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.

Gregory A. Smith is the associate director of research at the Pew Research Center. He’s an expert on religion in America. Arrange interviews through Anna Schiller.

Joseph Chinnici is a Franciscan friar and professor of history at the Franciscan School of Theology, which is affiliated with the University of San Diego. He is the author of When Values Collide: The Catholic Church, Sexual Abuse and the Challenges of Leadership.

See a June 4, 2010, roundup by Christianity Today of Christian activist groups’ reactions to the crisis. That roundup includes: Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council blamed the Obama administration for weak leadership in the Middle East; Jim Rice, editor of Sojourners, said the crisis would not end until Israel’s blockade of Gaza and its “illegal occupation” of Palestinian territory ended