Kathleen Sprows Cummings, associate professor in American Studies and director of the Cushwa Center for Study of American Catholocism, appeared on a number of news platforms over the weekend to offer commentary on the join cannonization of two former popes, which took place Sunday in Saint Peter's Square in Vatican City.
Cummings appeared on MSNBC's Meilissa Perry Show to discuss the historic moment of the first-ever joint canonization ceremony.
Friday night, Cummings was featured in a clip on the Nightly News to offer commentary as well.
Cummings called into a WGN radio show and discussed exactly what canonization is and gives them a rundown on the recent news of how this is relevant to both Pope John Paul and Pope John XXIII.
Additionally, Cummings was quoted in an article from The New York Times about the two newly canonized popes and how their conservative and liberal ideologies differed from one another. The article appeared on the front page, above the fold of Saturday's edition.
Professor Cummings teaching and research center on the history of women and American Religion and the study of U.S. Catholocism. Her first book, New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era, was published in 2009 with University of North Carolina Press.
At present Cummings is working on a new book, Citizen Saints: Catholics and Canonization in American Culture. Cummings received an NEH Fellowship to support work on this project during the academic year 2010-11. Her most recent publication is "American Saints: Gender and the Re-Imaging of American Catholicism in the Early Twentieth Century," which appears in the summer 2012 issue of Religion and American Culture.