Dennis J Billy

Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R. is Professor Emeritus of the Alphonsian Academy of Rome's Pontifical Lateran University. Since 2004, he has also been the Karl Rahner Professor of Catholic Theology at the Graduate Theological Foundation. From 2019-2025, He held the Robert F. Leavitt Distinguished Chair in Theology at St. Mary's Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland. Also, from 2008-2016, he was scholar-in-residence and holder of the John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Father Billy holds a Doctor of Theology in Church History from Harvard University Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a Doctor of Sacred Theology in Spirituality from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, and a Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Direction from The Graduate Theological Foundation in Sarasota, Florida. He also holds an M.A. in Medieval History from the University of Toronto, an M.M.R.Sc. in Moral Theology from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, M.R.E. and M.Div. degrees from Mt. St. Alphonsus, Esopus, New York, and an A.B. in English literature from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. For more than 20 years, Fr. Billy was Professor of the History of Moral Theology and Christian Spirituality at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome. He has authored or edited over 60 books and published over 400 articles in a variety of scholarly and popular journals. His writing has been honored by the Catholic Press Association. Fr. Billy is a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Academy of Catholic Scholars, the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, and Spiritual Directors International. An American Redemptorist of the Baltimore Province, he is also active in retreat work and in the ministry of spiritual direction.