George Tyrrell (1861-1909) was the posthumous son of an Anglican journalist in Dublin. Raised in poverty, he converted in 1879 and joined the Jesuits the following year. After being ordained in 1891, he was posted to the prestigious Jesuit secondary school Stonyhurst (successor to its college at St Omer, France, where Archbishop John Carroll and many other famous names had studied).
At that time, the philosophy dominant in Jesuit institutions was a kind of Thomism peculiar to themselves, being mediated through the 16th-century Jesuit philosopher Francisco Suárez. Disagreeing with this stance, Fr Tyrrell came into conflict with other faculty members, and in 1896 was transferred to Farm Street, the celebrated church of his order in London. There he discovered the work of the French philosopher Maurice Blondel, which heavily influenced him. Fr Tyrrell published a book attacking scholasticism in general in 1899. He maintained that the truths of the Faith must be re-expressed in every age – even if that meant contradicting earlier expressions of the Faith. He was reassigned to a small Yorkshire mission church.
