The surprise Cardinal: Fr Avery Dulles SJ

Zenit News Service

Contents - Mar 2001 - Buy a copy now Editorial: ACU theology: prompt action needed - Peter Westmore New cardinals to continue John Paul II's agenda - AD2000 Report News: The Church Around the World Seminary numbers up in orthodox US dioceses - Michael S. Rose How Archbishop Pell will implement Statement on Women in the Church Elizabeth Anscombe, R.I.P. - Robert P. George ACU theology: how orthodox, how accountable? - Michael Gilchrist Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter ordinations How monastic life can reinvigorate the Church - Fr Peter Knowles OP Cardinal Ratzinger on 'Third Secret' of Fatima What we must teach our children: Archbishop Chaput - Archbishop Charles J. Chaput New Catholic radio program to start in WA The surprise Cardinal: Fr Avery Dulles SJ - Zenit News Service Letters: Euthanasia in S.A. (letter) - Errol P. Duke Letters: Science and Christianity (letter) - Scot Chaston Letters: Enneagram workshop (letter) - Br Con Moloney CFC Letters: Church doctrine? (letter) - Frank Mobbs Letters: Anti-Catholicism (letter) - Frank Bellet Letters: Old liturgical books (letter) - Frank Carleton Letters: Latin (letter) - Karmenu Attard Letters: Supernatural order (letter) - Fr G.H. Duggan SM Letters: Misguided compassion (letter) Letters: G.K. Chesterton (letter) - Nancy McKelson Letters: EWTN tapes (letter) - John Lovegrove Letters: Vocations and orthodoxy (letter) - John Schmid Letters: Third Rite in Toowoomba (letter) - Mark Power Letters: Poem to Our Lady - Marion Craig Letters: Appeal from India (letter) - Kevin L. Fernandes Letters: Catholic education (letter) - Daniel Bryce Letters: Boredom? (letter) - Josephine Landsberg Books: Come To The Father: An Invitation to Share the Catholic Faith, Aidan Nichols OP - Christopher Quinn (reviewer) Books: Streams of Living Water: Autobiography of a Charismatic Leader - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: Why the hopes of the Council Fathers of Vatican II are yet to be realised - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Why I Am A Priest: Thirty Success Stories, ed. Boadt, Hunt - Katie Lindorff (reviewer) Books: The Pange Lingua Hymnal, compiled by Paul Newton - Fr Gregory Pritchard PP (reviewer) Reflection: Liturgy in the true spirit of Vatican II - Ralph McInerny

After the news of his nomination as cardinal by John Paul II, Father Avery Dulles wondered how to balance his modest black-garbed life as a Jesuit scholar with the red-decked ceremony of his new role as cardinal; Father Dulles, 82, was one of the surprises of the 44 new cardinals that John Paul II created in a consistory on 21 February.

The son of former US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, and a distinguished Catholic theologian, Fr Dulles has had to cope with many challenges in his long life, including giving witness at a time of agnosticism. He is the first US theologian to be named cardinal directly, without having had pastoral responsibility.

The Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Fordham University in the Bronx since 1988, Father Dulles called his appointment "mostly honorary," since he is two years too old to vote in a conclave for a new pope.

Vatican II reforms

The author of 21 books and 650 articles and essays - the majority theological - he has also taught at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, Woodstock College in Maryland and 15 other universities and colleges as a visiting professor. He holds 21 honorary doctorates and many education and theology awards.

Robert D. McFadden, in a signed article in The New York Times, wrote that Father Dulles has used much of his energy as professor to explain the post-Vatican II reforms and the mission of the papacy, which he has always defended. He has been a voice communicating the thought of the Church in a country where many Catholics, including priests, have questioned the Pontiff's position on topics like abortion, birth control, priestly celibacy and the ordination of women, among others.

Father Dulles is a convert to Catholicism. His father was Presbyterian, and his grandfather, a liberal Presbyterian theologian. In his youth Avery Dulles was party to much of the intrigue connected with members of his family. His uncle, Allen Dulles, directed espionage operations during the Second World War and was later head of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition to his father, other forebears rose to the top of the diplomatic ladder.

Avery Dulles was born in Auburn, New York, on 24 August 1918, the son of John Foster Dulles and Janet Pomeroy Avery. As a boy, he studied in schools in New York, Switzerland and England, which were not strictly Presbyterian. "I never was much of a Protestant," he remarked. By the time he entered Harvard University in 1936, he was a self-professed agnostic. He converted to Catholicism in 1940.

Fr Dulles acknowledged that his conversion shocked his family and friends, but he called it "the best decision I ever made." He said his father gradually came to respect Catholics, especially as he met them officially. After graduating from Harvard in 1940, Avery attended Harvard Law School for a year-and-a-half before joining the Naval Reserve as an intelligence officer. In 1945 he won the Croix de Guerre for his liaison work with the French navy. In 1946 he joined the Jesuits and began training for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1956 by Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York.

His books include Models of the Church, (Doubleday, 1974), a theological best seller; A Church to Believe In: Discipleship and the Dynamics of Freedom, (Crossroads, 1982), on American Catholic theological concerns; and The Reshaping of Catholicism, (Harper and Row, 1987), on Vatican II.

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 14 No 2 (March 2001), p. 12