Project Staff
Project Director
John C. Seitz 
is a scholar of U.S. religion. His research focuses on the historical and ethnographic study of U.S. Catholics and on theoretical questions in the study of religion. Seitz’s publications include No Closure: Catholic Practice and Boston’s Parish Shutdowns (Harvard Univ. Press, 2011) and a co-edited volume entitled Working Alternatives: American and Catholic Experiments in Work and Economy (Fordham Univ. Press, 2020). He has contributed articles to Material Religion, Church History, American Catholic Studies, U.S. Catholic Historian, and Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, among others. Seitz serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and as an Associate Director for the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University. He is working on a book about priesthood in the U.S.
Leadership Team
Bradford Hinze is the Karl Rahner Professor of Theology at Fordham University and the former Project Director of the Taking Responsibility project. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in theology from Catholic University of America, and a B.A. in philosophy from St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Throughout his career, Brad has explored theological and philosophical issues in the interpretation, criticism, and evolution of traditions of belief and praxis in the church. Most recently, Brad has been involved in various efforts to diagnose the causes of the clergy sex abuse scandal and advance appropriate responses. He has served as president of the International Network of Societies for Catholic Theology, the College Theology Society, and the Catholic Theological Society of America. His many publications include Prophetic Obedience: Ecclesiology for a Dialogical Church (Orbis, 2016).
Christine Firer Hinze is Professor of Theological and Social Ethics, former (2010-20) Director of the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, and current chair of the Department of Theology at Fordham University. She holds a B.A. in religion and an M.A. in theology from the Catholic University of America, and a Ph.D. in Christian social ethics from the University of Chicago. Her teaching and research focus on foundational and applied issues in Christian social ethics with special emphasis on the dynamics of social transformation, Catholic social thought, and economic and work justice for vulnerable women, families and groups. She is the author of Comprehending Power in Christian Social Ethics (Oxford, 1995), co-editor (with J. Patrick Hornbeck) of More Than A Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church, vol 1: Voices of Our Times (Fordham University Press, 2014), Glass Ceilings and Dirt Floors: Women, Work, and the Global Economy (Madeleva Lecture Series, Paulist Press, 2015), and Radical Sufficiency: Work, Livelihood and A Catholic Economic Ethic (Georgetown University Press, 2020. She has published scores of scholarly essays in books and in journals such as Theological Studies, The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, The Journal of Catholic Social Thought, and Studies in Christian Ethics. She was born in Chicago and raised in the city of Detroit, where she did inner-city ministry and taught high school prior to her doctoral studies.
Program Coordinator
Sónia da Silva Monteiro is a Ph.D. Candidate in Systematic theology from Fordham University and has taught Latin American Liberation Theology, and Faith and Critical Reason. She is the recipient of the Elizabeth A. Johnson Endowed Scholarship for the 2023-24 academic year at Fordham University. Sónia’s dissertation project explores, both from hermeneutical and phenomenological perspectives, the human-divine dynamism in the event of interpersonal forgiveness in the face of radical evil, while considering, at the same, the implications of this event in the public sphere. She has contributed an article on the question of forgiveness in the context of the Catholic sexual abuse crisis in Portugal to the edited volume Uma Anatomia do Poder Eclesiástico (An Anatomy of the Ecclesiastical Power). Prior to graduate school, Sónia worked as a lawyer in Portugal, with interests in criminal justice.
Former Leadership Team
Patrick Hornbeck is professor and the former chair of theology at Fordham University, where he is also Special Faculty Advisor to the Provost for Strategic Planning and a J.D. student in the law school. Trained at Oxford as an historian of religion, Hornbeck’s current work sits at the intersection of law and religion in the contemporary U.S. He has written for academic and popular publications about issues including religious freedom and antidiscrimination law, clergy sexual misconduct and tort law, and the finances and taxation of religious organizations and clergymembers. The former Vatican analyst for the Al Jazeera America television network and an occasional columnist for Religion Dispatches, Hornbeck has appeared on WNYC, CBS This Morning, and Good Morning America and has been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, and other national and international publications. He is the author or editor of eight scholarly books. Hornbeck and his husband, Patrick Bergquist, live in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.
Michael E. Lee is Professor of Theology with affiliation in Fordham’s Latin American and Latino Studies Institute, and is the current director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Born in Miami, FL of Puerto Rican parents, he holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Lee joined the Fordham faculty in 2004 and teaches courses in Roman Catholic theology, liberation theologies, Latin American and Latinx theologies, Christology, and spirituality. He has served as President of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS) and on the governing board of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA). His award-winning research includes: Revolutionary Saint: The Theological Legacy of Óscar Romero (Orbis, 2018), which was supported by a Sabbatical Grant for Researchers from the Louisville Institute and earned a Catholic Press Association Book Prize; and Bearing the Weight of Salvation: The Soteriology of Ignacio Ellacuría (Herder & Herder, 2010). His scholarly activity has always been complemented by a commitment to practical community engagement. He has lived at André House, a Catholic Worker inspired community, and engaged in liturgical music and bilingual pastoral ministry in parishes in Miami, FL, Phoenix, AZ, Chicago, IL, South Bend, IN, and New York City. He has served on the boards of international NGO’s such as CRISPAZ (Christians for Peace in El Salvador) and the Foundation for Sustainability and Peacemaking in Mesoamerica.
Former Program Coordinator
Catherine R. Osborne holds a Ph.D. in historical theology from Fordham University, and has taught American history, history of Christianity, and theology at Fordham, Franklin & Marshall College, the University of Notre Dame, and Loyola Marymount University. She is the author of American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow (University of Chicago Press, 2018) and the co-editor of American Catholic History: A Documentary Reader (NYU Press, 2017.) Her previous work on the Catholic sexual abuse crisis has included presentations at the American Historical Association, the American Catholic Historical Association, and the Von Hugel Institute for Critical Catholic Inquiry, University of Cambridge, and she is the curator of the Catholic Abuse Crisis Syllabus.
Former Postdoctoral Associate
Tim Dulle holds a Ph.D. in historical theology from Fordham University. His research focuses on the cultural history of Roman Catholics in the United States. His dissertation is titled “A Question Making Time: Corita Kent, the White Catholic Imagination, and American Catholicism.” Beyond his dissertation, Tim’s research has focused on subjects within American Catholicism, including Fordham’s nationally-renowned radio station, WFUV, and the use of artwork at U.S. Jesuit colleges and universities to commemorate the 1989 martyrs of El Salvador. Now at his fourth and fifth Jesuit institutions, his teaching is deeply informed by the Ignatian-Jesuit tradition. A St. Louis native, Tim devotes much of his free time to live music and moviegoing. He tweets from @Dulle048.
