The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is pleased to partner with the University of Notre Dame’s Global Catholic Research Initiative to welcome Rev. Roberto Regoli to the University as a visiting scholar for the Spring 2026 semester. Father Regoli is professor of contemporary Church history and former director of the Department of History and Cultural Heritage of the Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, as well as the recently appointed president of the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI. During his residency with the de Nicola Center, Father Regoli will serve as the inaugural visiting fellow of Notre Dame’s Global Catholic Research Initiative.

“We are honored to work together with our friends in the Global Catholic Research Initiative to welcome Father Regoli, a world-renowned expert on the modern Holy See and a longtime friend and collaborator of the de Nicola Center,” said Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center and John J Cavanaugh Associate Professor of the Humanities. “He has been an invaluable partner to the Center over the years, and we look forward to the fruitful conversations that our student and faculty fellows will share with him this semester.”

“I couldn’t be more delighted to join the de Nicola Center in welcoming Father Regoli as the first visiting fellow of the Global Catholic Research Initiative,” said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the Global Catholic Research Initiative and John A. O’Brien Collegiate Professor of American Studies and History. “Father Regoli’s deep engagement with the history of global Catholicism, as well as his affiliation with the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, make him an ideal inaugural GCRI Fellow. While I look forward to learning more from him this semester about the history of papal diplomacy, I am particularly eager to glean his insights about how GCRI can stimulate field-defining research across broad intellectual networks on Catholicism as a dynamic, global tradition.”

Father Regoli’s research focuses on the contemporary papacy from Pius VII to Benedict XVI, particularly in the realm of pontifical diplomacy. He serves as editor of the journal Archivum Historiae Pontificiae and is the author of Beyond the Crises in the Church: The Pontificate of Benedict XVI (St. Augustine’s Press, 2024). In collaboration with the de Nicola Center, he helped to organize the 2024 international conference “Benedict XVI’s Legacy: Unfinished Debates on Faith, Culture, and Politics.”

“I am honored to be at the de Nicola Center to build upon the scholarly partnership begun two years ago with the two-part conference, first at the Gregorian and then at Notre Dame, discussing Pope Benedict XVI’s legacy,” said Father Regoli, who organized the conference with Rev. John Paul Kimes (University of Notre Dame) and Rev. Jordi Pujol (Pontificia Università della Santa Croce). The collaboration led to two published volumes of the papers presented at the conference (one to be released by University of Notre Dame Press), as well as the University of Notre Dame’s second-ever Ratzinger Prize for the conference’s keynote speaker, Cyril O’Regan (University of Notre Dame).

On January 27, 2026, Father Regoli was announced as the successor to Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J., as the new president of the Ratzinger Foundation, which works to promote the late pontiff’s theological vision through conferences, scholarly research, and international partnerships. The Foundation also administers the annual Ratzinger Prize, the most prestigious award in theology for “scholars who have distinguished themselves with particular merit in the activity of publication and/or scientific research.”

During his time in residence at Notre Dame, Father Regoli will conduct research in the Hesburgh Library as part of a book project on the Holy See’s role in international relations from the French Revolution to the present. He will also offer a public lecture on his work and mentor the de Nicola Center’s graduate and undergraduate Sorin Fellows to support their own scholarship and research.