Henry McDonnell was born on October 10, 1915, in Providence, Rhode Island, the second of the three children of John and Rose Anna Gallagher McDonnell. He was educated in Providence at St. Mary's Academy of the Visitation from 1921 to 1929, La Salle Academy from 1929 to 1933, and Providence College from 1933 to 1937.

On August 15, 1937, Henry McDonnell received the Dominican habit and his religious name of John Francis at St. Rose Priory in Springfield, Kentucky, and began his novitiate year. First profession was made there on August 16, 1938. When the Province of St. Albert the Great was established in 1939, he became affiliated to the new Province. His philosophical and theological studies were undertaken at the Dominican House of Studies in River Forest, Illinois, and he was ordained to the priesthood there on June 8, 1944. During the academic year, 1945 to1946, he was a student at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. His next two years of study were spent at the cole Biblique in Jerusalem.

Upon his return to the United States, Father "Chum" McDonnell assumed the positions of

Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Dominican House of Studies and Professor of Theology at Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois. After two years, he was assigned to St. Rose Priory and Aquinas Institute in Dubuque, Iowa, where he was Professor of Scripture from 1951 to 1974. In the Fall of 1974, he became a Professor of Scripture at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (the Angelicum) in Rome, Italy, a position he held until the time of his death on May 11, 1988.

Several days before his death, Father McDonnell mentioned to one of his brothers that he felt very tired, but this was considered to be due to the heat. On May 10, he suffered a heart attack and was taken to a hospital where, in spite of treatment, he died on the morning of May 11. The Master of the Order presided at a Solemn Funeral Mass on May 13, with more than fifty concelebrants and four hundred students in attendance. Father Alfred Wilder (Southern Province), Prior at the Angelicum residence, gave the homily. Shortly after the ceremony, Father McDonnell's body was moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where a funeral Mass was celebrated on May 17 in the St. Thomas Aquinas Priory Chapel at Providence College. He was buried in St. Francis Cemetery at Pawtucket, Rhode Island.