Berkley Center

Dr. John Borelli, a historian of religions and theologian, is special assistant for Catholic identity and dialogue to President John J. DeGioia of Georgetown University. Borelli has been at Georgetown University since 2004, where he teaches, manages conferences and events, coordinates dialogues, facilitates workshops, and promotes university relations with offices and institutes of the Holy See.

John Carr is co-director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University. Previously, he served for over 20 years as director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Michael J. Gerson is a nationally syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in the Washington Post. He is also a policy fellow at ONE, a bipartisan organization fighting against extreme poverty and preventable diseases, and a visiting fellow with the Center for Public Justice. From 2001 to 2006, he served as a speechwriter and advisor to President George W. Bush.

Chester Gillis is a professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies who served as the dean of Georgetown College from 2008 to 2017. An expert on the U.S. Catholic Church, the history of Catholicism, and the papacy, including Pope Benedict XVI, his other areas of expertise include interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism. Gillis was the initial holder of the Amaturo Chair in Catholic Studies and was a Berkley Center research fellow who directed the center's Program on the Church and Interreligious Dialogue; in 2008, he was the faculty mentor for the Berkley Center's undergraduate fellows program. Gillis has served on the faculty of Georgetown University since 1988. His publications include, among others, Catholic Faith in America (2003/2012), The Political Papacy (2005), and Pluralism: A New Paradigm for Theology (1993). He holds degrees in philosophy and religious studies from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

M. Cathleen Kaveny is the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor at Boston College, with appointments in both the Department of Theology and Law School. Her research and teaching focus on the intersection of law, religion, ethics, and morality. She serves on the masthead of Commonweal as a regular columnist.

John P. Langan, S.J. was the Cardinal Bernardin Chair in Catholic Social Thought in the Department of Philosophy, Rose Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center at Georgetown University until his death in March 2020. He also taught at Yale Divinity School, Drew University, and Loyola University Chicago. Langan's research interests included ethics and international affairs, especially applications of just war theory; human rights in theory and practice; capital punishment; Catholic social teaching; the place of religion in liberal political thought; and the ethical theories of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine. He edited Catholic Universities in Church and Society (1993) and A Moral Vision for America (1998). Langan held an A.B., M.A., and Ph.L. from Loyola University, as well as a B.D. from Woodstock College and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Vincent D. Rougeau is a Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, where he has taught since 1997. Rougeau is also a Senior Fellow at the Contextual Theology Center in London and director of the law school’s Center for Law and Government; in addition, he oversees the Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy. He served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1999-2002, and he previously taught at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Rougeau was in private practice with DC firm Morrison & Foerster from 1988-91. He was a 2008-09 Senior Fellow of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago. Rougeau is the author of Christians in the American Empire: Faith and Citizenship in the New World Order (2008). Rougeau holds an AB (magna cum laude) from Brown University and JD from Harvard Law School.

Cheryl J. Sanders is professor of Christian ethics at Howard University and senior pastor of Third Street Church of God in Washington, DC. Her several books include Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People, Ministry at the Margins, and Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture. Her current research is centered on past and present black Christian public intellectual discourses. She is president of the American Theological Society.