Scarboro Missions Chair

in Inter-Religious Dialogue

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Scarboro Missions Chair in Inter-religious Dialogue

The holder of the rotating Scarboro Missions Chair in Inter-Religious Dialogue will be a full or associate professor with an international reputation in an area of inter-religious dialogue which emphasises religious experience, spirituality, and practical application. She or he will organize or deliver an annual “Scarboro Foreign Mission Lecture on Interreligious Dialogue” on an issue of current relevance and importance in the area of interreligious dialogue, religious tolerance, shared religious values, or contemporary religious tensions.

There is a two-fold goal associated with the vision for the Scarboro Missions Chair. First, the Chair will engage in significant research, publication, and interaction with the academic community in our focused areas of interreligious dialogue. Second, we seek to make interreligious dialogue and cooperation part of the intellectual and theological culture of Regis College and the Toronto School of Theology, as well as the broader community, such as the university, the church, and interested public throughout the city.

Current Chair,

Fr. Gerard Ryan, SJ

Professor Ryan joined Regis College and the Regis St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology in 2020 after completing his doctoral studies in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford. His studies were supervised by Professors Werner G. Jeanrond and Graham Ward. Before arriving at Regis, Ryan was a Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. His current research explores recognition theories and vulnerability studies as resources for a theological understanding of mutual accompaniment.

In 2021, Ryan and Regis St. Michael’s Professor John Berkman were awarded a grant from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to foster dialogue between scientists and theologians and integrate science into the curriculum. Building on this work, Ryan secured an additional AAAS grant in 2024, focusing on the intersection of climate change and theological education and investigating the pastoral impact of forest fires on faith-based and secular communities across Canada.

For more information about Fr. Ryan, including select publications and presentations, visit:

REGIS COLLEGE

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Past Chairs:

Dr. John Dadosky, Ph.D., S.T.D.

John Dadosky, Ph.D., S.T.D. is professor of theology and philosophy at Regis College/University of Toronto since July 2001. He is author of The Structure of Religious Knowing (SUNY Press, 2004), The Eclipse and Recovery of Beauty (University of Toronto Press, 2014), co-editor of four volumes of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, including Method in Theology (2017) and the final archival volume (2019). In 2018, he published Image to Insight: The Art of William Hart McNichols, which won the 2019 Arizona-New Mexico Book Award in Art. He has published numerous articles on Lonergan, bringing his thought into engagement with ecclesiology, Vatican II, and dialogue with Buddhism.

He is currently the treasurer on the board of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society. He is a Captain in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve in Toronto where he serves as a lay Catholic chaplain.

Dr. Michael Stoeber, B.A.; M.A.; S.T.L.; Ph.D.

Professor of Spirituality and Philosophy of Religion, Regis College, and cross appointed (status only) to the Department for Study of Religion, University of Toronto.

Professor Stoeber served as the Scarborough Missions Chair for 2018-2021. He gave the Inaugural 2019 Scarboro Missions Lecture in Interreligious Dialogue: “Lakota and Christian Interreligious Dialogue: Questions Surrounding the Life, Teachings, and Influence of Nick Black Elk." This lecture was published as “Indigenous and Roman Catholic Canonizations of Nicholas Black Elk: Postcolonial Issues and Implications of Black Elk Speaks,” Theological Studies, Vol. 81(3) (2020): 605-630.

Scarboro Missions Chair in Inter-Religious Dialogue