Conference Speakers
Dr. Greg Bottaro
Dr. Greg Bottaro is a Catholic psychologist, founder of the CatholicPsych Institute and creator of the CatholicPsych Model of Applied Personalism (CPMAP). He received his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, and works to integrate Catholic philosophy and theology with relevant psychology. He leads the CatholicPsych Institute’s mission to, “Create a Catholic Standard for Mental Health.”
Before becoming a psychologist, Dr. Bottaro discerned a religious vocation with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs). He lived in the Bronx for four years following the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi. Under the mentorship of Fr. Benedict Groeschel, this experience formed him in the spirituality of Abandonment to Divine Providence, which he now integrates with his model of psychology, along with the discernment of God’s will he learned from Fr. Benedict.
In 2012, Dr. Bottaro returned to New York as a psychologist and founded the CatholicPsych Institute, which has continued to grow and serve clients around the world. Most recently he launched the CPMAP Certification to train others in their model of integrated accompaniment.
He currently lives in Connecticut with his wife Barbra and their seven children.
Theresa Farnan
Theresa Farnan, Ph.D., is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center focusing on the challenges of gender ideology as part of EPPC’s Person and Identity Project. She is the co-author of two books, Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public School Before It’s Too Late and Where Did I Come From? Where Am I Going? How Do I Get There? She has taught at St. Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and has worked with the diaconate formation program for the Dioceses of Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. She served as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth and is a member of the Catholic Women’s Forum Advisory Council. She serves on the Ethics and Public Policy Committee of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability. She has lectured widely on the gender ideology, Catholic education, theology of the body, the personalism of Pope John Paul II, the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and the vocation and dignity of women. She hosted St. Thomas Aquinas in Today’s World on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). She received her master’s degree and her doctorate in Medieval Studies from the University of Notre Dame. She and her husband, Michael, have ten children.
Maria Fedoryka
Dr. Maria Fedoryka teaches in the philosophy department of Ave Maria University in Florida and is an Associated Scholar with the Hildebrand Project. She specializes in the philosophy of love, her work spanning topics from the centrality of love in the being of God, to its meaning for the creation and vocation of the human person, to its role in marriage, family and human development. This work encompasses the issue of gender, questions related to spousal intimacy, and questions relating to the nature and role of emotions in human life. Among her publications are the booklet The Special Gift of Women for God, the Family and the World published by the Catholic Truth Society in England and the popular articles in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review titled “Gender: What is it and Why does it Matter?” and “The Centrality of Love to the Teaching of Humanae vitae”.
John Finley
Dr. John Finley is a tutor (tenured professor) at Thomas Aquinas College. He received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Dallas. Dr. Finley has served as Academic Director of the Valor Institute, and as Professor of Philosophy at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary for the Archdiocese of St. Louis. He is a member of the Aquinas Institute of Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford. Dr. Finley has lectured widely and authored scholarly publications on philosophical anthropology, metaphysics, gender and sexuality, phenomenology, Edith Stein, and Thomas Aquinas. In 2017 he was awarded a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to pursue collaborative research on human sexuality from the standpoints of science, medicine, philosophy, and theology. Most recently, Dr. Finley is editor and co-author of Sexual Identity: The Harmony of Philosophy, Science, and Revelation (Emmaus Road, 2022). John and his wife Hilary live in Ventura, CA with their three children.
Timothy Fortin
Timothy Fortin, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophical Theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ. He holds an M.S. in Clinical Psychology from the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, Arlington, VA and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, Italy. His research focusses on the nature of fatherhood and human sexual difference, concentrating on the integration of contemporary thought with the Thomistic tradition.
Dr. Angela Franks
Angela Franks, Ph.D., is a theologian, speaker, writer, and mother of six. She serves as Professor of Theology at St. John’s Seminary in Boston and as a Senior Fellow at the Abigail Adams Institute in Cambridge. She is a Life and Dignity Writing Fellow for Church Life Journal (University of Notre Dame). Her CV can be found here.
Her areas of specialty include the body, identity, the Trinity, Christology, and the thought of John Paul II and Hans Urs von Balthasar. She is currently focused on bringing key ideas in contemporary Continental philosophy into conversation with the Catholic intellectual tradition. She is finishing a two-volume book manuscript entitled The Body and Identity. The first volume is subtitled Liquid Bodies and Empty Selves. The second volume is subtitled Theological and Philosophical Anthropology.
An experienced speaker, she has spoken at numerous conferences, including the International Theology of the Body Congress, and on EWTN, Catholic Answers Live, FOX News, and many other outlets. (The “Blog” tab has links to some of these appearances.) She has been published in America Magazine, First Things, Public Discourse, Church Life Journal, Catholic World Report, The Plough, and academic journals such as Theological Studies, Christian Bioethics, Nova et Vetera, Communio, and others, in addition to contributing chapters to edited books (see the “Writing” tab). She has written two books on sexual ethics and the history of eugenics.
Paul Gondreau
Paul Gondreau, S.T.D., is professor of theology at Providence College. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, doing his dissertation under the renowned Thomist scholar Jean-Pierre Torrell, OP. He specializes in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and has published widely in the areas of Christology (focusing on Christ’s full humanity and his maleness), the moral meaning and purpose of human sexuality and sexual difference, Christian anthropology, the biblical vision of Aquinas’ theology, the theology of disability, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the priesthood, and the Catholic vision of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. He has also served as a theological consultant on the USCCB’s committee on Marriage, Family, Laity, and Youth.
Mary Hasson
Mary Rice Hasson, J.D., is the Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where she co-founded and directs the Person and Identity Project, an initiative that equips parents and faith-based institutions to promote the truth about the human person and counter gender ideology. An attorney and policy expert, Mary has been a keynote speaker for the Holy See during the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, addressing education, women and work, caregiving, and gender ideology, and serves as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She speaks frequently at national conferences, universities, and in dioceses across the country, and has testified before the U.S. Senate, state legislatures, and the Australian parliament on parents’ rights and transgender issues. The co-author of several books on education, Mary’s writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, National Review, First Things, the National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor, among others. Mary is the 2024 Visiting Fellow at the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Notre Dame Law School, Mary is married to Seamus Hasson. They are parents of seven grown children and grandparents of six.
Aaron Kheriaty
Aaron Kheriaty, MD, is a physician specializing in psychiatry and author of three books, including most recently, The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State. He is a Fellow & Director of the Program in Bioethics and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. For many years he was Professor of Psychiatry at UCI School of Medicine and Director of the Medical Ethics Program at UCI Health, where he chaired the ethics committee. Dr. Kheriaty has published articles in the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Federalist, Compact, Tablet, and First Things. On matters of public policy and healthcare he has testified at the California Senate and the United States Senate. Dr. Kheriaty is a plaintiff in the landmark free speech case Missouri v. Biden, which is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. For his work challenging government censorship, the journalist Matt Taibbi has called him “the most ambitious theorist of the censorship-industrial age.”
Francis X. Maier
Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His work focuses on the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life, with special attention to lay formation and action.
Mr. Maier served as senior adviser and special assistant to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., for 23 years in Denver and Philadelphia. He previously served as editor in chief of the National Catholic Register newsweekly for 15 years, and earlier as a story analyst and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and New York University’s School of the Arts, he is a former fellow of the American Film Institute’s Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies. He is a cofounding board member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture, a board member of the Napa Institute and the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), and a consulting editor with First Things magazine.
His bylined work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, First Things, National Review, The American Spectator, This World, The Catholic Thing, Commonweal, America, Crisis, the New York Times Sunday magazine, Christian Science Monitor, France Catholique, and other national and foreign outlets. His book True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church (Ignatius) was published in February 2024.
Noelle Mering
Noelle Mering is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center where she co-directs EPPC’s Theology of Home Project. She is the author of the book Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology.
She is an editor for the online women’s magazine Theology of Home and a coauthor of the books Theology of Home, volumes I – III. She writes on culture, politics, and religion and has published in National Review, The Federalist, Newsweek, Daily Wire, The American Mind, Catholic World Report, and National Catholic Register. Her writing has been featured on Fox News, Instapundit, EWTN, Catholic Herald, Albert Mohler’s The Briefing, Fox News Radio, and Relevant Radio.
Noelle is a wife and mother of six children in Southern California.
Fr. Christian Raab
Fr. Christian Raab hails originally from Michigan City, IN. After graduating from Indiana University with a degree in history and religious studies, he taught history and theology at St. Benedict High School in Chicago, IL.
During this time, he earned an MA degree from Loyola University in pastoral studies with a concentration in religious education. He entered Saint Meinrad Archabbey in 2003, professed first vows in 2005, and solemn vows in 2008. He earned his Master of Divinity from Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology and was ordained to the priesthood in 2009.
From 2009-2014, he lived and studied at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he also served as a priest-in-residence at Flather Hall through CUA’s office of campus ministry. He earned his licentiate in sacred theology in 2012 and his doctorate in sacred theology in 2015, both from the Catholic University of America.
He is presently associate professor of systematic theology at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. Most of his courses are in sacramental theology. His current research focuses on the theology of the diaconate.
He has published in the areas of theology of priesthood, gender in theological anthropology, spirituality, and religion and culture. He is the author of the book Understanding the Religious Priesthood: History, Theology, and Controversy (Washington, DC: CUA, 2020); editor of the book Walk The Line: Rock Music and the Christian Imagination (New York: New City Press, 2023); and co-editor of the volume The Tradition of Catholic Prayer (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007).
In addition to teaching, he has served as associate pastor of St. Joseph parish in Jasper, IN since 2022. His past assignments include formation dean at Saint Meinrad Seminary (2015-2022), and coordinator of the “One Bread, One Cup” College Ministerial Internship Program (2014-2019).
Dr. Deborah Savage
Dr. Deborah Savage joined the Theology faculty at Franciscan University during the 2021-22 academic year, having taught both philosophy and theology at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota for the previous thirteen years. She received her doctorate in Religious Studies from Marquette University in 2005; her degree is in both theology and philosophy. Dr. Savage is the co-founder and acting director of the Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture, an interdisciplinary think tank, organized to respond to John Paul II’s call for a new and explicitly Christian feminism.
Dr. Savage is a student of St. Thomas Aquinas with a particular interest in investigating his thought in light of contemporary questions. Her primary academic areas are philosophical and theological anthropology; her recent research has been focused on the development of a robust theology of the nature of man and woman, both their identities and their complementarity. A second research area is the meaning of human action, the significance of human work and of vocation, and the metaphysics of creation as a foundation for both stewardship and economics. She has a particular interest in Catholic Social Thought and the fundamental theological categories that serve as its substructure. She is a scholar of the work of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and has written and presented or published several papers on how his philosophical anthropology informs his body of work as Pope.
Before pursuing her doctorate, Dr. Savage worked for over twenty-five years in the business sector, holding a variety of positions primarily in manufacturing organizations. This experience and the questions that arose as a result led her to investigate the theological meaning of work as a locus of personal conversion and sanctification.
Her writing has appeared in several publications, Nova et Vertera, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, First Things, The Humanum Review, Catholic World Report, and Public Discourse. Some recent publications include “Redeeming Woman: A Catholic Response to the Second Sex Issue,” published in the journal Religions and “The Therapeutic and Pastoral Implications of Pope St. John Paul II’s Account of the Person,” published in The Journal of Christian Bioethics. The most recent iteration of her theory of Man and Woman is a chapter in a volume entitled The Complementarity of Men and Women, edited by Dr. Paul Vitz and published by CUA Press (May 2021). She is currently at work on a book entitled “Woman and Man” for formal consideration by Catholic University of America Press.
Dr. Savage is a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology and the American Catholic Philosophical Association. She served for several years as a member of the Board of Trustees at Franciscan University, resigning in 2021. She moved to Steubenville along with her husband of 32 years, Andrew Percic, and their daughter, Madeline.
Dr. Hilary Towers
Dr. Hilary Towers is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) at a private practice in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where she works with adolescents, adults, and couples. She earned her M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Divine Mercy University and her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from The George Washington University’s Center for Family Research. Hilary has advanced clinical training in cognitive processing therapy (CPT), logotherapy, and emotionally focused couple therapy (EFCT).
A non-resident scholar at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR), Hilary’s work in behavioral genetics appears in a variety of academic journals and books, including Marriage and Family Review, International Journal of Behavioral Development, and Journal of Family Psychology. Her work on the subjects of marriage and divorce has been published in an array of online journals, including: Public Discourse, Crux, CatholicVote, National Catholic Register, Ethika Politika, Institute for Family Studies, First Things, and National Review Online.
The mother of five children, Hilary and her family reside in Northern Virginia.
Paul Vitz
Paul C. Vitz is Professor of Psychology Emeritus at New York University and recently Senior Scholar Emeritus at Divine Mercy University. His work has focused on integrating Christian theology, especially Catholic anthropology, with psychology. His present interest includes: The psychological importance of fathers; the complementarity of men and women. Dr. Vitz’s books include: Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship 2nd ed.; Sigmund Freud’s Christian Unconscious; Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism 2nd ed.; and The Self: Beyond the Post-modern Crisis. And 2020, A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person.. Eds., Vitz, Nordling, & Titus; and Vitz, Ed. 2021. The Complementarity of Women and Men