wfn.org | Cardinal Avery Dulles, friend of NCC's Faith & Order

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Cardinal Avery Dulles, friend of NCC's Faith & Order

New York, December 16, 2008 -- The death December 12 of Cardinal 
Avery Dulles was a sad event for ecumenists related to the National 
Council of Churches USA, both because of the Cardinal's friendship 
with the NCC's Faith and Order Commission and because of his father's 
close relationship with the Council in its early years.

The late John Foster Dulles, a Presbyterian layman and Avery Dulles' 
father, was active in both the National and World Councils of 
Churches before he became Secretary of State in 1953. The elder 
Dulles chaired the Federal Council's "Just and Durable Peace 
Conference" at the outbreak of World War II in 1942.

Cardinal Avery Dulles became a Roman Catholic following a period of 
deep soul searching while a student at Harvard in 1941. He joined the 
Society of Jesus after his discharge from the Navy in 1946, and was 
ordained to the priesthood in 1956.

As the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at 
Fordham University in New York, and as a visiting professor at more 
than a dozen colleges and seminaries around the world, Dulles had a 
profound impact on the education and spiritual development of 
thousands of students -- including Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos, the 
NCC's Senior Program Director for Faith & Order and Interfaith 
Relations, who earned his Ph.D. degree under Cardinal Dulles's 
tutelage at Fordham in 2003.

"Cardinal Dulles was first and foremost a great teacher of the 
faith," Kireopoulos said Monday, expressing his sadness at his 
professor's passing. "He imparted to me and his other students his 
wisdom, but what I learned most of all from him was the importance of 
precision when articulating theological positions. Words were never 
to be wasted or used superficially when discussing Christian belief."

Kireopoulos noted that Cardinal Dulles was a friend of the Faith and 
Order Commission of the National Council of Churches and in 2007 gave 
an address at Faith and Order's 50th anniversary conference in 
Oberlin, Ohio. Cardinal Dulles' address to the Oberlin conference 
challenged the ecumenical community with regard to the present and 
suggested a way forward.

Cardinal Dulles, 90, was the oldest U.S. cardinal at the time of his 
death.  Funeral masses were slated for Tuesday, December 16 and 
Wednesday, December 17 at the Fordham University Church, and 
Thursday, December 18, at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

In recent years, Dulles' health had declined due to leftover effects 
of a youthful bout with polio. On Tuesday April 1, 2008, he gave his 
Farewell Address at Fordham. Dulles was unable to speak so the former 
President of Fordham University Father Joseph O'Hare, S.J. read the 
Cardinal's address.

"Suffering and diminishment are not the greatest evils but are normal 
ingredients of life, especially in old age," Dulles said at the time. 
"They are to be expected as elements of a full human existence. Well 
into my 90th year I have been able to work productively. As I become 
increasingly paralyzed and unable to speak, I can identify with the 
many paralytics and mute persons in the Gospels, grateful for the 
loving and skillful care I receive and for the hope of everlasting 
life in Christ. If the Lord now calls me to a period of weakness, I 
know well that his power can be made perfect in infirmity."

On April 19, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI visited the ailing Cardinal 
Dulles during his visit to the United States.

Avery Dulles was widely acclaimed 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.

"Many people learned from his writings over the decades," said 
Kireopoulos. "In his later years while some continued to embrace his 
teaching and others disagreed, all continued to respect the 
intellectual vigor with which he expressed his views."

Kireopoulos recalled visiting Cardinal Dulles just weeks ago in early 
October. "He could not speak due to his illness but his mind was as 
sharp as ever. It was difficult to see a man who had preached so 
brilliantly not being able to communicate verbally with those who 
came to see him in his last days."

NCC News contact:  Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228, NCCnews@ncccusa.org