Vatican has questioned, not silenced, Indian Jesuit theologian

May 14, 2014

Reacting to reports that the Vatican has censured an Indian theologian, a Jesuit spokesman has told the Catholic News Service that no disciplinary action has been taken.

Father Michael Amaladoss, a Jesuit priest who head the Institute for Dialogue with Cultures and Religions in Chennai, has been in correspondence with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) for months, revealed Father Joe Antony, a Jesuit provincial in India. “There has been no condemnation or censure,” he said, however.

In April, when Father Amaladoss cancelled a speaking appearance at Union Theological Seminary in New York, the institution announced that he had been silenced by the Vatican. Father Antony said that was incorrect; Father Amaladoss has chosen voluntarily to observe a period of silence, he said. Another Jesuit provincial in South Asia, Father Edward Mudavassery, confirmed in discussion with the UCANews service that “he has not been barred from writing and teaching.”

The key question in discussions between the CDF and Father Amaladoss is evidently the theologian’s treatment of the unique role of Jesus in the economy of salvation. In recent years the CDF has cautioned two theologians, the Sri Lankan Tissa Balasuriya and the Belgian Jesuit Jacques Dupuis, on similar grounds. Father Amaladoss was once a student of Father Dupuis, who died in 2004.

 

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Further information:

• Indian Jesuits downplay reports of Vatican censure (UCANews)
• Vatican investigating Indian Jesuit's work, but has not silenced him (CNS)