Bernard Lonergan, the Jesuit Theologian: Contributions to the Society of Jesus

Scholars have begun exploring how Bernard Lonergan’s Ignatian heritage contributed to the genesis of his thought as well as the connections between his work and the Spiritual Exercises. However, Lonergan remains relatively underappreciated as an Ignatian thinker and Jesuit priest. Yet, Lonergan made valuable contributions to the Society of Jesus as it underwent renewal and developed its self-understanding after Vatican II. To this end, in addition to Lonergan’s references to the Exercises in his scholarly writing, this essay presents archival research to demonstrate the contributions Lonergan was personally called upon to make to the Society’s renewal in light of the 32^nd General Congregation. Especially significant are letters between Pedro Arrupe and Lonergan, and Arrupe’s recommendation of Lonergan’s approach to modernity as an example for the Jesuit university apostolate. Cultivating appreciation of Lonergan as a Jesuit theologian, educator, and priest is beneficial for Lonergan scholars, Jesuits, and Ignatian educators alike.

Keywords:
Spiritual Exercises; Pedro Arrupe; Bernard Lonergan; Ignatian spirituality; Intellectual apostolate; Jesuit universities; Catholic universities; General Congregation 32

Introduction

Bernard Lonergan was a philosopher and theologian deeply committed to his Jesuit vocation as a priest and educator. His vocation and Ignatian spirituality shaped his work in profound ways, even if these influences are not always readily discernable or considered frequently in the secondary literature. However, many have noticed the resonances between Lonergan’s exercises in self-appropriation and St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises.^[1] Frederick Crowe suggested an even more profound connection that underscores the impression St. Ignatius made on Lonergan’s understanding of history: “it seems more than just a guess that the methods of prayer [Lonergan] learned from Ignatius Loyola contributed to an idea that dominated most of his life—the Ignatian vision of God operating always and everywhere and in all things . . . .”^[2] Similarly, Gordon Rixon and Robert Doran have highlighted Ignatian themes in Lonergan’s work and the ways his Ignatian heritage contributed to the genesis of his thought.^[3] Gerald Whelan and Patrick Byrne have also examined connections between Lonergan’s thought and Ignatian spirituality.^[4]

Even with these contributions, Lonergan remains relatively underappreciated as an Ignatian thinker and Jesuit priest. Furthermore, a feature of Lonergan’s life that has not yet received the attention it deserves is the valuable and ongoing contribution Lonergan made to the Society of Jesus as it underwent renewal and developed its self-understanding after Vatican II.^[5] To this end, in addition to exploring Lonergan’s references to the Exercises in his scholarly writing, I present my findings from the Lonergan archives and the Jesuit Archives and Research Center in St. Louis, Missouri. What is clear from these archives is that Lonergan was personally called upon to make contributions to the Society of Jesus’s renewal. Cultivating an appreciation of Lonergan as a Jesuit theologian, educator, and priest is beneficial for Lonergan scholars, Jesuits, and Ignatian educators alike. For example, this appreciation invites interdisciplinary conversations in Lonergan studies about theology, spirituality, and pedagogy. It also invites conversations about Lonergan as a resource for Jesuit scholastic formation and/or ongoing faculty formation at Catholic universities with respect to mission and identity. I begin with a short biography of Lonergan’s life as a young Jesuit to contextualize Lonergan’s commentary on the Exercises, his contributions to the Society, and his scholarly references to the Exercises.

Bernard Lonergan, The Jesuit

Lonergan was born in Buckingham, Quebec on December 17, 1904. He first encountered the Jesuits at age thirteen when he began attending a Jesuit secondary school and then junior college in Montreal.^[6] Lonergan had been discerning a religious vocation during his school years but discarded the idea after becoming ill and perceiving the vocation an impossibility. However, upon recovering, a conversation with a Jesuit dispelled this perception and rekindled the question for him. Lonergan entered the Society on July 29, 1922, began his 30-day retreat two months later, and made his vows on the feast of St. Ignatius, July 31, 1924.^[7] He spent both his novitiate and juniorate in Guelph, Ontario (1922–26).^[8] As a Jesuit scholastic, he moved to England, where he earned his ecclesial degree in philosophy at Heythrop College. He also earned a secular BA from London University where he studied philosophy, classics, mathematics, and French (1926–30).^[9]

After earning his degrees, Lonergan returned to Montreal where he completed a three-year regency teaching at Loyola College (1930–33) and then began his theology studies, also in Montreal. Circumstances quickly changed, however, which was becoming somewhat of a pattern in Lonergan’s young Jesuit life. The Gregorian University in Rome unexpectedly had additional spots for Canadian students, and Lonergan’s provincial sent him back to Europe in 1933 to finish his theology studies.^[10] He was ordained in 1936 at the Church of St. Ignatius in Rome and completed his studies in theology in 1937. Lonergan then entered his final year of Jesuit formation, tertianship, in France (1937–38), and preached a retreat to the Loretto Sisters of Wexford that summer.^[11] Advised that Lonergan was a suitable candidate for further studies in Rome, his provincial Henry Keane, “donated” Lonergan to Gregorian University, where he would study and then teach. Though initially slated for philosophy, the Jesuits decided to have Lonergan do his biennium in theology because there was an emerging need for English-speaking theology professors at the Gregorian.^[12] However, after completing his doctoral studies in 1940, Lonergan was instead sent to teach at the Jesuit theologate in Montreal. He would not return to the Gregorian until 1953, a teaching post that lasted until 1965 when his lung-cancer prompted his return to Canada. He next moved to Boston (1975–83), teaching at Harvard and Boston College before returning to Canada where he died in 1984.^[13]

Three related episodes in Lonergan’s early life as a Jesuit are noteworthy for understanding his own experience of Ignatian discernment and the Spiritual Exercises. In January of 1935 (age 30), Lonergan wrote a letter to his provincial, Henry Keane.^[14] The letter is uncharacteristically personal in tone for Lonergan, and he wrote several drafts before finally sending the letter to Keane. Lonergan writes of his experience during his Montreal regency in the early 1930s: “I had regarded myself as one condemned to sacrifice his real interests and, in general, to be suspected and to get into trouble for things I could not help and could not explain.”^[15] Lonergan then reflects upon the move from Montreal to the Gregorian in 1933, which he experienced as a moment of great consolation after suffering “years of painful introversion.”^[16] Yet amidst this consolation and as the letter unfolds, Lonergan wrestles—based on experiences he has already had^[17]—with how to reconcile his personal desires, the role of religious superiors, and divine providence.^[18]

Out of a sense of duty, Lonergan expresses his disagreement with the Thomist cognitional theory of the day, finding their interpretations of St. Thomas to be misinterpretations, which was problematic, given that he was assigned to teach epistemology. He then discloses his heart’s desire: “to put together a Thomistic metaphysics of history that will put Marx and Hegel into the shade”^[19]—a project he was already beginning to outline in his essay, “Pantôn Anakephalaiôsis” (April 1935). This project included his enduring interest in economics and history, which illustrated “a very deep-rooted desire to enter into and resolve the deepest problems of the century.”^[20] In this letter, Lonergan begins to unfold the emergence and discernment of his great desire—as he would later put it, “to introduce history into Catholic theology.”^[21] However, he did not yet understand how Ignatius intended religious superiors to be involved in the providential unfolding of one’s desires, especially when these desires were experienced simultaneously as a vocation and as unwelcome. This was a real challenge for him.^[22] Yet, even as he struggled, Lonergan writes, “Naturally, I think this is my work but I know more luminously than anything else that I have nothing I have not received. . . . I do care enormously about the good of the church but I also know that what I do not do through obedience will be done better by someone else.”^[23]

Lonergan was largely formed in a classicist appropriation of Ignatian spirituality, which complicated his ability to understand and reconcile his spiritual experiences at this stage. Especially damaging was his encounter of Ignatian spirituality through Jan Philipp Roothaan, S.J. (1785–1853). According to Harvey Egan, Roothaan “wrote a dry and complex book, The Method of Meditation, which quickly became known—almost down to the present day—as ‘Jesuit prayer’. It is not.”^[24] At over 1500 pages, it used faculty psychology to develop a “science of meditation.”^[25] Texts like this one downplayed Ignatian mysticism and tended to reduce Ignatius’s contemplations in the Exercises to “a plodding, step-by-step procedure by which one remembers some Christian mystery and reasons about it in order to move the will to make practical, life-changing resolutions.”^[26] As Lonergan later reflected, Roothaan’s spirituality was “the stone offered when I was asking for bread.”^[27]

In 1937, Lonergan went to the Abbaye de Saint-Acheul in Amiens for his tertianship. Mathews recounts the observation of Lonergan’s fellow tertian, Paul Kennedy: “According to Kennedy, he went to the tertianship in Amiens because unlike Paray–Ie–Monial, where the ethos was ascetical and austere and the emphasis was on the tertian doing it, at Amiens the ethos was mystical—the emphasis was on God doing the work!”^[28] What Kennedy recounts is reminiscent of what Lonergan will later emphasize in his lecture notes on grace and the Spiritual Exercises: “The Spiritual Exercises are sometimes depicted as voluntarist, Stoic, Pelagian: a set of things that I am going to do to make myself holier. If this is not in any manner heretical, at least there is no emphasis on grace or on the spontaneous movement of the soul towards God because of the workings of grace.”^[29] Lonergan’s tertianship at Amiens was a bright spot in his formation, where some of the classicist appropriation of Ignatian spirituality fell away. He kept his notebook from this retreat, signifying its importance in his spiritual life.^[30] One of his reflections was on the meaning of faith: “Faith is the difference between a saint and ordinary Christians. Saints see the things of God. The Curé d’Ars said our prayer was to talk to God as one would to any man, be saturated in God, speak of God naturally, spontaneously, whole-heartedly, men expect it of you—and it makes a terrifically good impression.”^[31] This reflection anticipates what Lonergan will say in 1964 about the difference between being in Christ as substance or as subject. Like the saints that “see the things of God,” subjects in Christ are those for whom “the hand of the Lord ceases to be hidden.”^[32]

Lonergan’s difficulty in understanding the role of religious superiors in the providential unfolding of one’s life continued during his tertianship. In 1938, he went to see Gustave Desbuquoix, S.J., who had founded a school against great opposition^[33]:

He was a man I felt I must consult, for I had little hope of explaining to superiors what I wished to do and of persuading them to allow me to do it. So I obtained an appointment, and when the time came, I asked him how one reconciled obedience and initiative in the Society. He looked me over and said: ‘Go ahead and do it. If superiors do not stop you, that is obedience. If they do stop you, stop and that is obedience.’ The advice is hardly very exciting today but at the time it was for me a great relief.^[34]

It was shortly after this consoling meeting about obedience that Lonergan was told he would do a biennium in philosophy at the Gregorian. He welcomed this news. On August 10, 1938, he wrote to his provincial expressing his hopes that he could maintain his interest in a philosophy of history, even if it would not be assigned as the subject of his biennium in philosophy. Yet, even before Lonergan had written this letter, the Gregorian rector had already requested Lonergan do his biennium in theology instead. The last-minute nature of the change also meant Lonergan did not have a dissertation topic prepared, and so he readily accepted Charles Boyer’s suggestion that he study Aquinas on operative grace.^[35] Before the year ended, he was also told he would not be teaching at the Gregorian but returning to Montreal to teach at the Jesuit theologate. This shuffling happened in a matter of months, and it all came from the hands of his superiors. Lonergan’s experience of these rapid, behind-the-scenes changes contributed to his ongoing struggle to understand what role superiors played in the providential unfolding of a Jesuit’s life.^[36]

Only decades later would Lonergan experience a liberating shift with respect to this issue. Mathews recounts a conversation Lonergan had with his fellow Jesuit, friend, and confessor, and spiritual director, Harvey Egan:

According to Harvey Egan, Lonergan grew up with the notion that the superior almost defined your life, told you where to go, what to do, what your life’s work was going to be. As his personal dream began to unfold in the mid-thirties this left him with the question, ‘How do you reconcile a personal dream with the role of superiors in your life?’ . . . Sometime after [Lonergan] went to Boston College in 1975, he came to the realization (or someone brought it to his attention) that the role of the superior for Ignatius was that of benevolently facilitating the apostolic work which the subject came to be enthusiastically engaged in. This discovery, according to Egan, meant a great deal to Lonergan. It was extremely liberating.^[37]

Similarly, in a 1977 letter to Louis Roy, Lonergan (age 72) admits to “24 years of aridity in religious life” before moving into a “happier state” for over 31 years—that is, Lonergan experienced aridity until about 1946 (around age 44).^[38] The aridity was due in part to his aforementioned classicist formation in Ignatian spirituality—a problem to which the Jesuit ressourcement was already attending and to which Superior General Pedro Arrupe would direct the Society’s efforts in response to Vatican II’s mandate to religious orders: adapt and renew.^[39]

Somewhere between 1947 and 1953, Lonergan drafted the lecture, “Grace and the Spiritual Exercise of St. Ignatius.” Lonergan’s happier state and his personal familiarity with the Exercises are palpable in this lecture. Against a Pelagian depiction of the Exercises, Lonergan focuses on “the spontaneous movement of the soul toward God because of the workings of grace.”^[40] He insists the Exercises are not “an abstract doctrine of grace” but rather “a practical manual on a method of cooperating with grace.”^[41] Grace abounds in Lonergan’s understanding of the Exercises: “They are the consequence of the life of grace in St. Ignatius”; “making the exercises is a consequence of grace in the Exercitant”; “the goal of making them is a fuller life of grace in the Exercitant.”^[42] Lonergan here makes an important observation: “Grace is a mystery: there is a notional apprehension through theology; there is a real apprehension in concrete living; the Exercises are a device of real apprehension . . . to know about [grace] concretely, you have to live the life of grace . . . you know what it is to be a living member of Christ by being one as fully as you can.”^[43] He connects the grace of living in Christ to Annotation 15—the director “should permit the Creator to deal directly with the creature, and the creature directly with his Creator and Lord” (SpEx 15)—because we really apprehend grace in this direct interaction.

In a 1978 letter, Lonergan (age 73) recounts his experience of Egan’s lecture on Ignatius’s “consolation without a previous cause”:

I had been hearing those words since 1922 at the annual retreats made by Jesuits preparing for the priesthood. They occur in St. Ignatius’s ‘Rules for the Discernment of Spirits’ . . . But now, after 53 years, I began for the first time to grasp what they meant . . . What I was learning was that the Ignatian examen conscientiae might mean not an examination of conscience but an examination of consciousness.^[44]

He then reflects on consolation and desolation, “which named opposite answers to the question, ‘How do you feel when you pray? Are you absorbed or are you blocked?’”^[45] Lonergan came to appreciate the Examen as an exercise for “evaluating the quality of the conscious affective movements discerned in prayer.”^[46] Like his changed understanding of the role of superiors, this new way of understanding the Examen was a welcomed development in his spiritual life.

Lonergan the Priest-Scholar: Contributions to the Society of Jesus

Beyond Lonergan’s engagements with the Spiritual Exercises as both a Jesuit and theologian, the Society of Jesus invited him to make contributions to Jesuit self-understanding. While the following does not exhaust Lonergan’s service to the Jesuits as a scholar and teacher, it does accentuate something that has not been at the forefront of Lonergan scholarship: not only did his Jesuit heritage help shape his thought, but the Society also appreciated Lonergan as an important resource.

In 1970, Lonergan was invited to present a paper at the Jesuit Institute sponsored by Fusz Memorial at Saint Louis University. The Institute began in 1966 in “an attempt to deepen and broaden appreciation and understanding of the Jesuit vocation.”^[47] The aim of the 1970 conference was “to formulate for ourselves an adequate conception of the role of the Jesuit priest as he relates to his world, and so also we desire to stimulate an even greater desire to fulfill this role of the priest in our society.”^[48] Lonergan was one of a select number of Jesuits invited to speak on the theme, “The Jesuit Priest Today.” Lonergan’s lecture, “Priesthood and Apostolate” was the only one subsequently published in the journal, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits^[49]—a journal “especially for American Jesuits working out their aggiornamento in the spirit of Vatican Council II.”^[50]

In his lecture, Lonergan claims that “a principal function of the Society of Jesus, in its original conception, was to meet crises,”^[51] which is likely his own gloss on the Jesuit mission.^[52] As early Christians and thirteenth-century Christians met the problems of their days, so too did the sixteenth-century Jesuits meet the problems of their day. Whatever the need was—the needs of people, new voyages, the Reformation, Renaissance humanism—the Jesuits responded (e.g., working in hospitals, traveling to India, laboring in the counter-Reformation, becoming school masters, respectively.)^[53] In all three eras, there were major changes, and the changes were cultural.^[54] For example, in early Christianity, the transposition was from “its Palestinian origins to the Greco-Roman world.”^[55] Lonergan has in mind especially the ways Aquinas, in the second aforementioned era, “was a man of his time meeting the challenge of his time.”^[56] Lonergan’s own effort to “contribute to the program vetera novis augere et perficere” by “reaching up to the mind of St. Thomas”^[57] exemplifies how he attempted to meet the crises of his time. Along with his 1935 heart-felt letter outlining his desires to develop a Thomist theory of history to meet the problems of Hegel and Marx, this 1970 lecture on the “The Priest and Apostolate,” helps us appreciate how Lonergan’s lifelong scholarly dedication to meeting the crises of his day was deeply connected to his understanding of his vocation as a Jesuit priest.

In 1974, the Society of Jesus met for its 32^nd General Congregation (GC32). Although Lonergan was not present, he became an important resource for thinking through the questions it raised. He was called upon for navigating the Society’s university apostolate, how the Jesuits ought to approach modern unbelief, and the state of philosophical formation for scholastics. At a 1975 meeting convened to discuss the implementation of the GC32 decrees concerning the apostolate of higher education, Arrupe addressed several of the leading officials at Jesuit universities.^[58] Arrupe stressed the prophetic role of the Catholic university in today’s world, which includes living at “that border line between the Church and the world of non-belief, between forward leaps of science and the reality of everyday life, searching for solutions to the most pressing problems and in the process stirring up others.”^[59] For Arrupe, this prophetic charism of the Jesuit university should determine the kind of research undertaken. Arrupe then takes what might seem a surprising turn—he recalls Lonergan’s 1970 Assistancy article (“Priesthood and Apostolate”), recommending Lonergan’s “wise observations . . . on the Jesuit approach to world problems.”^[60] He quotes the following passage from Lonergan’s article, which resonates with his own proposal that the Jesuit university ought to live at the border between the Church and the world:

If I am correct in assuming that the Jesuits of the twentieth century, like those of the sixteenth, exist to meet crises, they have to accept the gains of modernity in natural sciences, in philosophy, in theology, while working out strategies for dealing with secularist views on religion and with concomitant distortions in man’s notion of human knowledge, in his apprehension of human reality, in his organization of human affairs.^[61]

Arrupe then asks that Lonergan’s “acceptance of gains along with a spirit of critical evaluation of their meaning and use” become the Society’s “formula” at universities. Such a formula is helpful because according to Arrupe, the problems Jesuits decide to study include problems “others might dare not treat.”^[62]

Arrupe gave this address around the time Lonergan’s understanding of essential dimensions of his life as a Jesuit were transforming—with Egan’s help, Lonergan understood Jesuit superiors and the Examen anew. It is noteworthy that Lonergan kept a personal copy of Arrupe’s address, as Lonergan had the habit of discarding even important papers, like drafts of Insight.^[63] Lonergan spent decades trying to reconcile the tension he experienced between his own deep desires to revitalize Catholic thought and education, divine providence, and the role of superiors. Now, the Superior General of the Society was acknowledging Lonergan’s understanding of the Jesuit mission—an understanding grounded in Lonergan’s own self-understanding and vocation as a Jesuit—and offering him as a valuable resource for Jesuit universities.

1975 was not the first time Arrupe had called upon Lonergan. In December 1966, he consulted Lonergan on the theology of the Virgin Birth. Arrupe wrote to several Jesuit theologians, hoping to gain an understanding of the state of the question.^[64] After Lonergan’s initial response (January 2, 1967)^[65] Arrupe sent a second letter (February 11, 1967) asking for a more detailed account of Lonergan’s view. He expresses that Lonergan’s attention to this question “is indispensable to the direction of our Society” and “will be a contribution also to the magisterial and pastoral office of the Church.”^[66] This second letter is especially personal, as Arrupe inquires after Lonergan’s health, given his recent lung cancer diagnosis. Lonergan begins his reply with a similarly personal letter, expressing his gratitude for Arrupe’s concerns for his health, updating Arrupe on his recovery and scholarly projects, and sharing that he remembers Arrupe’s intentions in his masses and prayers. He then advises “the real issue is not the Virgin Birth” but rather “a new method of doing theology,” to which end he hopes to soon publish Method in Theology.^[67] Following Lonergan’s second reply (March 20, 1967), Arrupe sent one final letter on June 29, 1967.^[68]

In May of 1975, Jean-Yvez Calvez, the Assistant General of the Society of Jesus, wrote to Lonergan, asking him to reflect on some of what had emerged at GC32.^[69] Arrupe had requested Calvez represent “the concern for [Jesuit] service to faith in the context of contemporary culture and values, taking into account the difficulties as well as the opportunities arising from them.”^[70] Calvez consulted Lonergan along with other Jesuits who had “experience of contemporary problems affecting faith.”^[71] Some questions included: (1) What are the necessary preconditions to enable Jesuits and their institutions “to be really at the service of faith among men who live intensely the values emerging from the new cultures”?; and (2) What are your reactions to the Society’s reports on modern unbelief?^[72] In response to the first, Lonergan advised that as a precondition, they must develop “an understanding of human historical process, of its unfolding at the present time, of the strategy to be adopted by men of faith in dealing with it, and of the multiform tactics to be deployed in adjusting to the diversity of cultures and classes.”^[73] He observes, “unless apostles of the faith learn to operate effectively on the modern terrain and with modern weapons, the most they legitimately may hope for is the diaspora predicted by Karl Rahner.”^[74] In response to the second question, Lonergan affirms the report’s “transposition of the issue from a doctrine, atheism, to a state of mind and heart, unbelief.”^[75] This affirmation echoes his own transposition regarding faith: from faculty psychology to interiority, wherein faith becomes “the knowledge born from religious love.”^[76]

In May of 1976, Lonergan received a personal invitation from Peter Henrici to collaborate “in a project concerning philosophical studies in the Society of Jesus” in response to GC32’s concern about the philosophical formation of Jesuit scholastics.^[77] The letter expresses the unease many Jesuits felt “about the present state of philosophical studies in the Society”^[78] and that these difficulties in part “seem to be rather profoundly rooted in the overall situation of Catholic philosophy and theology”^[79]—a concern Lonergan had long shared. Henrici’s letter states that given there is no longer a “scholastic philosophy” and that the “problems and methods of modern thought have remained largely alien to neoscholastic philosophy,” an adequate Catholic response to “burning socio-political or hermeneutic questions” has been lacking^[80]—again, one of Lonergan’s longstanding concerns, even in the face of suspicion and misunderstanding. In response, the Jesuits were seeking to address the more “fundamental questions about the nature, end, content, and methods of philosophical studies in the Society.”^[81]

There is at least one notable element of Lonergan’s response to this questionnaire with respect to the Jesuit dimensions of his thinking, and it echoes his response to Calvez’s letter.^[82] One of the questions concerns whether “an understanding of Marxism is an essential element in the preparation of priests today.”^[83] Recall that Lonergan was already concerned with Marx in relation to Catholic thought in 1935, and hoped to develop a theory of history in response—an effort that became in many ways the central feature of his work. What is noteworthy is that in his response to the question about Marx, Lonergan singles out Jesuits: “if Catholics, and in particular, if Jesuits are to live and operate on the level of the times, they must not only know about theories of history but also must work out their own.”^[84] First, the importance of a theory of history. A theory of history posits what the sources and conditions of progress, decline, and recovery are and how they are related. Without their own theory of history, Catholics misunderstand each of these historical dynamics and allow the world to be dominated by theories of history antithetical to genuine human flourishing (Lonergan has in mind not only Marxism, but also liberalism). These theories “stand in explicit disregard of otherworldliness” and abandon religion, which “leaves them without the remedy for overcoming decline”^[85]—and this is the major problem and a major reason Lonergan is adamant that Catholics must work out their own theory of history. We discern in liberalism and Marxism both a compound of progress and decline (e.g., the principle of progress for liberal capitalism is enlightened self-interest, but this ultimately encourages bias, which is the principle of decline) and a trivialization of the issue (e.g., Marx discounts the role of sin in decline and in his focus on group bias, overlooks what Lonergan calls “general bias”). Even more importantly liberalism and Marxism lack an authentic remedy for historical decline. As part of his own theory of history, Lonergan proposes that “the new man is what alone goes to the root of the problem of the objective social surd and decline.”^[86] The new man is someone “who is at once intellectually, morally, and religiously converted. Above all, religiously.”^[87] He or she will be a person of faith, hope, and love, and as such, this person is an agent of historical recovery. At the heart of historical recovery is what Lonergan elsewhere names “Christian authenticity,” which is “a love of others that does not shrink from self-sacrifice and suffering,”^[88] and which is “the sovereign means for overcoming evil.”^[89] This agapic love at once acknowledges and exposes sin as irrational and absurd, and willingly absorbs its consequences rather than pass them on.^[90] For a concrete example of the kind of Christian authenticity Lonergan has in mind, think of Martin Luther King Jr., a man who also opposed the ambiguous notions of progress in liberalism and Marxism,^[91] and offered nonviolent direct action as an authentic remedy that simultaneously refused to cooperate with evil and set conditions for reconciliation.^[92]

While this is a questionnaire about Jesuits for Jesuits, Lonergan does not explicate why he singles out Jesuits—why not Catholic philosophers and theologians, in general, or why not “including Jesuits” rather than “in particular, Jesuits”? In his close to this response, Lonergan makes an important addition—priests need not only an understanding of history, but also “of the vital role Christians are called upon to play.”^[93] This vital role is Christian authenticity, which includes the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love that together enable someone to not shrink from suffering and self-sacrifice. In a 1970 interview, Lonergan had also connected the theological virtues, the priesthood, and a theory of history. He shared that he had added the final chapter of Insight to illuminate what his work has to do with the meaning of the priesthood.^[94] We should not read this as Lonergan’s recommendation of his own work to his fellow Jesuit priests. Rather, this illuminates the connection between his theory of history and his Jesuit, Catholic priesthood. It is in the final chapter of Insight that Lonergan introduces theological virtues in connection to the problem of evil and recovery from historical decline. For Lonergan, a Catholic, Jesuit (and Thomist) theory of history includes reflection on the relevance of theological virtues to the dynamics of history, and on the “new man” in whom these virtues flourish. Recall that Lonergan considered the Spiritual Exercises to be “a practical manual on a method of cooperating with grace.”^[95] Cooperating with grace—with the theological virtues, with God’s redeeming labors in human history—is the key to historical recovery. The Exercises cultivate faith, hope, and love through, e.g., encounters with Jesus in imaginative prayer (especially in the Third Week, which focuses on Christ’s labors in his Passion) and through attentiveness to our daily spiritual consolations (the Examen) and the consolations of our personal histories (the Contemplation to Attain Love, henceforth, the Contemplación). In these ways, the Society of Jesus can help Christians respond to their vital role in history, especially its recovery. We should appreciate that for Lonergan, his life’s work as a scholar and educator was pursued in the context of his vocation as a Jesuit priest whose overwhelming desire was “to introduce history into Catholic theology”—in doing so, he could also introduce a Catholic theology of history that would attune Christians to their vital role therein. In other words, there is an ineluctably pastoral and practical dimension to Lonergan’s theory of history.

These invitations to contribute to thinking through GC32, along with Arrupe’s proposal of Lonergan as a model for the university apostolate and his soliciting Lonergan’s advice suggest Lonergan’s importance as a theologian and teacher for the Society’s renewal and adaptation, especially regarding its intellectual apostolate. With Arrupe, we ought to turn to Lonergan as a model for our Catholic, Jesuit universities today. With Lonergan, we should continue to think through what a Catholic theory of history is and how Ignatian spirituality can support the formation of Christians so they can play the vital role they are called upon to play in both progress and recovery from decline.

Lonergan’s Scholarly References to the Spiritual Exercises

In addition to Lonergan’s contributions to the Society, St. Ignatius and/or the Spiritual Exercises enter several times into his scholarly writing.^[96] I focus on three of his references, in chronological order. In his 1958 lecture “The Redemption,” Lonergan cites Ignatius’s counsel that we understand the redemption as an act of divine communication directed to each individual soul: “As St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises urges, the retreatant in contemplating the mysteries of the life of our Lord is to do his own thinking on each mystery and to take from the mystery the fruit that suits him, the thoughts that come to him, the affections aroused in his heart, the acts of will that arise, that are presented as possibilities to his freedom.”^[97] Lonergan refers to Annotation Two, which advises the Director of the Exercises to go over the Gospel only briefly in order to give God space to work with the retreatant’s imagination as she contemplates the Gospel narratives. Lonergan continues, “It is a fundamental mistake to think of some theory, some analysis, some study of the redemption, as mediating between Christ’s act and the individual soul. Moreover, that act of Christ’s was above all a deed, something that can be seen, imagined, recalled, thought upon. It is not any abstract proposition but a deed accomplished for each of us.”^[98] Lonergan likely has in mind Week Three of the Exercises in which we contemplate the labors of Christ’s passion, and which we revisit in the Contemplación during the contemplation of God’s labors. Lonergan comes to understand the memory of Christ’s deeds as an essential dimension of “Christians becoming themselves” in which Christians really apprehend the meaning of the redemption.^[99] This real apprehension of the redemption, facilitated through the Exercises, is again an essential dimension of the vital role Christians are called to play in history, especially historical recovery and the healing at the heart of such recovery. Though written almost twenty years before the Questionnaire in which Lonergan proposes that Jesuits must develop a theory of history, the connections between Lonergan’s soteriology and his theory of historical recovery are clear, even if Lonergan did not have the occasion to fully integrate these two dimensions of his thought. What remains to be done is explore the connections between Lonergan’s soteriology and his theory of historical recovery in light of what he says about Ignatian spirituality and contemplating Christ’s deed—there is room for a deep integration of systematic theology, a theoretical account of history, and Ignatian spirituality based upon Lonergan’s thought.

Lonergan’s 1964 essay “Existenz and Aggiornamento” is deeply Ignatian, especially in light of lecture notes from the same year. The essay was a “domestic exhortation” he gave to his Jesuit community and the 1964 notes are notes Avery Dulles provided from lectures Lonergan gave at Georgetown, which included lectures on existentialism. There, Lonergan reflected upon the fact that while we cannot avoid the existential reality that our being is our becoming—i.e., that we are subjects—we can avoid the existential decision to take responsibility for who we are becoming and instead drift through life. For Lonergan, the existential subject (existenz) is relevant to the Catholic aggiornamento because the latter concerns choosing how to be a Catholic in the modern world, that is, how Christians become themselves in modernity. Dulles notes, “Existential subject is the man himself in his interiority. Ignatian Exercises is technique for existential decision.”^[100] The Spiritual Exercises are an important resource for aggiornamento because they help Christians discern the signs of the times and decide how to live creatively and authentically. Not only is existenz relevant to the Catholic aggiornamento with respect to the question about Catholics becoming themselves, but unrestricted love transforms our deliberate becoming. As Lonergan later writes in the Questionnaire, this existential decision “undergoes a transformation when God’s love floods our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us: for such love is unrestricted . . . it is the love to which Ignatius of Loyola directs those that follow the Spiritual Exercises.”^[101] For Lonergan, the subjects we become transform history,^[102] and so it matters tremendously not only that we take responsibility for our becoming, but also that we allow unrestricted love to be the context for our becoming—a love we come to really apprehend in something like the Exercises.

In the essay, Lonergan distinguishes between being in Jesus Christ as substance versus being in Jesus Christ as subject. The central difference is between “being in love and discovering that what has happened to you is that you have fallen in love.”^[103] Lonergan then refers to Ignatius’s Contemplación, which can facilitate this discovery.^[104] This discovery is at the heart of the religious conversion of the “new man” who alone goes to the root of the problem of historical decline.

Finally, there is Lonergan’s use of Rahner’s explanation of Ignatius’s “consolation without a prior cause.”^[105] As Ignatius explains, to the Creator alone does it belong to “enter the soul, depart from it, and cause a motion in it which draws the whole person into the love of His Divine Majesty” (SpEx 330). Lonergan regularly speaks of religious experience, characterized as the love of God poured forth in our hearts (Rom. 5:5), in terms of St. Ignatius’s consolation without a prior cause. In 1968, Lonergan recommends “that each one should reflect on his own life, and become aware of how the grace of God has been acting in it; in that way one will arrive at an account of religious experience that means something to him”^[106]—and so, to become a subject in Christ. Lonergan suggests “consolation without cause” to express this experience. The Contemplación is the quintessential Ignatian exercise for this reflection, and to become aware of how God’s grace has been active in one’s life is essential to becoming “subjects in Christ” and cooperating with God’s grace in our shared history.

Conclusion

Jesuit universities today continue to face the challenge of discerning their unique mission and identity.^[107] With other liberal arts universities, they are engaged in the struggle to express the value of the education they provide and the financial difficulties attendant upon lower enrollment precipitated by growing institutional distrust, the cost of higher education, and the impending demographic “cliff.”^[108] There is also the emerging crisis—and opportunity—Artificial Intelligence presents for higher education. The time is perhaps even more ripe today than it was in 1975 to heed Arrupe’s recommendation of Lonergan in forming the intellectual apostolate. Recall that Arrupe has in mind Lonergan’s “acceptance of gains along with a spirit of critical evaluation of their meaning and use”—that is, Lonergan’s practice of dialectic and the related practice of appropriating one’s own foundational commitments. Byrne suggests how Lonergan’s notion of dialectic was connected to “The Presupposition” of the Spiritual Exercises, and ultimately, how Lonergan’s method of self-appropriation in connection with Ignatian discernment offers a genuinely Catholic approach to university scholarship and education. Like the Presupposition, Lonergan’s notion of dialectic “presuppose[s] meaning and value are to be sought in the expressions of everyone that we encounter, and that the function of dialogue and dialectic is to find that meaning and build upon it.”^[109] Lonergan argues that the crisis of our age is not a crisis of faith but a crisis of culture, which is a crisis of meaning, value, and identity^[110]—including even the loss of the search for meaning.^[111] If he is correct, then methods like Lonergan’s and Ignatius’s that can retrieve meaning and value—and discern false meanings and disvalues—by attending to the normative criterion immanent and operative within each of us is essential to the formative role universities are called to play in a society.

While Arrupe’s call was never widely answered, some Jesuit and diocesan universities have been successfully contributing to faculty formation. In 2013, Seton Hall University launched the “Praxis Program of Advanced Seminar on Mission the Center,” a joint effort between the Center for Vocation and Servant Leadership and the Bernard Lonergan Institute, headed by Linda Garofalo, Danute Nourse, and Richard Liddy. The program is designed for faculty and administrators wherein “the meaning of the mission of Seton Hall University is approached as the intellectual conversion or transformation that occurs here, the journey of the human spirit to truth and meaning, through focus on academic and ethical development, engaging in the education of the whole person.”^[112] The Praxis Program has been so successful that it has been adopted at Boston College, the University of San Francisco, and St. Mary’s University (San Antonio), and is continuing to be implemented at other Catholic universities.^[113]

Lonergan has been relatively underappreciated as an Ignatian thinker and Jesuit priest. Yet, he was called upon to address some of the very issues about the state of Catholic philosophy and theology he was already attuned to in the early 1930s. Every time he was called upon to contribute to a theological issue or question concerning Jesuit formation, he responded. Lonergan was not only one of the most important Catholic philosophers and theologians of the twentieth century, but also a Jesuit who responded throughout his life to his vocation. Today, Lonergan remains a Jesuit and theologian who can help faculty, administrators, and students at Catholic universities respond to their unique vocations in higher education and discern the role of Catholic universities in the modern world.

Notes:

^[1] For example, see J. Connor and Fellows of the Woodstock Theological Center, The Dynamism of Desire: Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J., on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2006); Andrew Barrette, Jeffrey Bloechl, and Patrick Byrne, eds., Philosophy as a Spiritual Exercises (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2024).

^[2] Frederick Crowe, Lonergan (Liturgical Press, 1992), 2.

^[3] See Gordon Rixon, “Bernard Lonergan and Mysticism,” Theological Studies 62, no. 3 (2001): 482; Editor’s Introduction to “Bernard Lonergan to Thomas O’Malley,” Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 20 (2002): 79, https://doi.org/10.5840/method20022019 (hereafter cited as “Letter to O’Malley”); and Robert Doran, “Ignatian Themes in the Thought of Bernard Lonergan: Revisiting a Topic that Deserves Further Reflection,” Lonergan Workshop Journal 19 (2006): 85, https://doi.org/10.5840/lw2006196.

^[4] See Gerald Whelan, “Ignatian Spirituality and the Contemporary World: From Ignatius of Loyola to Bernard Lonergan,” Hong Kong Journal of Catholic Studies 11 (2020): 20–56 (hereafter cited as “Ignatian Spirituality”); Patrick Byrne, “Discernment and Self-Appropriation: Ignatius of Loyola and Bernard Lonergan, S.J.,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 76, no. 4 (2020): 1399–424. Whelan proposes that Lonergan might not have been aware of how Ignatian his thought had become. See Whelan, “Ignatian Spirituality,” 52–53.

^[5] On the call to renew and adapt, see the Vatican II document, Perfectae caritatis.

^[6] William Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship 1904–46: The Education of Desire,” Lonergan Workshop Journal 9 (1993): 49 (hereafter cited as “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship”).

^[7] Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 56.

^[8] Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 53, 55–56.

^[9] See Gerald Whelan, Redeeming History: Social Concern in Bernard Lonergan and Robert Doran (Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2013), 14–17 (hereafter cited as Redeeming History); Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 58–64.

^[10] See William Mathews, Lonergan’s Quest: A Study of Desire in the Authoring of Insight (University of Toronto Press, 2005), 48, 65.

^[11] Crowe, Lonergan, 28. Lonergan also preached an eight-day retreat to scholastics in 1941. See Rixon “Bernard Lonergan and Mysticism,” 482.

^[12] See Mathews, Lonergan’s Quest, 92–93. A biennium is the two years Jesuits are granted to obtain a doctorate in philosophy or theology. See Robert Doran, Opening Note, “Letter of Bernard Lonergan to the Reverend Henry Keane, S.J.,” Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 28, no. 2 (2014): 27n15 (hereafter cited as “Letter to Keane”).

^[13] See Whelan, Redeeming History, 15.

^[14] Lonergan, “Lonergan’s Letter to Keane.” I am indebted to William Mathews for bringing this letter to my attention. See Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 70–72.

^[15] Lonergan, “Letter to Keane,” 31. Though Lonergan does not elaborate, it seems likely that his disagreements with standard Thomist epistemology and his eagerness to engage Hegel and Marx contributed to this problem.

^[16] Lonergan, “Letter to Keane,” 31.

^[17] The most significant was likely the imposition of an extra year of regency. Lonergan rethought his vocation during this time. Mathews characterizes this period of his life as a “vocational crisis.” See Mathews, Lonergan’s Quest, 66–67.

^[18] See Lonergan, “Lonergan’s Letter to Keane,” 39–40. See Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 72.

^[19] Lonergan, “Lonergan’s Letter to Keane,” 33.

^[20] Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 85.

^[21] See Frederick Crowe, “‘All My Work Has Been Introducing History into Catholic Theology,’” in Developing the Lonergan Legacy: Historical, Theoretical, and Existential Issues, ed. Michael Vertin (University of Toronto Press 2004), 78.

^[22] I owe my understanding of Lonergan’s vocational distress to William Mathews.

^[23] Lonergan, “Letter to Keane,” 39–40

^[24] Harvey D. Egan, “Ignatius, Prayer and the Spiritual Exercises,” The Way 60, no. 2 (2021): 53–54 (emphasis added).

^[25] See Rixon, “Lonergan and Mysticism,” 481.

^[26] Egan, “Ignatius, Prayer and the Spiritual Exercises,” 53–54.

^[27] Caring about Meaning: Patterns in the life of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Pierrot Lambert, Charlotte Tansey, Cathleen Going (Thomas More Institute 1982), 145. This book is an extended interview with Lonergan. Many years later, Lonergan shared that “the Ignatian inspiration was cut off by a Dutchman named Roothaan. He had his interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises with which contemporary spiritual writers, Jesuits and theologians entirely disagree. But he influenced the Society from the pinnacle, being the Very Reverend General of the Restored Society who had written a long commentary on the Spiritual Exercises and made sure, you know, that it was applying the three powers of the soul . . . It was a rather big block in the spiritual life. It was the reduction of St. Ignatius to a decadent conceptualist scholasticism,” Caring About Meaning, 145.

^[28] Matthews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 72–73.

^[29] Bernard Lonergan, “Grace and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,” Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 21, no. 2 (2003): 89 (hereafter cited as “Grace and the Spiritual Exercise”).

^[30] Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 74.

^[31] Lonergan’s notebook from tertianship, as cited in Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 74 (emphasis added).

^[32] Bernard Lonergan, “Existenz and Aggiornamento,” in Collection, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Collected Works 4 (University of Toronto Press 2005), 231–32.

^[33] Mathews, Lonergan’s Quest, 87

^[34] Bernard Lonergan, “Insight Revisited,” in A Second Collection, ed. Robert. M Doran and John D. Dadosky, Collected Works 13 (University of Toronto Press, 2016): 265–66.

^[35] See Frederick E. Crowe, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Bernard Lonergan, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Collected Works 2 (University of Toronto Press, 1997), ix.

^[36] See Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 76.

^[37] Mathews, “Lonergan’s Apprenticeship,” 54 FN 12. Egan had an important influence on Lonergan’s self-understanding as a Jesuit and his appreciation of Ignatian spirituality. According to Egan, he and Lonergan were close friends, and they lived across the hall from one another at St. Mary’s, the Jesuit Residence at Boston College. E-mail correspondence with Harvey Egan, July 6, 2024.

^[38] See Rixon, “Bernard Lonergan and Mysticism,” FN3, 480.

^[39] See Perfectae Caritas: On the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life, (October 28, 1965),https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651028_perfectae-caritatis_en.html. For Pedro Arrupe’s role, see Patrick Howell, “The ‘New’ Jesuits: The Response to the Society of Jesus to Vatican II, 1962–2012: Some Alacrity, Some Resistance,” Conversations in Jesuit Higher Education 42, no. 4 (2012): 8–9.

^[40] Lonergan, “Grace and The Spiritual Exercises,” 89.

^[41] Lonergan, “Grace and The Spiritual Exercises,” 90.

^[42] Lonergan, “Grace and The Spiritual Exercises,” 94.

^[43] Lonergan, “Grace and The Spiritual Exercises,” 95.

^[44] Lonergan, “Letter to O’Malley,” 81–82. Lonergan wrote this letter on behalf of Egan’s tenure-promotion. Lonergan also shares that he has read Egan’s book, The Spiritual Exercises and the Ignatian Mystical Horizon, which he finds to be “an original work and signal contribution to Ignatian studies.”

^[45] Lonergan, “Letter to O’Malley,” 82.

^[46] Rixon, Editor’s Introduction to “Letter to O’Malley,” 78.

^[47] “The Jesuit Priest Today” Conference Program 1970. Box 3.0168, Folder: Jesuit Institute, 1965–1972. Bellarmine House/Fusz Memorial collection, Missouri Province Archive. Jesuit Archives & Research Center, Saint Louis, Missouri.

^[48] Conference Proposal, Jesuit Institute, 1969. Box 3.0168, Folder: Jesuit Institute, 1965–1972. Bellarmine House/Fusz Memorial collection, Missouri Province Archive. Jesuit Archive and Research Center. The original title for the conference was “The Jesuit Priest in Contemporary Society.”

^[49] Bernard Lonergan, “The Response of the Jesuit, as Priest and Apostle, in the Modern World,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 2, no. 3 (1970). This article was republished in as “The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World,” in A Second Collection(2016), 140–58.

^[50] Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, cover page.

^[51] Lonergan, “Jesuit Priest” (2016), 154.

^[52] E-mail correspondence with Bart Geger. July 4, 2024.

^[53] Lonergan, “Jesuit Priest,” (2016), 153.

^[54] See Lonergan, “Jesuit Priest,” (2016), 153.

^[55] Lonergan, “Jesuit Priest,” (2016), 153.

^[56] Lonergan, “The Future of Thomism,” in A Second Collection, 39–47 at 40.

^[57] Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Collected Works 3 (University of Toronto Press, 1992), 768–69.

^[58] Introduction to Pedro Arrupe, “The Jesuit Mission in the University Apostolate” (1975), https://jesuitportal.bc.edu/research/documents/1975_arrupeuniversityapostolate/ (hereafter cited as “University Apostolate”).

^[59] Arrupe, “University Apostolate.”

^[60] Arrupe, “University Apostolate.” Lonergan is one of only three Jesuits Arrupe cites in this letter. The others are Erich Przywara and Ladislas Orsy.

^[61] Lonergan, “The Response of the Jesuit,” 109, as cited in Arrupe, “University Apostolate.”

^[62] Arrupe, “University Apostolate.” For an example of how Lonergan’s Jesuit approach can inform Catholic universities, see Patrick H. Byrne, “The Good Under Construction and the Research Vocation of a Catholic University,” Journal of Catholic Education 7, no. 3 (2004): 320–38.

^[63] “Jesuit University Apostolate,” Lonergan Archive 27960DTE070, https://bernardlonergan.com/.

^[64] “Letter Arrupe on Virgin Birth,” Lonergan Archive 25540DTG060.

^[65] “BL to Arrupe on Virgin Birth,” Lonergan Archive 25550DTEG60.

^[66] “Arrupe to BL response,” Lonergan Archive 25560DTE060.

^[67] “BL Response 2 to Arrupe on Virgin Birth,” Lonergan Archive, 25570DTE060. In Method, Lonergan suggests that the area to be explored in coming to understand the development of Marian doctrine is “the refinement of feelings,” 320.

^[68] “Arrupe 3 to BL on Virgin Birth,” Lonergan Archive 25600DTL060.

^[69] “Letter Calvez to Lonergan,” Lonergan Archive 21340DTE070.

^[70] “Letter Calvez to Lonergan.”

^[71] “Letter Calvez to Lonergan.”

^[72] “Letter Calvez to Lonergan.” In 1966, Pope Paul VI opened the 31^st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus by charging the Jesuits with “the task of resisting atheism.” See “Decree 3: ‘The Task of the Society Regarding Atheism,’ General Congregation 31 (1966),” https://jesuitportal.bc.edu/research/documents/1966_decree3gc31/.

^[73] “Replies to R. P. Calvez’ 3 Questions,” Lonergan Archive 21360DTE070 (hereafter cited as “Reply to Calvez”).

^[74] “Reply to Calvez.”

^[75] “Reply to Calvez.”

^[76] Lonergan, Method, 111.

^[77] “Henrici Letter asking Lonergan’s Collaboration on Jesuit Philosophy,” Lonergan Archive 27950DTE070 (hereafter cited as “Henrici Letter”).

^[78] “Henrici Letter.”

^[79] “Henrici Letter.”

^[80] “Henrici Letter.”

^[81] “Henrici Letter.”

^[82] Lonergan’s response was published in Philosophical and Theological Papers 1965–1980.

^[83] Lonergan, “Questionnaire” 366.

^[84] See Lonergan, “Questionnaire,” 366.

^[85] Lonergan, “Questionnaire,” 368.

^[86] Lonergan, “Questionnaire,” 369.

^[87] Lonergan, “Questionnaire,” 369.

^[88] Lonergan, Method in Theology, 272.

^[89] Lonergan, Method in Theology, 272.

^[90] See Lonergan, The Redemption,

^[91] See Martin Luther King Jr., “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” in The Radical King, ed. and intro. Cornel West (Beacon Press, 2015): 39–54

^[92] See Jennifer Kendall Sanders, “The Cross and/as Civil Resistance,” Theological Studies 84, no. 3 (2023): 453–75, https://doi.org/10.1177/00405639231187898.

^[93] Lonergan, “Questionnaire,” 370.

^[94] “An Interview with Bernard Lonergan, SJ,” in A Second Collection, 187. See also Mathews, Lonergan’s Quest, 85.

^[95] Lonergan, “Grace and The Spiritual Exercises,” 90.

^[96] For example, Lonergan, Collection; A Second Collection; A Third Collection; Philosophical and Theological Papers; Early Works on Theological Method 1; and Lonergan, Archival Material: Early Papers on History, ed. Robert M. Doran and John D. Dadosky, Collected Works 25 (University of Toronto Press, 2019).

^[97] Lonergan, “The Redemption,” in Philosophical and Theological Papers, 1958–1964, 7. Lonergan is citing George Ganss’ translation of and commentary upon the Spiritual Exercises. Ganss was the Chairman of the Assistancy Seminar, and Editor of its Studies at the time Lonergan published his essay, “The Jesuit Priest.”

^[98] Lonergan, “The Redemption,” 7.

^[99] See Lonergan, “Pope John’s Intention,” in A Third Collection, 226.

^[100] Lonergan, “Differentiations of Methods I,” in Early Works on Theological Method 1, 399. See, for example, SpEx 21.

^[101] Lonergan, “Questionnaire,” 358.

^[102] For example, see Bernard Lonergan, “Natural Right and Historical Mindedness,” in A Third Collection, ed. Robert M. Doran and John D. Dadosky, Collected Works 16 (University of Toronto Press, 2017), 169–183.

^[103] Lonergan, “Existenz and Aggiornamento,” 229.

^[104] Lonergan, Method, 102.

^[105] See Lonergan, Method, 102.

^[106] Lonergan, “Religious Expression, Faith, Conversion,” in Early Works on Theological Method 1, 559.

^[107] For this challenge, see Byrne, “The Good Under Construction,” 320–22.

^[108] See Jon Marcus, “The Number of 18-Year-Olds is about to Drop Sharply, Packing a Wallop for Colleges—and the Economy,” The Hechinger Report, Jan. 8, 2025, https://hechingerreport.org/the-impact-of-this-is-economic-decline/.

^[109] Byrne, “The Good Under Construction,” 336.

^[110] See Bernard Lonergan, “The Absence of God in Modern Culture,” in A Second Collection, 86–98.

^[111] See Bernard Lonergan, “Theology and Praxis,” in A Third Collection, 177–93. See also Walker Percy, “Diagnosing the Modern Malaise,” in Signposts in Strange Land, ed. Patrick Samway (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2000): 204–21.

^[112] Praxis Program of Advanced Seminar on Mission, https://www.shu.edu/vocation-servant-leadership/praxis-program-of-advanced-seminar-on-mission.html. See also Linda Garofalo, Danute Nourse, and Mary Garofalo, “Faculty Development: Mission and Methods for Practical Integration,” Journal of Catholic Higher Education 40, no. 2 (2021): 146–62.

^[113] See Garofalo, “Faculty Development,” 156–62.

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Title: Bernard Lonergan, the Jesuit Theologian: Contributions to the Society of Jesus

Author(s): Jennifer Sanders

Article Type: Research Article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51238/pr8Q3dW

Language: English

Pages: 611–632

Keywords: Spiritual Exercises; Pedro Arrupe; Bernard Lonergan; Ignatian spirituality; Intellectual apostolate; Jesuit universities; Catholic universities; General Congregation 32

In: Jesuit Educational Quarterly

In: 2nd ser., Volume 1, Issue 4

Received: 11 July 2025

Accepted: 20 August 2025

Publication Date: 29 December 2025

Last Updated: 29 December 2025

Publisher: Institute of Jesuit Sources

Print ISSN: 2688-3872

E-ISSN: 2688-3880

APA

Sanders, J. (2025). Bernard Lonergan, the Jesuit theologian: Contributions to the Society of Jesus. Jesuit Educational Quarterly, 1(4), 611–632. https://doi.org/10.51238/pr8Q3dW

CMOS 

Sanders, Jennifer. “Bernard Lonergan, the Jesuit Theologian: Contributions to the Society of Jesus.” Jesuit Educational Quarterly, 2nd ser., 1, no. 4 (2025): 611–632. https://doi.org/10.51238/pr8Q3dW.

MLA

Sanders, Jennifer. “Bernard Lonergan, the Jesuit Theologian: Contributions to the Society of Jesus.” Jesuit Educational Quarterly, 2nd ser., vol. 1, no. 4, 2025, pp. 611–632. https://doi.org/10.51238/pr8Q3dW.

Turabian (9th Edition)

Sanders, Jennifer. 2025. “Bernard Lonergan, the Jesuit Theologian: Contributions to the Society of Jesus.” Jesuit Educational Quarterly, 2nd ser., 1 (4): 611–632. https://doi.org/10.51238/pr8Q3dW.