Fr. Drew Christiansen, SJ, Ph.D., director emeritus of the USCCA, died on April 6, 2022 in Washington, D.C. He was 77.
Until his passing, Fr. Christiansen served as a distinguished professor of ethics and human development in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and he was senior fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.
Formerly, he was the head of the U.S. bishops' Office of International Justice and Peace and was well known for promoting the plight of Christians in foreign countries. He often testified on Capitol Hill or wrote to members of Congress on issues ranging from the Middle East peace process to peacekeeping in Bosnia, from human rights in China to religious rights in Russia. Additionally, he assisted the bishops' committee that wrote "The Harvest of Justice Is Sown in Peace," a pastoral letter on war, peace and nonviolence, which the body of U.S. bishops adopted in 1993.
Even after his tenure as a board member at the USCCA ended, he continued to help promote our mission, most recently by speaking at a briefing on human rights, Catholic tradition, and China.
Christiansen served at America, a national weekly Jesuit publication based in New York, for 10 years, from 2002 to 2012. For the last seven of those years, he was editor-in-chief.