We share an interview given by Reverant Father Aloysius Pieris S.J. about his life and the Discovery of an Asian Theology of Liberation. The interview was given to Tulana Media.

Biography

Aloysius Pieris S.J. (9 April 1934 – 22 March 2026) was a Sri Lankan Jesuit priest, theologian, intellect, Buddhist scholar and the founding director of the Tulana Research Centre for Encounter and Dialogue. He was born in Ampitiya, British Ceylon. He studied at St. Aloysius’ College, Galle. He took his Jesuit vows in 1953. Pieris had three theological degrees, an LPh from Sacred Heart College in Shembaganur, India (1959), an STL from the Pontifical Theological Faculty in Naples (1966), and a Th.D. from Tilburg University (1987). Pieris also had a BA in Pali and Sanskrit from the University of London (1961) graduating with first-class honours and reportedly becoming the first student in the world to do so and a Ph.D. in Buddhist philosophy from the University of Sri Lanka (1971). He also obtained a diploma in Pre-Polyphonic Music from Fondazione Cini, Venice, in 1964. He held academic posts as the Franciscan Chair in Mission Studies at the Washington Theological Union, the Henry Luce Chair of World Christianity at Union Theological Seminary, New York, and the A. P. Wilson Distinguished Visiting Chair of Theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

He was fluent in more than twenty languages, including Pali, Sanskrit, several forms of Prakrit, Sinhala, English, Greek, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, Aramaic and Hebrew.

In June 1974, Pieris established the Tulana Research Centre for Encounter and Dialogue in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and was its director ever afterwards. Tulana was created as a Jesuit retreat site, but also as a space for Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue.

One of Pieris’s most well-known writings, An Asian Theology of Liberation (1988), attempts to move beyond the limitations of Latin American liberation theology and engage with an Asia that is wreaked by severe poverty and shaped by deep religiosity.

Pieris died on 22 March 2026, at the age of 91.

We would like also to share a review by Peter C. Phan of An Asian Theology of Liberation by Aloysius Pieris, SJ (Orbis Books, 1988).