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Obituary (Dec 12, 2025)
Obituary (Dec 12, 2025)
Prof. Dr Kuruvilla Pandikattu Joseph SJ, Jesuit priest, philosopher and bridge-builder between science, religion and society, will be remembered as a teacher of hope and a craftsman of dialogue. For decades at Jnana Deepa in Pune, he formed generations of students through courses on science and religion, philosophical anthropology, ethics and technology, insisting that ideas must serve a more humane and sustainable world. Author of more than thirty-four books and hundreds of articles, he explored death and immortality, technology and responsibility, suffering and viable life-styles with intellectual rigor and playful imagination.
His preferred themes – ethics embracing everyone, humans as “between, beneath, before and beyond,” life as “useless but not meaningless,” and TAMAS, “there are many alternative stories” – expressed his conviction that every person and story is graced. Gentle, curious and relentlessly encouraging, he welcomed questions, doubt and disagreement as pathways to deeper truth and friendship. He leaves behind grateful students, colleagues, collaborators, relatives and friends who discovered in him a rare combination of academic excellence, quiet contemplative depth and steadfast inclusive love
Euology (Dec 12, 2025)
Euology (Dec 12, 2025)
Friends, we are here to bid farewell to Kuruvilla Pandikattu, a Jesuit, philosopher, and teacher who persevered, failed, persevered again, and sometimes quietly succeeded. His life cannot be told in glowing phrases alone. It was a mixture of clarity and confusion, energy and exhaustion, generosity and impatience – very recognisably human.
He gave most of his years to Jnana Deepa in Pune, teaching philosophy, science and religion, and ethics to generations of students, while writing on death, dialogue and sustainable lifestyles. He pursued three Master’s degrees and two doctorates, published dozens of books and hundreds of articles, and helped keep the science–religion conversation alive in India. Kuru His influence was rarely spectacular, but steady and local: a conversation after class, a suggested book, an unexpected word of encouragement. Yet he also left many manuscripts unfinished, many ideas only half worked out, many relationships that could have been tended with more time and attention.
What I admired was that he did not let his limitations have the last word. He kept experimenting with courses, conferences and books in areas like philosophical anthropology, science–technology–values and sustainable life. He liked to say that human beings live “between, beneath, before and beyond,” that God is “ever approachable, never attainable,” and that life is “useless but not meaningless.” Those phrases were not marketing lines for him; they were hard-won convictions, tested in illness, overwork, misunderstandings and disappointment.
Born into a modest family at Areekara, Kerala, on Nov 28, 1957, into a family of six siblings. He left for Santal Parganas in 1973. He joined the Society of Jesus on June 15, 1974, in Mumbai and was ordained a priest on April 27, 1989. His final profession was on Sept 27, 2003. He taught philosophy at Jnana Deepa, Pune, from 1996 to 2022. After a brief stint at XLRI, Jamshedpur, he returned to the Province in 2025.
Today, as we commend him to the God who is ever approachable, never attainable, we do not present a flawless hero, but a searching, restless man who loved ideas, loved teaching, and tried, in his own incomplete way, to serve an ethics embracing everyone. We thank God for what was beautiful in him, we forgive what was hurtful or unfinished, and we ask for grace to continue some small part of the work he leaves in our hands, with a smile, serious sometimes, reflecting always.
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