Pro-Life Leader Paul M. Weyrich Passes Away 18 December 2008

Conservative Pro-Life Leader Paul Weyrich Passes Away on 18 December 2008 at arround 1 a.m. He was the chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation & founder as well as the first president of The Heritage Foundation. He was 66 years old.

The Free Congress Foundation issued the following statement:

ANNOUNCING THE DEATH OF PAUL M. WEYRICH
Congressman Ralph M. Hall, Chairman of the Free Congress Foundation Board of Directors, and President Marion Edwyn Harrison, sadly announce the death of the Founder and National Chairman, Paul M. Weyrich.
Paul Weyrich, 66, died this morning while briefly hospitalized near his home in Northern Virginia . A contributory cause of death was methicillin-resistant staph aureus, commonly termed MRSA. For some years Paul Weyrich had been in a wheelchair, due to a combination of illnesses and a fall many years ago on black ice.
While hospitalized a number of times, and often in pain, Paul continued his admirable and extensive work as a leader of the cultural, political and social conservative movement.
Paul founded not only the Free Congress Foundation but also the Heritage Foundation and was the first Heritage President. While still a student in his native Wisconsin he became a radio and MILWAUKEE SENTINEL newspaper reporter and then a CBS political reporter and newscaster in Milwaukee . In 1966 he came to Washington , initially handling press relations and other assignments for Senators Gordon L. Allot, of Colorado , and Carl T. Curtis, of Nebraska .
In 1973 Paul Weyrich created the Heritage Foundation and in 1974 he created the predecessor to Free Congress Foundation. For several years he also operated a television cable channel. He held the highest honorary position in the Council for National Policy. During the past 35 years he extensively advised, spoke and wrote on cultural and other aspects of conservatism. In and after 1989 Paul visited the formerly Communist Soviet Union, organizing training courses for the promotion of democracy and individual rights. Paul also was an expert on rail and light-rail transit, having served as an AMTRAK Director and a National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commissioner.
In 1990 Paul was ordained a deacon in the Melkite Greek Eparchy, a conservative Catholic Church. (Note: I don't know if I'd call the Melkite Catholic Church as any more or less conservative than other parts of the Catholic Church. I suspect that whoever wrote this did so without really understanding the Catholic Church & how it is organized. He was a deacon for the Eparchy of Newton for Melkites. )
Paul Weyrich is survived by his wife of 45 years, the former Joyce Ann Smigun, their five children and 15 grandchildren.
Steadfast and courageous in causes and faith, and admirably stoic in continuing his extensive work during many years of illness, Paul Michael Weyrich will be missed by the many people with whom he worked and by his family and numerous friends.
Funeral arrangements are not yet concluded. More information will become available through a call to the Free Congress Foundation, 703 837-0030, and on the website, http://www.freecongress.org/

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins made the following comments Thursday during his daily radio commentary Washington Watch Daily: "My good friend Paul Weyrich is gone. He was just sixty-six years old. Many people will be surprised at that. That's because we've watched Paul for decades as he battled diabetes, as he suffered amputations, but never, never any loss of his fighting spirit. Paul Weyrich has been a fixture in Washington, D.C. for more than thirty years. He fathered the religious conservative movement in American politics. He didn't over-intellectualize about Christians ‘jumping into the fray.’ He recognized early that the fray had jumped onto us. Liberal bureaucrats were coming after us-in our churches, in our schools, and in our families. Wherever a Planned Parenthood worker is breaking parents' hearts by leading their children into sin, we have a grievance against our government. Paul Weyrich was the first to show us how we could effectively petition our government for redress of our grievances. May our Lord keep His servant, Paul. And I pray our Lord will also comfort the loving Weyrich family."

In his Obituary For Catholic Online, Deacon Keith Fournier said of his fellow deacon: "However, Paul Weyrich was so much more than politics. He was a faithful member of the Order of Deacons, a Catholic Clergyman who knew that some truths revealed by the Natural law (and confirmed in Christian Revelation) like the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death, were not just for “religious people”. Rather they have to be the foundation of every society or that society will never be free. He left a legacy of thought and action which others must now build on." (Note: Deacon Fournier is a Roman Catholic deacon for the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia who also serves the Melkite Greek Catholic Church with approval.)

Phyllis Schafly (Eagle Forum) also issued a statement. In it she praised his efforts over the years. "Paul Weyrich was one of the creators of the conservative pro-family movement. When Paul came to Washington in the mid-1960s, the conservative movement had no vision of victory. We thought we were the Biblical Remnant, just doing our little bit against the tidal wave of socialist advance."

"Paul Weyrich recognized that our battle was not just against high taxes and Big Government. We were facing a broadside attack on our whole Judeo- Christian-American culture. He recognized that the Left's objective was to overturn our social order, to destroy our belief that each of us is created in God's image, and that America was divinely blessed as an oasis of freedom in a hostile world. Paul understood that the Left's strategy was to attack traditional morality, the institution of the family, and to make us dependent on government instead of our own hard work. He understood that the Left's tactics were to capture the younger generation by teaching situation ethics in the public schools, to attack the family unit through feminist ideology, and to infiltrate the media and the courts."

"Paul Weyrich made the conservative pro-family movement into a fighting brigade instead of just a collection of naysayers. We are grateful to him for his extraordinary vision and leadership, and he never disappointed us. Paul was a man of integrity, courage, perseverance and political smarts. We are proud to have stood by his side for so many years."