Bill Burleigh remembered well then-Father Earl Fernandes sitting in his family’s living room shortly before being installed the 13th Bishop of Columbus.
Although not a Columbus resident himself, Burleigh, of Cincinnati, said he recalled “thinking how the Lord had formed this remarkable young man so well for the role he was assuming as shepherd of the Church in central Ohio.”
Nearly four years later, Burleigh received an honor of his own in Columbus.
Burleigh was this year’s Pope Leo XIII Award recipient, bestowed by the Pontifical College Josephinum on Monday, April 20 during the seminary’s Good Shepherd Dinner.
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The award is the highest bestowed by the college on a lay person. It recognizes the honoree’s support of priestly vocations and the seminary.
The Pope Leo XIII Award received its name from the Pope who granted pontifical status to the Josephinum in 1892.
“This has been a special honor,” Burleigh said. “The Josephinum carries such stature in the Catholic world with its reputation for excellence and its unique ties to Rome.”
The Pope Leo XIII Award, he added, “brought focus to the fact that I have two Leos as the papal bookends of my life as a Catholic; what a rich legacy that represents.”
This year’s award recipient, through years of work and service, is creating his unique legacy.
The veteran journalist spent decades in the field, beginning as a sports reporter at age 15 to eventually overseeing editorial operations of 26 newspapers nationwide for the E.W. Scripps Co., an American broadcasting company founded in 1878. He later served as its president and chairman.
Burleigh began his career reporting for The Evansville Press in Indiana. After serving in the U.S. Army Infantry for a couple of years, he returned to the paper and worked in editorship.
He later served as editor for The Cincinnati Post before a promotion landed him in the E.W. Scripps Co. corporate headquarters, where he served as chief operating officer, president and chairman.
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“The Scripps family saw its enterprises as agents of community service, a mission I found most appealing and one that fit my vocation as a journalist,” he said. “The company’s motto, ‘Give Light and the People Will Find Their Way,’ mirrored my ideals.”
Burleigh and his wife of 61 years, Anne, both Indiana natives, are parents to three children, grandparents to nine and have three great-grandchildren. The family belongs to the Dominican order.
“Our membership in the Dominican laity anchors our daily spiritual life with its active daily regimen,” Bill said.
The Burleighs; son David; and their daughter and son-in-law, Margaret and David Brecount, are each members of the lay order.
Another daughter, Sister Anne Catherine, OP (Order of Preachers), serves as vicaress general for the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee.
Through the Brecounts, the Burleighs met then-Father Earl Fernandes, a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Their children and grandchildren formed a close relationship with the future-bishop.
“They had worked with him in Catholic youth groups, and as they grew a family, he seemed to always be around, a favorite ‘uncle’ of sorts,” Bill recounted.
“During his time as academic dean of the Athenaeum seminary in Cincinnati, we stayed in close touch. We saw him from time to time as he visited during his tenure in the nunciature in Washington.”
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Burleigh spent years serving on the Josephinum’s Board of Trustees. He formed relationships with many in formation for the priesthood.
“Having this up-close look offered a reminder that we lay people too often take our priests for granted and are too quick to criticize and second-guess,” he said. “Their work is selfless and to them we owe our endless prayers of support and gratitude.”
Burleigh also serves in the Order of Malta, a lay organization of the Church dedicated to serving the sick and poor; the Saint Vincent de Paul food pantry and his parish’s Knights of Columbus council.
In 2020, he received the Cross Pro-Ecclesia et Pontifice, the highest award bestowed on laypersons and clergy who have served the Church.