Joseph A. Bracken

Joseph A. Bracken, S.J. (March 22, 1930 – April 13, 2024) was an American philosopher and Catholic theologian. Bracken was a proponent of process philosophy and process theology of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Much of his work is devoted to a synthesis of revealed religion and Christian trinitarian doctrines with a revised process theology. Bracken introduced a field theoretic approach to process metaphysics.

Biography Bracken was born on 22 March 1930 in Chicago, Illinois on March 22, 1930.

Bracken graduated from Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago in 1948 and attended Loyola University Chicago for one year before entering the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus on August 18, 1949, at St. Stanislaus Jesuit novitiate in Florissant, Missouri. He was ordained a priest on June 10, 1962, at West Baden College in West Baden Springs, Indiana, and pronounced final vows on February 2, 1967, at St. Blasien Church in Germany.

Bracken was emeritus Professor of Theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. He received his PhD from the University of Freiburg in Germany in 1968, and taught at University of Saint Mary of the Lake Mundelein Seminary in Illinois (1968–1974), and at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1974–1982), before becoming Chairman of the Theology Department at Xavier in 1982.

Work Bracken was the author and/or editor of 11 books and wrote about 150 articles in academic journals.