Mr. McCarthy graduated from the Jesuit-affiliated Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama and spent five years in a Trappist monastery. When he began his career in journalism, he decided to be a peace correspondent instead of a war correspondent. He began by covering Martin Luther King Jr. in the summer of 1966.

He went on to interview many prominent peace activists, including Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Ireland’s Mairead Corrigan and Sean McBride, Argentina’s Perez Esquivel and Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh.

He founded The Center for Teaching Peace in 1985. McCarthy’s books includeI’d Rather Teach Peace andAll of One Peace.

Mr. McCarthy lectures widely and has taught Peace at Bethesda-Chevy High School in suburban Washington, Wilson High in the District of Columbia, Georgetown University Law Center, American University, the University of Maryland, and the Washington Center for Internships, among other places.

He was awarded an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1998, and is a recipient of the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award.

McCarthy, a vegan, is also an animal rights advocate. His primary mode of transportation is a bicycle, on which he has passed the 100,000-mile mark.