Thomas Dudley Williams

Thomas Dudley Williams (born October 2, 1962) is an American author, theologian, university professor, speaker, and television commentator living in Rome, Italy. He has been the Rome Bureau Chief for Breitbart News Network since 2014. He formerly served as a Catholic priest but was dispensed from the clerical state in 2013 and is now married.
Educated in Catholic schools in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Williams spent 8 years of primary and secondary school at Saint Hugo of the Hills, run by the sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, followed by four years at Birmingham Brother Rice High School, run by the Christian Brothers of Ireland, where he graduated in 1980.
Williams went on to study at the University of Michigan where he earned a five-year degree in economics in 1985, followed by a diploma in Classical Studies at the Colegio de Ciencias Humanísticas in Salamanca, Spain in 1988, a license degree in philosophy from Rome’s Gregorian University in 1994, and a summa cum laude PhD in theology at Rome’s Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in 2001.
In 1985 Williams entered the seminary of the Legionaries of Christ in Cheshire, Connecticut and was eventually ordained a Catholic priest in 1994.
Fully conversant in English, Spanish, Italian, and French, Williams also possesses moderate proficiency in German, Portuguese, and Latin as well as familiarity with ancient Greek.
In 2012, Williams acknowledged a news report that revealed he had fathered a child with Down syndrome several years earlier and he withdrew from public ministry to discern his future while also undergoing cancer treatment. The following year, he left the priesthood in order to marry the child’s mother, American art historian Elizabeth Lev and help care for their son. Pope Francis granted Williams a dispensation from his vows in 2013 and the couple was married in Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
Williams’ mother-in-law is Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See and Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
From 2000 to 2012, Williams taught Theology and Social Ethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum (Rome), offering undergraduate and graduate courses in moral theology, business ethics, bioethics, moral conscience, Christology, philosophical anthropology, human rights, and ethical case studies. From 2001 until 2008 he also served as Dean of the Theology School.
From 2005 to 2011, he participated as a visiting professor at the annual Tertio Millennio Seminar held every summer in Krakow, Poland.
Williams was invited to become a corresponding academician at the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas in 2007, and later became a founding member of the Society of Thomistic Personalism in 2010.
Since then, Williams has taught courses in Faith and Reason at Duquesne University’s Rome campus, Philosophical Ethics at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) Rome campus, and Moral Theology of the Market at St. John's University (New York City) Rome campus.
During the fall term in 2018, he and his wife Elizabeth were visiting research fellows at Notre Dame University’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture in South Bend, Indiana.
== Media work ==
The Vatican commissioned Williams to be its spokesperson for the 1997 Synod of Bishops for America for the English-language media, a task that involved a presence inside the synod hall as well as twice-daily briefings to journalists.
Again in 2001, the Vatican again asked Williams to be its spokesperson for the Synod on the role of Bishops for the English-language media.
For years, Williams worked as consultant and analyst with major U.S. television stations, beginning with coverage for CNN in 1999, followed by occasional appearances on ABC and CBS before being hired on retainer as Vatican analyst, first for NBC and later for CBS.
From 2004-2007 he worked as consultant on Vatican Affairs for NBC and MSNBC, with frequent appearances on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Dateline, and Hardball. He also was featured in a 10-part series called The Ethical Edge, which he helped produce. During this time, he covered the illness and death of Pope John Paul II as well as the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.
“He was the face of the church at the time of the conclave,” said Susan Gibbs, the spokeswoman at the time for the Archdiocese of Washington. “He really helped people understand how the church worked.”
From 2007-2011, Williams worked as Vatican Analyst for CBS News, appearing often on Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, and a number of other programs. Contemporaneously, Williams worked as Vatican Analyst for Sky News, London, covering major Vatican events as well as Pope Benedict’s trip to the UK in 2010.
In 1997 Williams became the founding publisher of the ZENIT News Agency in Rome, a role he held until 2010.
In 2014, Williams was approached by the Breitbart News Network to establish a new Rome bureau for the outlet and he became the first Rome bureau chief later that year, a role he continues to play. A 2017 New York Times exposé described Williams as “a discordantly gentle voice in the strident Breitbart chorus.”
Williams covers a number of topics for the conservative website, including the pope, the Vatican, Italian politics, immigration, Christian persecution, religious freedom, social ethics, abortion, and family issues.
Williams has published 17 books and over 5,000 articles, essays, and book collaborations on a broad range of topics.
Among others, his articles have appeared in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Wall Street Journal, First Things, Sacerdos, Crux, The National Catholic Register, Catholic Dossier, Seminarium, The Irish Catholic, Inside the Vatican, Logos, Crisis Magazine, Alpha Omega, National Review, Sapientia, The Human Life Review, Katholische Wochenzeitung, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Catalunya Cristiana, Ecclesia, The Denver Catholic Register and Famiglia Cristiana. He has also been interviewed and cited in The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, The Detroit Free Press, The Philadelphia Enquirer, and Zenit News Service.
Williams completed a two-year sommelier program with the Italian Sommelier Association in Rome and was certified as a wine expert by the same foundation as well as by the World Sommelier Association in March of 2016.
He has since completed two further specialization courses on the wines of Bordeaux and the wines of Burgundy.
During 2003, Williams worked onsite at Rome’s Cinecittà with director Mel Gibson as a theological consultant for the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ.
In 2018, Italian producer Enzo Sisti, who had gotten to know Williams while working on the Passion, contacted him about working as religious consultant for the upcoming Netflix film The Two Popes. Netflix hired Williams as a consultant to director Fernando Meirelles to review the script for the movie with him and make sure there were no glaring factual errors or sections that Catholics would find offensive. The film’s producers also contracted Williams as a voice coach to help the main actors, Anthony Hopkins (Pope Benedict) and Jonathan Pryce (Pope Francis), with pronunciation of Latin and Italian texts as their real-life counterparts would do.
While working with Williams, Meirelles asked him whether he would also accept an acting role in the film as an American journalist since Williams had done this in real life. This was Williams’ first professional role in acting.
* The First Christmas. Manchester (NH): Sophia Institute Press, 2019. .
* But for the Grace of God. New York: Urbi et Orbi Publications, 2014. ASIN B00JMDFSD0
* The Sacred Heart for Lent: Daily Meditations. Cincinnati: Servant Books, 2011. .
* The World as it Could Be: Catholic Social Thought for a New Generation. New York: Herder and Herder, 2011. .
* A Heart Like His: Meditations on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. North Haven: Circle Press, 2010. .
* Can God Be Trusted? Finding Faith in Troubled Times. New York: Hachette, 2009. .
* Original Sin: An Interdisciplinary Study. (Ed. with Pedro Barrajón). Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2009. .
* Knowing Right from Wrong: A Christian Guide to Conscience. New York: Hachette, 2008. .
* Greater than You Think: A Theologian Answers the Atheists about God. New York: Hachette, 2008. .
* Discípulos y misioneros de Jesucristo. (Ed. and intro.). Rome: Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum, 2007.
* Spiritual Progress: Becoming the Christian You Want to Be. New York: Hachette, 2007. .
* Who Is My Neighbor? Personalism and the Foundations of Human Rights. Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 2005. .
* Servants and Witnesses of Hope. (Ed. and intro). Rome: Logos Press, 2001.
* Rights and the Person. Rome: UPRA Press, 2001.
* Springtime of Evangelization: The Complete Texts of the Holy Father's 1998 Ad Limina Addresses to the Bishops of the United States. (Ed. and introduction), San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999. .
* Building on Solid Ground: Authentic Values and How to Attain Them. Staten Island: Alba House, 1995. .
Category:1962 births
Category:Living people
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:American male journalists
Category:American male non-fiction writers