Who is Bernard Lonergan?

Bernard Lonergan was a priest, philosopher, and theologian who is considered to be one of the brightest minds of the 20th century. He was born on the 17th of December 1904 in Buckingham, Quebec, Canada. After his studies at Loyola College in Montreal, he entered the Society of Jesus in Guelph, Ontario in 1922 and professed his first vows as a Jesuit on the 31st of July 1924. He was then sent for studies and formation, first, at Heythrop College in London, and then, at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

After he was ordained a priest on the 25th of July 1936, he pursued graduate studies in theology, writing a doctoral thesis on the notion of operative grace in Thomas Aquinas. Subsequently, he taught courses on the sacraments, grace, Christology, and the Trinity, among others, at the College of the Immaculate Conception, Regis College, the Gregorian University, Harvard University, and Boston College. He died on the 26th of November 1984 in Pickering, Ontario, Canada.

Lonergan was a prolific writer. His Collected Works now stands at twenty-six volumes. He is, however, particularly known for his works Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957), that delves into an analysis of the human subject’s cognitive processes, and Method in Theology (1972), that proposes a re-founding and restructuring of theology in order to bring it to the level of the times.