About the Author

Mark Chmiel received his B.A. in History from Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky (1982). Thereafter, he worked as a Lay Minister in Social Responsibility at two Louisville Catholic parishes, St. William and the Church of the Epiphany. During these years, he worked with the local Sanctuary Movement (providing shelter for Central American refugees) and the Pledge of Resistance (advocating a cessation of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua); he also traveled to Nicaragua and Guatemala.

In July 1988 Chmiel began studies for a Master of Arts in Theological Studies at the Maryknoll School of Theology in Ossining, New York. Chmiel met Mev Puleo at the Maryknoll School and they traveled to Brazil in 1990 when Puleo did field research for her eventual book, The Struggle is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation (SUNY, 1994). Chmiel also traveled with Maryknoll professor and Jewish theologian Marc Ellis to Israel and the Occupied Territories during the Palestinian intifada in 1990 to participate in a conference on Palestinian Christian theology. His reflections on that experience and his Master’s thesis, “On Chomsky, Language, and Liberation,” were published in Naim Ateek’s edited volume, Faith and The Intifada (Orbis, 1992).

Mark Chmiel and Mev Puleo married in June 1992 and both were enrolled in doctoral programs at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California at the time of Puleo’s diagnosis with a brain tumor in 1994. Chmiel and Puleo left the Bay Area in 1995 for Saint Louis, where Puleo was raised and had family and friends. They settled in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood; Puleo died six months later in January 1996. Chmiel completed his PhD in Religion and Society from the Graduate Theological Union in 1997. He began teaching at Saint Louis University, where he is Adjunct Professor of Theological Studies, and at Webster University, where he is Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies. He has taught courses in Social Justice, The Culture of Nonviolence, and Spiritual Practices in Daily Life. In 2000, his essay “Three Essentials in Undergraduate Education” was published in John Kavanaugh and Donna Werner’s edited volume, What’s Ethics Got To Do with It? The Role of Ethics in Undergraduate, Graduate, and Professional Education at Saint Louis University (Saint Louis University Press, 2000). In 2001 and again in 2005 Chmiel received one of the Student Government Association Faculty Excellence Awards at Saint Louis University.

His first book is Elie Wiesel and the Politics of Moral Leadership, which provides a provocative view of one the most acclaimed moralists in recent American history and raises important questions about what it means to be a responsible intellectual in the United States. About the book, historian Howard Zinn stated, “Mark Chmiel offers a bold and much-needed analysis of the moral pretensions of one of our country’s most prominent public intellectuals. His thoughtful and measured examination of Elie Wiesel’s ideas and actions reaches beyond the subject of this book into the heart of what is moral behavior in a troubled world.” Catholic theologian and feminist Rosemary Radford Ruether observed, “In this courageous book, Mark Chmiel details the ambiguity of Elie Wiesel’s moral witness. On the one hand, he has been a powerful voice calling the Western world to account for the Holocaust and intervening in other social tragedies. On the other hand, he has been consistently unwilling to respond to the plight of the Palestinians, victims of the Jewish state. In conclusion Chmiel calls those concerned with a consistent moral witness today to pay particular attention to the politically disregarded victims, whose victimization exposes the imperialism of the dominant powers.”

His articles and reviews have appeared in Journal of Church and State, Journal of Peace and Justice Studies, Journal of Palestine Studies, The Tablet, The Ecumenist, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, The National Catholic Reporter, Tikkun and Cross Currents.

Mark Chmiel is a member of the Core Community of the Center for Theology and Social Analysis, a grass-roots educational and activist collective in Saint Louis, and a long-time volunteer at Karen House, a Catholic Worker House of Hospitality for homeless women and children in North Saint Louis. For a sabbatical in the fall and winter of 2003, he worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mark Chmiel can be reached at:

4514 Chouteau Avenue
Saint Louis, MO 63110
Phone: 314-531-1656

E-Mail: MarkJChmiel@aol.com