Biography:
Dr Maria Power is a Senior Research Fellow in Human Dignity at the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice at Blackfriars Hall. She is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence.
Maria’s academic research focuses on the role that religions can play in ameliorating violence and ethnic conflict. Her research on conflict and peace seeks to understand how religious organisations should behave in conflict and post-conflict situations to have a positive impact. Maria has expertise in intra- and inter-faith dialogue and peace-building practices. She is currently working on a project entitled: ‘Witnessing to hope: Catholic Social Teaching and Lay Leadership in Catholic Parishes’ with Thrive Ireland. Her research has been funded by the ESRC, the British Academy, The Spalding Trust and the Porticus Foundation. Her next monograph on the Bible and the Conflict in Northern Ireland will be published by Routledge in 2026.
Faculty Research Area(s):
Christian and Religious Ethics; History of Christianity
Research Interests:
Peace Studies; Ethnic Conflict; the use of the Bible in conflicts; Catholic Social Teaching; Christian Nationalism
Research Centres & Projects:
Las Casas Institute for Social Justice
Editorships:
Editorial Board Member: Journal of Social Encounters
Book Reviews Editor: Journal for the Study of Bible and Violence
Links:
https://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-maria-power/
@mariacpower
Publications & Research Outputs:
Catholic Lay Societies in Twentieth Century Britain, edited with Dr Jonathan Bush, (Martlesham: Boydell and Brewer, 2025)
The Church, the Far Right, and the Claim to Christianity, edited with Rev Dr Helen Paynter (London: SCM Press, 2024)
‘Christian Realism and Peacebuilding’ in Gladys Ganiel and Andrew Holmes (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), pp. 471-488
‘Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations’ in Alana Harris (ed.), The Oxford History of Catholicism in Britain and Ireland, Volume V, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), pp. 229-248
‘Current Roman Catholic Ethics on War and Peace vis-à-vis the Ukraine-Russia War’, with Prof. Tobias Winright, Oekumenische Rundschan, 2023 vol. 72, no. 2, pp. 182-207
Violence and Peace in Sacred Texts: Interfaith Perspectives, edited with Rev. Dr Helen Paynter, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
Catholic Social Teaching and Theologies of Peace in Northern Ireland: Cardinal Cahal Daly and the Pursuit of the Peaceable Kingdom, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021)
‘Creating a Social Covenant: Fratelli Tutti as a Roadmap for Overcoming Structural Violence in Northern Ireland,’ Journal of Social Encounters, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1
‘The Politics of Dissent: Catholic Public Theology in Northern Ireland’, Modern Believing, 2020, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 127-140
Building Peace in Northern Ireland, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011)
From Ecumenism to Community Relations: Inter-Church Relations in Northern Ireland 1980-2005, (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007)
