George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading public intellectuals. He prepared a major study of the life, thought, and action of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), which was published to international acclaim and has since been translated into twelve languages. He is the author or editor of some twenty other books, including The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics without God (2005). His weekly column, “The Catholic Difference,” is syndicated to sixty newspapers and he is also Vatican analyst for NBC News. He 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 eighteen honorary doctorates in fields including divinity, philosophy, law, and social science.