Roman Catholic Cardinal. One of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century, Henri-Marie Joseph Sonier de Lubac was born in Cambrai to a noble family, the son of a banker. Joining the Society of Jesus in Lyon on October 9, 1913, due to the political situation of the period, the school located to St. Leonard's on Sea in East Sussex. Drafted to the French Army in 1914, following a head wound received at Verdun he returned to the Jesuits and continued his philosophical studies first in Canterbury and then in St. Helier, Jersey, in 1920. In 1924, following a year's teaching at the Jesuit college at Mongré, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, he returned to England and undertook his theological studies in Hastings. In 1926, the theologate was relocated back to Fourvière in Lyons where he completed the remaining two remaining years of his theological studies. Ordained priest on August 22, 1927, he earned a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Longtime lecturer of fundamental theology at the Catholic University of Lyon, during the Second World War he was forced to go underground because of his activities with the French resistance. With his first book published in 1938, it was soon followed by numerous others until he was forbidden to publish anything else in 1946 following doctrinal objections raised against his book "Surnaturel". Rehabilitated in 1958, he gave life to the series "Sources Chrétiennes", co-edited with fellow Jesuit Jean Daniélou, a collection of bilingual, critical editions of early Christian texts and of the Fathers of the Church that has revolutionized both the study of Patristics and the doctrine of sacred tradition. His pioneering study "Exégèse Médiévale" revived interest in the spiritual exegesis of the Scripture and provided a major impetus to the development of the covenantal theology of Roman Catholicism. In August 1960, Pope John XXIII appointed de Lubac as a consultant to the Preparatory Theological Commission for the upcoming Second Vatican Council and was successively named one of its periti. In the meantime, his writings kept holding an influence on the conciliar and post-conciliar periods, particularly in the area of ecclesiology. Pope John Paul II elevated him to the Sacred College of Cardinals in the consistory of February 2, 1983 as cardinal deacon with the deaconry of Santa Maria in Domnica. At his death on September 4, 1991 in Paris, he was the oldest living Cardinal at the age of 95.