Francis X. Maier

Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC. His work focuses on the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life, with special attention to lay formation and action.

Mr. Maier served as senior adviser and special assistant to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., for 23 years in Denver and Philadelphia. He previously served as editor in chief of the National Catholic Register newsweekly for 15 years, and earlier still as a story analyst and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and New York University’s School of the Arts, he is a former fellow of the American Film Institute’s Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies.

Maier is a cofounding board member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture; a board member of the Napa Institute; a board member of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS); and a consulting editor and contributor with First Things magazine. He served as the inaugural senior research fellow at the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Studies, University of Notre Dame, 2020-22.

His bylined work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, First Things, National Review, The American Spectator, This World, Commonweal, America, Catholic World Report, Crisis, the New York Times Sunday magazine, Christian Science Monitor, France Catholique, and other national and foreign outlets. A regular columnist at The Catholic Thing, his book True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church (Ignatius) was published in February 2024.

Married 55 years, he and his wife, Suann—a career Catholic school educator—have four children, 11 grandchildren, and live in Yardley, PA. In 2004, Pope St. John Paul II named both to the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory the Great as knight and dame for outstanding service to the Church. Pope Francis advanced them in rank in the same order as knight commander and dame commander in 2019.

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