Francis Alfred Sullivan SJ (May 21, 1922 – October 23, 2019) was an American Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest, best known for his research in the area of ecclesiology and the magisterium.
– the Sacrae Theologiae Licentiatus or Licentiate of Sacred Theology, which is the middle degree in the pontifical university system – by Weston College at the age of 30.
[8] Making his way to Rome via Normandy, Paris and Lourdes with a group of Jesuit students, Sullivan excitedly soaked up both his first experience abroad and the new coursework.
[9] Sullivan began to have a sense of his path becoming distinctive, because being sent abroad to the Gregorian for his doctoral work was his first major departure from the routine of regular Jesuit formation.
Nevertheless, the shift in focus toward a goal of teaching Fundamental Theology and Revelation was less exciting for Sullivan, who would have preferred to carry on with the original idea of being a Patristics scholar, little knowing that he would actually end up in the field of Ecclesiology.
Sullivan noted that Zapelena held to a number of different points than were put forth in Mystici corporis, and in that way began to experience the diversity of ecclesiological positions possible as demonstrated by his own teachers.
[10] For his dissertation, Sullivan did not find a subject in the field of Fundamental Theology that caught his attention at the time, and so he drew on his already-existing interest in Patristics.
He focused on Theodore of Mopsuestia's Christology, since it was sufficient that Sullivan had prepared in his coursework to be able to teach Fundamental Theology upon his return to Weston: the choice of subject for the project was not bound in any way to that destiny which his Superior had designated for him.
Afraid of a sudden gap in their faculty, the combination of Sullivan's availability and education was seized upon by the Gregorian University to guarantee that their program could continue uninterrupted.
After a visit home, and feeling more than a little exiled, Sullivan returned to Rome to teach Ecclesiology at the Gregorian University, an academic ministry in which he would serve for the next 36 years, until his own mandatory retirement at the age of 70 in 1992.
Having been assigned to Rome unexpectedly, he received permission to take the fall semester of 1955 off, finishing work for the publication of his doctoral dissertation in Boston, and remaining close to his father, who was dying of lung cancer.
This happened when he was asked to address the American bishops on the topic of charisms, a concept found in Saint Paul, particularly in his descriptions of the Church in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, but which had fallen out of use in Catholic theological circles.
[17] While this extra work – without the assistance of a staff – was a great burden, Sullivan did restructure the faculty so that they were better able to conduct research as well as teach: for the first time having regular sabbaticals toward that end.
As an actively researching theologian, Sullivan was a participant in a number of ongoing discussions and investigations of matters in dispute in the theological world.
In December 1995, he questioned the assertion of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the teaching reiterated in Ordinatio sacerdotalis regarding women's ordination had been infallibly taught.
Sullivan wrote that "The question that remains is whether it is a clearly established fact that the bishops of the Catholic Church are as convinced by those reasons [against women priests] as Pope John Paul evidently is, and that, in exercising their proper role as judges and teachers of the faith, they have been unanimous in teaching that the exclusion of women from ordination to the priesthood is a divinely revealed truth to which all Catholics are obliged to give a definitive assent of faith.
[23] In 1994, Sullivan received the John Courtney Murray Award, the chief honor given by the Catholic Theological Society of America, for his achievements, particularly in the field of ecclesiology.
On 19 May 2012, the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University awarded Sullivan an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree, citing him for his accessible writing, his contributions to the charismatic and ecumenical movements, his steadfast defense of the Second Vatican Council, his exemplary life of scholarship and faith, and his generosity and availability to all students and inquirers.