A Man of the Church

Ralph del Colle was born in New York City on October 3, 1954 and was raised in Mineola, Long Island. He attended Xavier High School in Chelsea and received a BA in History and Literature of Religions from New York University, and MDiv, MPhil, and PhD degrees from Union Theological Seminary. Ralph taught for 17 years in the Marquette University Theology Department; prior to that he taught at Barry University, Miami Shores, Florida and at St. Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire. Ralph's lively Christian faith and interest in church unity led to his participation in ecumenical dialogues. He served as a representative to the International Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue for the Pontifical Council on Christian Unity for 12 years and also served on the Catholic-Reformed Dialogue and Catholic-Evangelical Dialogue, both for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was invited by the Pontifical Council to serve as a representative to the World Council of Churches Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1998. In 2002-2003, he served as the President of the Society for Pentecostal Studies and in 2003 Ralph received the Archbishop's Vatican II Award. Ralph's scholarly work, especially his work on the Holy Spirit, made significant contributions to the field of Systematic Theology. Ralph died in July of 2012, slightly more than four weeks after he was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer. He was fifty-seven.