Father Kilian McDonnell, OSB

Monk of Saint John's Abbey
Collegeville, Minnesota

Born: September 16, 1921

Professed: August 24, 1946

Ordained: June 7, 1952

Died: September 8, 2025

Father Kilian nearly broke the record of the oldest monk ever of Saint John’s abbey, and his funeral Mass will be celebrated on his 104th birthday! It was said that Father Kilian enjoyed ill health all his life.

William Perry McDonnell was the fourth of eight children born to Joseph and Anna (Averbach) McDonnell in Great Falls, Montana, on September 16, 1921. Soon after William’s birth, the family moved to Velva, North Dakota, where his father was a salesman. William attended grade school and graduated from Velva High School in 1940. During high school, William participated in the band and in dramatic productions.  He was also active in the Boy Scouts of America and attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

William had a deep desire to join a religious order and contacted Bishop Aloysius Muench, who suggested William study for the diocesan priesthood instead. In 1940, William entered Saint John’s University, Collegeville, as a pre-divinity student for the Diocese of Fargo. After further considering his desire to join a religious order, William entered the Dominican novitiate at River Forest, Illinois. When health problems surfaced, he took a leave of absence from the novitiate and obtained a position as scouting program director at Saint Joseph’s School for the Deaf in the Bronx, New York.

When his health improved, William applied again to the Dominicans but was rejected because of his frailty!  William’s Dominican and Jesuit friends suggested that he apply to the Benedictines at Saint John’s Abbey.  He was accepted and entered the novitiate on August 16, 1945, receiving the name of Kilian. After his first profession as a monk on August 24, 1946, he completed his B.A. degree in 1947 from Saint John’s University. He spent the following two summers studying liturgy at the University of Notre Dame and library science at the Catholic University of America. Upon completion of his theological education at Saint John’s Seminary and was ordained to the priesthood on June 2, 1951.

After ordination, Father Kilian was appointed associate pastor at Saint Boniface Parish in Hastings, Minnesota, for three years, and for one year at Holy Rosary Parish in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

Father Kilian then began graduate theological studies at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where he received a licentiate in theology in 1960. He continued his theological studies in Europe, spending a semester or a year at universities such as Trier, Tübingen, Münster, and Heidelberg. Father Kilian also did research at ecumenical institutes in Paderborn, Geneva, Paris, Oxford, and Edinburgh. In 1963, he received a doctorate (STD), Magna cum Laude, from the theological faculty at the University of Trier, Germany. He then returned to Saint John’s as professor of theology for a long and distinguished career at Saint John’s University School of Theology and Seminary (1964-1992).

One of Father Kilian’s most acclaimed accomplishments was founding the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in 1967, serving as its director and then as president. The institute has welcomed hundreds of scholars from the United States, Canada, and abroad. He was regarded as an “Apostle for Unity” and once stated that “Christ willed for his Church to be one. If it isn’t one, then its effectiveness in preaching the Gospel is limited and wounded. It can’t do what it was founded to do.”

After the Second Vatican Council, Father Kilian served as secretary of the national Presbyterian/Roman Catholic Consultation and as a member of national dialogues between Lutherans and Roman Catholics and between Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics. For twenty years Father Kilian was a consultant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on charismatic renewal.

Internationally, Father Kilian served as co-chair of the internal consultation between the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Roman Catholic Church as well as co-chair of the international dialogue between the Pentecostal churches and the Vatican. He became a member of the International Disciples/Roman Catholic dialogue and consultor to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. “Unity is something we have to work for,” Father Kilian declared, “even though it’s not something I really expect to see in my lifetime—and I plan on living a long time.”

For his work in ecumenism, Father Kilian received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award from Pope John Paul II (1983); the Pax Christi Award from Saint John’s University, Collegeville (1984); the John Courtney Murray Award from the Catholic Theology Society of America, Washington, (1993); an honorary doctorate from Loyola University, Chicago (1999); and the Society for Pentecostal Studies Lifetime Achievement Award (2004).

Besides being a superb lecturer and professor in the School of Theology and Seminary, Father Kilian was a prolific writer, authoring and co-authoring seventeen books and well over two hundred articles in ecclesiology, pneumatology, the Trinity, reformation theology, and ecumenism. Father Kilian edited the three-volume Presence, Power, Praise: Documents on the Charismatic Renewal (1980) and co-authored, with George Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit (1991) that was published in seven languages. Father Kilian also served as scripture editor for Worship, editor of Sponsa Regis, and columnist for Sign magazine.

In his later years, Father Kilian devoted much of his time and creativity to writing poetry. Many of his poems were published in Swift Lord, You Are Not; (2003), Yahweh’s Other Shoe; (2006), and God Drops and Loses Things; (2009). In 2007 he was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award in poetry. Father Kilian’s poetry may primarily be the genre in which he gave expression to his personal spirituality and his monastic ideals as well as a monk of profound faith and man of prayer.

As especially evidenced in his poetry, Father Kilian was an energetic man of cherished Irish wit, adventurous spirit, and gracious personality.  He was most welcoming of everyone and enjoyed free-spirited conversation.

Father Kilian died on September 8, 2025, in the retirement center at Saint John’s Abbey. He is survived by his brother, Robert, Bellingham, WA, many nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, and the community at Saint John’s Abbey. The monks, family, and friends will receive the body on Monday, 15 September at 7:00 pm and celebrate the Mass of Christian Burial for Father Kilian at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, 16 September in the Saint John’s Abbey and University Church, with interment in the Abbey Cemetery. The service will be live-streamed on YouTube.com/SaintJohnsAbbey.