About
Research
Email: paul.mcpartlan@stmarys.ac.uk
Biography
I am the Rector of Mater Ecclesiae College, which is an ecclesiastical school dating back to 1614, awarding pontifical degrees by authority of the Holy See, and now based at St Mary's University. The college is autonomous, but in a close relationship with the University. I am also a professor in the University's School of Theology.
After reading mathematics at Cambridge, I gained a PGCE at St Mary's and then studied philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
I was ordained a priest by Cardinal Basil Hume in Westminster Cathedral in 1984 and then gained my DPhil at Oxford in 1990. I spent several years as an assistant priest in the parish of Our Lady of Victories in Kensington and then had a post-doctoral research fellowship at Edmund's College, Cambridge, before being appointed to the staff of Heythrop College in the University of London in 1995.
I taught systematic theology at Heythrop for ten years, and was then invited to The Catholic University of America, in Washington DC, in 2005. From 2006-23, I was the Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism at Catholic University, and I served as acting dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies in 2014-15. I am now Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism at Catholic University. After returning to the UK in 2024, I was appointed as Rector of Mater Ecclesiae College and professor at St Mary's University.
I was a member International Theological Commission from 2004-14, and a member of the international Catholic-Methodist theological dialogue from 2002-12. I have also taken part in international Roman Catholic-Anglican dialogue.
Since 2005, I have been a member of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
Research
Research profile
Publications
Books authored
- The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993); second ed., Eastern Christian Publications, Fairfax, VA, 2006.
- Sacrament of Salvation: An Introduction to Eucharistic Ecclesiology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995).
- A Service of Love: Papal Primacy, the Eucharist, and Church Unity (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013, 2016).
Books edited
- John Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness (London: Continuum, 2006).
- Geoffrey Wainwright and Paul McPartlan, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
Some recent articles and chapters
- 'The Pastoral Magisterium of Pope Francis', in Canon Law Society of America, CLSA Proceedings 82 (2021): 1-21.
- 'A Notable Anniversary: Sources chrétiennes and Roman Catholic–Orthodox Relations, Ecclesiology 18 (2022): 283-296.
- 'Eucharist and Ecology', The International Journal of Evangelization and Catechetics 4 (2023): 5-29.
- 'Joseph Ratzinger and the East–West Fracture of the Church', in Tracey Rowland and Francesca Aran Murphy, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Joseph Ratzinger (Oxford: Oxford University Press; forthcoming).
- 'Eucharistic Ecclesiology', in Hyacinthe Destivelle, Stefan Heid, Augustinus Sander, eds., Einheit und Einzigkeit: Ekklesiologische Konkretionen in ökumenischer Perspektive (Freiburg: Herder, forthcoming).