People & Events
The heart of our PhD program is the people -- the faculty and students who come together to form a vibrant learning community. The pictures included on this site offer a small window into that community. If you wish to learn more, we encourage you to visit us. Please give us three to four weeks advance notice so that we can help you meet with faculty and students in your area of interest.
For Recent Events
Our successful dissertationists . . .
The following students have successfully defended their dissertations. We congratulate both the student and his or her advisor.
For 2008 defenses
For 2009 defenses
From 2007
Elizabeth Agnew Cochran & Professor Jennifer Herdt
February 15, 2007
Revelations of Love and Operations of Grace: Jonathan Edwards' Human Virtues
Sam Thomas & Professor James VanderKam
March 27, 2007
The "Mysteries" of Qumran Community: The Raz-Concept in Second Temple Judaism and in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Thomas Trinidad & Professor Nathan Mitchell
March 28, 2007
The Word of God in Ecclesial Rites and the Formation of Christian Identity: A Comparison of Karl Barth and Louis-Marie Chauvet

Heliodoro Lucatero & Professor Maxwell Johnson
April 10, 2007
The Practice of Baptism in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

David Pitt & Professor Maxwell Johnson
April 12, 200y
Revising the Rite of Adult Initiation: The Structural Reform of the Ordo Initiationis Christianae Adultorum, Ordo Catechumenatus Per Gradus Dispositus, 1964-1972

Rita George-Tvrtkovic & Professor Joseph Wawrykow
May 4, 2007
The Ambivalence of Interreligious Experience: Riccoldo da Monte Croce's Theology of Islam

Natalia Imperatori-Lee & Professor Mary Catherine Hilkert
May 21, 2007
The Use of Marian Imagery in Catholic Ecclesiology Since Vatican II
Daniel Machiela & Professor James VanderKam
June 7, 2007
The Genesis Apocryphon (1Q2O): A Reevaluation of its Text, Interpretive Character, and Relationship to the Book of Jubilees
John Perry & Professor Jennifer Herdt
June 25, 2007
Subverting the Republic: Christian Faithfulness and Civic Allegiance in John Locke's America
Raymond Aguas & Professors Mary Doak and Robert Krieg
June 26, 2007
Relating Faith and Political Action: Utopia in the Theology of Gustavo Gutierrez

Kindalee Delong & Professor Gregory Sterling
July 20, 2007
Kindy's dissertation title: Surprised by God: Praise Responses in the Narrative of Luke-Acts
Teresa Reeve & Professor Mary Rose D'Angelo
August 23, 2007
Luke 3:1-4:15 And the Rite of Passage in Ancient Literature: Liminality and Transformation
Christopher Pramuk & Professor Lawrence Cunningham
October 11, 2007
Hagia Sophia: Imagination, Poetics and Presence in the Christology of Thomas Merton
Danielle Nussberger & Professors Lawrence Cunningham and Cyril O'Regan
November 13, 2007
Saint as Theological Wellspring: Hans Urs Von Balthasar's Hermeneutic of the Saint in a Christological and Trinitarian Key
Kimberly Baker & Professor John Cavadini
December 13, 2007
Augustine on Action, Contemplation, and Their Meeting Point in Christ
From 2008:
Michael Heintz & Professors John Cavadini and Brian Daley
February 18, 2008
The Pedagogy of the Soul: Origen's Homilies on the Psalms
Walter Whitehouse and Professor Nathan Mitchell
March 14, 2008
Full, Conscious, and Active Participation: A Prelude
Michael Whitehouse and Professor Maxwell Johnson
March 31, 2008
Manus Impositio: The Initiatory Rite of
Handlaying in the Churches of Early Western Christianity
LaReine-Marie Mosely & Professor M. Catherine Hilkert
April 7, 2008
Salvation Despite the Death of Jesus? The Cross in the Later Soteriology of Edward Schillebeeckx: African American Christian Female Perspectives
Todd Hanneken & Professor James VanderKam
April 7, 2008
The Book of Jubilees Among the Apocalypses
Kenneth Garcia & Professor Lawrence Cunningham
April 8, 2008
The Desire of the Mind for God and the Telos of the Catholic University
John Conroy & Professor Gregory Sterling
April 11 , 2008
"The Wages of Sin is Death": (Rom 6:23) Paul and Philo on the Death of the Soul
Nancy Johnson & Professor Maxwell Johson
May 14 , 2008
Living Death: Baptism and the Christian Life in the Writings of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa

D. Andrew Teeter & Professor Gary Anderson
June 23, 2008
Exegesis in the Transmission of Biblical Law in the Second Temple Period: Preliminary Studies

Shawn Colberg & Professor Joseph Wawrykow
July 8 , 2008
"Be Glad and Rejoice for Your Reward is Very Great in Heaven": 'Reward' in the Theology of Thomas and Bonaventure
Scott Moringiello & Professor Robin Darling Young
August 14 , 2008
Irenaeus Rhetor
Kristin Colberg & Professor Robert Krieg
August 18 , 2008
Vatican I and Vatican II as Coherent Christian Discourse: A Relationship of Complementarity, Continuity and Difference
Steven Rodenborn & Professor M. Catherine Hilkert
August 18 , 2008
Hope in Action: Subversive Eschatology in the Theologies of Edward Schillebeeckx and Johann Baptist Metz
Lindsey Esbensen & Professor Jean Porter
August 25 , 2008
A Critical Appraisal of the Distinctively Religious-Moral Theology of Bernard Häring
Charles Camosy & Professor Maura Ryan
August 25 , 2008
Treatment of Imperiled Newborns: The Social Quality of Life Model in Light of Catholic Social Teaching

Christopher Wells & Professor Joseph Wawrykow
December 12 , 2008
Sacraments of the Incarnate Word: The Christological Form of the Summa Theologiae

Bradley Gregory& Professor Gary Anderson
December 12 , 2008
Like an Everlasting Signet Ring": Generosity in the Book of Sirach
From 2009:
Matthew Loverin & Professor Gerald McKenny
February 10, 2009
Obedient Unto Death: The Person and Work of Jesus Christ in Karl Barth’s Theological Ethics

Molly Zahn & Professor James VanderKam
March 2 , 2009
The Forms and Methods of Early Jewish Reworkings of the Pentateuch in Light of 4Q158

David George & Professor Gregory Sterling
April 7 , 2009
Jesus’ Lack of Emotion in Luke: The Lucan Redactions in Light of the Hellenistic Philosophers

Ardea Russo & Professor David Aune
June 11 , 2009
the Heavenly Door: Earthly Liturgy and Heavenly Worship in the apocalypse of John
Daniel O'Hare & Professor Gary Anderson
June 26 , 2009
Have You Seen, Son of Man?’: Preliminary Studies in the Translation and Vorlage of LXX Ezekiel 40-48
John Reeve & Professor Brian Daley
August 17 , 2009
The Theological Anthropology of Theophilus of Antioch: Immortality and Resurrection in the context of Judgment
Nicholas Russo & Professor Maxwell Johnson
August 17 , 2009
The Origins of Lent
Lee Blackburn & Professor Brian Daley
September 10 , 2009
The Mystery of the Synagogue: Cyril of Alexandria on the Law of Moses