Susan K. Wood is chair of the department of theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and she is member of the Sisters of Charity order of Leavenworth, Kan. Her books include Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of Henri de Lubac (Eerdmans, 1998) and Sacramental Orders (Liturgical Press, 2000). She can discuss the historical development of the priesthood, […]

The Rev. James Bacik is former campus minister and adjunct professor of humanities at the University of Toledo. His books include Apologetics and the Eclipse of Mystery and Catholic Spirituality: Its History and Challenge.

The Rev. Richard J. Hauser is professor of systemic and spiritual theology at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. He says that the commitment and ability to live celibately is the essential condition for ordination to priesthood, for gays and for straights.

J.D. Davidson is an emeritus professor of sociology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. He specializes in the study of American Catholicism. He co-authored a 2004 study of American Catholic attitudes and his books include Catholicism in Motion: The Church in American Society.

Edward P. Hahnenberg is chair of Catholic systemic theology at John Carroll in Ohio. He is author of Ministries: A Relational Approach (Crossroad, 2003). He can discuss the role and future of lay ministers in the priest shortage.

R. Scott Appleby is professor of religious history at the University of Notre Dame and John M. Regan Jr. director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He teaches courses in American religious history and comparative religious movements and is the co-editor of Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America (Indiana University Press, 1995).

Mark Jordan is a professor of Christian thought at Harvard University’s Divinity School and is an expert on issues of homosexuality in Catholic life, especially in the priesthood. He is the author of The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, 2002) and Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality (2011). He calls on the church to […]

Paul R. Dokecki is a professor in the department of human and organizational development of George Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He wrote The Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis: Reform and Renewal in the Catholic Community (Georgetown University Press, 2004).

Jason Berry, a Louisiana journalist, broke the first stories of sexual abuse by priests in 1985. He wrote Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children and, with Gerald Renner, Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II.