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On Tuesday (Aug. 18), Pope Leo XIV appointed two University of Notre Dame faculty members, Emmanuel Katongole and Clemens Sedmak, as consultors to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. University Trustee Kathryn “Katie” Koch, president and CEO of TCW, a global investment management firm, was also named a consultor.

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Many modern secularists and so-called enlightenment thinkers made the mistake of assuming that progress required a complete sterilization of the premodern world, that the more archaic practices and undesirable elements of the past somehow meant that all premodern values must be false or a hindrance to the future. Turkey is a prime example of this.

Read More about The Twilight of Constantinople and the New Dawn of Nostalgia

Before traveling to Turkey, I understood Greek-Turkish relations primarily through stories of conflict. Much of what I knew came from theology classes and conversations with a former professor who was himself a Greek Orthodox priest. Throughout this course, we discussed the population exchanges of the twentieth century and the changing identity of Hagia Sophia. Those conversations gave me an important historical foundation, but they also shaped the way I imagined the relationship between Greeks and Turks. I understood that Christians and Muslims had lived alongside one another for centuries, yet I assumed the wounds of history were too deep for genuine coexistence in the present.

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Scholars and practitioners from the University of Notre Dame and across the globe recently gathered in Rome to examine how religion can serve as a resource for democratic renewal amid authoritarian attempts to weaponize it. The convening aligns with larger work of the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative. 

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How does spiritual renewal shape international peacebuilding? In this video from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies' 2026 Strategic Peacebuilding Academy, Fr. Emmanuel Katongole draws on Laudato Si’ and the work of Thích Nhất Hạnh, Martin Luther King Jr., Maggy Barankitse and Desmond Tutu to explore why healing and sustainable peace demand more than just policy changes—they require a "profound interior conversion."

Read More about Fr. Emmanuel Katongole Offers Keynote at the Kroc Institute for Strategic Peace Building

The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion convened an interdisciplinary dialogue on faith, climate justice, structural violence, and sustainable development on May 22nd 2026. Conducted in collaboration with Lead Integrity as part of the Youth Roster on Faith and Development Initiative, the event brought together young scholars from Nigeria, Ethiopia and the United States. The discussion provided a platform for examining how religion, spirituality, and moral imagination influence responses to pressing global challenges.

Read More about Ansari Institute Works with Lead Integrity to Host Conversation on Faith and Climate Justice

The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion is pleased to award its 2026 Book Prize to Dr. Erin K. Wilson, Professor of Politics and Religion at the University of Groningen. In Religion and World Politics: Connecting Theory with Practice, Wilson contends that the definitions and descriptions of religion which are operative in policy circles and in media are inadequate and misleading, because they fail to incorporate groundbreaking insights from the critical study of religion. Religion “is not an object ‘out there’ that is clearly identifiable, definable and measurable,” she writes, “but rather a fluid, dynamic and ever-changing category made up of rituals, practices, discourses, narratives, institutions, organisations, actors, beliefs and norms that are all context-dependent and variable…”

Read More about Ansari Institute awards Book Prize to Erin K. Wilson for "Religion and World Politics: Connecting Theory with Practice"

The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion is pleased to host a symposium on Religion and Global Politics across Disciplines and Publics at Notre Dame Rome. This gathering, which marks the capstone of the inaugural Global Fellows program, will showcase the fellows’ scholarship following a year of faculty and peer critique and monograph development.

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Andrew Dickson is an Ansari Institute Global Fellow who recently completed an ESRC-funded PhD in International Relations at the University of Sussex, where he served as Programme Coordinator for the University's Religion and Foreign Policy Initiative. His research explores religion and secularism in International Relations across foreign and development policy, de-radicalisation programmes, and human rights advocacy. He also holds an MA in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College London, and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Hertford College, Oxford. He was previously Centre Manager for the LSE Faith Centre and Religion and Global Society Research Unit, and Research and Projects Manager for the Lokahi Foundation.

Read More about Andrew Dickson: Religious Engagement in Contemporary British Foreign Policy

Fr. Emmanuel Katongole, professor of theology and peace studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs, has been appointed director of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, effective July 1, 2026.

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Dr. Dina Osama Lotfy is an Ansari Institute Global Fellow and currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Cairo University. Her research focuses on autocratic transitions, religion and politics, and terrorism. She earned her B.A., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Political Science from Cairo University.…

Read More about Dina Osama Lotfy: Religious Institutions Stances Toward Autocratization

[gallery:'interfaith-dinner'] The Ansari Institute was pleased to host an Interfaith Dinner on Tuesday, March 31, welcoming faculty, staff, and students from across the University of Notre Dame. The evening fostered joyful community building and featured guest speakers from the Hindu, Jewish,…

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Dr. Thahir Jamal Kiliyamannil is an Ansari Institute Global Fellow who recently completed his PhD at the University of Hyderabad, India. His doctoral thesis, titled “Islam, State, and Sovereignty: Genealogy of Muslim Subject Formation in Malabar,” traces the minoritization of Muslims in India,…

Read More about Thahir Jamal Kiliyamannil: Formations of the Muslim Minority in India

On January 28, 2026, The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, held a colloquium entitled, “The Intersection of Faith and Sustainability” in collaboration with Seed Global Development. Practitioners from Seed Global Development and students from the Keough School Master of Global Affairs (MGA) program gathered to discuss how faith and religion influence communities’ views on sustainability and their responses to development challenges.

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Pope Leo XIV has appointed Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., the vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education and professor of theology and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame, as a member of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Vatican announced today.

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At a time when nationalism is having a global resurgence, a Keough School policy lab enables students to better understand the trend and how it shapes public conversations today.

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"In my dissertation, I studied the politics of religious freedom and secularism in the Americas between 2017 and 2023. I focus particularly on transnational and regional networks that I call “Transnational Religio-spiritual Networks (TRSNs)”. In particular, I research these networks in one venue, which is an international organization, the Organization of American States, the OAS.

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Saad and Shiza Kamil are more than 7,000 miles from their parents in Pakistan, but the first-generation college students have found a second home at Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs.

Read More about From Karachi to the Keough School: Siblings find community and path to global impact

Megan Vogt is a senior double major in political science and history who is deeply interested in the intersection of these two fields. In the fall she took a course on migrants and mobility, taught by Keough School professor Rose Luminiello, a faculty affiliate of the school's Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion. Initially she imagined something technical, perhaps focused on maps, geography and historical migration patterns. Instead, Megan writes that the class turned into a "deeply human exploration" of how human movement has served as a defining force in global history.

Read More about From colonial history to modern borders: rethinking the global impact of migrants and mobility

Dr. Jacob Katumusiime is Ansai Institute Global Fellow and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Johannesburg. Jacob is the 2024 Winner of the Rahamon Bello Award for the Best PhD in African and Diaspora Studies. He researches on the intersections of Culture and Politics, navigating questions…

Read More about Jacob Katumusiime: How do we explain the violence of some religious movements?