Rev. Prof. Francis Clooney, SJ, Explores Jesuit Encounters with Hinduism: “History as Inspiration and Warning”
Renowned Jesuit scholar and Harvard professor Fr. Francis X. Clooney, S.J. delivered a compelling lecture at Hekima University College on 15th October, 2025; an event that was jointly hosted by the Jesuit Historical Institute in Africa (JHIA) and Hekima Center for Interfaith Studies in Africa (CISA). The lecture, titled “How Western Jesuit Missionaries Studied Hinduism: Insights and Blind Spots,” examined how early Jesuit missionaries in India engaged with Hinduism through scholarship, translation, and cultural immersion and what their experiences can teach the Church today.
Prof. Clooney began by noting the historical significance of the gathering, especially its interfaith tone marked by the recitation of the Gayatri Mantra, a sacred Hindu prayer led by the chaplain Rev. Fr. Sebastian Adigwe, SJ. “Such an opening would have been unimaginable for Jesuits a century ago,” he remarked, emphasizing how far interreligious relations have evolved.
He situated his lecture not in theology or comparative religion fields, which he is widely known for, but in Jesuit historiography, focusing on the lives and writings of missionaries who sought to understand India’s complex religious traditions. His goal, he said, was to explore “the bright and dark sides” of Jesuit history with honesty and humility.
Clooney stressed that historical awareness is essential for Jesuit identity. He cautioned against romanticizing the missionary past, urging Jesuit institutions to study their origins critically. “We honor the past not by repeating it,” he said, “but by learning from its courage and its mistakes.”
According to him, the world has moved beyond the traditional missionary era. Today, the Church’s mission is global and reciprocal no longer centered on Europe sending missionaries abroad, but on local churches engaging one another as equal partners in faith.
The lecture highlighted the intellectual courage of 16th–18th century Jesuits who worked in India. Figures like Roberto de Nobili and his companions mastered Indian languages such as Tamil and Sanskrit, translated Hindu texts, and sought to understand Indian culture from within.
“They believed understanding was essential to evangelization,” Clooney explained. “If we cannot be understood, we will not be taken seriously.”
These missionaries became early ethnographers, documenting customs, rituals, and philosophies. Yet, Clooney observed, their insights were often limited by theological assumptions and colonial frameworks the “blind spots” that modern historians must now confront.
Clooney credited contemporary researchers for reshaping Jesuit historiography. Scholars such as Jean-Paul Rubiés, Ines Zupanov, and Savio Abreu, S.J., he noted, have brought new critical perspectives to how Jesuits encountered Hinduism. Their work, along with that of Festo Mkenda, S.J. in Africa, situates Jesuit missions within broader political and cultural systems rather than viewing them solely as spiritual enterprises.
He also referenced David Hempton’s book Christianity at the Crossroads, which links the Jesuit global network to the early modern flow of knowledge between continents demonstrating how Jesuit letters, maps, and ethnographies connected Europe to the wider world.
Drawing from his own experience of over five decades of study and teaching, Clooney shared insights from his recent books Western Jesuit Scholars in India (Brill), a collection of essays on Jesuit intellectual history and Hindu and Catholic: Priest and Scholar, A Love Story (2024), a memoir of his interreligious journey beginning in Nepal.
He reaffirmed his conviction that interreligious dialogue is part of the Jesuit charism, alongside education and spiritual formation. “The Jesuits’ global mission has always been a dialogue even when they didn’t realize it,” he said.
Using the example of Robert de Nobili, who adopted the dress and customs of a Hindu sage, Clooney illustrated both the depth and limits of missionary adaptation. While Nobili’s approach showed cultural sensitivity, his unwavering theological certainty left little space for mutual transformation.
“The question,” Clooney posed, “is not whether we enter deeply into another culture but whether we allow that encounter to change us.”
Prof. Clooney concluded that Jesuit history must be approached as a process of discernment, not nostalgia. The early missionaries’ creativity, scholarship, and faith can inspire today’s Jesuits but their blind spots serve as a cautionary mirror for how the Church engages with other faiths today.
“History,” he said, “is both inspiration and warning. It reminds us who we are and challenges us to be more than we were.”
By Pamela Adinda, HUC International Office and Communications Coordinator.
