09/06/2026
The photograph dates from 2014, and the individuals in it who are truly relevant are, to my left, Rev. Prof. George F. McLean (1929–2016) and Professor Charles Taylor, arguably the most important Catholic philosopher in the transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century and Honorary President of the RVP. Today, however, my intention is to celebrate the life and work of Professor George McLean, OMI, for two reasons. First, because today, 6 September, marks the tenth anniversary of his Passing into Eternal Life; and second, because he was the founder and first President of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP), the institution in which I serve as Vice-President and which, for five weeks each summer since 2011—including the present year—I have had the privilege of serving as Director of the Annual Session of its International Seminar. This year’s Seminar is devoted to the theme “Self, Solidarity, and Civility” (17 August–18 September 2026). What follows are a few very brief descriptive elements concerning his intellectual life and work.
George F. McLean, OMI, was a Catholic philosopher, a member of the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His work was distinguished by its promotion of intercultural and interreligious dialogue. As founder of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, he conceived philosophy as a quest for human self-understanding, rooted in cultural inheritances and open to the great transformations of contemporary life. For McLean, wisdom cannot be reduced to intellectual knowledge: it integrates reason, spiritual experience, and openness to transcendence, recognizing in the various philosophical and religious traditions distinct paths—“many roads”—that converge toward a common truth.
For George McLean, the human condition is constitutively relational, historical, and dialogical. To learn to be human therefore requires an ongoing encounter with others, their cultures, and their traditions of wisdom. In this sense, Father McLean proposed a “dialogical civilization,” in which differences are not eliminated but creatively integrated. His thought combined elements of the Thomistic tradition—unity, truth, goodness, and beauty as transcendental dimensions of being—with Confucian and Daoist insights into harmony as the dynamic coordination of differences.
Personally, I believe that one of the most distinctive features of his way of thinking and acting was the distinction he consistently drew between “living tradition,” capable of guiding freedom, transcendence, and renewal, and “traditionalism,” which turns a received inheritance into inert doctrine. Above all, his intellectual project sought to show that cultural traditions contain ethical and spiritual resources for confronting global conflicts, provided that they are interpreted with hermeneutical humility, respect for the dignity of every person, and a commitment to the common good. Indeed, this was how love and compassion appeared in him: genuinely embodied in his manner of acting, as fundamental forces of a truly human and universal wisdom.
In sum, George McLean’s work brings together Thomism, hermeneutics, the philosophy of the person, and dialogue with Asian, Islamic, African, and European traditions. His concept of “dialogical civilization” denotes not merely dialogue among cultures, but a culture shaped by the constitutive disposition to learn from otherness. In this perspective, philosophy and tradition become resources for human dignity, cooperation among civilizations, and the pursuit of the common good.
Among his best-known works are: *Civil Society and Social Reconstruction* (1997), on social reconstruction and civil society; *Ways to God, Personal and Social, at the Turn of the Millennia*; *Faith, Reason and Philosophy*; *Religion and the Cooperation between Civilizations: Islamic and Christian Cultures in a Global Horizon*; and *Freedom, Cultural Traditions and Progress: Philosophy in Civil Society and Nation Building*. The collection *Tradition, Harmony, and Transcendence* (1994) brings together decisive themes of his thought: living tradition, cultural integration, harmony in difference, and openness to transcendence.
On this 6th of September, ten years after his death, we celebrate his Life and his Work, and we give thanks to God for the gift of his presence among us—a presence that continues to inspire us today.
João J. Vila-Chã, SJ
Washington, DC, September 6, 2026.
