| Honorific Prefix: | Sister |
| Ilia Delio | |
| Honorific Suffix: | O.S.F. |
| Birth Place: | Newark, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Franciscan sister, university professor, author, scientist |
| Religion: | Roman Catholic |
Ilia Delio is a Franciscan sister of Washington, DC, theologian, author, and university professor. She holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair of Theology at Villanova University.[1] Delio is the founder of the Center for Christogenesis, an online educational resource for promoting the vision of Teilhard de Chardin and the integration of science and religion.[2]
Delio earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology at DeSales University (then Allentown College) and a master's degree in biology at Seton Hall University. She completed a doctorate in pharmacology at Rutgers University, New Jersey Medical School. Delio specialized in neuropharmacology and focused on neuromuscular disease.[3] She gave up a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in research on Alzheimer's disease, in order to enter a Carmelite monastery. She later joined a Franciscan community.[4] [5] After Delio entered the Franciscans, she enrolled at Rutgers University for a postdoctoral fellowship in neurotoxicology, where she researched heavy metal toxicity and nerve damage.[6]
During her formation period in the Franciscan community, Delio attended Fordham University, earning a master's degree in theology and a doctorate in Historical Theology.[7] After graduation from Fordham she taught Science and Religion at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.[8] She then served as Professor and Chair of Spirituality Studies at Washington Theological Union for 12 years, where she taught Franciscan Theology and Spirituality, Science and Religion, and the History of Christianity.[9] Delio then accepted a post as a Senior Research Fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center, focusing on Science, Religion, and Technology.[10] After Woodstock closed in June, 2013, she became the Haub Director of Catholic Studies at Georgetown University, before moving to Villanova.[11]
Delio speaks both nationally and internationally on topics such as quantum physics, artificial intelligence, evolution, and the importance and relevance of these fields for Christianity. She is the recipient of a Templeton Course Award in Science and Religion and holds two honorary degrees from Saint Francis University and Sacred Heart University.[12] [13] She is a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.[14]
Delio's 24 books include The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science and the Human Journey, which won a 2022 Nautilus Book Award (Gold), and The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love, winner of the 2014 Nautilus Award (Silver) and a Catholic Press Association Book Award.[15] [16] Selected other books include Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth (Catholic Press Book Award 2010), The Emergent Christ: Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe (Catholic Press Book Award 2013), and Making All Things New: Catholicity, Cosmology and Consciousness. The latter was nominated for the 2017 Grawemeyer Award at the University of Louisville. It was also a finalist for the UK's 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for theological writing.[17] [18] [19] Many of her books have been translated, including Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Polish.
In 2015 Delio launched a new Orbis Books series as its general editor, Catholicity in an Evolving Universe.[20] There are ten books in the series .[21]
Her thinking and writing considers artificial Intelligence and religion, relational holism, panpsychism, evolution, human becoming, and theogenesis. She has two books forthcoming, one on technology-mediated relationships in a post pandemic world, and another on Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, and relational holism.[22] [23] [24]