Loftus Lecture

Thomas J. and Mary H. Loftus Lecture on Catholic Thought and Action

Speaker Series

Hinduism and Me: A Catholic Priest’s 50 Years of Hindu Studies.

7 P.M., Thursday, April 25, 2024
Mary, Seat of Wisdom Chapel

Featuring:
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology, Harvard University

Francis X. Clooney, S.J., joined the Harvard Divinity School faculty in 2005, where he is the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology. After earning his doctorate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations (University of Chicago, 1984), he taught at Boston College for 21 years before coming to Harvard. From 2010 to 2017, he was the Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard.

His primary areas of Indological scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India. He is also a leading figure globally in the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened through the study of traditions other than one’s own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, on the early Jesuit pan-Asian discourse on reincarnation, and on the dynamics of dialogue and interreligious learning in the contemporary world.His primary areas of Indological scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India. He is also a leading figure globally in the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened through the study of traditions other than one’s own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, on the early Jesuit pan-Asian discourse on reincarnation, and on the dynamics of dialogue and interreligious learning in the contemporary world.

Clooney is the author of numerous articles and books, including Thinking Ritually: Retrieving the Purva Mimamsa of Jaimini (Vienna, 1990), Theology after Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology (State University of New York Press, 1993), Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders(Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and His Hiding Place Is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence (Stanford University Press, 2013). His translation of the Hindu theologian Ramanuja’s Manual of Daily Worship (Nityagrantham) appeared in the International Journal of Hindu Studies in 2020.

His most recent books include Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics: Why and How It Matters (University of Virgina Press, 2019), Western Jesuit Scholars in India: Tracing Their Paths, Reassessing Their Goals (Brill, 2020), and most recently, St. Joseph in South India: Poetry, Mission and Theology in Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi's Tempavani (Vienna, 2022). His memoir, Priest and Scholar, Catholic and Hindu: A Love Story will appear in 2024, published by T&T Clark/Bloomsbury. He is currently working on a new translation of the first four ālvārs, Vaiṣṇava poet saints of Tamil Nadu. A feschrift in his honor was published by Wiley Blackwell in 2023.

In July 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and has served as a Professorial Research Fellow at the Australian Catholic University. His most recent honorary doctorate was awarded in September 2023 by the University of Scranton. During 2022-23 he was the President of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

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PAST LECTUREs

Are Horror Films Catholic?

7 P.M., Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Yehl Alumni Room

Why is it that horror films can engage human fear and assuage it at the same time?  Do horror films carry a deeper meaning than merely wanting to "scare the hell out of us" as the great film director Alfred Hitchcock used to say? Award-winning film critic and writer Sister Rose Pacatte, F.S.P. will explore the theological and symbolic relationship between Catholicism, horror films, and our deepest fears and social concerns as well as critical and spiritual ways to engage in film-watching in her upcoming lecture.

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Sister Rose Pacatte, FSP
Award-winning film critic and writer

Daughter of St. Paul Sister Rose Pacatte has a master's in education in Media Studies from the University of London (UK) and a doctorate in pastoral ministry from the Graduate Theological Foundation. She is a media literacy education specialist and has co-authored two books on the subject as well as multiple books on film and scripture and two biographies, including one on the actor Martin Sheen. Sister Rose grew up in Southern California and since joining the convent has lived and carried out the communications mission of her community in the US, Guam, the UK, and Italy and has traveled to 28 countries to train parents, youth, teachers, and clergy about being critical consumers of media.

Living Laudato Si': The Climate Crisis and the Cosmic Common Good

7 P.M., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022
Yehl Alumni Room

Daniel Scheid, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Duquense University

Daniel P. Scheid, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology at Duquesne University and is currently the director of Undergraduate Studies. Prof. Scheid received his M.A. in Systematic Theology from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and his Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Boston College. He has published numerous articles and frequently presents on comparative theology and ecological ethics across the country. Scheid’s book, The cosmic Common Good: Religious Grounds for Ecological Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2016), sees humans as an intimate part of the greater whole of the cosmos, emphasizes the simultaneous instrumental and intrinsic value of nature and affirms the integral connection between religious practice and the pursuit of the common good. Scheid’s current projects include Love Reconciles All Things: Trauma, Hope, and Reconciliation in Harry Potter, a contribution to the forth-coming volume Theological World of Harry Potter, and a book Cosmic Belonging: Ecological Ethics and Theologies of Creation in Thomas Aquinas and Vedanta Desika through Fordham University Press.

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Discarded Worlds: Astronomical Ideas that were Almost Correct

Br. Guy Consolmagno, SJ,
Director of the Vatican Observatory

An astronomer needs to blend a knowledge of what’s been observed with a good imagination to help understand what they are seeing... and no fear of being wrong. Ptolemy in ancient Rome, the medieval bishops Oresme and Cusa, the 19th century astronomers Schiaparelli and Pickering, all rose to the challenge; and they were all almost correct. Which is to say, they were wrong... sometimes hilariously, sometimes heartbreakingly so. What lessons can we take from these discarded images of the universe?