Brennan Pursell

Bio

Brennan Pursell, Ph.D. (Harvard University), is a professor of history at DeSales University, a fellow of the Cardinal Newman Society, and the author of the much acclaimed biography of our pope, Benedict of Bavaria: an Intimate Portrait of the Pope and his Homeland (Circle Press, 2008). The book draws upon a host of sources that are virtually unknown outside Germany, including scores of interviews with the people who grew up and worked with the Holy Father. Benedict of Bavaria demonstrates the authentic influence Bavarian culture had on the development of Pope Benedict XVI's life and thought.

Since the book's publication, Brennan Pursell, a professional writer, speaker, and singer, has appeared on EWTN, CNN, and BBC, was quoted on the front page of The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, has published articles in the National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor, and other periodicals, and given over a hundred interviews with Catholic and secular media outlets in the US and Europe. He has given talks at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Villanova University, Magdalen College, Kutztown University, and dozens of parishes in and beyond his home diocese.

His current book project, God in History, tells the story of Western Civilization from a Christian perspective, keeping God in the center, where He belongs. Brennan also has two historical novels in the works, one a murder mystery/romance set in seventeenth-century Europe, The Spanish Match, and the other, about St. Peter, and his wife, You the Rock.