10:15 – 11:15 AM

Tim Staples is Director of Apologetics and Evangelization here at Catholic Answers, but he was not always Catholic. Tim was raised a Southern Baptist. Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, Tim came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of Christian televangelists. Soon after, Tim joined the Marine Corps.

During his four-year tour, he became involved in ministry with various Assemblies of God communities. Immediately after his tour of duty, Tim enrolled in Jimmy Swaggart Bible College and became a youth minister in an Assembly of God community. During his final year in the Marines, however, Tim met a Marine who really knew his faith and challenged Tim to study Catholicism from Catholic and historical sources. That encounter sparked a two-year search for the truth. Tim was determined to prove Catholicism wrong, but he ended up studying his way to the last place he thought he would ever end up: the Catholic Church!

He converted to Catholicism in 1988 and spent the following six years in formation for the priesthood, earning a degree in philosophy from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania. He then studied theology on a graduate level at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for two years. Realizing that his calling was not to the priesthood, Tim left the seminary in 1994 and has been working in Catholic apologetics and evangelization ever since.

7:00 AM Mass

Most Rev. Robert J. Baker, S.T.D. was ordained a priest March 21, 1970. He was appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Charleston on July 12, 1999 and ordained September 29, 1999.
He was installed Bishop of Birmingham on October 2, 2007.

11:30 – 1:00 pm

Kelly Wahlquist is a dynamic and inspiring Catholic author and speaker whose gift of weaving personal stories and Scripture together with practical advice allows her audience to enter more fully into what Pope Francis has called us to do—to live the joy of the Gospel with missionary zeal.

She is the Assistant Director for the Archbishop Harry J. Flynn Catechetical Institute in the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis, founder of WINE: Women In the New Evangelization, and a contributing writer for CatholicMom.com and The Integrated Catholic Life—an eMagazine about integrating faith, family, and work.

Her book, Created to Relate: God’s Design for Peace and Joy, inspires women to live fully their beautiful God-given gifts to build up the kingdom of God.

Kelly travels the country speaking on the New Evangelization in an effort to encourage all to spread the message of Jesus by living the joy of the Gospel. She resides in Minnesota with her husband, Andy, and their three children.

2:30 – 3:30 PM

Fr. Rafael Capó, Sch.P. is a religious with the Piarist Fathers (Padres Escolapios), an order dedicated to the education of youth. Born in Puerto Rico, he professed his final vows in the Piarist Order and was ordained a priest in 1996. Fr. Capó is Director of the US Catholic Bishops Southeast Regional Office for Hispanic Ministry and its Southeast Pastoral Institute with headquarters in Miami.

With degrees in Education and Administration and Supervision, he has worked as High School teacher, campus minister, vocations director, and school president. In Mexico and Italy, he ministered to street children and immigrant youth. With a Licentiate degree in Systematic Theology and a Doctorate in Practical Liturgical Theology he has taught Theology at the graduate level. He participates in all major organizations of Hispanic Ministry in the US and serves the bishops and dioceses of USCCB regions V and XIV in the coordination of Hispanic ministry through the SE Regional Office and Pastoral Institute (SEPI).

6:00 – 8:00 PM Dinner Keynote

Ralph Martin has been a leader in renewal movements in the Catholic Church for many years. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, he did graduate work in philosophy at Princeton University and holds an MA in Theology from Sacred Heart School of Theology in the Archdiocese of  Detroit, a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL) from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology (STD) from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (the “Angelicum”) in Rome. He worked for a number of years for the National Office of the Cursillo Movement and subsequently became a leader in the national and international development of the charismatic renewal movement in the Catholic Church. He was the founding editor of New Covenant Magazine, as well as the founding director of the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office, currently located in Rome.

Currently, Ralph is president of Renewal Ministries, an organization devoted to Catholic renewal and evangelization. Ralph also hosts The Choices We Face, a widely viewed weekly Catholic television and radio program distributed throughout the world. Renewal Ministries is accountable in its work to a board of directors in the United States, for which Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis serves as episcopal advisor, and to a board in Canada, for which Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto serves as episcopal advisor. Renewal Ministries is also actively involved in assisting the Church in more than 30 different countries through leadership training, evangelistic conferences and retreats, and the publication and distribution of Catholic resources.

Ralph also is an associate professor and the Director of Graduate Theology Programs in the New Evangelization at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in the Archdiocese of Detroitand a visiting professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He was named by Pope Benedict XVI as a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization and was also appointed as a “peritus” to the Synod on the New Evangelization in October of 2012.

Ralph is the author of a number of books, the most recent of which are The Urgency of the New Evangelization: Answering the Call, The Fulfillment of All Desire: A Guidebook for the Journey to God Based on the Wisdom of the Saints, and Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization. He and his wife Anne have six children and fifteen grandchildren and reside in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

9:15 – 10:00 am

Dan Burke is the President of the Avila Foundation, the parent organization of SpiritualDirection.com, the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation, and Divine Intimacy Radio, author of the award winning book, Navigating the Interior Life – Spiritual Direction and the Journey to God, and his newest books Finding God Through Meditation-St. Peter of Alcantara and 30 Days with Teresa of Avila.

Beyond his “contagious” love for Jesus and His Church, he is a grateful husband and father of four, the Executive Director of and writer for EWTN’s National Catholic Register, a regular co-host on Register Radio, a writer and speaker who provides online spiritual formation and travels to share his conversion story and the great riches that the Church provides us through authentic Catholic spirituality. Dan has been featured on EWTN’s Journey Home program and numerous radio programs.

3:45 – 4:45 pm

Dr. Allen Hunt is a nationally known speaker and best-selling author. His books include:Confessions of a Mega-Church Pastor: How I Discovered the Hidden Treasures of the Catholic Church; Everybody Needs to Forgive Somebody; and Nine Words: A Bible Study to Help You Become the Best-Version-of-Yourself.

Allen stepped aside July 1, 2007, as Senior Pastor at Mount Pisgah, a congregation serving more than 15,000 persons each week through all of its ministries in Alpharetta, Georgia, outside Atlanta. While at Mount Pisgah, Allen helped to develop comprehensive ministries with children and students as well as a Christian School with over 1200 students; a Beacon of Hope pregnancy resource center; and the Summit Counseling Center.

On January 6 2008, on the Feast of the Epiphany, Allen converted to Catholicism. This transition represented the culmination of a 15 year journey in which God began leading Allen home to the Church. In many ways, this transition was effected by the prayers of a group of Dominican sisters at Monastery of Our Lady of Grace in North Guilford, Connecticut, who have been praying for Allen since he shared lectures with them during the season of Lent in 1992.

Prior to full-time ministry, Allen worked in management consulting with Kurt Salmon Associates, an international leader in the textile, apparel, and retail industries. Allen was educated at Mercer (B.B.A.) and Emory (M.Div.) Universities, before earning a Ph.D. in New Testament and Ancient Christian Origins from Yale University.

Allen and his wife, Anita, live in Atlanta. They have two grown daughters.

6:00 – 8:00 PM Dinner Keynote

Dr. Scott Hahn was born in 1957, and has been married to Kimberly since 1979. He and Kimberly have six children and are expecting their fourth grandchild. An exceptionally popular speaker and teacher, Dr. Hahn has delivered numerous talks nationally and internationally on a wide variety of topics related to Scripture and the Catholic faith. Hundreds of these talks have been produced on audio and videotapes by St. Joseph Communications. His talks have been effective in helping thousands of Protestants and fallen away Catholics to (re)embrace the Catholic faith.

He has been awarded the Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, Chair of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990, and is the founder and president of the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology. From 2005 to 2011, he held the Pope Benedict XVI Chair of Biblical Theology and Liturgical Proclamation at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Hahn is also the bestselling author of numerous books including The Lamb’s Supper, Reasons to Believe, and Rome Sweet Home (co-authored with his wife, Kimberly). Some of his newest books are Many Are Called, Hope for Hard Times,The Catholic Bible Dictionary, Covenant and Communion, Signs of Life.

Scott received his Bachelor of Arts degree with a triple-major in Theology, Philosophy and Economics from Grove City College, Pennsylvania, in 1979, his Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1982, and his Ph.D. in Biblical Theology from Marquette University in 1995. Scott has ten years of youth and pastoral ministry experience in Protestant congregations (in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, Kansas and Virginia) and is a former Professor of Theology at Chesapeake Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1982 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Virginia. He entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, 1986.