An American Catholic theologian of worldwide renown, Avery Dulles (1918-2008) looms large in the intellectual life of the church. He wrote more than two dozen books and many hundreds of articles and was a peritus at the Second Vatican Council. As Patrick W. Carey—a professor of theology at Marquette University—notes in the preface: “Theology was not just an academic enterprise for him; it was a personal, faithful, and creative search to understand the revelation of God in Christ…”
This massive, thorough and comprehensive biography takes a chronological approach, beginning with Dulles’s youth and home life (his father was John Foster Dulles), early education, conversion to Catholicism, service in the Navy during World War II, his years at Harvard University, entering the Society of Jesus, and much more. The major themes of this magisterial book are Dulles’s unflagging commitment to ecclesiological issues, dialogue amidst dissent, interpreting Vatican II for the church at large and, most especially, advancing the council’s call to ecumenism. After retiring in 1988 from his teaching post at Catholic University, he taught at Fordham University and became the first holder of a newly endowed chair in honor of Laurence J. McGinley, S.J., a past president of the university. He was created a cardinal and served in the College of Cardinals as a priest theologian from 2001 to 2008.
The writings of Avery Dulles spanned many areas—theology, revelation, faith, ecumenism, the church and culture. Avery Cardinal Dulles SJ is the first autobiography of this influential churchman, but surely will not be the last. Watch for a review of the book in the Nov. 29 issue of America. “For readers committed to understanding recent decades of American history, post-conciliar Catholicism or the reception of Vatican II by Catholics and others,” writes Jeffrey Gros, “Carey’s book is indispensable.”
Purchase Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ: A Model Theologian, 1918-2008
This article appears in November 22 2010.
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