Francis Schussler Fiorenza
Francis Schussler Fiorenza in an undated photo. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

If Karl Rahner attends your wedding, are you required to become a theologian?

The famed theologian did indeed attend the 1967 wedding of the theologians Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. He didn’t officiate, however. That duty fell to another German theologian who was close to the Fiorenzas: Johann Baptist Metz. And the newlyweds did indeed continue on with the theological study that had first brought them into contact with Rahner and Metz, becoming two of the most distinguished theologians in the United States over the past four decades.

Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, who died on July 23 at the age of 84, was remembered as “one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of our time” by Harvard Divinity School Dean Marla F. Frederick upon his passing. “His work in fundamental theology, hermeneutics, and political theology reshaped the fields and challenged us to think more expansively about theology’s role in the world.”

Born in 1941, Schüssler Fiorenza was heavily influenced by religion teachers and confessors as a teenager, telling the theologian Jeanine Hill Fletcher in 2021 that he first became interested in theology at the age of 16. Rahner and Metz would prove early touchstones for Schüssler Fiorenza, who told Hill Fletcher that he had thought of becoming a Jesuit so that he might study theology in Europe with scholars like them. A vocations director at Fordham, he joked, disabused him of that notion by pointing out that Jesuits take a vow of obedience and go where they’re sent.

After pursuing a master’s in divinity at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Schüssler Fiorenza received a fellowship in 1963 to study at the University of Münster. The school had a world-class faculty in those years—Schüssler Fiorenza later remembered them as “the stars of the stars”—including at various points Walter Kasper, Joseph Ratzinger and Metz along with Rahner himself, who came over from the University of Munich. It was there that he met Elisabeth. “It was clear to me,” he later wrote, that “I had met an intellectual and theological ‘soulmate’ from whom I have learned much and came to admire and love.”

Francis and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza married in 1967. After moving to the United States, they both became professors at the University of Notre Dame. Francis also taught at Villanova University and the Catholic University of America. Both joined the faculty of Harvard Divinity School in 1986, where Francis was for many years the Charles Chauncey Stillman Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies and Elisabeth the Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity.

Francis served as the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America in 1985-86 and was active in both the College Theology Society and the C.T.S.A. for many years. He later recalled that his tenure in both societies was a time of huge transition from priests and men and women religious to lay people—he was one of the first lay presidents of C.T.S.A.

Over the course of his career, Schüssler Fiorenza published more than 150 articles and several books on fundamental theology, political theology, hermeneutics and 19th- and 20th-century theology. His Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (1984) is perhaps the book he is best known for, though he also published Systematic Theology (1991), Modern Christian Thought: The Twentieth Century (with James Livingston, 2006) and Rights at Risk: Confronting the Cultural, Ethical, and Religious Challenges (2012). 

He also co-edited Political Theology: Contemporary Challenges and Future Directions (2013) with Klaus Tanner and Michael Welker, Habermas, Modernity, and Public Theology with Don Browning and Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives (1991) with John P. Galvin. (If you studied Catholic theology at the graduate level in the past three decades, you’ve used that last one.)

“From the time of his doctoral studies in Münster, Francis was always asking tough and necessary questions at the edge of the disciplines he mastered—theology confronted by philosophy, theory unsettled by historical change, academic values sorely tested amid changing social and political realities,” Francis X. Clooney, S.J., the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard Divinity School, said upon Fiorenza’s passing. 

“Ever the committed teacher, Francis helped his students at Harvard, as previously at Villanova, Notre Dame, and the Catholic University of America, to manage intellectual balance and wise thinking, wherever their paths in life might lead them.”

“Francis Schüssler Fiorenza made me feel like I mattered—like my voice meant something and that my contribution would make a difference,” Mara Brecht, an associate professor and chair of the department of theology at Loyola University Chicago and a 2006 alumna of Harvard Divinity School, said in an email to America. “His simple, heartfelt encouragement set me on a path toward something good, and I’m not sure I would have had the confidence to try if it wasn’t for his kindness and affirmation.”

Schüssler Fiorenza officially retired from full-time teaching in 2021 after 35 years. That same year, the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif., bestowed honorary degrees on both him and Elisabeth. On that occasion, he recalled Rahner’s notion that the Second Vatican Council had augured the birth of a truly global church, and stressed the importance of carrying on the task of Catholic theology in a pluralistic, diverse and inclusive style.

A tribute to him from Harvard Divinity School last week noted his importance in a theological world engaging with modernity:

Fiorenza’s scholarship bridged traditions, generations, and continents. His work explored the foundations of theological method and interpretation in light of modern philosophy and cultural critique, engaging contemporary thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. He was widely known for advancing political theology and highlighting theology’s role in confronting injustice, poverty, and the ethical questions of modern life.

“Francis embodied the best of what theological education can be—rigorous, courageous, and deeply humane,” H.D.S. Dean Marla Frederick wrote. “His influence on generations of students and scholars at Harvard Divinity School and beyond is immeasurable, and his legacy will remain central to how we imagine the future of theology.”

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Our poetry selection for this week is “Question,” by Dierdre Lockwood. Readers can view all of America’s published poems here.

Members of the Catholic Book Club: We are taking a hiatus while we retool the Catholic Book Club and pick a new selection. 

In this space every week, America features reviews of and literary commentary on one particular writer or group of writers (both new and old; our archives span more than a century), as well as poetry and other offerings from America Media. We hope this will give us a chance to provide you with more in-depth coverage of our literary offerings. It also allows us to alert digital subscribers to some of our online content that doesn’t make it into our newsletters.

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Happy reading!

James T. Keane

James T. Keane is a Senior Editor at America.