Chuck Darwin<p>After her death, strange signs appeared. </p><p>The real estate billionaire Robin Arkley <br>— the man who had provided the money to lobby for Roberts and Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court <br>— invited the Leos to spend some time at his ranch in California. </p><p>On the way there, they spent a night in a hotel in San Francisco. </p><p>After checking in, they went up to their room and Margaret’s younger sister Elizabeth rushed over to a bowl of complimentary candy and dug her hand into it. </p><p>In it, she discovered a Sacred Heart medal. </p><p>On the last day at the ranch, Leo’s wife Sally came across another medal. </p><p>A few weeks later, someone visiting Leo at work told him they found another medal in their airplane seat. </p><p>The Leos told friends that they were convinced these medals were signs from heaven that Margaret was both safe and still with them. </p><p>The experience would deepen his faith, marking him out as a crusader <br>— and a target for Opus Dei. </p><p>As chaplain of the "Catholic Information Center", <br>the Opus Dei chapel and bookshop on K Street, <br>just a stone’s throw from the White House, <a href="https://c.im/tags/Father" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Father</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Arne" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Arne</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Panula" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Panula</span></a> introduced a number of new initiatives in the early 2010s <br>to generate a steadier stream of donations <br>— and to better integrate the movement with wealthy Catholics. </p><p>Blue-eyed and silver-haired, Father Arne was a big figure within Opus Dei. </p><p>For a period in the nineties, he was the organization’s most senior man in the United States. </p><p>A native of Minnesota, he had grown up in a small town on the shores of Lake Superior and had joined the Work while at Harvard. </p><p>He moved to Rome after graduating, where he lived alongside the Opus Dei founder <a href="https://c.im/tags/Josemar%C3%ADa" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Josemaría</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Escriv%C3%A1" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Escrivá</span></a> and trained to become a priest. </p><p>After ordination, he moved back to the States to take on the role of chaplain at "The Heights", <br>an Opus Dei school in Washington, which was still in its infancy. </p><p>During his forty years in the movement, he had also spent some time in California, and had become a close friend of <a href="https://c.im/tags/Peter" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Peter</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Thiel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Thiel</span></a>, the billionaire entrepreneur who helped found PayPal and who had been an early investor in Facebook. </p><p>On long hikes in the Marin headlands, just north of San Francisco, the two men bonded over their shared disdain for government <br>— and the dangers of liberal attempts to correct the ills of society through policies like <a href="https://c.im/tags/affirmative" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>affirmative</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/action" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>action</span></a>. </p><p>His first big initiative at the "Catholic Information Center" copied a popular strategy that had proved lucrative in almost every industry:<br> the awards dinner. </p><p>By bestowing an award on Washington’s most respected conservative Catholics, <br>and then hosting a lavish dinner in their honor <br>— to which all the city’s wealthy Catholics were invited <br>— he generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single evening <br>and established the CIC at the heart of this influential community. </p><p>And so the ⭐️John Paul II Award⭐️ was born in 2012. </p><p>The inaugural award went to Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, <br>who was popular with conservative members of his flock and who had recently stoked controversy by becoming one of the most senior members of the Church to sign the <a href="https://c.im/tags/Manhattan" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Manhattan</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Declaration" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Declaration</span></a>. </p><p>This was an ecumenical statement drafted by Robert George, and co-signed by the Opus Dei operative Luis Tellez, Maggie Gallagher, and other members of the Catholic right, <br>which called on Christians not to comply with laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage, and other practices that went against their beliefs. </p><p>The following year the award went to George Weigel, a biographer of Pope John Paul II and a big figure within the American Catholic right. </p><p>The Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, an influential and wealthy Catholic brotherhood; <br>the founder of the Becket Fund, a lobby group championing religious rights; <br>and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would all become recipients over the next few years.</p>