For Yale, a Thomist

The Yale philosophy department has all sorts--logical positivists and metaphysicians (e.g., Carl Hempel and Paul Weiss), Agnostic F.S.C. Northrop, Physicist Henry Margenau, Idealist Theodore Greene. Last week, Yale added the final diversity--a Thomist, and the only Jesuit professor at any big non-Catholic university in the U.S.

The man Yale picked for next year is the Rev. John Courtney Murray, 46, a tall (6 ft. 4 in.), cucumber-cool intellectual who teaches theology at Woodstock (Md.) College, but is famed far beyond. Father Murray is a towering figure among U.S. Catholic scholars. A polite and learned defender of the faith, he edits the erudite quarterly, Theological Studies (he will continue to do so at Yale), and is the spearhead of a bold attempt to reconcile traditional Catholic church-state doctrine with U.S. practice.

The son of a New York lawyer, Murray always wanted to be a priest. His taste for study led him to the Jesuits. After taking an M.A. at Boston College, he taught for three years in the Philippines, then went to Rome for a doctorate at Gregorian University. In 1937 he joined the faculty of Woodstock.

He will find Yale quite a change after 14 years at Woodstock. There he taught in Latin, and by the time his students came to him they had already traveled far--two years of classical studies, three years of philosophy, three more of teaching in Jesuit colleges all over the world.

Father Murray looks forward to introducing Yalemen to Thomism: "I want to show it is a rational philosophy, that it's acceptable intellectually, not only because great intellectuals of previous ages have accepted it, but in itself as a mode and body of thought. If I can't make my students see it, that's the end." The betting at Woodstock is that Murray will make them see it.

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