Jon M. Sweeney

Jon M. Sweeney (born July 18, 1967) is an American author. His most frequent subjects are Catholic, particularly St. Francis of Assisi, about whom Sweeney has written The St. Francis Prayer Book, Francis of Assisi in His Own Words, When Saint Francis Saved the Church, The Complete Francis of Assisi, and The Enthusiast.

A series of young reader fiction, The Pope's Cat, was begun, the first of which published on March 1, 2018, before the fifth anniversary of the papacy of Pope Francis.

Sweeney was codirector of The Lux Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wisconsin. He is religion editor at Monkfish Book Publishing in Rhinebeck, New York, and editor of Living City magazine, published by the Focolare in North America.

Life
Sweeney was born on July 18, 1967, in St. Charles, Illinois. His father Mark Sweeney was a youth pastor at and mother Janet stayed at home with his older brother. Soon after he was born, Sweeney's family relocated to Oregon, where his parents had been married in 1964. The family returned to Wheaton in 1969 and Sweeney resided there until college. Sweeney converted to Catholicism after spending twenty years as an active Episcopalian, on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi in Woodstock, Vermont, in 2009. He is married to Michal Woll, a rabbi, and has four children. Sweeney and Woll were profiled in "When a Jew and a Catholic Marry" by Mark Oppenheimer in America (magazine) in August 2017. .

Education
Sweeney attended Carl Sandburg Elementary School, Monroe Junior High (now Monroe Middle School), and Wheaton Christian High School (now Wheaton Academy). He graduated high school in 1985. He attended Moody Bible Institute for one year and then transferred to Wheaton College where he majored in philosophy and Medieval studies, graduating in 1989. While at Wheaton, he was a teacher's assistant in the philosophy department and research assistant to the philosophy chair, Arthur F. Holmes, one of two professors to whom he dedicated his book, The Complete Francis of Assisi.

While at Moody, Sweeney arranged to serve as a summer missionary in Batangas City, Philippines, an experience that he later wrote about in his memoir, Born Again and Again. After finishing at Wheaton, Sweeney was an M.Div. and then an M.A. student at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. Eventually, Sweeney left seminary without earning a degree.

Literary career
Sweeney began his career as a bookseller, first in Chicago, and then managing a theological bookstore in Central Square, Cambridge, MA. He became a trade sales representative for Augsburg Fortress Publishing and later moved his family to Minneapolis. Leaving there in 1997, Sweeney moved to Vermont to join Jewish Lights Publishing. After seven years as vice-president of marketing and sales and co-founding SkyLight Paths Publishing, also in Woodstock, Vermont, as its associate publisher and editor-in-chief, Sweeney became editor-in-chief and publisher at Paraclete Press in 2004, in Orleans, Massachusetts. He left there in 2015. After working at Franciscan Media as editorial director for one year, he became executive editor for trade books at Ave Maria Press in Notre Dame, Indiana.

In December 2016 Sweeney was elected to the board of the Catholic Publishers Association.

Sweeney's books about Francis of Assisi have focused on debunking myths that he believes persist from films and novels of the 1960s and 1970s, such as the image of the "hippie" Francis that endures from "Brother Sun, Sister Moon," Franco Zeffirelli's 1972 movie.

Sweeney's projects include a book of short excerpts of the medieval, Dominican Order mystic, Meister Eckhart, retold as blank verse, coauthored with Mark Burrows; and a history of the rift between Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard in the 12th century, titled The Saint vs. the Scholar. He has also published a biography of his friend and colleague, Phyllis Tickle.

Critical reception
Sweeney's 2005 memoir about growing up in evangelicalism was praised by Betty Smartt Carter in the evangelical journal, Books & Culture: "To his credit, Sweeney examines his story and its meaning with unusual humility. He doesn't claim superiority to the people he came from, only an inability to accept all that they taught him." Graham Christian said of The Complete Francis of Assisi, in a Library Journal review, "It is immensely valuable to have in one volume the key writings by and about Francis and his first disciples; essential for libraries and individuals looking to expand their knowledge of this influential saint."

In a 2016 interview for The Irish Catholic magazine, Mags Gargan describes The Enthusiast: "Blending history and biography, Sweeney’s book reveals how Francis and Elias rebuilt churches, aided lepers and entertained as ‘God’s troubadours’ to the delight of the ordinary people who had grown tired of a remote and turbulent Church."

When Saint Francis Saved the Church won second place in the history category in the 2015 Catholic Press Association Awards for excellence. Sweeney was also among five reviewers who received a first place award for best review section in America magazine for its "Fall Books 1" entry.

Phyllis Tickle: Essential Spiritual Writings was named a finalist for a 2016 award from the Religion Newswriters Association for Religion Reporting Excellence.

Author and activist Dan Savage mentioned having The Pope Who Quit on his coffee table in a 2013 New York Times "By the Book" interview.

The Chicago Tribune reviewed Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart together with poet Mary Oliver's Devotions in November 2017 and said of Sweeney's work, "A sure-footed path toward mastering one of the great masters of the last millennia."

Publishers Weekly in December 2017 reviewed Sweeney's biography, Phyllis Tickle: A Life, giving it a starred review and concluding, "This loving biography impressively captures the grace Tickle demonstrated during a long, dedicated life." In May 2018, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel named the book as one of the "85 books for summer reading."

Publishers Weekly in January 2018 reviewed Sweeney's collection, What I Am Living For, which includes essays by writers Pico Iyer, Sylvia Boorstein, James Martin, and Robert Barron (bishop), saying, "Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Trappist monk Thomas Merton’s death, this compilation of essays edited by Sweeney (A Course on Christian Mysticism) provides a space for modern Christian writers to reflect on the ways Merton’s life and writings have influenced their spiritual thinking."

Also in January 2018, the website CatholicMom.com recommended Sweeney's forthcoming fiction for young readers, The Pope's Cat, saying: "The book is a great read for many reasons: first, the story of the independent cat is entertaining as she provides for herself. Second, the book is filled with good facts to teach children about the papacy and it makes the pope relatable to them. The illustrations are entertaining as well and are very large, so they’re easy for children to enjoy."