About Margarita Mooney Clayton
Author, Professor, Mentor and Celebrated Public Speaker
“An encounter with Mary is unexpected in our time — because she’s almost universally misunderstood. In When Mary Calls, Dr. Margarita Mooney Clayton traces the many ways over that wall of misunderstanding. First among them is Scripture, of course, and the beauty of biblical typology. I love this book.”
Dr. Scott Hahn, The Father Michael Scanlan TOR Professor of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University of Steubenville and Author of Hail Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God
Biography
Margarita Mooney Clayton, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Congregational Studies in the Department of Practical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is also a Research Fellow in Theology and the Arts at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University. Her research, writing and public speaking draw on her extensive knowledge of philosophy, theology with the social sciences. She aims to encourage students, readers, listeners, and audiences to think about important questions in culture, education, faith, femininity, suffering and vocation in new and different ways.
Margarita earned a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Yale University and a Master’s and Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University. She taught in sociology programs at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Yale University, and Princeton University.
Her writing on religion and culture includes her book When Mary Calls: Unexpected Encounters with the Mother of God and Faith Makes Us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora. Her writing on education includes the books The Love of Learning: Seven Dialogues on the Liberal Arts, and The Wounds of Beauty: Seven Dialogues on Art and Education.
“Recovering art as a participation in God’s governance, and as co-creating with God, is crucial to the healthy formation of young people, our places of worship, and our everyday lives.”
She has lectured on beauty, education, culture, and faith at Oxford University, Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Notre Dame, Hillsdale College, The Society for Classical Learning, The Consortium for Christian Studies Centers, The Acton Institute, Regent University, and the Society for Catholic Liturgy.
In addition to her numerous academic publications, her writing has appeared in Comment Magazine, America magazine, Plough Magazine, First Thing Magazine’s blog, Real Clear Policy, Scientific American, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Hedgehog Review, Public Discourse, National Catholic Register and Church Life Journal. She has been cited by David Brooks in the New York Times about her work, and interviewed by Eric Metaxas, Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio, Katie McGrady, and Tammy Peterson. She is on the advisory board of the Classical Learning Test (CLT).
Reviews & accolades
Victoria, Dartmouth College and Oxford University graduate, and Scala summer program alumnus now working in education.
“Thank you for today’s inspiring seminar on Jacques Maritain at Oxford. Your determined proposal and enlightening teaching practices on ‘helping students find their meaning of life, cultivating motivations and excitement of learning indirectly from experiencing intrinsic beauty of nature, music, art, poetry, storytelling’ light up my dreams. When I first attended Scala’s summer seminar, I was just beginning to explore Christian philosophy like that of Maritain. Your course led me down the journey of becoming a Christian and exploring fundamental human questions also from a theological perspective.”
Eric Cook, President of the Society for Classical Learning (SCL)
“Parents, teachers, administrators, and faith leaders are often at a loss to respond to the complex issues our youth face. The leaders of classical liberal arts schools, religious leaders and anyone who cares about the future of the nation needs to read Margarita Mooney Clayton’s book The Wounds of Beauty. The dialogues reveal countless insights about how to provide an integrated formation for the next generation of students longing to both contemplate God and co-create with God in this world.”
Alex H., Yale University and King’s College London and Scala Summer program alumnus working in international relations
“Thank you so much Professor Mooney Clayton for a salvific course. You have pushed the horizons of my imagination, which is the best thing one can do to expand the freedom of one’s own mind. The readings did a great job of communicating the importance of education and the passion and drama of the teacher-student relationship.”
Olivia M., graduate of Chapman University and Yale Law School and Scala summer program alumnus
“Thank you, Margarita, for personally accompanying me from my undergraduate education in music to my law degree. Participating in Scala’s summer program invigorated my desire for truth and beauty. Your recommendation to the Blackstone Legal Fellowship helped me build a community in the legal profession that supports my personal values of faith, family and freedom. Thanks to you and Scala, I have a holistic vision of how to use my music education and my legal education to restore American culture and institutions.”
Daniel, graduate of the University of California-Berkeley and Princeton Theological Seminary. Assistant Pastor at Providence Presbyterian Church.
“I first met Dr. Margarita Mooney Clayton during my time at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her class – Christianity and the Liberal Arts – profoundly changed my understanding of the Christian tradition’s influence on education and the importance of the humanities in any holistic formation of the human being. I also attended Scala’s summer seminar which focused on rediscovering integral humanism. This experience was my first serious exposure to Christian philosophical anthropology and equipped me, as a minister, to engage the various perspectives that confuse or distort the human being as made in the image of God. Learning from Dr. Mooney Clayton has been both an immense privilege and a valuable preparation for my vocation as a pastor; but, more important, it has been a real joy because of her passion for teaching and her enthusiasm for intellectual history.”
Nathaniel, Scala Summer Program Alumnus, Pepperdine School of Public Policy DC Summer Scholar, ’21 and ’20, Ashbrook Scholar, ’18, Small Business Owner and Photographer, and Development Associate, National Association of Scholars (NAS)
“Scala is a group of people who come together in the name of friendship and a shared love of beauty, laughter, and learning. I am overjoyed to know I was part of something so natural, pure, and even holy. There was an innocence about our class that felt as if we were children lost in the woods, yet unafraid, because we knew we were in pursuit of something good, true, and beautiful, and our group was held together by friendship and a fearless leader, Dr. Mooney Clayton. I see firsthand how Scala’s student groups are growing every year. Scala’s programs continue to bringing students together in faith and friendship when so many are lost and wandering. Supporting Scala annually has quickly become one of my priorities.”
Latest Book
When Mary Calls
A young Protestant man from the Bible Belt experiences miraculous healing at a Marian shrine in Ireland. A Methodist woman sees Mary through “a tear in the world” and receives a life-saving warning. A world-renowned composer discovers that every musical composition “is a little incarnation.”
Part spiritual memoir, part theological exploration, When Mary Calls is an emotionally resonant narrative tapestry of deeply personal, testimonial-style stories of Marian encounters today, reflecting Margarita Mooney Clayton’s unique voice as both scholar and spiritual witness. Through seven compelling personal stories—including Clayton’s own dangerous missions to help dissidents in her mother’s homeland of Cuba—this book reveals Mary’s maternal protection at work and explores how she binds believers to authentic faith communities.
Through these contemporary encounters with Mary, Clayton shows how the Mother of God offers what our disenchanted age desperately seeks: an alternative to sterile rationalism and a path to authentic spiritual renewal.
When Mary Calls demonstrates how the Mother of God continues to draw seekers into deeper relationships with Christ, transforming extraordinary encounters into sustained spiritual practices which offer meaning and to a world searching for hope. The cover painting of the icon of the Mother of God is by David Clayton.
Where Faith Meets the Creative Intellect
Margarita is an inspiring speaker for academic audiences, students in higher education, as well as teachers and parents of K-12 students, churches and other faith-based groups.
Book Margarita to Speak Today
