
George Weigel
Distinguished Senior Fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies
George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading public intellectuals. He holds EPPC’s William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading public intellectuals. He holds EPPC’s William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
From 1989 through June 1996, Mr. 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.
Mr. Weigel is perhaps best known for his widely translated and internationally acclaimed two-volume biography of Pope St. John Paul II: the New York Times bestseller, Witness to Hope (1999), and its sequel, The End and the Beginning (2010). In 2017, Weigel published a memoir of the experiences that led to his work as a papal biographer: Lessons in Hope — My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II.
George Weigel is the author or editor of more than thirty other books, many of which have been translated into other languages. Among the most recent are Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church (2013); Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches (2013); Letters to a Young Catholic (2015); The Fragility of Order: Catholic Reflections on Turbulent Times (2018); The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020);Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse Cast of Characters, Most of Them Admirable (2021); and To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (2022). His essays, op-ed columns, and reviews appear regularly in major opinion journals and newspapers across the United States. A frequent guest on television and radio, he is also Senior Vatican Analyst for NBC News. His weekly column, “The Catholic Difference,” is syndicated to ninety-one newspapers and magazines in five countries.
Mr. Weigel received a B.A. (Philosophy) from St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, an M.A. (Theology) from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, and is the recipient of nineteen honorary doctorates. In 2024 he was decorated with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and has also been awarded the Papal Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, the Lithuanian Diplomacy Star, and the Gloria Artis Gold Medal of Poland’s Ministry of Culture.
Europe and America
George Weigel
In 2005, I published a small book entitled The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God. It had a…
Articles
Syndicated Column / April 30, 2025
Retrospect on a Pontificate
George Weigel
During the March 2013 interregnum following the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI, and in the conclave itself, proponents of Cardinal…
Articles
Syndicated Column / April 23, 2025
The High Stakes in Choosing the Next Pope
George Weigel
Mystery and drama always surround a conclave, but the deeper issue is the mission of the Catholic Church in the modern world.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / April 23, 2025
On the Way of the Cross, in Ukraine and Hong Kong
George Weigel
Last Christmas, I borrowed a thought from the English spiritual writer Caryll Houselander and suggested in this space that the wood of…
Articles
Syndicated Column / April 16, 2025
Synodality Against Episcopacy?
George Weigel
After defining, within strict limits, the infallibility of papal teaching on faith and morals, the First Vatican Council intended to take…
Articles
Syndicated Column / April 9, 2025
The Prophetic Tommy Lascelles
George Weigel
His 20th-century observations about the character of King Edward VIII are newly relevant in the Washington, D.C., of the 21st.
Articles
National Review Online / April 5, 2025
Pope St. John Paul II, Doctor of the Church?
George Weigel
The Catholic Church is prudently patient in awarding the title “Doctor of the Church” to her greatest teachers. However luminous…
Articles
Syndicated Column / April 2, 2025
Against the Politics of Grievance
George Weigel
“Woke,” shorthand for what was once known as “political correctness,” helped fuel a grievance-based progressive politics that did immense damage…
Articles
Syndicated Column / March 26, 2025
The Henry J. Hyde Federal Building, Please
George Weigel
DuPage County is one of the collar counties bordering Chicago. For years, it had the great good sense to send…
Articles
Syndicated Column / March 19, 2025
Demythologizing Some Recent Catholic History
George Weigel
The National Catholic Reporter recently saw fit to mark Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s seventy-fifth birthday by perpetuating two myths—falsehoods, really—about events in contemporary…
Articles
Syndicated Column / March 12, 2025