Until his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Miguel Díaz, 45, was a professor of theology at the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He is a board member of the Catholic Theological Society of America and former president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States.
Díaz is the first Hispanic to represent the United States at the Vatican. Born in Havana, Cuba, Díaz moved as a child to the United States, where his family worked hard to move ahead. His father worked as a waiter and his mother did data entry work, and their son was the first member of the family to attend college. Díaz earned his bachelor’s degree from Saint Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida, and his master’s and doctorate from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He previously taught at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida; Saint Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida; the University of Dayton in Ohio; and at Notre Dame.
Díaz was previously a member of “Voices for the Common Good,” a speaker’s bureau consisting of prominent experts on Catholic social thought. In recent years, he has participated in various ecumenical conversations. He also has engaged in conversation with prominent Catholic Church leaders, and organized a theological conversation among African American and Latino/a Catholic theologians around the theme of human identity.
Ambassador Díaz’s published materials include the book “On Being Human: U.S. Hispanic and Rahnerian Perspectives” (Orbis Books, 2002), for which he received the Hispanic Theological Initiative’s 2002 Book of the Year award from Princeton Theological Seminary. He also is co-editor of the book, “From the Heart of Our People: Latino/a Explorations in Catholic Systematic Theology” (Orbis Books, 1999).
Fluent in Italian, Spanish and French, Ambassador Díaz also reads Greek, Latin and German. His academic interests also include theological anthropology and Latino/Latina theologies.
Ambassador Díaz was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador on August 21st, 2009. He and his wife, Marian, have four children.