Brother Charles Hilken is a history professor at St. Mary’s College of California. Papal elections and the history of the papacy are among his areas of expertise.

Ulrich Lehner is an associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. He knew Pope Benedict XVI personally and studied in his department at the University of Regensburg in Germany. His areas of expertise include the history of Christianity after 1500 and global Catholic studies, as well as gender and race in the […]

Rabbi Abie Ingber is executive director at the Center of Interfaith Community Engagement at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He can discuss the pope as a world leader in Catholic-Jewish dialogue.

The Rev. Thomas Worcester is a history professor at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where he teaches a course on the papacy. He is co-editor of The Papacy Since 1500: From Italian Prince to Universal Pastor (2010).

Paul Lakeland holds the Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., Chair in Catholic Studies at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn. His areas of expertise include the role of the laity in the church and recentralization of authority under recent popes.

Nancy Dallavalle is an associate professor of religious studies at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., where she teaches a course on the papacy. She is an expert on popes and the papacy, the pope as a world leader and media treatment of the pope.

The Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies is an organization of statisticians and researchers who collect and publish information about American denominations and faith groups. Every 10 years they publish the Religious Congregations Membership Study, the last of which appeared in 2010.

American Piety in the 21st Century, an extensive survey of beliefs and practices released in 2006, was conducted by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. This study counted one-third of Americans as evangelicals, compared with the Pew study’s one-fourth. It numbered the unaffiliated at 10.8 percent, much lower than the new Pew study and the […]

William Swatos Jr. is executive director of the Religious Research Association, a group of academic and religious professionals that applies scientific research methods to the study of religion. It is a project of the Hartford Seminary. He is located in Illinois.