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.

Read a June 2, 2010, Catholic News Service story about Pope Benedict XVI’s criticism of the Israeli raid and his call for world leaders to seek just solutions for the people of Gaza.

Sandro Magister is a Vaticanologist and an Italian journalist whose website, Chiesa, has an English-language archive of Magister’s insider essays on the Vatican, including all the developments of Benedict’s papacy.

Gregory Erlandson and Matthew Bunson are co-authors of a May 2010 book, “Pope Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis: Working for Reform and Renewal.” Their book aims for “a stronger balance” between media reports and what the authors say is the pope’s actual track record on clergy abuse. Bunson is a church historian and […]

Chester L. Gillis is dean of Georgetown College, a professor in the department of theology and director of the Program on the Church and Interreligious Dialogue in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. He is an expert in Catholocism and the editor of The Political Papacy: John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Their Influence.

The Rev. Patrick Howell is vice president for mission and ministry at the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University. He co-edited the book Empowering Authority: The Charisms of Episcopacy and Primacy in the Church Today. He has frequently written about Pope Benedict XVI for the Seattle Times.

Sandra Yocum is chair of religious studies at the University of Dayton who specializes in the history of theology, which is Benedict’s forte.