The Survival of Dulles Reflections on a Second Century of Influence

This collection, marking the centenary of Avery Dulles’s birth, makes an entirely distinctive contribution to contemporary theological discourse as we approach the second century of the cardinal’s influence, and the twenty-first of Christian witness in the world. Moving beyond a festschrift, the volume offers both historical analyses of Dulles’s contributions and applications of his insights and methodologies to current issues like immigration, exclusion, and digital culture. It includes essays by Dulles’s students, colleagues, and peers, as well as by emerging scholars who have been and continue to be indebted to his theological vision and encyclopedic fluency in the ecclesiological developments of the post-conciliar Church. Though focused more on Catholic and ecumenical affairs than interreligious ones, the volume is intentionally outward-facing and strives to make clear the diverse and pluralistic contours of the cardinal’s nearly unrivaled impact on the North American Church, which truly crossed ideological, denominational, and generational boundaries. While critically recognizing the limits and lacunae of his historical moment, it serves as one among a multitude of testaments to the notion that the ripples of Avery Dulles’s influence continue to widen toward intellectually distant shores.

Michael M. Canaris is associate professor of ecclesiology and systematic theology at Loyola University Chicago’s Institute of Pastoral Studies, where he also coordinates the Institute’s graduate programs in Rome. He holds degrees from or has taught at six Jesuit universities and was Avery Cardinal Dulles’s last doctoral student and graduate research assistant.

H. Ashley Hall is associate professor of theology at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He served as a delegate in Round XII of the official Lutheran–Roman Catholic Dialogue in the United States. He was a graduate assistant to Cardinal Dulles from 2002 to 2004.

Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., distinguished professor emerita of theology at Fordham University, was both a graduate student and then faculty colleague of Avery Dulles. A past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, and also of the interreligious American Theological Society, she finds great joy in writing, editing, teaching, mentoring, and public lecturing in theology. Her twelve books, among them She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1992/2017) and Creation and the Cross: The Mercy of God for a Planet in Peril (2018), have been translated into numerous languages.

Anne-Marie Kirmse, O.P., a member of the Sisters of Saint Dominic of Amityville, New York, recently retired from Fordham University, where she served as research associate for the Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society. She lectures and writes frequently on the theology of Cardinal Dulles and is currently working on a biography of his life, based on the twenty years she worked with him while he was at Fordham.

Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., a native of New York City, was ordained a priest in 1971. He received the doctorate in theology from the University of Freiburg (Germany) and began teaching at Marquette University in 1975. Since 1990 he has taught at Fordham University. He has held visiting professorships at John Carroll University, Boston College, St. Joseph’s Seminary, the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and the Pontifical Gregorian University. Fr. Lienhard is the author, editor, or translator of twelve books and the author of more than fifty scholarly articles.