Fr. Buckley Receives Award

Michael J. Buckley, SJ

The award was presented in June at the CTSA annual conference in San Jose. Fr. Buckley was hailed as "a colleague whose power of mind brings insight and elegance to our communities of learning, and whose power of heart reminds us of our calling and the persistent courage that it requires."

Fr. Buckley, director of the Jesuit Institute since 1992, is the author of numerous essays and five books, including Papal Primacy and the Episcopate: Towards a Relational Understanding (1998); The Catholic University as Promise and Project: Reflections in a Jesuit Idiom (1998), and At the Origins of Modern Atheism (1990).

"His service to Church leaders, to the theological community, to students, is in many ways unparalleled," the award citation declared. "Moreover, this theologian's articulation of Christian belief and hope, spoken out of and back into the community of faith, is matched by the healing word he has offered to many who stand outside of and even against the community. He belongs to a long line of theologians who do not shrink from addressing the deepest aspirations of co-believers and the deepest objections of those who question religious faith of any kind."

The award is named in honor of Rev. John Courtney Murray, SJ (1904-67), whose work was instrumental in Second Vatican Council reform of Catholic doctrine on religious liberty.