2017 Speakers
Fr. Chris Alar, MIC
Marians of the Immaculate Conception
“Father Joseph” – Director of the Association of Marian Helpers Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Father Chris entered the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, the religious community entrusted with spreading the message and devotion of Divine Mercy, as a postulant in July 2006. Prior to that, he received a BS in industrial engineering and an MBA from the University of Michigan. After working several years at a Fortune 500 company, he began his own consulting company in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2000. After answering the Lord’s call, he attended Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, for his philosophy studies and earned his Masters of Divinity from Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut. Over the past several years he has been mentored by the world’s leading experts in Divine Mercy, and he has spoken at over 100 parishes to date. Currently, he lives and works on Eden Hill in Stockbridge, Mass., home of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, where he serves as “Fr. Joseph, MIC,” the director of the Association of Marian Helpers.
Fr. Wade Menezes
Missionary
Fr. Wade L. J. Menezes, CPM is a member of the Fathers of Mercy, a missionary preaching Religious Congregation based in Auburn, Kentucky. Ordained a priest during the Great Jubilee Year 2000, he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Catholic Thought from the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Toronto, Canada and his dual Master of Arts and Master of Divinity Degrees in Theology from Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut. His secular college degrees are in journalism and communications.
Fr. Wade is currently the Assistant General and has served as Director of Vocations and Director of Seminarians for the Fathers of Mercy. Fr. Wade has also served as the Chaplain-in-Residence at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Alabama. While at the Shrine, Fr. Wade was a daily Mass celebrant, homilist, and confessor; he also gave spiritual conferences on specialized points of Catholic Christian doctrine to the many pilgrims who visit the Shrine. Both the Monastery and Shrine are affiliated with EWTN, the Eternal Word Television Network.
Fr. Wade has been a contributing writer for The National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor, Catholic Twin Circle, Catholic Faith and Family, The Wanderer, Pastoral Life, The Catholic Faith, Lay Witness and Christian Ranchman publications. Several homiletic series of his have appeared in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, an international journal for Priests. Fr. Wade has also been a guest on various episodes of EWTN’s “Mother Angelica Live” and “Life on the Rock” programs during which he discussed such topics as the sanctification of marriage and family life, vocations, and the Sacred Liturgy. He has also hosted several televised series for EWTN, which have covered such topics as the necessity of the spiritual life, the Four Last Things, the Ten Commandments of Catholic Family Life, and the Gospel of Life vs. the Culture of Death. He is also the host of the EWTN segment series “The Crux of the Matter” and “The Wonders of His Mercy”. His many theological and doctrinal presentations have been featured on EWTN Radio, Ave Maria Radio, Guadalupe Radio Network, Covenant Network Radio, Catholic Broadcasting Northwest, and Voice of Virtue International. He is the host of EWTN Global Catholic Radio’s “Open Line Tuesday”.
Patrick Madrid
Radio Host
Patrick is a life-long Catholic, not a convert. By God’s grace, he was raised in the Catholic Faith and has been a practicing Catholic his entire life. Growing up in Southern California, he attended grammar school at the Mission San Juan Capistrano parish school, where for several years he served as an altar boy for the parish’s daily Traditional Latin Mass in the famed Serra Chapel.
In 2012 he launched the daily “Right Here, Right Now” radio show, which he hosted till early 2015, heard on approximately 300 AM & FM stations across the U.S., as well as on Sirius Satellite Radio, and globally via shortwave. From 2007-2012 Patrick hosted EWTN’s Thursday edition of the “Open Line” broadcast.
He has authored or edited 25 books including, Why Be Catholic? (Random House), Life Lessons: 50 Things I Learned in My First 50 Years, How to do Apologetics, Pope Fiction, Search and Rescue, Does the Bible Really Say That? Envoy for Christ: 25 Years as a Catholic Apologist, and the multi-volume Surprised by Truth series. His total book sales exceed a million copies worldwide, including foreign-language editions.
He has served as an adjunct professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and is a research fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Studies. He is currently an adjunct professor of apologetics in Holy Apostles College and Seminary’s theology department.
Patrick has conducted countless teaching seminars on Catholic themes, in English and Spanish, at conferences, parishes, and universities across North America, as well as throughout Europe, and in Latin America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. He has been for many years a regular presenter at Franciscan University of Steubenville’s annual “Defending the Faith” Conference and has been the featured speaker at numerous Legatus events across the country. He is also a veteran of a dozen formal, public debates with Protestant ministers, Mormon leaders, and other non-Catholic spokesmen.
Patrick and his wife Nancy have been married for 36 years and have been blessed with 11 children and 21 grandchildren (so far). Their most important goal as a couple is to hear the Lord Jesus say to them and their children one day, “Well done, good and faithful servants; you have been faithful over a little . . . now enter into the joy of your Master” (Matt. 25:21).
Al Kresta
CEO
Al Kresta is a broadcaster, journalist and author who is, first of all, a missionary. He is President and CEO of Ave Maria Radio and host of “Kresta in the Afternoon.” He draws upon his unique faith background to create what is, arguably, the most fascinating — and most spiritually constructive — talk radio program on the radio today.
A 1976 honors graduate of Michigan State University, Al has also done graduate work in theology at both Catholic and Protestant seminaries. He became well known in the Detroit area for his program, “Talk from the Heart,” one of the top-rated Christian talk radio programs during the 1980s and 90s. When he began the program, Al was a Protestant pastor. The questions forced upon him as pastor, however, led him to return to the Catholic Church. His profound personal conversion to Christ and return to the Catholic Church is told in the best-selling anthology Surprised By Truth.
In 1997, Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan recruited Al to launch the media apostolate, Ave Maria Communications.
Over the years Ave Maria Communications has included:
Credo, which became Michigan’s largest religious publication and the recipient of 18 merit awards from the Catholic Press Association;
Ave Maria Radio which produces a number of its own programs and features including Catholic Connection with Teresa Tomeo; The Doctor is In with Dr. Ray Guarendi and Coleen Kelly Mast; More2Life with Greg and Lisa Popcak; Food for the Journey with Sr. Ann Shields, as well as Kresta in the Afternoon and many others.
The local radio stations 990 AM WDEO (Detroit and Ann Arbor) and 1440 AM WMAX (Saginaw, Bay City and Midland).
Heard on more than 350 stations and Sirius Satellite, Kresta in the Afternoon looks at all areas of life through the lens of Scripture and the teaching of the Catholic Church and takes on all comers. Over the years, Al has engaged in vigorous discussions or debates with nationally known figures from politics, the arts, the Church, academia and business such as Mother Angelica, Jesse Jackson, John McCain, Gloria Steinem, Cuba Gooding Jr., Scott Hahn, Rick Santorum, Judge Robert Bork, Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, Mrs. Anwar Sadat, Martin Luther King III, Jack Kevorkian, John Cardinal O’Connor, Chuck Colson, Archbishop Charles Chaput, George McGovern, C. Everett Koop, Francis Cardinal George, Dennis Quaid, George Will, Tim Russert, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Garrison Keillor, Dion DiMucci, Colin Raye and many more.
Kresta’s life and spiritual journey took on a new dimension in February 2003, when he lost his left leg to necrotizing fasciitis, a virulent infection often referred to as the “flesh-eating bacteria.” His extended recovery and eventual return to broadcasting have given him new insights into the realities of suffering and hope.
He is the author of Dangers to the Faith: Recognizing Catholicism’s 21st Century Opponents, Moments of Grace: Inspiring Stories From Well-Known Catholics, Why Are Catholics So Concerned about Sin?: More Answers to Puzzling Questions about the Catholic Church, and Why Do Catholics Genuflect? And Answers to Other Puzzling Questions About the Catholic Faith, published by Servant Books.
Al and his wife, Sally, have been married for 30 years and have been blessed with 5 children on earth and two in heaven.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Priest
Fr. Longenecker was brought up in an Evangelical home in Pennsylvania. After graduating from Bob Jones University here in Greenville with a degree in Speech and English, he went to study theology at Oxford University. He was eventually ordained as an Anglican priest and served as a curate, a school chaplain in Cambridge and a country parson on the Isle of Wight.
Realizing that he and the Anglican Church were on divergent paths, in 1995 Fr. Dwight and his family were received into the Catholic Church. To read Fr. Longenecker’s conversion story or to listen to the audio version connect to the archived articles section of his blog.
Fr. Dwight spent the next ten years working as a freelance Catholic writer, contributing to over twenty-five magazines, papers and journals in Britain, Ireland and the USA. He has also written fifteen books and booklets on the Catholic faith. Fr. Longenecker and his family on the day of his ordination at St. Mary’s Church in Greenville.
In 2006 Fr. Dwight accepted a post as Chaplain to St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville, South Carolina. This brought him and his family back, not only to his hometown, but also to the American Bible belt, and hometown of Bob Jones University.
At St. Mary’s Church in Greenville in December 2006 he was ordained as a Catholic priest under the special pastoral provision for married former Anglican clergy. He now serves as pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary parish.
Fr. Dwight enjoys movies, blogging, books, riding his motorcycle and visiting Benedictine monasteries. He’s married to Alison. They have four children, named Benedict, Madeleine, Theodore and Elias. They live in Greenville, South Carolina with a black Labrador named Anna, a chocolate Lab named Felicity, a cat named James and various other pets.
Fr. Longenecker is a well-known Catholic blogger. Visit his blog which is called Standing on My Head.
Website: Dwightlongenecker.com
Blog: Standing on My Head
