Province News

Fr. Drew Christiansen, Mideast Expert, to Speak at Heartland Center Event
Tuesday, March 04, 2003

Fr. Drew Christiansen, SJ
Across the Middle East, the historic “Cradle of Christianity,” Christian minorities are hard pressed. In the Holy Land, the holy places are threatened with becoming empty museums. Fr. Drew Christiansen, SJ, advisor to the U.S. Catholic Bishops on Mideast policy and associate editor at America Magazine, will examine the situation of Christians in Arab Lands, with special emphasis on Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.

Heartland Center will host Fr. Christiansen to discuss the issue on:

Monday, March 10, 2003 at 7:00 PM
At The Cornerstone Building of St. Thomas More Parish
8635 Calumet Ave, Munster, IN
-Building is south of the Church-

There is no charge but please help Heartland Center make the proper arrangements by informing them if you will attend. Phone 219-844-7515 or at mail@heartlandctr.org.

More about Fr. Christiansen
Fr. Drew Christiansen, S.J., Associate Editor at America Magazine, has also served as a senior fellow and director of the International Visiting Fellows Program at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. He is former director of the Office of International Justice and Peace, United States Catholic Conference (1991-1998). In addition, he has been associate professor of theology and staff fellow of the Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame (1986-1990); assistant professor of social ethics, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and Graduate Theological Union (1981-86) and director, Center for Ethics and Social Policy (1982-86). He received his Ph.D. in religious social ethics from Yale University in 1982.

Fr. Christiansen serves on the boards of the U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East, the U.S. Catholic China Bureau, the Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy, the American Committee for Jerusalem, the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Association, and the executive committee of the U.S. Conference of Religions for Peace (formerly the U.S. chapter of the World Conference for Religion and Peace).

Fr. Christiansen's staff work for the U.S. bishops included their 1991 environmental pastoral, Renewing the Earth, and the design and implementation of the bishops' environmental justice program. He also served as the lead staff person in the drafting of the 1993 tenth anniversary peace pastoral, The Harvest of Justice Is Sown in Peace, which has provided the basis for USCC's post-Cold War policy. As director of the Office of International Justice and Peace, he traveled frequently on missions to world trouble spots, including the Balkans and the Middle East. Invested as canon of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem) for his work for the church in the Holy Land, Fr. Christiansen continues to advise the U.S. bishops on Mideast policy. He also serves as coordinator of an episcopal conference working group on the Holy Land.

Pope John Paul II appointed Fr. Christiansen as an expert to the 1997 Synod for 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 an appointed expert at the First Congress of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops of the Middle East in Fatqa, Lebanon. He is a member of the Holy See's team for the International Catholic-Mennonite Dialogue and served as a consultant on protecting religious liberties and holy sites for the Holy See delegation at the 2001 meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee.

He is author of more than 80 articles on moral theology, ethics and international affairs, just war and nonviolence, Catholic social teaching, and family care of the elderly. He is co-editor:Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for the 90s; and "And God Saw It Was Good": Catholic Theology and the Environment. He is currently drafting a definitive commentary on Pope John XXIII's encyclical letter Pacem in terris.