Todd Walatka

Todd Walatka is director of the Latin American-North American Church Concerns (LANACC) program and a teaching professor in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, where he specializes in contemporary Catholic systematic theology. His research focuses on the interpretation and reception of Vatican II, influential Latin American thinkers including Gustavo Gutiérrez, Jon Sobrino, and St. Óscar Romero, and the European theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Much of his work seeks to build bridges across theological divides and create dialogue between differing theological approaches. His two most recent books are Words of Life: The Preaching of St. Óscar Romero (Orbis Books, 2026) and Óscar Romero and Catholic Social Teaching (ed., Notre Dame Press, 2024). He has been a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow since 2019. He took up his current position as the Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies in Theology in 2011.

Walatka’s other research interests include ecclesiology, eschatology, theology and racism, and Jewish-Christian relations. He also works in the field of pedagogy and pedagogical formation. 

Walatka received the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, CSC, Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the University of Notre Dame in 2018. He earned an MTS in the history of Christianity and a PhD in systematic theology from Notre Dame.