Bruce Morrill

Author, Theologian

Dr. Bruce Morrill focuses his theological scholarship in the area of liturgy and sacraments, drawing upon a range of interdisciplinary resources in the fields of systematic and historical theology, ritual studies, cultural anthropology, and biblical studies. His other primary and strongly related interest is in political theologies, as they investigate the problems of suffering in social contexts. This work has come together most comprehensively in his books, Divine Worship and Human Healing: Liturgical Theology at the Margins of Life and Death (Pueblo/Liturgical Press, 2009), and Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory: Political and Liturgical Theology in Dialogue (Pueblo/Liturgical Press, 2000). His more recent books include Encountering Christ in the Eucharist: The Paschal Mystery in People, Word, and Sacrament (Paulist Press, 2012) and The Essential Writings of Bernard Cooke: A Narrative Theology of Church, Sacrament, and Ministry (Paulist Press, 2016). His current research and writing projects include an exposition of the concept of “political holiness” and an attempt at a mystagogical theology of the Easter Season.

Professor Morrill is a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). He has lectured widely in North America, Europe, and Australia, and keeps involved in various forms of pastoral work. In Nashville he presides and preaches regularly at the Cathedral of the Incarnation and Christ the King Church. He also provides pastoral-liturgical ministry to men at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison. During Holy Week and Easter of 2015 he resumed his occasional pastoral service to Yup’ik eskimo villages in western Alaska, where he had made annual trips from 2001 to 2010. Prior to coming to Vanderbilt Professor Morrill was on the faculty of Boston College for fifteen years and has enjoyed appointments to visiting chairs and fellowships at a number of institutions in the USA, Belgium, and Ireland.