Edward L. Beck

Edward L. Beck, C.P. is an author, journalist, and Catholic priest of the Passionist congregation. He is an on-air contributor for CNN on issues of faith, religion and ethics, and has written three books.

Prior to working at CNN, he was a media contributor for ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, HLN and MSNBC. He co-hosted Focus on Faith with Chris Cuomo for ABC News from 2009 to 2014. Beck also leads retreats and workshops on spirituality. He lives in New York City.

Books published as author

• God Underneath: Spiritual Memoirs of a Catholic Priest, Doubleday, 2001. ISBN 978-0-385-50181-1
• Unlikely Ways Home: Real-Life Spiritual Detours, Doubleday, 2004. ISBN 978-0-385-50859-9
• Soul Provider: Spiritual Steps to Limitless Love, Doubleday, 2007. ISBN 978-0-385-51552-8

As a playwright

Beck also wrote a play, Sweetened Water, which had a staged reading starring Vanessa Williams and Amy Brenneman at Playwrights Horizons theater in New York City in January 2015 and an Equity production in the summer of 2015 at Martha's Vineyard Playhouse in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts. Subsequent readings featured Laila Robins, Josh Lucas, Sean Cullen, Nathan Darrow, Tricia Paoluccio and Meghann Fahy.

Controversies

On December 25, 2023, during an interview on CNN, Beck described the story of Christmas as one of a "Palestinian Jew" born in an occupied country where refugees were forced to flee to Egypt. “Palestine” is never referenced during Jesus’s lifetime because “Palestine” did not yet exist. "Palestine" came to be in 135 CE, over a century after Jesus’s death. While Jesus was alive, the land was referred to as Judah.