Fr. Gabriel Torretta was born and raised in Spokane, Washington. He was raised Presbyterian and converted to Catholicism in high school. He attended Arizona State University, where he earned a B.A. in Japanese, after which he entered a PhD program at Columbia University in pre-modern Japanese literature.

He joined the Dominicans after three years there, having earned an M.A. and an M.Phil. “I entered the Order of Preachers because of Dominicans I met at Columbia University, who showed me the face of Christ as I had never known Him; ever since then I have believed that God is calling me to do the same for others.”

After ordination he worked in parish ministry at St. Gertrude’s Church in Cincinnati, OH, then pursued a doctorate in history of Christianity at the University of Chicago. His areas of research were Carolingian history and theology, theology of beauty, aesthetics, reception of Augustine, early medieval poetics, Theodulf of Orléans, Hrabanus Maurus, Eriugena, image theology, early medieval image practices, and theology of laughter.

From 2021 to 2023 he co-hosted (with Jacob Flores-Popcak) a podcast called “Created Things”, which he described as “a casual conversation on all things creative and created”. In the summer of 2024 he moved to Providence, RD, where he is an associate professor of theology at Providence College.