Mike Aquilina

Mike Aquilina is an American Catholic author and journalist working in the area of Church history, especially patristics. He is co-founder of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, a Catholic research center based in Steubenville, Ohio.

Aquilina is also a contributing editor of Angelus, and general editor of the Reclaiming Catholic History series from Ave Maria Press. He hosts Way of the Fathers, a podcast produced by CatholicCulture.org.

Early life and education
Aquilina was born in Kingston, Pennsylvania in 1963. He received his elementary and secondary education in Catholic schools in Pittston, Pennsylvania. He is a 1985 graduate of Pennsylvania State University, and he received that university's Oswald Award for Achievement in Journalism and Mass Media.

Professional career
Aquilina is the author or editor of more than seventy books, including: What Catholics Believe (1999), Living the Mysteries (2003), The Fathers of the Church (2006), The Mass of the Early Christians (2007) and The Resilient Church (2007). His books have been translated into many languages, from Croatian and Portuguese to German and Braille. The Grail Code has appeared in ten languages since its publication in 2006.

Critics have praised Aquilina's work for making the Fathers accessible to non-academic readers: "Most scholars … study the paper trail — homilies, letters, teaching manuals, works of theological disputation … Aquilina loves the words, too. But he also finds the sermon in the stuff, the theology expressed in the little things that the first Christians left behind — fading murals on catacomb walls, pottery and dishware, pieces of coinage, ancient hymns and mass prayers, common household items … The point is that for Aquilina, the little things matter — because they tell us big things about what Catholics believe and how they look at the world". Dr. John Grondelski said in the National Catholic Register: "Aquilina has made a vocation and career out of, in many ways, single-handedly popularizing patristics."

Aquilina's book Ministers and Martyrs (2015), was an official companion volume to the NBC series A.D. The Bible Continues. A year later, he published The World of Ben-Hur, as a guide to MGM's remake of the Lew Wallace classic Ben-Hur.

Aquilina is also a poet and songwriter. His poems, collected in the volumes Terms and Conditions (2014) and The Invention of Zero (2020), have appeared in U.S. literary journals and in Polish and Spanish translations. His collaborations with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artist Dion include the book Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth and four albums: Tank Full of Blues (2012), New York Is My Home (2016), Blues with Friends (2020) and Stomping Ground (2021). The title song of New York Is My Home was recorded as a duet by Dion and Paul Simon, launched by Rolling Stone magazine, and released as a single in 2015. It was used in episode 5 of season 1, in the drama series Horace and Pete. It was also chosen by clothing designer Ralph Lauren, as the catwalk theme for his 50th-anniversary show in 2018. The song also appears in the Deluxe Edition of Simon's album Stranger to Stranger.

Dion's album Blues with Friends (2020), which included twelve songs co-written with Aquilina, debuted at number one on Billboard and U.K. charts. It was also the number one Billboard Blues Album for 2020. American Songwriter magazine honored "Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America)", a single from Blues with Friends, as the "Greatest of the Great 2020 Songs". DiMucci-Aquilina songs have also been recorded with or performed by Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Beck, Amy Grant, Mark Knopfler, Joe Bonamassa, Brian Setzer, Joe Louis Walker, Billy F. Gibbons, Peter Frampton, Rickie Lee Jones, and many others. Bob Dylan praised these songs for their craft.

In recent years, Aquilina has hosted eleven television series on EWTN and hosted two independently produced feature documentaries, one on St. Perpetua and another on St. Augustine. He is a frequent guest commentator on Catholic radio, especially Relevant Radio and EWTN. His journalistic work has appeared in many periodicals.

Aquilina is the past editor of New Covenant magazine (1996–2002) and Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper (1993–1996).

Personal life
He and his wife, Terri, have been married since 1985. They live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh with their children, who are the subject of his book Love in the Little Things (2007).