Professor of Moral Theology, The Catholic University of America

Joseph Capizzi, Ph.D.

Expertise: Social Ethics, Moral Theology, Law and Religion

Joseph Capizzi, Ph.D. in Theology, is an Ordinary Professor of Moral Theology at The Catholic University of America. He has published widely on just war theory, bioethics, the history of moral theology, and political liberalism. Dr. Capizzi worked as a research fellow at the VADM James B. Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy from 2013 to 2014.

IHE Scholar

J. Joel Alicea

 J. Joel Alicea is an Assistant Professor of Law at The Catholic University of America and the Co-Director of Catholic University’s Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. He is a Nonresident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Of Counsel at Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. He previously served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., on the United States Supreme Court and for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
 
Professor Alicea’s scholarship focuses on constitutional theory. His scholarship has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Virginia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, among other publications. He has also been active in public debates about constitutional law, publishing essays in places such as City Journal and National Affairs.
 
Professor Alicea graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2013 and summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University in 2010.

Media Fellow

Jack Butler

Jack Butler is submissions editor at National Review Online, and a 2022–2023 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow at the Fund for American Studies. His writing has examined the role and proper application of Catholic teaching in politics, civil society, and popular culture. A proud product of Catholic schooling, he is from Cincinnati, Ohio. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Media Fellow

Ed Condon

Ed Condon is the co-founder and editor of The Pillar, the online Catholic news site. Previously the DC editor of the Catholic News Agency and an associate editor of the Catholic Herald magazine, his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review, the Washington Examiner, the Spectator, the Bulwark, First Things, as well as several academic and legal journals.

He is also a canon lawyer, having practiced in dioceses across three continents and the Holy See. Previously he spent nearly ten years working in professional politics in the United Kingdom.”

Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina

Jennifer A. Frey, Ph.D.

Expertise: Philosophy of Action, Ethics

Jennifer A. Frey, Ph.D. in Philosophy, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina, working at the intersection of the philosophy of action and ethics. She was recently a PI of a three year, 2.1 million dollar research project titled, “Virtue, Happiness, and Meaning of Life.” She is the author of many articles and recently co-edited a book titled, Self-Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology. She runs a popular philosophy podcast, “Sacred and Profane Love.”

Associate Professor of Politics, The Catholic University of America

Jakub Grygiel, Ph.D.

Expertise: Foreign Policy

Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor of Politics at The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC). In 2017-2018 he was a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State in the Office of Policy Planning working on European affairs. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and on the faculty of SAIS-Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC. He is the author of Return of the Barbarians (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Great Powers and Geopolitical Change (JHU Press, 2006), and co-author with Wess Mitchell of The Unquiet Frontier (Princeton University Press, 2016). His writings on international relations and security studies have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The American Interest, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Orbis, Commentary, Parameters, as well as several U.S. and foreign newspapers. He earned a Ph.D., M.A. and an MPA from Princeton University, and a BSFS Summa Cum Laude from Georgetown University.

Fellow

Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau O.P.

A native of Louisiana, Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau became Catholic University of America’s Chaplain and Director of Campus Ministry in the summer of 2022. He entered the Dominican Province of St. Joseph in 2005. After several years of pastoral work in New York City, Fr. Guilbeau began doctoral studies in moral theology at the University of Fribourg, where he completed a dissertation on St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the common good. In addition to his teaching, Fr. Guilbeau serves as senior editor of Aleteia.org (English edition).

Executive Director

Russell Hittinger, Ph.D.

Russell Hittinger, a leading scholar of Catholic political and social thought, serves as the Executive Director of the IHE. He is a Research Professor Ordinarius in The Catholic University of America’s School of Philosophy and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, where he served on the consilium from 2006-2018. He co-directs the IHE’s Program on Catholic Political Thought and delivered the Program’s inaugural lecture, “How to Inherit a Kingdom: Reflections on the Situation of Catholic Political Thought,” in 2022.

From 1996-2019, Dr. Hittinger was the incumbent of the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he was also a Research Professor in the School of Law. He has taught at the University of Chicago, the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, Princeton University, New York University, Providence College, and Charles University in Prague. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Hittinger for a ten-year term as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. 

In January 2020, Dr. Hittinger delivered the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford. The American Catholic Philosophical Association awarded him the Aquinas Medal in November 2023.

Dr. Hittinger’s books and articles have been published by the University of Notre Dame Press, Oxford University Press, Columbia University Press, and Fordham University Press, and have appeared in the Review of Metaphysics, the Journal of Law and Religion, the Review of Politics. He has work forthcoming with Catholic University of America Press.

Director of the Center for Law & the Human Person, Columbus School of Law

Elizabeth Kirk

Elizabeth R. Kirk is the Director of the Center for Law & the Human Person, and a research associate and lecturer, at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. She is also an associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. She previously served as a law clerk for Judge Daniel A. Manion on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Elizabeth’s scholarly and professional interests are varied and interdisciplinary in nature, exploring the relationship, both complementary and contrasting, between the Catholic intellectual tradition and law. She has a special interest in matters pertaining to the family and in adoption law and policy.

Elizabeth holds an undergraduate degree cum laude in English Literature from the University of Missouri, a law degree magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame and has done graduate studies in theology. 

Associate Professor of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America

V. Bradley Lewis, Ph.D.

Expertise: Political Philosophy, Jurisprudence, Ethics

V. Bradley Lewis, Ph.D. in Government and International Studies, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America. Dr. Lewis specializes in political and legal philosophy. He has written articles on the political thought of Plato and Aristotle and on some figures in the neo-Thomist tradition, as well as on the topics of public reason and religious freedom.

Associate Professor and Chair of the Politics Department, Ave Maria University

James Patterson

James Patterson received his B.A. in Political Science and Media Studies at the University of Houston in 2002 and his Ph.D. in American Politics from the University of Virginia in 2012. He is currently an Associate Professor and Chair in the Politics Department at Ave Maria University, a Research Fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, president of the Ciceronian Society, and a faculty affiliate with the Jack Miller Center. He has held research positions at the Program for American Values and Institutions at Duke University and the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, as well as teaching positions at Hampden-Sydney College and Gettysburg College. His areas of research include race, religion, and American political development.

He has published academic work in American Political Thought, Journal of Church and State, Religions, and Perspectives on Political Science. He has published more popular essays and book reviews for National Affairs, Modern Age, Society, Law and Liberty, and Public Discourse. In early 2019, the University of Pennsylvania Press published his first book, Religion in the Public Square: Sheen, King, and Falwell. This book examines how very different religious leaders–Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and Rev. Jerry Falwell–sought to influence national politics by preaching their interpretation of American political foundations to both the voting public and political elites. He is currently working on his next book, a compilation of the political and social thought of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

He lives in Ave Maria, Florida, with his wife and four children.

Assistant Professor of Moral Theology and Ethics, The Catholic University of America

Paul Scherz, Ph.D.

Expertise: Bioethics, Religion and Science, Technology Ethics

Paul Scherz, Ph.D. in Moral Theology and in Genetics, is an Assistant Professor of Moral Theology and Ethics. Dr. Scherz researches the moral theology of biotechnology. He examines how the daily use of biomedical technologies shapes the way researchers, doctors, and patients see and manipulate the world and their bodies.

Professor of Law and Director of Summer Law Program in Rome, The Catholic University of America

Lucia Ann Silecchia, J.D.

Expertise: Environmental Law and Ethics, Catholic Social Thought and Law, Catholic Higher Education

Professor Silecchia has taught at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law since 1991. She has been an Ordinary Professor since 2004, and served as the law school’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 2004 and 2005. She also directs Catholic University’s Summer Law Program in Rome. From September 2015 to August 2017, she served as Catholic University’s Vice Provost for Policy.

Professor Silecchia recently wrote the book chapter, The When and the Where of Love: Subsidiarity as a Framework for Care of the Elderly, and was published in the newly released book Agape, Justice and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law published by Cambridge University Press (Robert F. Cochran & Zachary Kelo, editors). The chapter explores the practical and moral challenges of providing loving care to the elderly.

Media Fellow

Stephanie Slade

Stephanie Slade is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a fellow in liberal studies at the Acton Institute. In 2016, she was selected to the Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship. In 2013, she was named a finalist for the Bastiat Prize for Journalism. Her writing has also appeared in America magazine, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, and elsewhere.

Associate Professor of Sociology, The Catholic University of America

Brandon Vaidyanathan, Ph.D.

Expertise: Work and Professions, Religion and Globalization, Religion, Science, and Health

Brandon Vaidyanathan, Ph.D. in Sociology, is an Associate Professor of Sociology. His research spans several countries and examines the cultural dimensions of religious, commercial, medical, and scientific institutions. His ongoing work aims to improve the ability of faith communities to better recognize and respond to mental health needs.