Today’s overlapping social and ecological crises portend Bernard Lonergan’s memorable remark that “the world lies in pieces before us and pleads to be put together again.” The calls of Catholic social teaching for a ‘humane globalization’ and, more recently an ‘integral ecology’ only heighten the urgency of this task. Inspired and aided by Lonergan’s thought, this volume presents an array of essays that collectively aspire to answer these pleas. Engaging theology, philosophy, the social sciences, and the natural sciences, the volume’s authors hope to show how in fact ‘everything is interconnected’ in the church’s ongoing task of caring for our common, though fragmented, home. This volume stands as the first publication of the International Institute for Method in Theology. Launched in 2017 by Fr. Robert Doran, S.J. — and through the joined efforts of the Marquette Lonergan Project, the Lonergan Research Institute at Regis College (University of Toronto), and the theology faculty of the Gregorian University (Rome) — the Institute aims to implement Bernard Lonergan’s ‘generalised empirical method’ across disciplines through global collaboration.
