Michael Waldstein

Michael Waldstein, Professor of Theology, Ave Maria UniversityMichael Waldstein, Ph.D. is the Max Seckler Professor of Theology at Ave Maria University. In the Fall of 2009 he began teaching at Ave Maria University and became the first endowed chair of that university. He is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family and is a Distinguished Fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. He holds a B.A. degree from Thomas Aquinas College in California, a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Dallas, a S.S.L. from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, and a Th.D. in New Testament from Harvard Divinity School. His published works include his definitive translation of John Paul II's Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, The Common Good in St. Thomas and John Paul II (Nova et Vetera), and Dietrich von Hildebrand and St. Thomas Aquinas on Goodness and Happiness (Nova et Vetera).

Following his graduation from Thomas Aquinas College in California, Professor Waldstein obtained his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Dallas before heading to the Biblicum. From Rome, he enrolled in the highly-selective Th.D. program in New Testament and Christian Origins at Harvard University. After finishing his doctorate in Theology at Harvard in 1988, he was hired in the University of Notre Dame's Liberal Studies program, where he earned tenure in 1996. He left to assume the helm of the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, at the invitation of Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, and was the St. Francis of Assisi Professor of New Testament there. He was later asked by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) to serve on the Lectionary working group that prepared the new Lectionary for Scripture readings at Mass.