69 Bernard Lonergan

69 Bernard Lonergan

(English written)

   In the year of the Lord 2004, I found the name of Bernard Lonergan in a book by David Tracy or Andrew Greeley. By that time I had finished one of the darkest periods of my life: the illness of my aunt Helen from 1998 to 2004, the year of her passing away.

   I felt relieved from a burden that had been hard to carry for such a long time. During that period I did everything as usual although more like a robot. Then I needed something new to forget those years. I went to the institute of Ms. Alice Fickenscher and under her iron fist I began to study mathematics anew. She put me in the second year of elementary school and I quickly progressed to the third year of secondary school. It was a year of hard work.

   Meanwhile, I received one of Lonergan’s books sent to me by my friend Ed Prus (Detroit). It appeared simple until one got into the plot. Then it became more and more difficult, and one needed to begin again. The process of self appropriation of his new ideas occurred very slowly and only through the struggle with such book. The effort was rewarded with new insights and a full knowledge of matters ignored by many.

   I was curious about the life of the scientific wise. I discovered that Lonergan wrote only three books during his career: Word and Idea in Aquinas (1942), Insight (1957) - and - Method in Theology (1972). Fifteen years to bear a painful labor each time. Meanwhile he, unwearied, wrote hundreds of articles, speeches, and classes. I realized how important the transcendental precepts, so I wrote about them (in Spanish, though) a long and original contribution for a volume in honor of a member of our faculty. Now I know that Lonergan used every possible opportunity to repeat his theory of knowledge: the principles of a method that nobody in the field of Science and philosophy could deny (of course, Science with a capital letter).

   Afterwards, in 2005, I was invited to give a course on this method to university pupils, given the fact that I was the only professor who knew English, as to understand the nuances of the philosopher, and had read Insight. I felt a thrust to accomplish the arduous duty untiringly. I wrote a small book to facilitate the understanding of Insight for the pupils. In 2012 I received a group of pupils. All of them came from the capital city, Buenos Aires, and could not be interested in Lonergan and did not read a line of his work, thinking maybe beforehand, that an old professor would pass them without their effort. It was a scandal because I came to the exam room with four questions written on four papers. Hardly any obtained a 5; the others were out, saved by the means of the powerful people of the faculty. From 2013 I quit the course, though I am convinced, more than ever, of the relevance of the famous, hidden author for society at large, and for the union of Christians in particular.