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Inspired by its Catholic mission, and with foundational support from the Cavanaugh Council and President’s Circle, Notre Dame has established the Global Catholic Research Initiative (GCRI). Directed by Dr. Kathleen Sprows Cummings, the GCRI will advance research and scholarship on global Catholicism and its historical development across regions and cultures. In its first year, the GCRI’s five core projects will deepen the University’s Catholic mission, maximize Notre Dame’s global institutional footprint, and inform robust scholarship on the Church’s history.
The GCRI will convene an Inaugural Conference on Global Catholicism (Rome, 2027) with key research institutions worldwide. Co-sponsored by partners including St. Louis University, Boston College Libraries, the Jesuit Historical Institute in Nairobi, and the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics in Singapore, the conference will advance scholarship on the transnational history of global Catholicism.
Through a partnership with the Archives of the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization, GCRI will establish a research scholarship based in Rome, facilitating access to critical primary sources. These resources will aid in developing a historical self-understanding of global Catholicism, support pastoral planning, and enhance Notre Dame’s research capabilities.
In addition, GCRI will convene scholars studying Catholic religious sisters globally in October 2027 at Notre Dame London , co-sponsored by Durham University and KADOC at KU Leuven in Belgium.
To more broadly inspire research and creative practice across disciplines in the liberal arts, it will also launch the Global Catholic Research Collaborative. These collaboratives, or groups of scholars, will foster foster research, art, teaching, and outreach that bring insights from the
liberal arts to bear upon public life.
The GCRI will also support a Junior Research Fellowship at Cambridge University, ensuring rising scholars bring Notre Dame's moral and intellectual framework into dialogue with the global academy.
“Kathy is a distinguished historian of American Catholicism, an award-winning teacher, and a talented administrator who led Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism from 2012 to 2023 and sought to expand its global reach. As director of the Global Catholic Research Initiative, she will help build scholarly partnerships to advance understanding of the global Church — where it has been, where it is, and where it might go in the future.”
John McGreevy
Charles and Jill Fischer Provost; Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History
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