Professor Michael Driessen has been appointed by Pope Leo XIV to serve as a consultor on the Pontifical Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. The Dicastery is a Vatican institute dedicated to the promotion of dialogue among and within faith traditions and was established in 1964 during the Second Vatican Council. Driessen is one of only two Americans appointed to the Dicastery and one of its only social scientists.
Professor Driessen is a Professor of Political Science and the Director of the MA program in International Affairs at JCU. He teaches courses on religion and politics and directs the Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global Politics. He regularly writes about the international politics of the Catholic Church and multifaith engagement efforts at peacebuilding in contemporary global politics. He has been working on interreligious dialogue for over a decade and published the book The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue: Religious Change, Citizenship and Solidarity in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2023).
“It is a great honor to be asked by the Holy Father to serve in this position and to advise the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue,” Professor Driessen stated. His appointment reflects the growing importance of interreligious dialogue for the international priorities of the Catholic Church and the desire of the Holy See to understand recent developments in global politics.
Recent papacies, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, have emphasized interreligious dialogue in their global outreach, writing, and travels. Through documents like the Human Fraternity declaration, signed with Ahmed al Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, they have viewed interreligious collaboration as a key to mobilizing international efforts on issues like ecological care, sustainable development, migration, and peace. Pope Leo XIV has continued to promote dialogue as a response to war, polarization, and the rehabilitation of violence in international politics, and as a way to generate what he has termed an “unarmed and disarming peace.”
