Amore Conference Speakers
Tory K. Baucum
Tory K. Baucum is an American Anglican priest. He is married to Elizabeth Tyndall Baucum, and they have three daughters.
After serving nine years as a professor at the Asbury Theological Seminary, he became the Rector of Truro Anglican Church in Fairfax, Virginia. Truro had left the Episcopal Church in 2006 and Tory inherited a multimillion dollar lawsuit and declining congregation. Since then Truro has pioneered the Anglican Communion in peacemaking. He was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, as one of the Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral, after being unanimously approved in December 2013 by their chapter, in January 2014. Baucum’s installation took place on 14 March 2014, being attended by Archbishop Robert Duncan and by Justin Welby himself. Welby stated upon his appointment that he was expecting that it would help promote “reconciliation and unity” in the Anglican Communion.
Truro and Tory have also pioneered an evangelistic ministry rooted in homes. He spoke on the ministry of “domestic church” in September 2015 at the World Meeting of the Families in Philadelphia, being one of a handful of Protestant presenters. He published Evangelical Hospitality (2008) and most recently his apologetic essay for peacemaking, entitled “Ministry in Samaria: Peacemaking at Truro Church” was published last year in the UK in the book Good Disagreement?. Tory serves on the Board of Alpha USA and as Chairman of the US Fresh Expressions Board.
Msgr. Renzo Bonetti
Mons. Renzo Bonetti is deeply passionate about the discipleship of the family and how the home serves as a primary place for evangelism. He currently leads the Mistero Grande Project, an organization that has launched hundreds of ‘little churches’ led by married couples called Community Family Evangelism scattered in about 25 dioceses in Italy and now taking shape in the US through The Amore Project. His work was highlighted during at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.
From 1995 to 2002 he was Director of the National Office for the Pastoral Care of the Family of the Italian Conference of Bishops. From 2003 to 2009 he was the Consultant of the Pontifical Council for the Family at the Vatican where he created a graduate program on the spirituality of marriage and the family in collaboration with the John Paul II Institute.
In 2002, he asked to be transferred from the Vatican back into the local church where he began overseeing implementation of courses on marriage, family and neighborhood evangelism as a parish priest in the diocese of Verona. He began devoting his whole time to the Mistero Grande project in 2012.
He is the author of several books including Signs of Love: Christian liturgy in the everyday life of the family. His next book project focuses on Marriage and Discipleship.
Bruxy Cavey
Bruxy Cavey, author of the best selling book The End of Religion, is Teaching Pastor of The Meeting House – one of the largest and most innovative churches in Canada. The tagline is : “A Church for People who Aren’t into Church” – and that’s what his congregation tries to be to those who have given up on religion.
The Meeting House is a multi-site church with communities around the world who share the same vision: to create safe places for spiritual seekers to ask questions and develop a thoughtful faith.
Bruxy’s engaging style, scholarly rigor, and refreshing honesty make him a popular guest on television, radio, and at university campuses around the world.
Don Coleman
Don Coleman takes his role as a citizen of the Kingdom of God seriously. And that means that he takes being a citizen of the Church Hill neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia as important part of his life of Christian discipleship. To him, the call of Christ cannot be separated from the call to serve the public.
This means Don is not satisfied with just being involved in leading a church. He finds a double joy in the call to his church and the call to serve his community. In addition to being a co-pastor at East End Fellowship, “a multi-ethnic, economically diverse church community in the East End of Richmond” (CCDA), Don is an influential, highly involved community leader, serving two terms on the School Board representing the 7th District, both as member, chairman and Vice Chairman. He works with Bless Richmond, a yearly initiative by which scores of churches of various stripes join together for corporate worship and intercession, and to provide much needed items to the community.
Abandoned as a young child and raised in a foster home, Don knew what it was like to be born on the less fortunate side of life’s chances. That very background now informs his passion to make real differences in the lives of those who are struggling in the East End of Richmond.
Don Coleman has spent much of his life giving back to Church Hill’s populace, the object of his missional heart. His loyalty to the community has encouraged others to reorient their lives around the neighborhood just to be a part of what God is doing there.
Bill Donaghy
Bill Donaghy is an instructor with the Theology of the Body institute and a Certified Speaker and National Trainer for Ascension Press.
Prior to his work at Theology of the Body Institute, Bill served in the fields of mission and evangelization for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia since 1999. Through his work with the Pontifical Mission Societies, Bill gave hundreds of talks on the spirituality of mission to young people throughout Philadelphia and beyond. He witnessed and experienced the love of Christ in the missions of Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic as well as within the realms of young adult and parish ministry in Philadelphia.
In October of 2000, Bill was chosen to represent his country in a special tribute for the Jubilee of Missionaries in Rome. With 11 other missionaries from around the world, he was given a simple cross by St. John Paul II and called by the Holy Father to “bring Jesus back to your country.”
Bill holds an Associate’s degree in Visual Arts, a Bachelor’s in Philosophy and a Master’s in Systematic Theology. He taught Theology at Malvern Preparatory High School in Malvern, PA, and teaches at Immaculata University. Bill and his wife, Rebecca, live just outside of Philadelphia, PA with their four children.
Most Reverend Ronald W. Gainer, D.D., J.C.L.
Bishop Gainer was appointed the Eleventh Bishop of Harrisburg by his Holiness Pope Francis on January 24, 2014. He was installed as Bishop of Harrisburg on March 19, 2014.
Bishop Gainer was born August 24, 1947, in Pottsville, PA. After studies for the priesthood he was ordained a Priest for the diocese of Allentown on May 19, 1973. He was consecrated and installed as Bishop of Lexington, KY on February 22, 2003.
Bishop Gainer completed studies at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia in 1973, earning a Master of Divinity degree, summa cum laude and has earned a licentiate degree in Canon Law and a diploma in Latin Letter from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1986.
For much of his Priesthood Bishop Gainer served in parish, campus ministry, marriages and family, and tribunal positions. As Secretary of Catholic Life and Evangelization for the Diocese of Allentown he supervised 14 diocesan offices and the promotion of the works of spiritual renewal and evangelization.
Bishop Gainer currently serves as President of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference.
On the national level, Bishop Gainer is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). He has served as Chair of the Region III and V of the USCCB as well as having served on the Administrative Committee, the Committee on Priorities and Planning, the Committee on Catholic Education, the Committee for Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, as well as a regional representative to the USCCB Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, and liaison with the North American Forum on the Catechumenate. He is also on the Board of Directors of: Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, Cross Catholic Outreach and Holy Family Radio.
Frederica Mathewes-Green
Frederica Mathewes-Green is a wide-ranging author, whose work has appeared in such diverse publications as the Washington Post, Christianity Today, Smithsonian, the Los Angeles Times, First Things, Books & Culture, Sojourners, Touchstone, and the Wall Street Journal. She has been a regular commentator for National Public Radio (NPR), on Morning Edition and All Things Considered, a columnist for the Religion News Service, Beliefnet.com, and Christianity Today.
She has published 10 books, including The Jesus Prayer (Paraclete, 2009), and The Illumined Heart: The Ancient Christian Path of Transformation (Paraclete, 2001). Her essays were selected for Best Christian Writing in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006, and Best Spiritual Writing in 1998 and 2007. She has published over 700 essays.
She has also appeared as a speaker over 500 times, at places like Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Wellesley, Cornell, Calvin, Baylor, and Westmont; at the Smithsonian Institute, the Aspen Institute, Washington National Cathedral, the Los Angeles Times Book Festival, the American Academy of Religion and the Veritas Forum.
She lives with her husband, the Rev. Gregory Mathewes-Green, in Baltimore, MD, where he is pastor and she is “Khouria” (“Mother”) of the parish they founded, Holy Cross Orthodox Church. Their three children are grown and married, and they have thirteen grandchildren.
Margaret Harper McCarthy
Margaret Harper McCarthy is an Assistant Professor of Theological Anthropology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. where she has taught since 1992. She served as the director of the JPII Institute’s Center for Cultural and Pastoral Research for its first five years.
Currently, she is the editor of its quarterly review, Humanum. She is on the editorial board of the English edition of the International Catholic Review Communio and is a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology. Dr. McCarthy received her Licentiate and Doctoral degrees in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute at the Lateran University in Rome (1989, 1994). Her teaching and research focuses on various themes belonging to theological anthropology, including christocentrism, predestination, experience, and sexual difference (love, courtship, equality, feminism, person, work, ARTs). She publishes regularly in Communioand in Humanum. Her book Recovering Origins: Adult Children of Divorce is forthcoming.
Margaret is married and has three children. Margaret previously belonged to the Reformed Church and converted to Catholicism while in college in 1987 along with her friend Dr. Scott Hahn. The idea of the covenant as a familial reality was critical to her decision to convert to Catholicism.
Christopher West
Christopher West is a proud husband and father of five. His global lecturing, best selling books and multiple audio and video programs have also made him the world’s most recognized teacher of John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”– a bold, biblical vision of love and sexuality that takes us to the “cor” of what it means to be human. As Founder and President of The Cor Project, he leads an international outreach devoted to spreading this liberating teaching and empowering others to live and share it. His work has been featured in The New York Times, on ABC News, Fox News, MSNBC, and countless Catholic and Evangelical media outlets.
Beyond his work as a popularizer of the Theology of the Body, Christopher has been teaching graduate and undergraduate courses on the subject since the late 1990s, having served on the faculties of St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha, and as a visiting professor of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, Australia. In 2004 he co-founded the Theology of the Body Institute near Philadelphia, PA and his week-long courses there continue to draw students from around the world.
Ben Witherington
Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies.
Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.
Witherington has written over forty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Patheos website.
Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.