David O’Brien to Review His Career As Historian of American Catholicism

WORCESTER, Mass. – David O’Brien, Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic Studies in the department of history at the College of the Holy Cross, will give a talk as part of the "Last Lecture" series on April 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the College’s Rehm Library. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Funded by the Lilly Endowment Vocation Initiative, the pretext of the lecture is that the speaker is about to retire and has been asked to sum up in a final lecture to students what they believe has made the work they’ve dedicated themselves to meaningful and worthwhile. Given a "last" chance, what’s worth saying? What wisdom would be most important to pass on? What challenges have to go unfulfilled?

O’Brien will discuss his experience at the intersection of American history and Catholic Studies and explain what he means when he argues in favor of a Catholic version of what he calls "Americanism."

An historian of American Catholicism, O’Brien specializes in Catholic social and political thought and religion and politics. He has been a faculty member at Holy Cross since 1969. He is a Notre Dame graduate and earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of Rochester. He served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association, he holds six honorary degrees and he received the Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for distinguished service to Catholic higher education from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

O’Brien is the author of several books including The Renewal of American Catholicism (Oxford University Press, 1972), Public Catholicism: The American Church and Public Life, 1789-1989 (Macmillan, 1989), Isaac Hecker an American Catholic (Paulist Press, 1991) and From the Heart of the American Church: Catholic Higher Education and American Culture (Orbis Books, 1994) and was co-editor of Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage (Orbis Books, 1992).

He frequently provides expert commentary for the media; he has been quoted in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Catholic Reporter, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Associated Press. He has also penned numerous op-eds for The Boston Globe and Telegram & Gazette (Worcester), among others.

O’Brien was the founding director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at Holy Cross. He also developed the Peace and Conflict Studies concentration, a multidisciplinary program for students who wish to complement their major field of study with courses focused on peace, conflict, justice and human dignity.

The lecture is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.