Jon M Sweeney Popular Books

Jon M Sweeney Biography & Facts

Jon M. Sweeney (born July 18, 1967) is an author of popular history, spirituality, biography, poetry, fiction for young readers, and memoir. His most frequent subjects are Catholic, particularly St. Francis of Assisi, about whom Sweeney has written The St. Francis Prayer Book, Francis of Assisi in His Own Words, When Saint Francis Saved the Church, The Complete Francis of Assisi, and The Enthusiast, a biography that Richard Rohr calls "An immense and important contribution to our understanding of the great saint." HBO optioned the film rights to The Pope Who Quit, Sweeney's historical retelling of the 13th century Pope Celestine V, who was the first pope to ever willingly resign the position. More recently, a series of young reader fiction, The Pope's Cat, was begun, the first of which published on March 1, 2018, before the fifth anniversary of the papacy of Pope Francis. He has also written a biography of the popular Jesuit priest James Martin, SJ. Sweeney has been interviewed on CBS News, WGN-TV, Fox News, and WTTW's Chicago Tonight. He appeared on CBS Sunday Morning to talk about Saint Patrick on March 17, 2013. He is an independent scholar who lectures frequently and leads retreats. Sweeney is currently Editor at Large for Orbis Books in Maryknoll, New York, as well as Interim Director of The Lux Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wisconsin. Life Sweeney was born on July 18, 1967, in St. Charles, Illinois. At the time of Sweeney's birth, his father Mark Sweeney was the youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Wheaton, Illinois and mother Janet stayed at home with his older brother, Douglas (born July 1965). Soon after he was born, Sweeney's family relocated to Oregon, where his parents had been married in 1964. The family returned to Wheaton in 1969 and Sweeney resided there until college. Sweeney is included in the book Legendary Locals of Wheaton, by Keith Call. Sweeney converted to Catholicism after spending twenty years as an active Episcopalian, on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4) in Woodstock, Vermont, in 2009. He is married to Michal Woll, a rabbi, and has four children. Sweeney and Woll were profiled in "When a Jew and a Catholic Marry" by Mark Oppenheimer in America (magazine) in August 2017. He currently lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Education Sweeney attended Carl Sandburg Elementary School, Monroe Junior High (now Monroe Middle School), and Wheaton Christian High School (now Wheaton Academy), where one of his best friends was former U.S. House of Representatives member Randy Hultgren. He graduated high school in 1985. He attended Moody Bible Institute for one year and then transferred to Wheaton College where he majored in philosophy and Medieval studies, graduating in 1989. While at Wheaton, he was a teacher's assistant in the philosophy department and research assistant to the philosophy chair, Arthur F. Holmes, one of two professors to whom he dedicated his book, The Complete Francis of Assisi. In a later interview with The Irish Catholic, he reflects on his college interests: "Going back to my college days, I was a medieval history major, so I was very interested in the time period, and I think that was because I always saw it as a period in history that unified Christians of all backgrounds. It is the period of time before all the splits came into the Church so I always found that appealing. The more often one could go back to those figures or those stories and retell them or re-imagine them, I thought, the better." While in junior high and high school, Jon's father was a prominent publisher of Evangelical Christian books who introduced him to prominent religious figures such as Dr. Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dr. Josh McDowell, and Dr. George Sweeting, then president of Moody Bible Institute, the school in downtown Chicago that Sweeney attended for his first year of college, and which his parents both attended. While at Moody, Sweeney arranged to serve as a summer missionary in Batangas City, Philippines, an experience that he later wrote about in his memoir, Born Again and Again. Sweeney grew up intent on becoming an evangelical pastor, but practiced as an Episcopalian for 21 years of his adult life and converted to Catholicism in 2009. Today he keeps a Jewish home with his wife, a rabbi, although still practices and identifies as a Catholic. After finishing at Wheaton College (Illinois), Sweeney was an M.Div. and then an M.A. student at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. There he studied with Paul L. Holmer, among others, and focused on Kierkegaard and theology. Sweeney has written about his relationship with Holmer. Eventually, Sweeney left seminary without earning a degree. Literary career Sweeney began his career as a bookseller, first in Chicago, and then managing a theological bookstore in Central Square, Cambridge, MA, Divinitas Books. He saw his first works published at this time, poems and book reviews, in small journals including The Merton Seasonal, which was then edited by Robert Daggy. From bookselling he became a trade sales representative for Augsburg Fortress Publishing, traveling a seven-state territory in the Southeastern U.S. When promoted to trade sales manager two years later he moved his family to Minneapolis. Leaving there in 1997, Sweeney moved to Vermont to join the "Ben & Jerry's of religious publishing," Jewish Lights Publishing. After seven years as vice-president of marketing and sales at Jewish Lights Publishing in Woodstock, Vermont, and co-founding SkyLight Paths Publishing, also in Woodstock, Vermont, as its associate publisher and editor-in-chief, Sweeney became editor-in-chief and publisher at Paraclete Press in 2004, in Orleans, Massachusetts. He left there in 2015. After working at Franciscan Media as editorial director for one year, he became executive editor for trade books at Ave Maria Press in Notre Dame, Indiana. Today, he is both consulting editor-at-large for Ave Maria, and once again, publisher and editor-in-chief at Paraclete. Sweeney's involvement and collaboration with other writers goes back many years. At the 2006 Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Michigan, he interviewed poet and memoirist Mary Karr on the main stage. Two years later at the same venue, he interviewed Mary Gordon. In early 2017, he interviewed novelist Marilynne Robinson for The Tablet in the UK. In December 2016 Sweeney was elected to the board of the Catholic Publishers Association. As an editor and publisher, he has worked with authors such as Jean Vanier, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, Andrew Harvey, Lawrence Kushner, Ronald Rolheiser, M. Basil Pennington, Brother Wayne Teasdale, and John Michael Talbot. He also serves on the governing board of The Lux Center for Jewish-Christian Studies, located on the campus of Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology, serving greater Milwaukee. Sweeney's many books about Francis of Assisi .... Discover the Jon M Sweeney popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jon M Sweeney books.