Editor’s Introduction

Bernard Lonergan might be one of those thinkers whose presence is best felt in the aftershocks his work caused. Lonergan, a Canadian Jesuit whose formation largely took place in Québec, would go on to live, learn, and teach in Rome, Toronto, and Boston (with other stops along the way). He was constantly debuting new strategies for building bridges between theology, religious studies, and the ever-changing landscape of other social-scientific and humanistic disciplines. I am in no way a Lonergan expert, but his legacy has loomed large in my circles due to centers like Boston College’s Lonergan Institute (which publishes its own journal, Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies), events like the Makarios Conferences on Human Flourishing (which featured a host of Lonergan experts at its 2025 iteration), and the impressions left upon the minds of equally influential theologians like David Tracy and Bernard McGinn. When, thanks to guest editor Reid Locklin, the opportunity arose to devote an issue to the question of what Lonergan would have to say in light of twenty-first-century conversations, I jumped at the chance.