Mission
The Lonergan Research Institute has assumed the four tasks of preserving, promoting, developing and implementing the work of Bernard Lonergan.
Preserving and Promoting
Since 1988, the Institute has published with the University of Toronto Press fourteen of a projected twenty-five volumes of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, the latest being Shorter Papers. The next volume The Triune God: Doctrines is in the hands of the Press and should be out in the summer of 2009. Editorial work on another two volumes is progressing.
This has to be accounted one of the major publishing ventures in the philosophical and theological world at the present time. The primary materials that document the development of Lonergan's work are housed and preserved in a professionally operated and maintained archival collection. These materials include both papers and audio tapes. Since spring 2002 the Lonergan Archives have taken new shape, and plans have been underway to bring the materials completely into conformity with contemporary archival principles and to prepare them for a digital environment.
With respect to the papers, a preservation initiative is nearing completion. It involves the storage of Lonergan's documents in 62 acid-free boxes, and duplication of all original, irreplaceable records for external users to handle. When the Institute moves with Regis College to its new quarters on the University of Toronto campus in September 2009, the papers will be housed in a fire protected, climate controlled archival environment.
An electronic database containing descriptions of the entire set of Lonergan's archival papers is currently being constructed. This database will allow users to search for specific documents by title, author, date, or any keyword, thus facilitating research with convenience and specificity. The intention is eventually to place this tool online.
With respect to the tapes, audio restoration has begun in a serious way. The Institute is in possession of over 500 hours of recorded lectures by Lonergan, dating from 1957 to the early 1980s. In the past three years a major initiative has been undertaken to digitize these materials on MP3 files and to archive them on the University of Toronto T-Space, where they will be available to the public. The work is in the hands of Richard Hess, of Vignettes Media. These files will complement the Collected Works, so that the Opera Omnia of Bernard Lonergan will consist of both the written and the spoken word. As far as we know, the audio project is unique: there does not seem to be anything even remotely resembling it in scope and volume in the academic world. We will never know what Plato or Aristotle, Aquinas or Kant sounded like. But the Institute is making it possible that Lonergan’s spoken word will be preserved indefinitely.
The reference library at the Institute is the most complete single source of Lonergan-related materials in the world. It contains copies of Lonergan's published books, in successive editions and in translations, and articles; also other books and articles written about him, and theses and dissertations. A number of important sources of Lonergan's own ideas are also available.
Developing and Implementing
A number of the projects of the Institute are devoted to the goals of developing and implementing Lonergan's works.
The Lonergan Series. In addition to the Collected Works, University of Toronto Press has initiated a related series of books based in or focused on Lonergan’s work. To date ten books have appeared in this series, all of them with the collaboration of the Institute.
Lonergan Studies Newsletter is a quarterly publication that is available both online and by subscription. It is the main source of information on Lonergan studies, listing publications, lectures, conferences, and ongoing events. The Newsletter was begun in 1980 independent of the Institute, but the Institute assumed responsibility for it in 1988. Staff members join correspondents from around the world, filtering materials through Daniel Monsour of the Institute to the editor, Professor Tad Dunne.