It is with great sadness that we inform you that we have received news of the death of a long-standing member of the Scientific Council of our journal, Professor Joseph Koterski.

Joseph Koterski was born on 28 November 1953 in Ohio. He graduated from Xavier University in Cincinnati in 1976 with a degree in classical philology. In 1980, he received his M.A. from Saint Louis University and two years later his Ph.D. from the same university while there on a Danforth Fellowship. His doctoral thesis was entitled "Truth and Freedom in Karl Jasper's Philosophy of Science". In 1982 he began teaching at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Thomas in Houston, Texas. During this time he was also discerning a vocation to religious life. After two years of teaching, he applied to the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus. He continued his studies and, as a Jesuit, earned a master's degree in theology and a bachelor's degree in theology from Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was an adjunct professor at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1992, Koterski was ordained a priest. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed professor at Fordham University. From 1996 to 2001, he was director of the philosophy degree program at Fordham University. Since 1994, he has served as the Queens Court Residential College Freshmen Chaplain. In 2008, Koterski was elected president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholarship. He was also a long-time editor of the journal International Philosophical Quarterly. He was the author of numerous scholarly publications in philosophy and theology, including "An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy: Some Basic Concepts" (Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).

In a 2015 interview with America Magazine, a reporter asked him what he would like people to take from his life and work. "A greater love for God, a greater desire for union with Jesus Christ, a greater respect for the teachings of the Church, and a greater capacity for sound reasoning as a grateful response to God's gift to us of the power to reason," he replied.

Joseph Koterski died on 9 August 2021 of a heart attack while on retreat at Enders Island, New London County, Connecticut. Funeral services were held on 17 August 2021 at University Church in New York. He was buried in the Jesuit Cemetery in Wernersville.