Discussions at the 1970 Lonergan Congress

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1970-03-01
Boca Raton, Florida
As most visitors to this website know, the first major Lonergan conference was held in Florida in 1970, in two distinct places. The discussion groups at the conference, known as the First International Lonergan Congress, were conducted by the Thomas More Institute in Montreal, and especially by Eric O’Connor, who is masterful in conducting many of these discussions. The tapes of these discussions were made available to us by TMI, and we have chosen a number of the discussions for presentation on the website. Greg Lauzon has done the hard work of editing the audio recordings and restoring the sound. The principal value of these discussions, in my view (Bob Doran), is to present a slice of the cultural and ecclesial atmosphere of the time. A great deal of misunderstanding of Lonergan’s work and intentions is obvious in these discussions, so we are not presenting them as guideposts to his work. Those participants who understood him best are relatively quiet in these discussions. 40 years later it is helpful to listen to these discussions, recognize what was going forward at the time, and acknowledge what has lasted and what has not. There are other discussions from this conference in which Lonergan himself was involved, and these are present on the primary site, www.bernardlonergan.com, at 1005BA0E070, 990B0A0E070, 1004AA0E070, 108AA0E070.