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.
Pope makes time to pay homage to U.S. theologian Cardinal Dulles