Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
Professor of Comparative Theology
On Leave
Spring 2023
Education
- BA, Fordham University
- MDiv, Weston School of Theology
- PhD, University of Chicago
Profile
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), Beyond Compare: St. Francis de Sales and Sri Vedanta Desika on Loving Surrender to God (Georgetown University Press, 2008), The Truth, the Way, the Life: Christian Commentary on the Three Holy Mantras of the Shrivaisnava Hindus (Peeters Publishing, 2008), 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).
Recent books include Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics: Why and How It Matters (University of Virgina Press, 2019) and Western Jesuit Scholars in India: Tracing Their Paths, Reassessing Their Goals (Brill, 2020), and St. Joseph in South India: Poetry, Mission and Theology in Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi’s Tēmpāvaṇi. (de Nobili Research Library Series, Vienna 2022). His translation of the Hindu theologian Ramanuja’s Manual of Daily Worship (Nityagrantham) appeared in the International Journal of Hindu Studies in 2020. He is currently writing an intellectual autobiography tentatively entitled, Priest and Scholar, Catholic and Hindu: A Love Story.
He is currently President of the Catholic Theological Society of America. 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 November 2019 by Regis College, University of Toronto.
He is a Roman Catholic priest and has been a member of the Society of Jesus for 50 years. He serves regularly in a Catholic parish on weekends.
See also
Selected publications
- Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders (Blackwell Publishing, 2010)
- His Hiding Place Is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence (Stanford University Press, 2013)
- The Future of Hindu-Christian Studies: A Theological Inquiry (Routledge, 2017)
- Learning Interreligiously: In the Text, in the World (Fortress, 2018)
- Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics: Why and How It Matters (University of Virginia Press, 2019)
- Western Jesuit Scholars in India: Tracing Their Paths, Reassessing Their Goals (Brill, 2020). See the PDF flyer about Western Jesuit Scholars in India.
- St. Joseph in South India: Poetry, Mission and Theology in Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi’s Tēmpāvaṇi. (de Nobili Research Library Series, Vienna 2022)
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