Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Who is Emmanuel Charles McCarthy?

Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy is a priest of the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church in communion with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. He has been a Catholic priest for thirty years, ordained on August 9, 1981, in Damascus, Syria. He has served as Spiritual Director and Rector of St. Gregory the Theologian Byzantine-Melkite Catholic Seminary and is presently a Retreat Director.

Formerly a lawyer and a university educator, he is the founder and the original director of The Program for the Study and Practice of Nonviolent Conflict Resolution at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. He is also co-founder, along with Dorothy Day, Gordon Zahn and others of Pax Christi-USA. For over forty years he has directed retreats and spoken throughout the world on the issue of the relationship of faith and violence, and the Nonviolent Jesus and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies.

In 1983 he began The Annual Forty Day Fast for the Truth of Gospel Nonviolence, whose purpose is to pray to the Father in the name of Jesus to bestow on the Churches of Christianity whatever extraordinary graces are needed so that they, individually and collectively, will turn from justifying violence and enmity in the name of Jesus and begin to teach about violence and enmity what Jesus taught about violence and enmity. This yearly time of prayer and fasting continues uninterrupted to this very year with people from across the planet having participated in it over the decades.