Faith and public policy

“Honestly, I’m 60 years old and have had a lot of positions, but never have I enjoyed working with someone more,” David Tamisiea, current Executive Director of the North Dakota Catholic Conference said of Christopher Dodson who served in that same position for almost 30 years—from 1995 to 2023. Dodson continues as interim co-director and general counsel, helping provide the public policy voice of the North Dakota Catholic bishops, while he also fights a cancer that has dogged him since 2019.
 
Dodson did not start out as a Catholic. He was raised in Southern California, as a “generic Protestant,” according to him. He received his bachelor's degree in 1986 from the University of California at Riverside and his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989.
 
As an undergraduate, feeling depressed after a girlfriend left him and living in a gloomy apartment, a friend took him to a Presbyterian church. “I realized that God had never abandoned me,” Dodson shared. “I began looking around at all kinds of religion from Evangelical to New Age-ish and started reading C.S. Lewis.” 
 
He had met his now-wife Rosalie, a Catholic, as an undergraduate. “We would have discussions on faith, and I realized that sometimes I was arguing with myself and losing, not even convincing myself.” During his third year of law school, he entered the Catholic Church.
 
Dodson and Rosalie married at St. Martin’s Catholic Church on Dec. 22, 1989, in Center, N.D., where her family was living. The newlyweds moved to Riverside where Dodson worked as a litigator for a large law firm while Rosalie attended the California School for Professional Psychology in Los Angeles. But it wasn’t the right fit for him. One thing he did enjoy, however, was writing articles for the diocesan newspaper on topics such as expressing views against a ballot measure supporting assisted suicide. He also became involved in pro-life and social justice causes.
 
Home to North Dakota
 
The population and crime in their area was increasing and Dodson was unhappy at his job, so when a friend shared that the North Dakota Catholic Conference had a part-time position for a health care advocate, he applied despite the salary being only $17,000.
 
“We had two little boys at the time,” Dodson explained, “so it was really putting our faith in God. I love the Church, and I love the law, and I love politics, so I felt right away it was a good fit. I think if I had not become Catholic, my love of politics would have sent me down the wrong path. I had a good skill in that area when I was young, but politics can become all about you. God gave me these gifts, but told me, ‘You are going to use them for Me.’”
 
So, they moved to North Dakota in 1994 where Rosalie found a job as a clinical and forensic psychologist at the North Dakota State Hospital in Jamestown, later becoming the superintendent. The following year, Dodson went full time as the executive director and general counsel for the North Dakota Catholic Conference. In this position, he drafted and helped shepherd the enactment of legislation on various issues including the protection of human life, religious freedom, the family and care for the poor, always being guided by Catholic teaching. 
 
“The job, as I see it, is to take those theological teachings of the Church and interpret them in a way that they meet the civil law,” Dodson explained. “We need to guide and help legislators in the task they have in the temporal order. We also represent the bishops on public policy matters.”
 
But following Catholic teaching does not always make supporting or opposing bills a clear-cut decision Dodson pointed out. “Bills dealing with the poor and immigration are not always as simple as they appear. Abortion ban bills are another good example. You have to understand the statutes and where prudential judgment sits and we have to look at the doctrine as a whole and apply it to law. We’ve had proposed abortion ban laws that, at the time, were unconstitutional. We declined to support them because the state would have ended up paying the other side’s attorney fees if we knew we didn’t have the votes in the Supreme Court. We need to look at the long-term strategy.”
 
Stepping Down

Dodson stepped down as the conference's executive director Nov. 1, 2023, to serve as a co-director and general counsel under the directorship of David Tamisiea. David had been working at the University of Mary, where he served as the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences since 2019 and has a background in law, theology and Catholic social doctrine. 
 
“Christopher is a great mentor and became a great friend,” Tamisiea said. “He’s very respected by legislators. He has a very sharp legal mind and is very committed to his faith.”
 
The two men first met over coffee and quickly hit it off when both their phone alarms went off at noon— the time when they stop whatever they are doing to pray the Angelus. Once Tamisiea took over at the office, he said, “Someone put out a question of having a spiritual practice for our office, so we started doing the Angelus together every day.”
 
Tamisiea credits Dodson with learning how to read proposed bills, learning how to interact with legislators and to advocate for the Church’s position. “There are times when, on its face, it might be a good idea, but when you get to the nuts and bolts, it’s a bad bill,” Tamisiea explained. “That can be hard when the Church has a strong position, but a particular bill is not going to accomplish that goal.”
 
Cancer diagnosis

Dodson was treated for prostate cancer in 2019 but some of the cancer cells must have already spread. In May of 2022, the cancer was diagnosed as metastatic—also known as Stage 4—meaning cells had spread from their original location to other parts of the body. “It’s not curable,” Dodson explained. “You cannot get rid of it once it’s escaped the prostate. You usually live 5-10 years, but doctors don’t usually give a number.”
 
After only two treatments of chemotherapy at Sanford Clinic in Fargo, it was stopped that following July due to a severe reaction. Dodson then received hormone suppression therapy but explained that only puts the cancer to sleep. “I had little dots everywhere and there were at least 12 tumors spread out,” he said. “In August, a scan showed almost all of the tumors had disappeared. I went to Bishop Kagan and showed him the scan with only three left. I have a whole litany of saints and blesseds that I was praying to and added Michelle during that time. [Servant of God Michelle Duppong of the Bismarck Diocese died of cancer in 2015 and her cause for canonization opened Nov. 1, 2021]. I had a new start in this battle of cancer. Then, within nine months of the May diagnosis, the tumors become more aggressive and dangerous, but I have less volume because of whatever happened in the first few months.”
 
During the first week of May, 2024, Dodson traveled with the lay religious group, the Order of Malta, to the miraculous spring in Lourdes, France where the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858. “I went to the baths,” he said. “It was so beautiful and moving to the point that words cannot describe. That summer, I realized I was walking further and lifting heavier things and feeling better and had more energy. My hobby is flying big show kites. There are heavy bags that I could not lift the summer before or walk around all day. There’s no explanation for how I could have returned energy and strength because usually, you get weaker, and the cancer begins to affect your bones. Something happened at Lourdes.”
 
As of this past February, Dodson is receiving a new treatment at Mayo Clinic, going back every six weeks. “It was not available when I was first diagnosed,” he explained. “A radioactive isotope is injected that goes directly to the cancer cells. It has reduced or eliminated the cancer cells in one-third of the men who have tried it. Thankfully, I have a team at Mayo that does not give up.”
 
With two grown sons and a daughter and his first grandchild born just last month, Dodson says he has a lot to live for. He credited cancer with giving him a greater appreciation for the little things. “You appreciate the extraordinary in the ordinary, whether a flower or a blade of grass or the people around you,” he said. “I’ve always thought that the greatest temptation is to fall into the ordinary and live your life not seeing the beauty of God made possible through His incarnation. The diagnosis has made that all the more.”
 
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you," he quoted from Ephesians 5:14. “It’s a temptation to fall into a malaise. We have to remember that the blessings are everywhere. The blessing of my diagnosis is that I was awakened to that, but I won’t lie, I fear pain at the end, but I don’t fear death at all. At first, I thought, I don’t want to die; I’m going to miss my life, but then I realized that if I’m in the Beatific Vision and with God, I won’t miss anything here.”