Jacques Dupuis
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- For the Deputy Premier of Quebec, see Jacques Dupuis (politician)
Jacques Dupuis (5 December 1923, Huppaye, Brabant, Belgium - 28 December 2004, Rome) was a Belgian Jesuit priest. Jacques Dupuis became a Jesuit in 1941. After early religious and academic training in Belgium he left for India in 1948. A 3 year (1948-51) teaching experience at St Xavier's High-School, Calcutta, made him discover Hinduism through the way it shaped the personalities of the students entrusted to him. This was a discovery - the variety of religions -, and the beginning of a lifelong search: does God self-revelation necessarily pass for all through the person of Jesus-Christ? After being ordained priest in Kurseong (India)[1954] he completed a doctorate in Theology at the Gregorian University, Rome, on the religious anthropology of Origen. He was assigned to teach Dogmatic Theology at the Jesuit Faculty of Theology of Kurseong (later shifted to Delhi, and renamed 'Vidyajyoti College of Theology'). Director of the journal 'Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection' Fr Dupuis was also the adviser of the Catholic Bishops conference of India. Besides numerous articles on theological and interreligious topics he published in 1973(with Josef Neuner) a collection of Church documents, 'The Christian Faith', that went into seven editions over 20 years: an invaluable instrument of Theological learning for generations of students of Catholicism. In 1984, after 36 years in India, Dupuis was called to teach 'Theology and Non-Christian Religions' at the Gregorian University of Rome. A book Jesus-Christ à la rencontre des religions (1989) was well received and promptly translated in Italian, English and Spanish. He was made director of the journal 'Gregorianum' and appointed consultor at the 'Pontifical Council for interreligious Dialogue'. In 1997 his book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (1997)led to Dupuis being censured by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ambiguities were noted, which he was told to clarify, but Dupuis was never disciplined. In the notification, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (then prefect of the Congregation, later Pope Benedict XVI) stated "It is consistent with Catholic doctrine to hold that the seeds of truth and goodness that exist in other religions are a certain participation in truths contained in the revelation of or in Jesus Christ. However, it is erroneous to hold that such elements of truth and goodness, or some of them, do not derive ultimately from the source-mediation of Jesus Christ." However, in 2001 Pope John Paul II acknowledged Dupuis's 'pioneering' work on the meaning of other religions in "God's plan of salvation of mankind". Jacques Dupuis died a few days after celebrating 50 years of priesthood, in Rome, on the 28 December 2004.
Bibliography: The Christian Faith (1973). Jesus-Christ at the encounter of World Religions (1991). Who do you say I am ? Introduction to Christology (1994). Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (1997). KENDALL Daniel, COLLINS Gerald (eds), In may and diverse ways; in Honor of Jacques Dupuis (2003). This book contains a complete bibliography of articles and books of Dupuis.
