What is the Lonergan Project

The Gregorian Lonergan Project is an effort to establish "a little school of Lonergan at the Gregorian." This was the phrase used by Fr. Francois-Xavier Dumortier, Rector of the university, in 2010 when he invited Fr. Gerard Whelan SJ, a lecturer in Fundamental Theology, to devote time to building up such a community of interest. He suggested that Lonergan was one of the finest minds to have studied and thought at the Gregorian and that his thought has an abiding relevance for the Church. He suggested that it was important that a process of studying and promoting his thought continue in the university. He added that, in his opinion, Lonergan's thought could serve to promote interdisciplinary collaboration within the university and to help establish an ethos that brings to this Pontifical university an approach that is both in keeping with the spirit of Vatican II and draws on some distinctive characteristics of the Jesuit tradition. An important first undertaking of this Lonergan Project was to organize an international Lonergan conference in 2013 and to publish the acts of this conference in 2015.

When Fr. Nuno Gonçalves became Rector in 2016, he affirmed his support for the Gregorian Lonergan Project. Rather than being housed within the office of the Rector, he asked that the Theology Faculty be its host. In tune with other initiatives being taken in the theology faculty, the Gregorian Lonergan Project now seeks to network with the other two institutes of the Jesuit Higher Education Consortium in Rome. This has already begun with the Pontifical Oriental Institute, and hope are high for the Pontifical Biblicum Institute!