Former United States Ambassador to the Vatican Miguel Díaz has always had a love for bridges. The new University of Dayton professor has been building them since he was a young boy, translating American traditions for his Cuban parents and grandparents.

Now, as Díaz begins as UD’s endowed professor of faith and culture, he hopes to continue making connections among disciplines and religions.

“The bridge is always a symbol of bringing communities together,” he said. “This is very much part of my desire to continue diplomatic efforts to bring communities together and bring people together.”

Díaz was the first Hispanic to represent the United States as ambassador to the Holy See when he was appointed to that role by President Barack Obama in 2009. He returned Nov. 16 to UD, where he held his first teaching position from 1996 to 1998 after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. At UD, he served as assistant professor of religious studies from 1996 to 1998.

“My entire life has been spent really serving as a teacher in Catholic higher education,” he said. “This is pretty much my passion to teach, to do research, to mentor students and to be mentored by students.

“I strongly believe in the power of ideas and the power of education to transform our world.”

His arrival has excited the university community; and Paul Benson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said Díaz’s work on campus will be especially valuable as the university focuses on developing undergraduate students’ skills in community building and intercultural collaboration.

“Professor Díaz’s unique experience as a theologian and a diplomat will lend valuable perspective to our students’ appreciation of the value of respectful dialogue across religious and other cultural differences that too often set people at odds with one another,” Benson said. “He will be an ambassador for global learning at UD.”

Díaz was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to Florida as a young child. His father worked in America as a waiter and his mother did data entry. He was the first in his family to go to college.

Today, he holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Saint Thomas University in Miami and a master’s degree and doctor of philosophy in theology from Notre Dame. He is fluent in Italian, Spanish and French, and capable of reading Greek, Latin and German. He has four children with his wife, Marian, who is teaching scripture at UD. The couple met at Notre Dame.

As ambassador, he held “Building Bridges” conferences that brought together Christians, Jews and Muslims. He helped also to launch the Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group of the Secretary of State’s Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society. According to Italian media, Díaz held a farewell audience with Pope Benedict XVIbefore leaving his post in Rome.

Díaz said he will tap into his educational background and his diplomatic experience to focus on UD’s mission to learn, lead and serve.

“I’m going to certainly learn, lead and serve in a way that is interdisciplinary. Faith in conversation with science. Faith in conversation with the humanities. Faith in conversation with the arts. Faith in conversation with popular culture. Faith in conversation with the political and social challenges of our times,” said Díaz, who was raised Catholic.

“I strongly believe that whether we speak about the local community, whether we speak about our nation or whether we speak about the world, the need for another kind of bridging, that intercultural, interreligious dimension, is very much necessary,” he said. “I hope to be able to lead conversation that affect not only our city of Dayton. The conversations that will occur here at Dayton, I think, have a tremendous opportunity to have an impact not only on our city, but our nation and our global community.”

Díaz said he will use the perspectives he learned in Rome in his classroom at UD.

“At the end of the day we may still hold onto our perspective as an important perspective and as an important contribution to the table, but I think the more perspectives that we include or at least consider, the richer we are for holding our own particular point of view. Clearly, we all have something to bring to the table,” he said.