Editor in Chief, America, June 2005-

Drew Christiansen, S.J. has been editor-in-chief of 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. 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 (USCC, 2004) French translation, Le Pardon en Politique Internationale (2007), and co-editor of Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for the 90s (USCC,1994) and of Michel Sabbah, Faithful Witness: On Reconciliation and Peace in the Holy Land (New City. 2009). 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).

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. 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. The same year he served as an expert at the First Congress of Patriarchs and Bishops of the Middle East at Fatqa, Lebanon. In 2003, he received the Manhattan College Peace Studies Award.

Father Christiansen served a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity for the Mennonite-Catholic Dialogue and is a consultant to the Holy See Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations. He is a participant in the official (USCCB) national Jewish-Catholic dialogues and is a member of the current round of the U.S. Methodist-Catholic dialogue. He is also a contributing editor to The Review of Faith in International Affairs.

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).

Recent articles include "Metaphysics and Society: A Commentary on Caritas in Veritate" (Theological Studies, March 2010) and "The Ethics of Peacemaking," (Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Summer 2010). Other recent articles have appeared in Civilta Cattolica and Popoli (Italy), Projet and Christus (France), Razon y Fe (Spain), Mensaje (Chile), Faith in International Affairs, Ecumenical Trends and Seminary Journal (USA) as well as America.

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Last Updated: March 3, 2025

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Book reviews should be pitched to reviews@americamedia.org.

There is a nagging, complicated and somewhat technical problem that occasionally springs up when a new papal encyclical is promulgated. All the details of the case need not be rehearsed, but students of Pacem in Terris will recall the unnecessary and misleading questions that arose in 1963 over an alleged lack of fidelity between the so-called official Latin text of Pope John's famous document and its vernacular translations. At the time, there were even hints of some form of foul play with the official text, and the matter became hopelessly confused and controversial before it was dropped by the press.

Five years ago, U. S. Catholics undertook a peculiar alliance for the progress of the Latin American Church. By 1970, ten per cent of the more than 225,000 priests, brothers and sisters would volunteer to be shipped south of the border. In the meantime, the combined U. S. male and female "clergy" in South America has increased by only 1,622. Halfway is a good time to examine whether a program launched is still sailing on course and, more importantly, if its destination still seems worthwhile. Numerically, the program was certainly a flop. Should this be a source of disappointment or of relief?

A year ago in America I tried to tie together some impressions about modern youth under the label of the "New Breed." I must confess I was overwhelmed by the reaction. All sorts of people announced--some of them validly--that they were members of this New Breed and happily proclaimed that at long last there was someone who understood them. (Alas, it is not true; I do not understand them.) On the other hand, many of those who had identified in the New Breed a dangerous enemy blamed me for the New Breed phenomenon-on the same principle, I suppose, that ancient kings invoked in executing messengers who brought bad news: he who announces bad news is the one responsible for its coming to be.