December 17, 2008

Cardinal Dulles dies at 90

WASHINGTON (CNS)—Cardinal Avery Dulles, a Jesuit theologian who was made a cardinal in 2001, died Dec. 12 at the Jesuit infirmary in New York, Murray-Weigel Hall. A cause of death was not released but he had been in poor health. He was 90 years old.

Cardinal Dulles had been the oldest living U.S. cardinal. His death was announced by the New York-based Jesuit provincial’s office. Funeral arrangements were pending.

His death “brings home to God a great theologian and a totally dedicated servant of the Church,” said Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the U.S. bishops. “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,” he said in a statement.

Cardinal Dulles, the son of former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and nephew of onetime CIA director Allen Walsh Dulles, both of whom served in the Eisenhower administration, became known in his own right for his groundbreaking 1974 work “Models of the Church”—one of 22 books published under his name—in which he defined the Church as institution, mystical communion, sacrament, herald, servant and community of disciples, and critiqued each.

Born Aug. 24, 1918, Cardinal Dulles was the grandson of a Presbyterian minister. He joined the Catholic Church as a young man after he went through a period of unbelief.

“In becoming a Catholic, I felt from the beginning that I was joining the communion of the saints,” he said at a 2004 lecture in New York on author C.S. Lewis. “I found great joy at the sense of belonging to a body of believers that stretched across the face of the globe.”

He entered the Catholic Church in 1941 while a student at Harvard Law School. He served in the Navy in World War II, then entered the Jesuits after his discharge in 1946. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1956.

Cardinal Dulles had been the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society at Fordham since 1988. He also had taught in Washington at the former Woodstock College, now folded into Georgetown University, in 1960-74, and The Catholic University of America, 1974-88. He had also been a visiting professor at Catholic, Protestant and secular colleges and universities.

Past president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society, Cardinal Dulles served on the International Theological Commission and as a member of the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue. He also served as a consultant to the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine.
He was the recipient of numerous awards and of more than 30 honorary doctorates.

Cardinal Dulles had two other relatives who served as secretary of state: great-grandfather John W. Foster and great-uncle Robert Lansing.