Ralph McInerny
Professor of Philosophy
Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies
University of Notre Dame
Ralph McInerny, the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies and professor of philosophy at Notre Dame, holds degrees from the St. Paul Seminary, University of Minnesota and Laval University. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame since 1955 and was the director of the Jacques Maritain Center from 1979 to 2006. He is author of two dozen scholarly books and many more scholarly essays, as well as numerous general interest works. He is expert in the work of Thomas Aquinas, Soren Kierkegaard, and Jacques Maritain, and has written and lectured extensively on ethics, philosophy of religion, and medieval philosophy. McInerny is editor of an acclaimed series of translations of Aquinas's commentaries; for many years, he directed Notre Dame's prestigious Medieval Institute. In his spare time, he founded, edited, and wrote for Crisis, a journal of lay Catholic opinion, and penned over eighty novels, including the well-known Father Dowling mystery series. He has appeared on William Buckley's Firing Line and National Public Radio, and has lectured in nine countries, spanning three continents. He has served as president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the Metaphysical Society, the American Maritain Society and the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He is a fellow of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. His Gifford Lectures, delivered in Glasgow in 1999-2000, were published under the title Characters in Search of Their Author (University of Notre Dame, 2001). He is also a member of President George W. Bush's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
Professor McInerny has been an invited speaker for our "Culture of Death," "Culture of Life," "From Death to Life," "Formation and Renewal," "Epiphanies of Beauty," and "Joy in the Truth" conferences. He delivered the inaugural lecture for our Catholic Literature Lecture Series, "G. K. Chesterton Returns to Notre Dame" in November, 2002, gave a lecture entitled, "It Should Rhyme with 'Laugh': Humor in Waugh," in the fall 2004 Catholic Literature Series on Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, and he most recently presented "Bernanos and the Noonday Devil" as part of our 2006 Catholic Culture Series on "Four Forgotten Authors."
