WASHINGTON — John Carr, founder of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, retired at the end of 2025. Prior to founding the initiative in 2013, Carr spent more than 25 years of service at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as the head of the bishops’ justice and peace efforts, among other roles in the service of the Church.
OSV News spoke with him about the health of Catholic political engagement. The discussion has been edited for length and clarity.
OSV News: Tell me a little bit about founding the initiative itself, what led to that.
Carr: Well, I was blessed to work for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in different roles for almost 30 years, which is a long time. It was a great vocation to try and help the bishops be the best teachers and pastors and leaders they could be.
After all that time, I felt there needed to be more voices sharing Catholic social teaching and applying it to public issues, particularly lay voices, particularly younger voices and more diverse voices, more Latino, African-American and other voices, certainly more women’s voices.
And so I had this idea of place that would share Catholic social teaching, invite people to real dialog about what it meant, would encourage young people in particular to see their faith and the principles of Catholic social teaching as a part of their lives, their personal life, but also their public life, their life as citizens. Out of that came this idea of the initiative, which is a place of dialogue on Catholic social teaching, of encouraging young people, of convening leaders, and trying to make the connection between our faith and public life.
OSV News: What are some of the biggest accomplishments you want to highlight from the initiative during your time there?
Carr: I don’t think about accomplishments, I think about people and moments. Probably one of the most visible moments was when we had President Barack Obama, Arthur Brooks, a Catholic leader of a conservative think tank, and Robert Putnam, author of “Bowling Alone,” in a dialogue on overcoming poverty. Presidents don’t do panels. Presidents don’t engage with different voices. And that was part of a much larger gathering of evangelicals and Catholics on how we could join together to overcome poverty. We still have a lot of work to do.
Part of our accomplishments is that we actually do this differently. Initiative gatherings are about conversation and dialogue, not about lectures or homilies or proclamations. So it’s more of a conversation. Nobody gives a speech, not the president, not cardinals, not me — I regret that sometimes — but everybody engages, and there are no gotcha questions. They know what we’re going to talk about, but we want a conversation, not a PowerPoint presentation.
Another other thing that’s different is we try to reflect the diversity of the Church. Half of our dialogue participants have been women, almost half are leaders from Latino, African- American and other minority communities. Many are young and emerging leaders.
Another thing that is not typical is that we also try to build bridges and try to get different perspectives. We did a session before the election on why a Catholic could vote for President Joe Biden, why a Catholic could vote for President Donald Trump, and why a Catholic could vote for neither. And some people on every side got mad at us, but a lot of people said it was not easy to hear, but challenged some of my assumptions.
I see our work as complementary to the work of many others, the bishops’ conference, the great ministries of the Church, our outstanding colleagues at Georgetown. But more is needed. Our politics are broken, and the Church has the moral principles of Catholic social teaching, it has the experience, it has the people, has the leadership to provide a path beyond that broken status quo. The initiative is trying to lay a foundation for what Pope Francis called “a better kind of politics.”
OSV News: How would you grade the health of Catholic participation in our political climate right now?
Carr: It’s really discouraging. I grew up in South Minneapolis and I am heartbroken by the recent killings, the children shot at Annunciation Parish and the death of George Floyd so close to my neighborhood. And this is just a sign of the brokenness in our society and the failures of our leaders and politics. The Church should offer another way forward.
I think it’s true that a faithful Catholic — a Pope Leo Catholic, a Pope Francis Catholic, a John Paul II Catholic — could not be nominated by either political party. Catholics who refuse to embrace the abortion agenda of the Democratic Party are disqualified. Catholics who refuse to engage in demonizing immigrants would be disqualified from the Republican Party. So I think people ought to be more engaged in politics, not less. I’m not advocating washing our hands. If we’re politically homeless, we need to build a home, and we need to get more involved, but we need to have our faith shape our politics instead of the other way around. It will not be easy, because the partisanship and the ideological factions are so powerful right now.
There is a fear of speaking out if it violates the orthodoxy of your partisan tribe or your ecclesial faction. It can be very hard for Republicans to talk candidly about President Trump. It can be very hard for Democrats to resist that abortion for any reason, paid for by everyone, is absolutely a part of what it means to be a Democrat. People have learned that there is sometimes a price to be paid for candor and reflection. So frankly, it’s sometimes harder to get people to come out of their bunkers and talk to each other.
OSV News: Could I get you to elaborate a little bit more on what building a home for the politically homeless would look like? Is that a new party? Is that pushing the existing parties on these positions, getting people out of those bunkers? What does that look like?
Carr: Well, if I knew, I would be living in it, but I think the initiative is an example of a home. People who come to our events really want to talk to each other as well as listen to smart people. Many welcome opportunities to be with people who don’t agree with them on everything about the church or politics. For our “Salt and Light Gatherings” for young leaders, often people come alone, and then you find them in a group talking, looking for some connection. The initiative spends a lot of money on food and drink to encourage people to talk to each other after our dialogues.
I think one of the things we ought to be doing now is to resist the worst elements in the current political arrangement. What if you had a “dignity caucus” in each party that would support the best of their party, but challenge the things that go against our teaching? What if our Church found new ways to come together across divisions of politics, theology and ideology to stand up for the dignity of every person, the unborn and their mothers, the undocumented and their families, the poor kids in our country, the hungry around the world, the person on death row, the victims of crime, all God’s children. no matter how they fit into the ideological frameworks of our time?
OSV News: For Catholics who are in public life right now, who are navigating these pulls of tribalism, what is the advice you would give people about how to do that?
Carr: I would say, listen to your heart, listen to your conscience, listen to the Gospel every Sunday. Whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican or something else, how could you be a part of building a nation that would be more focused on respecting, protecting and promoting the dignity of all God’s children?
