Drew Christiansen, S.J.

Drew Christiansen, S.J. "has been editor-in-chief of the national Jesuit weekly America since 2005. From 1991 to 1998, he headed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Office of International Justice and Peace, and from 1998-2004 he continued to serve as counselor for international affairs to the USCCB with special responsibility for the Middle East. From 1998 to 2002, at the request of the Holy See, he organized and staffed a coalition of bishops' conferences working in support of the church in the Holy Land.

"Father Christiansen served as the lead staff person in the drafting of the bishops' 1993 peace pastoral, The Harvest of Justice Is Sown in Peace, which provided the basis for USCCB's post-Cold War policy. He is co-author of Forgiveness in Conflict Resolution (2004) and co-editor of Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for the 90s (1994).

"Father Christiansen was also the U.S. bishops' principal advisor for their 1991 pastoral statement on the environment, Renewing the Earth, and he organized and supervised the bishops' environmental justice program, which sparked parish, diocesan and regional environmental activities. He is co-editor of "And God Saw It Was Good": Catholic Theology and the Environment (USCCB, 1996).

"Pope John Paul II appointed Christiansen as expert for the 1997 Synod of America, and he served as a member of the Holy See Observer Delegation to the November, 1999 World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Seattle. In May 1999, he was also named an expert for the First Congress of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops of the Middle East in Fatqa, Lebanon. He is a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity for the International Mennonite-Catholic Dialogue and to the Holy See Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations (New York), and to USCCB's Catholic-Jewish dialogues.

"In 1996, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem invested Father Christiansen as a Canon of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem) for his work for the Church in the Holy Land and on behalf of Palestinian Christians. In 2003, he received the Manhattan College Peace Studies Award.

"Father Christiansen was ordained a priest in 1972 and received his doctorate in religious social ethics from Yale University in 1982. He has twice been a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center, Washington, D.C. (1977-1980, 1998-2002), serving as the center's acting director in 2002. He has been associate professor of theology and staff fellow of the Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame (1986-1990); assistant professor of social ethics, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union (1981-86); and director, Center for Ethics and Social Policy, Berkeley (1982-86). Father Christiansen is author of more than 150 articles on moral theology, ethics and international affairs, war and peace, environmental ethics, Catholic social teaching and family care of the elderly.

"Recent articles have appeared in Civilta Cattolica and Popoli (Italy), Projet (France) and Razon y Fe (Spain), Faith in International Affairs (USA) as well as America. He has essays in forthcoming books on just policing and on Catholic-Mennonite studies of martyrdom. He is currently completing a book on the theological ethics of family caregiving to the elderly, "When All My Strength Is Spent" and a collection of his articles on issues of war and peace."


 * Director, U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East
 * Former Board Member, American Committee on Jerusalem

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Gerald W. Schlabach