Senior Editor, Sojourners magazine

Rose Marie Berger is a Catholic peace activist and poet. She has been on Sojourners staff since 1986, and worked for social justice movements for 40 years. Rose has rooted herself with Sojourners magazine and ministry. She has written hundreds of articles for Sojourners and other publications and is a sought after preacher and public speaker. After living in Washington, D.C., for 35 years, she moved to Oak View, Calif., in 2022.

Rose’s work in Christian nonviolence has taken her to conflict zones around the world. She is active in the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, a project of Pax Christi International, and served as co-editor for Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World, the fruit of a multiyear, global, participatory process to deepen Catholic understanding of and commitment to Gospel nonviolence. Her poetry has appeared in the books Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting a Bioregional Faith and Practice and Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry: Conversations on Creation, Land Justice, and Life Together. She is author of Bending the Arch: Poems (2019), Drawn By God: A History of the Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries from 1967 to 1991 (with Janet Gottschalk, 2012), and Who Killed Donte Manning? The Story of an American NeighborhoodShe has also been a religion reviewer for Publishers Weekly and a Huffington Post commentator. Her work has appeared in National Catholic Reporter, Publishers Weekly, Religion News Service, Radical Grace-Oneing, The Merton Seasonal, U.S. Catholic, and elsewhere. She serves on the board of The International Thomas Merton Society.

With Sojourners, Rose has worked as an organizer on peace and environmental issues, internship program director, liturgist, community pastor, poetry editor, and, currently, as a senior editor of Sojourners magazine, where she writes a regular column on spirituality and justice. She is responsible for the Living the Word biblical reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary, poetry, Bible studies, and interviews – and oversees the production of study guides and the online Bible study Preaching the Word.

Rose has a veteran history in social justice activism, including: leading the first international, inter-religious peace witness into Kyiv, Ukraine, following the outbreak of war in 2022, organizing inter-religious witness against the Keystone XL pipeline; educating and training groups in nonviolence; leading retreats in spirituality and justice; writing on topics as diverse as the “Spiritual Vision of Van Gogh, O'Keeffe, and Warhol,” the war in the Balkans, interviews with Black activists Vincent Harding and Yvonne Delk, the Love Canal's Lois Gibbs, and Mexican archbishop Ruiz, cultural commentary on the Catholic church and the peace movement, reviews of movies, books, and music.

Rose Berger has taught writing and poetry workshops for children and adults. She’s completed her MFA in poetry through the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program. Her poetry has been published in Sojourners, The Other Side, Radix and D.C. Poets Against the War.

Rose grew up in the Central Valley of California, located in the rich flood plains of the Sacramento and American rivers. Raised in radical Catholic communities heavily influenced by Franciscans and the Catholic Worker movement, she served for nine years on the pastoral team for Sojourners Community Church; five as its co-pastor. She directed Sojourners internship program from 1990-1999. She is currently a senior editor and poetry editor for Sojourners magazine. She has traveled throughout the United States, and also in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Costa Rica, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosova, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, and El Salvador visiting primarily with faith communities working for peace in situations of conflict.

Rose was born when atmospheric CO2 was at 319.08 ppm and now lives with her wife Heidi Thompson in Oak View, Calif., in the Ventura River watershed on traditional Chumash lands. Learn more at rosemarieberger.com.

Rose’s articles include:

Rose Marie Berger is available to speak at your next event. Please review our speaker instructions and guidelines or check out our full list of Sojourners speakers.

Speaking Topics

  • Christian nonviolence, peace, war
  • Catholic Nonviolence Initiative
  • Climate change, creation care, watershed discipleship
  • Bible study, liturgical year
  • Poetry
  • Spirituality and social justice
  • Any topic covered in Sojourners magazine
  • Catholicism

Speaking Format

  • Preference for virtual events, but willing to discuss in-person events on case-by-case basis

Posts By This Author

Welcoming the Stranger: Illegal?

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 01-01-2009

In Brookville, Pennsylvania, a dispute over laws has shaken the otherwise quiet community.

The Poverty Pulpit

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 01-01-2009

In September, hundreds of churches nationwide joined in Poverty Sunday, part of Sojourners’ Vote Out Poverty campaign, to preach justice for the poor from the pulpit.

Making Abortion Rare

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 01-01-2009

A 2008 study commissioned by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good found that social policies that increase economic support to women in the U.S.

Newman Lives

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 01-01-2009

Actor Paul Newman, who died in September, founded the only global forum of business CEOs focused on increasing corporate philanthropy.

Elections and Christ the King

by Rose Marie Berger 12-01-2008

The great wheel of the Christian liturgical year is turning once again.

A Delicious Peace

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 12-01-2008

In 2003, Ugandan Jewish coffee farmer J.J. Keki asked himself what he could do to stop religious violence.

Sun Worship

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 12-01-2008

By the new year, the Vatican will go solar. In September, engineers began installing 2,000 solar panels designed by the German firm SolarWorld and given to the Vatican as an Epiphany gift.

How Would Jesus Rock?

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 12-01-2008

Move over Guitar Hero, Guitar Praise is the new toy for the Christian heavy metal and power-rock set.

British Churches Push for a Fair Economy

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 12-01-2008

Get Fair, a United Kingdom-based coalition of religious and secular groups that launched in September, seeks to pressure politicians to end poverty in the U.K. by 2020. The alliance of more than 50 charities and faith-based institutions—including Oxfam, Islamic Aid, Iona Community, Caritas Social Action, and the Baptist Union of Great Britain, plus several denominations—cites survey data as evidence that politicians must do more to dramatically reduce domestic poverty.

Keeping Up With the Kurds

by Rose Marie Berger, by Amy Spaulding 12-01-2008

Northern Iraq is part of the contested homeland of ethnic Kurds—and until recently a safe haven for those escaping Baghdad’s violence, especially Chaldean Christians.

My Day on the Hugo Chavez Show

by Rose Marie Berger 11-25-2008

Tonight, PBS's Frontline will air "The Hugo Chavez Show: An illuminating inside view of the mercurial Venezuelan president, his rise to power, and the new type of revolution he seems to be inventing -

Keeping the 'Consistent' in 'Consistent Ethic of Life'

by Rose Marie Berger 11-14-2008
Twelve years ago this week, the Catholic Church lost one of her great and humble leaders, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.

Midnight at the Lincoln Memorial

by Rose Marie Berger 11-05-2008

The only word that comes to mind is "magical." After watching the early election returns with friends and observing a hushed moment of unbelieving silence at 10 p.m. when ABC called the election for Barack Obama, I did what has been in the back of my mind to do since Obama got the nomination.

A Hardheaded Faith

by Rose Marie Berger 11-01-2008
Mary Doria Russell, author of the best-selling books "The Sparrow" and "Children of God," tells Sojourners about her disciplines—in her spiritual life and in her writing.

Mary Doria Russell’s science fiction books The Sparrow and Children of God put Jesuits in space and wrestle with the missionary issues of first contact. She’s gone on to write historical fiction, including A Thread of Grace, which tracks the underground efforts of Italians to save Jews during the final phase of World War II, and Dreamers of the Day, which explores the 1921 Cairo Conference through the perspective of an Ohioan woman caught up in forces that would shape the modern-day Middle East. Now Russell has jumped genres again and is writing a murder mystery/Western set in Dodge City, Kansas. Sojourners associate editor Rose Marie Berger interviewed Russell, who lives in Cleve­land, this summer by e-mail.

Rose Marie Berger: How would you describe your spiritual journey?

Mary Doria Russell: Hardheaded. Pragmatic. Poetic. In that order!

How has your understanding of God changed over time? In 1955, the kindergarten kids at Pleasant Lane School in Lombard, Illinois, were told to bring in “something that is important to you” for show-and-tell. I remember this very clearly. A devout Catholic at that age, I arrived with a milk-glass statuette of the Virgin Mary and told the class that she was important to me because “she was the mother of God, and if it weren’t for her, there’d be no God, and then there’d be no world.”

Simply speaking those words aloud got my 5-year-old self thinking about the logical and sequential questions that statement begged. I became a more sophisticated Catholic as I matured, but eventually the theological package linking the Trinity, original sin, divine incarnation (with or without virgin birth), and salvation through blood sacrifice lost all credibility for me.

Teaching Pluralism

by Rose Marie Berger, by Alexis Vaughan 09-01-2008

Successful democracies, ac­cording to Thomas Jeffer­son, require an educated citizenry.

A Separate and Unequal System

by Rose Marie Berger, by Alexis Vaughan 09-01-2008

Access to quality health care has been hindered more often for America’s racial and ethnic minorities than for whites, according to a 2008 report “Lifeline to Health Equity.” Peop

Quaker Program Reduces Recidivism

by Alexis Vaughan, by Rose Marie Berger 09-01-2008

The U.K.-based child protection agency Lucy Faithfull Foun­d­ation and the social action wing of the U.K.

The Time is Near

by Rose Marie Berger, by Alexis Vaughan 09-01-2008

“Awake, ye drunkards, and weep” (Joel 1:5) for the hour of the Lord is at hand!

Police Raid Christian Organizations

by Rose Marie Berger, by Alexis Vaughan 09-01-2008

On June 9, armed groups of Zimbabwe’s police, military, and central intelligence raided the Ecumenical Centre in the city of Harare, which houses several Christian organizations.

Heroes Welcome

by Rose Marie Berger, by Alexis Vaughan 09-01-2008

Congress passed legislation in June removing Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela and other members of the African National Congress from the Department of Homeland Security’s “terro