Pro-Life Leader Paul Weyrich Passes Away

Paul Weyrich has been a fixture in Washington, D.C. for more than thirty years. He fathered the religious conservative movement in American politics.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) - Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and first president of The Heritage Foundation, died this morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old.

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins made the following comments in his daily radio commentary Washington Watch Daily:

"My good friend Paul Weyrich is gone. He was just sixty-six years old. Many people will be surprised at that. That's because we've watched Paul for decades as he battled diabetes, as he suffered amputations, but never, never any loss of his fighting spirit.

"Paul Weyrich has been a fixture in Washington, D.C. for more than thirty years. He fathered the religious conservative movement in American politics. He didn't over-intellectualize about Christians 'jumping into the fray.' He recognized early that the fray had jumped onto us.

"Liberal bureaucrats were coming after us-in our churches, in our schools, and in our families. Wherever a Planned Parenthood worker is breaking parents' hearts by leading their children into sin, we have a grievance against our government.

"Paul Weyrich was the first to show us how we could effectively petition our government for redress of our grievances. May our Lord keep His servant, Paul. And I pray our Lord will also comfort the loving Weyrich family."

CLC leader Jim Hughes was upset at the news. Speaking of Weyrich, a friend, Hughes said "he was one of the foremost conservative thinkers in the US and it's a tremendous loss to the life and family community."

---

LifeSiteNews.com is a non-profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family. It was launched in September 1997. LifeSiteNews Daily News reports and information pages are used by numerous organizations and publications, educators, professionals and political, religious and life and family organization leaders and grassroots people across North America and internationally.