Franz Jozef van Beeck
Franz Jozef Van Beeck and sometimes spelled as Frans Jozef Van Beeck, also known as Joop Van Beeck (born 1930), is a Dutch author and Christian theologian who is also a prominent priest of the Society of Jesus. Born in Helmond, Netherlands, he entered the Jesuit religious order in 1948 and was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1963. From 1968 to 1985, Van Beeck taught theology at Boston College in Boston, Massachusetts. He was then transfered to Loyola University Chicago in Chicago, Illinois where he became Cardinal Cody Professor of Theology until retirement in 2002.
During his life, Van Beeck had written hundreds of thousands of pages of letters, treatises and books used today in Christian colleges and universities throughout the world. His most famous literary works were a series of four books called God Encountered: A Contemporary Catholic Systematic Theology. Some of his most controversial works considered the issues arising from the Holocaust and World War II.