Ralph McInerny, philosopher and author

Published on Monday 1 February 2010 21:10

Born: 24 February, 1929. Died: 29 January, 2010

THE death of Ralph McInerny marks the end of an era in US Catholic intellectual and literary culture. He was a handsome, witty, learned and benign figure beloved by generations of students at Notre Dame in Indiana, America's premier Catholic university, where he taught for over 50 years. He was also a prolific author, a frequent lecturer, and a prominent public intellectual.

Known to scholars of medieval thought for his translations of, and commentaries on, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, McInerny produced distinctive philosophical work of his own, carrying forward Thomistic ideas in the areas of ethics, philosophy of language, and metaphysics. He also authored several studies of literary figures and themes and wrote poetry in French. His best-known publications, however, belong to the genre of crime fiction.

Anyone familiar with US television detective series from the late 1980s is likely to recall the Fr Dowling Mysteries. Set in an urban parish in Chicago these involved the exploits of a Catholic priest who, along with street-wise nun Sister Stephanie "Steve" Oskowski, solved crimes. The shows were sentimental comic melodramas and their "corniness" was a matter of mild embarrassment to McInerny for he had simply sold the title, character and general concept to NBC.

McInerny continued to write his Dowling Mysteries for the next two decades along with several other series of detective stories. He would sometimes draw on fellow academics for characters and backgrounds. Reading a Roger Knight mystery, the present writer discovered himself to have taught a charming young academic who is murdered in a competition for a professorial appointment.

He received a seminary education in St Paul, Minnesota but chose not to proceed for the priesthood. He turned in the direction of professional philosophy racing through three higher degrees, including a doctorate, in the space of as many years between 1951 and 1954. After a brief spell at Creighton University in Omaha, he was appointed in 1955 to the University of Notre Dame, where he remained in post for 54 years.

He and his wife Connie had six children, one of whom, Michael, died age three, an experience that gave rise to his novel A Narrow Time (1969). Published before the development of his detective fiction, this showed literary skill, emotional depth and moral sensitivity. Those qualities were again displayed in The Priest (1973), which sold a million copies.

McInerny was by now a well- regarded novelist and writings of every sort flowed from him, resulting in some 80 works of fiction, 20 academic books, a volume of poetry and an autobiography: I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and Pastimes (2006).

Although a Mid-westerner, McInerny was a Europhile and spent time in Louvain in Belgium, and in Rome – in which he felt especially at home as much for its pasta and wine as for its classical history and religious identity.

One of the last occasions on which we met was in the Casino Pio IV, a 16th century Villa in the Gardens of the Vatican. Decorated with frescoes and kept cool by thick marble walls, the villa serves as the home of the Pontifical Academy of Thomas Aquinas, of which McInerny was an honoured fellow. At that point, he was also a member of the US President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and was en route back to America from an official PCAH visit to China.

At Notre Dame he had become the Michael P Grace Professor of Medieval Studies, Professor of Philosophy, and director of the Jacques Maritain Centre.

The poet, philosopher and public intellectual was a further inspiration for McInerny whom he honoured through directing the Maritain Centre at Notre Dame where Maritain had been a visiting professor, through overseeing the publication of Maritain's collected works, and in writing an intellectual biography: Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain: A Spiritual Life (2003)

Ralph McInerny also directed Notre Dame's Medieval Institute, founded and edited three public journals, served as president of several scholarly associations and was the recipient of a cluster of honorary degrees.

He was an infrequent visitor to Britain, but in recent years delivered public lectures in the universities of Oxford, St Andrews and Glasgow. The last of these was his Gifford Lectures, delivered in 1999-2000, and subsequently published as Characters in Search of Their Author (2001).

Following the death of his deeply-loved wife Connie in 2002, McInerny lost something of his appetite for life and continued to work more in a spirit of resigned stoicism, or out of a wish for distraction from his loss, than from enthusiasm for literary endeavour. He was also saddened by developments at Notre Dame, the institution to which he had given his professional life.

The university's trajectory during the period of his career had been upwards in prestige, but also away from its founding religious orthodoxy.

The tension between attachment to historic identity and pursuit of peer recognition led to conflict regarding the award by the university of an honorary degree to president Barack Obama in May 2009. This divided students, alumni and staff and brought censure from leading bishops.

McInerny was one of the greatest figures of 20th century American Catholic culture. His brilliance emerged in his teenage years and shone undiminished for over six decades. Beyond the enormous body of his writings, his influence will continue through the very large number of his students, many of whom hold posts in US colleges and universities.

Ralph McInerny's was a truly great life that will continue to be celebrated long into the future, and his wit and wisdom remains to be savoured through his books.