John C. Seitz

John C. Seitz joined the Theology Department in 2008 after receiving his PhD in American Religions from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University.

His research focuses on the historical and ethnographic study of U.S. Catholics and on theoretical questions in the study of religion. His work has appeared in Church History, American Catholic Studies, U.S. Catholic Historian, Material Religion, and Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. Reviews and popular articles have appeared in Theological Studies, National Catholic Reporter, and Commonweal, among others.

In 2020, Seitz published the co-edited volume Working Alternatives: American and Catholic Experiments in Work and Economy (Fordham Univ. Press). His monograph, No Closure: Catholic Practice and Boston’s Parish Shutdowns (Harvard Univ. Press), came out in 2011. He is currently working on a book project about priesthood in the 20th century U.S. In general, Seitz’s work springs from an interest in the ways the study of religion, and in particular the study of Catholics, enhances our ability to understand the American past and present. He is particularly interested in religious practice—everyday encounters at the intersection of religious tradition and improvisation—as it sheds light on social and emotional histories.

In his teaching Seitz treats U.S. religious history, theories in the study of religion and theology, and the history of Christianity in the modern period. Among his courses are “American Religious Texts” and “Faith & Critical Reason,” both of which contribute to the undergraduate core curriculum. Electives and courses for the major have included “Christian Thought and Practice III,” “Wartime Religion in U.S. History,” “Contemporary Conversations in Theology,” “Home, Away, and In-Between,” and “Catholic Studies Seminar I.” Seitz also teaches “Readings in American Religion” and “History of Christianity” and a range of tutorials for the graduate program in Theology.

Beyond the department, Seitz has been involved in a variety of projects. He has served as a Young Scholar in American Religion through the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI. He was a Project Fellow for the Lived History of Vatican II project at Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. In 2020, he became a research fellow in Notre Dame’s Gender, Sex, and Power project and in Fordham’s project entitled Taking Responsibility: Jesuit Educational Institutions Confront the Causes and Legacy of Clergy Sexual Abuse. In 2023, Seitz took on the role of Program Director for Taking Responsibility. In addition to his role in the Theology Department, Seitz serves as the Associate Director for Lincoln Center of the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham. He also edits a book series, Catholic Practice in the Americas, for Fordham University Press and co-chairs the Roman Catholic Studies Unit of the American Academy of Religion.

PhD - Harvard University (Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, American Religions)
MTS - Harvard Divinity School (Christianity and Culture)
BA - University of Colorado at Boulder, summa cum laude (Religious Studies)

• American religions
• U.S. Catholicism
• Theory and method in the study of religion

“Acts of Faith: Religion and the American West” in American Catholic Studies (2024) 134:4, 101-114. 

“Secrecy, Sex Abuse, and the Practice of Priesthood” in The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy ed. Hugh B. Urban and Paul Christopher Johnson (New York: Routledge, 2022) 258-274.

“Stoic Brothers and Feeling Men: Abuse and Contemporary Clerical Masculinities in the U.S.,” American Catholic Studies 132: 2 (Summer 2021), 15-21.  

“Rock Minister of Souls: The Music and Vision of Angélica Garcia,” National Catholic Reporter October 8, 2021. 

Working Alternatives: American and Catholic Experiments in Work and Economy edited with Christine Firer Hinze (Fordham University Press, 2020). 

“A Vocation of Contested Intimacies: U.S. Roman Catholic Priesthood in the Mid-Twentieth Century,” in Religious Intimacies: Intersubjectivity in the Modern Christian West ed. Mary Dunn and Brenna Moore (2020, Indiana University Press).

“Altars of Ammo: Catholic Materiality and the Visual Culture of World War II,” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief (v. 15 n. 4 [September 2019]).

“Priests as Persons: An Emotional History of St. John’s Seminary, Boston, in the Era of the Council” in Catholics in the Vatican II Era: Local Histories of a Global Event ed.  Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Timothy Matovina, and Robert A. Orsi (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

“The Lives of Priests,” for forum entitled “Writing Catholic History after the Sexual Abuse Crisis,” American Catholic Studies 127:2 (Summer 2016), 18-23.

“American Catholics and Emptiness,” [Review Essay] Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 85:2 (June 2016), 353-359.

“What better place?” Refiguring Priesthood at St. John’s Seminary, Boston, 1965-1970,” U.S. Catholic Historian 33:2 (Spring 2015), 49-82.

“The Mass Clock and the Spy: The Catholicization of the Second World War” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, 83:4 (December 2014), 924-956.

“Forum on the Future of American Catholic Studies,” [Guest Editor] American Catholic Studies 125:3 (Fall 2014).

“Introduction” for “Forum on the Future of American Catholic Studies,” American Catholic Studies 125:3 (Fall 2014), 1-4.

“Keep Research Weird: Psychoanalytic Techniques and Fieldwork in the Study of Religion” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion: The Journal of the North American Association for the Study of Religion 25:1 (Winter 2013), 26-52.

No Closure: Catholic Practice and Boston’s Parish Shutdowns. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.

“Perfect Priests and their Sacrificial Lambs,” Review of Marie Keenan, Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gender, Power, and Organizational Culture for National Catholic Reporter (November 21, 2012).

"Placeholders: Catholic Tradition and Faith to the Parish," Commonweal, September 2, 2013.