George Weigel

A famous scientist of secular persuasion once proposed that, if humanity wanted to put its best foot forward in trying…

Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen: [I’d like to thank the chairman for advertising my book and…

In the second act of Camelot, King Arthur’s bastard son Mordred, a poisonous weed in the garden of the Round…

[An excerpt from Witness to Hope, used here with permission.] It must be admitted that there is something surprising about…

Witness To Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II by George Weigel is as comprehensive a biography of its subject as can be hoped for while the Pope still lives. Weigel, a journalist who came to the Pope’s attention after the publication of his book, The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism, wrote Witness To Hope with his subject’s encouragement and assistance. Weigel had unprecedented access to the Pope’s correspondence (with, among others, world leaders including Mikhail Gorbachev). He reports lengthy conversations with many members of the Pope’s inner circle, and he occasionally reveals vivid details of the Pope’s daily life (for example, at the beginning of each day, the Pope’s adviser’s hear moans and groaning from John Paul’s solitary prayers in his private chapel).

For two centuries theorists of "secularization" have been saying that religion must inevitably decline in the modern world. But much of the world today is as religious as ever. This volume challenges the belief that the modern world is increasingly secular; showing that while modernization does have secularizing effects, it also provokes a reaction that more often strengthens religion. Seven expert social observers examine several geopolitical regions and several religions–Catholic and Protestant Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam–and explore the resurgence of religion in world affairs.

As I wrote last week, I have been exceptionally blessed in recent years by the friendship of the faculty and…

One of the great graces of my life in recent years has been the extraordinary friendship extended to me by…

Then there was the sacred parking barrier. It seems that the San Francisco highways department had left one of those…

Imagine what would happen if, in the year 2000, a publisher decided to mark the 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s…

Great events like the Second Vatican Council always have unintended consequences. Knowing that the office of bishop had gotten short…

Here’s one man’s recent Holy Week schedule: On Palm Sunday, he celebrated a three-hour Mass, preached, and led the Angelus…