Director:
Dr. John C. Rao, D.Phil, Oxford
Dr. John C. Rao obtained his doctorate in Modern European History from Oxford University in 1977. His dissertation concerned nineteenth-century Catholic reactions to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. He served from 1978–79 as Eastern Director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and is now Associate Professor (emeritus) of European History at St. John’s University in New York City, where he taught from 1979 until 2022.
Dr. Rao is director of the Roman Forum, founded by the late Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand in 1968, which works in both New York City and Italy. He writes for numerous French, German, Spanish and Italian
journals. Many of his writings dealing with the relationship between Church and society throughout history can be found at For the Whole Christ – a name taken from the writings of St. Augustine to describe the character of the Mystical Body and its consequences for human life as a whole.
Some of Dr. Rao’s most important works include: Removing the Blindfold (Remnant Press, 1999; second, revised edition, The Angelus Press, 2014)), which discusses Catholic rediscovery of their own heritage in the post-French revolutionary era; Americanism and the Collapse of the Church in the United States (Roman Forum Press, 1983;
Tan Books, 1995; Arouca Press, 2026); Black Legends and the Light of the World (Remnant Press, 2012); Luther and His Progeny: 500 Years of Protestantism and Its Consequences for Church, State, and Society, John Rao, ed. (Angelico Press, 2017); A Centenary Meditation on a Quest for “Purification” Gone Mad (Arouca Press, 2018). Arouca Press is publishing seven volumes of all of his articles, three of which have now been issued.
Dr. Rao and his wife, Anne Nelligan Rao, live in Manhattan, where they raised their three children.
Chaplain
Rev. Dr. Richard A. Munkelt
A Catholic priest of 25 years and chaplain of the Roman Forum, the Rev. Richard Munkelt was born in New London in the nutmeg state. He has lived in Japan, Manhattan, and glorious Italy. Kenyon College, the New School for Social Research, and the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome count as his almae matres. Fr. Munkelt holds a doctorate in philosophy. His dissertation was on the metaphysical foundations of modern logic in the work of W.V. Quine. Slated for publication in 2027, is his magnum opus: Metaphysics and Modernity, From Parmenides to Quantum Physics. He is the librettist of the opera Gracchus, which was staged in August of 2023 at the Palace Theater in Stamford, CT, music for which can be found on YouTube and at Delphic Forge. The libretto is available on Amazon. Fr. Munkelt currently lives in New Jersey and celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively.
Music Director/Treasurer
David J. Hughes
David Hughes is a composer, conductor, and organist who is in international demand as a recitalist and an instructor of Gregorian chant.
He served for thirteen years as Organist & Choirmaster at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he developed a program of seven choirs, including the professional St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum, the volunteer St. Mary’s Choir, and the St. Mary’s Student Schola, a comprehensive program of musical education for children. He directs Viri Galilæi, an ensemble of men from the tristate New York area who gather weekly to sing Vespers and medieval polyphony from facsimiles of original manuscripts. Hughes is Director of Music at St. John Fisher Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut, and serves as a consultant to several parishes in Connecticut looking to expand their musical programs. A board member of the Church Music Association of America, he serves on the faculty of its annual Sacred Music Colloquium, teaching chant, composition, and organ improvisation. He is Director of Music for the Roman Forum’s annual two-week Summer Symposium at Lake Garda in Italy, where he directs a choir for daily Masses, a large volunteer choir for nightly Vespers, and coordinates performances and recitals with local groups. He was named Chant Instructor for St. Benedict’s Abbey in Still River, Massachusetts, which he visits every few weeks for musical consultation with the monks. He also travels frequently to give workshops, clinics, and recitals, in locales as varied as Ecuador, Italy, France, Estonia, Spain, and Canada.
Hughes has written extensively for choir and organ. Recent composition projects include a suite for organ, Nuestra Señora de Apocalipsis, which received its premiere in Guayaquil, Ecuador in August 2019, and an alternatim Mass, Missa Rex splendens, premiered in Ottawa in November 2019. Film scoring credits include Navis Pictures’ St. Bernadette of Lourdes and several documentaries.
Hughes’s composition teachers have included Ruth Schonthal and John Halle, and he has studied organ with Paul Jacobs and Daniel Sullivan. He is a graduate of Yale College.
Board of Trustees:
Dr. John C. Rao
Rev. Dr. Richard A. Munkelt (chaplain)
Mr. David Hughes (treasurer, music director)
Mr. Ward T. Henderson †
Faculty:
Jonathan Arrington (Biblical Scholar, USA)
Dr. Miguel Ayuso Torres (Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Spain)
James Bogle, Esq., TD MA Dip Law (Barrister and author of A Heart for Europe)
Dr. Thomas Cattoi (Santa Clara University; Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley)
Clemens Cavallin (Religious Studies, Sweden)
Dr. Danilo Castellano (University of Udine, Emeritus, Italy)
Fr. Gabriel Díaz-Patri (Studia Liturgica, United Kingdom)
Bernard Dumont (Editor, Catholica, France)
Christopher A. Ferrara, J.D. (President, ACLA)
Dr. Rudolf Hilfer (Physics, University of Stuttgart)
David J. Hughes (Director of Musical Program)
Rev. John Hunwicke (Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham) †
James Kalb, Esq. (Author of The Tyranny of Liberalism)
Gabor Laszlo, PhD (Mathematics)
Dr. Brian McCall (College of Law, University of Oklahoma)
Michael J. Matt (Editor, The Remnant)
Dr. Sebastian Morello (University of Buckingham)
Rev. Dr. Richard Munkelt (Chaplain of the Roman Forum)
Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (Independent scholar and writer)
Dr. Thomas Pink (King’s College, London)
Dr. John C. Rao (Chairman, Roman Forum)
Dr. Joseph Shaw (Chairman, Latin Mass Society of England and Wales)
Dr. Thomas Stark (Independent scholar and writer, Germany and Austria)
James Vogel (Editor, The Angelus Press)
Fr. Edmund Waldstein (Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule, Austria)
