John Carr, Lay Leader in Catholic Church, Retires After 50 Years of Service

Thirteen years ago, John Carr sat onstage and opened the first dialogue of the Initiative on Catholic Social Teaching and Public Life to a packed house in Gaston Hall.

So it was only fitting, for his retirement, that the celebrated founder of the initiative sat on the same stage in front of another packed house of Catholic cardinals and lay leaders, Georgetown students and professors, journalists and 2,000 online viewers, to close out his 50-year career with what he has worked so hard to foster: dialogue.

To mark his half-century of service to the Catholic Church and social justice, Georgetown hosted a dialogue with Newark Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin; New York Timescolumnist David Brooks; Catholic Charities USA President Kerry Robinson (C'88), and New York Times columnist and Georgetown professor E.J. Dionne, to discuss lessons from Carr's leadership with Initiative Director Kim Daniels on Jan. 21. Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, and Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, DC, opened and closed the night.

Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., opened the dialogue with a tribute to John Carr's leadership in the Catholic Church.

"For more than 50 years, John has helped the church articulate not in abstract terms but in a lived reality the conviction that faith is never separated from concern for human dignity, solidarity and the common good," Pierre said. "He has shown how lay leadership rooted in prayer, conscience and competence can help shape public life without reducing the faith to ideology or partisan slogans."

The man of the hour, a 75-year-old Irish Catholic from Minnesota whom Crux magazine called"perhaps one of the most influential lay people in the Church in the United States," has worked doggedly within the U.S. government and Catholic Church to fight for the poor, for social justice and for building bridges across ideological, racial and political divides. That night, he had his own lessonsto share from his years of service. But one thing has remained true, he said.

"I'm more convinced than ever that the principles of Catholic social teaching offer a way forward," he said. "I hope as we move forward we can find a way to unite: around a person, Jesus Christ. Around the gospel. Around the fundamental principle of the dignity of all God's children. … After 50 years, after 13 years here at Georgetown, the work we do - the work you do - is more important than ever."

Building Bridges, One Conversation at a Time

Carr founded the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Lifeat Georgetown in 2013. He was leaving a nearly 30-year career at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and then-President John J. DeGioia invited him to join Georgetown.

"That was a risky bet," Carr said. "This was an untested idea. I was not an academic of any sort. I told him the only thing I knew about Jesuit higher education was paying for it."

Carr and his wife Linda with then-President John J. DeGioia at the initiative's launch in 2013.

DeGioia's bet paid off. In the years since, the initiative has organized more than 200 dialogues about faith and politics, reaching nearly half a million people in-person and online around the world. The dialogues, which examine how Catholic social teaching can inform national and international issues, have included panelists like U.S. President Barack Obama, cardinals and bishops, congressional leaders, journalists, a former cashier at a campus dining hall, undocumented students and others whose lives are directly affected by the issues addressed.

"They are not your typical academic, religious or political panels," Carr said. "The initiative provides an example of principled dialogue when there aren't many, when polarization rules everything. It offers a moral vocabulary in Catholic social teaching that allows people with differing perspectives to talk."

Over the years, the initiative has hosted dialogues on poverty, immigration, hunger, AI and other national issues. Carr made news in 2018 when he opened up for the first time at an Initiative dialogue about his own personal experiences with clerical sexual abuse during a series of dialogues on the topic.

The initiative has also connected lay, government and church leaders outside of dialogues and has created gatherings for young Catholic leaders and Latino leaders.

"The initiative is a unique example of what we need at Georgetown, in Washington and in the Church," Carr said. "It looks outward, not inward. We're not focused on ourselves. It offers a set of values that I think are a path forward: human dignity, solidarity, care for creation, a priority for the poor. It encourages young leaders for the future. And I'm proud that our basic ideas of dialogue, of not letting people give speeches … have proven to be right."

Deciding Between the Priesthood or Politics

Carr found his own path in faith and politics through two doors that closed.

Growing up in a "crazy Irish Catholic family," with six siblings in Minneapolis, Carr thought his life would take one of two paths: the priesthood or politics.

He met his future wife while in the seminary, so that door closed. He ran for the Minnesota House of Representatives at age 24 and lost. But somewhere along the way, Carr found a sweet spot, catapulting his career.

"People talk about a vocation, and they often mean the priesthood or religious life. I had a vocation to connecting Catholic teaching and public life," said Carr. "I've been so blessed to spend my whole life working in different ways at different times doing that."

He worked in social action for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and then as the director of justice and peace efforts for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. While there, he lobbied on Capitol Hill and helped U.S. bishops apply Catholic social teaching to national and global issues. He also worked for President Jimmy Carter's administration as the director for the White House Conference on Families and with Coretta Scott King on racial and economic justice issues.

Fr. David Hollenbach, S.J., the Pedro Arrupe Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Foreign Service, worked with Carr as a consultant to the USCCB in the early 1980s. He said Carr showed an early knack for navigating the U.S. government and Catholic Church and connecting people.

"The Bishop's Conference was involved in a number of issues ranging from economic justice to human rights to concerns about the poor. These are divisive issues, but John was able to dialogue with people on diverse sides of those issues," he said. "He does this in a way that always makes clear where he stands and he's not being milquetoast."

After nearly 30 years there, Carr said he was hungry for more diverse voices in the room, more dialogue about faith and politics, more focus on Catholic social teaching and more encouragement of young faith leaders.

Looking Forward

In 2023, then-President John J. DeGioia joined Carr (center) and Kim Daniels (right) to celebrate the Initiative's 10th anniversary.

In looking back on his accomplishments in the initiative, Carr feels proud of the big milestones - nearly half a million people reached, diverse voices represented in the room, President Obama as a panelist, often keeping the focus on the poor - and the small moments: the student he encouraged in his seminarto run for office who did and won. The people he's met who said a dialogue challenged their assumptions.

In retiring, he's excited to cheer on the initiative under the leadership of Kim Daniels.

"I am just so confident and so hopeful," he said. "We have the right leader and the right team. This is a mission that's more important than ever when our country is broken and our Church can be divided."

Daniels, who has served as the directorof the initiative since 2023, remembers the first time she met Carr. In hindsight, it was a moment that encapsulated the initiative's goal.

Daniels had just started her first week as the spokesperson for the president of the USCCB and the press coverage had been mixed. Carr called her.

"He said, 'I won't believe anything I read on the internet about you if you don't believe anything you read on the internet about me. Let's have lunch," she said. "It was the beginning of a friendship and ultimately a partnership at the Initiative. For Catholics, encounter and relationship are at the center of our faith, and that's true in those moments where it's better to meet someone in person than read words on a page. That conversation was proof of that for me."

Over the years, Daniels said Carr served as a mentor, who taught her the power of persistence, of meeting people in-person, of always keeping the poor front and center.

Carr with the entire team of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, celebrating his retirement.

"He has taught us to be committed to our principles, to engage and persuade rather than to demonize and divide, to have our faith drive our politics rather than our politics drive our faith, and to stick to our principles when necessary and to work with others where we can. And to always work in good humor and with the understanding that we're witnessing to Catholic social teaching and here to do our best to make the world a little better."

After Georgetown, Carr hopes to spend more time with his family and 10 grandchildren. He said he still plans to attend dialogues.

"What a wonderful home Georgetown has been for the initiative," he said. "The oldest Jesuit university of the United States in the nation's capital, led by a leader like Jack DeGioia, was absolutely the right place for us. It has been so welcoming and such a good home for our work. We hope to have made a small contribution to its wonderful mission, and under Kim Daniels' leadership, the Initiative will keep doing it."