In the years after the Second Vatican Council, Catholics came to better understand the theology of the Church through Avery Dulles's Models of the Church (published by Doubleday and Co., 1974). In those 207 pages, they learned that to define the Church as an institution is to narrowly define it. The Church, he explained, is also, sacrament, mystical communion, herald, and servant. In the introduction to the book, he wrote, "The most distinctive feature of Catholicism is not its insistence on the institutional but rather its wholeness or balance."

Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, who died December 12, wrote Models of the Church as if beckoning a conversation. His writing style was an open one that encouraged readers to stretch their minds and imaginations to think in other ways about the Church.

Such an openness to conversation characterized the first Jesuit cardinal's encounters with others in the classroom and at the dinner table. Rev. Lawrence Hennessey, a professor of Early Christian Medieval Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Illinois, recalled Dulles's response to students' queries. "He always answered questions respectfully. No matter what it was, he treated it respectfully as though it would continue the conversation. That encouraged us to study and read more, because you really felt like you were part of the conversation."

When Hennessey needed a distraction from his work in historical theology, he sat in on Dulles' courses on systematic theology at The Catholic University of America. Dulles, he said, always looked for the interplay between faith and reason. "I would consider his legacy to be that faith and life should be in constant conversation. I think that he reveals a particularly good and faithful model of what that conversation should look like." He added, "Certainly, the material from his books will energize the conversation for the foreseeable future.

Hennessey regretted that Dulles was too ill in April 2008 to attend the Cardinal Meyer Lecture Series, "The Theological Contribution of Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ" Presentations from that symposium were published in the Summer 2008 Chicago Studies, which Hennessey edits. He not only missed the mind of the theologian but the man who engaged in casual conversations during dinners with students.

Edward Oakes, SJ, the author of "The Biblical Apologetics of Avery Dulles," in the Chicago Studies issue, recalled Dulles' humility, self-deprecating humor, and hardworking nature. "His learning went very deep, but he wore it very lightly," he said.

The associate professor of systematic theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, said that Dulles considered his appointment to the College of Cardinals "with a bemused air." Oakes reported that after Dulles' new cardinal's hat fell into the lap of Pope John Paul II, Dulles remarked that maybe his head "is not quite suited for a cardinal's hat."

Oakes got to know Dulles while both were part of the discussion group "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." Dulles, who arrived at meetings with a Bible written in Greek, impressed the Protestants, Oakes said, with his knowledge of scripture.

Zeni Fox, a professor of pastoral theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary, Seton Hall University, credits Models of the Church with providing her with "an invaluable perspective." She said, "It introduced me to a more nuanced way of thinking about the Church, and eventually about other topics in theology."

Fox especially treasures the way in which Dulles spoke before the Bishops Conference meeting in November 2005, when some questioned whether the laity should be called "ministers." She said, "Having served as an advisor to the bishops' Subcommittee on Lay Ministry from its inception in 1994, the time when it presented the document "Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord" to the conference for a vote, I was very invested in the outcome of that meeting. The sponsoring committee, the Committee on the Laity, and the subcommittee, were concerned about passage because of the number of concerns raised by bishops, in writing, and eventually on the floor. It seemed to me that when Cardinal Dulles approached the mike, his presence so definitive (tall, rather austere of bearing and appearance, using a cane to walk) that we all listened more attentively. He was, after all, one of the most senior, and most distinguished members of the American hierarchy. And when he spoke, with slow deliberation, about recent history of the use of the term ministry, and said he did not think we could go back, and that after all, we do not call ourselves ministers, but priests—and then walked slowly back, using his cane, that a definitive moment was reached. Many credit the affirmative vote by the needed majority of two-thirds to his remarks."

May the conversation continue.