Rev. Marvin O’Connell, professor emeritus of history at the University of Notre Dame, will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree May 22 (Saturday) at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.
Father O’Connell, a member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1972, is a Minneapolis native who studied at the St. Paul Seminary and was ordained a priest for the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis before receiving a doctoral degree in history from Notre Dame in 1959. He taught history at St. Thomas from 1958 until he came to Notre Dame, where he chaired the history department from 1974 to 1980. He also directed Notre Dame’s undergraduate program in London from 1993 to 1995.
In addition to numerous articles and essays in scholarly and popular journals, Father O’Connell has published several books including the definitive biography of Notre Dame’s founder, “Edward Sorin;” “Pilgrims to the Northland: The Archdiocese of St. Paul, 1840-1962;” “John Ireland and the American Catholic Church;” “Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart;” “Thomas Stapleton and the Counter Reformation;” “The Oxford Conspirators: A History of the Oxford Movement, 1833-1845;” “The Counter Reformation, 1559-1610” and “Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis.”
Originally published by at newsinfo.nd.edu on May 18, 2010.