Thomas More University’s Wm. T. Robinson Institute for Religious Liberty will present “Pope St. John Paul II and Religious Liberty” with keynote speaker George Weigel on Feb. 12, 7-9:30 p.m.
The program will be held at the Ziegler Auditorium and is open to the public, free of charge.
Dr. Ray Hebert, executive director of the institute, says “Professor Weigel is internationally respected as one of the leading Catholic intellectuals in America” and is “likely the leading Vatican analyst.”
Weigel is a Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading public intellectuals. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) and holds EPPC’s William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
Weigel was president of the EPPC from 1989 through June 1996, where he led a wide-ranging, ecumenical and inter-religious program of research and publication on foreign and domestic policy issues.
He 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).
Weigel is the author or editor of more than 30 other books, many of which have been translated into other languages and is a frequent guest on television and radio nationally and internationally.
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.