Reese is a senior analyst for Religion News Service. In 2016, he was elected chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Reese entered the Jesuits in 1962 and was ordained in 1974. He was educated at St. Louis University, the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and at the University of California Berkeley, where he received a Ph.D. in political science. From 1975 to 1978, he worked in Washington as a writer and lobbyist for tax reform. He was an associate editor of America magazine, where he wrote on politics, economics and the Catholic church, from 1978 to 1985, and editor-in-chief from 1998 to 2005. Twice, he served as a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center.