Father Paul Robichaud is the Paulist historian and is presently at work on a general history of Paulist ministry. He also serves as the Postulator for the Cause of Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, the Paulist founder, and as Coordinator of the 150th Anniversary Celebration of the Paulist Fathers planned for 2008, and editor of The Catholic World Online.

Born in Waltham, Massachusetts, he attended parochial schools and later majored in American history at Boston College. It was during his studies that he made the decision to join the Paulist Fathers. Encouraged by a Jesuit spiritual director, he went to work as a volunteer at the Paulist Center on Park Street in Boston. Impressed by their preaching and the pastoral attention they gave to adult inquirers, he decided he wanted to become a modern Catholic evangelist.

Father Paul attended seminary at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he received a Master's degree in Theology. Ordained a priest in May 1975 by His Eminence Terrance Cardinal Cooke of New York, his first assignment was as Director of the Catholic Information Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Center had no budget, no outreach and very small classes. Visiting neighborhood parishes and raising funds to refurbish the center facility, he expanded classroom space and recruited inquirers from among diocesan pastors. By year's end, the center had developed regular monthly classes and prepared more than 300 new Catholics for entrance into the church.

Happy to leave snowy Minnesota, he was invited to join the campus ministry staff at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1976-1979). The university parish was four blocks from the beach, a dramatic change both in climate and ministry. Working primarily with graduate students and faculty, he began a weekly seminar in Catholic theology, directed parish liturgy, trained lay ministers and offered classes not only for the parish but the local region. In 1977 he was elected as Santa Barbara's representative to the Priest Senate in Los Angeles. It was in Santa Barabara where he first studied Russian icon painting and took summer classes in clown and circus arts. In the fall of 1979 he joined the campus ministry team at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio (1979-1982). Initially bringing his expertise in circus arts to Columbus, he formed a clown workshop among students at the university, a program that ran for more than two years. He discovered that circus arts enhanced people's communication skills and made them more effective. He also established a weekly student bible study that regularly drew more than 200 students on a given evening. His weekly column answering questions about Catholicism from students was eventually syndicated by a national grant and published in more than 40 college newspapers. His involvement with faculty led him to consider returning to graduate school.

In 1989, he received a Ph.D in American Intellectual History from the University of California, Los Angeles. He came to UCLA specifically to work with an award winning faculty member who would allow him to specialize in Intellectual history with a specialty in American religion. His dissertation, Beyond Ethnicity, examined the rise and influence of the Catholic middle class in the 1890s, and won the Cushwa Prize in American Catholic History from Notre Dame University. From 1989 until 1996, he taught Intellectual, Cultural and Religious history at the Catholic University of American in Washington D.C.

In 1996 Father Paul was appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as Rector of the Church of Santa Susanna in Rome and pastor of the American Catholic community spread across the Eternal City. He also served as the Paulist representative to the Vatican. During these years, as well as preaching, teaching and counseling, Father Paul became an expert on the history and spirituality of the city of Rome. He also served as a Vatican analyst during the last years of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II with CBS, ABC, the BBC and Sky Television. He served as analyst for CBS News during the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

He returned to the United States in the Fall of 2005 and is presently in residence at the North American Paulist Center in Washington, D.C., which houses the Office for History and the Office for the Cause of Father Hecker.