James Carroll

James Carroll was born in Chicago in 1943 and raised in
Washington, D.C., where his father was an Air Force general
and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was
educated at Washington"'s Priory School and at an American
high school in Wiesbaden, Germany. He attended Georgetown
University before entering St. Paul"'s College, the Paulist
Fathers"' seminary, where he received his B.A. and M.A.
degrees. Carroll has been a civil rights worker, an antiwar
activist, and a community organizer in Washington and New
York. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1969. Carroll
served as Catholic chaplain at Boston University from 1969
to 1974. During that time, he studied poetry with George
Starbuck and published books on religious subjects and a
book of poems. He was also a columnist for the National
Catholic Reporter (1972-1975) and was named Best Columnist
by the Catholic Press Association. For his writing on
religion and politics he received the first Thomas Merton Award.