About Us

Dr. Jon Nilson, Consultant

Dr. Jon Nilson

Jon Nilson is Professor Emeritus of Theology at Loyola University Chicago. He was educated in the seminaries of the Archdiocese of Chicago and received his Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Notre Dame. Besides Loyola, he has taught at St. Procopius College (now Benedictine University), the University of Dallas, and has held visiting professorships at the Catholic Theological Union and the General Theological Seminary. He was a Catholic representative on ARC/USA (the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States from 1984 to 2007. He served as President of the Catholic Theological Society of America in 2002-2003. Along with numerous articles and reviews, his most recent book is Hearing Past the Pain. Why White Catholic Theologians Need Black Theology.
 

Selected Publications and Presentations, 2000 – Present

The Roman Catholic Church

“The Laity,” in The Gift of the Church, ed. Peter C. Phan (Festschrift for Patrick Granfield). Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000. 395-413.

“The Gift of Authority: An American, Roman Catholic Appreciation,” One in Christ 36.2 (2000-2), 133-144.

Articles on the Roman Catholic Church, the Papacy, the Vatican, and Councils in Christianity: A Complete Guide, John Bowden, ed. New York: Continuum, 2006.

"Red Hats: the Shape of Authority in the Roman Catholic Church," .in Jung and Vigen, eds., God, Science, Sex, and Gender. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2010. 23-31.

Lecture, "Catholic Fundamentalism: Its Causes and Consequences," Loyola University Chicago, February 24, 2020

Anglican-Roman Catholic Relations

Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States’ Agreed Statement on the Church as Local and Universal, released November 15, 1999; Origins 30.6 (June 22, 2000), 85-95. (Co-author)

"The Gift of Authority: Mountain or Milestone?" in One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. Studies in Christian Ecclesiality and Ecumenism in Honor of J. Robert Wright, ed. By Marsha L. Dutton and Patrick Terrell Gray. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006, 316-324.

Racism/White Supremacy

 “Confessions of a White Catholic Racist Theologian,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 58 (2003), 64-82; also in Origins 33.9 (July 17, 2003), 129-138, and Interrupting White Privilege. Catholic Theologians Break the Silence, Cassidy and Mikulich, eds. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2007.

"Beyond Moral Suasion: Reading Method in Theology in "Racist America," Lonergan Workshop 21 (2008), 295-301.

"Towards the 'Beloved Community': the Church's Role in the Struggle Against Racism," U.S. Catholic Historian 28.1 (Winter 2010), 83-91. (Festschrift for Cyprian Davis, OSB)

"Death, Racial Reconciliation, and the Mission of the Church – Baldwin’s Perception", Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium 5 (2011), 27-49.“

"James Baldwin’s Challenge to Catholic Theologians and the Church," Theological Studies 74 (2013), 884-902.

Jewish-Christian Relations

“Foreword” to John Pawlikowski, Restating the Catholic Church’s Relationship with the Jewish People. The Challenge of Super-Sessionary Theology. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2013.

Miscellaneous

Twenty-one articles in Introductory Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies, Espin and Nickoloff, eds. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007.