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Father Larry Richards
Father Larry Richards speech is titled “Spiritual exercises to prepare us for battle!” (Growing in holiness is the key to being an effective spiritual warrior.)
A gifted and captivating speaker, preacher, retreat master, and author. Fr. Larry Richards holds the answer to some of life’s most profound questions. He speaks from experience as a pastor of an inner city parish, a high school chaplain, a counselor and evangelist. Fr. Larry Richards has directed hundreds of retreats, parish missions, and conferences for young and old alike. His inspirational talks, presentations, and books always authentic and enthusiastic, have changed the hearts, minds and lives of millions of listeners and readers worldwide.
Father Larry Richards was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After high school, he attended the college seminary at Gannon University and received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mental Health in 1983. Father Larry Richards continued his studies at the major seminary at St. Vincent in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and received his Masters of Divinity degree in 1987. He will soon conclude his studies at the University of Notre Dame and be awarded a Master of Arts degree in Liturgy.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1989 for the Diocese of Erie, Fr. Larry Richards serves as pastor of St. Joseph Church/Bread of Life Community in Erie. He is also the Founder of the DME (Divine Mercy Encounter) Retreat Program for the Diocese of Erie.
Tom Peterson
Tom Peterson’s speech is titled “Our World Needs Catholic Heroes!“
Mr. Peterson has over 25 years of experience as an award-winning and record-setting national corporate advertising executive and entrepreneur. His prior marketing, advertising, and management experience includes: American Hospital Supply Corporation; Thomas Publishing Co., IDX Systems Corporation, Phoenix Medical Management, Peterson Sparks, Inc., and Peterson Advertising Corporation.
While on a Catholic retreat in 1997, Mr. Peterson had a profound reversion experience in his Catholic faith. Soon afterward, he received a vocational calling, and eventually founded Catholics Come Home, Inc. and VirtueMedia, Inc., educational not-for-profit apostolates, dedicated to promoting Catholic evangelization and the sanctity of human life.Mr. Peterson speaks at National Catholic Conferences and pro-life events throughout the United States and internationally,and has presented at the Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has also been featured in hundreds of media outlets, including EWTN (Journey Home, LIVE, Bookmark), Fox News, and on many Catholic radio stations.
Mr. Peterson and the media apostolates he directs are regularly featured in Our Sunday Visitor, The National Catholic Register, Legatus Magazine, Columbia Magazine, Envoy Magazine, and in numerous other Catholic print publications, blogs, and websites.Mr. Peterson received a B.S. degree in Marketing, Summa Cum Laude, from Arizona State University (1983). He continued in the MBA program at Arizona State University‟s School of Business, (1984-1985).
Michael Coren
Michael Coren’s speech is titled “Knowing The Enemy of Our Faith (Facing attacks on the family, the culture, and The Church)“.
Michael is the host of The Arena, a nightly television show on Sun News. For more than twelve years he was host/producer of The Michael Coren Show on Crossroads Television, presenting more than 3000 episodes and winning numerous awards. The Arena stresses international coverage — particularly the Middle East, the U.S. and Europe — but also takes on social, moral, and religious issues and Canadian life and politics. Michael Coren is irreverent, thoughtful and hard-hitting.
Michael is a weekly columnist with the Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg Sun newspapers, and in more than a dozen other daily and weekly newspapers across Canada. He is also a columnist for The Catholic Register, Catholic Insight, Catholic World Report, The Landowner, and The Interim. He also appears each Wednesday on Newstalk 1010 radio and every month on CHCH TV. He is the best-selling author of fifteen books, including biographies of G.K. Chesterton, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. He has contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography and several other anthologies. He is published in many countries and in more than a dozen languages. His last two books were on the best-seller list for more than ten weeks.
He has received several honorary doctorates and awards for his writing and broadcasting. In 2005 he won The Ed Murrow Award for Radio Broadcasting, in 2006 The RTNDA Radio Broadcasting Award, in 2007 the Communicator Award in Hollywood and in 2008 the Omni Award for his television show. In 2012 The Catholic Civil Rights League gave Coren the Archbishop Adam Exner Award for Catholic Excellence in Public Life, and in the same year he was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for services to media. Michael Coren is a frequent speaker on a number of issues. Please visit the Public Speaking page for more details.
Bishop Michael Olson Fort Worth Diocese
Bishop Michael Fors Olson, S.T.D., M.A. was born in Park Ridge, Illinois on June 29, 1966. He was raised in Des Plaines, Illinois where he attended St. Mary’s Parochial School. Bishop Olson graduated from Quigley Preparatory Seminary North in 1984 and began collegiate seminary studies for the Archdiocese of Chicago in August of that same year. In 1985, his family moved to Fort Worth as part of the corporate relocation of GTE/DC. In 1988, Bishop Olson officially transferred as a seminarian to the Diocese of Fort Worth. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Fort Worth on June 3, 1994, and began his priestly ministry as the parochial vicar of St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Bedford, Texas, from July 1994 through June, 1997.
Bishop Olson was a recipient of the Basselin Scholarship at the Catholic University of America from which he earned his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in philosophy in 1988 and 1989 respectively. Bishop Olson also has degrees (M.Div. and M.A.) in theological studies from the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He was a charter recipient of the CRS Global Fellowship in 1993 through which he traveled to Egypt and Burkina Faso to learn about global development in social justice. He is also a past recipient of the Presidential Fellowship of Saint Louis University where he studied at the Center for Health Care Ethics in the Catholic Tradition between 1997 and 2001. In March of 2011 he successfully earned his doctorate in moral theology at the in Rome.
He has served as a community representative on the Ethics Committee for Research Involving Human Subjects at the University of Texas Medical Center in Houston. He was a member of the formation faculty at Saint Mary’s Seminary in Houston, Texas and lectured at the University of Saint Thomas School of Theology between 2001 and 2006. From July, 2006, through June, 2008 Bishop Olson served in the Diocese of Fort Worth as Vicar General and as Pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church. Since July 1, 2008 Bishop Olson has been serving as the Rector of Holy Trinity Seminary. On May 6, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI granted him the Papal Honor of Chaplain to His Holiness with the title of “Monsignor.”
On January 29, 2014 Bishop Olson was ordained bishop and installed as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth at the Fort Worth Convention Center. Approximately 8,500 Catholics from across North Texas and beyond were in attendance.