Francis X. Maier

Senior Fellow

Francis X. Maier is a Senior Fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Maier’s work focuses on the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life, with special attention to lay formation and action.

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Francis X. Maier is a Senior Fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Maier’s work focuses on the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life, with special attention to lay formation and action.

Mr. Maier served as senior adviser and special assistant to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., for 23 years in Denver and Philadelphia. He previously served as editor in chief of the National Catholic Register and as a story analyst and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and New York University’s School of the Arts, he is a former Fellow of the American Film Institute’s Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies, and the inaugural Senior Research Fellow (2020–22) at Notre Dame’s Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government. He is a cofounding board member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture and a board member of the Napa Institute and the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS).

His bylined work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, First Things, National Review, The American Spectator, The Catholic Thing, Crisis, This World, America, Commonweal, the New York Times Sunday magazine, Christian Science Monitor, and other national and foreign outlets. His book True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church, will be released by Ignatius Press in early 2024.

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True Economic Headway Ennobles the Human Spirit

Francis X. Maier

Innovation is part of the special American genius. But real progress is never merely material; unless it also ennobles the human spirit, it isn’t “progress” at all.

Articles

Legatus / April 1, 2021

Things Worth Dying For

Francis X. Maier

The latest book by retired Archbishop Charles Chaput offers his most memorable and moving work.

Articles

The Catholic Thing / March 3, 2021

Somebody Needs to Be Dad

Francis X. Maier

The extraordinary fact of Catholic life in the United States is not the few bishops who humiliate us so bitterly, but the many who do the job so well

Articles

First Things / February 22, 2021

Hope and Her Daughters

Francis X. Maier

Hope feeds and grows on the experience of love, the will to persist in that love, and the letting go of anger, no matter how vicious or lunatic the times.

Articles

First Things - March 2021 issue / February 11, 2021

Some Thoughts on Words and Their Meanings

Francis X. Maier

When we really believe what we claim to believe, we conform our hearts, our minds, our choices, and our actions – both in private and in public – to the convictions we claim to hold.  Otherwise, we’re liars.

Articles

The Catholic Thing / February 4, 2021

Ordinary Time

Francis X. Maier

In the sacred space of our conscience and our personal choices, none of us is powerless, and no life, no matter how obscure or limited, is inconsequential. How we live our lives matters.

Articles

The Catholic Thing / January 20, 2021

Memory and Gratitude

Francis X. Maier

Until we suffer for what we believe, or have our hearts changed by the witness of others who suffer, our faith is untested and aspirational; a matter of good intentions.

Articles

The Catholic Thing / December 9, 2020

People of the Lie

Francis X. Maier

Donald Trump may have teased and fed the nation’s spirit of conflict, but he didn’t create it. And Trump’s exit won’t heal any of our deepest fractures.

Articles

The Catholic Thing / November 14, 2020

The New Colonialism

Francis X. Maier

What may be coming our way is an odd kind of “new colonialism,” with flyover country—that Dark Continent formerly known as places like Kansas, Alabama, and Tennessee—reduced in effective power to mission territory for our enlightened coastal elites.

Articles

First Things / November 5, 2020

Why the Digital Mob Fears the Power of Little-Read Books

Francis X. Maier

Modern technology obscures both the past and the future by locking us in the frenzies of the present and interfering with reflective thought.

Articles

National Catholic Register / October 29, 2020

Faith, Reason, and Catholic Political Engagement

Francis X. Maier

What the Church expects us to do in this and every election is to follow our consciences—but also to form our consciences intelligently, in accord with Christian truth.

Articles

The Catholic World Report / October 29, 2020

Philadelphia and the New “Tolerance”

Francis X. Maier

A vast amount of ink has been spilled in recent years arguing for “diversity” and “tolerance” in American society. Some of these arguments are admirable and sincere. Some are cynical and vindictive. The latter applies in Philadelphia.

Articles

First Things / October 26, 2020