Mikaël Bauer
Director, School of Religious Studies, McGill University School of Religious Studies
McGill University welcomes Mikaël Bauer, Ph.D., as the new director of the School of Religious Studies, effective in August of last year. He succeeds Garth Green, Ph.D., who resigned from the position on August 1, 2025.
A scholar of pre-modern Japanese Buddhism, Bauer joined McGill’s faculty in 2016 and serves as associate professor of Japanese Religions (Buddhism) and associate member of the Department of East Asian Studies. His research examines the intersections of Buddhist ritual, political authority, and doctrinal formation in early Japan, with a particular focus on the Heian and Nara periods. His recent projects include studies of the Tōshi Kaden (History of the Fujiwara House) and the ritual history of Kōfukuji Temple.
Bauer’s work has appeared in Monumenta Nipponica, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Pacific World, and Études Asiatiques, among other leading publications. In addition to his research and teaching, he has served as program director for graduate studies and organized international conferences on Japanese religion.
Bauer brings a strong commitment to academic excellence, collaborative scholarship, and intercultural understanding, guiding the School’s mission to foster insight into global religious traditions and their enduring significance.
Leon Hutton
Rector and President, St. John’s Seminary
The very Rev. Leon Hutton, M.A., M.Div., an alumnus and former vice rector of St. John’s Seminary, became its 15th rector and president on July 1, 2025. Ordained for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1980, Hutton previously served as pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Ventura, California, and as episcopal vicar for the Santa Barbara Pastoral Region.
A noted church historian and longtime seminary faculty member, Hutton taught Church History at St. John’s for 20 years and served as director of Human Formation. He completed graduate studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in American Catholic Studies, earned a degree in Applied Spiritual Theology from Mount St. Mary’s University, and holds a certificate in Spiritual Direction from the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. He is also co-author of Champion of the Church (2006), a biography of Archbishop John Noll, founder of Our Sunday Visitor.
Paul Spilsbury
President, Regent College
Regent College welcomed Paul Spilsbury, Ph.D., as its sixth president, beginning his tenure in July 2025, a decade after joining the faculty as academic dean and professor of New Testament.
Born in South Africa, Spilsbury came to Canada in 1984 to attend Prairie Bible College, then completed graduate studies at Regent College and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge (Queens’ College). His doctoral research focused on the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, a subject that continues to shape his scholarship.
Prior to returning to Regent, Spilsbury served on the faculty of Canadian Bible College in Regina, Saskatchewan, where he became professor of New Testament and later played a key role in the early formation and development of Ambrose University in Calgary. He joined Regent’s faculty in 2015 and served as academic dean for ten years before he was appointed president.
A respected New Testament scholar, Spilsbury’s teaching focuses primarily on Paul and the Book of Revelation. His research has been supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Leverhulme Trust (UK) and has resulted in four authored or co-authored books, along with numerous articles, chapters, and reviews. He has also traveled widely throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East, engaging sites central to the early church.
Beyond academia, Spilsbury is a frequent speaker at churches, retreats, and conferences and is a juried member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, working primarily in watercolor.
He is married to Bronwyn, and they have two adult sons.
Albert Duggan
President, Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology
Western dominican province’s Prior Provincial, the Very Reverend Christopher Fadok, O.P., has announced the appointment of the Rev. Albert Duggan, O.P., as the next president of the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology (DPST), a member of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Duggan, a member of the Eastern Dominican Province, will succeed the Rev. Justin Gable, O.P., who has served as interim president since 2024.
Duggan brings academic strength, pastoral experience, and administrative leadership to his new role. A graduate of Brown University, he earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical ethics, magna cum laude, before entering the Order of Preachers in 2007. He completed his Master of Divinity and Bachelor of Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and was ordained in 2013. Before religious life, Duggan spent four years working on research projects at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in Baltimore.
Since ordination, Duggan has served in chaplaincy and campus ministry roles at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Brown University and has held leadership positions within the Eastern Dominican Province, most recently as Vicar Provincial for Administration. His writing has appeared in Linacre Quarterly and the American Journal of Bioethics, among other publications.
Raised in Trenton, Michigan, Duggan will be the first DSPT president from outside the Western Dominican Province
James Smith
President, Pacific Theological Seminary
Pacific Theological Seminary is pleased to announce the appointment of the Rev. Dr. James D. Smith III as president, succeeding Dr. Sharon Tan, whose steady leadership has guided the seminary through a critical season.
Smith, a native of San Diego, brings more than four decades of distinguished pastoral and academic service. Ordained in 1978, he has served congregations in Boston, Minneapolis, and San Diego, and currently ministers as Associate Pastor at La Jolla Christian Fellowship. Smith holds Th.D. and Th.M. degrees from Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School, respectively, and an M.Div. from Bethel Seminary.
For more than 30 years, Smith has taught at Bethel Seminary and has lectured internationally. He twice held visiting appointments at Oxford University. An accomplished scholar, he has authored and edited numerous volumes in church history and Christian spirituality and contributed extensively to Christian History magazine.
Dominic Legge
President, Dominican House of Studies
Following a leadership transition approved by the Board of Trustees of the Pontifical Faculty at the Dominican House of Studies, the Vatican has named the Very Reverend Dominic Legge, O.P., as the school’s next president.
He officially assumed office on July 1, 2025.
Legge entered the Dominican Order in 2001, was ordained a priest in 2007, and joined the faculty of the Pontifical Faculty in 2014. He comes to the presidency after serving as director of the Thomistic Institute, a role in which he helped advance the study of St. Thomas Aquinas and supported a growing network of campus chapters across the United States and abroad.
A graduate of Yale Law School (J.D.), Legge also holds a licentiate in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, a licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Faculty, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Legge is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017), as well as many articles and book chapters on Thomistic thought. He is a regular speaker at both national and international events and brings extensive experience in administration, teaching, preaching, and academic leadership to his new role.
Legge succeeds Father Thomas Petri, O.P., whose twelve years of leadership strengthened the school’s academic standards, expanded its mission, and ushered in a transformative increase to its endowment.
