Jim Bretzke
Professor
Background
\ Rev. James T. Bretzke, S.J., S.T.D. since 2019 is Professor of Theology at John Carroll University in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. Previously he served as Professor of Moral Theology at Boston College’s graduate School of Theology and Ministry from 2008—2018, after which he moved to Marquette University in his native Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a year before accepting his latest position as Professor of Theology at John Carroll University. He did his doctorate at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, while living at the Collegio Bellarmino near the Pantheon. After completing his doctorate he taught at the Gregorian for three years, before coming to the Graduate Theological Union and the Jesuit School of Theology-at-Berkeley in 1993, where he taught for a decade before moving to the University of San Francisco and also serving as Chair of the Department of Theology & Religious Studies. He has also taught for several years in Seoul, Korea at Sogang University and more recently spent the Fall Semester 2024 there as the International Vising Jesuit Chair. He has also served as a Visiting Professor of Moral Theology at the Loyola School of Theology of the Ateneo de Manila, Philippines, and from 2008—2018 at the Boston College School of Theology & Ministry. He has published in various aspects of moral theology over ninety articles and reviews, plus eight books, including, A Handbook of Roman Catholic Moral Terms (Georgetown University Press), A Morally Complex World: Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology and Consecrated Phrases: A Latin Theological Dictionary both from Liturgical Press and the forthcoming Moral Debates in Contemporary Catholic Thought: Paradigms, Principles, and Prudence from Rowman Littlefield. Fr. Bretzke is a sixth-generation native Milwaukeean and grew up in Holy Family Parish in Whitefish Bay, WI and graduated in 1970 from Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, WI and immediately entered the Jesuits (today the UMI Province). He was ordained by his uncle, Bishop Lambert Hoch on May 30, 1981 in Omaha, Nebraska where he had earlier taught for three years at Creighton Prep Jesuit High School.\
Areas of Expertise
- Fundamental Moral Theology and related fields in applied ethics (bioethics
- sexual ethics
- Scripture and ethics); Roman Catholic ecclesiology; Confucianism
- Christianity in Korea
Research Interests
\ Working on a book-length project on my “Moral Triangle” Methodology for moral analysis on a range of contemporary highly debated and conflicted social issues in bioethics, social and sexual ethics.\
Education
S.T.D., Pontifical Gregorian Universit y S.T.L., Jesuit School of Theology-at-Berkeley Th.M. Jesuit School of Theology-at-Berkeley M.Div. Weston School of TheologyCourses Taught
\ TRS 2500.51 Moral Decision Making\
\\\ TRS 3126.51 Jesus in Film\
\\\ TRS 3530.51 Catholic Moral Theology\
\\\ TRS 3550/5550 Cross-Cultural Christian Ethics\
\\\ TRS 3555.51: Human Rights & Human Rites in Asia\
\\\ TRS 3563.51 Bioethics\
