Dear Union Community,
It is with deep sorrow and reverence that we mark the death of Fr. Roger Haight, S.J., a towering Jesuit Catholic theologian and longtime member of the Union Theological Seminary faculty as a scholar-in-residence. Roger was a man ahead of his time—brilliant, courageous, and deeply committed to exploring the ways the divine is encountered across religious traditions.
Fr. Haight found a community at Union that welcomed his expansive vision of faith and the breadth and depth of his theological vision in service to justice and faith. He taught and mentored with intellectual rigor and personal gentleness. With his theological field colleague Professor Paul Knitter (now emeritus), he wrote Jesus and Buddha: Friends in Conversation. Roger was especially well known for the ways in which he opened new perspectives on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, enabling people across a range of religious perspectives to see new possibilities for faithful living in this sixteenth-century classic of spirituality. His experience in opening the Exercises to the Union community influenced two of his books: A Christian Spirituality for Seekers and Facing Race: The Gospel in an Ignatian Key; this latter book appeared just a few months before his death.
Roger’s contributions to theology were widely recognized. He served as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and was recently awarded its highest honor, the John Courtney Murray Award, in 2023. He also received the prestigious Yves Congar Award for Theological Excellence from Barry University and was a beloved teacher and public intellectual whose influence extended across generations and traditions.
Union was a beneficiary of a clash in 2004 between Fr. Haight and then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, who found “doctrinal problems” in one of Fr. Haight’s major works, Jesus, Symbol of God. Banned from teaching Catholic theology after the publication of this groundbreaking book, Union became his home, where he remained on faculty from 2004 to 2023. His many former students in theological schools and seminaries across the world mourn his death, as do many theologians whom he befriended.
You can find information about the wake and funeral mass here:
Wake: Tuesday, June 24, 3:00 – 8:00 p.m.
– Chapel of Murray-Weigel Hall
– 515 E Fordham Rd, Bronx, NY 10458
– Prayer Service at 7:00 p.m.
Funeral Mass: Wednesday, June 25
– 9:30 a.m. Viewing, 10:30 a.m. Funeral
– St. Ignatius Church
– 980 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10028
And you can read about Roger’s incredible life and achievements here:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/fr-roger-haight-remembered-being-undeterred-controversy
We give thanks for Roger’s life, his witness, and his unwavering commitment to a theology that embraced complexity, compassion, and the full breadth of human experience. May he rest in peace and power.
In remembrance,
Rev. Dr. Serene Jones
President and Johnston Family Professor for Religion & Democracy
Union Theological Seminary