Thomas Reese

Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese's column for Religion News Service, "Signs of the Times," appears regularly at National Catholic Reporter.

Reese entered the Jesuits in 1962 and was ordained in 1974. He was educated at St. Louis University, the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and at the University of California Berkeley, where he received a Ph.D. in political science. He worked in Washington as a writer and lobbyist for tax reform from 1975 to 1978. He was an associate editor of America magazine, where he wrote on politics, economics and the Catholic Church, from 1978 to 1985 and editor-in-chief from 1998 to 2005. He was a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center from 1985 to 1998 and 2006 to 2013. During the summers, he works as a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. 

While at Woodstock, he wrote the trilogy on the organization and politics of the church: Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church (1989), A Flock of Shepherds: The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (1992), and Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church (1996). He also edited The Universal Catechism Reader (1990), an analysis of the first draft of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Episcopal Conferences: Historical, Canonical and Theological Studies (1989). He is also author of a NCR e-book, Caring for Our Common Home: A Readers’ Guide and Commentary on Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Environment (2015).

In 2014, Reese was appointed by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission that reviews the facts and circumstances of religious freedom violations and makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress. He was reappointed to another two-year term in May 2016, and he was elected to a one-year term as chair of the commission in June 2016. His writings for NCR do not necessarily reflect the views of the commission.

Reese was senior analyst for the NCR from March 2013 to June 2017. He is based in Washington, D.C.

By this Author

Can Pope Francis bring peace to Ukraine?

Playing chicken over debt and spending bills

EWTN, once 'the work of the devil,' now gets blessing from pope

Fighting inflation with one hand tied behind your back

The Resurrection changes everything

Earth Day is a day of fear and hope

Pope Benedict 'closed' Limbo and no one complained

Christ continues to be crucified in today's world

Help! I have been replaced by an AI.

A reading list for seminarians and other Catholic conservatives

The lesson of Silicon Valley Bank: Regulations protect good businesses as well as consumers

The legacy of a decade of Pope Francis

Is the FBI coming after traditional Catholics?

What does it mean to be holy?

Trashing Pope Francis won't make Congo's complex problems simpler

Eucharistic prayer is the most important and least understood prayer in Mass

The Jewish roots of the Eucharist

The Eucharist is about more than the Real Presence

Pell's 'catastrophe' memorandum stains his legacy

With Benedict's death, a way opens for formal rules for retired popes

Advertisement