A man of great faith and great intellect has gone home to Our Lord:
The death of Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, “brings home to God a great theologian and a totally dedicated servant of the Church,” Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said of the cardinal who died December 12 at Fordham University at the age of 90.
“His wise counsel will be missed; his personal witness to the pursuit of holiness of life as a priest, a Jesuit and a Cardinal of the Church will be remembered and will encourage the Church to remain ever faithful to her Lord and his mission,” Cardinal George said.
“I am deeply saddened at the loss of a personal friend; but I rejoice in the hope that now he sees clearly what he explored so well in his studies on revelation, on grace and on the nature of the Church and the papal office. May he rest in peace.”
Cardinal Dulles, who served as a professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America and later as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, assisted the USCCB as a key contributor to the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue and to the committee on doctrine.
“For a generation of priests, scholars and faithful, Cardinal Avery Dulles has been a reliable and faithful interpreter of the Second Vatican Council. A number of his books have become classics in theological education, such as Models of the Church,” said Father James Massa, executive director of the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the USCCB and a student of Cardinal Dulles. “In some ways, his life bears comparison with another great cardinal-theologian, John Henry Newman, on whose birthday, 200 years later, Avery Dulles was created a cardinal of the Catholic Church.” The first U.S. theologian and U.S. Jesuit to be elevated to the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Dulles was, at his own request, not consecrated a bishop, a rare distinction for a cardinal.
I’ve read a bit of Cardinal Dulles’ work, and I stand amazed that he was 90 – as recently as February of this year he was writing this:
Nothing is more striking in the New Testament than the confidence with which it proclaims the saving power of belief in Christ. Almost every page confronts us with a decision of eternal consequence: Will we follow Christ or the rulers of this world? The gospel is, according to Paul, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (Rom. 1:16). The apostles and their associates are convinced that in Jesus they have encountered the Lord of Life and that he has brought them into the way that leads to everlasting blessedness. By personal faith in him and by baptism in his name, Christians have passed from darkness to light, from error to truth, and from sin to holiness.
That is the faith of a man fresh to Christianity, and Cardinal Dulles kept it right up to the end, it would seem. No worries about Cardinal Dulles – if faith in Christ brings one to salvation, then I know precisely where he is.
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