Richard Rohr

Rohr's notable works include The Universal Christ, Falling Upward, and Everything Belongs. His spirituality is rooted in Christian mysticism and the perennial tradition.

Rohr was born in Kansas in 1943. He entered the Franciscans in 1961 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1970. He received his Master of Theology degree in 1970 from the University of Dayton. Rohr founded the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1971 and the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1986, where he serves as founding director and academic dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. The curriculum of Rohr's school is founded on seven themes developed by Rohr and explored in his book Yes, And.... Core faculty members include James Finley, Brian McLaren, Barbara Holmes and Cynthia Bourgeault. On July 1, 2022, Pope Francis met with Rohr, who said that Francis expressed support for his work. Later that year, Rohr announced he would step back from public ministry following a lymphoma diagnosis. He was previously diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017, and suffered a severe heart attack in 2018.

In his teaching on scripture, such as in his book Things Hidden, Rohr calls the Biblical record a human account of humanity's evolving experience with God, "the word of God in the words of people." In one of his daily meditations, Rohr writes: The Bible is an anthology of many books. It is a record of people's experience of God's self-revelation. It is an account of our very human experience of the divine intrusion into history. The book did not fall from heaven in a pretty package. It was written by people trying to listen to God. I believe that the Spirit was guiding the listening and writing process. We must also know that humans always see "through a glass darkly... and all knowledge is imperfect" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

In his 2016 book The Divine Dance, Rohr suggests that the top-down hierarchy of Western Christianity since Emperor Constantine has held ecumenical traditions back for centuries and that the future of people of faith will have to involve a bottom-up approach. Rohr maintains what he would call prophetic positions, on the "edge of the inside" of a church that he sees as failing to transform people, and thus increasingly irrelevant. Rohr explains: To live on the edge of the inside is different than being an insider, a "company man" or a dues paying member. Yes, you have learned the rules and you understand and honor the system as far as it goes, but you do not need to protect it, defend it or promote it. It has served its initial and helpful function. You have learned the rules well enough to know how to "break the rules" without really breaking them at all. "Not to abolish the law but to complete it" as Jesus rightly puts it (Matthew 5:17). A doorkeeper must love both the inside and the outside of his or her group, and know how to move between these two loves.

In his 2019 book The Universal Christ, Rohr says he is a panentheist. He goes on to state that panentheism is the true position of Jesus and Paul:

He rejects the evangelical Christian belief that Jesus's death on the cross was an appeasement of the wrath of an angry God that had to punish someone no matter what in order to forgive sin. Rohr instead states that "I believe that Jesus' death on the cross is a revelation of the infinite and participatory love of God, not some bloody payment required by God's offended justice to rectify the problem of sin. Such a story line is way too small and problem-oriented."

In 2000, Rohr publicly endorsed Soulforce, an organization that challenges what it calls religion-based LGBTQ oppression through nonviolent protest. In a 1999 essay and afterward, Rohr has welcomed and affirmed God's love for LGBTQ people, emphasizing that God asks the same of people in same-sex relationships as of those in heterosexual ones: "truth, faithfulness, and striving to enter into covenants of continuing forgiveness of one another." Rohr consistently expresses a compassionate and inclusive approach to spirituality that aligns with support for the LGBTQ+ community in his books.

• Wild Man's Journey: Reflections on Male Spirituality (Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 1986; Revised edition 1996) • Simplicity, Revised & Updated: The Freedom of Letting Go (1991, reissued by Crossroad Publishing Co, U.S.; 2nd New edition of Revised edition, 2004) • Near Occasions of Grace (Orbis Books (USA), 1993) • Quest for the Grail: Soul Work and the Sacred Journey (1994, reissued by Crossroad Publishing Co, U.S.; New edition, 1997) • Jesus' Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount (with J. Feister) (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1996) • Radical Grace: Daily Meditations (edited by John Bookser Feister) (1993, reissued by St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1996) • The Good News According to Luke: Spiritual Reflections (Crossroad Publishing Co, U.S., 1997) • Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2001) • Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (Crossroad Publishing Co, U.S.; 2nd Revised edition, 2003) • Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation (Crossroad Publishing Co, U.S., 2004) • Soul Brothers: Men in the Bible Speak to Men Today (with art by Louis S. Glanzman) (Orbis Books (USA), 2004) • From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (with Joseph Martos) (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005) • Job & the Mystery of Suffering (1996, reissued by Gracewing, 2006) • Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 2008) • Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent (Franciscan Media, 2008) • The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009) • Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent (Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 2010) • A Lever and a Place to Stand: The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer (Paulist Press, 2010) • Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 2011) • Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2011) • A Companion Journal to Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2013) • Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self (Jossey-Bass, 2013) • Yes, And...: Daily Meditations (Franciscan Media, 2013) • Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media, 2014) • Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media, 2014) • What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self (The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2015) • A Spring Within Us: Daily Meditations (Center for Action and Contemplation, 2016) • The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation with Mike Morrell (Whitaker, 2016) • Just This: Prompts and Practices for Contemplation (Center for Action and Contemplation, 2017) • The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe (Convergent Books, 2019) • The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder (Franciscan Media, 2020) • The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (Convergent Books, 2025)

• Why Be Catholic?: Understanding Our Experience and Tradition (with Joseph Martos) (Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 1989) • The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (with Andreas Ebert) (1995, reissued by Crossroad Publishing Co, U.S., 2002)

• "Foreword" in Roots of Violence in the U.S. Culture: A Diagnosis Towards Healing by Richard Alain (Blue Dolphin Publishing, 1999) • "Foreword" in Meal Stories: The Gospel of Our Lives by Kathleen Casey (Thomas More Association, 2000) • "Sadness" in The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine, (October 11, 2004). • "The Franciscan Opinion" in Stricken by God? Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ, ed. by Brad Jersak and Michael Hardin (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008)) • Hungry, and You Fed Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle C, Jim Knipper, ed. (Clear Faith Publishing, 2012) • "Shrove Tuesday" in God for Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter, Greg Pennoyer, ed. (Paraclete Press, 2013) • Naked, and You Clothed Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle A, Jim Knipper, ed. (Clear Faith Publishing, 2013) • Sick, and You Cared for Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle B, Jim Knipper, ed. (Clear Faith Publishing, 2014) • "Creation as the Body of God" in Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, ed. (The Golden Sufi Center, 2016) • "Foreword" in The Sacred Enneagram by Christopher L. Heuertz (Zondervan, 2017)

• Center for Action and Contemplation • New Jerusalem Community