Dr. Maureen K. Day, Ph.D.

Maureen Day is the Associate Professor of Religion and Society and a Research Fellow at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture as well as the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California. With training in theology and the social sciences, her teaching and research areas include Catholicism, family, young adults, social ethics, pastoral practice, and religion in American civic life.

She is an award-winning author, with her writings on American Catholic life appearing in both Catholic and academic publications, including Catholicism at a Crossroads: The Present and Future of America’s Largest Church (NYU Press 2025), Cultural Catholics: Who They Are, How to Respond (Liturgical Press 2024), Catholic Activism Today: Individual Transformation and the Struggle for Social Justice (NYU Press 2020) and Young Adult American Catholics: Explaining Vocation in Their Own Words (Paulist Press 2018).

Some of her recent projects include two national studies (survey followed by in-depth interviews) of Catholic campus ministers for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, a study of American abortion attitudes, an exploration of Hispanic Catholic stewardship, an examination of Catholic sisters’ ministry efforts on the US-MX border, and distilling the experiences of race and ethnicity among Catholic youth and young adults as articulated throughout the USCCB’s Journeying Together process. She is currently working with the Catholic University of America to author two chapters—on burnout and support—among Catholic priests using data from the National Study of Catholic Priests.