• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Germain Grisez, a Catholic philosopher, ethicist and moral theologian, died Feb. 1 at age 88. Grisez, seen in an undated photo, was a retired professor who had taught for years at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Md. (CNS photo/courtesy Mount St. Mary's)

Grisez called ‘remarkable man’ whose work was ‘utterly true to the faith’

February 7, 2018
By Catholic News Service
Filed Under: Local News, News, Obituaries, Western Vicariate

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

 

EMMITSBURG, Md. — The late Germain Grisez, an influential Catholic philosopher, ethicist and moral theologian, was “a remarkable man” and a “very firm believer” whose faith “was unswervingly orthodox,” Jesuit Father Peter Ryan said Feb. 6.

“He defended it with great lucidity,” the priest said about the faith of a man he considered “a great mentor and collaborator.”

Father Ryan made the comments in a phone interview with Catholic News Service shortly before celebrating the funeral Mass for Grisez at St. Anthony Shrine Catholic Church in Emmitsburg, which was followed by interment in St. Anthony Cemetery.

Grisez, who died Feb. 1 at age 88, was a retired professor of Christian ethics at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg. He was on the faculty there from 1979 until his retirement in 2009.

Grisez was “profoundly influential,” said Father Ryan, former executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Doctrine and Canonical Affairs, who is now on the faculty of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. “His work is utterly true to the faith and strikingly creative.”

He said that “although dissenters sometimes criticized his positions as being too rigid,” Grisez regarded “moral norms as rules imposed upon people from without. He understood the moral norms as implications of genuine love for persons and all that is truly good for them.”

“Building on and sometimes diverging from the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, he developed a theory of basic human goods that has influenced ethicists, legal theorists and theologians,” Father Ryan added.

Grisez wrote numerous books and articles and is known for framing an intelligent and informed Christian response to a range of important ethical dilemmas in society. A compilation of his works can be found online at www.twotlj.org.

His 1964 work “Conception and Natural Law” continues to be one of the key works often referenced in support of Blessed Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, “Humanae Vitae” (“Of Human Life”), which affirmed Catholic teaching against artificial contraception.

Another work, “Abortion: The Myths, the Realities and the Arguments,” published in 1970, was a standard text in moral theology classes and continues to be studied today and used in debates about stem-cell research.

Grisez established himself as a proponent of natural law in his three-volume “The Way of the Lord Jesus,” which was widely used among those studying moral theology and Catholic teaching on contraception, abortion and chastity.

He joined John Finnis and Joseph Boyle in the 1980s in writing “Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism,” a critique that challenged the government doctrine of assembling an overwhelmingly large nuclear weapons arsenal to ward off any potential attacks from other countries.

More recently, Grisez and Finnis, currently the Biolchini Family professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, issued a 35-page open letter to Pope Francis in 2016 asking that he address eight positions against the Catholic faith they said were likely to be supported by the misuse of the pontiff’s apostolic exhortation on the family, “Amoris Laetitia.”

They argued that some passages in the pope’s document would be used to promote errors about marriage, confession, conscience and moral law. First published in the journal First Things, the letter can be found at www.twotlj.org.

Grisez’s contributions in the field of moral theology were recognized with numerous awards and invitations to speak around the world. In 1972, he and his wife and collaborator, Jeannette, received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Cross from Blessed Paul in recognition of their service to the church.

Born in Cleveland Sept. 30, 1929, to the late William and Mary Grisez, he grew up in a large Catholic family during the Great Depression.

He completed undergraduate studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland and received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the faculty at Mount St. Mary’s University — where he held he held the Rev. Harry J. Flynn Chair of Christian Ethics — Grisez taught at Georgetown University, the University of Virginia and Campion College in Regina, Saskatchewan. He also had been a special assistant to Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle of Washington.

“Grisez’s early experiences studying and leading graduate courses on moral philosophy and ethics, discussing material from St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle and Kant helped guide him to feel personally called to dedicate his life to intellectual work in service of the church,” said a Mount St. Mary’s news release about his death.

“I have been honored to work closely with Germain for many years,” Father Ryan told CNS. “In recent years, we have been working on a book on eschatology, which is concerned with the last things — death and the coming of the Lord, resurrection from the dead, the new heavens and new earth, judgment, heaven and hell.

“Germain has brought to bear on this field his philosophical work on the ultimate end of the human person,” said the priest, who first met Grisez in 1983. “We try to account for both the specifically human fulfillment of the human person and his sharing in divine intimacy.”

He added, “He was a loyal friend. I will miss him greatly.”

Among the many, many remembrances of Grisez is a post on a blog called “Me and My House,” found at https://tinyurl.com/yc2l5tc6.

“I’m not sure how the most deliberate, clear-thinking, man on the planet ever wound up calling this home-schooling mother of 10 children a close friend, but in fact, it’s true,” wrote the blogger. “The times I spent with Germain were special and treasured. Our lives were as opposite to one another as possible but we found common ground on many levels and I believe we had an understanding of the heart.”

In the spring of 2009, Mount St. Mary’s marked Grisez’s 30-year career by recognizing him as professor emeritus and conferring on him the honorary degree of doctor of divinity. Grisez lived in a house on campus until 2016, when he moved to Oxford, Pennsylvania, to live with family.

Grisez and his wife enjoyed traveling and hiking at many state and national parks. Jeannette died in February 2005. Grisez died at his Pennsylvania home.

Survivors include three sons, Thomas of Annapolis, Maryland; James of Seattle; and Paul, of Oxford, Pennsylvania; 12 grandchildren; and 23 great-grandchildren.

 

Copyright ©2018 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Catholic News Service

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Hope rises from ashes for St. Rita parishioners

  • Archbishop Lori and Supreme Knight Kelly meet with Pope Leo

  • ‘Big Boss’ begins first day visiting Catholic Charities programs

  • Jurassic World Rebirth Movie Review: Jurassic World Rebirth

  • 3 North Americans named to Vatican dicasteries for ecumenism, interreligious dialogue

| Latest Local News |

DUAL ENROLLMENT

Double the learning: Dual enrollment provides college credit to high school students

St. Mary’s purchases former Annapolis Area Christian School

Radio Interview: Exploring the Nicene Creed – Part Two

St. Clement Mary Hofbauer adapts to times, cultures as it celebrates 100th anniversary

Archbishop Lori and Supreme Knight Kelly meet with Pope Leo

| Latest World News |

Synod office provides guidelines to help local churches, bishops implement synodality

Catholic Church holds firm on not taking stand on political candidates, despite possible IRS shift

Pope’s prayer intention for July: That the faithful might again learn how to discern

Barron: With no clergy-penitent exception, WA abuse law threatens religious liberty

Augustinian prior opens up about papal vacation, first encyclical, appointments and tennis

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Double the learning: Dual enrollment provides college credit to high school students
  • Synod office provides guidelines to help local churches, bishops implement synodality
  • Catholic Church holds firm on not taking stand on political candidates, despite possible IRS shift
  • St. Mary’s purchases former Annapolis Area Christian School
  • Pope’s prayer intention for July: That the faithful might again learn how to discern
  • Barron: With no clergy-penitent exception, WA abuse law threatens religious liberty
  • Augustinian prior opens up about papal vacation, first encyclical, appointments and tennis
  • Radio Interview: Exploring the Nicene Creed – Part Two
  • 3 North Americans named to Vatican dicasteries for ecumenism, interreligious dialogue

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en