America Magazine

Drew Christiansen, S.J. is editor-in-chief of the national Jesuit weekly America. 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 International Politics: An Alternative Road to Peace (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 1992 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 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 100 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 Catolica (Italy), Projet (France) and Razon y Fe (Spain) as well as America. He is currently drafting a definitive commentary on Pope John XXIII's encyclical letter Pacem in terris. For a sample of his writings in America, click here or type his name into the Google search box to the right.

Lisa Pope has been the Business Manager of America Magazine since 2004. Before making the very wise decision to come to America Press Inc, Lisa spent 8 years after graduate school working in the for-profit, corporate world as a manager. Lisa handles the business operations of the magazine and heads up its business departments. She lives in the New York City area with her family.

Charles M. Whelan, S.J., has been an associate editor of America since July 28, 1962. He has focused on issues related to religion and United States constitutional law. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1944, received his LL.M. from Georgetown Law Center in 1954, and became a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1958. As a full-time professor at Fordham Law School from 1962 to 2005, Father Whelan taught the basic course in constitutional law, advanced electives in the First Amendment, and a course in legal writing. Father Whelan may also be contacted at (212) 515-0159.

Brother Turnbull began working at America with the issue of July 7, 1984. He was assistant to the editor from 1984-89 and managing editor from 1989-92. Immediately prior to returning to America he worked at St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City, N.J.

George Anderson, S.J., has been on the staff of America since July 1994. For samples of his writings in America, click here or type his name into the Goolge search box to the right. With a background in social-pastoral work--including a number of years as a prison chaplain in New York City and as a pastor in Washington, D.C.--his focus at America is social justice issues. He is author of With Christ in Prison: Jesuits in Jail from Ignatius to the Present (Fordham University Press, 2000).