Francis X Clooney

Parkman Professor of Divinity
Professor of Comparative Theology
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
6175997284
fclooney@hds.harvard.edu
Harvard Divinity School Faculty Profile

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). His translation of the Hindu theologian Ramanuja’s Manual of Daily Worship (Nityagrantham) appeared in the International Journal of Hindu Studies in 2020.

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 Tempavani (Vienna, 2022). His memoir, Priest and Scholar, Catholic and Hindu: A Love Story, was published in 2024 by Bloomsbury, and is currently available as a free Open Acess download, as well as for purchase in paperback and hardcover. 

His 2023 Silber-Obrecht Lectures, given at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies are forthcoming from Georgetown University Press, Faithful Learning amid Many Traditions: Interfaith Learning, Comparative Theology —and How They Matter. He is completing for the Murty Classical Library of India (Harvard University Press) a translation of nearly 500 verses by the first five alvars, mystic Hindu poets of Tamil south India (forthcoming 2027).

His most recent honorary doctorate was awarded in 2024 by Le Moyne College, Syracuse. During 2022-23 he was the President of the Catholic Theological Society of America. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Comparative Theology, a festschrift in his honor, was published in 2023.

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. In 2025, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He has been a Roman Catholic priest for more than 48 years, and a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) for nearly 60 years. He serves regularly in a Catholic parish on weekends. From 2007 to 2016 he blogged regularly in the “In All Things” section of America magazine online; his current blog is The Inner Edge, which includes occasional reflections on matters of religion and public life, sermons, and related matters of spiritual and intellectual concern.

Full CV

 

Selected publications