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Papal
biographer, prolific, internationally known and best-selling author and
columnist, and Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public
Policy Center, George Weigel will present our New
Evangelization keynote address, "John Paul II and the New
Evangelization". |
[From the Ethics
and Public Policy Center]
A native of Baltimore, he was educated at St. Mary's
Seminary College in his native city, and at the University of St. Michael's
College in Toronto. From 1986 until 1989, Weigel served as founding president of
the James Madison Foundation. From 1989 through June 1996, Weigel was
president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he led a
wide-ranging, ecumenical and inter-religious program of research and publication
on foreign and domestic policy issues. From June 1996, in his present role as a
Senior Fellow of EPPC, Weigel prepared a major study of the life, thought, and
action of Pope John Paul II. Witness
to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II was published to
international acclaim in the Fall of 1999, in English, French, Italian, and
Spanish editions. Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Czech, and Slovenian editions were
published in 2000; a Russian edition was published in 2001, and a German edition
in 2002. A documentary film based on the book was released in the fall of
2001 and has won numerous prizes.
Weigel is the author or editor of sixteen other books, including Catholicism
and the Renewal of American Democracy (Paulist, 1989), The
Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism
(Oxford, 1992), Soul
of the World: Notes on the Future of Public Catholicism (Eerdmans,
1994), The Truth of Catholicism: Ten Controversies Explored
(HarperCollins, 2001), The
Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church (Basic
Books, 2002), and Letters
to a Young Catholic (Basic Books, 2003). Weigel has also
contributed essays, op-ed columns, and reviews to the major opinion journals and
newspapers in the United States, and has appeared on numerous network
television, cable television, and radio discussion programs. His weekly column, The
Catholic Difference, is syndicated to more than fifty newspapers
around the United States. Both his scholarly work and his journalism have been
translated into a variety of western languages.
Weigel, who has been awarded six honorary doctorates and the papal cross Pro
Ecclesia et Pontifice, serves on the boards of directors of several
organizations dedicated to human rights and the cause of religious freedom. He
is also a member of the editorial boards of First Things and Orbis,
and serves as a consultant on Vatican affairs for NBC News.
George Weigel and his wife, Joan, live in North Bethesda, Maryland, with
their three children.
