Stephen P. White

Executive Director

Stephen P. White began his tenure as executive director of the Saint john Paul II National Shrine in March 2026. Prior to his arrival at the Shrine, Stephen served for seven years as executive director of The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America where, among other things, he oversaw the groundbreaking National Study of Catholic Priests (2022 and 2025) and produced the award-winning podcast, Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church.

Mr. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center where, for more than two decades, he has served on the faculty of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society—a seminar on Catholic Social Teaching, with an emphasis on the life and thought of Pope John Paul II, which meets annually in Krakow, Poland.

Mr. White’s words (written or otherwise) have appeared in a variety of Catholic and secular publications, websites, radio and television shows, podcasts, and interviews. He is the author of one book and the co-editor of another.

He holds a MA in philosophy from The Catholic University of America and a BA in politics from the University of Dallas. A native of the upper Midwest, he lives in northern Virginia with his wife and four children.