Directory

Johann Roten, S.M.

Scholar in Residence

Staff

College of Arts and Sciences: IMRI

Profile

The Rev. Johann Roten, S.M., is an internationally recognized scholar and authority on Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. 

Father Roten is familiar with the Catholic Church worldwide and how faith and the church intersect in different cultures and countries, in dimensions ranging from the political to the artistic. He has special interest and knowledge about how cultures throughout the world see the birth of Christ and express their faith and cultural perspective in the form of Nativities, also called creches. 

Father Roten headed the International Marian Research Institute/Marian Library at the University of Dayton for 15 years; he is now an instructor for the International Marian Research Institute. Swiss by birth, Roten speaks English, French, German, Swiss-German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Latin and Greek. He ministers in Polish, Hungarian and Lithuanian in the ethnic churches of Dayton. 

A former student of Pope Benedict XVI, Roten can also comment on Benedict's theological thinking. 

He has lectured throughout the world and served on a Vatican-appointed commission about Mary in the 1990s. He frequently serves as a resource for dioceses around the world on a variety of topics including canonization and apparitions.