Rev. Thomas F. Dailey, O.S.F.S.
Fr. Dailey joined the Seminary faculty full-time in 2017-18 as the inaugural John Cardinal Foley Chair of Homiletics & Social Communications. In January 2024, he also assumed direction of The Catholic Preaching Institute at the Seminary. He has given more than 600 presentations throughout the US and internationally on topics in Salesian Spirituality, Social Communications, Catholic Education, and Biblical Theology. He has offers workshops in the Sophia Institute for Teachers and directs an annual webinar for the Church Management Institute at Villanova University. He has written, edited or translated ten books and more than eighty contributions to a variety of scholarly and pastoral publications worldwide. He also contributed blog posts and authored white papers as a Research Fellow for the Catholic Leadership Institute (Malvern, PA). He is a member of the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Spirituality (Bangalore) and serves as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Catholic Higher Education. He is featured among the members at CatholicSpeakers.com and has appeared on television, radio, and podcast programs in both regional and national markets. For the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, he served on the Communications Committee for the World Meeting of Families and Visit of Pope Francis to the USA in 2015; he also served as the Episcopal Delegate for the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Father Bill Atkinson, O.S.A. Fr. Dailey was elected to the Academy of Catholic Theology in 2013 and became a member of the Catholic Association of Teachers of Homiletics in 2018. Among other awards, he has been nominated twice for inclusion in Who’s Who Among Executives and Professionals, and has been selected four times for inclusion in the list of Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. Fr. Dailey first professed vows in the religious congregation of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales (O.S.F.S.) in 1980, was ordained to the diaconate in St. Peter’s Basilica (Rome) in 1986, and was ordained to the priesthood in St. Anthony of Padua Church (Wilmington, DE) in 1987. He earned a doctoral degree in sacred theology (S.T.D.) from the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome), where he completed his dissertation on the biblical Book of Job.
