The 1986 Père Marquette Lecture is the seventeenth in a series
inaugurated to celebrate the Tercentenary of the missions and
explorations of Père Marquette, S.J. (1637-1675). The Marquette
University Theology Department, founded in 1952, launched these
annual lectures by distinguished theologians under the title of the
Père Marquette Lectures in 1969. The 1986 Lecture has the
distinction of being the first event in the year long celebration of
Marquette's twenty-five years of experience in graduate theology,
the doctoral and master's degree programs, which were the
outgrowth of a solidly academic undergraduate structure.