George Tyrrell and Catholic modernism

Oliver P. Rafferty SJ, editor

This work re-evaluates the life and thought of George Tyrrell, one of the most prominent of the modernist thinkers, on the centenary of his death. A Jesuit priest, he was dismissed from the order and excommunicated from the church for his views. The problems he tried to grapple with – the relation of science to religion, questions of meaning and modernity, issues of the articulation of Christian ideas in modern culture – have a peculiarly contemporary ring. These articles attempt to set Tyrrell’s work within the framework of early 20th-century Catholic ideas and to draw some conclusions about his thinking for present day concerns.

Oliver P. Rafferty SJ has published numerous articles and books, the most recent was The Catholic Church and the Protestant State: nineteenth-century Irish realities (2008). He lectures in church history at Heythrop College, University of London.