The Culture Project to expand missionary efforts, announces new CEO

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 26, 2024 / 15:20 pm

The Culture Project International has announced the appointment of its new chief executive officer, Greg Schleppenbach, a veteran leader in the pro-life movement who held the position of executive director for the organization since 2022. Schleppenbach will spearhead the Catholic culture initiative as it further expands its reach to dioceses across the country.

Inspired by St. John Paul II’s vision of love and human dignity, The Culture Project was founded in 2014 by Cristina (Barba) Whalen, the former CEO, to be a missionary organization that seeks to “restore culture through the experience of virtue.” According to a press release, the organization has trained more than 100 young men and women who have spoken to more than 100,000 teens across the U.S.

“Under Mr. Schleppenbach’s leadership, The Culture Project will continue to train young men and women as missionaries who share their personal stories, educate students on the value of human dignity, and provide a moral compass through a focus on sexual integrity,” the nonprofit organization stated in a press release. 

Schleppenbach has worked for over 30 years in the pro-life movement, fighting what he described to CNA in an interview as “the supply side of abortion.” His previous roles include associate director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference. 

Schleppenbach told CNA he is excited to shift gears and “really focus on impacting young people’s lives so we reduce the demand of abortion” and help young people live virtuously by educating them about the Church’s teachings on human dignity, sexuality, and chastity, and living in the age of social media.

“I recognized that if we’re going to change this culture and create a civilization of life and love,” he said, “we have to focus on young people and making sure they fully understand who they are as children of God, that they understand the dignity of their lives and their sexuality, or we’re fooling ourselves if we think we’re going to change the culture.”

“The genius of this mission,” he said, “is that we are not only fundamentally helping to change how young people see themselves, their identity, and their purpose in life as children of God, but we’re also investing significantly in the formation of our missionaries.”

“I would say the most impacting part of this mission so far for me,” Schleppenbach continued, “has been seeing these amazing, beautiful souls in the missionaries who are giving of themselves in a way that they recognize is going to change the culture.”

The Culture Project, which currently serves the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio; the Diocese of Cleveland; the Archdiocese of Omaha; and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, also announced in the release that it will begin serving the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, this fall at the request of Archbishop Joseph Naumann. 

“[The archdiocese] reached out to me as a result of that announcement that I was leaving USCCB and going to The Culture Project to say, ‘Hey, we’d like to talk about bringing The Culture Project to the Archdiocese of Kansas City,’ because they had just had the defeat of the [abortion] ballot initiative around that same time,” Schleppenbach said.

In his new role as CEO, Schleppenbach is working to further expand The Culture Project’s recruiting efforts in order to reach more dioceses. The organization currently has about 25 missionaries spread across its five dioceses. Next year, Schleppenbach hopes to have about 40 more and to be able to serve in dioceses with financial difficulties.

"I am confident that Greg’s vast experience and deep-rooted passion for our mission will enable The Culture Project to flourish in this next chapter,” said Cristina Whalen, the project’s founder and former CEO. “With increasing demand for our programs across the country, Greg is the ideal leader to guide us through this expansion while ensuring that we continue to inspire young people to live lives of virtue.”