1993 Tanner-McMurrin Lecture

Ralph McInerny
Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Philosophy
University of Notre Dame

“The God of Philosophers”
Lecture Resources

Lecture was given: Thursday, February 25, 1993 7:00p.m. Gore Auditorium
Seminar was held: Friday, February 26, 1993 11:00a.m. Nunemaker Place

An Irish Catholic Midwesterner, Ralph Matthew McInerny was born in Minneapolis. He grew up in the Twin Cities, served a year with the U.S. Marine Corps, and entered the diocesan seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. By 1951, when he received his bachelor’s degree at St. Paul seminary, Professor McInerny had decided on an academic career in lieu of the priesthood. He earned a masters degree in philosophy and classics at the university of Minnesota and went on to take his Ph.D. (summa cum laude) at Laval University in Quebec.

On January 3, 1953, he married Constance Kunert (the “Connie” to whom many of his books are dedicated), and they have a family of six children and ten grandchildren.

After a one-year teaching stint at Creighton University, Professor McInerny and his wife settled in South Bend, Indiana in 1955 where he took on an instructorship in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He advanced steadily through the academic ranks until he became Professor of philosophy in 1969. Since 1978, he has been the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at Notre Dame, Director of the Jacques Maritain center, and until 1985, Director of the Medieval Institute.

The recipient of two honorary Doctor of Letters degrees, Professor McInerny has been a guest lecturer at more than 50 colleges and universities. In 1982, Professor McInerny co-founded a journal of lay Catholic opinion which attempts to reassert the “broad sane center of Catholic thought.” He was for eleven years the editor of the philosophic journal THE NEW SCHOLASTICISM. He is a prolific writer of novels and scholarly works. His Father Dowling mysteries enjoy popularity here and home and abroad.

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Ralph McInerny Lecture