his mind still said to be sharp as ever, the Fordham Jesuit community hosted an intimate 90th birthday celebration last week for its own Cardinal Avery Dulles.
Whispers in the Loggia, Tuesday, September 02, 2008
His body ravaged by the post-polio syndrome that's left him unable to communicate, but with his mind still said to be sharp as ever, the Fordham Jesuit community hosted an intimate 90th birthday celebration last week for its own Cardinal Avery Dulles.
Confined to his wheelchair, the famed convert -- whose 28th book rolled out earlier this year, with another (on evangelization) said to be on the way -- even got an assist from his classmate at the consistory of 2001 as New York's Cardinal Edward Egan moved onlookers by rolling Dulles to his place for a special Mass, staying at the Jesuit's side in house cassock as opposed to vesting for the altar. At a subsequent reception, the Gotham prelate -- ever more a "Big Daddy"-figure to the New York Jesuits -- led a toast to his Bronx-based confrere before cutting the birthday cake in his stead.
Visited by Pope Benedict a month before his farewell address had to be delivered for him while he looked on, the condition of the only American priest directly elevated to the college of cardinals has declined significantly over recent weeks. So cerebral that he once put his laundry in a dishwasher, a friend said that "even now, you can still see the mind just working away" in his room at Fordham's Jesuit infirmary, where his longtime circle of confreres, friends, students and admirers -- led by his top aide of 20 years, Dominican Sr Anne-Marie Kirmse -- still keep him close company and appraised of everything.
A Navy man in World War II who invariably outpaced much younger company into his late 80s, Dulles traveled extensively -- often by himself -- until last year, when his collaborators finally prevailed on him to decline any further invitations. Now in his twilight, the following passage from his memoir is made all the more poignant:
"Although I cannot rival the generous dedication of St. Paul and Ignatius of Loyola, I am, like them, content to be employed in the service of Christ and the Gospel, whether in sickness or health, in good repute or ill.
"I am immesurably grateful for the years in which the Lord has permitted me to serve him in a society that bears as its motto: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
"I trust that his grace will not fail me, and that I will not fail his grace, in the years to come."
Kardinal Avery Dulles wird 90
Sept 02, 2008
Kardinal Avery Dulles wird am Sonntag 90. Erst im April hatte sich Dulles als langjähriger Professor der New Yorker Jesuiten-Universität Fordham verabschiedet. Er ist der erste Amerikaner, der in Würdigung seines theologischen Werkes zum Kardinal ernannt wurde (2001). Dulles verfasste 22 Bücher und erhielt mehr als 30 Ehrendoktorate.
Washington, 21.8.08 (KAP) Er habe sich immer als Vermittler zwischen entgegengesetzten Denkrichtungen verstanden, sagte der Jesuitenpater im April in seiner Fordham-Abschiedsrede. Nach Originalität und einer neuen Schule habe er nie gesucht.
Dulles wurde am 24. August 1918 in Auburn im Bundesstaat New York als Sohn des späteren Außenministers John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) geboren. Während seines Studiums von Philosophie, Kunst, Theologie, Jura und Literatur an der Harvard-Universität konvertierte er 1940 zur katholischen Kirche. Nach vierjährigem Dienst bei der Marine wurde er 1946 Mitglied des Jesuitenordens; 1956 weihte ihn der damalige New Yorker Erzbischof, Kardinal Francis Spellman, zum Priester.
Nach einer Promotion an der Gregoriana in Rom lehrte Dulles an der Universität Woodstock in Maryland, der Catholic University of America und seit 1988 an der Fordham University. Als Folge von Kinderlähmung, mit der er bei der Marine angesteckt wurde, ist er mittlerweile an den Rollstuhl gefesselt.
(fordham.edu, June 30, 2008) Family, colleagues and close friends of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., gathered Tuesday, April 1, to hear the esteemed theologian’s final McGinley Lecture.
Former Fordham president Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., delivered the remarks, titled “Farewell Address as Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society (1988-2008),” from the Leonard Theatre at Fordham Preparatory School.
In his lecture, Cardinal Dulles, the first American-born theologian to be made a cardinal without first becoming a bishop, said that a polio infection he suffered in 1945 while in the Navy had now rendered him unable to continue teaching. He called his time as McGinley Professor a personal climax, and said that the most important aspect of his career was the discovery of “the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, the Lord Jesus himself.”
He also took time to summarize the overriding themes of his lectures, which he said he took great pains to make relevant and understandable to educated Christians.
“When in these lectures I affirm that Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross, or that he makes himself substantially present in the Eucharist, or that the gate to salvation is a narrow one, or that priestly ordination is reserved to men, or that capital punishment is sometimes warranted, in each case I am willingly adhering to the testimony of Scripture and perennial Catholic tradition,” he said.
Cardinal Dulles and the Rev. Robert Imbelli, Ph.D., associate professor of theology at Boston College, sat on stage during the presentation. Father Imbelli, delivered a response to the speech, the 39th in Cardinal Dulles’ 20 years as McGinley Professor. He praised the cardinal’s willingness to listen carefully to others before making up his mind, and listed four ways in which he fulfilled the Ignatian vision, including resistance to any sundering of Jesus from his body, the church.
“To say, as some do today, ‘Jesus yes, church no,’ would be to speak nonsense for Ignatius Loyola and makes no sense for Avery Dulles. Not for Ignatius nor for Dulles is the church some platonic entity floating above history or possessing a merely invisible nature,” Father Imbelli said. “Rather the church of Christ concretely immersed in history subsists in visible form in the Catholic Church, in hierarchical communion with the successor of Peter and the college of bishops in union with him.”
He also noted that if love for Fordham is a characteristic of the Dulles’ legacy, an even more defining feature is his love for the Society of Jesus.
“In my forward to the McGinley Lectures volume, I suggest that one may profitably read these collected essays as so many salvings of the Ignatian charism,” Father Imbelli said. “Brought to bear are crucial theological and social issues of our day.”
Calling him a great priest, a joy of the Society of Jesus and a treasure of the University, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, bestowed on Cardinal Dulles the President’s Medal, the University’s highest honor.
“I am embarrassed to tell you, you who have given us golden wisdom, that [the medal] is only sterling silver,” Father McShane said. “I console myself, however, with the realization that at the center of the medal which bears the great seal of the University, stands the holy name, the pearl of great price, Jesus himself.”
The lecture was published in the April 21 issue of America Magazine.
The nobility of Cardinal Dulles
Jun 07, 2008
If the United States had a nobility, Avery Dulles would have been born into it. His great-grandfather, John W. Foster, and his great-uncle, Robert Lansing, both served as Secretary of State. So did his father, John Foster Dulles, who also negotiated the post-World War II peace treaty with Japan.
(Tidings, June 6, 2008) Avery Dulles's uncle, Allen Dulles, was a legendary World War II spymaster and the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Aunt Eleanor, whom many thought more formidable than her brothers, Foster and Allen, negotiated the Austrian State Treaty that pried the Red Army out of Vienna in 1955.
How did all this staunch Presbyterian stock produce a Catholic convert, a Jesuit priest, and the first American theologian to be raised to the cardinalate?
The answer is encoded in the motto on Cardinal Avery Dulles's coat-of-arms, Scio cui credidi [I know in Whom I have believed]: St. Paul's simple-yet-profound explanation to Timothy of why he was not concerned about his sufferings or his future. That faith came to Avery Dulles in stages. He left prep school an agnostic, but a chance encounter with a blossoming tree on a soggy day during his undergraduate years at Harvard inspired the conviction that the world was governed by "an all-good and omnipotent God," as he later put it. How might that conviction be embodied institutionally, though?
Slowly, Avery Dulles came to appreciate the subtlety, depth and coherent structure of Catholic doctrine. Here was the truth, nobly expressed: the only possible response was to adhere to it, heart, mind and soul. That is what Avery Dulles has done for 68 years, since he entered the Catholic Church in 1940.
That adherence to the truth of Catholic faith has been the organizing principle of his extensive theological work --- more than 20 books, and over 700 articles. Avery Dulles has been a theologian of the tradition, explicating ancient truths, stretching them a bit, exploring their implications, but never seeking cheap originality or sound-bite fame.
That modesty of purpose has gone hand-in-hand with an evangelical modesty of person. One does not often see cardinals of the Holy Roman Church repairing their shoes with duct tape, or walking across campus in cheap blue windbreakers; the cardinal's sartorial style would cause pain at Men's Wearhouse (not to mention Brooks Brothers).
There is no affectation here, though; Avery Dulles took a vow of poverty when he entered the Society of Jesus and he has kept it, as he has kept his vows of chastity, obedience to superiors, and that special obedience to the Pope which is the distinguishing hallmark of classic Ignatian life.
His nomination as a cardinal came as a complete surprise to him, if not to others. The night it was announced, my wife and I were entertaining friends who were also close to Father Dulles. As dinner began, the phone rang: it was the newly-nominated cardinal, who brushed aside my congratulations and asked whether it was possible for him to be dispensed from the canonical requirement of becoming a bishop. I assured him that the dispensation would be readily given, as it had been for other elderly theologians whom John Paul II honored with the red hat; there was a sigh of relief at the other end of the phone. The whole exchange was yet another expression of Avery's modesty.
Still, cardinals employ the miter and crozier when they preside liturgically. So on the night of February 23, 2001, Cardinal Avery Dulles processed into the Church of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary to take possession of his Roman "title," vested as none of us had ever seen him before. At which point Jody Bottum, now editor of First Things, leaned over and whispered, "Now we know what Abraham Lincoln would have looked like in full pontificals."
Suffering today from the ravages of post-polio syndrome, the cardinal's humble, even grateful submission to the will of God is a model for us all. Avery Dulles, a noble soul, knows in Whom he has believed. That has made all the difference.
George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Who Can Be Saved?
Jun 06, 2008
by Avery Cardinal Dulles.
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (February 2008).
Nothing is more striking in the New Testament than the confidence with which it proclaims the saving power of belief in Christ. Almost every page confronts us with a decision of eternal consequence: Will we follow Christ or the rulers of this world? The gospel is, according to Paul, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (Rom. 1:16). The apostles and their associates are convinced that in Jesus they have encountered the Lord of Life and that he has brought them into the way that leads to everlasting blessedness. By personal faith in him and by baptism in his name, Christians have passed from darkness to light, from error to truth, and from sin to holiness.
Paul is the outstanding herald of salvation through faith. To the Romans he writes, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). Faith, for him, is inseparable from baptism, the sacrament of faith. By baptism, the Christian is immersed in the death of Christ so as to be raised with him to newness of life (Rom. 6:3-4).
The Book of Acts shows the apostles preaching faith in Christ as the way to salvation. Those who believe the testimony of Peter on the first Pentecost ask him what they must do to be saved. He replies that they must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and thereby save themselves from the present crooked generation (Acts 2:37-40). When Peter and John are asked by the Jewish religious authorities by what authority they are preaching and performing miracles, they reply that they are acting in the name of Jesus Christ and that “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Paul and his associates bring the gospel first of all to the Jews because it is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. When the Jews in large numbers reject the message, Paul and Barnabas announce that they are turning to the Gentiles in order to bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 13:46-47).
A few chapters later in Acts, we see Paul and Silas in prison at Philippi. When their jailer asks them, “What must I do to be saved?” they reply, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” The jailer and his family at once accept baptism and rejoice in their newfound faith (Acts 16:30-34).
The same doctrine of salvation permeates the other books of the New Testament. Mark’s gospel ends with this missionary charge: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16).
John in his gospel speaks no less clearly. Jesus at one point declares that those who hear his word and believe in him do not remain in darkness, whereas those who reject him will be judged on the last day (John 12:44-50). At the Last Supper, Jesus tells the Twelve, “This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). John concludes the body of his gospel with the statement that he has written his account “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).
From these and many other texts, I draw the conclusion that, according to the primary Christian documents, salvation comes through personal faith in Jesus Christ, followed and signified by sacramental baptism.
The New Testament is almost silent about the eternal fate of those to whom the gospel has not been preached. It seems apparent that those who became believers did not think they had been on the road to salvation before they heard the gospel. In his sermon at Athens, Paul says that in times past God overlooked the ignorance of the pagans, but he does not say that these pagans were saved. In the first chapter of Romans, Paul says that the Gentiles have come to a knowledge of God by reasoning from the created world, but that they are guilty because by their wickedness they have suppressed the truth and fallen into idolatry. In the second chapter of Romans, Paul indicates that Gentiles who are obedient to the biddings of conscience can be excused for their unbelief, but he indicates that they fall into many sins. He concludes that “all have sinned and fall short” of true righteousness (Rom. 3:23). For justification, Paul asserts, both Jews and Gentiles must rely on faith in Jesus Christ, who expiated the sins of the world on the cross.
Animated by vibrant faith in Christ the Savior, the Christian Church was able to conquer the Roman Empire. The converts were convinced that in embracing Christianity they were escaping from the darkness of sin and superstition and entering into the realm of salvation. For them, Christianity was the true religion, the faith that saves. It would not have occurred to them that any other faith could save them.
Christian theologians, however, soon had to face the question whether anyone could be saved without Christian faith. They did not give a wholly negative answer. They agreed that the patriarchs and prophets of Israel, because they looked forward in faith and hope to the Savior, could be saved by adhering in advance to him who was to come.
The apologists of the second and third centuries made similar concessions with regard to certain Greek philosophers. The prologue to John’s gospel taught that the eternal Word enlightens all men who come into the world. Justin Martyr speculated that philosophers such as Socrates and Heraclitus had lived according to the Word of God, the Logos who was to become incarnate in Christ, and they could therefore be reckoned as being in some way Christians. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen held that the Wisdom of God gave graces to people of every generation, both Greeks and barbarians.
The saving grace of which these theologians were speaking, however, was given only to pagans who lived before the time of Christ. It was given by the Word of God who was to become incarnate in Jesus Christ. There was no doctrine that pagans could be saved since the promulgation of the gospel without embracing the Christian faith.
Origen and Cyprian, in the third century, formulated the maxim that has come down to us in the words Extra ecclesiam nulla salus—”Outside the Church, no salvation.” They spoke these words with heretics and schismatics primarily in view, but they do not appear to have been any more optimistic about the prospects of salvation for pagans. Assuming that the gospel had been promulgated everywhere, writers of the high patristic age considered that, in the Christian era, Christians alone could be saved. In the East, this view is represented by Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom. The view attributed to Origen that hell would in the end be evacuated and that all the damned would eventually be saved was condemned in the sixth century.
In the West, following Ambrose and others, Augustine taught that, because faith comes by hearing, those who had never heard the gospel would be denied salvation. They would be eternally punished for original sin as well as for any personal sins they had committed. Augustine’s disciple Fulgentius of Ruspe exhorted his readers to “firmly hold and by no means doubt that not only all pagans, but also all Jews, and all heretics and schismatics who are outside the Catholic Church, will go to the eternal fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels.”
The views of Augustine and Fulgentius remained dominant in the Christian West throughout the Middle Ages. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) reaffirmed the formula “Outside the Church, no salvation,” as did Pope Boniface VIII in 1302. At the end of the Middle Ages, the Council of Florence (1442) repeated the formulation of Fulgentius to the effect that no pagan, Jew, schismatic, or heretic could be saved.
On one point the medieval theologians diverged from rigid Augustinianism. On the basis of certain passages in the New Testament, they held that God seriously wills that all may be saved. They could cite the statement of Peter before the household of Cornelius: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). The First Letter to Timothy, moreover, declares that God “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). These assurances made for a certain tension in Catholic teaching on salvation. If faith in Christ was necessary for salvation, how could salvation be within reach of those who had no opportunity to learn about Christ?
Thomas Aquinas, in dealing with this problem, took his departure from the axiom that there was no salvation outside the Church. To be inside the Church, he held, it was not enough to have faith in the existence of God and in divine providence, which would have sufficed before the coming of Christ. God now required explicit faith in the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. In two of his early works ( De Veritate and Commentary on Romans), he discusses the hypothetical case of a man brought up in the wilderness, where the gospel was totally unknown. If this man lived an upright life with the help of the graces given him, Thomas reasoned, God would make it possible for him to become a Christian believer, either through an inner illumination or by sending a missionary to him. Thomas referred to the biblical example of the centurion Cornelius, who received the visitation of an angel before being evangelized and baptized by Peter (Acts 10). In his Summa Theologiae, however, Thomas omits any reference to miraculous instruction; he goes back to the Augustinian theory that those who had never heard the gospel would be eternally punished for original sin as well as their personal sins.
A major theological development occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The voyages of discovery had by this time disclosed that there were large populations in North and South America, Africa, and Asia who had lived since the time of Christ and had never had access to the preaching of the gospel. The missionaries found no sign that even the most upright among these peoples had learned the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation by interior inspirations or angelic visitations.
Luther, Calvin, and the Jansenists professed the strict Augustinian doctrine that God did not will to save everyone, but the majority of Catholic theologians rejected the idea that God had consigned all these unevangelized persons to hell without giving them any possibility of salvation. A series of theologians proposed more hopeful theories that they took to be compatible with Scripture and Catholic tradition.
The Dominican Melchior Cano argued that these populations were in a situation no different from that of the pre-Christian pagans praised by Justin and others. They could be justified in this life (but not saved in the life to come) by implicit faith in the Christian mysteries. Another Dominican, Domingo de Soto, went further, holding that, for the unevangelized, implicit faith in Christ would be sufficient for salvation itself. Their contemporary, Albert Pighius, held that for these unevangelized persons the only faith required would be that mentioned in Hebrews 11:6: “Without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” They could therefore be saved by general revelation and grace even though no missionary came to evangelize them.
The Jesuit Francisco Suarez, following these pioneers, argued for the sufficiency of implicit faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation, together with an implicit desire for baptism on the part of the unevangelized. Juan de Lugo agreed, but he added that such persons could not be saved if they had committed serious sins, unless they obtained forgiveness by an act of perfect contrition.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the Jesuits of the Gregorian University followed in the tradition of Suarez and de Lugo, with certain modifications. Pope Pius IX incorporated some of their ideas in two important statements in 1854 and 1863. In the first, he said that, while no one can be saved outside the Church, God would not punish people for their ignorance of the true faith if their ignorance was invincible. In the second statement, Pius went further. He declared that persons invincibly ignorant of the Christian religion who observed the natural law and were ready to obey God would be able to attain eternal life, thanks to the workings of divine grace within them. In the same letter, the pope reaffirmed that no one could be saved outside the Catholic Church. He did not explain in what sense such persons were, or would come to be, in the Church. He could have meant that they would receive the further grace needed to join the Church, but nothing in his language suggests this. More probably he thought that such persons would be joined to the Church by implicit desire, as some theologians were teaching by his time.
In 1943, Pius XII did take this further step. In his encyclical on the Mystical Body, Mystici Corporis, he distinguished between two ways of belonging to the Church: in actual fact (in re) or by desire (in voto). Those who belonged in voto, however, were not really members. They were ordered to the Church by the dynamism of grace itself, which related them to the Church in such a way that they were in some sense in it. The two kinds of relationship, however, were not equally conducive to salvation. Those adhering to the Church by desire could not have a sure hope of salvation because they lacked many spiritual gifts and helps available only to those visibly incorporated in the true Church.
Mystici Corporis represents a forward step in its doctrine of adherence to the Church through implicit desire. From an ecumenical point of view, that encyclical is deficient, since it does not distinguish between the status of non-Christians and non-Catholic Christians. The next important document came from the Holy Office in its letter to Cardinal Cushing of Boston in 1949. The letter pointed out—in opposition to Father Leonard Feeney, S.J., and his associates at St. Benedict Center—that, although the Catholic Church was a necessary means for salvation, one could belong to it not only by actual membership but by also desire, even an unconscious desire. If that desire was accompanied by faith and perfect charity, it could lead to eternal salvation.
Neither the encyclical Mystici Corporis nor the letter of the Holy Office specified the nature of the faith required for in voto status. Did the authors mean that the virtue of faith or the inclination to believe would suffice, or did they require actual faith in God and divine providence, or actual faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation?
The Second Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church and its Decree on Ecumenism, made some significant departures from the teaching of Pius XII. It avoided the term member and said nothing of an unconscious desire for incorporation in the Church. It taught that the Catholic Church was the all-embracing organ of salvation and was equipped with the fullness of means of salvation. Other Christian churches and communities possessed certain elements of sanctification and truth that were, however, derived from the one Church of Christ that subsists in the Catholic Church today. For this reason, God could use them as instruments of salvation. God had, however, made the Catholic Church necessary for salvation, and all who were aware of this had a serious obligation to enter the Church in order to be saved. God uses the Catholic Church not only for the redemption of her own members but also as an instrument for the redemption of all. Her witness and prayers, together with the eucharistic sacrifice, have an efficacy that goes out to the whole world.
In several important texts, Vatican II took up the question of the salvation of non-Christians. Although they were related to the Church in various ways, they were not incorporated in her. God’s universal salvific will, it taught, means that he gives non-Christians, including even atheists, sufficient help to be saved. Whoever sincerely seeks God and, with his grace, follows the dictates of conscience is on the path to salvation. The Holy Spirit, in a manner known only to God, makes it possible for each and every person to be associated with the Paschal mystery. “God, in ways known to himself, can lead those inculpably ignorant of the gospel to that faith without which it is impossible to please him.” The council did not indicate whether it is necessary for salvation to come to explicit Christian faith before death, but the texts give the impression that implicit faith may suffice.
Vatican II left open the question whether non-Christian religions contain revelation and are means that can lead their adherents to salvation. It did say, however, that other religions contain elements of truth and goodness, that they reflect rays of the truth that enlightens all men, and that they can serve as preparations for the gospel. Christian missionary activity serves to heal, ennoble, and perfect the seeds of truth and goodness that God has sown among non-Christian peoples, to the glory of God and the spiritual benefit of those evangelized.
While repeatedly insisting that Christ is the one mediator of salvation, Vatican II shows forth a generally hopeful view of the prospects of non-Christians for salvation. Its hopefulness, however, is not unqualified: “Rather often, men, deceived by the evil one, have become caught up in futile reasoning and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Or, some there are who, living and dying in a world without God, are subject to utter hopelessness.” The missionary activity of the Church is urgent for bringing such persons to salvation.
After the council, Paul VI (in his pastoral exhortation “Evangelization in the Modern World”) and John Paul II (in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio) interpreted the teaching of Vatican II in relation to certain problems and theological trends arising since the council. Both popes were on guard against political and liberation theology, which would seem to equate salvation with formation of a just society on earth and against certain styles of religious pluralism, which would attribute independent salvific value to non-Christian religions. In 2000, toward the end of John Paul’s pontificate, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the declaration Dominus Iesus, which emphatically taught that all grace and salvation must come through Jesus Christ, the one mediator.
Wisely, in my opinion, the popes and councils have avoided talk about implicit faith, a term that is vague and ambiguous. They do speak of persons who are sincerely seeking for the truth and of others who have found it in Christ. They make it clear that sufficient grace is offered to all and that God will not turn away those who do everything within their power to find God and live according to his law. We may count on him to lead such persons to the faith needed for salvation.
One of the most interesting developments in post-conciliar theology has been Karl Rahner’s idea of “anonymous Christians.” He taught that God offers his grace to everyone and reveals himself in the interior offer of grace. Grace, moreover, is always mediated through Christ and tends to bring its recipients into union with him. Those who accept and live by the grace offered to them, even though they have never heard of Christ and the gospel, may be called anonymous Christians.
Although Rahner denied that his theory undermined the importance of missionary activity, it was widely understood as depriving missions of their salvific importance. Some readers of his works understood him as teaching that the unevangelized could possess the whole of Christianity except the name. Saving faith, thus understood, would be a subjective attitude without any specifiable content. In that case, the message of the gospel would have little to do with salvation.
The history of the doctrine of salvation through faith has gone through a number of stages since the High Middle Ages. Using the New Testament as their basic text, the Church Fathers regarded faith in Christ and baptism as essential for salvation. On the basis of his study of the New Testament and Augustine, Thomas Aquinas held that explicit belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation was necessary for everyone who lived since the time of Christ, but he granted that in earlier times it was sufficient to believe explicitly in the existence and providence of God.
In the sixteenth century, theologians speculated that the unevangelized were in the same condition as pre-Christians and were not held to believe explicitly in Christ until the gospel was credibly preached to them. Pius IX and the Second Vatican Council taught that all who followed their conscience, with the help of the grace given to them, would be led to that faith that was necessary for them to be saved. During and after the council, Karl Rahner maintained that saving faith could be had without any definite belief in Christ or even in God.
We seem to have come full circle from the teaching of Paul and the New Testament that belief in the message of Christ is the source of salvation. Reflecting on this development, one can see certain gains and certain losses. The New Testament and the theology of the first millennium give little hope for the salvation of those who, since the time of Christ, have had no chance of hearing the gospel. If God has a serious salvific will for all, this lacuna needed to be filled, as it has been by theological speculation and church teaching since the sixteenth century. Modern theology, preoccupied with the salvation of non-Christians, has tended to neglect the importance of explicit belief in Christ, so strongly emphasized in the first centuries. It should not be impossible, however, to reconcile the two perspectives.
Scripture itself assures us that God has never left himself without a witness to any nation (Acts 14:17). His testimonies are marks of his saving dispensations toward all. The inner testimony of every human conscience bears witness to God as lawgiver, judge, and vindicator. In ancient times, the Jewish Scriptures drew on literature that came from Babylon, Egypt, and Greece. The Book of Wisdom and Paul’s Letter to the Romans speak of God manifesting his power and divinity through his works in nature. The religions generally promote prayer and sacrifice as ways of winning God’s favor. The traditions of all peoples contain elements of truth imbedded in their cultures, myths, and religious practices. These sound elements derive from God, who speaks to all his children through inward testimony and outward signs.
The universal evidences of the divine, under the leading of grace, can give rise to a rudimentary faith that leans forward in hope and expectation to further manifestations of God’s merciful love and of his guidance for our lives. By welcoming the signs already given and placing their hope in God’s redeeming love, persons who have not heard the tidings of the gospel may nevertheless be on the road to salvation. If they are faithful to the grace given them, they may have good hope of receiving the truth and blessedness for which they yearn.
The search, however, is no substitute for finding. To be blessed in this life, one must find the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, which is worth buying at the cost of everything one possesses. To Christians has been revealed the mystery hidden from past ages, which the patriarchs and prophets longed to know. By entering through baptism into the mystery of the cross and the Resurrection, Christians undergo a radical transformation that sets them unequivocally on the road to salvation. Only after conversion to explicit faith can one join the community that is nourished by the Word of God and the sacraments. These gifts of God, prayerfully received, enable the faithful to grow into ever greater union with Christ.
In Christ’s Church, therefore, we have many aids to salvation and sanctification that are not available elsewhere. Cardinal Newman expressed the situation admirably in one of his early sermons:
The prerogative of Christians consists in the possession, not of exclusive knowledge and spiritual aid, but of gifts high and peculiar; and though the manifestation of the Divine character in the Incarnation is a singular and inestimable benefit, yet its absence is supplied in a degree, not only in the inspired record of Moses, but even, with more or less strength, in those various traditions concerning Divine Providences and Dispositions which are scattered through the heathen mythologies.
We cannot take it for granted that everyone is seeking the truth and is prepared to submit to it when found. Some, perhaps many, resist the grace of God and reject the signs given to them. They are not on the road to salvation at all. In such cases, the fault is not God’s but theirs. The references to future punishment in the gospels cannot be written off as empty threats. As Paul says, God is not mocked (Gal. 6:7).
We may conclude with certitude that God makes it possible for the unevangelized to attain the goal of their searching. How that happens is known to God alone, as Vatican II twice declares. We know only that their search is not in vain. “Seek, and you will find,” says the Lord (Matt. 7:7). If non-Christians are praying to an unknown God, it may be for us to help them find the one they worship in ignorance. God wants everyone to come to the truth. Perhaps some will reach the goal of their searching only at the moment of death. Who knows what transpires secretly in their consciousness at that solemn moment? We have no evidence that death is a moment of revelation, but it could be, especially for those in pursuit of the truth of God.
Meanwhile, it is the responsibility of believers to help these seekers by word and by example. Whoever receives the gift of revealed truth has the obligation to share it with others. Christian faith is normally transmitted by testimony. Believers are called to be God’s witnesses to the ends of the earth.
Who, then, can be saved? Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments. Other Christians can be saved if they submit their lives to Christ and join the community where they think he wills to be found. Jews can be saved if they look forward in hope to the Messiah and try to ascertain whether God’s promise has been fulfilled. Adherents of other religions can be saved if, with the help of grace, they sincerely seek God and strive to do his will. Even atheists can be saved if they worship God under some other name and place their lives at the service of truth and justice. God’s saving grace, channeled through Christ the one Mediator, leaves no one unassisted. But that same grace brings obligations to all who receive it. They must not receive the grace of God in vain. Much will be demanded of those to whom much is given.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., holds the Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society at Fordham University. This essay is adapted from the Laurence J. McGinley Lecture delivered on November 7, 2007.
The Pope and "Herr Professor"
May 28, 2008
He might've received the red hat at 82, but for Avery Dulles, the cardinalate has never been just an "honorary" dignity.
Whispers in the Loggia, Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Pope and "Herr Professor"
He might've received the red hat at 82, but for Avery Dulles, the cardinalate has never been just an "honorary" dignity.
The only American priest ever to be directly inducted into the Roman clergy without episcopal ordination, the iconic Jesuit theologian -- who once wrote that his journey from WASP scion to to Catholic hierarch included a period of "a thoroughgoing atheism" -- stepped up his responsibilities following his 2001 elevation, becoming active in the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and taking on an even larger schedule of talks and events while keeping his commitments as a prolific scribe of books and articles and the Laurence McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University.
Over the last year, however, despite being as "sharp" and incisive as ever in his thought, and his desire to keep running at all cylinders -- even hoping to honor his road dates (to which he always traveled alone) -- the cardinal's been rapidly hindered by the aftereffects of a 1940s bout with polio, which in recent months has left him unable to speak or walk and recently saw him take up permanent residence at Fordham's infirmary, where pointing at lines in a notepad of frequently used phrases has become his prime means of responding to visitors.
But even so, not even illness could keep Dulles from wanting to see Pope Benedict during his visit last month -- for which he had initially signaled his intent to be present at every event alongside the other American cardinals. Though that wasn't to be given his health, it was Benedict who went the extra mile to see him, throwing his usual devotion to schedule aside to meet privately with Dulles before the youth rally at St Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie.
For most of the encounter, it's been noted that B16 -- never one to choose his words lightly -- didn't address the cardinal with the customary "Your Eminence," but the German academy's eminent honorific of "Herr Professor." Dulles' prepared remarks were read to the Pope, and the cardinal gave Benedict a copy of the cardinal's recently-published compilation of his two decades of McGinley lectures.
Two weeks prior to his papal audience, Dulles looked on as the farewell lecture he had written as holder of the McGinley chair (fulltext/fullvideo) was delivered for him.
"In this life, unfortunately, all good things must come to an end," it read. "Divine providence, which has graciously guided my career throughout these many years, is giving clear signs that it is time to move on and make way for a younger and healthier successor."
Quoting the former Cardinal Ratzinger along the way, he echoed that over the course of his teaching life "I have never tried to create a system of my own, an individual theology. What is specific, if you want to call it that, is that I simply want to think in communion with the faith of the church, and that means above all to think in communion with the great thinkers of the faith. The aim is not an isolated theology that I draw out of myself but one that opens as widely as possible into the common intellectual pathways of the faith."
For an eye onto the cardinal in his own voice, Salt + Light's streaming a 2004 interview with Dulles from Fordham's campus in the Bronx.
Sixty-eight years a Catholic, 62 a Jesuit and in his fifty-third year of priesthood, Dulles marks his 90th birthday on 24 August.
Quiet Encounter: When Benedict XVI Met Cardinal Dulles
May 02, 2008
Amid the great public spectacles of his visit to America, Pope Benedict XVI made time for a private, poignant encounter with Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, on April 19 at New York’s St. Joseph’s Seminary.
(National Catholic Register, May 4-10, 2008) NEW YORK — Cardinal Dulles, suffering the effects of post-polio syndrome, now lives in the Jesuit infirmary at Fordham University. As his muscles atrophy, he is no longer able to walk and is unable to speak. He was therefore unable to participate in the papal events alongside the other cardinals.
Instead, the Holy Father decided to meet him privately as a gesture of esteem and affection.
The encounter echoed the iconic embrace of Archbishop Fulton Sheen by Pope John Paul II in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in October 1979. Archbishop Sheen was growing increasingly frail — he would die two months later — but made a determined effort to be at St. Patrick’s when John Paul visited.
The Holy Father gave him a warm embrace and, paraphrasing the vision of St. Thomas Aquinas, told Archbishop Sheen: “You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus. You are a loyal son of the Church.”
The encounter of the young Pope and the elderly bishop was as dramatic as one could imagine, two master evangelical performers in the mother Church of what John Paul was pleased to call the capital of the world.
John Paul, the former stage actor, saluted America’s greatest preacher.
Benedict, the university professor, saluted America’s greatest scholarly theologian. And, suitably, the latter encounter was private, at Fordham, a place of teaching, with the two scholars speaking about their earlier theological collaborations and their books.
“Eminenza, Eminenza, I recall the work you did for the International Theological Commission in the 1990s,” said the Holy Father as he greeted Cardinal Dulles with obvious enthusiasm. Cardinal Dulles kissed the papal ring and smiled back at Benedict. Unable to speak, Cardinal Dulles had prepared a text that was read to the Holy Father by a fellow Jesuit priest.
Cardinal Dulles then presented Benedict with a copy of his most recently published book, a splendid collection of the McGinley Lectures he has been delivering at Fordham for 20 years under the title Church and Society.
Benedict immediately took it in hand, read the inscription and began to look through the pages — as happy as any scholar is to get a new book by a respected friend.
A touching moment occurred when Benedict took his leave, greeting all present, including Dominican Sister Anne-Marie Kirmse, Cardinal Dulles’ secretary for the past 20 years.
“Sister, thank you for all the work you do for Cardinal Dulles and for the Church,” Benedict said. Sister Anne-Marie revealed later that 20 years ago, just before she went to work for then-Father Dulles, her only prayer was that she would find some way to put her theological training to work for the Church.
That was now confirmed by the Church’s supreme pastor.
I visited Cardinal Dulles two days after his meeting with Pope Benedict. At our last meeting in August, although he was growing more frail, we had a lively conversation for more than an hour. Now he writes a few words on a writing pad, and I had to do most of the talking.
It suits the cardinal in a way, as he was always ready to listen rather than to speak, to learn rather to teach, but it is a sadness not to hear him speak, for he always had interesting and witty things to say.
On the pad he indicated that he was teaching a seminar on the thought of Benedict XVI. I thought I had misunderstood him until Sister Anne-Marie arrived to drop off the homilies from the papal visit, a book on ecumenism by Cardinal Ratzinger and a copy of Deus Caritas Est.
The cardinal had requested them for his research for the seminar he was already booked to teach this semester before his health began to fail. His mind sharp, he is still at his task, dutifully preparing notes for the seminar, which Sister Anne-Marie, with a doctorate in theology herself, is helping him to complete.
I arrived to find him reading the Fordham faculty senate minutes. When I told him that he certainly did not have to concern himself with such dull material, he wrote simply that he was going through the daily mail. If they sent it to him, he was dutiful enough to read it.
The long admiration I have for Cardinal Dulles only grows deeper as his extraordinary work ethic and devotion to duty continues, despite his infirmity. He granted me his blessing — using his left hand to guide his right hand through the motions — and then I left.
By the time I got to the door, he was back at work, reading the materials Sister Anne-Marie had brought to him.
Earlier this month, Cardinal Dulles gave his last McGinley Lecture, which he wrote but had to be read for him. Entitled “A Life in Theology,” the lecture reflected this latest phase of his long life — he will be 90 this August.
“Suffering and diminishment are not the greatest of evils, but are normal ingredients in life, especially in old age. They are to be accepted as elements of a full human existence,” he said. “As I become increasingly paralyzed and unable to speak, I can identify with the many paralytics and mute persons in the Gospels, grateful for the loving and skillful care I receive and for the hope of everlasting life in Christ. If the Lord now calls me to a period of weakness, I know well that his power can be made perfect in infirmity. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”
Unlike Archbishop Sheen, Cardinal Dulles is not dying, and may well have productive work ahead of him.
But even now, he too is entitled to have his work blessed by the Holy Father, for he too has written well of the Lord Jesus.
Father Raymond J. de Souza
served as the Register’s
Rome correspondent 1999-2003.
Pope makes time to pay homage to U.S. theologian Cardinal Dulles
Apr 22, 2008
During his whirlwind April 15-20 U.S. visit, Pope Benedict XVI took a few moments out of his demanding schedule for a private meeting with one of America's pre-eminent theologians, the ailing, 89-year-old Cardinal Avery Dulles.
WASHINGTON (CNS, Apr-21-2008) -- The wheelchair-bound Jesuit scholar traveled from his residence at Jesuit-run Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx to St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., April 19, for a prearranged, 15-minute private meeting with the pope, just after the pontiff met with disabled youths.
"It was a lovely meeting," said Dominican Sister Anne-Marie Kirmse, the cardinal's executive assistant for the past 20 years. She was present to help facilitate the get-together, held in a suite of offices at the seminary.
"The pope literally bounded into the room with a big smile on his face," she told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview April 21. "He went directly to where Cardinal Dulles was sitting, saying, 'Eminenza, Eminenza, Eminenza, I recall the work you did for the International Theological Commission in the 1990s.'"
The pope and cardinal's meeting was also attended by Jesuit Father Thomas R. Marciniak of the Fordham Jesuit community, who served as Cardinal Dulles's priest-chaplain, and Francine Messiah and Oslyn Fergus, health care workers who help the cardinal.
"This meeting is significant because these are two of the leading Catholic theologians who interpreted Vatican II for a generation," said Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. "It was a meeting of two great Catholic intellectuals."
The grandson of a Presbyterian minister and son of John Foster Dulles -- secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- Cardinal Dulles entered the Catholic Church in 1941 while studying at Harvard Law School. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he joined the Jesuits in 1946 and was ordained in 1956. He has written 22 books, hundreds of articles and has more than 30 honorary doctorates.
During the meeting, the cardinal gave the pope a copy of his latest book, "Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988-2007," published in early April, Sister Anne-Marie said.
"The pope expressed great interest in the book," she said. "He eagerly looked through it and was touched by Cardinal Dulles' inscription to him."
Often considered Cardinal Dulles' most influential work, "Models of the Church" in 1974 provided tens of thousands of bishops, priests, seminarians and lay leaders with a deeper understanding of the different but complementary theologies of the church underlying the work of the Second Vatican Council.
Most of his writings have guided the interpretation of Vatican II on a host of issues, including the nature of the faith, authority in the church and the relationship between Scripture and tradition, Father Massa said.
"These are the very same topics that the future Pope Benedict XVI would devote many of his scholarly energies to," he said. "It was Cardinal Ratzinger who appointed (then Father) Avery Dulles to the International Theological Commission, an advisory body to the pope on all matters theological."
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took the name Benedict XVI upon his election as pope in 2005.
When Pope John Paul II elevated the 82-year-old Jesuit priest to cardinal in 2001, he became the first American named a cardinal to honor his work as a theologian.
Too old to vote in the College of Cardinals at the time of his elevation, the newly named Cardinal Dulles told CNS in 2001 he considered his selection largely honorary. When members of the College of Cardinals turn 80 they can no longer vote in a conclave.
The cardinal is now confined to a wheelchair and incapable of prolonged speech as a result of post-polio syndrome, which he originally contracted when he was in the Navy 62 years ago. In early April he gave his farewell address as the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Fordham University.
"The cardinal is finishing teaching a class (at Fordham) this semester, and I'm helping him with that," Sister Anne-Marie said.
Though he didn't attend the meeting between the two Catholic scholars, Father Massa said the get-together between the pope and Cardinal Dulles was touching to him all the same.
"I wrote my doctoral dissertation (in 1997) at Fordham with Father Dulles as my dissertation mentor," he said. "He chose my topic; it was a sign of his respect for Cardinal Ratzinger and respect for our institution and its structure. The topic was 'The Ecclesiology of Cardinal Ratzinger.' So, this was an emotional and poignant encounter for me."
Before the meeting's conclusion, the pope blessed Cardinal Dulles, "assuring him of his prayers for the cardinal, and encouraged him in his sufferings," Sister Anne-Marie said.
Cardinal Dulles gives farewell speech as Fordham's McGinley professor
Apr 03, 2008
Warmth and congeniality characterized Cardinal Avery Dulles's farewell address April 1 as the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Jesuit-run Fordham University.
(Catholic News Service, 04-03-2008) NEW YORK -- Cardinal Dulles, a Jesuit theologian, ended his 20-year series of annual McGinley lectures, from 1988 to 2008, with a short summation of his theology and his ministry and a synopsis of his previous lectures.
The 89-year-old cardinal has addressed theological issues and spoken on secular issues such as politics, human rights and the death penalty.
Confined to a wheelchair and incapable of prolonged speech as a result of post-polio syndrome which he originally contacted when he was in the Navy 62-years ago, Jesuit Father Joseph P O'Hare, Fordham's former president, gave the presentation for the cardinal.
Father Robert P. Imbelli, a New York archdiocesan priest, who is associate theology professor at Jesuit-run Boston College, presented an analysis of the cardinal's speech. The priest referred to himself as a "Jesuit 'in pectore,'" or "in his heart," which refers to the pope's privilege of naming cardinals whose names he keeps a secret.
Cardinal Dulles' presentation took place at Fordham Preparatory School's Leonard Theatre on the university's campus.
In his lectures, which have always been well attended, the cardinal has defended Catholic orthodoxy and explored oft-debated topics.
He said his principal aim in his lectures was "to present and classify the existing opinions" and "to criticize views that are inadequate."
He always tried "to incorporate the valid insights of all parties to the discussion, rather than perpetuate a one-sided view that is partial and incomplete," he said.
"I think of myself as a moderate trying to make peace between (opposing) schools of thought. While doing so, however, I insist on logical consistency. Unlike certain relativists of our time, I abhor mixtures of contradiction," Cardinal Dulles said.
He began his theological lectures "by asking what others, especially authoritative voices, had to say about pertinent questions," he said. If everyone agreed, "it is sufficient to note the consensus," he added.
If a spectrum of opinions existed, "I sought out the best arguments in favor of each major position," he continued. He said his intention was "to give an informed judgment as to which positions are sound and which should be rejected."
In each case, "I am willingly adhering to the testimony of Scripture and perennial Catholic tradition," he said.
The cardinal admitted he never strove for originality.
"Very few new ideas, I suspect, are true. If I conceived a theological idea that had never occurred to anyone in the past, I would have every reason to think myself mistaken," he said.
In the presentation Cardinal Dulles reconfirmed his faith, his orthodoxy, his spirituality and his commitment to the Society of Jesus. He also offered a final word against the materialism, relativism, subjectivism, hedonism, scientism and superficial anti-intellectualism he said is found in modern society.
"Western thought," he said, "followed in the path of cognitive realism for many centuries before the revival of agnosticism in the Renaissance." The cardinal repeated Pope John Paul II's admonition that philosophy should seek to "resume its original quest for eternal truth and wisdom."
"Science, we all know, does not rest on a treasury of revealed knowledge handed down in authoritative tradition," the cardinal said. "Science has wonderfully increased our powers to make and to destroy, but it does not tell us what we ought to do and why.
"It does not tell us where the universe came from, or why we exist, or what our final destination is. And yet some scientists speak as though their discipline were the only kind of valid knowledge," he said.
Even as an undergraduate student 70 years ago, he felt the "oppressive nature of a culture that had no place for objective moral norms and meaning." It was this desperation for enlightenment, the cardinal admitted, that set him "on the path that led through ancient Greek philosophy to Catholic faith."
"Christian revelation brought a tremendous increase of light. God alone, I learned from the New Testament, was good and true in an unqualified sense," he said. "And the same God in all his beauty and majesty became one of our human family in Jesus Christ, the truth, the way, and the life."
"The most important thing about my career, and many of yours, I feel sure, is the discovery of the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field -- the Lord Jesus himself," he said.
In summation, the cardinal, also in the voice of Father O'Hare, poignantly referred to his present weakened state not as a negative or a detriment, but instead, a sign of the triumph of love.
"Suffering and diminishment are not the greatest of evils, but are normal ingredients in life, especially in old age. They are to be accepted as elements of a full human existence," he said.
"As I become increasingly paralyzed and unable to speak, I can identify with the many paralytics and mute persons in the Gospels, grateful for the loving and skillful care I receive and for the hope of everlasting life in Christ," he said.
"If the Lord now calls me to a period of weakness, I know well that his power can be made perfect in infirmity," he added. "Blessed be the name of the Lord!"
The grandson of a Presbyterian minister, Cardinal Dulles entered the Catholic Church in 1941 while studying at Harvard Law School. After serving his country during World War II in the Navy, he joined the Jesuits in 1946 and was ordained in 1956. He has written 22 books and has more than 30 honorary doctorates.
Cardinal Avery Dulles speaks on the meaning of dialogue between Catholics
Sept 28, 2007
Catholics who disagree over matters of faith should respectfully dialogue with each other on the common ground of Jesus Christ; however, they should not reject church teachings, said Jesuit Cardinal Avery Dulles during the annual Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Lecture given Sept. 18 at Elmhurst College.
(Catholic Explorer, Sep 28, 2007) Elmhurst - The lecture, entitled “Common Ground, Solid Ground,” sought to clarify the intent of Cardinal Bernardin’s controversial Common Ground Initiative, which Cardinal Dulles said has been misunderstood.
Jesuit Father Thomas Marciniak read most of the lecture for the 89-year-old cardinal whose health has recently declined. But Cardinal Dulles, a professor of theology at Fordham University in New York, began the lecture himself, standing before a large audience in the college’s Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel.
The Common Ground Initiative, launched by Cardinal Bernardin shortly before his death in 1996, seeks to foster dialogue between factions within the Catholic Church, decreasing a polarization which he saw as a threat.
After the National Pastoral Life Center introduced a document entitled “Called to be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril,” the objections came quickly. Within days, four American cardinals independently denounced the document endorsed by Cardinal Bernardin. They argued it “obscured the true common ground” already found in sacred Scripture and church tradition, Cardinal Dulles said.
However Cardinal Dulles, widely considered one of America’s top theologians, said it was never Cardinal Bernardin’s intention to invite attacks on doctrine.
He said Cardinal Bernardin advocated for respectful listening, not doctrinal compromise. Additionally, Cardinal Bernardin believed polarizing disagreements frequently center on pastoral, not doctrinal issues.
“Many interchurch conflicts have to do with programs of religious education, the conduct of the liturgy, the design of church buildings and the practice of private devotions,” Cardinal Dulles explained.
In a short conversation with the Catholic Explorer after the lecture, Cardinal Dulles said polarization in the church has recently decreased. Nevertheless he stressed the continuing need for dialogue between disagreeing Catholics who need to acknowledge the value of their differing points of view.
Earlier in the day, meeting with a group of honor students, faculty members and news media on the Elmhurst campus, he said, “There was a lot of fighting, infighting between liberals and conservatives in the church.” He called this “destructive,” responding to a question posed by the Catholic Explorer.
During the lecture he referred to the pastoral instruction “Of the Means of Social Communication,” issued in 1972 by the Pontifical Commission for the Means of Social Communication.
“This instruction, while dodging the thorny question of dissent, advocated a responsible exchange of freely held and expressed opinion among the people of God, so that all may arrive at a loving consensus of truth under the guidance of the magisterium,” Cardinal Dulles said.
However, during the lecture, the cardinal criticized American Catholics who reject church teaching.
While they see the church as their home “… they do not really believe that the church can issue binding decisions about questions of truth and morality, and for this reason they contend that individual Catholics have a right to dissent, at least in their thoughts and private utterances,” he said.
Cardinal Dulles believes a liberal, social model of dialogue, which seeks social harmony by denying absolute truth, contributes to this erroneous attitude. Under this model, dialogue only becomes possible when parties show willingness to disavow their beliefs.
Interpreting the intent of “Called to be Catholic,” Cardinal Dulles explained it is the work of believers to recognize some Catholics are troubled. “Even if they dissent, as some do, it is not enough to condemn them as dissenters or heretics: we must reach out to them and seek to understand their difficulty. In order to be of help, we must find a common ground from which to work. That common ground, if it is to be solid, will consist of those elements of the faith to which these marginal believers still adhere.
“Using this body of shared beliefs, as a foundation, the parties may face their differences with a real prospect of reconciliation,” he said
However, he stressed “Called to be Catholic” does not imply Catholics should endorse beliefs that contradict church teaching. “Faith demands a certain stringency,” he added.
The lecture also touched on ecumenical dialogue. Instead of diluting their beliefs through compromise, members of different Christian communities should acknowledge their disagreements, patiently resolving them in love.
Responding to a question after the lecture, Cardinal Dulles said both Protestants and Catholics can learn much from each other through dialogue.
The Rev. Scott Matheney, a United Church of Christ minister and the Elmhurst College chaplain, oversaw the event. “I’m very thankful [Cardinal Dulles] was able to come,” he said.
“What was presented was a very concise, conservative understanding of dialogue, and it raised a lot of very serious theological questions, but it’s an important thing to do,” he commented.
Rev. Matheney said the Cardinal Bernardin lecture series helps to nurture the school’s large Catholic community, both spiritually and intellectually. Elmhurst College is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.
Ecumenical dialogue may require new methods, says US cardinal
Jul 27, 2007
Dialogue in the quest for Christian unity has proved to be immensely valuable in the United States and globally but may have hit a plateau, a Roman Catholic cardinal has said during the commemoration of a US ecumenical milestone.
By Chris Herlinger
(Ecumenical News International, Friday, 27 July 2007)
Dialogue in the quest for Christian unity has proved to be immensely valuable in the United States and globally but may have hit a plateau, a Roman Catholic cardinal has said during the commemoration of a US ecumenical milestone.
Theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles made his remarks at a conference convened by the US National Council of Churches in Oberlin, Ohio, to mark the 50th anniversary of formal dialogue between Roman Catholics and other Christians in the country.
Dulles said the dialogue, known as "Faith and Order", between Catholics and members of other US Christian churches used the method of theological "convergence". This "seeks to harmonise the doctrines of each ecclesial tradition on the basis of shared sources and methods" but, said Dulles, it "has nearly exhausted its potential".
Surmounting remaining theological and ecclesiastical barriers may require "a different method, one that invites a deeper conversion on the part of the churches themselves," said the 88-year-old Jesuit who teaches at New York's Fordham University. Dulles is the son of the late US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who was a prominent Presbyterian and US lay church leader.
Cardinal Dulles said a better idea than theological convergence would be the encouragement of what he termed, "an ecumenism of mutual enrichment by means of mutual testimony". He believes that this approach leaves those in dialogue "free to draw on their own normative sources and does not constrain them to conceal or belittle what is specific to themselves".
"Far from being ashamed of their own distinctive doctrines and practices, each partner should feel privileged to be able to contribute something positive that the others still lack," said Dulles, who converted to Catholicism as a young man. In 2001, Pope John Paul II named him as the first US-born cardinal who was not a bishop.
Dulles praised nearly five decades of discussions in the United States between those of differing Christian traditions. Those talks, he said, "have been of immense value for dispelling past prejudices, for identifying real but hitherto unrecognised agreements, and for enabling parties to see that they can say more together than they previously deemed possible".
Cardinal Dulles Offers Insights Into Ecclesiology of Pope
Jun 20, 2007
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., called Pope Benedict XVI a leader who maintains a great sense of the continuity of tradition within the Catholic church and its original teachings, and who seeks to “preserve and apply” those teachings through his papal role, at a lecture on the “Ecclesiology of Pope Benedict XVI,” held June 2, on the Rose Hill campus.
(fordham.edu, ) Cardinal Dulles said that Pope Benedict XVI views the church as universal, deriving its spiritual authority, or essence, from Christ’s ascension and the original 12 disciples.
“[Pope Benedict XIV believes] the church is not a product of human creativity,” Cardinal Dulles said, “She does not become whatever the leaders and members wish to make of her. The church is prior to all human initiative. Ours is not to innovate, but to preserve and apply the church teachings.”
Cardinal Dulles, who met then Cardinal Ratzinger in 1971 and who has since exchanged writings with him, said that in the last 20 years, the Pope’s view on Vatican II reforms, such as decentralization of the church, has “matured.” Today, the Pope has a “full-orbed” vision of the church derived from the models of People of God, Mystical Body, Sacrament and Communion.
On the question of church and state, Cardinal Dulles said that the Pope comes “surprisingly close” to endorsing the American principle of separation of the two bodies.
“He does not want the [Catholic] church involved in politics,” he said. “The church depends on the state to keep justice. Consequently, the state cannot inculcate moral training, but depends on religious conviction, which makes people moral and respectful of one another. The church and state complement each other.”
Cardinal Dulles’ talk was part of a lecture series, Food For The Mind, sponsored by the Office of Alumni Affairs at Fordham’s Jubilee reunion, held June 1 through 3 on the Rose Hill campus.
Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to more than 15,600 students in its four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx, Manhattan and Tarrytown, and the Louis J. Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.
Young Catholics and Faith
Mar 23, 2007
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Fordham’s Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, told an audience of Upper East Side parishioners that young Catholics today have an “openness” to their faith, but that they struggle to make a commitment to it because the modern world pulls them in so many directions.
(fordham.edu, 03/07/2007) Cardinal Dulles, who lectured on “Becoming A Community of Disciples,” to more than 100 parishioners at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Monday, called Catholicism an “option—but one of so many options” that young people have today, and said that outside stimuli, such as the media, are not very supportive of their faith. He said that, through retreats, volunteerism and other programs, local parishes could intensify the solidarity of the religion for today’s young parishioners.
“We [as Catholics] have to work very hard to develop in them a sense of discipleship,” he said. “We have to testify to the Catholic faith in our schools and parishes, so that they don't continue to drift away.”
The cardinal was invited to speak at the parish by Gerald R. Blaszczak, S.J., pastor of St. Ignatius Loyola and former vice president for mission and ministry at Fordham. Father Blaszczak welcomed Cardinal Dulles by recalling an essay the cardinal wrote on his patron theologian, St. Robert Bellarmine. Father Blaszczak said the cardinal’s essay gave a “glimpse into the self” of its author, and suggested that the cardinal and the saint were both men who possessed the “greatest virtue” of loyalty to the Holy See, the church, the religious order and to God.
In his lecture, Cardinal Dulles referred to the church model of “discipleship” as having a particular relevance to parish life, and as bringing the church together by inspiring strong personal commitment among clergy and laity.
Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to approximately 15,800 students in its five undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx, Manhattan and Tarrytown, and the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.
Ignatian Charism Still Relevant
Jan 29, 2007
The Society of Jesus faces many of the same challenges today that it did upon its founding in 1540.
(fordham.edu, January 19 2007) To maintain relevance in the new millennium, said Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., the Jesuits must stay true to the ideals of Saint Ignatius himself: living lives of evangelical poverty, and synthesizing the active and contemplative lives.
“The challenges of our day are different but analogous to the 16th century,” said Cardinal Dulles. “The Ignatian charism is not outdated.”
Cardinal Dulles delivered the 36th McGinley Lecture to a capacity crowd at Fordham Preparatory School’s Leonard Theatre on Nov. 29. Cardinal Dulles was introduced by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, and spoke to an audience including Peter Gerety, D.D., former archbishop of Newark and Thomas Daily, D.D., former bishop of Brooklyn.
The Cardinal’s theme, The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century, spoke to the continued relevance of the Jesuit order in an increasingly fast-paced and secular world. He identified a charism as a “gift of grace for the benefit of others” and said that the Jesuits should continue to abide by the founding principles of Saint Ignatius, the foremost being a “life of evangelical poverty…which is at the heart of all Jesuit apostolates.”
Cardinal Dulles said that the Church and Society of Jesus face many of the same challenges that Ignatius and his followers did in the 16th century: rapid change, “globalization,” a divide between Christianity and Islam, and defections from Catholicism to other forms of Christianity.
There need not be a great conflict between faith and science, said Cardinal Dulles. He listed many of the great Jesuit men of science who have “built bridges between faith and reason, between theology and science… scholars who equipped themselves to enter into new fields and show the coherence between the new learning and the Catholic heritage of faith.”
There is a population waiting to be called, said Cardinal Dulles. The order has to continue to preach in an “accommodated style” (as did Ignatius and his first followers, who went to the corners of the earth and preached in different languages), because many places around the world still have potential converts.
“The fields are ripe for the harvest, but the laborers are few,” he said. “One wonders what the Jesuits of [Peter Faber’s] days would have done if they were alive today to see the defection of so many Latino Catholics [here] and in Central and South America.”
The lecture coincided with the final week of the Ignatian calendar, and was the last of the Cardinal’s talks concerning the central figures in the founding of the Jesuit order. 2006 also marked a half-century since Cardinal Dulles’ ordination, and his twentieth year at Fordham, where has been the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham since 1988. It has also been five years since Cardinal Dulles was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II, the first American–born theologian not a bishop to be honored with the rank.
Cardinal Dulles Lectures on Ignatian Message for 21st Century
Dec 21, 2006
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., delivered the 36th McGinley Lecture to a capacity crowd at Fordham Preparatory School’s Leonard Theatre on November 29. Cardinal Dulles was introduced by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, and spoke to an audience including Peter Gerety, former archbishop of Newark and Thomas Daily, former bishop of Brooklyn.
(fordham.edu, 11/06) The Cardinal’s theme, "The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century," spoke to the continued relevance of the Jesuit order in an increasingly fast-paced and secular world. He identified a charism as a “gift of grace for the benefit of others” and said that the Jesuits should continue to abide by the founding principles of Saint Ignatius, the foremost being a “life of evangelical poverty…which is at the heart of all Jesuit apostolates.”
Cardinal Dulles said that the Church and Society of Jesus face many of the same challenges that Ignatius and his followers did in the 16th Century: rapid change, “globalization,” a divide between Christendom and Islam, and defections from Catholicism to other forms of Christianity. “The charism is not outdated,” he said. “The Society can be abreast of the times if it adheres to its original ideals.”
The lecture coincided with the final week of the Ignatian calendar, and was the last of the Cardinal’s talks concerning the central figures in the founding of the Jesuit order. 2006 also marked a half-century since Cardinal Dulles’ ordination, and his twentieth year at Fordham. It has also been five years since Cardinal Dulles was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II, the first American–born theologian not a bishop to be honored with the rank. He has been the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham since 1988.
Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to more than 15,600 students in its five undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx, Manhattan and Tarrytown, and the Louis J. Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.
Avery Dulles, S.J. - American Theologian and Cardinal
Jun 24, 2006
The weather in Rome was beautiful in February, a welcome break from an especially dreary New York winter. The setting and the splendor of the occasion could not have been surpassed: the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, where Pope John Paul II welcomed 44 new cardinals into the highest ranks of the Catholic Church.
(Summer 2001, FORDHAM magazine) But as honored as he was to be among this group of new “princes of the church,” Avery Dulles, S.J., confessed that he felt a bit out of place. His books, his students, his office at Fordham’s Keating Hall—all were far, far away.
“I enjoyed it, but to me that’s not really what counts,” said Cardinal Dulles, the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society. “I prefer to spend my time reading, thinking, writing, teaching. I’m not particularly made for ceremonies.”
Dulles was one of three Americans that the pope named to the College of Cardinals earlier this year—the other two were Archbishop Edward Egan of New York and Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., who studied at Fordham in the early 1950s.
But unlike those diocesan officials, Dulles has never held an important pastoral post. Instead, he has spent his life contemplating the most important theological issues of his time, such as how the church defines itself as an institution, especially after the Second Vatican Council, and how it interacts with other Christian denominations. This difference makes Dulles unique among American cardinals. He is the first theologian from this country to wear a cardinal’s red hat.
When the pope announced Dulles’ selection in January, the rail-thin scholar who is frequently called the leading Catholic theologian in America offered a typically cool, rational explanation for the honor. In his view, the pope’s intentions were “to emphasize the centrality of theology in the life of the church; to encourage the Society of Jesus to pursue its theological missions; and to acknowledge the growing contribution of the North American scholarship.”
Dulles’ scholarly contributions have poured forth over six decades in 21 books and more than 650 articles, essays and reviews. He has taught not only at Fordham but also at Woodstock College in Maryland and at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He has received 21 honorary degrees, as well as the Croix de Guerre for his liaison work with the French navy as a U.S. Navy intelligence officer in World War II.
“Avery is the grand old man of Catholic theology today in the United States,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J., editor of the Jesuit magazine America. “And they don’t give this honor to 40-year-olds. You have to be over 80 years of age to get this.”
Father Reese was referring to the fact that 80 is the upper age limit for cardinals to have a vote in the conclaves that elect a new pope. Those red hats tend to be reserved for leaders of important archdioceses, such as Cardinals Egan and McCarrick, or senior members of the Roman Curia, the administrative body that runs the worldwide church. Theologians such as the 82-year-old Dulles are named cardinals after their 80th birthdays in recognition of their lifelong accomplishments.
“It’s very easy to share in the joy of his designation because of his own personal modesty and simplicity,” said the Rev. Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., Fordham’s president, who noted that Cardinal Dulles’ theological work bears some unmistakably American characteristics. “He is a typically American theologian in the sense that he’s addressed ecumenism, which is important in a country with religious pluralism. And in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, he’s been a good voice for religious freedom, which was a particularly American contribution to the council.”
Cardinal Dulles, the son of John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, began life as a Presbyterian, but by the time he entered Harvard University in the 1930s, he considered himself an agnostic, as he wrote in A Testimonial to Grace, his 1946 account of his conversion, which was reissued in a 50th anniversary edition in 1996.
Exposure to Catholic writers at Harvard led him to convert to Catholicism, and following his service in the Navy, he joined the Jesuits. In 1951, his teaching career began when he came to Fordham as a philosophy professor.
“As a Jesuit, I’ve always done what I was told,” Cardinal Dulles said, his eyebrows raised for emphasis. “I was quite pleased with that [assignment], but I had no reason to expect it.”
In addition to his classroom duties, he also served as the moderator of the freshman and sophomore sodality, the prefect of which was one Theodore McCarrick, the future archbishop of Washington, D.C. The two men struck up a friendship, founded in no small part on a shared sense of humor, that has lasted to the present.
“We all expected him to be an intellectual who would not have a lot of warmth, who would be a cold, dry scholar,” said Cardinal McCarrick. “And he wasn’t. He was a scholar, no doubt about that, but he had a wonderful sense of humor, and he had that wonderful laugh, which he still has—that deep, hoarse laugh.”
The young McCarrick impressed Dulles, whom the students addressed as “Mr. Dulles” in those days because he had not yet been ordained, as a promising youth with a bright future.
“He was a very bright, dedicated young man,” Cardinal Dulles recalled. “And he was a natural leader, with a great sense of humor that has not deserted him.”
In 1956, when Dulles was about to be ordained, he sought out McCarrick, who by then had left Fordham for the seminary, and asked him to serve Dulles’ first Mass, which was held in Fordham’s chapel a day after he was ordained by Cardinal Francis Spellman, a 1911 Fordham graduate.
“I got a note from him that he was going to celebrate his first Mass and didn’t know how to organize it but asked if I would serve,” Cardinal McCarrick recalled. “I was still three years from ordination. It was exciting.”
When the former philosophy teacher and the former prefect received the rings and hats of their new rank in February, McCarrick sent Dulles a note asking if he needed anyone to serve his first Mass as cardinal, Dulles recalled with one of his deep laughs.
Cardinal Dulles sees his career as a theologian and McCarrick’s life as a diocesan official as complementary, each filling a necessary role in the church.
“I’m not a person who gets things done,” he said. “I think about things. He’s been called to practical work, running dioceses. He’s done a great job of that.”
Cardinal Dulles’ work as a theologian has pivoted on the landmark reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which challenged centuries-old traditions in an effort to bring the Catholic Church into the20th century.
“Before Vatican II, I was simply absorbing the tradition,” Cardinal Dulles said. “I wasn’t trying to be original then. I was trying to learn what had been held down the centuries, what the church fathers had said, what the councils said. I think that’s the first thing a theologian has to do. And after Vatican II, the church said we’re living in a new age; try to determine what is lasting and what are the accretions.”
The intellectual ferment of the post-Vatican II years resulted in the cardinal’s most famous book, Models of the Church, published in 1974, in which he reviewed the many ways in which the Catholic Church has presented itself through the centuries: as a hierarchical institution, as a way of making Christ present in the world by proclaiming the gospel to others, as a servant or instrument of social justice and as a community of disciples that forms an alternative society to the secular world.
The cardinal says now that his intention was to bring the various proponents of each model into a fruitful dialogue with each other. Instead, he notes with a wry smile, the book has sometimes been used as a way for people to justify whatever view they hold as a valid take on the church.
And that is clearly not the cardinal’s view these days. Critics have said that of late he has become a defender of the status quo, and particularly of the pope’s traditional positions on such controversial issues as the ordination of women, abortion and homosexuality. But rather than having “lurched to the right,” as he put it, he has simply worked his way through the enduring questions of faith and concluded that the church’s time-tested teachings have been right all along.
“There were a few years after Vatican II when the church seemed to be asking people to look at different ideas, but I came to fairly traditional conclusions,” he said, citing as examples his study of church teaching about the Trinity or the dual nature of Christ as God and man. “Vatican II said we had to re-examine what is time-conditioned, but having done that, I think we came back to say the councils were right on.”
Cardinal Dulles returned to Fordham in 1988, 35 years after leaving his first teaching position there. By then, he had turned 70, the mandatory retirement age at Catholic University, where he had taught since 1974.
Fordham had recently completed raising $1 million to endow a chair in honor of the Rev. Laurence J. McGinley, S.J., Fordham’s president from 1949 to 1963, and, according to Father O’Hare, “I could think of no better occupant of the chair than Father Dulles.”
Cardinal Dulles generally teaches one or two courses a year, in addition to acting occasionally as dissertation consultant to doctoral candidates. This arrangement allows him, as he puts it, “a certain amount of leisure to do my thing,” which, in his case, means more work, such as taking visiting teaching appointments at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and at Yale University.
But his main responsibility is writing and delivering the annual McGinley lecture. He generally looks for a theological subject that has an immediate application to the real world. Over the years, he has addressed religion’s role in politics, Pope John Paul II’s teachings regarding human rights and the efforts of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches to come to a common understanding of justification, or God’s gift of salvation to Christians.
“Often I pick controversial topics,” he said. “I don’t mind controversy.”
But he doesn’t engage in controversy as an advocate for any particular position. Instead, he sees his role as theologian as akin to a judge—someone who considers all aspects of a question before rendering an opinion.
Last fall, for instance, the McGinley lecture concerned the death penalty. Rather than adopt a simple pro or con stance, Cardinal Dulles noted that church teaching recognizes the right of the state to execute criminals for very serious crimes. However, in recent years, church leaders, including the pope and the conference of American bishops, have called for an end of the death penalty because they feel that, on balance, it does more harm than good.
The subject of the death penalty brings up the most famous case of the year, that of Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted for killing 168 people in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.
“If there were any candidate for the death penalty, it might be he,” admitted Dulles, prior to McVeigh’s execution on June 11. “But I think making a spectacle out of it is debasing. And I think a lot of the motives of people who are clamoring for his execution are unworthy. It seems to be a question of getting back. I can sympathize with their feeling angry, but I think they should try to contain their anger. I’m more concerned about what the death penalty does to society than what it does to the individual.”
Although age has bowed his back and slowed his step, the cardinal continues to write books as well as teach. His newest book, The New World of Faith (Our Sunday Visitor Press, 2000), differs from many of his previous volumes in that he wrote it for an audience beyond the academy. His aim was to present an outline of the Catholic faith and its doctrines for general readers.
“I just wanted to make it a peaceful presentation of basic Catholic doctrine,” he said. “I try to show why it makes sense and hangs together.”
That explanatory role is what makes the sometimes abstruse world of theology so important, according to Father O’Hare, and few have proven themselves as well equipped to do it as Cardinal Dulles.
“He’s very much a university person,” said Father O’Hare. “He’s a prince of the church, but he’s also a citizen of the academy. That’s why his elevation is a great joy to all of us at Fordham.”
—Stevenson Swanson is a national correspondent in the New York bureau of the Chicago Tribune.
Avery Cardinal Dulles Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Ordination
Jun 24, 2006
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood with a Mass of Thanksgiving on Thursday, May 25, in the University Church. He was ordained a priest by Francis Cardinal Spellman (a 1911 graduate of Fordham) in the University Church in 1956, and was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II in February 2001.
(fordham.edu, Mai 2006) “The religious life and the priesthood, both of which I celebrate today as my twofold calling, ought never to be seen in isolation,” Cardinal Dulles said during the homily. “Every vocation in the church, as Paul reminds us in Ephesians, is for the sake of the whole body, so that all God’s people together may attain to the fullness of Christ, each contributing in his or her own way.”
Cardinal Dulles was joined by seven principal concelebrants at the Mass: Edward Cardinal Egan, archbishop of New York; Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, former archbishop of Philadelphia; Peter L. Gerety, former archbishop of Newark; Daniel A. Hart, former bishop of Norwich; Frank J. Rodimer, former bishop of Paterson; Josu Iriondo, auxiliary bishop of New York; and Abbot Gabriel Gibbs of St. Benedict Abbey in Still River, Mass.
Cardinal Dulles is the author of more than 750 articles interpreting church doctrine and the papacy. He has published 22 books, including A Testimonial to Grace (Sheed and Ward, 1946, 1996), a memoir of his conversion to Catholicism. He is presently at work on two more books.
The son of former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Cardinal Dulles is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Croix de Guerre for his liaison work with the French navy during World War II, the Cardinal Spellman Award for distinguished achievement in theology and 38 honorary doctorates. He is past president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society. He will celebrate his 88th birthday on Aug. 24.
Cardinal affirms Catholic lay mission to serve
Apr 22, 2006
Laypeople are called to serve the church's mission, both by ministry within the church and by apostolate to the world, U.S. Cardinal Avery Dulles said in a lecture March 29.
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com, 4/5/2006) While some Catholics would like to restrict the use of "ministry" to what the ordained do, Scripture, tradition and official church documents make the use of the term much broader, the Jesuit theologian said.
It is also a mistake to view lay ministry within the church – a necessary support for strong lay apostolate toward the world – as somehow undermining lay apostolate, he said.
Cardinal Dulles, the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Jesuit-run Fordham University, spoke about "The Mission of the Laity" in his spring McGinley lecture at the university.
"In some past centuries it might almost have seemed that the laity had no mission" because church documents used the words "mission" and "ministry" in ways that applied to the church itself and to its clergy but not to the laity, he said.
That changed early in the 20th century when popes "began to involve the laity in the ministry of the church," he said. He cited the establishment of Catholic Action by Pope Pius X and its strong encouragement by Pope Pius XI.
By mid-century, he said, Pope Pius XII went further, describing the laity as "on the front lines of the church's life" and encouraging not only Catholic Action but other works of lay apostolate that "could be left more or less to the free initiative of laypersons, while of course being conducted within the limits allowed by competent ecclesiastical authorities."
Between the first and second world wars, he said, there was "a prodigious growth of lay activity on the part of Catholics." Examples he cited included the growth of diocesan and national councils of men and women, the Catholic Worker Movement, the establishment of lay Catholic magazines like Commonweal and Integrity and, shortly after World War II, the founding of the Christian Family Movement.
He noted that in the 1960s the Second Vatican Council declared that by virtue of baptism laypeople share in their own way in Christ's threefold office of priest, prophet and king.
In the council's teaching, "prior to any mandate from the hierarchy, they already participate in the saving mission of the church through their baptism and confirmation," he said. "Through these sacraments the Lord himself commissions them to the apostolate. Far from being merely passive recipients of the ministrations of the hierarchy, all the lay faithful have a positive role to play; they are called to make their own contribution to the growth and sanctification of the church."
While the council generally used "apostolate" for the laity and applied "ministry" to them only a few times, those instances "are significant in view of later developments," Cardinal Dulles said.
He said the council "speaks of servers, lectors, commentators and choir members as performing a true ministry."
The council also applies the term "ministry" to religious instruction by laypeople, to missionary activity whether clerical or lay, to teaching catechism, to practicing charity in social or relief work and, in one document, "rather loosely to indicate any kind of service, including work on behalf of peace, justice and the defense of human life, which are normally the tasks of laypersons," Cardinal Dulles said.
He said "ministry" is used particularly for service to build up the church from within while "apostolate" connotes activities directed outward to the world, but since the council there has been a growing tendency in official church documents to use "ministry" for lay activities that would have been called "apostolate" by the council.
Noting the explosion of lay ministries since the council -- including now more than 30,000 lay ministers who work at least 20 hours a week in U.S. parishes, mostly in paid positions -- Cardinal Dulles addressed two controversies over lay ministry.
He said one is the desire by some to restrict "ministry" and "minister" to the ordained, or at least "to the exercise of an established office in the church."
"But neither of these positions seems to be warranted by official Catholic teaching; still less by Scripture and tradition," he said.
He said the other controversy involves questioning by some whether there has been too much emphasis on the rapidly expanding lay ministries in the church, "obscuring the secular mission of the laity" and devaluing their responsibility to transform political, economic and social institutions.
"It would be a mistake, I believe, to make a sharp dichotomy between ministry in the church and apostolate in the world, as if it were necessary to choose between them," Cardinal Dulles said. He said those in lay ministry have an important role in forming "a Catholic people sufficiently united to Christ in prayer and sufficiently firm and well instructed in their faith to carry out the kinds of apostolate that Vatican II envisaged."
Valguarnera: La visita del cardinale Avery Dulles
Apr 05, 2006
“Oggi ho imparato due cose: a dire viva S. Giuseppe e a riconoscere che l’autentica carità cristiana può manifestarsi nello spirito gioioso delle vostre tavolate!”.
(vivienna.it) Valguarnera 24/03/06 - Queste le parole di esordio pronunciate dal cardinale Avery Dulles nell’omelia durante la messa solenne per la festa di S. Giuseppe a Valguarnera. L’ottantottenne cardinale statunitense si è da subito sintonizzato con la spiritualità popolare propria della tradizione valguarnerese, riconoscendo dietro la folklorica tradizione delle “tavole” l’anelito alla carità che si manifesta col dono del cibo ai meno abbienti, i sant’, e a tutti i visitatori indistintamente. Una visita a sorpresa quella dell’anziano prelato statunitense, che accompagnato dai teologi Herve' Legrand e Hermann Pottmeyer, ha celebrato la messa solenne nella parrocchia di S. Giuseppe. I tre si trovavano in Sicilia per un convegno di ecclesiologia, organizzato dal prof. Rino La Delfa, docente presso la Facoltà Teologica palermitana, che ha pensato di invitarli a Valguarnera per l’occasione della festa di S. Giuseppe.
Giorno 19 la chiesa era gremita di fedeli. L’omelia del cardinale Dulles era incentrata sulla figura del Santo festeggiato e, come scrivevamo prima, sulla positiva sottolineatura della religiosità popolare, considerata non nella sua deviazione folklorica, ma come la manifestazione della carità cristiana trasfigurata nella gioia della festa. Il cardinale è un eminente studioso di teologia: figlio dell’ex segretario di stato degli Stati Uniti John Forster Dulles, si convertì al cattolicesimo negli anni della seconda guerra mondiale, dopo avere prestato servizio presso la marina statunitense. Il suo iniziale interesse per la filosofia e gli studi sul Rinascimento lo portarono a rivederne lo sfondo patristico e medievale. Questo processo di studio lo fece quindi definitivamente approdare alla conversione al cattolicesimo. Conversione non certo facile da digerire nell’ambiente wasp (white anglo-saxason protestant) al quale apparteneva, considerando peraltro il ruolo politicamente influentissimo del padre nel governo americano. Diventato gesuita e conseguito il dottorato all’Università Gregoriana a Roma nel 1960 ha insegnato ininterrottamente teologia, prima presso il Woodstock College nel Maryland, quindi alla Catholic University of America, a Washington e infine alla Fordham University a New York. È noto per il volume Models of the Church del 1974, un influente trattato di ecclesiologia, ma è anche autore di 20 libri e più di 650 articoli. Il 21 febbraio del 2001 è stato elevato alla dignità cardinalizia da Giovanni Paolo II: che ha voluto con questo onore premiare il suo lungo servizio reso alla Chiesa con l’incessante attività di studioso. È il primo teologo e anche il primo gesuita statunitense ad ottenere la porpora. In una recente intervista alla domanda: “Come caratterizzerebbe il ruolo del teologo nella società molto secolarizzata di oggi?”. Ha risposto: “Il teologo cerca sempre di vedere come la tradizione della Chiesa può essere adattata per parlare alla cultura contemporanea.” È appunto quello che durante l’omelia di domenica 19 ha comunicato con impareggiabile semplicità al popolo valguarnerese recuperando la figura di S. Giuseppe e rileggendola secondo la categoria dell’umiltà.
Giovanni e Salvatore Di Vita
Cardinale Avery Dulles, insigne teologo statunitense che ha ricevuto la porpora cardinalizia da Giovanni Paolo II. Insegna alla Fordham University ed e' autore di libri di teologia divenuti ormai classici. Figlio dell'ex segretario di stato americano, e' divenuto gesuita in seguito ad una conversione al cattolicesimo. Sara' accompagnato da altri due illustri teologi, il padre domenicano Herve' Legrand, dell'Institut Catholique di Parigi, e dal teologo tedesco, Hermann Pottmeyer, dell'università di Bochum.
Cardinal sees signs of vitality in church
Apr 04, 2006
Cardinal Avery Dulles believes that while people in Europe seem to have lost interest in religion, American Catholics by and large are content in their church, and parish life appears to be vital and vibrant.
(Pittsburgh Catholic, March 24, 2006) “There are good signs,” he said.
Cardinal Dulles will focus on the future of the church when he addresses Pittsburgh-area Jesuit alumni on “The DeChristianization of Europe: Is America Next?” Thursday, April 20, at 7 p.m. at the Duquesne Club in Downtown Pittsburgh.
Cardinal Dulles, the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University, is one of three Jesuit cardinals and the only American Jesuit cardinal. When he was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001, he became the first American-born theologian who was not a bishop to receive the honor.
Cardinal Dulles noted that Mass attendance is low and vital statistics regarding the church are negative throughout Western Europe, with Poland being an exception.
He pointed to the battle over the European constitution in which there is no mention of Christianity in the new document. He said it has gone from a classical civilization of Greek or Roman, to one of the enlightenment of the French Revolution.
The cardinal noted that people in Europe treat cathedrals as museums rather than spiritual houses of worship.
Cardinal Dulles has noted, however, that while many segments of the church are experiencing difficulties, there are many people of other faiths who are seeing good things in the Catholic Church.
A convert himself, the cardinal said people seem to be looking to the church because they find a greater stability than they had in other faiths. He noted that while they may have been committed all along to authentic Christianity, among other things the Bible pointed them to Catholicism.
“They find a great deal about the church in the New Testament,” he said. “They find that Catholicism realizes that more than their own church had.”
Cardinal Dulles noted that this is especially true when reading about the Fathers of the Church. He said early Christian writers often reflected on Catholic Christianity. The cardinal said there are mixed signals about the future of the church, but there is a good deal of religious vitality in both Catholic and Protestant circles.
He said Catholicism at the grassroots level seems to be doing fairly well, but it faces a constant threat from the dominant media culture, which doesn’t seem to take religion seriously.
Cardinal Dulles pointed to the tension between those who want the culture of the United States to be dominated by religious values and those who want to push religion into the realm of privacy.
“I don’t know how the battle will turn out, but it is an important struggle going on,” he said.
Cardinal Dulles said the strength of Catholicism is that it’s international and historical and faithful to its traditions.
He also sees a renewed interest in the Eucharist and the papal witness of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
The cardinal noted that Americans have responded well to Pope Benedict XVI. He said that though he was originally perceived as a doctrinal policeman, he has shown another aspect of himself and caught people by surprise.
“He is very pastoral and very gentle, and very much able to reach out to different audiences,” he said. “He’s made a very good impression.”
Cardinal Dulles, the son of the late Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, has authored more than 750 articles on theological topics and published some two dozen books.
His Pittsburgh presentation will be preceded by an April 19 address at Wheeling Jesuit University.
Valguarnera: La visita del cardinale Avery Dulles
Mar 31, 2006
“Oggi ho imparato due cose: a dire viva S. Giuseppe e a riconoscere che l’autentica carità cristiana può manifestarsi nello spirito gioioso delle vostre tavolate!”.
(vivienna.it) Valguarnera 24/03/06 - Queste le parole di esordio pronunciate dal cardinale Avery Dulles nell’omelia durante la messa solenne per la festa di S. Giuseppe a Valguarnera. L’ottantottenne cardinale statunitense si è da subito sintonizzato con la spiritualità popolare propria della tradizione valguarnerese, riconoscendo dietro la folklorica tradizione delle “tavole” l’anelito alla carità che si manifesta col dono del cibo ai meno abbienti, i sant’, e a tutti i visitatori indistintamente. Una visita a sorpresa quella dell’anziano prelato statunitense, che accompagnato dai teologi Herve' Legrand e Hermann Pottmeyer, ha celebrato la messa solenne nella parrocchia di S. Giuseppe. I tre si trovavano in Sicilia per un convegno di ecclesiologia, organizzato dal prof. Rino La Delfa, docente presso la Facoltà Teologica palermitana, che ha pensato di invitarli a Valguarnera per l’occasione della festa di S. Giuseppe.
Giorno 19 la chiesa era gremita di fedeli. L’omelia del cardinale Dulles era incentrata sulla figura del Santo festeggiato e, come scrivevamo prima, sulla positiva sottolineatura della religiosità popolare, considerata non nella sua deviazione folklorica, ma come la manifestazione della carità cristiana trasfigurata nella gioia della festa. Il cardinale è un eminente studioso di teologia: figlio dell’ex segretario di stato degli Stati Uniti John Forster Dulles, si convertì al cattolicesimo negli anni della seconda guerra mondiale, dopo avere prestato servizio presso la marina statunitense. Il suo iniziale interesse per la filosofia e gli studi sul Rinascimento lo portarono a rivederne lo sfondo patristico e medievale. Questo processo di studio lo fece quindi definitivamente approdare alla conversione al cattolicesimo. Conversione non certo facile da digerire nell’ambiente wasp (white anglo-saxason protestant) al quale apparteneva, considerando peraltro il ruolo politicamente influentissimo del padre nel governo americano. Diventato gesuita e conseguito il dottorato all’Università Gregoriana a Roma nel 1960 ha insegnato ininterrottamente teologia, prima presso il Woodstock College nel Maryland, quindi alla Catholic University of America, a Washington e infine alla Fordham University a New York. È noto per il volume Models of the Church del 1974, un influente trattato di ecclesiologia, ma è anche autore di 20 libri e più di 650 articoli. Il 21 febbraio del 2001 è stato elevato alla dignità cardinalizia da Giovanni Paolo II: che ha voluto con questo onore premiare il suo lungo servizio reso alla Chiesa con l’incessante attività di studioso. È il primo teologo e anche il primo gesuita statunitense ad ottenere la porpora. In una recente intervista alla domanda: “Come caratterizzerebbe il ruolo del teologo nella società molto secolarizzata di oggi?”. Ha risposto: “Il teologo cerca sempre di vedere come la tradizione della Chiesa può essere adattata per parlare alla cultura contemporanea.” È appunto quello che durante l’omelia di domenica 19 ha comunicato con impareggiabile semplicità al popolo valguarnerese recuperando la figura di S. Giuseppe e rileggendola secondo la categoria dell’umiltà.
Giovanni e Salvatore Di Vita
Cardinale Avery Dulles, insigne teologo statunitense che ha ricevuto la porpora cardinalizia da Giovanni Paolo II. Insegna alla Fordham University ed e' autore di libri di teologia divenuti ormai classici. Figlio dell'ex segretario di stato americano, e' divenuto gesuita in seguito ad una conversione al cattolicesimo. Sara' accompagnato da altri due illustri teologi, il padre domenicano Herve' Legrand, dell'Institut Catholique di Parigi, e dal teologo tedesco, Hermann Pottmeyer, dell'università di Bochum.
Valguarnera, per la festa di S. Giuseppe il Cardinale Dulles
Mar 19, 2006
Domenica prossima, 19 marzo, a Valguarnera, diocesi di Piazza Armerina, si celebra con grande solennità la festa di S. Giuseppe.
Valguarnera (vivienna.it, 14/03/06) - Per l’occasione nella Chiesa parrocchiale dedicata al Santo, presiederà la Messa solenne il Card. Dulles,insigne teologo satunitense che ha ricevuto questa alta onorificenza da Giovanni Paolo II. Insegna alla Fordham University di New York ed è autore di libri di teologia divenuti ormai classici. Figlio dell'ex segretario di stato americano, è divenuto gesuita, in seguito alla sua conversione al cattolicesimo.
Sara' accompagnato da altri due teologi: il padre domenicano Hervè Legarand dell'Institut Catholique di Parigi, e dal teologo tedesco, Hermann Pottmeyer, dell'universita' di Bochum in Germania. I tre sono in Sicilia per prendere parte al III convegno di ecclesiologia organizzato da don Rino La Delfa, titolare della cattedra di ecclesiologia presso la Facoltà Teologica di Sicilia a Palermo.
Il convegno si svolgerà nel capoluogo siciliano nei giorni 17-18 marzo, sul tema "Partecipi della sollecitudine per tutte le chiese": Primato e collegialità. Uno sguardo verso il futuro.
Cardinal Dulles Explores Pope’s View on Vatican II
Jan 16, 2006
In the 40 years since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Benedict’s views of this landmark event have remained fundamentally consistent, but there are instances where his theology has evolved, said Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., during the Fall McGinley Lecture on Oct. 25 at the Leonard Theatre on Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus.
(fordham.edu, Dec. 2005) NEW YORK — Cardinal Dulles presented this shift in Pope Benedict’s thinking by reviewing his interpretation of some points in the four great constitutions of the council: Sacrosanctum Concilium (the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), Dei Verbum (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Divine Revelation), Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) and Gaudium et Spes (the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World).
At Vatican II, Pope Benedict XVI, who was then the young theologian Joseph Ratzinger, was appointed as consultor to the subcomission revising the texts on Revelation and on the Church. He belonged to an inner circle of German theologians who had a major role in shaping the council throughout its four sessions that extended from 1962 to 1965. According to Cardinal Dulles, the pope’s theology has been firmly rooted in the Augustinian tradition: He values prayer and worship, but is suspicious of social activism and of human claims to be building the Kingdom of God.
“For this reason, he most appreciates the council documents on the Liturgy and Revelation, and has reservations about the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, while giving it credit for some solid achievements,” said Cardinal Dulles, the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion Professor of Religion.
Cardinal Dulles added that a young Ratzinger lent considerable importance to the theology of the bishops and local churches. Later in his life, his views on the two groups had swung in the other direction.
“Since 1992, [Ratzinger] has contended that the universal church has ontological and historical priority over the particular churches. [The church] was not originally made up of local regional churches,” said Cardinal Dulles. “Those who speak of the priority of the particular church over the universal, he says, misinterpret the council documents.”
A similar shift is apparent in the pope’s view of episcopal conferences, which he had once characterized as “collegial organs with a true theological basis.” By 1986, according to Dulles, Ratzinger says, “we must not forget that the episcopal conferences have no theological basis, they do not belong to the structure of the church as willed by Christ, that cannot be eliminated; they have only a practical, concrete function.”
Cardinal Dulles noted that in interpreting the document on the Liturgy in his earlier commentaries, Ratzinger praised it highly but in later writings he pointed out many of its misinterpretations. “The Council Fathers,” he [Ratzinger] insists, “had no intention of initiating a liturgical revolution. They intended to introduce a moderate use of the vernacular alongside of the Latin, but had no thought of eliminating Latin, which remains the official language of the Roman rite.
“Ratzinger seems to have nothing against the celebration of Mass according to the missal that was in use before the council,” said Cardinal Dulles.
Ratzinger’s theological orientation appeared to be shifting when he accepted the position of editor at the conservative review Communio in 1972, said Cardinal Dulles, who attributes Ratzinger’s later assessments on certain areas of Vatican II to “finding his own theological path.”
“Ratzinger’s [Pope Benedict] career appears to have affected his theology,” said Cardinal Dulles. “As an archbishop and a cardinal he has had to take increasing responsibility for the public life of the church and has gained a deeper realization of the need for universal sacramental structures to safeguard the unity of the church and her fidelity to the Gospel.”
Fordham University’s McGinley Chair in Religion and Society was established in 1985 as a tribute to Laurence J. McGinley, S.J., who first attained distinction as a professor of theology and later served as president of Fordham University from 1948 to 1963. The McGinley lectures explore the relationship between religion and current social and political issues.
Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to approximately 15,800 students in its five undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx, Manhattan and Tarrytown, and the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.
Seminary dinner to honor Dulles
Oct 03, 2005
The seventh annual fundraising dinner at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers will honor Cardinal Avery Dulles, the first American theologian to be named to the College of Cardinals.
(THE JOURNAL NEWS, August 26, 2005) Dulles is a visiting professor at St. Joseph's, the seminary for the Archdiocese of New York. He is also the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University.
At 87, he is arguably the most famous Catholic theologian in U.S. history, known for his celebrated 1974 book, "Models of the Church," and numerous other books and essays. The son of the late Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, he was raised a Presbyterian and considered himself an agnostic before converting to Catholicism after college. He continues to lecture frequently.
Dulles was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001, at the same consistory where Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, was given his red hat.
At the Sept. 15 dinner, St. Joseph's also will honor William F. Harrington of Pound Ridge, managing partner of the law firm of Bleakley Platt & Schmidt in White Plains and a member of the boards of trustees at the seminary and St. Patrick's Cathedral. He is a parishioner of St. Patrick's Church in Bedford.
Audrey and Barry Sullivan, parishioners at St. Joseph's Church in Bronxville, are chairing the dinner. Barry Sullivan is a member of the seminary's board. Egan is honorary chairman of the dinner.
Tickets for the dinner cost $500, or $5,000 for a table. Funds raised will cover tuition for seminarians from New York. The event, at the seminary in Yonkers, begins with a reception at 6:30 p.m., followed by dinner.
Cardinal Avery Dulles receives University of Dayton’s Marianist Award
Apr 14, 2005
"This is, after all, a man known to layer the soles of his shoes with duct tape. That way, they last longer. He’s not sure if he does it out of ‘fidelity to my vow of poverty or just plain stinginess.’"
(The Catholic Telegraph, Sept. 2004) DAYTON DEANERY — Jesuit Father, Cardinal Avery Dulles, the first American theologian who is not a bishop to be named to the College of Cardinals, received the University of Dayton 2004 Marianist Award Sept. 8. His topic, following the award presentation, was "The Faith of a Theologian." Cardinal Dulles is the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University.
"For more than 40 years, Avery Dulles has contributed original theological work that is both faith
Dismissal from Priesthood Is a Complex Issue
Sept 18, 2004
In a Times article, Cardinal Dulles cautioned: "The issue of dismissal from the priesthood is complex and contentious. Theologically speaking, anyone who is ordained remains a priest forever."
(Zenit.org, 11 June 2002)In a Times article, Cardinal Dulles cautioned: "The issue of dismissal from the priesthood is complex and contentious. Theologically speaking, anyone who is ordained remains a priest forever. To return a priest to the lay population is to obfuscate this theological principle. Is it not better, the second school will ask, for the Church to take responsibility for its erring priests and continue to care for them as priests rather than dismiss them, as if expelling them from its ranks would protect society from them?
"There may be a need to limit a priest´s ministry, even severely. He may have to be sent to a monastery for a life of seclusion and penance. But involuntary return to the laity should be very rare and should never be imposed without due process."
The cardinal further cautions: "The bishops are understandably concerned to show that they are taking bold and decisive measures. But they should take care not to lock the Church into positions that will later prove to be unwise."
Cardinal Dulles calls clergy sex scandal a media beat-up
Sept 18, 2004
US Jesuit Cardinal Avery Dulles has said that the current clergy sex abuse scandal is an "American media creation" that "does not rise to the level of historical church crises such as the Gregorian revolution in the 12th century or the Protestant reformation of the 16th century."
(Boston Herald, 17 Apr 2002) "I don't think this is anything of comparable proportions," he said. "I don't think there's any great crisis in the U.S . . . It's really practically no news. To the extent it's a crisis, it's created by the news media. I suppose every individual case is terrible but it is not something peculiar to the Catholic church."
Stephen J. Pope, chairman of the theology department at Boston College, called Dulles' observation "stunning" and said it could reflect John Paul's feelings, given the two share similar views.
"That is profoundly out of touch with what ordinary Catholics are thinking," said Pope. "There's a very deep emotional level of anger and depression. If that's the way the Vatican is thinking, there's a very big problem."
Pope said the meeting is historical in its short notice and single agenda. In 1989, American bishops were summoned for a meeting on teachings contrary to church views and bishops from Holland were called to the carpet in 1981 for a similar incident.
Pope speculated the meeting could be about "personnel issues" such as Law's resignation and what it means for the Catholic church in the United States. He said normally cardinal conclaves have months of lead time for preparation and reflection.
Dulles is one of five American cardinals who were not invited, but he said the focus of the meeting is for those cardinals who actively oversee archdioceses to hammer out a uniform response to the widening scandal.
"American bishops want a little more ability to deal with the question than canon law gives them at this time," Dulles told the Boston Herald .
Card. Dulles Sides With Card. Ratzinger Against Card. Kasper
Sept 16, 2004
Ratzinger and Kasper on the Question of Universal and Particular Churches
(Zenit.org, 28 May 2001).- Which comes first: the universal Church or the diocesan Church?
That question lies at the heart of a running debate between the German cardinals Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper. Kasper sharpened the debate with a recent article in the Jesuit magazine America, a piece he penned when he was still bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart and before receiving his red hat.
In simplified terms, Cardinal Kasper argues that the diocesan, or particular, Church takes precedence over the universal Church, whereas Cardinal Ratzinger holds that the universal Church is prior to the local Church both historically and ontologically. The debate isn´t purely academic, however, since it touches on episcopal authority and how bishops should be enforcing norms handed down by Rome.
It´s a debate that another cardinal, Avery Dulles, steps into, in an essay in the upcoming issue of Inside the Vatican magazine.
"Kasper´s grievance against the papacy and the Roman curia," writes Cardinal Dulles, "comes from his practical experience as a pastor. As bishop he found that many of the directives coming from Rome were resented and ignored by the priests and people of his diocese. If the priority of the particular church were respected, he believes, the diocesan bishop could adapt general regulations to the situation of his own flock."
Cardinal Dulles recounts the Ratzinger-Kasper debate and cites a document put out by the congregation headed by Cardinal Ratzinger.
He writes: "The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its 1992 letter ´Communionis notio´ maintained that the universal Church ´is not the result of a communion of the churches, but in its essential mystery it is a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual particular church´ (no. 9). Expanding on this sentence, Ratzinger insists that the universal Church is not simply the result of the expansion of an initially local community. For him it is the ´Jerusalem above,´ which Paul describes as ´our mother´ (Gal 4:26)."
"Kasper, for his part, does not deny the pre-existence of the Church," writes Cardinal Dulles. "[...] But pre-existence, he holds, belongs not only to the universal Church but also to the concrete historical churches, which are likewise grounded in God´s eternal mystery. He does not show that the new Jerusalem described in the New Testament and in the patristic sources consists of multiple churches."
In this debate, Cardinal Dulles sides with Ratzinger´s argument. Dulles writes: "The ontological priority of the Church universal appears to me to be almost self-evident, since the very concept of a particular church presupposes a universal Church to which it belongs, whereas the concept of the universal Church does not imply that it is made up of distinct particular churches.
"Historically, too, the priority of the universal Church is evident because Christ unquestionably formed the community of the disciples and prepared the apostles for their mission while they were still gathered together. Particular churches emerged only after the Church became dispersed, so that it became necessary to establish local congregations with their own hierarchical leaders."
Continuing his critique, Cardinal Dulles states: "Kasper maintains that Ratzinger proceeds by Plato´s method, starting from universal concepts rather than, as Kasper prefers, taking the universal concept as a mere abstraction from concrete reality, which is particular. I suspect that Ratzinger has a certain affinity for Christian Platonism, but in the present debate he takes his arguments from Scripture and tradition rather than from Platonic philosophy. He makes it clear that the universal Church animated by the Holy Spirit exists here on earth, within history. In an unsigned article published a year after Communionis notio, commonly attributed to Ratzinger, the author insists that there can be nothing more concrete than the gathering of the 120 at Jerusalem."
At another point, Dulles focuses on key phrases in the Second Vatican Council´s dogmatic constitution on the Church, "Lumen Gentium."
"Kasper states correctly," he writes, "that according to Vatican II the bishop receives his office of government (munus regendi) directly from Christ through the sacrament of ordination (Lumen gentium 21), but he fails to note that the bishop cannot govern a particular diocese unless he is duly appointed by canonical mission and remains in hierarchical communion with the college of bishops and its head, the bishop of Rome (Lumen gentium 24). The bishop´s powers of teaching and government ´can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman pontiff´ (Lumen gentium 22)."
Referring to Cardinal Kasper´s pastoral concerns, the Dulles article mentions the rules regarding admission to the Eucharist of non-Catholic Christians and of divorced and remarried Catholics. Dulles sees local solutions to such questions as problematic.
"Good arguments can be made both for and against allowing Holy Communion to be given in certain problematic cases," Cardinal Dulles writes. "But in the context of Kasper´s article the essential question is whether the solutions should be worked out by particular churches on their own authority. Is the situation in the diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart so peculiar that it should be allowed to go its own way on these two questions?
"From reading Kasper´s text I do not see why the problems in Rottenburg or Stuttgart differ significantly from those in Munich, Johannesburg, or New York. Whatever policy is permitted in Rottenburg-Stuttgart does not concern that diocese alone; it will inevitably have repercussions all over the world."
Cardinal Dulles concludes with a strong defense of the Petrine office and writes: "Kasper, who is by no means an extremist, would certainly agree that the Catholic Church must be on guard against degenerating into a loose federation of local or national churches. She has learned much from the experience of Gallicanism and analogous movements in past centuries. In this age of globalization and multiple inculturation, it is more imperative than ever to have a vigorous office that safeguards the unity of all the particular churches in the essentials of faith, morality, and worship."
Card. Dulles on the Old Mass
Sept 12, 2004
“If there be anyone who contends that in order to be converted to the Catholic faith one must be first attracted by the beauty of the liturgy, he will have me to explain away."
(The Tablet, 5 July 2003) The American convert Cardinal Avery Dulles SJ writes of the pre-Vatican II Mass: “If there be anyone who contends that in order to be converted to the Catholic faith one must be first attracted by the beauty of the liturgy, he will have me to explain away.
Filled as I was with a Puritan antipathy toward splendour in religious ritual, I found myself actually repulsed by the elaborate symbolism in which the Holy Sacrifice is clothed.” Accustomed to Presbyterian worship, Dulles says that in the Masses he attended as an undergraduate “there was little external unity to be discerned. The priest, so far from telling the congregation when to sit or stand or kneel, carried out his tasks almost as though he were alone.
The congregation, for their part, were not watching with scrupulous exactitude the movements of the celebrant. Some, on the contrary, were reciting prayers on mysterious strings of beads which Catholics call rosaries. Others were thumbing through pages of prayer-books and missals, which, for all I knew, might have been totally unrelated to the Mass. Not even a hymn was sung to bring unity into this apparently dull and unconnected service.”
Cardinal Avery Dulles receives University of Dayton’s Marianist Award
Sept 10, 2004
"This is, after all, a man known to layer the soles of his shoes with duct tape. That way, they last longer. He’s not sure if he does it out of ‘fidelity to my vow of poverty or just plain stinginess.’"
(The Catholic Telegraph, Sept. 2004) DAYTON DEANERY — Jesuit Father, Cardinal Avery Dulles, the first American theologian who is not a bishop to be named to the College of Cardinals, received the University of Dayton 2004 Marianist Award Sept. 8. His topic, following the award presentation, was "The Faith of a Theologian." Cardinal Dulles is the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University.
"For more than 40 years, Avery Dulles has contributed original theological work that is both faithful to Catholic tradition and fresh in its engagement with the contemporary world," said history professor Una Cadegan, who chairs UD’s Forum on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition Today. "He is a wonderful example of the integration of faith and scholarship the Marianist Award is intended to honor."
The author of more than 700 articles on theological topics, Cardinal Dulles has published 22 books including Models of the Church (1974), Models of Revelation (1983), The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith (1994), The New World of Faith (2000), and Newman (2002). His book The Splendor of Faith: The Theological Vision of Pope John Paul II was revised in 2003 for the 25th anniversary of the papal election.
In 2001, he was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II.
"His world is so austere, so stripped of affectation and accessory, that it is hard to imagine (Cardinal) Avery Dulles donning the white cape, scarlet robe, red skullcap and solid gold ring traditionally conferred on a Roman Catholic cardinal," the Washington Post wrote in 2001.
"This is, after all, a man known to layer the soles of his shoes with duct tape. That way, they last longer. He’s not sure if he does it out of ‘fidelity to my vow of poverty or just plain stinginess.’"
Cardinal Dulles, 86, is past president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society. He has served on the International Theological Commission and as a member of the United States Lutheran/Roman Catholic Coordinating Committee. He is an adviser to the Committee on Doctrine of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
UD has presented the Marianist Award annually since 1986 to honor Catholic scholars who have made outstanding contributions to the intellectual life. Recent recipients include Peter and Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, Mary Douglas, Mary Ann Glendon and Marcia L. Colish.
Avery Cardinal Dulles finally laid to rest
Kardinal Avery Dulles wird 90
Valguarnera: La visita del cardinale Avery Dulles