Center for Research on Global Catholicism

The Center for Research on Global Catholicism (CRGC) at Saint Louis University supports scholarship at the nexus of Catholicism and culture, providing robust programming that promotes interdisciplinary research, collaboration, and methodological innovation.

In this video, three members of the CRGC leadership team discuss the center, its mission, and why SLU is an ideal place to do this research.

CRGC Fellows

In 2024, the Center for Research on Global Catholicism launched its Seminar Fellowship Program. Our 2025-2027 fellows are pursuing projects on the theme of "Global Catholicism in Local Spaces."

Meet the 2025-2027 CRGC Fellows

Graduate Assistant Researchers

The Center for Research on Global Catholicism at Saint Louis University supports graduate student researchers who contribute to CRGC programming and digital humanities research projects while also pursuing their own scholarship for one-year terms.

Deirdre Klena

Deirdre Klena is a Ph.D. student in early modern European history working under Fabien Montcher, Ph.D.

She received her B.A. from UCLA in 2021, an M.A. in history and literature from Columbia University in 2022, and a master's in history from the EHESS in Paris in 2024. 

Her research interests include 16th- and 17th-century Italian visual and material culture, with a special focus on interactions between religion, space, healing and art. She is also interested in connections between Italy and the Iberian world. She has presented at numerous conferences, including the 2024 Annual Graduate Conference in European History at the European University Institute in Florence and the “On Land and Across the Sea: Boccaccio’s Other Wor(l)ds. Junctions and Interweavings” conference at UCLA in 2025. She is pursuing a dissertation topic that will focus on a comparative study of Italian and Iberian spaces of spiritual and physical healing.

Our Mission

Our mission is to make Saint Louis University an internationally-recognized hub for research on global Catholicism. The Center for Research on Global Catholicism supports scholarship on the ways and means by which Catholicism migrated across time and space to become a global religion, entangled with imperial ambitions, in excess of official intentions, mobilized by material objects, affective relationships, politics, theologies, epidemics and more.

The objectives of the Center for Research on Global Catholicism include:

• Capitalizing on scholarly expertise at SLU and in St. Louis to advance knowledge and understanding of global Catholicism
• Facilitating connections between local archives and research scholars
• Supporting scholars working in the field of global Catholicism by providing resources, community, and opportunities for collaboration

The Center for Research on Global Catholicism is a Big Idea project sponsored by the Research Growth Fund at SLU. The first Big Idea grounded in the Humanities, the CRGC brings together three key components of SLU’s Jesuit history and mission: a legacy of global engagement, a commitment to rigorous academic inquiry and a focus on social justice.

Support Us

Giving to the CRGC supports our lecture and book symposium series, conferences, Seminar Fellows Program and more.

Center for Research on Global Catholicism Team