Book Panel: Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States (2021)
Panel Description
“My idea of self, of family, of community, of the wider world, comes straight from my religion,” Joe Biden has written. What does Biden’s Catholicism bring to his presidency and to the American story at a potentially pivotal moment? Massimo Faggioli, a leading Catholic theologian, historian, and author of the newly released Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States will discuss that in conversation with syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne and Heidi Schlumpf, executive editor of National Catholic Reporter. Paul Moses, professor emeritus at Brooklyn College, is the moderator.
Panelists Bios
Dr. Massimo Faggioli, born in 1970, is full professor in the department of theology and religious studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia) and contributing writer to Commonweal magazine. He received his PhD in Religious History from the University of Turin in 2002 with a thesis on the history of the appointment of bishops after the Council of Trent. He later continued his studies on the Second Vatican Council at the renowned institute of “Giovanni XXIII” for Religious Studies in Bologna, Italy. From Italy he traveled first to Boston where he was visiting fellow at the Jesuit Institute at Boston College from 2008-2009 before moving to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2009 where he remained teaching until 2016. His books and articles have been widely published in eight languages and include: “Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning” (Paulist, 2012); “True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum concilium” (Liturgical Press, 2012); “Sorting Out Catholicism. A Brief History of the New Ecclesial Movements” (Liturgical Press, 2014); “Pope Francis: Tradition in Transition” (Paulist Press, 2015); “A Council for the Global Church. Receiving Vatican II in History” (Fortress, 2015); “The Rising Laity: Ecclesial Movements since Vatican II” (Paulist Press, 2016). Massimo Faggioli is a young, bright, articulate, theologian of the new generation of Catholic intellectuals who is making a very significant contribution to theology, ecclesiology and church history in the contemporary Church.
E.J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. He is also a government professor at Georgetown University, a visiting professor at Harvard University, and a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. His book “Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country” was published by St. Martin’s Press in February 2020. Before joining The Post in 1990 as a political reporter, Dionne spent 14 years at the New York Times, where he covered politics and reported from Albany, Washington, Paris, Rome and Beirut. His coverage of the Vatican was described by the Los Angeles Times as the best in two decades. In 2014-2015, Dionne was the vice president of the American Political Science Association. He is the author of several books, including “One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported” (co-authored with Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, 2017) and “Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism – From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond” (2016). Dionne is the editor of several volumes, including “We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama” (2017), co-edited with MSNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid, and “What’s God Got to Do with the American Experiment” (2000), co-edited with John J. DiIulio.
Heidi Schlumpf was named NCR’s executive editor in 2020, after serving as the publication’s national correspondent for three years. As national correspondent, Schlumpf did in-depth coverage on the influence of money in the church, sex abuse, politics, women’s issues, racism and young people in the church. Her work has included investigations into Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) and popular Catholic author Matthew Kelly. She previously wrote an opinion column for NCR for almost a decade. Schlumpf has three decades of experience covering religion, spirituality, social justice and women’s issues, having previously served as managing editor of U.S. Catholic magazine and as a reporter at Chicago’s archdiocesan newspaper and secular newspapers in California and Wisconsin. Her work has been published by CNN Opinion, Sojourners and Huffington Post. She taught journalism as an associate professor of communication at Aurora University in Illinois. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, she also earned a master’s of theological studies from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary at Northwestern University, where she studied with feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether. She is the author/editor of three books, including Elizabeth A. Johnson: Questing for God (Liturgical Press, 2016), the Notre Dame Book of Prayer (Ave Maria, 2010) and While We Wait: Spiritual & Practical Advice for Those Trying to Adopt (ACTA, 2009). Schlumpf is based in Chicago, where she lives with her husband, Edmund, and their two children, and where she is a member of St. Gertrude Parish.
Paul Moses is professor emeritus of journalism at Brooklyn College and a former reporter and editor at New York Newsday, where he was the lead writer on a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting. He is a contributing writer at Commonweal and author of The Saint and the Sultan: the Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace (Doubleday, 2009), which won the 2010 Catholic Press Association award for best history book, and An Unlikely Union: the Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians (NYU, 2015). He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Maureen.