Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Parkman Professor of Divinity
Professor of Comparative Theology
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
CSWR 209
fclooney@hds.harvard.edu

 On leave

  • Fall 2025

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), 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 Tēmpāvaṇi (Vienna, 2022). 

His memoir, Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story appeared in 2024, published by T&T Clark/Bloomsbury. An interview about the memoir appeared in October 2024 in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, with Bulletin Editor Wendy McDowell. 

A Festschrift in his honor was published by Wiley Blackwell in 2023.

He is currently working on a new translation of the first four ālvārs, Vaiṣṇava poet saints of Tamil Nadu, and a small book on the future of interfaith studies. 

During 2022-23 he was the President of the Catholic Theological Society of America. His most recent honorary doctorates are two: September 2023, the University of Scranton, and May 2024, Le Moyne College. In July 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, and in April 2025 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Full CV (PDF)

Courses

View HDS courses taught by Francis X. Clooney in the my.harvard Course Search.

Also view FAS courses taught by Francis X. Clooney. (HDS students: for jointly offered and reading and research courses, please enroll in the HDS version of the course.)

All Harvard courses

See also

Selected publications

Support

To reach Harvard Divinity School's faculty coordinators, email div-faculty_coordinators@calists.harvard.edu.

For media inquiries or requests, please contact Tyler Sprouse in the Office of Communications.