Thomas J. Reese
Thomas J. Reese, (born 1945) is an American Catholic Jesuit priest, author, and journalist. He is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine "America". Life and works. Reese entered the Society of Jesus in 1962 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1974. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in political science from University of California, Berkeley. He was an associate editor of "America" from 1978 to 1985, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center from 1985  to 1998, and editor-in-chief at "America" from 1998 to 2005. Over a period of five years beginning at the turn of the millennium, Reese adopted various stances at odds with official Catholic teaching on matters such as homosexuality, priestly celibacy, birth control, and the abortion debate. He resigned from "America" in 2005. The "National Catholic Reporter" claimed that Reese's resignation was forced by the Vatican, although "America" and the Society of Jesus in Rome denied this. He subsequently spent a sabbatical year at Santa Clara University, where he continues to contribute during the summers as a visiting  scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. In 2006 he returned as a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C. Reese wrote for the "National Catholic Reporter" from 2013 to 2017, and was senior analyst there. In 2017, he became senior analyst at Religion News Service. He was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2014 and in 2016 was elected chair of the commission. His term as commissioner expired at the end of May 2018. Views. In 2018, he argued that the pro-life movement should support birth control  as a "lesser of two evils" in reducing the number of abortions. He also argued that "Humanae vitae" was a 'mistake' since a majority of American Catholics ignore it, and that forbidding contraception was 'an insult to all the good people who have used contraceptives at some point in their lives'. Cardinal Timothy Dolan expressed his "serious reservations" to Reese's proposed strategy, "considering it a capitulation to the abortion culture, and a grave weakening of the powerful pro-life witness." In a 2021 editorial, Reese outlined several liturgical reforms he would like to see, and criticized the Tridentine Mass  as well as Pope Benedict's 2007 document Summorum Pontificum which gave priest the option to celebrate the Latin Mass without their bishop's permission. Reese said that he would like bishops to ban the use of the Tridentine Mass in their diocese and prevent young people from attending it. The article drew strong backlash from Traditionalist Catholics, who said that Reese was being hypocritical and encouraging authoritarianism to deal with people he disagrees with.