Theologians intervene as Heythrop merger collapses

Leading Catholic and Anglican theologians have called on the Jesuits and Cardinal Vincent Nichols to save Heythrop College from closure “at the eleventh hour”. Days after it emerged that a proposed merger between the 400-year-old Jesuit institution and the University of Roe­hamp­ton had fallen through, the Catholic academics, who are all former presidents of the Catholic Theological Association, urged the Jesuit Provincial not to preside over the closure of an irreplaceable Catholic resource.

In the same week, Anglican theologians including the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord (Rowan) Williams of Oyster­mouth, now master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, wrote to The Tablet to express their dismay.

Writing to Fr Provincial Dermot Preston SJ, Cardinal Nichols and the vice-chancellor of Roehampton, Professor Paul O’Prey, the Catholic theologians said: “The disappearance of Heythrop would send a deeply negative signal about the Church’s withdrawal from intellectual engagement in conversations about meaning and value conducted in the public sphere of the wider academy.”

Among the signatories were Professor Eamon Duffy, Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity, University of Cambridge; Professor Karen Kilby, Bede Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Durham, and Professors Nicholas Lash and Janet Soskice at the University of Cambridge.

“Compared with its European neighbours, the English Catholic Church has long suffered from a lack of institutional investment in the study and teaching of theology at tertiary level,” they warned. They called on all parties to re-examine the sticking points that had prevented a partnership with Roehampton from being formed and praised its Christian origin and collegial structure.

The letter from the Anglican theologians, who as well as Lord Williams included Professor Tom (N.T.) Wright of the University of St Andrews and Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch of the University of Oxford said that if Heythrop were to close, “we will all be the losers”. Addressing concerns over the future of the Bellarmine Institute, the ecclesiastical faculty at Heythrop that helps form seminarians, they urged that the issue be considered alongside the broader context of Heythrop’s work with the wider Catholic community and other Christian Churches.