Julie Hanlon Rubio is the Shea-Huesman Professor of Christian Social Ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California. She served as Associate Dean from 2022-2025, and was Interim Dean in 2023. Before coming to JST-SCU, she taught in the department of theological studies at St. Louis University for nearly two decades. Her research focuses on family, feminism, and politics. She is the author or editor of seven books, including Can You Be a Catholic and a Feminist? (Oxford, 2024) and the award winning Hope for Common Ground: Mediating the Personal and the Political in a Divided Church (Georgetown, 2016) and Family Ethics: Practices for Christians (Georgetown, 2010). She has published in a variety of academic journals, including Theological Studies, Studies in Christian Ethics, the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, and the Journal of Political Theology. Along with Paul J. Schutz, she was a principal investigator for the grant funded study, published in 2022, Beyond Bad Apples: Understanding Clergy Perpetrated Sexual Abuse as a Structural Problem and Cultivating Strategies for Change.” She serves on the board of the Journal of Moral Theology, speaks frequently on university campuses, and writes for public venues such as The Tablet and the Berkeley Forum.
- Catholic Social Thought
- Family Ethics
- Ethics of Social Reconciliation
- Feminist Theology and Ethics
- Faith and Politics
- “Making Room for Vulnerability: Contributions of Sarah Coakley and M. Shawn to Christian Feminism,” Studies in Christian Ethics 38.4 (2025): 506-521.
- Can You Be a Catholic and a Feminist? (Oxford University Press, 2024)
- “A Beleza Do Sexo Na Vivência Do Matrimônio Cristão,” in Sexualidade e Virtudes: Por uma ética da sexualidade à luz das virtudes, ed. Ronaldo Zacharias (Aparecida: Santuário, 2024), 171-202.
- “Commentary on Familiaris Consortio,” in Modern Catholic Family Teaching: Commentaries and Interpretations, ed. Jacob Kohlhaas and Mary Doyle Roche, (Georgetown University Press, 2024), 149-156.
- “Women’s Rights in a Divided World: Hollenbach and Contemporary Feminism,” Berkeley Forum, October 1, 2024.
- “The Synod and After- The Conversation Continues,” The Tablet, Nov. 18, 2023.
- “Learning to Argue Well,” with M. Cathleen Kaveny, C21 Resources, Fall 2023.
- “The Conscience of a Catholic Feminist,” in Conscience and Catholic Education, ed., Kevin C. Baxter & David E. DeCosse, (Orbis, 2022), 198-212.
- “Consent, Sex, Gender, and Power,” in The Human in a Dehumanizing World, The Annual of College Theology Society 67 (2021): 112-115.
- “Challenges of Building Common Ground: What Cardinal Bernadin Can Teach Us,” Berkeley Forum, November 30, 2021.