The Neo-Conservative Sanctification of Naturalistic Activism: Weigel’s Beatification of a Protestant Athlete
The National Catholic Register portal (August 5, 2026) publishes a commentary by George Weigel, the distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, titled “The Work Ethic Incarnate.” The article exploits the death of former Baltimore Colts wide receiver Raymond Berry to advance a neo-conservative reading of the antipope John Paul II’s encyclical Laborem Exercens, presenting the athlete’s naturalistic striving and subsequent conversion to evangelical Protestantism as a model of Catholic spirituality. Weigel cites a Wall Street Journal column on male joblessness to frame Berry’s “fierce work ethic” as the remedy for spiritual malaise, culminating in the hope that Berry now intercedes from the “Communion of Saints” despite having died outside the visible unity of the Catholic Church. This exercise in religious sentimentalism exposes the complete substitution of supernatural grace by natural virtue, the legitimization of a heretical “pope,” and the effective canonization of a non-Catholic by a conciliar apologist.