Former agnostic and child of politics says new job OK with him
Father Avery Dulles, a professor of theology, was meeting with a doctoral student in his Fordham University office last Friday afternoon when the telephone rang.
It was Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the apostolic nuncio in Washington, the pope's top U.S. adviser.
Dulles sighed and shepherded the student into the hallway. So the rumors are right, Dulles thought. He was one of three American church leaders to be elevated to the position of cardinal by Pope John Paul II.
The other two red hats -- for Archbishops Theodore Edgar McCarrick of Washington and Edward Michael Egan of New York -- were expected. Dulles was the surprise.
In an interview before a speaking engagement last night at the University of Santa Clara, the longtime Jesuit academic said he greets the news from Rome with "resignation."
"If divine providence thinks it's a good idea," he said, "it's OK with me."
Dulles, along with 36 other cardinal-designates from around the world, will be installed at a Feb. 21 Vatican ceremony.
He'll be a cardinal, but there's a catch.
Since he is 82 years old, Dulles will not be able to participate in one of the most important duties of a cardinal -- electing the next pope. Only those princes of the church under 80 are eligible to vote in those Vatican conclaves.
Nevertheless, the pope's action is the highest honor that could be bestowed upon the influential theologian, a onetime agnostic and nominal Presbyterian.
Dulles, a longtime professor of theology at Fordham University in New York and Catholic University in Washington, D.C., is the son of John Foster Dulles, a Presbyterian elder and secretary of state in the 1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower. His uncle, Allen Dulles, ran the CIA.
Because of his illustrious parentage, Dulles' conversion to the Roman Catholic Church and his ordination in 1956 by New York Cardinal Francis Spellman made headlines in an era when Catholics were Catholics and Protestants were Protestants.
The author of 21 books and the recipient of 21 honorary doctorates, Dulles is known for his work on American Catholicism and on Vatican II, the sweeping Catholic church reforms of the 1960s.
"For 40 years, Dulles has been a mediator, making sense of the American Catholic Church to Rome and making sense of the Vatican to American Catholics, " said William Spohn, director of the Bannan Institute for Jesuit Education and Christian Values, which sponsored the theologian's visit.
Many of the disagreements between the Vatican and liberal Catholics in the United States flow from the sacred status Americans place on ideas about democracy and individualism, Dulles said.
They think the Roman Catholic Church should be a democracy, not a theocracy.
"In America, people have a right to their opinion, right or wrong," Dulles said.
Dulles' elevation comes as the Vatican, the American bishops and U.S. theologians are finalizing controversial new regulations that require local bishops to license theologians teaching at Catholic colleges and universities.
That has caused an uproar among many Catholic professors and college presidents who see it as a threat to academic freedom and credibility.
"There are legitimate points of concern," Dulles said. "Not all local bishops are well qualified theologically, nor do they have the time or energy to dialogue with the university."
At the same time, Dulles said, the church must closely monitor the teachers of theology.
"The academic freedom of a Catholic theologian is not to depart from the teaching of the church," he said. "It's not like secular disciplines. If I'm teaching American history, there isn't a body of doctrine I have to accept to become a historian."
Dulles was also asked about Dominus Jesus, a recent Vatican document that may have set back ecumenical relations with its re-assertion that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true church.
"The document was not very diplomatic in its language, and obviously ruffled some feathers." he said. "But it was necessary to clear the air and say there are certain things on which the Catholic Church has a position, which is not acceptable to non-Catholics.
"The papacy is a unique and essential element to integral Christianity. It is a defect of other forms of Christianity if they do not acknowledge the authority of the bishop of Rome."