Marie Dennis is the senior program director of Pax Christi International’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative. She was a member of the Pax Christi International board from 1999 to 2019 and co-president from 2007 to 2019. She is a Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace and was named a Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace in 2022.  Marie worked for the Maryknoll Missioners from 1989 to 2012, including 15 years as director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. She holds a master’s degree in moral theology from Washington Theological Union and honorary doctorates from Trinity Washington University and Alvernia University.  She is a Secular Franciscan, author or co-author of seven books, including Oscar Romero: Reflections on His Life and Writings and St. Francis and the Foolishness of God; editor of Choosing Peace: The Catholic Church Returns to Gospel Nonviolence; and co-editor of Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World. She is a lay woman, a mother of six, a grandmother and a great grandmother. She is a board member of the Maryknoll Lay Missioners and was the National Catholic Reporter’s Person of the Year in 2016. She served on the Vatican’s COVID 19 Commission, the steering committee of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, and the national boards of JustFaith Ministries, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, Sojourners magazine, NETWORK, the Jubilee USA Network and several other organizations.  Before moving to Assisi Community in 1987, where she continues to live, Marie and her family lived on and worked a 65 acre organic farm in Virginia.

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