Francis Xavier Clooney

Francis Xavier Clooney (born 1950) is an American Jesuit priest and scholar in the teachings of Hinduism. He is currently a professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Career
A native of Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from the prestigious Regis High School in Manhattan and entered the novitiate of Society of Jesus in 1968 and was subsequently ordained in 1978. Following that, he earned his bachelor's degree at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York.
After earning his doctorate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in 1984, Clooney taught at Boston College until 2005, serving also as the Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (a recognised independent centre of the University of Oxford), when he became the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard Divinity School. In 2010 he became the Director of Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions. That same year he was named a Fellow of the British Academy.
His primary areas of scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India, and the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened and enriched through the study of traditions other than one's own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, and the dynamics of dialogue in the contemporary world.
Clooney sits on a number of editorial boards, was the first president of the International Society for Hindu-Christian Studies and, from 1998 to 2004, was coordinator for interreligious dialogue for the Jesuits of the United States. Clooney has authored several articles and books, and served as the editor of the OCHS Hindu Studies book series for Routledge. His current projects include a study of yoga and Jesuit spirituality.
In 2010, he was the recipient of Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology, awarded by the Association of Theological Schools. In 2017, he was nominated as the winner of the John Courtney Murray Award for his distinguished theological achievement.
Works
Hindu Wisdom for All God's Children
Hindu Wisdom for All God’s Children is an introduction to comparative theology. It provides a brief history of his experience with Hinduism during Clooney's time spent teaching in Nepal. This book doesn’t initially require much previous knowledge of Hinduism or Indian culture to understand and therefore provides a good initial introduction to comparative theology and Clooney. It also shows what one can learn about God from the Hindu religious tradition by taking a look at various Hindu gods. Hindu Wisdom for All God's Children began first as a series of lectures given at John Carroll University in 1996 and was later developed into a book.
The book's introduction is significant to understanding Clooney's interest in eastern religions. As part of his early Jesuit training, Clooney was expected to teach high school. He chose to travel to Kathmandu, Nepal, and teach 9th-grade boys at St. Xavier’s High School. Looking for a way to teach moral values to his students, Clooney turned to the Bhagavad Gita. This was the first time that Clooney had studied the Bhagavad Gita. Similarly, he also used the stories of the Buddha's life and teachings to relate to the Nepali boys he was teaching.
Hindu God, Christian God
In Hindu God, Christian God: How Reason Helps Break Down the Boundaries Between Religions, Clooney compares Christian theology and Hindu theology in four areas: the existence of God, what is the true God, divine embodiment, and the revelation of God. Clooney considers the similarities between Christianity and Hinduism's theological answers to these topics. Clooney then draws four major conclusions about God: the world is complex and there is a God who created the world, this God can be further identified by drawing reasonable conclusions about who God is and how He will likely act, God is not limited to the restrictiveness of a body but can choose to assume this limited form, and there is divine revelation. This book is helpful in seeing how Clooney's ideas about God develop through his studying of the theology of religions outside of Christianity.
Major publications
Learning Interreligiously: In the Text, in the World (Fortress Press, 2018)
His Hiding Place Is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence (Stanford, 2013)
Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)
The Truth, the Way, the Life: Christian Commentary on the Three Holy Mantras of the Srivaisnava Hindus (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009)
Beyond Compare: St. Francis de Sales and Sri Vedanta Desika on Loving Surrender to God (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008)
Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)
Hindu God, Christian God: How Reason Helps Break Down the Boundaries between Religions (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Hindu Wisdom for All God’s Children. (Orbis Books, 1998)
Seeing through Texts: Doing Theology among the Srivaisnavas of South India. (State University of New York, 1996)
Theology after Vedanta: An Exercise in Comparative Theology. (State University of New York Press, 1993)
Personal life
As a Jesuit, Clooney observes vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and begins each day with an hour of meditative prayer. He regularly celebrates Mass at a local parish in Sharon, Massachusetts.
Clooney became a vegetarian in 1974 as part of his spiritual practice, and has argued that adopting a nonviolent diet can be consistent with Catholic religious traditions.
References
External links
On the Inner Edge Blog
Personal website of Francis X. Clooney
Staff page of Francis X. Clooney
America Magazine, In All Things (group blog)
Journal of Comparative Theology
1950 births
Religious leaders from Brooklyn
20th-century American Jesuits
21st-century American Jesuits
Fordham University alumni
University of Chicago alumni
Boston College faculty
Harvard Divinity School faculty
Living people
Fellows of the British Academy
Academics of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
21st-century American Roman Catholic theologians
Catholics from New York (state)
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy