Professor, St Joseph’s Seminary, New York
David Bonagura Jr is a Cardinal Newman Society Fellow for Eucharistic Education and a member of its new Eucharistic Task Force. This is a new initiative designed to promote and improve Eucharistic and liturgical education in Catholic schools. He is also adjunct professor of theology at Catholic Distance University as well as adjunct professor of classical languages at St Joseph’s Seminary, New York.
Executive director, Regina Academies
Mark Bradford, who resides in Pennsylvania, serves as the executive director of the Regina Academies, a network of Philadelphia-area schools offering Catholic classical education for students from pre-kindergarten to grade 12. Bradford worked for ten years at St Charles Borromeo Seminary and then served as headmaster of a parent-founded, Catholic K-12 classical academy in western Pennsylvania. In 2023, Bradford became the Fellow for Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities for the Word on Fire Institute.
Board chair, America Media
Susan Braddock is board chair of America Media – a position she will hold until the end of 2024 before stepping down – and formerly board chair of the New York Cristo Rey School. Her other board commitments have included Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Aspen Music Festival. A graduate of Manhattanville College, she is married to Richard Braddock. They have six children.
Professor, Harvard
Arthur Brooks is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Public and Nonprofit Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. Previously he was the 11th president of the American Enterprise Institute, He is the author of 13 books and regarded as a dynamic public speaker.
Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
Professor Carter Snead is a super-star academic at Notre Dame where he is director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and concurrent professor of political science. He is the author of the bestselling ethics book What It Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press). The Wall Street Journal called it “among the most important works of moral philosophy produced so far in this century”. It is regarded as a milestone in intellectual under-standing of the US abortion debate.
President, Iona University
Carey has overseen Iona leap to a ranking of 19th out of 400 colleges rated in the Wall Street Journal’s 2024 Best Colleges Guide for Best Student Experience and a very respectable 66th overall. Not bad for a college that only became a university in 2022. Founded in 1940 by the Christian Brothers, Carey has masterminded Iona’s transition to university status with a new campus in Bronxville, New York.
President, Walsh University
Despite retiring twice in his career, Collins is guiding Walsh through a vintage period in the university’s 64th year. Collins oversees around 2,300 students, of whom around 60 participated in the March for Life rally in Washington in 2023. He is a graduate of the National War College and has been awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
President, Georgetown University
John J DeGioia, 66, is an academic administrator, philosopher, and member of the Order of Malta. He has been the first lay president of Georgetown University in Washington, DC since his appointment in 2001. He was also the first lay president of any Jesuit university in America. DeGioia is currently Georgetown’s longest-serving president. In 1994, he married his wife, Theresa, at Holy Trinity Church in a ceremony presided over by DeGioia’s uncle, John Begley, a Jesuit priest. Though he may not identify as a public Catholic leader, DeGioia runs an important liberal-leaning Catholic university.
Senior executive, National Institute of Health
Dr Anthony Fauci is a decorated immunologist and senior executive at the National Institutes of Health, as well as a former medical adviser to the president. He played a significant, often controversial, role for the US government during the Covid-19 pandemic.
William P Reynolds Professor of History, University of Notre Dame
A leading global Catholic historian and writer for the Catholic Herald, Fernández-Armesto is a history professor at Notre Dame and an expert on global history, environmental history, the history of exploration and exploitation, and does graduate supervision mainly in the early modern history of colonial societies. He has received many awards, including the World History Association Book Prize. His books include, as editor, the Oxford History of the World. He has written about his concerns that religion is not taken seriously enough on many Catholic campuses and has a loyal following from his students.
Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Mary Ann Glendon, 85, is a law professor and Catholic thought leader who famously declined to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal due to the university inviting Barack Obama as a key speaker. She argued that endorsing Obama was contradictory to the Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2004 decree that Catholic institutions should not give “awards, honours or platforms” to “those who act in defiance of [Catholic] fundamental moral principles”. She is the recipient of the National Humanities Medal and an expert on bioethics and human rights in international law. She is pro-life and a strong advocate of unborn rights. Glendon has taught at Boston College Law School and Harvard Law School. From 2008 to 2009, she was the US ambassador to the Holy See. In 2013, Pope Francis named Glendon a member of the pontifical commission of inquiry into the Vatican Bank. She is on the board of directors for First Things. In 2018, she was honoured by Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture with their Evangelium Vitae Medal. She has three daughters.
President, Catholic University of America
Dr Peter K Kilpatrick became the 16th president of the Catholic University of America in July 2022. He is widely published and holds or shares 12 patents in chemical engineering. He began his career at North Carolina State University and, after 24 years, was recruited by the University of Notre Dame to be its dean of engineering. Since 2018, he has been the provost and vice president for academic affairs for the Illinois Institute of Technology, an institution dedicated to uplifting people of all backgrounds. Combining research and faith is important to Kilpatrick, who became Catholic as an adult.
Professor of Philosophy, Boston College
Peter John Kreeft, 86, is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and the King’s College. He converted to Catholicism during his college years after he “discovered in the early Church such Catholic elements as the centrality of the Eucharist, the real presence, prayers to saints, devotion to Mary, an insistence on visible unity, and apostolic succession”. He is the author of over 80 books on Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics. He also formulated, together with Ronald K Tacelli, 20 arguments for the existence of God in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics.
Professor of Politics, Assumption College
Daniel J Mahoney is professor emeritus at Assumption University, senior fellow at the Real Clear Foundation, and senior writer at Law and Liberty. He has written widely on politics and political thought, statesmanship, and religion and public life. In 1999, Mahoney was the recipient of the Prix Raymond Aron. He is the author of several books and has written for Crisis, First Things, the New Criterion and the Wall Street Journal. He is an authority on the French political philosopher Raymond Aron and the Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
President, Gonzaga University
Thayne McCulloch describes himself as “raised in the church and educated in the Church”. He is head of one of the older Jesuit universities, founded in 1887. At Gonzaga, McCulloch has ensured that Jesuit social values are maintained and describes himself as having been “deeply impacted” by the teaching of St Ignatius Loyal.
Provost, University of Notre Dame
John McGreevy, 60, has been the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost of the University of Notre Dame since July 2022. He was formerly the dean of the arts faculty from 2008 until 2018. A graduate of Notre Dame, McGreevy is an acclaimed historian, who is the Francis A McAnaney Professor of History at the university. He is married to Jean McManus, a librarian in Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries. He is the author of Catholicism and American Freedom, among other books on Catholicism.
President, Benedictine College
As president, Stephen Minnis has seen Benedictine College, in Atchinson, Kansas, become a premier sponsor of the National Eucharistic Revival. He is a former pupil at the college and a former assistant district attorney.
Provost and dean, Boston College
Dr David Quigley, an inspirational figure to a generation of BC students, has been provost and dean of faculties since 2014. He is an expert on 19th-century American history, New York urban history and the Civil War, and was awarded BC’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007. His achievements include scouting and recruiting new faculty members and promoting “environmental studies and Islamic civilisation”.
President and founder, the Cardinal Newman Society
Patrick Reilly is a highly influential figure in US Catholic education as the founder of the Newman Guide to Catholic education. He has appeared on EWTN, Fox News and MSNBC talking about the crisis in US education. Before founding the Newman Society, Reilly served as editor and research fellow at CapitalResearch Center, executive director of Citizens for Educational Freedom, higher education analyst at the US House of Representatives, media consultant for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and chairman of American Collegians for Life.
President, College of the Holy Cross
Vincent Rougeau is a legal scholar who currently serves as president of the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts; he is the first lay and first black president in the history of the university. Rougeau has written extensively on law and religions with a particular focus on Catholic social teaching and the law. His book Christians in the American Empire: Faith and Citizenship in the New World Order came out in 2008. He is a senior fellow at the Centre for Theology and Community in London. In 2023, he denounced the Worcester Diocese’s policy that school staff and students in the diocese are prohibited from using pronouns, clothing or gender-segregated facilities that do not align with their birth sex assigned at birth.
Teacher and author
Nick Ripatrazone is an author, editor, critic and a US columnist for the Catholic Herald. He also teaches English at Lenape Valley Regional High School in Stanhope, New Jersey. His voice is increasingly influential in Catholic culture and education today, as he is also the culture editor for Image Journal, a contributing editor at The Millions, and a columnist for Literary Hub. He has written for Rolling Stone, GQ, the Atlantic, the Paris Review and Esquire. He is also the author of Longing for an Absent God and Wild Belief.
President, Loyola University Maryland
Terrence M Sawyer assumed the role of the 25th president of Loyola University Maryland in January 2022. Before his tenure at Loyola, Sawyer worked as an attorney for the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. He also practiced civil and criminal law in Baltimore City, holding membership in the Maryland State Bar. Sawyer and his wife are parishioners at the Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland.
Professor of Theology, University of St Thomas, Houston
Randall Smith is Professor of Theology at the University of St Thomas in Houston. He is also a Cardinal Newman Society Fellow for Eucharistic Liturgy and a member of its Eucharistic Education Task Force, which is expanding substantially in 2023-2024 as part of the the US bishops’ Eucharistic Revival effort.
President, University of Dallas
As president of one of the leading Catholic universities which can still call itself properly Catholic, Sanford says that his work as president has “brought the many other facets of his career into focus”. He sees his role as “promoting the good work of others” as part of his job. The Newman Guide is an admirer and describes the University of Dallas as having a “national reputation for fidelity to Catholicism and strong academics”.
President, Santa Clara University
Julie Sullivan is the 30th president of Santa Clara University.She is a leader in Catholic higher education and an internationally recognised scholar in economics. She joined Santa Clara in 2022, having previously served as president of the University of St Thomas, where she created dynamic academic programmes and championed social innovation. She is the first lay and first woman president in Santa Clara University’s history.
President, Fordham University
Tania Tetlow is the 33rd president of Fordham University – the first layperson and woman to hold that office. She had been the 17th president of Loyola University New Orleans, where she was the first woman and layperson to lead Loyola since the Society of Jesus founded it in 1912. A Catholic born in New York and raised in New Orleans, she has deep ties to the Jesuits and to Fordham.
Dean of students, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts
Dr Michael Taylor oversees a tiny number of students compared to bigger legacy Catholic colleges, but is getting attention for making Thomas More College – located in a leafy part of New Hampshire with a spacious colonial farmhouse as HQ – a Catholic oasis of intellectual fidelity at a time of rising secularism on campus. He is proud of making the institution a “Catholic island” liberal arts college that stands up for Catholic values against the “passing fancies of the age”.
President, Belmont Abbey College
A charismatic leader and teacher, Bill Thierfelder is a former Olympic trials athlete and a knight of Malta. In 2023, Belmont Abbey’s faculty was ranked first in undergraduate teaching in the south by US News & World Report.
This article first appeared in the February 2024 issue of the Catholic Herald magazine. To subscribe to our multiple-award-winning magazine and have it delivered to your door anywhere in the world, go here.
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