Voices for the Common Good - Catholic Commentators

Simone Campbell, an attorney and Sister of Social Service, is the Executive Director of NETWORK, a Catholic leader in the global movement for justice and peace that educates, organizes and lobbies for economic and social transformation.

She formerly served as Executive Director of JERICHO, an interfaith public policy and advocacy organization in California. As an attorney, she represented low-income people and founded a community-based law center. She also led her international community of women religious for five years, is fluent in Spanish, and is an accomplished poet.

Father Currie has served as AJCU president since August, 1997. He is responsible for coordinating the work of the Association, and is the liaison between American Jesuit higher education and other civic, academic and religious entities.

He began his academic career as a professor and chemist at Georgetown University in 1966, and subsequently served as president of Wheeling College (now Wheeling Jesuit University) and Xavier University. In 1989 when six Jesuits and two co-workers were killed in El Salvador, Father Currie began a long involvement with that country which continues to the present.

Prior to working for AJCU, Fr. Currie served as rector of the Jesuit Community at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, where he also taught a course in Theology and Science.

Patricia Daly is a Dominican Sister of Caldwell and serves as the Executive Director of the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment, an organization of 35 Catholic Dioceses and Religious Congregations in the NY metropolitan area. Sr. Daly represents these institutional investors to the national Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a consortium of religious organizations holding more than $110 billion in investments.

Sr. Daly engages companies and investors on environmental, social and corporate governance concerns, with a particular focus on global warming.

Franciscan Sister, Spiritual Director and author, Sister Sharon Dillon is a respected leader, administrator and retreat facilitator. As a 15-year master Special Educator and Franciscan Spiritual Director, Dillon is working toward her second M.A. at Washington Theological Union with a focus on the integration of theology and Franciscan spirituality.

Dillon is the Executive Director of the Franciscan Mission Service of North America and the former Executive Director of the Franciscan Federation of the Third Order for the United States. Dillon has co-authored the Franciscan Morning and Evening Praise prayer book and has also co- written a book of prayers focused on peace and justice called And So We Pray, along with two manuals, The Franciscan Journey and The Journey Continues.

Fr. Groody is a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and an expert on migration issues. He has directed two international conferences on poverty and migration at Notre Dame, and is the author of Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit and Globalization, Spirituality and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace (forthcoming).

Fr. Groody holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame, the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and the Graduate Theological Union. He has produced several films, including Endless Exodus, Strangers No Longer, and Dying to Live: A Migrant’s Journey. Fr. Groody teaches courses in U.S. Latino Spirituality, inculturation, Christian Spirituality and Social Justice, and lectures widely in the United States, Latin America, and Europe.

Fr. Hollenbach teaches Theological Ethics and Christian Social Ethics, with research focus in the areas of the common good, human rights, theory of justice, the role of the religion in social and political life, and humanitarian crises and forced migration. He is the author of several books, including The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics, and The Common Good and Christian Ethics.

Fr. Hollenbach has served as a visiting professor in institutions in Kenya, Vietnam, and the Philippines. He assisted the U.S. Catholic Bishops in drafting their 1986 letter Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, and in 1998 received the John Courtney Murray Award for distinguished achievement in Theology from the Catholic Theological Society of America.

Rev. Michael P. Jacques, SSE, VF has been the Pastor of St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in New Orleans, LA since 1984. He is also Director of the Council of Deans for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Providence CDC, a Catholic Housing Organization. Fr. Jacques is a member of the Archdiocesan School Board and of UJAMMA CDC/St. Peter Claver. He is also a member of Renown Preacher and Revivalists, ACT (All Congregations Together), and PICO, faith-based community organizing. Fr. Jacques has vision and leadership and is a developer of the Post-Hurricane Katrina Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan.

The Rev. Richard Ryscavage, S.J., is professor of sociology and international studies and director of Fairfield University's Center for Faith and Public Life. Fr. Ryscavage served previously as national director of the Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. He set up the first program to provide religious coordinators for immigration detention facilities of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. At the national office for U.S. Jesuits, he was the main advisor for international and domestic social issues. In addition, he chaired the humanitarian section of Interaction, the largest coalition of American agencies working internationally. He has represented the U.S. non-governmental organizations on official U.S. government delegations to the United Nations.

Fr. Ryscavage was executive director of migration and refugee services for U.S. Catholic bishops, where he ran the largest refugee resettlement agency in the United States with an annual budget of $40 million. He was also president of a legal services corporation set up by the bishops to help new immigrants with legal issues. In 2006, Fr. Ryscavage was appointed official advisor to the delegation of the Holy See to the United Nations 61st General Assembly.

Fr. Thelen was ordained in 1980 and early in his clerical career helped to establish the Office of Peace and Justice Ministry for the Diocese of Lansing, MI. From 1988 to 1993 he served as an Associate Maryknoll Missionary in Peru.

Fr. Thelen was the co-founder in 2002 of the Greater Lansing Network Against War and Injustice. For the past 13 years, he has been the pastor of Cristo Rey Catholic Church, a predominantly Hispanic parish in Lansing.

Mary Waskowiak, RSM, was elected President of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas in July 2005, after having previously served on Institute’s leadership team, as President of the Sisters of Mercy Regional Community of Burlingame, and as President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Her prior ministry experiences include secondary education, parish ministry, seminary field education, Sisters of Mercy vocation and formation ministry, and directing Mercy Center in Burlingame.

Sr. Waskowiak has served as facilitator and/or presenter for groups of women and men religious in the United States, Africa, Europe and Central America. Her professional interests include spirituality, justice, and leadership development.

Lisa Sowle Cahill is the J. Donald Monan Professor of Theology at Boston College, where she has taught since 1976 on the history of Christian Ethics, Catholic Social and Sexual Ethics, Bioethics and the Ethics of War and Peace.

Dr. Cahill is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America (l992-93) and of the Society of Christian Ethics (l997-98). She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was the Alumna of the Year at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1999. Cahill has eight honorary degrees and has served on the Steering Committee of the Catholic Common Ground Initiative since 1998. Cahill has also been a visiting professor at Georgetown and Yale Universities. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Santa Clara and a Master of Arts and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. She and her husband Larry have five children.

Dr. Arturo Chávez, Ph.D. is the Director of Programs for the Mexican American Cultural Center. He has worked for over twenty five years in a variety of ministries - teacher, youth minister, chaplain to incarcerated youth, community organizer and activist, and as a CEO of a social justice, faith-based organization. He was instrumental in establishing and raising funds for various nonprofit organizations and coalitions to address the urgent needs of families who are poor and disenfranchised. These include JOVEN, the Peace Center, Merced Housing, the Center for Public Policy Priorities, and the Peace Initiative.

He is a coauthor, with his wife Mary, of a new curriculum for Latino Youth Leadership Formation called RESPETO, implemented in parishes around the country. He is a national speaker and workshop facilitator in leadership in multicultural communities and Hispanic ministry; Latino youth and family ministry; Immigration; social and religious history of Mexican Americans; and Catholic Social Thought. Dr. Chávez holds a Master in Theology from Oblate School of Theology and a Ph.D. in Religion from the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology.

Chuck Collins is director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is also founder and director of Business for Shared Prosperity, a national network of business leaders supporting “high road” economic policies.

His most recent book, co-authored with Mary Wright of JustFaith, The Moral Measure of the Economy (Orbis 2007), examines Catholic social teaching perspectives on economic life. He is an expert on inequality in the U.S. and author of several books, including Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity (New Press, 2005). He coordinates a national effort to preserve the federal estate tax, our nation’s only tax on inherited wealth. He co-authored with Bill Gates Sr., Wealth and Our Commonwealth, a case for taxing inherited fortunes.

Ms. Dennis is director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, and serves as co-president of Pax Christi International and a Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace. She holds an M.A. in Moral Theology from Washington Theological Union and is co-author or author of six books on the spirituality of social justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

Ms. Dennis has traveled widely among the marginal communities where Maryknoll missioners work in Latin America. She has participated in election observer delegations to Mexico and Haiti and on solidarity delegations to many other countries. She serves on the board of directors of the Washington Office on Latin America, the Latin America Working Group, and the International Resource Center. She has lectured at universities, conferences, workshops, parishes and high schools over the past 30 years on topics such as Catholic Social Teaching, globalization, peacemaking, and economic justice. Ms. Dennis is a contributor to numerous publications.

Miguel H. Díaz is an Associate Professor of Theology in the department of theology at the College of St. Benedict / St. John’s University and the graduate School of Theology at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN. He received his doctorate in Systematic Theology from the University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Díaz is currently the President of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States. He is also an active member of the Catholic Theological Society of America. Dr. Díaz’s publications include: From the Heart of our People (co-edited with O. Espín) and On Being Human: U.S. Hispanic and Rahnerian Perspectives.

Richard R. Gaillardetz is the Margaret and Thomas Murray and James J. Bacik Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from the University of Notre Dame. He has published numerous articles and has authored six books including, By What Authority? A Primer on Scripture, the Magisterium and the Sense of the Faithful, A Daring Promise: A Spirituality of Christian Marriage and a forthcoming book on the Second Vatican Council entitled The Church in the Making.

In 2000 Dr. Gaillardetz received the Sophia Award from the faculty of the Washington Theological Union in recognition of “Theological excellence in service to ministry.” Dr. Gaillardetz was an official delegate on the U.S. Catholic—Methodist Ecumenical Dialogue from 2001 to 2005. He and his wife Diana Gaillardetz have four boys.

David O'Brien is Loyola Professor of Catholic Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. He has written six books on the history of American Catholicism and has served as President of the American Catholic Historical Association. He has served on Committees at the Bishops Conference and has been a Board Member of The National Catholic Reporter, the Catholic Committee on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, the Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. He lectures regularly on U.S. Catholic history, Catholic social teaching, higher education, and politics.

Mirna Torres is the Director of Legalization for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC). CLINIC, a subsidiary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), is a public interest legal corporation that represents low-income immigrants and supports a network of 161 charitable legal immigration programs.

Ms. Torres leads CLINIC’s Legalization Project, which prepares charitable immigration programs to expand their service-delivery capacity and seeks to establish a coordinated service-delivery and legal support architecture that will significantly strengthen the immigrant rights community. Ms. Torres also directs CLINIC's work on human trafficking, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and unaccompanied migrant minors.

Kathleen Maas Weigert, Ph.D.
Executive Director, The Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service
Georgetown University

Kathleen Maas Weigert is the Executive Director of the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service at Georgetown University. She is a Research Professor in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology and the Program on Justice & Peace. At the University of Notre Dame, Weigert was Associate Director for Academic Affairs and Research at the Center for Social Concerns, Concurrent Associate Professor in American Studies, and Fellow in the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Dr. Weigert received an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Minnesota, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame. She has taught and published on such topics as experiential and community-based education, nonviolence, and education for justice and peace. She co-edited America's Working Poor and is one of the authors of The Search for Common Ground: What Unites and Divides Catholic Americans, which received the "1998 Award for Excellence in Research" from the National Conference of Catechetical Leaders. She is also co-editor of Teaching for Justice: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Peace Studies and Living the Catholic Social Tradition: Cases and Commentary