Professor O’Toole teaches courses in the history of American religion and the history of American Catholicism. His interests lie in the history of religious practice and popular devotional life. He has published a general history of the American Catholic laity from Colonial times to the present, and he is also studying the history of the practice of confession in America. He is currently writing a new history of Boston College.
Books in order of publication:
Understanding Archives and Manuscripts (1990)
Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O’Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston, 1859-1944 (1992)
Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920 (2002)
Boston’s Histories: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. O’Connor, co-edited with David Quigley (2004)
The Faithful: A History of Catholics in America (2008)
For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America – 2025
Oak Lawn Library Friends 