William McDonough

Professor of Theology
St. Catherine University

Bill McDonough has taught theology for 25 years, and now is associate professor and coordinator of the master’s in theology program at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN. Long interested in matters of Catholic identity in higher education, he has served on the university’s steering committee on Catholic identity for eight years. McDonough is a graduate of St. John’s University (1978, B.A. in Government), the St. Paul Seminary (1982, M.A. in New Testament Scripture), and the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome (1990, licentiate and doctorate in moral theology).

He was “hooked” on Collegium when, as a participant in the 2009 summer colloquy, he read Walter Ong’s essay “Yeast” in the syllabus of readings. Ong’s description of Catholic identity as “a limitless, growing reality [requiring] the collaboration of all the knowledgeable people we can relate to” comes alive in the Collegium process. McDonough is delighted to serve as a faculty-fellow for the first time in this summer’s colloquy.