Awarding-winning journalist and author
Writer-in-Residence, Lumen Christi Institute
Kenneth Woodward served as Religion Editor of Newsweek for 38 years, during which he reported on a wide variety of subjects from seven continents. In addition to some 100 cover stories and 1,100 other articles for Newsweek, he has published more than 300 essays, articles and book reviews in The New York Times, The Wall street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, Commonweal, First Things, America, The Nation, Christian Century, The Weekly Standard, Washington Monthly, The Wilson Quarterly, and The Notre Dame Journal of Law and Public Policy among other publications.
Mr. Woodward has presented papers or lectures at more than 50 colleges and universities nationally and abroad, including Oxford University in England and the University of Bologna in Italy. He has contributed authoritative essays to the Encyclopedia of Protestantism (2004) and The New the Encyclopedia of the History of Ideas (2004).
In 1993 Mr. Woodward has served as Regents’ Lecturer in the Religious Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and in 1998 was appointed a Fellow of the National Humanities Center in Triangle Park, N.C.
Mr. Woodward is the author of four books which, altogether, have been translated into eight languages:
- Grandparents and Grandchildren: The Vital Connection (1981), coauthored by child psychiatrist Arthur Kornhaber, M.D.
- Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn’t and Why (1991)
- The Book of Miracles: The Meaning of the Miracle Stories in Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam (2001)
- Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics From the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama, (2016)
For his journalism Mr. Woodward has won 16 awards from various organizations including the National Magazine Award (1977), and the 2006 Robert F. Griffin Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Art of Writing from the University of Notre Dame.
Woodward graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame and attended the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Iowa Graduate School (English) on scholarships before turning to a career in journalism.
He is the recipient of five honorary degrees and currently serves as Writer-in-Residence, at the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago.