Servais Pinckaers, O.P.
(1925 – 2008)
Servais-Théodore Pinckaers was born in Liege, Belgium in 1925. He entered the Dominicans (Order of Preachers) in 1945. Servais obtained his license in theology at the Dominican Studium of La Sarte (Huy), writing a thesis under the direction of the future cardinal Jerome Hamer. He was ordained in 1951 and received a doctorate in theology from the Angelicum of Rome in 1954, writing a dissertation on the virtue of hope. He taught moral theology from 1954 to 1965 in Belgium, and from 1965 to 1973 engaged in pastoral ministry at the Dominican priory in Liège. In 1975, after previously spending a year there as an invited professor, he began teaching moral theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, remaining there until his retirement in 1997. He spent the last eleven years of his life in retirement at the international Dominican priory (the Albertinum) in Fribourg, where he continue to do research and write, finishing his last book two months before his death. He was a member of the International Theological Commission from 1992 until 1997. His most recent books include Plaidoyer pour la vertu (2007) and Passions et vertu (2009).
Pinckaers' Sources of Christian Ethics remains one of the most important and formidable works of moral theology of the 20th century. Its shorter version, La Moral Catholique, was published in 1991. Its English version, Morality: The Catholic View, is prefaced by Alasdair MacIntyre, translated by Father Michael Sherwin, and published by St. Augustine's Press -- an effort in part sponsored by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.
