This autobiography traces Francis X. Clooney's intellectual and spiritual journey from middle-class American Catholicism to a lifelong study of Hinduism. It explains how he came to fashion comparative theology as a way of learning interreligiously that is boldly intellectual and deeply personal and practical, lived out in intersections of his roles as theologian and scholar of Hinduism, as professor and Catholic priest, and over the tumultuous decades from the 1960s until now, in his role as Parkman Professor of Divinity, Harvard University.
Clooney sheds fresh and realistic light on the idea and ideal of scholar-practitioner, since his wide learning, Christian and Hindu, is grounded in his Catholic and Jesuit commitments, as well as in a commensurate learning with respect to several Hindu traditions that are most accessible to scholars willing to learn empathetically and in a participatory manner.
What Clooney has learnt and written must be understood in terms of a love of Christ deeply informed by a Hindu instinct for loving God without reserve. A fundamental spiritual disposition - intuitions of God present everywhere - has energized his work over his long career, love giving direction and body to his professional academic work.

lgrsnf/Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar A Love Story [3904627].pdf

Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic

Cassell

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Cover
Half Title
Frontispiece
Title
Copyright
Contents
Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART ONE Learning: A Double Formation
1 Beginnings: The Touch of a Calling
2 First Formation: Becoming a Jesuit
3 Learning to Read: Classics, Philosophy, Literature
4 Crossing Worlds: Kathmandu
5 Studying Theology: Trying to Think
6 Second Formation: From Hyde Park to Madras
7 Poetic Readings: A Hindu Saint and Me
PART TWO Working: BC, Harvard, and (Perhaps) Beyond
8 Writing Comparative Theology
9 Teaching, Preaching, Praying
10 Later in My Career
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

2024-07-10