Catholic Theological
Society of America

  • Home
  • David W. Tracy - d. 4/29/25

David W. Tracy - d. 4/29/25

05/01/2025 9:33 AM | Anonymous

The CTSA remembers and prays for longstanding member David W. Tracy, who died on Tuesday, April 29.

David Tracy was awarded the prestigious John Courtney Murray Award in1980.  He served as the CTSA's President in 1976 – 1977 and twice as a member of the CTSA Board of Directors (1974 - 1976 and 1977 – 1979).


Eternal rest grant unto David, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

David Tracy's theological contributions include the following available within the CTSA Proceedings:

Response to “Meaning and Characteristics of an American Theology”

“Evil and Hope: Foundational Systematic Perspectives”

Response to Professor Connelly-II

Presidential Address: “Grace and the Search for the Human: The Sense of the Uncanny”

“A Response to Gregory Baum”

“Why Orthodoxy in a Personalist Age?”



Comments

  • 05/01/2025 3:25 PM | Thomas J Massaro SJ
    Rest in Peace, David.
    What a great loss to the church, the academy and the wider society. The influence of this great theologian will surely live on in his splendid writings and the constructive work of his many students over several decades.
    Link  •  Reply
  • 05/01/2025 4:56 PM | Paul DeHart
    Like so many others, especially those who attended the University of Chicago, I owe so much to this man who has now left us. It is difficult for me to put in words why I feel this loss so keenly. To be sure, he was my teacher and my dissertation advisor, and in those roles his example of a uniquely catholic (!) theological curiosity, his astonishing breadth and generosity of thought, never left me. He was certainly one of the gentlest and kindest yet most intimidating teachers I ever had. He could open smug little minds like mine from multiple directions at once, as when he calmly schooled me through his warm and respectful promotion of feminist and liberation theologians even as he challenged me in a brilliant and unforgettable seminar on the mystery of the Trinity. Never relaxing his rigor of thought, never talking down to anyone, he yet somehow took every student's blundering question or half-sensed intuition and found something good in it, often something profound. But more than his pedagogy, what will remain freshest in my memory, what inspired me above all, are David Tracy's spirit, and his mind. On the former point, his hallmarks as a teacher were those of his personality in all situations. He never needed to shout; he was quietly confident enough yet also aware of the immensity of his, of all our ignorance, that I never saw him, in public or private, engage in those tiresome academic habits of defensiveness, self-promotion or aggressive one-upmanship. The older and more esteemed he became, the more it seemed he wanted to learn from everyone else. And I never ceased to find in him a man of the plainest Christian faith, deeply informed and shaped (in thought and in prayer) by the richness of the entire Catholic tradition to a degree that might shock some who knew him only as a "modern" or "progressive." All this with an extremely dry, quietly chuckling sense of humor. As for the second point, David Tracy's mind will always remain a kind of mystifying yet aspirational ideal for me (I think of his teacher Lonergan speaking of spending years "reaching up" to the mind of Aquinas). The well-known writings on fundamental theology are not, for me, the best measure of that mind, but rather the book that did not appear. My student years at Chicago coincided with his embarkation on his grandest intellectual adventure: his now legendary "book on God." Years went by, the Giffords came and went, and yet it seemed he could not let it go. There was always a new angle to explore, another theological avenue unveiled, older and newer voices to be heard. Thinking as deeply as he could about the God abroad with us in Son and Spirit, and doing so with the voices of other thinkers, past and present, always in his ears, must have been a kind of endless journey for him, the form intellect takes on when in love with the ineffable and infinitely lovable source and goal of all things. Year after year I would hear a rumor that the book was nearing completion, that he was "close" to finishing, that a publisher was looking at a manuscript. But nothing. And now he has passed to more pressing matters, his breath failing him before he could get to his last word about God. I hope I won't be misunderstood if I say: that seems about right.
    Link  •  Reply
    • 05/03/2025 11:16 AM | Christine Firer Hinze
      Thanks, Paul, for this beautiful reflection on a great scholar, teacher, and human being--eflections with which his very many students and colleagues over the years will relate and resonate! RIP to a truly 'one of a kind' theologian.
      Link  •  Reply

@theCTSA.bsky.social

©2019 Catholic Theological Society of America. All Rights Reserved.
Catholic Theological Society of America is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

CTSA Privacy Policy - GDPR Compliant


Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software