Contributors

Mike Aquilina is author of more than sixty books, including The Fathers of the Church and The Mass of the Early Christians. He is executive vice-president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. He also serves as a contributing editor of Angelus News and general editor of the Reclaiming Catholic History series published by Ave Maria Press. He hosts the “Way of the Fathers” podcast for Catholic Culture. He has co-hosted eleven television series on EWTN. Aquilina is also a poet and songwriter, whose works have been recorded by Dion, Paul Simon, Van Morrison, Amy Grant, Bruce Springsteen, and others.

Read the interview in which he discusses his pick of the best books on the Early Church Fathers.

Fr. Michael Baggot, PhD is currently Assistant Professor of Bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. He is also Research Scholar at the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights in Rome, Italy. He was Adjunct Professor of Theology at the Christendom College Rome program from 2018-2022. His writings have appeared in First Things, Studia Bioethica, The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. He is editor of and contributor to the book Enhancement Fit for Humanity: Perspectives on Emerging Technologies (Routledge, 2022).

Read about his pick of books on bioethics (part one) (part two)

Dr. John Bergsma is a Full Professor of Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Steubenville, Ohio. He served as a Protestant pastor for four years before entering the Catholic Church in 2001. He specializes in the Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among his various books are Bible Basics for Catholics: A New Picture of Salvation History and A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament (co-authored with Brant Pitre).
Read the interview in which he discusses his pick of the best books on the Pentateuch.

Shaun Blanchard is Lecturer in Theology on the Fremantle campus of the University of Notre Dame Australia. He writes on a variety of topics in early modern and modern Catholicism, publishing in outlets like Commonweal, America, Church Life Journal, and The Tablet. He is the author of The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansensism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform (OUP: 2020) and, with Ulrich Lehner, co-edited The Catholic Enlightenment: A Global Anthology (CUA: 2021). With Stephen Bullivant, he co-wrote Vatican II: A Very Short Introduction (OUP: 2023) and with Richard T. Yoder, he has co-edited Jansenism: An International Anthology (CUA Press, forthcoming 2024).
Read his discussions of Jansensism and the First Vatican Council.

Christopher Carstens is director of the Office for Sacred Worship in the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin; a visiting faculty member at the Liturgical Institute at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois; and editor of the Adoremus Bulletin. He is author of A Devotional Journey into the Mass (Sophia), as well as Principles of Sacred Liturgy: Forming a Sacramental Vision (Hillenbrand Books). He and his family live in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin.
Read about his recommended books on the sacred liturgy.

David Clayton, is Provost of www.Pontifex.University, for whom he created the unique Master of Sacred Arts program. He holds the post of Artist-in Residence of Scala Foundation in Princeton, NJ. He has major commissions from churches in the US and the UK, including the Brompton Oratory in London, and has illustrated several children’s books, including God’s Covenant With You by Scott Hahn. His popular blog is thewayofbeauty.org and in addition he writes regularly for the New Liturgical Movement website. His books include: The Way of Beauty: Liturgy, Education, and Inspiration for Family, School, and College; Painting the Nude: The Theology of the Body and Representation of Man in Christian Art; and The Little Oratory - A Beginner's Guide to Praying in the Home.

Read about his pick of the best books on the Catholic Sacred Art.

James G. Colbert is Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Fichtberg State University He has translated several of Étienne Gilson's works: Greco-Arabic Sources of Avicennist Augustinism, Medieval Essays, Theology and the Cartesian Doctrine of Freedom, John Duns Scotus: Introduction to His Fundamental Positions, Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Metamorphoses of the City of God, and The Tribulations of Sophia. He has also translated Florian Michel's Étienne Gilson: An Intellectual and Political Biography.
Read his discussion of Étienne Gilson.

Fr. Thomas Crean OP is a member of St Dominic’s Priory, Haverstock Hill, in north London. He has published articles in various popular and academic venues, including Antiphon, Augustinianum, Christian Order and New Blackfriars. He is the author of several books, including God is no Delusion, The Mass and the Saints , St Luke’s Gospel: a Commentary for Believers, Integralism: a Manual of Political Philosophy (with Alan Fimister), and Vindicating the Filioque: The Church Fathers at the Council of Florence.
Read his interview on the Council of Florence.

Richard G. DeClue, Jr., S.Th.D. is the Professor of Theology at the Word on Fire Institute. He specializes in systematic theology with a particular interest and expertise in the thought of Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI and has published articles on his theology in peer reviewed journals such as Communio and Nova et Vetera, he taught a college course on the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, and has written book, The Mind of Benedict XVI: A Theology of Communion (Word on Fire, 2024). He is also interested in the ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac, the debate over nature and grace, and developing a rapprochement between Communio (ressourcement) theology and Thomism.
Read his discussion of Eucharistic ecclesiology.

Deacon David Delaney is the founder of the Mother of the Americas Institute, its current Director, and a Senior Fellow. He is also Chairman and President of the Board of Directors. Deacon Delaney previously served as founding academic dean for two separate institutions of higher education dedicated to theological formation. He has his doctorate in systematic theology from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. His research interests are in the areas of the Trinity, Christology, ecclesiology, liturgy and the Sacraments, mission, and the new evangelization, all considered from the perspective of an adequate anthropology. He is the author of Viri Dignitatem: Personhood, Masculinity and Fatherhood in the Thought of John Paul II and The Great Mystery: Formation for Flourishing Marriages.
Read his interview on fatherhood.

Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka is an Associate Professor and the Director of Sacred Music at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California, where she holds the William P. Mahrt Chair in Sacred Music and serves as the founding Director of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music. She has co-edited Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought, and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, published by the Church Music Association of America (CMAA). Her publications also include articles in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Sacred Music, Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal, the proceedings of the Gregorian Institute of Canada, the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, the Adoremus Bulletin, Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century: Issues and Perspectives (Bloomsbury/T&T Clark), and Messiaen in Context (Cambridge University Press). Dr. Donelson-Nowicka hosts Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast, which just finished its sixth season. 
Listen to her discussion of Gregorian chant.

Colin B. Donovan, STL is Vice President for Theology at EWTN, was host of EWTN Theology Roundtable, and currently hosts the Friday edition of Open Line, and a monthly Catholic Sphere. Prior to coming to EWTN in 1995, he taught Theology at Aquinas College in Nashville. He is a member of the Mariological Society of America and the Pontifical International Marian Academy.
Read his discussion of Devotion to Mary.

Fr. Brian Dunkle SJ is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at the Gloria L. and Charles I. Clough School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. He regularly offers philosophy courses at the St. Joseph Scholastic in Vietnam and offers pastoral assistance at local parishes and the correctional institutes of Concord, MA. He has translated St. Ambrose’s Treatises on Noah and David and is the author of Enchantment and Creed in the Hymns of Ambrose of Milan (Oxford University Press).
Read the interview in which he discusses the life, ministry, and works of St. Ambrose.

Michael Dunnigan is an attorney practicing in two distinct legal systems, the Anglo-American system of common law and the Catholic Church’s legal system known as canon law. He is associate professor of Canon Law at Saint Meinrad Seminary in St. Meinrad, IN. He holds a law degree from Georgetown, a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, and a master’s degree in theology from St. Mary’s University (San Antonio). He has delivered speeches and written articles on a variety of subjects, including individual rights, the sexual abuse crisis in the Church, parish closings, art and architecture, the Church’s Latin liturgical heritage, Catholic associations, and comparative law. He is the author of Religious Liberty and the Hermeneutic of Continuity: Conservation and Development of Doctrine at Vatican II (Emmaus, 2023).
Read his discussion of Vatican II's Declaration on Relgious Liberty.

Fr. Gilles Emery, a member of the Order of Preachers, is professor emeritus of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, where he taught dogmatic theology from 1995 to 2021. A member of the International Theological Commission from 2004-2014, he is chief editor of the journal "Nova et Vetera," and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He has published several acclaimed books, in French and English, on the theology of Thomas Aquinas, Trinitarian theology, and the theology of creation.
Read the interview in which he discusses his own writings on the Trinitarian theology of St. Thomas Aquinas.

David Fagerberg is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. His area of study is liturgical theology – its definition and methodology – and how the Church’s lex orandi (law of prayer) is the foundation for her lex credendi (law of belief). He is the author of Liturgical Dogmatics and Liturgical Mysticism.
Read the interview in which he discusses his pick of the best books on Liturgical Spirituality.

Fr. Damian Ference is a priest of the Diocese of Cleveland where he serves as Vicar for Evangelization, Secretary for Parish Life and Special Ministries, and as Professor of Philosophy at Borromeo Seminary. He holds a licentiate in philosophy from The Catholic University of America and a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He writes regularly on the intersection of faith and culture for a variety of outlets and is the author of the award-winning book, The Strangeness of Truth (Pauline Books & Media, 2019) and Understanding the Hillbilly Thomist: The Philosophical Foundations of Flannery O'Connor's Narrative Art (Word on Fire, 2023). Fr. Ference is the founder and director of Tolle Lege Summer Institute and is a life-time member of the Flannery O’Connor Society.
Read his interview on Flannery O'Connor.

Fr Timothy M. Gallagher is a priest of the Congregation of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary. In 1983, he obtained his doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University and began his ministry as a spiritual director and retreat leader. He has taught at St. John's Seminary, Brighton, and Our Lady of Grace Seminary Residence, Boston, both in Massachusetts. Since 2015, he holds the St. Ignatius Chair for Spiritual Formation at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. He has written over twenty books on spiritual themes, published in Catholic periodicals, and is in wide demand as a speaker. His books include When You Struggle in the Spiritual Life: An Ignatian Path to Freedom, A Handbook for Spiritual Directors, An Ignatian Introduction to Prayer: Scriptural Reflections According to the Spiritual Exercises, Meditation and Contemplation: An Ignatian Guide to Praying with Scripture and A Layman's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours.
Read his interview on the discernment of spirits.

David Grumett is senior lecturer in theology and ethics in the University of Edinburgh. He has recently published Henri de Lubac and the Shaping of Modern Theology: A Reader with Ignatius Press.
Read the interview in which he discusses his pick of the best books of Henri de Lubac (part 1) (part 2).

Ryan Patrick Hanley, Professor of Political Science at Boston College, will take us through his pick of the five best books by or on Fénelon. Prior to joining the faculty at Boston College, Prof. Hanley was the Mellon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, and held visiting appointments or fellowships at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. A specialist on the political philosophy of the Enlightenment period, he is the author of The Political Philosophy of Fénelon, and a companion translation volume, Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings, both of which are published by Oxford University Press.

Read the interview in which he discusses his pick of the best books by Fénelon.

Aidan Hart has been a professional icon painter and carver for forty years, with works in over twenty-five countries of the world, including with the Pope and other Patriarchs. An ordained Reader of the Orthodox Church, he is a frequent speaker at conferences and churches and has been on numerous TV and radio programmes. He teaches a three-year part-time course in icon painting for The Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Art. He has published Festal Icons (2022), Beauty Spirit Matter (2014), and Techniques of Icon and Wall Painting (2011), all published by Gracewing.

Read the interview in which he discusses his pick of the best books on Icons.

Dr. Russell Hittinger is currently Executive Director of The Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, where he is also a Research Professor Ordinarius in the School of Philosophy. He is Emeritus Professor of Religion at the University of Tulsa and has taught or been a fellow at numerous other institutes of higher education. Since 2001, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which he was elected a full member (ordinarius) in 2004, and appointed to the consilium or governing board from 2006-2018. On Sept. 8, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Professor Hittinger as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he finished his ten-year term in 2019. His books and articles have appeared through the University of Notre Dame Press, Oxford University Press, Columbia University Press, Fordham University Press, the Review of Metaphysics, the Journal of Law and Religion, the Review of Politics, and several law journals (both American and European).
Read about his selection of the best books on Catholic Social Teaching. 

Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P. is a formator at the Dominican House of Studies, a member of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, and a formator at St. Dominic Priory in Washington DC. Since the fall of 2021, he has been the editor of the journal The Thomist, for which he previously was book review editor. He is the author of The Power of Patristic Preaching: The Word in Our Flesh and Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus, and the co-author of A Living Sacrifice: Guidance for Men Discerning Religious Life. He is also the co-editor of The Pastoral Theology of the Early Church, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine’s Sermons, The Oxford Handbook of Deification, Thomas Aquinas as Spiritual Teacher, Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology, Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers, and Divinization: Becoming Icons of Christ through the Liturgy.
Read his interview on St. Gregory of Nazianzus.

Trent Horn is a staff apologist and speaker for Catholics Answers, and adjunct professor of apologetics at Holy Apostles College. He specializes in teaching Catholics to graciously and persuasively engage those who disagree with them. He can be heard on the radio program Catholic Answers Live and on his own podcast, The Counsel of Trent. He has written for The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and is the author of nine books, including Answering Atheism, The Case for Catholicism, and Why We’re Catholic: Our Reasons for Faith, Hope, and Love.
Read about his pick of apologetics books for addressing Protestant Objections to the Catholic Faith.

Dr. Edward Howells is associate tutor in Christian Spirituality at Ripon College Cuddesdon. He teaches the history of Christian spirituality and its contribution to the understanding and practice of faith today. His research is on mystical theology, especially the late medieval period, and he has written on the mystical theology of John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Augustine, Meister Eckhart, and Pierre de Bérulle. He is the author of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila: Mystical Knowing and Selfhood (2002) and co-editor of Teresa of Avila: Mystical Theology and Spirituality in the Carmelite Tradition (2017), and The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology (2020).
Read his discussion of St. John of the Cross.

Dr. Thomas Humphries, a native of Arkansas, is Professor in the College of Arts and Science at Saint Leo University, Florida. a native of Arkansas and a life-long Roman Catholic. He holds a mandatum from the diocese of St. Petersburg and enjoys giving regular theological reflections outside of the classroom with student faith communities, parishes, and monasteries. He also volunteers with the local fire department as Chaplain and holds the rank of District Chief. He is a licensed Florida EMT and NREMT. He is the author of Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great (Oxford University Press) and Who is Chosen? (Wipf and Stock).
Read his interview on St. Gregory the Great (part one) (part two).

Robin Jensen is the Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, a Fellow of the Medieval Institute and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, and a concurrent faculty member in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design. She specializes in the history of Christian and Jewish art and architecture, primarily from the third through ninth centuries. She is past president of the North American Patristics Society and the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological education. She is the author of The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy (2017), Understanding Early Christian Art (2000, 2nd edition 2023); The Substance of Things Seen: Art, Faith, and the Christian Community (2004); Face to Face: The Portrait of the Divine in Early Christianity (2005); Living Water: The Art and Architecture of Early Christian Baptism (2011); Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity (2012); and From From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity (2022). She was co-author of Christianity in Roman Africa (with J. Patout Burns; 2014) and co-editor of The Art of Empire: Christian Art in its Imperial Contexts (2015). She serves as co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Early Christian Art and The Cambridge Handbook of Late Antique Archaeology (both forthcoming).
Read her interview on early Christian art.

Michael M. Jordan is Professor Emeritus of English at Hillsdale College and earned his PhD in English under the direction of Marion Montgomery at the University of Georgia. He lectured on the work of various Southern authors: the Southern Agrarians, Donald Davidson, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O’Connor, M. E. Bradford, Richard Weaver, and Walker Percy. He also has written essays and reviews for various journals of scholarship and opinion, including Chronicles, Touchstone, The Southern Partisan, Modern Age, The Intercollegiate Review, The South Carolina Review, The Southern Humanities Review, The Chattahoochee Review, and The University Bookman. In 2005, he selected and edited a collection of Montgomery’s essays: On Matters Southern: Essays About Literature and Culture, 1964-2000.
Read his discussion of Marion Montgomery.

Dutton Kearney is an associate professor of English at Hillsdale College. He previously taught at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee where he was awarded Professor of the Year in 2008. He teaches eighteenth century literature, contemporary literature, and courses in theology and literature. He is the editor of the Ignatius Press edition of Gulliver’s Travels and has published several essays on Jonathan Swift. He is the director of Hillsdale College’s Visiting Writers Program and the director of the College’s new Creative Writing Honors Program.
Read his survey of the work of Jonathan Swift.

Simon P. Keefe is James Rossiter Hoyle Chair of Music at the University of Sheffield, a life member of the Academy for Mozart Research at the International Mozart Foundation in Salzburg and President Elect of the Royal Musical Association. He is the author of five monographs on Mozart, including Mozart's Requiem: Reception, Work, Completion (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which won the 2013 Marjorie Weston Emerson award from the Mozart Society of America, and editor of a further seven volumes for Cambridge University Press, including Mozart Studies, Mozart Studies 2 and Mozart in Context.
Read his interview on Mozart.

Fr Uwe Michael Lang, a native of Nuremberg, Germany, is a priest of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in London. He holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford and teaches Church History at Mater Ecclesiae College, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and at Allen Hall Seminary, London. He is an Associate Staff Member at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham. He is the Editor of Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal. From 2008 to 2012 he was a staff member of Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and from 2008 to 2013 he was a Consultor to the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. His current research is in liturgical studies, with a strong historical emphasis. He is the author of Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer (Ignatius Press), The Voice of the Church at Prayer: Reflections on Liturgy and Language (Ignatius Press), Signs of the Holy One: Liturgy, Ritual and the Expression of the Sacred (Ignatius Press), and The Roman Mass: From Early Christian Origins to Tridentine Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022). He is the editor of Authentic Liturgical Renewal in Contemporary Perspective (Bloomsbury T&T Clark) and The Fullness of Divine Worship: The Sacred Liturgy and Its Renewal (The Catholic University of America Press).
Read his discussion of Liturgical History and Theology.

Dr. Keith Lemna is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. He has published scholarly articles in numerous journals, including The Heythrop Journal, Nova et Vetera, Communio: International Catholic Review, International Philosophical Quarterly, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, The Gregorianum, and Antiphon. He is the author of The Trinitarian Wisdom of God: Louis Bouyer's Theology of the God-World Relationship and The Apocalypse of Wisdom: Louis Bouyer’s Theological Recovery of the Cosmos (recipient of a Catholic Press Association book award in 2020).
Read his interview on Louis Bouyer.

Dwight Lindley is the Barbara Longway Briggs Chair in English Literature at Hillsdale College. He has published essays and articles on Jane Austen, George Eliot, John Henry Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Virginia Woolf, and others. He lives in southern Michigan with his wife Emily and their nine children.

Read the interview in which he discusses his pick of the best books by and on Jane Austen (part one) (part two) and Charles Dickens.

Daniel J. Mahoney is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, professor emeritus of Assumption University. His recent books include The Statesman as Thinker: Portraits of Greatness, Courage, and Moderation (Encounter Books), and Recovering Politics, Civilization, and the Soul: Essays on Pierre Manent and Roger Scruton (St. Augustine’s Press), and The Idol of Our Age: How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity. He has written extensively on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Ascent from Ideology (2001) and The Other Solzhenitsyn: Telling the Truth about a Misunderstood Writer and Thinker (2020). With Edward E. Ericson Jr. he is the editor of The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings, 1947-2005.
Read his interview on the best books by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Graham McAleer is a professor of philosophy at Loyola University in Baltimore, MD. He has taught at Loyola for 30 years and was awarded Teacher of the Year in 2014. He regularly teaches course on ethics, security, strategy, war, and law. He is also a member of the Judicial Ethics Committee of the State of Maryland and a regular contributor to the national onlinemagazine Law & Liberty, where he writes on culture and politics. He is the author of Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics: A Catholic and Antitotalitarian Theory of the Body (Fordham University Press), To Kill Another: Homicide and Natural Law (Routledge), Erich Przywara and Postmodern Natural Law: A History of the Metaphysics of Morals (UND Press), Tolkien, Philosopher of War (CUA Press), and co-author of Time for Dying (Routledge) and The Wisdom of Our Ancestors: Conservative Humanism and the Western Tradition (UND Press).
Read his discussion of the political philosopher Aurel Kolnai.

John Meinert is Associate Professor of Theology at Benedictine College, where he teaches on Christian moral life, bioethics, Catholic social thought, and Spiritual Theology. His research has appeared in Nova et Vetera, Angelicum, New Blackfriars, The Journal of Moral Theology, The Thomist, The European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas, and Augustinian Studies. He is the author of The Love of God Poured Out: Grace and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in St. Thomas Aquinas (Emaus Academic) and Peace in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas: Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics (CUA Press).
Read his discussion of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Daniel R. Melamed is professor of music in musicology at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His research interests focus on J.S. Bach, Mozart-era opera, and music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He is president of the American Bach Society and director of the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project. He has authored Listening to Bach: The Mass in B Minor and the Christmas Oratorio, Hearing Bach’s Passions, and J. S. Bach and the German Motet, and co-authored (with Michael Marissen) An Introduction to Bach Studies. He is editor of Bach Studies 2 and Bach Perspectives 8: J. S. Bach and the Oratorio.
Read his discussion of the Bach's Passions and Bach's Sacred Music.

Michael J. McGrath is a Professor of Spanish at Georgia Southern University and a corresponding fellow of the San Quirce Royal Academy of History and Art in Segovia, Spain. His research focuses on early modern Spanish life and literature, with special emphasis on cultural studies, the comedia, Don Quixote, and intellectual history. He is the author of more than seventy publications, including Don Quixote and Catholicism: Rereading Cervantine Spirituality and the first English translation of Spanish priest Ruy López's chess treatise from 1561 titled The Art of the Game of Chess.

Read his interview on Cervantes.

Matthew Minerd is a Ruthenian Catholic, husband, father, and a professor of philosophy and moral theology at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. His academic work has appeared in the journals Nova et Vetera, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Saint Anselm Journal, Lex Naturalis, Downside Review, The Review of Metaphysics, and Maritain Studies, as well in volumes published by the American Maritain Association through the Catholic University of America Press. He has served as author, translator, and/or editor for volumes published by The Catholic University of America Press, Emmaus Academic, Cluny Media, and Ascension Press. He has published academic articles and book chapters related to Maritain and is the Secretary of the American Maritain Association. For more information on his work, visit philosophicalcatholic.com

Read about his pick of the five best books by Jacques Maritain Apologetics.

Frank Mitjans is a Spanish architect who has worked in London since 1976 and has long been interested in St. Thomas More. Since August 2002 he has given many presentations and talks on the topography of More’s London to groups of students and other interested people in Britain, Ireland, and Sweden. He has published various papers on St. Thomas More and Thomas More’s Vocation (Catholic University of America Press).
Read his interview on St. Thomas More.

Dr. Jeffrey L. Morrow is Professor of Theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology at Seton Hall University. A Jewish convert to Catholicism, he specializes in the history of modern biblical interpretation. Among his publications are Jesus’ Resurrection: A Jewish Convert Examines the Evidence, A Catholic Guide to the Old Testament (co-authored with Jeff Cavins and others), Murmuring Against Moses: The Contentious History and Contested Future of Pentateuchal Studies (co-authored with John Bergsma), and Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (co-authored with Scott Hahn).
Read part one and part two of his interview on the principles for interpreting Sacred Scripture. 

Megan E. Murton has been an Assistant Professor of English at The Catholic University of America since 2015. She is a medievalist and specializes in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, with a particular interest in his religious writings and his response to Classical literature and philosophy. She is the author of Chaucer's Prayers: Writing Christian and Pagan Devotion and is currently working on a book that re-evaluates the profound influence of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy on Chaucer.
Read her discussion of Geoffrey Chaucer.

A native Virginian, Adam Myers teaches philosophy at Mount Mercy University, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He has degrees in philosophy, history, and religion at Liberty University (Va.), Wheaton College (Ill.), Yale Divinity School (Conn.), and Baylor University (Tex.).

Read his interview on Robert Spaemann.

Bronwen Neil is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, a member of the Macquarie University Centre for Ancient Cultural Heritage and Environment, and deputy director of the Creative Documentary Research Centre. She is section head for Religious Studies in the Australian Academy of Humanities and a member of the Classics and History sections. Her books include Maximus the Confessor and his Companions: Documents from Exile, (co-authored with Pauline Allen) Greek and Latin Letters in Late Antiquity: The Christianisation of a Literary Form, and she is the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook to Maximus Confessor.
Read her conversation about St. Maximus the Confessor.

Roger W. Nutt, S.T.L., S.T.D., is Provost of Ave Maria University. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the Sacraments and Christology. He co-directs the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal with Dr. Michael Dauphinais and Dr. Steven Long. His research focuses on Christology and Sacramental Theology, and especially the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. He is the author of three books and many articles on the sacraments: Thomas Aquinas’ ‘De Unione Verbi Incarnati’ (Peeters Publishers, 2015); General Principles of Sacramental Theology (The Catholic University of America Press, 2017); and To Die is Gain: A Theological (re-)Introduction to the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick for Clergy, Laity, Caregivers, and Everyone Else (Emmaus Academic, 2022). His articles and chapters have appeared in publications such as Nova et Vetera, Gregorianum, Louvain Studies, The Thomist, Harvard Theological Review, Angelicum, Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal, and the Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Aquinas.

Read the interview in which he discusses his pick of the best books on the Sacraments.

Timothy O’Donnell is President of Christendom College and professor of the departments of history and theology. His teaching and research focus on ascetical and mystical theology, Irish history, the Gospels, and apologetics. He has been a consultor to Pontifical Council for the Family under John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. He was the recipient in 2003 of the The Christian Law Institute’s "Christ the King Award." In 2007, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the Brent Society for outstanding contributions to Catholic education. He is the author of Heart of the Redeemer: An Apologia for the Contemporary and Perennial Value of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Read his discussion of Devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Holly Ordway is the Cardinal Francis George Fellow of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire Institute, and Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is the author of Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages (Word on Fire Academic, 2021). Her other books include Tales of Faith: A Guide to Sharing the Gospel through Literature (Word on Fire Institute, 2021) and Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith (Emmaus Road, 2017). She is also a Subject Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies and a published poet.

Read the interview in which she discusses his pick of the best books on Imaginative Apologetics (part one) (part two).

Jared Ortiz is Van Kley Professor of Religion and Chair of the Department of Religion at Hope College, where he teaches Catholic theology. He is founder and executive director of the Saint Benedict Institute, the Catholic spiritual and intellectual centre that serves Hope College. He specializes in early Christian theology, especially St. Augustine. He is the author of Deification in the Latin Patristic Tradition, "You Made Us for Yourself": Creation in St. Augustine's Confessions, co-author of Nicene Creed: A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary, and co-editor of With All the Fullness of God: Deification in Christian Tradition.
Read his discussion of St. Augustine's Confessions.

Steve Ray is a Catholic speaker, author, and convert to Catholicism who shares his conversion story and his insights on various topics such as apologetics, the Bible, evangelism, family, and more. With his wife, Janet, he regularly guides pilgrimages to the Holy Land. He is the host of the popular film series The Footprints of God and the author of the best-selling books Crossing the Tiber and St. John's Gospel. Among his recent publications is Genesis: A Bible Study Guide and Introduction.
Read his discussion of Genesis.

Gregory Reichberg is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, where he writes on historical and contemporary issues in military ethics. He is the author of Thomas Aquinas on War and Peace (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and co-editor of several volumes, including The Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Blackwell Publishing, 2006), Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook of Textual Traditions (Cambridge U P, 2014), and Robotics, AI, and Humanity: Science, Ethics, and Policy (Springer, 2021). His articles have appeared in Catholic journals and magazines, including The Thomist, La Revue Thomiste, Nova & Vetera (English Edition), Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Commonweal, and America Magazine. His current work focuses on artificial intelligence and its implications for military ethics.
Read about his pick of the five best books on The Ethics of War and Attention.

Michael Root is Professor Emeritus of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic University of America. He served on the drafting team for the Catholic-Lutheran Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, and on the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue both nationally and internationally, the international Lutheran-Anglican dialogue, and the US Lutheran-Methodist dialogue. He was a staff consultant to the 1993 World Conference on Faith and Order (Spain) and the 1998 Lambeth Conference (England). He has been the executive director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.

He is the author (with Gabriel Fackre) of Affirmations and Admonitions (1998) and editor of Justification by Faith (with Karl Lehmann and William Rusch, 1997), Baptism and the Unity of the Church (with Risto Saarinen, 1998), and, with James Buckley, Sharper than a Two-Edged Sword: Preaching, Teaching and Living the Bible (2008), The Morally Divided Body: Ethical Disagreement and the Divided Church (2012), and Christian Theology and Islam (2013). In addition, he is the author of many scholarly articles and an associate editor of the journal Pro Ecclesia.
Read about his pick of the five best books on Eschatology.

Professor Tracey Rowland holds the St John Paul II Chair of Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia. In 2001 she was appointed the Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, a position she held until 2017. She is a member of the editorial board of Communio: International Catholic Review and was appointed to the 9th International Theological Commission in 2014. In 2009 she was awarded the Archbishop Michael J Miller Award for the Promotion of Faith and Culture by the University of St. Thomas in Houston and in 2010 she was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. In 2020 she won the Ratzinger Prize for theology. In 2023 she was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences. Her books include Culture and the Thomist Tradition (London: Routledge, 2003), Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Benedict XI (Oxford University Press, 2008), Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Bloomsbury, 2010),Catholic Theology (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), The Culture of the Incarnation: Essays in Catholic Theology (Steubenville: Emmaus Academic, 2017), Portraits of Spiritual Nobility (New York: Angelico, 2019) Beyond Kant and Nietzsche: The Munich Defence of Christian Humanism (London: Bloomsbury, 2021). She has published over 150 articles and is the English sub-editor of the forthcoming multilingual Ratzinger Lexikon.
Read her interview on the work of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

Alexander W. Salter is the Georgie G. Snyder Associate Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University, the Comparative Economics Research Fellow at TTU's Free Market Institute, and an associate editor of the Journal of Private Enterprise. Additionally, he is a Sound Money Project senior fellow and a Young Voices senior contributor.
He is the author of, The Political Economy of Distributism: Property, Liberty, and the Common Good (Catholic University of America Press, 2023), The Spirit of '76: Libertarianism and American Renewal (American Institute for Economic Research, 2023). He is co-author of Money and the Rule of Law: Generality and Predictability in Monetary Institutions​ (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and The Medieval Constitution of Liberty: Political Foundations of Liberalism in the West (University of Michigan Press, 2023).
Read his interview on distributism.

Christopher J. Scalia is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on literature, culture, and higher education. A former English professor, he specialized in 18th-century and early 19th-century British literature. He also spent three years as director of AEI’s Academic Programs department, where he led educational and professional-development programs and events for college students around the country. His articles, essays, and reviews on literature, music, higher education, and other topics have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, Commentary, National Review, First Things, the Washington Free Beacon, the Times Literary Supplement, the Spectator World, and FoxNews.com, among other outlets. He is the co-editor of On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), and Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017). His forthcoming book, Eleven Conservative Novels You Must Read . . . but Probably Have not, will be published by Regnery.
Read about his pick of novels by Evelyn Waugh.

Dr. Alan Schreck has been a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville since 1978. He specializes in Church history and renewal, St. Francis of Assisi, Catholic doctrine and apologetics, pneumatology, ecclesiology, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and of Pope St. John Paul II. He has authored numerous books, including several on the Holy Spirit and the Catholic charismatic renewal movement: Your Life in the Holy Spirit (Word Among Us Press); The Gift: Discovering the Holy Spirit in Catholic Tradition (Paraclete Press); A Mighty Current of Grace: The Story of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. 
Read his interview on the Catholic Charismatic Renewal

Dr. Thomas P. Scheck (PhD, University of Iowa), taught for 16 years at Ave Maria University as Associate Professor of Classics and Theology. He currently teaches Latin at Naples Classical Academy, Naples, Florida. He is a translator of many works of the Church Fathers, including Origen, St. Jerome, St. Chromatius, and of Renaissance scholars such as Erasmus and St. John Fisher.
Read his interview on Origen.

Dr. R. Jared Staudt specializes in systematic theology, the evangelization of culture, catechesis, Catholic education, Church history, and Thomas Aquinas. He has taught at the Augustine Institute since 2009, teaching part-time since 2014. He has also served as the director of the Catholic Studies Program at the University of Mary, director of religious education in two parishes, co-founder of two high schools, as associate superintendent for Mission and Formation at the Archdiocese of Denver. He is currently Director of Content for Exodus 90, a ninety-day spiritual exercise for men.
Read his interview on the Catholic Education.

Dr. Andrew Swafford is Professor of Theology at Benedictine College. He is a national speaker on a variety of topics and co-author of A Catholic Guide to the Old Testament, Gift and Grit: How Heroic Virtue Can Change Your Life and Relationships (with his wife Sarah), and What We Believe: The Beauty of the Catholic Faith (with Marcellino D’Ambrosio) and co-host of Ascension’s video series filmed in Rome under the same title. He is general editor and contributor to Ascension’s Great Adventure Catholic Bible. Among his other publications are Ascension’s Bible studies on Romans and Hebrews, Spiritual Survival in the Modern World, and John Paul II to Aristotle and Back Again.
Read his discussion of biblical typology.

Darrick Taylor teaches Humanities at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida. He earned his PhD in British History from the University of Kansas. He also produces a podcast, Controversies in Church History, which dives into important and sensitive issues in the history of the Catholic Church.
Read his discussion of liberalism and Catholicism in the nineteenth-century.

Craig Steven Titus is Professor and Director of the Department of Integrative Studies at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences and the School of Counseling at Divine Mercy University. He previously worked as a Researcher and Instructor at the University of Fribourg, where he served as Vice-Director of the St. Thomas Aquinas Institute for Theology and Culture and Vice-Director of the Servais Pinckaers Archives. He is the author of Resilience and the Virtue of Fortitude: Aquinas in Dialogue with the Psychosocial Sciences (CUA Press, 2006), editor of the Newman Lecture Series, and co-editor of The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology (CUA Press, 2005). In 2020, Titus received the Expanded Reason Award from The Francisco de Vitoria University, in collaboration with the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation, for the co-edited publication entitled: The Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person: Integration of Psychology and Mental Health Practice (Divine Mercy University Press, 2020).
Read his discussion of the work of Servais Pinckaers OP.

Roger Teichmann is Lecturer in Philosophy at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. His research interests are ethics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, Wittgenstein, and Elizabeth Anscombe. His books include The Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (Oxford University Press 2008), Nature, Reason and the Good Life (Oxford University Press 2011), Wittgenstein on Thought and Will (Routledge 2015) and Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethics (Anthem Press 2022). He has edited Elizabeth Anscombe: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers (4 vols., Routledge 2016), The Oxford Handbook of Elizabeth Anscombe (Oxford University Press), and is co-editor of The Moral Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (Imprint Academic 2016).
Read his discussion of G.E.M. Anscombe and her work.

Christopher Tollefsen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina. He works broadly in ethics, in an area of natural law philosophy popularly called the "new" natural law theory. He is the author of Lying and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press), co-author of The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession (University of Notre Dame Press), and co-editor of Natural Law Ethics in Theory and Practice: A Joseph Boyle Reader (Catholic University of America Press).
Read his discussion of the theoretical and moral problems surrounding lying.

Peter Ulrickson, a mathematician, teaches at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of A Brief Quadrivium and Teaching the Quadrivium, books that reveal the enduring significance of the mathematical disciplines of the traditional liberal arts, and make them newly accessible for students and teachers today. Ulrickson also publishes research in various fields of modern mathematics.
Read his interview on the Quadrivium.

Fr Michael Ward is a priest of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. An associate member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, he is also Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University. His books include Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford University Press, 2008) and After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man (Word on Fire Academic, 2021).
Read his interview on the work of C.S. Lewis.

Thomas M. Ward is UNSC Assistant Director and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University. His research is on the history of philosophy (especially medieval), the philosophy of religion, and metaphysics. He is the author of John Duns Scotus on Parts, Wholes, and Hylomorphism (Brill), Divine Ideas (Cambridge University Press) and Ordered by Love: An Introduction to John Duns Scotus (Angelico Press).
Read his discussion of John Duns Scotus and how to approach the Franciscan theologian's works.

Petroc Willey is married to Katherine and has four children and six grandchildren, one in heaven. Originally from England, he has lived in Steubenville, Ohio, since 2015 where he is a Professor of Theology at Franciscan University. Before his move to the United States, Petroc worked in Catholic education, in Oxford and in Birmingham, for more than twenty-five years, in seminary and lay institutions, and in both traditional and distance education. He was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI a Consultor for the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and by Pope Francis as a Consultor to the Dicastery for Evangelization.
He is the author of Reading the Catechism: How to Discover and Appreciate its Riches, and co-author of The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Craft of Catechesis, The Joy of the Gospel: A Companion Guide to Evangelium Gaudii, A Year with the Catechism: 365 Day Reading Plan, Speaking the Truth in Love: The Catechism and the New Evangelization, and Companion to the Directory for Catechesis.
Read his interview on catechesis.

Fr. Luke Wilgenbusch (STL, Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas) is a priest of the Diocese of Nashville, where he currently serves as director of vocations. He is the author of Saved as through Fire: A Thomistic Account of Purgatory, Temporal Punishment, and Satisfaction (Emmaus Academic).
Read his explanation of Purgatory and Prayer for the Faithful Departed.

James Matthew Wilson is Cullen Foundation Chair in English Literature and the Founding Director of the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing, at the University of Saint Thomas, Houston. He also serves as the Poet-in-Residence for the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Liturgy, as Poetry Editor of Modern Age magazine, and series editor of Colosseum Books, of the Franciscan University at Steubenville Press. He is an award-winning scholar of philosophical-theology and literature. As a poet and critic of contemporary poetry, his work appears regularly in such magazines and journals as First Things, The Wall Street Journal​, The Hudson Review, Modern Age, The New Criterion, Dappled Things, Measure, The Weekly Standard, Front Porch Republic, The Raintown Review, National Review, and The American Conservative. His books includeThe Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition (CUA, 2017); The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking (Wiseblood, 2015); The Catholic Imagination in Modern American Poetry (Wiseblood Books, 2014); The Strangeness of the Good (Angelico, 2020), the poetic sequence, The River of the Immaculate Conception (Wiseblood, 2019), and I Believe in One God: Praying the Nicene Creed ​(CTS, 2022).
Read his interview on contemporary American poets that every Catholics should read.

Dr. William M. Wright IV is Professor at the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts at Duquense University. He is a specialist in New Testament studies with special focus on the Johannine writings. He is the author of numerous articles and several books: Rhetoric and Theology: Figural Reading of John 9 (Walter de Gruyter, 2009); The Bible and Catholic Ressourcement: Essays in Scripture and Theology (Emmaus Academic, 2019); and, with Francis Martin, The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) (Baker Academic, 2015) and Encountering the Living God in Scripture: Theological and Philosophical Principles for Interpretation (Baker Academic, 2019). He has been elected to the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas and serves on the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Ecumenical Dialogue. He is also a Lay Dominican.

Read his interview on the five best books on the Gospel According to John.