BIS # 955 LONERGAN WORKSHOP AT NAPLES

Ivo Coelho sdb

MUMBAI, MAY 28, 2008: An International Lonergan Workshop was held at the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, Naples, May 13-15, 2008 with the topic “Going Beyond Essentialism: Bernard J.F. Lonergan, SJ: An Atypical Scholastic.” The Workshop was organized by Fr Saturnino Muratore, SJ, and Ms Cloe Taddei-Ferretti, both closely involved with the Lonergan movement in Italy, and with the publication of the Collected Works of Lonergan in Italian. Its aim was to promote the study of the philosophical, theological and economic output of Lonergan in Italy, in both ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical (often anti-clerical) circles. A number of Lonergan scholars from all over the world participated, among whom Fred Lawrence (Boston College, Boston), Robert Doran, SJ (Marquette University), William Mathews, SJ (Milltown Institute, Maynooth), Hugo Meynell (retired from the University of Calgary, Canada), Howard Richards (retired from Talca, Chile), and Rosanna Finamore (Gregoriana, Rome). I myself gave a paper on the possibility of using Lonergan for international, intercultural and interreligious dialogue and theologizing, and also in the area of international relations, justice, economics and commerce. A copy of the Italian Collected Works of Lonergan was presented to Pope Benedict XVI in Rome during the days of the Workshop, in the presence of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who is himself a great lover of Lonergan. The young theologian Joseph Ratzinger was once a member of the International Theological Commission together with Bernard Lonergan.