Now in its 27th year, the Erasmus Lecture brings in world-renowned speakers to New York—including Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Gilbert Meilaender, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks—to address an audience of over five hundred people each year. The lecture also appears in the pages of First Things and on FirstThings.com.
The Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Philadelphia
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Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., was born September 26, 1944, in Concordia, Kansas. After graduating in 1967 from St. Fidelis College Seminary in Herman, Pennsylvania, with a degree in philosophy, he was ordained a priest on August 29, 1970. He completed graduate degrees in theology and religious education, and was later elected to provincial leadership in his religious community, the Capuchin Franciscans. Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1988, and Archbishop of Denver in 1997. In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI named him Archbishop of Philadelphia.
As a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, he was the second Native American to be ordained a bishop in the United States and is the first Native American archbishop. He chose as his episcopal motto: “As Christ Loved the Church.” Archbishop Chaput served for three years (2003-2006) as a Commissioner with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and he was an official U.S. delegate to the 2005 Conference on Anti-Semitism and Other Forms of Intolerance sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Cordoba, Spain. He is the author of two books—Living the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics (Servant 2001) and Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (Doubleday 2008)—as well as numerous articles and public talks.
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