Jacques Dupuis Faces the Inquisition

The critique of Jacques Dupuis, SJ, by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the direction of Joseph Ratzinger was met by almost universal dismay by Christian theologians and participants in interfaith dialogue throughout the world. This book is comprised of both responses by Father Dupuis to the Vatican's criticisms (which he was forbidden to publish during his lifetime) and introductory and background material by his friend and editor Bill Burrows, who draws on their many conversations to draw out the deeper implications of Dupuis' work and the background to the Vatican investigations and criticisms. In addition to laying bare procedural problems in the CDF's process, Dupuis shows that both the Vatican document Dominus Iesus and the Notification about problems in his work rest on dangerous misunderstandings of Scripture and church teaching that reverse the gains in interfaith understanding and ecumenism that have occurred over the past fifty years.

William R. Burrows is research professor of missiology in the world Christianity program at New York Theological Seminary and managing editor emeritus of Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York.