The Rev. Stephen Sundborg is president of Seattle University. He was in Vatican City 25 years ago and witnessed the announcement of the new pope at his first appearance.

Sally Vance-Trembath is a lecturer at Santa Clara University. Her areas of expertise include the pope and the Catholic Church today.

The Rev. Thomas P. Rausch is a professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A Catholic priest, Rausch is the author of Authority and Leadership in the Church: Past Directions and Future Possibilities.

Dennis Martin is an associate professor of theological history at Loyola University in Chicago and an expert on papal history and Pope John Paul II’s life, history and writings.

The Rev. Steven M. Avella is associate professor of history at Marquette University in Milwaukee and an expert on American Catholic history and the history of the American West.

John Norris is a theology professor at the University of Dallas and an expert on Catholic history and the teachings of John Paul II.

Charles E. Curran is the Scurlock Professor of Human Values at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He specializes in moral theology, social ethics and the role of the church as a moral and political actor in society. He is a liberal theologian who was dismissed from Catholic University of America for his teachings on human sexuality after […]

The Rev. William F. Maestri is a theologian and spokesman for the Archdiocese of New Orleans with a specialty in bioethics. He can talk about Pope John Paul II’s philosophical defense of human dignity in all contexts — medical, economic, etc.

The Rev. Peter J. Bernardi is an associate professor of religious studies at Loyola University in Chicago. He can talk about the papacy in the contemporary world. He contributed an essay to the collection in Catholicism Contending With Modernity: Roman Catholic Modernism and Anti-Modernism in Historical Context.