Dr Tom McLean

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Dr Tom McLean

Lecturer in Systematic Theology

Contact Details

Email: tom.mclean@spcm.ie
Phone: +353 01 708 3600
Office:

Office hours:

Research
About

Research Interests

Liturgical theology.
Theories of ritual and performance.
De/coloniality
The theology of Edward Schillebeeckx
The theology of Marie-Dominique Chenu.
Ecumenism Critical theories.

Highlighted Publications

(with Stephan van Erp and Carlos Schickendantz), Sacramentality: The World as Sign and Instrument of God’s Presence Concilium 2025.2 (2025) (and in other language issues of Concilium)

(with Joris Geldhof and Samuel Goyvaerts) The Worshiping Body: Chenu, Liturgy and Sacraments (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2025)

Research

(with Joris Geldhof and Samuel Goyvaerts) The Worshiping Body: Chenu, Liturgy and Sacraments (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2025)

(with Stephan van Erp and Carlos Schickendantz), Sacramentality: The World as Sign and Instrument of God’s Presence Concilium 2025.2 (2025) (and in other language issues of Concilium)

(with Thomas O’Loughlin), Essays on Eucharist and Ecumenism [Title tbc] (Norfolk, UK: Hymns Ancient & Modern, forthcoming in 2026) Joint Liturgical Studies

(as assistant editor) Thomas Pott, James Hawkey, Keith Pecklers (eds), Malines: Continuing the Conversations (London: SPCK, 2023)

(as translation editor) Johan te Velde, Evaluating liturgical reform (Leuven: Peeters, 2022)

‘Introduction: Chenu – Uniting the Sacred and the Profane’ in Joris Geldhof, Samuel Goyvaerts, and Tom McLean, The Worshiping Body: Chenu, Liturgy and Sacraments (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2025)

‘Only Seven Sacraments? The Sacramentality of Rituals and Blessings Beyond the Sacraments’ in Concilium 2025.2 (2025) (and in other language issues of Concilium)

‘Editorial: Sacramentality. The World as Sign and Instrument of God’s Presence’ with Stephan van Erp and Carlos Schickendantz in Concilium 2025.2 (2025) (and in other language issues of Concilium)

‘The Later Schillebeeckx’s Unfinished Work on the Sacraments: A Report from the Archives’ (in review; co-authored with Joris Geldhof)

‘Anglicans in Rome: Reconciliation rituals and the ordination of women’ in Tom McLean and Thomas O’Loughlin (eds), Essays on Eucharist and Ecumenism [Title tbc] (Norfolk, UK: Hymns Ancient and Modern, forthcoming in 2026) Joint Liturgical Studies

‘Developments in the Low Countries: The Interpretations of Original Sin of Schoonenberg and Schillebeeckx’ in The Heythrop Journal 65.5 (2024), pp. 501-514; doi: 10.1111/heyj.14348

‘Anglicans in Rome: Rites of ecumenical reconciliation and the ordination of women’ in Questions Liturgiques 104.1-2 (2024), pp. 45-65; doi: 10.2143/QL.104.1.3293388

‘Liturgical Unity, Liturgical Diversity, and the Catholicity of the Church’ in Louvain Studies 46.1 (2023), pp. 86-103; doi: 10.2143/LS.46.1.3292271

‘Pandemic or not – are we capable of liturgical communion anyway?’ in Liturgie et communion ecclésiale. Au miroir de la crise sanitaire, ed. A. Lossky et al. (Münster: Aschendorff, forthcoming in 2025) Semaines d’études liturgiques Saint-Serge 68

‘A Minister Prepares: Liturgical Performance and Stanislavski’s Method of Acting’ in Theology 124.2 (2021), pp. 93-100; doi: 10.1177/0040571X21991745

‘What is Time? – Philosophical and Eucharistic Insights’ in Studia Liturgica 50.2 (2020), pp. 163-175; doi: 10.1177/0039320720945929

‘Schillebeeckx’s Theology of History and Liturgical Theology’ in Anaphora 13.1 (2019), pp. 63-78.

‘Theological Considerations for Liturgical Renewal with Edward Schillebeeckx’ in New Blackfriars 99 (2018), pp. 775-787; doi: 10.1111/nbfr.12350

Thomas G. Weinandy (ed.), Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's “The Reciprocity Between Faith and Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy”’ in Marriage, Families and Spirituality 30.2 (2024), pp. 313–314.

‘Armand Léon van Ommen, Autism and Worship: A Liturgical Theology’ in Questions Liturgiques 104.1-2 (2024), pp. 118-120; doi: 10.2143/QL.104.1.3293391

‘Natalie Wigg-Stevenson, 2021. Transgressive Devotion: Theology as Performance Art.’ in Theology 124.6 (2021), pp. 462-463.

‘Turnbloom, David Farina, 2017. Speaking with Aquinas: A Conversation About Grace, Virtue and the Eucharist.’ in Anaphora 12 (2018), pp. 228-230.

‘The Possibility of Eucharist: Response to Commodified Communion by Antonio Alonso’ Paper to the North American Academy of Liturgy, Valparaiso, January 2025.

‘Liberating a Catholic Imagination’ Paper to Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network, Chicago, June 2024.

‘Response: Chenu – Uniting the Sacred and the Profane’ (Concluding response to a two-day expert seminar) Paper to seminar ‘The worshipping body: Chenu, liturgy and sacraments’ Tilburg University, February 2024.

‘Anglicans in Rome: Rites of ecumenical reconciliation and the ordination of women’ Paper to the North American Academy of Liturgy, Seattle, January 2024.

‘Whose sacramental imagination? Suffering, liberation and the catholic imagination’ Poster presentation to conference ‘Imagination als Chance des Dialogs’, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, October 2023.

‘Rites of reconciliation, the ordination of women and Sorores in spe’. As part of panel ‘The Malines Conversation Group: An Experiment in Liturgical Ecumenism’ Presentation to Societas Liturgica, Maynooth, August 2023.

‘The Later Schillebeeckx’s Unfinished Work on the Sacraments: A Report from the Archives’. Paper to the North American Academy of Liturgy, Toronto, January 2023.

‘Pandemic or not: are we capable of liturgical communion anyway?’ Paper to La 68e Semaine d’études liturgiques, Saint-Serge Institut de théologie orthodoxe, Paris, July 2022.

‘Liturgy: Diversity, Unity, Authority?’ Paper to the European Academy of Religion, Bologna, June 2022.

‘The application of Edward Schillebeeckx’s theology of history for liturgical theology’. Paper to the Society for Liturgical Study, Mirfield, August 2018.

‘Theological Considerations for Liturgical Renewal with Edward Schillebeeckx’. Paper to Societas Liturgica, Leuven, August 2017.

‘The Sacramentary of Sarapion as Liturgical Expression of Athanasian Pneumatology’. Paper to the Society for Liturgical Study, Mirfield, August 2016.

Biography

Tom McLean wrote his PhD at KU Leuven on the sacramental theology of Edward Schillebeeckx, and recently edited The Worshipping Body: Chenu, Liturgy and Sacraments (Liturgical Press, 2025). His research interests include the work of Edward Schillebeeckx and Marie-Dominique Chenu and critical and decolonial approaches to sacramental and liturgical theology. His initial studies in theology were at the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, and at Sarum College, and the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield (UK). Previously he had studied Mathematics at the University of Bath, worked as a production manager in the corporate events industry and in theatre, and was formerly an Anglican priest.