The daylong symposium, Dulles at 100, celebrated the late cardinal’s birth centennial and kicked off a yearlong reflection of his distinguished life and career.

Cardinal Dulles lived and worked on Fordham’s campus—first as a Jesuit scholastic from 1951 to 1953—and later as the Lawrence M. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society from 1988 until his death in 2008 at the age of 90.

“He was one of the giants of our intellectual and Jesuit communities. One of the finest theologians that the American church ever produced,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “He was an ambassador who built bridges. He was a gift to us.”

Raised in the Presbyterian Church and educated in Switzerland, at Choate, and at Harvard, Dulles converted to Catholicism and went on to become the first American who was not a bishop to be named a cardinal.

Of her storied teacher and longtime colleague, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., distinguished professor emerita of theology, said “a narrative genre has grown that we might call Avery stories.”

“There are many that I could tell of his endearing, informal interactions with students,” said Sister Johnson, who gave a keynote at the event. “Of his gracious presence as a dinner guest, of his game participation in liturgical dance, of his sense of humor at the most unexpected times, of his ecumenical passion, of his interventions and conferences or faculty meetings that occasioned laughter, frustration, or insight.”

Joseph Komonchak, Ph.D., professor emeritus of theology and religious studies at Catholic University of America, recalled a colleague who drove a car which was rumored to be handed down from his uncle, former CIA Director Allen Dulles.

“He drove that big whale of a car, that probably got nine miles a gallon, with a sticker that said, ‘Fly Dulles,’” he said.

The Elusive ‘Supermodel’

Father Komonchak said though he and Cardinal Dulles diverged theologically, Dulles always responded to an argument by complimenting the strengths of his opponent’s point of view before proceeding to dissect their thesis.

In his seminal 1974 book Models of the Church, Cardinal Dulles laid out six major approaches, or models, through which the church could be explained: as institution, mystical communion, sacrament, herald, servant, and, in a later addition to the book, as community of disciples, which attempted to encompasses the other five. The book became a standard text for many ecclesiology courses.

“He had a very modest view of systematic theology. You will recall that in Models of the Church, he used a somewhat disparaging term, supermodel, for a view that would try to combine the virtues of each of the five other models without suffering their limitations. And he expressed his skepticism that one could find any one model that would be truly adequate, for the church is essentially a mystery. Then, he said, we are therefore condemned to work with models that are inadequate to the realities to which they point,” he said. “I have long disagreed with that view of systematic theology.”

He said that the two exchanged lengthy letters on subject, until Cardinal Dulles came to believe the differences between the two to be so narrow that they were not worth debating.

“I think he also got tired of reading five page single-spaced small print letters from me,” he said.

The Migrant Church

Inspired by Dulles’ models, Peter Phan, Ph.D., Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University, argued in his closing keynote remarks that the historical church as we know it would not exist without migrants, though global migration was barely on “Cardinal Dulles’ theological radar.”

In his talk, “Imagining the Church in the Age of Migration,” Phan ultimately concluded that “outside migration there is no salvation.” Riffing on the cardinal’s six criteria, Phan developed his own model by focusing on three points:

One: A good model of theology has to be both explanatory and exploratory (explanatory, meaning that a model can summarize what we know, and exploratory, meaning the model must discover new aspects of the problem). Two: A good model must incorporate experience of the church (“If it doesn’t resonate don’t do it”). And three: The model must somehow impact the spiritual mind; it has to inspire a spiritual awakening.

In his lecture about migration Phan hit all of those points. He began with shockingly raw numbers about migrants, which he counts separately from the 68.5 million refugees forced to leave their county because of war and violence last year. In 2010, there were 200 million people migrating for a variety of reasons, from floods to food shortages and violence, he said. But mass migration didn’t begin in the 21st century, he said.

“It has happened throughout history, just look at the slave trade in 19th century, 11 million Africans [faced]a form of forced migration,” he said. “Again, in the 19th century, the Great Migration from Europe brought 200 million people who voluntary moved to the U.S.”

He took issue with President Donald Trump’s assessment that United States is currently “infected” by migration. Eighty-five percent of refugees, not migrants, he said, have settled in the world’s developing nations, such as Turkey, Pakistan, or Uganda—not in Europe and not in the U.S, which recently limited the number of refugees it will accept to 30,000 for next year.

“We are not overrun,” he said.

He added that Western nations also need to remember that they are the primary cause of the crisis.

“Most of this is caused by the wars initiated by the U.S. It’s not just a social-economic issue, it’s a deeply theological and spiritual issue.”

Scholars Needed: Viewing Church History Through the Migrant Lens

He encouraged students in the room to consider writing the dozens of dissertations necessary to rewrite the history of the church through the lens of migration.

“Each of these migrations produces a new face of the church,” he said.

He noted that in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Mass is celebrated in 42 languages and that a parish in the Bronx celebrates Mass in five languages. In Louisiana, the Catholic priests are mostly Vietnamese, he said.

Any decent history of the church, he said, examines the church through an immigrant’s lens, whether that be through the Irish, German, and Italian migrations of the 19th century or through the Central/South American and Asian immigrations of the 20th century.

He qualified that he was speaking of the church historically, not theologically, and of catholicity in the universal sense of the word, before concluding that “Outside of migration there is no American Catholic church, period! Outside of migration there is no catholic church at all,” he said.

“Without migration, the church as a whole would not exist as catholic. No migration, no catholicity.”

A new book about Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., served to launch a panel at Fordham about how the preeminent American theologian’s ideas will fare over time.

The book’s author, Patrick W. Carey, Ph.D., professor of theology at Marquette University, was among a group of Dulles experts at the Dec. 14 event. They focused not only on his book, Avery Cardinal Dulles: A Model Theologian (Paulist Press, 2010), but also discussed how the Catholic Church should handle dissent.

The panel opened with a debate about whether Cardinal Dulles’ most storied book,Models of the Church (Doubleday, 1974), is still relevant.

Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D., chair of the theology department at Fordham and Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology, praised his chair’s namesake as a generous reader of others’ work, which he critiqued fairly and without rancor.

“Models enabled him to engage with—and even utilize—his opponents’ work,” Tilley said. “Models also explained how and why theologians agree to disagree.”

Trends suggest that Models may have been a product of its time, he added.

“Theology done at a university for a multicultural church in a religiously plural world is very different from the context in which he wrote,” Tilley said, “so it’s not clear how much power his voice will have in the future.”

Phyllis Zagano, Ph.D., senior research associate-in-residence and adjunct professor of religion at Hofstra, likewise noted kindness in Cardinal Dulles’ work.

The issue of academic dissent, she said, was one that she and Tilley encountered over years spent working with the cardinal.

“Avery Dulles would agree that saying a teaching is not definitive is not the same as disagreeing with its content,” she said. “I say this because there is a creeping infallibility that is growing in tandem with the explosion of social communication in the two years since Dulles’ death.

“Creeping infallibility threatens academic debate. Now, even academic hair-splitting finds its way to Twitter,” she said.

The Rev. Robert P. Imbelli, Ph.D., associate professor of theology at Boston College, disagreed that theology is growing increasingly singular. He noted that in The Craft of Theology (Crossroad Publishing, 1992), Cardinal Dulles described Vatican II as a reaction to excessive uniformity that had dominated the church.

“Today, however, we are faced by the opposite problem,” Father Imbelli quoted. “The different theological schools have drifted so far apart, that what seems false and dangerous to one group seems almost self-evident to another.”

In 2007, Cardinal Dulles cautioned against going too far in re-interpreting aspects of faith like the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Father Imbelli said. He also cited four examples of a Christocentric turn in Dulles’ work:

• his distancing from the work of theologian Karl Rahner, S.J.;
• his elaboration of a new model of the church as a community of disciples with Jesus Christ at its head;
• his reception of the works of George Linbeck;
• and his renewed dedication to evangelization.

Tilley took issue with the propriety of talking about the language of Christ’s resurrection, and later pointed out that “dissent” can only be done in a seminary setting, not in a classroom, since a teacher’s role is not to govern.

Moving away from the Models approach, he fears, will limit diversity of opinion on what God’s revelation means to the church’s members.

“Saying that the resurrection is just a metaphor is certainly excessive, but I would like you to think about this a bit. What does it mean for God to raise Jesus from the dead? Like, Tilley raised the pitcher from the table? Or John raised Jane’s spirits? Or we raised an army?

“So this term isn’t simply metaphorical; it suggests we have to have multiple metaphors or multiple models to understand this mystery that we express that God raised Jesus from the dead.”

Anne-Marie Kirmse, O.P., research associate for the McGinley Chair, gave an update on Cardinal Dulles’ research at the time of his death. He looked to the theological insights and teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, whom he regarded as the greatest theologian of our time and whose embrace of evangelization he supported.

As for what he left unfinished, Sister Kirmse said that she and Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., Cardinal Dulles’ graduate assistant, are editing a collection of his unpublished lectures and articles. A compendium of his homilies also will be forthcoming.

Finally, she said that in the last months of his life, Cardinal Dulles weighed in on two recent developments in the church.

He expressed concern about the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which was enacted in 2002 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He criticized the document for not distinguishing between the gravity of various actions.

Secondly, he worried about the public denial of communion to Catholic politicians whose public positions run counter to church teachings.

Cardinal Dulles thought this was a subject that needed to be handled more with education and pastoral sensitivity than with authoritative pronouncements, especially in the public sphere, she said.

“Shortly before he lost the ability to speak, the cardinal shook his head sadly and said, ‘Catholic politicians will have to choose between their faith and their ministry in the public arena. Eventually, Catholics will not choose politics as a career, and we will lose our place at the table and our voice in the public arena.’”

The panel also included Miroslav Volf, Ph.D., director of the Center for Faith and Culture and Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale.

“Avery Dulles and the Future of Theology” was moderated by Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., associate professor of theology and co-founding director of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Program.

It was sponsored by the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.

Sister Anne Marie Kirmse, O.P., Ph.D., brightens her tone when she recites an anecdote about Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Fordham’s late Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society:

One day in 2002, Cardinal Dulles asked her to find an envelope in his files on which he’d written a reference. He’d jotted down the note while attending a talk in Washington, D.C. on a very warm day sometime in the 1960s. Now, he wanted the reference for a lecture he was writing.

“The cardinal did his own filing because he felt that if he put something away, he’d know where it was,” recalled Sister Kirmse, “and he remembered having put the envelope in his jacket, which he carried because of the heat.”

So she went to the files, of which there were many, with the clues at hand: Washington D.C. Warm weather. 1960s.

“I pulled a file from the ’60s, and Woodstock College (where the cardinal had taught). I went through each of the years, the spring months; and believe it or not, in the year 1967 there was an envelope, torn in half—on the back of which was a citation.

“It was true; his memory never failed him until he closed his eyes for the last time.”

Sister Kirmse served as Cardinal Dulles’ research associate and executive assistant during his 20-year tenure as Fordham’s McGinley Chair. She helped the cardinal prepare speeches, organize his teachings and writings, keep up with correspondence and maintain his busy schedule of appearances.

Today, Sister Kirmse is helping the staff of Fordham’s William D. Walsh Family Library curate a show on the late cardinal’s life and work. “The Papers and Memorabilia of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.,” runs through Dec. 23 in the library’s exhibition hall on the main floor. It features more than 100 items of memorabilia from the cardinal’s personal archives, which he bequeathed to the library in 2003.

Included in the archival collection are books, research materials, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, memorabilia, awards, decorations, honorary degree citations, the cardinal’s vestments and other materials.

University Archivist Patrice Kane estimates that there are a few thousand items in the Dulles archive.

Library Director James McCabe, Ph.D., said the collection is the library’s most valuable holding.

“If this archive were to be auctioned by Christie’s or Sotheby’s, it would surely be of interest to important research libraries like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and others,” McCabe said.

“The show will reveal the dimension of his scholarship as the leading theologian of the 20th century in the United States, and some personal and family history. The Dulles family is an important family in the history of our country,” he said.

In her second-floor office at Faber Hall, Sister Kirmse has spent a portion of her summer sorting out papers and artifacts for inclusion in the show. It is not unusual for a small bit of correspondence, or a boxed honorarium, to trigger a memory about the beloved theologian who wore so many hats: soft-spoken professor in the Fordham community; fellow Jesuit; leading American theologian; and member of the Vatican elite.

One item on display is a small, tattered letter written in eager child script. The sentences run a bit crooked, but its content shows the signs of a thoughtful wordsmith. It is Cardinal Dulles’ first letter to Santa Claus, written when he was a young boy and most likely saved by his mother, Janet Avery Dulles. The content is politely tactical: “Dear Santa Claus, I send much love to you and I wish you to give me many Christmas presents, as you do always.”

Conspicuously, the entire upper case alphabet is printed artfully across the bottom of the letter below the signature.

“It made me curious why a child would print the alphabet on the bottom of a letter to Santa Claus, so one day I asked him,” recalled Sister Kirmse. “He looked at me as if he was shocked that I hadn’t recognized his rationale. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘I wanted Santa Claus to know that I was a good boy and was doing my lessons!’”

A certain politeness existed within the Dulles family; thus the cardinal’s childhood included one year at an exclusive school in Switzerland and, eventually, an Ivy League education.

A sense of refinement is evident even throughout the family’s correspondence, said Sister Kirmse, especially within a telegram announcing Avery Dulles’ birth, sent from his grandfather to his father. “Your Son arrived at 7 this morning. Everything fine. Janet says come if convenient.”

“There’s that level of refinement from his upbringing,” Sister Kirmse said, “and there was a strong sense of decorum.” She recalled that, prior to becoming a cardinal, Father Dulles would typically wear an open sport shirt and Dockers, chinos or some brand of sports slacks during the summer.

“But he would always instruct me to be sure to tell him when the students were returning,” she recalled. “Then he’d put on a jacket and a tie every day. It would be 100 degrees in August, but he’d say, ‘I can’t disrespect the students.’”

With the office of cardinal, however, came a degree of pomp—at least with regard to dress. Pope John Paul II made Father Dulles a cardinal in February 2001; he is the only U.S.-born theologian appointed to the College of Cardinals who was not first a bishop.

Sister Kirmse recalled a dinner not long afterward, held at New York’s Waldorf Astoria, to raise funds for Catholic universities. A number of Jesuits and nuns sat at a table sponsored by Fordham as Cardinal Dulles walked in dressed in a full-length scarlet watered silk cape, or ferraiolo—a cardinal’s covering for special non-liturgical occasions.

“We all did a collective gasp,” recalled Sister Kirmse, “because he was so tall, and that cape on him was astoundingly beautiful.”

The ferraiolo is on exhibit, draped over the cardinal’s scarlet-tripped cassock.

Among other things on display are a French croix de guerre World War II cross of war, which naval Lt. Avery Dulles received for heroism; Cardinal Dulles’ white brocade mitre hat; his red silk biretta—which famously fell from his head as he embraced the Pope during his elevation—a typed letter to his parents explaining his conversion to Catholicism; his sterling silver birth cup from Tiffany’s; several photos from various decades of his life; and a display of original announcements of his 39 McGinley lectures.

Some 70 volumes of the cardinal’s books are also on display in several translations. Henry Bertels, S.J., the University’s cataloguer of rare books, singled out a signed copy of the cardinal’s first commercially published title, A Testimonial to Grace(Sheed & Ward, 1946), inscribed to his mother.

“It gives you a personal insight into the relationship that Cardinal Dulles had with his family,” said Father Bertels.

Sister Kirmse hopes that the exhibit shows the many sides of a man that the Fordham community was privileged to claim, and yet whose scholarly and theological legacy is far-reaching.

But it was his close personal relationships that came home to her strikingly on the day of his burial when his niece, Ellen Dulles-Coehlo, sprinkled a handful of dust onto his just-lowered coffin and spoke to him.

“[Ellen] told him how much he’d meant to her father (his late brother John), to herself, and to the rest of her family,” recalled Sister Kirmse. “At that moment, I realized that the love Cardinal Dulles had for God, his family, his friends and colleagues, his Jesuit community, his students, and his country are an important part of his legacy as well.

“We will not see his like again.”

News and Media Relations staff attended the Mass and offered their informal observations on it and the cathedral:

For those who aren’t familiar with the Cathedral of St. Patrick, as it’s formally known, attending a funeral there can be an educational experience on both the layout and the schedule of New York City’s most famous house of worship. If you arrive early with the hopes of getting a good seat, you will find that even as tourists mill about the aisles looking at the Christmas Creche and the Stations of the Cross, masses are performed at noon, 12:30 and 1 p.m.

In the case of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., whose Mass of Christian Burial was held today at 2 p.m., the same is true, even though Cardinal Dulles laid in state at the Cathedral from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Visitors wishing to pay their final respects to the Cardinal needed only walk around the sanctuary where mass was being celebrated to the Lady Chapel, a much more intimate space with pews for about 50 that’s dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Located at the eastern end of the cathedral, the Lady Chapel is far enough away from the hubbub of the rest of the church to allow for serious reflection on the accomplishments of a man who lived the kind of life that inspired millions.

What began with a moment of silence ended with applause, long and loud, ringing out through St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.

Mourners greeted the Cardinal’s casket with respectful quiet as pallbearers moved it into place at the foot of the main altar to begin the proceedings.

When Archbishop Edward Cardinal Egan closed the Mass, Cardinal Dulles’ family and friends began a round of applause that moved like a wave through the assemblage. The final salute followed the casket as it was moved down the center aisle out of the church.

For more detailed coverage of Cardinal Dulles’ life, see Fordham Mourns the Death of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., and U.S. Catholic Community Bids Farewell to Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.

In accordance with the traditions of the Church, the Cardinal’s death will be marked by the celebration of three Masses:

Tuesday, December 16, 7:30 p.m. | University Church
Wednesday, December 17, 7:30 p.m. | University Church
Thursday, December 18, 2 p.m. | St. Patrick’s Cathedral

The members of the University family are invited to join the Jesuit Community at each of these Masses. Both Masses will be streamed live on the Web.

In addition, the Cardinal’s family will receive visitors in the University Church on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m.

His wife of 68 years, Eleanor Ritter Dulles, died on June 19, four days before his death. She was 91.

A graveside service for the couple will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, June 26, at Sunset Memorial Park, 1701 Austin Highway, San Antonio, Texas.

John W.F. Dulles was born in 1913 in Auburn, N.Y., the first son of former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Janet Pomeroy Avery.

He attended St. Bernard’s School in New York City and the Gunnery School of Washington, Conn. before earning a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1935. He received his MBA from Harvard University in 1937.

After several years, he earned yet another degree, a bachelor’s in metallurgical engineering in 1943, which led to a career in the Brazilian mining industry.

Dulles became a full-time professor of Latin American studies in 1962 at the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the University of Arizona four years later and stayed there until 1991, when he returned to the Texas faculty.

He had just finished his 45th year of teaching this past spring and was planning his fall course material. Among his other notable accomplishments, he published 12 books on the political history of Brazil in the 20th century.

One avocation was tennis, a game he played late into his 80s. An avid correspondent, his letters to colleagues and friends, his scholarly publications and his considerations to all he knew are legendary.

His wife, Eleanor Ritter Dulles, was born in 1916 in Hunnington, W.Va, a daughter of the noted Philadelphia architect Verus Taggart Ritter and his wife, Edith Keller Ritter.

She attended the Shipley School of Bryn Mawr, Pa., before becoming a music major at Smith College, graduating in 1939. CC, as she was known to many friends, married Dulles in 1940 in Philadelphia.

While living in Monterrey, Mexico she was a great part of the Union Church of Monterrey where she was director of the choir, soloist and organist.

She also taught many young people valuable songs and biblical information during her time as director of the Sunday School of the Union Church.

In addition to Avery Cardinal Dulles, the couple is survived by four children; Edith Lawlis Dulles of Dallas, John F. Dulles of Denver, Ellen Dulles-Coelho of San Antonio and R. Avery Dulles of Austin; nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Arrangements are being handled by Porter Loring Mortuaries of San Antonio.

The meeting took place in the suite of Edward Cardinal Egan, the archbishop of New York, after the Pope had greeted a group of disabled Catholic youths. The Pope “bounded into the room with a big smile on his face,” according to Anne-Marie Kirmse, O.P., Cardinal Dulles’ assistant, who was present for the meeting. “He went directly to where Cardinal Dulles was sitting, saying, ‘Eminenza, Eminenza, I recall the work you did for the International Theological Committee in the 1990s,’ and Cardinal Dulles kissed the papal ring and smiled back at the Pope,” Sister Kirmse said.

The Pope also greeted Thomas R. Marciniak, S.J., of the Fordham Jesuit community, who served as Cardinal Dulles’ priest chaplain for the meeting, the Cardinal’s medical attendants, and Sister Kirmse, she said. The Pontiff then sat next to Cardinal Dulles to hear his prepared remarks, read by Father Marciniak. Cardinal Dulles has been in poor health recently and was unable to speak for himself.

Father Marciniak presented the Pope with a copy of Cardinal Dulles’s recent book, Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988-2007 (Fordham University Press, 2008). The Pope expressed great interest in the book, Sister Kirmse said, and even interrupted the reading of the Cardinal’s remarks to ask again when the book had been published.  The Pontiff eagerly looked through the book, and said he was touched by Cardinal Dulles’s inscription to him.

Before leaving, the Pope blessed Cardinal Dulles, assured him he was in the Pope’s prayers, and encouraged the Cardinal in his illness.

Former Fordham President Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., delivered the remarks, titled “Farewell Address as Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society (1988-2008),” from the Leonard Theatre at Fordham Preparatory School.

In his lecture, Cardinal Dulles, the first American-born theologian to be made a cardinal without first becoming a bishop, said that a Polio infection that he suffered in 1945 while in the Navy had now rendered him unable to continue teaching. He called his time as McGinley Professor a personal climax, and said that the most important aspect of his career was the discovery of “the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, the Lord Jesus himself.”

He also took time to summarize the overriding themes of his lectures, which he said he took great pains to make relevant and understandable to educated Christians.

“When in these lectures I affirm that Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross, or that he makes himself substantially present in the Eucharist, or that the gate to salvation is a narrow one, or that priestly ordination is reserved to men, or that capital punishment is sometimes warranted, in each case I am willingly adhering to the testimony of Scripture and perennial Catholic tradition,” he said.

Cardinal Dulles and the Rev. Robert Imbelli, Ph.D., associate professor of theology at Boston College, sat on stage during the presentation. Rev. Imbelli delivered a response to the speech, the 39th in Cardinal Dulles’ 20 years as McGinley Professor.

Calling him a great priest, a joy of the Society of Jesus and a treasure of the University, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, bestowed on Cardinal Dulles the President’s Medal, the University’s highest honor.

“I am embarrassed to tell you, you who have given us golden wisdom, [the medal]is only sterling silver,” Father McShane said. “I console myself, however, with the realization that at the center of the medal which bears the great seal of the university, stands the holy name, the pearl of great price, Jesus himself.”

The lecture will be published in the April 21 issue of America Magazine.

Cardinal Dulles said that Pope Benedict XVI views the church as universal, deriving its spiritual authority, or essence, from Christ’s ascension and the original 12 disciples.

“[Pope Benedict XIV believes] the church is not a product of human creativity,” Cardinal Dulles said, “She does not become whatever the leaders and members wish to make of her. The church is prior to all human initiative. Ours is not to innovate, but to preserve and apply the church teachings.”

Cardinal Dulles, who met then Cardinal Ratzinger in 1971 and who has since exchanged writings with him, said that in the last 20 years, the Pope’s view on Vatican II reforms, such as decentralization of the church, has “matured.” Today, the Pope has a “full-orbed” vision of the church derived from the models of People of God, Mystical Body, Sacrament and Communion.

On the question of church and state, Cardinal Dulles said that the Pope comes “surprisingly close” to endorsing the American principle of separation of the two bodies.

“He does not want the [Catholic] church involved in politics,” he said. “The church depends on the state to keep justice. Consequently, the state cannot inculcate moral training, but depends on religious conviction, which makes people moral and respectful of one another. The church and state complement each other.”

Cardinal Dulles’ talk was part of a lecture series, Food For The Mind, sponsored by the Office of Alumni Affairs at Fordham’s Jubilee reunion, held June 1 through 3 on the Rose Hill campus.

The lecture, “Evolution, Atheism and Religious Belief,” drew a large, enthusiastic audience, despite the stormy weather. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham University, began the evening with a moment of silent prayer for the souls of those killed in the Virginia Tech tragedy and their loved ones. In his introduction, Father McShane noted that Cardinal Dulles, already the author of 750 articles and 22 books, would have a collection of his McGinley Lectures published by Fordham University Press in fall 2007, and that the lecture was the cardinal’s first since he received the Bene Merenti Medal for 20 years of service to the University.

Accompanied on the stage by Vincent J. Duminuco, S.J., rector of Fordham’s Jesuit community, Cardinal Dulles said that the church has consistently maintained that the human soul is created by God, rather than a product of any biological cause. “This doctrine, to my mind, raises the question whether God is not necessarily involved in the fashioning of the human body, since … the human body comes to be when the soul is infused,” he said. “Even though it may be difficult for the scientist to detect the point at which the evolving body passes from the anthropoid to the human, it would be absurd for a brute animal, say a chimpanzee, to possess a body perfectly identical with the human.”

In discussing three ways in which Christians might view evolution, the cardinal said that science can “cast a brilliant light on the processes of nature,” and used correctly can improve life on Earth, but science “performs a disservice when it claims to be the only valid form of knowledge, displacing the esthetic, the interpersonal, the philosophical, and the religious.”

The Cardinal’s theme, “The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century,” spoke to the continued relevance of the Jesuit order in an increasingly fast-paced and secular world. He identified a charism as a “gift of grace for the benefit of others” and said that the Jesuits should continue to abide by the founding principles of Saint Ignatius, the foremost being a “life of evangelical poverty…which is at the heart of all Jesuit apostolates.”

Cardinal Dulles said that the Church and Society of Jesus face many of the same challenges that Ignatius and his followers did in the 16th  Century: rapid change, “globalization,” a divide between Christendom and Islam, and defections from Catholicism to other forms of Christianity. “The charism is not outdated,” he said. “The Society can be abreast of the times if it adheres to its original ideals.”

The lecture coincided with the final week of the Ignatian calendar, and was the last of the Cardinal’s talks concerning the central figures in the founding of the Jesuit order. 2006 also marked a half-century since Cardinal Dulles’ ordination, and his twentieth year at Fordham. It has also been five years since Cardinal Dulles was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II, the first American–born theologian not a bishop to be honored with the rank. He has been the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham since 1988.