Final Lecture

by Jen Wingerter ’13

Interview with Professor Emeritus of Theology and Religious Studies Leonard Biallas Ph.D.

Biallas came to Quincy University to teach in 1973, having completed his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame, and doctorate from the Catholic Institute, in Paris, France. He taught 31 years at QU before retiring full-time from the Division of Theology and Religious Studies in June 2004. Since then he has continued to teach part-time. Biallas has published over 120 articles in several scholarly journals. He and his wife, Martha, have spent much of their life traveling. Biallas has lectured in eight different countries and taught with Martha in Uganda and Lithuania. He presented his final lecture at QU this past April, before he officially retired in May 2019.

Biallas is the only person on the QU faculty to have received all three of the University’s Faculty Awards:

Excellence in Teaching Award

Trustees’ Award for Scholarly Achievement

Distinguished Professor Award

What life lessons shaped your values?

A university is a place where I came to start a lifelong love affair with the radiance of life, a place where I came to know that the only real tragedy is to live without passion, without the desire to romp with joy through the length and breadth of the human adventure.

I was taught to encounter grace when I stretched my mind to realize my God-given potential, to strive passionately for a world of social justice, and to see all persons as sacraments pointing to the divine.

The Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.

Books Written:

“Pilgrim: A Spirituality of Travel” “God’s, Heroes, and Saviors” “World Religions: A Story Approach”

What principles did you want to instill in your students?

Curiosity: A sense of wonder, a sense of awe before the mystery of life.

A trusting atmosphere: where students feel free to be themselves while growing into the persons that God calls them to be.

A sense of enthusiasm and a feeling of delight for knowledge and wisdom.

What experiences hinted that teaching was your calling?

While still an undergraduate college student I was hired to teach high school mathematics. After a while I found it too repetitious, but I loved being in charge of the classroom.

I desired to go on learning for my lifetime, to explore questions of ultimate meaning in an academic setting.

My first religious studies courses fascinated me because they presented other people's efforts to determine whether or not something more (Gods, perhaps), exist, and if so what that something more is.

What brings you joy?

Students who are engaged in the mystery of life, with hearts and minds full of wonder and awe, open to learning new things.

That moment each semester when I’m explaining something and I realize that a student 'gets it' - and the light shines.

The beauty of a peacock’s tail, the wings of a monarch butterfly, a flock of geese flying in V-formation.

Who influenced your life/career/faith?

Thomas Barrosse: A teacher of the Bible, he was a model not only of scholarship but also piety.

Walter Capps: He was careful in scholarship, unprejudiced, and passionate about the truth that can be garnered from meditating on the religions in all cultures.

Morton Kelsey: He helped me learn how to find my place in the world, how to be rooted, how to believe in visions that startle and inspire, how to dream and how to hope.