Massimo Faggioli

Massimo Faggioli (born 1970) is a Church historian, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia) and contributing writer to Commonweal magazine. He was on the faculty at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota) from 2009 to 2016, where he was the founding director of the Institute for Catholicism and Citizenship (2014-2015). Since 2017 he has been an adjunct professor at the Broken Bay Institute - The Australian Institute of Theological Education in Sydney, Australia .

He worked in the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Studies in Bologna between 1996 and 2008 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Turin in 2002. He was visiting adjunct professor at the University of Bologna, the University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, and at the Free University of Bolzano.

His dissertation discussed the history of the appointment of bishops after the Council of Trent. He studied theology at the Karl-Eberhards-Universität Tübingen from 1999 to 2000 and was invited to work as a post-doctoral researcher in the Faculté de Théologie et Sciences Religieuses at the Université Laval, Québec, in spring 2002.

He moved to the United States in 2008, where he was visiting fellow at the Jesuit Institute at Boston College in 2008 and 2009.

His "Annual Cardinal Joseph Bernardin Lecture" held at the University of South Carolina on October 7, 2013 and published in "America Magazine" on February 24, 2014 issue, focusing on the relationship between Catholics and politics, sparked a debate with Catholic moral theologians such as William Cavanaugh and Michael Baxter.

He is full professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia). He was the founding director (2014-2015) of the Institute for Catholicism and Citizenship and on the faculty in the Department of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul (Minnesota) between 2009 and 2016. He writes regularly for newspapers and journals on the Church, religion and politics, frequently gives public lectures on the Church and on Vatican II. Faggioli was the co-chair of the study group “Vatican II Studies” for the “American Academy of Religion” (2012–2016). He has lectured in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. His publication record includes books (author and editor), articles and essays, book reviews, documentaries, and newspaper columns. His books and essays have been published in academic journals in Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia, in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Czech.

Since November 2014 he is columnist for La Croix International (formerly Global Pulse Magazine). In November 2015 he started writing for dotCommonweal blog. He also has a column in the Italian Catholic magazine Jesus and in Huffington Post. Since September 2016 he is contributing writer to Commonweal magazine.