Massimo Faggioli


Massimo Faggioli is an Italian academic, Church historian, expert on Vatican II, and professor of ecclesiology at the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin, columnist for La Croix International, and contributing writer to Commonweal. His main professorial work has mainly been at the University of St. Thomas and Villanova University.

Career

Massimo Faggioli received his B.A. & M.A. from the University of Bologna in Italy in 1994. 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 on the faculty at the University of St. Thomas from 2009 to 2016, where he was the founding director of the Institute for Catholicism and Citizenship. During this time, Faggioli was the founding co-chair of the study group "Vatican II Studies" for the American Academy of Religion. In 2017 and 2018 he was an adjunct professor at the Broken Bay Institute, part of the Australian Institute of Theological Education in Sydney, Australia. From 2016 to 2025 he was a full professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University. In 2025 he left and joined the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin. He writes for newspapers and journals on the Church, religion and politics, has written, or edited numerous books, and gives public lectures on the Church and on Vatican II.
His Annual Cardinal Joseph Bernardin Lecture was given at the University of South Carolina on 7 October 2013 and published in America on 24 February 2014 issue, focussing on the relationship between Catholics and politics.
Since November 2014 he has been columnist for La Croix International, and since 2016 for Commonweal magazine. Since 2016 he is staff writer for the Italian Catholic magazine "Il Regno".
In 2018 he received from Sacred Heart University an honorary doctorate in theology.
In 2023 he was elected in the editorial board of Concilium: International Journal of Theology.
Faggioli is a member of the steering committee for the project “Vatican II: Event and Mandate” for a twelve-volume, intercontinental commentary of Vatican II.
He is co-editor with Bryan Froehle of the series "Studies in Global Catholicism" for Brill Publishers.
Faggioli's research interests include extreme conservatism within American Catholicism as wells as Integralism.

Select publications

  • Il vescovo e il concilio. Modello episcopale e aggiornamento al Vaticano II, Il Mulino, Bologna 2005, 476 pp.
  • Breve storia dei movimenti cattolici, Carocci, Roma 2008, 146 pp.
  • Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning, New York/Mahwah, NJ, Paulist Press 2012, pp. 207
  • True Reform. Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium, Collegeville MN, Liturgical Press 2012, pp. 188.
  • Nello spirito del concilio. Movimenti ecclesiali e recezione del Vaticano II, Cinisello B.: San Paolo, 2013, 160 pp.
  • Papa Francesco e la “chiesa-mondo”, Roma, Armando Editore, 2014, 96 pp.
  • Pope John XXIII. The Medicine of Mercy, Collegeville MN, Liturgical Press, 2014, 160 pp.
  • Sorting Out Catholicism. Brief History of the New Ecclesial Movements, Collegeville MN, Liturgical Press, 2014, 224 pp.
  • Pope Francis. Tradition in Transition, New York, Paulist Press, 2015, 104 pp.
  • A Council for the Global Church. Receiving Vatican II in History, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2015, 350 pp.
  • The Legacy of Vatican II, eds. Massimo Faggioli and Andrea Vicini SJ, New York, Paulist Press, 2015, 320 pp.
  • The Rising Laity. Ecclesial Movements since Vatican II, New York, Paulist Press, 2016, 176 pp.
  • Catholicism and Citizenship. Political Cultures of the Church in the 21st Century, Collegeville MN, Liturgical Press, 2017, 165 pp.
  • Cattolicesimo, nazionalismo, cosmopolitismo. Chiesa, società e politica dal Vaticano II a papa Francesco, Roma, Armando Editore, 2018, 176 pp.
  • The Liminal Papacy of Pope Francis. Moving Toward Global Catholicity, Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 2020, 210 pp..
  • Joe Biden e il cattolicesimo negli Stati Uniti, Brescia: Morcelliana, 2021, 208 pp..
  • The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, eds. Catherine Clifford and Massimo Faggioli, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023, 777 pp.
  • Theology and Catholic Higher Education. Beyond Our Identity Crisis, Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2024, 192 pp.
  • Global Catholicism: Between Disruption and Encounter Leiden: Brill, 2024, XIII + 310 pp.
  • Da Dio a Trump. Crisi cattolica e politica americana, Brescia: Morcelliana, 2025, 240 pp.

    Awards

  • 2017 “Jerome Award” of the Catholic Library Association, for outstanding contribution and commitment to excellence in scholarship.
  • "Yves Congar Award for Theological Excellence" from Barry University in Miami, Florida on 24 January 2019.
  • 2023 recipient of the “Chaire Francqui” awarded by the Francqui Foundation for the Fall semester 2023 at the Université Catholique de Louvain