The Metcalf Ballroom filled with commotion as a crowd of alumni, students and other Boston University community members conversed as they found their chairs. The audience fell silent once Jonathan Alpeyrie, a war photojournalist, and Bonnie Timmermann, a producer and casting director, appeared onstage.

Award-winning author and Boston Globe columnist James Carroll spoke Tuesday about his career and faith as part of the Friends Speaker Series hosted by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. The...