George Weigel to speak at award event for archbishop

by Steve Johnson
Special to The Leaven

ATCHISON — In recognition of Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann’s work in the preservation of and support for life, marriage and family values, Benedictine College here will present him with the Transforming Culture in America Award at a special event on April 1 at 6 p.m. at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Shawnee. The event, sponsored by Benedictine College and its Center for Family Life and in association with J.P. De Gance and his Communio program, is free and open to the public.

In addition to the award presentation, there will be a keynote lecture by George Weigel, biographer of St. John Paul II and a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) in Washington, D.C. Weigel is a longtime friend of Archbishop Naumann and is a noted Catholic theologian, one of America’s leading intellectuals and NBC’s analyst on the Vatican. He will speak on “The Family as the Vital Cell of Society: The Genius of St. John Paul II.”

“The Benedictine Center for Family Life is inspired and motivated by the grand vision of St. John Paul II for the family as God’s way of shaping a culture of love,” said Tory Baucum, director of Benedictine’s Center for Family Life. “Archbishop Naumann was consecrated to his apostolic office by Pope John Paul II, and he has made the pope’s vision of the family his own.”

Archbishop Naumann has always been very active within the church on issues of marriage and life. He served as chairman of the Kansas Catholic Conference and was a member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Marriage and Family Life. He was also chosen by his brother bishops to lead the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

The pro-life cause has long been one of great importance to Archbishop Naumann. While serving as archdiocesan pro-life coordinator in St. Louis, the archdiocese established a Project Rachel ministry for women recovering from abortion, as well as the Lifeline Coalition. He was a founding board member of the Vitae Foundation, which promotes effective pro-life messaging. He is also a regular participant in the annual March for Life in Washington, supports a variety of pro-life organizations and regularly participates in pro-life rosaries in front of abortion clinics.

“The pro-life issue has been, and remains, one of the paramount moral issues that the church tries to give some guidance on to our own people, as well as society at large,” Archbishop Naumann told the Catholic World Report in 2017.

Weigel is perhaps best known for his widely translated and internationally acclaimed two-volume biography of Pope St. John Paul II: “Witness to Hope” (1999) and its sequel “The End and the Beginning” (2010).