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Phoenix, AZ.- Tepeyac Leadership, Inc. (TLI) announces the winners of the 2023 St. Juan Diego Leadership for the World (SJLW) awards: Astrid Bennett, Brian Burch, and Tom Monaghan. Each will receive the SJLW award during The Hour of the Laity: A Lay Catholic Conference (THL2023).
Astrid Bennett
Astrid Bennett Gutiérrez is a Los Angeles native of Mexican, Salvadoran, and Irish heritage. She has over twenty years’ experience helping pregnant mothers choose life and training national leaders for the pro-life movement. She is the Executive Director of Los Angeles Pregnancy Services; a pro-life pregnancy help center located in Los Angeles’s abortion ground zero area. Astrid also hosts a weekly Spanish-language pro-life television show for EWTN called Informe Provida (“Pro-Life News and Views”) and co-anchors EWTN’s Spanish-language coverage of the March for Life in Washington, DC. Astrid regularly shows up to defends the unborn on national media outlets, both for secular and religious audiences. She often presents at conferences nationally and internationally on pro-life issues. Astrid currently serves as a consultant for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops/USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
Brian Burch
Brian Burch is the President and Co-Founder of CatholicVote.org (CV), a national faith-based advocacy organization founded to organize, inspire, and mobilize the Catholic vote through education, legislative advocacy, and direct political action. He is also the co-author of the American Catholic Almanac. CV has received national attention for its online viral videos including multiple ads that have logged over 2 million online views each. Their online campaigns have garnered grassroots interest among all people of faith. Burch has appeared on FOX News, CNN, and has been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, Catholic News Agency, National Catholic Register, National Public Radio, and other publications. He is a graduate of the University of Dallas. He and his wife Sara have nine children and reside in the suburbs of Chicago.
Tom Monaghan
Thomas Monaghan is the founder, chancellor, and member of the board of trustees for Ave Maria University. He is also the founder of Domino’s Pizza, an avid collector of Frank Lloyd Wright items and the former owner of the Detroit Tigers. But his greatest personal achievements came later in life, when Tom decided to fully immerse himself in charitable works, Catholic philanthropy, and the call to restore Catholic higher education. Monaghan is founder and CEO of Legatus International, an organization comprised of business Executives, Presidents, CEOs, and their spouses who are committed to studying, living, and spreading the Catholic faith. Legatus empowers their 5,000+ members to boldly live their Catholic identity as "Ambassadors for Christ in the Marketplace."
About the St. Juan Diego Leadership for the World award (SJLW)
As part of TLI’s work to equip Catholic professionals to become virtuous leaders, influence the culture and serve the common good, each year the organization presents the SJLW award to three lay Catholic leaders “in any field of social, professional, cultural, and political life, for acting in accordance with–and courageously promoting–the truth and the law brought by Jesus Christ to mankind.” The criteria come from the organization’s adopted prayer, the prayer of St. John Paul II during his visit to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City in 1979.
Past recipients of the SJLW award are founder of Alliance Defending Freedom, Alan Sears (2019), Arizona Supreme Court justice, William Montgomery (2020), chancellor of the Diocese of Phoenix, Dr. Maria Chavira, along with Dr. Arturo and Mrs. Letty Ibarra (2021) both prominent business leaders in California. In 2022 the awardees were executive director of the North Dakota Catholic Conference, Christopher Dodson, author and intellectual, Mary Eberstadt and chief operating officer of Catholic Answers, Jon Sorensen.
About The Hour of the Laity: A Lay Catholic Conference (THL2023)
While interviewed by Fr. Mitch Pacwa for EWTN live on December 2023, Cristofer Pereyra, TLI’s CEO announced THL2023. The conference is programed for November 2 to 5, 2023 at Christ Cathedral in the Diocese of Orange. While the SJLW award has been presented since 2019, this year the awards will be given during THL2023 for the first time.
THL2023 is a platform to form lay Catholics for engaging society as civic leaders. Like TLI’s flagship program, Tepeyac Leadership Initiative, as part of TLI’s mission to deliver civic leadership development to lay Catholics in the U.S. and beyond, THL2023 equips lay people to take on leadership roles in secular society. The conference is a national platform to train the next generation of lay Catholic leaders for America and the world.
About Tepeyac Leadership, Inc. (TLI)
TLI is a 501(c)(3), Catholic, nonprofit organization listed in The Official Catholic Directory with canonical status of private juridic person, and the mission of delivering civic leadership development to lay Catholic professionals in the U.S. and beyond. To learn more about TLI, visit TLIprogram.org, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.
For more information: media@tepeyacleadership.org
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