Dennis J. Billy

Fr. Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R. serves as professor of moral theology and spirituality and is holder of the Robert F. Leavitt Distinguished Service Chair in Theology at St. Mary’s. From 1988 to 2008 he taught at the Alphonsian Academy of Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University and is now a Professor Emeritus of that institution. From 2008 to 2016 he was scholar-in-residence, professor, and holder of the John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Overbrook in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. He also serves as Fellow and Karl Rahner Professor of Catholic Studies at the Graduate Theological Foundation in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Fr. Billy is an American Redemptorist of the Baltimore Province. He comes from Staten Island, New York, and was educated there through high school in local Catholic schools. He holds an A.B. in English from Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire) and studied for the priesthood in the Redemptorist seminary system. After his priestly training, he went on to earn a Th.D. in Church History from Harvard Divinity School, an M.A. in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto, an M.M.R.Sc. in Moral Theology from the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven in Belgium, an S.T.D. in Spirituality from The Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum, Rome), and a D.Min. in Spiritual Direction from the Graduate Theological Foundation.

Fr. Billy has authored more than 50 books and published over 400 articles in a variety of scholarly and popular journals. He is also very active in retreat work and in the ministry of spiritual direction. Fr. Billy serves on the staff at Notre Dame Retreat House in Canandaigua, NY. In 2017, he was awarded a three-year grant by the Templeton World Charity Foundation to develop a program on the topic “Spiritual Direction and the Moral Life.”