Avery Dulles

Avery Robert Dulles (ˈdʌlɪs ; August 24, 1918 – December 12, 2008) was an American Jesuit priest, theologian, and cardinal of the Catholic Church. Dulles served on the faculty of Woodstock College from 1960 to 1974, of the Catholic University of America from 1974 to 1988, and as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University from 1988 to 2008. He was also an internationally known author and lecturer. Dulles was born in Auburn, New York, on August 24, 1918, the son of John Foster Dulles, the future U.S. Secretary of State (for whom Washington Dulles International Airport is named), and Janet Pomeroy Avery Dulles. His uncle was Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles. Both his great-grandfather John W. Foster and great-uncle Robert Lansing also served as secretary of state. His paternal grandfather, Allen Macy Dulles, was a member of the faculty of the Presbyterian Auburn Theological Seminary and published in the field of ecclesiology, to which his grandson would likewise devote scholarly attention as a Catholic. He received his primary school education in New York City at the St. Bernard's School and attended secondary schools in Switzerland and the Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut. He then enrolled at Harvard College in 1936. Dulles was raised a Presbyterian but had become an agnostic by the time he was a student at Harvard. His religious doubts were diminished during a personally profound moment when he stepped out into a rainy day and saw a tree beginning to flower along the Charles River; after that moment he never again "doubted the existence of an all-good and omnipotent God." He noted how his theism turned toward conversion to Catholicism: "The more I examined, the more I was impressed with the consistency and sublimity of Catholic doctrine." He converted to Catholicism in the fall of 1940. After both winning the Phi Beta Kappa Essay Prize and graduating from Harvard in 1940, Dulles spent a year and a half at Harvard Law School, during which time he co-founded the "St.