CHARLES J. CHAPUT entered the Capuchin Franciscan religious community in 1965 and was ordained a priest in 1970. 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. A member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, he is the first U.S. archbishop of Native American heritage.
Archbishop Chaput served three years as a commissioner with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He was an official U.S. State Department delegate to the 2005 Conference on Anti-Semitism and Other Forms of Intolerance in Cordoba, Spain, sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The recipient of various religious liberty awards, he is a frequent public speaker and prolific writer.
In 2015, working with the Pontifical Council for the Family, he hosted the Eighth World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. He subsequently served as a delegate to the 2015 Synod on the Family in Rome, where he was elected to a term on the Synod of Bishops’ permanent council. In November 2016, he began a term as chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. You can sign up for email updates here.