Jesuit thinker who sought common ground with atheists

Michael Paul Gallagher, who has died aged 76, was an eminent Jesuit theologian, lecturer and writer.

He was one of the most seminal thinkers in Irish Catholicism of the past 40 years, whose books on faith and modern culture have been enormously thought-provoking and influential. He was also an inspiring and caring teacher and many of his students remained lifelong friends.

Raised in Collooney, Co Sligo, the only child of Andrew Gallagher and Christina O'Brien, who were doctors, he attended the local Camphill National School and then Clongowes Wood College.

There he was chosen as spokesman on their behalf by his classmates and had a distinguished academic record. He went on to UCD, where he was awarded a travelling studentship to the University of Caen.

Renaissance studies

He entered the Jesuit novitiate at St Mary’s, Emo, Co Laois in 1961. A BLitt followed at Oxford, where he specialised in Renaissance literature, writing a thesis on rhetoric in the poetry of George Herbert. He then studied philosophy at Heythrop, the Jesuit college in Oxfordshire. Appointed a lecturer in English in UCD in 1967, he was research fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland the following academic year. He studied theology at Milltown Park, Dublin, while continuing to lecture in UCD and took final vows in 1978.

While continuing to lecture at UCD, he looked after the Jesuit university residence in Monkstown and acted as a consultor (one of four chosen advisers) to the Jesuit provincial. In 1986-1987, he went on a sabbatical to Latin America. Living among the poor in Paraguay, he came to a realisation: “I saw that unbelief was more likely a product of lifestyle than a set of values.”

By now he had developed a particular focus on faith and unbelief, having been appointed co-ordinator for atheism (a post-Vatican II initiative) which involved finding common ground with atheists.

His book Help My Unbelief (1988), attempts to understand unbelief in terms of how people experience their lives in the modern world and puts forward ways of reaching out to atheists. The book had a significant pastoral impact. Many other books on the theme followed, among them Struggles of Faith (1990), Losing God (1992), What Are They Saying about Unbelief? (1995), Free to Believe (1996) and Questions of Faith (1999).

Following 20 years at UCD, in 1990 he moved to Bellarmino College, a Jesuit school for staff and students at Rome's Gregorian University. He served on the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers for five years and spent two years as spiritual director at the Gesù Scholastic House in Rome.

Faith and culture

From 1995 to 2000, he divided his time between serving on the Faith and Culture Apostolate in Ireland and lecturing in theology at the Gregorian in Rome.

Among his later books, Clashing Symbols (1997), Dive Deeper (2001) and Faith Maps (2010) continued his imaginative exploration and analysis of how faith and culture interrelate, interact and inform each other. The books showed his extensive reading in and knowledge of contemporary culture.

He was professor of fundamental theology at the Gregorian 2000-2009 and dean of theology there for four years. For the last six years of his life, he was rector at Bellarmino College and professor emeritus at the Gregorian.

He had suffered from cancer for a number of years and returned to Dublin permanently in early 2015 for treatment. He continued to write up until almost the end and his book Into Extra Time, sharing his own journey through illness and the approach of death, is forthcoming.

Jesuit colleagues commented on his outstanding academic abilities but also said he was a very loving man of great prayer. He would have seen this side of himself as more important and it was the aspect of his personality that his many friends knew best.

Near the end, he reflected on his own life choice. “How do I know I have been in the right place? Simply, because I have been happy, even when things were tough. The way you keep your promises changes all through life. But it’s an adventure with many blessings, including the blessing of being able to let go.”