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.

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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 eighty-five newspapers and magazines in seven countries.

Mr. Weigel received a B.A. from St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore and an M.A. from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto. He is the recipient of nineteen honorary doctorates in fields including divinity, philosophy, law, and social science, and has been awarded the Papal Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, Poland’s Gloria Artis Gold Medal, and Lithuania’s Diplomacy Star.

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A Community of Prayer

George Weigel

With the end of the Cold War, humankind seemed poised to take what Pope John Paul II proposed in 1981:…

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Syndicated Column / February 1, 1993

Endnotes

George Weigel

1. David Hollenbach, S.J., “Ethical Principles, Strategic Policy, and the Catholic Bishops: The Continuing Argument,” a paper delivered at the…

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Syndicated Column / February 1, 1993

The Final Revolution

George Weigel

The collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe–the Revolution of 1989–was a singularly stunning event in a century already known for the unexpected. How did people divided for two generations by an Iron Curtain come so suddenly to dance together atop the Berlin Wall? Why did people who had once seemed resigned to their fate suddenly take their future into their hands? Some analysts have explained the Revolution in economic terms, arguing that the Warsaw Part countries could no longer compete with the West. But as George Weigel argues in this thought-provoking volume, people don’t put their lives, and their children’s future, in harm’s way simply for better cars, refrigerators, and TVs. Something else–something more–had to happen behind the Iron Curtain before the Wall came tumbling down.

Articles

Syndicated Column / November 1, 1992

But Was It Just?

George Weigel

President George Bush said yes; some bishops said no; even Doonesbury touched on the question. But what does is mean, in any case, to say that a war is just? What are the yard-sticks of justice that support President Bush’s claim that is was just to reverse Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait? And how does on evaluate the justness of stopping the war when the allies did? And what of our fierce bombing of the fleeting Iraqi troops on the road from Kuwait? The threat to Israel? The value of oil in weighing whether to fight or not?

Articles

Syndicated Column / March 1, 1992

Catholicism and the Renewal of American Democracy

George Weigel

During the last twenty years, American Catholics have been locked in a Fierce Struggle to shape not only the inner life of their church but the stance their church will take on civic and political questions.In the book George Weigel takes us to the center of that struggle, where the Left and the Right are rallying around their standards,.One side, he believes, is yielding to a Jacobin temptation of descriptive radicalism which obscures the authoritative message of the gospel.The other side is retreating to a disgruntled, world-denying posture, longing for the restoration of a bygone and largely mythical age.

Articles

Syndicated Column / May 1, 1989

Substance Vs. Character

George Weigel

It is now less than a year until the 1988 election, and we therefore end our self-imposed silence on matters…

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Syndicated Column / January 1, 1988

A Seasonal Meditation, with Thanks to William Faulkner

George Weigel

AMERICAN PURPOSE is not your basic holiday greeting card. But if it were, we would want to use William…

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