Encounter: Conversations on Catholic Social Tradition

Anna Rowlands is the St. Hilda Chair in Catholic Social Thought and Practice at Durham University, England. She is a political theologian who works at the interface of political and social theory and Christian theology. Her original training was in the social and political sciences, followed by postgraduate degrees in theology. She has worked for two decades on the political philosophy of Gillian Rose, with additional interests in Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil. These interests coincided with research over the last 15 years in two other areas: the study of forced migration and the ethics of migration, and the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. She has published in all these areas. Her key publications include: Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times (Bloomsbury, 2021) and The T&T Clark Reader in Political Theology, edited with Elizabeth Phillips and Amy Daughton (Bloomsbury, 2021) and The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Contemporary Migration (forthcoming 2024) edited with Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh. She is currently working on a new book on Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and Gillian Rose.

Marcus Mescher is associate professor of Christian ethics. He holds a Ph.D. from Boston College and specializes in Catholic social teaching and moral formation. His research and writing concentrate in the following areas: human dignity and rights; social/environmental justice for the global common good; how moral agency is impacted by cultural context and digital technology; the moral dimensions of friendship; sexual justice and the ethics of marriage and family life; liberation theology and inclusive solidarity; healing the psychological, spiritual, social, and moral harm caused by clergy abuse. Dr. Mescher has written dozens of popular and academic articles; he has published essays in the Journal of Moral Theology, the Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Jesuit Higher Education, and The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is the author of The Ethics of Encounter: Christian Neighbor Love as a Practice of Solidarity (Orbis, 2020) and Fratelli Tutti Study Guide (Paulist, 2021). His current research and writing focus on mental health and moral injury.

Kristin E. Heyer is professor of theological ethics at Boston College. She received her B.A. from Brown University and her Ph.D. in theological ethics from Boston College. Her books include Kinship Across Borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration (2012) and Prophetic and Public: the Social Witness of U.S. Catholicism (2006), which won the College Theology Society’s “Best Book Award,” both published with Georgetown University Press.  She has also published the co-edited volumes Public Theology and the Global Common Good: The Contribution of David Hollenbach (Orbis Press, 2016); Conscience and Catholicism: Rights, Responsibilities and Institutional Responses (Orbis Press, 2015) and Catholics and Politics: Dynamic Tensions between Faith and Power (Georgetown University Press, 2008).  Her articles have appeared in Theological Studies,The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, The Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Political Theology, Asian Horizons, The Journal of Religion and Society, Health Care Ethics, New Theology Review, Commonweal and America.  

Gerald J. Beyer is Professor of Christian Ethics at Villanova University.  His publications include Recovering Solidarity: Lessons from Poland’s Unfinished Revolution (Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2010) and Just Universities: Catholic Social Teaching Confronts Corporatized Higher Education (Fordham University Press, 2021). Beyer also co-edited and contributed a chapter to the critical edition of Karol Wojtyła, Katolicka etyka społeczna (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2018). He studied at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland as a Kosciuszko Fellow (1995-97), the Papal University of Theology in Kraków (1996-97), and the Kraków University of Economics as a Fulbright Fellow (1998-98)