About Francis X. Clooney S.J.

Parkman Professor of Divinity
Professor of Comparative Theology

Francis X. Clooney, S.J., joined the Harvard Divinity School faculty in 2005, where he is the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology. After earning his doctorate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations (University of Chicago, 1984), he taught at Boston College for 21 years before coming to Harvard. From 2010 to 2017, he was the Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard.

His primary areas of Indological scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India. He is also a leading figure globally in the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened through the study of traditions other than one’s own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, on the early Jesuit pan-Asian discourse on reincarnation, and on the dynamics of dialogue and interreligious learning in the contemporary world.

Clooney is the author of numerous articles and books, including Thinking Ritually: Retrieving the Purva Mimamsa of Jaimini (Vienna, 1990), Theology after Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology (State University of New York Press, 1993), Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and His Hiding Place Is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence (Stanford University Press, 2013). His translation of the Hindu theologian Ramanuja’s Manual of Daily Worship (Nityagrantham) appeared in the International Journal of Hindu Studies in 2020.

His most recent books include Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics: Why and How It Matters (University of Virgina Press, 2019), Western Jesuit Scholars in India: Tracing Their Paths, Reassessing Their Goals (Brill, 2020), and most recently, St. Joseph in South India: Poetry, Mission and Theology in Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi's Tempavani (Vienna, 2022). His memoir, Priest and Scholar, Catholic and Hindu: A Love Story will appear in 2024, published by T&T Clark/Bloomsbury. He is currently working on a new translation of the first four ālvārs, Vaiṣṇava poet saints of Tamil Nadu. A feschrift in his honor was published by Wiley Blackwell in 2023.

In July 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and has served as a Professorial Research Fellow at the Australian Catholic University. His most recent honorary doctorate was awarded in September 2023 by the University of Scranton. During 2022-23 he was the President of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

 

 

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Pray Always, Give Thanks Always, Rejoice Always: St. Paul’s Advice in a Dark Season

Every year around this time, I remind those patiently listening to my homilies at weekend Masses that while Advent can and should be a quiet time, blessed with hope in patient waiting for Christ born among us yet again, we also have to work at getting into the right mindset, attuned to what is needed today as watch and wait. On the Third Sunday of Advent (December 10), I pointed particularly to the second reading, from St. Paul’s I Thessalonians, Chapter 5. I said that Paul offers us a valuable even...

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Empty Lamps, Wiser Bridesmaids

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for...

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These Weeks at Harvard Divinity School: Teaching, Studying, Praying in a Violent Moment

The past three weeks have been terrible for many reasons, from the ongoing destruction in the Ukraine to another mass murder in this country, this time in Lewiston, Maine, We are especially aware of the suffering people in Israel and Palestine, those severely wounded, and those grieving the loss of loved ones. From afar, so many are living in a state of great anxiety, worrying helplessly about family and friends at risk. But the rest of us too live in an altered state, burdened by gloom and worry agitated further by the static...

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