J. Peter Pham is former director of the William R. Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Virginia. He is also a former Vatican diplomat who worked under John Paul II and is author of Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession. Currently, he is the director of the Michael […]

Diana Hayes is a retired professor of systematic theology at Georgetown University, gave an opening speech at Sisters, a conference on the role of women’s leadership in Catholicism and Islam, in 2003. The conference took place at the Catholic Theological Union. It began on the first day of the war in Iraq.

Shireen T. Hunter is director of the Carnegie Project on Reformist Islam at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She is also a distinguished scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she directed the Islam Program from 1998 to 2005. She is author of Reformist Voices of Islam: Mediating Islam and Modernity (2008) and […]

The Rev. Patrick J. Ryan is a Jesuit priest at Fordham University in New York, where he serves as McGinley Professor of Religion and Society. Ryan is an expert on Islam and the tensions with the West.

John Borelli is special assistant to the president for interreligious initiatives at Georgetown University. He has been a longtime leader in Catholic dialogue with other religions, especially Islam. For 16 years he was associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Rev. Francis X. Clooney is a Jesuit priest and the Parkman Professor of Divinity at Harvard University. His interest areas include theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India, and the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened through the study of […]

The Minaret of Freedom Institute, based in Bethesda, Md., conducts independent scholarly research into issues involving Islam in the U.S. and policy issues affecting Muslim countries. The institute’s emphasis is on Islam, freedom and free markets, and the political and economic implications of Islamic law.

The United Religions Initiative, based in San Francisco, promotes interfaith cooperation and ending religiously motivated violence. It has “cooperation circles” around the globe.

The Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, based in Chicago, sponsors interfaith dialogue and encourages cooperation among religious and spiritual communities and institutions.