Fr. Brett McLaughlin, S.J. is a U.S. East Jesuit, from western Massachusetts and Maine. He first felt a call to the priesthood in the eighth grade, and he joined the Jesuit novitiate in Syracuse after serving as a USAF Intelligence officer at RAF Mildenhall.

In undergraduate years, Brett immersed himself in campus ministry and was the first triple major to graduate from the College of the Holy Cross. As a Jesuit, he taught theology for three years at Cheverus High School in Maine, served at various retreat houses as a spiritual director, and worked as a new priest at the Church of St. Ignatius in New York City.

His deep interest in Contemporary Christology began at the College of the Holy Cross, ranging from Walter Cardinal Kasper, Gerald O'Collins, Elizabeth A. Johnson, N.T. Wright, James D.G. Dunn, Edward Schillebeeckx, Jon Sobrino, and Karl Rahner.

Since 2020 he is a member of the Colloquium on Violence & Religion, College Theology Society, the American Academy of Religion, and Catholic Theological Society of America (2024). He served as the 2023-2024 McDevitt Pre-Doc Visiting Scholar at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY.

His writings can be found in Irish Theological Quarterly, The Way, and forthcoming in Philosophy & Theology and the College Theology Society Annual Volume 2025.

His doctoral dissertation project, "Reign over Envy: The Kingdom of God's Subversion of Conflictual Desire" is an expansion on his 2020 STL dissertation on René Girard and Raymund Schwager's hypothesis of desire, envy, conflict, and the Christ-event.

Brett regularly assists with liturgies at the Northeastern Correctional Center in Concord, MA, as well as St. Ignatius Parish in Newton. He lives in Harvard Square in the Cambridge Jesuit Community, and enjoys walks along the Charles River, the music of St. Paul's Parish, and reading on his porch.