John L. Allen Jr. is editor of Crux, a website specializing in coverage of the Catholic Church. He previously was the longtime Rome correspondent for National Catholic Reporter. Allen is considered a top Vaticanologist and a leading English-language expert and commentator on the papacy.

Helen M. Alvaré is a professor of law at George Mason University in Virginia. Alvaré chaired the commission investigating clerical abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and was an adviser to Pope Benedict XVI’s Pontifical Council for the Laity, as well as an ABC News consultant. Her scholarship regularly addresses current controversies about marriage, parenting and the […]

Linda Kintz is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She co-edited the book Media, Culture and the Religious Right (University of Minnesota Press, 1998).

Stewart M. Hoover is a professor of journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an expert on religion and popular culture, focusing on how many people use popular culture to make sense of life in a way religion once was used.

William D. Romanowski is a professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. He wrote Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life and Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture.

John P. Ferré is associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. His focus is on media, religion and culture. He is the editor of Channels of Belief: Religion and American Commercial Television (Iowa State University Press, 1990).

Kathleen S. Lowney is a professor of sociology at Valdosta State University in Georgia. She has written about television talk shows and morality.

Paul Levinson is a professor in Fordham University’s department of communication and media in New York.

Todd A. Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University in New York. He wrote the book The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 1996).